Psychopaths and three reasons why we need them | Armon Tamatea | TEDxTauranga

[Music] when someone sees the word psychopath what does that mean to you more importantly who do you look at there it's a few glances going around the room as I said that but don't worry this is not an invitation to out your husband or your boyfriend or your your boss or your lawyer but I suppose if someone's going to come out here with a talk entitled Psychopaths and three reasons why we need them itd be to start off on a note of clarification so let me give you three firstly I'm not here to endorse or condone or um glorify antisocial Behavior or emotional abuse too many people who have been identified as Psychopathic have inflicted that kind of damage and Trauma on families and communities as it is without me encouraging more of that secondly what we come to know about so-called Psychopaths I hope you forgive my liberal use of that term today but what we've come to know about so-called Psychopaths has come from the criminal justice and forensic research areas what we know less about are those individuals who don't go on to commit crimes or go to court or go to jail so we have a large significant piece of the puzzle that yet to be more fully explored and articulated and thirdly the label psychopath let's be honest has negative social consequences I mean I bet you'll be less inclined to invite someone to your home or hire someone or even click on your dating profile if you knew that they were Psychopathic I mean when's the last time you saw an ad out there along the lines of desperately seeking tall dark handsome psychopath for instance or professional couple looking for flat mate must be neat tidy and Psychopathic or job opportunity and finances and accounts experience and Psychopathic traits preferred we don't see these we don't see these kinds of ads because they're stigmatizing right they're unhelpful and um they stop new thinking about people they reinforce an easy narrative that allows us to easy easily marginalize a vulnerable group albe it one that makes others vulnerable so is this social rejection completely warranted when people think about Psychopaths these are common images that can come to mind these are famous movie villains and they do Fascinate us don't they because they force us to engage with them on a moral level they behave outside the laws of society they act in ways that perhaps are forbidden to you and I and at least for a period of time they're kind of successful in doing so here's a couple real life examples this uh this is Ted Bundy who was a well-mannered law student an aspiring politician but he also embarked on a cross-country project of murdering young women throughout the United States in the 1970s but he kind of challenged The Craze a murderer stereotype of the psychopath not least because he was handsome he was intelligent he was articulate and he was well educated even at his trial his judge had commended him on his ability to handle himself in his own defense before he received a death sentence in the 80s close to home is this gentleman this is Mark Chopper Reed well known amongst the Australian criminal Community as a standover man who famously commented that he never hurt an innocent member of the public but he certainly had a field day with other criminals he conducted a campaign of fear and violence which went for many years and involved beatings stabbing shootings pistol whipping tow cutting he even kidnapped the judge he even voluntarily may I add had his own ears cut off so he could be moved to a safer part of the prison so yes there were actually more hazardous people in him in Australia but we kind of knew that didn't we but um amongst all of this amongst all of this he had a couple of films made about him he released an awardwinning song and he even published a series of books about his life amongst other things and they had great titles like hits and memories or how to shoot friends and influence people and amongst this body of work what was revealed really apart from a dark sense of humor and a keen wit with some really rare and Rich insights into how he had negotiated and survived and even thrived in a very hostile and dangerous social context things he went through so we didn't have to and you can make your own mind up about this one but least cut to the chase what is psychopathy well unlike other Concepts in mental health such as depression or schizophrenia psychopathy is still something of a contested concept I'd even go so far as to say that it's a promiscuous concept it's a sexy idea that gets around and is prone to abuse and misunderstanding much like resilience or poverty or maybe democracy but um psychologists and psychiatrists have essentially cornered the market on how psychopathy is defined and by extension how it ought to be dealt with one of the earliest now modern cases of what we now recognize as a psychopath goes back some 200 years to France nearly 1800s and concerned a uh a difficult man to be fair who was prone to quarrels and conflicts with people around him but we also know that he was well wealthy he was financially astute and had successfully managed an estate for many years all of which came to a really sudden end when he threw a woman down a well because she had the audacity to disagree with him on some issue so what we have is a sound rational mind on one hand and quite destructive and self-defeating behavior on the other and that's the central mystery of what psychopathy is about which led one psychiatrist to very famously describe this phenomena as a mask of Sanity now contemporary U clinical descriptions have been rather unkind to this group and not even neutral so here's one uh so this this is a very uh well-known modern definition so psychopathy is a socially devastating disorder defined by a constellation of aective interpersonal and behavioral characteristics inter species Predators that's an interesting word who use charm manipulation intimidation and violence to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs so what this is really describing uh Sinister and scheming individuals whose thoughts feelings and behaviors are geared engineered almost to sort of Target isolate and and exploit us for their own gains this next one is a bit more recent this one says psychopathy is an emotional disorder which puts the person at risk of repeated displays of extreme antisocial Behavior so not quite as demonizing as a previous definition and this one is somewhat narrower