Speaker 1: This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio App.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy.
Speaker 1: Wall Show on k I AM six forty Live everywhere
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio App. Okay, I gotta address it because
Speaker 1: every late late night comic has talked about it. There
Speaker 1: are articles where psychologists are weighing in about it. People
Speaker 1: are fan girling over this. Luigi Maggione, Kayla, why are
Speaker 1: girls falling in love with an assassin?
Speaker 2: Did you see him with his shirt off?
Speaker 3: Nope?
Speaker 2: Did you hear about his height? Did you see those
Speaker 2: eyebrow policy? I heard six to two? What yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1: An Ivy League Education sixty two? Oh my goodness. Well,
Speaker 1: I thought, since the world is doing it, that we
Speaker 1: would try to do we would play. Look, I'm a
Speaker 1: psychology professor, and I asked my students to do this
Speaker 1: in a DIMS all the time. Let's play armchair psychologist
Speaker 1: for Luigi MAGGIONI. Okay, First of all, he can't claim
Speaker 1: he's insane, So that you understand that the legal definition
Speaker 1: of insane is very different than our general definition of
Speaker 1: having a mental disorder. Right, the legal definition of insane
Speaker 1: means that they're incompetent to stand trial.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It means that their mental illness involves such impairments of
Speaker 1: their thinking that they can't even understand the trial process
Speaker 1: and they can't assist in their own defense.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's him, right, I mean, no, he's
Speaker 2: pretty smart. Yeah, he's pretty smart.
Speaker 1: So the thinking, according to the Internet and the psychologists
Speaker 1: that are weighing in in the news stories, is that
Speaker 1: he has one of three personality disorders. So I thought
Speaker 1: we would go through the various personality disorders. I would
Speaker 1: look up the DSM criteria, that's the diagnostic and statistic
Speaker 1: and manual of mental disord and we would together, if
Speaker 1: you're listening, try to diagnose Luigi Maggioni, because everybody else
Speaker 1: in America is all right, the big one. Let's start
Speaker 1: off with narcissistic personality disorder. I know half the women
Speaker 1: on the Internet think that they are dating a man
Speaker 1: with a narcissistic personality disorder, but just because somebody's low
Speaker 1: in empathy, and that may just mean ladies, he's a
Speaker 1: typical heterosexual male. No, there's research on this you guys
Speaker 1: that men actually have less empathy, And I think, if
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it, you know, from an evolutionary standpoint,
Speaker 1: I would say it's because back in our hunter gatherer past,
Speaker 1: these hunters had to stare into the eyes of a
Speaker 1: living animal before they killed it right between the eyes
Speaker 1: with a spear, and they had no time for empathy
Speaker 1: at that moment. So there's a little spillover there, all right.
Speaker 1: But the actual criteria for a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder,
Speaker 1: which is estimated more men than women have it, but
Speaker 1: it's still in like two maybe three percent of the population. Okay, ladies,
Speaker 1: I hear. That's still three out of one hundred guys
Speaker 1: that you date. And like everything, it's a scale. But
Speaker 1: what it is is a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, either
Speaker 1: in a belief system like they just believe they're better
Speaker 1: than everybody else, or behavior they need admiration. Stop thinking
Speaker 1: about our president intellecture saying they have a lack of empathy.
Speaker 1: And here's the key for a true narcissistic personality disorder.
Speaker 1: All this pattern has to begin early, but not in childhood,
Speaker 1: usually early adulthood. And I should tell you this narcissists
Speaker 1: usually give birth to narcissists, not because it's genetic, but
Speaker 1: they learn it. It's modeled for them, and it may
Speaker 1: have a genetic piece. I mean, every mental thing is
Speaker 1: partly biology and partly what's going on in our environment.
Speaker 1: So some of the core symptoms are a grandiose sense
Speaker 1: of self importance. Okay, Luigi does he think? Does he
Speaker 1: exaggerate his achievements or his talents? Does he expect to
Speaker 1: be recognized as a superior. Let's think about this for
Speaker 1: a minute.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I think he does have talents.
Speaker 1: He got good grades, he was a high achiever, valedictorian,
Speaker 1: member of this special computer group at Penn.
Speaker 2: At Penn, he's at an IVY league. I know he's
Speaker 2: actually doing it right.
