Aug. 29, 2023

The human capacity for cruelty with Dr Gwen Adshead

The human capacity for cruelty with Dr Gwen Adshead
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The human capacity for cruelty with Dr Gwen Adshead
The human capacity for cruelty with Dr Gwen Adshead
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Season 10 Psychology & Neuroscience Personal Growth & Healing

Cass sits down with Dr Gwen Adshead, one of Britain's leading forensic psychiatrists who has spent 30 years providing therapy to violent criminals including killers, arsonists, stalkers, gang members and those who are normally labelled as 'monsters'.Gwen discusses the role of early childhood trauma in later violent crime, the devastating consequences of cutting funding to public mental health services, and she makes a compelling case that in the right circumstances, we all have within us the capacity for acts of cruelty.Book: "The Devil You Know: Stories of human cruelty and compassion". Order it HEREConnect with Cass:www.crappytohappypod.comhello@crappytohappypod.com 
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Transcript
WEBVTT

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This is Crappita Happy and I am your host, Cass Dunn.

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I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist. I'm mindfulness meditation teacher

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and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In

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this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent

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people who are experts in their field and who have

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something of value to share that will help you feel

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less crappy and more happy. Doctor Gwen ad Said is

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one of Britain's leading forensic psychiatrists and she has spent

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thirty years providing therapy inside secure hospitals and prisons. She

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has recently co authored a book called The Devil You Know,

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and in the book, she takes us into the treatment

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room and reveals these men and women who have committed

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violent crime in all their complexity and vulnerability. She speaks

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to our shared humanity and she makes a powerful case

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for compassion over condemnation, empathy over fear, and challenges what

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we think we know about evil. Doctor Gwen ad said,

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Such a pleasure to welcome you to the Crabby to

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Happy podcast.

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Oh thank you very much for inviting me, Cass. It's

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a real pleasure to be here, Gwen.

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I'd love to start at the beginning and ask how

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you came to be doing this work? Am I correct

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in understanding that as part of your psychiatry training you

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are required to do a placement in a secure facility?

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Or is this something that you volunteered for?

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Well, psychiatric training has two phases in the UK. In

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the UK it hasards kind of early phase where you

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get do placements and lots of different places, and that

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might include doing a placement in a forensic post. And

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I'll explain what I mean by that in a minute.

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But some people decide to specialize in forensic work and

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they then go on and do well, I actually did

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four years. They now do three. But I actually did

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a four year training and then I spend a bit

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more time in training in forensics. So I mean, just

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to start from the basics. A forensics a cultist is

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somebody who works with people where there appears to be

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some connection between a person's mental disorder, a mental illness,

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and their criminal behavior of some sort and that tends

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to be violenced. So forensics a cultists are people who

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often give evidence in courts, so they're helping courts understand

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who's this person? How does do they have a mental

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illness and does that help us understand how they came

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to offend. That's so that's one way that forensics culturests work.

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That's true also in I mean that's true for forensics

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sculptures most all over the world, including Australia, America, India.

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You know, forensics culturists go to court and give evidence,

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But in the UK and in Australia and New Zealand

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and Canada, perhaps less so in the States, forensics culturests

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are also people who provide care, ordinary medical psychiatric care

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for people who've committed acts of serious violence when mentally ill.

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So a forensicsicuatrist has those two kinds of roles. So

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as a junior siculturist, I had a little experience of it,

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and then I went on to specialize in train and

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that's what I've done for the rest of my working

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life and still I am doing it.

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So you were drawn to this kind of work from

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very early on, and presumably to the therapy side of it.

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Yeah, so I was first drawn to it. I was

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actually drawn to it because I had an interest in

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medical law and ethics. So I'd studied medical law and

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ethics as a junior psychiatrist. So I was interested in

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how does the law think about mental illness and interesting

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and ethical questions like what makes us responsible for our actions?

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And these are actually not esoterical strange questions. These are

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question that actually human beings engage with all the time.

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So for example, you know, if a member of your

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family is snaps at you, you might wonder if they're

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a bit upset about something or depressed. And so, actually,

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you know when we assign, before we assign blame to

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people or responsibility for things, we often want to know

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what kind of mental state they're in. And I would

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was interested in the philosophy of that and as the

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law of that. So because of our interest, forensics and

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Chuattery spoke to me very powerfully, so I went into it.

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And then once I got started in it, I thought

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I could see that forensics a cultures. A lot of

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forensics cultures kind of case manage teams, which is fine.

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I mean that's what doctors do. Doctors take to be

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case managers. I mean they do work directly with patients,

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but often they act as case managers and overseers of

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a treatment plan and that kind of thing. And I

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really wanted to be actually doing the therapy. I just

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really wanted to be talking to people and trying to

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understand how they came to be in a situation that

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they were in, How did they come to let themselves

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sometimes do something that then was terrible then and they

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think I was terrible now. So that's how my work started.

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And I started training as a therapist a long long

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time ago.

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And that's true many psychiatrists, they don't necessarily work as

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therapists do the talking kind of therapies. No, I guess

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I was just curious to get an understanding of really

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what drew you to this work, because when you think

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about doing therapy with violent offenders, for many people that

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would just be not something that they would be remotely

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interested in. That would be so find that very difficult

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to reconcile their own personal moral values and feelings, and

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in the work that you do, you really have to

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park a lot of that.

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Is that fair, I think so? I mean, it is

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a complicated question, and there are a number of ways

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of thinking about it. I mean, one way to think

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about it, this is a straightforward, old fashioned medical professional

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and ethical tradition, which is that when somebody comes in

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with a terrible injury and damage. You don't kind of

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judge them first whether they're worthy. You get in and

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you do the work. And it doesn't matter whether they're

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worthy or not. You get in and do the work.

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And that's a standard ethical tradition in medicine, going back

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to Hippocrates. So, you know, so that's one medical view

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of it. But another view of it is that that

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actually judging people my own personal moral views have nothing

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to do with the work. If the work is about

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helping somebody to become safer in the future, then my

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personal take on the morality of their actions, which is

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already you know, kind of clear. You know, there isn't

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any debate about it, but my personal position is kind

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of neither here nor there. And actually, if I let it,

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it might spoil the work. It might mean the work

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doesn't get done. So that's another strand that's another way

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to think about it. Where would we be if our

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doctors event work. Where would we be if we all said, well,

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I think my personal views don't allow me to talk

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to you. It's kind of very undermining of social bonds generally.

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But the third thing is that I think that because

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violence is comparatively rare thing for people to do, especially

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when they're mentally ill. I think these are people who

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really need our help. And who's to say that if

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I had been in their situation, I might not have

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done the same thing. That Actually the distinction between them

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and me may not be so great. It's not as

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simple as the bad guys over here and the good

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guys over here.

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I think that's a really key theme obviously running through

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your book and obviously part of the motivation for writing it.

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So you've presented in the Devil you know essentially twelve cases,

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twelve individuals who obviously aren't a single individuals. You describe

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that they are composites, and you tell us the story

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of the process from you meeting them through to completing

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often completing therapy with them, and overwhelmingly the feeling is

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that we I mean, obviously I have a mental health

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background as well, so, but I don't think I would

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be the only one to say that your whole view

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of these individuals and what they have done changes when

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you have some understanding, which you present so beautifully in

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the book, When you have some understanding of what led

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them to that point of committing that crime. Yeah, and

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this idea that there is there's not necessarily good and evil.

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It is a case that anybody could be pushed to

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this point within the right circumstance.

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That's very much my view. And again this is a

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it's a personal view, but it's also a view which

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is supported by very long philosophical traditions. Originally, those philosophical

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traditions are mainly located in kind of faith based texts.