in scope and does make explicit the relationship between crime and psychopathy and to be fair that relationship has been born out in the research it's the use of the word disorder which I find quite interesting because it kind of frames as a type of medical condition what's really a broad spectrum of quite complex social issues philosophers on the other hand have a much simpler way of dealing with this now psychop is big business in the popular literature space as well and here's a selection of best sellers and what do we notice about these book covers they kind of steer out at us don't they in a kind of a weird Twilight Zone reversal moment these books May well be reading us and what this I think kind of does it perpetuates a malevolent stereotype of a predator lying and wait in the shadows watching for one of us to stray from the flock before they make their move I think what this does is that it sets up an expectation of fear and lothing in the minds of readers about what's really quite a poorly understood group so given these issues of public anxieties and violence and crime and whatnot you may well be thinking so why do we need these people again well I'm uniz Psychopathic people who are doing things well those that don't go on to attract legal attention and they do exist I want to know what they're doing right because the more we understand about that group The more we can understand about this other group that have the potential to harm us in some way I'm interested in the niches they occupy in society and the roles they have in their communities and I'm in of conducting research incidentally on this very question looking at the lifestyle choices and habits and I'm looking for volunteers and by now you should know who you are so if you're interested come and see me later just please don't hurt me okay but U okay so in the in the meantime and as an exercise and reframing perceptions here's three ideas I want you to think about the first need about perhaps why we need Psychopaths is that Psychopathic traits can actually be advantageous psychopaths in many ways are the least and most visible members of our communities certainly those we hear about are those that tend to inflict significant economic social and human costs but some don't so are we overlooking the possible strengths of this group if we think about psychopathy on one level as being an issue of personality and that personality in a very simplified form is a configuration of attributes and strategies that allow us to negotiate through a wide range of quite complex social interchanges then being psychopathic to some extent can be quite helpful there's a number of traits that comprise what we call Psychopathic personality I won't go through all of them but just a couple of some of the more more well-known ones so let's start with um what we call superficial charm which is a kind of an insincere sense of appeal someone who has this trait May well tell unlikely stories about themselves they may puff themselves up to be more than what their background or their experien warrants and we all know someone like this don't we but at the same time these people can be quite engaging they can have good interpersonal skills they can form social alliances quite well they can work through social hierarchies quite well and if they're refined enough they can attract mates they're good at picking up chicks which then surely there must be some evolutionary benefits of that somewhere down the line fearlessness is another trait and by fearlessness I'm talking about someone has a high threshold for anxiety so they may lead impulsive Lifestyles where they may entertain situations that contain some level of danger or risk and depending on how extensive they entertain that lifestyle of danger and risk they may well expect to have a A reduced quality of life if not a reduced life expectancy but by the same token they may well develop a certain coolness under under pressure a greater resilience to stress and be able to make hard decisions that perhaps you or I might find difficult to do because of our own anxieties and inhibitions about the consequences or the the cost of those decisions and perhaps the most notorious trait when we think about Psychopathic personality is what we call a lack of empathy which is really a failure to engage with people in a way which recognizes their vulnerabilities and sensitivities and you will know if you have this trait if you lose your social alliances as quickly as you make them if you have a long history of pissing people off chances are you probably have this trait but it also means it also means that you may well be able to pursue life goals unhindered by the concerns of other people I suppose if we were to genetically engineer the perfect CEO a very harsh and chaotic capitalist context we may well want someone who was aggressively competitive who maybe engages in anti-competitive practices and even takes certain calculated risks so I supposed to take home message here is that some Psychopathic traits in moderation can be functional and maybe even adaptive in situations where there are social and emotional barriers so as's a thought experiment you may well ask your a question in this situation what would a psychopath do apart from crime what would a psychopath do and think about what kind of emotional social barriers are you facing in this particular dilemma that you might be facing at that point in time the second reason why we might need Psychopaths is because I think Psychopathic people's Psychopathic traits have the potential to address complex problems in quite unconventional ways in my experience as a as a clinician it's become very parent over over the years that people with Psychopathic traits are very good at spotting vulnerabilities in people systems and situations they may recognize that you or I will behave a certain way more or less because of Social and cultural norms and maybe physical and financial constraints but they may not care about that we know when we have a life problem because there' be a significant emotional component attached to that if we if a person TS not to think or feel rather too strongly about situations let alone other people then they're likely to frame that problem a little differently because the priorities will be different and arguably the solutions will be different as well let's take the issue of suffering and coping with suffering it's be long held that Psychopaths tend not to suffer even if everyone