Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Mia acknowledges
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Speaker 1: Mea are bringing you over one hundred hours of the
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Speaker 1: our podcast network. Do you know that we have something
Speaker 1: like fifty six different podcasts here at Mamma Mia. And
Speaker 1: if you follow this one, we have selected some others
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Speaker 1: we've also brought back some of our most popular and
Speaker 1: most riveting stories from No Filter, which is what you're
Speaker 1: going to hear today. We first brought you this conversation
Speaker 1: with David Gillespie about how to spot a psychopath all
Speaker 1: the way back in twenty seventeen. But the thing about
Speaker 1: psychopaths is that they don't change, and all the warning
Speaker 1: signs of them are still the same, and they're still around.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about serial killer psycho paths. This is
Speaker 1: about the psychopaths that walk among us in our families,
Speaker 1: in our homes, in our workplaces, maybe in our friendship groups,
Speaker 1: maybe on our dating apps. In fact, definitely also on
Speaker 1: our dating apps. David is a phenomenal author. He's written
Speaker 1: a lot of books on brains and navigating toxic people
Speaker 1: and about sugar, all different kinds of things, but this
Speaker 1: one on psychopaths, and this conversation that we had is
Speaker 1: among the most popular No filters that I've ever done.
Speaker 1: This episode might make you see the people around you
Speaker 1: a little differently. Don't say we didn't mourn you. Enjoy. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm mea Friedman and welcome to No Filter. This is
Speaker 1: a podcast so you can't see my face when I'm
Speaker 1: interviewing people, and that's part of the reason I love podcasts.
Speaker 1: I love listening to them, I love making them because
Speaker 1: there are no visuals to distract you. But I really,
Speaker 1: really wish you could have seen my face when I
Speaker 1: interviewed David Gillespie for this episode about psychopaths. Now, don't panic.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about the serial killer kind of psychopaths,
Speaker 1: not Ivan Malaut and Martin Bryant and the Ted Bundy ones.
Speaker 1: Because most psychopaths are not killers. Most psychopaths aren't even violent.
Speaker 1: Their bosses and managers and parents and grandparents, and you
Speaker 1: can find them in loads of different professions. Although some
Speaker 1: more than others, and we'll get to that in a minute.
Speaker 1: David Gillespie has written a book called Taming Toxic People,
Speaker 1: The Science of Identifying and Dealing with Psychopaths, and the
Speaker 1: book is about all the psychopaths that walk amongst us,
Speaker 1: at work, at home, and even inside our own families.
Speaker 1: In his book and in this interview, David explains exactly
Speaker 1: how to identify a psychopath. And as he listed the signs,
Speaker 1: my eyes widened so much they nearly fell out of
Speaker 1: my head. The all, my god, moments of recognition just
Speaker 1: kept coming during this conversation, as I began to realize
Speaker 1: that I have indeed worked with several psychopaths during the
Speaker 1: twenty five years I've been in the workforce. I've worked
Speaker 1: for them, and I've worked alongside them. I've even accidentally
Speaker 1: employed a couple, and I've certainly dated one or two.
Speaker 1: And it's almost certain that you have too. David says
Speaker 1: he has never ever spoken to someone about psychopaths without
Speaker 1: them having one of those aha moments, as a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of confusing things about a certain person in your life,
Speaker 1: or your world or your past suddenly made sense. This
Speaker 1: is honestly the most fascinating, mind blowing interview I've done,
Speaker 1: and I cannot stop thinking about it. Here's David Gillespie.
Speaker 1: David Gillespie, welcome, pleasure to be here. I feel like
Speaker 1: you could be looking at me and wondering if I
Speaker 1: am a psychopath? Is that what you do? Now? Do
Speaker 1: you sort of analyze people? No?
Speaker 2: Not really. I get the feeling that that will be
Speaker 2: someone's reaction to reading the book, But as a general rule,
Speaker 2: I don't do it myself. Unless it's something that I
Speaker 2: or a person I'm contemplating getting into some sort of
Speaker 2: a financial or other close relationship with, then it's really
Speaker 2: important to know. But the rest of the time it
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter. Why write this book because I experienced
Speaker 2: working for and with psychopaths on a fairly frequent basis.
Speaker 1: And can you tell me what industry?
Speaker 2: Roughly in just about every industry I've ever been involved in, so,
Speaker 2: I've been involved in tech, I've been involved in law,
Speaker 2: I've been involved in government departments, startups, all kinds of things.
Speaker 2: It's unusual, to, in fact, find a place where you
Speaker 2: don't encounter them in fairly significant numbers, usually at the
Speaker 2: top of the organized and when I first encountered them,
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure what I was dealing with. They seemed unpredictable, confusing, disruptive, destructive,
Speaker 2: and they didn't seem to be any real pattern to
Speaker 2: their behavior, and so I needed to put some labels
Speaker 2: on stuff. So I went researching trying to find things.
Speaker 2: Eventually came to the conclusion that there was this personality
Speaker 2: type and I probably didn't put a label on it
Speaker 2: at the time, but this anty social or psychopathic or sociopathic.
Speaker 1: Toxic is a word obviously in the title of your book,
Speaker 1: But that's a word that has been used more commonly
Speaker 1: in the last few years. Hasn't it to just explain
Speaker 1: that person at work whose behavior is confounding and excruciating, and.
Speaker 2: It's also the effect they have on everybody else You
Speaker 2: can often the easiest way to tell that there is
Speaker 2: a psychopath in a workplace is to look at what's
Speaker 2: going on. If there is a large group of people
Speaker 2: fighting for no good reason, large amounts of confusion, in fighting, distrust,
Speaker 2: lack of cooperation, then there's going to be a psychopath
Speaker 2: in the center there somewhere. That's the effect they have
Speaker 2: on normal people, and so that's often the telltale sign
Speaker 2: that they're there anyway. So I was encountering this sort
Speaker 2: of thing reasonably frequently, and I'd read books about it,
Speaker 2: and there are many, many books about psychopaths in the workplace.
Speaker 2: And what I found really frustrating about the books was
Speaker 2: they didn't tell you what to do. They are great
Speaker 2: at helping you pick them out, identify them, say yes,
Speaker 2: this person is definitely a psychopath. But then the advice
Speaker 2: is run away, Run as fast as you possibly can
Speaker 2: get away from this person. They're dangerous. There is no
Speaker 2: good that can come from this, and I found.
Speaker 1: That that's not always possible.
Speaker 2: Is well, particularly unhelpful advice, because you know, most people
Speaker 2: need their jobs. Most people can't just cut and run
Speaker 2: from a relationship or their family, or their employer or
Speaker 2: their parents. That's right. It's just tricky and dangerous, often
Speaker 2: with a psychopath. And I felt that surely we can
Speaker 2: do better than that. Surely the science must have advanced
Speaker 2: to the point where we've got better answers than run away.
Speaker 2: And so I've spent probably most of the last decade
Speaker 2: looking for those answers. And it's only really probably in
Speaker 2: the last two to three years that you've started to
Speaker 2: get definitive science about them rather than the one hundred
Speaker 2: years of psychological guesswork that we've had up till then.
