1 00:00:01,080 --> 00:00:07,200 You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas. 2 00:00:07,719 --> 00:00:12,039 I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now 3 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:16,000 trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other 4 00:00:16,079 --> 00:00:20,239 victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway 5 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:24,679 murders and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with 6 00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:29,079 Kristin Dilley. My name is Kristin Dilley. I'm a writer, a researcher, 7 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:32,799 a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social media 8 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:37,880 manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner in 9 00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:48,679 crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind of Our Murder. I'm Kristin Dilley 10 00:00:48,759 --> 00:00:53,280 and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by doctor Katherine Ramsland, author 11 00:00:53,399 --> 00:00:59,320 and all around amazing person here to talk to us about psychopaths. Catherine, 12 00:00:59,320 --> 00:01:03,479 thank you for joining today. I'm glad to be here as always, and 13 00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:10,200 what a fun topic. Really, it's definitely an interesting and much more diverse 14 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:14,359 topic than most people realize. So what was the genesis for this article? 15 00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:17,000 What made you decide, you know what, I think we need to talk 16 00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:21,400 about the history of psychopaths. Toime, okay, I do teach a whole 17 00:01:21,719 --> 00:01:26,959 segment of my or formerly did my forensic psychology course on the whole notion of 18 00:01:27,359 --> 00:01:33,439 psychopaths. What's the history, how did the concept evolve? How do we 19 00:01:33,480 --> 00:01:38,519 understand it today? It's complicated, and so my initial I'd write a lot 20 00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:42,120 of blogs. I have a blog at Psychologist a Day. I've been doing 21 00:01:42,120 --> 00:01:46,840 it for ten years, and often we'll touch on the psychopathy. But in 22 00:01:46,879 --> 00:01:52,280 this one, I was going to write about the ten types of psychopath that 23 00:01:52,840 --> 00:01:57,920 Theater as a psychologist named Theater Milan had generated that no hardly anybody knows about 24 00:01:57,959 --> 00:02:02,280 because it just catch on. It's not the fashion, and all of a 25 00:02:02,319 --> 00:02:09,240 sudden it just evolved into a much bigger thing because you see all these articles 26 00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:15,479 making claims about psychopaths. If you drink black coffee, you're more likely to 27 00:02:15,520 --> 00:02:20,080 be a psychopaths, psychopaths preferred dark chocolate, psychopaths, this and that, 28 00:02:20,280 --> 00:02:27,639 and they're all really core, poorly designed supposed research pieces that they're sciencing, 29 00:02:28,039 --> 00:02:34,800 essentially making it seem like psychopath is a very unified concept. And that well, 30 00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:39,560 most of them will choose business majors or whatever it is, and it's 31 00:02:39,599 --> 00:02:44,360 just not like that. Clinically, it's not like that at all. So 32 00:02:44,439 --> 00:02:46,400 when I want to talk about it, I do want to talk about what 33 00:02:46,520 --> 00:02:53,039 we know in the clinical community versus what's out there in popular culture, because 34 00:02:53,159 --> 00:02:59,080 typically people would think the psychopath is a criminal and a serial killer. Most 35 00:02:59,360 --> 00:03:05,240 art serial killers or murderers or even criminals. And I think a lot of 36 00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:09,639 people don't get that because the concept the name psychopath is thrown amount so easily 37 00:03:10,199 --> 00:03:15,599 at anyone and everyone, And it's just really simple. When most people think 38 00:03:15,599 --> 00:03:21,039 of the term psychopath, who do you think they're probably picturing? Because I 39 00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:23,360 have a very specific picture in my mind when I think of psychopaths, and 40 00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:25,879 I think, you know who I'm talking about, because you just wrote an 41 00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:30,240 article about him with Kevin Sullivan. But when I think about psychopaths, I 42 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:34,919 think of Ted Bundy, and most people are thinking fictional ones. They're thinking 43 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:39,400 Hannibal Elector and yes, and Ted Bundy is the prototype serial killer psychopath. 44 00:03:39,479 --> 00:03:46,840 Yeah, is the term abused? Would you say when people are tossing around 45 00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:53,280 fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter or real life characters like Bundy. Is that kind 46 00:03:53,280 --> 00:03:59,000 of a one dimensional way of looking at psychopaths? Yeah, I don't know 47 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:03,840 if I use the word abused, but certainly way over simplified, superficial, 48 00:04:04,639 --> 00:04:11,080 and mistaken for the most part personal. Not all serial killers, though the 49 00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:15,280 majority, are not all serials of psychopaths, and as I mentioned, not 50 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:20,600 all psychopaths are criminals at all. It also gets mixed up with the concept 51 00:04:20,639 --> 00:04:30,079 of a sociopath or antisocial personality disorder or the dark triad or it's a mess 52 00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:35,560 and it can be difficult. So clinicians will tend to go with what we 53 00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:45,160 know from the instrument that measures. It's a personality disorder that manifests a high 54 00:04:45,199 --> 00:04:51,639 degree of twenty traits and behaviors that are on an instrument called the Psychopathy Checklist 55 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:57,560 revised. Clinicians are going to stick pretty closely with that. That's not the 56 00:04:57,639 --> 00:05:01,199 only instrument that we use, but for example, there's none for sociopath. 57 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:05,399 We have no diagnostic instrument, so I don't even use that word. It's 58 00:05:05,399 --> 00:05:12,160 an old fashioned word in the nineteen forties and fifties again also thrown out there 59 00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:17,600 easily to call somebody a name. But there isn't any diagnostic instrument for it. 60 00:05:17,959 --> 00:05:25,839 Antisocial personality disorder, the third of these concepts does have the Diagnostic and 61 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:30,800 Statistical Manual, the DSM for that one. But in every part of this 62 00:05:31,360 --> 00:05:40,240 interpretation of behavior and personality traits is up to the clinician, and you're certainly 63 00:05:40,279 --> 00:05:45,240 going to get people disagreeing over who is or isn't a psychopath always. You'll 64 00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:48,199 always have that, especially if they're on the border. So on this list, 65 00:05:48,319 --> 00:05:50,759 let me just finish that. On this list of the twenty traits and 66 00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:57,560 behaviors, each gets assigned a number in terms of how much the person manifests 67 00:05:57,560 --> 00:06:01,560 those things. So from zero to two. If you're not manipulative, you'll 68 00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:04,959 have a zero, but if you're highly manipulative, you'll have a two. 69 00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:10,759 So the twenty traits and behaviors, the highest score is forty. If you 70 00:06:10,839 --> 00:06:15,800 are between the thirty and forty, you're considered to be diagnosed as a psychopath. 