Hypnotising Sociopaths

[Rye]

If I hypnotised a psycho/sociopath, could I get him to kill for me and get away with it? How much evidence would be needed to give me some culpability? Would I get a lesser sentence than him even if I were proven to have some part in it?

[Melchior]

AFAIK, hypnosis doesn't work at all like that. People will not do anything under hypnosis that they wouldn't do otherwise.

[SirNitram]

Rye is specifying sociopaths because they lack the normal safeguards against it.

Frankly, I don't think you could hypnotize sociopaths. Their antisocial nature would likely make it nigh-impossible.

[Kuroneko]

The phrase "rebel without a cause" originally comes from a book on the hypnoanalysis of a psychopath. I don't know how sucessful it was or what its conclusions were, but this suggests that at least some psychopaths, and hence some sociopaths, are capable of being put under hypnosis. Perhaps someone trained in psychology here can provide the details.

[Superman]

If I hypnotised a psycho/sociopath, could I get him to kill for me and get away with it? How much evidence would be needed to give me some culpability? Would I get a lesser sentence than him even if I were proven to have some part in it?

Psychopathy is a severe form of psychopathology. I think you're saying that the potential for killing already exists in this person, so you want to hypnotize this individual and insert a 'command' of how to do it. Right?

The answer is no. Even if you could hypnotize a psychopath, you have to remember that one main characteristic of this person is a severe drive for self gratification and preservation. You're not going to somehow change someone's personality through hypnosis.

If your scenario could somehow happen, you would not be held accountable because hypnosis is not recognized as having the ability to make someone do what they wouldn't otherwise do.

Hypnosis is not what most people think. Originally, it was used to gain access to a person's subconscious mind. Freud began his psychoanalytic work using it because he found that patients, while hypnotized, would recall traumatic events from their pasts without the constant denial, changing of stories, anger, etc., that would typically accompany an analytic session. The idea was that one's psychological defense mechanisms were lowered or rendered inactive while hypnotized (to a certain degree, there may be some truth to this). He then found that people began to recall memories that never actually happened, and subsequently decided hypnosis is far too unreliable to be of any use. He even went on to criticize others who used it, citing his own experiences (Freud would have quite a bit to say to the tards who recall alien abductions, for example).

[Ariphaos]

If I hypnotised a psycho/sociopath, could I get him to kill for me and get away with it? How much evidence would be needed to give me some culpability? Would I get a lesser sentence than him even if I were proven to have some part in it?

Hypnosis works if the subject believes in it. Most people don't realize the full level of control they really have over their bodies, emotions, or thoughts, so to some it seems like a magic pill.

A person doesn't stop thinking just because they're 'hypnotized'. There was a case on the news a decade and a half ago where a few teenagers, about to be convicted of murder, claimed they were hypnotized. IIRC it didn't get them off the hook at all (even though all I saw was the media hyping the hypnosis scare).

[Rye]

If I hypnotised a psycho/sociopath, could I get him to kill for me and get away with it? How much evidence would be needed to give me some culpability? Would I get a lesser sentence than him even if I were proven to have some part in it?

Psychopathy is a severe form of psychopathology. I think you're saying that the potential for killing already exists in this person, so you want to hypnotize this individual and insert a 'command' of how to do it. Right?

Yes, my idea was have a psychiatrist that specialised in antisocial teenagers, with the aim of finding a pre-murderous psychopath that he would then, under hypnosis suggest the killing of someone he hates or just because he's amused by it and is a psychopath himself that doesn't want to get caught and has some sort of manipulation/vicarious fetish.

The answer is no. Even if you could hypnotize a psychopath, you have to remember that one main characteristic of this person is a severe drive for self gratification and preservation. You're not going to somehow change someone's personality through hypnosis.

I'm not saying change the guy's personality, just aim him at a specific victim through hypnotic suggestion so that when he "graduates" to murderer, he's taken out someone the psychiatrist wanted taking out.