Speaker 2: Now we're getting really good, high definition MRI studies that
Speaker 2: are starting to tell us a lot about how their
Speaker 2: brains work.
Speaker 1: Just jumping in to tell you the characteristics. According to
Speaker 1: David in his Book of a Psychopath, they include being charming,
Speaker 1: being self obsessed, being a fluent liar, emotional manipulation, someone
Speaker 1: completely lacking in remor or guilt, emotional shallowness and callousness,
Speaker 1: someone who takes no responsibility for their actions. Impulsive, parasitic, fearless,
Speaker 1: highly controlling, vindictive, aggressive, and intimidating. Back to David, So,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a little bit about I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask you a lot about how to deal
Speaker 1: with psychopaths in a moment, both in work and in relationships.
Speaker 1: But I want to start just with a couple of definitions,
Speaker 1: because sometimes people the word psychopath is often used to
Speaker 1: describe the Ted Bundy's, or the Ivan Malats or the
Speaker 1: Martin Bryants, those kind of crazed and violent serial killers.
Speaker 1: Is that accurate? Are they in fact psychopaths? Or is
Speaker 1: that is it a word that's become sort of used incorrectly.
Speaker 2: It's a word whose meaning has drifted. When it was
Speaker 2: first coined, it probably did mean what I mean it
Speaker 2: to mean, which is someone who lacks empathy. So there's
Speaker 2: two types of people in the world, psychopaths and empaths,
Speaker 2: and we'll talk about that in a little bit more detail,
Speaker 2: but that's all it meant when it was first introduced
Speaker 2: to sort of in common usage in the nineteen forties.
Speaker 2: But by the nineteen sixties, with the release of the
Speaker 2: film Psycho, the meaning had drifted more towards the person
Speaker 2: who stabs you in the shower kind of person, and.
Speaker 1: So that's more about psychotically exactly.
Speaker 2: He probably wasn't a psychopath at all. Norman Bates was
Speaker 2: probably psychotic, but not a psychopath, But that took that
Speaker 2: meaning in that direction, and instead we invented a new word, sociopath,
Speaker 2: which essentially meant the same thing, but it was a
Speaker 2: nicer way of calling someone a psychopath, and now people
Speaker 2: even suggest that they're different things altogether. The difficulty is
Speaker 2: that from a psychological perspective, there is no diagnosis of
Speaker 2: psychopathy or sociopathy. Neither of them really well Neither of
Speaker 2: them do appear in the official Manual for psychiatric diagnosis.
Speaker 2: So the closest you can get is antisocial personality disorder
Speaker 2: or perhaps narcissistic personality disorder, both of which are much
Speaker 2: wider than what I would call a psychopath.
Speaker 1: So correct me if I'm wrong. Is there almost a
Speaker 1: spectrum of psychopathic behavior? Or is there a spectrum of
Speaker 1: antisocial behavior upon which different things sit like narcissism, sociopath, psychopath?
Speaker 1: Does it kind of work like that?
Speaker 2: There've been a lot of people who've published a lot
Speaker 2: of papers that puts forward all those sorts of hypotheses
Speaker 2: over the years. I would say that the science is
Speaker 2: at a point now where we can say you either
Speaker 2: are or you aren't okay this kind of person, and
Speaker 2: the only real difference is the degree to which or
Speaker 2: how you express your lack of empathy. So the bloke
Speaker 2: who ends up in prison for chopping up sixteen people
Speaker 2: has probably low access to resources and the only route
Speaker 2: to power and fame or money or what he wanted
Speaker 2: was to kill people who got in his way. And
Speaker 2: when you talk to people who work with criminal psychopaths,
Speaker 2: it's interesting, you know. In fact, I was talking to
Speaker 2: a forensic psychologist just the other day, and I said,
Speaker 2: how does a criminal psychopath deal with a psychopath that
Speaker 2: they encounter? And he said, oh, easy, they just kill them.
Speaker 2: So problem solved. Now you're more high functioning psychopath. That is,
Speaker 2: people with more access to better resources, better resources like education, power,
Speaker 2: social skills, those sorts of things don't need to kill
Speaker 2: people to get what they want, so they don't.
Speaker 1: Are all psychopaths perfectly happy to kill people if necessary.
Speaker 2: They don't see a problem with killing people, and that's
Speaker 2: a fundamental and that probably in the most stark example
Speaker 2: of how they think differently to the rest of us.
Speaker 2: To us, if I said to you, oh, look, if
Speaker 2: you hit someone, you won't want to do that because
Speaker 2: you'll be causing pain to another person. And you don't
Speaker 2: want to do that because it kind of bounces back
Speaker 2: at you through empathy, and that you cause pain to others,
Speaker 2: you feel their pain. And some people say, oh maybe
Speaker 2: sometimes something. It depends who it is.
Speaker 1: So a psychopath might not want to kill someone, but
Speaker 1: only because it would be inconvenient for them because they
Speaker 1: would have to go to jail.
Speaker 2: And they're not afraid of consequences. But they are well
Speaker 2: aware of the practicality, so it's more like a computer
Speaker 2: assessment of things. Okay, am I likely to get away
Speaker 2: with this? Can I do it in such a way
Speaker 2: that I won't suffer harm or or just it won't
Speaker 2: impair my ability to continue, and being in jail will
Speaker 2: impair their ability to continue. So it's more like a
Speaker 2: logical planning than any kind of a fear of going
Speaker 2: to jail.
Speaker 1: You talk about the difference in your book between feelings
Speaker 1: and emotions. Yes, can you explain how that fits into
Speaker 1: being an EmPATH or a psychopath?
Speaker 2: Sure, Often psychopaths are described as having an no capacity
Speaker 2: for emotion, and that's not strictly correct. They have the
Speaker 2: same capacity for emotion as we do. They just have
Speaker 2: no control system over the top of it. So let
Speaker 2: me be clear about that. Our ancient reptilian brain, the
Speaker 2: limbic system, experiences very direct emotions, and there's various theories
Speaker 2: about it, but people put it between somewhere between five
Speaker 2: and six basic emotions. And I don't know, but things
Speaker 2: like fear, lust, anger, things like that really core.
Speaker 1: So the things you almost don't they're almost reflexive.
Speaker 2: Yes, they are reflexive, so completely unable to be managed
Speaker 2: in any way whatsoever. Psychopaths experience those just as much
Speaker 2: as as empaths do. What happens in an EmPATH, though,
Speaker 2: is that, using a system called spindle neurons, they transfer
Speaker 2: those emotions up into the frontal cortex in the brain,
Speaker 2: which would be what i'd call the adult supervision of
Speaker 2: the human brain. This is our most recently evolved part
Speaker 2: of the brain. It is the bit that makes decisions
Speaker 2: about whether to react. How to react, how to deal
Speaker 2: with emotions is one of the things it does. So
Speaker 2: it's a sort of a higher level translation, and it
Speaker 2: takes your basic emotions and translates that into an array
Speaker 2: of feelings. So last gets translated in some circumstances into
Speaker 2: love or like or whatever is the more appropriate higher
Speaker 2: level functional emotion. Psychopaths don't do that. They can't do that,
Speaker 2: and so that's the bit that they're missing.
