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Tony: I'm not a psychopath! Tony's doctor: *That's exactly what a psychopath would say!*

I think the biggest problem is that if you tell someone for 14 years every day that they are insane, at one point they start to believe you.

The absolute best Ted Talk I've ever heard. "He's a gray area in a world that doesn't like gray areas. But the gray areas are where you find the complexity." The majority of societal problems has to do with the many labels and stereotypes places upon things. If those left, we would be a lot better off.

surprised the checklist didn't have "stands in a dimly lit room with two very bald men behind him in the shadows"

,,There's about 30 or 40 psychopaths in this room." Psychopaths in the room: *laughing inside*

Imagine after the speech he just started laughing and said “ That's right. I am Tony ”

Don’t mind this comment: I’m just writing down some time code I’ll have to use for a school presentation: Tony’s story : 2:24 Tony sane-looking outfit : 4:21 Convince you’re sane : 5:56 "sitting like a journalist" : 6:35 Statistics: 8:50 Capitalism : 9:25 AI Dunlap’s grand Florida mansion: 10:52 Dunlap psychopath checklist : 12:19 Journalist defining by the maddest edges: 13:49 Everyone is a bit psychopathic : 15:46 Gray area : 16:54

I remember learning about a psychology study where the researchers would admit themselves into a mental hospital. Don't remember too much of the details, but the main point was once you're labelled as "insane" it's extremely hard to remove the tag. Even if you behave normally (which is hard to do when you're actively trying to behave normally) and deny that you're insane, it's labelled as insane behavior.

"He's a grey area in a world that doesn't like grey areas." Never heard anything truer.

"It's a lot harder to convince people you're sane than to convince people you're crazy." I fell that on a spiritual level.

"a world that doesn't like grey areas" is a perfect description of Twitter.

During my life I amassed a huge number of diagnostic labels - anxiety, GAD, depression, OCD, SAD, PTSD, potential bipolar/BPD, complex PTSD.... only, it was none of those things. It was autism and it took 41-years, decades of therapy, and countless clinical assessments to be correctly identified. The DSM is only helpful if the clinician is fully aware. And believe me, not all practitioners are made equal. Misdiagnosis happens all the time.

"The grey area is were you find the complexity, the truth, the humanity." Beautiful quote.

someone once said "it is easier to fool people than to convince them they're fooled"

This reminds me of a study conducted in 1960s by Rosenhan, where 8 completely sane people go into these hospitals claiming they heard voices but then act completely normal. it tuned out that nurses recorded their very normal behavior like pacing out of boredom as schizophrenic traits

Absolutely. I went to visit a friend in a mental hospital. When we were sat there, there was random screaming and banging in the corridors which was really scary! I said "I bet you stay in here all the time, I know I would!" and she said she had to start with but she'd been told they thought she was insane because she didn't want to socialise with the other inmates. So she was having to force herself out to be with them. I cried all the way home for her. (She's fine now and back in the community).

"The only difference between a madman and me is that the madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad." Salvador Dali

I really like that one line "I was desperate to define him by his maddest edges."

I think the conclusion is so on point, we live in a world that’s obsessed with categorisation because it makes things easier for us to understand but this is something that doesn’t work well when applied to mental state

I find the part about bomb-sniffing bees interesting, because I've been to bad MDs and bad therapists many times, and every time I feel like I don't trust them and read my journal afterwards, it's obvious why I didn't trust them, simply because they misinterpreted several things I said. For example, when one MD asked me about my daily life as unemployed I said that I play video games, go for walks, and other things like that. What they wrote was "Plays video games all day and never goes out". And once I told a therapist that my depression got worse a specific year, and I had previously mentioned that I moved in with my partner that same year, in my journal it said "Partner makes them depressed", which wasn't true at all, especially since my depression got worse in the beginning of said year, and I moved in with my partner in the end of that year, and my partner actually helped me to get help in the first place, because I didn't even know I needed help, my partner saw the signs. In the past 1.5 years, almost 10 years since I first tried to get help, I've finally found a therapist and a psychiatrist who I trust. I haven't read the journals they write, because I don't feel like I need to, because I doubt that they write things that are simply not true. Sure that they might misinterpret me at times, but they're so understanding in general that I trust that they don't write things that are outright wrong.

"Crazy people don't know they're crazy. But I know I'm crazy therefore I'm not crazy. Isn't that crazy?"