71 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:18,759 Let's stay on the checklist for a minute, because I find that really 72 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:26,240 interesting. You'd mentioned manipulative already. What other behaviors and personality traits are going 73 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:29,600 to be found on the psychopathy checklist is? What else is it seeking to 74 00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:33,839 measure, okay, So there's some that are not well known. It was 75 00:06:33,839 --> 00:06:40,319 a Canadian checklist initially, so it was within the and it was developed by 76 00:06:40,319 --> 00:06:45,480 a prison psychologist, so it's within the Canadian correctional system. So something like 77 00:06:45,519 --> 00:06:49,360 what we would call they break their parole is one of the things, okay, 78 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:54,319 and that's not something people normally think about. But lack of remorse, 79 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:59,439 that's probably the hallmark right there, what we call the primary psychopath or perhaps 80 00:06:59,480 --> 00:07:04,360 the born psychopath. Serial relationships, jumping from one to another, parasitic behavior, 81 00:07:05,079 --> 00:07:10,639 deception, narcissism, such things as that. So you would have and 82 00:07:10,759 --> 00:07:15,040 that list is pretty easy to find. You just look up psychopathy checklist and 83 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:17,399 you'll get all twenty of them. And that was developed by Robert Hare, 84 00:07:17,519 --> 00:07:21,319 Is that right? Yeah. Robert Hare was a prison psychologist and he had 85 00:07:21,360 --> 00:07:28,240 corresponded with a man named a psychiatrist, prison psychiatrist named Herbie Cleckley, who 86 00:07:28,279 --> 00:07:31,600 actually did evaluate Ted Bundy at one point. Cleckly it was the first one 87 00:07:31,639 --> 00:07:36,279 to really crystallize the traits and behaviors. He had a list of sixteen and 88 00:07:36,360 --> 00:07:42,519 he and Hair corresponded a bit and then Hair and his colleagues took those traits 89 00:07:42,519 --> 00:07:46,240 and behaviors, added a few more from based on their work in the prisons, 90 00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:50,959 to come up with a standardized instrument. So it wasn't just left to 91 00:07:51,199 --> 00:07:56,720 clinical opinion. It was really, here's a standardized instrument. He does a 92 00:07:56,720 --> 00:08:00,759 lot of trainings so people know how to use it. It's just a simple 93 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:05,160 take your list of twenty to sit in the bar and think about your ex 94 00:08:05,199 --> 00:08:09,720 spouse. They're that easy. Yeah, I found myself thinking a lot about 95 00:08:09,800 --> 00:08:18,199 ex girlfriends. People wish it were that easy and maybe tweeted as if it's 96 00:08:18,279 --> 00:08:22,839 that easy, but it's not. A perfect example is the guy's book, 97 00:08:22,920 --> 00:08:28,319 John what's his name Ronson? I think the psychopath Test. He wrote a 98 00:08:28,360 --> 00:08:35,200 really hilly, almost mocking book with a completely superficial understanding. Because he's not 99 00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:39,159 a clinician, he was allowed in. I don't know why Bob Hare did 100 00:08:39,200 --> 00:08:41,559 this. I would have recommended that he didn't do this, but he was 101 00:08:41,600 --> 00:08:46,080 allowed in to see some of the trainings and whatnot, and then he just 102 00:08:46,159 --> 00:08:50,279 made fun of it and he completely misunderstood how it was used. I had 103 00:08:50,279 --> 00:08:54,840 seen that actually the other day, just perusing around through Barnes and Noble, 104 00:08:54,879 --> 00:08:56,799 as I want to do. And I did notice that, and I picked 105 00:08:56,799 --> 00:09:00,200 it up and I was like, no, I don't think this is going 106 00:09:00,240 --> 00:09:03,120 to be worth my time. And actually, because it really did sound like 107 00:09:03,159 --> 00:09:07,159 he was taking it a little more lightly than it deserves to be. Okay, 108 00:09:07,159 --> 00:09:09,639 good, I'll check that one off the list of to be reds. 109 00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:13,440 I won't deal with that one. Yeah, it's no pointless book. How 110 00:09:13,480 --> 00:09:18,399 accurate would you say the PCLR actually is? I know that I know it 111 00:09:18,480 --> 00:09:22,120 determined. It's such determined by the clinician working with it. But how accurate 112 00:09:22,159 --> 00:09:26,639 would you say it is? It actually depends on who you ask, because 113 00:09:26,639 --> 00:09:31,720 there's certainly controversy in the psychoact community about whether it's really the best. There 114 00:09:31,759 --> 00:09:37,360 are other instruments, but it's certainly the most validated, and it has also 115 00:09:37,440 --> 00:09:43,720 proven to be one of the best instruments for predicting the potential for violent behavior. 116 00:09:45,320 --> 00:09:50,240 If you're already a violent person, a violent psychopath, of chances that 117 00:09:50,279 --> 00:09:54,240 if you get out of prison you will repeat your cryme the chances are high, 118 00:09:54,240 --> 00:09:58,720 and the psychopathy checks is one of the key predictors for that. How 119 00:09:58,759 --> 00:10:01,399 long ago was that reas done? So when you talk about a number of 120 00:10:01,399 --> 00:10:09,600 clinicians thousands using these materials. How long has that been around? Clickly wrote 121 00:10:09,600 --> 00:10:13,279 his book in the nineteen forties with multiple editions of it. Hair and his 122 00:10:13,399 --> 00:10:20,320 colleagues were working with this in nineteen seventies. I believe the initial testing was 123 00:10:20,399 --> 00:10:24,639 in late seventies, early eighties, nineteen eighties, and so it has been 124 00:10:24,679 --> 00:10:30,720 around that long in terms of how much they've worked with it. The problem 125 00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:35,519 with it was that most of the research was done on incarcerated individuals, so 126 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:41,399 some of the claims made for psychopaths had to do with for example, impulsivity 127 00:10:41,559 --> 00:10:45,399 is one of the traits. This is when I talk about in my class, 128 00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:50,879 you might find high degree of impulsivity and people who have been caught and 129 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:56,000 incarcerated. But let's say there's a lot of psychopaths who are more planful, 130 00:10:56,120 --> 00:11:01,639 more careful, more calculating, don't get caught, and that ends up not 131 00:11:01,759 --> 00:11:09,919 coming up on the psychopathy checklist because the checklist was based on these incarcerated individuals. 132 00:11:09,279 --> 00:11:13,960 So that's one of the criticisms of it is that's way too much skewed 133 00:11:13,039 --> 00:11:20,240 toward and incarcerated population, and also toward males, and also towards adults. 