Psychopaths

[Jordans Flock Productions]

look I'm doing a movie abou psychopaths and a detective trying to think like one only probem I don't know how the hell psycos look or act other then badly

[Vaughn Whynot]

rent the shining
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bb/The_shining_heres_johnny.jpg

[jburas]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder#Symptoms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissocial_personality_disorder#ICD-10_Criteria_for_Dissocial_Personality_Disorder

[Indymoguler]

hey vaughn
if you ever do that psycho movie where its in the cellar where stuffs going on outside, you could use some of this stuff to make some of the actors look crazy

[WesScog]

Psychopaths can look and act like normal people.

The vast majority of people with symptoms synonymous with socio or psychopathy are normal law abiding citizens.

Most of the time it's not their outward appearance or behavior that is different, but what they feel inside. They could think that hurting someone to get something they want is perfectly acceptable, but most don't do it because they are afraid of punishment.

Compared to the mindset of a "normal" person who is supposed to not want to hurt other people or do bad things because of some kind of internal morality of conscience.

A Socio or Psychopath, and people with related psychological disorders, have a muted or practically absent feeling of empathy and compassion. They can understand that their lack of feelings aren't normal, and most have whats called a "Mask of Sanity", where because they are afraid of punishment, they keep up a complex act of "normalacy", they act normal, they mime emotions, they pretend to cry at their Grandmothers funeral, they try to look sincere when they talk to people, and pretend to listen and empathize with their probelms, etc.

Underneath though, they just don't really CARE, for some of them they say that it's like other people aren't even REAL to them, they understand that other people are "real", and they understand that what they feel isn't normal, but they just don't care.

Most of the conditions related to Socio and Psychopathy are "uncurable", in that no programs, drugs, or treatments have shown a real way to make a sociopath "feel" or truly empathize.

Most programs only end up teaching them how to better hide their own lack of empathy, and create a more secure "mask of sanity", so treatment programs are usually not undertaken because they've only made it "worse" for some people.

While the vast majority of psycho and sociopaths that we know of are externally totally normal, law abiding citizens, the majority of violent criminals exhibit some or all of the symptoms of the disorders.

So while most psycho and socipaths aren't criminals, most (primarily violent) criminals are psycho and sociopaths.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5740692213665972395&q=Richard+Kuklinski&total=31&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Watch this, it's a Documentary on Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski, he is most likely one of the most prolific Mafia Hitmen in history, and definitely one of the most 'creative'.

He talks about how he feels nothing, about how he wanted to test a weapon to see if it would kill the target, and he just stopped a man to ask for directions and just shot him in the face, a complete and total stranger, just to test a new weapon.

But externally, he lived a completely normal life, he had a family, a suburban house, and his family had no idea that he was a Hitman. He was able to hide his complete disregard for human life under an "act", he had a total "Mask of Sanity".

Unique though, is that he talks about his Family, in that they are the only people he cares about, and that they are the only reason he feels any kind of remorse for his crimes, and that he wouldn't feel the least bit of remorse if they had never had to find out who he REALLY was.

Deeply fascinating look behind the scenes of a very lucid and self-aware real world psychopath.

[rooster.237]

are you talking about a phycho with no rules no feelings a cold persone exept they just want to inflict a much hurt as possible

[WesScog]

are you talking about a phycho with no rules no feelings a cold persone exept they just want to inflict a much hurt as possible

Not all Psychopaths want to hurt, some do, but most simply don't CARE about hurting people.

It's like burning ants with a magnifying glass, it's not something they feel a compulsion to do (not all of them at least), but it's not something they would necessarily feel bad about.

[Skycarl]

It's like burning ants with a magnifying glass,,,, Wow Wes,, what a great analogy.

[Mattageddon]

It's like burning ants with a magnifying glass, it's not something they feel a compulsion to do (not all of them at least), but it's not something they would necessarily feel bad about.


What's wrong with burning ants? I personally love it. That doesn't make me a psychopath though.

[WesScog]

What's wrong with burning ants? I personally love it. That doesn't make me a psychopath though.

I'm not saying it makes you a psychopath, i'm saying that psychopaths generally see people as equally unimportant and disposable as ants.

They have the same kind of perception of the value of human life.

Not all psychopaths necessarily feel a compulsion to kill, most are not homicidal, but that doesn't mean that killing someone would morally bother them if push came to shove.

