- Abby Marsh, psychologist and neuroscientist explained what makes a psychopath in a virtual seminar.
- Marsh stated that psychopathy can be found on a spectrum, from mild to severe. However, all psychopaths share four characteristics.
- Those include pitilessness, remorselessness and an inability love.
Many people believe psychopaths are born out of depraved homes and traumatic childhoods. However, a neuroscientist with over 15 years’ brain research experience believes that the opposite is true.
During a virtual seminarFrom The Science and Information Exchange, an organization that connects the entertainment industry with science professionals, Georgetown University psychology professor and neuroscientist Abigail Marsh explained that the root of their illness often stems from brain development.
“We do know that the severity of these traits is linked to characteristic brain abnormalities that seem to start early in childhood and then sort of progress,”Marsh, who was also the founder and chief executive officer of the research nonprofit Psychopathy IsDuring the event, he said.
Marsh says that psychopathy can range from mild to severe. Some are more manipulative, risk-taking and threatening than others. Marsh stated that psychopaths have four characteristics: pitilessness (remorselessness), inability love and insensitivity towards the possibility of harm.
Psychopaths are often unable to feel compassion or empathy for others.
Marsh said that psychopathy is characterized by difficulty in feeling empathy for people who are on the spectrum.
She said that if someone is close to a psychopath and feels sad or afraidful, they won’t be able to understand it because they don’t feel the emotion.
Marsh shared the example of Marsh’s elementary school-aged son, who Marsh studied, who videotaped his teachers as he reacted to a possible terrorist attack at school.
Marsh also stated that people suffering from psychopathy have little to no remorse for harming others, whether they are mentally, emotionally or physically.
She also had to study a boy who was expelled from school and suspended so many times, that his mother lost their job as she needed to take care of him. Marsh later visited a mental health center to ask the boy about his feelings.
“He said, ‘The things I do hurt her, but she doesn’t really say how much, so it doesn’t have any effect on me.’ He was blaming his mom for his total absence of remorse, for all the negative effects that had occurred because of his behavior,”Marsh said.
Psychopaths don’t get love as others do.
Psychopaths can also struggle to understand or feel love.
“They do not experience close, loving bonds with other people in quite the same way other people do. More than one child or adolescent I’ve interviewed said they don’t love anybody, not their family, not their friends,”Marsh spoke during the seminar.
People with psychopathy might instead refer to or think of loved ones. “associates”Marsh said that Marsh doesn’t believe anyone can help them.
Psychopaths are not afraid to get hurt emotionally or physically.
Last but not least, people suffering from psychopathy often have difficulty understanding fear.
“They’re really insensitive to the possibility of future harm. In the words of one girl we studied, ‘Nothing scares me, nothing,'”Marsh said.
She stated that a psychopath will do what they like, regardless of the danger of injury, jail time, or disapproval.
She observed another young lady who had stolen her parents’ car to have a joy ride and drove it into the tree before flipping it over.
“She was completely unruffled. The cops showed up at her house later and she was sitting calmly on the couch, eating Doritos,”Marsh.