I invite you to research the meaning of psychology, psychiatry and psychopath on the web, but for my purposes I can say that psychology is the discipline that studies mental processes and behaviour in humans; psychiatry is the branch of medicine that is concerned with the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders; and that the term psychopath is defined as a person with antisocial behaviour. The major issue of the hearing for Colin Thatcher's early parole is the determination of his social behaviour. On one side we have Colin Thacther's lawyer Hugh Harradence contending that Colin Thatcher has been a model prisoner for the last 16 years, and that therefore he would not be a threat to society if released early; and on the other side we have prosecutor Matt Miazga supporting the stance that Colin Thatcher is a psychopath and that therefore he would be a threat to society if released early.

It is a sad business to deal with what to do with a life of an individual, in this case Colin Thatcher, however it is extremely important to understand the weakness of the methods by which we can determine the behavior of people.

I don't want to make fun of Thatcher's hearing, but after listening to the testimony of Psychiatrist Julio Arboleda-Florez, the last witness for the prosecution, journalist Christie Blatchford was prompted to make a joke of this hearing and say "Eenie, meenie, minie, mo, do they let the killer go? Is he a psycho? Maybe so. Eenie, meenie, minie, mo"(2). This joke is the natural expression of our incapacity to even understand ourselves, now figure out how we can use psychiatry and the test called PCL-R (Psychopathy Check List -- Revised) to measure the degree of psychopathy in Mr. Colin Thatcher's mind. And to make things more complicated Dr. Arboleda-Florez has stated that many of the standard tests are virtually useless with a well-educated child of privilege such as Thatcher because, "There's nothing to measure." I also laughed when Dr. Arboleda-Florez said that Thatcher's denial in his ex-wife's killing leave a black hole in understanding his character and that further exploration is needed. But I had my biggest laugh when Dr. Arboleda-Florez stated that the characteristics of a psychopath such as glibness, grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, manipulativeness, lack of remorse and guilt, lack of empathy and callousness are typical characteristics of politicians. "Those are elements of leadership," Dr. Arboleda-Florez said.

References/Endnotes

Articles by Mario deSantis

1. Fyke's Medicare Survey and the Psychology of Influencing People, by Mario deSantis, October 27, 2000 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2000_200/desantis252/fykessurvey.html

2. Thatcher aces his 'perfect psycho' test, Christie Blatchford, October 31, 2000, National Post http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/stories/20001031/446497.html