The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience

by Kent A. Kiehl

A compelling journey into the science and behavior of psychopaths, written by the leading scientist in the field of criminal psychopathy.

We know of psychopaths from chilling headlines and stories in the news and movies—from Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, to Hannibal Lecter and Dexter Morgan. As Dr. Kent Kiehl shows, psychopaths can be identified by a checklist of symptoms that includes pathological lying; lack of empathy, guilt, and remorse; grandiose sense of self-worth; manipulation; and failure to accept one’s actions. But why do psychopaths behave the way they do? Is it the result of their environment— how they were raised—or is there a genetic compo­nent to their lack of conscience?

This is the question Kiehl, a protégé of famed psychopath researcher Dr. Robert Hare, was deter­mined to answer as he began his career twenty years ago. To aid in his quest to unravel the psy­chopathic mind, Kiehl created the first mobile functional MRI scanner to study psychopaths in prison populations. The brains of more than five hundred psychopaths and three thousand other offenders have been scanned by Kiehl’s labora­tory—the world’s largest forensic neuroscience repository of its kind. Over the course of The Psy­chopath Whisperer , we follow the scientific bread crumbs that Kiehl uncovered to show that the key brain structures that correspond with emotional engagement and reactions are diminished in psy­chopaths, offering new clues to how to predict and treat the disorder.

In The Psychopath Whisperer , Kiehl describes in fascinating detail his years working with psy­chopaths and studying their thought processes— from the remorseless serial killers he meets with behind bars to children whose behavior and per­sonality traits exhibit the early warning signs of psychopathy.

Less than 1 percent of the general population meets the criteria for psychopathy. But psycho­paths account for a vastly outsized proportion of violent crimes. And as Kiehl shows, many who aren’t psychopaths exhibit some of the behaviors and traits associated with the condition. What do you do if you discover your roommate, or boss, or the person you are dating has traits that define a psy­chopath? And what does having a diminished limbic region of the brain mean for how the legal system approaches crimes committed by psychopaths?

A compelling narrative of cutting-edge science, The Psychopath Whisperer will open your eyes on a fascinating but little understood world, with startling implications for society, the law, and our personal lives.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Science, True Crime, Crime, Mental Health, Neuroscience

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Dr. Kent Kiehl is Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Law at the University of New Mexico. The author of more than 100 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals, he has also been featured in media ranging from The New Yorker to Nature. He is also Executive Science Officer at the non-profit Mind Research Network, which explores the use of imaging (fMRI) in understanding mental illnesses. He lives in Albuquerque.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the Hare Psychopathy Test. 20 questions, 40 points. Score yourself or those you suspect are psychopaths on this. It is the standard list for the diagnosis of psychopahty and the one the author used on prisoners.

The book was excellent. The author was the first to show that the brain of a psychopath is different from that of a normal person. The limbic system, the emotional areas, are atrophied. No one knows though if they are born that way or have deteriorated due to non-use as in any muscle. The author does test children but these children are either in punitive institutions or the parents are at their wits' end to explain their children's behaviour so there are no normal children used as controls.

Testing children and diagnosing them as psychopaths is a terrible path. It is likely that the majority of psychopaths are not criminal even if they aren't soft, empathetic souls who. They may be tough business people, they may be the sort of spouses we read about all the time. Perfectly normal then one day they just up sticks and leave and make a new life never bothering with the children again. There is a treatment for childhood psychopathy. It is slow, expensive and apparently 45% of the children treated will not be criminals when they grow up. But if this cannot be offered to all, might diagnosing a child as a psychopath just end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy as so often happens with children who grow up with low self-esteem due to childhood abuse of a mental kind?
____________________

Notes on reading the book. This is really good. It's got lots of clinical stuff - the Hare checklist of psychopathy was interesting. I've known two psychopaths (for sure). One was a next door neighbour, an accountant, and the other worked for me in 2014. It took me a long time to realise that both women were psychopaths. Eventually I identified what was so different from other people but was the same in them. It was lies.

Most people tell lies at various times. They do it either to get themselves out of trouble or to make themselves sound different (better) than they really are. I don't know anyone except these two psychopaths who tell ever more outlandish lies to see how much I would believe. They told the lies to amuse themselves by making me realise I was a fool since a point comes when the lies are so outlandish I couldn't believe them at all. They don't care at all that you've caught them lying. There's no embarrassment, just are just heartily amused and sneered at me.

