Editor’s note: The following commentary was provided by the Lovefraud reader who posts as “Jennifer.”
Another example of the (gross) misrepresentation of psychopathology / psychopathy in the media ”¦
The most recent episode of “60 Minutes” (which aired last Sunday, the 28th) contained two segments on Charles Cullen, a former nurse who is now considered to be the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. (Cullen was a staff nurse in several New Jersey hospitals and it’s now thought that he may have murdered an estimated 400 people, via lethal injection.) His harrowing story is chronicled in the newly-published book, The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder, by the journalist Charles Graeber (who originally studied/trained in medicine).
I was struck by two of the most glaring aspects of the presentation of this story… The first pertains to the overwhelming degree of avoidance, denial, and mismanagement demonstrated by colleagues and especially those senior-level hospital administrators who failed to conduct the necessary investigations into his past (his employment history revealed a series of “forced” resignations, which were never questioned). And, even when a pattern of suspicious deaths began to emerge in the departments in which he worked, Cullen was not immediately terminated…
The second pertains to the blatant omission of any analysis and/or commentary by a mental health professional, of any stature, with respect to the serious mental illness/personality disorder, i.e., psychopathy, that was being (broadly) presented to the general public. (For example, in various scenes, Cullen is questioned about his random selection of victims, his motive (or, lack thereof) for killing, and his stunning lack of conscience, when confronted by family members of the victims, or, the judge. He claimed to understand that what he was doing was wrong, but asserted that he was unable to suppress his homicidal impulses and that he was, therefore, resigned to to the fact that he would continue to murder his patients.) His “killing spree” lasted for (over) 16 years…
Why, for example, wasn’t Robert Hare, Ph.D., who’s the world’s leading authority on psychopathy, not asked to provide a commentary on Cullen’s behavior and how and why it blatantly reflects the most salient and serious features of the disorder? Or, perhaps even more importantly, to emphasize the fact that while most serial killers are psychopathic, the vast majority of psychopaths are not physically violent/serial killers, but that they are always a great detriment to others and found in all segments of society? In my opinion, the inclusion of this critical component would have diminished the “sensationalizing” of the subject matter and helped to achieve a more important and desired outcome, i.e., to provide a sound clinical/scientific explanation and evaluation of the case by an/the leading expert in the field.
The many disturbing aspects of this story and its airing, in this format, is a stark reminder of how and why psychopathology is (still so) pervasively misunderstood and, therefore, stigmatized in American culture/society. As a result, it continues to be erroneously portrayed in and conveyed by the (mainstream) media.
“Family members of victims scoff at serial killer nurse Charles Cullen apologizing on ’60 Minutes'”
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/breaking-news/index.ssf/2013/04/family_members_of_victims_scof.html
Sounds like another psychopath pretending to show remorse.
I can understand why families of victims would be disappointed in the 60 minutes show.They did not need to see the face of the man who killed their loved ones or hear from him again.I remember this case.It’s truly scary that more security measures were not in line to check employees’backgrounds and to investigate anything suspicious and take immediate action!!! Charles Cullen can say anything he wants;he can mutter an apology,he can make excuses,but I really believe he was playing God!
Did 60 Minutes talk at length about this person being a psychopath? If they didn’t, I wouldn’t think of it as contributing to misunderstanding. While I am more of a “the devil made them do it” type than many others here, and also believe in free will less than many people I know, psychopathy is one of the few things in this world that I don’t object horribly to seeing stigmatized.
Was anyone else more shocked at the system and people who let this happen and at the interview istelf than at Cullen? He seems much more just plain crazy than psychopathic to me. Just crazy, doesn’t know why he did it, got no pleasure from doing it. These are just not psychopathic reactions and do not appear to even be covering up or pity ploy. Was it for power or just the inability to see pain? I did not hear him apologize even thought the interview tried to get him to show remorse. This is a pathetic interview for sure with nothing but sensationalizm and re-traumatizing the families of victims. The media is guilty of lack of empathy and so are the hospitals he worked for. Perhaps they are the psychopaths and Cullen was and is just a dead man walking.
Hi. I have no idea if this is supposed to go here (I’m new to blogs). I’m writing a fiction novel that involves a character who displays psychopathic behavior. While it’s fiction, I would like the psychopathic behavior to be mostly accurate, so I’m trying to do some research. Would anyone (blog members or authors) mind if I asked some questions and used some of the information to help with character development? I won’t use any specific situations detailed by members of the blog or otherwise. But general information would be helpful for developing the character. Thank you.
As for the article, perhaps professional analyses hasn’t been released yet. I know diagnosing mental disorders can be difficult, and angels of death are somewhat different than the average serial killer.
I’ll take the silence as a “no,” then. Thanks anyway.
Yep as silent as a gray rock. Until you have personally encountered such an act of fiction, you have no idea what you are asking.
Potted Plant?
We have been through enough without losing our dignity further.
After watching the video, what struck me right away was that “digoxin” makes three.
