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The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through The Madness Industry (2012)

by Jon Ronson(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1594485755 (ISBN13: 9781594485756)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Riverhead Trade

review 1: there was something very enticing about the beginning of this book, probably in part due to my ignorance that this wasn't a straight fiction book as i'd thought. however just past the half way mark the book became a bit dry, but perhaps because I have friends and family who work in the industry and their stories are on a par with these and rely alot on the shock factor. i'd only recommend this on rare occasions I think
review 2: This book rocks. It's got Scientologists (I had no idea they were so rabidly against psychiatry/psychology), a bizarre and hilarious part involving a mysterious book/puzzle called Being or Nothingness and Douglas Hofstadter, lots of interesting trips down psychology's memory lane like a "treatment" for dangerous psychopathic criminals i... moren the 70s that involved throwing them in rooms together naked on LSD to talk about their "feelings" with one another, and the author going to Al Dunlap's (infamous former CEO of Sunbeam) mansion to interview him and basically asking him if he's a psychopath in front of his wife and bodyguard and subjecting him to the psychopathy checklist (and of course Dunlap turns many of the criteria into a to-do list for how to be highly successful in business). (I mean, asking him about the Grandiose Sense of Self-Worth checklist point while he's standing under a huge oil painting of himself and his wife is classic -- as is his estate full of predator animal statuary.) Ronson did a great job of thoroughly exploring the serious issues in this area with a sense of humor, put himself in all kinds of strange situations and talked to a lot of interesting and a few literally dangerous people regarding "insanity" and psychopathy. I happened across this book, oddly, during a week when I was thinking, wow, people are really, really weird and messed up sometimes (and thank goodness they are, if you're a writer) -- running across this book was oddly good timing given that thought. He turns some responsibility for "the madness industry" on journalists themselves as well, since of course "the crazy" sells and all of us are going to gravitate towards that aspect of people, so that feeds the entire "industry," including media. The book is a great balance of skepticism and acknowledgment of the seriousness of mental illness, as well as little issues like, well, you can probably diagnose yourself or others as all kinds of things and a possibly very good takeaway: if you fake your way into an institution, you might have a hard time getting out. Apparently it can prove difficult for people to prove they're sane, so don't do that. I think whether somebody's interested in psychology, particularly abnormal psychology, or thinks a lot of it is hooey and we're all overmedicated and over-diagnosed in our society, this is an interesting, often very funny, read (and also a really fast one). less

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