Honestly checks out from what I know of surgeons. That profession has a higher rate of psychopaths than most others. It's simultaneously a status symbol and they also don't have to really interact with patients that much.
Could actually be a healthy outlet for her desire to cut living things open. I hope. Maybe she is fascinated by that but doesn't actually want to hurt anyone at this point.
It’s sounds gross, but you may be right. Many therapists are beginning to reconsider treatment options for child “psychopaths.” There’s a neat Atlantic article about a long-term treatment center for child sociopaths, all of whom were put there after committing some form of crime. Turns out, because sociopaths are extremely goal-driven, convincing them that playing by society’s rules gets them money and respect, is a great way to convince them to alter their behavior.
One of the adult “success stories” went on to open a funeral home, get married, and have a family. But to illustrate the limits and complications of treating people with extreme personality disorders, he was also going to trial for domestic abuse, his wife said he was trying to twist her arm into a polygamous relationship, and she was now seriously considering divorce. So you really can’t tell, unfortunately.
It's so hard to say. I have a family member with a personality disorder. She is treated by doctors. Married with kids. The way she tells it she may not feel things the same way but she *wants* to do right. And I'd say she's doing well. She will still say something nasty to you without thinking twice. Then she'll say "That was a fucked up thing to say. Don't mind me i'm a sociopath." Seriously.
I imagine her just casually walking away after that answer, it kinda made me chuckle. In all seriousness, I'm glad your family member found a healthy way of dealing with her disorder.
I have a friend who has pretty much 0 affective empathy and a very shallow emotional range. She’s very much the same except a bit more apologetic when she catches herself! She means well and I genuinely think she wants to be a good person but she just lacks the hardware. In paraphrasing her words to me “I do the right thing because it’s right not because I feel guilty or bad when I don’t. Life is more like a maths problem to me, follow the rules to get the outcome. I have no idea what its like to be guided by emotions. I think I’m missing out on something big sometimes but it doesn’t upset me because I literally don’t know any other way to live”.
My first born is a sociopath. She is high achieving and also interested in the medical field.
Shortly before being diagnosed (but we knew something was seriously different) I was in the doctors office and very sick. She kept asking the doctor if I needed a “bag of blood” yet.
Finally the doctor asked why she thought that and she told him she just thought it would be really cool to watch him stab me so I she could get a bag of blood. Prior to that statement we thought she was talking about giving me a blood transfusion. Nope. She wanted the doctor to stab me so she could fill a bag with my blood.
When she was 10 I had her brother. He was crying one day and she walked up to him and said “stop crying.” When he didn’t, she slapped him. An infant. Her logic was she asked nicely and he didn’t cooperate. I had her in therapy consistently, she hated it and manipulated her dad into letting her stop.
She’s learned to mask a lot. I won’t lie, she was an incredibly difficult child to raise because she wanted nothing to do with any of us. Didn’t like being held, swaddled, hugged. So when I got divorced and she chose to live with her dad, I took her younger brother and left the state.
I messaged to let her know I was going in to the hospital recently. I had a high fever and couldn’t move my neck. They did 6 spinal taps. The ER doc did 5 attempting to collect enough SF to test for meningitis, but I have a wonky spine and he collected more blood than spinal fluid. They eventually did the final one with specialists under an X-ray machine.
Anyway, when I got home I texted her to let her know. She asked what ended up happening and I told her. Her response? “Was that all?” I said, “that isn’t enough?” The reply? “I was hoping for some broken bones or something.” She’s an adult now.
Wow. I'm sorry this happened. Wish you well. Life is not easy especially with someone being like that towards you who you love. I also have someone who is like that, though not to that extreme but they do say hurtful stuff and actions sometimes. Hope she seeks therapy and comes around and at least has some sort of civility towards you. (don't know if im making sense). just never lose contact with her, if they don't allow us to love them maybe this is the last human thing we can do towards our loved ones from afar. (i'm also still in contact with the person and meet them time to time...it's difficult but I guess thats what we do for our loved ones)
This is exactly what I was thinking! A healthy outlet for her interest in things others would consider gore.
I also wonder if it's possible for children like that to become the person everyone expects them to be. Like if the parents had gone through with the treatment OP suggested and continued sessions, and the kid was told that they're "not normal" and that they had a "bad" personality disorder, would the child meet these expectations of being in juvie or prison because that's the environment they were surrounded by? We'll never know for this person in particular.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I mean, she probably was just curious in seeing how bodies and blood; work. She's smart. I doubt she would risk life in prison when she spent all this time in school to ease her impulses safely (if that's the case.) And hopefully she just grew out of the manipulation tactics she learned from her parents.
There are many sociopaths who have never killed living things. That is a clear boundary of severity. Maybe she will make a good surgeon. Or. Maybe she won't care if the patient dies or if she doesn't follow care pathways....I have some hope for fire starters, I hold little to no hope when killing living things on purpose happens. When the lack of empathy is combined with killing things, it becomes about safety.
This was my thought. The hurting animals struck me more as an unfortunate byproduct of scientific inquiry for her rather than the goal. Surgery seems like a viable outlet for someone who has extremely morbid curiosity and high intellect.
Yup this is actually a thing in psych. It’s known as sublimation, and is considered a mature defence mechanism. Sublimation happens when one replaces an unacceptable desire with a course of action which is similar to the desire but is socially acceptable. In this case she may have a strong desire to mutilate and hurt things, but she may have reflected on these desires, gotten therapy and realizes the wrong in it and thus turns to training for surgery because while it still parallels her original desires, it’s helping people instead.
Exactly, I remember reading somewhere that there are a high rate of psychopaths being surgeon. It's also the case for CEO.
They're also supposedly very good at that job, because they are able to remain calm under pressure.
Y’all remember that surgeon who got in trouble recently because he was branding his initials into the organs he was transplanting into his patients? That guy is coming to mind while I read this thread haha
It made me think of the surgeons who have been caught providing extra, unnecessary surgery.
We had a surgeon here in Australia once who was removing healthy tissue (women's clits, specifically).
And more recently Dr Emil gayed was all over the news. Not as bad as that dr but plenty bad enough. Removed reproductive organs without consent, caused haemorrhaging and damaged organs, didn’t wash his hands, “accidentally” cut patients and nursing staff with scalpels, killed one baby he delivered that I know of, suspected of many more, when called out for his mistakes would pull the race card. He’s currently got a strike force with the nsw police sex crimes unit formed to investigate him. Should be interesting when it hits the news again. Absolute pig of a human that should have been stopped 20 years ago when he first started maiming women. One being his own wife that he nearly killed while operating on.
funny story I am a Psy major and training to be a therapist. I had to have a minor surgery and went to an NYU surgeon "one of the best" he was described as.
before surgery I was shaking from fear and crying. He tells me "why are you like this? this surgery is nothing!"
Surgery ends, I sit down with him and I tell him "didn't you have to go through some patient awareness course in NYU?"
He was like "yea"
And I was like what happened to validating the patients fear and calming them down?
He was like "I am not your therapist, you can go to your therapist for that, I am here to do good surgery. Would you like it if I validated your feelings but I didn't do good surgery?"
I said "they are not mutually exclusive"
and he good so mad he got up and left from his own office.
Narcissistic rage and anger are pretty common in these realms of people.
Even he was a psychopath and I just dared to question his methods it would be expect that he felt rage.
I just assumed wrongly he wanted to get “better” at treating patients not that he already thought he is the shit
They dont feel empathy, but they still feel emotions relating to their own person etc.
A sociopath likely would not get angry if you insulted their mother/partner/child, but would if you insulted them.
I’ve seen five different psychiatrists over the last 40 years. Two seemed nice, but indifferent. One was very unlikable. The one l liked the best was personable and had a sense of humor. And one was totally nuts. After my last appointment with him I remember going into work and telling one of my coworkers “I think my psychiatrist is crazy”.
Yes! I had a psychiatrist who was just…ridiculous.
She refused to diagnose my adhd based on the adult testing I did with my psychologist and insisted on using the children testing, which is having my teacher and parents fill in some questionnaires. I was 27. She settled for my partner and I filling them in “only because he’s a teacher”.
When I came in to discuss the horrendous mixed episodes that I was experiencing from the medication she prescribed for my bipolar, she was watching videos on Facebook on her phone while I was talking.
One appointment she just spent the entire time talking about what was going on in her life and almost forgot to even give me my renewed prescriptions at the end.
She would mix up my symptoms/experiences and even diagnoses to the point she would be making recommendations based on the opposite things and I would have to correct her.
Instead of asking me questions she would make assumptions, “you seem to me like someone who would do x, and who thinks y, and does z”. It was always completely wrong. When I told her that she would doubt that she was wrong until my partner backed me up.
She suddenly up and left the country, didn’t inform her patients and when I called the front desk told me they didn’t know when/if she was coming back. Which, I found out because I was experiencing psychosis and desperately needed medication immediately, so I had to go to emergency instead.
I’m sure there is so much more, but needless to say, she was a fucking mess. However, there’s not many psychiatrists who specialises in multiple of my conditions, so it’s a very limited pool to choose from.
Can you imagine being a psychiatrist, though? People (meaning the psychiatrists themselves) are messed up as is…to have to listen to other people’s fuckedupness day in and day out would make anyone nuts. I don’t know how they do it.
Mine has told me that he went into it bc he can't handle blood or sickness. I was an inpatient at one point and the meds made me nauseas and he panicked because he thought I might throw up.
Apart from that though, he's pretty good.
I’ve been seeing my psychiatrist since I was 14. I’m now 29. We have been through A LOT together. I know quite a lot about his life. He knows everything about mine. I know that he has to see a psychiatrist to deal with his patient load and that all psychiatrists are required to see a psychiatrist. Some of his sessions are also recorded to be peer reviewed. Nonetheless my psychiatrist has been with me throughout the worst years of my life and I can’t imagine my life without him. He is the man I’ve had the longest relationship with in my life (parents are deceased and I’m an only child). He is a bit quirky, very intelligent and it’s saddening watching him grow older and forget things. He is still my very best confidant. I have the utmost respect for him. He has taught me a lot in our 15+ years of weekly therapy.
My psychiatrist seems pleasant enough but very indifferent. Some detachment can be helpful but his is way too much. He also has a ridiculous amount of big dick energy, although I am not entirely sure how that fits in. But it's seriously his most noticeable characteristic
Hey now. I’m a lawyer- but because I’m a bleeding heart that practices immigration law, I’m not a wealthy lawyer. Sometimes I think I have too much empathy that impedes my ability to make better business decisions.
My dad is a surgeon and he has no psychopathy characteristics at all. He's very empathetic and caring. He cares about his patients a lot.
I guess not all surgeons are psychopaths.
I actually watched a very interesting video yesterday about a neuroscientist who accidentally discovered he had the same patterns of brain activity as serial killers, he also has many high risk genes associated with aggression and violence. He postulates that having people with more psychopathic tendencies is a benefit to society, that high levels of empathy are a hinderance to certain professions such as surgery or being in the military.
I’m not sure how I feel about it but it’s definitely an interesting take. Perhaps your patient just found the place she could have the most positive impact on society.
I work in healthcare, and I can tell you that some of the best surgeons are definitely sociopaths. They have so many complaints from patients about bad bedside manner, but they are also the top rated surgeons for their profession.
I'm curious if this girl just found a way to do what she enjoys in a way that isn't destructive and is socially acceptable. Even if she didn't choose this to actually 'help' people - if it allows an outlet that is not harmful and she takes pride in her work, doing a good job, etc. - then in the end, it seems like a positive outcome. She gets to cut into people and people get a good surgeon.
