Even Good Articles About Psychopath Are Flawed

Experts can't seem to get out of their own way...

Photo by Rita Morais on Unsplash

I will be doing another interview soon. When I was contacted about this interview I was curious what it was about psychopathy they had an interest in discussing. Much of it has already been covered in great detail, so it won’t exactly be groundbreaking. Psychopathy tends to remain a bit of a curiosity instead of something that is well explained in articles and interviews.

In preparation for this interview, they sent me an article link that had been the catalyst for the show on psychopathy and I was pleasantly surprised as to its contents… mostly. It is written by someone that has a Ph.D., and we would all be hopeful that it would be without bias or incorrect information, but that simply isn’t how these things tend to go, so in preparation for this interview I thought I would go through the article, and then another one that I found after, to discuss the parts that are correct, and where I see issues.

I have said in the past, psychopathy is not difficult to understand. In fact, it is quite simple. It is a genetic difference in how the brain is formed and functions. It removes some emotions, and mutes the volume of all the others. That’s it. There is no mystery to it. What psychopathy is not is the behavior that an individual decides to undertake in their lives. That’s their problem, hold them to account. It is, quite frankly, lazy to consider psychopathy either an explanation or excuse for someone acting like an ass.

The problem with this explanation of psychopathy is also simple. It removes it from the realm of psychology and places it squarely in the hands of neuroscience. That’s kind of a problem for psychology, because psychopathy, as a word and as a concept, is a money maker. No one wants to give up their claim on the inflammatory reaction that people have when they read that word, “psychopath”. With it comes all sorts of different assumptions and emotions, such as this lovely comment that I got today:

User commented on your answer to: "In what kind of situations can a normal person be more dangerous than a psychopath?"

An empathetic trauma survivor will see the true nature of a psychopaths victimizations, viscerally impacted when targeted or witnessing the covert aggressions/ transgressions, the unreasonable domination, the overstepping, abusive “helpfulness" socially undermining, threatening the safety, while damaging the cognition and ability to function or develope properly.. done with socially adaptive disguises. A trauma survivor will protect their loved ones, one way or another, once they see harm being done, esp to small children. Atrocities, by definition, are not committed by the the neurodiverse or neurotypical. The maliciousness you want to compare, is like comparing apples to apples…crimes that maim mutilate or murder unprovoked, are psychopathic…unless one must stop a psychopath from harming self or those that can't defend themselves. Equal energy and outrage are naturally called for in the effort to stop harm. How that happens depends on the given circumstance. The protective actions could be violent, if necessary. But if such things are demanded, they wouldn't be an atrocity, though.

That’s just… exhausting. So so much misinformation there, and it all comes from the emotional menu of nonsense that can be found all over the internet regarding psychopathy. Comments like this don’t just get manufactured out of whole cloth, they come from “experts” who write about psychopathy with an agenda.

This article, as I mentioned, is better than most, but again, still has its issues.

What We Get Wrong About Psychopaths

We have gone to great lengths to both mystify and monsterize psychopaths.

I do like the way this article begins:

We have an unhealthy obsession with psychopaths.

This is factual. There is an unhealthy obsession with psychopaths and it unfortunately isn’t going to get better without there being some consensus on what we are actually talking about. This article begins on a good foot.

We tune into true crime shows, podcasts, and movies, and say that we want to understand them, to get into their heads and figure out their malicious ways. But sometimes it’s not really the psychopaths we want to understand. Instead, we want to establish a stark contrast between how they think and how we think. We want assurance that we are better than these modern monsters.

Journalists and fiction writers and even psychologists and criminologists have gone to great lengths to both mystify and make monsters out of psychopaths.

When famous experts label psychopaths in corporate settings as “snakes in suits,” and authors describe interviews with psychopaths as “a journey into the evil mind,” we can quickly venture into a cycle of dehumanizing. When the word evil enters a conversation, we must question not just the mind and motives of the individual being discussed, but that of the person using the term.

