The curious case of Maya Mehrotra : PSYCHOPATH or not??

Originally posted by: .annihilation.

The Curious Case of Maya Mehrotra : Psychopath or not?

Disclaimer : I'm not an expert in any science of medical field nor am I qualified to be able correctly diagnose a person fictional or real to be having any mental health issues or personality disorders. My deduction and analysis are purely based on research, reading material and whatever I have studied about Maya's character. In the following analysis, I'm not claiming my conclusion to be faultless or accurate to a 100%. It is merely a character study/analysis on whatever her possible personality disorder could be.

References : ref1 ; ref2 ; ref3 ; ref4 ; ref5 ; ref5 ; ref6 ; ref7 ; ref8

There are more references that I have but for now I believe the ones quoted above should suffice.

Note : The following write up includes compilation and editing of the references above and references/incidents/examples from the show to support my theory.

Psychopathy, psychopaths : born or made?

As much as I have read or known about psychopathy, people just don't become' psychopaths. Psychopathy is not just a disorder, it is a wiring difference of the brain It is not something to be 'cured', it is something to learn about and operate within its parameters. Psychopaths can utmost be trained but not cured, at least that's what the medical science believes but that also might depend from one case to another. And if they aren't born (as in the wiring difference in the brain) psychopaths, there's only one known cause of ever having become one, extremely critical head injuries that causes your brain to function differently, as in the way it functions for a psychopath. The correct label a psychologist or psychiatrist might apply is Antisocial Personality Disorder, commonly abbreviated as ASPD. Nature and nurture both are responsible for psychopathy, evidence is showing nature takes the larger responsibility here nature means genetically determined biological factors like brain structure, neurotransmitters and blood hormone level; but nurture or parental and social influences, that is abusive or traumatic childhood experiences need to be present to transform inborn ability into full functioning psychopathy.

Diagnostic tool(s) and techniques :

The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) is a diagnostic tool used to rate a person's psychopathic or antisocial tendencies. People who are psychopathic prey ruthlessly on others using charm, deceit, violence or other methods that allow them to get with they want. The symptoms of psychopathy include: lack of a conscience or sense of guilt, lack of empathy, egocentricity, pathological lying, repeated violations of social norms, disregard for the law, shallow emotions, and a history of victimizing others.

The Hare PCL-R contains two parts, a semi-structured interview and a review of the subject's file records and history. During the evaluation, the clinician scores 20 items that measure central elements of the psychopathic character. The items cover the nature of the subject's interpersonal relationships; his or her affective or emotional involvement; responses to other people and to situations; evidence of social deviance; and lifestyle.

The twenty traits assessed by the PCL-R score are :

1) Glib and superficial charm. (check)

2) Grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self. (check)

3) Need for stimulation.

4) Pathological lying. (check)

5) Cunning and manipulative nature. (check)

6) Lack of remorse or guilt. (check)

7) Shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness) (check)

8) Callousness and lack of empathy. (check)

9) Parasitic lifestyle. (check)

10) Poor behavioral controls. (check)

11) Sexual promiscuity.

12) Early behavior problems. (check)

13) Lack of realistic long-term goals.

14) Impulsivity. (check)

15) Irresponsibility. (check)

16) Failure to accept responsibility for own actions. (check)

17) Any short-term marital relationships. (check)

18) Juvenile delinquency. (possible check)

19) Evocation of conditional release. (possible future check)

20) Criminal versatility. (check)

Using just Hare's checklist as it regarded as credible, there may many more such tools and techniques out in the scientific/medical field.

Psychopaths on professional front :

Surveys, statistics, studies and researches have shown that many (not all though, cases may vary) intelligent psychopaths are known to be successful at work/professional front. Simply put, a psychopath makes very calculated decisions and isn't restricted by how his/her actions will impact others, unless a ripple effect of that impact is likely to come back around. Their personality traits work for them in this area as they're calculative, calm under pressure, risk takers, quick thinkers and not bound anything that may act as an hindrance to achieve the desired result or outcome. I'm keeping this brief because I think we'd all unanimously agree that Maya's had a successful career and she's brilliant at what she does.