The first one had three other victims of the same weird lies in the mutual people we knew. The second was interesting because she was a twin. Her twin was really nasty, as was her father, her mother wouldn't say boo to a ghost. But the twin and father were just normally nasty people, you could predict what they'd do or say, as you can with any really mean person you know. But the psychopathic sister... no, you couldn't. Being nasty wasn't her character, it was just one facet of her psychopathic personality.

So this book, mostly derived from clinical research in a prison plus science and anecdotes, is really interesting to read.

[Suzan Rebekah Farris · Rating 1 out of 5]

This guy is a self-indulgent braggart, and I hated listening to him talk about the exorbitant salary he was offered in his first job - so much that I couldn't stand to finish the book. I thought this book would be about "The Science of those without Conscience" - but it's actually an autobiography, and an annoying one at that.

[Kevin McAllister · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found myself surprisingly disappointed with this book. Like them or not, psychopaths are fascinating people, and so understandably, I was expecting to be fascinated . I think what threw me of was the title, especially the use of the word whisperer. We are all familiar with the terms horse whisperer and dog whisperer. Now I don't mean to equate humans with animals but I was expecting a book on a man able to probe deep into the psychopathic mind and find a way to, if not cure them, at least improve their lives. Sadly that wasn't the case. The author stated almost right from the start that psychopaths are virtually incurable. A pretty frightening statement considering he tells us that there are over 29,000,000 psychopaths worldwide ! Almost the entire book was spent on the many many ways the author has gone about on how to label whether or not some is actually a psychopath. And I don't mean to be overly critical, but he did it a manner that I just found so incredibly self absorbed. The most used words in this book are probably Me, I, and mine. He just went on and on stating his own accomplishments. It wasn't till nearly the very end of the book that he briefly mentions a group in Wisconsin that might have actually come up with a way to treat and even cure psychopaths. Frankly, I couldn't wait to finish this book.

[Karyn Niedert · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Psychopath Whisperer" is not a book about how a psychologist magically discovered a secret portal into the psychopathic mind and learned how to harness their mind's evil. Rather, it is a very precise and clinical autobiography of Kent Kiehl's study of hundreds of psychopaths in the Canadian and US penal system. He delves into how their brain is different from those of us (okay, most of us) who walk the earth each day feeling, loving, caring and existing on a completely different plane than psychopaths exist on.

Kiehl's journey through graduate school and beyond is documented as he familiarizes readers with what a psychopath is, and what they are not. I particularly enjoyed how he broke it down in a side by side study of John Wilkes Booth and Charles J. Guiteau. Both assassinated a US president, but each had completely different motives and psychological profiles.

Very rarely do I read non-fiction, and I read this one through to the end. I've peeked at other reviews of this book and there is some legitimacy to how frequently Kiehl toots his own horn. In his defense, he made huge leaps in studying how physically different a psychopath's brain is compared to a non-psychopath. For that., I think he has earned the right to take a few bows.

I was provided an ARC as part of the Goodreads Giveaway program, and thank them for the opportunity to read this book.

[Caroline Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The study of psychopaths has always fascinated me, and I often wondered how many I have encountered during my nine-year career in the police. More often than not, people who commit heinous crimes are angry with the world for their own reasons and when you look into their background you can see why. Many have their own belief systems and motivations. Some are of low intelligence and easily influenced, while others commit crime out of desperate need.
But every once in a while the person who commits such crimes lacks any a sense of empathy or compassion, feels no guilt for their acts and do not appear to care or even consider the repercussions. These are the ones who make us scratch our head and wonder why.
As an author of crime novels, eat up books like these. I thoroughly enjoy the research that goes into each and every novel I write and am often amazed by what I uncover. I bought The Psychopath Whisperer on audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's very well written with a personal touch which makes the story flow nicely. It kept me engaged throughout, and I would read further books by this author. I enjoyed hearing about his interactions with the prisoners most of all, and the different characters he met. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about psychopaths.

[The Behrg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for watching movie previews. Often (and sadly, yes, I know ... go ahead and weep for me) I prefer watching a dozen trailers as opposed to an actual movie. Maybe that's because I have small children and can never get through an actual movie in one sitting, or perhaps its because my brain is irreparably damaged in some unknown cerebral cortex, but to me the movie trailer is an underappreciated artform in and of itself. If you've ever seen the trailers for movies like Prometheus, Girl With a Dragon Tattoo, or even The Revenant, you'll know what I'm talking about. (And if you haven't seen them, go check them out on Youtube and come back. Trust me, the trailers are better than the movies).

