Last night Larry King Live of CNN hosted a discussion about whether criminals can be rehabilitated. I think it will be re-aired this weekend so try to watch. One of the guests drew a distinction between “learned” criminal behavior and psychopathy. She stated she believed that criminals who have learned to be that way can unlearn but psychopaths cannot be rehabilitated. I know many of you also hold this belief so I would like to tell you why I strongly disagree.
First I will tell you my position:
ALL criminality stems from an interaction between a person and a situation. A person is a product of his/her genetics and experiences. So in a sense what makes up personality (the “person”) is learned for everyone including the psychopathic. We are preprogrammed by our genetics to learn certain things better than others.
In terms of situational variables solid research has demonstrated that antisocial associates, poor work and educational performance, substance abuse, poor family ties and poor recreational achievement are all associated with criminality. These variables operate independently from personality variables and are important for even the most psychopathic individuals.
The more psychopathic a person is, the more deeply ingrained is the lifestyle of parasitism and predation BUT even those with lower levels of psychopathy can be very resistant to change and very dangerous to society. The definition of response to treatment depends on what you are looking for. If a person cheats 8 people a week, then goes into a program and cheats 1 person a week, that is a change. Everyone has a different definition of “rehabilitation”.
Coincidentally, I just read a great book, Persons in Context: Building a science of the individual. It is a tribute to Walter Mischel, Ph.D. one of the great thinkers of modern psychology. In his chapter “Intelligence as a Person-Situation Interaction”, Robert Sternberg lists five fallacies of thinking. He says, “There is another dimension to person-situation interaction: the extent to which particular situations elicit ‘stupid’ thinking in intelligent people.” All of his 5 fallacies occur in the context of perceived power or dominance. They are:
- The unrealistic optimism fallacy. This occurs when one believes that one is so smart and so powerful that it is pointless to worry about the outcome of what one does.
- The egocentrism fallacy. This occurs when one comes to think that one’s own interests are the only ones that are important.
- The Omniscience Fallacy. This occurs when people think they know more than they do.
- The Omnipotence Fallacy. This results from the power one wield or believes one wields.
- The invulnerability Fallacy. This derives for the illusion of complete protection.
Dr. Sternberg is one of many scientists who have discovered that the experience of power changes the mind/brain. Some people are more prone than others to these effects of power. Since psychopathic individuals seek out power constantly like a heroin addict seeking a fix, they are never free from all of the above fallacies of thinking. Life is a situation of constant power or perceived power.
In the absence of a loving nature all power pursuit becomes antisocial. Now power pursuit and attainment can also stomp out a person’s loving nature, if it was ever present in the first place.
To rehab the psychopathic we have to strip them of any power and teach them to love and care for others. To my knowledge there is no program that has yet succeeded in doing this even for those “sociopaths” who score at the lower end of the psychopathy scale.
Dear Fight another day,
I totally agree with you sweetie, the focus of our society should be on the lNFANTS AND CHILDREN of our society. Unfortrunately, I’m not sure it is….too many kids having kids by random fathers who are not involved in the children’s lives.
I saw a special on Sunday TV about homelessness. A girl age 21, who said she was a straight A student till she got preg and dropped out in 11th grade, now at 21, has 3 THREE kids ages 1,2, and 3, has no family back up except a grandmother she doesn’t get along with, mostly lives in an old car (it runs) and eats out of a food pantry. Has already gone through her welfare cash period, no job skills—surely this girl (the babies are all by 3 different men) knew there was such a thing as birth control—so now what? She lives in her car, which will eventually break down—then what? She made these dead end choices to have three children, to not get an education.
So how can “we” (as a nation help her children? or her?)
Works Progress Administration (WPA) during and after the great depression put men to work building things for the c ountry with the “hand out money”—parks and bridges etc. It put women to work transcribing old records and other women to work taking care of the children of the men and women who were doing the works projects. No one got anything for free if they could work and it benefitted everyone both financially, physically, and emotionally. People had a job, got paid, and helped their community.
I wish washington would think about something like that, it might help some of the homeless families.
Wini… how embarrassing they didnt know the song!!! never mind Wini…WE know you are really cool…rock on…as for understanding psychopaths?
