Mindhunter

To understand the “artist,” you must study his “art” … and if you want to understand the criminal mind, you must go directly to the source and learn to decipher what he tells you. John E. Douglas¹

Mindhunter is based on the book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, written by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker. The series has been renewed for a second season. The story is set in 1977 and chronicles two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents' odyssey into the nascent field of criminal psychology and profiling at a time when the term “serial killer” was not yet in widespread use. The two agents, Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), are based on FBI agents John E. Douglas and Robert K. Ressler, respectively. Both are now real-life profiling legends who, along with other greats, such as Roy Hazelwood, are credited with pioneering the field of psychological profiling and its current evolution: behavioral analysis. Though ostensibly a crime thriller, the series' macabre subject matter causes many to find that it strays into the horror genre. Despite the gruesome subject matter, on-screen violence and gore are minimal, save for the split-second flashes of bloodied corpses in the opening sequence. Much of the dialogue between the FBI agents and serial killers is taken directly from real transcripts.

The first episode cold opens with a standoff, where Agent Ford is negotiating with the armed hostage taker, who is revealed to be a psychotic man, noncompliant with medication, who has developed a delusion that he is becoming invisible. Despite his delusion, the man's impetus for taking five people hostage is revealed to be a fight with his wife. Despite Agent Ford's best efforts, not everyone survives the standoff. Although the FBI declares the outcome a success, Ford is visibly unsatisfied, as he is acutely aware of his lack of insight into the mind of the hostage taker. Desperate for answers and surrounded by colleagues lacking in curiosity, Ford starts to audit classes at the University of Virginia (UVA) on criminal psychology and is immediately hooked. He becomes obsessed with understanding this new breed of murderer: one who does not kill for the advancement of traditional criminal interests, such as murderers connected with organized crime. When he informs his superior of his new interest, he is chastised and told that the study of psychology is frowned upon. Ford tries discussing his new-found interest with the professors at the UVA and finds that they are not fond of speaking to agents of law enforcement. This dynamic appears representative of the long-standing, progress-hampering lack of collaboration between law enforcement and mental health.

Isolated, yet driven, Ford bumps into fellow Agent Bill Tench in the cafeteria. Tench is employed in the Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) of the FBI (which in real life evolved into what is now called the Behavioral Analysis Unit), and travels the country speaking to local law enforcement regarding criminal behavior and motives. Ford is nonetheless frustrated by his new “road school” gig. He does not believe that the duo has an adequate understanding of deviant psychology to truly assist the law enforcement officers whom they encounter in the classes in solving the lust murders on which they are consulted. During one such outing, Ford stumbles upon an opportunity to speak with a particularly gregarious prison inmate, convicted of numerous lust murders.

Edmund Kemper III (played by Cameron Britton, who bears a striking resemblance to the real-life Kemper) is the first subject that Agent Ford interviews alone, because Agent Tench finds the idea of speaking with “The Coed Killer” Kemper far less appealing than golfing. There is a darkly humorous scene preceding the interview, in which a corrections officer informs Agent Ford that he must surrender his sidearm, and absolve the correctional facility of liability should Kemper harm him. As the corrections officer spells out the various ways that harm could manifest (“murder, assault, general abuse, or being dragged into a hostage situation”) Agent Ford's facial expression reveals that he may not have fully appreciated the situation in which he currently finds himself. Ford is then led deeper into the belly of the correctional facility to conduct the interview in a sequence that should appear relatively familiar to forensic psychiatrists who have evaluated criminal defendants and prisoners in correctional facilities. Eventually, Kemper is led into the room by correctional officers, with the ominous thuds of his footsteps and clanking of his shackles preceding his appearance. Standing at 6 feet 9 inches and weighing 300 pounds, the bespectacled Kemper has an overwhelming presence and dwarfs everyone in the room.

Britton's Kemper is arguably the star of the show. He flawlessly demonstrates the traits and demeanor one would expect of a psychopathic necrophile² who has murdered 10 people. Using his powers of charisma and manipulation, Kemper's agenda is to make sure Ford realizes he is not only physically, but also intellectually, inferior, “You can spell oeuvre, can't you?” Kemper's chef d'oeuvre, however, is not a painting or a sculpture, but rather the series of eight grisly necrophilia-driven murders he committed before turning himself in to the police out of boredom. One of Mindhunter's most stomach-churning moments is arguably when Kemper matter of factly explains the difference in the mechanics of sodomizing a corpse versus tracheoesophageal sex with a severed head. Despite the brutality of his crimes, Kemper appears to have a surprising capacity for introspection. He partially attributes his intact insight to his six-year commitment at the Atascadero State Hospital at age 15, after he was adjudicated not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) for his grandparents' murders. Agent Ford meets with Kemper several times throughout the course of the series. Over time, Kemper's charm and manipulative abilities weaken Agent Ford's boundaries. Ford begins to relate to Kemper as less of a subject and more of a friend.