134 00:11:20,279 --> 00:11:24,919 So in maybe the last twenty years, we've done a lot more on other 135 00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:33,000 races, on juveniles, even young kids. There have been some iterations of 136 00:11:33,039 --> 00:11:39,360 the psychopathy checklists for kids for women, So there's more research now on other 137 00:11:39,399 --> 00:11:43,000 types of populations, but the majority of the early research was really unincarcerated male 138 00:11:43,039 --> 00:11:48,159 offenders who were adults. Is psychopathy is something that occurs more in men or 139 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:52,919 women or just like anything across the population, is it going to be maybe 140 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:56,200 an equal measure or does it skew more toward men. That's the problem, 141 00:11:56,279 --> 00:12:01,840 is it does skew toward men, but that we have women diagnosed with borderline 142 00:12:01,919 --> 00:12:07,919 personality disorder, for example, who might actually be psychopaths. Instead. There 143 00:12:09,080 --> 00:12:15,480 was for a while a reluctance to diagnosed females as psychopaths because it seemed more 144 00:12:15,519 --> 00:12:20,799 because there's more violence among males. But that again is a misunderstanding of psychopathy 145 00:12:20,879 --> 00:12:24,080 that it's about violence, because it isn't. Bob Harre says, we have 146 00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:31,000 the same distribution of psychopathy in females as in males, but the females tend 147 00:12:31,039 --> 00:12:37,480 to have lower scores overall, like male psychopaths might be up in the thirty 148 00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:41,919 seven, thirty eight, thirty nine women more toward thirty one, thirty two, 149 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:48,639 thirty three. But he still he says the distribution is still fairly close. 150 00:12:48,279 --> 00:12:52,679 Others will say, again, it depends on the research and how it's 151 00:12:52,759 --> 00:12:58,240 being interpreted about. Others will say, there certainly are less fewer female psychopaths 152 00:12:58,399 --> 00:13:05,440 than male, but are they being accurately diagnosed. That's a question because they 153 00:13:05,480 --> 00:13:09,000 do seem to manifest things in a different way, a more manipulative, for 154 00:13:09,039 --> 00:13:15,120 example, rather than narcissistic, let's say. And also, you want to 155 00:13:15,159 --> 00:13:18,480 throw in one more complication, there's a difference between a primary and a secondary 156 00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:24,320 psychopath. So the primary psychopath appears to be the born psychopath, the one 157 00:13:24,360 --> 00:13:31,240 where we're actually finding a number of anomalies in the brain that set psychopaths apart 158 00:13:31,399 --> 00:13:35,960 from other people. And so some are set apart from other offenders, some 159 00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:41,000 are set apart from other violent offenders. It gets tricky. But the secondary 160 00:13:41,039 --> 00:13:50,039 psychopaths apparently seem to be more reactive. So the primary psychopaths are low emotionality, 161 00:13:50,200 --> 00:13:54,519 blunted emotionality, no remorse, what you typically think of as a psychopath, 162 00:13:54,559 --> 00:13:58,840 but thuggish, grumpy who I'm not. I don't care about anybody but 163 00:14:00,039 --> 00:14:05,039 myself. Psychopath reactive. The secondary psychopath is more reactive, and often we'll 164 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:11,960 have had abuse in their background, or neglect or starvation or something where they've 165 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:16,559 developed psychopathy as a survival tactic, and so they're going to manifest that differently. 166 00:14:16,559 --> 00:14:20,360 They have a higher emotionality, for example, they will manifest it differently, 167 00:14:20,399 --> 00:14:26,480 but they'll still get a high score on the Psychopathy Checklist, but just 168 00:14:26,600 --> 00:14:33,960 in other dimensions than that emotional blunting, that calculated the cold kind of psychopath 169 00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:39,759 you typically think of. So that makes it harder because psychopathy is considered to 170 00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:45,600 have these two facets. The checklist gives us these two facets, and both 171 00:14:45,639 --> 00:14:50,600 of them have two factors, So it depends on what they're manifesting. Some 172 00:14:50,759 --> 00:14:58,120 are highly parasitic and so they tend to take what other people have, or 173 00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:01,799 camp out on their couch three months, eat all their food, take their 174 00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:09,519 money, but they're not doing other kinds of things. So the way we 175 00:15:09,639 --> 00:15:15,960 understand psychopaths, it has to do with the kind behavior they're manifesting more often, 176 00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:22,039 and that's why it's just not a uniform concept. Different psychopaths will manifest 177 00:15:22,120 --> 00:15:28,320 different types of behaviors, but all of them would still if they come up 178 00:15:28,440 --> 00:15:31,879 and at thirty to forty range and the test, they're still going to be 179 00:15:31,919 --> 00:15:37,360 considered psychopaths even though they act differently. I think that's very complicated if you 180 00:15:37,519 --> 00:15:41,320 understand what I'm saying, no totally, and keep it in mind that haven't 181 00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:46,919 had more than a rudimentary psychology class in a very long time. I took 182 00:15:46,919 --> 00:15:48,799 abnormal psych in college. I may think it's about the last time I touched 183 00:15:48,840 --> 00:15:52,759 it. I guess I had never given a lot of thoughts the idea that 184 00:15:52,840 --> 00:15:56,840 psychopaths can be created. I always thought there was this idea that you are 185 00:15:56,879 --> 00:16:02,320 born with psychopathy. It hadn't occurred to me like it can be developed over 186 00:16:02,399 --> 00:16:06,480 time. So this is very interesting to me. And also some people will 187 00:16:06,480 --> 00:16:11,720 say, oh, you're when you say primary versus secondary psychopath, that's the 188 00:16:11,759 --> 00:16:17,039 difference between a psychopath and a sociopath. So you'll get that whole segment of 189 00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:23,120 the clinical communities saying that as well. But certainly that secondary psychopathy is or 190 00:16:23,279 --> 00:16:33,519 appears to be more environmentally attuned and reactive than the primary psychopath, which appears 191 00:16:33,639 --> 00:16:38,600 from what we know from brain research to have been born with an emotional disconnect, 192 00:16:40,039 --> 00:16:42,720 so their emotionality has saw a study recently by how they have a hard 193 00:16:42,759 --> 00:16:49,720 time with music. Their emotionality is considered fairly superficial. They're not deeply rooted 194 00:16:49,759 --> 00:16:55,120 in the truth because their manipulators are going to do whatever it works to their 195 00:16:55,120 --> 00:16:57,919 own advantage, and they're not going to care who gets hurt in the process, 196 00:16:59,279 --> 00:17:03,080 even their own family. They're not going to care because what matters is 197 00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:07,400 what they want. That's more the primary psychopath. You'll get some of that 198 00:17:07,440 --> 00:17:11,119 with the secondary, but the secondary is really almost more of a response to 199 00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:17,839 a difficult environment. This almost sounds like nature versus nurture, doesn't it, 200 00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:21,880 except that there's no formula. There's none at all. Nature and nurture are 201 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:26,799 part of both. How much is the brain a participant in this? We 