Image: Niklas Asker
In Brief
Life Lessons from the Inside
- Psychopaths have personality traits that, in moderation, can offer significant benefits. These typically terrible individuals may thus have a lot to teach the rest of us.
- The triumvirate of charm, focus and ruthlessness that psychopaths possess can predispose a person for long-term life success.
- A psychopath's proclivity to live in the moment can arm against anxiety and bring joy.
Adapted from The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us about Success, by Kevin Dutton, by arrangement with Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC (US), Doubleday Canada (Canada), Heinemann (UK), Record (Brazil), DTV (Germany), De Bezige Bij (Netherlands), NHK (Japan), Miraebook (Korea) and Lua de Papel (Portugal). Copyright © 2012 Kevin Dutton
“Got anything sharp?” the woman at reception barks, as I deposit the entire contents of my briefcase—laptop, phone, pens—into a clear, shatter-resistant locker in the entrance hall. “Now place the index finger of your right hand here and look up at the camera.”
Once you pass through border control at Broadmoor, the best-known high-security psychiatric hospital in England, you are immediately ushered into a tiny air lock, a glass-walled temporary holding cell between reception and the hospital building proper, while the person you are visiting—in my case, a psychologist assigned to escort me to my destination—gets buzzed by reception and makes his way over to meet you.
It's a nervy, claustrophobic wait. As I sit flicking through magazines, I remind myself why I'm here—an e-mail I had received a couple of weeks after launching the Great British Psychopath Survey, in which I tested people in different professions for psychopathic traits. One of the survey's respondents, a barrister by trade, had written to me. He had posted a score that certainly got my attention.
“I realized from quite early on in my childhood that I saw things differently than other people,” he wrote. “But more often than not, it's helped me in my life. Psychopathy (if that's what you want to call it) is like a medicine for modern times. If you take it in moderation, it can prove extremely beneficial. It can alleviate a lot of existential ailments that we would otherwise fall victim to because our fragile psychological immune systems just aren't up to the job of protecting us. But if you take too much of it, if you overdose on it, then there can, as is the case with all medicines, be some rather unpleasant side effects.”
The e-mail had got me thinking. Might this eminent criminal defense lawyer have a point? Was psychopathy a “medicine for modern times”? The typical traits of a psychopath are ruthlessness, charm, focus, mental toughness, fearlessness, mindfulness and action. Who wouldn't at certain points in their lives benefit from kicking one or two of these up a notch?
I decided to put the theory to the test. As well as meeting the doctors in Broadmoor, I would talk with some of the patients. I would present them with problems from normal, everyday life, the usual stuff we moan about at happy hour, and see what their take on it was. Up until now it had seemed like a good idea.
“Professor Dutton?” I look up to see a blond guy in his mid-30s peering around the door at me. “Hi, I'm one of the clinical leads at the Paddock Center. Welcome to Broadmoor! Shall I take you over?”
The Paddock Center is an enclosed, highly specialized personality disorder directorate comprising six 12-bedded wards. Around 20 percent of the patients housed there at any one time are what you might call “pure” psychopaths. These are confined to the two Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) wards. The rest present with so-called cluster disorders: clinically significant psychopathic traits, accompanied by traits typically associated with other personality disorders—borderline, paranoid and narcissistic, for example. Or they may have symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations indicative of psychosis.
Suddenly, reality dawns. This is no drop-in center for the mocha-sipping worried well. This is the conscienceless inner sanctum of the Chianti-swilling unworried unwell—the preserve of some of the most sinister neurochemistry in the business. The Yorkshire Ripper is in here. So is the Stockwell Strangler. It's one of the most dangerous buildings on earth.
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22 Comments
Add CommentThis may be of interest to people who like this article. I wrote it after [I think erroneously] being assessed as having an anti-social personality by a psychologist. I believe that the anti-social personality exists mainly to separate heinous actors from the rest of us in our own minds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"There is no doubt that James Homes is a menace to society. Nevertheless, blindly referring to anomalies like Homes as "sociopaths" further contributes to the pathologizing of a set of generally healthy traits that are necessary for social progress and counterbalancing "granfalloon" biases in society.
