Psychiatrists are usually very well imbued with the clinical role, where helping the sick person is the goal. And that's quite incompatible with the truthseeking role. That's probably true of the other fields, too, but maybe more so of the personalities that gravitate toward psychiatry. They tend to care about people and wish to be helpful.
Park DietzI like to have success experiences rather than failure experiences. So I'm more likely to compete in things I'm good at, and more likely to spend time on the things I expect to succeed at.
Park DietzOne of the biggest mistakes celebrities make is being overly friendly. They allow photo shoots in their homes, even their bedrooms and bathrooms; they send fans autographed pictures. All that serves to support viewers with a delusional relationship with the celebrity.
Park DietzOne of the few times I'm hit emotionally is when I listen to the tapes sadists make of torturing their victims. There the person is currently suffering, you can hear them suffer, and that calls out for an empathic response. But when they're dead, when they're no longer suffering, when it's over, it's hard to feel empathetic for the corpse.
Park DietzCelebrity stalkers also are not necessarily fixated on one person as the public thinks. Rather, they tend to switch targets, going from, say, an athlete to an actor to a politician.
Park DietzOur job should be like any other forensic scientist's - we should be truth seekers who are not partisan, who do not have any interest in the outcome, who call it as we see it no matter the consequences. But it seems a lot easier for chemists and anthropologists and pathologists to take that neutral role than it does for psychiatrists.
Park Dietz