Oh I'm definitely down to hear about naked people on LSD being tied together. I can't imagine what would be considered a good outcome for doing that. I wonder what LSD does to a psychopath anyway?
Some of this is fear, but some is influenced by our Judeo-Christian culture, which asserts that every person is redeemable within that framework. I have tried to explain to religious friends that a psychopath cannot be "saved" in the way that they insist, as a psychopath is incapable of feeling remorse. They find it difficult to accept this and insist that if touched by God, a psychopath would feel remorse, disregarding any discussion of impossibility. Accepting that primary factor one psychopaths are born this way and are fine as they are is anathema to them, as it would challenge their worldview. I mention that a psychopath could potentially experience cognitive remorse through cognitive empathy, but I can't fathom the need for it. I have encountered someone who claims to be psychopath and a Christian, though I didn't follow up on this to find out if maybe they were secondary factor two psychopathy, which would make more sense. It seems there is a desire to save psychopaths, who often possess significant charm and attractiveness. As one of my friends said, "I have to believe that everyone can be saved".
"There was actually a study that was done specifically to try to attempt defanging psychopaths in a nearly literal sense. It involved LSD and tying naked people together. Let me know if you guys want to hear about it. It’s kind of a wild ride."
Sounds fascinating, Athena. I'd love to hear about it!
Great article. I agree that for some people they need to explain the motive for bad behaviour. Bad behaviour without motive just doesn’t fit within the NT world view at all.
I also don’t think we understand the concept of boredom. Our boredom is different so bad behaviour ‘because it alleviated the boredom’ doesn’t fully compute. There must be something else, a different motive, a hidden motive. I have wondered about the boredom of the psychopath. The conclusion I drew was that psychopaths are bored because emotional empathy is absent. If I looked at my day and recorded every thought I had, most of the thoughts that weren’t task related would involve the bonds I have to other people. I might worry about a friend who is having relationship difficulties, ponder how my son’s day is going at school, mull over a problem at work another person is having, plan a holiday whilst remembering fondly the last holiday with my family. My thoughts are populated by emotional ties and bonds. If I removed all of those emotional thoughts there would be a huge amount of free band width. I think this is where the psychopath’s boredom comes in.
I think some people also have a need to defang the psychopath because actually they care. They genuinely see the lack of emotional empathy as a ‘missing out’. They love, have experienced love and they can’t imagine going through life not experiencing that feeling to its fullest extent. It’s not a done with a ‘superior’ attitude. It’s done because they genuinely care and feel that the psychopath should experience full spectrum of emotions that they experience. They value those emotions and hope that by defanging, or having faith that a defanging might some day be possible, the psychopath will get to experience emotional ties in a similar way. Technically it’s a grandiose ‘ my world view is better’. I don’t think that’s the intention though, at least not always.
please describe "defanging a psychopath". does it mean making them more "normal?"
also, what is the take on all this of the mental health professionals? do the therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists reinforce the notion that psychopaths can be fixed? it seems to me that for not only the financial gain but the huge power trip would be reasons to promote the idea of fixing anybody, including psychopaths.
when the world is filled with normal persons (like me) with the same morals and motivations, I can exist in a world where I feel safe, it is a more predictable place to live. its about control and ignorance and clinging to dogma, an inflexible mindset too lazy to learn anything new.
not everything or everyone can or should be "fixed". it is extremely arrogant to believe otherwise.
The need to think that one understands the world and other people can be traced as the root cause of a lot of strange beliefs IMO - from wild psychological theories to superstitions and conspiracy theories.
In the case of the hug-a-psychopath article, there was also a lot of sexual tension. The typical problem for therapists is transference and how to deal with it, i.e. patients developing feelings for the therapist and how to keep it cool; that article was more along the lines of stoking the fire.
The article was a perfect description of the plot of every romance book: the rugged hero with a rough exterior and a traumatic past meets the heroine who unlocks his heart of gold with the power of her magic hoohaa. I saw it described in the book A Billion Wicked Thoughts, which was pretty funny.
for a long time, i tried to understand why what happened to me happened, and why the people who abused me did what they did. but i was not able to actually move forward from my trauma until i realized that my closure with them was that i was not like them, i would never understand why they did what they did, and that that realization *was* my closure.
it seems as though similar thinking could be applied here.
