Former Community – We Moved
🆕 Coached community here, for posts & feedback public community here.
Detecting and understanding psychopaths
Hello TPM community,
I found this video from a Howard Stern show. A caller says he is a serial killer.
After listening to a book about psychopaths, I think this one is a bona fide psychopath. There's no special part so I won't take an extract, the whole video is helpful to understand how they think. It's also interesting to listen to his detached tone.
For instance, he says he stopped killing for a month because his car broke down (!!). And after that he used his self-discipline not to do it again. But he definitely would. He also says that he does it for the feeling of power.
It shows he is very detached and to him it's only about problem/solution. If someone would feel guilty or remorseful, they would not stop doing it because they had a mechanical issue with their car. They would stop because their inner feelings would be too painful to bear. This guy seems not to have these kinds of guilt/shame feelings.
Of course, this all could be a fake but I don't think it is. So it's quite a valuable document. Another psychopath interview that is interesting is the one from the mob hitman called "Iceman". But Iceman seems also to be very high in the anti-social disorder trait while this guy seems very socially integrated (has a job and kids).
Yeah, John, your assessment seems pretty accurate. I just read an article today about why serial killers do what they do (a discussion by several scientists), and of course they get satisfaction from the interaction of asserting power and control, and sometimes it's of sexual nature.
They do have a sense of morality (as knowing right vs. wrong) but their empathetic part in the brain is impaired, so in essence they cognitively know what they do is not right, but they don't care. Also, lots of serial killers have families and jobs, some even have a great reputation in the community. Because they are natural social chameleons and they use compartmentalization - so living a “normal” life and killing are completely different things.
