The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness IndustryIn this madcap journey, a bestselling journalist investigates psychopaths and the industry of doctors, scientists, and everyone else who studies them. The Psychopath Test is a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Jon Ronson's exploration of a potential hoax being played on the world's top neurologists takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. An influential psychologist who is convinced that many important CEOs and politicians are, in fact, psychopaths teaches Ronson how to spot these high-flying individuals by looking out for little telltale verbal and nonverbal clues. And so Ronson, armed with his new psychopath-spotting abilities, enters the corridors of power. He spends time with a death-squad leader institutionalized for mortgage fraud in Coxsackie, New York; a legendary CEO whose psychopathy has been speculated about in the press; and a patient in an asylum for the criminally insane who insists he's sane and certainly not a psychopath. Ronson not only solves the mystery of the hoax but also discovers, disturbingly, that sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study. And that relatively ordinary people are, more and more, defined by their maddest edges. |
Contents
The Missing Part of the Puzzle Revealed | 1 |
The Man Who Faked Madness | 33 |
Psychopaths Dream in BlackandWhite | 65 |
The Psychopath Test | 89 |
Toto | 119 |
Night of the Living Dead | 139 |
The Right Sort of Madness | 169 |
The Madness of David Shayler | 179 |
Aiming a Bit High | 212 |
The Avoidable Death of Rebecca Riley | 230 |
Good Luck | 253 |
NotesSourcesBibliographyAcknowledgments | 273 |
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Common terms and phrases
Al Dunlap amygdala asked behavior believe bipolar disorder Bob Hare Bob's brain Brian Broadmoor Bryna called CCHR checklist Colin Stagg Costa Coffee crazy criminal profilers David Shayler Deborah diagnosed Douglas Hofstadter drug DSPD Dunlap e-mailed Elliott Barker emotions empathy eyes fake feel felt Gary going Gothenburg Grandiose Sense happened Hofstadter Hubbard inside interview Item Jon Ronson journalists killed Kingsley Hall later laughed Levi Shand looked mental disorders movie murder normal Nothingness Oak Ridge Okay patients Paul Britton paused person Peter Woodcock police prison psychiatrists psycho psychologist PSYCHOPATH TEST psychopaths Rachel North remorse replied Ron Hubbard Ronson sane Scientologists sexual Shubuta someone sort of madness Spitzer story Strange Loop suddenly Sunbeam talk tell There's thing thought told Tony Tony's trying turned walked Woodcock wrote Yeah