Despite using the label psychopath regularly, most of us don’t really know what psychopathy is. Even clinical psychologists can harbor incorrect assumptions. Are psychopaths actually more prone to violence? Are they a homogeneous group? Where does the term even come from?

Psychopathy is perhaps the single most misunderstood personality disorder.

How is she defining psychopathy? That is the crux of the article I suppose. In her mind, psychopathy is a personality disorder. That is factually incorrect. A personality disorder is something that forms because of how your parents or caregivers raise you and the environment in which you are reared. Sure, there may be genetic components to them, but for the most part, they are related to circumstance, not hardwiring. Psychopathy is present regardless of upbringing. That makes it a difference, not a disorder. It cannot be created, it is there or it isn’t.

This particular author has a book that she released examining evil in humanity, and she discusses psychopathy in her book. In case anyone is interested, the book is titled, “ Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side”. Evil is an interesting concept, and it is one that I think most humans need to be far more comfortable with, especially when it comes to their own darkness.

Every single one of us is more than a little Hitler inside. Knowing that is how you defeat things like the Holocaust. Ignoring that is how to bring it about and then look back with shocked pikachu face after all is said and done, and everyone is trying to figure out where all the corpses came from. Hopefully, her book delves into this aspect of the human condition and puts responsibility where it needs to be, which is on the individual.

She speaks about psychopathy and its relationship to the idea of evil this way:

I tear into common notions of evil. As I deconstruct the term, I discuss the various ways we must better understand the personality constructs that lead to antisocial behavior. In the process, I help the reader explore their own dark tendencies, and I foster a sense of empathy that encourages us to treat those who carry damning labels as fully formed human beings.

Part of this discussion involves exploring the fascinating ways psychopathy is linked with evil. In the following section, I explain the concept briefly:

“In 1833, Dr. James Prichard formulated an early version of what we now call psychopathy. He called it ‘moral insanity’.[ii] People diagnosed with moral insanity were thought to make bad moral judgments but had no defects in their intelligence or mental health. Psychopaths, too, are often clever and sane and are more likely to do things that are widely considered to be immoral.

Today, the most commonly used definition of psychopathy comes in the form of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R).[iii] The first psychopathy checklist was created in the 1970s by Canadian psychologist Robert Hare, as a more structured way for psychologists and researchers to diagnose someone as a psychopath. Based on the checklist, some of the defining features of psychopathy are: superficial charm, lying, lack of remorse, antisocial behavior, egocentricity and—most importantly—a lack of empathy.

Most would argue that the defining feature of psychopathy is the lack of empathy. A lack of empathy is strongly linked with crime. Such a diagnosis means that when the person commits crimes or breaks rules, they aren’t weighed down by things like remorse or sadness. Empathy really gets in the way of hurting people. Psychopaths can be particularly ruthless, and I have more than once heard them referred to by academics matter-of-factly as monsters.

There seems to be the consensus that there are offenders and then there are psychopathic offenders. They seem to live in a separate, scary, category.”

It’s like psychologists are giving us, and themselves, a carte blanche to discriminate and distance ourselves from this group.

It’s time we examine our own misconceptions.

First and foremost, she has done no research on the origins of the PCL-R. It was not Hare’s list, it was Cleckley’s. Hare took it, changed it slightly and not for the better, and put a copyright on it almost immediately upon Cleckley’s death, and that was in the eighties. She should know this, and I shouldn’t have to be correcting it. It is also incredibly skeezy to take someone else’s work, change it enough that the estate can’t throw a fit, and slap a copyright on it right after someone dies.

All right, time for the meat and potatoes, let’s get into this.

Myth 1: Psychopathy is synonymous with violence.

Most psychopaths are not offenders, and even offending psychopaths are not necessarily violent. The fact that many psychopaths have traits that make them more likely to be violent does not mean that they will be violent.

Excellent, and well spotted. This is true, nothing about psychopathy directs action, and nothing about it makes a person violent. In fact, I would say I am far less likely to be violent, but should I need to be I have no compunction regarding it. It is what it is. Also, where does she get the notion that it’s a fact that many psychopaths are violent? If it is from psychopathy being studied in prison there are a couple of problems with that.