Along with “gaol” and “mortgagor,” that is.
Oh, there’s “margarine” too; that’s four…
While I certainly agree it would have been interesting to hear from experts, I don’t believe that CBS lost any important opportunity to educate the public about psychopathology on this occasion. More to the point, I can’t see how psychopathology (or psychopathy) was “misrepresented,” if neither was even mentioned on the program.
As Jennifer says, there are two aspects of concern. The first is whether the hospital authorities were remiss in failing to dig deeper into Cullen’s past before employing him. Not to mention whether they were alert enough to patterns of unusual deaths in the departments involved, whether they responded quickly enough—and whether they kept quiet about what they’d learned of Cullen’s activities in order to avoid various liabilities.
In fact much of this problem was not so much the fault of hospital administrators, but of the law as it stood at the time. For one thing these administrators did not always have the legal authority to investigate where a person had been previously employed. For another, employers were often afraid to give a bad reference to an employee who left, for fear of a lawsuit. Some of these laws have been changed since then.
As serious as these questions are, psychopathy—or the absence of it—is irrelevant to them. All that matters is that somebody (or even some “thing”) was killing these patients. The precise reason for the killings makes no difference. It wouldn’t matter if the perpetrator was just grossly incompetent, or negligent—or psychopathic—or psychotic—or had a brain tumor, or if he was an Islamic terrorist plotting to kill by stealth instead of with bombs. These questions about hospital administrators’ procedures and responsibilities would remain the same, whether “psychopathy” was involved or not. These are separate issues, and this was a program focusing on the killer rather than these related issues.
The second aspect does concern the nature of Cullen’s disorder. On that topic I for one would certainly have liked to hear comments from an expert like Dr. Robert Hare. However, an important reason why I would liked to hear an expert’s opinion is that I’m not at all sure myself whether Cullen is psychopathic. That he is pathological in some way, no-one can doubt. Whether he’s clinically a psychopath is another matter. He claims to have been killing patients in order to put an end to their “suffering.” How far he deluded himself into believing this, or was genuinely obsessed with the imagined “suffering” of others, is a debatable question. That’s why I would have welcomed the views of someone like Dr. Hare.
While Cullen is not unique, I’m not sure that he’s a classic fit with all the traits of a typical psychopath. So while an expert analysis of his mental disorder would certainly be interesting, if the goal is to educate the public about psychopaths specifically, he may not be the clearest example to choose.
Of course, “psychopathology” covers mental disorders of all kinds, not just psychopathy. So CBS could indeed have used Cullen as an example to educate the public about mental disorders generally, regardless of his precise diagnosis. But since they didn’t, what did we lose that was so important? I’m not sure what Jennifer had in mind here.
Naturally it could have helped the public understand why some people kill. We’re always being told—by the media, at least—that “people are asking why.” Why do some people commit murder without any “obvious” motive, when as far as anyone can tell they seem “sane” and “normal” in other ways? Psychopathology can certainly provide some answers.
However, what I understand to be the major concern, here at least, is the lack of public awareness about psychopaths in everyday life, and the harm they cause in every field from personal relationships to the workplace, from common frauds all the way up to high finance. And one obstacle in the way of this awareness is the number of people who believe that “psychopaths” are limited to being serial killers and the like. In short, just like Charles Cullen!
So while this CBS program could in theory have been used as a hook on which to hang a discussion of psychopaths in life at large, it’s not clear to me that this broader problem is best exemplified by yet another serial killer. Wouldn’t that just be reinforcing a stereotype already fixed in the public mind?
Victims of spaths have no privacy once we have to go to court. Like rape victims, we end up defending ourselves and chances are our lawyers are little to no help. The dignity that the spaths leave us with is a large amount compared to what we are left with are a legal proceeding. I “won” at an unbelievable cost and the spat was dead over 3 years.
lost,
My deepest sympathy to you.
On top of it all, all the insult added to injury heaped on more hell and injury, we are often further abused and bankrupted by the liar-yers we have to pay a fortune to put up with!! I can’t count how many sleepless night I agonized over my own lawyer, who sometimes put me on the defensive due to allowing herself to be manipulated by spath’s crooked lawyer. Plus, she was after all the $ she could get out of me…there was even a scandal involving her acceptance of client referrals from a judge in lieu of payment for her services which he couldn’t afford–which is something a judge is not supposed to do (the firm/she was probably ripping him off too). There is even a website where she is featured and described as ethically challenged, along with a description of the matter involving her and the judge…for which the judge got a slap on the wrist and she apparently received no censure whatsoever.
I spent 3 years “in” law school with the latespath.; I read the text books and audited classes, I did research. I had some idea of what a legal proceeding should be like. In my case, actually as representative of my late mother, I was a fish out of water. Certain cases against brokerages do not go before a court per se. They are handled by a federal legal panel, ‘behind closed doors’. I wish I could explain what it was like, but I can’t, as a confidentiality statement must be signed by all before the actual hearing begins. It just makes everything all the more frustrating.