Psychopaths Brains Different - From the BBC

[Appollynon]

I came across this article below on the BBC site. At first glance I thought wow, even the MSM and propoganda organ in the UK seems to be talking about psychopathy these days. However after reading and re-reading the article it sounds to me like more damage control.

From the outset the article suggests that psychopaths have a difficulty in assessing the emotion of facial expressions, and were less responsive to fearfull faces. To me straight away this suggests that the BBC is trying to create a situation whereby people are going to feel sorry for the psychopaths because they have a brain-defecit-disorder or something of that ilk.

From my own experience and from what I've read in the forum and in the Ponerology book, I think that psychopaths are actually very, very good at reading the emotion displayed in others faces. I don't think they have a deficit in reading people's emotional reactions, just simply cannot empathise with the display of emotion and use the information they gather to further their own goals and agenda. If they were unable to assess the emotion on people's faces they would not be very good manipulators and spellbinders.

The article also suggests that because of this brain defecit in psychopaths, the defecit itself causes their behaviour and that psychopaths simply fail to block the "bad" behaviour because of the deficit. From my own point-of-view it feels like the article suggests there is no choice on part of the poor psychopaths as to how they behave, and that they just do what they do because they have this brain defecit (instead of consiously behaving the way they do). I seem to remember someone on the forum suggesting that the MSM media may try to turn the psychopaths into some kind of emotional-deficit-disorder as damage control, and it looks scarily like they may try just that.

http://news(dot)bbc(dot)co(dot)uk/2/hi/health/6198704.stm

There are biological brain differences that mark out psychopaths from other people, according to scientists.

Psychopaths showed less activity in brain areas involved in assessing the emotion of facial expressions, the British Journal of Psychiatry reports.
In particular, they were far less responsive to fearful faces than healthy volunteers.

The Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London team say this might partly explain psychopathic behaviour.

Criminal psychopaths are people with aggressive and anti-social personalities who lack emotional empathy.

They can commit hideous crimes, such as rape or murder, yet show no signs of remorse or guilt.

It has been suggested that people with psychopathic disorders lack empathy because they have defects in processing facial and vocal expressions of distress, such as fear and sadness, in others.

Professor Declan Murphy and colleagues set out to test this using a scan that shows up brain activity.

They showed six psychopaths and nine healthy volunteers pictures of faces showing different emotions.

Both groups had increased activity in brain areas involved in processing facial expressions in response to happy faces compared with neutral faces, but this increase was smaller among the psychopaths.

By contrast, when processing fearful faces compared with neutral faces, the healthy volunteers showed increased activation and the psychopaths decreased activation in these brain regions.

The researchers said: "These results suggest that the neural pathways for processing facial expressions of happiness are functionally intact in people with psychopathic disorder, although less responsive.
"In contrast, fear is processed in a very different way."

This failure to recognise and emotionally respond to facial and other signals of distress may underlie psychopaths' failure to block behaviour that causes distress in others and their lack of emotional empathy, the scientists suggest.
Dr Nicola Gray, from Cardiff University's School of Psychology, has also been studying what underpins psychopathy.

"What we are trying to understand are the cognitive deficits underpinning the behaviour of psychopaths.

"If people with psychopathy can't process the emotion of fear and that is mirrored in terms of their brain activity, as this study suggests, that will help us understand the cognitive deficits.

"But it is still a long way to finding out what to do about that. We are a long way from knowing how to treat psychopathy."

 

[anart]

I think you might be right about that, Appollynon - this part...

They can commit hideous crimes, such as rape or murder, yet show no signs of remorse or guilt.

It has been suggested that people with psychopathic disorders lack empathy because they have defects in processing facial and vocal expressions of distress, such as fear and sadness, in others.

They are clearly saying that they show no signs of remorse - not that the remorse is simply not there - and they say that they have problems processing the display of emotions in others - not that they don't feel these emotions themselves.

It is a rather subtle, but very important distinction.

 

[a.saccus]

[...]the article sounds to me like more damage control. [...] to create a situation whereby people are going to feel sorry for the psychopaths because they have a brain-defecit-disorder or something of that ilk.

Sounds like that to me too. The tone of the article is sympathetic and --in a micro-analysis -- quite subtly manipulative. Just take the first five sentence/paragraphs and how a hypothetical John Q Citizen, knowing nothing about psychopaths, might respond:

Psychopaths may have difficulty discerning other people's moods from their facial expressions, say psychologists.

A "difficulty"--how unfortunate! [near subliminal preparation to be sympathetic at the outset]

In particular, they are unable to discern fear or sadness.

It must be awful not to be able to experience the full spectrum of emotions[...]

This may be due to damage to, or underdevelopment of, a particular part of the brain, known as the amygdala.

"Damage", "underdevelopment"? I guess they never had a chance. Does that mean kids, too?[...]

A psychopath is someone who is capable of committing violent or antisocial acts, but is frequently without remorse or guilt for them.

Lots of big words here ...is that "children" in the next sentence?[...]

Even young children can be diagnosed as having psychopathic tendencies, yet there have been few explanations for their disorders.