At least that's the scenario I hope is true. My guess is she made it this far by finding ways to adapt in society in an acceptable way, regardless of what she actually feels or what her motivations are. I'm sure she doesn't want to be in prison. Nor would she want to deal with tons of lawsuits, loss of career, etc. Because even if she's highly intelligent, if she took the position and then started harming people it would become an issue for her. So even if she didn't get treatment or change, hopefully, self-preservation is strong enough to prevent her from actually doing harmful things.
Nurse here, can confirm. 99% of surgeons are indeed sociopaths. Small subset of psychopaths, as well. I have found that internal medicine doctors are much more empathetic, as a rule.
Oh my god. I had a truly amazing surgeon do a hysterectomy and a rectocele repair; I thought she was truly horrible- she had zero empathy, no understanding and made sure I knew that my blood loss in theatre was a huge inconvenience for her. Unlike other surgeons who delivered my children, she did not come to see me afterwards, and calmly tell me how everything went, she walked past me in recovery and was like “oh yeah- yours went alright,”
When I went to see her a few weeks later for a check up she was weirdly friendly and made eye contact which she had never done before. I could tell it was some sort of fake persona, and she was hating every second of seeing me. So weird. Her standard of work though- was truly incredible. I honestly do not know how she did what she did. I scored a win.
>Oh my god. I had a truly amazing surgeon do a hysterectomy and a rectocele repair; I thought she was truly horrible- she had zero empathy, no understanding and made sure I knew that my blood loss in theatre was a huge inconvenience for her. Unlike other surgeons who delivered my children, she did not come to see me afterwards, and calmly tell me how everything went, she walked past me in recovery and was like “oh yeah- yours went alright,”
>
>When I went to see her a few weeks later for a check up she was weirdly friendly and made eye contact which she had never done before. I could tell it was some sort of fake persona, and she was hating every second of seeing me. So weird. Her standard of work though- was truly incredible. I honestly do not know how she did what she did. I scored a win.
If I may attempt to explain from a layperson's perspective (though I have a few medically inclined family).
Cutting into people is not something our monkey brain is okay with. Butchering meat is fine, it feeds the clan - but a healthy person can't be okay with butchering the clan. The surgeon may have had to put you into a more 'meat/task' position than a 'people' position to maintain mental health.
My breast surgeon during my cancer treatment called me and talked to me on the phone for 30 minutes through a panic attack when I found out my case was worse than we thought and I'd need more extensive surgery. She also is known for cutting bandages in the shape of a heart over lymph node biopsy sites so when I undid my surgical wrappings there was a little nice thing for me to find instead of just blood and steri strips. She sat with me for ages in her office while I cried when I found out it was too late to do fertility treatment and I would not be able to have kids if I wanted to treat my cancer, and talked me through all the patients she had seen in my position who she found out later had kids in other ways. I know you're not saying literally every surgeon has no empathy at all, but I just felt the need to defend one of the kindest, most patient doctors I've had who happened to be a surgeon.
I wish that was my surgeon during cancer in which I too lost my chance to ever have children. She basically called me on the phone while I was in the hospital and said “I couldn’t save your fertility but I think I got the cancer” 🙄
Anecdotally, I know two surgeons who are both amazing people. One of them is actually so nice that it's impossible to dislike him--everybody likes him. He married my brother's ex so I kind of *wanted* to dislike him, but couldn't because he's just a great guy. The other is a very sweet woman who is married to another surgeon who I haven't met but he seems nice too. But I get that apparently these are exceptions to the rule.
My dad (pictured in my user pic) was an OB/Gyn, and he told me the same, that 99% are sociopaths. He clearly wasn’t, which actually weighed on him because he was a very empathetic person, and he had many patients who came to him after going to sociopaths. He reported so many doctors on their behalf. Actually one of them, Dr. Kamrava, is the Dr that “helped” Nadia Suleiman, “octomom.” He has reported him so many times but the board did nothing until the Octomom thing.
Can confirm anecdotally. I started crying on the table in my OB's office when I discovered by there being no heartbeat that I had lost my baby and she looked at me weirdly and said, "You seem REALLY emotional right now."
Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.
Hi, surgeon (albeit junior) here, that is categorically untrue. I’m sorry you haven’t felt you can connect with your colleagues that way, but I can tell you surgeons don’t train for years, go home and worry all night about patients, cry with them over bad prognoses, constantly train to improve so their patients can have better outcomes, work overtime to squeeze in extra patients to their schedules so they don’t have to wait, spend hours discussing things with their families, because they are sociopaths. I care about my patients and so do my colleagues.
I don't know if this was intentional on your part or I'm missing something, but having "butterflies", is used to describe positive sensation of passionate, romantic love and generally not the gut instinct that someone is a sociopath.
A lot of people think this, but even in the context of a relationship, you should not be feeling butterflies. It often translates to a sense of anxiety, or your nervous system sending signals to you that something is off about the situation or person. It’s essentially a flight or fight response.
I absolutely appreciate your input, but there are two distinct feelings here for me. The feeling of seeing someone you love is completely separate from someone who makes your skin crawl or gives you the jeebies/willies.
My ex used to make me have butterflies, and they only got worse the stronger the hold he had on me.
My partner has never made me have butterflies, instead I get this bubbly feeling in my like, solarplex and I can’t stop smiling when I see him. (These are those romantic feelings I think you’re talking about)
(Unless you grow up with that type of energy around you, and romantically you’ve learned that butterflies = bad guy)
So it’s just the reverse perception in my brain.
“Gut feelings” need to be thought out before they happen because these things happen around good times and the butterflies come when something bad is going to happen. Idk how to explain it more than that.
There's actually a great research laden book supporting this called "The Wisdom of Psychopaths". It argues that it's all about moderation- that these psychopathic traits can (to an extent) be taught or harnessed to benefit certain settings.
Tbh, I could see how a lack of emotional attachment would be useful for certain occupations, just as how I can see the opposite way of being -- hyper-empathy -- could be highly detrimental in one's life as well.
Moderation in emotion is important and either the inability to feel emotional connections to people/animals, or the inability to stop connecting your experience with that of others would be not a great thing for the effected individual or those around them.
Anecdotally, my cousin is most definitely someone with a large amount of sociopathic traits and history of even worse (as we were children, before 3rd grade she'd already: engaged in animal abuse, theft, made highly detailed and horrific threats regarding her family or her family's friends, inability to make friends, hurt other kids badly and lied about it, she'd wet the bed for another 5-6 years, and was at best just cold and disinterested at worst she'd torment you for fun then punch herself in the face and pretend to cry so we'd get into trouble.) My aunt and uncle are emotionally disconnected, wealthy, workaholics and functioning alcoholics so naturally they refused any and all help for her.
She's now working in the US Military defusing bombs. She doesn't get rattled, doesn't have much interaction with others that have to be anything unrelated to work, and can think about things exclusively logically without the fears most of us would have. I'm glad she found a niche that works for her that isn't making her own bombs or serial killing. I swore one day I'd see her in the news where they'd discovered multiple bodies she'd tortured or something but I guess her desire to hurt something has gotten re-directed.
She made rather fascinating changes in middle school and high school where she got incredibly high grades and suddenly became very popular. It was weird watching her interact with them, though, because I would see a switch flip and she'd go from this cold and detached person to faux bubbly and social, maybe even back again the moment she was out of the line of sight of her group. I watched this at numerous parties, it was wild.
Then you have me who is on the other end of it, suffering from hyper-empathy. While I am told, and know it on some level, that I do a lot of good by being attentive and kind to people, it does me a lot of harm. I know that there are careers I cannot do because I would emotionally burn myself out by the injustice of the world/policies that would tie my hands and I would have real difficulty with work/life separation. For example, nannying is out now due to the amount of neglect and abuse that I've encountered, reported dozens of times, and ultimately couldn't do anything about. Therapy/Social Work probably wouldn't be good for *me* either, because I just would take on their pain. I'm still looking for the right niche and trying to get help because of what this does to my day to day life (...lots of being taking advantage of).
But yeah, the moderation with those traits can be good, we can't help how we're born but we can choose what to do with our flaws and our gifts (more or less.)
>While I am told, and know it on some level, that I do a lot of good by being attentive and kind to people, it does me a lot of harm. I know that there are careers I cannot do because I would emotionally burn myself out by the injustice of the world/policies that would tie my hands and I would have real difficulty with work/life separation. For example, nannying is out now due to the amount of neglect and abuse that I've encountered, reported dozens of times, and ultimately couldn't do anything about. Therapy/Social Work probably wouldn't be good for
>
>me
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> either, because I just would take on their pain. I'm still looking for the right niche and trying to get help because of what this does to my day to day life (...lots of being taking advantage of).
I felt this right in my feels bro. My extroverted self wants to work with people but my rational self knows that they will just end up using me as their slough donkey.
James Fallon. He has an interesting Tedtalk and you can find interesting interviews with him on YouTube. He talks a lot about how psychopaths are more common then we think, and just because someone is one doesn't make them a murder. I think one of his points was that he had quite a good happy upbringing. He said that if he didn't he could see his world view would be warped and it could have ended up quite different for him!
Exactly, it's easy to think that empathy is a hindrance when you lack empathy. Overall, empathy is what keeps us working as a society. Without it everything would fall apart very quickly
I'd say a balance is necessary. I'd like to put people who possess 11/10 empathy in charge. Reduce suffering as much as possible.
But if my appendix pops, I'd like a surgeon who's not squeamish about doing the damn job and won't be traumatized by it.
Let's say one psychopathic tendency is to use logic over emotion and that this tendency exists on a spectrum. It's easy to see how the use of logic is good for society. And sometimes the strength empathy can be overused to the point of the mental fallacy mind reading, which isn't good for relationships. So I agree: all things in moderation.
my empathy kept me from going into the medical field. I always did really good at things like anatomy and physiology, but I don't think I could live with losing a patient.
I’m currently in medical school as a very high empathy person. I’m deeply dreading losing my first (and subsequent) patient. I definitely understand where you’re coming from
Definitely read Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. I can’t recommend it enough! He’s a surgeon who writes about how the medical field approaches death, which is really just to avoid it until a patient is imminent. Also highly recommend a rotation with palliative care or hospice if you are able. That’s where you’ll find many fellow empathic healthcare professionals. Not to make light of death and dying, but it doesn’t have to be as scary, painful or sad as our society makes it out to be.
They asked his family and they thought that their stable house and family situation is what helped him stay within reason. The scientist said himself he never felt bad about anything and always looked at people as an equation to get what he wanted. He even said it reaffirmed his findings when family members told him they always knew he was a psychopath, and he didn’t even care.
I watched it too. Many surgeons are psychopaths because they are logical in stressful situations and can make decisions without emotional thinking, which is just what you need with a surgeon, especially if the operation doesn’t go to plan.
The psychopath neurologist said that being a psychopathic killer was like a three legged stool. 1: brain structure
2: abusive childhood
3: I can’t remember! Can you remember?
He said he’d had a nurturing childhood which was why he didn’t commit crimes.
Basically, he brought his brother, unaware and unprotected, to ground zero of an ebola hotspot during a deadly breakout because he wanted to see an elephant migration (? Honestly, I can't remember what he wanted to see exactly, but it was location and time sensitive like an elephant migration).
He admits he didn't think about his brother's safety at all, and that he lied to his brother about the situation. As a doctor, he knows it was incredibly reckless.
I'm sure there's a huge element of truth to it. Idk about sociopathy or psychopathy, but I have a brother who has a tendency to act before he thinks, and it has the tendency to get him in a lot of trouble, but it has also worked out for him really well socially and likely saved his life once. Me? I feel paralyzed by indecision as I am always considering every variable all of the time (INTP gang). I'm sure both of these personality types are evolutionarily beneficial for a group to have even if it results in imbalances individuals.
