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7/22/2019 How Psychopaths Think
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How Psychopaths Think
By Steve Becker, LCSW, CH.T
111 Quimby Street, Suite 7
Westfield, NJ 07090
908-233-5755
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.