This book
wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. The name is misleading; I picture a
“whatever whisperer” as being someone who understands the mind of the subject
in depth and who can easily and painlessly convince the subject to do what the
whisperer wants. While Kiehl did groundbreaking work on what happens in a
psychopath’s brain, he didn’t find any way to change their brains or their
behaviors. What he found, by using cutting edge fMRIs, was that psychopathology
is hardwired in the brain; there is a deficit of activity in certain areas of
their brains when faced with situations that evoke emotional responses in most
people. By going into prisons with his work he was able to find a wealth of
psychopaths (as indicated by their histories and scores on the Hare Psychopathy
Checklist) to put in the MRI machines. The correlation between areas of deficit
and their behavior traits was irrefutable. What he didn’t find was any way to
help them change; the only part of the book that deals with this possibility is
near the back, where he talks about a treatment program in Wisconsin, the Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center. This program takes juvenile offenders
and treats their good behaviors- no matter how rare they are at first- and
positively reinforces them. Acting in socially acceptable ways brings rewards,
and teaches them to try these ways first. The treatment lowered repeat offenses
by 34 percent compared with untreated juvenile criminals. Sadly, this program
suffered budget cutbacks and cannot treat as many teens as it was doing. This
seems counterproductive when the program is actually a money saver over
imprisoning people repeatedly, not to mention the damage to victims of
psychopaths.
The book is
interesting but not riveting. I was hoping for more science and less anecdote.
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