Book Review:
The Psychopath Test By Jon Ronson
"That's an incredibly depressing though." I said."that if you're in a room and at one end lies madness and at the other end lies sanity it is human nature to veer towards the madness end."
Have you ever looked at a person and thought 'man, that guy is a real psychopath.'?
Although, often, they're don't lack the functional use of the amygdala which is trademark for psychopaths...they're just a**holes.
But, what if you HAVE come in contact with a psychopath? Would you be able to tell, or would you fall prey to their calculated charm and manipulations.
That exactly what Jon Ronson set out to do in the 'Pscychopath Test', he wanted to identify psychopaths.
WARNING:
After this book you may get a little trigger happy. At the end of the day, I was sure that my mailman, my barista, the old lady next door, and my cat was a psychopath (although I think I was quite spot on with Mr. Whiskers...the furry bastard!)
As a 2nd year medical student (finger's crossed I don't fail out of medical school, which is quite likely considering the amount of time spend reading about psychopaths when I should've been reading about Myocardial Infarctions) with an interest in someday specializing in psychiatry...somethings didn't sit well with me but I will speak about that later. I was quite pleased that this book did not read like a psychiatry textbook, but rather Ronson brought humour into his work that allowed the writing to flow naturally. To be honest, I was surprised at how quickly I tore through this novel.
WARNING NUMBER 2
Do not read this book in a public place. I, stupidly, read this on the train and kept sneaking *subtle* glances at the other passengers wondering which one is a crazed serial killer. This had the exact opposite effect, making me look like a paranoid loon. To be fair, this book can turn you into a paranoid loon.
Ronson explored many aspects of the "madness industry" from psychiatrists, scientology, to capitalism. Through it all, he posed many important questions.
At what point does a normal human reactions become a psychiatric problem?
Are the most psychopaths found on top of the corporate ladder?
Will there ever be a cure for psychopaths?
The book gives us the Hare PCL-R checklist that is used in medical and legal settings to identify psychopaths. The most interesting part of this book is the interviews with the patients identified with psychopathic tendencies, and we are able to see the checklist being used.
For instance, item 16 on the checklist was : Failure to accept responsibility for own actions.
"One time Bob interviewed a man who had impulsively killed another man over a bar tab.
'He only had himself to blame." the killer told Bob. 'Anybody could have seen I was in a rotten mood that night."
The total lack of empathy is characteristic for psychopaths. In fact, they study normal human interactions in order to fake empathy when speaking to other people. Without fear, empathy, or love...what could possibly hold back a person from committing the most heinous crimes possible?
Ronson did not just focus on serial killers. He also spoke about psychopaths whose brutality can be felt in the corporate world.
"Serial Killers ruin families," shrugged Bob. "Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies."
Through his interview with Al Dunlap, a psychopath who led the Sunbeam corporation in the 90's, we are able to see the effects that a callous company can have on it's workers.
I did have some problems with the book. As a medical student in the UK, I have medical ethics hounded into my head everyday, and one of the things repeated to me daily is that patients cannot look at their own medical notes. Heck, if I search for MY OWN notes I could have my license revoked. It did not sit well that one of the inmates at Broadmoore had access to his own medical notes, and not only that, but he was able to sent them to Ronson. The author blamed it on some bureaucracy loophole, but it seemed like a flimsy excuse. He also was able to speak VIA EMAIL to a psychiatrist about the same patient. That just about breaks every confidentiality/legal law in the book. What self-respecting psychiatrist would speak to a JOURNALIST about a patient at their practice. Even if the patient did consent (although it was not mentioned) to having his information shared with a journalist, I don't think his consent would hold up. Since he's in a psychiatry hospital, he would have been deemed incompetent to give consent, thus it seems fishy that Ronson was able to get so much in-depth info about a patient.
Thus, this knocked my review back down a star.
But, despite this, in this book, Ronson took us on a incredible ride through the madness industry in what could've been a very morbid book if not for his trademark humour.
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With love,
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