It’s an ambitious project—attempting to explain psychopaths in global leadership positions, a possible cause of what looks like psychopathic behavior, and what to do about it all. This is the documentary film, I am <fishead(, produced and directed by Misha Votruba and Vaclav Dejcmar.
Here’s a clip, featuring Dr. Robert Hare, the guru of psychopathy:
[youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/xiDhVdCjaok rel=0 fs=1 autohide=1 modestbranding=1]Corporate psychopaths
Fishead is divided into three parts. Part 1 is about psychopaths, specifically corporate psychopaths, who are blamed for the global financial meltdown that began in 2008. This is probably true, although the only individual named is Bernie Madoff.
The authors of Snakes in Suits, Dr. Robert Hare and Dr. Paul Babiak, explain psychopathy, and how psychopaths in business claw and backstab their way to the top of organizations. Hare and Babiak certainly know their stuff, and you’ll recognize their descriptions of psychopathic behavior.
But then Hare and Babiak start talking about the difference between psychopaths and sociopaths. This is a matter of debate and disagreement in the mental health field, so essentially they are expressing their opinions and preferences, not fact. Hare mentions that the film Reservoir Dogs highlights the difference between psychopaths and sociopaths—apparently one kills because he has to and another kills because he likes it. But Hare didn’t specify which was which, and I wasn’t sure. My contention, of course, is that from the point of view of the dead guy, it doesn’t matter.
Antidepressants
Part 2 of Fishead goes off in a different direction. It’s about “happy pills—”antidepressants. As you watch, you may wonder if the filmmakers are claiming that antidepressants cause psychopathy, but they don’t quite go that far. Here’s what they write:
The second part of the film touches on how, for a small number of people, overuse of antidepressants can result in behaviors that appear to mimic some psychopathic features. Although overuse of these medications will not produce psychopathy, they may stifle emotion and decrease the user’s ability to feel empathy.
Actually, I think the real problem with antidepressants may not be that it makes users behave in sociopathic ways, but rather, antidepressants enable victims to tolerate sociopathic behavior in others.
For example, in my upcoming book, Red Flags of Lovefraud, I have a chapter on protecting yourself from predators. In the Internet survey that Lovefraud conducted last year, we asked if people involved in romantic relationships with sociopaths had an intuition or gut feeling early on that something was wrong. A whopping 71 percent of respondents answered yes. And 40 percent ignored their intuition.
Why? One woman explained:
I ignored it because I loved him. After a time he convinced me there was something wrong with ME and convinced me to go on antidepressants. The drugs mellowed me and I lost that feeling.
I’ve heard stories like this one many times—sociopaths are causing distress and to cope with it, the victims go on drugs. This can be the problem with antidepressants. We are upset because something is WRONG! If we no longer feel upset, we don’t try to change what is WRONG!
Change
The third part of the documentary asks the question, “So what do we do about all of this?”
Fishead talks about the work of Dr. Stanley Milgram, who conducted numerous famous experiments showing that most people will administer electric shocks to others, even though they know the person is being hurt, if they are directed to do it by someone in authority. But it points out an interesting experiment that is not as well known. Dr. Milgram also found that if the experiment subjects first saw someone refuse to administer the shocks, they were much more likely to refuse as well.
The point is that when people stand up to authority, or evil, it gives others the courage to stand up as well. In fact, the filmmakers say it only takes 5 percent of the people in a group to behave differently for the entire group to be influenced.
Food for thought
I am <fishead( is a well-made film. Artistically, it has an art-house feel to it, with stark backdrops for the guest expert interviews and clever animation. And, the film is narrated by the actor Peter Coyote.
Although I don’t agree with all the points, the film does a good job of drawing attention to what is probably the biggest hidden problem facing our society: the outsized damage caused by psychopaths (sociopaths). And it challenges us: What are we going to do about it?
For more about the movie, visit the website: Fisheadmovie.com.
You can watch the movie on the Internet—the length is 1 hour, 17 minutes. Just click the “where to see” link, and email the producers to get your free password.
