So I'm totally on board with you. I think education is extremely important, but I think it has to be broad-based.
R.K.: Now, you have a book out called Dangerous Instincts; How Gut Feelings Betray Us. How does that tie in with psychopaths?
M.O.: Well in the book, if you read it, it's almost like a kind of I want to say a cookbook, that wouldn't really fit, but every chapter is different just in terms of violence and behavior. So, I know for example I have one chapter in the book on interviewing people which I know sounds probably a little lame because it's not, the book is written for the general public, but I talk about listening and how listening is really important when you want to read people's behavior.
You need to listen more than you talk, you need to watch more than become involved. So, it's about spotting what we can do to be better readers of behavior and because there is so much interest in psychopathy, I did one chapter on psychopathy, but that's one out of twelve chapters where I do talk about behavior in general and how the general public can hopefully learn from some of the skills that I was taught as an FBI profiler to assess people for dangerousness and not assess people necessarily for psychopathy, assess them for dangerousness, because I felt like I had the benefit of some excellent experience and tremendous training and I dealt with a lot of victims and their families who just didn't see it coming, they just didn't and it's not that they weren't smart, or astute, but often times we walk in to a situation and the hair on the back of our neck doesn't stand up and that's a fallacy.
People tend to think if something bad's going to happen, I'll feel it viscerally in the middle of my stomach or on the back of my neck. You and I both know that doesn't happen most of the time and why do we think people get involved in... throughout the country, millions of people are involved in very abusive relationships. Why? Because they sought out an abusive relationship? No, because they didn't see that this person that was so wonderful to them in the beginning could become so abusive to them once they let their guard down.
So, the book is really about reading people better and not using those trappings of normalcy that you hear people typically use, but one chapter is on psychopathy because there is such an interest and it's a topic that I am very passionate about and have studied for many, many, many years, so I knew I was going to have to do a chapter on psychopathy.
R.K.: Well you're an expert at it and it's really a pleasure to talk to you about it. We're winding down the interview now but I want to just pursue it one more time. Are there researchers who are specifically looking at how to protect the public? I'm not saying jail them, or coral them, or anything like that, but just looking at how to understand them better and in some way do anything that protects the rest of the ninety nine percent from them?
M.O.: The research that's being done now in the area in psychopathy and, also, other areas of neuroscience that are focusing on brain health involve how we can identify psychopathy in the brain because eventually we know that a lot of the symptomologies that are presented in DSM will eventually come down to brain health and brain pathology.
But if there are groups of people out there, and believe me ,I've worked in the field to study psychopathy for many years, I'm not aware of any group of people that are out there looking to protect people from a group of people that may, or may not breaking the law. Can you imagine though, really when you think about it, what if we did this with people who were depressed, or PTSD, and often times there is familial violence out of post traumatic stress, or schizophrenia, but the vast majority of these folks are not violent, not hurtful.
What if we took the same framework mind set and focused on that? People would be outraged as they should be and so it is with people that are non criminal psychopaths that are not breaking the law, but may if they're given this test for psychopathy may hit a certain score, but they're not doing anything wrong so again I would just urge people to, we have to be very tempered with this and really that's what education is all about. Understanding what we can and can't do, what the label means, and doesn't mean, and how to proceed from there.
R.K.: I hear you, I really do, but then again I would think that it could be useful to identify particularly, let's say, we've got a horrible situation with suicide with post traumatic stress disorder veterans and it might be really good to identify ways to assess them for risk and what have you to protect them.
M.O.: That's very different when you're talking about suicide. Suicide is a crime of violence and that's very different than talking about someone that may have some of the traits of psychopathy because psychopathy is dimensional which is...
R.K.: Yes I'm clear from our conversation. I guess if it's not violence, but let's say it's theft, or corruption or fraud. That's still crime.
M.O.: But those are criminal offenses. Violent means, what you're talking about is all of that is criminal behavior. When you're talking about people that behave criminally, that's a totally different conversation.
R.K.: Yeah.
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