Why does therapy simply make a psychopath more cunning?

Answer 1

In general, psychopaths are afraid of changing and want to stay as they are. Therapy can't make them 'more cunning', but if it is imposed on them they may use it to gain more knowledge of how society expects people to behave. For example, they may use some of the therapy to help them fake empathy.

Actually, sociopaths/psychopaths usually don't understand that it is possible to change or that any kind of therapy can help. According to Canadian researcher Robert Hare, a specialized therapy geared exclusively for psychopaths is being developed.

Until the extreme and debilitating brain abnormalities that all psychopaths have can be changed in some way, the only thing that can be done is to try to control much of the worst of it with medications and that type of therapy that is the brainchild of Robert Hare and associates.

One of the worst things about psychopaths is that they are in a near-constant state of cortical underarousal: the cerebral cortex is not fully awake. They cannot sustain excitement for very long and become exhausted and lethargic easily, even as they still crave stimulation. It is interesting to note that there is another mental illness that is sometimes confused with psychopathy but is neurologically its exact opposite: Borderline Personality Disorder. In people with BPD, the cerebral cortex is usually overaroused, and the reaction of "fight-or-flight," so sluggish in psychopaths, is in people with BPD so intense as to necessitate medications such as beta-blockers to prevent the violent stress reactions from causing early death due to heart failure or somesuch.