1. They use the PCL-R to “screen” people for psychopathy, but the PCL-R is overly reliant on criminal and antisocial behavior. It is not a good measurement for psychopathy, and the only reason that it hasn’t been taken out of consideration as a valuable tool is that Robert Hare throws a fit, suing anyone and everyone that dares question his authority and his precious checklist.

2. Many people that are “diagnosed” as psychopathic in prison, aren’t. There are many articles about people that got slapped with this label by clinicians that were not remotely trained to use the PCL-R, to begin with. They have untrained people using a dreadful checklist, and labeling people that aren’t psychopathic as such.

She does nothing to actually define psychopathic traits other than “callous-unemotional”. Outside of that, nothing.

She goes on to say:

According to Skeem:

“Psychopathy cannot be equated with extreme violence or serial killing. In fact, psychopaths do not appear different in kind from other people, or inalterably dangerous.”

But then… it kind of goes off the rails a bit:

They argue that it's particular traits within the larger construct of psychopathy that are related to violence, not the whole personality disorder.

The larger construct? Hmm, why do I feel the PCL-R peering around the corner and doing its best to put on its “I’m valid” face? Probably because that’s exactly what’s happening. I get it, Robert Hare is a big wig in the psychopathy realm, but really, when are we going to be honest about his contributions to the field? They have not been positive, and likely set back the understanding of psychopathy many decades. His “construct” of psychopathy is nothing more than a mess. It should be thrown out entirely and disregarded. If it’s brought up, it should be with a cringe of, “remember when we used to use that checklist? That was embarrassing.” Instead, he still gets credit as though he did something useful, not detrimental. It’s disappointing.

Psychopathy has nothing to do with violence. If you study something, anything, in prisons exclusively, and then draw your conclusions based on that population, you are an idiot, a scam artist, or both. If others adopt what you say as valuable without critically considering the way the concept was conceived, they are useful idiots who contribute to the problem.

Myth 2: Psychopathy is synonymous with psychosis.

I sort of feel like this one doesn’t need to be said. This is sort of a, “Of course it has nothing to do with psychosis. That literally takes three seconds to figure out. You just look to see the definition of the word. I don’t even consider this tier-one level knowledge about psychopathy. This is tier zero. It is unfortunate that she took up valuable article space with something so basic. Maybe I am just too far away from the general public’s understanding of psychopathy so my reaction is, “duh”, and this has value in the writeup, but it seems to be filler. I am not going through this one very much, it is self-explanatory. However, this section:

Psychopaths may know what they are doing, and that what they are doing is technically bad, but they may not feel the same about it as non-psychopaths, because of their diminished capacity for empathy.

I can add to this that psychopathy and psychopathology are also not the same thing. Psychopathology refers to the general study of mental illness and helps psychologists understand the course of particular mental health problems.

is both good and bad. The first part makes the assumption that psychopaths are up to something and that something is bad. That they know that they are doing bad, and they don’t care. She says that people dehumanize and demonize psychopaths, but then she herself makes the point to say that links psychopathy with wrongdoing. That’s tiresome.

The second paragraph is correct, however. Psychopathology has nothing to do with psychopathy. This is a common error, but the distinction should be made and people should be aware.

Next myth.

Myth 3: Psychopathy is synonymous with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).

Skeem and colleagues explain:

“ASPD is an official diagnosis marked by a chronic history of antisocial, criminal, and sometimes violent behavior dating back to childhood or early adolescence."

First of all, ASPD is an official diagnosis that can be made with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is the major handbook that psychologists use to determine whether someone can be diagnosed with a mental illness. Psychopathy is still not in this handbook, although it is widely accepted as a personality disorder. Why is psychopathy not in the DSM? Well, that's a whole other story.

Second, the diagnosis of ASPD relies almost entirely on antisocial behavior, while the diagnosis for psychopathy relies more on personality traits. Within criminal psychology, most of us dislike ASPD, because it applies by default to most offenders, while psychopathy helps to differentiate between offenders based on meaningful personality differences.

