Welcome to Litsy!

An interesting and insightful exploration of the mental health world, particularly as it relates to psychopathy. I read this for my IRL book group in preparation for seeing Jon Ronson talking about it last night. He was an entertaining presenter, and having a couple of the people whose stories he told in the book joining in by Zoom on a big screen was inspired.

This is from the 90s, so the language is dated, particularly the repeated use of the word psychopath. But the exploration of the reality of those with antisocial personality disorder is fascinating. While this is not explored, it actually got me thinking about the potential evolutionary benefit of APD.

"They were planning your downfall from the very start."

I'm halfway through the audiobook and have audibly yelled in my car. This is step by step my experience with my ex. I may need to start this over to fully absorb the lessons.

I liked this. Although I am not 100% certain that everyone in the vignettes was a card carrying sociopath. Stout does identify a few earmark characteristics that appear to be on the radar of many sociopaths. In all this was a very good read and her attempt to define and discuss conscience was very informative. A few psychologists have deemed the book to be pop culture alarmism and I can see why, however Stout has some very good points.

I asked my5 year old to choose my next read. Thinks what she chose.

I enjoyed this book. I liked Ronson‘s style and curious nature. It was silly in some ways but informative in others. He showed an ability to learn, apply, and self correct through the book. I bought the rest of his books in the early pages of starting this one. I look forward to reading them.

Psychopathy, sociopathy, and ASPD have been seemingly everywhere lately, so I pulled 3 books to try and learn more about them and sort out facts from pop culture misinformation. This was the second book in my stack. It‘s written by a journalist, and the writing is compelling, but it‘s kind of all over the place. I‘m mostly learning the history behind the pop culture perception of psychopathy, which isn‘t really what I‘m after…

Neuroscience researcher comes across his own brain scan which is supposed to be part of the control group for one of his studies, notices major abnormalities, & begins a journey of self reflection. This is a combo professional & personal memoir & it included just enough hard neuroscience for me to learn something new & still basically be able to follow what he was saying, but I wasn‘t always on board with the conclusions he drew from the science.

Another great book by Berry-Dee 👍

This is probably the standard introductory tome for the layperson to begin to understand psychopathology. They live among us, a solid percentage of the world population exists without a functioning ability to feel empathy. Not just hustlers and criminals, but politicians, CEOs and other successful people who pretend to be ‘normal‘. Good advice for how to avoid psychopaths and disentangle them from your life.