1 00:00:01,120 --> 00:00:04,160 Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:09,679 Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer, 3 00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:12,839 and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my 4 00:00:12,919 --> 00:00:15,800 experience as the brother of a murder victim to help 5 00:00:15,880 --> 00:00:18,600 other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book 6 00:00:18,679 --> 00:00:21,440 on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders and I'm the co 7 00:00:21,519 --> 00:00:24,760 administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with 8 00:00:24,839 --> 00:00:25,519 Kristin Dilly. 9 00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:29,120 Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a researcher, 10 00:00:29,320 --> 00:00:32,079 a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the 11 00:00:32,119 --> 00:00:35,840 social media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway 12 00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:39,079 Murders Facebook page with my partner in crime, Bill Thomas. 13 00:00:46,359 --> 00:00:47,759 Speaker 4: Welcome to Mind Ever Murder. 14 00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:50,600 Speaker 2: I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas, and. 15 00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:53,920 Speaker 5: We're joined today by doctor Catherine Ramsland, author and all 16 00:00:53,960 --> 00:00:57,759 around amazing person here to talk to us about psychopaths. 17 00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:00,520 Speaker 4: Catherine, thank you for joining us today. 18 00:01:01,159 --> 00:01:03,920 Speaker 6: I'm glad to be here as always, and what a 19 00:01:03,960 --> 00:01:09,719 fun topic. Really, it's definitely an interesting and much more 20 00:01:09,799 --> 00:01:12,200 diverse topic than most people realize. 21 00:01:12,519 --> 00:01:14,439 Speaker 4: So what was the genesis for this article? 22 00:01:14,519 --> 00:01:16,519 Speaker 5: What made you decide, you know what, I think we 23 00:01:16,599 --> 00:01:18,719 need to talk about the history of psychopaths today. 24 00:01:19,079 --> 00:01:23,480 Speaker 6: Okay, I do teach a whole segment of my or 25 00:01:23,599 --> 00:01:27,879 formerly did my forensic psychology course on the whole notion 26 00:01:27,959 --> 00:01:32,680 of psychopaths. What's the history, how did the concept evolve? 27 00:01:33,079 --> 00:01:36,599 How do we understand it today? It's complicated and so 28 00:01:36,719 --> 00:01:39,640 my but my initial I'd write a lot of blogs. 29 00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:42,120 I have a blog at Psychology today. I've been doing 30 00:01:42,159 --> 00:01:46,560 it for ten years, and often we'll touch on psychopathy. 31 00:01:46,599 --> 00:01:49,239 But in this one, I was going to write about 32 00:01:49,640 --> 00:01:54,480 the ten types of psychopath that Theater, as a psychologist 33 00:01:54,519 --> 00:01:58,680 named Theater Milan had generated that no hardly anybody knows 34 00:01:58,719 --> 00:02:02,079 about because it just catch on. It's not the fashion, 35 00:02:02,840 --> 00:02:05,640 and all of a sudden it just evolved into a 36 00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:10,879 much bigger thing because you see all these articles making 37 00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:15,159 claims about psychopaths. If you drink black coffee, you're more 38 00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:19,680 likely vi a psychopaths, psychopaths prefer dark chocolate, psychopaths this 39 00:02:19,879 --> 00:02:24,800 or that, And they're all really core, poorly designed supposed 40 00:02:24,960 --> 00:02:31,039 research pieces. They're sciencing, essentially making it seem like psychopath 41 00:02:31,319 --> 00:02:35,919 is a very unified concept and that most of them 42 00:02:36,039 --> 00:02:40,599 will choose business majors or whatever it is, and it's 43 00:02:40,719 --> 00:02:44,039 just not like that. Clinically, it's not like that at all. 44 00:02:44,199 --> 00:02:46,439 So when I want to talk about it, I do 45 00:02:46,520 --> 00:02:48,599 want to talk about what we know in the clinical 46 00:02:48,639 --> 00:02:53,639 community versus what's out there in popular culture, because typically 47 00:02:53,639 --> 00:02:57,400 people would think the psychopath is a criminal and a 48 00:02:57,479 --> 00:03:04,000 serial killer. Most aren't serial killers or murderers or even criminals. 49 00:03:04,280 --> 00:03:06,120 And I think a lot of people don't get that 50 00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:10,000 because the concept the name psychopath is thrown amount so 51 00:03:10,199 --> 00:03:14,639 easily at anyone and everyone, And it's just really simple. 52 00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:18,800 Speaker 5: When most people think of the term psychopath, who do 53 00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:21,759 you think they're probably picturing? Because I have a very 54 00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:24,319 specific picture in my mind. When I think of psychopaths, 55 00:03:24,599 --> 00:03:26,400 I think you know who I'm talking about, because you 56 00:03:26,479 --> 00:03:28,719 just wrote an article about him with Kevin Sullivan. 57 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:32,199 Speaker 4: But when I think about psychopaths, I think of Ted Bundy. 58 00:03:32,439 --> 00:03:35,360 Speaker 6: And most people are thinking fictional ones. They're thinking Hannibal 59 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:39,400 Elector and yes, and Ted Bundy is the prototype serial 60 00:03:39,479 --> 00:03:40,439 killer psychopath. 61 00:03:40,520 --> 00:03:45,639 Speaker 2: Yeah, is the term abused? Would you say when people 62 00:03:45,759 --> 00:03:50,800 are tossing around fictional characters like Hannibal Elector or real 63 00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:54,800 life characters like Bundy. Is that kind of a one 64 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:57,759 dimensional way of looking at psychopaths. 65 00:03:58,240 --> 00:04:01,039 Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know if I use the word abuse, 66 00:04:01,199 --> 00:04:07,159 but certainly way over simplified, superficial, and mistaken for the 67 00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:11,639 most part. First of all, not all serial killers, the majority, 68 00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:15,199 are not all serious or psychopaths, and as I mentioned, 69 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:19,839 not all psychopaths are criminals at all. It also gets 70 00:04:20,120 --> 00:04:25,040 mixed up with the concept of a sociopath or antisocial 71 00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:30,199 personality disorder or the dark triad or it's a mess 72 00:04:30,439 --> 00:04:34,199 and it can be difficult. So clinicians will tend to 73 00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:39,759 go with what we know from the instrument that measures. 74 00:04:40,399 --> 00:04:46,040 It's a personality disorder that manifests a high degree of 75 00:04:46,360 --> 00:04:51,040 twenty traits and behaviors that are on an instrument called 76 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:56,160 the Psychopathy Checklist revised. Clinicians are going to stick pretty 77 00:04:56,160 --> 00:04:59,240 closely with that. That's not the only instrument that we use. 78 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:03,240 For example, there is none for sociopath. We have no 79 00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:06,399 diagnostic instrument, so I don't even use that word. It's 80 00:05:06,439 --> 00:05:09,800 an old fashioned word in the nineteen forties and fifties 81 00:05:10,279 --> 00:05:14,959 again also thrown out there easily to call somebody a name. 82 00:05:15,560 --> 00:05:19,800 But there isn't any diagnostic instrument for it anti social 83 00:05:19,879 --> 00:05:24,279 personality disorder. The third of these concepts does have the 84 00:05:24,759 --> 00:05:29,720 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM for that one. But 85 00:05:29,959 --> 00:05:35,639 in every part of this interpretation of behavior and personality 86 00:05:35,720 --> 00:05:40,439 traits is up to the clinician, and you're certainly going 87 00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:43,319 to get people disagreeing over who is or isn't a 88 00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:46,800 psychopath always. You'll always have that, especially if they're on 89 00:05:46,839 --> 00:05:50,240 the border. So on this list, let me just finish that. 90 00:05:50,319 --> 00:05:53,399 On this list of the twenty traits and behaviors, each 91 00:05:53,519 --> 00:05:56,399 gets assigned a number in terms of how much the 92 00:05:56,439 --> 00:06:00,600 person manifests those things. So from zero to two. If 93 00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:03,759 you're not manipulative, you'll have a zero, but if you're 94 00:06:03,920 --> 00:06:07,720 highly manipulative, you'll have a two. So the twenty traits 95 00:06:07,720 --> 00:06:11,040 and behaviors, the highest score is forty. If you are 96 00:06:11,079 --> 00:06:14,959 between the thirty and forty, you're considered to be diagnosed 97 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:15,839 as a psychopath. 