Psychopaths on personal front :

Now, let's go back to the check list and I'll explain why I checked the points I did.
Glib or superficial charm : The tendency to be smooth, engaging, charming, slick, and verbally facile. Psychopathic charm is not in the least shy, self-conscious, or afraid to say anything. A psychopath never gets tongue-tied, they have freed themselves from the social conventions.Insincere, shallow and superficial charm. Just as an actor dons many roles, a psychopath will put on what professionals refer to as a "mask" of normality that is likable and pleasant. Psychopaths exude an air of confidence that naturally draws others to them. They may have a stable job with relative success. They merely influence others to like them so that they are more pliable to manipulation later.
Matches with Maya's character trait/personality/description. She's a charmer through and through. There's no escaping or not letting it affect you even in the slightest. Much her name 'Maya', she creates the most perfect illusions for you to fall for. This is superficial charm and not a natural one because its she makes you see what she wants you to see, she makes you believe what she wants you to believe. She built a projection of herself to showcase to the world; a superficial one, something that's not by natural but artificial so that the world shouldn't be able to see as who she really is.

Grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self : A grossly inflated view of one's abilities and self-worth, self-assured, opinionated, cocky, a braggart. Psychopaths are arrogant people who believe they are superior human beings.
Psychopaths will often believe they are smarter or more powerful than they actually are. They like to cozy up to successful and powerful people because it raises their own status. They believe they are owed special treatment over others. Their inflated sense of self-importance often leads to one crack in their mask of normalcy. They will step on your toes if you don't have any value or status to offer them.

Matches with Maya's character trait/personality/description : Maya hoon main', Main Maya Mehrotra hoon', Main kuch bhi kar sakti hoon', Aap jaante hai na ke main kya kar sakti hoon', etc aren't just her dialogues. They are a means to give an insight into her personality trait of exaggeratedly high sense of self estimation. She believes she's holds the supreme power and nothing and none can ever bring her downfall no matter what she does. She believes she can pull of any trick and stunt in the book and will get away scot-free because she's Maya Mehrotra. She doesn't like to associate with a class she considers 'lower', she doesn't mingle with her coworkers, she doesn't believe in associating with people whom she believes to be of lower standards, either by wealth, status, power or even intelligence.

Pathological lying : Can be moderate or high; in moderate form, they will be shrewd, crafty, cunning, sly, and clever; in extreme form, they will be deceptive, deceitful, underhanded, unscrupulous, manipulative, and dishonest. A psychopath will tell all sorts of lies, little lies to trip you up or whopping made-up stories intended to mislead. Even when telling the truth would be painless, they still default to lying. Surprisingly enough, this doesn't cause shame. They take pride in their lies. And if you think you've caught them up, they simply switch around the facts to appear truthful.

Matches with Maya's character trait/personality/description : She's a thorough and a complete pathological liar. From small harmless lies to huge conspiracy stories, the amount of times she has lied even when she had the choice not to is innumerable. From fake attempt to rape case to Vandana's hand getting injured/broken by accident and many other instances as such, she's rarely ever been truthful. The only truth I'd like to believe about her is the story of her past, i.e, her childhood trauma and abuse by Ashwin. Although, I do definitely think there's so much more to her past than what she's recounted.

Cunning and Manipulativeness: The use of deceit and deception to cheat, con, or defraud others for personal gain. To a degree to which exploitation and callous ruthlessness is present, as reflected in a lack of concern for the feelings and suffering of one's victims. Everyone is driven by an objective of getting what they want. But psychopaths are identified as extremely cunning in this area. They are able to get you to do things you might not normally do. They may use guises, guilt-tripping, coercion and other methods to get victims to do their bidding.
Matches with Maya's character trait/personality/description : I reckon there's absolutely no need to explain this section because it's so blatantly obvious.

Lack of remorse or guilt : A lack of feelings or concern for the losses, pain, and suffering of victims; a tendency to be unconcerned, dispassionate, cold-hearted, and non-empathic. This item is usually demonstrated by a disdain for one's victims. Individuals with psychopathy have a general absence of any guilt or remorse. Callousness is one of the primary characteristics used to describe them. A psychopath may feign guilt over bad behavior in order to manipulate a person into not becoming angry. For example, they pretend to go into a guilt spiral over hurting their victim, so the victim ends up consoling them instead. Interestingly, psychopathy doesn't mean a total lack of empathy. They cannot spontaneously empathize, but can do so at will (to charm others for example).

