The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience (20 page)
Read The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience Online
Authors: Kent A. Phd Kiehl
At the age of thirteen, when his mother was released from prison, he was returned to her custody. Over the next nine months, Eric was
charged with twelve more offenses and was placed in a series of foster homes, community facilities, and eventually in corrections.
Every adult psychopath that I have worked with was different from normal children from a very early age. Their prison files are typically replete with stories from siblings, parents, teachers, and other guardians about how as a child the psychopath was emotionally disengaged from other siblings, got in trouble more frequently, engaged in more severe antisocial behaviors, and started using alcohol and drugs and having sex at a younger age than other children. Most adult psychopaths report that as children they didn’t have close friends, didn’t feel the need to participate in any group activities like baseball or soccer, and if they did participate, they tried to cheat, got in fights, and generally did not enjoy playing with other kids. Psychopaths typically don’t get along well with their parents and often are very distant from their siblings. The nature of their early childhood often results in them being labeled the black sheep of the family.
Many adult psychopaths have grown up in home environments not unlike Brian’s and Eric’s. It is perhaps not surprising that the two of them ended up in juvenile detention. Indeed, it may seem as if both were destined for a life of crime based on their early family environments. However, I should note that just as there are many individuals who come from terrible environments who end up in prison, there are many more who are resilient to such upbringing and environments who do not end up in prison as youth or adults. In fact, only a fraction of kids who come from such terrible environments end up becoming criminals. Moreover, psychopaths often come from stable middle-class and even upper-class families. The disorder does not discriminate—psychopaths are found across all socioeconomic strata.
For example, “Brendan” is an example of an adult psychopath who came from an above-average home environment. Brendan’s parents were both doctors. He had been raised in an affluent, gated community, and he attended private schools from childhood. He had two “unaffected” siblings; that is, his older brother and younger
sister did not have any affective symptoms or behavioral problems. Indeed, his older brother was attending college at Harvard when Brendan committed his index offense. During our interview, Brendan kept noting that he did not belong in prison with the other inmates. He viewed other inmates with disgust, and he had a very elitist attitude.
Like all adult psychopaths, Brendan had been different from his peers and siblings from a very early age. Brendan told me that as a child he would create vicious games where his dog had to run a gauntlet of traps in order to be fed. Brendan’s parents recognized his early behavioral problems and had sent him to see professional psychologists and psychiatrists. Brendan had been disciplined at the private schools for fights, cheating, setting fire to the gym, theft of lunch money, and other crimes. His parents’ wealth had kept him from developing serious criminal convictions as a juvenile. Indeed, as a teen he had stolen a sports car from the garage of one of the other prep students’ parents; Brendan had totaled the car and quite miraculously had not been seriously injured. Brendan’s parents paid for a new sports car, and the auto theft was kept out of the juvenile courts. However, Brendan’s parents could not keep him out of jail for cold-blooded murder.
As a young adult Brendan had decided to kill his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. He tried to make it look like it was just a fight that escalated out of control, but the police uncovered details that indicated Brendan had been planning the event for some time. His parents hired the very best defense attorney money could buy, and Brendan received a very good plea deal. He was going to serve only about five years for manslaughter, and he had managed to be sentenced to a minimum-security facility. The repertoire of behavioral problems from an early age, escalating into more severe antisocial behavior as a teen, and finally culminating in a severe crime as a young adult is a very common trajectory for psychopaths. Brendan was no different from the hundreds of other psychopaths I have studied.
Regardless of the child’s early environment, it is the severity of the psychopaths’ childhood misbehavior that stands out in contrast to their siblings and peers.
· · ·
What are some of the characteristics that Brian and Eric displayed that might help identify them as different from other children, even other children from similar environments? Can we predict whether Brian or Eric will develop into psychopaths? That is, can we figure out which (pre)psychopathic symptoms in childhood can be assessed accurately and reliably, and, most important, does the assessment of these symptoms in childhood predict which youth will be psychopaths as adults?
Through the stories of Brian and Eric we see numerous behaviors that might suggest disturbances consistent with developing into a psychopath as an adult. Brian set a number of fires and abused animals. He also wet his bed through childhood. These three symptoms are known as the
MacDonald Triad
, and decades ago they were thought to be precursors to future homicidal behavior, even possibly serial homicidal behavior.
2
However, subsequent research has failed to show any statistically significant predictive relationship between the MacDonald Triad and future homicidal behavior. Yes, many people who commit homicide as adults had these symptoms as children, but the vast majority of children who have these symptoms do not go on to commit homicide as adults.
Since the 1960s there has been a lot of research on the causes of bed-wetting, or enuresis. It turns out that a number of problems can lead to enuresis.
First, most children who suffer from this—about 85 percent—grow out of enuresis by age five. However, a small percentage of children continue bed-wetting until age ten or later. Researchers have determined that involuntary control over the bladder occurs as a result of at least four different neuronal paths.
3
Developmental abnormalities or delays in any one or more of these neural circuits can lead to chronic bed-wetting. One of the four paths leads through the region of the brain known as the amygdala. As I mentioned in
Chapter 5
, the amygdala acts like an amplifier in the brain and helps push into awareness any salient stimulus. The amygdala amplifies some stimuli that we encounter automatically, like angry faces or
snakes. It can also amplify things we learn are important, like emotional words or darkly clad individuals.
