Psychiatrist Breaks Down Psychopaths From Movies & TV | GQ

he said you've turned to the dark side that you killed younglings now what's important to remember is that anakin is an adolescent the most recent studies show that adolescence ends maybe in the mid-20s so some of his behavior might be developmentally appropriate granted killing younglings is never acceptable that is not normal behavior hey gq i'm dr eric bender and this is the breakdown [Music] american psycho anti-aging eye bomb followed by final moisturizing protective lotion there is an idea of a patrick bateman patrick's routine at first it seems like something you might see in gq a 20-step process to look your best for the day what we actually see more of here though is his narcissism the way he's describing it i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna use this there's that preoccupation with beauty that he's gonna look a certain way what i find very interesting about him is that he knows what he is and from dr martin's interactions with jeffrey dahmer and dennis nielsen we know that psychopaths are aware that they function differently than other people he's saying i have this mask and this mask you see and that doesn't tell you anything about me i'm holding my cold stare behind or my coldness inside that is very true you get more into philosophical arguments here about what do we see on the outside do we really know what somebody thinks what they do we really don't you only can go by what you see and what someone tells you so there is a version of a patrick bateman there's a mask it's very symbolic here he peels off this mask he knows there's things behind this mask it's almost like there's two masks he creates a mask for everybody to see he can peel off the mask himself no one else can of what's behind all that his own psychopath inside he peels the mask off and reveals that the mask he peels off right here he's revealing just an outer shell to everybody else and though i can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable i simply am not there many of patrick's escapades say we say in the movie are around narcissistic injury the idea that he's perceived someone telling him he's done something wrong or that someone has scolded him in some way or hurt his ego how he feels about himself that drives a lot of his behavior and that actually falls more in line with the narcissist and more in line with the psychopath star wars episode 3 revenge of the sith i am becoming more powerful than any jedi has ever dreamed of and i'm doing it for you to protect you come away with me so here you see anakin skywalker and he's showing traits of a personality disorder a personality disorder refers to how someone interacts with the world around them if it's vastly different from the cultural norm it could be a personality disorder meaning that person experiences life and interactions with other people and relationships very differently than the norm these could be elements of psychopathy psychopathy is a personality construct it's the idea that certain personality traits combined with behavior create a psychopath what a psychopath is or what psychopathy represents is someone who is callous uncaring does not feel emotion for other people but just uses people as pawns to gain what they want that can sometimes combine with narcissism or traits of narcissism and that callousness and uncaring can combine and you can see that someone just goes ahead and does whatever they want so that question is here is anakin a psychopath it's important to note that people with narcissistic traits and narcissistic personality disorder people with borderline personality disorder other personality disorder traits are not psychopaths it's not necessarily that someone has a borderline personality disorder therefore they are violent it's very important to note that mental illness is very rarely associated with violence the traits of narcissism and borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder have been talked about in terms of psychopathy and how when those traits pair with the callousness and the uncaring and the unemotional side that someone can have that's when things become very dangerous it's very important to note that people with mental illness are not inherently dangerous no you're with him you brought him here to kill me [Music] so we're seeing traits of borderline personality disorder the term borderline actually refers to the idea of walking on the border between psychotic or there's a break from reality and neurotic where someone's really trying to manage the chronic distress and anxiety that they feel someone with borderline personality disorder or traits of it might show chronic feelings of emptiness they might have an identity disturbance not feeling like there's a stable sense of self here he's was he a jedi was he a sith he's he's questioning that now he seems to be more towards the sith world someone with borderline personality disorder also makes frantic efforts to avoid any abandonment whether it's real or perceived here he's perceiving padme not wanting to do this as abandonment and he's frantically trying to kill her he's also going to go up against obi-wan kenobi as another way to avoid this abandonment that's his response people with borderline traits can also show impulsivity or intense anger that's inappropriate that could mean constantly being angry or almost having tantrums we see that