202 00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:30,680 still don't know. We don't have enough. There's a lot of research going 203 00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:34,440 on, but there's nothing you could say definitively. If we could, the 204 00:17:34,559 --> 00:17:41,640 court system would have to change incredibly significantly, because if we go in and 205 00:17:41,799 --> 00:17:47,160 say a psychopaths, let's say born psychopaths. Primary psychopaths can help what they're 206 00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:52,400 what they're doing because they don't process moral information, or emotionality or caring, 207 00:17:52,920 --> 00:17:57,559 so we can't really hold them accountable for the decisions they make. That's going 208 00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:02,920 to be a very tough sell if that's what it comes to. Currently, 209 00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:07,839 we think the psychopath are just evil people who make bad decisions. That's the 210 00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:11,279 popular notion, but that is not what the research says. That actually leads 211 00:18:11,279 --> 00:18:15,920 into a pretty interesting question here. What would you say are some of the 212 00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:21,519 most common misunderstandings that we have as a whole about psychopaths, And you really 213 00:18:21,559 --> 00:18:25,720 just iterated one of them, that all psychopaths are evil and have no sense 214 00:18:25,839 --> 00:18:27,799 of fellow feeling for other people. But yeah, what are some of the 215 00:18:27,839 --> 00:18:33,279 other common misunderstandings that we have about psychopathy that they all behave the same That's 216 00:18:33,359 --> 00:18:38,680 what this blog was about, is how can you say somebody who prefers black 217 00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:44,759 copy is more likely to be a psychopath? That doesn't even make any sense 218 00:18:45,039 --> 00:18:49,240 that they all manifest the same, That they're all criminals is another one that 219 00:18:49,359 --> 00:18:53,920 you hear a lot that just because someone's labeled a psychopath, they are a 220 00:18:53,960 --> 00:19:00,359 psychopath. Because so many people label ignorantly, I'm often asked, is they'll 221 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:06,880 go through all the political figures with so and so a psychopath. Okay, 222 00:19:06,920 --> 00:19:11,160 I can't. Actually I don't know because I didn't do these psychopathy checklist with 223 00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:15,839 them. We're not supposed to really diagnose people from a distance that remember, 224 00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:19,559 not really having them in any kind of clinical arena. But lots of people 225 00:19:19,720 --> 00:19:25,960 do it anyway because there's enough behavior out there that's consistent across time to be 226 00:19:26,039 --> 00:19:29,359 able to But the way they put is I can look at them through the 227 00:19:29,519 --> 00:19:36,240 psychopathic lens. I'm not diagnosing them. I'm forming a clinical opinion based on 228 00:19:36,559 --> 00:19:40,920 the behavior we do know. There's a whole book on I won't name any 229 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:47,599 names, but there's whole books on some of these political figures where you'll get 230 00:19:47,920 --> 00:19:52,640 psychiatrists and psychologists into the phray all giving diagnosis of somebody they never met. 231 00:19:53,200 --> 00:20:00,359 And it's not that simple. So maybe that's the number one issue is people 232 00:20:00,480 --> 00:20:04,039 think because there's a checklist, it's a simple matter from going down the list, 233 00:20:04,680 --> 00:20:10,440 reading the media accounts and going down the list isn't simple. It's not 234 00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:14,799 simple little and they may have never even met this person, often have not 235 00:20:14,880 --> 00:20:18,680 met the person. Those articles when I read them, I'm not saying they're 236 00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:22,559 not interesting. They often are, but they usually start with some sort of 237 00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:27,720 caveat that you're not supposed to do this, and you're not supposed to analyze 238 00:20:27,759 --> 00:20:33,480 someone that you've never anyway, now I'm going to go right ahead. And 239 00:20:33,519 --> 00:20:38,960 then they proceed to apply some of these standards to these individuals and say, 240 00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:44,279 I think so and so is a psychopath or whatever. Yeah, are there 241 00:20:44,440 --> 00:20:48,400 people, though, Katherine, that you've met or studied in your real life, 242 00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:52,000 through the work that you've done over the years, where you've said to 243 00:20:52,000 --> 00:21:00,240 yourself, this person is a serious and dangerous psychopath. Interestingly, and its 244 00:21:00,359 --> 00:21:06,039 raider and I have discussed this the BTK serial killer because he has never been 245 00:21:06,039 --> 00:21:11,720 diagnosed as a psychopath. However, a real person psychologist who came, actually 246 00:21:11,759 --> 00:21:18,039 many serial killers never have been the psychologist who came to do the competency evaluation 247 00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:23,200 before what might have led into a trial, though he didn't have a trial. 248 00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:29,279 On the back of his report, wrote in pencil psychopath with a big 249 00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:33,720 question mark. I don't know why he wrote that, except that in the 250 00:21:33,799 --> 00:21:37,039 United States, we don't tend to use the psychopathy checklist. We use the 251 00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:44,799 diagnostic against a physical manual, which isn't the same thing, because that manual 252 00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:49,200 realizes only in behavior, not personality traits. Maybe he was saying, I 253 00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:52,640 wonder if we should bring in the psychopathy checklist. I don't know, because 254 00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:57,880 he wasn't there to do an insanity evaluation. It was really competency. Is 255 00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:03,160 he competent to go to chal So that was interesting and I and Dennis says 256 00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:07,920 even asked me, do I think he's a psychopath? And certainly he's got 257 00:22:07,960 --> 00:22:11,920 many of the traits and behaviors, but married to one person, to no 258 00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:15,359 serial relationships. In fact, I think a whole group of psychologists took it 259 00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:19,240 on, took him on, and they've taken on. They found ted Bundy 260 00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:22,759 to be somebody who gets a high score, but some of the others not 261 00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:27,599 so much. And Dennis Rader did not rise to the level of a thirty 262 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:33,200 on the Psychopathy Checklist in part because he didn't have a juvenile record and never 263 00:22:33,279 --> 00:22:37,119 had a parole violation. Because he's never had parole, he married one woman 264 00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:41,839 and stayed with that woman, and so there's a number of things he comes 265 00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:45,720 up zero on this list. And if you can't get to a score of 266 00:22:45,759 --> 00:22:52,440 thirty, he doesn't get bad diagnosis. Nevertheless, I would say he's manipulative. 