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Topics: Psychology, Mental Health, Crime
Joe Yates
A forensic psychiatrist has revealed that there are two subtle indicators that can help uncover whether someone you know is in fact a psychopath.
When you think of a psychopath, you'll draw your attention to the likes of Ted Bundy and serial killers like him, but not everyone with the condition go on to murderous rampages.
Firstly, let's explain what a psychopath is - it's a person with a personality disorder marked by lack of empathy, are callous and often anti-social - although not always the case, which I'll get into later.
Speaking with LADbible Group, Dr Sohom Das - a forensic psychiatrist who works with individuals who have committed violent crimes and are suspected of having mental illnesses - has revealed the two subtle signs that indicate whether someone is a psychopath.
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"How can you tell if somebody is a psychopath? I think the more interesting version of this question is, how do you - how can you -tell if somebody is a psychopath? Like in real life, out in the real world," he said.
"And my answer to that; I think is, actually it's quite difficult because psychopaths by the very nature are quite manipulative and they're good at camouflaging themselves. But there are telltale signs.
"So, a true psychopath will kind of, they'll try and exploit you for anything that they can get from you - whether it's money, whether it's friendship, whether it's sex, and they're quite narcissistic so everything's about them."
Das continued: "I suppose another way is to look at their social circle of friends. So, psychopaths because they use people they tend not to have deep friendships - they have a large circle of friends and they know a lot of people they kind of use them and then throw them away... so that is a way of telling."
You might actually be surprised to hear that around four to five percent of CEOs are deemed psychopaths - that's a rough estimate by Das.
"Psychopaths are people who lack empathy, who are quite cold and callous, and in the corporate world basically can stab their colleagues in the back and sleep well at night. So, as you can see, people like that can rise quite high up the corporate ladder," he went on.
"So, as well as lacking empathy, they tend to be quite charming psychopaths. So, they can build business relationships and business networks and also they take risks.
"So, they have such a low fear response that psychopaths don't mind gambling with their own or other people's money - and in some, if the risks work out, they can rise within the corporate world."
That perfectly describes Patrick Bateman - the protagonist in American Psycho, who was played epically by Christian Bale.