I have often been taken to task regarding my remark that I understand serial killers and this has often been interpreted by sensation-seeking journalists that I ‘agree’ with their reasons for killing, or have sympathy for their cause. On my YouTube series, Micki Pistorius Profiler on Record, (episode 2) I clarify that remark once and for all:  Yes, I understand them – not in the sense when someone does something bad and one says: “I can understand why you did that”.  No.  As a psychologist it is my job to understand human behaviour – and to explain it to the public and ultimately to the judge. In court I do not condemn or condone behaviour or judge it –that is the job of the judge.  My job is to explain behaviour and I cannot explain something it if I do not understand it.  A maths teacher cannot teach maths if she herself does not understand it. 

In psychology we have a concept called Theory of the Mind.  In an article in Neuroscience news.com researcher Roksana Markiewicz of the University of Birmingham, explains individuals with stronger ‘mindreading’ abilities or the capacity to understand others’ feelings and intentions are more successful in cooperative tasks.  This ability can be learnt and improves with time.  All good psychologists have this ability to tune into the energy vibration of their clients – even when they are not present – it comes with the territory.  Even regular people – when you visit married friends and they just had a quarrel – the moment you enter their home, you feel there is an atmosphere between them – or you feel the different energy in a cathedral as opposed to a cemetery – well we all feel it.

We can all run, but athletes are better because they practice more.  My capacity to tune into energies and feelings, and therefore my ability to understand, is more defined because it became so much more practiced as I progressed in my career of profiling serial killers and other criminals.  There is nothing hocus pocus about it – I do not read crystal balls.  I am a qualified professional psychologist– I study human behaviour – and I am a profiler – I study criminal minds – animals do not commit crimes – humans do – psychology is about humans. I hope this remark and my job will never be deliberately and maliciously misinterpreted again.

Featured Image: The Old Bailey Criminal Court by Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Pugin (1808) (Public Domain). In order to testify on the behaviour of a serial killer, a forensic psychologist has to understand their behaviour