Psychiatrist Breaks Down Psychopaths From Movies & TV, Part 2 | GQ

[Music] in terms of psychiatry many people are scared of psychiatry and they've told me that the images of a clockwork orange come to mind that psychiatrists have exposed people to these horrible thoughts or horrible ideas and pictures and do terrible things that's not what happens in a psychiatry office or what happens in a hospital when a psychiatrist comes to visit a patient hey gq i'm dr eric bender and this is part two of the breakdown [Music] the dark knight why do you want to kill me i don't want to kill you what would i do without you go back to ripping off mob dealers no no no no you you complete me the joker is clearly a psychopath innately he just has no love for anybody just himself the joker is clearly doing this to get personal gratification he even jokingly says to batman but he's serious you complete me this is about the joker this is not about anybody but the joker clearly psychopathic he's not psychotic there's a big difference between being psychotic and psychopathic being psychotic means that someone has had a break from reality they might be hearing voices seeing things that other people don't see they might believe things other people don't believe and there's evidence to show it's not true but they still believe it that's called a delusion they might be having very jumbled thinking that's what psychotic means or what a psychosis is psychopathy is very different psychopathy is this tendency to just use people in their game and joker even uses the word game this is a game to him i'm considering it no there's only minutes left you're gonna have to play my little game if you want to save one of them yeah here the joker this is right after these crimes have been committed there is no evidence that he is hearing things seeing things having a break from reality he clearly knows what he's doing he tells batman the specific addresses where rachel and harvey dent are he's at 250 522nd street and she's uh on avenue he knows it he's even said you've let five people die ten people have taken over for you he's clearly a sound mind here when you're looking at legal sanity you first need a mental illness to say was there a mental illness that caused this person not to know what he was doing at the time of the crime so we don't have a mental illness but let's just say that somehow he gets to court and he is going to be evaluated and somebody argues well clearly he's he's got something going on true but again that's psychopathy and psychopathy is not a mental illness that would qualify for what's called the insanity defense in the insanity defense that means that because of a mental illness someone didn't know that what they were doing at the time of a crime was right or wrong in gotham city let's assume it's that someone doesn't know the difference between right and wrong if he were found to have a mental illness that caused him to not know that he could go to a psychiatric hospital a forensic hospital where he would then be treated but again he doesn't have anything that needs to be treated where are they killing is making a cholesterol where are they it feels between one [Music] here we just see the joker really loving torturing batman and hurting other people that's something that a psychopath really would revel in don't talk like one of them you're not even if you'd like to be to them you're just a freak like me there's an article that came out almost 20 years ago by william martens who was a physician in the united kingdom and it was somewhat controversial called the hidden suffering of the psychopath dr martins had interviewed serial killers including jeffrey dahmer and dennis nielsen and he claimed that both of those individuals didn't know how to interact with the world they felt excluded and as if they couldn't figure things out that no one loved them they also came from traumatic backgrounds and jeffrey dahmer said to him per dr martin's report that there was a point at which he crossed any thin connection he would have to the societal norms and at that point he felt so isolated and that's when his crimes escalated jeffrey dahmer even tried to keep his victims alive he tried to zombify them by injecting acid into their brains dennis nilsson kept body parts and would even talk to the bodies for hours at a time write poetry to them even this shows that psychopaths might in fact not understand how to interact with the world that article was very controversial because people think psychopathy and psychopaths have committed such heinous crimes should we really have some sympathy for them the idea was to think how does psychopathy develop are those traits that we should look out for in people to suggest that they might go down a path towards psychopathy it's not necessarily to say hey we need to be sympathetic but that's something to keep in mind what does make someone go down this path of not caring about people see i'm not a monster i'm just ahead of the curve joker saying that he's not a monster he recognizes what he is that's very much the way dahmer and nielsen explain to dr martens they recognize what they were they said we couldn't show the side to anybody they'd be so repulsed nobody would connect with them they already weren't connecting with the world so we do think that psychopaths might recognize who they are how they function in the world and not know how to do it the godfather [Music] but if clemenza can figure a way to have a weapon planted there for me then i'll kill them both michael corleone ends up taking on this role of killing salazo and mccloskey he seems to come into this because it involves family it's the family business in some ways the idea that it's a family business justifies this it almost makes it so it's just a business decision he can balance out whatever feelings he might have about killing