267 00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:56,359 He doesn't really have remorse about what he did to people. He may 268 00:22:56,440 --> 00:23:00,519 care about his family, but he doesn't care about what he did to his 269 00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:06,640 victims. He's not impulsive. He was very calculating, So there's a zero 270 00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:15,079 on that part checklist, and certainly diminished fear and guilt response in his part. 271 00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:22,240 Emotional blunting is there, but all of his traits and behaviors don't rise 272 00:23:22,319 --> 00:23:26,720 to the level of giving him a score of thirty or more on the psychopathy 273 00:23:26,799 --> 00:23:30,039 checklist. So people would say, to me, that's just crazy, as 274 00:23:30,079 --> 00:23:36,680 serial killer is a psychopath, not clinically. He's speaking and probably nobody's done 275 00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:40,319 more work with him than me. I've known it for thirteen years now. 276 00:23:40,319 --> 00:23:42,880 We did a lot of testing and whatnot, and I would say he just 277 00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:48,200 doesn't manifest all the things you would expect of a psychopath. When he asked 278 00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:52,319 you, Katherine, do you think I'm a psychopath? Did he really seem 279 00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:56,960 to want to understand more about himself and why he did all of these horrible 280 00:23:56,000 --> 00:24:00,799 things. I'm just curious why the question would have come up for how was 281 00:24:00,839 --> 00:24:03,960 he really interested in doing self reflection or was it just a what do you 282 00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:10,000 think he's a narcissist? He's really interested in having attention aimed right at him. 283 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:12,839 Let's talk about me. Yeah, And so we looked at a few 284 00:24:14,039 --> 00:24:18,480 books and oh he and I remember I love this one too. This has 285 00:24:18,519 --> 00:24:22,400 to do it. There's a whole aspect of the clinical community that thinks narcissist 286 00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:29,000 can do these self assessments, and I won't. They who gave me the 287 00:24:29,039 --> 00:24:33,839 test to give to Rader was a prominent psychologist in the field of psychopathy research, 288 00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:37,519 and he said, give Raider the self assessment psychopathy test. I said, 289 00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:42,839 I think he's just gonna lie because I can figure out what just looking 290 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:47,279 for in this test. And he did lie. For example, what was 291 00:24:47,319 --> 00:24:52,279 something like, has anyone ever said that you're a dishonest person? And he 292 00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:56,279 put no, And I said, did you not hear the victims' families? 293 00:24:56,759 --> 00:25:03,519 You're sensing here? He said, I'm talking about today. Oh, it's 294 00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:08,960 manipulation one oh one, isn't it? And that's invalidate his score right off 295 00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:14,039 the back, because he was angling for what does this mean? How do 296 00:25:14,079 --> 00:25:18,599 I make myself look good? Blah blah blah. So the idea of the 297 00:25:18,759 --> 00:25:25,160 self analysis by his psychopath is so weird to me. And yet there's all 298 00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:30,039 kinds of research using that test with offenders who supposedly want to really know about 299 00:25:30,079 --> 00:25:34,359 themselves. There's such a thing as faking bad, is such a thing as 300 00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:38,200 faking good. And we have a personnel of tests that catch that, but 301 00:25:38,279 --> 00:25:41,799 that one doesn't catch it. And I had to give the test back to 302 00:25:41,839 --> 00:25:48,079 this psychologist and say it's just is not going to work. He's going to 303 00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:52,039 give the answer he thinks he should give, and not necessarily an honest him. 304 00:25:52,559 --> 00:25:56,279 You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back after this word 305 00:25:56,359 --> 00:26:03,880 from our sponsors. We're back here at Mind over Murder. The testing and 306 00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,359 the work that you did with Dennis Raider, was it face to face? 307 00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:12,640 In most of it was not? No, because in the prison where he 308 00:26:12,759 --> 00:26:17,759 is in it's a maximum security prisons. I was in one booth, he 309 00:26:17,839 --> 00:26:21,839 was in another booth, and it was through a video thing. Some of 310 00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:23,640 them are a pencil and paper tests, and he could just send them back 311 00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,640 to me. Some of them we did over the phone, but there wasn't. 312 00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:30,920 You don't get to be in face to face unless you're in there with 313 00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:33,799 his attorney, and at the time he doesn't have an attorney, so you 314 00:26:33,839 --> 00:26:38,079 were in the same facility but not in the same room. And even now 315 00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,160 you can't visit him that way because they took all those rooms out during COVID 316 00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,839 and they haven't put him back. Oh wow, is it how they have 317 00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:48,680 video? So I could do something like that on video, but it's I 318 00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:52,039 don't think I would get anything different. Truth is, you could probably do 319 00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:56,680 something from across the country now with your technology being Do you feel like the 320 00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:03,400 reliability of the information that you received would be as good as if you were 321 00:27:03,799 --> 00:27:08,079 in adjoining rooms using a video system. It depends on what tests you're giving 322 00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:12,160 them, all kinds of exercises you're asking them to do. What's at stake, 323 00:27:12,839 --> 00:27:18,920 So that's a hard question to answer. Generically. You had mentioned before 324 00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:23,640 some of these evaluations or to determine whether someone's competent to stand trial and things 325 00:27:23,759 --> 00:27:27,960 like that. So they in some cases know that there's a lot writing on 326 00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:34,480 the outcome. There's lots of malingering going on. If there's something big at 327 00:27:34,519 --> 00:27:40,200 stake and they have read books about how to fake it, they'll do that. 328 00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:44,359 If they are really worried. They will bake it. Yeah, and 329 00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:51,200 so many forensic psychologists are trained on instruments that detect malingering. Sometimes you find 330 00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:59,799 psychologists who are going naive thinking they're really good at spotting lies. Turns out 331 00:28:00,039 --> 00:28:03,200 research says no, they're not. They're about the same as the average person. 