The author concludes the book by discussing how we must detect female serial killers (FSKs), due to the typical covert nature of their crimes, but we catch male serial killers (MSKs), attending to the overt evidence they leave behind. She presents the case study of FSK Reta Mays, a nurse’s aide who murdered disabled veterans. At Mays’ sentencing, Judge Thomas Kleeh told Mays, “You’re the monster no one sees coming,” perfectly capturing the notion that FSKs may go undetected because they are typically individuals, such as nurses, nurse’s aides, or caregivers, whom no one would suspect of committing heinous crimes against vulnerable individuals. The author ends by challenging contemporary legal notions of sanity and stressing the need for greater mental health understanding, intervention, and treatment to promote wellness and, perhaps, prevent murder.

This chapter discusses known motives of female serial killers (FSKs). FSKs’ most common motive for murder was financial gain. An evolutionary psychology model of serial murder is presented. The author discusses how killing children, the antithesis of genesmanship, may be understood from an evolutionary angle. The author reminds the reader that evolved psychology is not an absolute determinant of behavior and that multiple perspectives (e.g., clinical, neural, traumagenic) should be considered to understand a given behavior or mental process. This chapter also presents the outcome (disposition) of serial murder cases in that about 80% were sent to prison, with some receiving the death penalty. This chapter further presents a composite of the “typical” female serial killer (FSK) as described in Harrison et al. (2015) in The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology. The author revisits the case of Kristen Gilbert, a FSK whose motives did not neatly fall into a lone typology category. The cases of Judy Buenoano, Rhonda Belle Martin, Lydia Sherman, and Kimberly Clark Saenz illustrate chapter concepts.

In Chapter 12, we develop subthemes concerning how our participants narrated treatment as a cost of their illness and how it contributed to well-being. We highlight how insights into the impact of treatment on narrative identity may aid healthcare professionals in providing the best possible support for individuals with mental illness. Generally, few stories seemed to follow a structure where increased well-being followed automatically from symptom remission, pointing to the need for psychiatric care that directly targets well-being. Being diagnosed was narrated with both positive and negative identity implications. Some participants evidenced subthemes revolving around inadequate access to help and negative treatment events, including hospitalizations and side effects of medicine. These subthemes may ground identity conclusions such as “I am harmed by treatment” and “no one cares.” When treatment contributed to well-being, subthemes featured the growing and agentic self: individuals striving to improve in treatment and noting their growth. Further subthemes concerned helpful relationships with staff, grounding identity implications such as “I am understood and supported by staff,” that may shape engagement with treatment and support personal recovery.

People tend to want to know the explicit details of crimes, including descriptions of violence and carnage. The author discusses her team’s research, and the research of others when possible, on the places where female serial killers (FSKs) commit their crimes, which typically includes a suburb, and the primary means FSKs use to commit murder, the most common of which is poison. The author presents information on the victims of FSKs, including the average number deceased, and victim age, vulnerability, familiarity, relatedness. Startlingly, more than half of FSKs killed children, more than three-quarters of FSKs killed someone vulnerable and in their care, more than 90% killed at least one person they knew, and more than 60% were related to at least one victim by blood or marriage. The cases of FSKs Tammy Corbett, Genene Jones, and Nanny Doss are presented to illustrate chapter concepts.

In Chapter 4, we introduce the concept of recovery, differentiating clinical and personal recovery. Research demonstrates that a substantial proportion of individuals with severe mental illness achieve clinical recovery in terms of symptom remission and good functional level. Individuals who themselves suffer from mental illness have called for a different understanding of recovery, personal recovery, that emphasizes living a good life. Research into personal recovery shows that key themes include hope, positive identity, social connection, meaning, and responsibility for one’s illness. We discuss how these themes overlap with well-being and how achieving well-being is an important goal for individuals with mental illness, a goal that differs from symptom remission. We close the chapter by explaining how our analyses extend research into personal recovery by providing insights into the narrative identity costs individuals may need to recover from and narrative identity resources crucial to well-being. In short, narrative identity is crucial to understanding and facilitating personal recovery.