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If you go back at a couple of thousand years,

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that's where you find these discussions more often. But actually

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in other philosophical traditions, I think there's an understanding that

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people that this idea that there are good guys and

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bad guys is simply not sustained by the evidence from

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psychology or biology. And actually an observation that was made,

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you know, some sort of five hundred years ago that

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you know, we all have the potential for good or evil.

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It's the question is what circumstances will bring it out.

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I think has been very helpful to me and my understanding.

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And actually, if we're serious about trying to reduce people's

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risk of reoffending, then we really want to get down

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and deep to understand how they came to be in

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that situation because that will help us make a plan,

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help them make a plan for the future so that

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they don't offend again. And that's in everybody's interest, Whereas

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just saying, oh, you're disgusting your evil, let's throw away

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the key in not talk to you anymore is not

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is not terribly sensible, particularly for those people who are

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going to be coming out into our communities. Failing to

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provide them with a kind of thinking space is just

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not sensible in the community from a sort of community

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health point of view.

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And Gwen, I think you know, as mental health professionals,

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we're more likely to be predisposed when we see any

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sort of behavior to be asking the question, I wonder

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what happened to that person? I wonder what led to that?

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We're they're analyzing all of the time, you know, what

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would have led to that particular behavior as opposed to

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just the horrible evil person lock them up that kind

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of mindset. What did you find were the common threads? Like,

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what were the common themes that you saw amongst you know,

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hundreds of people that you worked with.

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The common threads. The first common thread that all forensics

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charatrists notice is that most people who commit at of violence,

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not all, and the the exceptions are very interesting people,

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and we might come back to that, but most people

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who've committed access serious violence have experienced very high levels

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of childhood adversity of various kinds. And what's interesting about

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that is that that was an observation that many of

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us who work with offenders, both in mental health services

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but also in the prison system, have noticed. But it's

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actually taken its research only carried out in the last

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decade or so to absolutely confirm that we have actual

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data to make that clear. It's true. It's not just

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a kind of wooly sympathetic speculation. You know, hard data,

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hard hard data that shows that the more childho diversity

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you've experienced, the more likely you are to commit access

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serious violence, and that those that charter diversity probably has

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an impact not only on how your brain develops in

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the early years, depending on when the childhood diversity the

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trauma happens, but it also powerfully affects the way you

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see the world and make relationships with other people. And

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those are two aspects of human function that are going

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to be crucial later on down the line when you're

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an adult. So it's been it's been very it's been

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wonderful actually in a way that they're very sad material,

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but it's been wonderful to say, have this kind of

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international data, all sorts of countries and cultures have find

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the same thing. So we know that childhood diversity, particularly

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physical abuse and neglect the children, can be a powerful

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predictor for later, for later. I prefer action, interaction, interpersonal action,

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rather than behavior, I think. I think we need to

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be thinking of people as mentalizing minded people who make choices.

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But of course you can make choices that are very

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poor choices, and choices that are kind of what's the

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world I want. They're not like a nice kind of

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table with choices set out clearly. It's as if they're

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options for travel, and they're clouded in sometimes by different

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kinds of colors or sounds, or distorted the way you

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see the world is distorted. So that's what's Those are

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the kind of main themes I think. And the other

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thing is that we need to make We need to

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it's helpful, I think, to make a distinction between violence,

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which is part of a relationship with the victim, and

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violence which is kind of comes out of nowhere, which

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is kind of unusual. Is also a communication to the victim.

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But it's often the communications that's that is a bit

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that is a bit distorted or confusing. So when you

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have violence within the family, men attacking partners, women attacking

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their partners, attacking their children, that kind of violence is

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communicative and relational, clearly. But when you have violence to strangers,

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there are other variables that come in, like alcohol substances

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and things like that. But sometimes that's often where mental

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illness plays in its severe mental illness. So violence as

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a communication is the other thing that I would emphasize.

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We now understand violence as a communication to victims, not

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a great one, distorted one, an unattractive one when we

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want to stop, not but kind of not meaningless.

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That's really interesting. But you know, when you talk about

246
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those kind of random acts of violence, like violence against

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a stranger, presumably there is some element of just bad

248
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luck in that, like just a time and place and situation.

249
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They're much less kind of premeditated or like you say, relational,

250
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but much more just in that moment, just bad luck,

251
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very much so, and.

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I often think of them as a kind of natural disaster.

253
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That's not to take away any accounts of personal responsibility

254
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and accountability. That's not where I'm at. But I often

255
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think that, particularly for some of our men, are people

256
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who've committed acts of terrible advance against the stranger when

257
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they were gross when they the Purpechases were grossly mentally ill.

258
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They are often like a disaster. They're like survivors of

259
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a disaster where they were the disaster and that was

260
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And that's, you know, something that came out of work

261
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that I've been doing with advance Perparchasse for a while,

262
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and I had extraorin experience just the other week of

263
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a man who killed a stranger when mentally ill was

264
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saying something very similar, not having had this conversation with me,

265
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and I'm sure not having heard me talk about this,

266
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said that he thought that the homicide was like a tornado,

267
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that what he'd done was a kind of tornado that

268
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ripped everybody's world apart. It caused massive damage. And then

269
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he said something very interesting. He said, but you have

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to look back when the tornado. When the tornado is past,

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you have to look back at the tornado, and you

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have to look at the damage it did. You can't

273
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just turn your back on what happened, which is really

274
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which is a very again, a very powerful metaphor, but

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I think also captures that moment, that essence that you

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were just talking about something that is perhaps it happens

277
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out of It could happen anytime, any place. It's unpredictable.

278
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It's unpredictably unpredictable, and a victim could just be in

279
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the wrong place at the wrong time. And thankfully this

280
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really doesn't happen very often, but of course it's it's

281
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noteworthy when it does. It's noteworthy when it does. And

282
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so actually some very interesting research down in Australia by

283
00:17:57.200 --> 00:18:01.799
some lovely Australian colleagues in Sydney did point this out

284
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that quite a number of those cases of homicides by

285
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people with mentally ill were carried out by people who

286
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were mentally ill for the very first time, that they

287
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weren't known to be mentally unwell, and that the mental illness,

288
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they're severe mental illness that kind of come upon their

289
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mind like tornado, and in that disturbance they'd killed somebody.

290
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Yeah, Gwen, it occurred to me while I was reading

291
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the book and thinking about wow, like you are a

292
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really highly trained specialist providing high levels of and very

293
00:18:36.440 --> 00:18:40.400
regular therapy to people who have committed violent crimes. And

294
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I know, presumably victims of crimes also have access to

295
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funding for those sorts of supports and services. But compared

296
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to the everyday person walking down the street, you know

297
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we have this country is no different from back in Australia.

298
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You know, there were limits to the amount of funding

299
00:18:56.119 --> 00:18:59.240
available for mental health services. Like people just get lost

300
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in the system. People are not able to access public services.

301
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Private services are unaffordable for people. I just guess I'm

302
00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:10.680
curious to ask what your thoughts are about that it's

303
00:19:10.720 --> 00:19:13.680
just for the average person. It would seem grossly unfair

304
00:19:13.720 --> 00:19:16.200
that this service is available to somebody who's committed a

305
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crime that is unavailable to the everyday person who could

306
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really use some support.

307
00:19:21.799 --> 00:19:27.000
Yeah, and that point is often made to me, and

308
00:19:28.440 --> 00:19:30.960
there are a number of ways to think about it. First,

309
00:19:31.599 --> 00:19:36.039
there is no there is no pot as it were,

310
00:19:36.759 --> 00:19:41.000
that is divided unequally. I mean, the fact that victims

311
00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:44.039
of trauma, whether in childhood or adulthood or anywhere else,

312
00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:48.359
don't get access to psychological therapy services is not because

313
00:19:48.400 --> 00:19:51.200
it's all being spent on offenders. They come from different

314
00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:53.559
pots of they come from different pots of money, and

315
00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:55.559
the reason that they come from different pots of money

316
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that they're funded. That the treatment of offenders is funded.