around them does they may well suffer but the experience might be different from you and I they may acknowledge you and I suffer but they just may not care about it so to give you a bit of a flavor of this I've I've got a letter which I conveniently had in my pocket um this this is written to me by a prisoner many years ago uh when I was involved in an experimental treatment program for Psychopathic offenders who had violent histories and I want you to kind of just it's not very long to get a sort of a a sense of how this person has framed an issue and even presented a kind of a solution so see what you think of this dear Armon thank you for your later I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to attend your violence prevention program but to tell you the truth I don't believe I have an anger problem or think I'm a violent person if you're enjoying your time down the river and you swat a pesky Sandfly does that mean you have an anger problem does that mean it's imperative it's genuine lad by the way does it mean it's it's imperative you attend a violence prevention program designed for extremely violent people of course not how absurd and should you be awarded browny points for not swatting it and instead allow it to Gorge itself freely on your blood no certainly not it's not your own choice if you wish to be Sandfly fod here's the problem now and again a prisoner will arrive and start behaving like a py Sandfly when all attempts I.E sh talking apologizing giving and finally coercing fail to snap him out of his pisky demeanor he leaves me no choice but to swat him and not because I hate him am angry at him or want to be violent towards him I just want to my time at the river so is it possible that your service could provide these folk with anti pisky sandl courses or something like that name and address with help so I guess the take a message here is Psychopaths can teach us something about addressing complex issues by allowing us to entertain unorthodox thoughts unintuitive ideas maybe even prohibitive ideas so a thought experiment you can try at home is to ask yourself a question in this situation what would a psychopath think and apart from perhaps the obvious antisocial kind of response that might come out of that what is the principle behind that thought might be interesting what you come back with and the third reason perhaps why we need psych Psychopaths there more of a bigger picture issue is that perhaps in non certain terms Psychopaths tell us what we're willing to tolerate as a society Psychopaths hold up a mirror to the social health of communities and organizations I think it was juvenile the ancient Roman satirist who famously said corruption is a matter of degree that psychopath exists is no accident and perhaps Serv as a reminder to us that we have in some way collectively been responsible for allowing those conditions to exist for antisocial behavior and emotional abuse and whatnot bble to exist if not flourish in parts of our communities and in my time working in the prisons I worked with many men who would were considered Psychopathic and whilst I recognize the pathology I also recognize that somewhere in that backstory is a really traumatic and damaged history which has meant qualities like empathy responsibility and a deep sense of connectedness with others sered no purpose whatsoever not even survival value and has instead being replaced with things like deceitfulness or narcissism callousness or even indifference to others Psychopaths disturb us I guess because they are us but without our sense of moral obligation they show us what we look like without our fears our anxieties our self-doubts recrimination or a conscience they see our environment for what it is but uncluttered with social boundaries and indifference to the feelings of others and they interact with it accordingly which is in an instrumental way a wise botanist friend once told me that a weed is a plant that's growing in the wrong place and by wrong place he's talking about that it inflicts damage on surrounding plants because it has to compete somewhat aggressively in order to to flourish those areas so competing with sunlight and soil water and and so forth and traditional ways of dealing with weeds is to manually pull them out and if that job's not done properly we have to go back and keep doing it because more weeds will keep growing so as you can see this becomes a multigenerational problem if you get my meaning a second approach is to dower and herbicide and you may well Target those plants those weeds that you're after but you may well contaminate the soil and compromise the Healthy Growth of those plants that you're trying to retain but then there's those instances where maybe some weeds are kind of useful weeds like Dand lines for instance can be both pretty to look at and have medicinal purposes so weed may actually have a use Beyond its status as a weed if we're kind of willing to look a bit further if we bring that logic back to to people that what without ignoring the hazards that Psychopathic individuals may pose to us maybe we need to start looking at the strengths perhaps of this particular group so is ostracism or treatment really the answer as it has been so far it was actually about looking at developing Alternative forms of of support to try and bring out the best in these individuals who concern us so much so if that's the case the thought we need to entertain then is what do Psychopaths want which is a question that's really asked this is a group that's often talked about but really talked with so let me leave you with this idea psychopaths are unlikely to Garner public sympathies anytime soon and that's perfectly understandable let's be honest but they don't just exist now headlines and movies they exist now workplaces our neighborhoods our homes and our lives so if we are to develop Solutions whatever that means to the problems of psychopathy then maybe we need to look at the problem a little differently we need to we need new ways to address old problems thank [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 153,093

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, New Zealand, Health, Behavior, Body language, Brain, Community, Crime, Decision making, Empathy, Identity, Intelligence, Mental health, Morality, Population, Psychology, Relationships, Research, Social Interaction, Society

Id: 0uJIPZfwZFU

Length: 18min 55sec (1135 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 03 2016