Wow, I realise writing this it's going to be too long but I find your thoughts inspiring:
That is very thoughtful, profound. I do not have an understanding of NT's so I do not think I really know why they do that. But they seem to have an extraordinarily limited world view. They seem to consider what is in their lives as the full bounds of reality in my view. If you say something as relevant as "The Nordstream Pipelines was blown up". They literally have no idea unless they have some specific reason to know and they seem to be a little intimidated by someone even bringing it up.
So I can see them twisting things around to think things through like that.
NT's also have something that I don't. When someone says things they automatically believe it without question. I think this is amazing personally. They also do that thing talked about by George Orwell. "The good thinker knows the correct attitude to take without taking thought". I have watched colleagues before all talk down what a government body said because it disagreed with the stated centre left pro their business objectives. To me, I did not expect this I thought NT's were unfailingly loyal to the government if that's what their tribe said? But instead, it was them talking the government body down and me thinking "Wait, on what basis are you saying that what that government body says is innaccurate? Do you not expect people that work in that area to have some expertise and know more than you?"
I always thought women liked to watch documentaries on serial killers, because it allows women to excite themselves sexually, to get close to that danger they crave, without actually engaging with it.
De fanging the psychopath seems a bit like enabling that a lot of NT's love to do. They also don't like the negative emotion of pointing out logical conclusions about others negative behaviour. Perhaps it's because they have emotional empathy, thus when discussing these areas they feel a negative emotion and thus... they want to escape the moment and insight? Perhaps some of them can't experience negative emotion at all head on. So they only experience it indirectly? When they do irrational things and have conflict that has dragged on for years longer than it should.
Perhaps in a tribal sense as well. If you are pointing out negative behaviours of others. The conclusion is that you should do something about it. Perhaps they do not want to confront the idea that violence may be the logical solution? If I say "Person b engaged in xyz that lead to an extremely negative outcome for a, and will likely lead to additional negative outcomes in the future; the most logical solution to this is to beat up person b?" They do not want to deal with that? Just guessing.
But then in cultures where that is the norm it is the norm.
But none of this gets me closer to why they want to believe that a psychopath is a puppy that was never loved. The need to care for said psychopath? The maternal instinct gone awry?
One thing you left out. As you know, my father was a generous, kind, and totally non-violent man until he was 65 and brutally killed my stepmother and threw her body out the window of their 12th floor NYC apartment. He could not explain it, but his MRI and PET scans did. He had a giant brain cyst on his frontal and temporal lobes. He has been studied by all the top experts in the neurolaw field. Your brain, as you know, is not the same as a neurotypical's. I believe there are a LOT of people who have brain abnormalities/characteristics that cause them to do things that we can't figure out the reason for, and even they can't figure out the reason for. The Brain Defense by Kevin Davis is a great book on this. And for a more intimate look at my father's case, my book, Full Frontal Murder Memoir is very insightful and changes the way people view brains and blame. And I would love to hear about the LSD and naked people!
Ha! Yes! Do tell the LSD naked people story, please. I love your work. You have given me such an understanding of how the psychopathic mind works. When I have an over-emotional response to something (which is frequent), I think to myself 'Be more Athena'.
Totally agree. Accepting the differences is the first step. It’s then far easier for an NT to appreciate strengths in psychopaths that we could adopt to improve our own lives and relationships, and vice versa.
Agree and well said! And you are right people cling to world views including religion to feel safe I think and that includes those whose brain chemistry or psychology or walk of life radically differs from the crowd.
Oh Athena I would definitely like to hear about the LSD people psychopathy study! That would be interesting. A few months ago I did a deep dive into Ayahuasca (I know not the same thing but still a hallucinogen 😉) and one of the guys described the experience as a empathogenic (or some term along those lines) and of course that intrigued me. Being a reader and follower of your work it's obvious that hallucinogens won't make a bit of difference bc the brain is still wired completely different but it's an intriguing thought. 🤔 Empathy is a tricky thing for some especially with those of us among the cluster b spectrum and/or have CPTSD. Some say these drugs help and some say just no way, I myself have done LSD and it was scary and overwhelming tbh. Thank you for your diligence in continuing educating us here! 🤜
Athena: I most definitely would like to hear LSD trials in trying to defang psychopathy. I’ve often thought whether criminals with low functioning (maybe psychopath maybe not, just low functions criminals in general) tendencies like aggression and impulsivity could benefit from psychedelics.