A book with 374 mental disorders... Find someone that has none of them and watch that number go up to 375.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was perfectly entertained. Quite thought provoking.

This is so true it’s sad. I got sent to a mental hospital for a WEEK in that week they put me on 2 new meds I’ve never been on and tried to say I had a bunch of stuff wrong with me. They told me it was unnatural to cry bc I was in the hospital (against my will I should add) on my mother’s birthday and my best friends family’s funeral

"You know what Jon? Everyone's a bit psychopathic." "You are, I am. Well, obviously I am."

Plot twist: He's Tony. Jon actually did go to the bar, and Tony killed him, and assumed his identity.

there are great points in this - sometimes, people overanalyze things - you can eventually turn into the person you “hate” - let’s just say the media or everyone else will always nitpick on other’s business -_”You shouldn’t define people based on their maddest edges”_

This is my favorite TedTalk of all time. Have listened to it so many times I've lost count, and it's had a huge impact on me. I just want to say; Thank you, Jon, for this magical talk.

All my dreams end with people screaming, "you're a failure!" Then I go to bed

About the bomb-sniffing bees: he wasn't wrong.

It seems terrifying to be locked up in a fecking psych ward when youre not mad

" Capitalism rewards psychopathic behavior: the lack of empathy, the glibness, cunning, manipulative, remorseless. In fact, capitalism is a physical manifestation of psychopathy. " - Journalist Jon Ronson.

UKposts: "Recommended for you" me: What are you implying?

According to the "Check List" my cat is a psychopath. I knew my parrot was, but my cat?!?

Idk what it is about this guy but his talk was absolutely captivating. It wasn't just the subject matter, it was the way he delivered it. Also I don't know if those scientologists proved that psychiatry is the baloney that they think it is.

Your talk was absolutely fascinating. I agree that psychologists and psychiatrists over label people, me included. I was and still do experience clinical depression, but one psychiatrist that would only see me via video chat and had a heavy Indian accent was bent on labeling me as bipolar, which I am obviously not and had been seeing doctors for years and showed absolutely no signs of bipolar disorder. I told her she was crazy and asked for a different doc. She was totally demeaning and refused to transfer me to a different psych doc. I had to find a different clinic and start all over. These docs are megelomaniacs at times and do more harm than good and if a patient is weak willed can be harmed irrevocably by them and the medication they prescribe. I dodged a bullet I believe.

Plot twist, the speaker has schizophrenia and Tony is a imagined character.

Who puts a biography of ted bundy in a prison??

Edit: I wrote just "personality disorder" when I really meant "antisocial personality disorder". Huge error, my bad. This is why the term "antisocial personality disorder" is used now rather than psychopath or sociopath, because antisocial personality disorders exist on a spectrum, and it makes room for all the different types and degrees of people that would otherwise be labelled psychopaths. Most people with these personality disorders can live normal lives once diagnosed. They just have to monitor their empathy harder, like many other mental illnesses. Also, I came up as ~40% psychopath on a few psychopath quizzes because there's overlap between personality traits associated with autistic people and personality traits associated with "psychopaths".

his behavior would be normal in a regular place, ex. at a coffee shop, but is extremely inappropriate given where he was, a psych ward. imagine how uncomfortable a suit is when you're supposed to wear it - what would drive someone to go through all that effort, at a place where no one else was dressing up?

"It could be carnage by the end of the night" Everyone: *nervous laughter*

"Can I buy you a drink in a bar?" Only if you promise not to start a fight with me and end up in jail another month.

One of the issues with this is that being a psychopath is not in and of itself something that a person should be institutionalized for. It doesn’t make someone a killer, it doesn’t mean they’re violent or dangerous. It’s also an inherent trait that cannot be “cured.” Institutionalizing a person because they’re a psychopath is actually kind of messed up.

"But the grey area is where you find the complexity. It's where you find the humanity, and it's where you find the truth." That's a beautiful quote, and I've felt that, believed that, my whole life. That quote, that realization, is a gem. "He's a gray area in a world that doesn't like gray areas." I also like that one because it too is very true.

It would have been bone-chilling if in the end he was actually Tony.

Most important to me is this journalist admitting that he took the bits that backed up how he wanted his story to look and left out anything that contradicted it. It takes a good person to admit that.

