How a psychopath is made

As a follow-up to its stories on Colonel Russell Williams, The Globe and Mail investigates "How a Psychopath is Made." There are the usual suspects trotted out to give their two cents, and these interesting insights into how sociopaths grow from child to adult.

The theory is that neglect, abuse and early trauma somehow desensitize children to the feelings of others, says Dr. Kiehl, but it still has not been proven. Not all psychopaths had horrible childhoods. Some come from stable families. Millions of children are abused he says, but don't become psychopaths.

In one of her studies, Dr. Gao found that children who lived apart from their parents in the first three years of life were more likely to have psychopathic personalities. This suggests that failure to bond may play a role, she says. She also found that adults who reported they were neglected by their mothers when they were children were also more likely to have difficulty with empathy, and other psychopathic traits.

But every child showing signs of callousness and fearlessness isn't a psychopath in the making – although it certainly increases the odds. It is rare for people to become callous and unfeeling as adults if they began life as caring, empathetic children, says Paul Frick, a psychologist at the University of New Orleans, who studies anti-social behaviour and develops therapies for anti-social children. These troubled kids learn to conform quickly, often even fooling researchers by posing as model citizens until the end of the day, when, denied a reward, they become nasty intimidators even with adults.

But one study that followed 12-year-olds with these traits into adulthood found that only about 20 per cent met the measurement for psychopathy. Genes may lay the foundation, but environment builds upon it. A fearless child with callous traits who lives in a stable, supportive home with a parents that can afford to send him skiing as an outlet for his risk-taking has better outcomes than one raised in a poor family where the parents have few resources.

In the past, it was argued that psychopaths could not be treated – therapy sessions appeared to have no impact on their recidivism rates, and they often emerged having learned new skills about human nature that made them better manipulators. Some new research, however, has shown progress in teaching empathy to young children, as well as the benefits of very intense therapy for adult criminals.

It's interesting thinking what might trigger sociopath genes in an otherwise relatively normal child. Yes, abuse or severe neglect, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient. I've already talked about some of the banal details of my childhood that may have triggered a predisposition to sociopathic traits, including possibly a particularly serious case of colic. Perhaps the colic interfered with normal maternal bonding, perhaps I sensed a more urgent need to compete for resources than normal people, but I understand how these explanations might fail to be convincing.

People always think there are going to be graphic, horror stories from my childhood, but there just aren't. I can imagine how frustrating that might be to those looking for an easy explanation, but disturbed or disordered people often have surprisingly normal backgrounds. For instance, when asked to discuss his own past, Col. Williams, perhaps anticipating the disappointment that his answers might elicit, responded almost apologetically, “it will be very boring.”

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