The Psychopath: Emotion and the Brain

by James Blair, Derek Mitchell, Karina Blair

Psychopaths continue to be demonised by the media and estimates suggest that a disturbing percentage of the population has psychopathic tendencies. This timely and controversial new book summarises what we already know about psychopathy and antisocial behavior and puts forward a new case for its cause - with far-reaching implications.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Science, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Mental Illness, Ebooks

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2005

Reviews

[Alissa Thorne]

This book was flat out awesome.

Ok, so... it's awesome for the sort of person who is oddly fascinated by cognition, neurology, and psychopathy, with a pretty substantial understanding of the latter. Probably dense, dry, and incomprehensible for anyone else.

But _I_ loved it.

I've been studying antisocial personality disorder, sociopathy, and psychopathy for the past five years or so. Having gotten past what wikipedia could teach me, I started exploring books on the topic. I have been disappointed by the sensationalist tone and lack of substantive content in the books I've read until now.

This book gives a comprehensive overview of what is know about psychopaths, and how that differs from the DSM IV classifications of CD (combative disorder) and ASPD (antisocial personality disorder). Some of the fun treats in this book include: studies on attention, anxiety, cognition, the ability to make reward-punishment associations, response to emotional stimulus, the startle reflex, and indications in brain scan images for many of these studies.

Plus the book frequently uses phrases like, "Given this, the prediction would be that ... The data supports this prediction." Or "In the following chapter, I will briefly summarize the data." Section titles include titillating titles like, "The response set modulation hypothesis." Oh yeah, talk dirty to me.

[David]

Far more clinical than I anticipated, but extremely insightful and thorough presentation of psychopathy. Not recommended as a fun read, probably more geared towards psych students and professionals.

[زينب]

Way too dry for me

[Philip]

Clearly written for an initiated audience consisting of people who are up to speed with the current research. In all honesty, I'd rather have the book twice as long and every non-trivial concept reasonably explained. Now I feel I cannot get a thorough understanding unless I also study all the science papers that went into the book.

Specifically, I feel that an important aspect of psychopathy, the simulacrum humanoid quality, should have been addressed extensively (rather than giving it mere implicit reference under the "glib" item of the PCL test). This aspect, the simulating of the human being, essential to psychopathy, was well documented in the original cases studied by Cleckley and so should be given explicit attention as far as I'm concerned. Also, there's no mention of possible epigenetic sources giving rise to psychopathy, unfortunately.

[Bobby]

This was far more academic than I expected. If you’re a layperson like me with a general interest in psychology and looking for some leisure reading, look elsewhere. The very dry prose is densely packed with medical and scientific jargon and concepts that are mostly not explained because the book was obviously intended for an audience who is already well-versed in the subject. I learned a few things but was mostly baffled.

[Yasmeen]

Great book that can act as a neurocognitive model when viewing psychopathy. It also cites quite a few studies on neurocognitive performance differences, and how they relate to a psychopath's functional impairment or modification. For instance, in affect and language:

Individuals with psychopathy present with notably reduced affect- ive input to linguistic processing. They present with reduced conceptual knowledge concerning moral emotions, reduced influence of affect in- formation during lexical decision, and notable absences of appropriate affect input on specific tasks investigating semantic knowledge. In addition, there is some suggestion of more generalized impairment in linguistic/ semantic processing.

I found it interesting that it implies psychopaths struggle to be creative. If one is a good listener, and a creative reader with a good understanding of language; they are automatically not psychopathic.

Book Contents
1 What Is Psychopathy? 1
2 The Background Facts 18
3 What Is the Ultimate Cause of Psychopathy? 28
4 The Psychopathic Individual: The Functional Impairment 47
5 Cognitive Accounts of Psychopathy 67
6 Neural Accounts of Psychopathy 81
7 A Neurocognitive Account of Reactive Aggression 96
8 A Neurocognitive Account of Psychopathy 110
9 Conundrums and Conclusions 141

[Serena Mancini]

A basic foundation of neuroscience is helpful for this book. The information about the brain and psychopathy were compelling, but I think it would have been stronger with anecdotal examples from the author’s clients alongside the neuroscience. Including real-life cases would have added depth and made the material more engaging.

“Moreover, we would argue that the difference between the DSM-IV diagnoses of CD and Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) and psychopathy as indexed by the APSD or PCL-R is not really that psychopathy extends the DSM-IV diagnoses because it considers personality, but rather that it extends these diagnoses because it considers emotion.”

[Marilyn Sue Michel]

This is an excellent analysis of physical factors in the brain which tend to produce psychopaths. Children are described as having "psychopathic tendencies," to allow for possible improvement before they become adult psychopaths. Estimates male psychopaths at 1% of the population; female psychopaths at 0.25%. This may be a very low estimate given that women can hide better than men.

[Preston]

Skimmed through the book; read a few parageaphs to see what the book has to offer. This is a collection of scientific research. Research concluding that psychopathy and adhd are in fact linked. Also several learning differences are known and studied. These subjects also have a profound decrease in autonomic responses and decreased reaction to pain.

[Westley Sanchez]

My biography

[Carolyn Amate]

Very technical but also very interesting reading.

[Jaime Vigil]

reads more like a literature review than a book and is a bit outdated , but still worth the read.

[Kevin]

A technical account of possible etiologies of psychopathy. Somewhat less integrative than I would have preferred.

[Remington Graves]

The psychopath is better than no path.

[Leah]

Very informative!

[Magda Tokarczyk]

Very good overview of the theories. A great read on the subject.

[Laura Wetsel]

A comprehensive and thorough representation of the research done on psychopathy.