I read Jon's book years ago and enjoyed it very much. A fascinating subject in which I was interested. Further research into Psychopathy showed a scary world in which these folks walk among us and have absolutely no empathy for other people. I've known them socially as well as in business and they are frightening. Much better to avoid them whenever possible.

wooow the storytelling, the background music and the animations gave me goosebumps. amazing! i was so immersed in the story.

"Grandiose sense of self... which would be hard for him to deny because he was standing under a giant oil painting of himself" 😂😂😂

Faking Madness for fun is what a pshycopath would do. Faking Madness to avoid going to the jail is literally what any sane person would do.

A mentally ill ex friend of mine once screamed at me for being happy to find out I was autistic. He was upset with the idea of labels, I was explaining to him that my whole life was hindered by my inability to understand why I was so different from others. I didn’t understand why I functioned differently, thought, and felt differently. When I found out I was autistic it changed my life. I was able to accept myself and fully understand myself and begin to understand others. I functioned better in life, I socialized better, and I finally went to college. He screamed “your a Pisces! That’s all there is!” But my friend was too far gone in his illness to realize that he was upset with himself for being ill. I had to stop talking to him for my own health. My point in telling this small story is that sometimes the labels can help you understand and overcome what your going through, and you don’t have to be bound by them.

"It's a lot harder to convince people you're sane than to convince them you're crazy." *That was my constant mood thorough my teen years.*

4 out of the 5 voices in my head liked this video.

Reminds me of a story about a man who was visiting a friend in a psychiatric hospital. He couldn't find the right ward when he spotted a man watering the garden and asked for directions. The man gave him the information and then said "I'm actually a patient here, you can see that I'm quite normal, could you put in a good word for me, because I don't really belong here." The visitor agreed to do so, then turned away to walk off. Suddenly he was hit in the back of the head with a brick, and the man said "Don't forget now!"

As over-quoted, as he is, the story reminded me of this “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”-Marcus Aurelius

If you're watching this video and feeling like you're at the end of your rope, please know that you're not alone. It's okay to reach out for help, whether that's through therapy, medication, or just talking to a friend. It can be a long and difficult journey, but there is hope and healing on the other side. Thank you to the creator for sharing their story and shedding light on this important topic.

That hit pretty close. I Imagine a psychopath never cried themselves to sleep, that simplifies the test a bit.

I was looking for the strange answers to the psychopath test.

This is one of the best TED talks ever!

This is hands-down my favorite Ted Talk. I've watched this at least six times.

This is honestly my worst nightmare, not being able to prove I'm sane.

I was waiting for him to say he was actually Tony

This was so great! I enjoyed every second. This guy is a phenomenal story teller. 👏👏👏👏👏

Wow. That was one of the greatest TED talks I've ever seen.

“15 of you are psycho-paths” *small woo’s in background* I think I found them.

Idk why but I was thinking "This could be a great movie."

My mothers friends child was diagnosed with autism when he was 6. He didn't respond as a normal child when he was spoken to. Always kept to himself and didn't speak for the most part. Once, when they came to us, my mother was gentle with that kid. As she always is, she started to pet him, was gentle and cheerful. Called him by his name and spoke to him as if he was a normal child. She noticed that the child reacted to her words and looked at her in a focused manner. I don't really know how she persuaded those parents, but they stoped the treatment. Started to spend more time with that kid. Found a child psychologist that helped them find mutual language with one another. That child is 13 now. He is fine. Going to a normal school, having friends, normal life. I have a couple of stories like that in my family where believing doctors ment hurting yourself/relative. The lesson for me from all of these stories is this - doctors are not you friends, not authority figures that you follow unquestionably. They are tools to fix the problem. You decide wether to use them or not.

My consultant once sat me down to just talk about the reasoning of medicine - amazing clinician; works as an oncologist but ran the spectrum of knowledge from philosophy to psychology to clinical medicine. As we were talking about diagostic reasoning he laughed (very kindly) about some of my attempts at trying to breakdown symptoms and diseases. "When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail." He'd say. He retired this year and I don't get to see him much anymore. But I think that's the point this video tries to make. Clinical medicine is deeply complex and we try our best to box things up because patterns emerge in random events but individual events are inherently random. The DSM and Psychology isn't witchcraft and white coat doctors trying to label everything they can - and it's worth remembering that the reason that DSM grows isn't to try and label everything as abnormal; but to try and tease out the complexity and nuace of what is abnormal and try and sift through the wheat from the chaf. Physicians are fully aware of the pitfalls - that's why the training to become a psychiatrist takes so long. It's not about memorising the DSM - it's about understanding the grey zones where most people lie.