someone with the fact that he's gonna kill them so that's managing his cognitive dissonance that that conflict between those two ideas at the same time what's important to know here is that this is almost an acceptable code of conduct in the mafia as presented in this movie you got to get up close like this but a bing you blow their brains all over your nice cyber league suit come here you're taking us very personally what's presented in the film is that this would be expected this is a retribution there's an idea that this is acceptable to some degree now while michael has to go off and hide in italy for years because of this it's not unexpected it's part of the system in that way at this point in the film he's not necessarily a psychopath he's doing something that he sees there's a reason to do it it's part of the family business this involves a family the fact that someone tried to kill his father it's not a pleasurable event it's not something that he's getting joy out of in the way that say someone who's a serial killer or even a psychopath might get a power and control excitement from he's doing this as retribution and in that way it's not necessarily marking him as a psychopath it's not legal so that might qualify him more in an anti-social personality disordered realm but he's not necessarily showing a lack of empathy to all people it's this situation that's a business situation that he needs to handle tom wait a minute i'm talking about a cop that's mixed up in drugs i'm talking about a a dishonest cop a crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets and got what was coming the anti-social personality traits here would be disregard for the law potentially lying and manipulating which we know that he does there is the question of is he a psychopath and if we look at all of the different iterations he would probably be more of that old idea of a sociopath that the environment in which he's in now as a young adult has created this uncaring person he still cares about family so there's that that's going for him in the opposite direction but the idea that society and what he's involved in has made him this way that's different than psychopathy and it's really a good debate as to whether he would be or wouldn't be a psychopath there are things that argue for it such as his violent behavior or ordering people to be killed and not caring about it just seeing it as business whereas there's evidence that he might not be that he really does care about children and other members of his family on that side however we have seen that psychopaths from the research can feel some care and some concern for their family members this one is really a tricky one to parse out clockwork orange i'm going to show you some slides and you're going to tell me what you think about them all right oh jolly good the exercise that alex undergoes here is very similar to a study that was recently done with psychopaths in that study a neutral face was shown and it was changed into something a little bit more emotional people who scored high on the psychopathy checklist showing traits of psychopathy actually had a harder time even figuring out or understanding what the emotion was that the person was showing it suggests that they have a really hard time understanding or processing other people's emotions here we see alex give some responses in this movie what they're trying to show is that he's been conditioned to be less ultra violent those were the terms in the movie he had been conditioned meaning he had associated something violent images that's the scene where his eyes are held open and he's looking at violent images and beethoven's music which he loves they've been paired together to condition him so that each time he hears that music he wants to not go near it or that each time he is exposed to something that reminds me of violent images he won't want to go near them that was the idea of exposing him to those things the boy you always quarreled with is seriously ill my mind is a blank uh and i'll smash your face for you your blockos what studies have shown that the brains of psychopaths reveal is there's less activity in areas that process emotion or that are involved in decision making or even that link emotions and decisions and actions so the orbital frontal cortex the frontal part of your brain right above your eye socket has less activity in a psychopath and that part of the brain has to do with decision making and actions towards others and the striatum which is another part deeper in the brain that has to do with emotional processing as well as the amygdala also in the back of the brain and another part the anterior insula another part of your brain between the frontal and parietal lobes those are all involved in processing of emotion and they all show less activity based on images and studies of psychopaths so when he's talking about doctors being inside of his gulliver inside of his mind there have been studies to look inside people's minds it's interesting that this movie came out decades ago but we are still doing some types of studies like these today what do you want uh no time for the old in and out love i've just come to read the meter good i think what she's trying to do here is she's trying to show a good bedside manner she's trying to make him comfortable she's trying to make it so that he'll be willing to answer her questions she's not threatening him in any way she's presenting with these things i think this is also part of an assessment has this conditioning worked when alex looks at these pictures is he thinking about ultra violent things he mentions sex the in and out he mentions breaking eggs shoving a watch up somebody's behind but it's not clear that he's ultra violent so i think her involvement is furthering an assessment of how this experiment on him has worked one thing about a clockwork