I’m going to be blunt. ASPD is dumb. It’s lazy, it’s pointless, it has nothing to offer patients or clinicians, it’s just a useless construct that should be dropped, never to be thought of again. Why people place any credence in it at all is a mystery to me, yet here we are. At least she is honest enough to say that it is behavior based. However, she says almost entirely behavior-based, and that is not true. It is entirely behavior-based. Not one aspect of it has anything to do with why a person is behaving antisocially, just that they are, and that’s important for… reasons.

Why is psychopathy not in the DSM? This was best answered by a neuroscientist:

Psychopathy is a difference in neurological function, not a diagnosis of mental illness. Antisocial personality disorder is a diagnosis of mental illness, and often people with antisocial personalities exhibit many psychopathic traits. But as you pointed out, psychopathy is not listed in the DSM-V. This is because it is a neurological disorder and not a mental illness, similar to how Huntington’s Disease is not listed, although the mild cognitive impairment due to HSD is.

Now, I disagree with the use of “disorder”. I think that people use this word instead of difference because they like to believe that there is a standard that everyone should fit into, and when they don’t they are “disordered”. I find that to be nonsensical. A disorder is something that disrupts your life. If it doesn’t, then it’s a difference. Quibbling aside, that is why psychopathy is not in the DSM, or rather why it shouldn’t be. The real reason it isn’t in there? Squabbling between psychologists that wrote the last iteration of it. Not kidding. You would think that these people would be professional enough not to bicker, but you would be wrong about that:

Robert Hare went toe to toe with sociologist Lee Robins. Robins contended that empathy was not something that could be quantified by a doctor. That it was too subjective and that sticking to the overt traits that had been decided on for the ASPD definition was what should be all that is offered. The editing team agreed with Robins, and psychopathy was therefore lumped under the ASPD diagnosis, much to Robert Hare’s enraged chagrin. Also, he wants psychopathy to be coined, “Hare’s Syndrome”. I am all for a rebrand of psychopathy, but not in service to that man’s ego. He seriously needs to go away. Retire already, dude.

The next myth is where she just gets it wrong.

Myth 4: Psychopathic individuals are born, not made.

Wrong. This isn’t even one that can be argued. She is just wrong, either intentionally or she can’t be bothered to read a book, or a study, or anything else that demonstrates that psychopathy is genetic. What is even worse is that she tries to make the argument that children with callous-unemotional traits, which in her mind apparently makes them psychopaths, can be intervened with and they can be saved from becoming one.

ALL CHILDREN ARE CALLOUS AND UNEMOTIONAL. ALL OF THEM.

Children are the most self-centered creatures on the planet. I’m not knocking them for this. In reality, they have to be. Their very survival depends on this, and they take it to the very top level of tolerance. The only reason that they survive childhood is because their parents love them, so they don’t drown them in the bathtub. Children believe that the world revolves around them, and when it doesn’t, that comes as a big shock to their little brains. This has nothing to do with psychopathy, it has to do with children being children.

Let’s examine what she actually says about this:

Like with everything in psychology, this disorder comes from a combination of nature and nurture.

This may also help explain why most children who are predisposed to psychopathy never become psychopaths. If a child high on what are referred to as callous-unemotional traits (i.e., has the foundations of psychopathy) grows up in a household that encourages cooperation and teaches pro-social values, this reduces the odds of them developing into a psychopath. Conversely, if a child with these same traits grows up in a toxic environment, their predispositions make it more likely to flesh out into a mature diagnosis of psychopathy.

Ah… there’s the rub. “Like everything in psychology”. Sorry to break this to you, Dr. Shaw, but psychopathy has nothing to do with your corner of the world. It is a neurological difference, not a psychological construct. I understand that Robert Hare made it all about him and his “research”, but the fact is, with every year there are more advancements in imaging and genetics technology, and with those advancements is very apparent that psychopathy is genetic. It is hardwired and has existed for as long as humans have. It can be traced through family lines, and the genetics can be mapped out to a great degree.

