To wonder that psychopaths can't help being like they are because they're born that way?

[GemGi]

If psychopaths are born psychopaths then can they really help being such awful people? Aren't they just born damned to be really awful people?

YABU - psychopaths CAN help it
YANBU - psychopaths CAN'T help it

I don’t think it’s an answer that will ever be 100 percent known.
It’s a hard one.

I've voted YABU because not all psychopaths are 'really awful people.' People can have psychopathic traits - lack of empathy or egocentricity for example - and go through life without ever being bad or evil.

I've met psychopaths with an intelligent insight into their own condition - it's frightening and sad for them.

Interesting question. After spending some time googling psychopaths I really don’t know. I did read that being a psychopath doesn’t always mean someone will intentionally harm people. I guess a psychopath still knows right from wrong, but may think it doesn’t apply to them.

Can you tell us a bit more about your experience?

I think that someone can't help being a psychopath but they can help their actions.

I don’t believe anyone is born a psychopath but if they inherit some of the classic traits that are then nurtured in certain environments, they may grow up to commit horrible acts.
Psychopaths know the difference between right and wrong legally and maybe even morally but for some of them, their need to harm will override such concerns.

Oh very interesting question.

Not all psychopaths are ‘bad’ people. Some head up big business for example, and such people are often admired in our society.

A researcher who was studying psychopath’s brain structure found that he was a psychopath himself. It’s an interesting story. He says he had displayed ‘symptoms’ that are psychopathic - eg lacked empathy, is extremely competitive to the point he won’t let his grandchildren win any games - he has to win.

And in reference to your question about can they help it or not:

He has noted he had a very loving childhood with parents who were very focused on him - his wellbeing, and he thinks that has made a positive difference to his personality. He has set about proving that he can be a more empathetic etc.. He talks about it on the article I linked below. (Ps he’s done Ted Talks so you can watch those if interested).

Researcher who found he was a psychopath from his own research

There are cases where serial killers go decades without killing. When they do kill, most of them are obviously aware that they've committed a crime and go to great lengths to avoid discovery (though they may also get a sick thrill out of taunting law enforcement).

That tells me that they have a choice. They're not insane.

They can't help being psychopaths, but they don't have to act on their worst impulses. Unless they are completely out of their minds, they still make a choice.

Have you seen this thread?
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4866125-psychopath

In a previous role I worked with psychopaths who had committed horrendous crimes. It comes down to the 'mad or vad' debate.

If you take the view that psychopaths can't help being what they are, then they shouldn't be put in prison but rather sent to a secure psychiatric hospital.

I think that they know right from wrong, and can control their impulses/tendencies. Some choose not to.

If you are asking this question in relation to the Lucy Letby case, it will be interesting to see what mitigation is put forward at her sentencing.

Logically they know right from wrong, but they don’t care. They don’t feel love or empathy or sadness like we do. They feel entitled and can get nasty when things don’t go their way. Because they don’t feel emotion in the same way, killing or committing some other crime allows them to ‘feel’ something I guess.

Not all psychopaths are killers, a lot are powerful though, because they don’t care who they step on to get to the top.

The same can be said for sociopaths really, but sociopaths are capable of empathy to some extent, just not at a normal and expected level.

I assume there's a spectrum of traits and some people are more affected/unable to control impulses than others. Then there's environmental factors often theres early neglect/ abuse which will have an impact. And life circumstances/influences. So lots of rejection or meeting other evil people could impact.

I don't know anything about Lucy letby (I'm assuming she's the reason for the thread) but she's obviously educated. Did she deliberately choose nursing to hurt people? It's hard to know but my guess would be no. I would (layman) guess that she got an enjoyment/need fulfilled from helping/comforting people and over time that need became greater to a point where she began to hurt /kill innocent babies to get that need fulfilled. Which is incomprehensible. She may have dissociated with her actions so the act of supporting parents in grief was not connected to her (in her head)

Regardless of diagnosis I think with something as serious as murder it has to be treated with culpability . Although in some cases a psychiatric hospital would be the safest option

I read somewhere that in evolutionary terms, having a few psychopaths in society is actually advantageous for group survival.

Psychopaths don’t automatically equal evil people who are a danger to society & will murder you; the majority of psychopaths don’t even have the urge to kill / cause harm, but because they have no empathy, they possess the ability to do so without remorse if they so wish.

Let’s say we go back to caveman days for example, say food was scarce & your tribe was facing starvation; it’s actually beneficial to have people who would have no issues invading & killing another tribe, stealing all their food / resources & bringing it back to keep everyone in their own tribe alive. The most important aspect of this is not just the ability to carry out horrific acts but more importantly to come back unbothered by it / without PTSD therefore enabling them to do it again. This allows a society to survive & thrive without the majority of its population having to get their hands dirty.

