Yossarian
Jedi Master
I found this to be an interesting take on Psychopathy. The whole web site seems to be dedicated to psychopathy, found here: http://www.bullyeq.com/bullying%20and%20abuse.htm
edit--disclaimer: I'm not sure about some of the claims this author makes or the moral speculations. I read the article more carefully and have even more doubts about the quality of scholarship and thought behind some of the claims made. caveat lector.
edit--disclaimer: I'm not sure about some of the claims this author makes or the moral speculations. I read the article more carefully and have even more doubts about the quality of scholarship and thought behind some of the claims made. caveat lector.
bullyeq.com said:"Bullying, Abuse and Psycho Bullies"
Bullying and abuse can be psychological, verbal, physical or sexual. There is a clear distinction between psychopathic bullies (or abusers), for whom bullying and abuse is a compulsive behaviour, and copycat bullies (or abusers) for whom it is a learned behaviour. Psycho bullies are in the minority but they can cause huge problems, creating a trail of chaos around them and they often promote copycat bullying by creating bully cultures. The bully uses "projection" to apply his distorted sense of reality (psychosis) to the bully target, accusing the target of faults and weaknesses that are actually his own. At the same time the bully is always "in denial" that he is in any way to blame. Bullying can be "covert" or "overt".
Many news stories these days relate to bullying or abuse (for example, neighbours from hell, school children committing suicide because of bullying, abuse in the Catholic church, the Dr David Kelly suicide or the Deepcut barracks deaths). Bullying and deceit can also exist in countless more subtle ways, such as in government spin or certain advertising. The financial services industry springs to mind as having deceitful practices. Bullying can readily become institutionalised. About one in twenty elderly people are abused in some way.
People who bully or mob have poor emotional intelligence. Bullying causes massive stress, huge losses in productivity and stiffling of creativity amongst the workforce. The standard of management in this country is generally very poor. Organisations often have a "control freak" or "we know best" culture. The economic and health damage is huge. For example, it goes a long way to explain why there are 2.7 million people on incapacity benefit in the UK, why there is so much sick leave and why some companies have such a high staff turnover. It's a disgrace.
Like a cancer, most organisations are infested with bullying in one form or another. Side effects of bullying may include low efficiency, bureaucratic muddle, lack of accountability, incompetence, greed, dishonesty and corruption. Bullying at the BBC, for example, is rife. BBC managers have been described as "managers and damagers" ! Companies can develop shared psychosis, corporate psychosis, corporate narcissism (ref, for example, Enron or Worldcom) or their own brand of Stalinism.
Being bullied can be as debilitating in its own way as having your leg broken by someone. The bullying causes psychological injury (hurt feelings, loss of self esteem, depression or "complex post-traumatic syndrome") rather than physical injury. The bullying can be sustained over a very long period of time. The public's recommendation is often to just "move on" or to forget about the bullying, but the sense of injustice and injury can be as strong as if some broke your leg intentionally. It is no trivial matter. For example, every year in the UK at least 20 school children commit suicide because of bullying. Countless other school children are damaged psychologically by bullying. Bullying is a major cause of truancy.
There is a huge amount of "head in the sand" DENIAL about bullying and abuse, but believe me it is just about the most important issue there is.
School bullies should be made to account for their actions. No one seems to be concerned about what happens to school bullies when they grow up. They often become adult bullies (for example, con-men or even paedophiles) and continue to cause misery for the rest of us. The idea that school bullying is just a rite of passage is a myth. It would be valuable if bullies were identified at a young age with an EQ test so action could be taken to stem further problems later in life.
Bullies particularly dislike people with high creativity, integrity and empathy. These are things that bullies completely lack. Most psycho bullies are serial bullies; they bully people in sequence, one at a time. Bullying is a very primitive instinct that should form no part of a humane and civilised society.
Some psycho bullies have very strong verbal skills and can talk their way out of almost any corner. That explains why there are probably quite a few bullies in positions of authority such as politicians. This is probably because a defficiency in the amygdala in the frontal lobe is counterbalanced by additional activity elsewhere in the brain. Some bullies can outwit top barristers.
The psychopath, Dr Harold Shipman got away with killing over 215 of his patients over 23 years because he used deceit, charm and manipulation to excellent effect to deflect suspicion. Psychopathic president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has been reported by many foreign diplomats who have met him as having exquisite charm making it easy for him to deflect difficult questions.
Psychopathy is probably a genetic disorder or caused by faulty brain development during pregnancy. The psychopath's mode of operation, for example child abuser or corporate psychopath, depends on their upbringing and background. Psychopaths are currently incurable. They are incapable of any remorse or empathy and have no conscience.