And I think it’s gonna be a long long time…
Bulletproof and Wini- I heard this song on my way home from town this afternoon and thought of how appropriate it was to all of your jesting today! Can anybody guess what it is? Oh- and I just took some of the lyrics…didn’t want to give it away!
“I’ve really, really been the best of fools, I did what I could.
Everybody trying to tell me that you didn’t mean me no good.
I’ve been trying, Lord, let me tell you, Let me tell you I really did the best I could.
Do you remember mama, when I knocked upon your door?
I said you had the nerve to tell me you didn’t want me no more, yeah
I open my front door, hear my back door slam,
You must have one of them new fangled back door man…”
SageeGirl
I don’t know it I’m afraid to say…maybe if I heard the music with it…sounds interesting…like the lyrics…
Bulletproof,
It’s “Since I’ve Been Loving You”, by Led Zeppelin. It’s always been a favorite LZ song, but now it seems to have become my theme song. It’s quite emotional too. Love the drums and bass… I wish I could scream like that!!!
Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC3_S6ozlok&feature=PlayList&p=9C9B716EFDC5C659&playnext=1&index=59
Ditto that, SageeGirl……LedZep……yepper.
A tad earlier shall we say than my time…but I’m, thinking of Janis Joplin when I listen to plant in that song….waaaoww! yeah if I could scream like that ..IN key and on stage surrounded by such awesomness…I’d be cured!! next lives maybe….we will all be in a group …ha ha maube the same one…singing about psychopaths
I have read this post several times and I think this is a very thought provoking piece, Liane.
In my experience with a spath, I was told (by his uncle) I was a good example and that just by being around me, this person acted differently and maybe, just maybe, he would actually change.
He change, alright! He got WORSE. The quest for money, power, drugs and sex ruled his life and still does. It is my belief that he cannot be rehabilitated at all. Not only that, he doesn’t WANT rehabilitation.
You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Just my HO 🙂
Cat
Fight another day,
I agree with you in that we are failing at the critical level of teaching our young ones values. It seems getting worse as we are succeeding at teaching learned helplessness in mass, and those who have look down on those that don’t (entitlement, narcissism?).
Oxy,
I saw that Dateline program too, and it was frighteningly eye opening. This was not inner city America, but rural Ohio. It seemed that 3/4 of the town depended on the food pantry. If there aren’t any jobs there why not move? I grew up in a steel mill town in WVA. I loved it there, and the good people. But I fortunately got away as there isn’t much of a life unless you work on the mill which employs about one tenth of the people it did when we relied on steel more. We need to teach all parents and students the absolute importance and seriousness of education. Many countries are passing us by because of this. We would rather be cool and stupid as long as we have a tattoo. Who cares if one can’t support himself let alone feed his own family?
During the times after the depression started, many of my family piled their kids into old cars and took off for the vegetable fields of California and Arizona to pick fruit. The kids who are in their 70s now thought it was one great big adventure, traveling in an old Model-T ford and camp;ing along the road—real “Grapes of Wrath”–and the entire family worked, but Most American people now will not do that and instead the Mexicans come here illegally to do that. I actually admire them for their willingness to work and not look for a hand out. Somehow it seems to me that tooo many Americans have decided they are ENTITLED to be fed even if they don’t work. They are ENTITLED to breed even if they don’t and can’t take care of the children, but expect someone else to do so.
I realize that bad things happen to people and they get into a situation they need HELP, but that is ONE thing, but expecting to be MAINTAINED in a style that they think they are ENTITLED to just because they breathe, but are not willing to put out any effort for is another thing entirely.
Psychopaths are a GROUP who feel entitled to others providing for them, and they con and grift to get what they want, but it seems these others who maybe aren’t psychopaths and won’t steal or grift, just sit down and say PITY ME, I refused to use b irth control or to act responsibly and I have all these poor kids, so take care of us.
I saw a part of the show the other day on Oprah where the Oxy-mom and her litters of kids were being interviewed, that woman is a PPRIME EXAMPLE of what I am talking about.
Anyone who breeds like a rabbit and there is NO way she could take care of those babies or provide for them is not behaving responsibiliy. I’m not sure what should be done about someone like her, she is pretty one-of-a-kind, but I sure do feel sorry for her children.
Makes me grind my teeth, but I don’t have all the answers, not even all the questions. I just know there are psychopaths, and there are ALSO lots of folks who think they are entitled to eating without working or contributing.