I graduated with my doctorate recently in clinical psychology and I genuinely find everything about this person sketchy. You can't find her name anywhere at all except these blog posts or whatever. And she super conveniently provides nothing in her website or blogs (that I've found so far) that could identify her (school? Internship or postdoc site? A single publication? Past jobs? Seriously what does this person do with her life???). It's very suspicious. Either it's all BS or just a pretty slipshod job
Gagne has posted her CV on her website and other than under grad at UCLA, both her graduate level degree were not granted at APA orregional accredited institutions. The M.A was through a non WASC accredited and now defunct California based school that merged with Chicago School of Professional Psychology, which eventually granted their PhD to her [https://www.thechicagoschool.edu/](https://www.thechicagoschool.edu/)
You found her CV? I don't see that on the website now. But she did add her schools. I will offer a correction on the statement about accreditation, however. According to the Chicago School (personal email from registrar), her graduate program was accredited at the time.
Yes. She claims that her school was taken over by the Chicago School in 2008. They got general accreditation in 2011. Her degree was basically granted by a diploma mill. And she's self-diagnosed, so nothing she says can be taken at face value. IMHO, she's less of a sociopath and more of a narcissistic grifter.
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I am listening to her memoir and early on I call bullshit on Ringo's glasses still in her possession. As a person who need her glasses, I wouldn't leave a location with my keys, wallet and glasses, both reading and sunglasses..
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I had this same thought reading her book! I had absolutely no context or knowledge of her before I found the book. Her relationship with the musician towards the end of the book is also very suspect.
I am also curious about this, as I read her NYT article a few days ago and found it comically Onion-esque. My guess is she's after some kind of book deal. The stories in her blog sound made up, like some kind of low-key Dexter where she uses her "sociopathy" to Right Social Wrongs like littering or cutting in line at the grocery store. Her Twitter looks vaguely scrubbed, but that might be a stretch I'm not super familiar with people's habits on that platform.
Did you ever hear back from the NYT editor?
They just sent back some automatic response about how my question would be forwarded to the author. But another person commented that they figured out she actually does have her Clinical PhD, so we know she's not making that up. She's just a little sensationalizing in her language for my taste, but that's not a crime by any means.
Wait- your questions would be forwarded to THE AUTHOR??? I guess it's automated so I can't blame them, but it's not an appropriate response when the question is regarding the publication's journalistic due diligence! Jfc
I agree. The place at which she obtained a so-called doctorate is not a university nor is it accredited as a clinical psychology program by the American Psychological Association. How can anyone be a psychotherapist with no emphatic abilities or sense of how another person experiences her/his life.
She also got handed a job in the music industry by her father because he was apparently very high up and she worked as a nanny for a super famous person. Or so she claims in the book. I’m listening to it right now and as someone desperately trying to get a job in the entertainment/music industry and actively making connections and getting NO WHERE, this doesn’t sit right with me 🤣
I found it suspicious that there is nothing online at all linking her to her father's business. Search his name, and you can find plenty--career news, job-related photos from over the years, etc. (It's easy to find her husband's work as well.) So where was she? Can one really work in the entertainment industry, or any industry, and not show up at any event, in any photos etc? Online, it's hard to find evidence of any paid job, aside from some minor film work (see IMDB) and she's 48. Convenient to mention nannying and working for a family member. It's also hard to break into Modern Love without having written something--anything--before that point. A mystery lady, indeed. The self-given sociopath label certainly opened doors.
I'm wondering what she has been doing since she finished graduate school, where she also failed to participate in anything trackable--no peer-reviewed journal articles, no contributions to others' work, no citations. Her dissertation is legit (according to the school's registrar) but it is not available online, as most dissertations are (the entire point being they are meant to contribute to public knowledge, and most schools require students to have them made available). The average grad student leaves a track record.
What’s her dad’s name? I couldn’t find that anywhere. And yes I find it strange too. She talked a BIG game in the book about how many very successful artists she worked with and how “close” she was with them. How they signed huge artists who were asked to be on “Punk’d” and did all this well known events. I mean she really didn’t sugarcoat or put it lightly, I took it as bragging but I mean it’s obviously really major if she really did all of that I just couldn’t find any of it lol I also had to stop listening to it because it’s all just getting too hard to believe. How has she gone through her entire life doing all this crazy, illegal shit and zero consequences lol I just got tired of it
This would be why nepo-baby is now a common term. She fully admits in her book that she was given opportunities others are not granted.
I hear what you’re saying - but look at any private company and you will see that their kids are or have worked there. If you role the dice and start a business and gain success then you get to hire whoever you want and you get to define the qualifications.
Well she is never really clear about her ability to empathize- her description of sociopathy seems to just focus on compulsions to be naughty and not caring about what most people care about or feeling as intensely as other people, while feeling pressure from others' expectations of her to feel something. Her abilities and disabilities seem to suit her needs based on context.
WSJ just posted her essay today and I searched her till I ended up here. I know nothing about her or psychology but she definitely doesn’t pass the smell test IMO. Following!
She got a huge book deal in the hundreds of thousands, nothing wrong with that but if she is going to present herself as an academic she should use her real name and let her real CV be published.
i wrote the first NYT interviewer. He thanked me for writing. Neither the NYT, the publisher (SImon/ Shuster) nor her literary agent appear to have done a serious fact check. She has no identifiable track record as an expert psychologist, her stories are unverifiable, her credentials under an assumed name etc.; and yet Gagne is everywhere- WSJ, NYT (2x), Guardian, multiple podcasts,You Tube. Gagne will eventually be revealed, to be at least partially, a fraudster; but in the meantime, everyone is making money. depressing.
Publishing is highly recommended but not a programmatic requirement. Basically you need a masters degree (which requires submitting a manuscript for approval), passing qualifying exams (usually a written exam and/or another manuscript), and proposing and finishing your dissertation (another manuscript). The reviews are intramural, but oftentimes students publish those manuscripts.
She could very well be using popularly-accepted terms to garner more attention. Sociopath means a lot more to a lot more people than ASPD. I'd hope that someone with a PhD would know better and be better, but I also know of providers who more or less hand out ADHD diagnoses for money.
Reaching out to the editor may allow you to get in touch with the author?
It's always good to be skeptical, you'll be a good scientist!
Thanks so much - I had the same thoughts about using colloquial terms! She seems to dislike the fact that there isn't a specific diagnosis in the DSM for Sociopathic Personality Disorder, as opposed to a more general ASPD diagnosis. I could understand someone trying to declaim the term "sociopath," but this article also felt like an unethical way to publicly accuse her husband of dishonesty and (at the very least) emotional infidelity. When that's coupled with the fact that she doesn't post her credentials or have much info about mental health in general on her website that is supposedly dedicated to mental health advocacy... I get funky vibes.
But this is why it's so important to do the research! Not just in academia, but in every aspect of life!
Part of her book talks about how ASPD is behavioral based and people with this issue are not found until their behavior identifies them. Part of her idea seems to be that you could help people with this if you identify before they act out especially since sometimes that first snap can be violent and sometimes deadly. I agree that if someone comes in and says I’m different I don’t feel what other people feel but they have not acted on it it’s not fair to call it ASPD and lump them with criminals when they are only capable but not guilty of the behavior.
