The Mask of Sanity
The Mask of Sanity is a book by Hervey M. Cleckley. It’s about Psychopathy.
The Mask of Sanity[change | change source]
The book says that Psychopaths cannot feel normal emotions but they pretend that they do by copying everyone else and manage to trick everyone into believing that they aren’t insane. This is called having the Mask of Sanity. But because Psychopaths aren’t actually sane, they’re often dangerous mostly to themselves but sometimes to other people.
Criteria[change | change source]
According to the book, a person is a Psychopath if he or she is
1) Charming and smart
2) Not psychotic
3) Not nervous
4) Not reliable
5) A liar
6) A person who never feels Remorse or Shame
7) A person who doesn’t care about the rights of other people and doesn’t have any reason to explain why
8) Bad at learning from mistakes
9) Egocentric and not able to love
10) Bad at understanding other peoples’ feelings
11) Bad at realizing that he or she has a Mental illness
12) Someone who doesn’t normally react to other people
13) Someone who often gets drunk or acts drunk even when he or she is sober
14) Someone who often threatens to commit suicide all the time but doesn’t actually do it
15) Someone who has sex with people he or she doesn’t love or care about
16) Not able to follow any real plan for his or her life.
Influence[change | change source]
The Canadian psychologist Robert D. Hare created the Psychopathy Checklist based on this book.
