Why Psychopaths Are So Charming (And Why That's Dangerous)

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:00

If a psychopath walked into the room, do you think you'd know? Most of us do, but psychology suggests something much more uncomfortable. And that's that the people we are most likely to trust sometimes might be the people we should question the most. Today I'm joined by Dr. Emma Kavanaugh, psychologist and author of The Psychopath Effect, as we explore why charm can be so persuasive, why a love bombing works, and while the real psychology isn't necessarily about the psychopaths, it's about the effect they have on the rest of us. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent, and this is Psychology Actually. Hi, welcome along to Psychology, actually. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent, a qualified clinical psychologist, and I have another doctor with me today. I'm joined by Dr. Emma Kavanaugh. Hi, Emma.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 00:54

Hi. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:56

Thank you so much for being here, and thank you so much for your PR team pitching me the episode, which is all about psychopathy, which is linked to your new book, The Psychopath Effect: The Mind-Altering Power of the Psychopaths Among Us. So Emma, I though it might be a little bit of fun to start with a bit of a myth busting quick fire round about psychopathy. So are you ready?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 01:21

I am ready. Let's go.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:22

Most psychopaths are violent.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 01:25

Myth.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:26

Most psychopaths end up in prison.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 01:28

Myth.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:29

Psychopaths can be charming.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 01:32

Fact.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:33

You can spot a psychopath straight away.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 01:37

Fact.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:39

If you know what you're looking for.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 01:42

There are a lot of qualifiers that. My brain is like. Psychopaths

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:47

Always know when they're manipulating people.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 01:52

Myth, I'm going to say.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:54

Trauma bonding is just falling in love.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 01:58

A myth.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:58

Psychopaths can never change.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 02:04

Ooh, that's a good one. I'm going to say myth, but don't try and change them. They have to qualify that one.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 02:13

Therapy is pointless for psychopathy.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 02:15

Is it pointless? Going to say myth, but I feel like that one should be heavily qualified.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 02:25

Thank you. That was the end of our myth versus fact round. So tell us about what the psychopath effect is.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 02:34

So we talk a lot about psychopathy. It's one of those issues within psychology that everybody has an opinion on, and everybody feels like they understand it. But it's like so many other things in science and in psychology specifically that we all understand it, but often we're wrong. So psychopathy as a psychological function, rather than thinking of it as a disorder, psychologists now classify it as a collection of behaviours. So we have meanness, boldness, and disinhibition. So meanness is your archetypal psychopathy. That's the thing you think of when you think of psychopathy. So it's that antagonism, that low empathy, resource hoarding, tending to be cruel. Boldness, on the other hand, is something that we tend to like. So it's the tendency to be low fear, low stress. People tend to be confident. They tend to be charming. These are the kind of people who tend to function very well in society.

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And then disinhibition are the kind of people who tend to struggle more in society. They have trouble controlling their impulses. They're more likely to have a criminal background, relationship issues, just because they don't have that inhibitory capacity that hopefully the rest of us do.

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We talk a lot about what the psychopath is, but what fascinated me more than that was what effect do they have on the rest of us as we go through the book? So the book is organised in terms of first glancing at a psychopath across a crowded room, getting to know them, maybe getting into a friendship with them, becoming colleagues, romantic relationships, if the psychopath is a parent. So it follows our progress through the relationship with the psychopath. And what was so interesting to me is that in each of those stages, they have different effects on us. So they have a pronounced capacity to affect our cognitions, our emotions, even our sense of reality, what we understand the world and ourselves to be. So the psychopath effect is about psychopathy, but more than that, it's about us and it's about how we react to psychopathy.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 05:28

Thank you. I really enjoyed the book and I really liked the way that it was structured with those kind of different relationships. And one of my favourite bits was that you used kind of real life examples of people who probably would've scored quite highly, high profile people. For example, there was someone that had been a big player in the kind of Nazi movement was in it. And I just found that really helped me to think, right, okay. Oh yeah, I can see how that plays out. But also it was really helpful to think, actually, these might be people that we'd meet on our way up in a career or we might be shoulder to shoulder trying to go for the same jobs and how that's going to impact us. So I really liked that kind of real world kind of how to spot a psychopath aspect as well.

