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How Psychopaths Think

By Steve Becker, LCSW, CH.T

111 Quimby Street, Suite 7

Westfield, NJ 07090

908-233-5755

powercommunicating.compowercommunicating@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 dowith

me? How long will it continueto toy with me? Will it killme, or let me go? Strangely,

this cat seems to be deriving aperverse pleasurein my predicament? My helplessness

and suffering seem to be entertaining and amusingthis 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 wrongwith 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.

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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 Ihavent 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 onlyI, 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 reallythink 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 exploitedfor 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: hisjoy 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 notpersonal: Youre simply not enough of a personfor it to bepersonal. In the

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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 hasfor me? Is there something I can takefrom 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 muchmoney, but hes pretty

sure theres somethingin 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.