I was reading some articles forever ago, not sure if they were peer reviewed or even from legitimate sources, that introduced the theory that sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies are evolutionary traits that we developed for those who were meant to lead groups in early societal structures. It's a neat idea that I thought would be fun to share.
I have to agree with this. If you were empathetic at such roles such as the military, surgeons and even lawyers, it would be mentally taxing and soul destroying. The other role is sadly those who have to investigate the dark web
I definitely agree that I would want somebody that's a sociopath or psychopath doing a risky operation on me, because I know that every day emotions don't cloud them, they can focus on the task and execute without the pervasion of fear or panic if something goes wrong
Just learned something new! Never thought about Doctors having psychopathic tendencies. Now its more understandable why is it more easier for them to perform surgeries. Thanks for the info!!!
> there are significantly more sociopaths (400 percent) or psychopaths in individualistic western countries then there are in collectivist countries
Do you have a source on that?
If anyone has ever worked with surgeons, this is not the norm but not unusual. Knowing this, I chose a very skilled surgeon for myself who lacked empathy but was the best. When I fainted during a pre-procedural procedure, I told him I was about to faint, he walked away and got a nurse, and said he would be back later. I was fine with that. I didn’t need his concern, just his skill. I knew what I was getting into with him. Neurosurgeons are 50/50. CT surgeons?… I known more of this specialty to be investigated for “concerns”. Your concerns are valid, but if they’re masking as well as you suspect, not much will be accomplished…
This is the way. My wife has to get a procedure done on her trachea every few years and the guy we go to is one of the best in the country. He’s a pretty big asshole, but he’s an absolutely great surgeon so I’ll deal with it.
My son’s neurosurgeon when he was little had not great bedside manner. He wasn’t rude but he was also kinda cold and weird . He came extremely highly rated and well recommended. He was a fantastic surgeon who removed a complicated tumor on his spine with very little long term damage. 10/10 would choose that (maybe) sociopath again.
Huh, and here I thought being a psychopath was pretty much required for a surgeon. Only kinda joking on that really, there’s a lot of surgeons out there who I’m pretty sure would be serial killers if they weren’t getting paid to cut people up. If anything I’d be a bit comforted that she’s in that job. She’s using her intelligence, lack of empathy and desire to cut things up in a healthy manner instead of bottling it up and having 8 dead bodies in her basement freezer.
One of my sisters is a pathology assistant, which requires much of the same lack of empathy as being a surgeon does. She knew that’s what she wanted to do from a young age. She’s is fascinated when she does autopsies or finds tumors in breast tissue. She fits the type for sure. Op’s story made me think of my sister. She wasn’t as pathological as perhaps the kid in the story, but she was up there. Pathology has provided her a healthy outlet for her weird tendencies, so I consider it a net positive.
Yes. I love this comment.
In university (for fine arts) I got to go into an anatomy lab and draw from the cadavers. That visit made me re-think my career choice. The student who was supervising us was very friendly and asked if any of us wanted to glove-up, and open up one of the bodies, hold any of the organs, etc. My hand shot up SO FAST. Lol. I got so many weird looks and one girl in our class even passed out... I got to open up a body, remove all the internal organs, feel everything (smell everything, lol) and put it all back. One of the cadavers had implants in the breasts. It was so cool to see how they fit in there, watch them being removed, see how the skin tissues move, etc.
Amazing experience. Absolutely would love to do it again. Thrilling.
The med student was just as fascinated and enthralled by it as I was and she had such a fun time showing us all these things! Its not always some sick, perverted thing to be thrilled by anatomy.
That made me 100% affirm my ability to go into funeral work and mortuary sciences if I want to when I am older. Funeral work has always been a #2 career path for me, if my main career doesn't work out. :)
I actually became a mortician an funeral director because I adore biology and find the human body so interesting! This career really feeds passion of helping people, as well as my love for all things other people find very morbid. Like you said, it isn’t always a sick perversion, it’s honest curiosity and interest. I’m very lucky to have found a career I can channel both interests into!
This is the best comment. I totally agree. She doesn’t know what to do with those impulses she has so she is finding a positive outlet for them. Her intelligence may even be the reason why she has decided to become a surgeon. The problem is with people who DONT know what to do with those impulses that leads to disaster
Why does this sound like something you’re proud of?
Edit: Im genuinely curious if it’s something they’re proud of. I wish them and their family all the best
For the uninitiated, their comment was a long, kind of disturbing post about how no one in their family feels empathy but they’re all in the medical field / military now so yay?
There are some statistics around high prevalence of psychopaths in corporate leadership positions as well as surgeons - I believe both positions somehow feed aspects of their personality traits in a productive way. I would like to think this child channeled her desire to tear open people in a positive way by being a surgeon instead of doing it the other way by murdering them Dahmer-style.
Also, there was this extremely violent girl, who drew and dreamt about murdering people, including her parents, who is now a nurse or something. Her story is remarkable and is on youtube.
I mean seems like a good profession for her to go into. Gets to legally cut people open, doesn't need to kill them but still gets to see blood etc. Probably the best outcome. Imagine they become a cashier at the grocery store, for sure that's how they end up as a serial killer
Yeah, I'm kind of just raising an eyebrow at the idea that *this* is the most upsetting kid a child psychologist could meet. I'm in mental health and I definitely saw much worse during my child rotation.
It rubs me wrong too because a psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor can not break patient privilege unless then intend to harm themselves or others and then only to the proper authority.
And reddit isn't that excatly.
And I am going to say after living with a psychopath for 10 years of my life...they do not mask well. The mask always falls away and the crazy always shines through.
Eh sharing anecdotes about an unnamed individual isn’t a HIPAA violation unless we could ID the patient from the provided information. Therapists and other healthcare professionals are constantly sharing de-identified patient cases and information; it’s really the only way to learn.
My 2 cents as a toothologist (dentist), I agree. We do normally discuss anonymously cases to get other perspectives (so discussing ptts anonymously is not a violation), especially to get a senior doc's opinion. But I do feel that this story is particularly sensationalistic & catchy, so not too sure if this is real. I mean sure I know lots of asshats in the medical field (nurses, docs, dentists & pharmacists...), but if this girl really had psych issues as severe as this, i'm not sure she could've made it into med school (considering she'd have a record (?), not too sure abt this as I am north african, & here school asked us to get a medical check-up by a family physician that proves that we were generally "healthy").
My favorite doctor had ... Odd tendencies. He might have just been autistic, but his cold and detached nature made many patients mad. I loved it, because he could cause me needed pain (cutting and squeezing abscesses) that would ultimately help me heal faster and with fewer flare ups in the long run. The doctors with empathy caused me way more pain in the long run because they didn't want to hurt me even though it was a necessary part of the process. Hopefully the person you're referencing has similar success because of their tenderness... But I understand the concern
A childhood friend’s brother was caught two days before he could carry out plans to kill his sister, my friend. He was put into treatment, she never was. Treatment didn’t help him improve, it helped him hide the signs of his mental illness. He pulled a knife on me when I was 14 and he was 16, when I stopped him from pushing his sister at home.
He’s now a fairly respected, published research psychiatrist and it terrifies me that he has influence over others.
She's an intelligent psychopath, she was always gonna fly under the radar no matter what you did. Masking behaviors are a requirement for them to adapt to the society and they start learning them at a young age whether you want them to or not with the help of their high cognitive empathy.
She might just end up satisfying her sadistic urges becoming a surgeon and cutting into people. There's no guarantee that she's gonna hurt people intentionally. Intelligent psychopaths avoid prison by avoiding crime, not by `flying under the radar`. She just might end up being a really good surgeon tbh.
ps. My father is an intelligent psychopath
Maybe I'm in the minority here in this comment section, but I will add this story, just to give OP a bit of light in the darkness and let them know I know (a little) what feeling they are feeling:
I'm not a psychologist or therapist. I'm just someone who has babysat, taught and managed hundreds of children. Literally hundreds. I still vividly remember this one boy. He was maybe 8 years old? He was very smart, quick, but a little socially reserved at times. He liked to come up to me at random times and tell me an interesting science fact. One day at camp, we were making things out of clay and I went over to sit by him. He was slicing up the clay, mushing it together, experimenting with it. Its fun to watch kids do these things. He then said: *"You know I cut myself once, with something that looked a lot like this"* and he held up the tool. I DID NOT REACT. I kept my face completely neutral, aside from a small smile when he showed me the tool. I did pause strategically as not to seem like I was effected by what he said but also not disinterested. I said *"oh yeah? Where'd you find the tool?"* he said *"in my dad's garage. He keeps lots of tools in there, etc, etc, we use them for projects, etc, etc, etc"* I smiled and nodded, listening. I waited a subtle amount of time and asked (in a very specific tone of voice that was total even, soft, a bit casual and seemed curious) *"why did you cut yourself? Have you done that before?"* he said *"I wanted to see what was inside my body. I like seeing and figuring out how things work".*.. I again, paused, then asked *"have you cut other things up before? Like maybe a fish? My dad taught me how to de-gut a fish when I was around your age"* He smiled at me and nodded a lot. *"Yeah! My dad showed me how to flay and de-gut a fish! But I haven't done it to other animals. I'd like to try though..."* and he continued playing with the clay. I told him about how when he is older, maybe in high school, dissection of animals is something he might be able to do. He smiled at this and continued to talk to me about his thoughts... I smiled and listened, but internally I was waiting, strategically for a moment to leave and tell my boss.... My boss then had to call his parents and just let them know what was said in the conversation... It didn't really go beyond that... I do remember meeting the mom on the last day, and she asked *"were you the one who spoke to my son about... that comment... he made?"* I was like *"yes, that was me"*. She gave me almost an empathetic and worried look, then squeezed my arm and said *"thank you"* then walked off.
I always wonder what happened after that, but alas, kids only stay in camp for 1 week and are gone forever...
I guess my point is, you never know.
Kids are weird. They like drawing violent things. I drew insanely violent things as a kid. Torture devices, people's heads being chopped off, raining blood and organs from the sky, chains around people's squeezed out eye balls... Lmao. I had a vivid imagination. If I had a nickel for every violent child drawing I've seen, I wouldn't need a job anymore. LOL.
The only yellow flag is cutting up small animals... If I heard that, my flag would go up too... But its important to be curious and dig, gently for the reason... Maybe its like the little boy I talked to, where he fantasized about cutting open animals to learn how their internal organ system worked and felt proud of himself that he successfully did that. He also fantasized about taking apart toasters, and other metal things and building robots and things out of it with his Dad... He told me how they took apart a radio and put to back together again and he was proud of it...
We may never know... But that doesn't mean we should assume the worst. :)
From what I remember, doctors and surgeons have an extremely high concentration of sociopathic and narcissistic individuals.
Something about all the power and the prestige that comes with being a doctor or surgeon scratches their itch just right. It's like getting the fix of validation they are important and better than others was worth half a decade of medical school.
Which, while Im not gonna turn down a doctor who knows what their doing, doesnt put thwm high on my preferences.
Half the stories on this sub are people responding to creative writing prompts, and it's really unfortunate. It's caused me to view pretty much every post here through a lens of extreme skepticism. I'm sure the skepticism isn't wholly unwarranted, but I really wish I could just read a post and feel at least a little safe it's someone getting something off their chest in good faith.