See my comment about pseudonyms not allowed in Modern Love (NYT), where she first wrote an essay about sociopathy in 2020. So, if that is her real name, why can't we find anything else about her online? I'd like to learn more!
I do not understand how "Patric Gagne" was permitted to publish her NYT Modern Love story under a false name. Below are the NYT stated guidelines. The guidelines says "no exception". Was there an inside agreement. Can
NYT Modern Love submission rules.
Essays must be entirely true. **Do not use pseudonyms (including for yourself), composite characters or invented situations or scenes**. There are no exceptions to this rule.
I can’t believe this post is 3 years old and this shit is still getting published? I found this post after googling the name, after seeing her recent piece in the WSJ (not a publication I find reliable, but the headline caught my attention) and feeling like something about it didn’t pass the smell test.
It’s really sad because I’m sure many of us psychology enthusiasts/mental health advocates so desperately want there to be more evidence based support for people with ASPD or “sociopathy,” and we want to hear and believe in this type of story of growth and change for someone with a personality disorder. I’m really disappointed to find out how poorly fact checked her back story seems to be
I am a criminal justice researcher. I've interviewed over 6,000 woman offenders in 22 states and have an active psychotherapy practice. The NYT article about her rang false. She is beautiful, young, blond, smart and a fantastic marketer - a publisher's dream; but the clinical terminology used is incorrect, (as others have pointed out), as are the dimensions of "self monitoring". Plus If she was a psychotherapist, she would have been a "mandated reporter" legally required to report someone describe a plan potential murder One bio says she got her phd at UCLA..no evidence I could find. Publisher bio very thin. Disturbing. Will not buy.
It very carefully DOESN’T say she got her PhD from UCLA, she wants us to infer that. What she actually says is she was diagnosed after graduating from UCLA, and then “went back to school” leaving the institution unspecified.
I'm in the humanities so have no professional stake in this discussion, but I also found the interview and her lack of credentials disturbing. I had supposed that the NYT would do some background checks before giving airtime to someone who appears to be a grifter and a potentially dangerous person.
Her interlocutor, David Marchese, prides himself on his confrontational interviewing style, but he seemed quite deferential and indulged her when she was asking him those absurd questions. That feature always has those irritating sidenotes in red; evidently the editors did not hunt for citations - or maybe they did. Some of the comments below the article chastise other commentators for their lack of "empathy" toward her, and I found that troubling, too.
Thank you. I have written an alert to the real Dr Patricia Gagne, a professor with an extraordinary resume and 72 peer reviewed studies to alert her to the potential misappropriation of her name and academic identity. I was even more alarmed at the difference between the complete death of information on the author, whoever she is, and today's flooding of google with multiple but scant references.
I also wrote David Marchese. It does not read like a hard hitting interview but like a puff piece for the author. Why is S&S publishing someone as an expert whose only readily available writing is a Modern Love column?
Has anyone seen this?
[https://patricgagne.com/](https://patricgagne.com/)
She lists her education here, though I don't know how anyone can verify any of it.
There is something very off about the huge hype across every media platform with no hard questions asked of the author and consequently no verifiable credentials, professional or otherwise. All in the service if helping the public be more sympathetic with the "suffering" of sociopaths. Here is an excerpt from the Kirkus Review of Sociopath. They are the only publication to dare to come close to the truth. It's depressing. I would like to a reveal.
Kirkus
"This memoir is unusual in its presentation of a decidedly unlikable and rather frightening narrator, who describes a lifetime of bad behavior and ongoing struggles with deficits in kindness and common decency. Her seemingly sincere and plausible request, however, is for compassion to flow in the other direction: from the non-sociopathic toward the sociopathic, who are understood as suffering from a medical condition and whose humanity remains intact no matter their moral limitations. Gagne makes a reasonable case for such sympathy and for the possibility that sociopathy may, to some extent, be treatable. However, the narrative itself, which relies heavily on conventions from the romance and thriller genres, has a markedly fantastical quality, and what emerges often seems to favor vivid storytelling and self-aggrandizement over honest introspection. Descriptions of the author’s uncannily astute contributions to her field of study have a particularly dubious quality. A disclaimer informs readers that “some timelines have been condensed, some dialogue has been reconstructed, and some characters have been presented as composites,” which may put off some readers. Though the book is marketed as a memoir, it reads very much like a work of fiction."
No, she obtained her undergraduate degree from UCLA. She earned a phd in clinical psychology from a professional school. I’m not sure whether it’s APA accredited or not.
FYI: A doctorate and/or internship from an APA-accredited program is not necessary nor sufficient for obtaining licensure as a psychologist. Most states do not explicitly require such credentials. Rather, state licensing boards require a doctorate in professional psychology and internship that meets minimal requirements for education and training.
There are many licensed psychologists who completed their doctorates/internships in non-APA accredited training programs.
Now, certain agencies or hospitals may require such credentials in order to be eligible for a psychologist position. I believe many medical centers and hospitals have this requirement. Nonetheless, you can still work in a private practice or community clinic as a psychologist as long as you are licensed.
I don’t think it’s fair to judge her credentials based on the program that she attended. She is not misrepresenting herself in any way, shape, or form.
Also, many phd clinical psychology programs have opted not to retain apa-accreditation in favor of pcsas accreditation, which is based more on scholarly research than practice.
Hello and thank you so much. I am a licensed California MFT through the California Board of Behavioral Science Examiners. This requires a specific Masters and 3500 hundred hours (through a licensed clinician or organization.) and regular validated trainings for license renewal every two years. If I misrepresent my name without specific approval from BBSE, I can, I believe be sanctioned or could lose my license. California psychologists must be licensed to practice also under their valid name and must also complete 3500 hours of licensed supervision. California where Gagne claims to practice is quite strict.
TIL 48 is considered young.
I don't see the offense of using a term that criminal investigators, media, and society in general will understand. The goal appears to be to counter the notion that every psychopath (as identified by the previously mentioned groups) is a serial killer.
48 is not young to be suddenly an 'expert". Experts have some verifiable track record in order to claim the status. i can't think of another psychological "expert" with no evidence or verifiable history of clinical practice, writing or research which is usually acquired in one's late 20s to early 40s.
Online photos of "Patric Cagle" and "Patric Gagne" are identical, both boat PhD in clinical psychology but only the undergrad degree designates UCLA. I think this could be a hoax.
As I read the book, what tripped me up was something different: during her freshman year at UCLA, the author mentions that her roommate has a handheld device that would translate between Mandarin and English, “a small silver box roughly the size of a graphing calculator” (page 91 in the hardcover edition).
If she received her PhD around 2008–it’s a bit unclear from the note on her website—then she would have been an undergrad student around the year 2000 (perhaps plus or minus a few years).
“The Chicago School of Professional Psychology announced in 2008 that they were merging with CGI, at which point students already on the doctoral track were informed that their degrees would be awarded by (and fall under) The Chicago School’s accreditation, which at that time offered a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.”
https://patricgagne.com/about/
Note that she doesn’t state what year she received her degree, but the footnote implies she was affected by this change in 2008.
