Thursday, November 17, 2011

Chapters 10& 11

In Chapter 10 of Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test, Ronson looks into the DSM checklist and meets with the creator, Robert Spitzer. When he interviews him, he asked him several question regarding the DSM list, which is a book filled with so called mental disorders. Ronson seemed very skeptical that there could truly be as many mental disorders as was listed in book. Ronson believed that the book was just a way for everyone to believe there was something wrong with them and get medical attention and some sort of medication to fix their problem. So as a result of the DSM checklist, the medicine industry was making a lot of money. By the end of the interview, Spitxer himself started to realized that his checklist probably consisted of a lot of normal personality traits and he was over diagnosing people.
These last two chapters, and the whole book for that matter really made me think. It is crazy how people pour their entire lives into finding something wrong with people. I don't get why it is is so necessary to diagnose people with disorders, if someone is a little weird can't they just be how they are? Overall I feel like I am more confused than I was before as to who exactly is a psychopath, and who isn't.

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