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.

These three.
The Therapist is a Netgalley ARC;
The colour of blood is my March #Doublespin pick, an Irish hard-boiled mystery set in Dublin I'm not enjoying too much so far, sadly;
The tagged is a non-fiction about psychopathy in females by a very cool and well-known forensic psychiatrist in Germany.

Much #forensicpsychiatry this Easter!😂
#weekendreads #Bookspin #Ireland #Dublin #Netgalley #TheTherapist #psychopathy #LydiaBenecke

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.

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.

After days of listening to music (and reconnecting with some older albums I haven‘t listened to in their entirety for a while), I finally picked this as my next bus book.

I‘m still working on reviews for my last couple reads. I promise I haven‘t forgotten them. I‘m hoping once @julesG finished Ink Blood Sister Scribe, she might have caught some answers I missed, so I‘m not sitting here wanting to listen to that one again.

Dutton draws a parallel between key psychopathic traits and people highly apt for professions like brain surgeons, military, politicians, etc. Attributes such as; incapable of empathy, lack of remorse, unable to feel anxious, to name a few. These are useful, for lack of a better word, when performing under pressure/stress and staying sharp in the midst of chaos. Pretty interesting!