About Psychopathy Is

I am a mother, writer, speaker, and advocate. During the early years raising our children, my husband and I encountered some challenging behaviors that were beyond our knowledge and ability to parent. We needed help. So we began to access the children’s mental health system hoping for support, assistance, and services. Instead we found barriers and stigma. We continued to push through the system in order to find the help we so desperately needed, and along the way we began discovering opportunities to help and support others.

Currently I advocate for children’s mental health issues locally, regionally, and across my state. Not only do I advocate for policies and services that effectively support children and families, but I also encourage systems to provide opportunities for families struggling with emotional and behavioral challenges to share their voice and experiences. The journey of parenting a child with a mental health diagnosis is often lonely and isolating. I’ve experienced the stigma from others and the self-imposed expectations and blame. All of this, combined with daily parenting challenges, contributes to feelings of failure and insecurity in many parents. By sharing our family’s journey and allowing opportunities for conversations about hard topics I seek to provide support and hope for others.

Dr. Suardi is ABPN certified in psychiatry, child psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry. He obtained his M.D. and completed a residency in public health and preventive medicine at the University of Milan, Italy. He received an M.Sc. in Public Health and Policy from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an Executive M.A. in National Security Affairs from the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. Dr. Suardi teaches in both the residency and fellowship programs.

James Blair, PhD is the Director of the Center for Neurobehavioral Research. He is an expert in the neurobiology of emotion, aggression and antisocial behavior and has published more than 200 scientific manuscripts on this and related topics. Dr. Blair received a doctoral degree in Psychology from University College London in 1993 under the supervision of Professor John Morton. Following graduation he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Mental Health Research Fellowship that he held at the Medical Research Council Cognitive Development Unit for three years. Subsequently, Dr. Blair moved to the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London. There, with Uta Frith, he helped form and co-lead the Devel​opmental Disorders group, and was ultimately appointed Senior Lecturer. Dr. Blair Joined the NIMH Intramural Research Program in 2002. He joined Boys Town as Center Director in August 2016. He is currently President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy as well as the acting vice-chair of the Board of Scientific Advisors for the National Courts and Sciences Institute (the Institute that educates judges on scientific topics relevant to the courtroom).

Danette Marie is the mother of two children adopted from Russia. She is currently in education providing instruction to students with special needs in kindergarten through high school. She cofounded an online publication for parents and clinical professionals addressing the challenges impacting children with neurodevelopmental disorders. She has a BA in Liberal Studies and an MA in Psychology focusing on Research.

Dr. Leedom is a psychiatrist and Professor of Counseling and Psychology. She researches the impact of psychopathy on the family and is a leading authority on this subject.

I am a Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology Research Department, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London. Together with Professor Eamon McCrory, I co-direct the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit at University College London. Our research focuses on investigating different developmental pathways to persistent antisocial behaviour, as well as the neurocognitive consequences of childhood maltreatment. We collaborate with researchers within and outside the university, including colleagues at the Yale Child Study Center, where we both hold adjunct appointments.

I am a Fellow of the British Academy and my research has been recognised by a number of awards, including the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award, the British Academy Wiley-Blackwell Prize in Psychology, and the Society for Scientific Study of Psychopathy Early Career Award. I am the current President of the Society for Scientific Study of Psychopathy. 

Hedwig did her PhD in Psychology as well as her training as clinical psychologist at the University of Wurzburg (Germany). After a post-doc at the Department of Forensic Psychiatry at the University of Regensburg and a postdoc in the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, she started her Affective and Criminal Neuroscience Lab (afcrinLab) at the University of Southampton. In 2018 she joined Victoria University of Wellington. Her lab investigates how humans process emotional information and how this processing influences interpersonal behaviour such as aggression and other antisocial behaviour. Her research uses psychophysiological methods and behavioural tasks to investigate these processes and how they relate to psychopathic personality.

Dr. Inti Brazil's main interest is studying (mal)adaptive behavior and decision-making and their link to psychopathic/antisocial tendencies in community and offender samples. To achieve this, he examines and tries to integrate multiple levels of description by combining behavioral methods, electrophysiology, s/fMRI, and computational modelling.

Paul J. Frick, Ph.D. is the Roy Crumpler Memorial Chair in the Department of Psychology at the Louisiana State University. Dr. Frick received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Georgia in 1990. He was on the faculty at the University Alabama from 1990 to 1999. From 1999 until 2015, he was on the faculty at the University of New Orleans, where he was chair of the Department of Psychology from 2007 to 2015. Since 2013, Dr. Frick has held a joint appointment in the Learning Science Institute of Australia at Australian Catholic University in Brisbane, Australia.

A continuing line of research focuses on understanding the different pathways through which youth develop severe antisocial behavior and aggression and the implications of this research for assessment, treatment, and public policy. His work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation. In 2004, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Orebro University in Orebro, Sweden in recognition of his research contributions in psychology. In 2008, he received the MacArthur Foundation’s Champion for Change in Juvenile Justice Award for the state of Louisiana. Dr. Frick was awarded the 2015 Robert D. Hare Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy. Dr. Frick has been the President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy (2009-2011) and the editor of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (2007-2011), the official journal of Division 53 of the American Psychological Association which is the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. Dr. Frick also was a member of the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-V Workgroup for ADHD and the Disruptive Behavior Disorders (2007-2012). He is currently the editor of the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.

Patric was diagnosed with sociopathic personality disorder shortly after graduating from UCLA. She returned to school to earn a doctorate in clinical psychology. She has the unique benefit of being able to approach antisocial disorders from both a professional and a personal perspective. Her goals are to expand the definition of psychopathy to promote awareness, reduce the stigma caused by misinformation, and advocate for increased research and treatment options.