98 00:06:16,639 --> 00:06:19,000 Speaker 5: Let's stay on the checklist for a minute, because I 99 00:06:19,079 --> 00:06:23,800 find that really interesting. You'd mentioned manipulative already. What other 100 00:06:23,879 --> 00:06:26,800 behaviors and personality traits are going to be found on 101 00:06:26,839 --> 00:06:30,079 the psychopathy checklist is? What else is it seeking to measure? 102 00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:34,759 Speaker 6: Okay, so there's some that are not well known. It 103 00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:38,519 was a Canadian checklist initially, so it was within the 104 00:06:39,079 --> 00:06:42,120 and it was developed by a prison psychologist, so it's 105 00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:45,839 within the Canadian correctional system. So something like what we 106 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:50,399 would call they break their parole is one of the things, okay, 107 00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:53,720 and that's not something people normally think about, but lack 108 00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:57,120 of remorse, that's probably the hallmark right there, what we 109 00:06:57,199 --> 00:07:02,800 call the primary psychopath or perhaps the born psychopath. Serial relationships, 110 00:07:02,879 --> 00:07:08,920 jumping from one to another, parasitic behavior, deception, narcissism, such 111 00:07:08,959 --> 00:07:11,279 things as that. So you would have and that list 112 00:07:11,399 --> 00:07:14,360 is pretty easy to find. You just look up psychopathy 113 00:07:14,439 --> 00:07:16,720 checklist and you'll get all twenty of them. 114 00:07:16,959 --> 00:07:19,000 Speaker 5: And that was developed by Robert Hare, Is that right? 115 00:07:19,319 --> 00:07:22,120 Speaker 6: Yeah. Robert Hare was a prison psychologist and he had 116 00:07:22,399 --> 00:07:27,040 corresponded with a man named a psychiatrist, prison psychiatrist named 117 00:07:27,079 --> 00:07:30,759 Herbie Cleckley, who actually did evaluate Ted Bundy at one point. 118 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:34,480 Coleckley it was the first one to really crystallize the 119 00:07:34,519 --> 00:07:37,319 traits and behaviors. He had a list of sixteen and 120 00:07:37,399 --> 00:07:40,519 he and Hair corresponded a bit and then Hair and 121 00:07:40,560 --> 00:07:43,800 his colleagues took those traits and behaviors, added a few 122 00:07:43,800 --> 00:07:46,839 more from based on their work in the prisons to 123 00:07:46,879 --> 00:07:51,480 come up with a standardized instrument. So it wasn't just 124 00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:56,279 left to clinical opinion. It was really, here's a standardized instrument. 125 00:07:56,360 --> 00:07:59,120 He does a lot of trainings so people know how 126 00:07:59,160 --> 00:08:02,560 to use it. Just a simple take your list of twenty, 127 00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:05,959 sit in the bar and think about your ex Spouser's 128 00:08:07,399 --> 00:08:08,920 that easy? Yeah? 129 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:14,519 Speaker 2: I found myself thinking a lot about ex girlfriends this list. 130 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:17,879 Speaker 6: People wish it were that easy and maybe treated as 131 00:08:17,920 --> 00:08:21,240 if it's that easy, but it's not. As a perfect 132 00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:25,439 example is a guy's book, John what's his name Ronson, 133 00:08:25,480 --> 00:08:30,040 I think the psychopath Test. He wrote a really hilly, 134 00:08:30,519 --> 00:08:35,120 almost mocking book with a completely superficial understanding. Because he's 135 00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:37,919 not a clinician, he was allowed in. I don't know 136 00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:41,120 why Bob Hare did this. I would have recommended that 137 00:08:41,159 --> 00:08:43,480 he didn't do this, but he was allowed in to 138 00:08:43,519 --> 00:08:45,919 see some of the trainings and whatnot, and then he 139 00:08:46,039 --> 00:08:49,799 just made fun of it and he completely misunderstood how 140 00:08:49,799 --> 00:08:50,519 it was used. 141 00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:53,480 Speaker 5: I had seen that actually the other day, just perusing 142 00:08:53,559 --> 00:08:56,080 around through Barnes and Noble as I want to do, 143 00:08:56,480 --> 00:08:58,039 and I did notice that and I picked it up 144 00:08:58,080 --> 00:08:59,919 and I was like, no, I don't think this is 145 00:09:00,120 --> 00:09:03,480 going to be worth my time actually, because it really 146 00:09:03,480 --> 00:09:05,600 did sound like he was taking it a little more 147 00:09:05,679 --> 00:09:08,879 lightly than it deserves to be. Okay, good, I'll check 148 00:09:08,919 --> 00:09:11,080 that one off the list of Toby reads. I won't 149 00:09:11,120 --> 00:09:11,960 deal with that one. 150 00:09:12,159 --> 00:09:13,840 Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a pointless book. 151 00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:19,000 Speaker 5: How accurate would you say the PCLR actually is that? 152 00:09:19,120 --> 00:09:21,919 I know it determined, it's determined by the clinician working 153 00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:24,720 with it. But how accurate would you say it is it? 154 00:09:24,759 --> 00:09:27,960 Speaker 6: Actually? It depends on who you ask, because there's certainly 155 00:09:27,960 --> 00:09:32,559 controversy in the psychiatric community about whether it's really the best. 156 00:09:32,600 --> 00:09:36,000 There are other instruments, but it's certainly the most validated, 157 00:09:36,440 --> 00:09:39,440 and it is also proven to be one of the 158 00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:45,559 best instruments for predicting the potential for violent behavior. If 159 00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:49,919 you're already a violent person, a violent psychopath, the chance 160 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:52,320 is that if you get out of prison, you will 161 00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:55,039 repeat your crime. The chances are high, and the Psychopathy 162 00:09:55,120 --> 00:09:57,960 Checklist is one of the key predictors for that. 163 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:01,080 Speaker 2: How long ago was that research done? So when you 164 00:10:01,120 --> 00:10:06,799 talk about a number of clinicians thousands using these materials, 165 00:10:06,840 --> 00:10:08,360 how long has that been around. 166 00:10:08,879 --> 00:10:11,879 Speaker 6: Cleckley wrote his book in the nineteen forties with multiple 167 00:10:12,039 --> 00:10:15,960 editions of it. Hair and his colleagues were working with 168 00:10:16,039 --> 00:10:20,399 this in nineteen seventies. I believe the initial testing was 169 00:10:20,440 --> 00:10:25,080 in late seventies, early eighties, nineteen eighties, and so it 170 00:10:25,159 --> 00:10:28,159 has been around that long in terms of how much 171 00:10:28,200 --> 00:10:32,159 they've worked with it. The problem with it was that 172 00:10:32,399 --> 00:10:36,480 most of the research was done on incarcerated individuals, so 173 00:10:37,039 --> 00:10:40,120 some of the claims made for psychopaths had to do 174 00:10:40,240 --> 00:10:43,919 with for example, impulsivity is one of the traits. This 175 00:10:44,039 --> 00:10:46,759 is when I talk about my class, you might find 176 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:49,720 high degree of impulsivity and people who have been caught 177 00:10:50,879 --> 00:10:55,279 and incarcerated. But let's say there's a lot of psychopaths 178 00:10:55,320 --> 00:11:00,919 who are more planful, more careful, more calculating, don't get caught, 179 00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:04,960 and that ends up not coming up on the psychopathy 180 00:11:05,039 --> 00:11:10,120 checklist because the checklist was based on these incarcerated individuals. 181 00:11:10,320 --> 00:11:12,759 So that's one of the criticisms of it is it's 182 00:11:12,799 --> 00:11:16,600 way too much skewed toward an incarcerated population, and also 183 00:11:16,679 --> 00:11:22,200 toward males and also toward adults. So in maybe the 184 00:11:22,279 --> 00:11:27,080 last twenty years, we've done a lot more on other races, 185 00:11:27,279 --> 00:11:32,840 on juveniles, even young kids. There have been some iterations 186 00:11:32,919 --> 00:11:37,960 of the psychopathy checklist for kids for women. So there's 187 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:40,759 more research now on other types of populations, but the 188 00:11:40,799 --> 00:11:44,639 majority of the early research was really unincarcerated male offenders 189 00:11:44,679 --> 00:11:45,759 who were adults. 