orange that's important to mention is in terms of psychiatry many people are scared of psychiatry and they've told me that the images of a clockwork orange come to mind that psychiatrists have exposed people to these horrible thoughts or horrible ideas and pictures and do terrible things that's not what happens in a psychiatry office or what happens in a hospital when a psychiatrist comes to visit the patient wall street fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place but why do you need to wreck this company because it's wreckable all right i took another look at it i changed my mind gordon gekko really shows traits of narcissism here he's preoccupied with this fantasy of money and power and accumulating more and more and more in addition to that narcissistic trait he also shows the trait of lack of empathy he is totally disregarding the father in the company here he's disregarding what he said to people he's lying he's manipulating people and that's all he cares about this is what some people have termed white-collar psychopathy or someone who's not necessarily doing violent crimes but involved in the financial world or other places there's a book that came out years ago called snakes in suits which talks about how some people in positions of power show traits of psychopathy so tell me gordon when does it all end huh how many yachts can you water ski behind how much is enough it's not a question of enough pal it's a zero-sum game somebody wins somebody loses we could look at why does psychopathy even exist one idea is that it's the survival of the fittest those that can take advantage of a situation will those that can in fact survive want to survive as best as they can there's another idea that psychopathy exists because it teaches us how to defend against those things and even very pure genetic cultures where there are very few people that come into that genetic pool there are psychopaths still that arise the idea is that perhaps this happens because we need to learn how to defend against it or again is there something evolutionarily that a psychopath has that is worth preserving some people who rise to positions of power use what they can to get ahead and that can be a version of psychopathy money itself isn't lost or made it's simply uh transferred from one perception to another like magic greed is good gordon gekko he's the one who who came up with that that is the idea that hey what i accumulate that's what matters most i don't care about other people anybody underneath me these are just pawns in my game i'm going to accumulate as much wealth as i can greed is good caring isn't it doesn't serve me and that's what we see in him no country for old men what's the most you ever lost on a coin toss sir the most you ever lost i'm not going to us i don't know so at this point your hairs are starting to stand on end a little bit and it feels like you just want to get away from this person that's a feeling many people describe when they're around someone who's psychopathic the idea that this guy is literally just toying with a man behind the counter and he's getting a lot of personal gratification out of it you see that it's about power it's about making sure that he can show this person that he's in control anton shugar is just trying to get this guy scared call it calling yes for what just got it well we need to know what we're calling it for here you need to call it a psychopath is often glib meaning they will express themselves but very shallowly you don't know what's really going on underneath you see some of that here in the back and forth the banter but it's more than banter it's really an attempt to make this guy distressed and have him feel a lot of fear what sugar does here he essentially makes his decision about killing this guy come down to a coin toss there's one theory that this might be related to something serial killers do by dehumanizing their victims the idea is that the coin toss or dehumanizing a victim and not seeing them as a person helps someone deal with what's called cognitive dissonance or the idea that this is wrong and the feeling they might have that this is not okay or the feeling that others might have it this is not okay but by making it all just come down to a coin toss or objectifying somebody then then it's all right it's justified so that could be what you see here that might suggest that someone has more caring and awareness than a psychopath might have but they might know again if it relates to them and their goals that a family member of theirs might be upset by their crimes so in that sense maybe they're aware of this and thinking maybe i shouldn't be doing this but again they don't feel it the dehumanizing helps somebody get through something if there is that cognitive dissonance it's also a way to continue to make someone very distressed this guy's life has just been minimized into a coin toss or someone who's going to be killed by a serial killer has just been treated as an object that's also a power and control thing or could be a power and control dynamic established by the serial killer or by the psychopath i can't call it for you well you wouldn't be fair i didn't put nothing out yes you did you've been putting it up your whole life you just didn't know it there was a criticism of this film when it came out that the character of sugar was not developed fully but the fact is that with psychopaths you don't actually know what's under the surface you don't get to know them in a deep way this has to do with that glibness of their expression pathological lying just not knowing heads in well done the fact that this gentleman might have gotten the coin toss right and for his lucky sake he did means that there is a way he could still live sugar was not determined to kill him in a way again that's sugar toying with this guy he's playing with him he's