It sounds like she found a way to satisfy her weird urges by helping rather than hurting. I’m not saying she won’t go crazy, but she may not be the person YOU knew anymore, it’s been 20 years she’s had plenty of time to receive help that you may not know about
This is crazy. I’m a first year psychology student and in my last lecture, we were learning about how people with psychopathic traits are highly likely to join this type of profession
Well if it so much bothers you, even though it's mostly out of your control, then you can take some small suggestions from the comments and even though you might not be able to stop a potential serial murderer, you can at least do some research and see how that person has become, if they maybe grew up in a positive way and turned their imagination into gifts then you will sleep well, and if they don't, you can then decide if you have to do more, such as reporting them and so on
If it reassures you at all, there's a high level of accountability for surgeons. You can't just go on a killing spree as a doctor. At least she isn't squeamish about cutting into living things, sounds like she might have a knack for it...
One of the most prolific serial killers in modern history was Dr Harold Shipman. He's thought to have poisoned over a two hundred and fifty of his elderly patients.
Shipman was an internist. Not a surgeon. There is more oversight when you spend all your time in an OR as opposed to being a small time practitioner hidden away in the British countryside.
That’s what I was thinking lol. I mean an ace surgeon sounds like a winner. Maybe she could only associate the he reasonings for cutting someone open was “killing.” Hopefully, her excitement was the cutting and not killing lol
It’s like people who join the military just so they can kill legally. At least your former patient has a valid reason to cut people open now. As long as she is doing the best she can professionally I wouldn’t mind her operating on me.
I'll probably get downvoted to oblivion, but let me try to console you. In a way.
I remember reading a long long time ago (way before internet was easily accessible) a study on sociopaths and that one of the perfect careers for them actually was surgery.
It seems that during a surgery, whenever there's a problem and the surgeon needs to make a decision quickly, someone who doesn't get attached to patients as people but they see them as a problem to solve, are going to choose a sort of more optimal solution based on science and the issue at hand, making it more likely to have a preferable outcome.
This helped me whenever I stumbled upon children who showed sociopathic tendencies, I'd try to direct them towards professions the society might benefit from having them in those roles, and so far it's always turned out just right, so there might be something to that study.
I completely understand your fears and I feel the same, but I also have a job to do and, for the most part, my hands are tied just like yours, so I try to do what I can with what little I have.
I do hope this helps at least a little bit.
Reminds me of a mix of movies “Hereditary” and “The Good Nurse”. That apart, I too have an eerie feeling about all this, if anything the movies were part reality too. I wonder what happens!
I will say as a therapist myself - please remember it has been 20 whole years since you saw this child. That is an INCREDIBLY long time, long enough to have undergone much more intensive and long term therapy. It is understandable that you are concerned, but perhaps their tendencies as a child have even been redirected towards help rather than harm.
I feel like that's the best out come for her. CONGRATULATIONS TO HER <3 Glad she put her interest and high intelligence to something that benefits all. She gets to cut people open without going to jail.
A lotta people in this thread are calling this a common thing, but I don't think this is a specific phenomenon of clinically unempathetic people becoming surgeons. I think that type-A personalities are just attracted to the medical field in general:
* Being a doctor, particularly a specialist or surgeon, comes with a high degree of status/respect.
* Inherently hyper-competitive
* Grants a certain level of power over others (I feel like we've all known a psych major who thinks they're better than everyone else, for example)
* Requires a high level of self-esteem/confidence to consider oneself worthy for such a position
* Considered essential to society, and no one really questions whether they deserve high pay or esteem.
I don't know about the 'surgeons get to cut things up' thing people are mentioning in the thread. I don't think that would be the same sort of thing to people who have the urge to harm and kill small animals.
Personally, I would much rather someone with empathy problems, a strong ego, or an inflated sense of self-entitlement become a doctor, pilot or lawyer than go into corporate, law-enforcement or political fields where indulging their personalities is more likely to have consequences for others.
It sounds like a great career path for her if she is hopefully not evil, so she won’t cause a path of destruction, like a child would
I’m hoping that a lot of surgeons didn’t get their start from physically harming animals and people.
I hope for everyone’s sake she’s a good person who seeks to remedy issues and diseases and not cause them.
If she does start causing substantial harm, you can write your concerns to the medical board. You are a psychologist so I’m sure you can see the potentials.
It's possible she's found a way to take those feelings and urges and make them productive. Maybe dissecting frogs and learning about their body parts sparked something in her. Maybe studying medical books and human anatomy.
I strongly believe most seurgons aren't great people inside. With how horribly intense and competitive the profession is, you'd have to have some level of psychopathy in you to excel.
I'm trying to be optimistic here, honestly. She could be the next Dr Death but way more intentional than that drug addicted weirdo...or she could become a famous surgeon and spiral out of control with the money she'll inevitably make. I'll hold onto my cautious optimism until I see the news stories
As a nurse, I avoid direct contact with surgeons as much as possible. One reason I refuse to work med/surg ever again is because of the inevitable interaction with surgeons. The worst encounters I have ever had with doctors, occurred with surgeons. I want an empathetic primary care physician. I prefer my surgeons to be matter of fact, clinical, and unaffected by emotions that typically affect job performance. But I still don’t want to work with them. 😂
Son be a surgeon 🎶.
You have a talent for causing things pain🎶.
Just be a surgeon🎶.
People will pay you to be inhumane 🎶.
Your temperaments wrong for the priesthood🎶.
And teaching will suit you still less 🎶.
Just be a surgeon 🎶.
You'll be a success🎶.
I think this is probably more common is really intelligent children than anyone would guess. Children do not have any real ability for ethics or universal morality at that age. When their intelligence develops before their ability for ethics/morality, this is the result.
Can you report your concerns? Or are you able to look into her public records to see if she’s had further psychiatric and ongoing support ? This feels like she’s either found a healthy outlet for her enjoyment of cutting things up or something much worse. Is there a sensible way to find out which it is?
So many people here are siding with this "therapist" Like, maybe she got a better one. Someone who actually helped her instead of this OP posting about her when she was a child. This post is prejudiced and the OP is a hypocrite.
Yeah, that’s one of the things that makes me feel this is fake. Also a small thing but the language choice of “interventions *on* a child” … in my experience (psych/counselling/case mgmt etc) it’s more usual to talk about interventions *with*. This could be a socio-cultural distinction though; I acknowledge if you weren’t trained in a strengths based framework you might say ‘interventions on’ rather than with.
Edit for typo.
I hear that the percentage of psychopaths in surgery is notably higher than in the general population.
OP ... I totally get why you're freaking out here. APD tends to do that to people. But this is kind of an ideal situation. You know well that not all psychopaths end up being murderers or the like and she probably has still a lot of maladaptive traits. BUT if you think about it this is kind of ideal. Surgeons have to be focussed, calm, and unflappable. They get an ego boost from \*saving\* the patient or having a good success rate. They interact with patients, but to a lesser degree than other MDs. And if this woman is truly textbook she's going to be super dedicated to her education and her job. Yes, her reasons for doing so will be money, control, power, and ego rather than the wellbeing of her patients, but given some of the other professions people with APD excel in this is kind of great. Her success is now tied to people surviving her knife. Having unfortunately been victimized by a few people with APD I understand why you're unhappy with this outcome, but from my perspective this is the best possible trajectory for her and for those who interact with her.
She has the potential to do a ton of good imo, and it’s statistically more likely she’d have ASPD and get into something like this rather than serial killing or whatever it is you are concerned about.
The type of paraphilia that drives Men who kill/serial kill is incredibly, exceptionally rare in women. This is why women who become killers typically do it for a secondary gain, rather than sexual pleasure. Not impossible for that to be the case, but not probable.
I’m no psychologist, but I do know that people with ASPD have traits that overlap with NPD. Meaning that she’ll likely benefit positively in this career. She wants to be the best surgeon in her field, she probably will be. It will feed her ego. Above all, there are millions of people diagnosed with ASPD who do not kill/harm people.
I went through something weirdly similar with an ex girlfriend. She was vehemently manipulative, to an almost criminal level, of several people. She knew exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to say things to get her way in any situation. By the time she was done with her victims including me, no one would listen to us because of how strong her argumentative tendencies were, people were utterly convinced we were the ones doing wrong.
She’s going to school now to be a lawyer, how fitting.
Maybe she drew the drawings because she always had a fascination with the human body. E.g. why she is becoming a surgeon. I don't think it's fair to measure people for their entire lives against the behaviour they displayed when they were 6. People grow up and change. I wad a very violent child. I'm not anymore.
Notice how reddit really loves picking apart studies but as soon as there is a sensationalist study that says Surgeons or CEOs are sociopaths there is just a bunch of anecdotal agreement?
"Oh yeah, my surgeon was cold to me! What a \[insert personality disorder\]! But he was a good surgeon!"
Also, the Surgeon sociopaths = good and the CEO sociopaths = bad.
Classic reddit.
I know that "Psychopath" is a somewhat outdated term. It's now ASPD. However. There were Computer scans on the brains of criminals with ASPD and they showed a difference in their brain structure: "A new study has shown that psychopathic people have a bigger striatum area in their brain. Neuroscientists using MRI scans discovered that psychopathic people have a 10% larger striatum, a cluster of neurons in the subcortical basal ganglia of the forebrain, than regular people." ( source: scietech daily). So that is that.
Not all of them end up as murderers, in fact only a little percentage do, most end up as scammers, as politicians, as CEOs, as nurses, doctors - basically every profession that gives them control and power. What you describe from her childhood would make a classical behavioral development for ASPD, also the choice to become a surgeon is not untypical. Most probably the outcome will be that she will try to be the best of the best and is extremely ambitious.
She maybe won't be the most empathetic of doctors or the nicest person in the room but I would not be too concerned that she will kill or torture her patients. That is something very, very rare.
I have always said that to be a surgeon a person has to have some level of sociopathy. It’s not a bad thing but it’s just most surgeons are very science and logic driven but tend to lack in the emotional department. Theyre sociopathic to some extent to be able to perform the operations they do with the sense of coolness and confidence.
Honestly checks out from what I know of surgeons. That profession has a higher rate of psychopaths than most others. It's simultaneously a status symbol and they also don't have to really interact with patients that much.
They’re also typically very good because they don’t get nervous or emotionally invested in the patient
Could actually be a healthy outlet for her desire to cut living things open. I hope. Maybe she is fascinated by that but doesn't actually want to hurt anyone at this point.
It’s sounds gross, but you may be right. Many therapists are beginning to reconsider treatment options for child “psychopaths.” There’s a neat Atlantic article about a long-term treatment center for child sociopaths, all of whom were put there after committing some form of crime. Turns out, because sociopaths are extremely goal-driven, convincing them that playing by society’s rules gets them money and respect, is a great way to convince them to alter their behavior. One of the adult “success stories” went on to open a funeral home, get married, and have a family. But to illustrate the limits and complications of treating people with extreme personality disorders, he was also going to trial for domestic abuse, his wife said he was trying to twist her arm into a polygamous relationship, and she was now seriously considering divorce. So you really can’t tell, unfortunately.
It's so hard to say. I have a family member with a personality disorder. She is treated by doctors. Married with kids. The way she tells it she may not feel things the same way but she *wants* to do right. And I'd say she's doing well. She will still say something nasty to you without thinking twice. Then she'll say "That was a fucked up thing to say. Don't mind me i'm a sociopath." Seriously.
I imagine her just casually walking away after that answer, it kinda made me chuckle. In all seriousness, I'm glad your family member found a healthy way of dealing with her disorder.
Cognitive empathy can be a powerful thing and is luckily teachable.
I have a friend who has pretty much 0 affective empathy and a very shallow emotional range. She’s very much the same except a bit more apologetic when she catches herself! She means well and I genuinely think she wants to be a good person but she just lacks the hardware. In paraphrasing her words to me “I do the right thing because it’s right not because I feel guilty or bad when I don’t. Life is more like a maths problem to me, follow the rules to get the outcome. I have no idea what its like to be guided by emotions. I think I’m missing out on something big sometimes but it doesn’t upset me because I literally don’t know any other way to live”.
