Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/print/2014/01/life-as-a-nonviolent-psychopath/282271/

by winstonsmith • 12 years ago

92 39 12 years ago

lutusp6• 12 years ago

An interesting but scientifically useless account. Psychiatry and psychology will become useful to science only when such stories are validated by an effort to connect effects with causes -- to try to explain what has only been described. To date, these fields have gotten by with descriptions of things they cannot explain. Once explanations are proposed, they can be validated or falsified using empirical evidence, but until that happens, it's not science, it's anecdote.

Interestingly, the director of the NIMH has recently taken the same position, ruling that that DSM (psychiatry and psychology's "bible") can no longer be used as the basis for scientific research proposals, for the simple reason that it has no scientific content:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...

Quote: "... each edition [of the DSM] has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity."

chimeracoder• 12 years ago

To expand upon your point, biology lucked out with Carl Linnaeus. It so happened that Linnaeus's methods of classifying and naming biological organisms happened to correspond very well to other scientifically relevant concepts (genetics, etc.)[0]. We have no similar guarantee that the same applies to classifications of behaviors.

That said - and let me qualify this by saying I have many complaints with the DSM (particularly the DSM V) - the fact that the DSM classifications may not be helpful for research purposes does not mean that they are not helpful for clinical treatment. Clinicians who use it properly (a big caveat) use it to ensure that they are all using a common vocabulary, though with an understanding that the vocabulary is imperfect.

This is why I get very frustrated when I see online discussions about mental disorders devolve into recitations of the DSM diagnostic criteria as if they were checklists. The DSM provides a convenient library, but the clinician still has to identify which portions are relevant and which are not, and to write the "code" that glues those relevant portions together.

[0] Not that they weren't without fault, but they were an important early effort that has been revised in modern day.

neurotech1• 12 years ago

I agree with your comments about the DSM.

One of my biggest frustrations is that except for a subset of neuropsychologists, they have very poor understanding of how neurophysiology correlates with various "diagnosis".

mtdewcmu6• 12 years ago

Biology was far luckier in general, in that biology is a much better subject for scientific inquiry than psychology. Good science has to work very hard to keep subjectivity and bias at bay; they are constantly and insidiously trying to creep in, and they are poison. Psychologists have the unlucky job of trying to scientifically study subjectivity and bias itself. I don't think it's really possible to make psychology a rigorous science; the subject may simply be out of reach.

lutusp6• 12 years ago

We have no similar guarantee that the same applies to classifications of behaviors.

Not yet, anyway. In the long term, there's hope that neuroscience will uncover root causes in genetics and other objective disciplines, thus moving beyond psychology entirely. This is a future goal, not at all something just around the corner. On the other hand, psychology has been trying to crack this egg since before the Civil War and has gotten nowhere.

Notice that, when President Obama launched his new research program, he called it the "brain initiative", not the "mind initiative". This was a not-so-subtle signal that psychology is no longer looked on as the cutting edge of mental research.

That said - and let me qualify this by saying I have many complaints with the DSM (particularly the DSM V) - the fact that the DSM classifications may not be helpful for research purposes does not mean that they are not helpful for clinical treatment.

That's true, but clinical treatment can't go anywhere without knowing causes, which the DSM -- and psychiatry and psychology -- don't address. This issue is discussed in the NIMH link I provided in my prior post, where the NIMH director provides much detail on the problems caused by addressing only symptoms, not causes.

The DSM provides a convenient library, but the clinician still has to identify which portions are relevant and which are not, and to write the "code" that glues those relevant portions together.

But whenever a clinician goes beyond the DSM, s/he enters uncharted territory. This subjective territory led Tom Widiger, who served as head of research for DSM-IV, to say, "There are lots of studies which show that clinicians diagnose most of their patients with one particular disorder and really don't systematically assess for other disorders. They have a bias in reference to the disorder that they are especially interested in treating and believe that most of their patients have."

hristov• 12 years ago

Not true at all. Observation is very legitimate and valid scientific pursuit. We will not be able to explain the human brain for a long time but that does not mean we should not make observations about how it behaves and find repeating patterns of behavior.

One parallel is that humans were able to observe and accurately predict the movement of the stars before they ever knew what stars were. In fact humans were able to use stars for navigation long before anyone had the slightest idea of the actual physical nature of a star, or could offer any plausible explanation as to why a star moves a certain way.

Furthermore, observations can be tested and supported by empirical evidence. You can for example run brain scans for criminals and see if the psychopath brain pattern has higher incidence among prison populations (it definitely does).