So why am I talking about trailers in a book review?

Because the title to this novel was so deceptively clever that it instantly had me hooked. And, like many movies, the title (or trailer) was much better than the actual product it was promoting. "The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without a Conscience", if given an Honest Trailer, would instead be titled - "The Autobiography of Dr. Kent Kiehl: or How I Made Millions Studying Psychopaths."

Now there were some interesting parts to this non-fiction narrative. Mostly in the chapter headings, where facts about psychopaths were told. Like, for instance, a psychopath is born every 32 seconds, or a psychopath is more likely to reoffend after prison twelve times more than a normal inmate. I also enjoyed some of the stories that were told about the psychopaths interviewed when Kiehl began his research at a maximum security prison in Canada.

Unfortunately, the rest of the novel is academic drivel, written completely without emotion to the extent that halfway through I was wondering if Kiehl wasn't a psychopath himself. For someone who worked so closely with thousands of these individuals I was deeply troubled by his complete lack of sympathy towards them. He argues that the brain of a psychopath is markedly different and is the cause for their lack of social and moral understanding, but yet persists in that the death penalty was probably the right choice for someone who committed atrocious crimes while not being able to comprehend that they were even wrong.

This book could have really benefitted from the help of a ghostwriter to add some depth of emotion to the subject that Kiehl clearly lacks. Instead it maintained an academic aloofness of an elitist, (at least in his own mind), that made it difficult to finish. Some interesting ideas, and the research Kiehl has conducted is no doubt worthy of an autobiography, but let's call a spade a spade and a boring autobiography a non-fiction book I'd rather not read.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. The name is misleading; I picture a “whatever whisperer” as being someone who understands the mind of the subject in depth and who can easily and painlessly convince the subject to do what the whisperer wants. While Kiehl did groundbreaking work on what happens in a psychopath’s brain, he didn’t find any way to change their brains or their behaviors. What he found, by using cutting edge fMRIs, was that psychopathology is hardwired in the brain; there is a deficit of activity in certain areas of their brains when faced with situations that evoke emotional responses in most people. By going into prisons with his work he was able to find a wealth of psychopaths (as indicated by their histories and scores on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist) to put in the MRI machines. The correlation between areas of deficit and their behavior traits was irrefutable. What he didn’t find was any way to help them change; the only part of the book that deals with this possibility is near the back, where he talks about a treatment program in Wisconsin, the Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center. This program takes juvenile offenders and treats their good behaviors- no matter how rare they are at first- and positively reinforces them. Acting in socially acceptable ways brings rewards, and teaches them to try these ways first. The treatment lowered repeat offenses by 34 percent compared with untreated juvenile criminals. Sadly, this program suffered budget cutbacks and cannot treat as many teens as it was doing. This seems counterproductive when the program is actually a money saver over imprisoning people repeatedly, not to mention the damage to victims of psychopaths.

The book is interesting but not riveting. I was hoping for more science and less anecdote.

[Iving · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a chemical engineering student, okay? Psychology and neuro-science is not my area, so.... idk, I thought this was very informative, super interesting, AND fun.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The term Psychopath is used so often in modern idiom that it’s almost become a synonym for criminal. It’s almost become meaningless it’s used so often. Kiehl in “The Psychopath Whisperer” manages to provide some clarity and badly needed specificity. He uses a multipart assessment that was devised by his mentor Robert Hare as well as brain imaging. It turns out that someone suffering from this affliction has an altered brain in certain areas that MRI’s can reveal. Also, per Kiehl people on this trajectory have physically altered brains from birth. It’s estimated that about 50% of these altered traits are present from the beginning of their lives and parents report that they could tell something was different about their child right from the start…problems with bonding for example.

For obvious reasons modern psychiatry hesitates to put such an onerous label on a child nor is it appropriate for fear leading to self-fulfilling behavior however Kiehl’s work with convicted criminals shows that the incidence of psychopathy found among that group is extremely higher than it is in the general population. This is an interesting book that provides many answers yet more questions. One of the most hopeful parts was the work one prison was doing with such individuals. The program they devised actually helped curb recidivism. That’s hopeful.

The book is technical in parts yet understandable for the layperson though it takes some application. The only places where Kiehl was boring was when he meandered off into how sought after he was/is in his field and how much money institutions wanted to throw at him. Ego is never interesting in my opinion no matter how much it’s been earned.