332 00:28:03,759 --> 00:28:07,000 But if they believe they're good at it, they can easily be duped, 333 00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:15,559 and that happens. Are there instances in which psychopathy might be a positive 334 00:28:15,839 --> 00:28:21,000 trait or can benefit a person who is identified as a psychopath. You have 335 00:28:21,039 --> 00:28:27,519 a whole books on that. There's a successful psychopath, almost a psychopath. 336 00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:33,480 Yeah, there's a number of books about psychopaths being evolutionarily superior. In fact, 337 00:28:33,559 --> 00:28:37,079 somebody recently asked me when I was at the Writer's Police Academy, could 338 00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:41,559 psychopaths adaptively go past all the rest of us? And I said, when 339 00:28:41,599 --> 00:28:47,119 AI figures out a way to destroy the human race, the psychopaths will emerge 340 00:28:47,119 --> 00:28:53,559 as the victors. Something to look forward to, the rise of the machines. 341 00:28:55,240 --> 00:29:00,680 Yeah, they definitely have adaptation traits, not for community and connection, 342 00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:06,440 but for survival. You better believe it. I think of a number of 343 00:29:06,559 --> 00:29:12,240 CEOs, some of whom I've worked for the psychopaths are attracted to positions of 344 00:29:12,319 --> 00:29:19,599 power, where money is handled, where interesting careers, because they're sensation seekers. 345 00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:25,640 They don't like boredom. They move into places where they can manipulate other 346 00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:30,359 people and get things for themselves and have power, that's why. And they're 347 00:29:30,519 --> 00:29:37,279 very attracted to politics, banking, CEO, so lots of business majors. 348 00:29:37,559 --> 00:29:41,319 Definitely investment banking for sure. Yeah, which is not to say a writer 349 00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:48,880 can't be a psychopath, because they certainly can't be, or at least half 350 00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:56,079 a psychopath. The doctor with seventy books under her velve. So it's actually 351 00:29:56,279 --> 00:30:00,640 entirely possible that most of us, at least once and probably more than once 352 00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:06,400 in our lives, have encountered someone who meets the criteria for psychopathy, and 353 00:30:06,559 --> 00:30:10,359 about one in one hundred people, those chances are pretty good that you've met 354 00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:15,839 somebody who's at least on the border line. But if they've they're not committing 355 00:30:15,839 --> 00:30:21,279 crimes necessarily, but they might great promises. They might might tell you they're 356 00:30:21,279 --> 00:30:25,440 going to do something and then they undermine you with it, They triangulate, 357 00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:29,599 they set you up to be punished by somebody else, so you don't think 358 00:30:29,599 --> 00:30:33,160 it was them that did it that in relationships, they tend to be very 359 00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:41,680 narcissistic and cold calculating, so they're not necessarily breaking any laws, but they're 360 00:30:41,799 --> 00:30:47,279 breaking hearts for sure. There's a lot of psychopathy survivor groups. I can 361 00:30:47,359 --> 00:30:49,759 definitely see where that would be something that you would need or want to have 362 00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:53,400 around. And I'm really interested in what you said earlier about the fact that 363 00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,920 it's possible to detect it in children. Of course, as a teacher, 364 00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:00,839 I found that very interesting. I think by the time I get them as 365 00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:03,079 high schoolers, it's probably on its way to being developed. But I'm curious 366 00:31:03,079 --> 00:31:07,519 as to how young we could detect it. I'm thinking of that six year 367 00:31:07,519 --> 00:31:11,839 old school shooter here from earlier this year. I'm wondering if that had other 368 00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:15,799 issues though as far as I know from media reports. But three or four 369 00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:21,559 years old is when you start to see kids bullying for no reason, lying 370 00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:27,599 for no reason, stealing, doing property damage, showing that these narcissistic trends, 371 00:31:27,759 --> 00:31:32,640 the lack of remorse, They start to show that kind of around three 372 00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:34,799 or four, which is not to say they're a loss clause or not, 373 00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:40,519 but there are some programs now for well, we don't call them psychopathical. 374 00:31:40,519 --> 00:31:45,680 I'm kids at risk of developing psychopathy, and there are programs now for early 375 00:31:45,759 --> 00:31:49,839 intervention that have shown that you can turn them around. And I don't mean 376 00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:56,359 in the Dexter way. In my opinion, I think that whole concept that 377 00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:00,400 he has to be concerned about. I don't feel things the way everybody else 378 00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:05,079 does. That's not a psychopath. They don't care about that. So it's 379 00:32:05,119 --> 00:32:09,400 about trying to show them why pro social behavior is in their best interest, 380 00:32:09,839 --> 00:32:15,400 to appeal to the narcissistic aspect to them to at least try to connect with 381 00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:20,119 other people and take care of them, even if you don't feel it deeply. 382 00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,519 It's tough, and especially if this is in fact an inborn thing. 383 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:30,319 It's not like you can just change that easily. But yeah, we have 384 00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:34,039 programs and we have all kinds of early alert now. But I want to 385 00:32:34,079 --> 00:32:37,440 say this because a lot of people think you can spot a psychopath, thanks 386 00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:40,160 in part to some of these articles. Here's how you spot a psychopath. 387 00:32:42,359 --> 00:32:45,920 Do you get things like they don't yawn when other people yawn, which is 388 00:32:50,119 --> 00:32:57,160 or they use more flat words and their Twitter tweets, or that is so 389 00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,119 dumb, But it gives people a false sense of security that they're going to 390 00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:04,480 be able to spot a psychopath if they see this and that, and you're 391 00:33:04,519 --> 00:33:08,880 lost. If you like black coffee, dark chocolate, business majors, I 392 00:33:09,079 --> 00:33:15,519 don't beyond you're in trouble. You're a write off right there. Unbelievable, 393 00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:20,599 But the idea that you can spot a psychopath, that's exactly at least people 394 00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:27,799 open to hitting into relationships with charming individuals that they think couldn't possibly be these 395 00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:31,960 con artists, and then they get hurt and wonder why now we're back to 396 00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:37,599 my ex girlfriends, back one of my ex boyfriends. For sure, I'm 397 00:33:37,599 --> 00:33:40,839 going to sound like Dennis Rader with this next question, Katherine, Am I 398 00:33:42,039 --> 00:33:46,920 making these people psychopaths? Or did they make themselves psychopaths? I'm being serious 399 00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:52,240 here. All of us interact thousands of times with our fellow human beings. 