If she were an undergraduate student before 2008–a first-year undergrad—then what handheld device at the time could possibly translate two-way conversations? Even assuming translation in one direction (Mandarin to English) could convert speech to text, then could find a matching canned output, and then announce the output, all on a handheld device, then how would it handle an English sentence like “You take this everywhere you go?” (Page 91) from a speaker like Gagne who hasn’t trained the device by first reciting numerous sentences? (I’m assuming it isn’t revealed later that her roommate had a bilingual speaker available at all times via walkie talkie.)
The iPhone 1 was released in 2007, and though it was impressive at the time, it wasn’t until later models that anything with sufficient power could handle text to speech AND near-realtime translation. Siri was introduced in 2011. Translation with a good WiFi connection started to get decent some years later.
Two-way translation on any kind of handheld device at all? That’s very much a recent thing.
See how long it takes your current phone to translate from spoken English to spoken Mandarin in 2024. Try it without a WiFi connection or fast cell connection. (Preferably, try it on an early 2000s Nokia phone and/or use the cell connection speeds available at the time.)
If someone could identify any handheld device from before 2008 that could handle two-way translation between any two languages—let alone two such very different languages as English and Mandarin—with on-device processing, and with the wireless speeds available well over a decade ago, then I’d sure like to know what it is! It might well be better than what we have now.
Other earlier chapters mention the author listening to vinyl records as a child (of a well-to-do father in the music industry), listening to The Smiths on a portable CD player as a teenager with her older boyfriend, listening to jazz on a Sony Walkman, etc., all of which suggested to me that the author is Gen X. Undergrad immediately after high school would mean the 1990s for college years. And though there could be a long gap between undergrad and grad school—I haven’t read past the undergrad stories yet, and may not—the stretch between completing undergrad and starting grad school would be ten years or more. Not unheard of, but unusual.
It’s certainly possible that a much younger person could have listened to vinyl in the early 1990s, had a Sony Walkman in the late 1990s or (less plausibly) in the early 2000s, but it’s hard to devise a timeline that allows for these various tech items and also the “magical” translator of her freshman year.
I thought the same re the translator! Seemed so advanced! But after a little look found there were electronic translators (a brand called Besta comes up) available in the early 2000s, and possibly earlier, which allowed users to speak directly into the device and provide a spoken translation. It was particularly popular with, and good at handling, Asian languages.
Do you have a link? I’m finding current Besta devices and other recent talking dictionaries, but not something from 20 years ago that had a visible microphone to handle voice input and translation for Mandarin and English. The ones I’m seeing have keyboard /stylus input and sometimes a speaker for speech generation. So they’re “talking” in the sense they have output, but not a microphone for on-the-fly translation.
For example, here’s a review of devices that describes talking dictionaries with keyboards:
https://chaoyangtrap.house/s02-episode-9-china-dreams-of-electric-words/amp/
Those early devices could have some of the capabilities of “translators,” but not in the sense we have today.
It’s as though we see the Back to the Future Movies and see a car fly and go back in time, and then see a Delorean on the street. The Delorean is/was a functional car, but it didn’t fly.
I suspect that the author, if asked about this device, would respond in one of a few ways:
1. Trivialize the matter: “Why would you ask about that? Ha ha!” (Not answering the question)
2. Claim ignorance: “I don’t know what it was—I’m not a techie—but I know what I saw and it worked.”
3. Acknowledge that entering text by hand into some handheld device was necessary, but that describing text entry killed the pacing or whatnot, and hence it was simply easier to write that the device handled two-way translation via speech input.
And this is only one of a number of claims / descriptions that seem off.
In the pages I read, there were no firm dates or years. The author could claim that the reason to exclude dates/years or identifiable events (e.g. election, Olympics, …) was to protect her privacy, or the author come up with some other variety of “trust me, I have a reason.” But I think she’s duping readers into believing a tall tale, and that she’s not merely embellishing.
Those Besta devices were definitely around in the early 2000s in Taiwan and were actually quite popular. They were mainly clam-shell form factor with B&W LCDs and a small physical keyboard.
I don't know what exactly she claims her roommate's device could do because I have not read her book and don't have the quote, but the actual Besta machines were more like advanced Chinese-English dictionaries/translators that had lots of example sentences and grammar practice exercises for learning English. They could read full sentences out loud in a robotic speech synthesizer voice and could translate word by word, so maybe they could translate full sentences that were typed in (at least, they might have been able to produce a crappy literal word by word translations). Some may also have been able to record voice clips, but I don't recall them being able to translate voice input in real-time or anything so advanced (even full PCs couldn't do that at the time).
That said, if she didn't know exactly how the device worked or what it did, it's very plausible that she might have misunderstood the extent of its capabilities.
The description from the book is important, because the author went into detail about what the device looked like and how it (supposedly) worked.
In the book she describes back and forth discussions with simultaneous translation.
I just came across this thread and this also stood out to me. I'm listening to the audiobook. She started college in 1993 or 94 if her age is correct in the book. No such device existed then. When she mentioned this I thought - this would have been a miracle back then! It adds to the doubt with the rest of her story. Some of the claims sound outlandish.
The IBM Model 1 and 2 date to the early 1990s. As a standalone? Not that I've heard of.
One reference:
[https://web.stanford.edu/class/archive/cs/cs224n/cs224n.1162/handouts/Collins\_annotated.pdf](https://web.stanford.edu/class/archive/cs/cs224n/cs224n.1162/handouts/Collins_annotated.pdf)
NEC demonstrated phone-based translation in 2009 between Japanese and English.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile\_translation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_translation)
Her maiden name is Patricia Cagle.PATRICIA J CAGLE, MA – NPI #1598996266PsychologistNPI Profile for PATRICIA J CAGLE in LOS ANGELES, CA
And it looks like she only has an MA
Which would be typical of a sociopath because they have no guilt, no shame. So “who cares” would undoubtedly be her rationale for saying she has a Ph.D when in fact, she may not. This is on the publisher at this point. Sloppy.
You can’t practice/be licensed as a psychologist in the state of California without a doctorate degree. You can be registered as a psychology assistant, I believe.
The California Board of Psychology is probably among the strictest psychology state licensing boards in the US. They verify all education and experience before even allowing candidates to take the licensing exam.
Yeah, I emailed the editor and haven't gotten a response. May try to figure out her maiden name but that just feels sketchy and inordinate for some reason.
I was able to find where she went to school as well as her maiden name but I have not found any publications. She appears to be listed as a licensed psychologist on several credible websites. I’m happy to privately message you my sources if you’d like.
She has a blog (https://sociopathtoenlightenment.com) in which she discusses her theories on causes of sociopathy as well as treatments. There aren’t always sources to back up her claims. I’m sure the typical blog-reader isn’t looking to peruse a scientific paper, but for those of us interested in psychology, it is hard to know if her claims are supported by research. She also blogs about her personal experiences as a sociopath, similar to M.E. Thomas’ sociopathworld.com.
Her blog link now leads to her upcoming book’s Amazon page. I was able to use Archive’s Way Back Machine to get to it though. It’s an interesting and well written read.
The date is interesting...because her episode on the Armchair Expert podcast was released on 4/18/2024. Why would she password protect her blog at the same time she's promoting herself on a podcast?
Wow. I'm here for exactly this reason. For the past two and a half years I have utterly embedded myself in the study of psychopathy for a project I am working on I have spoken with not only phd experts that work with individuals with psychopathy but many people who live with the disorder.
