Article from Listener magazine (NZ): "The misunderstood minds of psychopaths"

ultra

ultra

The Force is Strong With This One
http://www.listener.co.nz/lifestyle/psychology/psycho-killer-quest-ce-que-cest/
 
Ultra, can you summarize what was in this article? Just posting a link is not considerate of people's time. Thanks!
 
Summary:

Discussion of the overlap between psychopathy and criminality - and common misconceptions around same. The Hare psychopathy checklist for one is focused around criminal psychopaths and so functional/successful non-criminal psychopaths won't score highly; conversely impulsive non-psychopathic criminals may do. Focus on criminals means we don't have much knowledge of non-criminal psychopaths.

Brief mentions of desirable aspects of psychopathic personality such as stress immunity, how psychopathic personality changes with age, possibilities for rehabilitation.

Links to more in-depth cover story, which is unfortunately behind paywall.

Article text:

Psychopathy/sociopathy and criminality have some crossover but the area is much misunderstood, says Devon Polaschek, an associate professor in the Victoria University School of Psychology who has worked with the Corrections Department.

“There is a robust belief that criminals lie all the time and are therefore completely unreliable about what they’ll report. That isn’t actually borne out by the scientific evidence particularly well, but that’s what people believe.

“Therefore, Hare [psycho­pathy] checklists are brilliant, because they don’t rely on self-reporting; in fact, you don’t even need to talk to the offender to score them.”

The downside is that the oldest checklist was developed exclusively for use with criminals, so can’t be used to look at psycho­pathy in any other setting. “You can’t get a high score unless you are involved in criminal acts, so it mixes the two things together: psycho­pathy and criminality. So that limits the availability of a really well-validated instrument for a wider population,” says Polaschek.

Also, the checklists capture people who lack some of the core characteristics of psychopathy and over-pathologise people who have an extensive history of impulsive criminal behaviour that isn’t just distinctive to psychopaths. “The research on non-offender psychopathy could not be said to be an extensive scientific one at the moment, because it just hasn’t been done. The central personality characteristics, while always antisocial – they always have a negative impact on other people – do not necessarily predispose people to criminal behaviour.”

The idea of a lack of guilt or remorse is real. “But again, that’s typical of high-risk criminals, too,” Polaschek says. “In the community, in terms of so-called successful psychopaths, we would assume their core personality characteristics would still be there, the ones like lack of guilt, narcissism and irresponsibility. But we would also assume they have better impulse control because they are not getting themselves in trouble with criminal law.

“Perhaps they are brighter. They are capable of skirting around the law and knowing where the holes are and exploiting them. But they are different from the criminal ones; they get caught all the time. Psychopathy is associated with spending more time in prison than other offenders, yet also managing to do more crimes when you’re out.

“If you view psychopathy as I do, as a bigger construct that includes some aspects that could be adaptive and even useful, then certainly there will be CEOs and MPs and lawyers. Also, someone recently did a paper on US presidents – Clinton came up quite high. That’s important, because Clinton was an incredibly competent man, and it does show you that the combination of characteristics doesn’t always include only bad things.

“There are some positive characteristics – stress immunity is one of them – that the broader view of psychopathy would say are not a bad thing in themselves; it’s the fact that they are combined with other things. It isn’t necessarily about harming other people but it enables you to put yourself into novel and challenging situations in a way that other people can’t. Clearly that can go well or it can go badly, but it’s not necessarily a bad characteristic because it depends how the person develops.”
Criminal-minded psychopaths can change but it gets harder with age because many come from backgrounds where criminality is normal. “There is some tentative evidence to suggest that aspects of psychopathy change of their own accord with ageing. But a small number of studies show that psychopaths can respond to the same kind of rehabilitation we do with other high-risk offenders.

“With most criminal psychopaths – and I want to keep making that distinction because we would believe there are a lot of non-criminal psychopaths as well – a lot of what they do is really ordinary offending; it’s just that they do a lot of it. Psychopaths do lie quite a lot but they are not very good at it. They are really not super-criminals. They are not particularly dangerously capable or exceptionally bright. They do stuff that isn’t even in their own best interest by acting in the moment.”
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I read the full feature in the print magazine today. I wouldn't recommend going through the paywall to pay for it.

The main feature is an article based on an interview with ME Thomas, creator of the blog-by-a-sociopath website _www.sociopathworld.com and author of Confessions of a Sociopath. Thomas is also apparently a law professor in a southern state of the USA:

'ME Thomas' is a pseudonym. But the detail in her book marries with the name of a real law profesor doing the rounds online, and the university phone number for this interview. Photographs of that woman look like the ME Thomas who was interviewed on Dr Phil, albeit in a blonde wig.
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- NZ Listener article, July 13 2013, page 19.

The main points of the article seem to me that psychopaths/sociopaths are common today, particularly in professions that favour qualities of being ruthless. Following ME Thomas, the article suggests this might not be such a bad thing, as psychopaths can be high achievers e.g. Lance Armstrong, Bill Clinton.