I would suggest buying the hard copy of this book rather than the kindle edition because there are pictures and graphs included and they aren't easily read on a kindle.

This review is based on an advanced readers copy provided by the publisher.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a fan of Criminal Minds and its ilk, as these TV shows often suggest that forensic work is easy, simple, and glamorous. I think life happens in the quiet spots rather than the highs and lows, and I appreciate the quiet and small. As a result, I was initially turned off by Kent Kiehl's tone in Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience: he was glib and seemed to be choosing his subjects for their shock value. It was worth persevering.

Psychopath Whisperer is three things: a study of psychopaths, an intellectual memoir of Kiehl's life, and a description of the scientific process. Most readers will probably focus on the first, but the latter two are at least as interesting. Kiehl's life and work was not easy and simple but, as he describes it, the consequence of long, hard hours of work; thousands of articles read; savvy networking; good mentoring, probably the consequence of some of the above; good advice; and (probably) his quad espressos. As he said about two of my friends (and others):

Dr. Long called a couple of other professors, Dr. Michael Gazzaniga, the founding father of the field of cognitive neuroscience (the study of how the brain processes information), and Dr. George Mangun, an attention researcher, both of whom had just relocated their laboratories from Dartmouth University to UC Davis. She told them that she had a motivated undergrad she was sending their way. Next she called Dr. Carolyn Aldwin in the human development department. Carolyn was married to Dr. Michael (Rick) Levenson, a research professor who studied psychopathy, among other conditions. She also set me up to see a lecture by Michael Szymanski, a graduate student who was studying brain electrical activity in killer whales. Wow! Dr. Long still receives free drinks anytime our paths cross. All of the individuals she contacted that day became mentors and lifelong friends, and eventually, I am honored to say, I came to be called a colleague by them. (p. 15)

Why did Long make these introductions? Probably because Kiehl was a bright and hardworking undergraduate. Why did they stay in his life? Because he was exceptionally hardworking, dedicated, and focused, and early knew the value of sharing out-of-date and easily available bags of Starbucks coffee. Relationships open doors that would otherwise stay closed.

In Psychopath Whisperer, Kiehl straddles the cusp between abstract and concrete in a way that satisfies me. For example, as he talks about the Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (PCL-R), Kiehl discusses two men who killed US presidents. They committed similar-seeming acts, yet Kiehl argues that Charles Geiteau was a psychopath, who would score in the 99th percentile of the PCL-R, Garfield's murder relatively meaningless, with Geiteau experiencing little (no???) guilt and shame. John Wilkes Booth, on the other hand, killed Lincoln for reasons most of us don't agree with, yet they were part of his deep commitment to the South. His psychopathy score was higher than that of the average man, yet still relatively low.

All criminals are not psychopaths and, probably, not all psychopaths are criminals (or at least found in prison).

We often want to know: nature or nurture? Was Ted Bundy born or made that way? Kiehl provides considerable evidence that would support either end of this hypothesis. Psychopaths often come from abusive and chaotic families, with parents who used authoritarian parenting strategies. (Why aren't their siblings also psychopaths?) On the other hand, there is convincing research that structures in the paralimbic sections of the brain, those typically involved in processing emotions and emotional memories, are less active than those of nonpsychopaths during tasks eliciting emotional processing. His argument seems to support both nature and nurture, as most psychologists respond when asked this question. Nonetheless, Caldwell and Van Rybroek's research from the Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center in Wisconsin convincingly concludes that they can change. (At least callous and unemotional youth, likely youth who will become psychopaths, can change.)

In sum, this book has something for everyone, and is worth reading.

[Jorge Rodriguez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now when I read this book, I expected something along the lines of someone actually telling us how to understand what a psychopath is and to show us how to understand them. However, I was deeply disappointed with the content presented. Rather than explaining how you can understand the psychopath, he states the use of fMRI scans. Now this is all nice and dandy, but the interesting stuff stops there. The book is more of an autobiography than an insight on psychopaths. He does state there are over 29,000,000 psychopaths around the world, but he still doesn't delve deeper into the statement. Like many reviews that I've seen, Kiehl clearly uses the words Me, I, and Mine almost exclusively. It gives off a sort of self-absorbed writer feel which makes the title even less fitting. He goes on about his accomplishments and personal deeds he's done which isn't what I expected. Now when I say I couldn't wait ti reach the end of this book to see what the other says, I don't mean that the book was that amazing, it just didn't entertain me or interest me. Sadly I couldn't even properly finish the book, nor could I have finished it, I still have at least a good chunk of the book to go. With that being said, almost none of the information from this book could even benefit me nor could it be personally applied to real life situations because as I've said before, this book is more of an autobiography than a true informative read.

