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Why Charisma Makes It Hard to See Red Flags

September 2, 20260 comments♥ 0
00:00Hi, 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 roundof doctorate applications, and I'm so glad I did. Seeing how others have reflected on theirjourneys has been so insightful, and it's given me a lot to reflect about with my own journeyand skills. It's also helped to put things into perspective and reminded me that if I don't geton 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 storiesas my morning motivation each day has been such a pleasure. I'm almost reluctant to come to the end.
00:54Recently, 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 ischarisma. 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 episodeof psychology actually with Dr. Emma Kavanaugh. In that we were discussing her book The PsychopathEffect and I said that I had recently watched some Netflix dramas which highlighted this exactthing pretty well. So let's use a little bit of a vignette thinking about Wade Wilson, the man
01:57portrayed in that Netflix drama to have a look at the key indicators where we perhaps shouldhave 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,
02:45her dreams, the things that she wanted to achieve in life to make sure that all of theinteractions 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 potentialfor 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 awaywith a lot more because they look kind of quite cheeky. I wonder whether he was very good at doingthat type of smile that reaches the eyes. So in order to have a dimple, maybe, you know,
03:32psychologically, 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 gettingKelly to feel like they were into something special. And other than the first meeting, the first thingthat 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 werepart 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 soulmateand how before too long he was moving in with her, living with her.
04:19And that played out again later in the episode as he then moved in with other women quickly aswell. And so, you know, I think it's that sense of, oh, well, he must really like me becausehe 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 strongin charisma, actually shuts down a part of our brain that leads us to question any othernarrative than that which the highly charismatic leader person has. And so if they seem likethey're very on board with this, then it can be actually inhibiting our ability to see thewood for the trees. So yes, perhaps, you know, Kelly might have realised this is quite quick,
05:12but because it all feels so good, and I think because we do have those Hollywood and fairy talestories of things moving very quickly when we meet the right people, you begin to tellyourself, well, this must just be, you know, my Prince Charming. And as we know, that isabsolutely 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 wascalled Stephen at the time as well. And I thought the police was being, and I thought it was astrategy of kind of getting alongside the person that was accused of the crime, to then make them say
06:03something 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 weeksafter that investigation happened as well. But that really did seem to be. That is as good asthe investigation got. And what looked a bit like a kind of pally pally, camaraderie type interviewdidn'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,
06:57which 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 accessto allow her to make an informed choice.But of course, this charisma is all feeling like it's really going welland him bringing down her kind of defences and her ability to think
07:28that 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 loveyour thoughts. Have you been disarmed by someone that's charismatic? Even the word charismaticfor me, since finishing this book, well, it's changed. I think whenever I hear someone being describedas charismatic in future, it's going to make me stop and think. If you haven't already watchedthe episode I did on coercive and controlling behaviour, I think you'll find it really, reallyinteresting. Thank you for being here. Thanks for being a fan of Inner Work. The next episode
08:20will be available wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube from 8pm UK time,with of course the episodes of psychology actually coming out onSaturdays and Mondays. Thank you for being part of my world. Take care of yourself. Be kind. Watch outfor that charisma. I'll see you soon. Bye. My name's Yana and I'm a trainee psychological well-beingpractitioner. I read the clinical psychologist collective book. I found it really interestingabout all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me howdifferent routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one. And this kind offilled me of confidence that no, I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself. So if you're
09:25feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist, I'd definitely recommend this just to putyourself at ease and everything will be okay. But trust me, you will not put the book down once youstar.