Most psychopaths "behave" because they don't want to be punished. While they are oftentimes sure that they could get away with murder (because they generally see the rest of humanity as being to utterly stupid to catch them), most psychopaths don't kill because there aren't any real benefits to it, and because they think that the stupid "normal" people might just happen to get lucky if they DID decide to kill someone.

So most will say, meh, why risk it? And they never hurt anyone, at least not to death.

Psychopathic and Sociopathic people are notorious for being manipulative, and hurting people emotionally, and for a "normal" person it could be devastating to encounter and get on the bad side of a psychopathic or sociopathic individual.

[rrh]

For a good fictional account of what WesScog is talking about, check out Dexter, the TV show or book. For non-fiction, the Zodiac Killer could be a good reference, since he sent encrypted letters and taunted the police, which might be something you would like.

The torso killer could be a reference, I read the comic Torso about that one, and it's got Elliot Ness.

I've been partial to H.H. Holmes, but he might deviate too far from the standard movie psycho killer for your tastes.

[Reddkryten]

One thing. I could be totally wrong, but I remember reading that in real life, most psychopaths are impulsive, have difficulty coming up with plans etc. While in fiction, psychopaths are usually cold, robotic geniuses.

I think someone said Frank Booth from Blue Velvet and Don Logan from S*** Beast were the most accurate portrayals of psychopaths.
While Hanibal Lecter is totally inaccurate.

[Reddkryten]

I found an article which has some information on psychopaths and body language, which could be useful for directing the actor.

Here's a brief part, but reading the whole thing could be helpful.

"
Hare made another intriguing discovery by observing the hand gestures (called beats) people make while speaking. Research has shown that such gestures do more than add visual emphasis to our words (many people gesture while they're on the telephone, for example); it seems they actually help our brains find words. That's why the frequency of beats increases when someone is having trouble finding words, or is speaking a second language instead of his or her mother tongue. In a 1991 paper, Hare and his colleagues reported that psychopaths, especially when talking about things they should find emotional, such as their families, produce a higher frequency of beats than normal people. It's as if emotional language is a second language -- a foreign language, in effect -- to the psychopath.
Three decades of these studies, by Hare and others, has confirmed that psychopaths' brains work differently from ours, especially when processing emotion and language. Hare once illustrated this for Nicole Kidman, who had invited him to Hollywood to help her prepare for a role as a psychopath in Malice. How, she wondered, could she show the audience there was something fundamentally wrong with her character?
"I said, 'Here's a scene that you can use,' " Hare says. " 'You're walking down a street and there's an accident. A car has hit a child in the crosswalk. A crowd of people gather round. You walk up, the child's lying on the ground and there's blood running all over the place. You get a little blood on your shoes and you look down and say, "Oh shit." You look over at the child, kind of interested, but you're not repelled or horrified. You're just interested. Then you look at the mother, and you're really fascinated by the mother, who's emoting, crying out, doing all these different things. After a few minutes you turn away and go back to your house. You go into the bathroom and practice mimicking the facial expressions of the mother.' " He then pauses and says, "That's the psychopath: somebody who doesn't understand what's going on emotionally, but understands that something important has happened.""


http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html

[anomalie]

There are probably books on Abnormal Psych in the library? That is probably a better bet compared to watching movies about it... since movies don't usually get it right. Things are often exaggerated or just made up to work better with a narrative.

It's a tricky subject because most people's ideas of what all these terms mean is a little off. Wes has some good info there, though!

My brother is a bit of a sociopath with anger problems (needless to say, we're not close). If you wanted more detail on that I could provide some...

Seriously though. Library! Or if you're in university/college (or know someone who is) they often have access to online 'libraries' where you can look up scientific journals and articles and whatnot by subject. Good luck!

[WesScog]

Yea, most movies don't get it right. Like Redd said, most Psychopaths in real life are impulsive, and they don't plan things out.

People like Dahmer for instance, kill because they have this "hunger" to kill. They are impulsive. Dahmer didn't get caught for so long because he was lucky, not because he was a genius.

But all killers aren't necessarily Psychopaths, Psychopathy kind of dictates a severity of the condition, rather than the condition itself, most psychologists don't see Psychopathy as the disorder, but rather as a definition that is related to a bunch of Anti-Social personality disorders.

