Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior (47 page)

A strong indicator of emotional health is the ability to withstand anxiety that arises from internal or external conflict without falling apart or launching into drastic action. During a crisis, our internalized loving family relationships sustain us. Those persons who have experienced hate and rejection from their caretakers find that in a crisis, these abusive relationships emerge to once again tear at their hearts and minds. They feel abandoned in the present as they were in the past. Some of the mass murderers described in the chapter on workplace violence were unable to contain and control their feelings of anger and vengeance without descending into a lethal paranoid depression. The ability to delay gratification and to tolerate frustration, when appropriate, is a critical developmental step that is accomplished by the psychologically healthy person. Primitive, unsocialized personalities cannot perform this fundamental psychological delaying action. A sure sign of psychological dysfunction is the inability to defer gratification without becoming angry, anxious, or depressed. When frustrations arise, the less than healthy person uses others as “whipping boys.” Critical to health is the ability to think before acting and to modulate impulses in the way that one adjusts the volume control on a television set.

The capacity to sublimate—that is, to transform and redirect basic impulses deriving from sexuality and aggression toward higher goals—speaks of mental health. The abilities to compete, to succeed against odds, and to be a winner all borrow energy from redirected aggression. Rechanneled sexual energy may find expression in music, art, and literary creativity.

The psychologically healthy person is able to love—that is, to value and care for another person beyond oneself. Love nurtures the independence and growth of others. The ability to love another person has nothing to do with Hollywood’s version of love. The lovers whose moonlight gazes sparkle on the silver screen mirror only the illusion of each other’s perfection. We are all imperfect. To love someone requires that we first accept ourselves, despite our weaknesses and foibles. To truly commit to another person, we must first authentically value ourselves. Perfectionists cannot do that and often end up hating themselves. When we acknowledge our dark side, we take our first transcendent steps toward discovering the miracle of love.

In the chapter on stalking, I described individuals who terrorized former partners out of feelings of rage, vengeance, and the inability to emotionally let go of the former partner. In the healthy person, feelings of jealousy, anger, hate, and rejection are tempered by an overriding concern for the person who is loved. The most difficult relationships are with the people whom we love, not those we unequivocally hate. We may hate a Hitler or a Ted Bundy, but it is not the same as simultaneously hating someone we love. Except when hate feelings are overwhelming, love usually softens the conflict to a tolerable level. The ability to preserve our relationships amidst such contrary feelings is a hallmark of psychological health.

Sex for the healthy person is not merely a spasm of physiological release or just another form of masturbation. If sexuality enters the healthy person’s relationship, it does so in an empowering way, through a mutually loving, physical, and mental exploration of one another. In searching for a mate, the emphasis is less on finding the right person than on being the right person.

Healthy people have many satisfying facets to their lives. They work to make a living, but work is not the only source of satisfaction for them. Work is a source of creative emotional growth and mental refreshment rather than a primary way of obtaining or maintaining self-esteem. I have treated patients undergoing serious personal crises whose positive work experience helped sustain them through a very difficult time. Professional goals are folded into a broader fabric of life that is rich in sustaining relationships, recreation, hobbies, and spiritual quests. The healthy person is capable of experiencing awe, joy, and wonder about the world, finding a sense of fulfillment in a life not beset by regret or bitterness.

A firm commitment to relationships and to work or professional goals enriches the mentally healthy person. Money, though important, pales in comparison to these commitments. Money is a means to an end but not an end in itself. Money has extrinsic value; that is, what it can buy. Problems arise when money is sought for its intrinsic value, for example, as an important source of self-esteem. Joy is felt with the “small” things in life: a sunset, the smell of a spring, a sense of awe about the world, a moment with a friend, morning’s first light. The ability to laugh and cry, to have one’s feelings available, is a distinct sign of mental health. One of my depressed patients put it well when she anguished, “I would just like to
be
!” Emily Dickinson wrote, “To live is so startling it leaves time for little else.”

It’s the Little Things…

The man who has not conscience in small things will be a scoundrel in big things.
—
Arthur Schopenhauer

People often throw away their hard-won careers, their families, and their lives over some small thing, a trivial matter. Persons in positions of great trust and power betray the most sacred trust placed in them, often for a peccadillo, or 30 pieces of silver—and in full knowledge that if they are caught, dishonor and disgrace will follow. This is an affliction of all humankind, not just of prominent persons.

Why do we cross the line? The better question is, why doesn’t it happen to all of us much more than it does? For most people, gross antisocial behaviors are inhibited by the policeman at the elbow. But although they believe that major breaches will be discovered, they also feel that minor transgressions will go unnoticed. The psychiatrist knows that character can be best discerned in such “little things,” which reflect serious character flaws just as major transgressions do. Character is what we display when we think no one is watching.

Yet no one can escape the consequences of character. Emerson stated that “All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished.” As a psychiatrist, I hold that the “punishment” is instantaneous, even though the person may be unaware of it, because at the moment of the infraction, destructive character traits are reinforced that further ensnare one in a troubled destiny. Thus, some of us, when reacting to the slings and arrows of everyday life, find that exacting revenge on an individual for hurts we have suffered is superfluous, because punishment of the offender is instantaneous, an inevitable consequence of his or her character and destiny. In other instances, we may need to call the police, file a lawsuit, or go to war. The progression is summed up in an anonymously written verse:

Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

Character, Perceiving Reality, and Accepting Limitations

Reality is perceived reasonably clearly by the psychologically healthy person. Personal needs and conflicts do not usually interfere with a reasonably accurate perception of the world. The reality principle is harmoniously melded with the pleasure principle. For the most part, the healthy person confronts the threat of internal and external dangers and only denies them when it becomes necessary for survival, say, in an acute crisis or emergency. Anger has a realistic place in the person’s palette of feelings and is expressed in an appropriate, adaptive manner. But no person totally leaves behind his or her childish feelings of complete self-absorption, of the rageful intolerance to frustration, of the insistent need for the immediate gratification of all wishes. Some of life’s comedy and much of its tragedy arises when infantile strivings clash with reality.