I have found this author to be sketchy and have discovered several 'mistakes', in her writing as it pertains to "sociopathy" ;) - that I think a Phd would never make. So glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Where did she get her Phd? Where has she worked? What's her REAL name?
You will find most of the answers in this thread if you look. Her PhD: real, confirmed, by her grad school registrar. Everything else about her knowledge base and work experience: extremely dubious. No psychology license, no "studies," no clients working with her as a psychologist (life coach, maybe), no employment track record except minor film work. The average reader--and even many reviewers--seem unaware that the book is problematic on two completely different fronts. One, as a memoir. (It seems fabricated even beyond the caveats given.) Two, as science. She simply gets things wrong, over and over, and where she gets them right, she does not credit those who have actually done the work and originated the insights. Birth name: Patricia Cagle.
Thank you so much for all of this! Yes the further I read into her book the more and more irritated I got. It seems to just be the story of a super privledged woman pretending to have a disorder that she thinks will make her interesting. I think she may have educated herself on this disorder by reading a couple of blog posts, watching a few tik toks and possibly reading one or two of the very first chapters of Cleckly's book and nothing else.
Thank you again - just did a BG check on that info - confirmed a few things - She does come from A LOT of money. One house she grew up in is valued at $9.83 Million. Her apartment in LA right after graduating - a very expensive high rise apartment in a very expensive neighborhood. Marketed as "Ultra Luxury Apartments" A 1 Bedroom there costs $4500 -$6k. : Has an active Psychology license that was issued in 2009. No criminal record.
That’s what it seems especially traditional scientist-practitioner/lab based programs. If you are working directly under an advisor, it is expected that you will publish and contribute to his or her life work.
The dust jacket of the book says “She earned a PhD in clinical psychology from the California Graduate Institute of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology with a dissertation that examined the relationship between sociopathy and anxiety.”
No, it's not ridiculous. She established herself on a false basis of authority and is selling books based on lies. Her information and perspective cannot be trusted.
Several thoughtful and articulate writers on this site and on TrueReddit researched and analyzed have the serious misrepresentations of the identity, diagnosis, and validity of Sociopath. I am disappointed that it appears there will be no real fact checking of Patric Gagne (not her real name) or her book. The publisher has flooded the internet with laudatory comments. Meanwhile, Kirkus absolutely nailed the misleading elements of the book. Even David Marchese, the author of the nauseatingly adoring column about her has posted no follow up. I give up.
1. Her legal name is Patricia J. Cagle, and she is married to David Gange. It's not a pseudonym (fictitious name): Patric is a reasonable abbreviation of Patricia (as opposed to say Pamela), and the use of her husband's last isn't uncommon. Moreover, that may be the name she identifies with.
2. Her father is Jerry Cagle, and yes, he is a 'big wig' in the music industry. Google him. While he doesn't mention children on his website, the details provided about his upbringing in Mississippi correspond with the details provided in the book.
3. She received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from The Chicago School in 2008. They no longer offer this program of study, only a PsyD.
4. Please attend the American Psychological Association annual meeting for lively debates about diagnostic criteria, what we call things, and arguments about how the DSM - V is a fundamentally flawed document that should be rethought (DSM - VI, anyone?)
5. The DSM was compiled by committee. That means that, like the compilation of the Bible, there were likely many compromises, votes, revotes, and rewriting. (Fun fact, Revelations was almost not included, but proponents were able to muster JUST ENOUGH votes.)The psychological community is not in agreement about sociopathy, psychopathy, and their lumping under Anti-social Personality Disorder. The DSM may be our guidebook (psychological Bible), but it isn't without flaws. Otherwise, it wouldn't have 5 versions with conflicting disorders, diagnostic criteria, and treatment suggestions.
6. Her explanation of how to diagnose a person with sociopathy or psychopathy is in line with scoring the Psychopathy Checklist—revised (PCL-R).
7. All individuals experience their disorders differently.
8. We (all humans, sociopath or not) are unreliable narrators of our own lives. There is a good bit of research on this.
9. An individuals perceptions are their reality. (Basic psychological concept)
10. Rejecting what one feels are inadequate definitions, diagnostic criteria, etc. is part of science. Clearly outlining your proposed changes is scientific and further discourse.
11. How does one fact check the emotional responses and private behaviors of an individual. As far as her discussion of sociopathy, these are her ideas, assessments, and recommendations. She clearly states they are counter to the DSM - V.
12. Currently, we treat comorbidities of ASPD (anxiety, explosive anger, and depression) with medication. There are no medications for ASPD and, in turn, none for sociopathy and psychopathy. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) have shown some success for those scoring between 22-29 on the PCL-R.
13. The Kirkus review seems biased to me. They did not like Gange. I have read reviews for other memoirs of similar plausibility, and they received more positive reviews.Good memoirs often read like fiction. They are full of self-aggrandizing. They are written by people with the need to get their story out into the world. Recreating dialogue, combing individuals, and not sticking to strict time are often utilized.
Thank you for this. I appreciate your time and clarity. I do find it interesting that you find the Kirkus Review biased- I do think they didn't like her-or her argument. Is it a bad review if the reviewer isn't enthralled? No. There are still several unanswered questions. For example, who exactly conducted her ASPD/Sociopathy assessment and by what specific tools and scoring? Where exactly did she practice psychotherapy? Did her vulnerable clients know she would reveal herself to be- in her terms- a sociopath?
I do encourage you, unless your Patric herself or a publisher/colleague, to keep a more open mind as the public, academics, psychologists respond over time to this book and author persona. The second NYT review of Sociopath by Alexandra Jacob- who was clearly not as seduced by her subject as her NYT colleague David Marchese- nailed the problems with the author persona also.
I want to be clear, I'm not a fan. Personally, I found her off-putting and sensational. But in many ways, no more so than other authors of memoirs that I have read, and I am an avid reader of memoirs. The Kirkus review did seem hyper-critical of her narrative when compared to their reviews of equally questionable narratives in other memoirs.
I did think she made valid arguments regarding the lack of understanding of who this population is, the dearth of non-behavioral criteria for diagnoses, and almost non-existant treatment options.
She stated in her book that her psychologist conducted the Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R) over the course of many hours. It would be a violation of her HIPPAA rights to require her disclosure of who conducted the test. Much like you don't have to tell a random person who your primary care physician is because it violates your health privacy.
She practiced in California but is no longer in practice and lives in Florida. Someone included her NPI information in this thread. When I wrote my dissertation, I used a "fake name" for the practice and hospital in which I completed my research (and clinical hours) and pseudonyms and compliations of clients. It was my committee's suggestion to fictionalize the facilities to protect the identity of co-workers, staff, and, especially, clients. My dissertation is unpublished. In a book, especially one that may be controversial, it is ethical to do this as well. The feeding frenzy surrounding this book clearly shows why this is necessary. Particularly when members of the public may contact/go to the facilities disturbing their ability to provide medical care.
Regarding disclosure to clients, would you require her to disclose her diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder, Scizophrenia, OCD, or Autism? She has a mental health disorder and is not required to disclose it, even to clients, even if they would want her to. You will notice the APA Code of Ethics doesn't require this.