(: 06:19

Well,

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 06:20

I think that's part of how our understanding of psychopathy has changed because we've traditionally, because psychopathy was treated as a disorder, these weren't the kind of people that we'd rub shoulders with. In the book, I talk about the extremes, so like Ted Bundy, the kind of people who you read about in the news, but odds are you're not going to bump into those. Statistically, you'd be quite unlucky to meet a Ted Bundy. But as our understanding of psychopathy has evolved, we've realised that the lower levels of psychopathic traits tend to affect all of us, what we can call a dimensional personality trait. So meanness, boldness, and disinhibition. We all have those traits. We all have a certain level of meanness within us. We all have a certain level of boldness and of disinhibition. The difference is when we're talking about somebody who would score as a psychopath is that they're looking at higher levels of those behavioural traits.

(: 07:29

But it is very much a societal issue. And as you saw in the book, I interviewed people who had real life experiences with people high in psychopathic traits, and there was no shortage. And the fun thing is you say, I'm writing a book about psychopaths and everybody, everybody will say, well, there was this guy. Everybody has a story. It's so interesting what happens when you remove the disorder element. When you start looking at the subclinical, just below that threshold, how much it kind of proliferates out and how pronounced of an issue it becomes.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 08:17

Yeah. I think your book has changed the way I think about people for sure.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 08:23

Is that a good thing or have I ruined people for you?

Dr Marianne Trent (: 08:27

Well, a little bit of both. A little bit from column A, a little bit from column B. Even the conversation I was having in the hairdressers on Friday about antagonism. I think the word antagonism is ruined for me now. It's never going to make me not think, right? Okay, let's have a little look at that. But it's because I do a lot of work with people who've experienced complex trauma, so we've often met people that are really not good people. It's really helped me think about formulating with them in a different way. It was never your fault and maybe there was never maybe anything you could have done that was any different once you'd kind of been locked in their sights. And I think that can be very de-shaming in itself and kind of putting that responsibility firmly outside of your control and back into the court of the person with a high psychopathy score.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 09:22

And what's so interesting, so when I started researching the book, the one thing I knew I wanted to talk about was what happens if you have somebody with high psychopathic traits who is a parent. And my comfort blanket for anything is the research. So when I wanted to understand what that looked like, I went straight into the psychological research and there was nothing. There were a handful of studies. I spoke to one brilliant researcher, Adele Forth, who was in Carlton University in Canada. And she was incredibly helpful and has done the study on parental psychopathy. But it was stunning that it was a case of the study. There was so little research done. And for those people, I started doing a series of interviews because I had to find out myself because there just wasn't anything there. And what was so fascinating with these individuals who had been raised by somebody who they can now identify as having psychopathic traits is they had gone through life never knowing what was wrong, but always feeling that there was something wrong with them.

(: 10:41

And what you would see is they would have histories of anxiety, depression, PTSD, chronic ill health. And they would go for psychological support always saying, "There's something wrong with me." And what happened when they were able to correctly locate the problem, when they were able to say, "Actually, perhaps the problem wasn't me. Perhaps the problem was that my parent had psychopathic traits, which massively influenced the way in which they parented me." And what happened then was really quite fascinating. In terms of mental health, they were able to function in a far more healthy way. They were able to. There's something really powerful about that saying it wasn't about me. It was about them. And what the research suggests is that even if they didn't remove themselves from the parent, we're talking about adults now, but most of them maintained relationships with the psychopathic parent. A lot of them, the majority of them looked after them in their old age.

(: 12:02

But even doing that, even still being in that environment, the difference in mental health when you can locate the problem as opposed to when you think it's you is staggering. There's something really powerful about being able to say, "This didn't start with me."

Dr Marianne Trent (: 12:20

Yeah. And also almost that you can choose to not be riled or choose not to be affected or choose to mildly dissociate in order to get through to just be able to do the physical care jobs associated with looking after your parents. But know that actually this isn't about me. Any other child that'd been born or in their power would've likely had the same experience and it wasn't my fault and I deserve something different.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 12:44

Yeah, absolutely. And in terms of, it's so difficult. I think that was the group that affected me more than any other because their identity, their worldview, everything had been built by a psychopath. That's a really dangerous place to be. And we think of psychopaths as being bad guys because that's what society has kind of taught us. But all of these people, all of the psychopathic parents showed evidence of loving behaviours, generosity, kindness. So it wasn't a dichotomy. There was this real contradiction in terms going on. And it was really confusing then for the children going, "Well, they can't be a psychopath because they gave me money to. They supported me through university or they gave me money to buy a car." But the problem I think we always have in those situations is that when we find ourselves presented as an adult with a psychopathic parent, we are often not approaching them as an adult.