*Dr Jordan Peterson discusses his home country of Canada, which the professor believes has been taken over by Left-wing authoritarians and predatory psychopaths.* Listen to this bonus episode of Off Script hosted by The Telegraph's Steven Edginton. *Jordan Peterson on The decline and fall of Canada* Why does the situation appear particularly grim, here in Maple Leaf Country? We were, for most of my country’s history, miraculously and thankfully dull: our constitution, ensconced safely under British authority until 1982, enshrined “peace, order and good government” as the most basic principles of our dominion. This was not the clarion call ringing out to rally our good friends south of the border, who aimed at the much more dramatic and libertarian “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It was good enough, however, to produce a reliable, safe, secure and free state, conservative in the classic small-c sense, with institutions both predictable and honest, and an economy both productive and generous. That all started to change in the 1980s. Our dashing prime minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau – father of the current Prime Minister, our current clown prince – was searching desperately for a legacy and for a solution to the chronic problem posed by the Quebec separatists, who were genuinely threatening the integrity of the country. Quebec was the last feudal country in the West: extremely traditional and dominated by a very small, tight, essentially hereditary elite right until the end of the 1950s. Quebec dumped all that in a few short years in a fit of 1960’s freedom, also dropping its birth and marriage rate with exceptional rapidity (both are now among the lowest in the world) and abandoning the Catholic church in favour of a crude nationalism and a more-or-less socialist utopia favoured by those who pushed to also tear apart the country.
Defanging Psychopathy
Oh I'm definitely down to hear about naked people on LSD being tied together. I can't imagine what would be considered a good outcome for doing that. I wonder what LSD does to a psychopath anyway?
Some of this is fear, but some is influenced by our Judeo-Christian culture, which asserts that every person is redeemable within that framework. I have tried to explain to religious friends that a psychopath cannot be "saved" in the way that they insist, as a psychopath is incapable of feeling remorse. They find it difficult to accept this and insist that if touched by God, a psychopath would feel remorse, disregarding any discussion of impossibility. Accepting that primary factor one psychopaths are born this way and are fine as they are is anathema to them, as it would challenge their worldview. I mention that a psychopath could potentially experience cognitive remorse through cognitive empathy, but I can't fathom the need for it. I have encountered someone who claims to be psychopath and a Christian, though I didn't follow up on this to find out if maybe they were secondary factor two psychopathy, which would make more sense. It seems there is a desire to save psychopaths, who often possess significant charm and attractiveness. As one of my friends said, "I have to believe that everyone can be saved".
"There was actually a study that was done specifically to try to attempt defanging psychopaths in a nearly literal sense. It involved LSD and tying naked people together. Let me know if you guys want to hear about it. It’s kind of a wild ride."
Sounds fascinating, Athena. I'd love to hear about it!
Great article. I agree that for some people they need to explain the motive for bad behaviour. Bad behaviour without motive just doesn’t fit within the NT world view at all.
I also don’t think we understand the concept of boredom. Our boredom is different so bad behaviour ‘because it alleviated the boredom’ doesn’t fully compute. There must be something else, a different motive, a hidden motive. I have wondered about the boredom of the psychopath. The conclusion I drew was that psychopaths are bored because emotional empathy is absent. If I looked at my day and recorded every thought I had, most of the thoughts that weren’t task related would involve the bonds I have to other people. I might worry about a friend who is having relationship difficulties, ponder how my son’s day is going at school, mull over a problem at work another person is having, plan a holiday whilst remembering fondly the last holiday with my family. My thoughts are populated by emotional ties and bonds. If I removed all of those emotional thoughts there would be a huge amount of free band width. I think this is where the psychopath’s boredom comes in.