Speaker 1: Also a symptom might be preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, brilliance, power, beauty,
Speaker 1: belief that they are special or unique. I have not
Speaker 1: heard any of the friends that have weighed in about
Speaker 1: Luigi say that he thought he was special or unique
Speaker 1: unless he kept it all inside. So another one might
Speaker 1: be this need for excessive admiration. Again, I don't really
Speaker 1: think Luigi has this need then this sense of entitlement.
Speaker 1: Perhaps I just not hearing it. Lack of empathy, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs
Speaker 1: of others. If you are able to murder somebody, I
Speaker 1: don't think you have strong empathy. Right then arrogant, haughty,
Speaker 1: or just have attitudes where you think you're just cool.
Speaker 2: Again. I just don't see that this is our Luigi.
Speaker 1: If I were a psychologist, I would not give him
Speaker 1: this diagnosis.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's move to another one.
Speaker 1: Some psychologists in the media are saying that he may
Speaker 1: have borderline personality disorder. Okay, so I definitely don't think
Speaker 1: this is him. So it's defined as a pervasive pattern
Speaker 1: of an instability in interpersonal relationships marked impulsivity. I don't
Speaker 1: think he was impulsive here. Think you planned this and
Speaker 1: it begins in early adulthood. Okay, but you have to
Speaker 1: have five or more of the following symptoms. Frantic efforts
Speaker 1: to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
Speaker 2: That's not our Luigi. He abandoned everybody else, he went
Speaker 2: to Hawaii and lost touch.
Speaker 1: That's not like how a borderline I mean, yeah, a
Speaker 1: borderline would be hit. Let's see a pattern of unstable
Speaker 1: and intense interpersonal relationships. No, he didn't really have a
Speaker 1: lot of close interpersonal relationships, not like you know, like
Speaker 1: people that are borderline are like drama. Queens create drama.
Speaker 1: There's fights and conflicts and then rushing to get back together.
Speaker 1: The highs the lows. No, an identity disturbance. Maybe persistently
Speaker 1: unstable self image or sense of self. Yes, especially once
Speaker 1: he got into a lot of pain. Oh but wait,
Speaker 1: recurrent suicidal behavior. Uh, chronic feelings of emptiness, maybe inappropriate
Speaker 1: or intense anger or difficulty controlling anger. We don't have
Speaker 1: never heard any reports that he had an angry outbursts
Speaker 1: in the past. Back to you, seemed pretty calm when
Speaker 1: he committed that murder. I just don't know. I'm not
Speaker 1: good and give him borderline. If I'm going to be
Speaker 1: an armchair, I'm not going to do it. So let's
Speaker 1: go to the one that I think many of the
Speaker 1: psychologists have weighed in is the diagnosis that Luigi might
Speaker 1: have if somebody were actually to interview him and figure
Speaker 1: it out. It's called the anti social personality disorder. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the details when we come back. You're listening
Speaker 1: to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty, Live everywhere on.
Speaker 2: The iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: Well, I am joining the chorus of lay people psychoanalyzing
Speaker 1: Luigi MAGGIONI, the would be assassin, the alleged, the arrested.
Speaker 2: For Well, actually, has he been arrested, has he back
Speaker 2: in New York? Has he extracited already? I don't know
Speaker 2: where he is?
Speaker 1: Trying to figure out what personality disorder he might have.
Speaker 1: So let's be armchair psychologists, shall we. Remember I'm not
Speaker 1: a therapist, I'm a psychology professor. I do teach about
Speaker 1: each of these disorders and what qualifies as a diagnosis.
Speaker 1: So the one I think most applies to him is
Speaker 1: anti social personality disorder. But there's a big butt and
Speaker 1: it's coming off coming in a second. It's a pervasive
Speaker 1: pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others.
Speaker 1: Here's the key occurring since the age of fifteen years. Okay,
Speaker 1: that might be it, But let's talk about you have
Speaker 1: to have three or more of the following traits. Number one,
Speaker 1: failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors,
Speaker 1: as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.
Speaker 2: Well, that's not him.
Speaker 1: We have he had no police record, no problems, no,
Speaker 1: repeatedly that wasn't happening. Deceitfulness as indicated by repeated lying. Oh,
Speaker 1: use of aliases, Oh oh yeah, he was using another id,
Speaker 1: conning others for personal profit or pleasure.
