The Psychopath Test

I enjoyed this one quite a bit–the author notes his own neuroses as he travels among the folks who study psychopathy, who rail against psychology (he got to hang out in Hubbard's mansion), folks diagnosed as psychotic; this isn't a polemic against diagnosing folks as psychotic, but rather a journey through a land that makes it clear that “psychotic” is a spectrum.

I would welcome if author went even deeper and actually spent a chapter or two explaining the psychopathy and similar disorders in depth. For example the book mentions that psychopathy and sociopathy are the same disorder and psychologists are using the terms interchangeably. Why is that? If it's the same disorder why does it have two names?

What about the history? How were patients treated before Bob Hare's experiments? He mentions LSD trials but is that it? What about lobotomy and other crazy “treatments”. What about homosexuals? This book isn't only about psychopaths but about “mental disorders” in general, which sadly included, until recently, also homosexuals.

The book covers only the surface of “madness industry” while opening and spending the whole first chapter on completely unrelated “mystery”. Waste of time in my opinion. I'd welcome more facts and perhaps interviews.

However, it's still an awesome book that shows a bit of hidden truth. Psychopaths exist and they walk among us. After reading this book I'm pretty sure I know a few - normal people don't look at videos of beheadings and then talk about it as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. You know who I'm talking about, doc.

Author also spends some time to explain the boom of diagnosing children with disorders while in reality they might just behave... like children do.

It truly is a must-read - well, unless there's a better book about it because from the writing I had a feeling Jon Ronson had no idea what he was doing most of the time. Professional journalist, huh...?
Still, the subject is too interesting to pass by.

“Suddenly, madness was everywhere, and I was determined to learn about the impact it had on the way society evolves. I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?”

The book was engaging, I enjoyed reading it, however I couldn't help being a little disappointed. While Ronson makes a few good points and raises some good questions, I was hoping the book would go deeper into the world of psychopaths, instead it was mainly focused on his journey of researching the topic. However, I can't hold this too hard against the book as Jon Ronson is an investigative journalist, not a mental health care specialist.

When I saw the advertised premise of this book—that many world leaders are actually psychopaths—I went “Yeah! Politicians suck! Rich CEOs suck!” It would be a book for the 99-percenter in all of us.

(I was reminded of a speech that the CEO gave in the office at a previous job. Bizarrely, the employees were crammed into the elevator lobby because we had no meeting rooms large enough to hold us all. The CEO was giving his inspirational forecast for the company:

“In five years, we'll be the market leader. And our competitors... they'll be working at Dunkin' Donuts! BWAHAHAHA!!”

A handful of high-ranking execs managed some forced laughter, but most of us had no response except to look around at each other in shock. I thought to myself, “Yeah, this guy's a psychopath.”)

When I started reading the book, I was expecting a direct, focussed attack on the rich and powerful, which by the end would have me marching into my CEO's office, with an outraged mob rallying behind me.

To my surprise, Ronson pretty much abandons his thesis halfway, after interviewing Al Dunlap, a disgraced CEO. The evidence wasn't strong enough to declare Dunlap a psychopath. At this point, I could see that Ronson was struggling to keep his book on track. The point that he was trying to make had basically fallen apart.

To his credit, Ronson manages to recover. He changes gears, and looks into how our culture is fascinated by madness. A reality show producer that he interviews says that there's a certain type of crazy that we enjoy watching, because it makes us feel happy to be normal. (If only there was a word to express the feeling of taking pleasure in someone else's misfortune...)

I think some readers will call this a cop-out, but I liked how he rebounds from his failed quest by questioning his motives for undertaking the quest in the first place. The fact that he wanted to uncover hidden psychopaths means that he's part of the madness industry.

Entertainment, such as reality shows and books about psychopathic world leaders, is one side of the madness industry, but Ronson also covers a more serious side: overdiagnosis of mental illness and overprescription of drugs.

By ending on that note, I think Ronson is making a profound point: that the true madness in the world is seeing madness where it doesn't exist.

So, I began this book thinking it was fiction from the summary on the back of the book. About 30% of the way in I figured out that it was not when I decided to google one of the names Jon Ronson mentions so far. Then, because of my perception of nonfiction books I immediately began to dislike all of these anecdotal stories about weird people, strange people, and all of the people he encounters trying to decipher this mess of psychopathy and psychology and the business of madness.

Well then it got interesting. For someone who is studying to be a forensic psychologist the topic of psychopathy is a goldmine for me. I particularly enjoyed reading seemingly candid takes of what Robert Hare (the creator of the PCL-R) thought about psychopathy and his discussion with Spitzer about how labeling is ruining society. This was an interesting take on the field that I'm going into and I was really interested in his presentation of both sides.