190 00:11:46,120 --> 00:11:49,519 Speaker 5: Is psychopathy something that occurs more in men or women 191 00:11:49,799 --> 00:11:52,159 or just like anything across the population. Is it going 192 00:11:52,240 --> 00:11:55,080 to be maybe an equal measure or does it skew 193 00:11:55,120 --> 00:11:55,799 more toward men. 194 00:11:56,360 --> 00:11:59,159 Speaker 6: That's the problem is it does skew toward men. But 195 00:11:59,200 --> 00:12:04,159 that art we have women diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, 196 00:12:04,240 --> 00:12:09,200 for example, who might actually be psychopaths. Instead. There was 197 00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:14,519 for a while a reluctance to diagnose females as psychopaths 198 00:12:14,559 --> 00:12:17,639 because it seemed more because there's more violence among males. 199 00:12:18,080 --> 00:12:21,200 But that again is a misunderstanding of psychopathy that it's 200 00:12:21,240 --> 00:12:25,240 about violence, because it isn't. Bob Hare says, we have 201 00:12:25,399 --> 00:12:31,000 the same distribution of psychopathy in females as in males, 202 00:12:31,039 --> 00:12:35,559 but the females tend to have lower scores overall. Like 203 00:12:35,720 --> 00:12:39,080 male psychopaths might be up in the thirty seven, thirty 204 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:42,759 eight to thirty nine, women more toward thirty one thirty 205 00:12:42,759 --> 00:12:47,240 two thirty three, but he says the distribution is still 206 00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:51,639 fairly close. Others will say, again, it depends on the 207 00:12:51,679 --> 00:12:54,559 research and how it's being interpreted about. Others will say, 208 00:12:55,120 --> 00:13:00,840 there certainly are less fewer female psychopaths than male, but 209 00:13:01,759 --> 00:13:05,480 are they being accurately diagnosed. That's a question because they 210 00:13:05,519 --> 00:13:08,639 do seem to manifest things in a different ways or 211 00:13:08,679 --> 00:13:14,159 more manipulative, for example, rather than narcissistic, let's say. And also, 212 00:13:14,600 --> 00:13:17,559 you want to throw in one more complication, there's a 213 00:13:17,559 --> 00:13:20,840 difference between a primary and a secondary psychopath. So the 214 00:13:20,879 --> 00:13:25,320 primary psychopath appears to be the born psychopath, the one 215 00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:28,519 where we're actually finding a number of anomalies in the 216 00:13:28,559 --> 00:13:32,960 brain that set psychopaths apart from other people. And so 217 00:13:33,759 --> 00:13:36,440 some are set apart from other offenders, some are set 218 00:13:36,480 --> 00:13:41,360 apart from other violent defenders. It gets tricky. But the 219 00:13:41,399 --> 00:13:46,840 secondary psychopaths apparently seem to be more reactive. So the 220 00:13:46,879 --> 00:13:53,480 primary psychopaths are low emotionality, blunted emotionality, no remorse, what 221 00:13:53,559 --> 00:13:57,639 you typically think of as a psychopath, but thuggish, grumpy, 222 00:13:58,159 --> 00:14:02,919 I don't care about anybody but myself psychopath reactive. The 223 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:06,559 secondary psychopath is more reactive and often will have had 224 00:14:06,679 --> 00:14:11,360 abuse in their background, or neglect or starvation or something 225 00:14:11,399 --> 00:14:15,919 where they've developed psychopathy as a survival tactic, and so 226 00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:19,120 they're going to manifest that differently. They have higher emotionality, 227 00:14:19,159 --> 00:14:22,240 for example, they will manifest it differently, but they'll still 228 00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:26,559 get a high score on the Psychopathy checklist, but just 229 00:14:26,600 --> 00:14:33,519 in other dimensions than that emotional blunting, that calculated, cold 230 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:37,240 kind of psychopath you typically think of. So that makes 231 00:14:37,279 --> 00:14:42,720 it harder because psychopathy is considered to have these two facets, 232 00:14:42,799 --> 00:14:45,639 and the checklist gives us these two facets, and both 233 00:14:45,679 --> 00:14:50,320 of them have two factors, so it depends on what 234 00:14:50,440 --> 00:14:55,799 they're manifesting. Some are highly parasitic, and so they tend 235 00:14:55,840 --> 00:14:59,200 to take what other people have, or camp out on 236 00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:02,559 their couch three months and eat all their food, take 237 00:15:02,639 --> 00:15:06,840 their money, but they're not doing other kinds of things. 238 00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:12,639 So the way we understand psychopaths, it has to do 239 00:15:12,759 --> 00:15:16,879 with the kind behavior they're manifesting more often, and that's 240 00:15:16,919 --> 00:15:22,519 why it's just not a uniform concept. Different psychopaths will 241 00:15:22,559 --> 00:15:26,840 manifest different types of behaviors, but all of them would 242 00:15:26,919 --> 00:15:30,039 still if they come up in at thirty to forty 243 00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:33,399 range and the test, they're still going to be considered 244 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:37,840 psychopaths even though they act differently. I think that's very complicated. 245 00:15:38,080 --> 00:15:40,120 If you are just do what I'm saying. 246 00:15:39,960 --> 00:15:42,320 Speaker 5: No totally, and keep it in mind that I haven't 247 00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:46,080 had more than a rudimentary psychology class in a very 248 00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:48,159 long time. I took a normal SAK in college, and 249 00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:50,039 I think it's about the last time I touched it. 250 00:15:50,519 --> 00:15:52,200 I guess I had never given a lot of thoughts 251 00:15:52,240 --> 00:15:55,320 to the idea that psychopaths can be created. I always 252 00:15:55,360 --> 00:15:58,000 thought there was this idea that you were born with psychopathy. 253 00:15:58,360 --> 00:16:01,320 It hadn't occurred to me that like it can be 254 00:16:01,559 --> 00:16:02,679 developed over time. 255 00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:04,399 Speaker 4: So this is very interesting to me. 256 00:16:04,919 --> 00:16:08,919 Speaker 6: And also some people will say, oh, when you say 257 00:16:09,240 --> 00:16:13,080 primary versus secondary psychopath, that's the difference between a psychopath 258 00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:17,080 and a sociopath. So you'll get that whole segment of 259 00:16:17,120 --> 00:16:21,120 the clinical community saying that as well. But certainly that 260 00:16:21,440 --> 00:16:28,679 secondary psychopathy is or appears to be more environmentally attuned 261 00:16:28,879 --> 00:16:34,000 and reactive than the primary psychopath, which appears, from what 262 00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:37,559 we know from brain research, to have been born with 263 00:16:37,679 --> 00:16:42,360 an emotional disconnect, so their emotionality. I saw a study 264 00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:44,879 recently about how they have a hard time with music. 265 00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:50,759 Their emotionality is considered fairly superficial. They're not deeply rooted 266 00:16:50,799 --> 00:16:53,840 in the truth because their manipulators are going to do 267 00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:56,639 whatever it works to their own advantage, and they're not 268 00:16:56,679 --> 00:16:59,519 going to care who gets hurt in the process, even 269 00:16:59,559 --> 00:17:02,080 their own family. They're not going to care because what 270 00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:06,400 matters is what they want. That's more the primary psychopath. 271 00:17:06,559 --> 00:17:08,799 You'll get some of that with the secondary, but the 272 00:17:08,799 --> 00:17:12,359 secondary is really almost more of a response to a 273 00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:14,039 difficult environment. 