Back in May and June, the media blitz for The Psychopath Test, by Jon Ronson, was in full swing. I finally got around to reading the book.
Ronson is a British journalist who apparently specializes in writing about nut cases. He wrote The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was made into a movie starring George Clooney and Jeff Bridges. He has a BBC radio show that, according to the New York Times book review, is considered comedy. But he’s famous, and people like him. I guess I wish that he’d used his clout and notoriety to do some good with this book.
Its full title is The Psychopath Test—A journey through the madness industry. The title is accurate. The book is essentially a history of how the disorder was identified and how the study and treatment of psychopathy evolved, with the stories of a few psychopaths included, most of them killers.
Ronson makes the most important point of the book almost in passing. He describes several meeting with Bob Hare, the respected psychopathy researcher who created “the psychopath test” that gives the book its title (the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, or PCL-R). Ronson includes a scene in which he is in the U.K., driving Hare to the airport.
Hare says that he wishes he hadn’t spent all his time studying psychopaths in prison—he should have also studied them at the stock exchanges. (I’ve heard Hare make similar statements.) Ronson writes:
“But surely stock-market psychopaths can’t be as bad as serial-killer psychopaths,” I said.
“Serial killers ruin families.” Bob shrugged. “Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies.”
This—Bob was saying—was the straightforward solution to the greatest mystery of all: Why is the world so unfair? Why all that savage economic injustice, those brutal wars, the everyday corporate cruelty? The answer: psychopaths ”¦ We aren’t all good people just trying to do good. Some of us are psychopaths. And psychopaths are to blame for this brutal, misshapen society. They’re the jagged rocks thrown into the still pond.
I thoroughly believe that psychopaths are responsible for most of the human-caused pain in society. Ronson actually came out and said it. But unfortunately, he didn’t continue to make the case. After the statement on page 112 of the book, he never returned to the thought.
One other part of the book was enlightening. Ronson spends a few pages discussing the evolution of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), now in its fourth edition, with the fifth edition underway. On page 239, he explains why the mental health field has not agreed on what to call this disorder—psychopathy, sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder, whatever. He writes what he learned from Robert Spitzer, a psychiatrist who became editor of the third edition of the DSM:
I’d always wondered why there had been no mention of psychopaths in the DSM. It turned out, Spitzer told me, that there had indeed been a backstage schism—between Bob Hare and a sociologist named Lee Robins. She believed clinicians couldn’t reliably measure personality traits like empathy. She proposed dropping them from the DSM checklist and going only for overt symptoms. Bob vehemently disagreed, but the DSM committee sided with Lee Robins, and Psychopathy was abandoned for Antisocial Personality Disorder.
So there it is—the beginning of the dispute about naming the disorder and how to diagnose it, which has only kept the general public confused.
You might be entertained by this book—Ronson’s writing style is engaging, and the historical background is interesting. But if you’ve had a close encounter with your very own psychopath, you aren’t going to learn anything to help in your recovery.
I read this book and reviewed earlier here on LF—I agree with Donna’s take that there isn’t a lot in this book that will help you with your recovery, but…BUT I was actually reassured that the “experts” who developed the DSMs I-IV are really just putting “names” to disorders and what they say in the DSMs is NOT CARVED IN STONE BROUGHT DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN BY MOSES, and it is essentially their OPINION.
That may seem like a SMALL POINT, but to me it was a big point. Many people here at LF keep asking “is he REALLY a psychopath/sociopath/ASPD”? “How can I be SURE”? This book points out that the DSM is the “opinion” of some “experts” and that there are “political” opinions in that “naming.” It is it NOT written by the hands of God himself, and ultimately, it does NOT MATTER what the “name” of the disorder the person who has abused you is called—“a rose by any other name….”
Oh, I remember this book! There was a NY Times article about it. Ronson wondered if psychopaths enjoy reading about psychopaths, thus would read his book. (Judging from the small sample of psychopaths I’ve known, I’d say yes (Strangely, they also read a lot of philosophy)). The article went on to say that psychopaths might approve of his message, so I’m a bit curious to see what they would think about it. Maybe I’ll recommend it to my ex.. 😛
I find the following curious “… sociologist named Lee Robins. She believed clinicians couldn’t reliably measure personality traits like empathy…
I think empathy and lack of empathy are very easily definable; therefore, empathy can be measured. Does she mean that sociopaths can easily fake empathy especially when questioned in a test?