Various types of bully have been identified. You cannot reason with a bully. They just love the attention and provoking angry reactions in others. The best thing you can do with a bully is to, if possible, ignore them, avoid them or cut your losses and run. Bullies get bored with being ignored by a potential target and will usually look for someone else to bully instead.
Psycho bullies often have a "Jekyll and Hyde" personality. At times they can often exhibit unusually high levels of charm but this is often used for manipulative or deceitful purposes. At other times they can be ruthless and unpleasant. This is why bullies make good con-men. They are sometimes perceived as being "sticky", "slimy" or "slippery". Bullies try to isolate the target as much as possible. If the bully is confronted by someone in authority, they are sure to completely deny that they are causing any problems and may "scapegoat" an innocent bystander.
Bullies try to violate your personal space. They try to drain energy out of you by constant belittling and nit-picking. The expression energy vampire is very apt.
In my view, bullying and abuse is synonymous with evil. If there was no bullying or abuse in this world, there would be no evil, there would be a utopian world society and there would be world peace.
The hippy vision of "love and peace" (as exemplified by The Beatles' "All You Need is Love") is clearly naive because of the existance of psychopaths in this world who would readily exploit and manipulate someone else's good intentions.
One idea of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement is that if just 1% of a local community practices TM, then the whole community will be much happier and crime would reduce. Even if this were true, it couldn't work if that community contained any psychopaths.
The authorities often make the mistake of trying to treat psychopaths (such as paedophiles). Psychopaths readily manipulate the system by pretending to respond to treatment so they can have freedom to abuse again. It has been demonstrated that reoffending rates can actually increase for treated psychopaths compared to untreated psychopaths. Treatment may give the psychopath an opportunity to sharpen his manipulation skills. Also labelling them as a psychopath may ingrain their behaviour further. The "Camden Ripper" was a recent example of a person who murdered once and was incarcerated but then released as he was believed to be safe to the public. But no, he murdered twice again.
All that can currently be done to deal with psychopaths is to somehow minimise their opportunities to bully or abuse. Keeping them out of positions of trust or authority would be desirable. Psychopathic testing is improving and an interesting development is the introduction of the Business Scan (B-Scan) (see here and here) to weed out potential corporate psychopaths. There is also an implicit association test that has been developed. Incarceration for life may be appropriate for some psychopaths. Educating the population about the dangers of psychopaths would be very helpful. There is hope that effective drug treatment may be available for psychopaths in few years time.
Trying to make sense of the twisted logic of a psycho bully can do your head in. They try to play mind games with you with a form of brainwashing.
Under the Law of Reciprocity, most well-adjusted people would express some gratitude or reciprocate in some way for a favour being done for them. But bullies exploit this for their own ends. Bullies like to exploit any emotional or financial dependance you may have on them. They constantly probe you to find areas of vulnerability to add to their armoury of buttons to press. If possible, you should avoid trusting strangers with personal information in case they are psychopathic.
The effects of bullying and abuse can last a lifetime. The following is a list of famous people who have been seriously abused or bullied:
* Ozzy Osbourne
* Billy Connolly
* Toyah Wilcox (who explains her punk rebelliousness as a displaced reaction to being bullied at school)
* John Peel (he was sexually abused and raped at school)
* Sir John Harvey Jones
* Kate Bush
* Phil Collins
* Michelle Pfeiffer
* Tom Cruise
* Mel Gibson
* Harrison Ford
* Frank Bruno
* Duncan Goodhew
* Sir Ranulph Feinnes
* Kate Winslet
* Tessa Sanderson
* Julian Lennon
* Sir Cliff Richard
* Jo Brand
Many historical figures are thought to be psychopaths, for example:
* Julius Caesar
* Adolph Hitler
* Idi Amin
* Napoleon
* Alexander the Great
* Robert Maxwell
* The Kray twins
* Frank Sinatra.
Another psychopath was Josef Stalin who was responsible for killing about 20% of the Russian population but millions of Russians still mourned his own death. President Roosevelt of the US completely misjudged Stalin's character and thought he was trustworthy and not a monster, thus allowing Stalin to manipulate him and get away with controlling Eastern Europe, precipitating 50 years of cold war between the US and the Soviet Union. (my note: I think this is a total mis-read of the situation. I think events happened just as they were supposed to happen)
John Lennon was a serious bully. For example, he bullied his son Julian Lennon so badly that he became very badly emotionally scarred. However, the evidence suggests that John Lennon was not psychopathic but his bullying was learned behaviour resulting from being brought up by his Aunt Mimi who could well have been psychopathic.
Interesting party on the above.
