The Psychopath-Essentials

Life comes at us with teachings- in waves. For some unfathomable reason, that only Allah can know for sure, I have been put in contact, directly and indirectly, with a series of people that I consider psychopaths. I will not, of course, name them publicly in order to protect the innocents- of which there are not many in their entourage.

So what are some of the deeper characteristics of these people? You will not find the answers in our diagnostic manual (DSM-5) as it is all based on empirical, verifiable data i.e. surface phenomena. Unfortunately this superficiality is true generally in our society- even in the scientific literature- so determined is it to attain reproducible results and do statistical, numerical analysis. Ironically this societal phenomenon may be one of the most central characteristic of psychopaths as well-Superficiality!

Does this mean that we are living in a psychopathic society?! I think a good case could be made for that hypothesis. Every time I have to visit one of those hermetically sealed sick office buildings that cause distress to many of its’ workers, every time I see agricultural workers spraying toxic chemicals on our food in full protective gear, every time I see a homeless person or a needy welfare applicant being refused welfare on a technicality I can only come to one conclusion. Our society is oblivious and uncaring about the needs of human beings .Thus our society is psychopathic.

But let’s get back to the individual for now. We know that the psychopath is superficially charming. It is a central characteristic, often repeated in the literature-one of the first characteristics mentioned in the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. But it goes way deeper than that. The psychopath is superficial in terms of his own needs and his vision of life as well. Most of them are obsessed with money, sex and power or some combination of the three. Know anyone like that lol? On a deeper level this represents a lack of vision and a lack of perspective. Even a cursory examination of the evidence of people in our own lives will show us how this vision is untrue. There are loads of examples of people with any and all of those three who are absolutely miserable .If you don’t have examples in your own life buy a copy of People magazine lol. The psychopath cannot see the value of ethics or ideals or compassion or even peace of mind. That all seems abstract and wishy-washy to them. (The same could be said for many statisticians and scientists but that is the subject of another article.)

Deeper still than this superficiality is another even more central issue-Pride! Aha, back to the beginning. The central sin in Christianity and an important one in all of the spiritual traditions. The phenomenologists identified an interesting characteristic of psychopaths early on in the development of psychopathological theory. They are unable to learn from experience. What they didn’t quite understand is why. They usually attributed this to some kind of neurological or genetic substrate. But the real answer may be a lot simpler than that –pride, the most human of foibles. When Ram Dass went to visit the San Quentin prison to teach the inmates some notions of spirituality, the administration and the guards decided wisely not to invite Charles Manson. When asked why they responded that Manson would have had a fit if another male other than himself was centre stage! There you go. The quintessence of pride. And we see where that led him.

So there you go. The psychopath in a nutshell– Deeply Superficial and Proud. You won’t find that in any of your psychology books nor in DSMV-not even in the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. Think about it. Comments?