"Even young children"? How tragic. Poor babies[...]
-----------------------------------
There is a lot of emotional manipulation going on in the article. I think it bears more study.

In the Cover-Your-Heinie sentence no. 4, a scientific definition is given, just in case any mental health professionals are reading this, but no reference is made to it throughout the rest of the article, as if it is meant to be forgotten.

 

[a.saccus]

One further question.

How can you distinguish between those who have:

--facial expression recognition problems
--no anti-social behaviors

and those who

--DISREGARD facial expressions, hence appear to do poorly on recognition tests because of INDIFFERENCE to the testing process
--do have anti-social behaviors?

The first group is harmless, and the second group are Predators. To label the first group "psychopaths", as the BBC article does, is to confound the issue.

 

[brtanner]

It seems not that this article is reporting a difference in the physical organ of the pschopaths' brains, but rather a difference in neural responses. In my opinion, this can indicate that there is a difference in the psychopaths' model of reality - that they are differently conditioned than more healthy people.

I infer from other items I have read on SOTT, both in the forums and editorials, and in the fraction of Secret History of the World I have had a chance to read so far, that basically anyone trying to study and teach about mind/body/spirit issues is to be considered as suspect as an agent of Cointel programs to control the masses. However, from my study of psychology and history, based to a large extent on self-observation and serendipitous experience, I have come to agree emphatically with Eckhart Tolle, among others (principally Zen or Buddhist or Non-Dual teachers) that psychopathology is the result of easily understandable misperceptions of so-called reality. These deeply hypnotic experiences have resulted in the misidentification of apparently stable patterns of behavior, thinking, and "external" threats as being who we actually are and are in conflict with. The result of the tendencies arising from this ideational/energetic complex of misidentifications is a state of chronic "dis-ease," or unhappiness that covers over a direct experience of our true nature, the natural state spoken of by teachers like Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadata Maharaj. This state of disease runs a very broad range of conditions starting from mere identification of being exclusively a (perhaps quite functional and superior) mind dependent on our body for existence, through reactivity and extreme fear, to the extreme states of pathology exhibited by a Marquis de Sade or a Pol Pot.

According to this approach to understanding our juncture in history, there is now arising in the world an unprecedented possibility of large masses of humans waking up to the reality of who they really are. Of course, if such a thing were to take place the consequences for the entrenched power relationships that support control by people trapped in such extreme states of unhappiness as to be considered insane would be completely intolerable to those people, who need their apparent temporal power as part of the emotional defense structures that protect their fragile and objectively "unreal" identities (all their glorious wickedness...). If we, the "good guys," identify ourselves as being in opposition to the "powers that be," then I would suggest that we are involved in a mild, but similar process of strengthening the structures of our misidentifications, and supporting entrapping ourselves in reactivity that prevents our most creative and positively assertive responses to the objectively difficult situations we're now facing. We need to support each other in waking up at truly profound levels.

Thinking that ascribes the obvious pathology of the "powers that be" to some kind of objective difference between "us" and "them" is, again in my opinion, a dead end that cuts us off from deep compassion for the suffering all all beings now caught in the spiraling descent into automatism that threatens the survival of the living sytems around us. This compassion is the energy we need to facilitate the unique potential for the awakening of a critical mass of people that can help us turn the corner toward healing on a planetary basis.

Namaste, Bruce

 

[Mr. Premise]

Where do the psychopaths fit in? Us or Them? How about STS Dark Magnetic Center types?

It seems to me that Eckhart Tolle and his ilk are misapplying 7th Density concepts (where all is one) to 3D where we are to develop our discernment through a glass darkly and choose our alignment. Therefore at this level, the proper discernment of who is Us and who is Them is crucial, OSIT.

 

[StrangeCaptain]

I don't think they have a deficit in reading people's emotional reactions, just simply cannot empathise with the display of emotion and use the information they gather to further their own goals and agenda.

Cleckley suggests they have rudimentary emotions but no depth. Thus, the reason the ones in hospitals get caught in schemes that are almost impossible to conceive them getting away with... Audacity just is not in their ken.

If they were unable to assess the emotion on people's faces they would not be very good manipulators and spellbinders.

Lobachevsky associated spellbinders with characteropathy I think. I don't mean to digress, but I wonder if this is an important distinction.

 

[Laura]

Lobachevsky associated spellbinders with characteropathy I think. I don't mean to digress, but I wonder if this is an important distinction.

Not only that, but are some kinds of characteropaths just the older term for what we have been calling the "souled psychopath"?

 

[Renaissance]

Not only that, but are some kinds of characteropaths just the older term for what we have been calling the "souled psychopath"?

And might there be a segment of these kinds of characteropaths that could be more dangerous than a 'regular' psychopath? - perhaps this kind could develope an emotional attration to evil, opposing the psychopath who doesn't have such capacity.

 

[Pierre]

deational/energetic complex of misidentifications is a state of chronic "dis-ease," or unhappiness that covers over a direct experience of our true nature, the natural state spoken of by teachers like Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadata Maharaj. This state of disease runs a very broad range of conditions ...

Hi Bruce,

Those thoughts might deserve that you create a dedicated thread.

