Comments on: Don’t Call a 9-Year-Old a “Psychopath”

By: keith

keith — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 12:17:02 +0000

I don’t think they can learn. But they’re huge fun, and so long as you don’t get emotionally involved they’re no problem. Every autistic should have a psychopath, imo. They make social interaction infinitely easier because people don’t enforce rules for the them in the way they would for an autistic by themselves.

By: Jesse Lykken, JD

Jesse Lykken, JD — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 11:08:56 +0000

We all fake moral behavior to some extent. What seems to work with young psychopaths is to not let them get bored, AND to not let them get bored. Did I mention that letting them get bored is a really bad idea? While we flood them with constructive stimulation, praise them sincerely and often for being able to do things that most of us would wet ourselves for even considering. Eventually, the young, engaged psychopath will see that s/he has a favored place in our society, and is appreciated for what s/he is. Now, the young psychopath has been really and truly socialized, and can lead our first manned mission to Mars, or run for president (T.R.!). I wouldn’t change the word. It has just gotten bad P.R. One changes that with good P.R. Take the term out of the shadows, make sure it is differentiated from “sociopath”, and sing out “psychopathy rocks!” Just don’t let them get bored…

By: Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 01:41:54 +0000

Early intervention seems helpful for autistic children. Whether it would help for children with psychopathic-type conditions will be less clear, but might as well try. The NYTimes article does warn of the danger – teaching kids to fake moral behavior instead of incorporating moral behavior into their own personal preferences.

Regarding names, I think #3 is right that a new name will acquire the same stigma, but maybe it’ll help for a decade or two before the stigma develops. Then time to change the name yet again.

By: Emily Willingham

Emily Willingham — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:05:19 +0000

Keith and Jesse, I find your observations fascinating.

By: Jesse Lykken, JD

Jesse Lykken, JD — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 19:30:00 +0000

My best friend is a psychopath. He is now in his early 50s and holds a responsible position in county government. He has always been fully aware of his … abilities … and appreciates the fact that if not for his wonderful parents, he would be either dead or in prison. He chose for himself a strong moral code, and strictly adheres to it. With practice, he has done away with impulsive behaviors that would be damaging to himself or to others. My father thought my friend to be a perfect example of a socialized psychopath, and believed that parenting was the key factor. As for my friend, well, I am very glad that he is my friend. Oh, and he does very well with my autistic children. His very presence puts most people on their guard, but my kids don’t have the same social antennae as typical folks do, and therefore have no innate fear of him. He senses this, and therefore reacts favorably to them. It’s kind of cool, actually.

By: keith

keith — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 16:40:04 +0000

Oh, and in my experience of high functioning psychopaths they’re basically harmless, but their non-psychopath, non-autistic, everyday normal people type minions can be highly dangerous, and I suspect have been highly dangerous in the everyday violence we see in genocides and such. I think the Milgram experiment shows why psychopathy won’t be examined any more honestly than autism: ordinary people are murderers if it pleases someone above them in the hierarchy, and psychopaths want to be that person being appeased.

I’d be delighted and more than a little surprised if a nonautistic, nonpsychopathic scientist started from the question “How is my ape mind twisting the way I see things?” rather than “What is wrong with these other people?”

By: keith

keith — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 16:10:11 +0000

I’m autistic and the only people I’ve ever felt comfortable with were psychopaths or other autistics. I find them deeply interesting with regards to the nature of autism, and humanity, and therefore the universe as we perceive it. They feel safe to me because they don’t hold onto beliefs about the social hierarchy, they certainly aren’t part of the hierarchy that determines how nonautistics see the world, and yet they desperately need to control it. It’s really fascinating to imagine their viewpoint and contrast it with viewpoints of autistics and nonautistics.

They’re very popular socially though, so I wouldn’t feel sorry for them.

By: AG

AG — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:51:37 +0000

If word “psychopath” sounds bad, other word will emerge and mean the same thing. Just like quantity easing = inflation. Since people hate inflation, politicians invent new words for the same thing.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 17:58:53 +0000

Interesting. I agree with you that it is not very comfortable to allow the apparent partial conflation of something being “neuro-psychological” and linked blamelessly to behavior. The modal Y-chromosome bearing male human is bellicose, rapes now and then, and smells bad. These behaviors observed over the centuries are just as “neuro-psychological” as whatever we tend to link with psychopathy might be. Shall we just rename them and accept them? (Actually we have … it’s called “boys will be boys”)

By: Jesse Lykken, JD

Jesse Lykken, JD — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:48:49 +0000

I am Dr. David Thoreson Lykken’s eldest son. Dad was recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on the psychopath, and he did indeed believe that a child as young as nine could be correctly diagnosed as such. It was his hope to develop a diagnostic tool that would allow us to identify young psychopaths and then help them use their particular talents in a beneficial manner. Sadly, the juvenile correctional field (of which I was a part) isn’t big on letting psychologists “experiment” on their charges, and Dad simply ran out of time. As for the autism nonsense, I have three autistic kids myself. Unlike psychopathy, I believe that there is a huge environmental factor in autism, but it is certainly true that “bad parents” are not the cause of either condition. Watch “The Bad Seed” if you want to understand child psychopaths. It was one of Dad’s favorites.