After his encounter with Kemper, Ford and Tench are called into their supervisor, Agent Shepard's (Cotter Smith), office. Shepard is furious to learn that an FBI agent was secretly meeting with a “sequence killer” such as Kemper. Tench, who has more experience and political tact than Ford (Ford is actually comically inept at navigating bureaucratic politics), is able to temper the angry Shepard, and lays out the potential gains for law enforcement in studying killers such as Kemper. Tench points to a recent unsolved murder that has a local law-enforcement agency completely stumped as an example of the potential benefits better insight into the minds of men such as Kemper may afford the FBI. Shepard acknowledges the merit in this idea, but finds the subject so sordid that the work would need to be hidden. He then informs Ford and Tench that they are to relocate their offices to the building's basement to continue their research into criminal psychology.

Tench and Ford later meet with Dr. Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), whom Tench has known for years. Carr is a psychology professor working toward tenure at a university in Boston, Massachusetts. Her character is based on Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess, a psychology professor at Boston College who worked with Agents Douglas and Ressler, and helped to secure grant-funding for their work. At the time the two agents meet with Dr. Carr, she explains that she is working on a book detailing the prevalence of psychopathy in prominent, white-collar professions, such as law, medicine, and business. She postulates that the murderers whom Ford and Tench are attempting to study are not psychologically distinct from the white-collar criminals and exploiters she is studying. She suggests that the difference lies in their “different leanings”: sexual sadism for the agents' group and financial conquest for hers. Carr excitedly discusses how important this research is, not just to law enforcement, but to several different fields including general psychology. She endeavors to secure grant funding for their work, and implores the agents to take a structured, consistent approach to their interviews to obtain scientifically sound data. The BSU division's psychological profiling project begins to grow in both scope and legitimacy after Carr's involvement.

The series then follows Ford and Tench as they interview several other “sequence killers,” including serial killer Monte Rissell (Sam Strike), necrophile and women's shoe fetishist Jerry Brudos (Happy Anderson), and Chicago nursing-student mass murderer Richard Speck (Jack Erdie). They begin to use what they have learned from interviewing these convicted murderers to assist local law enforcement in solving sexually motivated homicides. Whereas Tench views his interview subjects with an air of contempt, Ford continues to be captivated by them. Ford begins receiving “fan mail” from Kemper and proudly displays the letters in his office. He starts to integrate some of the more abhorrent and misogynistic phrases uttered by some of his subjects into his interviews in an effort to build rapport with suspects and interviewees, which Tench views as distasteful and somewhat disturbing. In a particularly poignant scene, Ford strategically places items and clothing that belong to the victim (and others that he had purchased to appear to have belonged to the victim) in an interrogation room for the purpose of sexually exciting and intimidating the suspect. In addition, Ford makes several explicit statements to the suspect about how good it must have felt to have violated the young woman. At one point, he ends up quoting Kemper verbatim. Though Ford begins to see himself as possessing a unique gift for understanding the minds of lust murderers, others begin to notice changes in his personality. His girlfriend begins to see him as distant and more aggressive. He begins to run afoul of bureaucratic policy and responds with angry defiance, rather than his usual aloofness, and begins boasting about his exploits to those willing to listen. The impact that his work has upon his character development is one of several themes of the series that forensic psychiatrists will find interesting.

Forensic psychiatrists may be interested in how the series stresses recording interviews. Recording the agents' interviews of the killers is a central plot point; Mindhunter's opening sequence features a tape recorder being prepared, and there is a significant subplot involving a recording of one of the agents' interviews. Proponents of recording forensic evaluations point to the fact that recording an evaluation preserves the integrity of the interview and protects the forensic psychiatrist against accusations of misconduct.³ The series dramatically features the converse situation, where impropriety preserved on a recording presents a serious problem. Many scenes feature members of the BSU listening to recordings of interviews in their basement office. These scenes sometimes appear to be reminiscent of peer review. Dr. Carr lends expertise by commenting on the agents' choice of language, style of questioning, and overall interview content. These scenes raise an interesting point: recording one's evaluations may give forensic psychiatrists a powerful tool to review the quality of their evaluations and the option to seek peer review for the process of their work, rather than the final product, reports and testimony.