(: 13:58

We're approaching them as a child again because they bring up every. I mean, you know, obviously this is your area. They bring up all of these childlike heartbreaks. And so when they trigger us, I love the fact you used the word mild dissociation, because I think it very much is that. There is a part of us choosing to go, "Okay, think about sheep." Or, "I'm well, should we think about sheep?" Anything just to remove yourself from that bombardment of pain, to remove yourself from being a small child again in that environment and unable to escape. There's a lot. It's a very powerful message to be able to say, "I'm having a boundary. I'm setting a boundary," because it gives you that sense of control that you didn't have as that small child.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 14:53

Yeah. I think speaking as a parent myself, I would consider my job well done or done enough if my children ultimately choose to have me in their lives when they're grown, but that they don't need to have me in their lives because they're not dependent and that we're not enmeshed. I want them to choose to come out and have coffee or go to the cinema with me or come around for dinner. Or my youngest always says, "Don't you worry. I'm going to cook for you." I'm like, "Lovely, that'd be nice." But in order to have that happen, we have to give our kids permission to individuate from us and to not still be under our constant control. And even the idea of once we go into our parental homes, I think sometimes as soon as I put my keys in the dish where we keep our keys, it's that ching that suddenly gets you back into being a child.

(: 15:45

And you need to grow up as a parent in order to let your children develop into young adults and beyond. And you can't still expect to control all of their behaviours. It's like I can allow you to make an unwise decision that I don't agree with. I can't necessarily allow you to make an unsafe decision as a child, but even those small amounts of autonomy are so important, aren't they?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 16:09

And the thing is, I mean, nothing is more threatening to somebody who is high in psychopathic traits than individuation. As having not just a child, a child is kind of the purest example of this, but for anybody who finds themself within the orbit of a psychopath, any sense of individuation, any sense of not entirely agreeing, not entirely buying into their worldview is immensely threatening. And so you see the wealth of research and psychopathy has been done in organisational psychology. So within workplace environments. And you see it there that anybody who finds themselves with a psychopathic boss, that's a classic example, the level of control exerted will be staggering. I gave an example in the book of staff being unable to decide what colour to paint a toilet in case they got into trouble. And it's that level of control. And I think we see that throughout the psychopath's behavioural repertoire.

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It is very much about, I will enter a social situation and I will take charge of it. And I will control not just how that social situation goes, but how you think about it, which is what is so damaging to everybody around them.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 17:46

So interesting. So interesting. So you kind of teased us at the beginning that you can tell a psychopath straight away. So I'm going to keep my hands out of the way when I ask you that question, Emma. Tell us about some of the things that people might be able to look out for.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 18:04

So what's really interesting in terms of psychopathy is you can, evidence suggests, research has shown that we can detect psychopathy from what's called thin slice behavioural examples. So if you see somebody from across a room, we do have the capacity to pick up psychopathic traits. However, the problem comes when we start to communicate with that person. What we know is that when that thin slice becomes a bit thicker, critically, once they start talking to us, we lose the capacity to assess psychopathy. And I think one of the reasons that that happens is the killer blow of psychopathic charm. Nothing fascinates me quite as much as psychopathic charm. Because in terms of, we talked about their need to control an environment and this is how we do it because they have the ability to lock you in, to talk to you in a way that you stop questioning.

(: 19:26

There's some fantastic research in the book. Not my research, that's not me blowing my own trumpet. There is just some really interesting research about what happens when we find ourselves face-to-face with somebody who's very high in charisma. And research has shown that if we are in communication with somebody who's very charismatic, we see a reduced blood flow in the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is critical for all our smart stuff, all our logical thinking, rational thinking, our ability to tell if somebody's lying to us.

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They termed it the guru effect. This is so cool. This is why I love psychology because they called it the guru effect. Because when you are face-to-face with somebody like a guru who is highly charismatic, you actually become a bit stupider. And there is an evolutionary logic to it. In evolutionary terms, we read charisma or charm as being a social signal. This tells us somebody knows what they're doing. This person is capable. If this person is capable high in social status, I don't need to reinvent the wheel. I can just assume they know what they're doing. Ergo, I can stop thinking so hard and let them take control. As a psychopath, you don't want anything more than that. That is a phenomenal tool to have in your arsenal. But the problem comes, of course, when you walk away and you go, "Wait, what did I just agree to?"