Speaker 2: Okay, so there's one. He's got to get three.
Speaker 1: Number three impulsivity or failure to plan ahead.
Speaker 2: That is not him. He planned.
Speaker 1: If he did commit that murder, he planned it very well.
Speaker 1: Number four irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical
Speaker 1: fights or assaults. Nope, not him, So only have one
Speaker 1: so far. We've got to have three. Number five, reckless
Speaker 1: disregard for the safe of self or others. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think if you pull the trigger on somebody, that would
Speaker 1: be reckless disregard for their safety.
Speaker 2: So we got two.
Speaker 1: Next, consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain
Speaker 1: consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations. We don't know
Speaker 1: the answer about that. We know his work has been spotty,
Speaker 1: we don't know about it. We haven't heard that he
Speaker 1: ripped people off or didn't pay rent or any of
Speaker 1: that stuff. So I'm not going to give that one
Speaker 1: to him, but I will give him this next one.
Speaker 1: Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent or rationalizing
Speaker 1: having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.
Speaker 2: Ding Ding ding Ing.
Speaker 1: I think we might have the armchair diagnosis. A lack
Speaker 1: of remorse, reckless disregard for the safety of others, and
Speaker 1: failure to conform to social norms. Oh deceitfulness. No, anyway,
Speaker 1: that would be criteria for anti social personality disorder.
Speaker 2: But guess what.
Speaker 1: You can't actually be given this diagnosis unless under the
Speaker 1: age of fifteen you had something that's called a conduct disorder. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, in order to have this personality disorder,
Speaker 1: it had to have started in school when there were
Speaker 1: all kinds of problems with teachers or what have you,
Speaker 1: and we don't have any evidence of this. So it
Speaker 1: made me start to think maybe this is all coming
Speaker 1: about because of his pain, his physical pain after his
Speaker 1: back surgery. It made me wonder, can chronic pain create
Speaker 1: a mental health disorder? Well, it's a two way street,
Speaker 1: of course, is that chronic pain can impact our mental health,
Speaker 1: just as mental health can cause chronic pain.
Speaker 2: Right, it is.
Speaker 1: Some of the things that chronic pain is linked to
Speaker 1: is depression, anxiety disorders, post traumatic stress disorder, if the
Speaker 1: pain happened from something that was a danger thing. Substance
Speaker 1: use disorders. We don't know about his substance use sleep disorders,
Speaker 1: insomnia or poor quality sleep. We don't know about this,
Speaker 1: cognitive impairment, brain fog again, especially if he's taking opioids.
Speaker 1: This could be a problem. But you got to remember,
Speaker 1: pain and mental health is by we call it bi directional, right,
Speaker 1: So chronic pain can cause mental health problems. Mental health
Speaker 1: problems can cause chronic pain. So it's going to take
Speaker 1: some time. I'm sure his lawyers are going to argue
Speaker 1: that he had some degree of mental illness. Now, if
Speaker 1: I were a lawyer, now I'm going to stop being
Speaker 1: armchair Psychologies is not going to be armchair lawyer. I
Speaker 1: didn't go to law school. I have no idea what
Speaker 1: I'm saying right now. But here's the case I present,
Speaker 1: and again I'm defending him. So that's my job as
Speaker 1: a lawyer. It doesn't mean I believe what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Does I mean I think he's a good guy? Okay,
Speaker 1: he's an assassin, we think. I mean, everybody is guilty
Speaker 1: until innocent, until proven guilty. But boy, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of footage of this one. Anyway, I would say, uh,
Speaker 1: if I was building a case that he if it's
Speaker 1: true that he had tried to get help for his
Speaker 1: chronic pain, that the back surgery didn't work, he needed
Speaker 1: a revision surgery, his health care wouldn't cover it.
Speaker 2: Maybe they'll find out he was with United health Care.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's he spent many months attempting to get out of
Speaker 1: the pain, and so he acted out in a way
Speaker 1: to hurt the person that was hurting him. He believed
Speaker 1: in his fantasies it was the CEO of the company.
