So, someone may be mildly psychopathic, or severely so. There could be a psychopath sitting next to you right now…
— from “The Psychopathic Path to Success” by David Adams, on KnowableMagazine.org, July 2023.
I’m reasonably sure there’s no psychopath sitting next to me right now, since I am sitting, with my laptop, at the kitchen table — alone, by myself. There’s a photo of Anthony Hopkins on my screen, but that’s just to get me in the right mood to write this column.
However, my cat Roscoe is napping on the recliner in the living room. If he qualifies as mildly psychopathic — which is actually pretty likely — then I am in close proximity to a psychopath.
Back when I was married, my wife Darlene and I often sat next to each other, in which case the situation may have applied to at least one of us.
But if there is truly a “Psychopathic Path to Success” — as journalist David Adams implied in his article for Knowable Magazine last year — neither Darlene nor I ever found the trailhead.
Nevertheless, his article got me thinking, when I ran across it the other day. Have psychopaths acquired a bad name for themselves as the result of a few mass murder events… when actually, they make the world go ’round?
Apparently, psychiatrists — the people who decide which of us is mentally ill and what drugs to prescribe as a result — are taking a fresh look at the definition of “psychopath”.
From Mr. Adam’s article:
“Most of what people think about psychopaths is not what psychopathy actually is,” says Louise Wallace, a lecturer in forensic psychology at the University of Derby, in England. “It is not glamorous. It is not a spectacle.”
Psychopathic traits exist in everyone to some degree and shouldn’t be glorified or stigmatized, she says.
Having certain psychopathic traits can even help you “succeed”. Or so I am finding out.
I don’t know Louise Wallace (probably because she lives in England) but I had previously formed the impression that other people might be psychopathic, but that I was not. Psychopaths, as they are portrayed in movies — say, Hannibal Lecter, for example — seemed to have qualities like viciousness and callousness that I didn’t see in myself.
Okay, sure, maybe Darlene saw those things in me. But I didn’t.
But now, a noted forensic psychologist is saying, like, “everyone” has psychopathic traits to some degree.
According to Wikipedia, an influential American psychiatrist named Hervey Cleckley set out the personality profile of a “psychopath” in his 1941 book, . (That’s not a typo. His name was actually “Hervey”.)
Dr. Cleckley did most of his research in mental hospitals and prisons, but he came to the conclusion that many people who were not in institutions also exhibited psychopathic tendencies. At any rate, we can credit Dr. Cleckley with making the term “psychopath” popular… even if psychopaths themselves are not popular.
Or… are they?
Dr. Cleckley described a typical psychopath as “a superficially charming but egocentric and untrustworthy person who conceals an antisocial core.” Among his descriptions of psychopaths were people who could keep a lid on the worst of their behavior. He included six vignettes of “incomplete manifestations or suggestions of the disorder” in non-patients, such as “the businessman”, “the gentleman” and “the physician”. For example, he sketched the profile of a psychopathic businessman, for instance, who worked hard and appeared normal except for bouts of marital infidelity, callousness, wild drinking and risk-taking.
From Wikipedia:
For example, the psychopath can typically tell vivid, lifelike, plausible stories that are completely fraudulent, without evincing any element of delusion. When confronted with a lie, the psychopath is unflappable and can often effortlessly pass it off as a joke…
I haven’t read Dr. Cleckley’s book, myself (you can buy it used on Amazon for around $15) but I’m wondering whether he sketched the profiles of any politicians?
Because I can think of at least one prominent politician who would meet the description of “a superficially charming but egocentric and untrustworthy person who conceals an antisocial core… who can typically tell vivid, lifelike, plausible stories that are completely fraudulent… ”
And who “appears normal except for bouts of marital infidelity, callousness, and cheating at golf.”
And who is successful.