400 00:33:52,599 --> 00:34:00,440 Are our behaviors impacting other people in a way that moves them closer to capathy 401 00:34:00,799 --> 00:34:06,000 if we're talking about the secondary form of psychopathy, Yeah, because if they're 402 00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:10,960 already from a situation where they've been abused or seriously severely neglected, and then 403 00:34:12,079 --> 00:34:16,000 you come in and maybe start up relationship and then decide that this isn't for 404 00:34:16,119 --> 00:34:22,880 me. Well suddenly there's that abandonment thing and horrible treatment by somebody. Yeah, 405 00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:25,719 so it could be. But often you'll get with any personality disorder, 406 00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:30,480 you might get what we call co morbid so other disorders too, Which is 407 00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:35,559 what I wanted to say about the six year old. I wouldn't in any 408 00:34:35,559 --> 00:34:37,639 way call him a kid at risk for being a psychopath, because I don't 409 00:34:37,679 --> 00:34:43,119 know enough about him, but had enough of the disorder where parents were supposed 410 00:34:43,159 --> 00:34:47,239 to be with him and that was the problem that they neglected that particular duty. 411 00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:52,039 But usually psychopaths will have some other thing happening at the same time. 412 00:34:52,559 --> 00:34:58,679 So if you have schizophrenia with psychopathy, which we call a schizopath, oh 413 00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:04,480 oh, but it can happen, yeah, where then they'll develop these maybe 414 00:35:04,559 --> 00:35:10,039 delusions and now and delusions with cold, callous, calculating, manipulative behavior that 415 00:35:10,039 --> 00:35:14,320 can lead to a lot of bad things too. Okay, that idea of 416 00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,000 this getsopath is brightening to me. Just kind of take a minute to walk 417 00:35:17,039 --> 00:35:21,400 back from that one. Yeah, it's rare, but it certainly can happen. 418 00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:28,440 Or psychopaths with delusional disorders where they have they listen to enough conspiracy freaks 419 00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:32,079 and start getting afraid and going I need to do something about this, and 420 00:35:32,159 --> 00:35:37,559 start getting armed. And then if you add in the layer, I don't 421 00:35:37,599 --> 00:35:42,440 care what happits to other people. Now you have the makings of somebody who 422 00:35:42,639 --> 00:35:47,679 is more likely than not to be violent because they don't have that moral inhibition 423 00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:52,920 factor. We are finding that appears to be a brain part missing. It's 424 00:35:52,920 --> 00:36:00,679 just not they're not making that connection with moral processing because I think the narcissism 425 00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:06,239 sometimes is too strong. It's all about me, It's all about what I 426 00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:12,039 need for myself. You'd mentioned those early intervention strategies for young children who may 427 00:36:12,039 --> 00:36:15,840 be at risk for becoming psychopaths. Is there any way to treat psychopathy? 428 00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:19,480 And I know maybe treat is the wrong word. Is there any way to 429 00:36:19,519 --> 00:36:23,639 intervene with adults who are considered psychopaths who maybe are looking at their behavior and 430 00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:27,440 going, I think I'd like to do a little bit better, Like I 431 00:36:27,519 --> 00:36:30,039 maybe I'd like to not be a psychopath for a while. Is there a 432 00:36:30,079 --> 00:36:35,599 way or their treatment options to treat psychopathy they're working on them. There's certainly 433 00:36:35,599 --> 00:36:40,119 a whole camp. This is they're untreatable in part because they don't care that 434 00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:45,719 much and it's hard to inject care into them. What you have to do 435 00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:52,599 is is usually be cognitive behavioral therapy, where you are convincing them that changing 436 00:36:52,639 --> 00:36:55,960 their behaviors in their best interests right, it's about somebody else's it's about their 437 00:36:57,039 --> 00:37:00,840 best interest to not what would be in the best interest of society as a 438 00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:04,760 whole lot. They don't care about that, they don't care about all of 439 00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:07,519 us. You have to appeal to what they care about. And if you 440 00:37:07,599 --> 00:37:15,800 think of narcissism as an arrested development, almost infantile because it's very me centered, 441 00:37:15,599 --> 00:37:21,400 really just doesn't extend beyond the boundary of their own egos, that would 442 00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:29,079 make sense that they haven't matured enough to connect with community and want to care 443 00:37:29,119 --> 00:37:32,880 for others. Not saying they don't care, because certainly I've seen where a 444 00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:40,840 really psychopathic individual still has concern for someone close to them. Let's say Israel 445 00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:45,840 Keys was a good one. Israel Keys, a serial killer from Alaska, 446 00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:50,480 wanted to not make the mistakes that Ted Bundy made, so he decided to 447 00:37:50,679 --> 00:37:54,880 kill people randomly to go places. Rob Banks various little murder kits and then 448 00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:59,679 go back a year or two later and pick someone at random. So that 449 00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:05,039 was his big game with himself. But when he was caught by making a 450 00:38:05,119 --> 00:38:10,440 mistake like Bunny, he was caught, he wanted He said he would give 451 00:38:10,559 --> 00:38:15,039 up the names of his eight other victims that they didn't know about if they 452 00:38:15,039 --> 00:38:17,920 would keep this out of the paper, because he worried about his daughter. 