I think some people also have a need to defang the psychopath because actually they care. They genuinely see the lack of emotional empathy as a ‘missing out’. They love, have experienced love and they can’t imagine going through life not experiencing that feeling to its fullest extent. It’s not a done with a ‘superior’ attitude. It’s done because they genuinely care and feel that the psychopath should experience full spectrum of emotions that they experience. They value those emotions and hope that by defanging, or having faith that a defanging might some day be possible, the psychopath will get to experience emotional ties in a similar way. Technically it’s a grandiose ‘ my world view is better’. I don’t think that’s the intention though, at least not always.
please describe "defanging a psychopath". does it mean making them more "normal?"
also, what is the take on all this of the mental health professionals? do the therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists reinforce the notion that psychopaths can be fixed? it seems to me that for not only the financial gain but the huge power trip would be reasons to promote the idea of fixing anybody, including psychopaths.
when the world is filled with normal persons (like me) with the same morals and motivations, I can exist in a world where I feel safe, it is a more predictable place to live. its about control and ignorance and clinging to dogma, an inflexible mindset too lazy to learn anything new.
not everything or everyone can or should be "fixed". it is extremely arrogant to believe otherwise.
Hi Athena, great post as always.
The need to think that one understands the world and other people can be traced as the root cause of a lot of strange beliefs IMO - from wild psychological theories to superstitions and conspiracy theories.
In the case of the hug-a-psychopath article, there was also a lot of sexual tension. The typical problem for therapists is transference and how to deal with it, i.e. patients developing feelings for the therapist and how to keep it cool; that article was more along the lines of stoking the fire.
The article was a perfect description of the plot of every romance book: the rugged hero with a rough exterior and a traumatic past meets the heroine who unlocks his heart of gold with the power of her magic hoohaa. I saw it described in the book A Billion Wicked Thoughts, which was pretty funny.
for a long time, i tried to understand why what happened to me happened, and why the people who abused me did what they did. but i was not able to actually move forward from my trauma until i realized that my closure with them was that i was not like them, i would never understand why they did what they did, and that that realization *was* my closure.
it seems as though similar thinking could be applied here.
Wow, I realise writing this it's going to be too long but I find your thoughts inspiring:
That is very thoughtful, profound. I do not have an understanding of NT's so I do not think I really know why they do that. But they seem to have an extraordinarily limited world view. They seem to consider what is in their lives as the full bounds of reality in my view. If you say something as relevant as "The Nordstream Pipelines was blown up". They literally have no idea unless they have some specific reason to know and they seem to be a little intimidated by someone even bringing it up.
So I can see them twisting things around to think things through like that.
NT's also have something that I don't. When someone says things they automatically believe it without question. I think this is amazing personally. They also do that thing talked about by George Orwell. "The good thinker knows the correct attitude to take without taking thought". I have watched colleagues before all talk down what a government body said because it disagreed with the stated centre left pro their business objectives. To me, I did not expect this I thought NT's were unfailingly loyal to the government if that's what their tribe said? But instead, it was them talking the government body down and me thinking "Wait, on what basis are you saying that what that government body says is innaccurate? Do you not expect people that work in that area to have some expertise and know more than you?"
I always thought women liked to watch documentaries on serial killers, because it allows women to excite themselves sexually, to get close to that danger they crave, without actually engaging with it.
De fanging the psychopath seems a bit like enabling that a lot of NT's love to do. They also don't like the negative emotion of pointing out logical conclusions about others negative behaviour. Perhaps it's because they have emotional empathy, thus when discussing these areas they feel a negative emotion and thus... they want to escape the moment and insight? Perhaps some of them can't experience negative emotion at all head on. So they only experience it indirectly? When they do irrational things and have conflict that has dragged on for years longer than it should.
Perhaps in a tribal sense as well. If you are pointing out negative behaviours of others. The conclusion is that you should do something about it. Perhaps they do not want to confront the idea that violence may be the logical solution? If I say "Person b engaged in xyz that lead to an extremely negative outcome for a, and will likely lead to additional negative outcomes in the future; the most logical solution to this is to beat up person b?" They do not want to deal with that? Just guessing.
But then in cultures where that is the norm it is the norm.
But none of this gets me closer to why they want to believe that a psychopath is a puppy that was never loved. The need to care for said psychopath? The maternal instinct gone awry?
