The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
Jon Ronson
Jon Ronson is a Welsh journalist most noted for his "self deprecating" style according to Wikipedia. This is the same stylized approach that Rodney Dangerfield, Tine Fey, and Conan Obrien use. I think this style works for Jon and makes for entertaining reading. Jon wrote the "The Men Who Stare At Goats" as well as "Them: Adventures With Extremists." While I have not read either of those two, I have seen the movie for "The Men Who Stare At Goats" and am planning on reading "Them - Adventures With Extremists." Jon does a lot of documentaries and BBC specials as well. Although I haven't seen or heard any of them.
The Psychopath Test was a supremely interesting read. A "Starbucks Day" and a night and the book was devoured.
The book first begins with a bit of mystery. Jon is approached by a scholarly type with a book that was delivered to her by a mysterious source. The book itself had been printed multiple times and sent to multiple people across the world's scholarly populace. As the mystery transpires Jon is confronted with a question, who could send something like this and why? Exactly this question leads Jon through an amazing series of interviews with psychiatry enigmas, a death squad mastermind, a fraudulent corporate legend, an inmate convinced he's sane, and a cult of scientologists determined to help Jon see the plague that is psychiatry. It was all interesting. It was all insightful. In some instances completely insane. I was enthralled till the end.
In all my flattery I forgot to mention, much like the opinions on both sides of the psychiatry debate, this is all speculation and opinion. A clever way of encouraging the debate and I believe Jon does it successfully.
Below is the 20 point checklist for the identification of a psychopath created by a notable association of psychiatrists; the same American Psychiatrist Association who publish the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
Twenty-point Hare PCL-R Checklist aka "The Test" -
Item 1: Glibness/superficial charm
Item 2: Grandiose sense of self-worth
Item 3: Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
Item 4: Pathological lying
Item 5: Conning/manipulative
Item 6: Lack of remorse or guilt
Item 7: Shallow affect
Item 8: Callous/lack of empathy
Item 9: Parasitic lifestyle
Item 10: Poor behavioral controls
Item 11: Promiscuous sexual behavior
Item 12: Early behavior problems
Item 13: Lack of realistic long-term goals
Item 14: Impulsivity
Item 15: Irresponsibility
Item 16: Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Item 17: Many short-term marital relationships
Item 18: Juvenile delinquency
Item 19: Revocation of conditional release
Item 20: Criminal versatility
No comments:
Post a Comment