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir by a psychologist who spent his career going into prisons to give fMRI scans to psychopathic inmates.

Most pop science books coming out recently about psychopaths (and yes, there are a lot of them) have been about scientists trying to find the root cause of psychopathy, and not the old stories of the murderers who sneak into your house in the middle of the night. It's a psychiatric disease that we honestly don't know a lot about, with a lot of questions left unanswered. What causes these behavior traits? Why are psychopaths fearless? Is that somehow connected to their lack of empathy? How can we treat someone who doesn't see they have a problem?

Kiehl's book is a throwback to the old literature on the topic, which largely defines psychopathy by its behavioral, and not physical, problems. Which makes sense, as his mentor was Hare, the man who came up with the psychopath test.

Personally, I wish the book delved more into Kiehl's biological research, and the causes that it may potentially have had on the patients, and potential treatment options. The book seemed to end abruptly just as it was reaching a point where it was about to talk about those issues, which was disappointing. That said, the personal anecdotes were interesting, and the book was a quick read.

[Perri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Research about psychopaths has really exploded since the 1990s and it's fascinating stuff. Now they're finding different MRI responses between psychopaths and control groups which could be an enormous aid in identification. The author does interviews and research with prison inmates - the implication for making parole decisions is less ambiguous than for the general population. For example, If we could easily identify future psychopaths as children, could early intervention make a difference, and what would that label mean for their future? Some very thought provoking issues. As other reviewers have noted the author can seem pompous at times and overly interested in MRI machines, but it's worth skimming past those parts to learn how psychopaths' brains are different and consider those implications.

[Bookread2day · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever wondered are psychopaths evil and untreatable, or do they suffer from a form of mental illness comparable to schizophrenia? At the age of twenty-three Kent Kiehl went into the town of Abbotsford to a high security prison to conduct his research on psychopaths to do a study on brain-imaging techniques. There is a chapter all about the fMRI technique to find out where in the brain things were going wrong in psychopaths. If you are interested about psychopaths, this is a very good read with Dr Kiehl research analyzing the behavioural signature of a psychopath left behind at the crime scene. It is rare to find an accessible book on the subject.

[Ira Therebel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Psychopaths are definitely a fascinating topic. Who doesn't want to know more about people who are capable to commit heinous crimes without any regret or sometimes motivation. Kent A. Kiehl is a scientist who has done some groundbreaking research on psychopath brains and this is his book about his work.

It is really interesting. Kiehl starts with the beginning of his career where he spends years conducting interviews with psychopaths in a high security prison. He gets our interest with introducing us to some of them and what his work was like there and moves on to explain how psychopaths are diagnosed and what his research has shown.

Since the book is more of an autobiography where he talks about his work this is what we get. But it is great on its own. If one wants to know more about different kind of views and research one can read other books and combine the knowledge. I sure learned something new from this book (not very difficult since my knowledge of psychopaths is limited to movies and some true crime stories). Now I know about some brain differences there are. It makes one want to know if more research was done. He also briefly mentions female psychopaths and that there isn't much research done on them. I would be interested if there is more research now and what are the differences between female and male psychopaths or if they are the same.

Besides him explaining to us psychopath science he also talks a lot about how he conducted this work. His personal anecdotes about work in prison were very interesting. Sometimes he gets too far into it forgetting that people reading it are normal human beings who are not about to conduct some research as well. I wasn't too interested reading about technology and all the details of MRI machines. But luckily there wasn't too much of it and he didn't spoil the book with it.

The research he has done can be used to prevent crimes to be committed when working with teenage psychopaths, let's see how soon it can be implemented.

[lilias · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of interesting information, but I kept feeling like it was missing a bit. For example, Dr. Kiel’s focus was primarily incarcerated psychopaths, and he delves into the moral implications of judging a criminal with low emotional intelligence. What was missing, for me, was any mention of non-violent psychopaths. I wish Dr. Kiel had spread out a bit from his own research into information on the different types of psychopaths, not just the violent criminal offenders. Although, those violent offender psychopaths are very interesting. This book was interesting. I wanted more is all.