You cannot intervene and make a psychopath, not a psychopath. You can teach them to be good members of society, but if you can teach a child with callous-unemotional traits (all children) to have emotional empathy, they would never have been a psychopath, to begin with. This sort of thinking is precisely why psychologists need to back off and walk away from psychopathy in general. They have these ideas that simply do not align with reality. They won’t walk away, however, because psychopathy makes money. How many books have been written by psychologists claiming to be the end-all, be-all, of understanding psychopathy? It’s a lot. No one wants to turn their back on that cash cow.

A child that is wired to be a psychopath will be a psychopath. Also, she is again leaning back toward the idea that psychopathy is synonymous with antisocial personality disorder in this section as she is discussing negative behavior:

If a child high on what are referred to as callous-unemotional traits (i.e., has the foundations of psychopathy) grows up in a household that encourages cooperation and teaches pro-social values, this reduces the odds of them developing into a psychopath. Conversely, if a child with these same traits grows up in a toxic environment, their predispositions make it more likely to flesh out into a mature diagnosis of psychopathy.

The foundations of psychopathy are quite simple. It is the difference in how the brain is formed, and how that brain processes its chemistry. The only reason she would say, “grows up in a household that encourages cooperation and teaches pro-social values” is if she is associating antisocial values and selfishness as inherent to psychopathy. I won’t argue with the attribution of selfishness at all. Psychopaths are very self-focused. However, the idea of “prosocial values” means that she believes that antisocial values are inherent psychopathic traits, which contradicts her previous “myth” regarding ASPD. She clearly does not think that this is a myth, and she also clearly believes that psychopathy can be loved out of a person. That is incredibly dehumanizing, and the opposite of what she claimed her article was written for.

Next myth.

Myth 5: Psychopathic traits do not change.

Oh my… where might she be going with this one. This could be a trainwreck guys, let’s see.

Being labeled a psychopath can forever change your life. A diagnosis of psychopathy changes how an individual is approached, and how suitable they are considered to be for treatment. Unfortunately, the approach to treatment for psychopaths is often “don’t bother,” because the assumption that psychopaths can’t be treated is still widespread.

Skeem and colleagues write that:

"recent empirical work has emerged to suggest that personality traits in general, and psychopathic traits more specifically, undergo change [over the lifespan]... [and] youth and adults with high scores on measures of psychopathy can show improved behavior after intensive treatment"

Skeem herself is responsible for spearheading some of this game-changing research on treating psychopaths.

There is no such thing as a youth that scores high on psychopathy. You can’t measure psychopathy in a brain that is underdeveloped. There are several issues with this entry in the article.

1. She does nothing to define psychopathic traits. That’s one of the problems in this entire article. She apparently is allowing the PCL-R to be what is considered “psychopathic traits”, but she does nothing to speak to what those “traits” are outside of the “callous-unemotional” aspect. That is a very narrow definition, and no, callous-unemotional traits do not disappear as a psychopath ages. They might diminish in appearance due to better masking, but they are still there.

2. There is no treatment that will change how a psychopath functions internally. This goes back to the idea that psychopathic children can be loved out of being psychopathic. This is a dismissive dehumanizing perspective that demonstrates the real issue of ego when it comes to many psychologists’ perspective on psychopathy. They do not see psychopaths as individuals that should be addressed as such. They see us as broken disordered people that need to be fixed. That isn’t a problem with us, that is a problem with them, and it’s a big problem. So long as that is the outlook, psychopaths will never be interested in volunteering to be studied outside of prisons. The notion that we can be “fixed” is not something any of us is interested in.

3. She is, again, without directly saying so, linking psychopathy to antisocial traits. She isn’t discussing psychopathy as something that we should be trying to understand, but rather as something that needs to be addressed in young people to prevent them from being psychopathic. The only thing she can be referring to is behavior, and the only behavior that she has mentioned so far in this article are those that are antisocial in nature. She is negating her entire article here.

Last myth.

Myth 6: All psychopaths are the same.

This one feels like another, “duh”, moment, but let’s hear her out.