Dr. Candilis is Director of Medical Affairs and Director of the Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship Program. Recent fellows at the Saint Elizabeths program have studied and published on competence restoration, social justice, and feminist theory under his mentorship. Dr. Candilis holds academic appointments at George Washington University School of Medicine (Professor of Psychiatry), Howard University College of Medicine (Clinical Professor of Psychiatry), and the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry). A former Fellow in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Candilis completed his residency and chief residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and his forensic fellowship at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Candilis is President of the Washington Psychiatric Society and the Hellenic American Psychiatric Association.

A strong advocate for the public sector, Dr. Candilis is responsible for articulating professional standards for physician health, forensic psychiatry, and general psychiatry through a number of medical organizations, including the American College of Physicians, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. Current projects include the improvement of competence assessment and restoration in public psychiatry (a SAMHSA Learning Collaborative), a textbook on global mental health, and an analysis of terrorism data from Iraq.

He has served as a consultant to organizations and expert witness in civil and criminal matters. Dr. Schouten practiced employment law before attending medical school and has combined his legal and medical training to provide consultation and training to a variety of groups and individuals. He has extensive experience as a teacher and consultant in the traditional areas of forensic psychiatry, as well as workplace violence, threat assessment, impaired professionals, and employment discrimination.

Formerly Luna C. Muñoz, is an American ex-pat living in Europe since 2005. She got a Bachelor’s degree from State University of New York at Stony Brook and then received her MSc from Pennsylvania State University. She went down to New Orleans to work with Professor Paul Frick and received her PhD in 2005. After a two-year post-doc in Sweden (at the Center for Developmental Research – Örebro University), she worked as a Lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire and University of Durham in the UK. She came to Liverpool as a Senior Lecturer in 2016. She also is a Research Tutor on the DClinPsyc programme. 

Lillyth Quillan was the first parent to publicly use her name and her face and say she was the mother of a child with Conduct Disorder. In 2014, she created and founded Parents of Children with Conduct Disorder (PCCD), a Facebook-based support group for parents and other caregivers of these children. Over the last six years, Lillyth has personally spoken or communicated with thousands of families. She remains as dedicated to the cause of including non-intimate partner violence in the national Domestic Violence conversation, early treatment for our children, and political action as the day she started PCCD.

Jamie Townsend is a practicing attorney who has advocated for equal rights and a better understanding of psychopaths since being diagnosed with psychopathy in 2010. She's an aunt of 19, member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon), and also serves on the board of the pro bono legal services non-profit You Are a Force Foundation.

Mary is the author of two memoirs about her experience being married to a psychopath.

The first is ‘The Bigamist – the true story of a husband’s ultimate betrayal’ is about her six-year relationship with Will Jordan, a bigamist and con man who actively impregnates women to rip them off for money (published in 2008).

The second is ‘The Psychopath: A True Story’ which details her recovery (physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially) after being freed from his coercive control, the work she had done to try and protect future victims from the clutches of her ex and people like him, as well as what he did after being deported from UK jail back to the USA. It also covers some of the techniques that psychopaths use to manipulate people (from gaslighting/love bombing, to control dramas/language patterns, etc), as well as what makes people vulnerable to them in the first place.

Mary is a full-time author, speaker, and writing coach from Edinburgh, Scotland (UK). She speaks on surviving adversity as well as advocating for a better understanding of psychopathy. She says, “With better research and understanding into this condition – particularly in educating people to recognize the signs, and diagnosing it earlier to support parents raising a disordered child - we can ensure a safer society for everyone.”

Otavio Travi received his BA in History from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, and currently is getting specialized in Literacy. From 2014 to 2019, Otavio has worked in different elementary and high schools in southern Brazil, mostly teaching History and Anthropology, but also working with literacy and inclusive education. Since 2015 he has been involved with volunteer research in indigeous and quilombo communities from Rio Grande do Sul state, helping with fieldwork and writing land regularization documents. Otavio’s interests since college are Education, Social Research, Diversity, and Technology. In 2021 he started studying computer programming and web development.

Caroline Barron is a freshman in college about to start her sophomore year at the University of Texas at Austin in the fall of 2021. She has taken several introduction to Psychology and Sociology courses as well as specialized courses in developmental psychology, positive psychology, and mental illness. She plans to graduate from UT Austin with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and has not yet chosen a specialty. 

Nina van Santvoort is an MSc student at Edinburgh Napier University in Applied Criminology and Forensic Psychology. She received her BA from Maastricht University in Psychology & Neuroscience.

She has an interest and curiosity in juvenile offending, particularly the neural correlates of the psychopathic brain and would like to pursue an academic career in this area of research to aid in the development of specialized treatments for young people characterized by psychopathic features.

Valerie Lilley received a BS in Social Work from the University of Florida and her MA in Clinical Psychology from Teachers College at Columbia University. The majority of her research and research interests center on understanding the cognitive and neuropsychological factors present in psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. Additionally, she has a plethora of experience within the human services field focusing her work on programs centered on educational reform and equal rights for vulnerable adult populations including mental health reform for individuals living with intellectual/developmental disabilities.

Valerie currently serves as an intern with the Center for Forensic and Clinical Psychology in New Jersey. She will assist in administering psychological assessments and providing client advocacy within the field of immigration, civil and criminal cases. Lastly, Valerie is part of the board of directors for WithIntent, Inc. The organization's main goal is to fundraise and allocate funds to adolescents, in the NYC area, for mental health counseling and treatment.