274 00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:17,680 Speaker 2: This almost sounds like nature versus nurture, doesn't it. 275 00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:21,279 Speaker 6: Except that there's no formula. There's none at all. Nature 276 00:17:21,319 --> 00:17:24,960 and nurture are part of both. How much is the 277 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:28,759 brain a participant in this? We still don't know. We 278 00:17:28,799 --> 00:17:31,880 don't have enough. There's a lot of research going on, 279 00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:35,000 but there's nothing you could say definitively. If we could, 280 00:17:35,359 --> 00:17:40,799 the cored system would have to change incredibly significantly, because 281 00:17:40,799 --> 00:17:44,079 if we go in and say the psychopaths, let's say 282 00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:48,079 born psychopaths, primary psychopaths can't help what they what they're 283 00:17:48,119 --> 00:17:53,440 doing because they don't process moral information, or emotionality or caring, 284 00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:57,720 so we can't really hold them accountable for the decisions 285 00:17:57,720 --> 00:18:00,160 they make. That's going to be a very tough sell 286 00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:04,279 if that's what it comes to. Currently, we think psychopaths 287 00:18:04,319 --> 00:18:07,880 are just evil people who make bad decisions. That's the 288 00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:10,960 popular notion, but that is not what the research says. 289 00:18:11,359 --> 00:18:14,799 Speaker 5: That actually leads into a pretty interesting question here. What 290 00:18:14,799 --> 00:18:18,039 would you say are some of the most common misunderstandings 291 00:18:18,039 --> 00:18:21,240 that we have as a whole about psychopaths? And you 292 00:18:21,359 --> 00:18:24,000 really just iterated one of them metal psychopaths are evil 293 00:18:24,119 --> 00:18:27,640 and have no sense of fellow feeling for other people. 294 00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:30,279 But yeah, what are some of the other common misunderstandings 295 00:18:30,319 --> 00:18:32,720 that we have about psychopathy that. 296 00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:35,279 Speaker 6: They all to behave the same That's what this law 297 00:18:35,480 --> 00:18:39,400 was about, is how can you say somebody who prefers 298 00:18:39,440 --> 00:18:43,240 black copy is more likely to be a psychopath. That 299 00:18:43,319 --> 00:18:47,359 doesn't even make any sense that they all manifest the same, 300 00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:50,759 That they're all criminals is another one that you hear 301 00:18:50,880 --> 00:18:54,720 a lot that just because someone's labeled a psychopath, they 302 00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:59,079 are a psychopath. Because so many people label ignorantly. I'm 303 00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:03,799 often asked, they'll go through all the political figures, so 304 00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:08,519 and so a psychopath. Okay, I can't. Actually I don't 305 00:19:08,559 --> 00:19:11,440 know because I didn't do the psychopathy checklists with them. 306 00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:15,400 We're not supposed to really diagnose people from a distance 307 00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:17,839 that we're not really having them in any kind of 308 00:19:17,839 --> 00:19:21,960 clinical arena, But lots of people do it anyway because 309 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:25,880 there's enough behavior out there that's consistent across time to 310 00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:28,160 be able to But the way they put it is 311 00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:32,039 I can look at them through the psychopathic lens. I'm 312 00:19:32,079 --> 00:19:36,279 not diagnosing them. I'm forming a clinical opinion based on 313 00:19:36,640 --> 00:19:39,480 the behavior we do know. There's a whole book on 314 00:19:40,200 --> 00:19:43,640 I won't name any names, but there's whole books on 315 00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:48,880 some of these political figures where you'll get psychiatrists and 316 00:19:48,960 --> 00:19:52,880 psychologists into the fray, all giving diagnosis of somebody they 317 00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:57,599 never met. And it's not that simple. So maybe that's 318 00:19:57,640 --> 00:20:02,359 the number one issue is people think because there's a checklist, 319 00:20:02,839 --> 00:20:06,079 it's a simple matter from going down the list, reading 320 00:20:06,119 --> 00:20:09,839 the media accounts and going down the list isn't simple. 321 00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:13,279 Speaker 2: It's not and they may have never even met this person. 322 00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:15,599 Speaker 6: Often have not met the person. 323 00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:18,720 Speaker 2: Those articles when I read them, I'm not saying they're 324 00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:22,039 not interesting. They often are, but they usually start with 325 00:20:22,079 --> 00:20:25,200 some sort of caveat that you're not supposed to do this, 326 00:20:25,799 --> 00:20:30,039 and you're not supposed to analyze someone that you've net 327 00:20:31,359 --> 00:20:33,880 Now I'm going to go right ahead. And then they 328 00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:39,599 proceed to apply some of these standards to these individuals 329 00:20:39,640 --> 00:20:42,160 and say, I think so and so is a psychopath 330 00:20:42,319 --> 00:20:47,279 or whatever. Are there people, though, Catherine, that you've met 331 00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:50,480 or studied in your real life, through the work that 332 00:20:50,519 --> 00:20:53,559 you've done over the years, where you've said to yourself, 333 00:20:53,799 --> 00:20:57,920 this person is a serious and dangerous psychopath. 334 00:20:58,599 --> 00:21:02,279 Speaker 6: Interestingly, to a raider and I have discussed this the 335 00:21:02,359 --> 00:21:06,920 BTK serial killer, because he has never been diagnosed as 336 00:21:06,960 --> 00:21:13,359 a psychopath. However, person psychologist who came, actually many serial 337 00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:16,839 killers never have been the psychologists who came to do 338 00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:22,279 the competency evaluation before what might have been led into 339 00:21:22,319 --> 00:21:25,000 a trial though he didn't have a trial. On the 340 00:21:25,039 --> 00:21:29,079 back of his report, wrote in pencil psychopath with a 341 00:21:29,119 --> 00:21:32,079 big question mark. I don't know why he wrote that, 342 00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:35,519 except that in the United States we don't tend to 343 00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:39,359 use the psychopathy checklist. We use the diagnost against a 344 00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:44,880 physical manual, which isn't the same thing because that manual 345 00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:49,519 realizes only on behavior, not personality traits. Maybe he was saying, 346 00:21:50,079 --> 00:21:52,960 I wonder if we should bring in the Psychopathy checklist, 347 00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:55,559 I don't know, because he wasn't there to do an 348 00:21:55,599 --> 00:21:59,559 insanity evaluation. It was really competency. Is he competent to 349 00:21:59,559 --> 00:22:03,200 go to child? So that was interesting And Dennis has 350 00:22:03,279 --> 00:22:06,119 even asked me do I think he's a psychopath? And 351 00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:09,519 certainly he's got many of the traits and behaviors, but 352 00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:14,160 married to one person and no serial relationships. In fact, 353 00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:16,519 I think a whole group of psychologists took it on, 354 00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:19,880 took him on, and they've taken on. They found ted 355 00:22:19,960 --> 00:22:22,680 Bundy to be somebody who gets a high score, but 356 00:22:22,759 --> 00:22:26,119 some of the others not so much. And Dennis Raider 357 00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:28,799 did not rise to the level of a thirty on 358 00:22:28,839 --> 00:22:31,559 the Psychopathy Checklist in part because he didn't have a 359 00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:35,440 juvenile record and never had a parole violation. Because he's 360 00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:38,960 never had parole, he married one woman and stayed with 361 00:22:39,039 --> 00:22:41,880 that woman, So there's a number of things he comes 362 00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:44,880 up to zero on this list, and if you can't 363 00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:49,200 get to a score of thirty, he doesn't get that diagnosis. Nevertheless, 364 00:22:50,119 --> 00:22:54,400 I would say he's manipulative. He doesn't really have a 365 00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:57,680 remorse about what he did to people. He may care 366 00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:01,079 about his family, but he doesn't care about what he 367 00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:05,680 did to his victims. He's not impulsive. He was very calculating. 