One of the series' central themes involves sexuality and sexual deviancy. Agent Tench is portrayed as a conservative, masculine figure, and is contrasted against Agent Ford's more boyish and latitudinarian proclivities. All the crimes that the duo investigates throughout the series are motivated by the killers' desire for sexual gratification. Numerous paraphilias are featured throughout the course of the series. Tench views the paraphilias with open disgust, whereas Ford begins to see them as curious oddities to be explored, understood, and catalogued. Dr. Carr is revealed to be lesbian, and the series is set a mere four years after homosexuality had been removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Second Edition, as a mental illness.⁴ Although hopeful for a societal change of attitude, she is cognizant that her own sexuality may still be viewed by many as deviant. This dynamic culminates in a tense moment between Tench and Carr which seems to represent Carr's worry about whether the FBI will accept her lesbianism.

The series' episodes typically begin with a cold open of a mustachioed Kansas-area man (played by Sonny Valicenti and credited simply as “ADT Serviceman,” but clearly meant to be Dennis Raider, better known to the public and law enforcement as the bind-torture-kill (BTK) killer), initially carrying out seemingly innocent errands, albeit with an isolated affect and a rigid need for rules and order that make his actions appear menacing. As the series progresses, these errands start to become more sinister. Eventually, it becomes clear that his previous duties were actually meticulous preparation and planning for hunting victims. These scenes serve as a stark reminder that, while Agents Holden and Ford are studying captured serial killers, others are active and on the prowl, proving the veracity of Kemper's words: “You know, there's a lot more like me.” This underscores the importance of the work the BSU is doing, despite the toll it is taking on its agents.

The changes that Agent Ford's character starts to undergo as the show progresses are likely to resonate with the forensic psychiatrist. Several studies have demonstrated the impact of vicarious trauma on legal professionals, such as judges,⁵ and even forensic psychiatrists themselves.⁶ The most compelling recent example of this is former American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law president John Bradford. Dr. Bradford candidly discussed how he developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from what he had been exposed to over the course of his career. He stated that the PTSD was acutely precipitated by reviewing material related to a case involving a serial sexual homicide, and he had to turn down a high-profile case because of the toll it took.⁷

Agent Tench, despite his gruff and macho outward persona, recognizes the toll the work is taking, and remarks that the duo's interview with Brudos was, “like standing next to a black hole.” While he is able to turn to his wife for support (she realizes the horrors of what he is dealing with at work), Agent Ford lacks such introspection, and begins to psychologically unravel. He becomes less able to maintain appropriate boundaries with interviewees and finds himself disclosing intimate details of his life to them. The series ends with Ford's experiencing a panic attack inside a prison and reeling from a life-threatening miscalculation because of his erosion of professional boundaries.

Finally, the concept of professional boundaries, and their paramount importance to the practice of psychiatry will be familiar to the forensic psychiatrist. The protagonists in Mindhunter are frequently alone and interacting with exceptionally malignant psychopaths as they try to learn how to think like the subjects of their study. As a result, they are bombarded by the killers' noxious psychological defense mechanisms, deviant fantasies, and manipulations. They become the receptacles for the killers' projections, projective identification, and malignant pseudoidentification. By trying to think like the killers, the protagonists' work brings them frighteningly close to their own unconscious and unacceptable impulses. The toll that this kind of work takes is compounded even further by the work–life imbalance that develops for Agent Ford; in the series, he is shown working 10- to 12-hour days on “road school” and spending his weekends interviewing serial killers. This leaves very little time for Agent Ford to pursue a life outside of work. Here again, art parallels life, as John Douglas has detailed how grueling work hours and exposure to appalling cases eventually caused serious health problems.^1,8

In sum, we believe forensic psychiatrists would enjoy viewing the Netflix series Mindhunter. It is likely to captivate anyone with an interest in the history of behavioral analysis and serial homicide. Several key themes will resonate strongly with forensic psychiatrists; most notably the impact of vicarious trauma and the struggle to maintain a reasonable work-life balance. The series' depiction of the importance of recording evaluations will be of interest. Finally, most should appreciate the message of the vital necessity of collaboration between law enforcement and mental health professionals.

• © 2018 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law