Normalizing Sociopathy

Why This is a Very Bad Thing (and why it just might be another grift)

If you haven’t heard of Patric Gagne, she would like you to know she is a sociopath.

NYTimes | Photo Illustration by Bráulio Amado

Gagne first popped up on my radar when I read her Modern Love column in 2020, “He Married a Sociopath: Me.” That piece generated a lot of buzz when it came out. She is one person described her: “young, blond, smart and a fantastic marketer - a publisher's dream.” The buzzy Modern Love column and her ability to market herself resulted in a lucrative (reportedly “a six-figure pre-empt”) book deal with Simon & Schuster, for the forthcoming memoir, Sociopath: A Memoir, due out in April. On February 23, the New York Times ran an extensive interview with Gagne, conducted by reporter David Marchese for their Talk section.

Gagne, who says she works as a therapist in California, self-identifies as a sociopath. In the interview with Marchese, she explains:

“Sociopathy is a perilous mental disorder; the traits (NYT note: Traits may include lack of remorse, deceitfulness and a disregard for the feelings of others as well as right and wrong) associated with sociopathy aren’t great. But that only tells part of the story. The part that’s missing is you can be a sociopath and have a healthy relationship. You can be a sociopath and be educated. That’s a very uncomfortable reality for some people. People want to believe that all sociopaths are monsters and that all monsters are easy to spot.”

In the rest of the interview, which can best be described as a puff piece, Marchese never presses on Gagne about her credentials, her practice, or her background. Instead, Marchese asks a series of questions that takes Gagne’s premise — that sociopathy should be included as a spectrum disorder like autism — at face value. I want to make it clear that I fully support neurodivergent folks being recognized and getting their needs accommodated. However, expanding the definition of spectrum disorder so that it includes sociopathy is incredibly pernicious for society as a whole because it makes being a sociopath into a medical condition that deserves not treatment or cure, but accommodation.

Normalizing sociopathy is to capitulate to the meanest, coarsest, most self-centered idea of what it means to be human and then excuse all of it because it makes an entry in the DSM. The thing is, ‘sociopath’ is a colloquial term often heard on reality television. The clinical and more accurate term is antisocial personality disorder and the symptoms include disregard for others, a lack of empathy, and dishonest behavior. Strangely, Gagne never discusses the clinical definition of the disorder and isn’t drawing on extensive research or case files. Hers is an N of 1, as she is the sole author and subject of ‘what it’s like to be a sociopath.’

There’s been a slew of research in recent years on the antisocial personality traits of those in the C-suites of corporate America, like this, this and this. I mean, it makes sense that racial capitalism requires, cultivates, and rewards antisocial personality traits. All that individualism, careerism and selfishness. Of course, capitalism rewards that. Add a dollop of whiteness to further drive home the idea that you are only responsible for yourself in this life, and well, you can see what this has done to us, with antisocial billionaires ruining the planet for the rest of us. But in Gagne’s worldview the antisocial are all just misunderstood and in need of more compassion and accommodation. This is the logical end of that Oprah-inspired the admonishment to “put your own oxygen mask on first” when thinking about how to prioritize in an emergency.

It won’t surprise anyone reading here that I think it’s significant a nice white lady is the avatar for accepting sociopathy as a spectrum disorder. Part of what’s catnip for outlets like the New York Times is that the hook here is that it’s a woman who is admitting to her lack of empathy. If a cisgender dude stood up and wanted to write a memoir about his inability to feel a range of emotions that includes caring for others, I doubt that he would be rewarded with a Modern Love column and subsequent book deal. I imagine the collective response to be a shrug. Now, if this hypothetical dude were to be so devoid of care for others that he serially murdered several OR that he embezzled his circle of friends and family for billions of dollars to support his lavish lifestyle, then the publishing and movie rights would flow. The fact that she is a woman is part of why people find it compelling, because it works against type, and Gagne knows this.

In the interview with Marchese, Gagne talks about being a mother,

As a woman — forget my personality type — you’re inundated with all these images: Your child is born, it’s incredible. I did not experience that. I didn’t have that immediate baby is born, I’m overwhelmed with love. It was, I don’t know this person. This person is very loud! That connection just isn’t there. It’s not innate. But over time, you can build it.