317
00:20:00.200 --> 00:20:02.000
And I think this is probably true on a state

318
00:20:02.039 --> 00:20:04.599
basis in Australia, and it certainly is in America and

319
00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:08.960
also but in this country comes from His Majesty's Prison

320
00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:10.759
and probationion. It comes from a fund in the Ministry

321
00:20:10.759 --> 00:20:15.559
of Justice. And the reason is is because the primary

322
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aim of the intervention is to try and reduce risk.

323
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So it's a public good. It's about it's a public good,

324
00:20:24.680 --> 00:20:27.720
and actually real attempts are constantly being made to reduce

325
00:20:27.880 --> 00:20:31.000
the services. I mean, what really costs a lot in

326
00:20:31.079 --> 00:20:36.680
public policy terms is detention. The more we detain people,

327
00:20:37.480 --> 00:20:43.480
particularly using prisons but also in secure settings, it's just

328
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fabulously expensive. So that's so that's one answer to the question.

329
00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:53.279
So I don't have any worries that what I'm doing

330
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is stopping other people from having therapy. And I also

331
00:20:55.960 --> 00:20:59.400
think that the work we do is ultimately in everybody's interest,

332
00:21:00.119 --> 00:21:04.359
in my own, if I want to put it at

333
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that kind of level. But the much bigger question about

334
00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:14.000
the politics I'm afraid is just is just that it's

335
00:21:14.039 --> 00:21:18.200
political and in this country we have we've had a

336
00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:22.359
government who's been dedicated with the destruction of the mental

337
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of the NHS since since they got into power, and

338
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it is very profound in mental health services. What's happened

339
00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:33.559
to mental health services? I'm a standard, you know, just

340
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stop oil Blue themselves to Rhodes. We need thousands of

341
00:21:37.279 --> 00:21:39.480
people on the barricade saying what have you done to

342
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our mental health services? What have you done? What have

343
00:21:44.759 --> 00:21:50.519
you done? And the denigration of mental health services? What

344
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happens in mental health? You know, if you have a

345
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mental health problem, you get referred, you know, by your GP.

346
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If you're lucky, four weeks later you might be seen

347
00:22:00.440 --> 00:22:02.920
by somebody. You won't be seen by anybody who's had

348
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a lengthy training or you're you're unlikely to see anybody's

349
00:22:06.319 --> 00:22:09.079
had a lengthy training like mine, or even a basic

350
00:22:09.119 --> 00:22:12.359
training like mine. You know, a basic psychiatrist in this

351
00:22:12.440 --> 00:22:15.799
country has had six or seven years of training to

352
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listen and to think about mental disorders. You know what

353
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you'll see as somebody who's much less trained. And that's

354
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because this government thinks that mental health is not very

355
00:22:27.119 --> 00:22:30.039
interesting or important, and you can you can all go

356
00:22:30.079 --> 00:22:32.799
away and sort yourselves out, you know. And I mean,

357
00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:36.880
what's happened to cams? Sorry, child and adolescent life services?

358
00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:41.960
I mean is I'm just I'm just a standard that

359
00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:46.640
people aren't out on the streets. They write hand ringing

360
00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:51.000
letters to newspapers, but people just not you know. Oh, yes,

361
00:22:51.039 --> 00:22:54.480
it's terrible when and it used not to be. That's

362
00:22:54.519 --> 00:22:56.960
the thing is that I have lived through a time.

363
00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:00.279
I trained at a time when there were large, well

364
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established child adolescent mental health services staffed with lots of

365
00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:10.119
trained psychiatrists, lots of trained social workers, lots of trained psychologists,

366
00:23:11.039 --> 00:23:15.680
and people who were interested in delivering therapy and help

367
00:23:15.799 --> 00:23:20.039
to families in trouble. But now, you know, the CAM

368
00:23:20.200 --> 00:23:24.559
services just barely exist, and when they do exist, they're

369
00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:28.200
overwhelmed and they're not supported to do the kind of

370
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relational work that we know really makes a difference, especially

371
00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:33.519
for teenagers.

372
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And to your point earlier, considering how much of those

373
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early experiences, that early childhood trauma is the precipitator to

374
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these later violent crimes, how many of them potentially could

375
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be prevented?

376
00:23:51.759 --> 00:23:54.759
Excuse me, well, yes, no, I think that's I think

377
00:23:54.799 --> 00:23:56.640
that's right. I mean part of the work that I

378
00:23:56.680 --> 00:23:58.799
do now. I don't work full time in the NHS

379
00:23:58.799 --> 00:24:03.920
anymore because very few consultants that I just do, but

380
00:24:04.200 --> 00:24:06.079
I do a lot of work in the family courts.

381
00:24:06.160 --> 00:24:11.680
So I see, I assess parents who have carried out

382
00:24:11.680 --> 00:24:15.400
the kind of childhood trauma that we know can result

383
00:24:15.440 --> 00:24:17.599
in problems later on down the line. And of course

384
00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:19.759
what I want is to try and get help for

385
00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:22.400
those women, and they are largely women. I mainly see

386
00:24:22.440 --> 00:24:27.079
mothers because of course most again most children in these circumstances,

387
00:24:27.160 --> 00:24:30.400
not everybody, but a lot of the children are with mothers,

388
00:24:30.599 --> 00:24:35.359
with single mothers who've been exposed to domestic violence. And

389
00:24:35.519 --> 00:24:39.680
I see women who urgently need help psychological help for

390
00:24:39.720 --> 00:24:42.079
themselves for their own histories of trauma, which you can

391
00:24:42.119 --> 00:24:45.960
anticipate there, but also they need help to be able

392
00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:50.480
to relate to their children differently. And the interesting thing

393
00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:55.839
about the brain in the early years in particular, is

394
00:24:56.519 --> 00:25:01.599
that it's entirely possible that small interventions could make a

395
00:25:01.599 --> 00:25:05.720
big difference later. So it is in very much all

396
00:25:05.799 --> 00:25:08.640
our interests, and there is some data to support this

397
00:25:09.079 --> 00:25:13.799
that actually money spent on cam services saves ten times

398
00:25:13.799 --> 00:25:18.000
that amount of money, yes, later on. So and it's

399
00:25:18.039 --> 00:25:23.559
the the utter refusal, it seems to me extraordinary out

400
00:25:23.599 --> 00:25:28.119
of political will, the utter refusal and the encouragement of

401
00:25:28.359 --> 00:25:33.079
NHS Trust to dismantle services to provide the very bare

402
00:25:33.720 --> 00:25:38.960
bear minimum and make us all wait for it. I

403
00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:40.799
mean at a time when we can ill afford to

404
00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:46.880
wait for particularly for sure for the under fives, mothers

405
00:25:46.880 --> 00:25:51.480
looking after toddlers, because that first five years is pretty crucial,

406
00:25:51.559 --> 00:25:52.839
and then the teenagers.

407
00:25:53.039 --> 00:25:57.000
Yeah, it's it's heartbreaking, but it's also just like you said,

408
00:25:57.079 --> 00:26:02.559
it is completely illogical. It is it's costing so much

409
00:26:02.680 --> 00:26:06.319
more down the track than what it would cost to

410
00:26:06.319 --> 00:26:09.839
put those supports and put those resources into place at

411
00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:10.319
the beginning.

412
00:26:10.480 --> 00:26:13.799
And it's entirely it's entirely a political choice. We can,

413
00:26:13.880 --> 00:26:17.519
we can, We can absolutely afford all these things. We

414
00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:19.960
would just choose that's what we choose to spend our

415
00:26:19.960 --> 00:26:22.200
money on, right, And I think you know, this is

416
00:26:22.279 --> 00:26:26.240
about the ethics of choices of resource allocation, you know,

417
00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:30.160
And are we a society that wants to put people's

418
00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:33.240
mental health right down the bottom of a list of priorities?