Like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, in psychological evaluations they undertook during their life, they weren't diagnosed with psychopathy, they were diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Depression. A diagnosis of Malignant Narcissism only took place after they had died and professionals had a chance to examine their journal entries.

Also, to differentiate Sociopathy and Psychopathy, they are usually applied as being interchangeable, but that's not exactly true, while they are related, Sociopathy is generally "less severe", and more controllable than Psychopathy, furthermore, some Scientists think that Psychopaths are born impulsive and with something fundamentally wrong with them from the get go, while Sociopaths aren't born impulsive, and usually start out more normal, but simply develop into Sociopaths largely because of environmental factors.

So Psychopaths are nature, and Sociopaths are nurture. But the diagnosis criteria is related, with Sociopaths generally being less severe than Psychopaths.

Also, remember, like i've said before, the vast majority of people with disorders synonymous with Psycho and Sociopathy are externally totally normal people, and most Psychopaths die without ever have commited any acts of murder or anything that the media generally associates with psychopaths.

[Indymoguler]

psychopaths dont even feel any pain sometimes
my parents are cops, turns out that the first time my mom got into a shoot, there was this insane psychopath, and they shot him a few times. he didnt feel anything

so theres this one guy whos son ended up doing tae kwon do with me (small world) and that guy had gotten a bo stick or something, went up and hit him so hard across the head that the insane guy just fell and went unconsious

[anomalie]

WES! How do you know everything? It's awesome.

[WesScog]

psychopaths dont even feel any pain sometimes
my parents are cops, turns out that the first time my mom got into a shoot, there was this insane psychopath, and they shot him a few times. he didnt feel anything

so theres this one guy whos son ended up doing tae kwon do with me (small world) and that guy had gotten a bo stick or something, went up and hit him so hard across the head that the insane guy just fell and went unconsious

That's not true, Psychopaths feel pain just like everyone else, they are human beings, not monsters.

If an insane person isn't registering pain that could be a symptom of a lot of different things, but not psychopathy.

There are a lot of drugs that can numb the pain reaction, and if you're in a shoot out you're full of adrenaline, and many times people DON'T feel gunshot wounds, if they are full of adrenaline and possibly other drugs, they might not notice it until they actually SEE it.

It's when people actually SEE the wound that they go into shock and collapse, not necessarily from the pain.

So being a amoral person doesn't keep you from feeling pain, but being doped up on drugs, and dripping with adrenaline can.

Some people with certain psychological disorders can have a dulled pain reaction, and some psychopaths probably have a lessened pain reaction, but it probably is related to a psychosomatic belief rather than something physiologically different in them.

If you tell yourself, i'm invincible, i'm a god, etc. etc. and you focus and meditate on that, you start believing that, and it's like a placebo effect. Even if your pain reaction is no different, and your nerves are no different, the reaction still happens but your mind can dull the reaction because it BELIEVES that you can take a lot of pain.

Really, it has to do with will power and focus (when adrenaline and drugs are taken out of the equation), which Psychopaths don't generally have in abundance, Psychopaths are impulsive and have almost a focus deficient, they will generally shift from career to career, quickly becoming bored and moving on, and start lots of projects and not finish any of them.

Psychopaths rarely have the focus or dedication to undergo the rigorous pain blocking training, like you would learn in the military or in certain martial arts and meditation styles.

So my bet is that the individual was most likely on drugs, or having a psychotic episode (distinct from being a psychopath, a psychosis is a wide range of disorders that are unique from the symptoms of psychopathy).

A psychotic individual can be hallucinating to such a degree that they might not even percieve pain they are recieving as real, so their brain might simply disregard the signal. OR, they might be hallucinating so much pain that getting hit with a bullet is nothing.

[WesScog]

WES! How do you know everything? It's awesome.

Personality Disorders are deeply fascinating to me.

And i'm deeply fascinated with Sociopaths and Psychopaths, because I think the environment around the disorders are very sad.

We have these people who the psychological establishment say are more or less uncurable, who can't operate like normal people, and they are kind of all alone with their disorders.

I think fundamentally, there HAS to be a way to help them, not just how to create a better "Mask of Sanity", but how to really truly make them FEEL.

If it's something physiologically wrong with the structure of the brain, then we should be able to rewire it. If it's something with the genes, we can use gene therapy to rewrite them, if it's something with the environment we can change that, if it's something with development, we can redevelop them.

