Psychopaths never want to be found out. Often, we enable them by protecting them, making excuses for their behavior, and remaining in denial of the personality disorder they have. This can happen within close family relationships—partner to partner, parent to child, or even child to parent.

This is exactly what happened in the 1945 movie, Mildred Pierce, starring Joan Crawford.1 Her relationship with her daughter Veda (Ann Blyth) was toxic from the start. Mildred lived to please an ungrateful daughter who was a classic textbook psychopath. Though Mildred had two girls, Veda and Kay, it is Veda, the daughter who manipulates and can never be pleased, that captivates Mildred. The more Veda rejects her mother’s love, the more her mother courts her. Mildred's husband, Veda’s father, saw through Veda’s cunning and conniving ways. He tried to caution Mildred of the type of person Veda was in comparison with Kay, their younger daughter. “Kay is twice the girl that Veda is and always will be.” Mildred remains unconvinced, commenting merely that “Kay does not need so much."

Inwardly, Mildred denies that Veda can never be satisfied and cannot love her back. She plies her with gifts and praises, as Veda spins her manipulative behaviors to ensnare........

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