Dr Marianne Trent (: 21:15

Yeah, that is so funny. And it was something around the smile and the hand gestures and the fact that if you don't let the psychopath get to you, you can observe their psychopathy in 33 milliseconds, I think. But once you give them a chance to start working on you, they get your defences down a little bit.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 21:37

Absolutely. And this is exactly what's happening. So as humans, part of what we do is read the environment. We badmouth hypervigilance, but it's very useful in terms of keeping us alive. And one of the threats in the environment is potentially other people. So psychopathy does come with signals. So one of the classic ones that always gets my spidey senses tingling is somebody who stands that little bit too close to me. Somebody who doesn't respect interpersonal space. There are standards for interpersonal space who we will allow into what radius. The closer we are to somebody, the closer we'll allow them to stand. But psychopaths just go, "Yeah, I'm just going to stand where I want to stand." And that is a really powerful evolutionary signal because that tells us this person isn't playing by our social rules. And what that should do is signal a threat.

(: 22:45

But of course, once they start talking, the bit of the brain that's like, "Hi, hi, this isn't okay," tends to clock off. So it becomes a lot harder. So it's all about people say, "How do you detect psychopathy?" I'm like, "It's a really, really intensely difficult thing to pick up." Well, your ability to see it will depend on who you are. If you are somebody who is A, engaged in a conversation with them, but B, somebody who has value to them, your odds of seeing it are very, very low indeed because you will then become the target. One thing we know about psychopathic behaviour, the constant, the myth of psychopathy is that they can't empathise. Well, we know that that's not true, that they can empathise. They can show equal, if not superior, empathic ability to the rest of us. But the difference is it's motivated.

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So for somebody who has a high value to them, they will seem immensely empathic. They will be very good at looking for what you need. I talked to people who were early in romantic relationships with somebody who then transpired to have psychopathic traits. They would be so interested. They would be so interested in who you were, what you wanted in a relationship, what you needed out of life, which is great. However, there are a couple of different reasons why you do that. One of them is because you're nice. The other one is because you are gaining information that you will then use. And that's what happens. If you are somebody who is high in value to a psychopath, that's what you're up against. I maintain the people who see psychopaths for who they truly are, are those who have nothing to offer them whatsoever.

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In organisational psychology, you will see a pronounced difference between how somebody would describe a person with psychopathic traits, depending on where they sit in the organisation. The people below them will call them Satan. They'll be like, "This is the worst person I've ever met. He is evil." The person above them will say, "Oh, he's great. He's great. He's so obliging, so interested, always willing to go out of his way." They termed it upward licking, downward kicking. And it's a really good example of what psychopaths do. So for my money, the people who can detect psychopaths are the people who have nothing whatsoever to offer them. If you want to see who you're with, watch how they treat the waiter. Watch how they treat somebody who's checking them out in Tesco. Somebody who they'll never see again, who isn't immediately offering them anything, because that's where you see the core of a person's personality.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 26:07

So interesting. So interesting. And it definitely made me think that when I'm working in the media, they love it when I use my hands. And I don't know, is that because I'm then likely to be. Because apparently psychopaths are more likely to speak with their hands, I think I saw in your book. So are we trying to persuade our audience to believe what we're saying more? I'm using my hands as I speak, to get people on board with what we're saying. Is that why the media want me to do that?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 26:38

We don't actually know. So there's a lot of mixed evidence in terms of why we use our hands. So there's a couple of theories. What we do know is that when somebody uses their hands, and I could land planes when I talk, I'm very gesture heavy, but I was also a teacher for a very long. I used to teach non-students about psychology. So one of the advantages of somebody using their hands is it helps with the flow of information. It helps us process the information they're delivering. We don't really know why, but we do know that when somebody has their hands in use, that it helps the flow of communication. But it also serves a different purpose, and that's acting as a distractor. So if you are attempting to distract somebody from the content of your information, using your hands quite a lot is quite a good way of doing it.

(: 27:46

Now, I understand that when I said that, it sounded like I'm saying if somebody gestures a lot, they're lying. That's not what I'm saying at all. But it is one of those things that works towards cognitive load. A lot of gestures can add to the sense of cognitive load. So how hard the brain is having to work to process the information you are giving. And another one of the psychopaths power moves is cognitive load. So what we know in conversational styles is they'll often talk a lot. If you put somebody high in boldness specifically will talk an awful lot. When you're talking a lot, you're generating quite a lot of cognitive load. And the higher the sense of cognitive load we experience, the harder our brain is working. So the more difficult it becomes to pick out things that are A, wrong or B, flat lies.