I think that Ramana and Nisargadatta made the same diagnostic as Gurdjieff or Mouravieff : here's a changing cloud
(the little Is of Mouravieff, the ego, the "this" and "that" of Ramana Maharsi) but behind this cloud has always been the moutain (the real "I" of Gurdjieff, the "Consciousness" of Nisargadatta, the "I" of of Ramana Maharsi)

They agreed on the diagnostic and also on the goal : to "go behind" the cloud, to see through the cloud.

There are some differences in their way of the reaching the real "I" but also some strong similarities like "self observation".

 

[Guest]

All valid missives; I do think that many people reading this article could be left feeling not only a little paranoid about others, but even about themselves.

Axel, you just hit the nail right on the head; self observation is as much a matter of discipline of feeling as of thought, the eyes, the facial expressions, tones of voice, physiological quirks, behavioural patterns, language and emphasis, habits, emotional development, the list goes on.

At what point in the education system would you all recommend this method of discipline, the work, the art, to be installed in the schooling curriculum? This is the very essence of what was laughably given to us in sham form as personal social education, in Wales, at least. Could it be that we could sort out the sheep from the goats at a very early age if we didn't have such a mechanised and dare I say it vicious and sociopathic education system?

 

[Nienna]

From the outset the article suggests that psychopaths have a difficulty in assessing the emotion of facial expressions, and were less responsive to fearfull faces. To me straight away this suggests that the BBC is trying to create a situation whereby people are going to feel sorry for the psychopaths because they have a brain-defecit-disorder or something of that ilk.

I think you are right, Appollynon. That, or they are taking what has been found and twisting it so that those who read it "understand" it the way that the PTB want them to "understand" it.

I would like to quote, once again, from Robert D. Hare's "Without Conscience":

A psychopathic killer, asked by a female interviewer to explain the motivations for his crimes, instead launched into a graphic description of several particularly brutal murders and mutilations for which he had been imprisoned. His account was animated but dispassionate, as if he were describing a baseball game. At first the interviewer tried to appear nonjudgmental and to show only professional interest in the account. However, when her facial expression finally betrayed her revulsion he stopped in midsentence and said, "Yeah, I guess it was pretty bad. I really feel rotten. I must have been temporarily insane."

Like most people, psychopaths sometimes say and do things solely to impress or shock. However, because of their sparse emotional life they don't intuitively realize the impact on others of what they say. they use their listeners' reactions as "cue cards" to tell them how they are supposed to feel in the situation. (Boldface is mine)

So it looks to me, from what Dr. Hare says, that psychopaths do regisiter how people feel from facial expressions. However, when it comes to horror, fear and pain, this is actually what the psychopaths are after. They register that their victims are having these feeling, but either this is the psychopath's intent, or because they cannot relate to the horror, fear and pain, they don't care. True, they don't understand how it feels, but, I think they do know that their victims are suffering from it.

Just another way to make sure that the PTB keep everyone thinking in the same direction that they want them to. Like when the president makes a speech, immediately the newspeople come on and "tell" you what he actually said. Let's not do any individual thinking here and maybe come up with what he was really saying. No, no, no, this is what he said and this is the only way it should be taken. It just makes me sick when they do this.

 

[Appollynon]

Thanks for pointing out the error in my previous posting StrangeCaptain, your right that Lobaczewski links spellbinders with characteropathy and it is an imporat distinction that I should have made myself (my apologies).

When you mentioned the:

Cleckley suggests they have rudimentary emotions but no depth.

It reminded me of what I have read before in other works about psychopaths being able to "mimick" some basic or shallow shows of emotion. I wonder if the emotion they show is actually learned in a mimicking fashion from those "people of feelings" around them when, maturing and growing up? Or if they are simply born with the possibility to show a pale reflection of emotions through natural development without mimicking (as mimicking, to me, would suggest consiously knowing that they need to show some level of emotion, to get by in the world).

I have heard Laura and one or two other forumiites here mention the "souled psychopath" before, but haven't come across the term in any of my reading on site (or in the books from RedPillPress). Would anyone be able to post a link or some information about the difference between the "souled and non-souled psychopaths" or how the hypothesis for this other type of psychopath has been made? I'd like to learn more.

I agree with Shane, that the thought of a souled psychopath with an emotional attachment to STS sounds even more terrifying and dangerous than the types of psychopaths I have grown accustomed to researching about. This also reminds me of something the C's say about the members of the group they call the Quorum. They mentioned that although the group was very close to being STS enough to transit densities as STS, that some of them may decide to act in an STO way through access to the greater level of knowledge they have. I wonder if some of those people may be ensouled psychopaths who can still choose STS or STO.

 

[Niall]

Appolynon, a search for 'souled psychopath' brought up this thread:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=3081

You might also try searching 'Hitler' and 'black magnetic center' as he seems to a renowned case of a 'souled psychopath'.

 

[PopHistorian]

Good catch. They probably see that the buzz on psychopathy that SOTT seems to have started probably needs to be killed. If they can turn it into a disease (an emotional-trigger term), something that engenders pity, that may do the trick.

Reminds me of a joke by my favorite comedian, Mitch Hedberg (who died this year at age 37): "Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only one you can still get yelled at for having!"