Matches with Maya's character trait/personality/description : This is one section that'd be up for further debate/discussion. I personally think she has a very minimal sense of remorse and guilt. Barring just a handful of instances, she rarely does feel any remorse or guilt for her deeds/actions. According to me, she showed some signs of a conscience until before her marriage. Soon thereafter and particularly ever since season 2 began, she doesn't feel any remorse or guilt for anything that she says or does.

Shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness) : Emotional poverty or a limited range or depth of feelings; interpersonal coldness in spite of signs of open gregariousness. Psychopaths have shallow emotional responses and do not react normally to deaths, injuries, or other events that would cause a deep negative response in others.
Matches with Maya's character trait/personality/description : Whether it is the physical pain she inflicts on herself (self-harming) or physical pain/injuries inflicted by others (Samay biting/scratching/inflicting injuries on her), her reaction and response to pain is superficial, as if the physical pain means absolutely nothing to her. Whether she's being subjected to pain by someone else or herself or whether she's subjecting others to pain (getting Samay beaten up, deriving animalistic or sadistic pleasure on hurting Vandana), it evokes no real emotions in her.

Callousness and lack of empathy : A lack of feelings toward people in general; cold, contemptuous, inconsiderate, and tactless. In general, psychopaths lack any sort of moral compass. They will do whatever they need to advance, and they really don't care who they hurt in the process. A psychopath is unlikely to live by a "code" like others do.

Matches with Maya's character trait/personality/description : The only code' she understands, abides by and lives by is, 'thy will be done'. Who's 'thy' here? I believe you know the answer quite well. The second anyone violates her code of living, breaks any rules she's formed, disobeys any of her commands or refuse to comply by it, she subjects them to punishments because she believes she has the right to. And thus, absolute zero empathy for Jhanvi, for Arjun, for Vandana, for Saanjh, for Ayaan or for anyone else in the show. Needn't elaborate further, do I?
Parasitic lifestyle : An intentional, manipulative, selfish, and exploitative financial dependence on others as reflected in a lack of motivation, low self-discipline, and inability to begin or complete responsibilities. The adjective parasitic is mainly a scientific term for talking about an organism that lives on a host, taking what it needs to stay alive while often injuring the host. By their nature, ticks, leeches, and lice are all parasitic; they live off their hosts.
Matches with Maya's character trait/personality/description : She's the organism here who has been living by feeding of another organism. Maya's host is Arjun, she doesn't care if Arjun feels suffocated, she doesn't care if he isn't genuinely happy, she doesn't care if she's abusing him mentally or physically, she doesn't care if she's hurting him by separating him from his loved ones, she doesn't care if Arjun feels suicidal, she doesn't care if he doesn't have a free will, she doesn't care if he's internally dying a slow painful death. She'll do anything that it takes for her to stay alive even if it means sucking the life out of Arjun's life.
Poor behavioral control, early behavior problems, impulsivity, irresponsibility and failure to accept responsibility for own actions : Expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper.A failure to accept responsibility for one's actions reflected in low conscientiousness, an absence of dutifulness, antagonistic manipulation, denial of responsibility, and an effort to manipulate others through this denial. All these characteristics are evidences of psychopathy. Psychopaths tend to see nothing at all wrong with their way of being in the world. Psychopaths are infamous for their refusal to acknowledge responsibility for the decisions they make, or the outcomes of their decisions. They are self-centered, acting on a whim or will based on their own emotional state. They do whatever they want, whenever they want to.

Matches with Maya's character trait/personality/description : She's mostly in control of her behavior in public. She never allows the world to notice that she's losing control or is rendered in a position where she can't possibly turn the situation in her favor. The moment she senses that she's losing control, she applies whatever measures she can to ensure that she regains the power of control and has successfully turned the situation into her favor. Only when she's at home or within the vicinity of people who have known the real her does she allow herself to lose control. Throwing stuff around, displaying fits of rage or anger, etc are a few instances.

