I am not a sociopath. Maybe that comes as a surprise to some? I am, however, a psychology BA, a supporter of mental health, have worked in the sciences for decades, and just a generally curious sort of fellow. All in all, I was excited to read Sociopath by Patric Gagne. I hadn’t seen any of the buzz the book had generated, I just was genuinely interested in hearing about a misunderstood condition from someone who had not only received her doctorate in the matter, but had lived with it. Who could have more insight?
What a complete let down.
Spoiler Free Summary
Patricia “Patric” Gagne, PhD recounts her life as a sociopath, and how that condition and diagnosis has affected her personal, professional, and social life.
The Good
No one else could have written this book. Not only because it’s a memoir of Patric’s life, but also because she has such a singular position as a diagnosed sociopath who went on to receive a PhD on the topic. That pairing of lived experience with academic rigor is potent. It’s akin to Jill Bolte Taylor, a neurologist who suffered a stroke and was able to understand in real time what was happening to her body. If you’ve never seen her TED Talk on the topic, have I got a treat for you:
I really wish I had more to say here.
Disclaimer
Rather than say this 1000 times in the paragraphs to come, let me state this clearly and unequivocally here. I am by no means an expert on sociopathy, or pathological psychology of any variety. Similarly, I can’t with any certainty say that what Gagne writes isn’t factual or truthful, either by letter or by spirit. It is entirely possible that everything happened exactly the way it is portrayed in the book and she is precisely who she claims to be. Gagne also makes it very clear in the opening of Sociopath that she has changed names, dates, and details to protect peoples’ privacy.
All I can report on with confidence is my experience and thoughts in reading her memoir, which I shall share…now.
The Bad
Alright. Strap in.
I don’t want to get off rambling, so I’ve split this into sections. We’ll cover the writing itself, the tone throughout, the accuracy and consistency of the text, and some claims by Patric Gagne that have been called into question.
The Writing
Gagne is a serviceable but not great writer. I get the sense that she doesn’t agree (more on tone in a moment) evident by the liberal use, especially later in the book, of some very early-high-school-style metaphors. “The breeze whistled its approval as I approached the sports car” is one such example, as pointed out by the New York Times. The narrative also jumps around in time, which is fine (who wants every day of her 48 years1 recounted), but Gagne is not a talented enough writer to keep the audience on track. One page she’s considering grad school, the next she has finished her dissertation. In the hands of a skilled author, this is a smooth way to keep the story moving and nimble. In Sociopath, it is disorienting.
The Tone
This is where I first started disliking this book. Gagne purports that the purpose of Sociopath is to bring awareness to sociopathy and those living with it - a noble goal. However, she seems much more interested in puffing up her own ego than telling an honest, introspective story. She comes off as the one true champion of the maligned minority, and gives the impression that she is the only one who can save them from the terrible misconceptions society has thrust upon them. To wit - not once does she seek out any other folks with the same condition to compare notes.2 She shames those in her orbit for not understanding her in her entirety, but turns around and declares herself impossible to understand when her behavior conflicts with her thoughts.
Then there’s the relentless reminders of how fantastic and ostentatious her life is. She suffers from the drama of the decadent3 and just can’t help herself from reminding you that she rubs elbows with rock stars and gets invited to the Playboy Mansion parties every year.4 If I’m feeling generous (I’m not), this is an interesting facet to her life, especially in how it intersects with her mental illness. However, apart from a very short disclaimer in the introduction, it’s very unnerving to listen to a rich, connected, white woman describe various crimes she’s committed in detail, and not receive any kind of legal consequence. Can you imagine if a socioeconomically challenged racial minority suffered mental illness of this sort, and then committed acts of violence, trespassing, theft (of both small items and cars), stalking, public indecency, and more? I suspect the story would go quite differently than just having to muse on how woeful it is that she can’t help herself and ugh, why can’t people just understand her urges more?
Lastly in this sub-section, throughout Sociopath, Gagne tries to re-frame sociopathy not as an illness, but as a strength, going so far as to say that society requires sociopaths to get stuff done. Her basic argument is that the lack of emotion, remorse, and empathy allows sociopaths to view situations more pragmatically. As stated above, I’m not a sociopath. Maybe this is true, or at least, maybe it is a mental framework that can help those with the disorder to live productive lives. Here’s my issue - she is extrapolating her experience to all others, and as we just learned, her experience is wildly out of touch with the rest of society. Has she discussed this with any other experts in the field, or any other diagnosed sociopaths? Does this hypothesis hold up to any scrutiny? We’ll never know - Gagne had a whim, and presents it as gospel.
Accuracy and Consistency
Two points here.
Dialog - Sociopath is full of conversations between Gagne and others, and while she was there and I was not, I guarantee the conversations did not go the way they are presented. In nearly every case, the other party speaks in ways that serve Gagne’s purpose precisely, and set her up for perfect, poised, prescient quotes and insights. Sure. As Alexandra Jacobs in the New York Times put it:
Gagne seems also to be afflicted, or blessed, with hyperthymesia, a.k.a highly superior autobiographical memory: a rare condition publicized in an old “60 Minutes” segment featuring the actress Marilu Henner.
How else, unless Gagne was concealing a small tape recorder on her person since childhood (not out of the question, of course, for a sociopath) does she recall decades-old dialogue in such precise detail? And incidentally, how come so much of that is rat-a-tat banter suitable for a corny ’90s rom-com?
“I’d kill myself if everywhere I went, people knew who I was,” Gagne, who in young adulthood follows her father into the music business, tells a flirtatious rock guitarist to whom she’s confided her sociopathy.
“Instead of killing other people, you mean?” he replies.
