The Psychopath Inside
A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain
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- 8,99 €
Descrizione dell’editore
What would you do if you discovered you had the brain of a psychopath? A neuroscientist investigates why he turned out differently from the serial killers he studies in this fascinating deep dive into psychopathy, criminal behavior, genetics, and the human brain.
“Compelling, essential reading for understanding the underpinnings of psychopathy.” — M. E. Thomas, author of Confessions of a Sociopath
In 2005, over a decade before true crime became a cultural obsession, fifty-eight-year-old neuroscientist and medical school professor James Fallon uncovered a lead that caused him to embark on a detective-style case of his own.
While studying the brain scans of serial killers, Fallon exposed a shocking truth: his own brain looked strikingly similar to the cold-blooded murderers he researched. A few months later he learned that he was descended from a family with a long line of murderers, which hinted that Fallon’s own brain pattern wasn’t a fluke. Not only would this realization disrupt his personal and professional life, but it would also lead him to interrogate the very nature of his identity.
The Psychopath Inside tells the fascinating story of Fallon’s discovery and the questions it arose. Despite their matching brain structures, he had very little in common with psychopaths on the surface: he was close with his loving, supportive family, married his high school sweetheart, and had three kids and lots of friends. So how do some people with psychopathic traits become violent, while others lead successful, ordinary lives?
Fallon intended to find out. In a combination of personal story and groundbreaking research, The Psychopath Inside reveals more about psychology’s most misunderstood condition than ever before explored, and Fallon’s ultimate diagnosis will forever change the way we view the disorder.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Is author Fallon a law-abiding research scientist and family man or a dangerous psychopath? In this memoir-meets-pop-sci examination of psychopathy, Fallon discovers, to his initial surprise, that he has brain functions similar to a cohort of hardened criminals. The book takes chapter-length looks at the neurological features, possible genetic and epigenetic causes, and developmental triggers of psychopathy, with detours through Fallon's personal and familial history. Unfortunately, Fallon's memoir of realizations is emotionally flat (which is perhaps unfair criteria to judge a psychopath by), lazily assembled, and amounts to little more than a confessional booth's enumeration of sins. He cheats with his kids at Scrabble, parties too hard, alienates his co-workers, and takes his brother to an Ebola-infested cave and considers using him as lion bait. These vices, Fallon is happy to tell you, provide him a great deal of malevolent glee, though there is little pleasure for readers to bask in Fallon's narration is too sterile and, ironically, too self-serving to ever entice the reader. For a quick overview of current theories of brain science and mental illness, Fallon's book is useful; for insight into foreign mental and emotional territories, look elsewhere.