Psychopaths are today's "witch hunt" victims. Every criminal "must be a sociopath", right? The misguided public assumes that because someone lacks empathy he's necessarily dangerous, disruptive, and destructive. It might be more useful to think of the intelligent sociopath as rational, unbiased, and pragmatic as a decision maker. Are those not the very qualities necessary for social progress?
Ordinary (i.e. non-sociopathic) individuals extend empathy only to those perceived to be physically, behaviorally, or ideologically similar. At its core, empathy is merely confusing your own hypothetical will and intent with the will and intent of others. Thus, empathy is the root of much conflict as a result of frequent miscommunication and hopelessly biased assumptions about the will and intent of others.
The "selective" empathy of the "empathetic" ultimately leads to favoritism of similar groups and the polarization of opinion that ultimately contributes to the continual deepening of divergences between dissimilar peoples. That is to say, empathetics (as opposed to empathy or sociopathy) are the driving force behind notions of physical or ideological superiority. In contrast, the sociopath has no intellectual or instinctual inclination to show favoritism based on traits of inconsequential importance (i.e. race and sex). Thus, the sociopath serves as a counter balance to the empathetic's dangerously trivial fickleness."
I asked a young friend from Germany how the Holocaust was taught in public school. He said something like, "We're taught that a criminal gang seized control of the government." At the time, I thought that that characterization excused too large a body of law abiding citizens from responsibility, but this article makes me think about it again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Seized control of the government?" The Nazis were ELECTED TO OFFICE by citizens of what was then the most cultured country on earth. That made the entire German nation culpable and the carpet bombing of Hamburg and Dresden not war crimes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLeslie is without fear. He has neither any concerns for nor any concept of the future possible consequences of his actions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSuch skill is quite useful in military leaders early in a war: Generals Hood, Stonewall Jackson, and Jeb Stuart; Napoleon; and the Blitz. Sociopaths can make great generals in short wars. As the war changed they and their techniques failed.
In the early 70s, a number of places tried lying and pressure as a management technique. It produced great results for a few years. Suddenly corporations using that such techniques went bankrupt.
Sociopaths are capable of seeing what needs to be done right now. They should never be placed in a position requiring long range planning.
Not all prisoners are sociopaths.
One preacher simply got drunk and drove. He is in for DWI manslaughter. He does not act like a sociopath.
A doctor thought he had insurance fraud figured out. He had a good plan for his future. His was a well thought out decision. A rare audit caught him.
Others had illegal businesses going.
Many in prison do not meat the criteria.
Still, many in prison meet the criteria of being a sociopath. In this place their treatment consists of being warehoused for the length of their sentence. The legislature believes that way they are getting tough on crime. That makes as much sense as getting tough on disease by doing away with medicine in hospitals.
I find the argument presented here dubious at best, and glamorise a dangerous group in the population. Psychopaths are debatably not human. They are destructive, harmful, and dangerous. Their superficial successes are invariably short-term, and the result of the suffering of others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnullnvoid: I think you're rather off the path with the idea that empathy is somehow a negative value. I for instance cannot stand seeing others taken advantage of or being injured. I became anti-bully at an early age: which led me to risking life and limb on behalf of those who couldn't defend themselves. This kinds of mental trait makes for great cops, prosecutors, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm a steadfast critic of ideologies also - but the one value I learned from one of them is: Never INITIATE the use of force or fraud. You'll find that both English & American law are founded almost entirely on that principle. So your "consultant" psychopaths don't qualify in that area
Focus: I see that's lauded in your article, with the late Steve Jobs given as an example of that and "charm." Here again - Never initiate the use of force OR FRAUD is pertinent. Steve Jobs relied on convincing people the products he promoted were "insanely great" when in fact, they were "handy" but not much more. Exaggeration for the sake of financial gain is a hallmark of good salesmanship - but it almost always involves covering up some negative consequences or features.
