The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Why Charisma Makes It Hard to See Red Flags

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, my name is Emily. I am a master's student studying clinical psychology at Southampton. I bought the book The Clinical Psychologist Collective to help myself prepare for my first round of doctorate applications, and I'm so glad I did. Seeing how others have reflected on their journeys has been so insightful, and it's given me a lot to reflect about with my own journey and skills. It's also helped to put things into perspective and reminded me that if I don't get on to the doctorate this year, that's okay. I think the most unexpected pleasure of this book, however, was just how inspirational each and every person's journey was. And using these stories as my morning motivation each day has been such a pleasure. I'm almost reluctant to come to the end.

Starting point is 00:00:54 Recently, I watched the Netflix documentary Worst X ever, which tells the story of Wade Wilson. Like many people, I found myself wondering, how did people not see who he really was sooner? I think the answer is charisma. So let's take a look at why humans are seemingly so won over by charm. Why confidence, charisma and likeability can sometimes stop us from seeing what's right in front of us. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent and this is in a work. Thank you for being here. This episode really came to me as an idea after I'd done the main episode of psychology actually with Dr. Emma Kavanaugh. In that we were discussing her book The Psychopath Effect and I said that I had recently watched some Netflix dramas which highlighted this exact thing pretty well. So let's use a little bit of a vignette thinking about Wade Wilson, the man

Starting point is 00:01:57 portrayed in that Netflix drama to have a look at the key indicators where we perhaps should have been able to heed what we now know is like. traits of psychopathy. This is obviously just a caveat. Whilst I'm a clinical psychologist, I've never worked with Wade or with anyone known to him or the people involved in the case. Instead, we are using what was portrayed in the documentary and the literature for psychopathy. So the first person we're introduced to in the Netflix documentary is Kelly Matthews, who met Wade on online dating. And having chatted to Emma, having read the book, think it's likely that Wade was using what Kelly said about herself online, about her hopes,

Starting point is 00:02:45 her dreams, the things that she wanted to achieve in life to make sure that all of the interactions he was having with her, you know, before they even got to the stage of meeting, were feeling like she was potentially meeting her soulmate. And so, you know, the potential for love bombing starts early, especially, you know, perhaps when he turns up and she thinks, oh actually he is, you know, really good looking. He's got that smile. And he's got those dimples. If you look at him online, he's got those dimples. And I do think that people with dimples can get away with a lot more because they look kind of quite cheeky. I wonder whether he was very good at doing that type of smile that reaches the eyes. So in order to have a dimple, maybe, you know,

Starting point is 00:03:32 psychologically, we think that is a true and genuine smile, whereas some of the smile. of that might have been, you know, masking or acting or part of the kind of love bombing of getting Kelly to feel like they were into something special. And other than the first meeting, the first thing that got my spidey senses tingling, obviously knowing that I was watching a true crime documentary. So that is a little bit different to be coming to as a position compared to the people who were part of this story. But the first thing that really got my spidey senses tingling, was, you know, just how quickly this moved and how she felt like she had met her soulmate and how before too long he was moving in with her, living with her.

Starting point is 00:04:19 And that played out again later in the episode as he then moved in with other women quickly as well. And so, you know, I think it's that sense of, oh, well, he must really like me because he wants to live with me and we can get distracted, um, especially. I loved it when Emma said, actually, when we're with these people who are very strong in charisma, actually shuts down a part of our brain that leads us to question any other narrative than that which the highly charismatic leader person has. And so if they seem like they're very on board with this, then it can be actually inhibiting our ability to see the wood for the trees. So yes, perhaps, you know, Kelly might have realised this is quite quick,

Starting point is 00:05:12 but because it all feels so good, and I think because we do have those Hollywood and fairy tale stories of things moving very quickly when we meet the right people, you begin to tell yourself, well, this must just be, you know, my Prince Charming. And as we know, that is absolutely not what happened. The other thing that I'm really, really saw that I didn't like, and that initially I thought was a bit of a police play, was when, as viewers, we saw the police interview with Wade, who I think she thought was called Stephen at the time as well. And I thought the police was being, and I thought it was a strategy of kind of getting alongside the person that was accused of the crime, to then make them say

Starting point is 00:06:03 something which could then be used in evidence against them, that didn't seem to be the case. He did seem quite pally, quite chummy, and I understand was suspended for a couple of weeks after that investigation happened as well. But that really did seem to be. That is as good as the investigation got. And what looked a bit like a kind of pally pally, camaraderie type interview didn't ever go any deeper than that, and no charges were brought, as I understand it, as I remember it. And that's kind of horrifying. And I think that Kelly has rightly since tried to make sure that lessons are learned from that experience. And that absolutely made me think about the UK law called Claire's Law,

Starting point is 00:06:57 which allows partners or new partners to be able to actually actually. or request information about whether someone has a domestic violence history. I do wonder, obviously, if she'd known that his real name was Wade, whether had she been able to do that, whether there might have been more information that she could have access to allow her to make an informed choice. But of course, this charisma is all feeling like it's really going well and him bringing down her kind of defences and her ability to think

Starting point is 00:07:28 that this is anything other than a really great relationship. always meant that he was more likely to get what he wanted. And ultimately it's a harrowing, harrowing story. Have you watched the Netflix drama Worst X Ever? What did you think? I would love your thoughts. Have you been disarmed by someone that's charismatic? Even the word charismatic for me, since finishing this book, well, it's changed. I think whenever I hear someone being described as charismatic in future, it's going to make me stop and think. If you haven't already watched the episode I did on coercive and controlling behaviour, I think you'll find it really, really interesting. Thank you for being here. Thanks for being a fan of Inner Work. The next episode

Starting point is 00:08:20 will be available wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube from 8pm UK time, with of course the episodes of psychology actually coming out on Saturdays and Mondays. Thank you for being part of my world. Take care of yourself. Be kind. Watch out for that charisma. I'll see you soon. Bye. My name's Yana and I'm a trainee psychological well-being practitioner. I read the clinical psychologist collective book. I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one. And this kind of filled me of confidence that no, I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself. So if you're

Starting point is 00:09:25 feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist, I'd definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay. But trust me, you will not put the book down once you star.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Why Charisma Makes It Hard to See Red Flags

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