Of course you cannot perform the types of precise tests on humans one performs with atoms, but psychology there are scientific tests and studies you can do.

lutusp6• 12 years ago

Observation is very legitimate and valid scientific pursuit. We will not be able to explain the human brain for a long time but that does not mean we should not make observations about how it behaves and find repeating patterns of behavior.

All right, let's submit your idea to a scientific thought experiment -- let's imagine we can do without any attempt to explain an observation, and call it science. Let's say I'm a doctor who believes I have cured the common cold. My cure is to shake a dried gourd over my patients until they get better. The treatment sometimes takes a week, but it always works. It's repeatable and reliable. Since psychologists don't have to explain their results, I don't have to either.

So -- where's my Nobel Prize?

Second example. I go outside and see little points of light in the night sky. I describe this -- I write a paper and say the night sky is filled with little points of light. Another person, who calls himself a scientist, says those points of light are actually distant thermonuclear furnaces like our sun, a claim that can be tested and potentially falsified. Is my observation science, or is his theory science?

(Observation by itself is not science -- empirically testable, falsifiable theories are required.)

Furthermore, observations can be tested and supported by empirical evidence.

Not in mind studies. The mind is not accessible to empirical observation. The brain is, the mind is not. This issue is separate from the issue of whether observation without explanation is science.

Of course you cannot perform the types of precise tests on humans one performs with atoms, but psychology there are scientific tests and studies you can do.

False. Psychology is not science unless and until empirical, falsifiable explanations are proposed and then tested, regardless of how many white lab coats and clipboards are on display.

Let's say I'm an astrologer and I'm really annoyed that people don't think my field is a science. So I hire a bunch of scientists who perform statistical studies, for example, how many people are Geminis and how many are Tauruses -- perfectly scientific, perfectly reliable. By doing this, have I made astrology a science? Why not? Some people claim this works for psychology, so why not for astrology too?

wololo• 12 years ago

This is a classic example of poor scientific journalism and I believe it became so popular due to widespread deficits in scientific literacy. You don’t have to be a neuroscientist to see that there are huge problems with his story. You simply have view this story objectively have a healthy dose of skepticism without quickly deferring to the authority figure. There are simple questions which are never addressed here. What experiment was being done during each PET scan? If the psychopaths and Dr. Fallon were both completing a morality task and they both had low activity in certain regions, THEN that would be something more tangible. This is simply showing a brain picture and not asking questions. We know that people are much more likely to believe something if there is a brain picture associated with it and this is further proof.

-- http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/pseud...

coldtea• 12 years ago

I've never read a more poorly written piece in my life.

The first half is 5 variations of "he doesn't give us the full medical data for his diagnosis" [in a magazine article or a tv interview, no less].

The second part is some lame assumptioms on what Dr. Fallon did.

And the conclusion builds up on the first part: "I am arguing that the news articles covering his story do not provide enough details to support his claims.".

No shit Sherlock. It's a news article, not a paper.

xivzgrev• 12 years ago

Karen Franklin had an interesting critique of his book, as well: http://www.amazon.com/review/R28SZH62Q6Y6AD/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt...

tokenadult• 12 years ago

Since several of the comments here revolve around what we know now and could possibly know now about brain differences related to behavior, I'll link to a book, Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience,[1] that examines for a popular audience how much science is behind the latest "neuroscience" and how much of it is just hype. Just because brain scans are involved doesn't mean the explanation is any more valid. I think you will find this book interesting and helpful for understanding yourself and understanding the world.

I heard about the NIMH director's letter on research priorities[2] first from behavior-genetics-informed research and clinical psychologists whom I meet in a "journal club" weekly during the school year. The DSM framework involves a lot of log-rolling among various kinds of psychologists and psychiatrists, several of whom depend for their living on being known as "experts" on "disorders" that may not have any real existence. That said, there is an active research program all over the world based on a variety of different paradigms, with very widely followed journals, trying better to understand healthy human behavior and debilitating human behavior that results from brain abnormalities, diseases, psychological stress, and other causes. Straight-up psychology still has a lot to contribute to this study. The psychologists I know best are very aware of critiques of their own discipline[3] through the readings we discuss in the journal club, and more generally aware of the general critique of the current conduct of science,[4] so they redouble their efforts to do their science better, and to check their methodology as they try to tease out the complex web of causes of human behavior.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Seductive-Appeal-Mindless-...

[2] http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...

