The Mask of Sanity
Hervey Cleckley

"Hervey Cleckley, in my opinion, wrote the most authoritative, and readable text on psychopathy - THE MASK of SANITY (C.V. Mosby 1982 ISBN 0-452-25341-1) It always seemed to me from his writing that he had to have had a lot of direct experience with a lot of psychopaths over many years. But also, it is clear that he read very widely the opinions of all others on the subject, and to top it off, he had great skill, almost poetic at times, in expressing the subtlties of psychopathy."

"In his book there are 21 pages that expand upon the items below that he listed as the characteristics of psychopathy."

This drawing graphically portrays the issue that is of most concern to me.

1. Superficial charm and good "intelligence"
2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking
3.Absence of "nervousness" or psychoneurotic manifestations
4.Unreliability
5.Untruthfulness and insincerity
6.Lack of remorse and shame
7.Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
8.Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience
9.Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love
10.General poverty in major affective reactions
11.Specific loss of insight
12.Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations
13.Fantastic and uninviting behavior with drink and sometimes without
14.Suicide rarely carried out
15.Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated
16.Failure to follow any life plan

"...More often than not, the typical psychopath will seem particularly agreeable and make a distinctly positive impression when he is first encountered. Alert and friendly in his attitude, he is easy to talk with and seems to have a good many genuine interests. There is nothing at all odd or queer about him, and in every respect he tends to embody the concept of a well-adjusted, happy person. Nor does he, on the other hand, seem to be artificially exerting himself like one who is covering up or who wants to sell you a bill of goods. He would seldom be confused with the professional backslapper or someone who is trying to ingratiate himself for a concealed purpose. Signs of affectation or excessive affability are not characteristic. He looks like the real thing.

"Very often indications of good sense and sound reasoning will emerge, and one is likely to feel soon after meeting him that this normal and pleasant person is also one with -high abilities. Psychometric tests also very frequently show him of superior intelligence. More than the average person, he is likely to seem free from social or emotional impediments, from the minor distortions, peculiarities, and awkwardnesses so common even among the successful. Such superficial characteristics are not universal in this group but they are very common..."

"...It must be granted of course that the psychopath has some affect. Affect is, perhaps, a component in the sum of life reactions even in the unicellular protoplasmic entity. Certainly in all mammals it is obvious. The relatively petty states of pleasure, vexation, and animosity experienced by the psychopath have been mentioned. The opinion here maintained is that he fails to know all those more serious and deeply moving affective states which make up the tragedy and triumph of ordinary life, of life at the level of important human experience..."

"...No normal person is so unevolved and no ordinary criminal so generally unresponsive and distorted that he does not seem to experience satisfaction, love, hate, grief, and a general participation in life at human personality levels much more intense and more substantial than the affective reactions of the psychopath..."

"...However intelligent, he apparently assumes that other persons are moved by and experience only the ghostly facsimiles of emotion or pseudoemotion known to him. However quick and rational a person may be and however subtle and articulate his teacher, he cannot be taught awareness of significance which he fails to feel. He can learn to use the ordinary words and, if he is very clever, even extraordinarily vivid and eloquent words that signify these matters to other people. He will also learn to reproduce appropriately all the pantomime of feeling; but, as Sherrington said of the decerebrated animal, the feeling itself does not come to pass..."

[the psychopath] "lacks those normal human sentiments without which life in common is impossible."
Gordon Allport

"The psychopath feels little, if any, guilt. He can commit the most appalling acts, yet view them without remorse. The psychopath has a warped capacity for love. His emotional relationships, when they exist, are meagre, fleeting, and designed to satisfy his own desires. These last two traits, guiltlessness and lovelessness, conspicuously mark the psychopath as different from other men."
William and Joan McCord

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