Making a Psychopath summary

Recent innovations in technology have enabled great leaps in our understanding of psychopaths like Ben. Thanks to high-quality brain-imaging machines like MRI scanners, it’s now possible to peek into the brains of psychopaths and have a look around.

According to data obtained from these scans, there are two brain regions in particular that seem to play an important role in psychopathy. The first is the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible, among other things, for making good decisions and predicting how society will respond to our actions. The other area is the amygdala, which is involved in regulating our emotions.

As useful and fascinating as it is to look into a psychopath’s brain, this will only ever give us a partial picture of what’s going on. If we really want to know what makes a psychopath tick – what drives them and forms their worldview – then we have to get up close and personal.

The problem with that is, it’s hard to meet psychopaths in the real world. They’re not common for a start. But they also tend to fly under the radar – that is, until they commit a major crime. That’s why most psychopaths we know of are in the criminal justice system – in prisons and hospitals all over the world – and these aren’t exactly ideal places to conduct research.

Paul exemplifies the classic image of a psychopath: a natural-born criminal who seems to delight in causing trouble wherever he goes. But not all psychopaths match Paul’s profile. For every psychopath like Paul, there’s another one whose antisocial behavior is more the result of an extremely unlucky hand in life than intentional malice. Such was the case with Danny.

Before arriving in prison, Danny had a tough life. He was an orphan and he’d spent most of his childhood moving from one foster family to another. This constant rejection perpetuated a downward cycle of mental health problems and poor behavior. In his teenage years, Danny started practicing self-harm. He lacerated his body using knives and razors, including his face, leaving frightening scars that pushed others away even further.

So far, we’ve dealt with several cases of male psychopathy, but what about female psychopathy?

The idea of the female psychopath is a common trope in crime thrillers from Killing Eve’s Villanelle to Dangerous Liaison's Marquise de Merteuil. There’s clearly something about the idea of women being cold, hard killers that has popular appeal.

People like Angela are hard to forgive. They’re the ones that most readily bring the word evil to mind. And society seems all too ready to put them in a prison cell and throw away the key.

But is it really fair to judge psychopaths so harshly just because their brains don’t work like they’re supposed to? Sure, some psychopaths clearly go out of their way to hurt others, but not all psychopaths are so intentional. Many just don’t understand why their actions cause suffering, and others aren’t aware they’re causing suffering at all.