Unfortunately Psychopaths aren't really lining up to be "cured" since many of them don't see anything inherantly "wrong" with themselves.

And most of the things I think would be interesting paths to try for "cures" would possibly be considered unethical.

[FreshMentos]

Why so serious?

[Reddkryten]

Out of curiosity, what unethical cures are you talking about? Genetic modification being a slippery slope? Or the ethical problem of essentially wiping out an entire race. Or is there another treatment you are thinking of?

Is the problem that a psycho/sociopath cannot be made to feel, or that they have no interest in feeling? I mean, if I created a drug to cure the common cold, but people didn't want to take it...is that really the drugs fault?

[EnipProductions]

People think all phycopaths are crazy but its not true.

Phycopaths usally don't have the ability to feel emotion or percive emotion. They could act completely normal but just no wrong with a gun and shot people. No screaming, no shackyness nothing just a blank face.

[WesScog]

Genetic modification being one of them, yea. I worry about the ethics of modifying people that are otherwise normal, and who aren't necessarily "dangerous".

Basically some avenues I think are worthy of exploration are genetic modification, and extensive brain surgery. I am thinking of maybe embedded electrodes that could stimulate the brains in patterns.

My idea is basically put a highly empathetic person in an MRI, and get them to look at puppies, photos of their children or family, starving children, car accidents, etc.

And basically record how their brains fire in accordance to intense emotional responses, love, caring, "adorable" response, sympathy, sadness, empathy, pity, etc.

And come up with generalized patterns on which parts of the brain are most active during the most intense empathetic responses, then load these patterns into the embedded electrodes in the skull of a Psychopath, and stimulate the brain with impulses in the same patterns.

Also possibly embed something akin to an automated diabetic drip, but hooked up to the brain, and introducing serotonin and other brain chemicals related to "good feelings" (we'd look at the brains of empathetic people to get the right chemical balance and concentration on certain parts of the brain.) that would activate in accordance with the "pace maker".

Hopefully done enough the brain would start developing these sections normally. Brain surgery and the introduction of drugs that promote nerve and brain cell growth could also be introduced into these areas to try to manually rewire them and develop them into "normal" levels.

Something else I would think would be an area to investigate is to try to "reboot" the brain. Basically put the individual into a chemical coma, and put them through a rigorous regime of electroconvulsant therapy. I would also be fascinated with extremely high dose exposure to psychedelics, coupled with exposure to MDMA and other empathogenic drugs.

I think extensive electroconvulsant therapy, and constant low-dose exposure to MDMA could possibly start changing their mindset towards a more positive development. Erase the state their brain is in, and let it reboot with a drug that promotes bonding and understanding.

Eventually, their brain could possibly restructure itself in response to this, and start developing and growing normally on its own.

[ionfilms]

Watch the red dragon its about a cop ( Edward Norton) that has the uncanny ability to get in the minds of the people hes after. he is the one who caught Hannibal Lecter.

[Vaughn Whynot]

you could always come over to my place and watch my fiancee for hour or 2
she is abit of a nut case

[koolkat467]

just think of a spazzy kid u know and imitate them! lol

[sharpshooter]

A great number of references are the films of Alfred Hitchcock...no joke. His films deal heavily with this subject matter. I took a course on his films and the relevance to physcology. It is really fascinating stuff.

Another great source is the work of Dr. Sigmund Freud. You can learn boat loads from his findings and speculations.

I know it will sound cliche...but a great example of a physco is Heat Ledgers Joker. I am talking about the inner workings of his mind...not the appearance.

There was also a case in MI a few years ago...where a man was driving around the city and picking random citizens of with a sniper rifle. He also left a few notes for the police...on stating "I am God."

So, you can take it in many directions. There are varying degrees of the mental illness...just follow a realistic guideline.

Also, I too am starting a film that deals with a hitman turned serial killer...most of the movie takes place in the mind of the killer.

Good luck.

[rrh]

Of course, some of the choices for a fictional character will be based not on realism, but on how they can act as a foil to other characters. Dr. Lector has to be brilliant in order to give Clarice Starling a challenge to overcome. And there's a certain nagging fear that maybe he's right, maybe we are like ants. Nobody would want to watch a movie where she had to talk to Multiple Miggs.