(: 28:47

So I think the gesture thing is a part of that. It's a part of turbocharging this conversation. The other thing it does is it signals social status. If you gesture a lot, you're signalling that I'm in charge of this conversation. I'm running the room and I'm really hyper aware of my hands as I'm saying this, but I'm going to go sit on them now.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 29:13

Yeah, it's hard, isn't it? It's hard to not think about these things once you know them. And I think I probably use my hands more when I'm podcasting and in the media than I do in day-to-day conversations at the school gates, for example. And I hope that would mean that I'm less in charge in social situations.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 29:31

I don't think it means you're psyched. My friend texted me the other night. She's reading the book and she texted me. She went, "I gesture all the time. Does that make me a psychopath?" I'm like, "No, I tested you. You're fine." But it is a way of easing the flow of communication. And I think we especially use it when we are in the teacher role because we are illustrating our words via hand signals. I So let's go with that rather than being psychopathic.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 30:04

Thank you. I think what you're saying is I'm not ringing your psychopath bell, which I hope that's what you're saying. Okay. So are there any nonverbals we should be looking out for?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 30:14

Sure. So what we know is that when we display something called a Duchenne smile, it's the kind of smile that you display when you're nice. That's how we read it. So somebody goes, "Hi," and it's the kind of smile that triggers the muscles in your eyes. And it is perceived by everyone around us as a very warm, welcoming. You know that saying, "Well, they smile, but they didn't smile with their eyes." That is amateur hour because a Duchenne smile is what is perceived as more authentic. It's perceived as warmer. And we are more likely to trust somebody who delivers a Duchenne smile. However, what we also know is it's really not difficult to fake a Duchenne smile. Actors have been doing it for years. And psychopaths are very good at delivering what we want to see. They're very good at easing that flow of communication, of warmth, creating that image.

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Remember what we said. When you first meet a psychopath, they will seem like the warmest, kindest, most interested individual. We like people who are interested in us. And the Duchenne smile is a really powerful part of that delivery system. It's a way of signalling to our evolutionary brain, "Don't worry about me. I'm fine. Nothing to see here." And what's really interesting is if we were paying attention, the early part of our threat detection system should have been going, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Something's going on here." That early bit that can detect psychopathy from thin sliced behaviour should have been signalling us. The Duchenne smile is a really good way of disarming that. Follow that up then with psychopathic charm. We're defenceless.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 32:18

Wow. Indeed we are. It's definitely making me think about when I used to work in forensic units for inpatient settings. And people with high psychopathy scores were really good at splitting teams and kind of telling people what they wanted to hear on one side, not on another, causing friction, causing chaos. But it also made me think about people I've worked with in adult mental health teams who have borderline personality disorder diagnoses. And that was something you mentioned in your book as being kind of around quite a lot for people with high psychopathy scores. I also know just how upset so many of my clients with complex trauma and borderline personality would be for other people to be holding them in mind as being potentially psychopaths. But one that you didn't mention in the book was antisocial personality disorder. And people talk a lot about narcissism, don't they, in the public sphere currently.

(: 33:21

So could you talk to us a little bit around psychopathy and diagnoses?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 33:29

I think psychopathy as a diagnosis is A, immensely difficult because of its propensity to come along with all of these behavioural, the means of throwing us off. Inherent in psychopathy is a powerful tendency to emotionally manipulate, but not only a tendency, a skill. Emotional manipulation runs at the heart of psychopathy. We describe antagonism and meanness as the centre pole of psychopathy. And one of the most effective ways of doing that is this emotional manipulation, cutting people down, manipulating them so that they feel lesser. Of course, the problem with emotional manipulation is if you can see it coming, it's not as powerful. So for psychopathy to work as a behavioural tendency, it has to operate under the radar.