As Skeem has argued:

“Psychopathy has long been assumed to be a single personality disorder. However, there is increasing evidence that it is a confluence of several different personality traits.”

These personality traits include disinhibition, boldness, and meanness—none of which are exclusive to psychopaths, but together can result in a potent mix.

Perhaps the most troubling finding in the monograph is that some people are diagnosed as psychopaths who aren’t psychopaths at all. Skeem and colleagues report that a significant minority of adult and young offenders who were labeled psychopathic could be more accurately described as emotionally disturbed and emotionally detached. Instead of psychopathy, anxiety, and dysphoria (general dissatisfaction with life) may be more fitting diagnoses.

Finally, let us try not to fall into the destructive rhetoric that psychopaths are somehow sub-human. Psychopaths are no less deserving of our understanding or help than anyone else. Nor should someone be described as a psychopath just because you disapprove of their actions or don’t like them. Not all jerks are psychopaths, and not all psychopaths are jerks.

Golly be, she actually got around to listing some traits. So now we have her defining psychopathic traits as, callous-unemotional, disinhibition, boldness, and meanness.

All right, I disagree that most of these have anything to do with psychopathy, and can’t help but note the missing and most important, lack of emotional empathy, but whatever. She has her list, and I have mine. Well, actually I just happen to agree with Kevin Dutton’s list, which is:

Ruthlessness

Fearlessness

Impulsivity

Self Confidence

Focus

Coolness under pressure

Mental toughness

Charm

Charisma

Empathy-cognitive only

Conscience-cognitive only

The list she went with is rather… generic. Anyone can have those traits and not be remotely psychopathic. A psychopath may not have most of those traits. Meanness, for instance, that is a rather ill-conceived idea when it comes to psychopathy. Meanness is about your experience with a person, not the person themselves. I can say something to you that is the blunt but honest truth. That isn’t mean, but you might perceive it to be because the blunt truth hurts your feelings. Frankly, that should be a ‘you’ problem. Intent matters, perception, less so in my opinion.

Boldness isn’t really a trait either. Theater kids are bold, and often disinhibited, but that doesn’t make them psychopaths. Really, that list is kind of a mess and kind of worthless as well. Most of them are through the perception of others for them to make sense. What is bold to a neurotypical is just normal for me. Defining psychopathy through the eyes of those that perceive it, instead of those that live it is nonsensical.

She doesn’t even bother addressing the myth that she listed. She talks about how people are misdiagnosed as psychopathic instead. There are plenty of people that are misdiagnosed as psychopathic, no argument there, but that has nothing to do with the myth that she put forward.

Are all psychopaths the same? No, of course we aren’t. However, the way we experience the world is defined by how our brain works and how it is formed. This is true of all people. Psychopaths are no different. Psychopaths can’t process oxytocin. That is a fundamental part of being psychopathic. Not feeling chemical love, bonding, trust, jealousy, etc, is part of being a psychopath. That won’t change.

However, psychopaths can certainly learn to be less impulsive. In fact, we have to learn this if we want to have good lives. We can develop cognitive empathy, using that to be better at understanding and interacting with those around us. We will never feel the emotions that we lack, but we can understand that you indeed do feel them, and they are often very real when we see them.

She concludes her article with this paragraph:

Finally, let us try not to fall into the destructive rhetoric that psychopaths are somehow sub-human. Psychopaths are no less deserving of our understanding or help than anyone else. Nor should someone be described as a psychopath just because you disapprove of their actions or don’t like them. Not all jerks are psychopaths, and not all psychopaths are jerks.

but that is precisely what this article boils down to. It’s better than most out there, but it is exactly the same in conclusion. Psychopathy is a disorder, and those with it can be fixed. It is also defined by negative behaviors, and she notes nothing positive about it at all. She also treats psychopaths as people that deserve pity, but if she had ever met a psychopath, she would know that is the furthest thing from a psychopath’s mind. Psychopaths do not bemoan being psychopathic, ever. We do not want nor need pity from anyone, and certainly have no interest in being fixed.

We are not broken, to begin with.