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.
VISION!
SNAG!! I’ve copied your comeback! Your Words ROCK!
I have been wondering what I’d be like if I ever ran into people who were so cruel to me. I didn’t want to fall apart. Your Clint Eastwood moment has become MY empowerment ammo.
I am locked and loaded with GREAT words. Thanks to you! TOWANDA!!
woundlicker –
“I don’t want to be dissuaded from taking Prozac. …helped me much more than hindered me….worked for my chemical make up…might be more damaging to get off antidepressants in the long run. I have not noticed … lack of empathy…Nor has my judgment seem clouded. ..We are all different…have to recover in healthy ways. If antidepressants made me behave, think, or feel in any way more negative than I started out feeling before taking them I would have stopped …..I was also embarrassed and ashamed to admit to anyone I was taking Prozac. ”
This is such a balanced outlook! And may I just say that NOTHING in any of your posts that I have read on LF remotely suggest that you are anything other than an articulate, clear-thinking, compassionate and sensible person. Obviously, the medication you are taking IS the right fit for you.
I have taken anti-anxiety meds on and off over the years to help me to cope with several issues, including a miscarriage (BTW the meds did NOT stop me from grieving; I still grieve today, although in a sensible, time-worn fashion that no longer overwhelms and paralyses me) and then because of being spathed twice (clever girl that I am, I married (and divorced!) TWO of the monsters…)
The one that eventually proved to be my “best fit” did not prevent me from feeling anything; it simply altered my management of existing emotions so that I was neither roller-coaster high nor roller-coaster low; there were stills peaks and troughs in my emotions but they were more balanced and I “flat-lined” from the ups and downs more quickly than I had been able to prior to being on the meds. I also had counselling/”talk therapy” and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy which helped me to learn to self-manage without the benefit of drugs.
Interestingly, at my very worst (about 4 years back in 2007) and before I was diagnosed with PTSD and referred for more counselling (just over 2 years back, end of 2009) I was managing to the point where I was able to come off the anti-anxiety meds. I spent about 8 months back on them again after the PTSD diagnosis but have been able to manage without them for well over a year now, even though some really distressing and awful things have still been happening during that same period.
Other than a back-up plan of a few Valium tablets for those court appearances where I need to face Superspath and be able to speak clearly and present my case to a magistrate/judge, I do not take anything for anxiety/depression.
The last bottle of Valium I had was only 10 tablets and a year after collecting the prescription I still had one left in the bottle! Not bad going when you consider all that happened that year.
New Beginning –
“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.”
You are right – we ARE all changed. Some of that change is for the better, although it takes us a while to see that. While I will never be grateful for my spathy encounters, I AM grateful for the things I now know that I didn’t know then. I am a far stronger, more savvy and more discriminating person as a result of having been spathed.
As for not getting back to “you”; 4 years back, I honestly could not see how it would ever be possible for me to be “me” again either. I felt that way for a good couple of years before things began to shift inside me in a major way. Around that time I found this site and from then on, my recovery accelerated…..I “zooomed” along from strength to strength!! This was in spite of my present major health issues that have resulted from chronic stress/trauma experienced over many years; plus some ongoing stress/trauma even to this day.
You will “zoom” too, I promise. All in time. xx
Just watched this today. Apart from falling madly in love with Peter Coyote, lol I got a lot from the film.
One thing I didn’t concur with was when Peter (grrr!) suggested that for a minute I was tempted to be a sociopath. No, nada, never!! Im sorry but I’ve never been tempted to treat anyone like shiat in order to get ahead. Does that make me goody two shoes? Or do I think I’m perfect? No, absolutely not. I’ve read a lot here about possessing a strong moral compass. And spaths are attracted to goodness to altruistic personalities. My ex is not the first spath I have encountered in my life. I have worked with a few. I just didn’t know what they were back then. Not once since then have I been tempted to be like that! It’s abhorrent, alien to me. Maybe I’m taking that remark too seriously but the suggestion that it’s easy to be drawn to the dark side by your own volition or by taking anti depressants is a little simplistic I think.
I agree with the argument that we as decent, law abiding, empathic individuals have to make a stand but there are so many people who turn a blind eye ….in my experience. When you are the only person in an organisation who is trying to do the right thing what do you do?
Leave …..find somewhere else to work. And believe me, I’ve tried. There are two main personality types as far as I’m concerned.
Psychopaths and bystanders. The bystanders know what the psychopaths are doing but are too scared to do anything. Yes sure they realise the potential of the paths but hey as long as theyre leaving them alone just bury your head. Thank God it’s not me that’s being victimised.
Then there’s the empaths …..I. Believe I’m one of them. I’m gona continue doin what’s right, standing up for what is right and hope that the bystanders can muster up enough courage to get some balls.
Rant over. Hate bullies
Strongawoman,
Although you and I are not tempted to act like spaths, there are a LOT of fencesitters who are. These are people who are basically empty of either good or evil. They exist in a world devoid of deep meaning or conviction. Spaths encounter them and use them. The spaths love to convert the fence sitters into their minions.
My little sister is a prime example. She has always been self-centered and selfish. She copied everything I did, always wanted to be like me in every way. She was spoiled as a baby and that continued all her life. When she had a head injury at age 15, she became rather “dull-witted” but still charming and loveable – sort of like the prototypical dumb blonde. Then she met her spath, the trojan horse that my spath trained and sent to infiltrate my family.