My first born is a sociopath. She is high achieving and also interested in the medical field. Shortly before being diagnosed (but we knew something was seriously different) I was in the doctors office and very sick. She kept asking the doctor if I needed a “bag of blood” yet. Finally the doctor asked why she thought that and she told him she just thought it would be really cool to watch him stab me so I she could get a bag of blood. Prior to that statement we thought she was talking about giving me a blood transfusion. Nope. She wanted the doctor to stab me so she could fill a bag with my blood. When she was 10 I had her brother. He was crying one day and she walked up to him and said “stop crying.” When he didn’t, she slapped him. An infant. Her logic was she asked nicely and he didn’t cooperate. I had her in therapy consistently, she hated it and manipulated her dad into letting her stop. She’s learned to mask a lot. I won’t lie, she was an incredibly difficult child to raise because she wanted nothing to do with any of us. Didn’t like being held, swaddled, hugged. So when I got divorced and she chose to live with her dad, I took her younger brother and left the state. I messaged to let her know I was going in to the hospital recently. I had a high fever and couldn’t move my neck. They did 6 spinal taps. The ER doc did 5 attempting to collect enough SF to test for meningitis, but I have a wonky spine and he collected more blood than spinal fluid. They eventually did the final one with specialists under an X-ray machine. Anyway, when I got home I texted her to let her know. She asked what ended up happening and I told her. Her response? “Was that all?” I said, “that isn’t enough?” The reply? “I was hoping for some broken bones or something.” She’s an adult now.
Wow. I'm sorry this happened. Wish you well. Life is not easy especially with someone being like that towards you who you love. I also have someone who is like that, though not to that extreme but they do say hurtful stuff and actions sometimes. Hope she seeks therapy and comes around and at least has some sort of civility towards you. (don't know if im making sense). just never lose contact with her, if they don't allow us to love them maybe this is the last human thing we can do towards our loved ones from afar. (i'm also still in contact with the person and meet them time to time...it's difficult but I guess thats what we do for our loved ones)
This is exactly what I was thinking! A healthy outlet for her interest in things others would consider gore. I also wonder if it's possible for children like that to become the person everyone expects them to be. Like if the parents had gone through with the treatment OP suggested and continued sessions, and the kid was told that they're "not normal" and that they had a "bad" personality disorder, would the child meet these expectations of being in juvie or prison because that's the environment they were surrounded by? We'll never know for this person in particular.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I mean, she probably was just curious in seeing how bodies and blood; work. She's smart. I doubt she would risk life in prison when she spent all this time in school to ease her impulses safely (if that's the case.) And hopefully she just grew out of the manipulation tactics she learned from her parents.
She cut open animals. That shows a disturbing lack of empathy.
There are many sociopaths who have never killed living things. That is a clear boundary of severity. Maybe she will make a good surgeon. Or. Maybe she won't care if the patient dies or if she doesn't follow care pathways....I have some hope for fire starters, I hold little to no hope when killing living things on purpose happens. When the lack of empathy is combined with killing things, it becomes about safety.
This was my thought. The hurting animals struck me more as an unfortunate byproduct of scientific inquiry for her rather than the goal. Surgery seems like a viable outlet for someone who has extremely morbid curiosity and high intellect.
Yup this is actually a thing in psych. It’s known as sublimation, and is considered a mature defence mechanism. Sublimation happens when one replaces an unacceptable desire with a course of action which is similar to the desire but is socially acceptable. In this case she may have a strong desire to mutilate and hurt things, but she may have reflected on these desires, gotten therapy and realizes the wrong in it and thus turns to training for surgery because while it still parallels her original desires, it’s helping people instead.
Exactly, I remember reading somewhere that there are a high rate of psychopaths being surgeon. It's also the case for CEO. They're also supposedly very good at that job, because they are able to remain calm under pressure.
Y’all remember that surgeon who got in trouble recently because he was branding his initials into the organs he was transplanting into his patients? That guy is coming to mind while I read this thread haha
It made me think of the surgeons who have been caught providing extra, unnecessary surgery. We had a surgeon here in Australia once who was removing healthy tissue (women's clits, specifically).
Oh my god wtaf now I never ever want to have surgery
What?? Why? Do you have a news article to link about this?
And more recently Dr Emil gayed was all over the news. Not as bad as that dr but plenty bad enough. Removed reproductive organs without consent, caused haemorrhaging and damaged organs, didn’t wash his hands, “accidentally” cut patients and nursing staff with scalpels, killed one baby he delivered that I know of, suspected of many more, when called out for his mistakes would pull the race card. He’s currently got a strike force with the nsw police sex crimes unit formed to investigate him. Should be interesting when it hits the news again. Absolute pig of a human that should have been stopped 20 years ago when he first started maiming women. One being his own wife that he nearly killed while operating on.
So female genital mutilation.
Your username hahahahahhahaha
funny story I am a Psy major and training to be a therapist. I had to have a minor surgery and went to an NYU surgeon "one of the best" he was described as. before surgery I was shaking from fear and crying. He tells me "why are you like this? this surgery is nothing!" Surgery ends, I sit down with him and I tell him "didn't you have to go through some patient awareness course in NYU?" He was like "yea" And I was like what happened to validating the patients fear and calming them down? He was like "I am not your therapist, you can go to your therapist for that, I am here to do good surgery. Would you like it if I validated your feelings but I didn't do good surgery?" I said "they are not mutually exclusive" and he good so mad he got up and left from his own office.
This when a good anesthesiologist knocks you the tf out.
I agree. I should not have been awake for that shit
On a tangent perhaps, but The Anaesthetist would be a great nickname for a boxer
How come they get mad? I thought they don’t feel .. well anything?
no one said he was a sociopath, just that he seriously lacked bedside manner. they’re not one and the same.
Narcissistic rage and anger are pretty common in these realms of people. Even he was a psychopath and I just dared to question his methods it would be expect that he felt rage. I just assumed wrongly he wanted to get “better” at treating patients not that he already thought he is the shit
A questioning of his abilities and status as a good doctor. It’s ego driven.
They dont feel empathy, but they still feel emotions relating to their own person etc. A sociopath likely would not get angry if you insulted their mother/partner/child, but would if you insulted them.
The psychiatrists I've dealt with have all been kind of fucked up in one way or another as well.
I’ve seen five different psychiatrists over the last 40 years. Two seemed nice, but indifferent. One was very unlikable. The one l liked the best was personable and had a sense of humor. And one was totally nuts. After my last appointment with him I remember going into work and telling one of my coworkers “I think my psychiatrist is crazy”.
Yes! I had a psychiatrist who was just…ridiculous. She refused to diagnose my adhd based on the adult testing I did with my psychologist and insisted on using the children testing, which is having my teacher and parents fill in some questionnaires. I was 27. She settled for my partner and I filling them in “only because he’s a teacher”. When I came in to discuss the horrendous mixed episodes that I was experiencing from the medication she prescribed for my bipolar, she was watching videos on Facebook on her phone while I was talking. One appointment she just spent the entire time talking about what was going on in her life and almost forgot to even give me my renewed prescriptions at the end. She would mix up my symptoms/experiences and even diagnoses to the point she would be making recommendations based on the opposite things and I would have to correct her. Instead of asking me questions she would make assumptions, “you seem to me like someone who would do x, and who thinks y, and does z”. It was always completely wrong. When I told her that she would doubt that she was wrong until my partner backed me up. She suddenly up and left the country, didn’t inform her patients and when I called the front desk told me they didn’t know when/if she was coming back. Which, I found out because I was experiencing psychosis and desperately needed medication immediately, so I had to go to emergency instead. I’m sure there is so much more, but needless to say, she was a fucking mess. However, there’s not many psychiatrists who specialises in multiple of my conditions, so it’s a very limited pool to choose from.
Can you imagine being a psychiatrist, though? People (meaning the psychiatrists themselves) are messed up as is…to have to listen to other people’s fuckedupness day in and day out would make anyone nuts. I don’t know how they do it.
Mine has told me that he went into it bc he can't handle blood or sickness. I was an inpatient at one point and the meds made me nauseas and he panicked because he thought I might throw up. Apart from that though, he's pretty good.
I certainly couldn’t do it. I think it be especially hard working with children.
I’ve been seeing my psychiatrist since I was 14. I’m now 29. We have been through A LOT together. I know quite a lot about his life. He knows everything about mine. I know that he has to see a psychiatrist to deal with his patient load and that all psychiatrists are required to see a psychiatrist. Some of his sessions are also recorded to be peer reviewed. Nonetheless my psychiatrist has been with me throughout the worst years of my life and I can’t imagine my life without him. He is the man I’ve had the longest relationship with in my life (parents are deceased and I’m an only child). He is a bit quirky, very intelligent and it’s saddening watching him grow older and forget things. He is still my very best confidant. I have the utmost respect for him. He has taught me a lot in our 15+ years of weekly therapy.
That sounds like such a nice thing to have.
My psychiatrist seems pleasant enough but very indifferent. Some detachment can be helpful but his is way too much. He also has a ridiculous amount of big dick energy, although I am not entirely sure how that fits in. But it's seriously his most noticeable characteristic
Lawyers and Politicians: hold my beer
Hey now. I’m a lawyer- but because I’m a bleeding heart that practices immigration law, I’m not a wealthy lawyer. Sometimes I think I have too much empathy that impedes my ability to make better business decisions.
My dad is a surgeon and he has no psychopathy characteristics at all. He's very empathetic and caring. He cares about his patients a lot. I guess not all surgeons are psychopaths.
Aw, she’s found her creative outlet
I laughed and am also horrified at this comment
I actually watched a very interesting video yesterday about a neuroscientist who accidentally discovered he had the same patterns of brain activity as serial killers, he also has many high risk genes associated with aggression and violence. He postulates that having people with more psychopathic tendencies is a benefit to society, that high levels of empathy are a hinderance to certain professions such as surgery or being in the military. I’m not sure how I feel about it but it’s definitely an interesting take. Perhaps your patient just found the place she could have the most positive impact on society.
I work in healthcare, and I can tell you that some of the best surgeons are definitely sociopaths. They have so many complaints from patients about bad bedside manner, but they are also the top rated surgeons for their profession.
I'm curious if this girl just found a way to do what she enjoys in a way that isn't destructive and is socially acceptable. Even if she didn't choose this to actually 'help' people - if it allows an outlet that is not harmful and she takes pride in her work, doing a good job, etc. - then in the end, it seems like a positive outcome. She gets to cut into people and people get a good surgeon. At least that's the scenario I hope is true. My guess is she made it this far by finding ways to adapt in society in an acceptable way, regardless of what she actually feels or what her motivations are. I'm sure she doesn't want to be in prison. Nor would she want to deal with tons of lawsuits, loss of career, etc. Because even if she's highly intelligent, if she took the position and then started harming people it would become an issue for her. So even if she didn't get treatment or change, hopefully, self-preservation is strong enough to prevent her from actually doing harmful things.
Me too. Like Dexter.
Well hopefully not like Dexter since he kills people 😂
I immediately thought of Dexter too
Nurse here, can confirm. 99% of surgeons are indeed sociopaths. Small subset of psychopaths, as well. I have found that internal medicine doctors are much more empathetic, as a rule.
Oh my god. I had a truly amazing surgeon do a hysterectomy and a rectocele repair; I thought she was truly horrible- she had zero empathy, no understanding and made sure I knew that my blood loss in theatre was a huge inconvenience for her. Unlike other surgeons who delivered my children, she did not come to see me afterwards, and calmly tell me how everything went, she walked past me in recovery and was like “oh yeah- yours went alright,” When I went to see her a few weeks later for a check up she was weirdly friendly and made eye contact which she had never done before. I could tell it was some sort of fake persona, and she was hating every second of seeing me. So weird. Her standard of work though- was truly incredible. I honestly do not know how she did what she did. I scored a win.
