Psychopath night.

Part two of two DVDs of Channel 4's 'Psychopath Night', unravelling the mystery of this minority. At number five in the countdown of movie psychopaths is Anthony Minghella’s ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ (1999). This choice represents psychopaths’ ability to put forward a convincing façade. Court appointed psychiatrist Ralph Allison discusses the case of the Hillside Strangler, AKA Kenneth Bianchi. Bianchi initially came across as a charming family man, illustrated by archival footage. But when psychiatrists interviewed him under hypnosis, a separate personality emerged who admitted responsibility for the killings. Bianchi was initially diagnosed with multiple personality disorder and declared incompetent to serve trial. It later emerged that he had fabricated the condition to escape imprisonment. Next up is Alex from Stanley Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971), introducing the question of how to tackle psychopathy. Former SAS sergeant Andy McNab, who scored high on Kevin Dutton’s psychopathy test, undergoes a startle reflex test devised by Dutton to measure differing anxiety levels in response to soothing and alarming stimuli. McNab’s responses to each stimulus are almost identical, implying that images of violence don’t actually bother psychopaths. James Fallon models psychopathy as a three-legged stool made up of genetic traits associated with aggression, unusual patterns of brain activity, and environmental factors including abuse and abandonment. Violent psychopaths, according to Fallon, have all three elements. In ‘A Clockwork Orange’, Alex is transformed from a killer into a model citizen. Most experts dispute that psychopathy can be ‘cured’, but Bob Johnson, former psychiatrist at Parkhurst Prison, claims to have done it. He believes confronting childhood trauma is the key to transforming the behaviour of violent psychopaths. Robert Hare disagrees, likening it to attempting to change the behaviour of a cat into that of a mouse. Number three is Lynne Ramsey’s ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ (2011), selected by the experts as the most accurate portrayal of child psychopathy. Child psychiatrists use the term ‘callous unemotional’ to describe psychopathy in children. Paul Frick of University of New Orleans and Essi Viding of University College London outline the clinical presentation of such children. Joyce Alexander from Arkansas lives in fear of her son Patrick, who is serving a life sentence after she turned him in for murder. She is prepared to kill her son if he ever returns in search of revenge. Number two is surgeon Jed Hill from Harold Becker’s ‘Malice’ (1993), chosen by Mary Ellen O’Toole for its accurate depiction of the egotism and narcissism of a psychopath. But the top psychopath is The Joker, as portrayed by Heath Ledger in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008). For the experts, this character encompasses all of the psychopathic traits outlined in the programme. Ellison concludes that our fascination with psychopaths may lay in our envy for their freedom from the rules of society.