I have had limited contact with psychiatrists and psychologists, although my enemies say that to deal with my problems, I would need an army of them! Indeed, when I saw my GP about my psycho-political depression, he thought that I was a hopeless case and best just wait it out. And if Dr Karen Mitchell is right, I am doing well to self-help and heal by prayer and clean living rather than fall prey to the psycho-profession.
Dr Mitchell did a thesis: "Psychopaths, Narcissists, Machiavellians, Toxic Leaders, Coercive Controllers: Subsets of One Overarching 'Dark' Personality Type? 2024 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy," with the abstract below. It was at an Australian university, which is remarkable given her conclusions. In short, "[m]any, many psychologists and psychiatrists are narcissists / psychopaths / predators" who "LOVE the control and power it gives them over people, the way they engage in manipulation, the ability to apply sadistic behaviours, all without being suspected and with the added delight of being able to use their professional role against the client if ever challenged or exposed." "Predators gravitate to vulnerable populations and those seeking support for mental health issues are truly vulnerable as well as suggestible which appeals to the predator's need for control."
As would be expected, this struck a raw nerve with the psycho-professionals who struck back. This critique was very brave, and I doubt very much if any academic working in those disciplines would get away with making such comments, as true as they are.
"A self-proclaimed "[e]xpert in high functioning psychopaths, narcissists, coercive controllers: CEO's [sic], professors, doctors, psychologists, lawyers, religion ..." from the Kalmor Institute in Australia says she was attacked on X by deranged psychologists and psychiatrists after she called many of them out as narcissistic, psychopathic predators.
Dr. Karen Mitchell, PhD, wrote in a tweet dated June 28 that "[m]any, many psychologists and psychiatrists are narcissists / psychopaths / predators" who "LOVE the control and power it gives them over people, the way they engage in manipulation, the ability to apply sadistic behaviours, all without being suspected and with the added delight of being able to use their professional role against the client if ever challenged or exposed."
"Be cautious who you give your trust to," Mitchell warned in the same post, which drew a litany of fury from the very people in the profession to which she was referring.
Mitchell described the four kinds of psychologists and psychiatrists that exhibit these dangerous and destructive traits: predators; those who deny that predators exist; those who fail to fully understand predators; and those who understand fully the threat of predators within the mental health profession.
"Predators gravitate to vulnerable populations and those seeking support for mental health issues are truly vulnerable as well as suggestible which appeals to the predator's need for control," Mitchell wrote about the predators.
As for those who deny the existence of predators because they cannot comprehend how someone could be so evil, Mitchell added that these types are often very outspoken and "dangerous in their ignorance."
Those simply lacking in understanding who are on the journey of learning are doing a good thing, according to Mitchell. They will eventually join those who get it fully either through direct experience with predators or because they learn about them from their damaged clients.
Beware mental health "professionals"Mitchell's X thread about all this is very direct. And because it calls out basically an entire profession, many so-called mental health "professionals" lashed out against her for offending and upsetting them.
In a response tweet to all the hateful feedback she received, Mitchell said some of the responses were "nothing short of abusive" as people "judged, character-assassinated, misunderstood, humiliated, (and) disrespected" her.
"I feel physically sick," she wrote. "I am stunned at the maliciousness and demeaning nature of the group bullying from mental health professionals. I am really, really distressed."
One of the nasty comments Mitchell received came from someone named "Dr Annie Hickox" (@DrAnnieHickox) who accused Mitchell of being illiterate concerning mental health.
"Mental health literacy still has a long way to go, I guess," Hickox further wrote.
Mitchell's responses appeared to be mostly positive, though, with the above being the only negative one this writer could find that Mitchell retweeted. Many others reached out to Mitchell to encourage her, it appears, with one stating that she believes Mitchell's work should be taught in schools.
"This is domestic violence!" this person wrote. "Our children are exposed to this! Child custody litigations are ugly and are high up there on the list of where narcissist [sic] are found!"
Another wrote that it is "always drama" when dealing with the types of predators and predator enablers Mitchell hopes people will avoid for their own protection.
"The government, law enforcement, media including social media, every upper management person, and 90% of the people on X are like this," wrote another about where the worst people in the world live, work and spend their time online."
Psychopaths, Narcissists, Machiavellians, Toxic Leaders, Coercive Controllers: Subsets of One Overarching 'Dark' Personality Type? Karen Mitchell 2024 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Abstract People who actively violate social norms and harm and disadvantage others by conscious choice have been the focus of research for centuries. Psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism, collectively the dark triad or dark personality (DP), are conceptualisations intended to give meaning to the characteristics common to socially aversive personalities. Behavioural researchers in fields such as toxic leadership, coercive control in domestic violence, cults, and child sex abuse in religion also explore the characteristics of those who are socially aversive. There is, however, substantial dissention regarding shared attributes of those who are socially aversive, resulting in considerable ongoing friction and fragmentation in the field. This is neither in the interests of humankind, as identification of human predators is key to survival, nor in the interests of researchers who are committing time and resources to vastly conflicting ideas. A model is presented in this thesis which appears to represent the nature of socially aversive personalities, people of DP, more comprehensively than any existing model or collection of behaviours. This three-dimensional model, the Persistent Predatory Personality (PPP) model, includes attributes, an arsenal of weaponry (tactics), and differentiating features (capabilities and values), which emerged from the data. The thesis aims to identify common threads of research, resolve longstanding issues of dispute, and further clarify shared attributes of people of DP. New and unique approaches to research in the area and highly knowledgeable research populations not previously canvassed for data were engaged to achieve this aim. The data, which are extensive and highly nuanced, clarify longstanding points of contention in the DP literature. An important and unique finding from the data is that people of DP who are higher functioning and engage in more covert forms of harm are equally as dangerous and sadistic, and share the same attributes, as those who commit overt acts of harm such as murder. iii The data were collected internationally from 57 senior expert practitioners cumulatively representing more than a thousand years, and individually an average of 22 years, of direct, continuous experience with multiple people of DP and their targets/victims. Research participants were drawn from both forensic and nonforensic contexts and include religious leaders, medical specialists, executives, profilers including FBI and law enforcement, and forensic and nonforensic mental health professionals working with cults, Death Row prisoners, coercive control, and intimate partner violence perpetrators and victims, and others, including world-leading academics. Data were collected via multiple interviews and the Delphi survey technique."