368 00:23:05,799 --> 00:23:11,680 So there's a zero on that part checklist, and certainly 369 00:23:11,839 --> 00:23:17,839 diminished fear and guilt response in his part. Emotional blunting 370 00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:21,960 is there, but all of his traits and behaviors don't 371 00:23:22,039 --> 00:23:24,640 rise to the level of giving him a score of 372 00:23:24,759 --> 00:23:28,440 thirty or more on the psychopathy checklist. So people would 373 00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:30,880 say to me, that's just crazy. As serial killer is 374 00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:36,960 a psychopath, not clinically speaking, and probably nobody's done more 375 00:23:37,079 --> 00:23:39,440 work with him than me. I have known it for 376 00:23:39,519 --> 00:23:42,279 thirteen years now. We did a lot of testing and whatnot, 377 00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:45,720 and I would say, he just doesn't manifest all the 378 00:23:45,799 --> 00:23:47,960 things you would expect of a psychopath. 379 00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:51,200 Speaker 5: When he asked you, Catherine, do you think I'm a psychopath? 380 00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:54,039 Did he really seem to want to understand more about 381 00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:57,200 himself and why he did all of these horrible things. 382 00:23:57,359 --> 00:23:59,559 I'm just curious why the question would have come up 383 00:23:59,599 --> 00:24:02,680 for how was he really interested in doing self reflection 384 00:24:02,799 --> 00:24:04,759 or was it just a what do you think. 385 00:24:05,079 --> 00:24:09,359 Speaker 6: He's a narcissist? He's really interested in having attention aimed 386 00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:10,119 to write at him. 387 00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:11,279 Speaker 2: Let's talk about me. 388 00:24:11,799 --> 00:24:14,640 Speaker 6: Yeah, and so we looked at a few books and 389 00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:18,240 oh and I remember, I love this one too. This 390 00:24:18,319 --> 00:24:20,880 has to do it. There's a whole aspect of the 391 00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:25,359 clinical community that thinks narcissists can do these self assessments. 392 00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,480 And I won't say who gave me the test to 393 00:24:29,519 --> 00:24:32,599 give to Raider was a prominent psychologist in the field 394 00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,960 of psychopathy research, and he said, give Raider the self 395 00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:40,039 assessment psychopathy test. I said, I think he's just gonna lie. 396 00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:44,119 I can figure out what what just looking for in 397 00:24:44,279 --> 00:24:47,920 this test? And he did lie. For example, was something like, 398 00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:52,000 has anyone ever said that you're a dishonest person? And 399 00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,039 he put no, And I said, did you not hear 400 00:24:55,079 --> 00:25:01,079 the victims' families your sensing here? And he said, I'm 401 00:25:01,079 --> 00:25:02,240 talking about today. 402 00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:05,799 Speaker 2: Oh, it's manipulation one oh one, isn't it? 403 00:25:06,079 --> 00:25:10,319 Speaker 6: And that's in validate his score right off the back 404 00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:14,000 because he was angling for what does this mean? How 405 00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:16,839 do I make myself look good? Blah blah blah. So 406 00:25:17,039 --> 00:25:22,079 the idea of the self analysis by psychopaths is so 407 00:25:22,559 --> 00:25:26,079 weird to me, and yet there's all kinds of research 408 00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:30,400 and using that test with offenders who supposedly want to 409 00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:34,559 really know about themselves. There's such a thing as faking bad. 410 00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,839 There's such a thing as faking good, and we have 411 00:25:37,079 --> 00:25:40,440 personal tests that catch that, but that one doesn't catch it. 412 00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:43,000 And I had to give the test back to this 413 00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:46,799 psychologist and say it's just is not going to work. 414 00:25:47,039 --> 00:25:49,880 He's going to give the answer he thinks he should 415 00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:52,200 give and not necessarily an honest one. 416 00:25:52,599 --> 00:25:55,319 Speaker 2: You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back 417 00:25:55,559 --> 00:26:02,519 after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at 418 00:26:02,519 --> 00:26:05,720 Mind over Murder. The testing and the work that you 419 00:26:05,799 --> 00:26:09,160 did with Dennis Rader, was it face to face in most. 420 00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:10,039 Speaker 4: Of it was not? 421 00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:14,400 Speaker 6: No, because in the prison where he is in the 422 00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:17,640 maxim it's a maximum security prisons. I was in one booth, 423 00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,319 he was in another booth, and it was through a 424 00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:23,519 video thing. Some of them are pencil and paper tests, 425 00:26:23,559 --> 00:26:25,599 and he could just send them back to me. Some 426 00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:27,680 of them we did over the phone, but there wasn't. 427 00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:30,319 You don't get to be in face to face unless 428 00:26:30,319 --> 00:26:32,759 you're in there with his attorney, and at the time 429 00:26:32,799 --> 00:26:33,920 he doesn't have an attorney. 430 00:26:34,559 --> 00:26:37,200 Speaker 2: So you were in the same facility but not in 431 00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:38,079 the same room. 432 00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:40,440 Speaker 6: And even now you can't visit him that way because 433 00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:42,440 they took all those rooms out during COVID and they 434 00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,319 haven't put them back. Oh wow, because now they have video, 435 00:26:45,839 --> 00:26:48,079 So I could do something like that on video, but 436 00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,359 it's I don't think I would get anything different. 437 00:26:50,839 --> 00:26:53,200 Speaker 2: Truth is, you could probably do something from across the 438 00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:57,640 country now with technology being Do you feel like the 439 00:26:57,799 --> 00:27:02,319 reliability of the information that you received would be as 440 00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:05,720 good as if you were in adjoining rooms using a 441 00:27:05,799 --> 00:27:06,599 video system. 442 00:27:07,039 --> 00:27:09,880 Speaker 6: It depends on what tests you're giving them, what kinds 443 00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,160 of exercises you're asking them to do, what's at stake, 444 00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,000 So that's a hard question to answer. Generically. 445 00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:21,000 Speaker 2: You had mentioned before some of these evaluations are to 446 00:27:21,079 --> 00:27:25,240 determine whether someone's competent to stand trial and things like that, 447 00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,200 so they in some cases know that there's a lot 448 00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:29,839 writing on the outcome. 449 00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:35,319 Speaker 6: There's lots of malingering going on. If there's something big 450 00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:38,839 at steak and they have read books about how to 451 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:42,319 fake it, they'll do that. If they are really worried, 452 00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:46,519 they will bake it. Yeah, So many forensic psychologists are 453 00:27:46,519 --> 00:27:52,160 trained on instruments that detect malingering. Sometimes you'll find psychologists 454 00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:56,680 are going naive thinking they're really good at spotting lies. 455 00:27:59,279 --> 00:28:03,000 Turns out research says no, they're not. They're not the 456 00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,000 same as the average person. But if they believe they're 457 00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,200 good at it, they can easily be duped, and that happens. 458 00:28:10,079 --> 00:28:15,599 Speaker 5: Are there instances in which psychopathy might be a positive 459 00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,279 trait or can benefit a person who is identified as 460 00:28:19,319 --> 00:28:20,000 a psychopath. 