The mind of a serial killer is something many of us strive to understand. We struggle to comprehend how a fellow human being could be driven to repeatedly take the lives of others and oftentimes subject them to terrible suffering along the way. The cold truth is that serial killers are our truest psychopaths, the stories we watch on TV fail to adequately convey the grim reality of the depth of the darkness in their hearts.
The argument from internationally acclaimed expert on psychopaths, Dr. Robert Hare, is that serial killers are the only true psychopaths in our society. In this editorial we will explore the development of what Dr. Hare classifies as a true psychopath. Through a thorough examination of the true psychopaths alongside divergent types of psychopaths we seek to help will it be easier to understand the different classifications.
A Blooming Psychopathic Serial Killer
The early life of a future serial killer typically starts off troubled. Those who ultimately develop into serial killers may have never been properly socialized as a child and as a result have a challenging time interacting with both the adults in their life and their peers.This lack of interpersonal skills can result in others shunning the child who then must learn to adapt and become able to manipulate others in order to get what they want. We see cases where the child suffered trauma as a result of being abused by someone close to them, they may have witnessed violence at a young age. Whatever the cause, they are now scarred, hurt, and damaged.
“Imagine how differently you might have turned out if someone were to hit you a thousand times when you were helpless to stop them, would you have become the same person you are today?“
“How would you feel? Angry, hurt, numb?”
How does a serial killer develop clinical psychopathy?
Psychopathy usually begins with Antisocial Personality Disorder. , or ASPD.
A personality disorder is a condition developed over time and is a direct result of continued dysfunction. A personality disorder results from life’s conditions and one’s physical and social environment over time.
Comorbid disorders: Someone could not only have a personality disorder, but could also have a mental illness which further complicates difficulties. One example would be someone with ASPD, ADHD and depression. If you know anyone who has ADHD, you know they are impulsive and cannot pay attention, but coupled with depression they are someone who is sad and feels deep pain.
Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)
A personality disorder affects a person’s thoughts, emotions, and impulse control. ASPD is the only personality disorder which makes a psychopath. An individual with ASPD may also lack people skills (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). Sadly, symptoms of ASPD begin in childhood and may be a prolonged response to abuse. The person with ASPD lacks empathy. This is due to the amount of abuse they suffered.
Those with ASPD may be cruel to animals because they want to inflict pain. This person may also be prone to setting fires, anger, rebellion, and legal trouble as time goes on through teenage and adult years (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). With ASPD the symptoms include impulsiveness, irritability, deceitfulness, failure to consider consequences, lack of empathy and a major disregard for the law (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). Although ASPD is like psychopathy, all those who have the personality disorder ASPD are not psychopaths.
What is a psychopath?
In 1993 Robert Hare, a leading expert on Psychopaths describes a psychopath as being a social predator who is manipulative, ruthless, charming and is someone who selfishly takes lives without empathy or conscience (Bartol & Bartol, 2008). Robert Hare describes three diverse types of psychopaths known as secondary psychopaths, dissocial psychopaths and primary true psychopaths.
Secondary psychopath:
Neurotic, and anger driven. This type of psychopath does things based off their emotions. Often the crime scene will be messy because this type of serial killer acts out in anger which could have been on a whim. A secondary psychopath may be driven by anger, but they may instead harbor their resentment, wait, and then plan for the murder. The fact is this type of serial killer still cares so they are not the cool, calm or collected serial killer seen on TV.
Dissocial psychopath:
This type of psychopath is aggressive and shows antisocial behavior which is learned from their environment. The word dissocial means not social at all. It means a person does not want anything to do with people or society, period. According to Robert Hare’s idea of a psychopath this type of person is violent and aggressive. This behavior causes attention, so this is not the quiet, stealth serial killer evading police.
Primary True Psychopath:
Calm cool serial killer (Bartol & Bartol, 2008). The true psychopath is not the neurotic, or the emotionally disturbed killer seen on TV shows.
So, what is a true psychopath?
A true psychopath according to Hare is not normally outwardly explosive, destructive, or violent, but is instead more outgoing and charming and often possesses above average communication skills (Bartol & Bartol, 2008). The true psychopath is the person who shows no emotions because to them, they have none. This complete lack of emotions allows these individuals to calculate their next plan of attack coolly and calmly without the added attention which results when emotions are involved. To help you understand this better, we will discuss how these individuals become emotionless in a later post.
References:
American Psychiatric Association (2022). What are personality disorders? Retrieved June 29th,
2022 from:
Bartol C., Bartol, A. (2008). Criminal behavior: a psychosocial approach Pearson
Education Inc. New Jersey
National Library of Medicine (2022) DSM-5 Changes: Implication for
Serious Emotional
Disturbance Retrieved June 28th, 2022 from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519712/table/ch3.t3/
Psychopathy (2022) Psychopathy Psychology Today Retrieved June 27th, 2022 from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/psychopathy
Written by: Jenny Montoya M.A. Forensic Psychology
Forensic Darkness - Serial Killers & Awareness 