About Prozac,
One of the arguements in Listening to Prozac is that it changes people’s personalities. I did not finish the book. It was boring as heck but I guess I will get around to it. It’s still on my bedside table.
Another good read is “Crazy Like Us.” This is an interesting book if you are working in Mental Health. It is not about personality disorders.
Aloha
I loved the first part of the movie, and the last part about how taking a stand about what you know is right can have an influence.
I agree that the comic-type guys massacring the other in a “psycho” way stood opposite the message of that of a psychopath being unrecognizable, and more do not murder than not… although they could, even when they are not corporate psychopaths.
The second part about the anti-depressants I liked. While evidence pointed to a flattening of emotions, I didn’t think the movie being anti “anti-depressants”, but it being used as a remedy to any moments of being down, anti this idea that we should regard ourselves as sick when we are deeply grieving over traumati events in our lives.
It’s one of the things I like about my therapist. She’s a psychiatrist and so can prescribe medication if there is need for it in her opinion. The first time I ever went to therapy to her, I was actually taking anti-depressants (2 months) prescribed by the house doctor. And yes depressed feelings were a symptom of my id-crisis. But she started a program where I had to downsize the intake in half a year… coincidentally, just the time I needed to graduate my master.
I’ve now been depressed four times in my life for several months, but each time it was as a response to events in my life… reactive depression, often a symptom of a development crisis: identity, sense-of-life, etc… heck or even from lack of minerals in your blood (that wa my first). Most of those cases don’t need anti-depressant medicine, but someone to help you through the tunnel vision and help you make start sense again of what happened to you in your life.
That doesn’t mean anti-depressants can not be of help in certain cases of depression… but the proportion of prescription of it nowadays is ridiculous, and in many cases should not be prescribed. Anti-depressants are more appropriate in pathological cases, where the cause of the depression is an innate imbalance of hormones in the brain without an actual life-event cause. These have the purpose to make a patient feel less of their non-causated blues, and thus flatten the piques and deep lows. In some cases they might even help someone who has a life-reactive depression to give them that little extra to start get their life back in order, but this should be treated with caution.
And the problem is that these emotion flattening medicines are majorly being used on people who would benefit probably much more with therapy and evolving from their crisis.
The message to me wasn’t that it “made” spaths, but rather that there is
a) this spathic belief it’s weak and wrong to feel pain and grief (when it’s actually VERY normal)
b) that the emotional flattening effect in people who don’t need it, creates for an apathy and dulling of the senses so that actual spaths have free reign
On the use of anti-depressants and other psychotropic medications:
The APPROPRIATE use and MONITORING of antidepressant and other medications should be done by a MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL or at LEAST by a family practice provider with MENTAL HEALTH TRAINING. It should be done on a regular and systematic basis and not done as just writing an Rx and a 6 minute office visit.
In my own practice, I frequently referred patients to a psychiatrist or to a therapist and very rarely prescribed psychotropic medications when I was in family practice without CLOSELY monitoring them myself or sending them ALSO to a PhD therapist as well. In severely depressed patients when antidepressants are given to them they may IMPROVE enough and get the ENERGY enough to KILL THEMSELVES. One of my former foster kids actually killed himself after his family doctor prescribed an antidepressant and he was NOT monitored, and didn’t give anyone a clue what he had in mind. He had been deeply depressed, and most VERY DEEPLY depressed patients don’t have the energy to kill themselves, but if they are given antidepressants and start to feel better, they may actually get the energy necessary to do suicide.
I take an antidepressant and have for several years, but I am closely monitored by my mental health care professional. I don’t try to “treat myself.”
Tranqualizers like valium, etc. are not the same as “antidepressants” and valium has some actual medical uses for a few problems but giving it to someone who is grieving is NOT one of those legitimate uses.
We DO need to experience our feelings, which includes deeply felt grief, and proper prescriptions of antidepressant medications do not keep a person from either feeling those feelings or being able to work through the grief process.