If you look at the traits of a psychopath, it’s not difficult to see how these could be advantageous from an evolutionary point of view.

Even in society today, there is a lot of cognitive dissonance in the population. There are so many things the majority of us would either not do ourselves or know is wrong but will turn a blind eye to so we can reap the benefits - you literally see it everyday here on mumsnet.

My brother was born wrong. No birth trauma, no life trauma, perfectly average middle class upbringing. Imperfect but definitely good enough parenting.

From a very young age, he got pleasure out of someone’s unhappiness. From age 4 onwards, he would deliberately misbehave to sabotage treats which meant I missed out too. He got more pleasure at seeing my unhappiness than the happiness he would have received getting the treat. From age 7 or so, he was mastering the art of making everyone in his family unhappy. I don’t believe he feels like normal people. In many ways he is devoid of emotions. But he does seem to feel something when making people unhappy. It’s the only time he smiles. I always think it’s like in Harry Potter at the Death Day feast when the ghosts can almost taste the rotting food by walking through it. He can almost feel an emotion when his family are at peak despair and frustration due to his manipulations.

I am not a psychiatrist so can’t diagnose him. However if I heard a psychiatrist had diagnosed him with psychopathy or a personality disorder, I would not be in the slightest bit surprised.

That said, he has perfected his nice guy persona. He holds down a basic job. He is incredibly law-abiding. Every girlfriend he has ever had leaves him about 18 months in. Clever girls.

I think people have to be born with something in them that can turn them into a psychopath or any 'label' we can give then but can suppress either intentionally or not, or somehow hide it

Then something triggers on them that switches it on can of course be bad trigger or 'good' but something happens for it to get woken up

People can have wonderful amazing childhoods or terrible ones but something triggers them within that

I think there must be an element of choice.

They know harming someone is wrong and illegal, so even if you have the compulsion then you have a choice to take yourself away/get help/remove yourself.

But I believe a symptom of psychopathy is believing you're better than others, more intelligent etc, so they assume they'll get away with their crimes because everyone else is too stupid to catch them.

I have heard, just in general I mean, 'they don't know what they doing' yeah right but regardless they sure try and cover their tracks afterwards so they know it is wrong what they are doing

Ooof, there in lies a question.

I think psychopaths don't feel empathy. That's not their fault, exactly - they can't. They don't have the capacity. We wouldn't blame a newborn baby for not feeling empathy, and they don't have the capacity either. I don't think you can teach a psychopath: 'you shouldn't do this because it hurts people' because they don't care that it hurts people, and they can't care. But you can teach them 'you shouldn't do this because the consequences will be bad for you'. I don't think you can make them better, but you can teach them to behave better.

Also lets not forget that actual psychopathy is pretty rare and most killers aren't psychopaths.

It's really not that simple. The number of people who have psychopathic traits is far far larger than the number of 'bad' psychopaths.
Look at Lucy Letby I think we can say has psychopathic traits has had a good upbringing but look how that turned out, she's a serial killer. Because she chose to be.

Just to add, I think a lot of psychopaths are born that way.

I know of a child that was placed in residential care aged 8. She needs 24/7 supervision because of her behaviour.

She was adopted at 6 months, and the adoptive parents were hugely loving, caring, so she was well loved and cared for.

Early on, she showed worrying signs, which escalated to her hurting the family dog so badly (it really was horrendous, I won't give details) that the dog needed to be PTS. The adoption broke down.

I still think of her and what lies ahead for her future.

Read the book: The Psychopath Test.

There was a good Horizon documentary a few years back called “what makes a psychopath” a few years back. Well worth a watch.

We had a psychopath in our work place a few years back - not violent, but all the other traits. Caused chaos, left a trail of destruction .. 2 people lost their jobs. I’ve never met anyone like it, and hope never too again.

The majority of psychopaths aren’t criminals. Unfortunately, the majority of knowledge we have about psychopathy comes from studying the criminal minority, which isn’t representative.

There’s also a tendency to categorize serious criminals as psychopathic when they’re not. Sadistic Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder are distinct diagnoses.

AFAIAA ‘angels of death’, serial killers in the medical field, generally do not fit the profile of ASPD or psychopathy.

This, exactly. And as other PPs have said, often those with psychopathic traits or diagnoses are in careers where they’re wildly successful.

I was thinking yesterday about the ‘angels of death’ - Charles Cullen, Beverley Ailitt, Harold Shipman, none of them have been diagnosed and their motives remain under debate. It complicates things that there are so few female serial killers, as it prevents us from drawing useful patterns.

I think that, on some level, it doesn't actually matter whether they can help it or not. We need to punish them on the basis that they can help it in order to bring justice to the victims and because otherwise law and order would completely break down (lots of people committing awful crimes and saying they couldn't help it).