The Psychopath-Essentials

Life comes at us with teachings- in waves. For some unfathomable reason, that only Allah can know for sure, I have been put in contact, directly and indirectly, with a series of people that I consider psychopaths. I will not, of course, name them publicly in order to protect the innocents- of which there are not many in their entourage.

So what are some of the deeper characteristics of these people? You will not find the answers in our diagnostic manual (DSM-5) as it is all based on empirical, verifiable data i.e. surface phenomena. Unfortunately this superficiality is true generally in our society- even in the scientific literature- so determined is it to attain reproducible results and do statistical, numerical analysis. Ironically this societal phenomenon may be one of the most central characteristic of psychopaths as well-Superficiality!

Does this mean that we are living in a psychopathic society?! I think a good case could be made for that hypothesis. Every time I have to visit one of those hermetically sealed sick office buildings that cause distress to many of its’ workers, every time I see agricultural workers spraying toxic chemicals on our food in full protective gear, every time I see a homeless person or a needy welfare applicant being refused welfare on a technicality I can only come to one conclusion. Our society is oblivious and uncaring about the needs of human beings .Thus our society is psychopathic.

But let’s get back to the individual for now. We know that the psychopath is superficially charming. It is a central characteristic, often repeated in the literature-one of the first characteristics mentioned in the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. But it goes way deeper than that. The psychopath is superficial in terms of his own needs and his vision of life as well. Most of them are obsessed with money, sex and power or some combination of the three. Know anyone like that lol? On a deeper level this represents a lack of vision and a lack of perspective. Even a cursory examination of the evidence of people in our own lives will show us how this vision is untrue. There are loads of examples of people with any and all of those three who are absolutely miserable .If you don’t have examples in your own life buy a copy of People magazine lol. The psychopath cannot see the value of ethics or ideals or compassion or even peace of mind. That all seems abstract and wishy-washy to them. (The same could be said for many statisticians and scientists but that is the subject of another article.)

Deeper still than this superficiality is another even more central issue-Pride! Aha, back to the beginning. The central sin in Christianity and an important one in all of the spiritual traditions. The phenomenologists identified an interesting characteristic of psychopaths early on in the development of psychopathological theory. They are unable to learn from experience. What they didn’t quite understand is why. They usually attributed this to some kind of neurological or genetic substrate. But the real answer may be a lot simpler than that –pride, the most human of foibles. When Ram Dass went to visit the San Quentin prison to teach the inmates some notions of spirituality, the administration and the guards decided wisely not to invite Charles Manson. When asked why they responded that Manson would have had a fit if another male other than himself was centre stage! There you go. The quintessence of pride. And we see where that led him.

So there you go. The psychopath in a nutshell– Deeply Superficial and Proud. You won’t find that in any of your psychology books nor in DSMV-not even in the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. Think about it. Comments?

(Response to NY Times article)Very interesting-from a historical perspective.Another corrupt Californian! What else is new.I had some concerns with EST from early on but the clincher was Werner Erhard making an appearance in one of the communication seminars.My intuition immediately said “crook”.And that was the end of EST for me.And now he gives seminars in Business integrity.The chutzpah of the man! For those who can see character,the crook is still very much present but like many CEOs who are themselves psychopaths he has learnt to keep it under some control.Salaams,joel Ibrahim

Long before it was in vogue to be denouncing Wahhabbis and jihadists,Sheikh Nazim would confront the Ikhwanis(Muslim Brotherhood people ,as the Salafists would not even come to meet him) saying “We are not agreeing to any ‘isms’-Communism,Capitalism,Feminism and especially we are not agreeing to Islamism.People get the governments they deserve.The only way to get better government is to improve the inner state of the people.This is the sunnat of our Prophet pbuh”

A decent resume of the Sufi/Wahhabbi polarity. Take note Hamza Yusuf as this is one issue about which you are seriously confused!! Salaams,Ibrahim

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sami-moubayed/damascene-sufism-the-anti_b_8641630.html

Check out this video.This is the teacher of Loch Kelly.What nur on his face! What sincerity! This is what the early Sufis must have been like and the wandering Dervishes.May Allah bestow on us such hals! Salaams,Ibrahim

http://learning.tergar.org/course_library/mingyur-rinpoches-monthly-teachings/expectations-and-appreciation/

(On watching a documentary called “Inside Einstein’s Mind”).I am not really interested in the General Theory of Relativity or String Theory or Quantum Mechanics for that matter.How outrageous in an epoch of worshiping science! Where we come from,where we are going to after death,what is the nature of our Creator and how are we supposed to relate to Him-those seem to me to be much,much more relevant topics to explore.The rest I would leave to the province of a few clever mathematicians and physicists.For my part I can do without it.