I agree: we can learn much from the traits you mention - in moderation. You've got a good theory posited: just hang on to that and avoid promoting those "consultants" you used for your study. They are where they are for a very, very good reason.
I think I have the explanation for "fearlessness" and I believe it serves a positive value: species survival. As the author points out from the beginning: everything in moderation. Too much fearlessness produces show-offs, thrill addiction and over aggressive behaviors. Fearlessness in the face of emergences: An on-coming car is out of control - the threat is recognized and dealt with as if it was routine - some endangered drivers use careful steering to avoid impact with the on-coming car. (But "normal drivers" panic and over-steer, over-brake, etc. - sending themselves EXACTLY where they didn't want to go.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFearlessness (the good kind) enables strategic thinking. The brain actually speeds up (giving the perception that everything is slowing down). So there's "some fear" spurring rapid response - enough to save lives. Saving lives is a species survival plus: think of school kids threatened by a mass shooter (another kind of mentally ill [fearless] strategic planner). The fearless strategic defender starts living in the moment (to assess surroundings, formulate strategy). He or she picks a strategic position or makes one (such as coming up behind the mass shooter who's concentrating on wielding his gun/power). Taking advantage of knowing what the mass shooter is doing - the fearless strategic defender moves (aims & fires) to stop the threat without endangering bystanders.
Those who have phobic fears must learn to control their fear until it's only a spur to action, NOT as motivator to follow ideological "formulas" which are in reality magical thinking. Huddling in concealment does not always save the rabbit - and humans in a classroom don't have the advantage of camouflage like the rabbit in the bush. But the human who is armed AND concealed has the final advantage.
If you (and others) rethink on how elections are won in "western democratic countries", i. e. with the help of the press (lots of money) and with cosmetic information about politicians (of course to appear whatever needs to), and that the press publishes what it gets paid to publish, then you may find voters as ignorant regarding to the "right" choices (if this thing do exist). We do not choose politicians, parties offer then to us. If we are to blame a whole country by her government takes, then they should pay for it (usually afterwards their govs had gone). Start with your long list for this purpose, from "A" to "Z" country names...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI found it ironic that when you talked about Steve Job's abilities and traits, you stated that Apple is not the world's greatest techno innovator. Considering iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iPad and Mac, and the fact that it is bigger than any other computer company, it is clear that Apple is at least a great innovator. While there were similar products before those made by Apple, innovation is more than just being the first. It means good design and usefulness. I think Apple meets these qualifications.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI found it sad that you said that Apple wasn't the first company to introduce a personal computer, but IBM was. While there were PCs before Apple, like the Altair 8800, the Apple I was introduced in 1976 and the Apple II in 1977, four years before the IBM PC. I would hope that in the future, you get your facts right, considering how easy they are to check on the internet.
Jeff Utz, M.D.
Brooklyn, NY
Psychopaths are attracted to and supported by other psychopaths especially in the organizational setting. To the contrary, when psychopaths are surrounded by individuals of strong character and strong ethical values, they are not tolerated; and, are limited and constrained by the same, especially if those who have this strong character have the means to do the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy experience as an Infantryman in Vietnam was that psychopaths are aware of the aforementioned limitations;and, as a result, avoid groups and situations in which the aforementioned limitations might result. (The Vietnam War Movie, "Platoon", is exemplary of this.)
As my grandmother told me: "Birds of a feather flock together."
Psychopaths are very poor at long range planning (given their negative personal traits), in general.
As a result, the nations, organizations, and groups led by them tend to deteriorate and decline over time.