She changed very quickly. She allowed her selfishness and pettiness to show more often. In the end, I believe she purposely told her spath’s suicidal brother that his life didn’t matter to anyone. He had tried twice before to kill himself and he succeeded the very next day after that conversation. She was in on the plot to do the same to me. She even told me, “Skylar everybody is evil. I’m evil, you’re evil, trojan horse spath is evil and Spath is evil. We’re all evil – except mom.”
Turns out she was right except that I’m not evil and mom is.
There are so many people who have no feeling for others. The only reason they don’t attack and abuse as much as spaths do, is because they don’t think they can get away with it.
Really? Well that’s worse than what I believed. They don’t attack/abuse because they think they won’t get away with it. So essentially they’re spaths in the making then?
Scary
Strongawoman,
well that is my opinion because empathy is what precludes us from turning a blind eye. If someone can turn a blind eye when they see a spath attacking an innocent victim, then I imagine that they are without empathy.
So many people knew what my spath was and not one, told me. Not even my own parents. One woman, whom I worked with, tried to warn me. Her name was Julie and she only met him once. She said, “that man is not for you. Let me do your horoscopes so I can tell you.” Then she did and she said, “that is not going to work out at all.” But even she did not recognize the danger that he posed.
It never ceases to blow me away when I contemplate all the people my spath was able to convince that destroying me was FUNNY. These people mostly were turned against me using seeded envy.
People always ask, “how could the holocaust have happened? How could so many Germans turn a blind eye?” The answer it because they were the fence sitters and they turned the tide against good and toward evil. The holocaust was not the first or only genocide in history. Spaths know exactly how to do what they do, which is to infect human hearts with evil.
That’s why our work to educate people is so important.
They’re without empathy? I think they’re scared. Scared to stand up for what is right perhaps?
You know Skylar it is a frightening thought that there are people who are so easily swayed by evil! But you’re right. Just look at history. Easy to say ….not so easy to do. I don’t know do I? If the fear was great enough maybe I would be drawn into acts of evil. God, I sincerely hope not!!
strongawoman,
I have the pleasure of knowing a very wonderful man named Dr Sam Oliner who made it his life’s work to understand not why people were evil, but what made people extend themselves when others would not. However, by default, Sam did document how such evil as the Holocaust, was so rampant. His work is very readable and I don’t have the space to explain it all.
In the beginning before war was declared, people did not object b/c what they observed was “not that bad”, and I don’t think any of us would have thought so either. They saw a PIECE of the puzzle, a momentary wtf, but they did NOT understand the long term ramifications of what they saw. By the time they did understand, their world was a police state and your child’s survival was dependent on YOU reporting your neighbor before someone else could report that you knew and did NOT report.
Where is the tipping point? To often, the tipping point is not evident until AFTER calamity. Otherwise, we would have averted it, right? Logically, people don’t walk up to a sociopath and say “Murder me.” They get murdered b/c they failed to identify the danger, the tipping point, BEFORE they were trapped without escape.
When I was living in a world of abuse and misery, I couldn’t understand how good townspeople would align with my husband and turn a blind eye to what was being done to me. I now understand, what they saw was “NO big Deal”. They did not see his evil, they heard an inappropriate bigoted comment that might have raised eyebrows but no one was going to jump on a white horse to rescue the damsel who was momentarily ridiculed.
Just saying, the majority of people are not swayed by evil, they simple misunderstand the POTENTIAL of a Small, seemingly insignificant WTF moment.
Could the genocide of WWII happen here in the USA? I KNOW it could. When you make somebody the enemy, you can justify ANYTHING. I Know b/c someone who thinks themselves NOT EVIL, did that very thing to me. People don’t have to be Spath to commit evil. But it is Spaths who know how to use people’s empathy to manipulate them into committing evil… “for the general good.”
How many have been maligned against another by ONE person, and the others took up the banner and our misery was the consequence? What becomes clear is not how people could be so BLIND but HOW do we wake them up to see the TRUTH in TIME?
Vision, thank you so much! Sometimes I feel strong and sometimes I feel very vulnerable…I think that applies to most of us at one time or another. The “triggers” don’t blow me away for days or weeks any more, or put me in the PITS either….so that is great progress.
I’ve just decided that the hides that are still out are not all that important, actually they are for a friend of mine who wanted them. I have 3 hides and each of my two sons each have a hide, so I have no desire for any more….but at the same time, I am going to keep on setting boundaries…both in my personal life and in my business life. Not let dishonest or unethical people walk on me.
Katy,
Your talking about the people before WWII nnot realizing what was going on made me think about a story told by a woman whose father brought her and her mom and sibs to Canada BEFORE the war started. He could SEE what was going on and he tried to warn his Jewsih neighbors to FLEE with what they had on their backs if that was the only way to get out before the Nazis started killing them all, but the people did not believe that anything horrible would happen, and they said to him “But what would we do with our furniture?” The man and his family fled to Canada and all their neighbors were put in camps or killed.
People sometimes are “sheeple” and follow the herd, not realizing that the wolves are circling, and refusing to listen to any warnings.
I believe that large scale persecution of various groups is VERY possible even in this country….persecution to the extent of God knows what. It has happened before and it can happen again. The Europeans came here and wiped out the Native Americans because they viewed them as “sub human”—Nazis wiped out the Jews and other “sub humans” and so on…I could make a list 1000 pages long.
I think that many people do not even really believe that a psychopath is anything but a serial killer and then that it is a rare thing…they don’t realize that the Bernie Madoff’s and the John Edwardses are just as toxic, and way more dangerous to society and humanity.