literally using him as a pawn in his game for personal gratification and that is an element of psychopathy in some of the most severe cases of narcissistic personality disorder also you can see that lack of empathy for other people so that's probably what's going on here it's an element of psychopathy an element of narcissism in sugar basic instinct boxing was fun till manny died how'd you feel when he died i loved him it hurt how'd you feel when i told you johnny boza died i felt like someone read my book and was playing a game catherine is showing signs of histrionic personality disorder someone with histrionic personality disorder wants to be the center of attention and they're uncomfortable when they're not they might use sexual or provocative behavior to become the center of attention they might use their physical appearance as well to gain someone's attention or affection you still get the pleasure didn't you ever anybody else when you were married nick how'd you know he was married maybe i was just guessing in addition someone who's histrionic they might have shallow shifting expression of emotions or even their speech might be dramatic or in some ways impressionistic trying to leave someone with a little bit of flair when it comes to catherine in terms of showing sexual behavior provocative behavior here she is flirting with nick out in the open there's the famous crossing of the legs where she exposes herself that's again using sexuality to gain attention you want me to take a lie detector test what's interesting at the end of this there is the beating of the lie detector in some studies psychopaths actually have less skin conductivity meaning that there's less of the electrical conduction that goes along the skin that's important when using a lie detector in fact because the reliability of a lie detector is not completely accurate it can't be admissible in court so it's not out of the question that she would pass a lie detector what's also possible although it's not clear is whether catherine's a sexual sadist sexual sadism refers to someone who derives pleasure from the extreme pain suffering or humiliation of someone else in her case she is talking about liking what manny did for her and there's allusions to violent or rough sex and sexual activity in addition we know that she has some tendency towards the more violent when it comes to sex catherine potentially is a sexual sadist there are different degrees and types of sexual sadists there are characteristics sometimes people torture their victims sexually for longer than an hour sometimes people have more than one way to torture their victims how did you meet mr bias i wanted to write a book about the murder of a retired rock and roll star i went down to his club i picked him up and i had sex with him [Music] you didn't feel anything for him you just had sex with him for your book in the beginning research on psychopathy shows that there is this mix of personality disorder traits that can be narcissistic they can be borderline they can be histrionic the classic psychopath is someone who does not care does whatever he or she wants doesn't think about how it affects others uses others manipulates others can be glib can really do whatever they need to to get into a situation to get out of it what they want so in that sense catherine really does show signs of being a psychopath ozarks i can't do this i can't i can't marty i can't do this are you driving i can't do this pull over right now honey shouldn't be driving wendy you're our whole life honey sometimes people make decisions do things that are illegal and make bad decisions even when they're not psychopathic or they don't have antisocial personality disorder or some personality disorder in this case wendy had to make this decision in her mind because if she didn't give up her brother she would risk her own life her husband's life and the lives of her children she chose here to give up her brother so that she could protect her family the decisions she makes to have him killed she clearly does care about him she's crying she's hysterical about having to make this decision if she were a true psychopath this would not be happening she has no one here to act for so she's not acting this way in front of anybody she actively calls her husband to share her grief so in this case this is not an example of a psychopath i can't do it i can't do this i can't why do i stop him do i stop him maybe just breathe what are we doing what am i doing some might argue that wendy arranged for the killing of kate langmore that she's also doing other bad things and and she's developing a coldness to her and that's quite possible she might be doing that to survive which is different than a psychopathic motivation she's not doing this for her pleasure she's got to survive she and marty are in this there's no way out so this is the only way she does this is to figure out who do i need to kill who do i need to keep alive what do i need to do to survive that is different than psychopathic behavior even though she's become more cold more callous in showing those psychopathic traits thanks so much for watching these clips with me i hope you learned something and i look forward to seeing you again

Channel: GQ

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Keywords: * psychiatrist, a clockwork orange, basic instinct, breakdown, dark knight, eric bender, godfather, godfather breakdown, gq, gq breakdown, gq magazine, gq the breakdown, joker, movie psychopaths, ozark, psychiatrist break down, psychiatrist breaks down, psychiatrists, psychiatry, psychopath, psychopath breakdown, psychopaths, the breakdown, the breakdown gq, the breakdown psychiatrists, the dark knight, the dark knight breakdown, the godfather, the joker

Id: QtFybK9n1EM

Length: 24min 5sec (1445 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 11 2021