The Mask of Sanity - Hervey Cleckley

The epigraph reads 'Non teneas aurum totum quod spendet ut aurum', by Alanus de Insulis. This phrase closely resembles Tolkien's 'All that glitters is not gold' from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In this case however, Dr. Cleckley seems to be describing a sentiment towards individuals with psychopathic personality, the subject of this book.

I read this book at the suggestion of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who mentioned it in his last book of essays, 'A Man Without A Country'- saying that if anyone had any doubts about what a psychopath was, this book would thoroughly describe the phenomenon, and indeed it does.

So what is a psychopath? In short, a psychopath is a person who has a history of engaging in antisocial, destructive, or self-destructive behavior, but somehow cannot learn from the experience, despite possessing demonstrably adequate powers of reasoning and understanding.

The book was a slow read, mainly due to the inevitable reflection that occurs after reading several hundred pages of the errors of others and their inevitable backsliding into trouble despite the best efforts of family, friends, and doctors to rescue them from themselves. While reading it, both I and the author considered what else could have been done to help the individuals considered. Although the author mainly drew on his working experiences to provide examples of the various traits of a psychopath, he also provides a broad survey of possible psychotic individuals in the world of literature and from history. In particular, the author uses Plutarch's description of the Athenian statesman Alcibiades to provide a particularly fascinating example of senseless behavior from over 2000 years in the past.

On the whole, the work takes a relatively descriptive approach to the issue of the psychopathic personality. Rather than describing the causes and cures of such traits, it catalogues a series of behaviors which together are defined as being typical of the psychopath, with the root being a lack of empathy which then causes an inability to learn from past experience. At times veering into sociology and literature, the book nevertheless succeeds in compellingly illustrating its core subject, thereby providing the reader with a better comprehension of personality disorders and their impact on human behavior.