419
00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:36.319
And this is again another reason why I you know,

420
00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:40.119
you know, it's very important for people to understand that,

421
00:26:40.599 --> 00:26:44.240
you know, our patients, our patients are not getting something

422
00:26:44.319 --> 00:26:47.720
which deprives other people. And in fact, the most saddest

423
00:26:47.720 --> 00:26:51.559
thing about our many of our patients is that they

424
00:26:51.759 --> 00:26:55.680
only get help when they've committed offenses. We have a

425
00:26:55.720 --> 00:26:58.519
significant proportion of people in our prisons and our secure

426
00:26:58.519 --> 00:27:02.440
hospitals who, if they had had proper treatment at the time,

427
00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:06.119
would possibly not have committed the offense that they did,

428
00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:08.920
which is astounding thing to say. And it's all very

429
00:27:08.920 --> 00:27:11.359
you know, treat them up to the zoo now now

430
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:14.640
they've done it, but you know that's really sad.

431
00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:20.359
Yeah, you mentioned before that typically there is significant trauma

432
00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:23.799
in the background of the offenders. What percentage, I know

433
00:27:23.799 --> 00:27:25.559
you probably can't give me an actual percentage, but what

434
00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:32.000
percentage of people would you say really are evil? Oh? None, none,

435
00:27:32.119 --> 00:27:35.039
not a single one. Oh easy.

436
00:27:35.319 --> 00:27:36.960
I'm going to go I'm going to go for no

437
00:27:37.160 --> 00:27:41.880
percent because I think, because I come back to what.

438
00:27:41.799 --> 00:27:44.480
I said, I should have said that don't have trauma,

439
00:27:44.519 --> 00:27:47.240
that something else is going on for them.

440
00:27:47.440 --> 00:27:52.039
Yeah, oh no, I'm still I'm going with mine percent

441
00:27:52.200 --> 00:27:56.599
and the reason is this first, that even where you've

442
00:27:56.599 --> 00:28:01.240
got lots of trauma, trauma doesn't always explain the violence altogether.

443
00:28:02.640 --> 00:28:04.839
Because and many people who have maybe listened to your

444
00:28:04.839 --> 00:28:09.160
podcasts are possibly shouting as they listen. I know people

445
00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:11.359
with drama who haven't done anything violent.

446
00:28:11.480 --> 00:28:12.000
Right, That's.

447
00:28:13.599 --> 00:28:16.559
Yeah, and that's and that's and that is absolutely right.

448
00:28:16.680 --> 00:28:21.200
And nobody and when we talk about early childhood adversity,

449
00:28:21.240 --> 00:28:24.599
it's relationship with later violence. We're not saying that one

450
00:28:24.759 --> 00:28:27.559
causes the other. What we're saying is it exposure to

451
00:28:27.720 --> 00:28:31.720
high levels of fear and stress in particularly in the

452
00:28:31.720 --> 00:28:37.640
first five years of life, and processes that undermine a

453
00:28:37.799 --> 00:28:41.039
kind of social awareness and capacity for social relationships in

454
00:28:41.079 --> 00:28:44.799
the first five years. Those are risk factors that you

455
00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:48.480
carry through into adulthood. And then if other risk factors

456
00:28:48.519 --> 00:28:52.240
then pile in, that's where you get your violence risk.

457
00:28:52.319 --> 00:28:55.200
Then increasing of which and the violence and the other

458
00:28:55.319 --> 00:28:59.640
risk factors are things to do with the stress of poverty,

459
00:29:00.440 --> 00:29:04.880
the stress, substance misuse, addiction. Addiction is a massive respective

460
00:29:04.920 --> 00:29:10.319
for violence, massive, massive, massive respective for violence. So that's

461
00:29:10.359 --> 00:29:13.960
a kind of another respected to take on board. And

462
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:19.599
then relationship stress is another is another one and and

463
00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:21.440
what Eileen and I try to talk about in the

464
00:29:21.480 --> 00:29:25.359
book is the model of violence as a bicycle lock,

465
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:28.799
where the violence erupts if all the numbers line up.

466
00:29:29.079 --> 00:29:30.880
But you could have a couple of those numbers all

467
00:29:30.920 --> 00:29:34.160
your life and you'd never be violent. But then if

468
00:29:34.200 --> 00:29:36.440
the numbers are all present and they all line up

469
00:29:36.440 --> 00:29:39.440
in the right way, then the violence can erupt. So

470
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:42.799
to go back to your question, then we do meet

471
00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:49.079
people who don't appear to have had any kind of

472
00:29:49.279 --> 00:29:54.720
exposure to trauma, and that takes us into thinking about

473
00:29:54.839 --> 00:29:57.559
evil states of mind in a much broader way. So

474
00:29:57.799 --> 00:30:00.240
at this point, when I'm giving lectures about this, the

475
00:30:00.279 --> 00:30:03.200
point of the lecturer, which to this very sensible question,

476
00:30:03.279 --> 00:30:06.119
I usually put up a picture of the fifteen men

477
00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:09.839
who were present at the Vance Conference in nineteen forty one.

478
00:30:10.599 --> 00:30:14.559
The Vance Conference was held was just is in Germany,

479
00:30:14.799 --> 00:30:19.240
just outside I think, just outside Berlin, and it is

480
00:30:19.279 --> 00:30:24.519
where the German government of the day planned the final solution. Now,

481
00:30:24.880 --> 00:30:29.039
of those fifteen men, none of them had experienced child trauma.

482
00:30:29.079 --> 00:30:33.720
They weren't psychopaths, they weren't mentally unwell. They were you know,

483
00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:35.880
they were the krem de la Creme of their society.

484
00:30:35.920 --> 00:30:39.160
They were lawyers, they were they had degrees, they were

485
00:30:39.680 --> 00:30:43.599
high status men, they had wives, they had children. So

486
00:30:44.039 --> 00:30:47.200
I think we have to think much more carefully, deeply

487
00:30:47.240 --> 00:30:53.240
and broadly into about the human capacity for massive cruelty

488
00:30:54.640 --> 00:30:59.559
and trauma can be can be a risk fact and

489
00:30:59.640 --> 00:31:02.400
for and serious vans, no question about it. But we

490
00:31:02.519 --> 00:31:04.960
do see plenty of people who can get into evil

491
00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:11.240
states of mind without trauma being obviously present. And there

492
00:31:11.359 --> 00:31:13.920
we start to look at things to do issues to

493
00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:19.839
do with human relationships, usually policies around power and control,

494
00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:23.400
themes of power and control, and the Vance Conference is

495
00:31:23.400 --> 00:31:26.920
really a nice example of you know, the government of

496
00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:31.519
the day decided that, you know that the way that

497
00:31:31.559 --> 00:31:35.119
it wanted to show how great they were make Germany

498
00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:39.400
great again, as they actually saying by We're going to

499
00:31:39.440 --> 00:31:43.480
make Germany great again by exterminating a subgroup of the citizenry.

500
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:47.559
That's what we'll do. Now, that is at one level

501
00:31:47.599 --> 00:31:50.319
you can say that's evil, and of course it is

502
00:31:50.359 --> 00:31:53.000
a kind of evil state of mind that produces that

503
00:31:53.160 --> 00:31:55.960
kind of idea, but actually they thought they were doing

504
00:31:56.000 --> 00:31:58.480
something good. They thought they were entitled, they thought they

505
00:31:58.519 --> 00:32:04.119
were justified, and actually what we see sometimes in human

506
00:32:04.119 --> 00:32:07.160
beings who don't have the kinds of trauma. Is that

507
00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:10.400
similar kind of state of mind of I am powerful,

508
00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:15.079
I am entitled. But I don't think it helps necessary

509
00:32:15.119 --> 00:32:18.519
to say, oh, they're just evil, because very few people

510
00:32:18.640 --> 00:32:22.519
are Evil is the absence of good, and very few

511
00:32:22.559 --> 00:32:26.240
people are absent of good all the time. So the

512
00:32:26.319 --> 00:32:28.960
idea that there's people out there who are just pure

513
00:32:29.279 --> 00:32:33.640
evil no percent, zero percent zero.

