The Mask of Sanity. Hervey M. Cleckley

ordinary man does on finding himself in error. The fact that he had been, as admitted by himself, on the wrong track seemed in no way to stimulate him toward getting on another track. He impressed me as being this way about the most serious and practical matters, and no less so than in this small theoretical question. It was not hard to get the feeling that he had never been on any track at all, that he had not really been committed to his first proposition and so he had nothing to withdraw.

      This young man’s parents, in his absence, spoke of his having been an unusually loving and demonstrative child until he was about fourteen years old. “We worried,” his mother said, “because he was too considerate and affectionate. He never did anything wrong. He would do so many sweet, attentive little things to show us how he felt. He used to stay at home and seem to want to be with us so much that I thought it might not be good for him.”

      After fourteen a difference became discernible and finally striking. He gradually changed from being over attentive until, in recent years, he seemed cool and showed little convincing evidence of affection to his parents. He seemed to want to be out all the time. Though the parents felt uneasy about these changes, they reassured themselves. He did not drink and had the reputation of being very moral, “pure-minded” and proper. He was liked by his friends, did well but not brilliantly in school, and usually took the lead in superficial activities at clubs and social gatherings.

      Occasionally incidents arose that briefly alarmed the parents. The boy, when he wanted to have his way about small matters, sometimes seemed utterly unable to see the other side of a question. Once when his mother was physically indisposed and needed to get a number of articles downtown, he refused to help her, saying that he was going to the movies with another boy. His indifference struck her as extreme, and she not only suffered considerable inconvenience and discomfort but also sharp hurt. That night when, as usual, he wanted the family automobile, his father refused him, pointing out that he had not behaved toward his mother in a way to deserve this favor. He reacted, according to his parents, as if an arbitrary and vicious injustice had been done him, showing what looked like a quiet indignation, politely controlled in its grosser aspects but consistent with what one might feel who is for no fault provoked and deeply wronged. Both parents felt that they had often given in to him too much.

      On another occasion when he had shown unwillingness to put himself out in even the smallest degree for the comfort of his mother, who was then recovering from a serious attack of illness, his father had pointed out to him that his mother might have died and still was in danger. “Well,” he said, “suppose she did. Everybody has to die sometime. I don’t see why you make so much of it.” He seemed honestly surprised at his father’s reaction. In discussing this with me he still seemed to feel that the most important point in the matter was the factual correctness of his statement about mortality.

      Unlike most psychopaths, this case as yet shows relatively little obvious disturbance in his social situation. There is no trail behind him now of a hundred thefts and forgeries, repeated time after time in clear knowledge of the consequences. He has, in general, avoided outraging his friends and acquaintances by vividly antisocial acts or distasteful and spectacular folly. Many of his contemporaries smoke, swap bawdy jokes with gusto, sometimes get a little drunk, and not a few indulge in illicit sexual intercourse. Not doing these things, by which “goodness” or “badness” in people of his age is often judged by the community, he has acquired a considerable reputation for virtue. He goes to church regularly. All this tends to offset what negative qualities he has shown and makes it hard for his friends to realize things about him they might otherwise grasp. Though far from being truthful, his frank manner and his ability to look one in the eye without shame have so far concealed most of his serious shortcomings, not only from his parents but also from a fair percentage of his acquaintances.

      Many of Pete’s contemporaries do not, as a matter of fact, regard him as the excellent character and promising young man he appears in the eyes of his elders. He has no really close friends. Bound by no substantial attachments, he has, one might say, the whole of his time and energy for superficial relations and is able to cultivate many acquaintances with whom he is, in a sense, popular. He does not get close enough to anyone in true personal relations to be recognized well in his limitations or to be well understood. What little warmth he possesses is all on the surface and available to one and all. What he offers to the most casual acquaintance is all he could offer to friend, parent, or wife. In general he is accepted as a person representing virtue and manifesting affability. Having no serious interests or aims, he is free to devote more attention than others to social clubs and to young people’s organizations sponsored by school or church for moral purposes. It is easy for him to say the right things and go through the proper motions, for he has no earnest convictions or strong conflicting drives to cause confusion.

      Behind an excellent facade of superficial reactions that mimic a normal and socially-approved way of living one can feel in this young man an inner deviation, an emotional emptiness, comparable in degree with what seems to lie at the core of schizophrenia. He lacks, however, all the characteristics by which a diagnosis of schizophrenia is made. Not only are the gross and demonstrable symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations, absent, but there is no oddness, no peculiar inwardness and constraint, no abstruse stiffness of manner, or any of the other subtle, sometimes inexpressible, qualities and shadings that one can feel in the case of simple schizophrenia or in those called schizoid personality. He is, on the contrary, glibly sociable, utterly at his ease. He mixes readily and tends to lead in his group. There is nothing guarded and shy on the surface of his personality and probably nowhere within the range of his consciousness.

      Whether or not the formal diagnosis of psychopath is established in this case is a question I am willing to leave open. There is much in his conduct that would indicate such a disorder. It is not what he has done that points so strongly in this direction but how he feels and inwardly responds. When one deals with him directly he offers, more than the previous patients, an opportunity to sense at close range some of the attitudes one can often only surmise at a greater depth beneath the unaccountable conduct and the verbally and logically perfect front of the psychopath.

      CHAPTER 11. FRANK

      The following letter was received by an influential senator in Washington and referred by him to the hospital.

      Dear Sir:

      It is with regret that I find it necessary to seek consideration from higher authority but I have been confined in the Veterans Administration Hospital at ———, ———for two years.

      During my period of incarceration here I have tried in every available way to co-operate with the officials, but it seems an impossibility to get any consideration from them towards gaining my freedom.

      I was placed here on the recommendation of my sister because she thought I was a drug addict, and she has written some pretty nasty things against me to the officials here.

      I can prove to the satisfaction of all concerned that I am not a confirmed drug addict or habitual user of any form of drug sufficiently to warrant continuous confinement. I am not a criminal, nor had I the slightest minor charge of any description against me at the time I came here. The Staff here has rated me less than 10 per cent disabled and discontinued all government compensation; therefore, I believe you will agree with me that any man with a less than 10 per cent disability could not possess a physical or mental disorder sufficient to prevent his having his freedom and making his own livelihood.

      I am not even allowed parole privileges of the grounds as a great many of the patients here are. Some are continually violating institutional rules and still retain their parole privileges undisciplined.

      I have two children, who need my support and as long as I am kept incarcerated I can’t assist them in any way for I have no means other than my labor to support them,

      I hereby humbly request you to intercede in my behalf and demand these officials here to grant my release in order that I may be able to support my children to the best of my ability as is every man’s duty.

      There are quite a few men in these institutions that are nothing short of impositions on the government and taxpayers