The Psychopath Test

I have mentioned on my blog before that my husband tends to vet my film and TV choices.  This is not because he is a control freak but because he knows how sensitive I am and what a morbidly vivid imagination I have.  Unfortunately, when he wasn't looking, I bought The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson.  It's a great book, but one I have to remember not to read last thing at night.

People are absolutely fascinating to me and I have an insatiable appetite for understanding them better.  That's one of the reasons I am somewhat obsessed with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (that's a trademark, folks, but I can't do superscript in this app).  I frequently bore people to tears trying to work out their 'type' and engaging in long-winded analysis of the way they engage with the world and how it differs from the way I do.  I also find psychological profiling fascinating, but I have learned not to read about forensic psychology because the details of crimes really upset me.  It turns out I am probably the exact opposite of a psychopath.

According to Ronson's research - and by the way, he's a journalist, not a mental health professional - psychopaths are characterised by a number of distinct traits, but they remain difficult to spot.  It is estimated they make up less than one percent of the general population.  Psychopaths apparently don't feel emotion in the same way you or I do, but they learn to imitate it extremely well.  The aspect of psychopathy I find most fascinating is the total lack of empathy.  They just don't care about other people's sorrow or suffering.  Their brains aren't wired to be able to do it.  This is why, despite the jokes, Sherlock Holmes is not a psychopath/sociopath (the terms are apparently used interchangeably).  Sherlock is extremely rational with a very high task focus and a very low person focus, but he does experience human attachment; he does care about people.  He genuinely loves Watson (although he rarely shows it) and does on occasion show remorse when he makes a mistake or hurts someone's feelings.  He doesn't do social niceties; doesn't pretend to feel emotions he doesn't; his honesty in this regard shows he is no psychopath.

I've blogged before about my experience of anxiety, specifically Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  OCD sufferers typically worry an awful lot about the people they love; they are terrified of hurting them accidentally and their bizarre repetitive routines, in their mind, are essential to protect others.  People with anxiety tend to worry a lot about what others think of them, and whether they are a bad person.  This is partly why I find psychopathy so fascinating; psychopaths are entirely free of the self-doubt, the need to be liked and the concern for others which often characterises those who suffer from anxiety.  Caring about people hurts, but take away our capacity to care and we become barely human.  Fear is an uncomfortable feeling, but we can never be free from it when we have something - or rather, someone - to lose. 

During a session on pastoral care at college, it was suggested to us that a good pastoral carer is a 'non-anxious presence'.  I understood that to mean that we should care deeply about others, but that that care should come from a place of stillness, without being wrapped up in the kinds of anxieties I have outlined above.  Perhaps that flows from this important fact (and we were advised to write it out and stick it on the inside of our toilet door): there is a redeemer, and it's not me.