"Your body was flooded instantly with adrenalin and its relatives like norepinephrine... Now when these moments pervade the bloodstream, your brain reacts. It shuts down certain centers and activates others. This is called the stress reaction, or stress syndrome, actually. Then when the abuse recedes, the adrenalin levels begin to drop.
As they drop, the entire system goes into mayhem. So what bullies usually do, they start and stop, start and stop. That achieves the maximal stress syndrome, and this is the great secret of bullying. Never overdo it. Small doses. The victim will do the rest. Although you are shaking much less [now] ... I must do something about that."~Sam Vaknin"...Robert Hare, in his 1970 book
Psychopath: Theory and Research, as well as James Blair, Derek Mitchell, and Karina Blair in their 2005 book
The Psychopath: Emotion and the Brain, observe that negative environmental conditions such as low socioeconomic status, abuse, and poor parenting, along with low IQ, are often associated with high psychopathy scores, particularly among those who engage in persistent, violent criminal behavior.
These psychopathic offenders are often considered the worst of the worst in courts and prisons. However, these factors seem only to affect the expression of psychopathy.
As Dr. Hare says in filmmaker Ian Walker's excellent documentary,
I, Psychopath, on the diagnosed psychopath and self-styled narcissism guru, Sam Vaknin, while psychopaths often tell of some traumatic childhood that made them the way they are, psychopaths come from all backgrounds, good or bad.
Speaking of successful psychopaths like Vaknin, he says,
"If you're very bright, know how to dress well; you have, say, the gift of the gab; you're raised in an affluent family background; [then] you don't go in the bank and rob it, you get in the bank and become a director..."In fact, Vaknin makes a perfect case study for the type of psychopath that is most dangerous to political institutions, and thus entire nations.
Best known as an Internet guru for "malignant self-love", Vaknin was arrested in Israel in 1995 for major securities fraud. The documentary follows Walker, Vaknin, and Lidija (Vaknin's wife) as they visit several European institutions to test if Vaknin is indeed a psychopath.
Vaknin ends up scoring 18 (out of 24) on the PCL-SV (Screening Version), developed by Dr. Hare, a score higher than the majority of offenders in US correctional facilities, and the cutoff point for psychopathy.
However, according Walker, Vaknin, like many of the so-called successful psychopaths now being studied by Hare, Bakiak, and others, is not an "archetypal, textbook" psychopath.
Contrary to the criminal populations, Vaknin is never physically violent. He has also been married to the same woman for ten years, while most psychopaths are seemingly incapable of such 'commitment', engaging in a string of short-term relationships. (His emotional treatment of her is another matter, however.)
Most interestingly, he is remarkably self-aware, and his insights agree with what the experts have to say.
For example, in total seriousness, Vaknin had the following exchange with Walker:
Vaknin:
"I like to present a facade of the self-effacing, modest person. It gives people the impression that, underneath it all, I'm human."Walker:
"But you are human, aren't you?"Vaknin:
"I firmly believe that you want to believe that, yes... [The psychopath] regards people as instruments of gratification and as disposable things to be used... The vast majority of psychopaths, like an iceberg, are underwater, and like an iceberg, they are inert. They do nothing. They're just there. They torment their spouse by being unempathic, but they don't beat her or kill her. They bully coworkers, but they don't burn the office. They are not dramatic. They are pernicious. Most psychopaths are subtle. They are more like poison than a knife, and they are more like slow-working poison than cyanide."After subjecting Walker to a series of degrading insults (a regular occurrence during filming), and with Walker still visibly in shock, Vaknin coolly, and with disturbingly sadistic insight, described the process to him:
"Your body was flooded instantly with adrenalin and its relatives like norepinephrine... Now when these moments pervade the bloodstream, your brain reacts. It shuts down certain centers and activates others. This is called the stress reaction, or stress syndrome, actually. Then when the abuse recedes, the adrenalin levels begin to drop.
As they drop, the entire system goes into mayhem. So what bullies usually do, they start and stop, start and stop. That achieves the maximal stress syndrome, and this is the great secret of bullying. Never overdo it. Small doses. The victim will do the rest. Although you are shaking much less [now] ... I must do something about that."This type of self-aware psychopath is perhaps the most dangerous to humanity.
When his instinctive drive for domination of others is coupled with the means to attain to positions of power, he is not only free of the restraints of conscience by nature, but finds himself largely above (or indeed the architect) of the laws that are meant to protect normal human beings from the the deviant impulses so clearly defined by the psychopathic mind.
As a president, politician, military or corporate chief, a vast number of people are literally at his mercy..."
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