Blog2: Chapter 4 Summary

In chapter four, Ronson comes into contact with an influential psychologist named Bob Hare. Justice departments and parole boards have accepted Hare's belief that psychopaths are incurable and the energy spend on trying to cure them should be put into his PCL-R Checklist to root them all out. Ronson describes Hare's break through experiment and how it concluded that psychopaths lack a functioning amyglada in the  brain, making them unable to anticipate the future or feel unpleasantness. After this, Ronson attends Hare's conference where he begins honing his skills to identify psychopaths. He begins realizing his skill after reading Hare's Psychopath Checklist and watching various patients respond to a researcher in a controlled room. Ronson continues identifying psychopathic qualities through examples of various psychopaths that were thought to be able to function in society, only to end up killing someone again. Ronson ends the chapter by pondering about psychopathic CEOs and psychopathic politicians. Hare tells him that its easy to identify psychopaths in prisons, but to root out CEOs and politicians, "..could change forever the way people see the world."(Ronson, p118)

"You have to feel sorry for psychopaths, right? If it's all because of their amygdalae? It's not their fault?"
- "Why should we feel sorry for them? They don't give a shit about us."(Ronson, p110)

This quote ignited the question that I've been wondering for some time since we started this book. If psychopaths are the way they are because it's in their nature to be, is it truly their fault? In my own opinion, I don't believe it is. The fact that they are literally missing a function in their brain goes to show that they not like the rest of us. The complex problem of this however, is that unlike someone that is missing half of their brain, psychopaths are able to compensate for their dysfunction and appear perfectly normal on the outside. The matter is made more complex by asking, what do you do with someone like that? It is immoral to lock someone up for life because of the way they were born. However; this would prove the best results. Speaking theoretically, identifying psychopaths and locking all of them up would improve the world. I am not saying I am in favor of that, but in terms of raw numbers, I believe that would improve overall safety statistics and concerns. On the other hand, not only is there a whole different issue of correctly identifying psychopaths, but doing that would completely contradict all the principles of modern society. So the question stands, what do we do? Lock them all up before they cause chaos, or treat them like everyone, letting them pull the strings of the world? Based on how our society is structured today, I don't think there even is a right answer.
(ftw)

Blog1: Chapter 3 Summary

In chapter three of The Psychopath Test, Jon Ronson sets out to discover how psychopaths could be cured. In the chapter, Ronson talks about the work of a psychiatrist named Elliot Barker. Barker coming back from his travels, learns a treatment of nude psychotherapy that he applies to Oak Ridge Hospital for the criminally insane. The treatment consisted of the removal of all distractions and cloths, and being locked in a room, high off LSD for days. This was theorized to strip the patients of their outer self and achieve emotional nakedness, supposedly curing them at the end of the process. The treatment seemed to have a positive effect on many patients and some of them were released back into the world. However, after releasing many of the patients, it turns out that 80% of them went on to re-offened crimes. Due to this, the program was shut down and deemed a failure. The naked psychotherapy treatment concluded with worse results in the patients, and inability to cure them.

I thought this chapter was very interesting in the different ways mental illness was attempted to be cured. Barker's methods seemed very radical; however, it is understandable why one would go to such lengths. Trying to cure something like psychopathy after many other failed methods only gave way to attempting something drastic. What intrigues me the most is how psychopaths cannot be changed and continue with their behaviors. Although this behavior is destructive, it is interesting to see society dealing with the outcasts which they deem to be abnormal. Wouldn't a psychopath believe their behaviors to be normal to themselves? If that is true, then society is forcing their beliefs into someone in an attempt to change who they are. I am by no means saying they should be free; however, if one were to think of the world full of psychopaths, and todays idea of the sane person being placed into that world, would that sane person not also be deemed crazy and also be forced the beliefs of that world down their throat like we do with the psychopaths of the present? If you were placed in a world of psychopaths, would you also not conform to their ways and beliefs? Perhaps this is the reason why they are not able to be cured in todays world.

Haii

Heller