461 00:28:20,799 --> 00:28:26,960 Speaker 6: You have whole books on that. There's the successful psychopath, 462 00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:30,640 almost a psychopath. Yeah, there's a number of books about 463 00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:35,759 psychopaths being evolutionarily superior. In fact, somebody recently asked me 464 00:28:35,799 --> 00:28:38,920 when I was at the Writer's Police Academy, could psychopaths 465 00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:42,319 adaptively go past all the rest of us? And I said, 466 00:28:42,359 --> 00:28:45,599 when AI figures out a way to destroy the human race, 467 00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:47,960 the psychopaths will emerge as the victors. 468 00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:54,640 Speaker 2: Right, something to look forward to the rise of the machines. 469 00:28:55,599 --> 00:29:01,640 Speaker 6: They definitely have adaptation traits, not for community and connection, 470 00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:04,920 but for survival. You better believe it. 471 00:29:05,359 --> 00:29:08,359 Speaker 2: I think of a number of CEOs, some of whom 472 00:29:08,359 --> 00:29:09,279 I've worked for. 473 00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:14,759 Speaker 6: The psychopaths are attracted to positions of power where money 474 00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:20,839 is handled, where interesting careers because they're sensation seekers. They 475 00:29:20,839 --> 00:29:24,880 don't like boredom. They move into places where they can 476 00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,920 manipulate other people and get things for themselves and have power. 477 00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:35,079 That's why. And they're very attracted to politics, banking, CEO, 478 00:29:35,599 --> 00:29:38,720 so lots of business majors, definitely. 479 00:29:38,559 --> 00:29:40,119 Speaker 2: Investment banking for sure. 480 00:29:40,599 --> 00:29:42,720 Speaker 6: Yeah, which is not to say a writer can't be 481 00:29:42,759 --> 00:29:48,920 a psychopath, because they certainly can't be, or at least. 482 00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:52,400 Speaker 2: Half a psychopathes is the doctor with seventy books under 483 00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:53,079 her belt. 484 00:29:56,319 --> 00:30:00,319 Speaker 5: So it's actually entirely possible that most of us, at 485 00:30:00,359 --> 00:30:02,240 least once and probably more than once in our lives, 486 00:30:02,279 --> 00:30:06,480 have encountered someone who meets the criteria for psychopathy. 487 00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:08,920 Speaker 6: And about one in one hundred people, their chances are 488 00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:12,240 pretty good that you've met somebody who's at least on 489 00:30:12,279 --> 00:30:16,920 the borderline. But if they and they're not committing crimes necessarily, 490 00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:20,880 but they might break promises, they might might tell you 491 00:30:21,119 --> 00:30:23,519 they're going to do something and then they undermine you 492 00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:26,519 with it, They triangulate, they set you up to be 493 00:30:26,599 --> 00:30:29,920 punished by somebody else, so you don't think it was 494 00:30:30,039 --> 00:30:33,799 them that did it. That In relationships, they tend to 495 00:30:33,799 --> 00:30:40,279 be very narcissistic and cold calculating, so they're not necessarily 496 00:30:40,319 --> 00:30:43,799 breaking any laws but they're breaking hearts for sure. There's 497 00:30:43,799 --> 00:30:46,400 a lot of psychopathy survivor groups. 498 00:30:47,079 --> 00:30:49,559 Speaker 5: I can definitely see where that would be something that 499 00:30:49,599 --> 00:30:52,000 you would need or want to have around. And I'm 500 00:30:52,039 --> 00:30:54,279 really interested in what you said earlier about the fact 501 00:30:54,319 --> 00:30:57,240 that it's possible to detect it in children. Of course, 502 00:30:57,359 --> 00:30:59,640 as a teacher, I found that very interesting. I think 503 00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:01,759 by the time I get them as high schoolers, it's 504 00:31:01,759 --> 00:31:03,359 probably on its way to being developed. 505 00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:04,319 Speaker 4: But I'm curious as. 506 00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:06,880 Speaker 5: To how young we could detect it. I'm thinking of 507 00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:10,359 that six year old school shooter here from earlier this year. 508 00:31:10,359 --> 00:31:13,279 Speaker 6: I'm wondering if that had other issues though as far 509 00:31:13,319 --> 00:31:16,839 as I know from media reports, But three or four 510 00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:20,279 years old is when you start to see kids bullying 511 00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:25,640 for no reason, lying for no reason, stealing, doing property damage, 512 00:31:26,079 --> 00:31:30,200 showing that these narcissistic trends, the lack of remorse, We 513 00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:33,079 start to show that kind of around three or four, 514 00:31:33,759 --> 00:31:35,519 which is not to say they are a lost cause 515 00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:38,000 or not. In fact, there are some programs now for 516 00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:41,440 well we don't call them psychopathic. I'm kids at risk 517 00:31:41,519 --> 00:31:45,720 of developing psychopathy, and there are programs now for early 518 00:31:45,799 --> 00:31:50,319 intervention that have shown that you can turn them around. 519 00:31:50,319 --> 00:31:52,839 And I don't mean in the dexter way. In my opinion, 520 00:31:54,759 --> 00:31:57,200 I think that whole concept that he has to be 521 00:31:57,319 --> 00:32:01,519 concerned about I don't feel thingsbody else does. That's not 522 00:32:01,559 --> 00:32:05,559 a psychopath. They don't care about that. So it's about 523 00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:09,279 trying to show them why pro social behavior is in 524 00:32:09,359 --> 00:32:13,440 their best interest. So you appeal to the narcissistic aspect 525 00:32:13,519 --> 00:32:16,720 of them to at least try to connect with other 526 00:32:16,759 --> 00:32:19,319 people and take care of them, even if you don't 527 00:32:19,359 --> 00:32:23,200 feel it deeply. It's tough, and especially if this is 528 00:32:23,359 --> 00:32:27,200 in fact an inborn thing. It's not like you can 529 00:32:27,279 --> 00:32:31,160 just change that easily. But yeah, we have programs and 530 00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:33,960 we have all kinds of early alert. But I want 531 00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:35,960 to say this because a lot of people think you 532 00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:38,240 can spot a psychopath, thanks in part to some of 533 00:32:38,319 --> 00:32:42,799 these articles. Here's how you spot a psychopath. You get 534 00:32:42,799 --> 00:32:45,279 things like they don't yawn when other people. 535 00:32:45,039 --> 00:32:46,000 Speaker 4: Yawn, which is. 536 00:32:48,599 --> 00:32:53,119 Speaker 6: Ad or they use more flat words and their Twitter 537 00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:59,839 tweets or dumb. But it gives people a false sense 538 00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:01,799 of security that they're going to be able to spawn 539 00:33:01,799 --> 00:33:04,920 a psychopath if they see this and that, And you're lost. 540 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:05,640 Speaker 4: If you like. 541 00:33:05,799 --> 00:33:11,359 Speaker 6: Black coffee, dark chocolate business majors and go beyond. You're 542 00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:14,279 in trouble, but you're a write off right there. 543 00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:15,559 Speaker 2: Unbelievable. 544 00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:19,440 Speaker 6: But the idea that you can spot a psychopath, that's 545 00:33:19,559 --> 00:33:23,359 exactly At least people open to getting into relationships with 546 00:33:23,559 --> 00:33:28,680 charming individuals that they think couldn't possibly be these con artists, 547 00:33:29,279 --> 00:33:32,680 and then they get hurt and wonder why now. 548 00:33:32,519 --> 00:33:38,720 Speaker 2: We're back to my ex girlfriends. 549 00:33:36,079 --> 00:33:37,759 Speaker 4: Back from one of my ex boyfriends. 550 00:33:37,759 --> 00:33:40,000 Speaker 2: For sure, I'm going to sound like Dennis Rader with 551 00:33:40,079 --> 00:33:44,480 this next question, Catherine, Am I making these people psychopaths? 552 00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:48,119 Or did they make themselves psychopaths? I'm being serious here. 553 00:33:48,519 --> 00:33:52,559 All of us interact thousands of times with our fellow 554 00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:57,079 human beings. Are our behaviors impacting other people in a 555 00:33:57,119 --> 00:33:59,599 way that moves them closer. 