(Context-listening to a discussion between two men in the gym locker room).One of the most disconcerting aspects about materialists is their arrogance in believing they are in contol.If they have a good financial plan,they will never be lacking.And if they go regularly to the gym they will never have health problems.They are convinced they are in control of their destiny.And nothing could be further from the truth.  You can be in perfect health and develop cancer like many athletes have experienced.You could have a detailed financial plan and then have an incapacitating car accident.As Allah reminds us in the Quran,man is made weak.Humility is the appropriate attitude,not arrogance.

The Muslim community is going through intensely tumultuous times nowadays,perhaps the most intense since the early days of the Caliphate.But Islam,itself, if one returns to the basic teachings,is a wonderful program for improving our behaviour,our personality and even our way of thinking.The fact that it’s teachings are being misinterpreted and abuse is not the fault of Islam but rather of human beings.

Many years ago I went for a training program in the use of the chainsaw.The chainsaw was designed to cut down trees for use as firewood and lumber.For this, it is an exquisite instrument.However it can also be used for horrible massacres and for clear-cutting forests.We know from Islam that man is the khalifat (usually translated as vice-regent ,a very awkward term).In fact we are better served by using a workplace analogy.God is the Boss and man is the manager of this planet.Clearly man is not doing a good job! Continue reading Why Islam? →

(Context-NYTimes sending me repetitive ,monotonous begging emails to get me to subscibe)What have we come to?! A prestigious,high-quality newspaper feels it necessary (probably driven by graduates in MBA marketing programs!) to bombard me with ads to buy a subscription.Have they no shame?! Obviously not.In any case shame is a rare commodity in this society(except of course in cases of sexual assault and abuse- but that seems to be the exception).I can deal with the annoyance factor involved .However there is a much more insidious,perverse effect of this marketing practice.People have lost their capacity to hear! Serious, indeed! People are so tired of this marketing harassment that they metaphorically keep their fingers in their ears-in all situations.It has become a reflex..I still remember standing outside of a mosque giving out flyers about a conference by a visiting Islamic teacher.No charge,no obligations and a subject that would have interested most of the people leaving the prayer site.The vast majority refused to even look at the flyer.They were in an advanced state of marketing burn-out.How many other truths do they and others refuse to hear?Their self-induced deafness prevents them from integrating all kinds of new information.

This phenomenon is by no means limited to attenders at the Jumaa prayer.I see it all the time in doctors.They have been indoctrinated by the scientific equivalent of marketers- peer-reviewed journals,obsessive scientific methodology which often enough obscures the truth instead of revealing it,research studies designed to generate preset results.And they have lost the capacity to think for themselves and the capacity to listen to their patients.Instead what pops into their mind is the latest published article,the most recent algorithm.And the patient in front of them goes unheard.If I were designing a medical school curriculum the first course I would make obligatory would be on analyzing research publications.If you go back to the database in the publication,you can often generate other conclusions never mentioned by the authors.At times you may even generate conclusions opposite to the authors.A relatively recent article in Lancet on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome treated by CBT was another reminder.One of my patients who suffers from this ailment showed me the article enthusiastically.I thought”This is not consistent with what I am observing clinically.”and told my patient I would explore the article.I figured I would have to go in to the depths of the article to find the flaw.It was actually much easier than that.When I looked at the scale of measurement the difference between the control group and treated group turned out to be 10% of the total scale and that was on one symptom only.(There are 8 other symptoms in Chronic Fatigue none of which were tested).I called back my patient to tell him that when I had such changes(10%) on an anti-depressant regime I considered them insignificant.But statistically the result looked significant and this was hailed as a breakthrough!We have lost the depth in favor of the surface.

Salaams,ibrahim

Teaching from the Sufis:”Everything to you is from you and everything from you returns to you.This is the sunnat (habit) of Allah”When events occur,such as those in France recently,the instinctive response(I could say the response of the reptilian brain)is to look for the perpetrators and to blame them for the entire affair.This is probably necessary but it is not sufficient.A deeper response ,for both individuals and societies, is to look within and think”How have we contributed to this?”,If we understand really that the inner is determining the outer not the converse which is  philosophical materialism -a philosophy that has seriously contaminated our thinking on all levels,we will begin to realize that we both as individuals and societies are responsible for our own troubles.So if we are Americans and don’t do anything to correct the incredible inequality of wealth in our country or we are Frenchmen and don’t really care about the disenfranchised in our country but prefer to judge them as lazy or primitive,there will be consequences.That doesn’t justify the terrorists behaviour but it is a deeper way of understanding it then just calling them psychopaths because we enjoy insulting the enemy.Calling them psychopaths is mostly a misuse of our psychiatric nomenclature.Psychopaths don’t risk their lives for a cause .Psychopaths have no loyalty to others or to groups.They are purely self-centered.These people are fanatics not psychopaths.Look it up if you don’t believe me. Salaams,Ibrahim