453 00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:27,360 So here is a guy doing this bizarre game where people's lives are taken so 454 00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:30,360 he can put notches in his belt essentially, and yet he doesn't want his 455 00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:35,280 daughter to know where he's doing this. He cares about something, which is 456 00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:39,280 yeah, yeah, his daughter. Yeah. Now maybe it's because she's an 457 00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:45,920 extension of himself. So that's still maybe very egotistical, current responsible. We 458 00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:50,159 don't know. But I'm not going to say psychopaths care about nobody, because 459 00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:54,119 I find that there is often somebody that they might care about. But how 460 00:38:54,199 --> 00:38:59,360 deep does it go? Bob Hare would say, they know the words, 461 00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:04,280 not the music, And in fact, we are finding they have a hard 462 00:39:04,519 --> 00:39:09,480 psychopath in studies seem to have a hard time with music. Can you expand 463 00:39:09,519 --> 00:39:14,400 on that? You mentioned that earlier as I can't because I didn't read the 464 00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:20,199 study. Something I saw about not even a week ago and didn't have time 465 00:39:20,199 --> 00:39:23,239 to read the whole study. I would because I wouldn't say unless I could 466 00:39:23,239 --> 00:39:29,559 see how they picked the participants, because so many studies are not well designed 467 00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:32,480 that I would want to see how did they actually get their participants? How 468 00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:37,400 did they interpret this? Before I would want to say that, But it's 469 00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:39,199 out there. I think, it's not hard to look up. So are 470 00:39:39,199 --> 00:39:45,280 the chocolate studies and coffee studies and to you almost have to have an education 471 00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:51,400 and research and statistics before you can know that these studies are poorly designed, 472 00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:55,320 because they do get into professional journals. They shouldn't be, but they do 473 00:39:55,440 --> 00:40:00,800 get in there. And I myself am constantly asked to value studies and proposals, 474 00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:04,800 and I think, how did this even get past the first line of 475 00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:09,480 editors? It's so bad, So you have to always evaluate how go past 476 00:40:09,599 --> 00:40:15,480 the headlines which are clickbait? Find out are we talking about ten people? 477 00:40:15,199 --> 00:40:21,639 Are we talking about four hundred randomly chosen psychopathic? I don't know, but 478 00:40:21,679 --> 00:40:24,400 i'd have to see that before I could tell you much more about that study. 479 00:40:24,599 --> 00:40:28,960 I found it intriguing. You didn't have time to read it. I'll 480 00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:31,320 have to look for that. That sounds neat first of all, the big 481 00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:36,039 question, are you going to be a crime con this year in Orlando? 482 00:40:37,079 --> 00:40:44,039 No? Oh, Catherine, No, I need a break from traveling so 483 00:40:44,199 --> 00:40:46,280 sick of it. I don't blame you right now. The only travel I'm 484 00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:51,440 doing is for trainings. Had they asked me to come to speak, I 485 00:40:51,519 --> 00:40:54,559 probably would have, but they didn't, so I have other places to go 486 00:40:55,239 --> 00:41:00,000 to do. I'm doing trainings for a hospital facility and doing for police. 487 00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:07,320 That to me is more interesting and satisfying than just going to the crowds known 488 00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:12,559 as grime con. So maybe I invite me the next year. But this 489 00:41:12,639 --> 00:41:15,320 year is out, And so then what projects are you working on now that 490 00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:20,480 you've as you mentioned at the top, you've stopped teaching undergrads. So what 491 00:41:20,519 --> 00:41:22,199 are your projects now? Like? How are you filling your time? I'm 492 00:41:22,199 --> 00:41:27,679 actually writing a series of novels about a forensic psychologist who lives in the Outer 493 00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:34,320 Banks and or on the Outer Banks, and she runs a team. She 494 00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:39,360 owns a PI agency and runs a team. And I take actual twisty, 495 00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:45,360 weird crimes and put them into my fiction. So the second one. The 496 00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:47,280 first one came out last year. It's called ice Cream Man. The second 497 00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:51,480 one's coming out. It's called in the Damage Path. And in a way 498 00:41:51,559 --> 00:41:55,559 it's about what we're talking about, because there's a tornado and the tornado's behavior 499 00:41:55,760 --> 00:42:00,360 is always understood in the wake of its damage path. I like that that's 500 00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:05,599 the metaphor of a serial killer. That's exactly how we understand the serial killer 501 00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:09,320 as well, so the metaphor of the tornado that happens in this particular book, 502 00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:15,760 which hits a prison. So that book is coming out at the end 503 00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:22,199 of August. Excellent. Working on another book that's similar to the Dennis writ 504 00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,039 book, the Confession of a serial Killer book, but it's too soon to 505 00:42:25,079 --> 00:42:30,079 say who it is. Okay, very interesting, We're intrigued. We will 506 00:42:30,119 --> 00:42:36,360 make sure that we put links to your Psychology Today article why It's so Hard 507 00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:39,880 to Predict Psychopathy from May twenty second of this year up in our show notes. 508 00:42:40,039 --> 00:42:43,639 And of course we would love to have you back to talk about your 509 00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:47,039 book once it comes out. I will say they change the title of that 510 00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:53,679 blog, oh do say? Because originally it was called Psychopaths Take Cream in 511 00:42:53,679 --> 00:43:02,880 their copy too, and which was to say, so I get black, 512 00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:09,480 but not all of them, but they change the title unfortunately. We'll make 513 00:43:09,519 --> 00:43:13,800 sure that we put a link up to that. I think that's going to 514 00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:16,000 do it for this episode of mind Over Murder. Thank you so much for 515 00:43:16,079 --> 00:43:19,519 joining us, Catherine. As always, it's a pleasure to have you on. 516 00:43:20,079 --> 00:43:22,880 Thank you, I appreciate you spun to be here, great questions. 517 00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,199 That's going to do it for this episode of mind Over Murder. Thank you 518 00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:38,000 so much for listening. We'll see you next time. Mind Over Murder is 519 00:43:38,039 --> 00:43:45,159 a production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers are Bill 520 00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:50,559 Thomas and Kristin Dewey. Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. Our theme 521 00:43:50,679 --> 00:43:54,800 music is by Kevin McLeod. Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral 522 00:43:54,840 --> 00:44:00,760 Space Media. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. 523 00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:05,119 You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway Murders on Facebook, and 524 00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:08,679 finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at Bill Thomas five six. 525 00:44:09,199 --> 00:44:13,159 Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.