(: 34:43

In terms of. I'm not a diagnostician. And the DSM has looked to antisocial personality disorder as, would I say, alternative to psychopathy? You can't diagnose psychopathy in the DSM. You can diagnose antisocial personality disorder. Now, antisocial personality disorder has some of the tenets of psychopathy. They're very closely related. But what it does is it leans far more heavily on the disinhibition side. It's far more representative of those who shown criminal behaviour who struggle within society. Now what interests me, we talk about diagnosis and we talk about disorders. Often disorders represent somebody who's struggling, somebody who is struggling to function within our society, within the way that we have just deemed our society should work. Yet in truth, that's not a psychopath. Psychopaths are often immensely capable. We've looked at the social positioning of psychopathy, especially within organisations. In organisations, psychopaths rise to the top. The people who are struggling within society don't tend to do that.

(: 36:15

So I have a bit of a problem almost using the word diagnosis because it feels like we are medicalizing it in terms of saying this is a problem that needs to be fixed. For the psychopath, it's not a problem. For the psychopath, it's a behavioural response often to a tough environment. In the book, I talk about how one goes on to develop psychopathy, what has to happen for psychopathy to evolve. And in terms of surviving a tough environment, psychopathy is a really good way of doing it. It's not great for everybody else, but for you as the psychopath, it's immensely effective. So as I said, I'm not a diagnostician, but even the concept of diagnosis when it comes to psychopathy, I struggle with a little bit because I think that for me, it is represented far better as a pattern of behaviours that an individual has developed to allow them to survive and to thrive in a harsh environment.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 37:32

Thank you. So that's kind of more in line with the power threat meaning framework and kind of more thinking about formulation rather than diagnosis. That's really helpful. All right. Can we think about the psychopath in love and why love bombing is such a potentially disarming and important part of what people with high scores might do?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 37:52

Whenever I said I was writing a book about psychopathy, everybody had a story. Everybody had. There was this guy. And all of those. And it wasn't just guys, it was also girls. But as all of those stories began with love bombing. So love bombing is an intense bombardment. Bombing is such a good word for it because that's what it feels like. It's an intense process by which the psychopath convinces you they are everything you have ever wanted in a partner. It is overwhelming, immensely seductive. And I think it really helps if we hang on to what we said earlier about psychopathic charm, and now we're moving it into a different kind of relationship. So love bombing is psychopathic charm turned up to a thousand.

(: 38:54

And what's happening here is it's a way of. There's a couple of things happening. It's a way of convincing you that this person is everything you've ever wanted. We talked earlier about how they are very good listeners in the beginning. They are very interested because what they're doing is gathering information. They're finding out what do you need? What do you want? What are you looking for? And then I'm going to give it to you. It's very fast. One of the best signals of love bombing happening is that the experience of the relationship is disproportionate to the amount of time you've been in it. If they ask you to marry them on day 10, you're being love bombed, which is highly cynical. I'm sure there will be people who will argue with that. However, you know what I'm saying. It is disproportionate to the stage of the relationship.

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It's also really overwhelming. And that's not an accident.

(: 39:59

Part of the psychopathic tendency is the creation of cognitive load. Love bombing is a really, really intense way of creating not just cognitive load, but emotional load. You have all of this attention and all of this communication and the gifts and the sense of Prince Charming has finally arrived. But it also serves a different purpose. And we see this in cults. It's an incredibly common process in the early progress of an individual into a cult. You're really busy now because this person or this group of people have invited you in and they're now going to fill up all of your time. They're going to fill up all of your time, your attention. They're going to take all of your emotional energy. Because what that means is there's nothing left for anybody else. So your support system, the people you had before, get pushed to one side.

(: 41:03

Now, what I am going to say is it is normal when a new romantic relationship begins to have a period of intensity. It is also normal that your social circle will change when you enter into a romantic relationship because in terms of social function, there's only so much that we can do. Our social brain has a capacity. So it's really normal to see those kind of changes happen. But again, in psychopathy and love bombing, it's that dialled up to a thousand. And it's a process of isolation. Because what will happen is you'll have this period of love bombing, but it cannot last forever. In order to love bomb, the psychopath is having to maintain an intense degree of control over who they are. They're having to control the one thing that defines them, which is their antagonism. That won't last forever. And so once they feel safe, the love bombing will end.