Speaker 1: And so if they experience anger.
Speaker 2: Then they experience anger, and it is full on, uncontrolled,
Speaker 2: uncontrollable anger.
Speaker 1: Right with this idea of psychopaths not being able to
Speaker 1: experience empathy, yes, that is sometimes said. I want to
Speaker 1: draw a very clear distinction sometimes set of people with
Speaker 1: aspergers that they can't experience emotions in the same way
Speaker 1: that people who aren't on the spectrum can.
Speaker 2: There's two types of empathy. There's cognitive empathy and emotional empathy.
Speaker 2: Psychopaths experience cognitive empathy. That is, they can observe somebody
Speaker 2: and they can judge why they are reacting the way
Speaker 2: they are, assign an explanation to it, and make moves
Speaker 2: based on what they are seeing. That's cognitive empathy. Psychopaths
Speaker 2: are brilliant at that. In fact, they are probably better
Speaker 2: at that than any normal EmPATH simply because they don't
Speaker 2: have the other bit, emotional empathy, and rather like a
Speaker 2: blind person, develops significantly better capabilities with say, hearing or
Speaker 2: other senses. Psychopaths are much better with cognitive empathy than most.
Speaker 2: Emotional empathy is the bit what I was talking about before,
Speaker 2: which is feeling what other people are feeling, so not
Speaker 2: just seeing it in their face and reacting to it,
Speaker 2: actually feeling it.
Speaker 1: So it is like watching a sad movie and crying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's even more than that. It's seeing somebody
Speaker 2: be hurt or feeling joy and feeling it yourself and
Speaker 2: not just thinking, oh, that's joy, that's good for them,
Speaker 2: but which is what a psychopath would think, but actually
Speaker 2: feeling it, actually feeling it, as if you were.
Speaker 1: Expect when your sports team wins.
Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, But a psychopath could feel joy at
Speaker 2: that because they want to bet or something like that,
Speaker 2: but they wouldn't feel the emotion. They wouldn't feel that
Speaker 2: as if they were experiencing it themselves. And there's the
Speaker 2: difference with Asperger's, so aspergic people are the other way around.
Speaker 2: They have enormous capacity for emotional empathy and no capacity
Speaker 2: for cognitive empathy.
Speaker 1: So they just feel things, but.
Speaker 2: They feel exactly but don't know why. So they're almost
Speaker 2: kind of the opposite of a psychopath in that sense.
Speaker 2: But in a societal sense, it often, as you say,
Speaker 2: comes across in a very similar fashion, which is that
Speaker 2: they're disconnected in some way. And you often see aspergic
Speaker 2: people described as if they were psychopathic in their responses,
Speaker 2: but it's not. It's actually them shutting down because they
Speaker 2: are feeling so much.
Speaker 1: You say in your book that the job psychopaths are
Speaker 1: most attracted to ceo, lawyer, TV or radio hosts, salesperson, surgeon, journalist,
Speaker 1: police officer, clergyperson, chef, civil servant. Yes, and the job
Speaker 1: psychopaths aren't attracted to include sort of the caring professions,
Speaker 1: so a care aid, a nurse, a therapist, a crafts person,
Speaker 1: a beautician, stylist, charity worker, teacher, creative artists, doctor, accountant.
Speaker 1: Interesting between the difference between a doctor and a surgeon. Yes,
Speaker 1: So why do those industries, particularly journalism, police officers, surgeons, CEOs, lawyers,
Speaker 1: why do they attract psychopaths or do they create psychopaths?
Speaker 1: Or is something is so psychopaths something you're either born
Speaker 1: as or not.
Speaker 2: Well, psychopaths, whether you're born at it as one or
Speaker 2: not is an interesting question which I don't believe we've
Speaker 2: got a good answer to at the moment. There's a
Speaker 2: couple of things we do know, which is that those
Speaker 2: spindle neurons, which are essentially the circuitry for empathy, are
Speaker 2: hardwired into the adult human brain at a certain density,
Speaker 2: and we know that when they are there at that density,
Speaker 2: the human brain is a normal EmPATH. When they are
Speaker 2: there below that density, we know they are a psychopath.
Speaker 2: And when they are there above the normal density, we
Speaker 2: know that they are depressive, which is interesting. It always
Speaker 2: makes depression and psychopathy opposites of each other, so we
Speaker 2: know that about it. We also know that at birth
Speaker 2: humans have almost none of these neurons, rather like every
Speaker 2: other animal on the planet. But between birth and the
Speaker 2: age of four humans normal humans develop the normal density
Speaker 2: of neurons or the spindle neurons. Psychopaths don't and something. Therefore,
Speaker 2: it's either happy between zero and four, or it was
Speaker 2: going to happen anyway, or it's a combination of two
Speaker 2: in that there was a propensity and then something happened.
Speaker 2: Which of those it is, we have no idea, but
Speaker 2: it is interesting that there's a couple of things that
Speaker 2: come out of that. First, a newborn is basically a
Speaker 2: psychopath every newborn, and they develop empathy over the course
Speaker 2: of the next four years when not or not the
Speaker 2: vast majority do, but some don't. Now, coming back to
Speaker 2: the professions, psychopaths are attracted to professions that give them
Speaker 2: power over others, so give them the ability to control others,
Speaker 2: have people be subservient to them in some way, and
Speaker 2: they are less attracted to professions where they would have
Speaker 2: to serve others.
Speaker 1: I say so they often can become very successful in
Speaker 1: these professions and rise quite high. Why is that.
Speaker 2: Psychopaths interview really well, like really well one of their
Speaker 2: real skills, and this arises out of their strength and
Speaker 2: cognitive empathy, which is they are very very good at
Speaker 2: reading us. Within seconds, they can read us. It's almost
Speaker 2: psychic in their ability, and it isn't psychic. All it
Speaker 2: is is that they have. Because they lack cognitive empathy,
Speaker 2: they can't rely on automatic emotional detection. They have to
Speaker 2: do it manually. They have to do it by reading you.
Speaker 2: And because of that, they are very good at telling
Speaker 2: what we want to hear. They know what we want
Speaker 2: to hear and they reflect it back to us. Now,
Speaker 2: in this day and age, we make that especially easy
Speaker 2: for them because we publish what we want, what we're
Speaker 2: afraid of, what our likes and desires and insecurities are
Speaker 2: all over the internet. For that reason, psychopaths rarely have
Speaker 2: social media accounts of their own. They don't like to
Speaker 2: publish information about themselves because one of the other things
Speaker 2: about psychopaths is that they'll tell you a different story
Speaker 2: to they'll tell me to the next person they meet,
Speaker 2: and it's very, very hard to maintain a consistent story
Speaker 2: if you're putting your whole life on social media, but
Speaker 2: they do use it to stalk people. They can get
Speaker 2: a lot of information about a potential target from what
Speaker 2: they put on their social media.
Speaker 1: So when you say target, you know early in the book,
Speaker 1: in fact, on the first page, you compare a psychopath
Speaker 1: to a tiger and you say, if it looks like
Speaker 1: a threatening presence, then I will leave it alone. This
Speaker 1: is the tiger thinking if it looks like something I
Speaker 1: can use, then I will do so. So what is
Speaker 1: a psychopath trying to achieve.