514
00:32:33.880 --> 00:32:36.359
But seduced by power, I.

515
00:32:36.319 --> 00:32:42.480
Think so, and excited, excited by power differentials, and often

516
00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:52.640
also identified with a culture that denigrates the vulnerable, denigrates losers, weakness, neediness.

517
00:32:53.559 --> 00:32:56.799
You know, if you're weak or vulnerable, then I have

518
00:32:56.880 --> 00:33:00.880
every right to kick you and hurt you. I think

519
00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:03.680
that kind of state of mind is a kind of

520
00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:08.759
state of mind which makes real acts of cruelty and

521
00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:13.920
humiliation and despolation, desecration possible. You know, I'm great and

522
00:33:13.960 --> 00:33:14.599
you are crap.

523
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:20.119
Yeah, And therefore you can see how many people can

524
00:33:20.119 --> 00:33:22.839
be drawn into that kind of thinking. We've seen it

525
00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:25.839
over the last few years, the politics around the world,

526
00:33:25.880 --> 00:33:29.839
the them and us, and you know, the othering of

527
00:33:30.119 --> 00:33:34.680
people from different cultures or genders or whatever it is.

528
00:33:35.319 --> 00:33:39.759
Finding a scapegoat is very important, and actually many people.

529
00:33:40.440 --> 00:33:44.759
There was a philosophy and sociologist called Rene Gerard who

530
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:48.960
argued exactly this, that actually, often for human communities to

531
00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:53.640
stabilize themselves, if these communities are kind of psychologically insecure

532
00:33:53.720 --> 00:33:57.440
or unhappy, they can stabilize themselves by finding a scapegoat

533
00:33:57.440 --> 00:34:01.279
group on which to project all all their difficulties. And

534
00:34:01.319 --> 00:34:04.279
then you can create these kind of fantastical narratives that

535
00:34:04.359 --> 00:34:07.119
if only we could get rid of group X, or

536
00:34:07.200 --> 00:34:13.559
will be well. And also if we treat group X badly,

537
00:34:14.119 --> 00:34:16.800
we call them terrible, and we treat them badly, we

538
00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:20.320
big ourselves up. Then the more badly we treat them,

539
00:34:20.760 --> 00:34:23.840
the more sure we are of our own rightness, and

540
00:34:23.880 --> 00:34:26.360
that convinces us that we are right and we're doing

541
00:34:26.440 --> 00:34:28.760
this for good purposes. And this, of course is what's

542
00:34:28.760 --> 00:34:33.039
happening in Iran and Afghanistan, where it's crucially important to

543
00:34:33.079 --> 00:34:36.800
treat the women extremely badly in order for those men

544
00:34:37.400 --> 00:34:40.360
to feel good about themselves, to big themselves up. The

545
00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:43.079
worse they treat them, the better they feel. And that's

546
00:34:43.119 --> 00:34:46.039
why those two countries and Afghanistan, it seems to me,

547
00:34:46.159 --> 00:34:49.239
is a kind of presents an ethical dilemma for the West,

548
00:34:49.320 --> 00:34:51.559
which is, I don't know how you solve that. I

549
00:34:51.559 --> 00:34:54.239
don't know how you begin to solve that, because those

550
00:34:54.320 --> 00:34:57.440
men have nothing to gain by giving up the persecution

551
00:34:57.559 --> 00:34:59.920
of their women, nothing at all.

552
00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:04.840
When going back to the people that you treated in

553
00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.199
forensic facilities, obviously the goal is to rehabilitate people and

554
00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:12.719
to get them back out into the community as functioning

555
00:35:12.760 --> 00:35:15.400
human beings who are unlikely to offend again. Did you

556
00:35:15.400 --> 00:35:19.760
see people come back through the system? Does that happen

557
00:35:19.880 --> 00:35:20.360
very often?

558
00:35:20.400 --> 00:35:24.440
I guess, well, there are lots of kind of variables

559
00:35:24.559 --> 00:35:27.840
because often the people, often the people who've done the

560
00:35:27.880 --> 00:35:30.679
most severe things, you know, I don't get to see

561
00:35:30.679 --> 00:35:34.679
them go out, but occasionally. I mean my work in

562
00:35:34.800 --> 00:35:38.199
the women's prison, I've seen more people go out. And

563
00:35:39.079 --> 00:35:41.000
and in fact, I was just talking about a case

564
00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:44.159
with the colleague yesterday of a man who'd been in

565
00:35:44.199 --> 00:35:49.159
prison for sort of fifteen years, ever since, ever since

566
00:35:49.159 --> 00:35:55.360
he was fifteen, growing up in prison, and everybody and

567
00:35:55.400 --> 00:35:58.519
he was released, and everybody was slightly biting their fingernails

568
00:35:58.519 --> 00:36:01.719
about how he would go. Actually he's doing okay so far,

569
00:36:02.320 --> 00:36:04.280
but he needs obviously he needs a lot of support.

570
00:36:06.840 --> 00:36:10.320
But when people like him come back, and when people

571
00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:13.639
who've done violent things come back, I think it's important

572
00:36:13.679 --> 00:36:17.000
to remind everybody that most people who've done terrible acts

573
00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:19.079
of violence are not just kind of put out the

574
00:36:19.119 --> 00:36:21.239
door like the cat, you know, you know, with a

575
00:36:21.239 --> 00:36:23.480
bit of cash in their pocket, you know. I mean,

576
00:36:23.480 --> 00:36:25.639
if you've done serious violence, you're usually on some kind

577
00:36:25.679 --> 00:36:28.960
of license or supervision, and particularly if you've killed, you'll

578
00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:31.360
be on license or supervision for the rest of your life. So,

579
00:36:32.599 --> 00:36:35.599
and it's so it's actually comparatively nut rare for people

580
00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:39.519
who've done very serious acts of violence to go out

581
00:36:39.599 --> 00:36:42.119
and reoffend. But that's partly because they spend so long

582
00:36:42.159 --> 00:36:44.320
in prison and they often The other thing is that

583
00:36:44.360 --> 00:36:48.000
they can get pulled back to prison if anybody worries

584
00:36:48.039 --> 00:36:50.880
that they that they might be violent. So, for example,

585
00:36:51.239 --> 00:36:53.719
someone who's committed a serious violence defense spends time in

586
00:36:53.800 --> 00:36:57.559
prison released on license. One of the conditions of their

587
00:36:57.599 --> 00:37:00.320
license will be that they don't drink. Right if they

588
00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:02.880
start drinking, they'll be pulled back to prison straight away.

589
00:37:02.880 --> 00:37:08.599
They haven't committed another violent offense, but nobody's taking any chances.

590
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:11.440
So I've seen people come back in those kind of circumstances.

591
00:37:11.719 --> 00:37:13.760
But I think you're really talking about, well, for me,

592
00:37:13.920 --> 00:37:16.800
my experience, my response to your question, what comes to

593
00:37:16.880 --> 00:37:19.880
mind are the women, particularly the women, but not just

594
00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:23.599
the women. The women who offend mainly out of poverty. Right,

595
00:37:23.760 --> 00:37:27.599
So these are women who steal, and they are thieving

596
00:37:27.639 --> 00:37:30.039
out of poverty, and they are thieving out of addiction.

597
00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:35.760
And that's a bad combo. Partly the addiction feeds the poverty,

598
00:37:35.760 --> 00:37:38.000
but they have but often they've turned to the drugs

599
00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:40.760
in order to deal with the pain and anxiety of poverty.