Cleckley's book, "Mask of Sanity", describes the personality and character traits of psychopaths and the consequences of the same.
my understanding is that the Nazis never got more than 40% of the vote that leaves 60% who basically had little to say or do but it is true they did not seize control they were elected. T
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPsychopath 'science' is baloney.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe estimates vary between 1 in 25 to 1 in a 100 being a psychopath. Let's split it...6 million psychopaths in the USA. A study of 18 serial killers showed 11 of them to be pyschopaths according to 'experts'.
The FBI estimates about 20 active serial killers in the USA at any given time....that's 12 psychopths.
12 out of 6 million! A minutia of even so called pychopaths are serial kilers. A minutia are even murderers...a small minutia.
Studying 'violent' psycopaths to get insight into 'whatever' is focusing on the one in thousands to describe the norm...sensational but just not good science
The silly theatricality of this narrative aside ("I promise I won't kill you") I'm baffled why anyone one would go to the trouble of soliciting opinions from these certified psychopaths on how to behave without empathy but also without violence toward other persons. Used car salesmen, repo men, insurance adjusters, televangelists, pimps and drug dealers do it all the time and their strategies for taking advantage of others without regard for their interlocutors' welfare is well documented. Wouldn't it be easier to ask them why they don't feel sorry for their victims?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomebody has seen too many slasher movies. Maybe the researcher was hoping Jody Foster would show up.
I just finished the book. It's revelations are both enlightening and, at times quite scary. Many thanks to Kevin for writing this salient work. You forgot to put in a chapter on how to reverse the psychopathic increase vector - not enough on why but then, you are not an oracle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome wording remarks: "Conscience" or words sounding alike, is equivalent in many languages to "Awareness" or "Alert"; as the concept of "Conscience" as a source of moral warnings may be just cultural, without any neurologic or psychologic basis, perhaps it would be better to define psychopaths as people lacking any ethics, or not being able or not in the condition of distinguishing between good and evil, but this doesn't equals to actually harming, it's not the same a psychopath than a perverse psychopath, and not all psychopats are perverse. An anecdote: Chianti red wine excessive drinking is the kind of wine which produces more liver cirrhosis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjputz,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is you that needs to get his facts straight concerning when IBM introduced its first PC. In 1975, IBM released the first personal computer, the IBM 5100, which was before Apple had even formed as a company. The IBM PC you mentioned was the Model 5150 but it was introduced six years later.
Excerpt from 'What is the Primary Fundamental Right?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, now also called Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAS/E) is attributed to mothers drinking alcohol both before and after the birth if breast feeding. The damage to the fetal brain supposedly results in a person who is a liar, thief, very cunning and often quite charming. These are basic survival skills required to compensate for the lack of ability to perform ordinary tasks due to the alcohol damage to their brain. FAS/E victims are often not able to accept responsibility for any unsocial actions they cause or to feel remorse. Possibly many thugs are FAS/E affected people.
ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is possibly linked to the same cause as FAS/E and the National Institute of Mental Health suggests pregnant women should not use alcohol or tobacco to minimize the chances of having an ADHD child. A Canadian study in a Manitoba prison in 1999 found that over 50% of the inmates were FAS/E affected. Again the War on Drugs helps perpetuate crime and violence by restricting recreational drug usage to only the legal drugs, alcohol, tobacco and caffeine.
Because of their innate aggression supposedly some Australian football coaches look for signs of FAS/E when seeking new players. There is also a possibility that high amounts of FAS/E people fit the description of DSM-IV sociopaths/psychopaths, otherwise known as antisocial personality disorder (APD). The stringent off field behavior controls placed by many football clubs on their players is strangely exceptional for an employer but now completely understandable."
http://www.primaryfundamentalright.org/index.php?pageName=pfrWhatIs
My interest in psychopathy dates to early in my career when I worked for four psychopaths in an eleven year period. At first I thought they were just crazy -- dishonest, manipulative, destructive -- but their own superiors thought they were quite capable. Two of them went through personality and career collapse while I worked for them when their bosses awakened to their real natures. I now have professional confirmation that these four characters did in fact exhibit behaviors typical of psychopaths. I finished my professional engineering career when I was laid off from Enron, a classical psychopathic disaster that disrupted thousands of careers and destroyed billions of dollars in value.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Kevin Dutton is creating a cottage industry in finding virtue among psychopaths, where no such virtue exists. Dutton has at least two previous articles extoling the virtues of a "psychopathic" surgeon and a "psychopathic" SOCOM combatant, and fails to make any mention of narcissistic behavior or anti-social behavior, the dominant characteristics of psychopaths, in reference to his subjects. In fact, as described, the surgeon and the combatant were clearly exhibiting conditioned responses to stressful environments.
