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WHAT DO YOU think of when you hear the word psychopath?
Hannibal Lector, Ted Bundy, Norman Bates…
What type of personality traits come to mind? Maybe people who are ruthless, focused, confident and lack empathy.
One book is claiming that these traits are tailor made for success in twenty-first century society and that not all psychopaths are bad.
Kevin Dutton is an Oxford psychology professor who wrote the book with ‘good psychopath’ Andy McNab.
‘The good psychopaths guide to success‘ claims that psychopathic traits can lead to success in life. Dutton says that he wants to debunk the myth that all psychopaths are bad:
I’d done research with the special forces, with surgeons, with top hedge fund managers and barristers. Almost all of them had psychopathic traits, but they’d harnessed them in ways to make them better at what they do.
The book explores the ways in which a good psychopath thinks differently and how this could help people get what they really want from life by using qualities such as charm, coolness under pressure, self-confidence and courage.
Former British Special Air Service soldier Andy McNab says that “without a doubt, there’s certain elements of being a psychopath that is an asset to CEOs around the world.”
Good Psychopath
Professor Dutton said ”When we talk about a good psychopath what we mean is somebody that is using psychopathic personality characteristics for the general good of society”.
Speaking to RTÉ he said, ”When people say that psychopaths are evil, it’s a stigmatisation of a mental illness but we do so out of fear and ignorance.
“I think that unscrupulous tabloid editors must take a fair share of the blame here, I mean the word psycho has become the defamatory catch all of choice for the mad and the bad of society.
Would we dream of talking about other people with other mental disorders such as depression or PTSD in such a way? No I don’t think we would.
“We have to overcome this ancestral way of thinking…every time we use the good and bad/black and white approach, we’re doing a great disservice to those who use these traits for the good of society”.
Life Skills
The book explains how certain traits can help in different areas of our lives. For example focus, fearlessness and lack of empathy can be useful in business.
McNab explains how if you’re in a business where you have to let people go, it’s important to remember why you are doing this which is probably to keep the business alive rather than getting emotional for the individual.
In relationships fearlessness, self-confidence and ruthlessness are deemed to be strong traits. Ruthlessness may seem like an unusual one but McNab says that “A lot of the problems in relationships come from the fact that people stick in them when they’d be better off out.”
McNab has been married five times but has been with his current wife for 14 years.
Professor Dutton says that there’s no one thing that makes you a psychopath.
“You want to think of those traits being like the dials on a studio mixing desk, that you can turn up and down in different situations … if they’re all turned up to maximum, then you’re a dysfunctional psychopath.”
Yet it’s the ability of psychopaths to turn down their empathy and block out other concerns that make them the best operators in high-pressure environments.
Andy McNab said “If I’m in a hostage situation I’d rather have a psychopath coming through the door than anyone else because I know he’s going to be completely focussed on the job in hand.”
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….is this another incident they will “learn” from?
Accountability HAS to be an election issue.
No no. It’s all ok now. They said sorry. So leave them alone and let them get on with ignoring other kids in their care.
No such thing, Accountability is a dirty word.
As someone who works in the Hse I can tell first hand that complaints upon staff from other staff members is something no one wants to deal with, there are people with many complaints against them with many knowing and seeing first hand they are true yet after the big Hse investigation the people still remain in their post in the exact same roll, I actually had myself transferred to another place to get away from the lack of management and pussy footing around dealing with staff properly best move I ever made
If the HSE is ever to be reformed then the only way to do it is to appoint an independent professional who is assessed and signed off on by ALL parties. This professional is then given the task of reforming the management and running the HSE. They are given a set timeframe and targets. They are then allowed to cull the dead wastage that pervades the HSE on the administration side and use the savings to improve the healthcare side of things. They will have the advantage of not worrying about getting re-elected as their role is to reach their targets and if that means making unpopular decisions then so be it. If they are appointed by an all party committee then none of the usual blame games can erupt as all parties will have made the decision to appoint the person.
The HSE employs 100,000 people and I would bet that you could get rid of 10% of them tomorrow morning and nothing would be disrupted, that’s how useless their roles are.
@Brian Ward
You can blame the Labour party for the lack of radical reform in the Irish health service.