here in anakin now what's important to remember is that anakin is an adolescent the most recent studies show that adolescence ends maybe in the mid-20s the brain really doesn't develop fully until the mid-20s recent research is showing so some of his behavior might be developmentally appropriate as he's actually coming into his teen years and becoming a young adult granted killing younglings is never acceptable that is not normal behavior so that raises a red flag in my head but this has to be considered his age as a child psychiatrist that's something i'm considering too i'm also wondering here about his background has he had difficulty attaching to people so you think about how he was pulled away from his mother his mother died he has a fear of padme dying like his mother died so that was an issue and his mother was also sold into slavery he didn't grow up in the greatest environment love won't save you padme only my new powers can do that at what cost you're a good person don't do this i won't lose you the way i lost my mother the question of psychopathy i come back in my mind to episode six in return of the jedi the very end where darth vader heaves the emperor into the towers and into the electrical storm that he falls and plummets to his death in in that sense anakin is showing that he really does care for his family his son for luke it's not about him at that point it's really about his child and that is unusual for a psychopath to have that level of love recent research shows that psychopaths do actually feel emotion but it's typically when it comes to them achieving the goal that they want to achieve so the level of love that darth vader shows for luke in return of the jedi really makes me think he's not a psychopath you also have to consider the developmental age of anakin at this time i can't say for sure as a forensic psychiatrist that this person meets criteria on the psychopathy checklist which is a list of personality traits and behaviors that suggest someone is a psychopath i can't say that for sure here because there's still the development of the young person however there are a lot of clues that he's on that way or on a path to becoming a psychopath later there is that choice anakin or darth vader makes to save his son there is some choice now maybe there was something that darth vader picked up on in that scene i think we're led to believe that there was a big change of heart somewhat that's hollywoodized but there is this love that comes through and i think that's what makes it clear that he's not a psychopath in psychopathy the studies show that you can decrease behavior you can use medication sometimes even to decrease impulsivity but you wouldn't necessarily teach someone to love more we have the benefit now of knowing in episode six something changes so i can say that darth vader is not a psychopath looking at the emperor would be a bit different silence of the lambs have a girl you're so close to the way you're gonna catch him do you realize that no tell me why after your father's murder you are orphaned what happened next dr lecter is in fact a psychopath he's someone who doesn't really care about people you can tell already even in the way he interacts with clarice there is this back and forth but it's really for his benefit he says it'll be very interesting to learn about your upbringing and then he asks her about these very traumatic times in her life he wants that for his own personal gratification quit pro billy is not a real transsexual but he thinks he is he tries to be he's tried to be a lot of things i expect clarice comes back to him and says quid pro quo so i'll give you something you give me something this for that she's also playing on his narcissism she's calling him doctor she never calls him hannibal she calls him doctor all the time playing up to that narcissistic traits in a psychopath often reflect a demand for a certain respect or certain praise that's what goes on here we see that in their exchange and you said that i was very close to the way we would catch him what did you mean doctor there are three major centers for transsexual surgery johns hopkins university of minnesota and columbus medical center i wouldn't be surprised if billy had applied for sex reassignment at one or all of them and been rejected some people would argue that dr lecter is not a psychopath some people argue that maybe he shows some kindness towards clarisse in his own distinct way psychopaths don't have to feel absolutely nothing there's a study that looked at psychopaths and whether they could feel regret and that study showed that psychopaths had regret for things they did that caused them to not win as much money in this exercise in the study or to lose a lot of money what was unique about the people who scored high on the psychopathy checklist was that they didn't use that regret to make future decisions it wasn't that they lost something or didn't gain enough so therefore they should think differently in the future it was about regretting that moment the retrospective regret looking back they couldn't use that information to look forward or prospectively so the idea is that psychopaths can in fact feel some regret or have some feeling but it's really about them and their goal it's not necessarily outside a psychopath could care for a person or a family member but again only to that end of wanting to have that family or wanting to have that