The Psychopath Test By Jim Ronson Review
In this text Jim Ronson explores psychiatry through the lens of Scientologist skeptics and pioneers like Bob Hare. Traveling down this rabbit hole gives him a glimpse and insight into what he calls the madness industry a world of psychopaths just out of reach.
Overview
This book does a great job of going beneath the surface of psychiatry and revealing it to the reader one layer at a time. It begins with a mysterious book that went out to many notable academics for reasons unknown. Author, Jim Ronson gets tapped to investigate the book’s origin and purpose, which leads him to Petter Nordlund the first psychopath, in his journey. From that discussion, Ronson digs deeper discovering how madness is calculated and the challenges the industry faces.
The Psychopath Test goes beyond the basic understanding of the practice, as Jim juxtaposes two perspectives. One is the skepticism of Scientologists; the other is first hand experiences of his work with Bob Hare and direct contact with psychopaths. As the book and his journey progresses, Jim remains mostly objective but does find himself swayed by the “superpower” of psycho-spotting.
Opinion
Overall, I enjoyed this book and would say that I’m a fan of Jon Ronson’s style of writing. My biggest gripe with the work is that it all but abandons the idea of psychopath’s shaping society in terms of economic activity in business and innovation early on. Beyond that, the direction of the book didn’t bother me at all. If you’re even slightly interested in the PCL-R Checklist used to evaluate psychopaths and an understanding of the DSM you’ll find this an easy read!
If you’re interested and want to join the conversation you can buy the book now on Amazon!
