Overview

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has long captured the public imagination. Newspaper column inches have been devoted to murderers with psychopathic features, and we also encounter psychopaths in films and books. Individuals with psychopathy are characterized in particular by lack of empathy and guilt, manipulation of other people and, in the case of criminal psychopathy, premeditated violent behavior. They are dangerous and can incur immeasurable emotional, psychological, physical, and financial costs to their victims and their families. Despite the public fascination with psychopathy, there is often a very limited understanding of the condition, and several myths about psychopathy abound. For example, people commonly assume that all psychopaths are sadistic serial killers or that all violent and antisocial individuals are psychopaths. Yet, research shows that most psychopaths are not serial killers, and, equally, there are plenty of antisocial and violent offenders who are not psychopaths. Viding explores the latest genetic, neuroscience, and psychology evidence in order to illuminate why psychopaths behave and develop the way they do, and considers whether it is possible to prevent or even treat psychopathy.

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Essi Viding is professor of developmental psychopathology at the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, where she codirects the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit. She is also adjunct faculty at Yale University Medical School Child Study Center. Her research combines a variety of methodologies, including brain imaging and genetically informative study designs, in an effort to chart different developmental pathways to persistent antisocial behavior. Professor Viding has received several prizes for her work, including the British Academy Wiley Prize in Psychology, The British Psychological Society Spearman Medal, The Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award, and the Turin Mind & Brain Prize. Esther Wane is a British actor and voice-over artist. After a career in finance, she fulfilled a childhood dream of going to drama school in London, and her life as an actor began at age forty. She has a lifelong passion for literature and can often be found browsing bookshops during any spare moments. Wane enjoys taking her listeners on a journeys in time and space and bringing the characters on the page to life in their imagination. She lives with her family and collection of books in Hertfordshire, just outside London.

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