556 00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:04,599 Speaker 6: To if we're talking about the secondary form of psychopathy, Yeah, 557 00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:08,079 because if they're already from a situation where they've been 558 00:34:08,119 --> 00:34:12,800 abused or seriously severely neglected, and then you come in 559 00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:16,559 and maybe start a relationship and then decide not this 560 00:34:16,679 --> 00:34:20,360 isn't for me. Wow, suddenly there's that abandonment thing and 561 00:34:20,559 --> 00:34:24,239 horrible treatment by somebody. Yeah, so it could be, but 562 00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,480 often you'll get with any personality disorder, you might get 563 00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:31,519 what we call comorbid so other disorders too, Which is 564 00:34:31,519 --> 00:34:33,480 what I wanted to say about the six year old. 565 00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:36,800 I wouldn't in any way call him a kid at 566 00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,119 risk for being a psychopath, because I don't know enough 567 00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:42,199 about him, but just had enough of the disorder where 568 00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:44,880 parents were supposed to be with him, and that was 569 00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:49,119 the problem that they neglected that particular duty. But usually 570 00:34:49,519 --> 00:34:53,079 psychopaths will have some other thing happening at the same time. 571 00:34:53,639 --> 00:34:57,000 So if you have a schizophrenia with psychopathy, which we 572 00:34:57,039 --> 00:35:01,840 call a schizopath, ooh oh man, But it can happen 573 00:35:02,119 --> 00:35:05,960 yeah where and they'll develop these maybe delusions and now 574 00:35:06,079 --> 00:35:11,239 and delusions with cold, callous, calculating, manipulative behavior that can 575 00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:13,119 lead to a lot of bad things too. 576 00:35:13,599 --> 00:35:16,000 Speaker 5: Okay, that idea of the schizopath is great to me. 577 00:35:16,199 --> 00:35:18,280 I just kind of take a minute and walk back 578 00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:18,760 from that one. 579 00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:23,000 Speaker 6: Yeah, it's rare, but it certainly can happen. Or psychopaths 580 00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:26,559 with delusional disorders where they have they listen to enough 581 00:35:26,639 --> 00:35:31,440 conspiracy freaks and start getting afraid and going I need 582 00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:35,159 to do something about this, and start getting armed, and 583 00:35:35,199 --> 00:35:37,880 then if you add in the layer, I don't care 584 00:35:38,159 --> 00:35:41,679 what happens to other people. Now you have the makings 585 00:35:41,679 --> 00:35:45,199 of somebody who is more likely than not to be 586 00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:49,960 violent because they don't have that moral inhibition factor. We 587 00:35:50,079 --> 00:35:53,519 are finding that appears to be a brain part missing. 588 00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:58,159 It's just not they're not making that connection with moral 589 00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:03,320 processing because I think the narcissism sometimes is too strong. 590 00:36:03,639 --> 00:36:06,519 It's all about me. It's all about what I need 591 00:36:06,519 --> 00:36:07,199 for myself. 592 00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:11,840 Speaker 5: You'd mentioned those early intervention strategies for young children who 593 00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:15,199 may be at risk for becoming psychopaths? Is there any 594 00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:17,880 way to treat psychopathy? And I know maybe treat as 595 00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:20,320 the wrong word. Is there any way to intervene with 596 00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:23,880 adults who are considered psychopaths, who maybe are looking at 597 00:36:24,039 --> 00:36:25,880 their behavior and going, I think I'd like to do 598 00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:28,360 a little bit better, like maybe I'd like to not 599 00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:30,280 be a psychopath for a while. Is there a way 600 00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:33,719 for their treatment options to treat psychopathy. 601 00:36:33,639 --> 00:36:36,679 Speaker 6: They're working on them. There's certainly a whole camp that 602 00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,559 they're untreatable, in part because they don't care that much 603 00:36:42,039 --> 00:36:46,159 and it's hard to inject care into them. What you 604 00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:49,880 have to do is it's usually cognitive behavioral therapy where 605 00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:54,280 you're convincing them that changing their behaviors and their best 606 00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:56,199 interest it's about somebody else's. 607 00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:59,159 Speaker 2: It's about their best interest and not what would be 608 00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,519 in the best interest of society as a whole. They 609 00:37:02,519 --> 00:37:05,159 don't care about that, they don't care about all of us. 610 00:37:05,639 --> 00:37:08,280 Speaker 6: You have to appeal to what they care about. And 611 00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:13,039 if you think of narcissism as an arrested development, almost 612 00:37:13,079 --> 00:37:17,920 infantile because it's very me centered, really just doesn't extend 613 00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:21,679 beyond the boundary of their own egos, that would make 614 00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:27,800 sense that they haven't matured enough to connect with community 615 00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:31,280 and want to care for others. Not saying they don't care, 616 00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:37,320 because certainly I've seen where a really psychopathic individual still 617 00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:41,920 has concern for someone close to them. Let's say Israel 618 00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:45,159 Keys was a good one. Israel Keys, a serial killer 619 00:37:45,159 --> 00:37:48,119 from Alaska, wanted to not make the mistakes that Ted 620 00:37:48,199 --> 00:37:52,079 Bundy made, so he decided to kill people randomly the 621 00:37:52,159 --> 00:37:55,920 go places, rob Banks, Barius, little murder kits, and then 622 00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,400 go back a year or two later and pick someone 623 00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:02,039 at random. So that was his big game for himself. 624 00:38:02,599 --> 00:38:06,719 But when he was caught by making a mistake like Bundy. 625 00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:11,480 He was caught. He wanted He said he would give 626 00:38:11,599 --> 00:38:14,400 up the names of his eight other victims that they 627 00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:16,920 didn't know about if they would keep this out of 628 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:20,159 the paper, because he worried about his daughter. So here 629 00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:25,280 is a guy doing this bizarre game where people's lives 630 00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:29,719 are taken, so you can put notches in his belt essentially, 631 00:38:30,039 --> 00:38:32,320 and yet he doesn't want his daughter to know he's 632 00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:32,679 doing this. 633 00:38:33,199 --> 00:38:37,239 Speaker 2: He cares about something, which is yeah, his daughter. 634 00:38:38,039 --> 00:38:41,639 Speaker 6: Yeah. Now maybe it's because she's an extension of himself, 635 00:38:41,679 --> 00:38:46,440 So that's still maybe very egotistical. It's possible. We don't know, 636 00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:49,880 But I'm not going to say psychopaths care about nobody, 637 00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:53,480 because I find that there is often somebody that they 638 00:38:53,599 --> 00:38:56,960 might care about. But how deep does it go? Bob 639 00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,960 Hare would say they know the words, not the music, 640 00:39:01,199 --> 00:39:04,320 And in fact, we are finding they have a hard 641 00:39:04,559 --> 00:39:09,159 psychopaths in studies seem to have a hard time with music. 642 00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:13,159 Speaker 2: Can you expand on that you mentioned that earlier as psyche. 