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think Dr Kiehl needed to decide first of all just what he was writing.

This book comes across as part text book, part extended thesis, and part memoir, a combination that makes for a somewhat unsatisfactory reading experience.

[William Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Half of this book is just The Psychopath Test and the other half is extremely dangerous junk science that I would be very afraid of being taught as legitimate science in any capacity, anywhere. Big old yikes from me. Just because you wind up getting your bullshit funded every year does not mean that bullshit has any actual merit.

Not to mention this is one of the most poorly written pop psych books on any subject. Anecdotal and historical evidence is shoddy and sparse and sometimes cuts off before making it's case or finishing it's thought. Rush job, please do not read it.

Grade: F

[Silea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: this book is about the Psychopath Whisperer, not psychopaths. If what you really want is a book full of juicy, gruesome stories of psychopaths and their deeds, you will be disappointed. That's not to say there's none of that in here, but the stories are all just to highlight how awesome the author is at working with psychopaths.

If you want a sometimes-interesting-sometimes-plodding autobiography of the author's career as the 'psychopath whisperer', well, this is for you.

[Gerrit Gmel · Rating 2 out of 5]

A massive disappointment. After reading Robert Hare's book 'Without Conscience' I wanted to know more about psychopaths and was excited to see his student had written a book including some results from brain scans. Well... don't read it, just stick to Robert Hare's original (and seminal) book on psychopathy.

This book is just a repeat and rephrasing of his mentor's work, with way too many passages of what can only be described as the authors teenage diary:

'Dear Diary, today, I was awesome: I got a brand new MRI machine from Siemens, I talked to the engineers a lot and I was very proud of myself for doing this and being able to talk to them on the same level.'

'Dear Diary, today I had some bad news at work, but I'm sure I can figure it out and continue the research I'm passionate about. I talked to the dean of the faculty and he said that he was sorry but that's just how it was. Thankfully I have another job offer already.'

'Dear Diary, today I talked to a serial killer, man that was so cool! I'm going to have such a cool story to tell at dinner now, and I really stood my ground too, man I feel reaaaally good today.'

You get the idea: the author is self-centered and not really the great writer he thinks he is. He's probably a great scientist who got a lot of good work done, but if you're here to learn about psychopaths, just stick to his mentor's book...

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I FINISHED!

I'm disappointed I didn't enjoy this book as much as I hoped. It was interesting but I found I knew quite a bit of the information from this book from various classes I've taken. It was also very heavy on the neuroscience/brain imaging sections which I found less interesting.

I'm glad I gave this book a shot though as I'm always interested in learning more about psychopathy

[Liv · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good but sometimes I felt like he was bragging too much and used random obscure words when he'd literally used the more common synonym seconds before which annoyed me.

[Erika Nerdypants · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't love this. The book contains a lot of useful information if this is your first book on psychopaths. And it's explained in simple enough terms. Some of the MRI findings are very, very interesting.

Unfortunately it also contains a lot of self- aggrandizing and frankly boring information about the author. During interviews he frequently manipulates his subjects, calling them prisoners throughout the book, almost as if they are merely objects for him, there to further his career. The dehumanization is painful. On the subject of female psychopaths he has little to say, stating that very little research exists. Of course there isn't. He tricks his only female subject into confessing that she lied about the crime she is incarcerated for, and gloats about it. It's a bit scary to think that researchers like him will make decisions about what criteria should be included or excluded for DSM diagnosis. Never mind the fact that women psychopaths will be lumped under the same umbrella as men, despite a dearth of research.