Speaker 2: The same thing all the time? And this is worth
Speaker 2: remembering because it's the same no matter who the psychopath
Speaker 2: is or what the current situation is. They are always
Speaker 2: trying to achieve more money and power for themselves. That's it.
Speaker 2: There's nothing creative about it. That's it. And often people
Speaker 2: are quite surprised when it oils down to just that
Speaker 2: the lengths that they will go to, because it is
Speaker 2: just from moment to moment as well. It might be
Speaker 2: as simple as I don't know, getting the bigger bowl
Speaker 2: of ice cream. It's moment to moment what gives them.
Speaker 1: More So, Donald Trump, quite famously in the White House
Speaker 1: dining room, insists that he gets two scoops of ice
Speaker 1: cream and everyone else only be given one.
Speaker 2: Is that an example, Well, that's an example.
Speaker 1: That's just a dick.
Speaker 2: Well, no, no, that is an example of him demonstrating to
Speaker 2: the room that he is a superior person. And you
Speaker 2: might think the president of the United States doesn't need
Speaker 2: to remind people by how much ice cream he eats,
Speaker 2: But they don't think that way. They think everybody needs
Speaker 2: to be constantly reminded that I am better than them.
Speaker 1: Next, David explains how to tell if you work with
Speaker 1: a psychopath. What are some of the ways that you
Speaker 1: can recognize a psychopath in your midst at work?
Speaker 2: Usually one of the most obvious ways is a comparison
Speaker 2: of what they were like when you met them with
Speaker 2: what they are like now. So often when you first
Speaker 2: meet a psychopath, they are the most charming, wonderful person
Speaker 2: you've ever met in your entire life. Because they don't
Speaker 2: know you from anyone. They don't know are you going
Speaker 2: to be useful? Are you not going to be useful?
Speaker 2: And so they will play you. That means reflect back
Speaker 2: to you whatever they think you need to hear.
Speaker 1: So not even we're not even just talking about an
Speaker 1: interview situation, although that is why they will interview well, yes,
Speaker 1: when they're looking for a job, but once they've got
Speaker 1: the job, yes, everyone they meet. They will try to chart.
Speaker 2: Everyone they will meet at first, unless they get the
Speaker 2: sense that the person is a psychopath as well, which
Speaker 2: they'll be very good at picking, because there's no point
Speaker 2: they know they can't manipulate another psychopath.
Speaker 1: Is they're like a secret an.
Speaker 2: There's probably a secret look. I don't know, but they
Speaker 2: are extraordinarily efficient at identifying both victims and hard obstacles
Speaker 2: will be other psychopaths. People that can't be manipulated are
Speaker 2: no good to a psychopath because almost everything they do
Speaker 2: revolves around manipulating people to gather power and money to themselves.
Speaker 1: Do a psychopath know they're a psychopath.
Speaker 2: They probably don't have a label for it. They certainly
Speaker 2: know they're different and, in their view, better than everybody else,
Speaker 2: So they will have known this from a very very
Speaker 2: young age. They'll have known just by looking at an
Speaker 2: earthquake on television and seeing people suffering and seeing the
Speaker 2: effect on the people around and they go, oh, gosh,
Speaker 2: I guess I'm supposed to be affected by this. So
Speaker 2: they'll know they're different, and eventually they'll be able to
Speaker 2: say they're different better in the sense that they're not
Speaker 2: crippled by these emotions and feelings. And what's better, they
Speaker 2: find that they can in fact manipulate people with these
Speaker 2: emotions and feelings.
Speaker 1: And so they'll meet they'll meet you. They'll be charming
Speaker 1: because they won't know yet what you can do for
Speaker 1: them or not do for that.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: What will happen next.
Speaker 2: Once they're in So, once they're in a relationship with you,
Speaker 2: working for you, working with you, whatever, they'll drop the facade.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of work to maintain a facade. It's
Speaker 2: even more work to maintain multiple facades to different audiences.
Speaker 2: So they'll drop that and you'll see it slip at first,
Speaker 2: and then eventually they won't bother at all.
Speaker 1: So does this happen over a period of weeks? Does
Speaker 1: it happen over a period of years. Let's stick to
Speaker 1: the workplace for a sex. I'm going to ask you
Speaker 1: about relationships in a minute.
Speaker 2: It depends on the level of dependence that they have
Speaker 2: from you, meaning it depends how tightly they feel you
Speaker 2: are bound in. Once they feel you have nowhere to go,
Speaker 2: then they don't bother anymore.
Speaker 1: How do they create that situation where you have nowhere
Speaker 1: to go?
Speaker 2: Well, they get the job for starters, So one way
Speaker 2: is to get the job to be your boss. And
Speaker 2: then once they're your boss, then they work on destroying
Speaker 2: trust in the workplace, so destroying the trust of the
Speaker 2: people who are underneath them, so not trust in them,
Speaker 2: but trust in each other. So they'll tell this person
Speaker 2: a story. They'll tell that person a story. They'll tell
Speaker 2: that person a story.
Speaker 1: Yes, tell this person that the other person doesn't rate
Speaker 1: them very highly, and they tell the other person that
Speaker 1: this person thinks they're no good and.
Speaker 2: It won't even be as obvious as that. Sometimes they'll
Speaker 2: rotate favoritism, so that's a favorite tactic, so that there'll
Speaker 2: be you know, there'll be a golden haired child of
Speaker 2: the month, and everyone else you know is either ignored
Speaker 2: or evil, but that'll get rotated around. They'll do public
Speaker 2: executions is a term I use for it, meaning you know,
Speaker 2: they'll publicly demean someone in a meeting or whatever in
Speaker 2: front of everybody else. Everybody else will know that it's
Speaker 2: wrong and shouldn't happen, but they'll keep their head down
Speaker 2: because they don't want it to be them. So it's
Speaker 2: that kind of gamesmanship that's going on. But to the
Speaker 2: people above them in the organization, they are absolutely fabulous,
Speaker 2: you know, the best person they've ever hired. They will
Speaker 2: maintain the facade for.
Speaker 1: Those people, so they manage up very well.
Speaker 2: Manage up very very well, and kick down.
Speaker 1: So how is a psychopath in the workplace different to
Speaker 1: a workplace bully or is that just another name for
Speaker 1: some psychopaths? I think they behave you can be interpreted.
Speaker 2: I think most workplace bullies, or at least the worst ones,
Speaker 2: are definitely psychopaths. And there is a quantitative difference, and
Speaker 2: it has been done in the research. Your average workplace bully,
Speaker 2: just a bad manager, just you know, it's a terrible manager,
Speaker 2: is going to bully their workforce once a month on average,
Speaker 2: so ten to twelve times a year. A psychopath will
Speaker 2: do it two three times a week. So it is
Speaker 2: a significant difference in scale and that goes to show well,
Speaker 2: you can just be horrible and not be a psychopath,
Speaker 2: but it's frequency that will be the determinant.