643 00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:16,000 Speaker 6: I can't because I didn't read the study. I said, Yeah, 644 00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:19,800 I saw about not even a week ago and didn't 645 00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:22,039 have time to read the whole study. I would because 646 00:39:22,079 --> 00:39:25,639 I wouldn't say, unless I could see how they picked 647 00:39:25,679 --> 00:39:29,599 the participants, because so many studies are not well designed 648 00:39:30,079 --> 00:39:32,320 that I would want to see how did they actually 649 00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:35,880 get their participants? How did they interpret this? Before I 650 00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:38,119 would want to say that, But it's out there. I 651 00:39:38,119 --> 00:39:40,280 think it's not hard to look up. So are the 652 00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:45,480 chocolate studies and coffee studies. And you almost have to 653 00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:48,920 have an education in research and statistics before you can 654 00:39:49,199 --> 00:39:52,239 know that these studies are poorly designed, because they do 655 00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:56,360 get into professional journals. They shouldn't be, but they do 656 00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:59,519 get in there. And I myself am constantly asked to 657 00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:02,840 value away studies and proposals, and I think, how did 658 00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:06,039 this even get past the first line of editors? It's 659 00:40:06,119 --> 00:40:10,000 so bad. So you have to always evaluate how go 660 00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:13,360 past the headlines which are click bait and find out 661 00:40:13,639 --> 00:40:17,280 are we talking about ten people? Are we talking about 662 00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:21,960 four hundred randomly chosen psycopacy? I don't know, but i'd 663 00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:24,440 have to see that before I could tell you much 664 00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:27,639 more about that study. I found it intriguing, you didn't 665 00:40:27,679 --> 00:40:28,480 have time to read it. 666 00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:29,719 Speaker 4: I'll have to look for that. 667 00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:33,280 Speaker 5: That sounds neat First of all, the big question, are 668 00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:36,079 you going to be a crime con this year in Orlando. 669 00:40:37,119 --> 00:40:43,800 Speaker 6: No oh, Catherine, No, I need a break from travel. 670 00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:44,679 I'm so sick of it. 671 00:40:45,159 --> 00:40:45,800 Speaker 4: I don't blame you. 672 00:40:46,079 --> 00:40:48,599 Speaker 6: Right now. The only travel I'm doing is for trainings. 673 00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:52,000 Had they asked me to come to speak, I probably 674 00:40:52,079 --> 00:40:55,280 would have, but they didn't, So I have other places 675 00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:59,440 to go to do. I'm doing trainings for a hospital facility. 676 00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:03,440 I'm doing for police that to me is more interesting 677 00:41:03,519 --> 00:41:08,559 and satisfying than just going to the crowds known as 678 00:41:08,599 --> 00:41:11,320 crime con. So maybe I've got to invite me the 679 00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:11,800 next year. 680 00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:15,000 Speaker 5: But this year is out, and so then what projects 681 00:41:15,039 --> 00:41:17,280 are you working on now that you've As you've mentioned 682 00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:20,599 at the top, you stopped teaching undergrads, So what are 683 00:41:20,639 --> 00:41:21,400 your projects now? 684 00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:21,519 Speaker 6: Like? 685 00:41:21,559 --> 00:41:22,599 Speaker 4: How are you filling your time? 686 00:41:23,039 --> 00:41:26,079 Speaker 6: I'm actually writing a series of novels about a forensic 687 00:41:26,079 --> 00:41:31,320 psychologist who lives in the Outer Banks. YEA and are 688 00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:34,320 on the Outer Banks, and she runs a team. She 689 00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:38,119 owns a PI agency and runs a team. And I 690 00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:43,239 take actual twisty, weird crimes and put them into my fiction. 691 00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:46,639 So the second one, the first one came out last year. 692 00:41:46,639 --> 00:41:49,079 It's called ice Cream Man. The second one's coming out. 693 00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:51,519 It's called in the damage path, and in a way 694 00:41:51,599 --> 00:41:54,519 it's about what we're talking about because there's a tornado 695 00:41:54,639 --> 00:41:58,000 in it, and a tornado's behavior is always understood in 696 00:41:58,199 --> 00:41:59,800 the wake of its damage path. 697 00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:01,199 Speaker 4: Ooh, I like that. 698 00:42:01,199 --> 00:42:04,159 Speaker 6: That's the metaphor of the serial killer. That's exactly how 699 00:42:04,199 --> 00:42:07,880 we understand the serial killer as well, so the metaphor 700 00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:10,519 of the tornado that happens in this particular book, which 701 00:42:10,559 --> 00:42:15,280 hits a prison. That book is coming out at the 702 00:42:15,599 --> 00:42:19,800 end of August, and I'm excellent working on another book 703 00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:23,599 that's similar to the Dennis Raider book, the Confession of 704 00:42:23,599 --> 00:42:26,320 a serial Killer book, but it's too soon to say 705 00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:26,840 who it is. 706 00:42:27,199 --> 00:42:31,760 Speaker 5: Okay, very interesting, We're intrigued. We will make sure that 707 00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,920 we put links to your Psychology Today article why It's 708 00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:39,280 so Hard to Predict Psychopathy from May twenty second of 709 00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:41,559 this year up in our show notes, and of course 710 00:42:41,599 --> 00:42:43,320 we would love to have you back to talk about 711 00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:45,079 your book once it comes out. 712 00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:48,800 Speaker 6: I will say they changed the title of that blog 713 00:42:49,599 --> 00:42:54,719 today because originally it was called Psychopaths Take Cream in 714 00:42:54,760 --> 00:43:03,480 their copy too, which was to say sound like it 715 00:43:03,599 --> 00:43:07,719 black but not all of them. But they changed the title. Unfortunately. 716 00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:12,039 Speaker 5: We'll make sure that we put a link up to that. 717 00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:15,400 I think that's going to do it for this episode 718 00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:17,920 of mind Over Murder. Thank you so much for joining us, Catherine. 719 00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:19,599 As always, it's a pleasure to have you on. 720 00:43:20,119 --> 00:43:22,920 Speaker 6: Thank you, I appreciate it's fun to be here. Great questions. 721 00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:25,000 Speaker 5: That's going to do it for this episode of mind 722 00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:28,039 Over Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see 723 00:43:28,079 --> 00:43:28,679 you next time. 724 00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:41,360 Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and 725 00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:42,880 Another Dog Productions. 726 00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:46,760 Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. 727 00:43:47,119 --> 00:43:49,519 Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. 728 00:43:50,199 --> 00:43:52,239 Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud. 729 00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:57,039 Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media. 730 00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:00,639 Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. 731 00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,400 Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway 732 00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:05,280 Murders on Facebook. 733 00:44:05,079 --> 00:44:08,079 Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at 734 00:44:08,159 --> 00:44:09,760 Bill Thomas five six. 735 00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:13,360 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.