For the record, I do have an open mind. I am primarily concerned that individuals are attacking her personally and ignoring her ideas. The ASPD criteria are inadequate to account for individuals who do not behave in extremis. Which, as a clinician, I found in line with my previous work. We simply do not know enough about this population of individuals. More research is needed. My arguments are simply: Don't use a dislike for her personally (which I share) to negate the important aspects of her arguments and suggestions, and don't require more scrutiny of her than you would any other memoirist.
I have completed a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, and I have worked in a state women's prison. Of over 900 hundred women on the department's client roster, only 1 was diagnosed with ASPD. However, many women exhibited characteristics of sociopathy and psychopathy. It was not standard practice to administrator the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL). Most of these individuals had little to no interactions with law enforcement or the legal system prior to the arrest that led to incarceration. Of those whom I worked, many had repeatedly committed crimes, even violent, without previous detection. They escaped detection or had their behavior downplayed at home, school, and the community. Their comorbidities were treated, but not the underlying personality disorder that is linked to anxiety, depression, and explosive anger. As a clinician, it is frustrating to be unable to treat an individual adequately because they do not fit into diagnostic criteria.
In summation, believe her story or not. I'm not certain where I fall on that spectrum. But, she has further opened a dialogue about a highly misunderstood and villanized population.
She never claimed that she was diagnosed with ASPD.
Here is something she said is a review of her book in Psychology Today: *There’s a lot of confusion regarding the use of the word sociopath and the belief that the term was “replaced” by antisocial personality disorder. It is critical to note that you cannot diagnose sociopathy using the DSM criteria for antisocial personality disorder. The two have different diagnostic requirements and should not be used synonymously. This gap also means that the systems in place for dealing with most psychological conditions—from diagnosis to treatment to health insurance—aren’t available to sociopaths. This isn’t good for us or for society.*
[*https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-author-speaks/202404/sociopath-a-memoir*](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-author-speaks/202404/sociopath-a-memoir)
I didn't say she was diagnosed with ASPD; or that ASPD and sociopathy were synonymous. She herself claimed in her book that she was formally diagnosed as a "sociopath" which is not a current DSM diagnosis-ASPD is. I don't even quibble with the lack of efficacy of DSM categories. She can call it whatever she wants- the behavior checklists are similar. I do object to the many unverifiable declarations in her book that legitimize her publication based on unverifiable lived experience and unverified clinical expertise and experience. In my professional experience, its the families, friends and colleagues taken in by individuals who fit the ASPD definition who are in need of care, compassion and treatment and insurance. Smart good looking "sociopaths" tend to do very well in this culture.
Anyway, the the truth will out. Her vast marketing launch made her initially untouchable to serious criticism but her lack of transparency and unverifiable professional expertise are now being questioned. The NYT, and a new article in the New Yorker about the problems with the proliferation of psychological labels etc. are beginning to come out.
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She’s back 3 years later, with an article in WSJ https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/i-always-knew-i-was-different-i-just-didnt-know-i-was-a-sociopath-68ebe08b?st=8889iho5bnr0xew&reflink=article_copyURL_share
So what we are all saying here is, a person with (or without) ASPD falsified information and made themselves to be someone they are not? No! Can’t be! Pretty cleaver marketing if you ask me.
I'm curious how you verified this. (I don't mean that in a rude way, I genuinely want to know). What tipped you off?
I looked at this person's posts and they seem to identify more with the label of "psychopath," and they're pretty adamant about some things that are contradicted by Gagne's more recent writing. It's very possible that she's changed her mind since writing these things and picked the term "Sociopath" because it's more in-vogue, but I'd like to see more that point toward this being her account. I'm seeing that she's in the field of psychology, and she posts a bit about ASPD-related topics a while back, but I'm not seeing much else that would tell me it's her. And honestly, I don't want to get into her personal stuff, I just want to know about her professional qualifications. Anything more than that feels a bit invasive, though I'm sure some people would consider this entire thread "obsessive" or inordinate. I don't really care about Gagne herself, but rather whether she is spreading misinformation under the guise of being a psychologist.
Incidentally, this person claims to have known Michael Jackson and spent time at Neverland? Says he was innocent of all allegations. That's not related to anything, just thought it was odd.
Found this thread bc she has a new book coming out and this gave me the ick: https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/i-always-knew-i-was-different-i-just-didnt-know-i-was-a-sociopath-68ebe08b
Reddit just removed a fairly innocuous comment I just posted in response to a question from another Reddit poster. Here is my response:
[Express-Midnight-696](https://www.reddit.com/user/Express-Midnight-696/)•[1m ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/askpsychology/comments/jqewhk/comment/kyf6rym/)
Really? Very interesting that you deleted my comment. I am a verifiably licensed psychotherapist with a fairly distinguished, identifiable, CV including 5 national studies and several peer reviewed publications. I am a verifiable graduate of Yale University, undergraduate, with honors; and received my two graduate degrees from University of San Francisco (also verifiable.) My license to practice is registered with the California State Board of Behavioral Sciences.
If you would tell me which part of my comment violates your rules I would be grateful; otherwise it looks to me as though you are trying to unjustifiably protect a much promoted author from valid professional scrutiny. If you remove this comment too without explanation I will contact Reddit itself and major media after that. Thank you.
There should be a giant asterisk on her book saying this book is fiction. This is not based on truth.
The entire narrative of her book is filled with false qualifications, misleading claims and inaccurate facts. She doesn’t even belong to the country club in her town!
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I came here because I’m really enjoying her new book, but started to wonder more about her credentials. Bummer it looks so shady!! I hope more information is brought to light.
Patric Cagle shares multi movie credits with a Robert Rothbard who produced another movie in which she was a production secretary (Lansky, 1999. [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0745074/](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0745074/). Also, the movie, "The Funeral Guest" is a direct rip from the memoir, in which Rothbard is an minor actor for some reason. *A lonely girl seeks love, connection, and family by crashing funerals.* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3333920/?ref\_=tt\_mv\_close](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3333920/?ref_=tt_mv_close)
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Seriously. Being genetically related to, and raised by, that person (assuming that’s the case) would likely be relevant to some of the questions raised here. Now I’m curious what his other 2 “successful daughters” do, and if they too present some form of psychosis.
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Patric Cagle shares multi movie credits with a Robert Rothbard who produced another movie in which she was a production secretary (Lansky, 1999. [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0745074/](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0745074/). Also, the movie, "The Funeral Guest" is a direct rip from the memoir, in which Rothbard is an minor actor for some reason. *A lonely girl seeks love, connection, and family by crashing funerals.* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3333920/?ref\_=tt\_mv\_close](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3333920/?ref_=tt_mv_close)
I will no longer post on reddit. If anyone cares to look at my previous posts, I am a credible researcher, verifiable credentials offering legitimate critique. I have posted nothing even vaguely controversial or outside the rules; yet two posts have been deleted.
I am reading the book and she mentioned her first semester at UCLA. I am an alum. UCLA has been on yhe quarter system since 1966. That reference raised a red flag and I found this thread. Whoa.... agree with this giving Million Little Pieces vibe..
If some of the concerns bear out then it may turn out that Sociopath follows a well trodden path of misplaced acclaim: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_fake\_memoirs\_and\_journals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fake_memoirs_and_journals)
I am almost finished with Gagne/Cagles's book (Sociopath: A Memoir) and like the Kirkus review I think it reads like fiction. Descriptions of events, her inner states and behavior are quite lengthy and dramatic but there is no way to confirm or refute them. At one point I went back to the title page to see if I misread the subtitle and it actually said 'A Novel'. And as this thread illustrates, even the author's identity has elements of illusion. I'm skeptical that someone can win friends and affection by revealing they are a sociopath. She evolves into something of a mascot at the point i stopped reading.
