Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream
A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior
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Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream
A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior
By Robert I. Simon, M.D.
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Director, Program in Psychiatry and Law Georgetown University School of Medicine Washi ngton , D C
Wa s hi n g to n , D C London, England
Note: The author has worked to ensure that all information in this book is accurate at the time of publication and consistent with general psychiatric and medical standards. As medical research and practice continue to advance, however, therapeutic standards may change. Moreover, specific situations may require a specific therapeutic response not included in this book. For these reasons and because human and mechanical errors sometimes occur, we recommend that readers follow the advice of physicians directly involved in their care or the care of a member of their family.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Simon, Robert I.
Bad men do what good men dream: a forensic psychiatrist illuminates the darker side of human behavior / by Robert I. Simon. — 1st ed., rev.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58562-294-8 (alk. paper)
1. Antisocial personality disorders. 2. Mentally ill offenders. 3. Psychopaths. 4. Acting out (Psychology) 5. Good and evil—Psychological aspects. 6. Shadow (Psychoanalysis) I. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Personality Disorders. 2. Forensic Psychiatry. WM 190 S596b 2008] RC555.S57 2008
616.85'82—dc22
2008004459
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP record is available from the British Library.
To A n n
Your goodness has made many things possible and everything worthwhile.
The heart has its reasons which reason does not understand.
—Blaise Pascal, Penseés
Contents
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi Thomas G. Gutheil, M.D.
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
1Illuminating the Darker Side of Human Behavior. . . . . . 1
2Human Killing Machines and Us
A Psychology of Evil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3Psychopaths
The Predators Among Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4Why Do They Rape?
The Inner Life of Rapists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5Stalkers
Forever Yours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6Workplace Violence
Is Your Job a Dead End? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
7Multiple Personality and Crime
A Real Whodunit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
8The Ultimate Betrayal
Sexual Misconduct in the Helping Professions. . . . . . . . . . 163
9Yo u O n l y D i e O n c e—But Did You Intend It?
The Forensic Psychiatrist As Sleuth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
10 Messianic Madness
Killer Cults to Holy Warriors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
11 Serial Sexual Killers
Your Life for Their Orgasm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
12 Character and Destiny
The Making of Good Men and Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Foreword
Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner.
Madame de Stael
A recent movie entitled Mr. Brooks tells the story of a vicious serial killer with a long history of murdering strangers. The movie begins, paradoxically, with Mr. Brooks receiving a “Citizen of the Year” award. This paradox is at the heart of this book by Robert I. Simon, M.D., in which this experienced, outstanding clinician and forensic psychiatrist describes in often chilling detail the “wolves disguised to live among the sheep.” But his analysis carries us further: to the wolf in everyone.
Sociologists have made the point that the human psyche has been subject in its history to three great blows to its narcissism. The first was delivered by Nicolaus Copernicus, suggesting that the earth, humankind’s home, is not the center of the universe. The second, delivered by Charles Darwin, was that humanity is not even a unique species but has evolved from precursors. The final blow was delivered by Sigmund Freud, who suggested that human beings are not even in conscious charge of their own minds, impulses, and decisions, but were influenced, if not controlled outright, by unconscious forces.
This last point brings us to the subject matter of this book. By demonstrating the parallels between the actions of “bad men” and the uncensored dreams of the rest of us, Simon has presented what amounts to a bid for tolerance and understanding, in the form of a forensic review of individuals he has so carefully and thoughtfully studied. He counsels—and, more meaningfully, demonstrates—the value of empathically understanding the “bad” in order to better appreciate and accept our own dark natures. He and I are of similar minds about this: Simon kindly quotes me as teaching—in regard to the most regressed, psychotic, or perverse patient my trainees are striving to treat—the maxim: “There, but for the grace of better defenses, go I.”
xi
xii Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream
There seem to be two major dimensions to Simon’s thesis. The first is that unmistakably “bad” persons may seem very much like the rest of us. Leston Havens, M.D., notes that the differential diagnosis of a person labeled “psychopath” includes the label “normal.” Such individuals excel at social mimicry, blending into the population and revealing their true nature only when caught and exposed; the extreme version is the impostor psychopath, who may convincingly forge an entire false identity and live that second life without detection. The modern literary versions of this story are no improvement on Thomas Mann’s classic, Confessions of Felix Krull: Confidence Man.
