Psychopath – an insult with no meaning
No one has ever referred to me as a psychopath which is quite surprising considering I am involved in politics. This incendiary word is thrown around like so many others by people who are not bright enough to understand its meaning.
I was once called a sociopath by a social justice warrior live on air on Talk TV. She retracted, apologised and paid financial reparations which made me smile considering my ancestors sold her ancestors into slavery – supposedly.
Psychopathy is a mental health condition characterised by persistent antisocial behaviour, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits. I can see why politicians spring to mind, but it is a lazy comparison.
Surprisingly, no official medical body has ever sanctioned a diagnosis titled ‘psychopathy’ for it is too vague and is really used as an umbrella term to cover a wide range of mental disorders and social aberrations.
What exactly does the word mean? It is created by the joining of two Greek words: psyche meaning soul, and pathos meaning suffering/feeling. Its first documented use was in 1847 in Germany, but from approximately 1847, it has generally meant 'the study of mental disorder'.
The slang term psycho has been traced to a shortening of the adjective psychopathic from 1936, and from 1942 as a shortening of the noun psychopath. It is also used as shorthand for psychotic or crazed. The word is used by the general public, popular press, and crime authors for it conjures up visions of our darkest nightmares.
In the early 1940s, American psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley studied case studies of psychiatric patients at a Veterans Administration hospital to create a description of psychopathy. He used the metaphor of the "mask" to refer to the tendency of psychopaths to appear confident, personable, and well-adjusted compared to most psychiatric patients while revealing underlying pathology through their actions over time.
It would be fair to say that psychopaths are social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plough their way through life, leaving behind many broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty bank accounts in their wake. They lack empathy, are selfish, reject social norms and do not suffer from guilt or regret.
The Triarchic Psychopathy Model offers three observable distinguishing traits to highlight psychopathy characteristics:
Boldness. Low fear including stress-tolerance, toleration of unfamiliarity and danger, and high self-confidence and social assertiveness.
Disinhibition. Poor impulse control including problems with planning and foresight, lack of affect and urge control, demand for immediate gratification, and poor behavioural restraints.
Meanness. Lacking empathy and close attachments with others, disdain of close attachments, use of cruelty to gain empowerment, exploitative tendencies, defiance of authority, and destructive excitement seeking.
Some psychologists see psychopathy as a spectrum with narcissism at the lower end, rising through to Machiavellianism, and ending at the top with psychopathy. These three traits collectively are known as the Dark Triad.
It should come as no surprise that prisoners score higher for psychopathic traits than the general public when you consider these individuals do not follow social norms which in many cases defined by law, are more prone to violence to get their way, and are not hampered by guilt or remorse. Prisons are full of antisocial individuals.
Domestic violence perpetrators also score higher because they exhibit emotional deficits, including callous and exploitative interpersonal traits. If this type of crime is more related to psychopathy than to emotional aggression, then we may be attempting to treat perpetrators in the wrong manner.
Psychopathy must be beneficial to some individuals in certain circumstances otherwise this trait would die out through natural selection. There have to be advantages to compensate for the negative outcomes such as increased risk of death, violence, accidents, homicides, and suicides. But what could the benefits be?
For someone with manipulative tendencies, living in a large population of altruistic and trusting individuals must be like shooting fish in a barrel, or picking up a Dodo to cook for your dinner. Over time, these individuals are discovered as their past behaviours are evident – they must now move to the next town or city to start again. It is a transient life.
A lack of morals leads to more offspring if you engage in random non-committal sex from an earlier age, including affairs and adultery. This behaviour results in producing more children who may inherit a predisposition to psychopathy, who are then supported by the taxpayer - Cuckoo children. This type of behaviour has its own slang term: pump & dump.
I have only ever met one psychopath in my life that I know of. He was the boyfriend of one of my female friends. The day I met him I did not trust him but liked him. It had something to do with his over-friendliness and beaming smile. An alarm signalled to me that he was not a person to be trusted. We call this intuition or a good judge of character, we have no idea why we are alarmed but we are. We must always be careful and wary of psychopaths.
To cut a long story short. Within one year, my friend sold her house and moved to Spain with him. He was penniless. He had been married three times and divorced twice, had a football team of children but no contact with any of them. They had a blast in Spain and lived the high life - new cars, motorbikes and even a speedboat. Once the money ran out, he took my friend's last £5K from her bank and disappeared. Everyone saw it coming except her, unfortunately.
Psychopaths do live among us. We walk past them in the street, work alongside them, date them, and occasionally marry them. They are enacting a successful survival strategy similar to a parasite that benefits from its host. Why spend 12 hours a day chewing grass like a cow when you can just eat the cow who has done all the hard laborious work for you? Psychopaths look upon us as we look upon farm animals.
Be wary. Be ready. Trust your instincts. We have been designed to spot those who wish to do us harm. Listen to your inner voice for it is trying to protect you.
"A psychopath can tell what you're thinking but what they don't do is feel what you feel. These are people without a conscience." - Robert D. Hare
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