600
00:37:40.559 --> 00:37:45.159
So I have certainly seen women come back to prison

601
00:37:46.719 --> 00:37:52.760
after serving a sentence because they just couldn't they couldn't function,

602
00:37:53.400 --> 00:37:57.800
they had nothing. And I've seen them come back. And

603
00:37:58.320 --> 00:37:59.960
you're making me think of a woman who I saw.

604
00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:03.159
You know, she said, I think, I you know, she's

605
00:38:03.280 --> 00:38:07.239
back for the fourth time. I think since I've been

606
00:38:07.239 --> 00:38:09.400
there about three years, she was back the fourth time.

607
00:38:09.440 --> 00:38:14.039
And you know, I remember saying, you know, what do

608
00:38:14.039 --> 00:38:16.079
you think is going what do you think's going on, Janie,

609
00:38:16.079 --> 00:38:19.920
what do you think going on? And she said, you know,

610
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:22.679
I think I like it here. I like it here.

611
00:38:22.719 --> 00:38:27.920
They know me here they know me as a person.

612
00:38:28.519 --> 00:38:30.599
I don't really like getting into trouble with the police,

613
00:38:30.679 --> 00:38:35.679
and I probably shouldn't have hit that policeman, but I

614
00:38:35.920 --> 00:38:36.480
like it here.

615
00:38:38.000 --> 00:38:41.119
Actually, when I asked the question, I was thinking not

616
00:38:41.519 --> 00:38:44.679
necessarily of you know, say the rapist who you know

617
00:38:45.239 --> 00:38:47.639
is released and immediately goes and attacks another woman and

618
00:38:47.719 --> 00:38:51.119
is back in prison, although obviously that must happen sometimes.

619
00:38:51.119 --> 00:38:55.320
But I was thinking back to my first job when

620
00:38:55.320 --> 00:38:58.559
I finished my undergraduate degree many years ago. Was he

621
00:38:58.599 --> 00:39:03.079
in child protection and in juvenile justice, and these offending adolescens,

622
00:39:03.159 --> 00:39:08.000
who obviously usually had early adverse experiences, we know the

623
00:39:08.079 --> 00:39:12.199
general story. And we used to say they'd show up

624
00:39:12.199 --> 00:39:14.440
to court and they'd get a warning, and then they'd

625
00:39:14.719 --> 00:39:18.320
go back to court and they'd get a maybe a probation,

626
00:39:18.840 --> 00:39:20.719
and then they'd go back and or a good behavior

627
00:39:20.760 --> 00:39:22.599
bond or something. They'd go back and they'd get a

628
00:39:22.599 --> 00:39:25.199
community service, and we'd say, you don't want to go

629
00:39:25.239 --> 00:39:27.239
to detention. You can't end up back in court because

630
00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:30.039
you'll end up in detention. And it would we really

631
00:39:30.079 --> 00:39:32.400
hoped that that worked to keep them from offending, because

632
00:39:32.440 --> 00:39:34.440
we knew that the first time they went to detention

633
00:39:35.079 --> 00:39:38.920
that was it, because they would get so much more stability, security,

634
00:39:38.960 --> 00:39:42.280
three meals a day structure once they got into detention

635
00:39:42.360 --> 00:39:44.119
that they don't get back at time. In fact, as

636
00:39:44.159 --> 00:39:45.800
I say that, I'm wondering why did we not want.

637
00:39:45.679 --> 00:39:46.360
The man detention?

638
00:39:46.679 --> 00:39:50.360
They're probably better off, But then it was it was

639
00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:54.760
almost like then we'd lost them because they they would

640
00:39:54.800 --> 00:39:56.400
be on that train.

641
00:39:56.679 --> 00:39:59.760
I guess well, and of course, but the other question

642
00:39:59.880 --> 00:40:04.559
is is given that we know that most young people

643
00:40:05.119 --> 00:40:09.800
who offend, and particularly if they're escalating into violence, have

644
00:40:09.960 --> 00:40:14.199
got some kind of psychological disruption going on. I mean,

645
00:40:14.559 --> 00:40:18.400
teenagers are how should we say, can be difficult to handle.

646
00:40:18.920 --> 00:40:21.960
But the good news is that most teenagers do not

647
00:40:22.039 --> 00:40:25.360
act violently and do not act persistently violently. So if

648
00:40:25.360 --> 00:40:30.280
you have a young man or woman who is becoming

649
00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:35.679
verbally aggressive or verbally hostile, physically hostile, you know these

650
00:40:35.719 --> 00:40:38.719
are people. These are young people who are crying out

651
00:40:39.519 --> 00:40:42.000
for some kind of help. And the real question is

652
00:40:42.039 --> 00:40:47.320
why do we not provide kind of therapeutic communities, possibly

653
00:40:47.360 --> 00:40:51.159
with a lock on, I have to negotiate these things,

654
00:40:51.480 --> 00:40:56.719
but we don't. Why do we not give vigorous and deep,

655
00:40:57.039 --> 00:41:00.320
rich psychological interventions the very first time. They are then

656
00:41:01.159 --> 00:41:06.400
right in there. Take this really seriously. This is not you.

657
00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:11.400
This is not you. You are not your offense. You

658
00:41:12.159 --> 00:41:15.039
are capable of doing and being something else, but you

659
00:41:15.119 --> 00:41:17.039
don't know what it is yet, so all you can

660
00:41:17.079 --> 00:41:21.000
think of is this crappy thing. So let us help

661
00:41:21.039 --> 00:41:24.159
you become a man or a woman who doesn't do

662
00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:26.880
those kind of crappy things. Would you like that kind

663
00:41:26.920 --> 00:41:29.000
of What kind of man or woman do you want

664
00:41:29.039 --> 00:41:33.159
to be? It's hard when you're thirteen and your mum,

665
00:41:33.320 --> 00:41:35.400
you know, you're just living with your mum and two

666
00:41:35.440 --> 00:41:37.320
other much younger half sibs, and you don't have a

667
00:41:37.400 --> 00:41:41.480
dad around and all of that stuff, and you're miserable.

668
00:41:41.800 --> 00:41:47.079
You're miserable, and puberty is horrible. And these are and

669
00:41:47.119 --> 00:41:49.960
we know from the research, and this is quite ancient

670
00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:52.480
research from the Cowi studies that were done in the

671
00:41:52.519 --> 00:41:57.360
nineteen seventies that children who look a bit delinquent age ten,

672
00:41:58.039 --> 00:42:01.679
if you provide them with some kind of support, they

673
00:42:01.719 --> 00:42:05.159
may still they may still struggle in their teenage, but

674
00:42:05.840 --> 00:42:09.559
actually having one adult who's there on your side, who

675
00:42:09.559 --> 00:42:13.599
supports you, somebody to attach to, can make a huge

676
00:42:13.599 --> 00:42:16.760
difference if they can reduce the chance and people will

677
00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:19.880
tell these stories, So many people would tell these stories.

678
00:42:20.079 --> 00:42:22.840
I was going off the rails and then mister Jenkins said,

679
00:42:23.280 --> 00:42:25.920
don't do that. Come come and play the timpani in

680
00:42:25.960 --> 00:42:28.920
my band or you know, or miss Williams said go

681
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:30.800
and play on the netball team, or come and help

682
00:42:30.840 --> 00:42:34.280
me with this. And they took me seriously. They saw me.

683
00:42:35.239 --> 00:42:39.119
Whereas my own mum she can't see me because she's addicted.

684
00:42:39.239 --> 00:42:42.320
She's drunk all the time, and social services are in

685
00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:45.480
her case and she's cross with me. She wants me

686
00:42:45.519 --> 00:42:48.519
to look after my little brother and sister, you know.

687
00:42:48.679 --> 00:42:54.079
And but miss Williams saw me. That's that's what they say.