This mimicry accounts fo
r the fact that psychopaths are found in all walks of life, not just in incarcerated populations. Law school, business school, medical school, divinity school—none can successfully screen out psychopaths, since these institutions select not for character (impossible in any case), but for competence, and many psychopaths are both extremely competent and highly manipulative in achieving their ends.
The second dimension of Simon’s thesis is the commonality of “the rest of us” with the various sinners and criminals he describes. By encouraging recognition and acceptance of our own dark sides, Simon strives not only for empathy but for an end to the polarization “we are good and they are bad.” This polarization, Simon makes clear, leads to the whole spectrum of problems from self-righteous egocentrism to genocide. Many mentally ill persons see the world in sharp black-andwhite, all-or-none ways; Simon proposes the more mature viewpoint that acknowledges shades of gray.
Perhaps a comment closer to the mark of Simon’s intent in this work comes from noted psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan, who commented that the schizophrenic is more nearly human than otherwise. Even with this most serious of mental illnesses, capable of profoundly altering the person’s mind, emotions and behavior, Sullivan encouraged looking beyond symptomatology to the essential humanness beneath. Simon has a similar goal: to reveal the humanistic core all humans share, even those distinguished by seemingly inhuman behavior.
In expansion of this latter theme, Simon points out the evils done by “good” men who are not enslaved by mental disorders: the petit fonctionnaires, the petty bureaucrats, for example, who kept meticulous business records of the victims sent to the Nazi death chambers, providing the embodiment of Arendt’s banality of evil. Sadly, we need not
Foreword xiii
look as far back as the Second World War to find ordinary people apparently treating alleged terrorist detainees with probably illegal inhumanity, seemingly with the same psychological rationalization that Simon describes: “These are the enemy and deserve no better.”
For those who, even after reading this work, remain resistant to the idea of a “dark side” in ordinary people, we might note the current public fascination with serial killer narratives, police and crime scene procedurals, and similar materials in books, films, and television programs. These varied art forms likely provide vicarious gratifications of the impulses and fantasies that Simon so evocatively details.
In the end, this book should be read not only for its fascinating, riveting, and disturbing case histories, but also for its essential humanity in encouraging understanding of the most deviant of human behavior and in accepting the ubiquitous evils of which most of us, fortunately, only dream.
Thomas G. Gutheil, M.D. This page intentionally left blank
The proposition that not very much separates “good” and “bad” persons is difficult for many people to acknowledge. To some who consider themselves good, the very idea is an abomination. But I view the belief that we are good and that badness exists outside of ourselves as a fiction—the fiction that drives the engines of prejudice and discrimination, and, on a larger scale, of terrorism, wars, and genocides. It destroys the healing potential of empathy, not only for others but also for ourselves. Denial of mankind’s dark side, and projection of it, allows demonization and extermination of others, of whole countries. The serial killers, the evildoers, the psychopaths described in this book justify their criminal acts by calling their victims “trash,” as the Green River Killer declared. The reality is that “good” persons are not always good and that “bad” persons are not always bad. There are no saints among us.
Throughout this book, I try in various ways to answer the difficult if not impossible question: Why do bad men do what good men dream? Dostoyevsky recognized that this was a conundrum when he observed, “While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him.” In my analysis of the evildoers in this book, the answer to the “why” question is evident in some cases, at least to some extent, but in most others a definitive answer continues to be elusive.
The book’s purpose goes beyond that analysis. It is predicated on the notion that once we acknowledge that no great gulf exists between “good” and “bad” men, we can properly look inward instead of outward. The mass of humankind live unexamined lives of what Thoreau called “quiet desperation.” But men’s demons luxuriate in darkness. To illuminate them is a hard task. What makes us quintessentially human is the ability to turn our minds back upon ourselves, to shine a light on our demons, and thereby to harness them and put
xv xvi Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream
them to productive work. Evildoers cannot do so; they fail spectacularly at self-reflection and self-control. We who consider ourselves “good” people have choices. We can continue to curse the darkness or we can celebrate the human spirit by striving to engage our dark side in the pursuit of an enlightened destiny, not only for ourselves but also for all of humanity.
Robert I. Simon, M.D.