I started therapy properly a year ago after a pretty intense period of self-hatred and self-harm. My psychologist was very clear in letting me know that I showed *traits* of Borderline Personality Disorder. I fit the bill, I could tick off on a lot of the 'symptoms,' I related heavily to others I met with BPD, but she didn't want me to diagnose and *define* myself by that. After a year in therapy, there's been certain traits I don't fit at all anymore, and some I never did, and sometimes a trigger will have me acting exactly like that. But she understands that grey area- and the focus is on managing the triggers, never the disorder being What I Am.

The dsm gives several symptoms of psychological disorders. The reason why everyone can relate to those symptoms is because, at healthy levels, they're all mostly normal human behaviors. They only become disorders if these symptoms interfere with your ability to live a normal life. (By normal I mean live a functional live)

Well, since 7th grade everyone has been jokingly calling me psycho, nickname stuck with me for nearly 20 years. Until life brought me at the wrong place the wrong time. Long story short, i had to get psychiatric evaluations which went horribly wrong. Even started doubting myself. It is indeed a lot harder to convince people you are sane

One of the best talks I've seen, can't believe it's a 10 year old video and I've not seen it until now.

"He is a gray area in a World that doesn't like gray areas" --> so true. Everything must be either black or white...

I gotta admit that this dude got mad presentation skills, with the background music, effects and all that.

Whoa! Awesome! Its my first time seeing a Ted talk w/ mixed audio-visuals. Amazing!

That was enlightening and thought provoking 💝

“And I didn’t go” somehow that hurts so much

Only a psychopath would have the background music that high while giving such a presentation.

He is an incredibly charming and effective speaker!

So amazing and inspiring My appreciation 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

14 years in a nut house would damage anyone, sane or not.

This, honestly would make a great film ..., the screenplay would have to be very well written but if it Is, it could be one of the best psychological thrillers

I do feel the most harmful and frequent form of psychopathy is the need to pigeonhole others. They say psychopathy is on a spectrum like most disorders that effect humans but “professionals” often play the flagging game because of one tiny detail of a person that may happen to find its way into conversation and fit the bill. Psychological evaluation for any disorder can verge on being criminalising in this day and age as it is done belligerently and even atrociously.

If somehow, you can crack the faces they've hidden just by a feeling of discomfort or just by a gut feeling that this person is not what they seem, trust it with all your heart and up your guards to maximum. Calm, cool and collective is the key. The consequences of being manipulated by someone might just be the end of you, either psychologically and physically, it just truly just an horrific and traumatized experience, and it WILL get downward from the moment you knew you hooked.

Man, poor Tony is probably really bummed that he thought he had a friend and then got rejected because someone STILL thinks he’s a semi-psychopath

The saddest part is at the end when he didn’t go to the bar. I feel bad for Tony.

This man is funny! It’s very difficult to joke about such a intense topic.

I have a common disorder. It’s called mysphonia and it is a sensitity to sounds and means that the background noise in this talk tends to drown out the substance of the talk. Thank science for Subtitles

darn.. I hoped so badly that he would say that he was actually Tony.. that would be an awesome plottwist..

"We're going to introduce you to Tony." "Who's Tony?" "You know... the bell boy from Jessie"

I haven't enjoyed something as good as this for a long time....hilarious !.....and added....very very insightful ...mastery of a topic ...impressive

Not a psychologist, but a lawyer who works with the public across all of it, it’s understandable that humans try to frame things in patterns that are convenient or feel safe. The reality is that everyone is a unique individual. Applying names and characterizations may help us discuss the patterns, but it doesn’t help individuals much. Best to take each person as a unique individual, including in therapy and in law.

Him, “Wait you’re a psychopath.” Tony- “Always have been”

What a beautiful choice of words when he realized what being a journalist is.

such a beautiful talk

It's 2022, and this is still one of the greatest Ted talks ever

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I was half expecting him to reveal that Tony had multiple personalities and one of them was Jon.

One of the best speech I've ever heard in my life. great pacing, brilliant performance