That's Not Mental Illness. That's Evil.

"That's not mental illness. That's evil." Roger's boss said it over lunch, about Jeffrey Dahmer, and it ended the discussion. He has been thinking about it for thirty years since. When someone shoots up a school, or walks into a mall with a knife, we reach for the same handful of words. Lunatic. Madman. Crazy. He was nuts. Every one of them points at mental illness, and nobody says that person is evil. Roger's argument is that the language did not drift there by accident. His own profession took the concept out. Personality disorders used to be called character disorders. The name changed because character invokes a morality, and a morality implies a judgment. What is left is a vocabulary in which every terrible act has a diagnosis behind it and none of them has a person behind it. The people who pay for that are the ones who are genuinely ill. Roger worked with them for years, and by and large they are gentle, troubled souls. They do not want to hurt people. They just do not want to be hurt anymore. 💡 What we cover: Why "lunatic" and "madman" are the words our culture reaches for after a tragedy, and what that costs people with schizophrenia Patsy, Roger's boss from the Texas Panhandle, and the sentence that ended a lunch Jordan Peterson's dark triad, and why Roger thinks a psychological label on evil behavior is still a way of not saying the word Axis 1 and Axis 2: the difference between something that has you and something that is you Why "people with schizophrenia" is a different sentence from "schizophrenics" Thomas Sowell's conflict of visions, and the utopian half of it: people are basically good, human beings are perfectible, and anyone who does harm was either uneducated or ill Roger's line, and the reason this episode exists: "If you have a conception that evil is not part of the formula, then you're going to come up with a different explanation for behavior." Ready to grow? Subscribe for more from Dr. Roger Hall. 🔔 🔗 Learn more: https://drrogerhall.com 🧭 Work with Roger: https://compassconsultation.com Connect with Dr. Roger Hall on Social Media: Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-6921545 X (Twitter): https://x.com/DoctorRogerHall Instagram:   / doctorrogerhall   LinkedIn:   / roger-hall-28a5632   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?... 📍 Chapters 0:00 Cold open 1:16 The question: are mentally ill people evil? 1:46 What has happened to our language 2:43 Gentle, troubled souls 3:29 Patsy, and the Texas Panhandle 4:14 Jeffrey Dahmer comes up over lunch 4:56 That is not mental illness. That is evil. 5:32 How psychology removed evil from its vocabulary 6:49 The DSM: you, and the thing that has you 7:45 Character disorder becomes personality disorder 9:57 What are you going to say about people? 10:41 Thomas Sowell, and a conflict of visions 11:41 The utopian vision: people are perfectible 13:06 Education, therapy, or paternal control 15:12 Next time on Second Thoughts Second Thoughts, Episode 72. Opinions expressed are not therapy or constitute any professional relationship with anyone who watches or listens. For education and entertainment only.