Speaker 1: And so the trial, which will likely be in the
Speaker 1: news for a very long time, might be an indictment
Speaker 1: of health insurance companies. And you know, we're seeing this
Speaker 1: voice of people rise up complaining online about this. I
Speaker 1: don't know, Maybe there's so much going on in our
Speaker 1: country and our culture right now, and trying to make
Speaker 1: sense of right and wrong and good and bad and
Speaker 1: health and unhealth is so difficult. When we come back,
Speaker 1: I have a guest who's a reporter who's been covering
Speaker 1: sort of the fallout from some of the pledges made
Speaker 1: by President elect Donald Trump when it comes to trans kids,
Speaker 1: and he has a few thoughts on how people are
Speaker 1: feeling in this particular climate. You're listening to the Doctor
Speaker 1: Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live
Speaker 1: everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: AM six forty.
Speaker 2: Well, the map is the Doctor.
Speaker 1: Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six forty, Live everywhere
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app. Well, many of you know that
Speaker 1: I am a professor of health psychology, and and as
Speaker 1: part of it, I do a lecture on gender, not
Speaker 1: only gender identity, but also gender role and also sexual orientation,
Speaker 1: three distinct concepts. By the way, it is something that
Speaker 1: is in the news a lot lately because President elect
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has previously pledged to bar transgender athletes from
Speaker 1: competing in women's and girls' sports and to band gender
Speaker 1: affirming care for minors, and this week the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: is considering it. I would like to welcome a reporter
Speaker 1: who has been following this story closely, Wellington.
Speaker 2: Sarah, So I know i'd mess it up.
Speaker 1: Wellington, say your full name beautifully. Thank you for having me,
Speaker 1: and you are a writer for Chalkbeat, amongst other places,
Speaker 1: and talk to me a little bit about what's happening
Speaker 1: with families and those in the transgender can unity as
Speaker 1: we get closer to inauguration.
Speaker 4: Berb, thank you so much for having me. Doctor Wendy Well.
Speaker 4: Right after the election, we started talking to families and
Speaker 4: reaching out to students and their families and their communities
Speaker 4: to understand how they were feeling after the election. So
Speaker 4: what we heard is that a lot of groups, a
Speaker 4: lot of teenagers, especially students, they're really concerned regarding what
Speaker 4: President elect Donald Trump has played during the campaign. But
Speaker 4: we have also seen a lot of students and families
Speaker 4: that are really looking for solutions and looking to good
Speaker 4: community and looking for ways to kind of like resist
Speaker 4: any type of change or any type of policies that
Speaker 4: may come into place right after inauguration. So I would
Speaker 4: say that what we're seeing is a mix of a
Speaker 4: little bit of fear, a little bit of disillusion, but
Speaker 4: also a lot of people trying to build community and
Speaker 4: kind of like create a space that is safe, even
Speaker 4: though they don't feel as safe in the political environment
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 1: You know, I have this theory that the older politicians
Speaker 1: and so many of our politicians are much older, and
Speaker 1: the younger generation in America are two distinct cultures. You know,
Speaker 1: last night, I was actually at a party and I
Speaker 1: was talking to two public school teachers and they were
Speaker 1: talking about how, you know, just you know, a decade ago,
Speaker 1: you didn't see kids affirming their gender identity, being non
Speaker 1: binary at the elementary school level, talking comfortably about same
Speaker 1: sex relationships. It's almost like they are free, and yet
Speaker 1: there is this older generation that seems to be trying
Speaker 1: to put constraints. As an observer of culture, what do
Speaker 1: you think of that?
Speaker 4: I think you're absolutely right. I've been or cancer journalists
Speaker 4: for twelve years now, and I've covered this issue back
Speaker 4: in Brazil and now here in the US, and I
Speaker 4: see exactly what she meant. So ten years, twelve years ago,
Speaker 4: when I started reporting, I would go to a school,
Speaker 4: I would try and talk to students and this would
Speaker 4: not be a topic that was so vibrant within the community.
