Sunday in the New York Times a journalist wrote an in-depth anatomy of Bernard Madoff and his Ponzi scheme-based methodology of investment malfeasance. Can you believe that it has been less than two months since this financial advisor helped coin the expression, “so and so has ‘been Madoffed’”? Now that there has been an eight-week awareness of his crime against clients and close friends and family one reporter has called upon psychologists to weigh in on what lay beneath the character of a man to allow him to bankrupt thousands of people for more than fifty billion dollars.
In a New York Times article by Julie Criswell and Landon Thomas, Jr. entitled The Talented Mr. Madoff, J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist sees similarities between Madoff and serial killers. “Typically, people with psychopathic personalities don’t fear getting caught,” explains Dr. Meloy, author of a 1988 textbook, The Psychopathic Mind. “They tend to be very narcissistic with a strong sense of entitlement.”
The article goes on to say that “all of which has led some forensic psychologists to see some similarities between him and serial killers like Ted Bundy. They say that whereas Mr. Bundy murdered people, Mr. Madoff murdered wallets, bank accounts and people’s sense of financial trust and security. Like Mr. Bundy, Mr. Madoff used a sharp mind and an affable demeanor to create a persona that didn’t exist, according to this view, and lulled his victims into a false sense of security. And when publicly accused, he seemed to show no remorse. They believe ‘I’m above the law,’ and they believe they cannot be caught,” Mr. Meloy says. “But the Achilles’ heel of the psychopath is his sense of impunity. That is, eventually, what will bring him down.”
My favorite psychoanalyst, Dr. M. Scott Peck, who wrote People of the Lie, would add that Madoff is incapable of looking honestly at his wrongdoing and would never think about making amends in any way even if he could. As Meloy him self insinuates, the game of these rogues is to do what they so please and the consequences be damned. And might I add that Dr. Peck labeled these people evil?
I am Albert Gaulden and I approve of this message.
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Albert Clayton Gaulden is the founding director of the Sedona Intensive and author of You’re Not Who You Think You Are: A Breakthrough Guide to Discovering the Authentic You. For more information about Albert and Sedona Intensive visit http://www.sedonaintensive.com.
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