As an expert on personality disorders, people often ask me about psychopathy. It seems everybody has had an ex, a boss, a neighbour or a relative who they suspect has traits of it. People are curious about how to recognise psychopathy, and whether it can explain certain harmful behaviour. It’s easy to see why. Psychopathic people are everywhere – from books and movies to newspaper articles and academic papers.
But while such questions are usually asked with confidence, the answers are far less straightforward. In fact, a growing number of academic papers have failed to find evidence that psychopathy exists at all. Could the disorder be something we’ve just invented because it’s convenient, doing away with old concepts of good and evil? Some experts believe so. But I am not so sure.