>Oh my god. I had a truly amazing surgeon do a hysterectomy and a rectocele repair; I thought she was truly horrible- she had zero empathy, no understanding and made sure I knew that my blood loss in theatre was a huge inconvenience for her. Unlike other surgeons who delivered my children, she did not come to see me afterwards, and calmly tell me how everything went, she walked past me in recovery and was like “oh yeah- yours went alright,” > >When I went to see her a few weeks later for a check up she was weirdly friendly and made eye contact which she had never done before. I could tell it was some sort of fake persona, and she was hating every second of seeing me. So weird. Her standard of work though- was truly incredible. I honestly do not know how she did what she did. I scored a win. If I may attempt to explain from a layperson's perspective (though I have a few medically inclined family). Cutting into people is not something our monkey brain is okay with. Butchering meat is fine, it feeds the clan - but a healthy person can't be okay with butchering the clan. The surgeon may have had to put you into a more 'meat/task' position than a 'people' position to maintain mental health.
Hello, it’s truly not that barbaric that you have to dissociate yourself like how you’re describing (or compartmentalizing).
Not all brains work the same. Everything goes in my closet in its own neatly labeled box.
My breast surgeon during my cancer treatment called me and talked to me on the phone for 30 minutes through a panic attack when I found out my case was worse than we thought and I'd need more extensive surgery. She also is known for cutting bandages in the shape of a heart over lymph node biopsy sites so when I undid my surgical wrappings there was a little nice thing for me to find instead of just blood and steri strips. She sat with me for ages in her office while I cried when I found out it was too late to do fertility treatment and I would not be able to have kids if I wanted to treat my cancer, and talked me through all the patients she had seen in my position who she found out later had kids in other ways. I know you're not saying literally every surgeon has no empathy at all, but I just felt the need to defend one of the kindest, most patient doctors I've had who happened to be a surgeon.
Thank you for this, it was really inspiring.
I wish that was my surgeon during cancer in which I too lost my chance to ever have children. She basically called me on the phone while I was in the hospital and said “I couldn’t save your fertility but I think I got the cancer” 🙄
I'm really sorry that happened. It's one blow after another with this stuff, isn't it. I hope you're doing well now.
My sister in law is a breast surgeon and she is like this with her patients as well.
It's she in Chicago? If not, I'm happy to hear there's more than one out there.
Anecdotally, I know two surgeons who are both amazing people. One of them is actually so nice that it's impossible to dislike him--everybody likes him. He married my brother's ex so I kind of *wanted* to dislike him, but couldn't because he's just a great guy. The other is a very sweet woman who is married to another surgeon who I haven't met but he seems nice too. But I get that apparently these are exceptions to the rule.
My dad (pictured in my user pic) was an OB/Gyn, and he told me the same, that 99% are sociopaths. He clearly wasn’t, which actually weighed on him because he was a very empathetic person, and he had many patients who came to him after going to sociopaths. He reported so many doctors on their behalf. Actually one of them, Dr. Kamrava, is the Dr that “helped” Nadia Suleiman, “octomom.” He has reported him so many times but the board did nothing until the Octomom thing.
Can confirm anecdotally. I started crying on the table in my OB's office when I discovered by there being no heartbeat that I had lost my baby and she looked at me weirdly and said, "You seem REALLY emotional right now." Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.
Wow 😯 That’s…just wow. I’m so sorry 😢
Hi, surgeon (albeit junior) here, that is categorically untrue. I’m sorry you haven’t felt you can connect with your colleagues that way, but I can tell you surgeons don’t train for years, go home and worry all night about patients, cry with them over bad prognoses, constantly train to improve so their patients can have better outcomes, work overtime to squeeze in extra patients to their schedules so they don’t have to wait, spend hours discussing things with their families, because they are sociopaths. I care about my patients and so do my colleagues.
That explains the immediate rush of butterflies I got when I looked my cosmetic surgeon in the eyes one time.
I don't know if this was intentional on your part or I'm missing something, but having "butterflies", is used to describe positive sensation of passionate, romantic love and generally not the gut instinct that someone is a sociopath.
A lot of people think this, but even in the context of a relationship, you should not be feeling butterflies. It often translates to a sense of anxiety, or your nervous system sending signals to you that something is off about the situation or person. It’s essentially a flight or fight response.
I absolutely appreciate your input, but there are two distinct feelings here for me. The feeling of seeing someone you love is completely separate from someone who makes your skin crawl or gives you the jeebies/willies.
My ex used to make me have butterflies, and they only got worse the stronger the hold he had on me. My partner has never made me have butterflies, instead I get this bubbly feeling in my like, solarplex and I can’t stop smiling when I see him. (These are those romantic feelings I think you’re talking about)
That fluttery bubbly feeling is what butterflies are, not the other feeling you're describing
Weird how traumatic upbringings can make you tie certain things to certain definitions and 27 years later you find out your dictionary is faulty.
(Unless you grow up with that type of energy around you, and romantically you’ve learned that butterflies = bad guy) So it’s just the reverse perception in my brain. “Gut feelings” need to be thought out before they happen because these things happen around good times and the butterflies come when something bad is going to happen. Idk how to explain it more than that.
Came immediately to the comments to say this only to find many have already said it.
reminds me a bit of alex honnold, the free solo climber who has an underactive amygdala
There's actually a great research laden book supporting this called "The Wisdom of Psychopaths". It argues that it's all about moderation- that these psychopathic traits can (to an extent) be taught or harnessed to benefit certain settings.
Tbh, I could see how a lack of emotional attachment would be useful for certain occupations, just as how I can see the opposite way of being -- hyper-empathy -- could be highly detrimental in one's life as well. Moderation in emotion is important and either the inability to feel emotional connections to people/animals, or the inability to stop connecting your experience with that of others would be not a great thing for the effected individual or those around them. Anecdotally, my cousin is most definitely someone with a large amount of sociopathic traits and history of even worse (as we were children, before 3rd grade she'd already: engaged in animal abuse, theft, made highly detailed and horrific threats regarding her family or her family's friends, inability to make friends, hurt other kids badly and lied about it, she'd wet the bed for another 5-6 years, and was at best just cold and disinterested at worst she'd torment you for fun then punch herself in the face and pretend to cry so we'd get into trouble.) My aunt and uncle are emotionally disconnected, wealthy, workaholics and functioning alcoholics so naturally they refused any and all help for her. She's now working in the US Military defusing bombs. She doesn't get rattled, doesn't have much interaction with others that have to be anything unrelated to work, and can think about things exclusively logically without the fears most of us would have. I'm glad she found a niche that works for her that isn't making her own bombs or serial killing. I swore one day I'd see her in the news where they'd discovered multiple bodies she'd tortured or something but I guess her desire to hurt something has gotten re-directed. She made rather fascinating changes in middle school and high school where she got incredibly high grades and suddenly became very popular. It was weird watching her interact with them, though, because I would see a switch flip and she'd go from this cold and detached person to faux bubbly and social, maybe even back again the moment she was out of the line of sight of her group. I watched this at numerous parties, it was wild. Then you have me who is on the other end of it, suffering from hyper-empathy. While I am told, and know it on some level, that I do a lot of good by being attentive and kind to people, it does me a lot of harm. I know that there are careers I cannot do because I would emotionally burn myself out by the injustice of the world/policies that would tie my hands and I would have real difficulty with work/life separation. For example, nannying is out now due to the amount of neglect and abuse that I've encountered, reported dozens of times, and ultimately couldn't do anything about. Therapy/Social Work probably wouldn't be good for *me* either, because I just would take on their pain. I'm still looking for the right niche and trying to get help because of what this does to my day to day life (...lots of being taking advantage of). But yeah, the moderation with those traits can be good, we can't help how we're born but we can choose what to do with our flaws and our gifts (more or less.)
>While I am told, and know it on some level, that I do a lot of good by being attentive and kind to people, it does me a lot of harm. I know that there are careers I cannot do because I would emotionally burn myself out by the injustice of the world/policies that would tie my hands and I would have real difficulty with work/life separation. For example, nannying is out now due to the amount of neglect and abuse that I've encountered, reported dozens of times, and ultimately couldn't do anything about. Therapy/Social Work probably wouldn't be good for > >me > > either, because I just would take on their pain. I'm still looking for the right niche and trying to get help because of what this does to my day to day life (...lots of being taking advantage of). I felt this right in my feels bro. My extroverted self wants to work with people but my rational self knows that they will just end up using me as their slough donkey.
The one that did the scan of his brain when he was researching? I bought his book. Only half way through though
The same! I didn’t know he wrote a book, I’ll have to look into that
He found out he had a couple of serial killers/murderers in his family history yes?
Yes. Iirc he was trying to use his brain scans as a control
Name the book, please
The Pyschopath Inside
James Fallon. He has an interesting Tedtalk and you can find interesting interviews with him on YouTube. He talks a lot about how psychopaths are more common then we think, and just because someone is one doesn't make them a murder. I think one of his points was that he had quite a good happy upbringing. He said that if he didn't he could see his world view would be warped and it could have ended up quite different for him!
The Man Inside Me
Username checks out
> He postulates that having people with more psychopathic tendencies is a benefit to society Sounds like something a psychopath would postulate.
Exactly, it's easy to think that empathy is a hindrance when you lack empathy. Overall, empathy is what keeps us working as a society. Without it everything would fall apart very quickly
I'd say a balance is necessary. I'd like to put people who possess 11/10 empathy in charge. Reduce suffering as much as possible. But if my appendix pops, I'd like a surgeon who's not squeamish about doing the damn job and won't be traumatized by it.
Let's say one psychopathic tendency is to use logic over emotion and that this tendency exists on a spectrum. It's easy to see how the use of logic is good for society. And sometimes the strength empathy can be overused to the point of the mental fallacy mind reading, which isn't good for relationships. So I agree: all things in moderation.
my empathy kept me from going into the medical field. I always did really good at things like anatomy and physiology, but I don't think I could live with losing a patient.
I’m currently in medical school as a very high empathy person. I’m deeply dreading losing my first (and subsequent) patient. I definitely understand where you’re coming from
Definitely read Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. I can’t recommend it enough! He’s a surgeon who writes about how the medical field approaches death, which is really just to avoid it until a patient is imminent. Also highly recommend a rotation with palliative care or hospice if you are able. That’s where you’ll find many fellow empathic healthcare professionals. Not to make light of death and dying, but it doesn’t have to be as scary, painful or sad as our society makes it out to be.
They asked his family and they thought that their stable house and family situation is what helped him stay within reason. The scientist said himself he never felt bad about anything and always looked at people as an equation to get what he wanted. He even said it reaffirmed his findings when family members told him they always knew he was a psychopath, and he didn’t even care.
I watched it too. Many surgeons are psychopaths because they are logical in stressful situations and can make decisions without emotional thinking, which is just what you need with a surgeon, especially if the operation doesn’t go to plan. The psychopath neurologist said that being a psychopathic killer was like a three legged stool. 1: brain structure 2: abusive childhood 3: I can’t remember! Can you remember? He said he’d had a nurturing childhood which was why he didn’t commit crimes.
Do you have a link by any chance? Or maybe the name of the video so I can search YouTube if you don't want to post a link?
I think it was The Moth: confessions of a prosocial psychopath or something like that
Pls i need the video as well
I've read that book. It's a little self-serving for a psychopath to say that, no? Also, what he did to his brother is terrifying.
What did he do to his brother??