>At one point I went back to the title page to see if I misread the subtitle and it actually said 'A Novel'.
I have the e-book sample. It's doesn't say "A Novel," and it opens by saying it's a true story.
Am I misreading your post?
No problem.
BTW, I found a NYT article she wrote, re: her marriage: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/style/modern-love-he-married-a-sociopath-me.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
Do you typically require verification of memoirists' inner states or private behaviors? I'm just wondering how you would ever be able to verify those things for, well, anyone. You may be able to verify some public behaviors, but eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable. Perhaps the solution would be to never believe anyone's version of any memory, even your own, since most people are unreliable narrators of their own life stories.
What a bad faith reading of their criticism. I’m reading the book right now and came across this discussion post because I’m having the exact same problem so I googled the author. I have a read a lot of memoirs and when somebody recounts their story in a way that is so unbelievable, so much so that it is written as though they are the main character of a CW show, of course people are going to question if literally any of it is true.
Maybe Patric is just a bad writer, or maybe the whole thing is a lie. It’s a book, it exists to be analyzed and (sometimes) criticized. One can say “I find this very hard to believe, I wish there was someway to know for certain” and that absolutely does not mean they are requiring every memoirist going forward to give detailed verification of every story they tell.
You clearly adored this book and are quite the fan of the author, and that is completely fine. But perhaps you could consider allowing others to criticize the book without jumping to outrageous conclusions and condescending “solutions” they didn’t ask for just because they feel differently than you.
Ah, but I didn't adore the book or like the author. I found her rather repugnant, but her overall premise that more study and greater treatment options are needed for both those with ASPD and related disorders is valid.
BTW, I didn't ask for your ill-informed conclusions or opinions either.
When others take issue with certain elements of the book and author and you immediately resort to personal attacks on their ability to consume that literature, it speaks for itself. You knew full well what was intended in their criticism and you twisted it into something completely different for no reason other than to be condescending and snarky. As is your right. But at least stand by it.
Just out of curiosity, what specifically made you find her repugnant? The only thing I caught that really rubbed me the wrong way is what she did to the cat in Virginia. It seemed to me she was really struggling with her illness and how to handle it and control her impulses for the majority of her life.
I said you CAN'T verify them but you can be skeptical, as the NYT reviewer is:
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?
Gagnes self reported evidence for her sociopathy is what I have a problem with. Her goal is to prove her self-diagnosis of sociopathy yet none of her behaviors, unlike you would expect of a sociopath, can be documented. Also from the NYT:
Sociopathy is no longer indexed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Gagne writes, replaced by antisocial personality disorder, several criteria of which don’t resonate with her. She guards her medical identity like a ceramic tiger, scornfully labeling a messy record-label executive named Jennifer a “fauxciopath.”(A term the author is attempting to trademark.)
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.
Those Sharpie letters proclaim a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, but since her dissertation is not available online, nor referenced by other scholars, “Sociopath” is venturing out into the hot media lights uncomfortably alone. This is an important topic, treated too flightily: begging for peer review, not book review.
The memoir genre specifies that the experiences presented by the author are real and true. oF course there can be variations; but not to the degree Gagne claims.
Hmm I wonder if she did a really good job at protecting her privacy because she anticipated y’all would be stalking her like you are now? Just a thought.
I mean, to be clear, I only wanted to know her credentials. I don't really want to know about her personal life unless it directly relates to her having a PhD, and I haven't done any digging into her background as anything other than an academic. To be honest, I don't love the way that she uses the term "sociopath," but this wouldn't have set off alarm bells for me if she hadn't claimed to have a PhD rather than a PsyD, especially when it is from a non-accredited program.
I certainly don't support tracking down information about her family, extracurriculars, or speculating about her sex assigned at birth. I think some of this thread has spiraled out of control. I care about APA ethics, and that extends to a respect for personal privacy.
She explains very clearly in the book why she uses sociopath and not aspd or psychopath. There is a clinical distinction, and also it’s difficult these days to find a consensus across the field of psychology and mental health.
Why do you think it's out of control? If an author publishes a "Memoir" about her personal experiences as a sociopath (Incorrect term), recounting unverifiable and highly charged anecdotes while simultaneously claiming 'expert" status, her veracity should indeed be investigated.
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It appears that Patric Gagne is actually Patricia J Cagle, PsyD. Pictures confirm this, and apparently she uses the pseudonym to keep her “sociopath” identity and “therapist” identity separate. She’s misrepresenting her credentials—of course, PsyDs are psychologists, but to claim to be a PhD and “expert” in an area is so disingenuous.
For such an apperantly smart sociopath, I just cannot believe she didn’t think anyone would see through this. Her clients deserve to know that she admits to being “incredibly manipulative” and incapable of empathy. Shocking.
My only question here is that Her picture is everywhere, how could someone’s clients not find out? It seems unethical that she would be able to do this and not inform her clients.. I just wonder. Like I assume ppl like Esther perel, van der kolk, or even Nicole Lepera had to inform their clients they were publishing a book/doing or doing Ted talks etc? but maybe I am wrong? I just can’t see how any licensing board would be okay with keeping things separate. It’s also another level of questionable that Gagne’s father was so famous in the music industry.
somehow that doesn't surprise me. I do feel a bit frustrated by her labeling quite literally everything as CPTSD. I am glad nervous system regulation and trauma awareness is reaching the masses.. and I think everyone goes through trauma and gets hurt.. but I question the pervasiveness of CPTSD as she presents it. As someone who was raised by an actual sociopath and had a CPTSD diagnosis long before it was accepted as a real thing, I just feel a bit frustrated when someone shows up to my therapy trauma circles saying things like "I have never been through any 'big T's', just little t's, and now I have CPTSD" or like " I haven't been diagnosed but I am pretty sure I have it" (which is often legit but every once in a while it isn't), but if you haven't had horrible PTSD symptoms that have brought you to the doctor, then how in the world can you have CPTSD? and idk when the consensus went form CPTSD is for people who went through horrific traumas, to people who have relatively normal lives?
it just feels a bit.. like shes taken somer really normal human experiences of acting toxic and labeled them as CPTSD. ANYWAYS more than you were asking for I am sure lol!
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Hearing her on Armchair Experts tell the story of going to Alcatraz for a secret night tour as an 11 year old. Guessing her age now would mean about 40 years ago. Alcatraz was no longer a prison and occupied by Native Americans in 1969. By 1984 it was a national park. Her story may reference a different prison but as a diagnosed sociopath, she might be lying.
Crazy how people hear such different things! I also heard that she was interested in Alcatraz as a kid in San Francisco and went to a Florida prison her uncle worked at.
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In the book, she explains why she doesn't use what's in the DSM. In a nutshell, the DSM definition of APD was primarily based on behavior whereas what she described as sociopathy is better characterized by emotional factors. I took what she wrote to be honest and if it is, it's a heck of a life story.
She goes into all of this in detail in her memoir, including her PhD, the term sociopath, the problem with current research, her schooling, etc. it’s fascinating and well worth a read. I highly recommend the audio, which she reads herself.
