The Psychopath Test, by Jon Ronson

How many psychopaths do you know? By accounts, you should know a few, or knew a few depending on how and with whom you are spending your time. Maybe between one and three in every 100 people would meet clinical criteria to be diagnosed psychopathic. That is unsettling. Well, perhaps if you told me one to three percent of people were sociopathic, I would agree – don’t we all know those ruthlessly manipulative people who would carve you apart for a promotion at work, your place in the grocery checkout line, your position as town alderman,  coach of your son’s little league team? Carve you apart like a rump roast without thinking twice about it! How much difference is there between sociopaths and psychopaths? Not much according to Wiki http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_a_sociopath_and_a_psychopath and they are both lumped clinically in the same category in the DSM IV – if you don’t know about the DSM IV, you can learn all about it by reading Ronson’s romp through the madness industry. It’s a fun read, not a little frightening and will make you the wiser for it. As a physician (non-psychiatrist), I would have preferred some more clinical/scientific “meat” to chew on. Nevertheless, there is much to be appreciated here. I particularly liked the bit about the scientologists and the Oak Ridge program in the 60’s (prisoners and LSD, what’s not to like?) One of the more interesting and scary things about psychopaths is their ability to feign normalcy. So normal, in fact, that you may know them for some time before they do something that gets your hackles up.  And they are charming! It’s a complete fabrication, that charm. Biologically, they seem to lack a critical connection between their amygdala and their frontal cortex (brain structures, for the uninitiated). They know that they are different and the more astute among them are excellent students of human behavior – they model it for our benefit. If you don’t know much about psychopathy you will find much reward in this book. If you are a student of psychopaths or work or live with one, you may find great humor or horror here as well.