I was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to after the fact be presented with a comprehensive personality profile of my x-spath on an online dating website. In all, he had answered nearly 1000 questions. He only positive trait was “more giving” than the average gay male his age. Interestingly, he told me that he is “cheap” and was not very giving in any way towards me. Perhaps this was just the perception he had of himself and if he perceived himself as “empathetic” he would have answered such questions in a fashion which did not accurately reflect his complete lack of empathy?
BBE,
Your spath said he was MORE GIVING than the average gay male? Pretty funny! Creating an image, no?
Guess what I did?
I asked my spath to rate HIMSELF on something akin to the HARE checklist. And he did. And he was FULL OF SHIT on the whole thing. He knew it, I knew it.
Ridiculous.
SK
Superkid;
In all the areas profiled, the only one which was accurate in terms of what he presented to me was “more introverted.” The remainder were nearly 180 degrees opposite from the image I had of him including:
“More kinky”
“Less lawful”
“Less well mannered”
“Less optimistic”
There were others that I cannot remember but in general did not paint the picture of a very nice person. One struck me as curious though, “less sexually experienced.”
Given what else I learned about him, I found “less sexually experienced” to be surprising.
so, help me understand
did he say he was more kinky, but was less?
did he say he was less lawful, but was more?
i must have this wrong.
Superkid;
These traits were based on his answers to various questions and tests; thus, they are not self-evaluations. The site is OKCupid and the results come from their “matching” algorithm.
I found him to be very vanilla. He was, at least to me, not flirtatious and even insulted when I asked him back to my place on an early date. The told me he was “reserved and proper.”
He never talked about sex and while chatting with me, used a message name “jamie_virgin_wright.” While the “virgin” part was an allusion to his employer, Virgin Airlines, I thought it very curious and when I started joking about the “virgin” part, he did not say very much other that in fact he had never been with a woman, hence a virgin.
From here, I learned that such games, playing “innocent” are typical for some sociopaths. Several of his online screen names support this, i.e. one like “clueless lad.” His kinkiness is certainly confirmed by the type of porn he favors…
Regarding lawfulness, he was the type that waited for lights to turn red before crossing a street and did not seem like the type, at 5’8″ and 130 pounds, the type with would hurt a fly…
Oxy – the history of the DSM is sketchy at best. I wish I could remember where I heard about one of the major influences and what his biases were (CRS, taking the lead once again)…but like everything else wrought by the hands of men (sic) it is utterly biased and shaped by the hands that have touched it. given this truth, it doesn’t really matter what the words are to describe certain groups of behaviors and traits, but what does matter is the truth of our experience.
naming things is important as it gives a shorthand label to use in speech; and labels can be hurled like rocks. in some cases this is a damn fine thing.
i could label the spath that hurt me ‘a lying sack of crap *c*’ (which I admit, is quite satisfying to do), but it doesn’t separate her from the garden variety lying sacks of crap. If i call her spath i can let people know that she is unusual, that she is dangerous in a whole other way, and by doing so i can let people know that the effect this woman had on me is different than that of the garden variety toxin. so the label is useful, if i can then explain the experience of being targeted by a spath, the aftermath of the experience, and how to go about healing from the experience.
it was so very important that i had a name for this venomous thing i hadn’t met before in my life (or so i thought) – because i needed to understand how it hooked me and how to avoid meeting another one.
but really, i could just call her venon toxin extreme x –
Curious.. On the note of labelling, have you ever heard of the Rosenhan study?
The DSM-III and IV were significantly revised following this experiment.
OneJoy,
yes, that’s why I research, so that I can know what to expect when I see red flags. The behaviors tend to group together, so when you see one you know that the rest are lurking just beneath the surface. Since there are so many behaviors that the spaths can exhibit, it would take to long to say: The person who cheats, lies, manipulates, fakes, projects, accuses, slanders, destroys, whipsaws, drama addict, sex addict etc….
Instead it’s easier to use the label: spath. ‘nuf said. and you know what to expect.