Saleem A.Shah, Ph.D. was a highly esteemed psychologist. In fact, he was so influential that some credit him with helping to establish the specialty of forensic psychology.

While working at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Shah directed, for nearly 20 years, an interdisciplinary research program focused on antisocial and violent behavior. The program was first called the Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency and later known as the Antisocial and Violent Behavior Branch.

He had a special interest in the relationship between mental health and the law and, in his role at NIMH, helped form the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.

Known as a man of strong conscience with deep concern for patients and their rights, he spoke all over the world, urging people to make sure that psychology was used in society in a compassionate and ethical way.

Tragically, Shah died in a car accident in 1992.

The award bearing his name has been presented annually, since 1995, to a young professional who demonstrates “significant early career achievement in forensic psychology or related fields of law.”

You can learn more about Saleem A. Shah, Ph.D. in:

• This archived article published in the Baltimore Sun shortly after his death
• The AAFP’s page describing the Saleem Shah Award for Early Career Excellence in Psychology and Law

As reported in The Crimson White, the student newspaper of the University of Alabama and on the University of Alabama Psychology Department’s website, this year’s recipient, for his research on psychopaths, is Alabama assistant professor of psychology and law Martin Sellbom.

In addition to his work on psychopathy, Sellbom studies personality disorders in general, especially focusing on assessment methods, and runs the school’s Personality, Psychopathology, and Measurement Lab.

In the Crimson article, Sellbom is quoted as saying that he views Daniel Craig’s version of James Bond as a favorite popular example of a psychopath.

Having won the award, Sellbom will speak at the 2013 American Psychology-Law Society Annual Conference.

A new study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence reinforces the fact that, under certain conditions, this might be the case.

The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), the current gold standard test for psychopathy, assesses a person on a variety of elements that are classified into two main categories called “factors.” The first, Factor 1, consists of the person’s interpersonal or affective traits, basically measuring the extent to which they have an aggressive narcissistic personality. The second, Factor 2, consists of the person’s actual behavior and measures the extent to which they exhibit an antisocial or socially deviant lifestyle.

Previous research has shown that certain aspects of body language, including walking style, are characteristic of victims and that those scoring high on the Factor 1 measures of the PCL-R are more accurate than others in judging someone’s vulnerability simply from watching them walk.

Now, in “Psychopathy and Victim Selection: The Use of Gait as a Cue to Vulnerability,” researchers Angela Book, Kimberly Costello and Joseph A. Camilleri studied 47 inmates at a maximum security penitentiary in Ontario, Canada and found that not only, as expected, do the inmates scoring high on PCL-R Factor 1 more accurately than others judge people’s vulnerability by observing their gait, but they are also more likely to actually explicitly mention the victim’s gait in explaining why they perceived them as vulnerable.

Book is an associate professor at Brock University specializing in forensic psychology whose “research interests focus on psychopathy and its relationship with a number of variables that relate directly to victim selection.”

Costello is a Ph.D. candidate at Brock whose “research focuses on the development and reduction of prejudice and discrimination.”

Camilleri is an assistant professor at Westfield State University specializing in the study of “the etiology of interpersonal conflict” with a special interest in psychopathy.

As such, all work in critical areas related to ponerology, seeking answers to some of the most vexing and important questions that must be confronted as we pursue a healthier, more sustainable world.

However, in the many years I’ve spent considering and researching BPD, I have come across two therapeutic approaches that seem to offer a glimmer of hope.

• Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
• Schema Therapy

Well, now one professor is using the latter method, Schema Therapy, to treat some of the only clients considered even more complex and resistant than those with BPD – psychopaths.

The common wisdom, for some time, has been that psychopaths are virtually untreatable. The general recommendation that I’ve encountered from experts such as Robert Hare is that it is best to simply use very pragmatic appeals to self-interest to try to convince psychopaths to inhibit their destructive behaviors rather than even put forth a futile attempt to fundamentally change their condition.

But Dr. David P. Bernstein, Professor of Forensic Psychotherapy at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, is challenging this dogma.

Bernstein has an interesting background in that he has deep experience in both the use of Schema Therapy and the field of personality disorders and has devoted himself to investigating how the former can be helpfully applied with those who exhibit the latter. So you could hardly find a better person to carry out the research that he has been doing.

In 2007, Bernstein and his colleagues began a very careful, large scale, randomized clinical trial of the efficacy of Schema Therapy with psychopaths institutionalized in numerous forensic hospitals in the Netherlands. The trial randomly assigned psychopaths to a group receiving three years of Schema Therapy or a group receiving three years of the typical treatment offered in their institutional setting and compares outcomes on various measures, including during a three year follow-up period after the therapy sessions end. Bernstein says it is the largest study of any kind to date investigating whether psychopaths can actually be treated with psychotherapy.

Bernstein and his work came to my attention when I was directed to an announcement of a lecture he was giving entitled “Reparenting a Psychopath: Is it Possible, and Does it Matter?” in which he planned to make the case that at least some psychopathic patients could “benefit from reparenting, showing emotional breakthroughs that were not believed possible” when engaged in the kind of emotional bond formed with a trained therapist during Schema Therapy.

The Facebook page announcing the event had some postings linking to other relevant resources about Bernstein’s work.

These included a link to the first of a series of videos (embedded below) showing Dr. Bernstein being interviewed by Dr. George Lockwood, who is on the executive board of the International Society of Schema Therapy (ISST), shortly before Bernstein’s scheduled keynote address (with the same title and topic as his more recent lecture) at the 5^th ISST World Conference in 2012. In the interview, Bernstein gives a preview of that talk, including discussion of:

• His work with forensic patients, especially those with Cluster B personality disorders, and including some previously thought to be untreatable such as psychopaths
• His experience that psychopaths, under certain conditions and contrary to conventional wisdom, can actually experience some emotional states such as vulnerability that, over time, can enable the formation of a therapeutic attachment
• How psychopaths’ crimes often stem from a situation in which their vulnerable side has been triggered and violence was used to cope with that
• Specific techniques for connecting with psychopaths’ vulnerable sides, triggering moral emotions in them
• How using Schema Therapy to treat psychopaths compares with using it to treat those with Borderline Personality Disorder
• The central role of the “mistrust/abuse schema” in psychopaths
• The early findings on various measures with the first thirty patients studied in the clinical trial
• How the cost savings of such treatment can ultimately result in the treatment paying for itself
• Why the largest benefits are seen in the most psychopathic patients
• How Schema Therapy can even help explain and address psychopaths’ lack of motivation in treatment

Part 1:

And here is the keynote address itself from the 5^th ISST World Conference in New York:

I was also able to find this overview of a talk David Bernstein gave entitled “Schema Therapy for Psychopathic and Other Forensic Patients with Personality Disorders” which may be of interest.

It is important to note that, at least at the time of Bernstein’s keynote address, the results of the clinical trial were not yet statistically significant because the study needs to be continued with a larger sample size. But, he explains that the initial results are quite promising.

Regardless of the outcome, however, Bernstein’s work and this clinical trial are inspiring because they represent just the type of serious focus on investigating psychopathy that we, as a society and a global system, desperately need.

Bernstein says that this trial is the first time that these Dutch forensic clinics have banded together for any multi-centered clinical trial. He has received support from the Dutch Ministry of Justice through its Expertise Center for Forensic Psychiatry (EFP) and even the Dutch Parliament has become aware of his work. It has become, as he says, a national focus.

Imagine if rigorous studies of how to best manage psychopathy became a national focus in other countries around the world. Catalyzing progress toward that goal could be one of the most important benefits of the further establishment and recognition of ponerology.