So now Dutton is seeking insight into the thinking of psychopaths by visiting a DSPD ward. But among Dr. Cleckley's memorable observations was that psychopaths are adept at presenting a sincere, believable, charismatic persona when they want something. Psychopaths are typically very attentive during therapy sessions, not so that they can become well, but to improve their practice of psychopathy.
The only information Dutton (or we) can derive from this article is that Dutton is being played by his psychopathic subjects, and that psychopaths are more cunning than Dutton is intelligent.
There are many ways to "kill" someone, including destroying someone's spirit, dignity and identity. I've been unfortunate to be the victim twice of individuals who used a gift for deceit, ruthlessness, a lack of conscience, charm and reliance on "pack mentality" to do this in the workplace. They go on to be successful having "bullied" the person they see a competition out of a job and livelihood, destroying one's reputation, relationships and health in the process. I would say, these corporate psychopaths are enabled in a culture and economy that rewards those who say what others want to hear rather than the truth. I, for onr, would prefer to be on the receiving end than go through life determined to get what I want at the expense of others. Several mention the psychopath's inability to plan ahead and their penchant to live in the moment. this has not been my experience, including with my ex-husband, diagnosed as a "dangerous psychopath." Instead they are cunning and stalk their victims like animals, waiting till they are most vulnerable to pounce. The operative word here is "animals." These inviduals, lacking not only in empathy but conscience, have somehow lost their humanity. Those who commit "relational murder" rather than phsycial violence get away with it because we are afraid of them and they know it. It is no different than watching ape behavior. These individuals remind us of our animal origins. To never forget this and, therefore, not be surprised when they attack is, I believe, the most important "lesson" they have to teach us...not in anyway to be like them but recognize them for what (not who) they are and to run as fast as possible in the other direction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisContrary to the others, nullvoid, I think you have an excellent point. I work as a psychiatric social worker, and am appalled by the unawareness The Empathetic have about their own motives. They do indeed favor people like them, or who they imagine are like them. They believe they can understand the feelings of others when they are merely projecting. They are quite certain that they are the good people that the world needs more of, while those others - the bad people, need to be disempowered and their culture sent to the rubbish heap.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, they are no worse than most others in that way, are they? Except, if one believes that you and yours are the few who are immune to such tribal loyalty, you begin to become dangerous. I don't know that sociopaths are spared that temptation, as you claim, but I know that empathy does carry its own tyranny in its roots.
The Nazis did not get 100% of the vote. You might also beignoring the context. Social darwinism and anti- Semitism were pervasive outside of Germany too; the country had been unfairly punished for World War I, and many Germans did not have much food on the table, the sort of things that often lead to bad decisions at election time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt doesn't do much good to hold an entire country responsible for the atrocities that were committed.
Assistant Village Idiot and Nullnvoid bring up interesting points on empathy. Psychopaths have no real empathy, but they can fake it superbly. The premise of Dr. Cleckley's book, "The Mask of Sanity," was based on this very point; psychopaths fabricate a charismatic personality for use when they want to impress someone, usually superiors or influential people, otherwise they can be dishonest and vicious toward others, usually subordinates.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is at the center of our current political discussion. The poor in the big city ghettos reliably vote for politicians who exploit them, and this has gone on for many decades. Even now, blacks, women, and the young are the most constant Democratic voters, and they are among the most ignored and exploited when it is time to create jobs.