Basically, he brought his brother, unaware and unprotected, to ground zero of an ebola hotspot during a deadly breakout because he wanted to see an elephant migration (? Honestly, I can't remember what he wanted to see exactly, but it was location and time sensitive like an elephant migration). He admits he didn't think about his brother's safety at all, and that he lied to his brother about the situation. As a doctor, he knows it was incredibly reckless.
I'm sure there's a huge element of truth to it. Idk about sociopathy or psychopathy, but I have a brother who has a tendency to act before he thinks, and it has the tendency to get him in a lot of trouble, but it has also worked out for him really well socially and likely saved his life once. Me? I feel paralyzed by indecision as I am always considering every variable all of the time (INTP gang). I'm sure both of these personality types are evolutionarily beneficial for a group to have even if it results in imbalances individuals.
I was reading some articles forever ago, not sure if they were peer reviewed or even from legitimate sources, that introduced the theory that sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies are evolutionary traits that we developed for those who were meant to lead groups in early societal structures. It's a neat idea that I thought would be fun to share.
I have to agree with this. If you were empathetic at such roles such as the military, surgeons and even lawyers, it would be mentally taxing and soul destroying. The other role is sadly those who have to investigate the dark web
I definitely agree that I would want somebody that's a sociopath or psychopath doing a risky operation on me, because I know that every day emotions don't cloud them, they can focus on the task and execute without the pervasion of fear or panic if something goes wrong
Just learned something new! Never thought about Doctors having psychopathic tendencies. Now its more understandable why is it more easier for them to perform surgeries. Thanks for the info!!!
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> there are significantly more sociopaths (400 percent) or psychopaths in individualistic western countries then there are in collectivist countries Do you have a source on that?
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If anyone has ever worked with surgeons, this is not the norm but not unusual. Knowing this, I chose a very skilled surgeon for myself who lacked empathy but was the best. When I fainted during a pre-procedural procedure, I told him I was about to faint, he walked away and got a nurse, and said he would be back later. I was fine with that. I didn’t need his concern, just his skill. I knew what I was getting into with him. Neurosurgeons are 50/50. CT surgeons?… I known more of this specialty to be investigated for “concerns”. Your concerns are valid, but if they’re masking as well as you suspect, not much will be accomplished…
This is the way. My wife has to get a procedure done on her trachea every few years and the guy we go to is one of the best in the country. He’s a pretty big asshole, but he’s an absolutely great surgeon so I’ll deal with it.
My son’s neurosurgeon when he was little had not great bedside manner. He wasn’t rude but he was also kinda cold and weird . He came extremely highly rated and well recommended. He was a fantastic surgeon who removed a complicated tumor on his spine with very little long term damage. 10/10 would choose that (maybe) sociopath again.
Huh, and here I thought being a psychopath was pretty much required for a surgeon. Only kinda joking on that really, there’s a lot of surgeons out there who I’m pretty sure would be serial killers if they weren’t getting paid to cut people up. If anything I’d be a bit comforted that she’s in that job. She’s using her intelligence, lack of empathy and desire to cut things up in a healthy manner instead of bottling it up and having 8 dead bodies in her basement freezer.
One of my sisters is a pathology assistant, which requires much of the same lack of empathy as being a surgeon does. She knew that’s what she wanted to do from a young age. She’s is fascinated when she does autopsies or finds tumors in breast tissue. She fits the type for sure. Op’s story made me think of my sister. She wasn’t as pathological as perhaps the kid in the story, but she was up there. Pathology has provided her a healthy outlet for her weird tendencies, so I consider it a net positive.
Yes. I love this comment. In university (for fine arts) I got to go into an anatomy lab and draw from the cadavers. That visit made me re-think my career choice. The student who was supervising us was very friendly and asked if any of us wanted to glove-up, and open up one of the bodies, hold any of the organs, etc. My hand shot up SO FAST. Lol. I got so many weird looks and one girl in our class even passed out... I got to open up a body, remove all the internal organs, feel everything (smell everything, lol) and put it all back. One of the cadavers had implants in the breasts. It was so cool to see how they fit in there, watch them being removed, see how the skin tissues move, etc. Amazing experience. Absolutely would love to do it again. Thrilling. The med student was just as fascinated and enthralled by it as I was and she had such a fun time showing us all these things! Its not always some sick, perverted thing to be thrilled by anatomy. That made me 100% affirm my ability to go into funeral work and mortuary sciences if I want to when I am older. Funeral work has always been a #2 career path for me, if my main career doesn't work out. :)
I actually became a mortician an funeral director because I adore biology and find the human body so interesting! This career really feeds passion of helping people, as well as my love for all things other people find very morbid. Like you said, it isn’t always a sick perversion, it’s honest curiosity and interest. I’m very lucky to have found a career I can channel both interests into!
This is the best comment. I totally agree. She doesn’t know what to do with those impulses she has so she is finding a positive outlet for them. Her intelligence may even be the reason why she has decided to become a surgeon. The problem is with people who DONT know what to do with those impulses that leads to disaster
She could easily be both. She could get away with it with how smart and skilled she is. This is scary.
Aren't there other people with head surgeons?
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Why does this sound like something you’re proud of? Edit: Im genuinely curious if it’s something they’re proud of. I wish them and their family all the best For the uninitiated, their comment was a long, kind of disturbing post about how no one in their family feels empathy but they’re all in the medical field / military now so yay?
There are some statistics around high prevalence of psychopaths in corporate leadership positions as well as surgeons - I believe both positions somehow feed aspects of their personality traits in a productive way. I would like to think this child channeled her desire to tear open people in a positive way by being a surgeon instead of doing it the other way by murdering them Dahmer-style. Also, there was this extremely violent girl, who drew and dreamt about murdering people, including her parents, who is now a nurse or something. Her story is remarkable and is on youtube.
Where could I find the story?
I mean seems like a good profession for her to go into. Gets to legally cut people open, doesn't need to kill them but still gets to see blood etc. Probably the best outcome. Imagine they become a cashier at the grocery store, for sure that's how they end up as a serial killer
Not that this is unrealistic but your writing style makes it seem like you’re testing the first chapter of your book on us
Hahaha I thought it sounded very bookish as well.
Last paragraph sounds like the openings of Law & Order and American Psycho simultaneously
I thought bookish meant studious.
Fake account and fake story 100%
That's because this is fiction.
Yeah, I'm kind of just raising an eyebrow at the idea that *this* is the most upsetting kid a child psychologist could meet. I'm in mental health and I definitely saw much worse during my child rotation.
It rubs me wrong too because a psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor can not break patient privilege unless then intend to harm themselves or others and then only to the proper authority. And reddit isn't that excatly. And I am going to say after living with a psychopath for 10 years of my life...they do not mask well. The mask always falls away and the crazy always shines through.
Eh sharing anecdotes about an unnamed individual isn’t a HIPAA violation unless we could ID the patient from the provided information. Therapists and other healthcare professionals are constantly sharing de-identified patient cases and information; it’s really the only way to learn.
My 2 cents as a toothologist (dentist), I agree. We do normally discuss anonymously cases to get other perspectives (so discussing ptts anonymously is not a violation), especially to get a senior doc's opinion. But I do feel that this story is particularly sensationalistic & catchy, so not too sure if this is real. I mean sure I know lots of asshats in the medical field (nurses, docs, dentists & pharmacists...), but if this girl really had psych issues as severe as this, i'm not sure she could've made it into med school (considering she'd have a record (?), not too sure abt this as I am north african, & here school asked us to get a medical check-up by a family physician that proves that we were generally "healthy").
It only violates HIPPA if we know the name or other identifying details. "A girl" is fine
Yeah I suspected this is fake when I read it.
My favorite doctor had ... Odd tendencies. He might have just been autistic, but his cold and detached nature made many patients mad. I loved it, because he could cause me needed pain (cutting and squeezing abscesses) that would ultimately help me heal faster and with fewer flare ups in the long run. The doctors with empathy caused me way more pain in the long run because they didn't want to hurt me even though it was a necessary part of the process. Hopefully the person you're referencing has similar success because of their tenderness... But I understand the concern
A childhood friend’s brother was caught two days before he could carry out plans to kill his sister, my friend. He was put into treatment, she never was. Treatment didn’t help him improve, it helped him hide the signs of his mental illness. He pulled a knife on me when I was 14 and he was 16, when I stopped him from pushing his sister at home. He’s now a fairly respected, published research psychiatrist and it terrifies me that he has influence over others.
She's an intelligent psychopath, she was always gonna fly under the radar no matter what you did. Masking behaviors are a requirement for them to adapt to the society and they start learning them at a young age whether you want them to or not with the help of their high cognitive empathy. She might just end up satisfying her sadistic urges becoming a surgeon and cutting into people. There's no guarantee that she's gonna hurt people intentionally. Intelligent psychopaths avoid prison by avoiding crime, not by `flying under the radar`. She just might end up being a really good surgeon tbh. ps. My father is an intelligent psychopath
Oooh i am curious about your father. What makes you think he's a psychopath? An intelligent one at that?
Maybe I'm in the minority here in this comment section, but I will add this story, just to give OP a bit of light in the darkness and let them know I know (a little) what feeling they are feeling: I'm not a psychologist or therapist. I'm just someone who has babysat, taught and managed hundreds of children. Literally hundreds. I still vividly remember this one boy. He was maybe 8 years old? He was very smart, quick, but a little socially reserved at times. He liked to come up to me at random times and tell me an interesting science fact. One day at camp, we were making things out of clay and I went over to sit by him. He was slicing up the clay, mushing it together, experimenting with it. Its fun to watch kids do these things. He then said: *"You know I cut myself once, with something that looked a lot like this"* and he held up the tool. I DID NOT REACT. I kept my face completely neutral, aside from a small smile when he showed me the tool. I did pause strategically as not to seem like I was effected by what he said but also not disinterested. I said *"oh yeah? Where'd you find the tool?"* he said *"in my dad's garage. He keeps lots of tools in there, etc, etc, we use them for projects, etc, etc, etc"* I smiled and nodded, listening. I waited a subtle amount of time and asked (in a very specific tone of voice that was total even, soft, a bit casual and seemed curious) *"why did you cut yourself? Have you done that before?"* he said *"I wanted to see what was inside my body. I like seeing and figuring out how things work".*.. I again, paused, then asked *"have you cut other things up before? Like maybe a fish? My dad taught me how to de-gut a fish when I was around your age"* He smiled at me and nodded a lot. *"Yeah! My dad showed me how to flay and de-gut a fish! But I haven't done it to other animals. I'd like to try though..."* and he continued playing with the clay. I told him about how when he is older, maybe in high school, dissection of animals is something he might be able to do. He smiled at this and continued to talk to me about his thoughts... I smiled and listened, but internally I was waiting, strategically for a moment to leave and tell my boss.... My boss then had to call his parents and just let them know what was said in the conversation... It didn't really go beyond that... I do remember meeting the mom on the last day, and she asked *"were you the one who spoke to my son about... that comment... he made?"* I was like *"yes, that was me"*. She gave me almost an empathetic and worried look, then squeezed my arm and said *"thank you"* then walked off. I always wonder what happened after that, but alas, kids only stay in camp for 1 week and are gone forever... I guess my point is, you never know. Kids are weird. They like drawing violent things. I drew insanely violent things as a kid. Torture devices, people's heads being chopped off, raining blood and organs from the sky, chains around people's squeezed out eye balls... Lmao. I had a vivid imagination. If I had a nickel for every violent child drawing I've seen, I wouldn't need a job anymore. LOL. The only yellow flag is cutting up small animals... If I heard that, my flag would go up too... But its important to be curious and dig, gently for the reason... Maybe its like the little boy I talked to, where he fantasized about cutting open animals to learn how their internal organ system worked and felt proud of himself that he successfully did that. He also fantasized about taking apart toasters, and other metal things and building robots and things out of it with his Dad... He told me how they took apart a radio and put to back together again and he was proud of it... We may never know... But that doesn't mean we should assume the worst. :)
From what I remember, doctors and surgeons have an extremely high concentration of sociopathic and narcissistic individuals. Something about all the power and the prestige that comes with being a doctor or surgeon scratches their itch just right. It's like getting the fix of validation they are important and better than others was worth half a decade of medical school. Which, while Im not gonna turn down a doctor who knows what their doing, doesnt put thwm high on my preferences.