Speaker 1: You know, you speaking, Just my eyes are widening, as
Speaker 1: I'm sure many people have when you've talked to them
Speaker 1: because you go, oh my god, that guy or that girl,
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask you about that. How many
Speaker 1: psychopaths are men and how many women?
Speaker 2: If you had asked most of the research is that
Speaker 2: question ten years ago, they would have said, it's almost
Speaker 2: entirely men. The research has moved a long way from
Speaker 2: there now. The reason is because most of the studies
Speaker 2: done up to that point were done on male prisoners,
Speaker 2: so of course it was almost entirely men and almost
Speaker 2: entirely criminal. But the research has really moved a lot
Speaker 2: further in the last few years, and you're talking now
Speaker 2: about broad population research and women's prisoner's research, and it's
Speaker 2: pretty much coming to the conclusion that there isn't a
Speaker 2: gender bias. So there are just as many female psychopaths
Speaker 2: as male psycle.
Speaker 1: I can think of a couple. So you suspect you've
Speaker 1: got a psychopath in your midst he or she might
Speaker 1: be your boss. How do you deal with it?
Speaker 2: If they are your boss, then you are probably in
Speaker 2: a workplace where you've gone from trusting and enjoying working
Speaker 2: with the people around you to not knowing who you
Speaker 2: can trust.
Speaker 1: You will have got so they like to throw everyone
Speaker 1: off balance.
Speaker 2: Absolutely everyone is. The cloud of emotional confusion is what
Speaker 2: they use as cover for they are trying to achieve.
Speaker 2: And so you'll be experiencing a significant change in your
Speaker 2: workplace where suddenly people you thought you could trust you're
Speaker 2: not sure you can. You certainly can't talk to them
Speaker 2: about the psychopath because you're never not quite sure whether
Speaker 2: they are on the inside or the or not, and
Speaker 2: whether what you're saying might get relayed back to them,
Speaker 2: and then you'll suffer punishment. So you're in a world
Speaker 2: of pain in that situation. Really, the only solution, and
Speaker 2: I really hate saying this, but it is true, is
Speaker 2: you've got a plan to leave. But you can't just
Speaker 2: cut and run, because just cutting and running will probably
Speaker 2: cause you significant damage. The psychopath will probably treat that
Speaker 2: as some sort of an insult which requires revenge and punishment.
Speaker 2: You may suffer financial damage for it, They may sue you.
Speaker 2: You know, they're quite good at doing that sort of
Speaker 2: thing with the resources of an organization behind them, So
Speaker 2: you can't do that. What you can do, though, is
Speaker 2: plan and do a few other things while you're at work,
Speaker 2: So keep applying for the jobs you want. But at
Speaker 2: work you have to be the ideal worker, and I
Speaker 2: mean almost robotic, which is you don't interact with the
Speaker 2: psychopath unless you have to. When you do, you repress
Speaker 2: all emotional responses. They will try their very hardest to
Speaker 2: get you to respond emotionally to things they say, and
Speaker 2: they will be wanting to do that because they want
Speaker 2: to use your response. If you go crazy in a
Speaker 2: meeting because they say something that is seemingly innocuous, then
Speaker 2: you're the nutbag and they will use that. Be honest
Speaker 2: at all times, absolutely scrupulously honest. They will try to
Speaker 2: get you to be dishonest. Let you fudge your expense
Speaker 2: report or something like that. Oh it's all right, you know,
Speaker 2: I know that was mostly a business launch. You can
Speaker 2: claim that. As soon as you do something like that,
Speaker 2: you give them a lever against you, because immediately if
Speaker 2: that comes around and bites, they can say I didn't
Speaker 2: know that they were doing that. I had no idea.
Speaker 2: You know, what a terrible person. We must get rid
Speaker 2: of them. So be scrupulously honest, be cordial, polite, show
Speaker 2: no emotions.
Speaker 1: Whatsoever as you try to get the hell out of it.
Speaker 2: As you try to get out of there. Take notes
Speaker 2: of everything. Do a James Comy take notes of every
Speaker 2: meeting you have so that the lies are recorded. One
Speaker 2: of the things about psychopaths is that they have no
Speaker 2: particular attachment to the truth. To an mpath, the truth
Speaker 2: is kind of a core message. Might not always stick
Speaker 2: to it, but it's kind of a core thing that
Speaker 2: we keep coming back to. Psychopaths don't have that at all.
Speaker 2: The truth is whatever needs to be said at the
Speaker 2: moment to get what they need to get, and they
Speaker 2: don't care that it's different to what they said yesterday.
Speaker 2: They'll be able to explain their way out of it.
Speaker 2: Plausible deniability is built in second nature. Stating the complete
Speaker 2: opposite of what they said yesterday, and they'll say it
Speaker 2: with such confidence that you'll believe, well, maybe I'm the
Speaker 2: one that's mad, but I'm pretty sure he said the
Speaker 2: opposite to that yesterday. Writing it down gives you a
Speaker 2: very clear record of what's being said. Confirming all instructions
Speaker 2: in writing is another defense tactic you have to use,
Speaker 2: which is psychopath tells you to move dirt from pila
Speaker 2: to pile B, you confirm in writing that that's what
Speaker 2: you've been asked to do, no sarcasm, no emotion, no
Speaker 2: questioning of their authority or power, simply confirming the instruction
Speaker 2: you've been so.
Speaker 1: Been quite submissive.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And then one little thing that I guess the
Speaker 2: cream on the cake is flatter them. They are extraordinarily
Speaker 2: prone to flattery, even obvious flattery that you might consider
Speaker 2: way over the top obvious, they will think is perfectly realistic.
Speaker 2: They do think they're the smartest, best person in the world,
Speaker 2: So occasionally telling them that will keep you on their.
Speaker 1: Good side as you try to get the hell out.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: What are some of the other signs that there is
Speaker 1: a psychopath in your midst You write about process in Micromanager.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So. One of the things that psychopaths tend
Speaker 2: to do in a workplace pretty well straight away is
Speaker 2: that they obsess over process. So they come in and
Speaker 2: they're inventing new processes, new reporting schemes, everything has to
Speaker 2: be done in triplicate. By the time they're done, you're
Speaker 2: almost spending more time reporting to them than you are
Speaker 2: doing your job. And to people who are good at
Speaker 2: their job, that is an extraordinarily frustrating experience because they're
Speaker 2: used to management that trusts them, lets them get on
Speaker 2: with it, and only is there if they need reference
Speaker 2: or need help with something. Psychopaths don't work that way.
Speaker 2: They believe we are nothing better than barnyard animals, and
Speaker 2: we need very precise instruction or we will go off
Speaker 2: the rails. And we also need to be carefully monitored
Speaker 2: because we are probably stealing from them or diverting resources
Speaker 2: away from them.
Speaker 1: So that's why they do it absolutely. And look, when
Speaker 1: you come into a new job, and if you're a
Speaker 1: new manager, you don't want everyone to be dying nicing
Speaker 1: psychopaths everywhere because some of these things aren't just what
Speaker 1: new managers do, right, So you come in and you say, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe we should try doing it this way. And then
Speaker 1: when someone does have a new manager, it can be
Speaker 1: quite disruptive and people can feel unsettled enough balance, But
Speaker 1: you're saying that that's different to when there's a psychopath
Speaker 1: because of how long it lasts, how intense.