This chapter explores the acute effects of food intake. The first part (Section 3.2) deals with whole meals. Having breakfast may have some limited cognitive benefits, but confounds (the link between breakfast and socio-economic status) and absence of a theoretical rationale are problematic. There were few consistent effects linked with other meal-types, except lunch, which is linked to drowsiness. The second part (Sections 3.3–3.4) considers the impact of glucose on the brain and its basis, finding acute administration assists hippocampal-dependent learning and memory and executive function, but with no impact on self-control. Section three examines if dietary manipulation of amino acids can be used to affect specific monoamine neurotransmitter systems, via loading or depletion. Tryptophan (serotonin precursor) is best studied, with loading generating fatigue and depletion lowering mood in at-risk individuals. Tyrosine (dopamine precursor) loading has facilitative effects on working memory, but the depletion findings are ambiguous. There is little data on histidine (histamine precursor).

A single perspective cannot explain the entirety of serial murder. In psychology, we promote a biopsychosocial model of understanding any behavior or mental process. The author provides a summary of various perspectives, starting with behavioral neuroscience (i.e., biopsychology). She summarizes direct evidence from case studies showing neural issues in serial murderers, implied evidence of brain dysfunction of serial murders, and evidence of no neural issues in serial murderers. She then discusses the biological correlates of violence in general. The case of MSK Joseph DeAngelo highlights crime solved through forensic genetic genealogy.

This chapter’s purpose is to present the aim of the book, its rationale, focus, approach and the basic concepts necessary to make sense of what follows. The first part outlines the aim and approach, focussing on the impact of diet on the human brain and mind, alongside an outline of the content. The second part provides an overview of the core knowledge and methods that underpin research into diet, brain and mind. This starts with basic nutritional (energy needs, macronutrients, micronutrients) and physiological concepts (metabolism, digestion, regulation). It then covers the key issue of dietary measurement (self-report, observation, biomarkers, manipulation) and its limitations (accuracy, demand, stability over days and decades). The latter part examines the measurement of mind and brain – and its limitations – concentrating, respectively, on neuropsychological tests and imaging approaches. The final part describes our study inclusion criteria, and our rationale for favouring those with a whole diet focus.

In Chapter 8, we provide frequencies of narrative identity themes concerning negative and positive consequences of mental illness as well as sources of well-being. We find that costs to relationships, self, and identity are widespread themes and that many participants story their illness as an obstacle to educational and vocational success. Furthermore, about half of our participants narrate negative aspects of treatment into their identity. Some participants evidence positive themes when they interpreted their mental illness as leading to helpful changes in terms of heightened insight, showing strength, and increased care for others. In terms of narrative identity as a source of well-being, relationship themes rank high as do themes concerning self and identity. In addition, participants narrate well-being into their identities through the themes revolving around education, vocation, and leisure activities. Finally, some experiences from psychiatric treatment and care were storied with well-being when constructing identity.

The final chapter in this book discusses some methodological considerations and debates surrounding case study research and its quality. In particular, we revisit the topic of research paradigms (i.e. positivism and interpretivism). Relatedly, we discuss different quality criteria as proposed by prior researchers from both paradigmatic camps. In particular, we focus on the rigor versus trustworthiness discussion and the internal versus external validity debate. Afterwards, we briefly discuss the iterative cycles of data collection and analysis one would encounter during a qualitative case study research process. We end the chapter (and subsequently the book) with a guiding framework which will help researchers in sequencing case study designs by acknowledging the weaknesses of individual designs and leveraging their strengths. The framework can be adopted and adapted to suit the specific research objectives of the study in hand.

This chapter introduces the readers to case study research, with the help of historical and contemporary examples. We define case study research and briefly discuss the existing case study designs. Subsequently, we explain the main purpose of this book: To take case study research to the next level by discussing the combinations of different case study designs in the same study, which we call "sequencing case study designs." Furthermore, we discuss the building blocks of case study designs, the strengths/weaknesses of archetypical designs, the conundrum surrounding the crafting/relaying of theoretical contributions, some concrete examples of designs, and the differences/similarities amongst different paradigmatic camps in case study research. We end the chapter by briefly introducing the contents of the subsequent chapters.