The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience

In this compassionate study, Kiehl, professor of psychology, neurosciences, and law at the University of New Mexico, attempts to provide a way to understand and improve the lives of psychopaths. His opening chapter describes his first visit to a prison as a graduate student and his first encounters with psychopaths. Kiehl’s goal is not to sensationalize, but rather to learn and assist; that helping psychopaths is his ultimate goal is evident in the nonjudgmental and caring manner in which he tells his stories. His pedigree also speaks volumes: he has devoted a good portion of his career to this oft-maligned population, conducting the first fMRI study (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) on imprisoned psychopaths, and has investigated treatment methods that break the traditional, detrimental modes of deterrence and defiance. He offers insights into psychopathic symptoms and diagnostic criteria, but perhaps most innovative is his focus on prisons, which house a disproportionate number of psychopaths relative to the general population. Neuroscience, Kiehl concludes, has the potential to change the judicial experience of psychopaths and our own concepts of free will. With such observations, this book may allow psychopaths to transition from a cultural spectacle to suffering individuals that might, in no small part due to efforts like Kiehl’s, be able to receive help. (May)