person in their life for a certain achievement or goal there was a psychologist who worked with the btk killer and that person even said in multiple letters to her that he really did understand that his crimes affected his family and he asked that his family be left out of any type of research she was doing as she communicated with him so i think in this case dr lecter is a psychopath even if he feels something because we've seen from research psychopaths can in fact feel things quick pro quo what's interesting about the camera angle here is you see the reflection of dr lecter in the glass where clarisse is looking at him first what this scene does is it draws you into the world of dr elector you're fascinated and that's true of psychopaths they can be very charming and they can be really interested in you so it seems but it's really only to their end in a psychopath you never know what you're gonna get they're pathologically lying so you don't know who it is that you see you often see a reflection of somebody but who is it and what's behind that the question of whether clary starling or an fbi agent would talk to a psychopath or a serial killer himself in order to find out more about a case it might be hollywood plot driving but at the same time it is possible because in trying to look for offenders a forensic psychiatrist for instance who's not an fbi agent would look at all the records possible there might be multiple interviews of people dr lecter has intimate knowledge of billy here so the fbi will in fact use what sources they can to understand and try to solve the case particularly when there are active murders going on you you sound apologetic like you're embarrassed to be a good girl and you murmur your first word to me hello we come to find out that this character is a serial killer just because his serial killer doesn't mean that he can't have other obsessions or other mental health issues in this case it's it's not a mental health issue like depression or anxiety although serial killers can't have those things here this makes me think of stalking do you work here guilty can i help you find something paula fox it's a good choice i feel weirdly validated there are different types of stalking you can have rejected stalking which is when someone's been rejected in some way there's a divorce they've been terminated from work and therefore they start to stalk somebody there can also be predatory stalking where you're stalking someone with the idea of spying on them to eventually assault them in some way you can also have erotomanic stalking which the idea that you've realized this person is meant to be with you and you think that they're in love with you and you're in love with them you can also have the incompetent suitor type of stalking where someone is fixated on a person and believes that they're going to be involved in this person's life and that person's going to be their lover but that person's not even available there there's someone married or someone who's involved in something else you can also have what's called the resentful stalker where someone is stalking someone or going after them in a way just to derive pleasure from distressing them or trying to get them upset in this case i wonder because we're privy to his thoughts and know that he's stalking this woman in some way is it errato manic is he thinking that there's a love relationship here between the two of them or is it predatory is he planning to attack her in some way is he planning to do something to her given that he's a serial killer we don't know but it's possible that a serial killer could have a relationship just because you're a serial killer doesn't mean you wouldn't have a relationship with other people in fact some serial killers have these secret lives they're married they have kids but on the side at night when no one knows they go out and they hunt for victims are you not wearing a bra and you want me to notice if this was a movie i'd grab you and we'd go at it write in the stacks have you read her fiction a psychopath might want a relationship with somebody but typically they're getting something out of it it's about them it's not going to be about providing for that other person it's going to be about what that person does for them maybe they want to be a father and maybe they're going to try to be with somebody who wants to have children maybe they want to have sex but it really is about what that person wants blue velvet mommy [Music] we see the use of substances actually he's huffing on gas some kind of substance that's clearly making him high when someone is high we do see behaviors that can vacillate between a very happy mood a very sad mood anger it can all come out at one time or or in this what's called labile mix of things label going back and forth so he's one minute almost sobbing for his mommy and another minute he's very angry and he's talking about in a very angry way what he's gonna do he could be a sexual sadist as well meaning that he's deriving pleasure from the humiliation and the suffering and the pain of his victim in this case he punches her tells her not to look at him he's humiliating her he's hurting her he seems to be getting off on this he's also sold this woman's husband and child into slavery so there really does seem to be some kind of pleasure he gets out of hurting other people he doesn't care about other people he cares about himself so he's clearly