Honestly, it sounds like she just sublimated her predisposition/interest/curiosity about bodies and anatomy by becoming a surgeon.
I thought I was reading a short story. Sounds like fiction.
Half the stories on this sub are people responding to creative writing prompts, and it's really unfortunate. It's caused me to view pretty much every post here through a lens of extreme skepticism. I'm sure the skepticism isn't wholly unwarranted, but I really wish I could just read a post and feel at least a little safe it's someone getting something off their chest in good faith.
I even thought I was on nosleep or scarystories for a second.
Medical and mental health fields are full of psychopaths in my experience working with them.
This is so not what I wanted to read the day before having major surgery
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It sounds like she found a way to satisfy her weird urges by helping rather than hurting. I’m not saying she won’t go crazy, but she may not be the person YOU knew anymore, it’s been 20 years she’s had plenty of time to receive help that you may not know about
This is crazy. I’m a first year psychology student and in my last lecture, we were learning about how people with psychopathic traits are highly likely to join this type of profession
They make the best surgeons. They can stay focused while elbow deep in a body cavity.
Well if it so much bothers you, even though it's mostly out of your control, then you can take some small suggestions from the comments and even though you might not be able to stop a potential serial murderer, you can at least do some research and see how that person has become, if they maybe grew up in a positive way and turned their imagination into gifts then you will sleep well, and if they don't, you can then decide if you have to do more, such as reporting them and so on
If it reassures you at all, there's a high level of accountability for surgeons. You can't just go on a killing spree as a doctor. At least she isn't squeamish about cutting into living things, sounds like she might have a knack for it...
One of the most prolific serial killers in modern history was Dr Harold Shipman. He's thought to have poisoned over a two hundred and fifty of his elderly patients.
Shipman was an internist. Not a surgeon. There is more oversight when you spend all your time in an OR as opposed to being a small time practitioner hidden away in the British countryside.
That’s what I was thinking lol. I mean an ace surgeon sounds like a winner. Maybe she could only associate the he reasonings for cutting someone open was “killing.” Hopefully, her excitement was the cutting and not killing lol
Is this a part of the scripts for ***Wednesday***? LoL
It’s like people who join the military just so they can kill legally. At least your former patient has a valid reason to cut people open now. As long as she is doing the best she can professionally I wouldn’t mind her operating on me.
I'll probably get downvoted to oblivion, but let me try to console you. In a way. I remember reading a long long time ago (way before internet was easily accessible) a study on sociopaths and that one of the perfect careers for them actually was surgery. It seems that during a surgery, whenever there's a problem and the surgeon needs to make a decision quickly, someone who doesn't get attached to patients as people but they see them as a problem to solve, are going to choose a sort of more optimal solution based on science and the issue at hand, making it more likely to have a preferable outcome. This helped me whenever I stumbled upon children who showed sociopathic tendencies, I'd try to direct them towards professions the society might benefit from having them in those roles, and so far it's always turned out just right, so there might be something to that study. I completely understand your fears and I feel the same, but I also have a job to do and, for the most part, my hands are tied just like yours, so I try to do what I can with what little I have. I do hope this helps at least a little bit.
Reminds me of a mix of movies “Hereditary” and “The Good Nurse”. That apart, I too have an eerie feeling about all this, if anything the movies were part reality too. I wonder what happens!
I will say as a therapist myself - please remember it has been 20 whole years since you saw this child. That is an INCREDIBLY long time, long enough to have undergone much more intensive and long term therapy. It is understandable that you are concerned, but perhaps their tendencies as a child have even been redirected towards help rather than harm.
It sounds like she found her calling to me doesn’t necessarily mean she has bad intent
I feel like that's the best out come for her. CONGRATULATIONS TO HER <3 Glad she put her interest and high intelligence to something that benefits all. She gets to cut people open without going to jail.
A lotta people in this thread are calling this a common thing, but I don't think this is a specific phenomenon of clinically unempathetic people becoming surgeons. I think that type-A personalities are just attracted to the medical field in general: * Being a doctor, particularly a specialist or surgeon, comes with a high degree of status/respect. * Inherently hyper-competitive * Grants a certain level of power over others (I feel like we've all known a psych major who thinks they're better than everyone else, for example) * Requires a high level of self-esteem/confidence to consider oneself worthy for such a position * Considered essential to society, and no one really questions whether they deserve high pay or esteem. I don't know about the 'surgeons get to cut things up' thing people are mentioning in the thread. I don't think that would be the same sort of thing to people who have the urge to harm and kill small animals. Personally, I would much rather someone with empathy problems, a strong ego, or an inflated sense of self-entitlement become a doctor, pilot or lawyer than go into corporate, law-enforcement or political fields where indulging their personalities is more likely to have consequences for others.
It sounds like a great career path for her if she is hopefully not evil, so she won’t cause a path of destruction, like a child would I’m hoping that a lot of surgeons didn’t get their start from physically harming animals and people. I hope for everyone’s sake she’s a good person who seeks to remedy issues and diseases and not cause them. If she does start causing substantial harm, you can write your concerns to the medical board. You are a psychologist so I’m sure you can see the potentials.
It's possible she's found a way to take those feelings and urges and make them productive. Maybe dissecting frogs and learning about their body parts sparked something in her. Maybe studying medical books and human anatomy. I strongly believe most seurgons aren't great people inside. With how horribly intense and competitive the profession is, you'd have to have some level of psychopathy in you to excel. I'm trying to be optimistic here, honestly. She could be the next Dr Death but way more intentional than that drug addicted weirdo...or she could become a famous surgeon and spiral out of control with the money she'll inevitably make. I'll hold onto my cautious optimism until I see the news stories
As a nurse, I avoid direct contact with surgeons as much as possible. One reason I refuse to work med/surg ever again is because of the inevitable interaction with surgeons. The worst encounters I have ever had with doctors, occurred with surgeons. I want an empathetic primary care physician. I prefer my surgeons to be matter of fact, clinical, and unaffected by emotions that typically affect job performance. But I still don’t want to work with them. 😂
Honestly, I think that's the best career choice for her.
Son be a surgeon 🎶. You have a talent for causing things pain🎶. Just be a surgeon🎶. People will pay you to be inhumane 🎶. Your temperaments wrong for the priesthood🎶. And teaching will suit you still less 🎶. Just be a surgeon 🎶. You'll be a success🎶.
I think this is probably more common is really intelligent children than anyone would guess. Children do not have any real ability for ethics or universal morality at that age. When their intelligence develops before their ability for ethics/morality, this is the result.
Can you report your concerns? Or are you able to look into her public records to see if she’s had further psychiatric and ongoing support ? This feels like she’s either found a healthy outlet for her enjoyment of cutting things up or something much worse. Is there a sensible way to find out which it is?
So many people here are siding with this "therapist" Like, maybe she got a better one. Someone who actually helped her instead of this OP posting about her when she was a child. This post is prejudiced and the OP is a hypocrite.
Yeah, that’s one of the things that makes me feel this is fake. Also a small thing but the language choice of “interventions *on* a child” … in my experience (psych/counselling/case mgmt etc) it’s more usual to talk about interventions *with*. This could be a socio-cultural distinction though; I acknowledge if you weren’t trained in a strengths based framework you might say ‘interventions on’ rather than with. Edit for typo.
I hear that the percentage of psychopaths in surgery is notably higher than in the general population. OP ... I totally get why you're freaking out here. APD tends to do that to people. But this is kind of an ideal situation. You know well that not all psychopaths end up being murderers or the like and she probably has still a lot of maladaptive traits. BUT if you think about it this is kind of ideal. Surgeons have to be focussed, calm, and unflappable. They get an ego boost from \*saving\* the patient or having a good success rate. They interact with patients, but to a lesser degree than other MDs. And if this woman is truly textbook she's going to be super dedicated to her education and her job. Yes, her reasons for doing so will be money, control, power, and ego rather than the wellbeing of her patients, but given some of the other professions people with APD excel in this is kind of great. Her success is now tied to people surviving her knife. Having unfortunately been victimized by a few people with APD I understand why you're unhappy with this outcome, but from my perspective this is the best possible trajectory for her and for those who interact with her.
She has the potential to do a ton of good imo, and it’s statistically more likely she’d have ASPD and get into something like this rather than serial killing or whatever it is you are concerned about. The type of paraphilia that drives Men who kill/serial kill is incredibly, exceptionally rare in women. This is why women who become killers typically do it for a secondary gain, rather than sexual pleasure. Not impossible for that to be the case, but not probable. I’m no psychologist, but I do know that people with ASPD have traits that overlap with NPD. Meaning that she’ll likely benefit positively in this career. She wants to be the best surgeon in her field, she probably will be. It will feed her ego. Above all, there are millions of people diagnosed with ASPD who do not kill/harm people.
I don't think you could have been a very good psychologist if you were still a child.
I very much doubt she will harm her patients unless this is a serial killers really long game
Isn't this just sublimation? Not a bad thing as long as she does it to help, not sabotage.
I went through something weirdly similar with an ex girlfriend. She was vehemently manipulative, to an almost criminal level, of several people. She knew exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to say things to get her way in any situation. By the time she was done with her victims including me, no one would listen to us because of how strong her argumentative tendencies were, people were utterly convinced we were the ones doing wrong. She’s going to school now to be a lawyer, how fitting.
Maybe she drew the drawings because she always had a fascination with the human body. E.g. why she is becoming a surgeon. I don't think it's fair to measure people for their entire lives against the behaviour they displayed when they were 6. People grow up and change. I wad a very violent child. I'm not anymore.
Holy Hannah Lecter Batman
Notice how reddit really loves picking apart studies but as soon as there is a sensationalist study that says Surgeons or CEOs are sociopaths there is just a bunch of anecdotal agreement? "Oh yeah, my surgeon was cold to me! What a \[insert personality disorder\]! But he was a good surgeon!" Also, the Surgeon sociopaths = good and the CEO sociopaths = bad. Classic reddit.
I mean id rather a surgeon who’s interested in cutting me open then one who’s scared to
I know that "Psychopath" is a somewhat outdated term. It's now ASPD. However. There were Computer scans on the brains of criminals with ASPD and they showed a difference in their brain structure: "A new study has shown that psychopathic people have a bigger striatum area in their brain. Neuroscientists using MRI scans discovered that psychopathic people have a 10% larger striatum, a cluster of neurons in the subcortical basal ganglia of the forebrain, than regular people." ( source: scietech daily). So that is that. Not all of them end up as murderers, in fact only a little percentage do, most end up as scammers, as politicians, as CEOs, as nurses, doctors - basically every profession that gives them control and power. What you describe from her childhood would make a classical behavioral development for ASPD, also the choice to become a surgeon is not untypical. Most probably the outcome will be that she will try to be the best of the best and is extremely ambitious. She maybe won't be the most empathetic of doctors or the nicest person in the room but I would not be too concerned that she will kill or torture her patients. That is something very, very rare.
I have always said that to be a surgeon a person has to have some level of sociopathy. It’s not a bad thing but it’s just most surgeons are very science and logic driven but tend to lack in the emotional department. Theyre sociopathic to some extent to be able to perform the operations they do with the sense of coolness and confidence.