[Lauren Tevepaugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

For starters, I really enjoyed the personal accounts with the prisoners within the penal system. The interviews were very interesting to read. For instance, the Brian Dugan case. He had killed three people and his brain scans could have ultimately saved him from receiving the death penalty. The jury did however find him guilty. Another aspect of the book I liked was how Kiehl had conducted many fMRI scans of psychopaths and compared them to the “normal” brain. This led me to become curious and read articles on neurologicalcorrelates.com and livescience.com to further my knowledge of a psychopaths brain as well as a normal brain.
I did not enjoy reading all about Kevin Kiehl. I had expected to read much more on psychopaths than what I had done. Majority of the book described his personal experiences, such as Kiehl receiving grants rather than information on psychopathy. Although he did describe psychopaths, their brains, and interviewed many prisoners who were in fact psychopaths. I did not enjoy the dialogue within the novel as well. It seemed as if almost every sentence started off with “I”. Kiehl also did research on psychopaths but did not develop a course of treatment until the very end when a group in Wisconsin was addressed that could possibly treat psychopaths.
I personally learned quite a bit about the psychopathic brain. For instance, psychopaths have a low density of grey matter in areas of their brain. They also score higher on the Psychopathy Checklist- Revised (PCL-R). This did make me curious as to what my score would be. I received a 7, compared to what psychopaths usually have which is a 30 or higher.
I would recommend the book to someone interested in memoirs and research on psychopathy because the book does cover many things about Kevin Kiehl’s career as well as the research on psychopaths such as the interviews/ brain scans. But I would not recommend the book to someone seeking extensive research on the human brain, which was what I was seeking. I had just expected to learn much more on psychopathy, instead I had to find the information elsewhere.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was incredibly interesting to me. It wasn't a "true crime" book, but more of a clinical study of the psychopath. Kiehl takes a deeper look at the traits of the psychopath as developed by his mentor, Dr Robert Hare and discusses the limitations of utilizing the DSM in diagnosis of these individuals.

As someone with a BA in Psychology/Criminal Justice and who has worked in that sector, I will admit that I found his work with his students definitely caught my attention.

He utilized John Wilkes Booth and Charles Guiteau to "personify" these traits. I found this section to be questionable and would have preferred for him to use more recent/relevant case studies. In my opinion, a deep enough and reliable case study can't be developed simply due to time passage and interviewing techniques from that period of time. This book focused much more on nature vs. nurture. In the traits, I would have liked to have seen addictions/addictive behaviors addressed. It was very,very briefly touched but not expounded on to a manner which I felt addressed it completely, as he did in other areas.

On that note, I found the psychological and physical (brain studies) of these individuals to be simply fascinating. It is clearly a well documented book. I think it would fit better into an academic setting versus the general public. I fear that the majority will be looking for a "slice and dice" book and this is not it. It is much more of a "scientific" study.

A good read for a psychological/criminal junkie such as myself.

[Darcia Helle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Psychopath Whisperer is a book I would consider reader-friendly. If you're interested in the psychology and brain science of psychopaths, but don't want a lot of complicated detail, this is the perfect place to start. For those of us who read a lot on the topic, this book is a fascinating look at one man's journey of discoveries.

Last year, I read The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime by Adrian Raine, which is a far more detailed and weighty read on this topic. Kiehl's work was cited several times throughout, so I was excited to see that he'd written his own book on the topic. This book is an interesting combination of memoir, psychology, and science. We get a behind-the-scenes look at academic life and the inner workings of scientific studies and funding. Keihl's dedication to his topic shines through with his words and makes this an even more compelling read. Because we follow his career path, much of the science early in his story isn't new. Still, I was fascinated to learn about the studies that gave us all this information.

The section on teenagers with behavior problems and violent tendencies is particularly interesting. Hopefully, Kiehl's work will lead to better treatment and intervention with at-risk children and teens.

[Ciarra Grobe · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was absolutely fascinating to learn about the life of a psychopath and the brain anomalies that accompany the diagnosis. Science has come a long way and this book gives the reader the ability to understand how interwoven the law and neuroscience is becoming. Our society is going to have to understand that there are individuals out there who are not affected by punishment and lack the emotional/mental capacity to react to situations and behave the way the average person does. Furthermore, we as a society are going to have to reform treatment to meet the needs of individuals that truly don't have an explanation for the terribly heinous things they do.

The biggest take away from the book is Dr. Kiehl's hope to prevent crimes from happening in the future because we are now able to look at brain scans that can ultimately show anomalies in the paralimbic system that are shown to be an indicator of psychopathy. However efficient having this information could be, one also poses the risk of slapping a label on a child with comparable brain scans that is not a psychopath. By running tests and analyzing children that have significant chances of growing out of their deviance, society takes the risk of a self-fulfilling prophecy and creating more criminal activity than there would have been from the beginning...

[Karen Docter · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't usually post reviews of less than 3 stars, but I wanted to explain why I'm giving this non-fiction book such a low score. From the looks of other reviews, lots of other readers have given it a much higher rating. Maybe their expectations going in were different than mine.

