Norman Bates in Psycho, Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. We owe our understanding and dread of ‘psychopaths’ to these bad men. But Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen, assistant professor at University of Toronto Mississauga, says our fears are unfounded. In his book, Psychopathy Unmasked: The Rise and Fall of a Dangerous Diagnosis, he argues psychopathy – the disease – and psychopaths don’t exist.
It takes courage to say that when your peers have written tomes on psychopathy. The word ‘psychopath’ occurs pretty often in books now. It’s actually caught up with ‘psychotherapist’, which had a strong lead from 1970. Plus, psychopaths are the delight of crime reporters and readers alike. So, what does Larsen know that others don’t? Before going there, let’s fix what psychopath means outside cinema. In his 1993 book, Without Conscience, Robert Hare described them as 1) social predators, 2) capable of charming and manipulating others, 3) ruthless, 4) lacking in conscience and feeling for others, 5) contemptuous of social norms and expectations. That’s Chigurh, alright.