For those people who are bi-polar there are also medications that will help keep them from doing either the deep depressions or the manic highs..unfortunately, too many times the patients actually ENJOY the manic highs and will refuse to take the medications. Many psychopaths are ALSO bi-polar so they have the double whammy–or they are ALSO ADHD as well, so they can have MULTIPLE mental health issues in addition to a personality disorder….so add in SUBSTANCE ABUSE and/or SEXUAL ADDICTION and you have a person who is doing a lot of really BAD stuff.
Our own mental health issues which may be precipitated by the trauma and emotional turmoil from associating with a psychopath, or may be an inborn tendency for depression etc. can be treated or helped sometimes with psychotropic medications, but I think they need to be Rx’d by a qualified mental health professional who continues to monitor the person’s progress.
EXCELLENT POST OX!
Oh yes, A LOT of spaths have many mental health issues all going on at once. Depression, bi polar, you name it. Right, add in substance abuse and/or sexual addiction and you do have a person who is doing some really, really, bad stuff. I seen it, witnessed it and experienced it, first hand. Like a wild animal on the loose almost. Not a very stable person.
I tried every depressant that exists, it seems and they all made me severely ill. I had to quit the therapist I was originally seeing because all they wanted to do was drug me to death. I went to a non drug therapist and we have tried some amazing approaches to therapy. I am real anti anti depressant for myself, personally, as I am so sensitive to so many different medications, I was never able to find one right for me. Although valium is an option, I don’t want to cloud my thoughts when I can stand meeting them head on.
Yes, we DO need to experience our feelings and come to deal with them. Grief is one of those, unfortunately.
Hope your day was a good one, Ox…
mine seems to be looking bright more and more everyday…((hugs)) ~ Dupey
I want to thank you all for a your feedback. It is a great privilege to have a group of attentive and active viewers like yourselves.
Donna, thanks for answering some of the questions of the viewers on our behalf. You are doing a great job!
In the beginning we didn’t know that there was such a large community of people — mostly women, who by sharing their personal experiences over the internet make the problem more visible . We didn’t know that we would find such a great and passionate “inner crowd”.
Our interest was to point out psychopathy as a glaring example of our cultural indifference. We believe that it is this globalized indifference and lack of empathy, which allows the really ‘bad apples’ to hide amongst our midst and spread evil.
I am <fishead( is therefore more about us than it is about them.
Your personal experience, your stories and your activity will be crucial for the future well being of our civilization. In the words of Robert Hare: "Psychopaths destroy the lives of people closest to them. Corporate and powerful psychopaths destroy entire cultures and societies."
The problem is that those who don't know about the danger, don't want to see it either.
That was the main reason for us to make the film. Thanks for watching and spreading the message.
Best, Misha
…and yes the film is having a very good viral uptake, which we have less and less control over every day.
Since it has been placed on the internet in November it has been seen by about 35.000 people and since the beginning of 2012 almost 3 000 a day.
Thank you all.
Misha
(((Oxy))), for the sad and frustrating day you experienced Monday.
In regards to the movie and antidepressants, I was on zoloft for a couple of years and it did help. Oxy, I also agree with your statement that anti-depressents can give a person enough energy to carry out a suicide. I don’t think anyone including mental health professionals can completely understand that until they have lived it. Sadly, I stopped seeing my therapist when I started to share the times my ex P tried to kill me. She said I was being delusional. Easy to say if you’re not the one that someone is trying to eliminate.
I’ve stopped the zoloft and believe I am doing ok without it though I still take xanax on occasion in order to sleep.
I have reached the conclusion I will never be completely back to the optomistic and happy person I was for most of my life……..and I believe everyone here has been forever changed by psychopaths.