The article also quotes several times from Kevin Dutton and his book The Wisdom of Psychopaths.

There are a couple of comments about how little research has been done on non-criminal psychopaths. Following Kevin Dutton, there are some suggestions that everybody may have some psychopathic traits to some degree. There are also suggestions that psychopaths can be reformed or rehabilited , or possibly learn true empathy.

The side-articles to the main feature include the "Psycho-killer, qu-est-ce que c'est" article linked to in the first post above, a column with Robert Hare's "Revised Psychopathy Checklist" ( 8 "Factor 1" traits, 12 "Factor 2" traits), a page on psychopathic characters in Hollywood films and on TV, and a list of the top 10 most psychopathic professions from Kevin Dutton.

The main angle is on revealing that psychopaths can be successful in business, politics, or law, and are not necessarily just criminals. There is nothing really on psychopaths in personal relationships, other than the comment that you could be friends with one or married to one without knowin it. ME Thomas gets quite a lot of page space for her views, and uses it to protest against the stigmatisation by society of sociopathy and sociopaths.

The NZ Listener is one of the largest circulation current affairs/arts/culture/politics magazines in New Zealand. It targets a mainstream audience, and has a reputation for being slightly left-wing/intellectual/liberal, but not radical. The health columnists have told us a couple of times in the past years that aspartame is perfectly safe, and that fluoride is good for your teeth. The Sociopathy feature was this week's cover story.

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Thanks for posting some detail about the main feature and background on this publication.

I found the Kevin Dutton book really interesting (he's a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge), with a lot of research that I have not come across elsewhere. But he does set out his stall in the preface somewhat when he relates that his father was a (presumably non-criminal) psychopath.
 
There have been lots of articles and books trying to make non-criminal psychopaths look like something good and something to emulate. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just because they are classified as non-criminal does NOT mean that they don't destroy lives.

There are ponerized people who act like psychopaths. That is a different story. And there are a whole lot of them now that psychopaths are in control of almost all - if not all - governments in the world.

There are no good psychopaths. That just doesn't compute. What this is is a campaign by psychopaths to get normal people to accept them as good and achieving people to look up to no matter what they do. And what they do is destroy others for their own benefit.

A psychopath has no conscience nor empathy, period. It doesn't matter if s/he is the criminal type, or not.
 
My whole impression on this article is that suggests quite explicitly that some psychopaths could do no harm to regular humans and could even be useful, it has been discussed thoroughly here and even during a radio show at a BlogTalkRadio. The nature of psychopaths prevent them to be unharmful to normal human beings.
 
I agree with Navigator. This is another mainstream media article popularising the idea that psychopaths are good for society. They're not; they repeatedly destroy society.
 
Funny/Strange to me is that now since people are becoming aware of that other humanoid species, they seem to be going into damage control mode...

Trying to say: "Hey, we're not so bad as you think. Really... We are people too... A tad different but we can all get along... Really... We can be cool and play together..."

:pinocchio: :barf:


And yet, there are so many gullible people that'll believe that malarkey... :zzz: at the wheel, a carriage without a driver...
 
Thomas says she is charming, fit, fashionable, a good friend (when it suits her), with an excellent job, solid family relationships and a boyfriend. "You would like me if you met me," she writes. On the other hand, she says she is reckless and manipulative, and recounts some of the less-actionable examples with a grim sort of glee.

There is a terrible logic to her actions - and inactions. Despite admitting leaving a baby possum to drown in her pool simply because it was more convenient than fishing it out, Thomas also claims to be a lifeguard. But when she's lifeguarding, it is in her best interest not to let people drown, so she doesn't. "I did save lives before. I'm actually really, really good at CPR." Dramatic pause. "A lot of people are reluctant to press hard enough into the chest."

She acknowledges having been gripped by the occasional "murderous rage" when she is annoyed, but so far, circumstance and logic have kept her in check. By and large it's just more rational to follow the rules, she explains.
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- NZ Listener article, page 19.
 
Interesting read. There's more psychopaths out there than you would realise. Still don't think they are safe though. By nature they can't be trusted and it's just a matter of time and opportunity as to when they hurt someone.
 
Agreed. If you study this for long enough, and look at examples in your life, observe the psychopath-empath-apath dynamics, you eventually see the horrifying truth that psychopaths literally are another race entirely.

The video below gives a short and sweet summary of what goes on with psychopaths in the workplace.


https://youtu.be/m3nILSTc400
 
Hi Midnight,
Welcome to the forum. We ask new members to introduce themselves in the newbies board , telling us a little about how they found the forum, whether they have read any of the books recommended here and anything about themselves that they feel comfortable sharing. You can look at other posts in that board if you wish to see how others have done it.

Midnight said:
Interesting read. There's more psychopaths out there than you would realise. Still don't think they are safe though. By nature they can't be trusted and it's just a matter of time and opportunity as to when they hurt someone.
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Based on what we have learned so far about the psychopathy spectrum, I would agree with you.
 
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