My hypothesis
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is that it’s the amygdala bladder circuit that is abnormal in youth who go on to commit homicide as adults. If that is the case, we need to revise the MacDonald Triad to indicate that the risk for future violence is present in chronic bed-wetting youth only if the circuit responsible is the one that passes through the amygdala, something that can be tested using modern neuroscience techniques. It’s possible the revised MacDonald Triad could improve the likelihood of the presence of the three symptoms (bed-wetting caused by failure in the amygdala circuit, fire-setting, and animal cruelty) to predict a child who is on a trajectory toward future severe antisocial behavior as a teenager and adult.
In Brian we also see evidence of violence and aggression in multiple domains of his life: severe animal abuse, even torture. We see violence toward his sister and brothers. Brian’s antisocial behavior started from a very early age. Moreover, he commits burglaries and other crimes alone. He doesn’t need a peer group, a potent influence in adolescent years, as an impetus for his antisocial behavior. We see little evidence of his antisocial behavior diminishing with punishment or brief periods of incarceration. We see precocious sexual behavior early on; Brian is promiscuous, and all his relationships are brief. Brian seems disinhibited in many domains of his life. His emotional detachment—the absence of close friends, lack of participation in group activities like soccer or baseball, difficulties with his siblings and parents, interpersonal aggression—all suggest that Brian is on a trajectory toward psychopathy.
Eric shows a lot of the same problems as Brian. He gets in a lot of fights at school and doesn’t participate in group sports. Eric is a drifter and he acts alone in most of his antisocial behavior. A hustler, he uses schemes to earn money while on the run. He also begins sexual activity from a very early age and is highly promiscuous. He seems to have problems maintaining long-term relationships. He engages in numerous, serious criminal activities starting very early in life. However, details about Eric’s background are sketchy, as there were limited sources of information about this time in his life. Whereas he readily admits to his criminal activity, we have no
information on whether he engaged in other risky behaviors like animal cruelty or physical assaults on other people.
Brian and Eric have shown us a lot of reasons to think they are on a trajectory toward lifelong antisocial behavior, and they appear to exemplify a number of psychopathic traits. Their childhood behavioral histories are similar to those of hundreds of adult psychopaths I have interviewed. But do they meet the criteria for psychiatric diagnoses as youth?
Personality disorders are by definition an enduring pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving that is relatively stable over time. Indeed, in children and adolescents, symptoms of personality problems must be present for a significant period of time (typically more than six months), and not just a reaction to the social environment. The American Psychiatric Association’s
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR)
uses the terms
Conduct Disorder
and
Oppositional Defiant Disorder
to describe youth who have significant disruptive behavioral problems. The
DSM-IV-TR
symptoms of conduct disorder and oppositional defiant disorder are listed in Box 3:
Conduct disorder and oppositional defiant disorder are based on the following criteria.
CONDUCT DISORDER
A. A repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated, as manifested by the presence of three (or more) of the following criteria in the past 12 months, with at least one criterion present in the past 6 months:
Aggression to people and animals
(1) often bullies, threatens, or intimidates others
(2) often initiates physical fights
(3) has used a weapon that can cause serious physical harm to others (e.g., a bat, brick, broken bottle, knife, gun)
(4) has been physically cruel to people
(5) has been physically cruel to animals
(6) has stolen while confronting a victim (e.g., mugging, purse snatching, extortion, armed robbery)
(7) has forced someone into sexual activity
Destruction of property
(8) has deliberately engaged in fire-setting with the intention of causing serious damage
(9) has deliberately destroyed others’ property (other than by fire-setting)
Deceitfulness or theft
(10) has broken into someone else’s house, building, or car
(11) often lies to obtain goods or favors or to avoid obligations (i.e., “cons” others)
(12) has stolen items of nontrivial value without confronting a victim (e.g., shoplifting, but without breaking and entering; forgery)
Serious violations of rules
(13) often stays out at night despite parental prohibitions, beginning before age 13 years
(14) has run away from home overnight at least twice while living in parental or parental surrogate home (or once without returning for a lengthy period)
(15) is often truant from school, beginning before age 13 years
B. The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.
C. If the individual is age 18 years or older, criteria are not met for Antisocial Personality Disorder.
Code type based on age at onset
312.81 Conduct Disorder, Childhood-Onset Type: onset of at least one criterion characteristic of Conduct Disorder prior to age 10 years
312.82 Conduct Disorder, Adolescent-Onset Type: absence of any criteria characteristic of Conduct Disorder prior to age 10 years
312.89 Conduct Disorder, Unspecified Onset: age at onset is not known
Specify severity
Mild:
few if any conduct problems in excess of those required to make the diagnosis and conduct problems cause only minor harm to others (e.g., lying, truancy, staying out after dark without permission)
Moderate:
number of conduct problems and effect on others intermediate between “mild” and “severe” (e.g., stealing without confronting a victim, vandalism)
Severe:
many conduct problems in excess of those required to make the diagnosis or conduct problems cause considerable harm to others (e.g., rape, physical cruelty, use of a weapon, stealing while confronting a victim, breaking and entering)
OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER
A. A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present:
(1) often loses temper
(2) often argues with adults
(3) often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults’ requests or rules
(4) often deliberately annoys people
(5) often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
(6) is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
(7) is often angry and resentful
(8) is often spiteful or vindictive
Note: Consider a criterion met only if the behavior occurs more frequently than is typically observed in individuals of comparable age and developmental level
.
B. The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.
C. The behaviors do not occur exclusively during the course of a Psychotic or Mood Disorder.
D. Criteria are not met for Conduct Disorder, and, if the individual is age 18 years or older, criteria are not met for Antisocial Personality Disorder.
