The Psychopath Test

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry is a 2011 book by Jon Ronson in which he explores the concept of psychopathy.

Primary themes

Ronson visits purported psychopaths, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists who have studied them, and meets with Robert Hare, the eponymous author of the 20 part test administered to detect psychopathy. He explores the idea that many corporate and governmental leaders are psychopaths whose actions to others can only be explained by taking that fact into account, and he privately uses the Hare test to determine if he can discern any truth to it. He meets Toto Constant, who he speculates is a psychopath, corporate leader Albert J. Dunlap, who the magazine Fast Company speculated was a psychopath, as well as a young man imprisoned in Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital for being a psychopath, who claims to be a victim of the psychiatric industry's unfair diagnosis. He also researches some of the unorthodox treatments tried on psychopaths to cure them. Ultimately he raises the question of where the line can be drawn between sanity, insanity, and eccentricity.

See Also

• The Mask of Sanity
• The Sociopath Next Door
• Snakes in Suits

References