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.
The Psychopath Test on Amazon.com
MoonDancer
123 testing 123 testing – oh you failed the test ox, start over
Ox Drover
Skylar, whatever “arrests” their development in learning to love, feeling remorse, empathy etc. it does appear that they are in some ways “stuck” at that egocentric emotional stage, which a two year old is “normal developmental behavior.” What they are NOT stuck in is the ability to MANIPULATE and FAKE the appropriate adult emotional responses. A two year old many wish to manipulate but they are not successful, like the young kid in the cookie jar, and the parent HEARS the kid moving the lid and says “Johnny are you in the cookie jar?” from the other room and the kid can’t comprehend that daddy could HEAR the jar lid clink and KNOW he was in the jar, so he LIES “Oh, no daddy” thinking he can get away with it because how could daddy possibly know he was lying? The thing is that in many ways the psychopath doesn’t realize that their lies are UN-believable, but other times they can be quite convincing.
Some are more successful at manipulation and lying and end up in the White House or the Governor’s mansion, or congress or the senate or as dictator….but it doesn’t make them any nicer people, only that they have evolved better camo to mask their true predatory selves.
behind_blue_eyes
Ox;
Manipulate and fake are key differences. However, I wonder how many sociopaths realize they are manipulative fakers?
Ox Drover
test 123
Sarah999
IMHO, P/N/S/A are NOT STUCK at an immature level.
A Narcissistic/Psychopathic person is NOT STUCK at a toddler level.
I believe through generations, the characteristics of lying, manipulation,
charm, rage, exploitation, & no conscience etc. have helped them survive and thrive, and so these characteristics were passed on.
WE . . . are “unable to imagine” that P/N/S/A lack a conscience, are unable to love or have compassion, are monumentally exploitative etc.
P/S/N/A are “unable to imagine” that we actually love & consider others, and that we DO have a conscience, and are NOT exploitative.
Further, many children do not exhibit their N/S/P/A personalities until they reach adolescence.
Ox Drover
Sarah, we aren’t, at least I am not, saying that kids are ps at a young age, just that it is a NORMAL DEVELOPMENTAL STAGE that kids are egocentric and selfish, before they learn to share, etc.
Watch a couple of two year olds playing together, grabbing things from each other, pushing and shoving etc. that selfishness is typical and NORMAL at that age…..it is NOT normal for an adult to think and act like that, but psychopaths are just as self centered as 2 year olds.
Yea, my P son didn’t really start exhibiting his P-behaviors until puberty. I think the testosterone brings out the worst in them. BTW women also make testosterone, just not as much as males.
I agree with you that we are unable to fully grasp their mind set and vice versa.
Sarah999
I don’t consider an infants self involvement, as being in any way narcissistic. It is in NO WAY narcissistic for an infant cry for food or attention. Just as being SHORT, (i.e., 21 inches long) or being BALD or being UNABLE TO EXPRESS HIM/HERSELF is not the same as being a DWARF or BALD or MUTE/DUMB as an adult.
IMHO . . . They are totally unrelated & one does not the result of the other. It is not a continuum.
Sarah999
Yes, it IS a developmental stage, but (IMHO) it is NOT related to Pathological Narcissism (or adult selfishness), just as an infant not being able to speak (or express a thought properly) is not related to his/her being dumb or mentally challenged as an adult.
One is not the precursor of the other.
dancingnancies
I would hardly see manipulating others for kicks/fun as a “survival mechanism”… that would be quite a bit of a stretch. I’m a pretty sympathetic person but that’s just blatantly illogical
Sarah999
I know IT IS “blatantly illogical”. As I said (in a previous post) . . WE don’t understand & can’t imagine them… and THEY don’t understand and can’t imagine us.
Sadistic people get joy (duping delight) and entertainment from seeing others squirm and/or suffer. (It’s a power fix). It makes no sense to me, and I can’t imagine that people would find happiness in hurting others. But it is true, and I believe it is important to acknowledge that it exists.
Knowledge is Power!