Another one of your enlightening articles. Thank you. What do you think of the characterisation of psychopaths by Ms. Elinor Greenberg? What could be your objections to her list? She says that she is strong on the Dark Triad but not psychopathy. https://bitsofwisdom.quora.com/How-do-I-differentiate-malignant-narcissists-and-psychopaths
One thing you left out. As you know, my father was a generous, kind, and totally non-violent man until he was 65 and brutally killed my stepmother and threw her body out the window of their 12th floor NYC apartment. He could not explain it, but his MRI and PET scans did. He had a giant brain cyst on his frontal and temporal lobes. He has been studied by all the top experts in the neurolaw field. Your brain, as you know, is not the same as a neurotypical's. I believe there are a LOT of people who have brain abnormalities/characteristics that cause them to do things that we can't figure out the reason for, and even they can't figure out the reason for. The Brain Defense by Kevin Davis is a great book on this. And for a more intimate look at my father's case, my book, Full Frontal Murder Memoir is very insightful and changes the way people view brains and blame. And I would love to hear about the LSD and naked people!
Ha! Yes! Do tell the LSD naked people story, please. I love your work. You have given me such an understanding of how the psychopathic mind works. When I have an over-emotional response to something (which is frequent), I think to myself 'Be more Athena'.
Totally agree. Accepting the differences is the first step. It’s then far easier for an NT to appreciate strengths in psychopaths that we could adopt to improve our own lives and relationships, and vice versa.
Definitely want to hear about tied up people tripping balls 🤓
Agree and well said! And you are right people cling to world views including religion to feel safe I think and that includes those whose brain chemistry or psychology or walk of life radically differs from the crowd.
Oh Athena I would definitely like to hear about the LSD people psychopathy study! That would be interesting. A few months ago I did a deep dive into Ayahuasca (I know not the same thing but still a hallucinogen 😉) and one of the guys described the experience as a empathogenic (or some term along those lines) and of course that intrigued me. Being a reader and follower of your work it's obvious that hallucinogens won't make a bit of difference bc the brain is still wired completely different but it's an intriguing thought. 🤔 Empathy is a tricky thing for some especially with those of us among the cluster b spectrum and/or have CPTSD. Some say these drugs help and some say just no way, I myself have done LSD and it was scary and overwhelming tbh. Thank you for your diligence in continuing educating us here! 🤜
Athena: I most definitely would like to hear LSD trials in trying to defang psychopathy. I’ve often thought whether criminals with low functioning (maybe psychopath maybe not, just low functions criminals in general) tendencies like aggression and impulsivity could benefit from psychedelics.
Dear Athena. Peterson's definition of psychopathy is wrong? I believe he is wrong when he equates psychopathy with narcissism.
https://youtu.be/6uNIfIe0wgE?si=OZ5qPuuObcf4UnIG
Jordan Peterson: Narcissist Justin Trudeau has never said a true word
27.255 visualizaciones 1 sept 2023 Off Script | Telegraph | Podcast
*Dr Jordan Peterson discusses his home country of Canada, which the professor believes has been taken over by Left-wing authoritarians and predatory psychopaths.* Listen to this bonus episode of Off Script hosted by The Telegraph's Steven Edginton. *Jordan Peterson on The decline and fall of Canada* Why does the situation appear particularly grim, here in Maple Leaf Country? We were, for most of my country’s history, miraculously and thankfully dull: our constitution, ensconced safely under British authority until 1982, enshrined “peace, order and good government” as the most basic principles of our dominion. This was not the clarion call ringing out to rally our good friends south of the border, who aimed at the much more dramatic and libertarian “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It was good enough, however, to produce a reliable, safe, secure and free state, conservative in the classic small-c sense, with institutions both predictable and honest, and an economy both productive and generous. That all started to change in the 1980s. Our dashing prime minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau – father of the current Prime Minister, our current clown prince – was searching desperately for a legacy and for a solution to the chronic problem posed by the Quebec separatists, who were genuinely threatening the integrity of the country. Quebec was the last feudal country in the West: extremely traditional and dominated by a very small, tight, essentially hereditary elite right until the end of the 1950s. Quebec dumped all that in a few short years in a fit of 1960’s freedom, also dropping its birth and marriage rate with exceptional rapidity (both are now among the lowest in the world) and abandoning the Catholic church in favour of a crude nationalism and a more-or-less socialist utopia favoured by those who pushed to also tear apart the country.