Are there published testimonies from Christians with a diagnosed personality disorder like psychopathy about their experience of sanctification?

Question

Some personality disorders like psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder are considered by clinicians to be difficult if not impossible to treat. Wikipedia summarises the difficulties with treating psychopathy as follows:

Psychopathy has often been considered untreatable. Its unique characteristics makes it among the most refractory of personality disorders, a class of mental illnesses that are already traditionally considered difficult to treat. People afflicted with psychopathy are generally unmotivated to seek treatment for their condition, and can be uncooperative in therapy. Attempts to treat psychopathy with the current tools available to psychiatry have been disappointing. Harris and Rice's Handbook of Psychopathy says that there is currently little evidence for a cure or effective treatment for psychopathy; as yet, no pharmacological therapies are known to or have been trialed for alleviating the emotional, interpersonal and moral deficits of psychopathy, and patients with psychopathy who undergo psychotherapy might gain the skills to become more adept at the manipulation and deception of others and be more likely to commit crime. Some studies suggest that punishment and behavior modification techniques are ineffective at modifying the behavior of psychopathic individuals as they are insensitive to punishment or threat. These failures have led to a widely pessimistic view on its treatment prospects, a view that is exacerbated by the little research being done into this disorder compared to the efforts committed to other mental illnesses, which makes it more difficult to gain the understanding of this condition that is necessary to develop effective therapies.

Christians believe however that there is no class of person that is beyond the hope of the Gospel, and that when a person is united to Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, God begins the process of their sanctification, which will be completed in the resurrection. Christians should therefore be increasingly empathetic people as God teaches us to love others with his overflowing love.

Personality disorders like psychopathy are characterised by reduced or in severe cases seemingly non-existent empathy for others. While we may not have developed any psychotherapeutic strategies for teaching those with personality disorders to genuinely love others, God can accomplish what is impossible for us. So I was wondering if there are any Christians who have been clinically diagnosed with a personality disorder like psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder who have written or given spoken testimonies about their experiences of the power of God to sanctify and transform their lives, and whether that sanctification has included an increased sense of empathy?

Answer 1

Here is the testimony of David Wood, a formally anti-social-disorder-diagnosed atheist turned Christian.

Here is a variation of his testimony given to an audience, in 23:30 he states his formal diagnosis as anti-social personality disorder made by the mental hospital he was put into.

Answer 2

There are several studies based on testimony and interviews:

• Calling and Conflict: A Qualitative Exploration of Interrole Conflict and the Sanctification of Work in Christian Mothers in Academia

• THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER AND ACADEMIC AND INTERPERSONAL FUNCTIONING AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS: DOES RELIGIOSITY MODERATE THE EFFECT?

• God's Ruthless Embrace: Religious Belief in Three Women with Borderline Personality Disorder

• The relationship between religion and health-related behaviours in patients with borderline personality disorder

• Religion/spirituality status and borderline personality symptomatology among outpatients in an internal medicine clinic

• Spiritual Effects of Childhood Sexual Abuse in Adult Christian Women

Answer 3

Not sure to what extent her old personality traits fall within the psychopathic spectrum, but this woman's testimony may be relevant to the question. It's the second testimony that I provide as example in a possibly related question that I asked a few months ago on Psychology.SE. The testimony is quite impressive in my opinion due to the multiple mental health transformations she experienced in a very short time span, but in particular, this woman testifies about the sudden acquisition of loving and compassionate qualities in her character, sharply contrasting her previous decades-long depressive, resentful and hateful traits.

This is a quote from her own video's description:

THIS IS MY PERSONAL TESTIMONY OF HOW I WENT FROM BEING COMPLETELY, ADAMANTLY ATHEIST WITH SERIOUS LONG-TERM MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES, TO HAVING A POWERFUL, PERSONAL, LIFE-CHANGING ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS CHRIST. IT IS ABOUT HOW HE SET ME FREE OF MY VERY SERIOUS EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS AND ADDICTIONS, AND HOW HE CHANGED MY HEART IN ASTOUNDING, LOGIC-DEFYING WAYS!! PLEASE SHARE THIS VIDEO WITH ANYONE YOU THINK NEEDS HELP! GOD BLESS YOU ALL

And here a few quotes from the video itself:

29:27: [...] just going your whole life without believing, having no hope, believing in nothing, not believing in God, not believing in Jesus. Just not having hope my whole life, you know, broke me. And, I confessed all my sins and I cried like a baby, and I made an authentic effort to start following him. I changed so rapidly that I didn't even know myself [...] So, the bulk of the changes that took place in me were in the first few days and the next few months. And, I'm asking people to really listen to this part carefully and really consider what I'm saying. Ok. So, in the first few days I just felt ... I just felt different in ways that I couldn't explain. I felt darkness started to drain out of me. I stopped being angry, I stopped hating people. [...] I started loving people that I used to hate [sigh]. If you hated somebody, imagine loving them, through and through, like, loving them, and feeling compassion for them. I stopped being depressed. No more depression, it was just gone. No more crying. No more thoughts of suicide. My pornography addiction stopped. My stealing addiction stopped [crying on camera]. And those first few months, I felt like I was being emptied out of all that darkness [...]

32:50: [...] I really want you to stop and think about what I just said, ok? Do you any of you know what a pornography addiction is like? That I had that for decades. That I had depression for even longer, for decades. Anger and hatred for decades. Stealing compulsively for decades. Do you understand how many years of therapy it would take to get rid of even one of those problems, and with no relapses. I've had no problems with these things since that day. Since I started believing in Jesus. No therapy, no medication. Just Jesus Christ. Please, think about that. That stuff is impossible if it's not God [...]

42:41: [...] when I started believing in Jesus, I was so overwhelmed by all the changes that took place in me, you know, I wasn't angry anymore, didn't hate people anymore, the depression was gone, the pornography and stealing addictions were gone, I was changing so much, so quickly, I didn't even realize until three months after I started believing in Jesus that I wasn't attracted to women anymore [...]