(: 42:15

And then the real psychopath will come out. And that's when you really see who you're dealing with.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 42:21

Yeah. And having read this book, I wasn't very well over the weekend. And I spent a lot of time in front of a fan and watching Netflix. And it was really interesting because I found myself down a bit of a true crime wormhole. And there's a Netflix documentary called Worst Ex-Boyfriend Ever, and then one called Maternal Instinct and one called Worst Neighbour Ever. And it was so interesting watching that unfold when I sort of had in my mind freshly all of these kind of ways of spotting the psychopath early on. So I think it's changed true crime for me forever. Do you find your - So sorry. Yeah. Do you find yourself kind of applying this to people that you meet along the way?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 43:15

I do. I do. And in terms of true crime, the documentary will start because I watch a lot of true crime because I'm mildly obsessed. I'm fully obsessed with that. And it'll start and my husband will look at me and he'll be like, I'm like, "Yeah." I think often what we see is these individuals, because they present so well when you first meet them, it comes across as a real shock when they then display who they truly are. When the emotional manipulation comes out, the gaslighting comes out, the cruelty, the antagonism. All of that was there right from the beginning. You mentioned the documentary Maternal Instinct. Fascinating, fascinating one. And you could see it coming. You could see the steps, exactly. And not simply with the partner, but with the women that she was interacting with, you could see the love bombing.

(: 44:24

And it's a really interesting indication of how we end up in these positions because the one constant of everybody I've ever spoken to who have been in romantic relationships with somebody with psychopathic traits is how did I not see? How did I let this happen to myself? Well, and then the answer is you couldn't see. We can only assess the behaviour that is presented to us. And as their target, that would not have been presented to you. I will add a proviso to that. Our capacity to inhibit our worst selves will always fall down when we are sick, when we are stressed and in a heat wave. So we are all grumpy in a heat wave. Hands up, full disclosure. However, when somebody is under an immense amount of pressure, often what you will see behavioural leaks in terms of psychopathy is worth paying attention to those.

(: 45:30

If you find yourself in a position where somebody seems like a very different person in those environments, it's worth noting that there may be a bit more going on to it.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 45:43

I have to say, I've been foul. We were recording during some of the hottest weather in the UK on record. And I keep having to apologise to my kids. I'm just awful in the heat. And yeah, I'm kind of bored myself of saying, "It's so hot. It's so hot."

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 46:02

It's a revelation. It's like, "Did you not notice?

Dr Marianne Trent (: 46:05

What

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 46:06

Are you doing?" Oh,

Dr Marianne Trent (: 46:07

I have loved chatting with you. There's so much we haven't had a chance to cover, but I though, can we do a very quick fire round to finish Emma?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 46:15

Of course. Yes, of course we can.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 46:17

Okay. What do most people get wrong about psychopathy?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 46:22

The thing most people get wrong is that it is all about cruelty and callousness and low empathy. They forget that there will also be moments of kindness and empathy, and that is what throws everybody off.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 46:38

So interesting. When it comes to dating people or having dated people, the question is, well, why didn't they leave? Why is it not that simple?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 46:49

When you have been in a relationship with somebody high in psychopathic traits, one of the killer moves is destabilising your sense of self. After the love bombing comes the gaslighting, the pathological lying, and the emotional manipulation. And emotional manipulation, one of its core objectives is making you less than. Making you feel less powerful, less capable, less independent. All of that makes it almost impossible to leave.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 47:25

Thank you. And is it when the trauma bonds are coming in and it's almost that thunk cosp fallacy as well? We've been together this long and we've got these many children or what will people say? Talk to us briefly about trauma bonding, Emma.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 47:37

Trauma bonding is critical when you're looking at psychopathy and long-term relationships, not just romantic, but parental. Any long-lasting relationship with a psychopath will have an element of trauma bonding. Remember, this person has told you you're useless. This person has not only told you, they've convinced you that you are incapable, that you are worthless, that nobody else will want you. And so the logical thing to do is to cling on to whoever is willing to have you because you have lost any confidence that you can start again and let alone start again alone. So trauma bond, that creation of a trauma bond, I would say is almost the end goal. After the love bombing comes the gaslighting, the emotional manipulation, the lies, and that destruction of your sense of self. Once that has happened, you are locked in because you no longer feel capable of escaping.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 48:45

Gosh, if someone is watching or listening to this as a single person, it's kind of - Overwhelming. They're not

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 48:52

All like that.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 48:53

Okay, good to know. If they can be loving at the beginning of a relationship, why can't they sustain that all the time?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 49:00

That's a very good question. So I think what we have to recognise in psychopathy is that just like empathy, lovingness, kindness, generosity are all motivated behaviours. Now, I mean, that's true for all of us. In a heat wave, few of us are loving, generous and nice. So we all have that element of motivation when we behave well towards others. However, when we are talking about our closest social circle, for most of us, that tends to be removed. We treat them well because we treat them well because they're our children. Of course we do. For a psychopath, that is different. One of the fascinating things I came across when writing the book is inverted social reward. Most of us get a dopamine rush from interacting well with others, from having a nice conversation, from getting on well and having a good laugh. Most of us get a sense of reward from that, a dopamine rush.