Speaker 2: It is, and it gets regular and worse, and.
Speaker 1: So there are more processes and more micromatag yes.
Speaker 2: And it never seems to end. Just as when you
Speaker 2: think that they've gone as far as they possibly can,
Speaker 2: they come up with something else. They have no strategic
Speaker 2: focus at all. So a normal manager will say, oh,
Speaker 2: how are we taking this business forward? They'll direct somebody
Speaker 2: to do some work on that, provide some recommendations. It
Speaker 2: will be discussed, there'll be a consensus decision, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Psychopaths don't work like that. They'll be in a meeting,
Speaker 2: they'll have an idea that will be the plan.
Speaker 1: But that's me. But that's just a bad manager. Like
Speaker 1: I think, I'm just sometimes a bad manager. And sometimes
Speaker 1: I'll do that thing of our micromanage. But as soon
Speaker 1: as I feel like people, I'll only micromanager if I
Speaker 1: feel like things aren't right. But as soon as I
Speaker 1: feel like I can trust that things are right, I'm
Speaker 1: out of there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't happen, So that means I'm.
Speaker 1: Not a psychopath.
Speaker 2: I hope though, But is that true?
Speaker 1: So the fact that I get out of there means
Speaker 1: that I'm probably a psychopath.
Speaker 2: Won't be able to do that, won't be able to
Speaker 2: walk away from it.
Speaker 1: Right, But sometimes they do just have an idea and
Speaker 1: then just well, they are bad managers. Bad managers aren't
Speaker 1: psycho rece either.
Speaker 2: Any of the things I've described you could probably attribute
Speaker 2: to a bad manager. It's having all of them together
Speaker 2: and the effect it has on the workplace, which is
Speaker 2: the complete and total destruction of trust in the workplace.
Speaker 2: That is the absolute, definitive symptom that there is one
Speaker 2: there somewhere, Because workplaces are communities. At the end of
Speaker 2: the day, they're a group of people putting the community
Speaker 2: or the workplace's benefit or or good outcomes above their own.
Speaker 2: You know, they're doing it for pay, So it's not
Speaker 2: like it's altruism, but it's close. It is putting the
Speaker 2: benefit of the community above and ahead of the benefit
Speaker 2: of the individual. And as soon as that's not happening
Speaker 2: in a workplace, it's usually because there's a psychopath there.
Speaker 2: As soon as people are just they're looking out for themselves,
Speaker 2: defending themselves, trusting nobody, cooperating not at all, And as
Speaker 2: soon as that's everybody in a workplace doing that, then
Speaker 2: you know there's a psychopath there.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now I want to talk about psychopaths in
Speaker 1: relationships because I, like many women, have been in an
Speaker 1: emotionally abusive relationship. But I don't think he was a psychopath.
Speaker 1: So tell me how psychopaths behave in relating romantic relationships, it's.
Speaker 2: Very similar to what I've described work. They don't change
Speaker 2: because they're at home versus when at works. So they're
Speaker 2: all about control. They're all about micromanagement, they're all about reporting.
Speaker 2: They don't trust their part at all. They are people
Speaker 2: who need to be controlled at all times and are
Speaker 2: in their mind a possession something who is there to
Speaker 2: serve them. And as soon as they stop being useful
Speaker 2: as a possession or a source of money or power,
Speaker 2: they don't need them anymore, and either they will just
Speaker 2: walk away or they will abuse them simply because there's
Speaker 2: no reason not to.
Speaker 1: If I'm in a relationship with a psychopath, or I
Speaker 1: suspect I am, what might I notice is happening.
Speaker 2: Well, it'll be really clear in the relationship.
Speaker 1: They'll probably be very charming at first one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, they will be probably the fastest, most accelerated
Speaker 2: relationship you've ever had in that you will move very
Speaker 2: very fast. They will seem absolutely perfect upfront. They will
Speaker 2: tell you exactly what you want to hear. They will
Speaker 2: be exactly what you want to be. They will be
Speaker 2: the best lover you've ever had. The sharing I was
Speaker 2: going to.
Speaker 1: Say they must get a lot of sex because if
Speaker 1: they can like turn it on, and you also say
Speaker 1: that they're more likely to be the ones that will
Speaker 1: approach the woman that intimidates other men.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, Why is that a challenge? Why not, you know,
Speaker 2: go for that. They believe that they are entitled to
Speaker 2: the best of everything, so why not choose the best
Speaker 2: looking or most appealing possession in the room.
Speaker 1: And they won't always be the captain of the football
Speaker 1: team and the highest you know guy, and the you know,
Speaker 1: socially upwardly mobile or will they like.
Speaker 2: They'll pretend to be if that's what you want to hear, okay,
Speaker 2: And they.
Speaker 1: Won't necessarily be the most good looking person.
Speaker 2: Well, people often say psychopaths are especially good looking. But
Speaker 2: when But when studies are done on this with objective testing,
Speaker 2: where people don't know ahead and aren't actually speaking to
Speaker 2: the person you know, they're looking at a photo, there
Speaker 2: doesn't appear to be any particular bias towards psychopaths. But
Speaker 2: I think it's it's once again, if they're telling you
Speaker 2: what you want to hear, maybe they look better.
Speaker 1: So it's all happening very fast. I'm in love, he says,
Speaker 1: he's in love, he wants to introduce me to his family.
Speaker 1: He's talking about our future. It's all happening very very fast.
Speaker 1: And then what happens.
Speaker 2: Once you're in, once you're committed, once you're hooked into
Speaker 2: the relationship, and you can't leave because you've.
Speaker 1: Moved in, you're pregnant, you've got married.
Speaker 2: Ed banking accounts, shared possessions. He's probably moved in or
Speaker 2: she's probably moved into your home. You will be providing
Speaker 2: most of the possessions and resources, even though the story
Speaker 2: so far might well have been that they had all
Speaker 2: sorts of resources available. There'll be some unfortunate event which
Speaker 2: has drained them away in some way. Yes, but to
Speaker 2: help them get back on their feet, they'll be moving
Speaker 2: in with you, using your car, You'll be paying for dinner,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. That once that's happened, then they
Speaker 2: have no particular need to maintain the facade unless you
Speaker 2: look like you're going to walk. So if you detect
Speaker 2: a change, or they drop the facade, or you know,
Speaker 2: and you are a particularly strong willed individual who doesn't
Speaker 2: care and is just going to say, nope, I'm out
Speaker 2: of here, then they'll either bring it back up and
Speaker 2: love bomb you, or they might go the other way
Speaker 2: and use force to keep you there.
Speaker 1: Wow, So what do you do? How do you get away?
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, there are not a lot of good answers for this,
Speaker 2: particularly if you're in very deep that is, have children
Speaker 2: with them, money with them, those sorts of things where
Speaker 2: you are entangled with them. It is very, very difficult,
Speaker 2: and they will use the fact that you are emotionally
Speaker 2: attached to the children and they are not against you,
Speaker 2: so you know they will use children and possessions as
Speaker 2: tools to manipulate you with and to hold you and
Speaker 2: bind you into the relationship. So it is extraordinarily difficult
Speaker 2: to get away. Probably the only real advice you that
Speaker 2: is useful is work slowly towards disentangling yourself. Not that
Speaker 2: you can do that with children, but everything else. Disentangling yourself,
Speaker 2: keeping trying to get separated and.
