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Horizon tells amazing science stories and reveals worlds you've never seen before.

Horizon tells amazing science stories, unravels mysteries and reveals worlds you've never seen before.

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Horizon: 2017

Uta Frith

Steve Crabtree

Rebecca Harrison

Horizon: 2017: What Makes a Psychopath?

What Makes a Psychopath?

29/08/2017

2017

BBC Two - Horizon, 2017, What Makes a Psychopath?

What is a psychopath, what drives them to cause harm, and can they ever be cured?

Presented by professor Uta Frith, this is an in-depth exploration of the psychopathic mind, including one of the most notorious psychopaths of all, Moors murderer Ian Brady.

Psychopaths have long captured the public imagination. Painted as charismatic, violent predators lacking in all empathy, they provide intrigue and horror in equal measure. But what precisely is a psychopath? What is it that drives them to cause harm, even kill? And can they ever be cured?

Presented by psychologist professor Uta Frith, this is an in-depth exploration of the psychopathic mind including one of the most notorious of all, Moors murderer Ian Brady. Through an ongoing correspondence between the Horizon team and Brady, the film features some of the very last letters he wrote. The film also features a series of candid interviews with prison inmates who not only describe their crimes but why they think they committed them.

Horizon explores not only how each individual's crimes were shaped by their own life experiences, but also gives an insight into how these people think and behave. Working with the world's experts in the field, the film sheds light on the biological, psychological and environmental influences that shape a psychopath. And it looks to the future, with groundbreaking research that suggests a lifetime of incarceration is not the only option to manage violent and dangerous psychopaths.

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