One of the pleasures of writing a book is acknowledging those persons who assisted in its creation. Robert K. Ressler, a former FBI special agent and a foremost expert on serial killers provided critical insights for the chapters on workplace violence and serial killers. I value his contribution greatly. I also consulted Albert M. Druktennis, M.D., J.D., a forensic psychiatrist, on the essential subject of this book, humankind’s darker side. I found his penetrating illumination of this topic to be uniquely incisive and extraordinarily sensitive. Tom Shachtman was my editorial consultant. His encyclopedic knowledge and expertise as a writer were extremely helpful.
I am grateful to American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc., to Robert E. Hales, M.D., M.B.A., editor-in-chief, and John McDuffie, editorial director, for their foresight and willingness to break new ground in publishing and updating a book of the forensic genre for informed laypersons and mental health professionals. A special thanks goes to the publisher’s editor, whose painstaking review greatly improved the quality of this book. When I embarked on this project, the outcome was far from certain. I was permitted freedom to pursue and refine my topic.
Finally, I want to express my thanks to my former secretary, Ms. Susan Breglio, for her faithful and competent assistance. Ms. Breglio being one of the most wholesome persons I have ever met, her fascination with serial killers caught me briefly by surprise. For my wife, whose patience and support made this book as well as so many other things possible, words fail me in expressing my deepest gratitude and affection.
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1
Illuminating the Darker Side of Human Behavior
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.
—Alexander Pope
Humankind has a dark side, and its existence ought not to come as a surprise to those who think of themselves as good people. Most religions conceive of humankind as bad, unregenerate, and in dire need of redemption. The story of Adam and Eve depicts man’s fall from grace and descent into a desperate condition. From that day on, the history of the world has been filled with violence.
Today, newspapers, television stations, and the Internet hawk their inventory of human tragedies. Interpersonal violence is a staple of local television news—“Grisly Murder at 11.” In the past 30 years, tens of millions of people in the United States have been injured by criminals; every 22 seconds, someone is beaten, stabbed, shot, robbed, raped, or killed. In the era of random violence, nobody feels safe. Overseas, the horrible ethnic cleansing—genocide by another name—continues unabated. In Somalia, tens of thousands of people starved to death while feudal warlords fought among themselves, then turned their violence against the very people who came to save the Somalis from starvation. In Darfur, since 2003, many thousands have been raped, tortured, and starved to death, while the government and rebels fight each other.
Glimpses of the demons that peek out from the dark recesses of our minds come from
some of the greatest writers, such as Goethe,
1
Dostoyevsky, Poe, Stevenson, and Shakespeare, who have written classic tales about humankind’s darker impulses. La Rochefoucauld observed that “We would often be ashamed of our best actions if the world knew the motives behind them.” Joseph Conrad wrote in Heart of Darkness that “A man’s most open actions have a secret side to them.” Examples abound in real life: for instance, a sadistic little boy might grow up to be a renowned surgeon. Such sadistic little boys are the subject of William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, which explores the beast within us: English boys marooned on a tropical island degenerate into vicious savages, illustrating the point that violence is often released in the absence of restraining, civilized structures. Sigmund Freud delved deeply into just this notion in many of his works: Civilization and Its Discontents viewed the human being as a creature driven by powerful instincts of aggression and primal passions that lead to rape, incest, and murder, imperfectly contained by social institutions and guilt.
We are frightened and yet fascinated by the dark side. Millions of upright citizens are avid consumers of movies, television programs, videos, books, and articles that portray murder, rape, and other forms of violence. The Internet has become another medium through which stalkers, sexual exploiters, and other evildoers can pursue their victims. Interactive video games are a multimillion dollar industry. One particularly violent game, Halo, in its three editions has sold tens of millions of copies. Its credo is “Thou shalt kill,” and players must shoot it out with others to conquer space. Many video games are devoted to violent adventures that reward the player’s ability to kill and kill quickly. One of every eight Hollywood movies has a theme of rape. By the time the average American reaches the age of 18, he or she will have viewed 250,000 acts of violence, including 40,000 murders on television. Mystery writers can count on making a good living by exploring the theme that almost anyone can be driven to kill. The reach of these violent images has been greatly extended by the proliferation of electronic communications—the Internet, DVDs, even cell phones, to which the young seem addicted.
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