All of the health service unions are responsible for the predicament of the health service, not just the ones that represent administrators. The following article was written by GP Dr Brendan O’Shea.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/nurses-must-allow-trolleys-on-wards-34351707.html
“I believe the nurses are wrong in trying to frustrate it and there is a sense they are playing silly industrial relations games.
It should be part of any escalation procedures to alleviate the pressure when trolley traffic reaches a certain crisis.
Any attempts to obstruct it are akin to terrorists hiding themselves among unfortunate hostages.
Just like in bus disputes where passengers end up being kicked around, it is now the turn of the patient.
Doctors’ unions are also guilty of this when the occasion arises.”
HSE never apologise and never learn. The incompetence and mismanagement are a disgrace. The government is a disgrace. From personal experience in 2007 in regards to portlaoise.
The wasters at the hse strike again . I wonder do any of these people ly awake at night worrying about the way people are left on trolleys and treated like animals . I think not !!!!!
Senior management have had 30% salary increases since 2012, I’d say that’s all they think about, period.
I know many foster parents who are living saints. The social workers they were assigned were dreadful in general. I mean gobsmackingly awful to the level of being dangerous. That’s why the very few bad foster homes can exist.
How many more similar cases are out there? It truly is shameful. We do have very good people e.g. the social worker and the whistleblower, trying to protect and stand up for such vulnerable people. Let us not lose sight of that.
@Mary Scanlon
I couldn’t agree more. If HSE employees were aware that vulnerable people were at risk and failed to take appropriate action then I hope that they will be crucified.
The public disservice.
Who gets sacked ? Nobody.
Carry on as normal.
Its the irish way….we are too accepting of incompetence from our politicians to our civil servants….never any accountability
Dead right D H. Buck stops nowhere in the Land of Saints and Scholars.
Yet another shameful indictment of the so called ‘establishment in this country. This news predates the HSE so there are many Health Boards, Ministers for Health and others responsible for ignoring what was going. on. The first report was made in 1995 which predates the HSE by 10 years. They are all equally responsible but of course in this country very few have to take responsibility for their actions or are held accountable.
In any other jurisdiction’ heads would roll’ with resignations, removal from posts etc. Apologies are useless and worthless as can be seen by the same ‘mistakes’ being made over and over again. Time for those responsible to be made face the consequences.
In recent times we have had politician after politician tell us how much they care for those who suffer abuse. Yet again their mealy mouthed words are shown up to be hypocritical. Time for them too to walk the walk.
Justine McCarthy wrote about this case for this week’s edition of The Sunday Times.
According to her, the DPP decided not to press charges in relation to five garda files dealing with alleged negligence and abuse in the home and one of the foster parents allegedly committed sexual assault and rape with the use of instruments (the foster father, I assume) is deceased.
I commend the social worker who blew the whistle.
Sadly, some members of staff of the health boards didn’t care about children who were neglected and sexually abused by one or both of their parents, i.e. the Kilkenny and Roscommon incest and McColgan family cases.
In the Roscommon incest case, the members of health board staff who were involved in that case could have appealed against the injunction that the mother had obtained (the evidence of neglect was as clear as a summer’s day) but they didn’t bother.
In the Roscommon case, an ultra right wing Catholic group funded an expensive legal challenge and obrptiained an injunction. The local health Board did not have the legal budget to appeal.
It’s dangerous when extremely well funded religious extremists can use lawyers to frustrate necessary interventions in very serious rape and incest cases. I’m pleased to say that a book is being written about this dreadful scandal, exposing the details but not the identities. The book includes details of the financial funding. Keep the religious extremists out of the social servuces area. Ideology causes terrible problems.
@Fiona deFreyne
The health board could have allocated money to its legal budget to appeal on the grounds of what was then Article 42.5 of the Constitution, which permitted the removal of children from parents if the parents fail in their duty. Given that the health board was supposed to protect the vulnerable, taking legal action to protect the vulnerable should have been a priority.
The health board could have informed the Gardaí of the neglect. Then the Gardaí could have arrested the parents for child neglect and that would have provided grounds for taking the children into care. Child neglect is a criminal offence, you know.
Stop making excuses for health board members of staff who didn’t do their jobs properly.
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