I wanted to enjoy the insights I'd hoped to find in this book because I write suspense novels and want my antagonists to be as realistic as possible. I'm always on the lookout for non-fiction books that can help me to do this. But, honestly, The Psychopathic Whisperer is more about the author and his experiences and job progression than a meaty exploration of the psychopathic minds he was treating. "The Science of Those Without Conscience" in the title simply didn't meet my expectations. "Science" was the operative word for me when I bought the book. I set it down numerous times but, thinking the book would get to the psychopathic insights sooner or later, I persevered.

I wish I'd read the recommendation in small print by Robert D. Hare because it's a much better explanation of what the book contains: "...provides us with a fascinating account of his personal journey..." If this is what you're looking for, you'll likely find the book more interesting and helpful than I did.

[Greg Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really loved this book. As with friends, lovers, and enemies, it was virtuous to look (read) past the writer's creeping braggadocio, and connect with what I thought was a pretty spellbinding account of his search for a firm correlation between psychopathy and abnormal brain anatomy/physiology. Science is definitely cool!

[Allan Olley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an autobiography and discussion of the author's work and findings about Psychopathy. Kiehl is an expert in psychology and neuro-imaging seeking to uncover the causes of psychopathic personality and behaviour. The book begins in detail with his work as a graduate student at UBC interviewing and eventually scanning the brains of prisoners using PET scan and later functional MRI (fMRI) technology and how he went on to become a lead researcher doing pioneering work at institutions first in Connecticut and then in New Mexico. Most notably he pioneered using a mobile MRI machine to do fMRI studies of prisoners. Some background of his earlier life is also detailed and he gives long digressions on the character and science of psychopathy and neural imaging.

The book paints a fascinating and chilling picture of the psychopath people whose behaviour and attitude towards life are most distinct in their lack of conscience and willingness to commit the most heinous acts without regret and often with little motivation. However as he details psychopaths present (in his estimation) with a range of emotional and cognitive characteristics, a lack of empathy or even understanding of the emotions of others or their own, a lack of response to punishment, fear or anxiety and a lack of ability to achieve tasks that require commit, suggestive of how different their psychology is and just what might be at work.

Kiehl explains how interviews, a study of case history, the testimony of friends, families and victims and the Psychopathy Checklist developed by his supervisor Hare at UBC are used to identify psychopaths. Using this identification and the latest neuro-imaging technology Kiehl looks for brain structure and function that correlates with these outwards signs of psychopathy in hopes of uncovering some of the causes. Kiehl has come to identify psychopathy with the underdevelopment of the paralimbic system of the brain, areas associated with judgement and self-control among other things.

He expounded on the description of psychopathic behaviour by giving examples from his own experience and occasionally from history and wider culture. Most notable is a chapter where he compares the psychopathic characteristics of two presidential assassins, John Wilkes Booth and Charles J. Guiteau (who assassinated Garfield). Examples like this serve to illustrate what Kiehl takes to me psychopathic traits and how they manifest in various aspects of life. His work focuses on criminal psychopaths and there is less discussion or context for how psychopathic traits manifest in non-criminal areas.

Likewise he has long digressions on the characteristics of MRI machines and the complexities of procuring them and using them for his sort of work. Much of Kiehl's work requires detailed scans of people while they perform various mental tasks to assess brain function, this requires specialized equipment and pushes the machines to their limit. One anecdote he gives is that since he tests the MRI scanners he has operated on himself he has gotten so used to the sounds of the MRI he can sleep during an MRI. I myself have had a few head MRIs (for medical diagnosis) and even fallen asleep myself once or twice (this may say more about my sleep habits then how used I am to the sound), so I felt a little recognition in that, since MRI machines are very noisy so it is somewhat unusual to sleep in one.

In addition to the main subjects of the text one occasionally learns little tidbits about related issues. My favourite was the association noticed (though ultimately not supported by later study) between bed wetting (in conjunction with other signs) and later violent behaviour. I also felt a little sympathy and a lot of envy for Kiehl's very successful academic career and the book gives an occasional glimpse into some of the realities of funding for mental health research and some of the aspects of academic careers.

Kiehl's descriptions of the interviews with and crimes of the criminals he interviews can be a bit cold and detached at times. While Kiehl often admits repulsion towards these criminals acts this does not always show and is just a little macabre at times.

I have no expertise in the areas Kiehl discusses and so I can't tell whether he is being accurate, whether he is giving a biased account that fails to consider alternative data and so on. However what he does present seems very suggestive and interesting.

The audiobook is excellently performed with an avuncular manner and clear enunciation of all words and no real problems.