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Transcript II: 8.5 Million Sociopaths: interview with Psychiatrist Donald Black

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I interviewed psychiatrist Donald Black, M.D., author of Bad Boys, Bad Men, on May 6, 2013, discussing anti-social personality disorder, sociopaths and psychopaths. He says there about 8.5 Million sociopaths in the USA-- about 4% of adults. 

  This is part two of a two part interview. Here is a link  to the audio podcast. Links to other articles in the series, including part one of this interview.

Thanks to Don Caldarazzo   for doing the transcript.

 

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Rob Kall:   OK.  Next: you mention in your books on a couple occasions use of marijuana as a sign, potentially, of anti-social personality; yet several states have now made it legal, and it's available for use as a medicine in a growing number of states.  Where does marijuana fit in with this?

Donald Black:   Well that's a good question, and let me correct that, in that anti-socials in general tend to abuse substances.  It could be marijuana, it could be methamphetamine, it could be cocaine, it could just be alcohol.  Alcohol is probably the most widely used substance of anti-socials, and I think it just reflects on their inability to delay gratification.  They tend to be into instant gratification, and drugs and alcohol can provide that.  If they are alcohol or drug addicted, their anti-social personality is worse, because they are dis-inhibited; they're more like to be impulsive, they're more likely to act out.  One of the thoughts about treating these people is that if they are drug addicted, you must get them off of drugs. 

 

Now, we have seen this tendency in the U.S. in various states to legalize medical marijuana or just decriminalize marijuana.  Whether or not that's a good thing or not I think society has to determine for itself.  I personally don't agree that states should be legalizing marijuana as a medical indication, because as a doctor I can tell you that there are no hard and fast medical indications, and certainly none that have been well studied.  But it's a question that society has to address for itself.  There's no specific connection with anti-social personality disorder.

 

Rob Kall:   OK.  Next question: I want to observe that your book tends to focus on people who are in lower portions of our culture, and I think you make it clear in your book that sociopathy can keep people stuck in a /

 

Donald Black:   Absolutely.

 

Rob Kall:   - cycle where they're impoverished, where they're dependent, where they're using theft and drug dealing to survive, /

 

Donald Black:   Yep.

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Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune 500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful people on his Bottom Up Radio Show, and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
 

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