The Mask of Sanity
The Mask of Sanity, 1982 edition
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| Author | Hervey M. Cleckley |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Psychopathy, mental disorders |
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Publication date
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1941 |
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The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues About the So-Called Psychopathic Personality is a book written by American psychiatrist Hervey M. Cleckley, first published in 1941, describing Cleckley's clinical interviews with patients in a locked institution. The text is considered to be a seminal work and the most influential clinical description of psychopathy in the twentieth century. The basic elements of psychopathy outlined by Cleckley are still relevant today. The title refers to the normal "mask" that conceals the mental disorder of the psychopathic person in Cleckley's conceptualization.
Cleckley describes the psychopathic person as outwardly a perfect mimic of a normally functioning person, able to mask or disguise the fundamental lack of internal personality structure, an internal chaos that results in repeatedly purposeful destructive behavior, often more self-destructive than destructive to others. Despite the seemingly sincere, intelligent, even charming external presentation, internally the psychopathic person does not have the ability to experience genuine emotions. Cleckley questions whether this mask of sanity is voluntarily assumed to intentionally hide the lack of internal structure, but concludes it hides a serious, but yet imprecisely unidentified, semantic neuropsychiatric defect. Six editions of the book were produced in total, the final shortly after his death. An expanded fifth edition of the book had been published in 1976 and was re-released by his heirs in 1988 for non-profit educational use.
In the 1800s, Philippe Pinel first used the French term manie sans delire ("mania without delirium") to designate those individuals engaging in deviant behavior but exhibiting no signs of a cognitive disorder such as hallucinations or delusions. Although the meaning of the term has changed through numerous writings on the subject over time, the writing of Cleckley and his use of the label "psychopath" in The Mask of Sanity brought the term into popular usage.
The first edition was published in 1941, with the subtitle then being 'An attempt to re-interpret' rather than as later 'to clarify'. Cleckley says in the preface that the book "grew out of an old conviction which increased during several years while I sat at staff meetings in a large neuropsychiatric hospital." He added that after commencing full-time teaching duties he found similar patients to be as prevalent in a general hospital, outpatient clinic and the community. In later editions he explains that the basic concepts presented in 1941 were based primarily on "adult male psychopaths hospitalized in a closed institution" for several years. Cleckley had worked for a number of years at a United States Veterans (military) Administration hospital, before taking up full-time teaching responsibilities at the University of Georgia School of Medicine.
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