The Mask of Sanity

book by Hervey Cleckley

The Mask of Sanity is a book by Hervey M. Cleckley. It’s about Psychopathy.

The Mask of Sanity

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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

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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

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The Canadian psychologist Robert D. Hare created the Psychopathy Checklist based on this book.