Speaker 1: Squirrel away opening up another bank.
Speaker 2: Account, just doing it.
Speaker 1: Slowly and imperceptibly, that's right.
Speaker 2: And maintaining the same rules that I said about being
Speaker 2: in the office, which is maintain compliance, do not react emotionally,
Speaker 2: et cetera. But ultimately with the plan of getting out
Speaker 2: of there and never coming back.
Speaker 1: But look, because psychopaths can't change.
Speaker 2: They can't, they can't, they won't change, they and they
Speaker 2: don't feel like even if they could, they wouldn't because
Speaker 2: they believe they're the better version of humans and were
Speaker 2: the emotionally crippled cheaple. So they wouldn't change even if
Speaker 2: they could.
Speaker 1: What would a psychopath do if they caught you square
Speaker 1: money away?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the reason to leave them. That's the risk,
Speaker 2: both in the workplace and at home, is don't get caught,
Speaker 2: don't get court applying for other jobs, don't get caught
Speaker 2: squirrelling money away, don't get caught having an exit plan.
Speaker 2: Because they are extraordinarily vengeful, extraordinarily vengeful, and they really
Speaker 2: have no breaks on that, nothing to stop them exacting revenge. Now,
Speaker 2: if they're particularly if they have access to lots of
Speaker 2: resources and money and someone, that might be legal revenge
Speaker 2: or nasty rumors with other employers, or blackballing you in
Speaker 2: the industry or whatever in a relationship, it might just
Speaker 2: be hitting you.
Speaker 1: Psychopaths more likely to be violent than not, do. They
Speaker 1: just see that as one of their many tools, and
Speaker 1: they don't differentiate it from anything else.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's two things at play here. The first is
Speaker 2: that they do experience emotion, volatile, high powered, intense emotion
Speaker 2: that empaths will control with higher order thinking. Psychopaths don't control.
Speaker 2: So if something is making them angry, and any insult
Speaker 2: to their power is likely to make them angry. If
Speaker 2: something makes them angry, then they will react instinctively with
Speaker 2: anger with no ability to control it. Sometimes they do
Speaker 2: that for show as a means of manipulating you. Sometimes
Speaker 2: they really mean it. Either way, They're not going to
Speaker 2: stop just because you're hurt.
Speaker 1: You talk about two tests in the book. One is
Speaker 1: the hair psycho Psychopathy. I never can say that. One
Speaker 1: is the hair psychopathy checklist.
Speaker 2: Yes, what's that? That's a checklist that was designed until
Speaker 2: he designed He did it in the nineteen eighties and
Speaker 2: he was doing it in prisons and its purpose was
Speaker 2: to more accurately diagnose people who are psychopaths in the
Speaker 2: prison population. The reason that he needed a checklist was
Speaker 2: because up until that point, whether someone was a psychopath
Speaker 2: or not depended on who was doing the interview. You know,
Speaker 2: it really just depended how easily they were manipulated, etcetera. Etcetera.
Speaker 2: And it was very fluffy. That test allowed people in
Speaker 2: prisons all over the world to play apply the same
Speaker 2: uniform criteria and come up with a score, and they said,
Speaker 2: above this threshold score, you are dealing with a psychopath.
Speaker 2: But it is a test which is designed to deal
Speaker 2: with criminal psychopaths. So there's a lot on there that
Speaker 2: is about criminality, so you know, juvenile delinquency, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 1: What was the test that was I thought it was
Speaker 1: the hair one, but what was the one with the noise?
Speaker 2: That test was actually a series of studies done to
Speaker 2: measure fear in psychopaths, because one of the things that
Speaker 2: people notice really early on was that psychopaths don't react
Speaker 2: the same as everybody else to situations that would engender fear,
Speaker 2: and they gained a reputation for being fearless. That's been
Speaker 2: nuanced a lot. But those studies were done in the
Speaker 2: eighties and nineties, and they were done on prison populations
Speaker 2: where they would expose people who they had pretested. So
Speaker 2: two groups people who were psychopaths using that test, who
Speaker 2: were psychopaths, and others who were criminals but not psychopaths,
Speaker 2: and they would tell them you are going to lie here.
Speaker 2: We're going to count down from ten and at the
Speaker 2: end there is going to be extremely loud noise. And
Speaker 2: the first time they did it, and there was no anticipation,
Speaker 2: no fear in the people. The noise was extremely loud.
Speaker 2: It was really unpleasantly loud. And then they would do
Speaker 2: it again and again and again and measure the levels
Speaker 2: of anxiety in the groups. And what they found was
Speaker 2: that nobody loved hearing the noise, but the people who
Speaker 2: weren't psychopaths exhibited enormous anxiety the countdown because they knew
Speaker 2: what was coming. I'm feel just thinking about it, and
Speaker 2: they just showed real anxiety. The psychopaths showed no anxiety
Speaker 2: at all. So from that they said, oh, they're fearless.
Speaker 2: It's now clear that they're not fearless. They do experience
Speaker 2: the same as we do. They just don't translate it
Speaker 2: to anxiety. So they are afraid of just of danger,
Speaker 2: just as much as anybody else is, but they don't
Speaker 2: worry about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I guess my last question for you, David
Speaker 1: is what happens when psychopaths have children?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, to a psychopath, a child is a possitionion,
Speaker 2: so like a pet is a possision, and as long
Speaker 2: as it is a well behaved position, that's fine. As
Speaker 2: soon as it's not a well behaved position, then it
Speaker 2: can be discarded or brought back into line. So to
Speaker 2: a psychopath, it's our child is nothing more than a
Speaker 2: dog that needs to be disciplined because it's not performing
Speaker 2: as required.
Speaker 1: So they have no feelings of love.
Speaker 2: Love is a higher order feeling, so they can't experience love,
Speaker 2: and so they have no sense of that joy. Well, no,
Speaker 2: they can. They experience lust and sexual attraction, which are
Speaker 2: the law order emotions, but they can't translate that into love.
Speaker 2: They don't know what love is. They hear us talk
Speaker 2: about it all the time, but they have no idea
Speaker 2: what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: So they have children why because they think they should.
Speaker 2: Oh, there'll be lots of reasons. It might be part
Speaker 2: of the entrapment. It might have been necessary to have
Speaker 2: children because the person they were targeting wasn't going to
Speaker 2: stay in the relationship unless children were produced.
Speaker 1: But there will also be mothers that are psychopaths.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, same deal way around. Well, so, same deal.
Speaker 2: It could be that the only way she can keep
Speaker 2: the partner in the relationship is to provide him with children.
Speaker 1: And will she or he always be abusive towards their children?
Speaker 1: If you're a psychopath, will you always abuse your children,
Speaker 1: either physically or mentally or emotionally.
