Channel 4’s Psychopath Night an Intriguing and Valuable Overview of Psychopathy

Posted by admin on December 27, 2013

For those that don’t know, Channel 4 is a public service television network that broadcasts throughout the United Kingdom.

Earlier this month, on Saturday, December 14, 2013, Channel 4 aired Psychopath Night.

Psychopath Night is an approximately 90-minute show that engages many leading experts, psychopaths/sociopaths themselves – including convicted serial killer Charles Albright and a supposed sociopathic lawyer who goes by the pseudonym M.E. Thomas – and even the parent of a child psychopath, in order to explore a number of areas relating to psychopathy.

Below is the trailer for the episode:

The areas explored include:

How psychopaths think and behave
How psychopaths manage to con so many people (including a vivid portrayal of how the infamous Hillside Strangler, Kenneth Bianchi, bamboozled even psychiatrists)
How to recognize a psychopath despite the “mask” they sometimes wear
What psychopaths do for a living
White collar psychopathy and the prevalence and influence of psychopaths in powerful positions
Well-known people, including a sports star, that score highly on a psychopathy scale
Some psychological experiments that help distinguish between those that rate higher and lower on measures of psychopathic traits
Why some psychopaths are physically violent and others physically non-violent
The role of childhood trauma in psychopathy
How society should deal with psychopaths, including child psychopaths
Whether psychopaths can be healed
The top, most realistic psychopaths in film as selected by a panel of experts
Why we maintain such a fascination with psychopaths

The experts featured in the episode include many of the most respected in the world in this field, some of whom have also been featured before on this blog and others of whom are likely to be featured at some point in the future. They include:

Psychiatrists

Michael Stone, originator of the “Gradations of Evil” Scale
John Eden, M.E. Thomas’ psychiatrist
Bob Johnson, who claims, quite controversially, to have discovered a way to heal psychopaths

Psychologists

Others

Retired FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole
Neuroscientist James Fallon
Neuroscience Journalist Maia Szalavitz
English soccer star David James

One of the highlights of the episode, for me, was getting to see James Fallon and Kevin Dutton interact as they discussed some of the psychopath-related films and characters that most impressed them. As someone who advocates for the field of ponerology, at least in part, as a way of promoting stronger ties between those from disparate backgrounds and disciplines that are interested in the roots of harmful behavior, this was just the kind of conversation I imagine and of which I hope to see more.

The lowlight for me was that the episode didn’t discuss quite enough the implications of psychopathy in the area of politics.

Also, I’m always a bit antsy when Kevin Dutton begins giving his usual spiel about the “good side” of psychopathy. But, since it was done in the context of an episode that covered the topic from many angles in a balanced way, I could live with it.

Overall, I found the episode to be extremely well done and valuable.

For a long time, I’ve looked for one concise and intriguing resource – especially a video resource – that I could use to introduce this topic to members of the general public. I had hoped that I Am Fishead would turn out to be that resource. But, unfortunately, despite starting off well, it ultimately had too many shortcomings, which I’ve documented in my review of it, for me to recommend it for that purpose. However, I think that in Channel 4’s Psychopath Night I’ve finally found at least one such video resource.

In an hour and a half, Psychopath Night manages to touch on just about all of the most important aspects and implications of psychopathy, to introduce and share the views of many of the most respected “big names” in the field and to explore the various sides of related controversies without leaning too far to one side on any of them.