688
00:42:54.559 --> 00:42:59.360
That's what they say. So why not we provide people

689
00:42:59.400 --> 00:43:01.199
to see them, Gwen.

690
00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:05.400
Here in the UK this week obviously the big news

691
00:43:05.440 --> 00:43:08.360
and in Australia the big news is Lucy let Be

692
00:43:08.840 --> 00:43:12.639
murdered seven found guilty, i should say, of killing six

693
00:43:12.679 --> 00:43:16.159
babies in the neonatal ward where she worked as a

694
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:20.360
young twenty something blonde, smiling nurse. Like it just horrifies

695
00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:23.760
people that this could be going on. I'm just curious.

696
00:43:24.440 --> 00:43:27.400
As mental health professionals, we can't diagnose people from a distance,

697
00:43:27.400 --> 00:43:30.480
but you, with your years of experience, when these crimes

698
00:43:30.559 --> 00:43:32.639
kind of pop up in the news, I'm curious to

699
00:43:32.679 --> 00:43:37.800
know what your thoughts are about those kinds of crimes.

700
00:43:37.960 --> 00:43:41.599
You know, through your filter of your experience, what goes

701
00:43:41.639 --> 00:43:44.039
through your head when you see things like that.

702
00:43:45.360 --> 00:43:49.199
Well, you know, like I mean, my first response is

703
00:43:49.239 --> 00:43:53.119
are much like everybody else's, which is this is just

704
00:43:53.800 --> 00:44:02.199
so awful, awful on so many levels, and it's incredibly

705
00:44:03.039 --> 00:44:11.440
distressing to think about for everybody, including you know, including

706
00:44:11.960 --> 00:44:16.280
the perpetrator and their family and their family circle. These

707
00:44:16.400 --> 00:44:22.039
kinds of homicide cause massive damage to people's lives. Then

708
00:44:22.159 --> 00:44:27.480
like a you know, it's Oppenheimer. Those you know, those

709
00:44:27.519 --> 00:44:31.039
bombs are kind of nuclear bomb that leaves its trace

710
00:44:31.159 --> 00:44:35.360
for ages and causes massive damage. So that's the first thing.

711
00:44:35.400 --> 00:44:38.960
And of course we're like everybody, I mean, and particularly

712
00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:42.119
in my world, where particularly it is particularly intriguing because

713
00:44:42.119 --> 00:44:46.559
these are unicorn events. They are they're kind of double

714
00:44:46.679 --> 00:44:53.199
unicorn events, really really unusual and so rare as to

715
00:44:53.239 --> 00:44:56.079
be able to make it difficult to say sensible things.

716
00:44:56.559 --> 00:44:59.119
But what it did make me think of is because

717
00:44:59.239 --> 00:45:04.719
I actually have an interest in mothers who who induce

718
00:45:04.840 --> 00:45:09.199
illness or give false accounts of illness in their children,

719
00:45:09.679 --> 00:45:13.760
and very occasionally those women go on they actually cause

720
00:45:13.960 --> 00:45:18.599
illness and children that is fatal. So this use this

721
00:45:18.679 --> 00:45:21.159
is a kind of These are the kind of choices

722
00:45:21.199 --> 00:45:25.239
and actions that used to be called one child is

723
00:45:25.239 --> 00:45:27.960
centered by proxy. But we don't call that. Nobody uses

724
00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:30.239
that term anymore because not least of all, because it's

725
00:45:30.239 --> 00:45:34.400
completely pointless, doesn't it. But so what we now usually

726
00:45:34.440 --> 00:45:37.400
call it is it's a bit clunky, but we usually

727
00:45:37.400 --> 00:45:40.280
call it something. The Americans call it medical child abuse,

728
00:45:40.280 --> 00:45:43.000
which I think is a better way of thinking about it,

729
00:45:43.079 --> 00:45:47.400
because it can be fatal. Like all child abuse, it

730
00:45:47.440 --> 00:45:50.119
can be fatal, and like all child abuse, it can

731
00:45:50.159 --> 00:45:57.079
involve deception, and like all child abuse, there are degrees

732
00:45:57.280 --> 00:46:03.239
of planning, and there are degrees of complexity around the abuse.

733
00:46:03.360 --> 00:46:07.760
But they child abuse always physical. Child abuse involves the

734
00:46:07.880 --> 00:46:12.480
misuse of a child's body. And so the women I see,

735
00:46:13.360 --> 00:46:16.159
I see quite a lot of women who they haven't

736
00:46:16.280 --> 00:46:18.679
killed their children, but they put their children at terrible

737
00:46:18.760 --> 00:46:22.239
risk by inducing illness or even just by giving false

738
00:46:22.280 --> 00:46:27.559
accounts of stories of the children's illnesses. And I've certainly

739
00:46:27.559 --> 00:46:33.079
seen many women who've given their child opiates for example,

740
00:46:33.320 --> 00:46:40.079
that might kill them, and they don't always have apparent

741
00:46:40.199 --> 00:46:44.440
histories of childhood trauma. And in those kind of cases,

742
00:46:44.519 --> 00:46:47.559
you kind of wonder about where this person got their

743
00:46:47.599 --> 00:46:51.800
attitudes towards vulnerability. Comes back to that discussion we were

744
00:46:51.800 --> 00:46:55.440
talking about earlier on, something about about what is it

745
00:46:55.800 --> 00:46:58.800
where you're in a situation where discrepancies of power and

746
00:46:58.880 --> 00:47:09.119
control and something about the vulnerability is kind of exciting

747
00:47:09.320 --> 00:47:13.800
but also disgusting. I find myself wondering whether this particular

748
00:47:13.840 --> 00:47:19.480
perpetrator found something about very premature babies and their vulnerability

749
00:47:19.480 --> 00:47:24.480
and their dependence found it disturbing in some way. And

750
00:47:24.559 --> 00:47:27.280
I say that too because there's some nice There are

751
00:47:27.280 --> 00:47:32.599
some interesting studies that have shown that women with insecure backgrounds,

752
00:47:33.519 --> 00:47:36.800
if you put them in fMRI scanners and show them

753
00:47:36.840 --> 00:47:40.320
pictures of unhappy babies, bits of their brain light up

754
00:47:40.480 --> 00:47:45.760
that are associated with distress and shame and disgust. So

755
00:47:45.800 --> 00:47:49.480
there's a few studies like that. So so you know,

756
00:47:49.840 --> 00:47:52.320
the diagnosis is not going to help us here. This

757
00:47:52.400 --> 00:47:55.599
is about because it yeah, diagnostic boxes that are of

758
00:47:55.599 --> 00:47:59.719
no use to anybody here. Something about the relationship with

759
00:48:00.199 --> 00:48:03.440
ability and neediness and dependence. That's where you'd have to look.

760
00:48:03.800 --> 00:48:08.320
But this particular perpetrator clearly has no way of thinking

761
00:48:08.400 --> 00:48:14.119
about it right now. They mislet be clearly, she was

762
00:48:14.119 --> 00:48:17.639
pleading not guilty. She went not guilty. She's that hasn't

763
00:48:17.800 --> 00:48:20.880
she's been unsuccessful. So she now has her whole life trafin.

764
00:48:21.840 --> 00:48:25.199
She's got an enormous amount of psychological work to do.

765
00:48:26.559 --> 00:48:29.880
She may not understand it herself. Truthfully, Cass, she may

766
00:48:29.880 --> 00:48:33.639
not understand it herself. That doesn't mitigate her responsibility, or

767
00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:36.320
that's not to excuse her in any way at all,

768
00:48:36.440 --> 00:48:41.039
because she knew what she was doing was wrong, but

769
00:48:41.159 --> 00:48:46.480
she may not understand it herself. And so we will

770
00:48:46.519 --> 00:48:51.599
wait to see what, if anything emerges. But I don't know.

