How Psychopaths Think

By Steve Becker, LCSW, CH.T 111 Quimby Street, Suite 7 Westfield, NJ 07090 908-233-5755 powercommunicating.com powercommunicating@yahoo.com

Have you ever seen a cat toy with a stunned, cornered mouse? How it will capture the mouse, dangle it in its mouth for a while, release it momentarily, allowing the mouse the pretense of an escape, only to recapture it, dangle it some more from its mouth, perhaps release it again briefly, now to watch the mouse, increasingly frantic, make another escape bid, only to recapture it, now letting the terrorized mouse (and, as if its fate) dangle yet some more, in dreadful uncertainty? If the mouse could think, it might have thoughts like these: what will this cat do with me? How long will it continue to toy with me? Will it kill me, or let me go? Strangely, this cat seems to be deriving a perverse pleasure in my predicament? My helplessness and suffering seem to be entertaining and amusing this cat? There is something cold and sadistic about thisthat this cat could be using, and exploiting, my vulnerability in this way for its personal, shallow gratification? The mouse would think, there is something wrong with this cat. In this analogy, the mouses imagined experience of the cat captures, I believe, the victims experience of the psychopath. Cats, of course, are not psychopaths, and mice, although traumatizable, are unlikely to experience their victimization in quite so thoughtful a way.

But to elaborate the analogy, let us imagine whats taking place in the cats mind? The cat may be thinking, This is fun. The mouse Im terrorizing is pathetic. Look how scared and confused it is. It has no idea whats in store for it. Even I havent decided whats in store for it. Im enjoying its helplessness, and my total control over it, too much to worry about my plans for this mouse. I find it amusing that its playing dead? Does this mouse think it can fool me? I, and only I, will determine whether the mouse lives or dies. Presently Im going to release and taunt it again, with the illusion of escape. When I recapture it immediately, it will be trembling with fear, a prisoner to my designs. This is pretty funny. Its not that I have anything personal against mice. As a matter of fact, they provide me with a great source of recreation. The cat, in this analogy (and let me stress that I like cats, who dont really think like this), captures with a chilling fidelity the perspective of psychopaths towards their victims. It is all there: its utter lack of empathy for the mouse; its view of the mouse as an object that exists to be exploited for its benefit; its amusement at having created the mouses predicament, now to watch and enjoy the mouses futile bids at escape; its contempt for the mouses helplessness and desperation, which the cat, of course, has opportunistically established for its own entertainment; its relish in its omnipotence to decide the mouses fate, but only when it is good and ready, and no sooner than the cat has mined the mouses helplessness for its full recreational value. In sum, this is the essence of the psychopath: his joy of the hunt, his contempt for his prey, and his intention to take everything he can, and wants, from his victim. When the psychopath takes you for a ridethat is, when he is victimizing people its really not personal: Youre simply not enough of a person for it to be personal. In the

psychopaths eyes, you are an expedient, nothing more. When he crosses your path, the psychopath is assessing your expediency. He is asking himself, Is there something this impending-sucker has for me? Is there something I can take from this fool that I want? Something I can take that will make me feel good? As part of his assessment, he is evaluating the kind of target youll be. If he decides to pass, it wont be because he likes you, or feels something charitable; it will be because hes decided that, either you have nothing, after all, worth taking, or that youll pose inconveniences and/or risks to his present self-interests that he prefers to avoid. For the psychopath, you are like a sealed, vulnerable envelope he is constantly espying, with suspected money inside. He isnt sure how much money, but hes pretty sure theres something in it. It might be a little, it might be a lot; its possible theres too little (or nothing) of value worth his bothering with. Surely, though, he is scheming how best to glimpse whats in the envelope, and how best to lift anything worth taking. The psychopath is a high, and often imprudent, risk-taker; hes in it for the catch, not to be caught. You, and all human beings, are mere commodities to him: maybe useful, maybe not. Certainly, once hes expended your use, as useless as a nagging headache.