[3] http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~uws/

[4] https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/john-ioannidis?tab=publica...

debt• 12 years ago

A Skeptics Guide to the Mind by Robert Burton touches on the same subject; the gulf between modern neuroscience and what we actually understand about the mind. Burton points that we still are in many circumstances unable to differentiate between conscious from unconscious thought. A brain scan can only tell us about the brain but not necessarily about the mind.

poolpool• 12 years ago

Look at any CEO. Many are very successful.

sleepyK• 12 years ago

I think this one's a repost.

altero• 12 years ago

This is just bullshit. A few decades ago psychiatrists were deducing personal traits from shape of skull. This imaginary is kind of similar.

There are 100 000 000 000 neurons in brain, we can not even count number of connections. We are very very far from understanding it.

shanusmagnus• 12 years ago

Sometime in the recent past people have started substituting a reasonable skepticism about what is known and knowable for a kind of blatant dismissal of everything that is not rendered absolutely elementary and deterministic. This is especially true of the cognitive sciences and the double standard becomes especially clear when the field is contrasted with, say, physics, the most sciencey of all sciences. For instance, go ahead and take a quarter out of our your pocket, flip it into the air and see how it lands on the floor. It's pretty easy to predict whether it comes up heads or tails, right? Except no, it isn't, not outside of a cleanroom with a known atmosphere and a robot flipping the coin.

In my experience it's usually the people who know the least about psychology or cognitive science claiming that the least can be known about psychology and cognitive science. The people who know the most about psychology and cognitive science will also tell you how little we currently know, but the context is very different, sort of like when you're at a party and get cornered by a Shakespeare scholar who for the next three hours tells you in explicit detail how little is known about Shakespeare.

Of course the brain is complicated, and of course we're a long way from understanding it, and yet I could look at a scan that showed hypometablism in your anterior temporal lobes and be able to tell you with great specificity about the symptoms I would expect you to manifest, a diagnosis which would be drawn from a mountain of data that is often, admittedly, observational; and yet using a confluence of imaging methods and single cell recordings and anatomical studies and animal homologies, which collectively have given rise to theoretical models, the predictions are as scientific as those that arise in any other kinds of science. Doesn't mean they're always right, but there's rigorous and principled methodology at work, results shift belief in the explanatory power of this model or that, and the field moves forward.

So yeah, there are bad practitioners and bad papers and overbroad explanations, but that doesn't mean that nobody knows anything.

lutusp6• 12 years ago

In my experience it's usually the people who know the least about psychology or cognitive science claiming that the least can be known about psychology and cognitive science.

Perhaps, but in this specific example, the people who know the most about the topic agree that we don't know anything, and that a new approach is required. As one example, the director of the NIMH recently ruled that the DSM can no longer be used as the basis for scientific research proposals, for the simple reason that it has no scientific content.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...

Quote: "... each edition [of the DSM] has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity."

Of course the brain is complicated, and of course we're a long way from understanding it, and yet I could look at a scan that showed hypometablism in your anterior temporal lobes and be able to tell you with great specificity about the symptoms I would expect you to manifest ...

This is exactly the problem that the NIMH's new ruling is meant to address -- a focus on symptoms rather than causes. Until we can explain these symptoms, until we can move beyond simple description, mental research will remain a subjective dead end.

So yeah, there are bad practitioners and bad papers and overbroad explanations, but that doesn't mean that nobody knows anything.

As long as vestal virgins can claim to have been raped and destroy their families without anyone asking some obvious questions, yes, no one knows anything: http://arachnoid.com/trouble_with_psychology

For instance, go ahead and take a quarter out of our your pocket, flip it into the air and see how it lands on the floor. It's pretty easy to predict whether it comes up heads or tails, right? Except no, it isn't ...

Of course it is, the outcome is perfectly reliable if the coin is fair -- the probably is 1/2 that the result will be heads. No clean room or robot are required. I mention this to emphasize the difference between observation and theory -- the theory is perfectly reliable.

mcguire• 12 years ago

In this article, I learned,

* that the "warrior gene" thing == psychopathy,

* that your genes determine your personality, except when they don't,

* that your behavior is determined by your biology, except when it isn't,

* that lack of affect == Buddhism,

* that "looking at brainscans" is a valid step in judicial sentencing,

* that you can claim to be a person who suffers from an impairment of empathy, who at the extreme, might well not see the difference between a person and a block of wood, and still be taken seriously when you say "that genetics were very, very dominant in who people are—that your genes would tell you who you were going to be",

* that neuroscientists aren't all that spectacular about keeping their data sets neat and orderly; in particular, they don't see a big deal mingling the results of several different experiments, and

* that claiming to have a Big Evil background, that you have to struggle with every day, is still a great way to get publicity.

