(warm music)
- Dating someone new,
it always begins with a first impression.
But even if it's the best first impression of all time,
how will the relationship look
if that person is a clinical psychopath?
How much can you read from that first impression, really?
Here to tell you how to spot the signs of a psychopath
when it comes to dating, relationships, and yes, sex,
it's Dr. Seth Meyers.
Dr. Meyers, what is a psychopath?
- So a psychopath is someone
who would test positive on a psychology test
called the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised,
which was developed by someone named Robert Hare.
So it is a specific psychological measure
that includes many different areas
of a person's functioning in life that will help assess
does this person have psychopathic traits?
A lot of people use the term sociopath
thinking that is an appropriate term.
I've spent years getting educated
and training in psychopathy
to get to the point where I understand
sociopath is not a clinical term.
When people use that, what they're referring to
is antisocial personality disorder.
So antisocial personality disorder
is a personality disorder that means
someone doesn't show guilt, remorse.
They have several factors that make relationships
and functioning in their life overall difficult.
Someone who is a full-blown psychopath
is even more severe than that.
So again, they would need to be tested
by something we called the PCL or the PCLR.
And there are several hallmarks.
One of them is something we call callous disregard.
So in their relationships with others,
they show a callousness, they show a callous disregard.
They don't really care about others' feelings,
but it's not like an angry, defensive way of not caring.
It's they just like-
- [Kyle] They don't care.
- It just doesn't compute, you know?
So they show a callous disregard, they don't show remorse.
They are impulsive, they are hostile.
They can be very aggressive.
Note that, however,
psychopaths are not always necessarily murderers.
You can have someone who is a psychopath
who extorts millions of dollars
in a banking scheme from someone.
I'm not naming any names here,
but there are psychopaths of all different kinds.
But at the end of the day,
they don't care about exploiting others
because all they care about is meeting their own needs.
- I've talked to other doctors about psychopaths.
And even in this example,
I hear them being referred to as men most often.
Are there more men who are psychopaths than women?
- The research that we have on psychopaths
is usually based on studies that have been conducted
among incarcerated individuals.
So we get those, those datasets from jails,
from prisons and whatnot.
So yes, the research says
more males are psychopaths than females.
What I would say is that there are more female psychopaths
than we probably currently believe.
- Mm, okay.
- Nobody thinks of a woman as a psychopath.
Plus, when you think about the way
men and women are socialized,
boys are socialized to go get it on the football field.
Girls are socialized to play nicely
with the other girls, you know?
So at the end of the day,
males and females are both human beings
and have a lot of the same central elements.
- Absolutely.
Let's talk about a hypothetical scenario.
I'm at a party and somebody approaches me
to start flirting with me and they are a psychopath,
but obviously I do not know this.
What does that flirting look like?
- Here are signs in a social setting
that this person may be a psychopath.
So they flatter you.
They don't just flatter you, "You look great,"
it is excessive flattery.
They can't make you feel any better.
They may make you feel like there is this connection
between the two of you.
Who knows where it's from?
It's like I've known you my whole life.
They may try to ask you very personal questions,
questions that feel a little too personal
for a first or second meeting.
Now, the person may think, "They're doing this,
that's a sign they're really interested, they really care."
Actually, what they're doing
is trying to get a sense of what makes you tick,
trying to get a sense
of your weaknesses and vulnerabilities,
because later they will use that to their advantage.
So the psychopath is motivated above all else by power.
Life is a chess game, they are perpetrators,
and they are going to win.
There's no equality or intimacy with psychopaths.
They couldn't care less.
It's a game, they can be ruthless, and they will win.
- And they love to play it.
- They don't know any other way.
- That's the only option.
There are no options, wow.
But how would I know, though,
if I'm being hit on by a psychopath
or somebody that just maybe had three margaritas
and really thinks, you know, they're gonna go for it?
- So when you ask that question,
you're not taking into account, Kyle,
the actual instincts you have that would be at work, right?
So let me give an example.
I could say something to you after just meeting you,
having a couple drinks with you.
I could say something like,
"You are one of the most beautiful people
I've seen in my whole life."
That wouldn't feel right, right?
- No, that's weird.
- Yeah.
Where if I'd been like, "You're beautiful,"
that feels more normal.
The way I said it, it makes you feel like
it's like a line from a movie.
It's like they studied it.
They're saying the words,
but you're not feeling an emotion match up with it.
So that is the most important point
for the audience to take away.
No matter the specifics or the mechanics in the interaction,
something about the interaction
left you feeling a little unsettled
or a little bit distrusting.
- Then why do people not follow
that gut and intuition and say,
"Man, this guy just flattered me. I'm gonna go for it."