Rimshot!
Yeah.
Emotional Consistency - Gagne says over and over, and indeed it is the hallmark trait of a sociopath, that she feels very few emotions. She claims to feel happiness or anger in small doses, but that almost all other emotion is at best deeply muted and in most cases completely absent. It’s the entire basis for why she acts out with destructive behavior - she tells us that the lack of feeling builds a “pressure” inside of her that can only be released through illegal, amoral actions that are “bad” enough to elicit a type of high that pops that bubble. No problems for me so far, I find it fascinating! But then, Gagne expresses all kinds of emotion. Huge swaths of the book are dedicated to troubles in the relationship between her and her longtime partner (eventually husband and father to her children) David. Or how her rock-star-friend-slash-love-interest “Max Magus”5 makes her feel in encouraging her to do bad things. Or her guilt over not reporting her father’s blackmailer to the police sooner. Or how she leaves a note for Hugh Hefner (eye roll) so he won’t worry, that it was “just her” in his private office (since he knows her so well and they are such good friends). The list goes on.
Claims
Here’s where we depart from the distasteful into the potentially amoral.
A few things that Gagne has claimed as true which are shaky:
Her doctorate: Gagne claims to have received her doctorate from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. That’s not exactly true. She received a doctorate from the California Graduate Institute (CGI), which later merged with the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Maybe a small distinction, except for one thing - CGI was not an accredited school at the time Gagne attended.
Her dissertation: Similarly, she claims to have written her dissertation on the relationship between sociopathy and anxiety, titled “Followers of Fagin: Secondary Sociopathy and Its Relationship to Anxiety”. Except…the dissertation is not available anywhere for critique. It doesn’t show up in Google Scholar nor on PubMed. This doesn’t mean she didn’t write it, although it is pretty unusual. However, in its unpublished state, no one can read it to evaluate it.
Her diagnosis: Fun fact - sociopathy is not a recognized disorder in the latest edition of the DSM, the so-called “bible” of psychology that lists diagnostic criteria for every psychological disorder and condition. The DSM is far from infallible, and even a cursory glance into its history would tell you as much6. That being said, how exactly can one have a diagnosis that doesn’t…exist? Gagne would argue that the condition that replaced sociopathy, Anti-Social Personality Disorder, doesn’t fit her exactly, and that “sociopathy” fits her better. Ok…but we can’t just go around self-diagnosing with any old terms because we don’t like the ones used by modern medicine. Labeling disorders is problematic, I fully agree, and no one likes to be put into a bucket that doesn’t quite fit them. The reason we do it, from a public health perspective, is that we need a system to categorize the human psyche so that we can direct treatments and funding towards folks who need it. If you have a better way to do it, the health provider community would embrace it with open arms. Until then, grouping people together who can benefit from similar treatments and programs is the best way we know to connect them with the experts and resources they need on a large scale.
Her motives: At one point in the book, Gagne laments that there are those out there who claim to be sociopaths, but are not truly one, which she feels dilutes the severity of the diagnosis and makes it hard to connect true sociopaths with resources (see previous point). She dubs these folks “fauxciopaths”. Cute enough. But then…she is attempting to trademark the term. Come now, Patric. Do you really want to help sociopaths by separating them from those who are using the term glibly, or are you trying to make a buck?
Ironic Mental Health Break
That was a lot of negativity with no images, so here’s something to right the scales.
5 Star/1 Star
Aly Lauck gives 5 stars on Goodreads:
First of all, I rated this 5 stars because I rarely rate books that are so personal and intimate under that. Having said that, I’ve read other reviews that allude to the fact that the author’s credentials may not be worthy of doctorate degree status. I’m not going to delve into accreditation or lack thereof. My focus is primarily on the content of this book.
Ah, come on Aly. Live a little.
I’ve referenced this a few times, but Alexandra Jacobs from the New York Times gives a negative (unstarred) review (emphasis mine):
I have little problem with “Sociopath” as a porthole into the unusual mind of one woman — albeit a smudged porthole; she admits to changing names, dates and details. It’s when Gagne swerves the wheel of that purloined auto into the scholarly realm, speeding through the psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley’s 1941 seminal work on psychopathy, “The Mask of Sanity,” and topics like cognitive behavioral therapy, that sweat begins to bead on my boringly neurotypical forehead…This is an important topic, treated too flightily: begging for peer review, not book review.
Well said.
Final Thoughts
This review is already way longer than most, so I’m skipping a few bits I normally put in so you can go about your day. My bottom line: Sociopath is an interesting premise from a unique source with some deep flaws that can’t be ignored. Gagne would have been so much better served to hire an accomplished writer to interview her and write a story about her life, rather than do it herself. As it stands, Sociopath is a mediocre memoir with questionable legitimacy and motivation.
Rating
I really am an optimist when it comes to these reviews. I try to find the good even in books I didn’t like. But…its the rare book that I find unskillful but also angering. Sociopath gets a point for originality, but that’s about it. Sociopath gets 1 out of 5 DSM-5s, and it should feel lucky to get that much.
I could only find her age listed as 48 in 2024, so at time of this writing she might be 48 or 49.
She does note how difficult it is to find others, and more on why that might be soon, but also doesn’t make any effort to actually do it.
Other great phrases to describe this type: Affluenza, luxury martyr, the tortured elite, burdened baller, the weary wealthy.
Gagne’s father is the successful music industry executive Gerry Cagle
A pseudonym but some online have guessed that it might be John Mayer or Beck.
Earlier editions listed homosexuality as a disorder, for example.
A bit too comprehensive for my liking, but superbly written. I’ll skip this sociopath. The govt seems to be full of them right now!