R.K.: I understand that, but there, perhaps there are other ways to understand them. But we know that there about three million Americans who are psychopaths, who have a proclivity towards being predators and, I just, it seems to me like there ought to be at least some research. There should be money spent, a lot of money just as there's money spent on treating and preventing AIDS and heart disease and cancer. There ought to be some money spent on identifying, or at least understanding it, and protecting the public. Is that, am I wrong about that?
M.O.: I think you are wrong. I do. I think you are wrong. There is a lot of research that's going on in the field of psychopathy just in terms of, especially in the area of brain health, but I feel like you're taking this whole issue of psychopathy and kind of missing a really important point and that is we know that the majority of people who would get a high score on the psychopathy checklist don't act out violently.
So, that is an important issue to keep in mind and to say we need to protect ourselves from these, it's almost like this band of vampires walking around who are waiting to do something bad. The disorder is a frightening disorder, but one percent of the population is what the estimate is, but the majority of those are not going to act out violently and to answer your question, there is research that's being done but we have to keep it in perspective.
R.K.: Okay. But, look, one percent is a huge number when you're talking about three hundred million people and I understand that most of them don't act out violently and, frankly, they're the ones I'm interested in. They're the ones who are predators to the women that contact you.
M.O.: Well, not necessarily. That's what I'm trying to tell you is that they're not.
R.K.: I hear you. They're not necessarily psychopaths.
M.O.: Right and, again, I'm very, very tempered with how we use the whole idea of psychopathy and what I'm hearing is that we should have a much greater organized approach to, kind of, putting all of these people together and separating them from the rest of society.
R.K.: No, I'm not saying that. People raise that issue when I discuss this, but I'm not trying for that. I think the first thing we need to do is educate people and make them aware and more cautious. Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe that's not even the right thing to do. Maybe that would raise people's paranoia too high.
When I discovered that there were so many people who were predators, you know, when you watch TV some of the most popular TV shows are about psychopaths. Whether it's "Dexter," or "Breaking Bad" and Walt. You know, you see these hugely successful entertainment programs where the stars are psychopaths. I mean, and I don't think there's much dispute that those people are psychopaths.
M.O.: The stars themselves in real life?
R.K.: No, no, the people that they're playing.
M.O.: Oh, the character that they're playing. I mean, maybe.
R.K.: In one way, the media, the entertainment media, are exploiting the concept of this psychopath because they're such a riveting kind of a person to watch. They're so fascinating.
M.O.: Well, the flip side to that question, though, is I don't agree that they're exploiting that. When I watch these shows, which is very rarely, I often and most of the time, frankly, see them not portrayed the way I know real, for example, serial killers to be and that's where we get a lot of our education is through TV shows and movies and you know videos and that sort of thing.
But as someone that actually works in the field as the serial killers are portrayed in different program,s or in different venues, they're not how I know them to be so and my colleagues are pretty much the same. We don't watch them because it's not realistic for us, but so I don't think that they're exploiting something. Again, I agree with what you just said.
I think educating people is extremely important to psychopathy, but I also think that educating people to violence and gender is extremely important. I think talking to people about how to read people correctly, how to look for dangerous patterns of behavior, whether or not they end up pointing down the road to the psychopath or not, but because there are so many other personality types that are hurtful, or can be hurtful to us, that focus on one small group I just know as someone who teaches for a living now and still consults on cases, I talk about, sure I talk about psychopathy but I talk about violence and gender in general and I talk about recognizing violent patterns of behavior regardless of how you label that personality type.
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