Speaker 4: But as years went by, now you can see pretty
Speaker 4: much every school, you will see students that are more
Speaker 4: comfortable with opening up about who they are. And in
Speaker 4: this I just wanted to make sure that I'm being
Speaker 4: clear that what used to happen before is not that
Speaker 4: those people, those students didn't exist. It's just that they
Speaker 4: didn't feel as comfortable coming out and talking about it
Speaker 4: until later on. And what we've been saying is that
Speaker 4: families in the community is a little more welcoming, and
Speaker 4: so students are also feeling more open to talk about
Speaker 4: who they are, how they feel, and how they want
Speaker 4: to live their lives. But definitely that has caused also
Speaker 4: some kind of like backlash and a lot of resistance
Speaker 4: from people who are not really used to it or
Speaker 4: don't quite understand what's happening.
Speaker 1: And I just want to clarify for some of our
Speaker 1: listeners who might not be fully informed about trans people,
Speaker 1: that there is a population of intersex and now I'm
Speaker 1: using a biological term intersex humans that has existed since
Speaker 1: the beginning of time.
Speaker 2: People born with features of both sexes.
Speaker 1: It is possible to be born with a penis and
Speaker 1: overstucked inside. It is possible to be born with evolva
Speaker 1: and undescended testes, and at puberty then we get secondary
Speaker 1: sex characteristics that may tell a very different story. And
Speaker 1: so I think it is important that we allow people
Speaker 1: to be as free as they want to be along
Speaker 1: their journey. But there are many people, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've interviewed them, who are afraid of this.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that?
Speaker 4: Yes, Well, what we see now is just there is
Speaker 4: a source of mind that used to say that sexuality,
Speaker 4: engender identity is as diverse as the number of people
Speaker 4: that we have in the world. I think we're eight
Speaker 4: billion now, so there's like eight billion different types of
Speaker 4: how to leave your gender identity or in your sexuality.
Speaker 4: And a lot of people they realize really early on
Speaker 4: that they do not feel the way that this sex
Speaker 4: that was assigned to im a birth makes should be
Speaker 4: right so or what people think that it should be.
Speaker 4: And a lot of the students today, a lot of
Speaker 4: the teenagers, they are really feeling a little more comfortable
Speaker 4: with understanding that and kind of like trying to explore that,
Speaker 4: and what you see is a lot of trans people,
Speaker 4: so people who at one point say, well a boy
Speaker 4: and a girl or vice versa. But you also see
Speaker 4: a lot of kids that grow up and are still exploring.
Speaker 4: So you would see like teenagers that's having teen eighteen
Speaker 4: that are like, well, I'm not sure if I want
Speaker 4: to have one of the two genders at all, And well,
Speaker 4: that has a lot of implications. Sometimes housewives with puberty
Speaker 4: blockers and medicines and actually healthcare that helps them assign
Speaker 4: affirm the gender that they identify with. And sometimes it's
Speaker 4: just a more like a society issue on how they
Speaker 4: dress or how they present themselves and things like that.
Speaker 4: So yes, absolutely there's teenagers and kids that are kind
Speaker 4: of like identifying with multiple different gender identities, and each
Speaker 4: one of them has one way of affirming that, either
Speaker 4: medically or non medically, depending on what also left their
Speaker 4: parents and their family is para comfortable with them.
Speaker 1: You know, I do think that we as a culture
Speaker 1: need to stay out of these families. I think that
Speaker 1: government should stay out. I think this is a question
Speaker 1: for doctors and their patients, for families and their patients.
Speaker 1: I know the fear of many parents and that is
Speaker 1: the fear of the small percentage that are experiencing social contagion,
Speaker 1: which you know we can't lie. That is a piece
Speaker 1: of it as well, But I think it's about individual
Speaker 1: families more than having governments be involved. So I just
Speaker 1: want to say thank you for continuing to follow this
Speaker 1: story Wellington. It will be fascinating to see you know,
Speaker 1: President elect Donald Trump loves to say things and then
Speaker 1: not do them, so it will be very interesting to
Speaker 1: see how this all pans out after he is inaugurated.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being with us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you so much for having us,
Speaker 4: and please stay tuned and read what we're posting on
Speaker 4: talkbe dot org and we're definitely going to be following
Speaker 4: up that story and many other different stories on education.
Speaker 1: Thank you and thank you for listening to The Doctor
Speaker 1: Wendy Walls Show. This brings the show to a close.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to follow me on social media, you
Speaker 1: may The handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh. But I'm
Speaker 1: always here for you every Sunday on KFI. You've been
Speaker 1: listening to The Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI Am
Speaker 1: six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been
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