fwtxmom: That must be a pretty intense line of work to be in. Yes, it's clear that abusive, violent childhoods create abusive violent adults. But psychopaths have additional defining traits, such as a controlled, calculated quality to their violence, and a lack of normal response to aversive stimuli. I think the genuine psychopaths are more likely the ones you talk about in your second paragraph. (The two authors you cite are both trained in the psychodynamic tradition, which has been long discredited. Neither has published research in reputable scientific journals.)
DeeDee: I guess it's a question of, how do they turn out under normal "good enough" parenting? Certain people might be wired to be psychopaths even with decent parenting, but could still benefit from early identification and intervention (if we could figure out what that intervention ought to be). This is analogous to the case of autism.
But a different scenario is that there are people who are born with a risk factor for psychopathy, but are likely to turn out relatively normal with "good enough" parenting, and are most likely to turn into full-blown psychopaths under conditions of emotional stress in childhood. This is more analogous to depression.
Pemberley: Just wow.