a psychopath in this case [Music] psychopaths don't have to have a component of sexual action or sexual behavior in their acts we think of serial killers and often there is a sexual motivation there not necessarily though sometimes it's just about the killing it's not about sex it's not about sexual pleasure that really brings in that element of sexual sadism when it becomes more about sexual arousal you can have psychopaths who are motivated by other things whether it's killing whether it's financial grief or just hurting people toying with people doesn't have to be a sexual motivation misery well it's brilliantly written but then everything you write is brilliant pretty rough suffering the swearing paul annie might be the original toxic superfan here the original troll instead of having an online platform she actually has the author here in front of her she gets quite upset with what he's written the profanity and spills soup all over the place as she gets so worked up over it in the bank do i tell mrs bollinger oh here's one big bastard of a check give me some of your christine money there look there see what you made me do when i think of annie i think of the stalking behavior and the particular type of stalking behavior called that of an incompetent suitor someone who despite having poor social skills or potentially even some social skills has a fixation on someone and feels like that person is meant for them and that person has raised their interest in love that person often is in a relationship or not available and clearly that's the case here annie's not going to marry this author but she is treating him in some stalking type of way we're starting to see an escalation here where she's developing an attachment to him it's been said that annie has borderline personality disorder or traits of that people with borderline personality traits can show a frantic attempt to avoid abandonment by someone in some ways she might be so frantic here that she's going to correct him and give him lessons on how to write so that he will even stay there sometimes i get so worked up can you ever forgive me might be that in her mind she's planning out a way to keep him there we know later she does horrific things to keep him there so that could be a trait of borderline personality disorder people with borderline personality traits often have relationships that vacillate between all good or idealized and all bad or totally devalued and that's can be called splitting she's doing that here he's the greatest author and then he's the worst author because he uses profanity in a way that's not realistic but then she loves him again so she's back and forth on that the idea that she might have bipolar disorder you look for specific criteria for bipolar disorder people often colloquially use the word bipolar to mean hot and cold or switching moods back and forth it's very different when it comes to psychiatry a bipolar disorder means that someone has had a manic episode meaning that for five to seven days they've had an increased amount of energy to the point that they're potentially grandiose they're thinking that they're going to accomplish and do things write the next great novel change the course of humanity play god know god they might feel like their thoughts are going all over the place and racing they're not sleeping because of an increased energy they might not need any sleep for this five to seven day period they're on top of the world in addition they might be doing things that are a change from baseline they might be gambling or having sex with multiple people doing things that are not necessarily safe or good for them we don't see this necessarily as a change from her baseline so i can't say that she has a bipolar disorder [Music] i love you paul [Music] your mind there's still that justification with annie of why she's doing what she does to paul the question of how can she go this far she's got some justification in her mind and she does seem to be very psychopathic in what she does here she's justifying it though because she loves him she's saying all of this now that doesn't mean she's not psychopathic because she's justifying it but the fact that she has to find some way to justify it to me that might be more on the anti-social spectrum as opposed to a psychopath however if she didn't care about anybody at all if this were beyond just him then i would think okay maybe there's more of a psychopathic trait here it's a fixation on him so is there something particularly obsessive about him is there a fixation is there some kind of delusion that this person is meant for her that could be a psychotic delusion most stalkers actually don't have psychotic delusions some do though thanks so much for watching these clips with me stay tuned for part two

Channel: GQ

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Keywords: * psychiatrist, american psycho, american psycho breakdown, breakdown, eric bender, gq, gq breakdown, gq magazine, gq the breakdown, hannibal lecter, movie psychopaths, patrick bateman, psychiatrist break down, psychiatrist breaks down, psychiatrists, psychiatry, psychopath, psychopaths, silence of the lambs, silence of the lambs breakdown, the breakdown, the breakdown gq, the breakdown psychiatrists, tv psychopath, tv psychopaths, you breakdown, you netflix

Id: ZKAWtNW-Xfk

Length: 22min 30sec (1350 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 28 2021