May 12th, 1995 - Welcome to the University of Toronto, Telemedicine Canada. I am Brian Jones. I am speaking to you from Kingston Psychiatric Hospital, Kingston, Ontario, where I am Director of the Forensic Service. Telemedicine system is a two-way sort of thing. We are going to have a principal speaker, but I would encourage everyone to listen and ask questions and raise issues later on...

The topic today is Psychopathy and Consumerism: Two Illnesses that Need and Feed Each Other, and I am certain you are going to find Dr Barker an interesting one. With us from his office in Midland today is Dr.Elliott Barker. Dr. Barker is a forensic psychiatrist currently in private practice, and the principal organizer and an active advocate of the Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Dr Barker has also had a lengthy and distinguished career in the assessment and treatment of mentally disordered offenders,much of this as their attending psychiatrist at the maximum security Oak Ridge Division of the Mental Health Centre, Penetanguishene, Ontario.

Although considerable of Dr Barker's pioneering work has been with assessment and treatment of psychopathy, he now invests the bulk of his energy into prevention. This is reflected in his extensive work with the Society, and also as his role of Editor of the Journal, EMPATHIC PARENTING. In addition, he has been invited to speak at many international conferences as an expert on childhood experiences in relation to antisocial behaviour.

I am pleased to have Dr Barker on the line today, and to introduce him to you.

During the talk a number of slides were shown at each site, beginning with a photo of the speaker. Each participant had received a copy of the articles listed in the table of contents.For this website the transcript has been edited for clarity and additional graphics and material added to further illustrate the issues discussed.

 
Hi Brian.Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to he able to speak about a topic that I feel strongly about. I am always apologizing to others in this field for not being a researcher. I think of myself as a convicted promoter of what is already known about the emotional needs of young children. I have had a lot of practical experience with psychopaths in my work at Ontario's Maximum Security Mental Hospital (Oak Ridge) and in my court work and private practice. I don't claim to know what psychopathy is or what causes it, but I am concerned about the topic which I chose to talk about today. This is an area that ought to be of enormous concern to all of us. It affects all of us and we tend not to think about it. We tend to think about the sexual psychopaths who do some dramatic killings and we follow it in the court and the population is aroused by that.

The comment about psychopathy that means the most to me was in DSM III, and III-R. It said, in effect, that partial psychopaths make good politicians and businessmen.

I was really tickled a number of years ago when I heard Dr. Hare, one of Canada 's foremost experts on psychopathy, talking at a conference. He made a kind of aside saying that where he'd really like to try and do evaluations and ratings of psychopathy was on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. I 'm not sure whether he was wary of whether there were reporters present or not, but that kind of thinking really preoccupies me.

It's not the Bernardos or the Hillside Stranglers, -- the dramatic psychopathic killers -- I think it's the other end of the spectrum of psychopathy -- the partial psychopaths we ought to be really worried about: because there are so many more of them, because they "fit in" to so many parts of our sick society, and they create havoc directly and indirectly for so many, many, many people.