- You know, because the people
who end up falling prey to the psychopath,
they're in a vulnerable place in their life.
They're lonely.
They have started to question whether
anybody really could ever be attracted to them.
Maybe they feel too old, too fat.
You know, a lot of psychopaths will prey on the elderly,
will prey on wealthy individuals,
will pray on sad, depressed, lonely, isolated individuals.
They make great targets, you know?
Like any of us when our defenses are down,
when we are not in a place in our lives
where we feel really good about ourselves,
across the board we're all more likely
to make bad decisions.
- When, or does a psychopath
use sex for power rather than for sexual gratification?
- So sex and the psychopath,
it's a very unique dynamic compared to anyone else
and the relationship they have with sex.
So when a psychopath has sex, it's not for the same reasons.
For example, the research shows as a rule,
psychopaths tend to be more promiscuous.
They tend to have more and shorter romantic relationships.
Psychopaths will be motivated to have sex
for any of the following reasons.
Boredom, because psychopaths, their central nervous systems
seek the thrill, the rush.
So psychopaths may seek sex,
no matter if they're married or whatever,
because they need the rush to defend against the boredom.
Psychopaths may pursue sex as a means of getting something.
The person they're having sex with,
they know has a nice place
and the psychopath doesn't have a place.
So the psychopath might wanna move into that place.
So it's always for a reason.
It's often boredom, it's for power, it's for money,
it's for a housing situation.
It's always for a purpose.
And as much as the psychopath
may act emotionally invested in the sex and perform,
I mean, we're talking circus sex,
that psychopath may give you the best sex of your life,
but it's a performance.
It's a performance designed
to get the psychopath something that they want.
And it's not intimacy.
- Whew
That's the first time I've heard the term circus sex.
Only from a psychopath, apparently. Goodness.
All right, so if you find yourself
in a relationship with a psychopath,
you did not listen to your instincts,
they got what they wanted and they're gone,
how do you begin to heal from that?
- Well, healing after a relationship with a psychopath
is not that different than the wounds
it takes someone healing from a relationship
with a severe alcoholic or addict or narcissist.
It takes years to trust again, years.
This type of relationship, it's a trauma.
And one of the sad things is after you break up,
even though you didn't really do anything wrong,
you then turn the anger on yourself.
"I was so stupid. Why didn't I see?"
- Of course.
- You tell people so-and-so turns out he was a psychopath,
do you know how many people will actually look at you,
but not say it and think like, "You didn't see it?"
- [Kyle] Yeah, duh, right.
- So it's many years.
What you have to do,
if you have suffered from a relationship with a psychopath,
with a severe narcissist, with a severe abuser,
you need to say to yourself
that it could have happened to anyone,
that you will learn from your mistakes,
that you will be in better touch
with your feelings going forward,
and that you will make sure your next partner
understands exactly what you went through.
And that is intimacy you'll have in your next relationship
that you didn't have in your earlier one.
- Well, that was my next question.
I'm thinking about the person who's dating someone
who had previously dated a psychopath.
What do they begin to do to let them know,
"Hey, I'm not that way, I'm not just using you,
this isn't for power,"
especially when the psychopath did it so perfectly?
If that happened to me,
I don't know how I could ever trust anybody again.
- Right, so if you are in the position of dating somebody
whose last relationship was with someone like this,
you need to understand that's gonna be
the white elephant in the room
for a few good years in this relationship, right?
Kind of like you can start a relationship with someone
who's depressed or has bipolar disorder
or just started recovery
from alcohol or drugs six months ago.
You can have great relationships,
but it's gonna be a part of the relationship.
You're gonna need to deal with it.
You're gonna need to work through it together.
When the person you're dating gets triggered
and they try to turn you into that person
that is the psychopath,
that is the severe narcissist, et cetera,
you need to not emotionally react.
So just say, "That really wasn't my intention.
I really, I really love you.
I'm not going to try to hurt you."
And then they say, "Yeah, but you..."
Just press pause and give them a little space.
They are going to be dealing with the effects
of that psychological trauma for a long time.
So you're gonna have to deal with some of it,
but it's not your job to deal with all of it.
And for you to get too involved
to react to every single piece of it,
you're gonna get dragged down.
It's not gonna be good for anybody.
- Yeah. That's understandably so.
Well, truly fascinating.
And I'm sure a lot of people will be a little more aware
next time someone comes and starts to flirt with them
when they're out and about.
In our next episode
of our Personality Disorder and Relationships series,
we're going to discuss with Dr. Meyers
what you can do if you find yourself obsessing
or fixating consistently on a person or even a thing,
and his one quick hack to help you mitigate that.
Dr. Meyers, thanks for being here.
We'll see you next week. - Thank you.
(warm music)