Oxy, I hope today was a better day for you. *hugs*
~New
Dear New Beginnings,
THANK YOU for the hug! Today actually was a great day. I felt better physically than I had in quite some time (getting old is NOT for sissies! LOL) and I accomplished more than I had in I can’t remember when. I’m turning my spare bedroom (read: junk storage) into an exercise room…so moved out the bed that was in there (have plenty of extra sleeping in the Large RV (it sleeps 8 comfortably and non crowded) cleaned out the closet and dressers, and started fitting in the exercise equipment my son and I have scattered around the house. It is going to be really cool! We’re both excited about it! Framed and hung some pictures I like and just had a good time in there. Then decided to cook the afternoon away and ended up making several dishes for my son which are his favorites, and even made two pumpkin pies (not sure what possessed me to make them, haven’t made a pie in years!) but they were sodium free and low calorie even! LOL
Yea, today has been a great day actually and tomorrow and Thursday are going to some friend’s house to help with their butchering and cutting up meat! Will take one of the pumpkin pies to share! Actually I love the communal butchering, it brings back memories of the neighbors getting together and butchering hogs or making kraut or quilting…whatever they were doing when I was a kid!
You know, we may not ever be “the same” but that doesn’t mean we haven’t grown!~ You know I’m not the “same” as I was when I was 10, or 20, or 30 or 50, I’m different than Ii was at any age, but that doesn’t mean I am “not as good” or that I haven’t learned things I didn’t know when I was 10 or 20 or 30….CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT IN THE WORLD. Everything is changing, and change is NOT A BAD THING….neither is growth!
So don’t despair that you are “not the same” it is OKAY TO NOT BE THE SAME…in fact, I’m glad I’m not the same girl I was at 20, or even the woman I was at 40….I’m working on being a smiling old lady who is happy most of the time, and peaceful all the time! Content and satisfied!
Oxy, I’m glad today was so much better for you. Interestingly, in recent months I’ve found the truly bad days are usually followed by an exceptionally good day. A vast improvement from the time when EVERY day was absolutely horrid.
Regarding my opinion that I will never be the same person, it was referring to a deep inner peace and joy I’ve had ever since I can remember. I thought that’s how it was for everyone and have since learned otherwise so I am aware of how fortunate I have been in my 50+ years. The inner joy is gone. A spiritual intuitive captured how I had always felt by comparing it to me as a very young girl standing at the top of a grassy hill with my arms raised up to the blue sky in utter joy as the sun shone down……something like the visual from the Sound of Music. I was astounded by this comparison as I was never able to capture it in a way that I could convey. I admit, I now realize I lead a charmed life right up until I discovered who I was married to. Now I live my days watching my back. I have reached a type of acceptance and some days there is contentment however the inner joy I’d known throughout most of my life is gone…..completely gone, and I feel so very lost. I do expect that some of this also has to do with losing my Mom in April and am hoping the grief support group will be beneficial.
Oxy, enjoy the companionship over the next couple of days. Any day we can feel connected to others is a wonderful day. 🙂
~New
I can’t wait to see the movie. Maybe this weekend. I like the theme of standing up and taking responsibility – this is a timeless theme.
The few times in my life I’ve been on anti-depressants, I found a slight benefit for a very short time in the beginning. After that I just began to feel toxic and only started feeling better once they were out of my system. It was very strange. I tried to self-monitor my use for a while, only taking a half a zoloft when I thought I needed it. This had mixed results. Eventually, I discovered a homeopathic doctor who prescribed a remedy that helped with both anxiety and depression. I was on it for a year or two. The nice thing about those is that there are no side effects. I really had a hard time with the sexual side effects of anti-depressants and preferred to take my chances on the depression without them.
I’ve been med-free now for many years. I am exploring different “technologies” for healing and having good luck with them. And I’m able to heal a lot through meditation. Simple awareness is a very powerful tool. Sometimes the awareness is of something really specific, like a belief or a feeling. Sometimes I just use a “wider angle lens” and just be aware that I’m tired or overwhelmed, and that’s enough. Patience with myself and self-acceptance seem to help me get through without meds. I’ve also discovered that daily exercise can raise endorphin levels, which really helps with stress.
Oxy, do you think it’s possible to forgive that guy who caused the plane crash? I know that’s a pretty tall order.