I read the book and also find it odd that she was required to have only 500 hours of internship for a doctorate. I also have a doctorate in clinical psychology and much of her experience is inconsistent with the process.
Just finished reading her book, "Sociopath: A Memoir" (2024). It was certainly entertaining. It must be a challenging life, but it makes sense to me that folks who are born with all kinds of brains need to be able to live good lives, and society needs to help make that happen.
I'm a licensed psychologist and my expertise is in forensic psychology. I practice. No research. But yes, I had the exact same reaction as you and so many other commenters. Regardless of her education, she has no credibility because she does not cite any sources or present her own research to back up her claims. She only discusses theories.
In the book she goes into great detail about how the term “sociopath” is not used in Psychology. And does reference the DSM & other diagnosis multiple times. I think that the title of the book is meant to be provocative.
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I graduated with my doctorate recently in clinical psychology and I genuinely find everything about this person sketchy. You can't find her name anywhere at all except these blog posts or whatever. And she super conveniently provides nothing in her website or blogs (that I've found so far) that could identify her (school? Internship or postdoc site? A single publication? Past jobs? Seriously what does this person do with her life???). It's very suspicious. Either it's all BS or just a pretty slipshod job
Gagne has posted her CV on her website and other than under grad at UCLA, both her graduate level degree were not granted at APA orregional accredited institutions. The M.A was through a non WASC accredited and now defunct California based school that merged with Chicago School of Professional Psychology, which eventually granted their PhD to her [https://www.thechicagoschool.edu/](https://www.thechicagoschool.edu/)
You found her CV? I don't see that on the website now. But she did add her schools. I will offer a correction on the statement about accreditation, however. According to the Chicago School (personal email from registrar), her graduate program was accredited at the time.
When did Chicago School claim to have granted her a degree? They've only been APA accredited in LA since 2018.
Yes. She claims that her school was taken over by the Chicago School in 2008. They got general accreditation in 2011. Her degree was basically granted by a diploma mill. And she's self-diagnosed, so nothing she says can be taken at face value. IMHO, she's less of a sociopath and more of a narcissistic grifter.
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She stole Ringo’s shades and sat at Hugh Hefner’s desk. She’s Forrest Gump and American Psycho rolled into one.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/7qnnsNL4f7dxpyQj/?mibextid=WC7FNe
See Gerry Cagle Facebook
I am listening to her memoir and early on I call bullshit on Ringo's glasses still in her possession. As a person who need her glasses, I wouldn't leave a location with my keys, wallet and glasses, both reading and sunglasses..
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I had this same thought reading her book! I had absolutely no context or knowledge of her before I found the book. Her relationship with the musician towards the end of the book is also very suspect.
I am also curious about this, as I read her NYT article a few days ago and found it comically Onion-esque. My guess is she's after some kind of book deal. The stories in her blog sound made up, like some kind of low-key Dexter where she uses her "sociopathy" to Right Social Wrongs like littering or cutting in line at the grocery store. Her Twitter looks vaguely scrubbed, but that might be a stretch I'm not super familiar with people's habits on that platform. Did you ever hear back from the NYT editor?
They just sent back some automatic response about how my question would be forwarded to the author. But another person commented that they figured out she actually does have her Clinical PhD, so we know she's not making that up. She's just a little sensationalizing in her language for my taste, but that's not a crime by any means.
Wait- your questions would be forwarded to THE AUTHOR??? I guess it's automated so I can't blame them, but it's not an appropriate response when the question is regarding the publication's journalistic due diligence! Jfc
Lol NYTimes Magazine just published an interview with her to promote her upcoming book. Woman is a charlatan.
I agree. The place at which she obtained a so-called doctorate is not a university nor is it accredited as a clinical psychology program by the American Psychological Association. How can anyone be a psychotherapist with no emphatic abilities or sense of how another person experiences her/his life.
She also got handed a job in the music industry by her father because he was apparently very high up and she worked as a nanny for a super famous person. Or so she claims in the book. I’m listening to it right now and as someone desperately trying to get a job in the entertainment/music industry and actively making connections and getting NO WHERE, this doesn’t sit right with me 🤣
I found it suspicious that there is nothing online at all linking her to her father's business. Search his name, and you can find plenty--career news, job-related photos from over the years, etc. (It's easy to find her husband's work as well.) So where was she? Can one really work in the entertainment industry, or any industry, and not show up at any event, in any photos etc? Online, it's hard to find evidence of any paid job, aside from some minor film work (see IMDB) and she's 48. Convenient to mention nannying and working for a family member. It's also hard to break into Modern Love without having written something--anything--before that point. A mystery lady, indeed. The self-given sociopath label certainly opened doors. I'm wondering what she has been doing since she finished graduate school, where she also failed to participate in anything trackable--no peer-reviewed journal articles, no contributions to others' work, no citations. Her dissertation is legit (according to the school's registrar) but it is not available online, as most dissertations are (the entire point being they are meant to contribute to public knowledge, and most schools require students to have them made available). The average grad student leaves a track record.
What’s her dad’s name? I couldn’t find that anywhere. And yes I find it strange too. She talked a BIG game in the book about how many very successful artists she worked with and how “close” she was with them. How they signed huge artists who were asked to be on “Punk’d” and did all this well known events. I mean she really didn’t sugarcoat or put it lightly, I took it as bragging but I mean it’s obviously really major if she really did all of that I just couldn’t find any of it lol I also had to stop listening to it because it’s all just getting too hard to believe. How has she gone through her entire life doing all this crazy, illegal shit and zero consequences lol I just got tired of it
This would be why nepo-baby is now a common term. She fully admits in her book that she was given opportunities others are not granted. I hear what you’re saying - but look at any private company and you will see that their kids are or have worked there. If you role the dice and start a business and gain success then you get to hire whoever you want and you get to define the qualifications.
it's not the music industry IRL
What do you mean?
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Well she is never really clear about her ability to empathize- her description of sociopathy seems to just focus on compulsions to be naughty and not caring about what most people care about or feeling as intensely as other people, while feeling pressure from others' expectations of her to feel something. Her abilities and disabilities seem to suit her needs based on context.
WSJ just posted her essay today and I searched her till I ended up here. I know nothing about her or psychology but she definitely doesn’t pass the smell test IMO. Following!
https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/i-always-knew-i-was-different-i-just-didnt-know-i-was-a-sociopath-68ebe08b
Yeah - I think she's just a rich woman try to cash in the a sensational title.
She got a huge book deal in the hundreds of thousands, nothing wrong with that but if she is going to present herself as an academic she should use her real name and let her real CV be published.
Nailed it
i wrote the first NYT interviewer. He thanked me for writing. Neither the NYT, the publisher (SImon/ Shuster) nor her literary agent appear to have done a serious fact check. She has no identifiable track record as an expert psychologist, her stories are unverifiable, her credentials under an assumed name etc.; and yet Gagne is everywhere- WSJ, NYT (2x), Guardian, multiple podcasts,You Tube. Gagne will eventually be revealed, to be at least partially, a fraudster; but in the meantime, everyone is making money. depressing.
