"The Patient," a series on Hulu, is perhaps the most underrated of the moment.
Almost all of the 10-episode series takes place in a single basement room and consists mostly of conversations between its two main characters, Sam Fortner (Domhnall Gleeson), a serial killer who desperately wants to stop killing, and Alan Strauss (Steve Carrell), the therapist that Sam has kidnapped and chained to the floor to help him.
Every conversation between the two men oozes tension, as Sam opens up about his constant urges to kill and Alan tries to talk to Sam, partly out of a desire to help him and partly because he realizes it's his only chance to to save his life.
The series raises some poignant questions, such as whether it is possible for someone to learn empathy and how effective therapy is in these situations. But the central question is whether Alan will succeed in curbing Sam's murderous impulses.
There aren't many studies on the treatment of serial killers because they are so rare. But there are several reasons to think that the popular perception of serial killers as heartless monsters is not so accurate.
For example, psychologist Robert Hale argued that, for some murderers, the urge to kill may be a harmful learned response to feeling, just as, for many other people, anxiety is a learned maladaptive response to being in situations certain unfavorable. If so, the same methods and strategies that therapists use to treat people with anxiety or phobias can be applied to people with homicidal feelings.
Homicidal tendencies are usually caused by known psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, especially when these are combined with substance abuse. For example, the researchers write, "while schizophrenia carries a double risk for homicide, schizophrenia with substance use carries an eightfold risk compared to the general population."
In other words, the best treatment for killers may be to treat the underlying conditions that drive them to kill.
The research conducted is admittedly limited and controversial.
It should be noted that many serial killers are psychopaths and it is believed that psychopaths are largely immune to therapy.
But there are other cases which, yes, can be cured in a way.
Change is (sometimes) possible in the most extreme and ugliest corners of humanity, and that should give us hope that we too can change, if we want to.
Source: Psychology Today