From my perspective as a psychiatrist, I know that individuals who can accept that they have emotional problems that go beyond their ability to cope, and who seek professional help for them, can achieve a significant measure of maturity and mental health. The Dahmers, Bundys, and Kempers never think of obtaining help. Their deviant acts and fantasies provide them with too much pleasure. Both Dahmer and Kemper received court-ordered treatment for earlier offenses but obviously did not obtain any benefit, since they went on to commit many murders based on their horrific fantasies.

One of the measures of a parent’s success at the child-rearing task is that his or her children recognize their limitations and know that it is reasonable to ask for help from others when necessary. The ability to depend on others should not be confused with a pathological state of dependency. On the other hand, rigid independence is as emotionally limiting as an intractable dependence on others.

Psychological treatments aimed at developing insight into our darker side are not meant for everyone. Analyzing our actions before rushing to critically judge ourselves is a responsible course—but difficult for many people. For example, I have treated patients whose harsh self-criticism, though very painful, was easier for them to bear than facing their dreaded inner demons. Often with such patients, the therapy was unsuccessful. A prickly conscience provided excellent cover against self-discovery.

Insight psychotherapy is just one of many therapies available. Currently, there are over 450 different psychotherapies that individuals can choose from. Psychotherapies have been scientifically proven to be effective.

The purpose of insight psychotherapy is to identify conflicts and develop new ways of coping and resolving problems. When successful, it frees the individual from being stuck with automatic, reflexive reactions to life’s stresses. A fundamental tenet of insight therapy holds that, in general, the more realistic a person’s perception of oneself and the world, the more harmonious that person’s adaptation to life. When a person has experienced an important insight, she or he is never the same. However, much depends on how the person uses the insight, if it is used at all. One patient analogized the psychotherapeutic process to a worm that enters a cocoon, and, in time, emerges as a beautiful butterfly that flies away free. Another patient, an intractable curmudgeon, used the same metaphor to insist that his transformation process in therapy was from a worm to an ugly moth with a flame fixation. Individuals who respond favorably to insight therapy are able to replace reflexive responses by choices. Also, positive changes in character structure generally improve prospects for a more inner-driven destiny.

The list of attributes of the hypothetical healthy person could go on and on, but ultimately any such list must end with the succinct summation about mental health once made by William Sloane Coffin, former Chaplain of Yale University, who said, “I’m not okay, you’re not okay, and that’s okay.” Perfect mental health is a fiction. It is also undesirable and downright inhuman. Mental health and illness exist on a continuum, and in delicate, dynamic balance—and perfection is entirely off the scale. Much depends on the context. A noise that barely catches our attention in the morning after a good night’s sleep can, later that evening, when we are tired, frighten us terribly.

Born Unto Trouble

As can be readily appreciated, much hard work, sustained effort, and loving care go into raising good women and men. Socialization and character appear to develop best within an intact family providing
good enough
care, preferably with both parents present. In many instances, good parenting can overcome or inhibit inherited antisocial tendencies. In others, the best parenting and family situation available may not be sufficient to control innate destructive behaviors, particularly if alcohol and drug abuse are involved. So even under optimal circumstances, parenthood is an impossible task. There are neither perfect parents nor perfect children.

Many of the mentally healthy attributes previously described play a role in the fashioning of sound character. No one can go beyond his or her character. In many ways, our character foretells our future. In this sense, character is destiny—who we marry, if we marry, our relationships, what sort of work we do, how we live, who we are, whether we are good or bad. Obviously, many things happen in life over which we have no control. But how we respond, whether adaptively or dysfunctionally, is directly related to our character. The murderers, rapists, and psychopaths in this book represent the end stage of character development gone awry. The answer to prevention of antisocial behavior does not reside in adding more police and building more jails. These solutions can only address the end-stage problem, which, of course, is still important. But effective prevention will occur only when society undertakes to provide and protect those elements that foster the development and continuity of stable, caring families.

It is also quite clear that the bad men and women depicted in this book failed miserably in the areas of character, conscience, impulse control, reality testing, and interpersonal relationships. Compared with people with the hypothetically “normal” character profile, these bad men and women are riddled with debilitating emotional and mental deficiencies. When a psychiatrist has the opportunity to examine these persons, their severe psychological conflicts and developmental problems are displayed in excruciating detail. They hardly are the stuff for even the lowest grade of Hollywood movie.

Why bad men do what good men dream is explained to a certain degree when one has the opportunity to psychiatrically examine antisocial persons. But the answer to the good men–bad men conundrum must go beyond psychiatric examination. Even when the psychiatrist has been able to spot glaring psychological conflicts and deficiencies that led to a destructive act, the origins of these dysfunctions often remain obscure. The need for certainty where none is possible unrealistically places unfounded reliance on psychological theories. We are all born with a darker side. Good men—for reasons only some of which are known—are able to contain that dark side. Bad men live it.

Empathy