(: 50:09

Psychopaths do not.

(: 50:12

What research has shown is that they instead experience an inverted sense of social reward. So they will get their dopamine rush from creating carnage. They will get a sense of reward from causing trouble, starting arguments. Have you ever heard that person's always spoiling for a fight? That's why. Because they genuinely will feel a rush of reward from that negative social interaction. The other thing that's related to psychopathy is negative social potency. Having the power to cause trouble in a relationship is really appealing to psychopaths. So you will never get them maintaining the niceness because it's just not rewarding.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 51:02

Gosh, wow, that really is food for thought, isn't it? Watch out. Okay, final one. Is it possible to read your book, The Psychopath Effect, and not think that either you are psychopathic, the reader, not you, or someone you know or have dated in the past? Is it physically possible?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 51:21

Is it physically possible? I don't know. I get asked this a lot and I have had a lot of people message me going, "Just reassure me, I'm not actually psychopathic." What I will say is we all have the traits that are displayed within psychopathy, but what makes you psychopathic is the extent to which you have them. And one should not be judged on how one behaves during a heat wave.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 51:47

Absolutely. Absolutely. Could not agree more. Otherwise, you'd be locking me up, I think, because I am foul in a heat wave. Could you tell us a little bit more about you and where our audience can connect with you, Emma?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 52:01

So I am the author of, I think we decided nine possibly fiction books. I have written Crime for a very long time, Psychological Crime. I have written The Psychopath Effect and an ebook, How to Be Broken, which is about COVID and trauma and all that kind of stuff. I am available periodically on social media, but generally speaking, I'm writing constantly, so I keep floating across people's awareness.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 52:39

Great. If people wanted to follow you on social media, where would be the best place to do that?

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 52:46

I am on multiple social media platforms, so BluSky and Threads @emmalk. I will be posting updates about books on those platforms for dog related content. I'm also on Instagram under Dr. Emma Kavanaugh.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 53:06

Amazing. Thank you so much. And yeah, thank you for writing this book because like I said, I did really enjoy it and it's really made me think differently about my clinical work. So thank you. I definitely do recommend it. Thanks for your time, Emma.

Dr Emma Kavanagh (: 53:19

Thank you so much.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 53:21

What an absolute treat to speak with Dr. Emma. I hope that you've really enjoyed this episode. If you have, I think you'll also really, really love her book. It's honestly blown my mind. So do check out the reviews or grab your own copy of The Psychopath Effect by clicking the link in the description or in the show notes. And if all this talk of psychology and kind of formulation and making sense of people has worked your appetite because you want to be a qualified psychologist one day, why not check out the aspiring psychologist membership, which you can join from just 30 pounds a month with no minimum term. And if you'd like to grab your free psychology success guide, you can get that from my website, www.aspiring-psychologist.co.uk. Scroll right down to the bottom of that page. You can grab your free guide there. If you enjoy learning a little bit about psychology and real crime and forensic psychology, I think you'll really enjoy the episode I did with the wonderful Dr.

(: 54:31

Dana Anderson, which is all about the killer psychologist, which is her own experiences of growing up in America in a complex trauma environment. The sense she made of that and how she ultimately went on to become a forensic psychologist. It was a real treat to speak with her and her words have really stayed with me. So if you haven't yet watched that one, check that out. And I'd love to know what you think to this episode and that one by dropping me a comment which you can do on Spotify, which is episode specific now, or always you can drop me comments on YouTube, which I always respond to. You'll actually get responses from me. So what's not to like? And yesterday I learned that 91% of you regularly watching content on YouTube don't currently subscribe. Let's click the subscribe button, maybe even consider clicking the alarm button so that you get alerted when I drop new content.

(: 55:31

Speaking of that, our next episode is available at 4:00 PM Saturday UK time on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts from 6:00 AM on Monday. Yes, I did say 4:00 PM Saturday. We're changing things up a little bit. I'd love your feedback on that as well. Thanks for being part of my world. I'll look forward to seeing you soon. Take care.