Speaker 2: Well, only if that's what's necessary to control them. At
Speaker 2: the end of the day, the purpose is control, not
Speaker 2: abuse per se. You know they're not abusing for the
Speaker 2: fun of abusing. They're abusing to an end, which is
Speaker 2: to control. If the possession can be controlled without abuse,
Speaker 2: then it'll be controlled without abuse.
Speaker 1: If the possession can be controlled. So as children get older,
Speaker 1: what would be a sign that your parent is a psychopath?
Speaker 1: I guess I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 2: That kind of relationship where you have no real emotional
Speaker 2: connection with them, that you see them projecting publicly a
Speaker 2: very different face to what you see when you are
Speaker 2: in private with them. And there's actually some very interesting
Speaker 2: case studies been published by children of psychopaths, and I
Speaker 2: go through a few of them in the book where
Speaker 2: they talk about what that was like, which is, up
Speaker 2: until about the age of thirteen, they noticed over and
Speaker 2: over and over again that you know, dad or Mum
Speaker 2: would project some completely different persona when their friends were
Speaker 2: in the room or when they were in public to
Speaker 2: when they were alone with them, and then it would,
Speaker 2: you know, just all just go blank and bang, they're
Speaker 2: just part of the furniture again. But when the friends
Speaker 2: are their.
Speaker 1: They would perform the parent because that's what they know
Speaker 1: their friends need to should be seen exactly.
Speaker 2: They would act like happy families and then bang, it
Speaker 2: would just be shut off as soon as the person
Speaker 2: left the room. So that's the kind of thing. And
Speaker 2: kids growing up in that environment often many of them
Speaker 2: in the case studies say they thought that was normal.
Speaker 2: They thought that's what all parents did. And it's only
Speaker 2: once they got out into sort of socializing with other
Speaker 2: kids sort of in their teens and so on, they realized, wow,
Speaker 2: you know what, not all parents are like this. Not
Speaker 2: all people have this completely emotionally disconnected relationship with the
Speaker 2: adults in their house.
Speaker 1: David, your book is phenomenal. I can't recommend it highly
Speaker 1: enough for anyone who is in a relationship with anyone,
Speaker 1: people who have a job, who encounter people in any
Speaker 1: aspect of life. Whether you think there's a psychopath in
Speaker 1: your life or not, it is it's almost like an
Speaker 1: immunization against encountering psychopaths in life, which we all will.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can think of half a dozen that
Speaker 1: I've encountered through my life.
Speaker 2: Every wonder I've not spoken to a single person who
Speaker 2: looks back at me blankly and says, got no idea
Speaker 2: what you're talking about? Never meant anyone like that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure people are listening with their eyes wide David,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Taming Toxic People is a study
Speaker 1: on psychopaths. It is available now. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: No Filter A lot to think about. Hey, you can
Speaker 1: buy David's book Taming Toxic People and my book work
Speaker 1: Strife Balance at Eyebooks at Apple dot Co, Forward Slash
Speaker 1: MoMA Mia, and this is where you can also subscribe
Speaker 1: to all our other shows in one place. You might
Speaker 1: want to subscribe to Mama Mea Out Loud, which is
Speaker 1: our flagship show, or Year One, which is our show
Speaker 1: for everyone who has got you children in the first
Speaker 1: year of their lives. We also have a podcast for
Speaker 1: pregnant people called Hello Bump, and a podcast for families
Speaker 1: called This Glorious Mess, and one of my personal favorites,
Speaker 1: a podcast called The Well hosted by Rebecca Sparrow and
Speaker 1: Robin Bailey, two women in their forties who talk about
Speaker 1: all the ways to make your life better and easier
Speaker 1: and faster. They are very funny and just two of
Speaker 1: the most wise and witty people. If you want all
Speaker 1: of our podcasts in one place, best you go download
Speaker 1: Thema MEA Podcast app in the app store. It's pink,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to remember any of the things
Speaker 1: I've just told you, or where to find them or
Speaker 1: what they're called. They are all in the Mama MEA
Speaker 1: Podcast app. And if you and this episode of No Filter,
Speaker 1: I have plenty more. We've recorded I think one hundred
Speaker 1: and six or one hundred and seven episodes of this podcast.
Speaker 1: I wonder how many of the people I interviewed to psychopaths,
Speaker 1: you know. Part of doing this episode, I was slightly
Speaker 1: worried that maybe I was, because there are some of
Speaker 1: the things that I am. I do like sometimes processes,
Speaker 1: I can be overly involved, sometimes I micromanage. But I've
Speaker 1: asked around for confirmation, and of the people who've listened
Speaker 1: to this episode and read David's book, they say I
Speaker 1: am a lot of things, not all of them good,
Speaker 1: but I am not a psychopath, so that was a relief.
Speaker 1: But some of the people I've interviewed who I really
Speaker 1: don't think are psychopaths, but who are really interesting episodes
Speaker 1: of their own. Peter fitz Simon's Oh my gosh, if
Speaker 1: you've wondered, he'll hate me for saying this, but if
Speaker 1: you've wondered what it's like to be married to Lisa Wilkinson,
Speaker 1: it's a great interview. Peter fitz. He've always been Donna.
Speaker 1: Sue Brierley is the real life mom from Lyon. If
Speaker 1: you don't know if you've seen the movie Lion about Saru,
Speaker 1: the little boy who was adopted by I was going
Speaker 1: to say Nicole Kidman by an Australian couple in real life,
Speaker 1: the mother of whom was played by Nicole Kidman in
Speaker 1: the film. And Sue is just amazing. It was so
Speaker 1: interesting to get her perspective on the movie and on
Speaker 1: some of the issues. I had a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: If you've seen Lyon, he has a brother that doesn't
Speaker 1: do so well after his adoption, and I had a
Speaker 1: lot of questions for Sue about what it was like
Speaker 1: to have that portrayed on screen, as well as Seru's
Speaker 1: incredible story of finding his birth mother. Will Anderson. I
Speaker 1: spoke to Lisa Oldfield. I spoke to She had three
Speaker 1: glasses of wine during this podcast and then tried to
Speaker 1: crack onto my son. We have had just so many
Speaker 1: fascinating guests you can go and see in the feed
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different people, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people say this is a very good podcast to listen
Speaker 1: to if you're on a road trip or going for
Speaker 1: long walk anytime. Really, maybe it'll help you go to sleep.
Speaker 1: Who knows. If you want to suggest a guest or
Speaker 1: just ask me a question, call the podfhone on two
Speaker 1: eight triple nine nine three eight six, or flick me
Speaker 1: an email at podcast at momamea dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: Please leave a review and a star rating of maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know five stars in the iTunes store. Tell
Speaker 1: someone about this podcast, because the more people that know
Speaker 1: about it, the more we can continue to make this
Speaker 1: and all the other great podcasts we make at Mamamea.
Speaker 1: This podcast has been produced by the delightful Eliza Ratliffe
Speaker 1: for the MMAMEA Women's Network. If you're looking for something
Speaker 1: else to listen to, like and follow all of our
Speaker 1: Mumamea podcasts, which are currently bringing you hot pod Summer
Speaker 1: one hundred hours of summer listens, from spicy conversations to
Speaker 1: incredible stories, fashion, beauty. Where the friends in your ears
Speaker 1: over summer