I laughed, I cried, it changed my life. Two thumbs up.

By the way, have I mentioned that I am of somewhat Nordic descent; every day, I have to fight off the urge to raid the coastlines of Europe, to pillage and plunder the tender and peaceful farmsteads and towns?

pavanky• 12 years ago

The raiding and pillaging was probably more to do with societal factors than genetics.

theorique2• 12 years ago

No, it's all genetic.

mtdewcmu6• 12 years ago

To get a decent depiction of psychopathy, one really needs read a book like Without Conscience, by Robert Hare. Psychopathy is truly bizarre. You have to consider that this article was coming from a psychopath, and psychopaths have certain characteristic ways of speaking; those characteristic speech patterns, I think, are the reason this article sounds weird.

theorique2• 12 years ago

In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

Sakes• 12 years ago

Did anyone else read mcguire's "==" as equivalent rather than equal to? (===) js not so good parts depending upon your perspective.

dinkumthinkum• 12 years ago

Is anyone else nonplussed by this? I'm not saying its wrong or I don't believe the brain scans mean anything, but without a lot more details particularly from people not invested in this research program being a success, I find this hard to take seriously and it seems very naive.

Tycho2• 12 years ago

Whenever I read about diagnosed psychopaths in the mainstream press, they always seem to be married (with kids). I find this interesting. What were their spouses thinking? Wouldn't 'total lack of empathy' rather preclude starting a family with someone? Were they that good at faking romance, or were they different when they were young? Or is the 'cold as steel' personally attractive? Were they just willing to marry anyone who asked them? Actually, a general study of 'why people decide to get married' would probably be even more interesting than studies about psychopathy...

mtdewcmu6• 12 years ago

Psychopaths are known for being very good at getting people to agree to things; they are described as very glib and superficially charming, which is why they excel at being con men. So it doesn't seem hard to explain how they manage to get married. What is peculiar, though, is how their spouses manage to stay married to them even after they find out the truth. There has to be some denial involved. If something like one partner belatedly coming out as homosexual is considered an obvious reason to invalidate a marriage, discovering that you married a psychopath can only be even more obvious.

Tycho2• 12 years ago

I know they are good at manipulating, but you would think manipulating someone into getting married is a bit far fetched. Conning their way to a sale, an investment, a favour, a promotion, sure... but that's because they are willing to circumvent the social norms that govern shallow relationships. Marriage is supposed to be a very deep relationship so I'm not sure that manipulation is the explanation.

brc• 12 years ago

I knew someone who I have since amateur-psych diagnosed as being psycopathic in part (not a real diagnosis). I met this person while they were going through a divorce. We worked together on a few things for a while - charm and glib is a great description. But I noticed a pattern of having no 'old friends', and also appalling treatment of women that went far beyond what someone might classify as 'rebound behaviour' as behaviour that seemed to take delight in degrading women and a need to find friends who delighted in the retelling. I moved to distance myself from this person in an unconfrontational way - I assumed they could easily turn violent if provoked. In the end I was proven correct as they assaulted their own father in a disagreement not long after. I don't know what is going on now, as mutual friends who I knew have also ceased contact.

The twist in all this story is that the divorce was initiated by him, not his wife. She was a nice and very normal person, and to her, staying married and having a father for their child was probably more important. The point is that many people will try and hold a marriage together for all sorts of reasons.

mtdewcmu6• 12 years ago

I'm curious to get some people's reactions to this guy: he mentioned his dangerous actions more than once; do you think he's truly dangerous, or just exaggerating?

After he kept mentioning it, I was curious and a bit skeptical as to what horrible things he could have admitted to and yet still be free and employed. The incident with the Marburg virus is pretty chilling, though, if you think it through. It's the sort of thing only a brilliant psychopath could come up with or be proud of. I'd keep my distance, frankly.

j_baker• 12 years ago

I'm not convinced that the brainscan patterns uniquely identify psychopaths. There are lots of things that frontal lobe dysfunction is also correlated with: ADHD, Bipolar disorder, and psychopathy. I suspect comorbidity (meaning: how likely you are to have the other diseases given you have one) is quite high, but I'm not convinced that frontal lobe dysfunction implies any or all of these disorders.

Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath

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