771
00:48:51.760 --> 00:48:53.800
I don't know if she'll be off with therapy of

772
00:48:53.880 --> 00:48:57.960
any kind. I don't I don't know if she will.

773
00:48:58.760 --> 00:49:01.960
No, I was just gonna ask that she's a person

774
00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:05.519
who will never be released from prison based on her sentence,

775
00:49:05.519 --> 00:49:08.000
So therefore is she a candidate for therapy, like, is

776
00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:09.920
that something available to her?

777
00:49:10.239 --> 00:49:13.840
Well, we're fortunate in this country, you know, they're not

778
00:49:13.880 --> 00:49:16.320
as well resources they could be. But We're fortunate to

779
00:49:16.440 --> 00:49:20.599
have mental health teams that go into prisons, and we

780
00:49:20.760 --> 00:49:24.400
have a very limited amount of psychological therapy that is

781
00:49:24.440 --> 00:49:29.599
available to offenders. And we do have psychological therapy programs

782
00:49:30.679 --> 00:49:34.079
for offenders, particularly who we think have some kind of

783
00:49:34.079 --> 00:49:37.119
personality dysfunction, although I'm not quite sure that it is

784
00:49:37.199 --> 00:49:41.000
let be would fit them for that. But so it's

785
00:49:41.079 --> 00:49:43.639
not impossible that she'll be offered therapy. The question is

786
00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:46.960
whether she will want it, whether she'll be able to

787
00:49:47.079 --> 00:49:52.280
use it. And you won't be surprised to hear that,

788
00:49:52.400 --> 00:49:55.840
you know, we don't. We don't. Even the Institute Criminology,

789
00:49:55.880 --> 00:49:59.719
the wonderful Institute Criminology here in based in Cambridge, even

790
00:49:59.760 --> 00:50:02.480
they don't have a lot of data on what it's

791
00:50:02.559 --> 00:50:05.039
like to get a whole life tariff because they've only

792
00:50:05.079 --> 00:50:09.679
been around for twenty years. But we can imagine that

793
00:50:09.840 --> 00:50:13.880
it takes quite a while to get your head around that. Yeah,

794
00:50:13.920 --> 00:50:16.719
So if she asks for therapy, there'll be an attempt

795
00:50:16.800 --> 00:50:21.159
to provide it, I think, but she can't. I mean,

796
00:50:21.159 --> 00:50:25.679
we don't do therapy against people's will, and that's possible.

797
00:50:26.199 --> 00:50:30.960
But also to what end? Yeah, to what end?

798
00:50:31.119 --> 00:50:35.119
Yeah, Gwen, I'm very conscious of your time. I could

799
00:50:35.159 --> 00:50:37.519
ask you another twenty questions have you here all day?

800
00:50:37.960 --> 00:50:41.039
But I guess to wrap up, I think the theme

801
00:50:41.079 --> 00:50:45.239
that really comes through the book is this idea, and

802
00:50:45.280 --> 00:50:48.280
the term you use is radical compassion. Can you, for

803
00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:51.239
the listeners as a final question, could you explain what

804
00:50:51.239 --> 00:50:53.320
you've been by radical compassion? Because I think there is

805
00:50:53.360 --> 00:50:55.320
something to take away from that for all of us.

806
00:50:55.719 --> 00:50:58.159
Thank you well, I'm glad you think it's an interesting idea.

807
00:50:58.239 --> 00:51:00.519
It's not a unique idea. There are people have had

808
00:51:00.559 --> 00:51:03.760
similar kinds of idea. But the idea is that in

809
00:51:03.960 --> 00:51:07.639
order to if we really want to understand the root

810
00:51:07.719 --> 00:51:10.159
of people's offendings so that they don't do it again,

811
00:51:10.480 --> 00:51:14.800
we need to go down and deep. And that's where

812
00:51:14.840 --> 00:51:17.079
the word radics comes from, comes from the word route.

813
00:51:17.119 --> 00:51:19.840
So we want to get to the root of things,

814
00:51:20.920 --> 00:51:23.960
and we need to go in with I think, prepared

815
00:51:24.159 --> 00:51:28.519
to listen compassionately to what people have to hear, and

816
00:51:28.559 --> 00:51:32.559
that going in with a kind of cruelty or blaming

817
00:51:32.679 --> 00:51:35.440
or hostile attitude is not going to get us where

818
00:51:35.440 --> 00:51:37.360
we want to go. It won't allow us to go deep.

819
00:51:37.880 --> 00:51:40.400
So the radical part of it is about going deep

820
00:51:40.840 --> 00:51:44.679
in with compassion. But the radical part is also about

821
00:51:45.239 --> 00:51:48.880
being able to step back and reminding yourself of the

822
00:51:48.960 --> 00:51:51.719
damage that this person has done, the great harm that

823
00:51:51.719 --> 00:51:55.039
they have done, reminding yourself of the victims who have

824
00:51:55.079 --> 00:51:59.199
suffered and the suffering cause by this person with whom

825
00:51:59.239 --> 00:52:03.800
you are sharing a compassion piece of work. And that's

826
00:52:03.840 --> 00:52:06.880
where it's kind of radical too, because the forensic psychotherapist

827
00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:10.679
has to keep all those other people in mind as

828
00:52:10.719 --> 00:52:13.920
well as the person they're working with. It's not simple

829
00:52:14.119 --> 00:52:17.480
as kind of just coming along and saying, you know,

830
00:52:17.599 --> 00:52:20.320
just showing compassion to the perpetrator. You have to keep

831
00:52:20.679 --> 00:52:23.960
the compassion for everyone who's been affected in your mind

832
00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:24.440
as well.

833
00:52:26.679 --> 00:52:31.039
Gwen, thank you so much for your time today. I

834
00:52:31.119 --> 00:52:32.119
really appreciate it.

835
00:52:32.199 --> 00:52:33.559
Thank you for asking me kas.

836
00:52:34.079 --> 00:52:36.440
I will be sure, obviously to promote the book far

837
00:52:36.519 --> 00:52:39.280
and wide, because it is a really fascinating read. It's

838
00:52:39.320 --> 00:52:41.719
an interesting read, but I think, you know, the bigger

839
00:52:41.760 --> 00:52:44.440
picture not just of understanding what's going on in the

840
00:52:44.440 --> 00:52:47.760
minds of these violent offenders, but this idea of how

841
00:52:47.840 --> 00:52:51.119
we view them, I think is a really important.

842
00:52:51.119 --> 00:52:52.760
Thanks Gas, been a pleasure to meet you.

843
00:52:54.159 --> 00:52:57.239
Gwen's book is called The devil you know, stories of

844
00:52:57.320 --> 00:53:01.159
human cruelty and compassion. It is an absolute compelling read.

845
00:53:01.239 --> 00:53:05.320
I would highly recommend it if you have enjoyed this episode.

846
00:53:05.360 --> 00:53:07.519
If you enjoy the show, please do tell your friends.

847
00:53:08.239 --> 00:53:10.480
Give us a rating and review on Apple Podcast. Hit

848
00:53:10.519 --> 00:53:13.639
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849
00:53:13.679 --> 00:53:16.119
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850
00:53:16.159 --> 00:53:19.519
hang out with me on Instagram cast on Underscore XO,

851
00:53:20.039 --> 00:53:22.679
also on TikTok and I am starting a brand new

852
00:53:22.679 --> 00:53:26.159
Instagram account for the podcast that is at Crappy to

853
00:53:26.199 --> 00:53:29.119
Happy Pod, so you won't find much content there yet,

854
00:53:29.280 --> 00:53:33.199
but it will be on there soon and I can't

855
00:53:33.320 --> 00:53:36.679
wait to catch you next week for another episode of

856
00:53:36.840 --> 00:53:40.519
Crappy to Happy