{"id":253730,"date":"2016-07-04T00:35:42","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T00:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-marks-of-a-psychopath\/"},"modified":"2016-07-04T00:35:42","modified_gmt":"2016-07-04T00:35:42","slug":"the-marks-of-a-psychopath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-marks-of-a-psychopath\/","title":{"rendered":"The Marks of a Psychopath"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Are psychopaths trendy? Does saying \u201cI have psychopathic tendencies\u201d pass the dinner table test? Is this merely the latest debilitating condition to be reimagined as a fascinating quirk, \u00e0 la \u201cI\u2019m a little bit OCD\u201d?<\/p>\n

If so, popular non-fiction might be to blame. In 2011, Jon Ronson\u2019s The Psychopath Test<\/a> introduced millions of readers to a checklist, devised by psychologist Robert Hare, that scores people on a range of psychopathic traits. A year later, Kevin Dutton\u2019s The Wisdom of Psychopaths<\/a> advanced the idea that we all sit somewhere on a psychopathic spectrum, and that aspects of psychopathy can be harnessed for good. ME Thomas used an alternative term to describe her superficial charm and lack of empathy in Confessions of a Sociopath<\/a>. Hare\u2019s own book, Snakes in Suits<\/a>, written with psychologist Paul Babiak, examines the success of the psychopath in corporate settings.<\/p>\n

We love reading about psychopaths, then. But can we even agree on what they are?<\/p>\n

The marks of the psychopath<\/strong><\/p>\n

For psychiatrist Hervey M Cleckley, there wasn\u2019t a great deal to argue about. His 1941 book, The Mask of Sanity, describes 15 patients who shared certain unmistakeable features: the marks of the psychopath. \u201cMany of these cases have been classified consistently as psychopaths by not one but a number of expert observers, usually by several staffs of psychiatrists, and nearly always with unanimity.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, you know them when you see them. They are the manipulators, the tricksters, the charming but emotionally disconnected men like Max, who will convince a jury that he\u2019s crazy to avoid prison, only to persuade all the psychiatrists that he\u2019s sane a few months later in order to escape from a locked ward. They are the strangely placid women like Roberta, who will write sweetly innocent letters back to her doctors saying how much progress she\u2019s made while her parents continue to report runaway kleptomania.<\/p>\n

Current Prices on popular forms of Gold Bullion<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Cleckley is quick to point out that these people are not mentally ill. They shouldn\u2019t even be in asylums, he says. \u201cDespite the plain etymologic inference of a sick mind or of mental sickness, this term is ordinarily used to indicate those who are considered free from psychosis and even from psychoneurosis [anxiety and mood disorders].\u201d How do they end up there, then? Because society hasn\u2019t worked out how to deal with them \u2013 whether they\u2019re mad or bad or who knows what. This is a problem because they are trouble: \u201cTheir behaviour causes great distress in every community.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 70 years later, psychiatrists still broadly agree that psychopathy isn\u2019t a mental illness, but a \u201cpersonality disorder\u201d \u2013 a way of relating to the world and others that resist treatment and does not absolve someone of responsibility for their actions. And the puzzle of what to do with them hasn\u2019t been worked out either. A psychiatrist is still usually roped in to identify what is called \u201cantisocial personality disorder\u201d in the latest diagnostic textbooks<\/a>. This diagnosis is made on the basis of, among other things, \u201ca lack of concern for feelings, needs, or suffering of others; lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another; frequent use of subterfuge to influence or control others; use of seduction, charm, glibness; thoughtless initiation of activities to counter boredom\u201d. Many of the same attributes turn up on the Hare checklist.<\/p>\n

Does this sound like someone you\u2019ve met? It should do as estimates<\/a> of the prevalence of psychopathy tend to hover around the 1% mark. That\u2019s 10 psychopaths in every 1,000-person strong organisation (though, not being very good at holding down jobs, there are likely to fewer of them among the stably employed). Even so, 1% is common enough for most people to encounter a handful in the course of a lifetime. But you want to know whether you\u2019re<\/em> a psychopath. You could start by getting someone to take your pulse.<\/p>\n

Read the Whole Article<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are psychopaths trendy? Does saying \u201cI have psychopathic tendencies\u201d pass the dinner table test? Is this merely the latest debilitating condition to be reimagined as a fascinating quirk, \u00e0 la \u201cI\u2019m a little bit OCD\u201d? If so, popular non-fiction might be to blame. In 2011, Jon Ronson\u2019s The Psychopath Test introduced millions of readers to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-253730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}