Here, she’s both invoking the stereotype of women as inherently nurturing and caring, then rejects it to insert a different narrative of love as a kind of rational choice.

What neither Marchese nor Gagne address is the fact that this narrative about motherhood is steeped in whiteness. The popular imagery of the mother who “overwhelmed with love” at the birth of her child is really only about certain women, and places a particular kind of woman at the center of what scholar Raka Shome calls “global motherhood.” In this configuration, white womanhood is the source of goodness, nurturing, health, even life itself.

Princess Diana, unnamed child, Lahore, Pakistan 1996 | Photo: Anwar Hussein

When Princess Diana was photographed holding a series of dark-skinned orphans in the 1990s, she was seen as having some intrinsic power to save and to heal. This trope is repeated when Nicole Kidman, Susan Sarandon, Angelina Jolie, and other white women celebrities are named UN “goodwill” ambassadors and photographed with Black and Brown children around the world. Some kinds of women are not celebrated as global mothers in popular culture, women whose bodies are viewed as lacking desirability and civility, such as the “white trash” woman, the lesbian woman, the nonwhite woman, the non-Western woman. These women do not, indeed cannot, represent the purity associated with an idealized white, reproductive body, like the one Gagne inhabits.

But should we believe her story?

In the interview with Marchese, Gagne talks a lot about the lack of empathy and disregard for the feelings of others, but very little about the dishonest behavior. In her 2020 essay, she writes about knowing when her husband is lying because basically she’s a much better liar than he is, but for some reason Marchese never pushes her about her dishonesty.

There’s plenty to be cautious about here. There isn’t a therapist in California with the name “Patric Gagne” registered to practice. There is another Dr. Patricia Gagne, but she is a well-regarded sociologist. Some sleuths over on Reddit discovered that the therapist registered to practice under the name Patricia J. Cagle may be the same person as the author of the memoir. If that’s the case, then it might make sense that she wants to conceal her identity to protect her kids, but it does raise more questions than it answers. If Cagle/Gagne are one and the same, the therapist Cagle lists an MA as her highest credential, while the writer Gagne claims to have a PhD (no date listed) from the “California Graduate Institute of The Chicago School of Professional Psychology,” which from the website appears to be a mostly online school that offers a PsyD but not a PhD in Clinical Psychology (the degree Gagne says she holds).

Is it all a grift? It wouldn’t surprise me, but I can’t say for sure.

If Gagne is conning people, then part of the con is the way that she plays on the trope of white women’s innocence. It’s the whole reason we watch those shows like Bad Vegan, Inventing Anna, or The Dropout, the hook is always the same: white ladies grifting, shock! You mean to tell me, she’s white AND a lady, AND she did crimes!?! How will I make sense of my world now?

And, if Gagne isn’t conning us, if she really is someone with an antisocial personality disorder, then I’m still not that interested in her story. If true, then it’s her story to tell. But I’m not sure that she as someone with a condition she herself describes as “perilous” and traits that “aren’t great” is the best guide for how, as a society, we should respond, and yes care for, such people.

To me, it’s very similar to the questionable (and unethical) strategy of relying on former neo-Nazis to inform research and policy about how to combat the far right. It doesn’t help address the problem and the people who get elevated as spokespeople - through positions, book deals and speaking gigs — do not have the greatest insight into their own behavior. Or, to return to the example of serial killers, interviewing may make for compelling drama (e.g., Clarice Starling) but it doesn’t actually work if the goal is to stop them.

Gagne’s push to expand spectrum disorder to include her definition of sociopathy sets up a dangerous precedent. The “put your own oxygen mask on first” is the motto of grifters and narcissists. If you want to take a lesson about the ethic of care from airplane safety announcements, the message you want there is one about “someone on this flight has a peanut allergy so please don’t open any nuts while we’re on this flight.” That’s what care, solidarity and mutual aid look like. But you won’t find any of that in Gagne’s message. If we follow her lead, it will pry open the worst Pandora’s Box ever because it will provide a ready excuse for the worst in human nature.

I, for one, am not buying what Gagne’s selling.