She doesn't ever accept or acknowledge her mistakes or wrong deeds/actions. Whatever she does, she doesn't own up to it all, doesn't take any accountability or responsibility of it all whatsoever. She's always using her victim card to conveniently shift the blame and the burden onto someone else's head. She's an expert at manipulating emotions and insecurities, fabricating false stories to great accuracy and lies so convincingly that no one would dare to doubt her. She causes others to view them as the victim as that helps others lower their guard and it makes them vulnerable for future exploitation. Emotional drama and chaos & using the victim card are some of her techniques. Mujhe bura mat banaye', mujhe bura banne par majboor mat kijiye', mujhe bura karne par majoboor mat kariye', etc are just some of the examples. She claims that she never does anything because she wants to do it or that she's doing it on her own will, it's always someone else who's making her do wrong deeds/actions (be it minor mistakes or grave criminal offences).

Short term marriage or relationships : Some psychopaths have many short-term marriages. They will blame marital problems on their ex-spouses, and never suggest that they played a role in the marriage's failure. he relationship starts off with them idealizing their partners. Over time, they devalue and ultimately discard that partner.

Matches with Maya's character trait/personality/description : Previously, Samay and now, Arjun. All or any blame of any kind of failure in relationship/marriage was dumped on Samay and currently on Arjun. Since we're yet to know the full story about Samay and Maya (and also because he seems like a psychopath himself), this section doesn't have enough material to cover. As for Arjun-Maya, I believe, a lot of it self-explanatory. One episode that explains this section extremely well is the episode where Samay-Maya's association in Ayaan's false attempt to rape case was revealed. She's summed up her relationship with Arjun & what she's going to do next if he fails to live upto her crooked definition of love, loyalty and marriage.

Juvenile delinquency : Behavior problems between the ages of 13-18; mostly behavioursthat are crimes or clearly involve aspects of antagonism, exploitation, aggression, manipulation, or a callous, ruthless tough-mindedness.
May match sometime in future because Ashwin spoke of Maya having committed a crime that could potentially land her a sentence of 25 years. Now, whether it was during 9-13, 13- 18 or sometime later than is something unknown yet. Evocation of conditional release (A revocation of probation or other conditional releases due to technical violations, such as carelessness, low deliberation, or failing to appear) may have played out in the past or might play out in the future. This section is entirely tied up to Maya's past and her sach.

Criminal versatility : A diversity of types of criminal offences, regardless if the person has been arrested or convicted for them; taking great pride at getting away with crimes.

Matches with Maya's character trait/personality/description : Again, a section entirely self-explanatory. Faking pregnancy and miscarriage, faking suicide attempts multiple times, mental and physical abuse (domestic violence falls under the said category), endangering lives of herself and her family multiple times, mentally abusing a physically handicapped mother, getting Ayaan convicted in a false attempt to rape case, physically abusing mother-in-law, intrusion of privacy of people (CCTV cameras everywhere without the consent of the members being pried on/being surveilled), using power, money and status to get away with bribing and other criminal offences or law breaches, possibly behind Jhanvi's accident, Vikram's accident and Ashwin's murder. Even if Samay happens to be the one who committed the murder and caused accidents, Maya's responsible as well as she'd have to be the one on whose orders Samay acted on.

Other mental health illness or personality disorders Maya's shown the signs and symptoms of : Depression, anxiety, self-harming, suicidal tendencies, PTSD, OCD, BPD, MPD and there may be others that I missed out on. Now, there's a larger umbrella of psychopathy which both covers and explains Maya's character, so there isn't quite a need to break down it to multiple separate/individual disorders or illnesses.

Based on all the references above, what I have understood about Maya's character, what the show itself has shown her character to be, another reference I didn't elaborate on (reference 4; watch the video. It explains the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath quite well), I'd thus conclude that the closest Maya comes to is a case of psychopathy. More specifically, a charismatic psychopath.

Probably even a psychopathic criminal if she's proved as the one who has committed all the crimes in the show. I do not say that my analysis/study is faultless and accurate to the highest possible degree. Psychopaths are a dangerous territory to play around with and fairly unexplored to the fullest by Indian tv, I doubt if the makers will officially establish or declare her to be a psychopath/suffering from ASPD.

A lot of hard work and research has gone into putting this up. Please kindly respect my work and do not edit it or claim it as your own or share this anywhere else without my permission.