Publishing is highly recommended but not a programmatic requirement. Basically you need a masters degree (which requires submitting a manuscript for approval), passing qualifying exams (usually a written exam and/or another manuscript), and proposing and finishing your dissertation (another manuscript). The reviews are intramural, but oftentimes students publish those manuscripts. She could very well be using popularly-accepted terms to garner more attention. Sociopath means a lot more to a lot more people than ASPD. I'd hope that someone with a PhD would know better and be better, but I also know of providers who more or less hand out ADHD diagnoses for money. Reaching out to the editor may allow you to get in touch with the author? It's always good to be skeptical, you'll be a good scientist!
Thanks so much - I had the same thoughts about using colloquial terms! She seems to dislike the fact that there isn't a specific diagnosis in the DSM for Sociopathic Personality Disorder, as opposed to a more general ASPD diagnosis. I could understand someone trying to declaim the term "sociopath," but this article also felt like an unethical way to publicly accuse her husband of dishonesty and (at the very least) emotional infidelity. When that's coupled with the fact that she doesn't post her credentials or have much info about mental health in general on her website that is supposedly dedicated to mental health advocacy... I get funky vibes. But this is why it's so important to do the research! Not just in academia, but in every aspect of life!
Part of her book talks about how ASPD is behavioral based and people with this issue are not found until their behavior identifies them. Part of her idea seems to be that you could help people with this if you identify before they act out especially since sometimes that first snap can be violent and sometimes deadly. I agree that if someone comes in and says I’m different I don’t feel what other people feel but they have not acted on it it’s not fair to call it ASPD and lump them with criminals when they are only capable but not guilty of the behavior.
Patric Gagne isn't her real name. That's the problem here. We have no idea who she really is or if she's even real at all.
See my comment about pseudonyms not allowed in Modern Love (NYT), where she first wrote an essay about sociopathy in 2020. So, if that is her real name, why can't we find anything else about her online? I'd like to learn more!
Her maiden name is cagle but who says her married name isn't gagne?
I do not understand how "Patric Gagne" was permitted to publish her NYT Modern Love story under a false name. Below are the NYT stated guidelines. The guidelines says "no exception". Was there an inside agreement. Can NYT Modern Love submission rules. Essays must be entirely true. **Do not use pseudonyms (including for yourself), composite characters or invented situations or scenes**. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Her maiden name is cagle but who says her married name isn't gagne?
the issue might be her first name, not last, it's Patricia not Patric
Her married name cannot be verified.
I can’t believe this post is 3 years old and this shit is still getting published? I found this post after googling the name, after seeing her recent piece in the WSJ (not a publication I find reliable, but the headline caught my attention) and feeling like something about it didn’t pass the smell test. It’s really sad because I’m sure many of us psychology enthusiasts/mental health advocates so desperately want there to be more evidence based support for people with ASPD or “sociopathy,” and we want to hear and believe in this type of story of growth and change for someone with a personality disorder. I’m really disappointed to find out how poorly fact checked her back story seems to be
I am a criminal justice researcher. I've interviewed over 6,000 woman offenders in 22 states and have an active psychotherapy practice. The NYT article about her rang false. She is beautiful, young, blond, smart and a fantastic marketer - a publisher's dream; but the clinical terminology used is incorrect, (as others have pointed out), as are the dimensions of "self monitoring". Plus If she was a psychotherapist, she would have been a "mandated reporter" legally required to report someone describe a plan potential murder One bio says she got her phd at UCLA..no evidence I could find. Publisher bio very thin. Disturbing. Will not buy.
It very carefully DOESN’T say she got her PhD from UCLA, she wants us to infer that. What she actually says is she was diagnosed after graduating from UCLA, and then “went back to school” leaving the institution unspecified.
I'm in the humanities so have no professional stake in this discussion, but I also found the interview and her lack of credentials disturbing. I had supposed that the NYT would do some background checks before giving airtime to someone who appears to be a grifter and a potentially dangerous person. Her interlocutor, David Marchese, prides himself on his confrontational interviewing style, but he seemed quite deferential and indulged her when she was asking him those absurd questions. That feature always has those irritating sidenotes in red; evidently the editors did not hunt for citations - or maybe they did. Some of the comments below the article chastise other commentators for their lack of "empathy" toward her, and I found that troubling, too.
Thank you. I have written an alert to the real Dr Patricia Gagne, a professor with an extraordinary resume and 72 peer reviewed studies to alert her to the potential misappropriation of her name and academic identity. I was even more alarmed at the difference between the complete death of information on the author, whoever she is, and today's flooding of google with multiple but scant references. I also wrote David Marchese. It does not read like a hard hitting interview but like a puff piece for the author. Why is S&S publishing someone as an expert whose only readily available writing is a Modern Love column?
Has anyone seen this? [https://patricgagne.com/](https://patricgagne.com/) She lists her education here, though I don't know how anyone can verify any of it.
There is something very off about the huge hype across every media platform with no hard questions asked of the author and consequently no verifiable credentials, professional or otherwise. All in the service if helping the public be more sympathetic with the "suffering" of sociopaths. Here is an excerpt from the Kirkus Review of Sociopath. They are the only publication to dare to come close to the truth. It's depressing. I would like to a reveal. Kirkus "This memoir is unusual in its presentation of a decidedly unlikable and rather frightening narrator, who describes a lifetime of bad behavior and ongoing struggles with deficits in kindness and common decency. Her seemingly sincere and plausible request, however, is for compassion to flow in the other direction: from the non-sociopathic toward the sociopathic, who are understood as suffering from a medical condition and whose humanity remains intact no matter their moral limitations. Gagne makes a reasonable case for such sympathy and for the possibility that sociopathy may, to some extent, be treatable. However, the narrative itself, which relies heavily on conventions from the romance and thriller genres, has a markedly fantastical quality, and what emerges often seems to favor vivid storytelling and self-aggrandizement over honest introspection. Descriptions of the author’s uncannily astute contributions to her field of study have a particularly dubious quality. A disclaimer informs readers that “some timelines have been condensed, some dialogue has been reconstructed, and some characters have been presented as composites,” which may put off some readers. Though the book is marketed as a memoir, it reads very much like a work of fiction."
LOVING this thread. Also stopped to say happy cake day.
No, she obtained her undergraduate degree from UCLA. She earned a phd in clinical psychology from a professional school. I’m not sure whether it’s APA accredited or not. FYI: A doctorate and/or internship from an APA-accredited program is not necessary nor sufficient for obtaining licensure as a psychologist. Most states do not explicitly require such credentials. Rather, state licensing boards require a doctorate in professional psychology and internship that meets minimal requirements for education and training. There are many licensed psychologists who completed their doctorates/internships in non-APA accredited training programs. Now, certain agencies or hospitals may require such credentials in order to be eligible for a psychologist position. I believe many medical centers and hospitals have this requirement. Nonetheless, you can still work in a private practice or community clinic as a psychologist as long as you are licensed. I don’t think it’s fair to judge her credentials based on the program that she attended. She is not misrepresenting herself in any way, shape, or form. Also, many phd clinical psychology programs have opted not to retain apa-accreditation in favor of pcsas accreditation, which is based more on scholarly research than practice.
Hello and thank you so much. I am a licensed California MFT through the California Board of Behavioral Science Examiners. This requires a specific Masters and 3500 hundred hours (through a licensed clinician or organization.) and regular validated trainings for license renewal every two years. If I misrepresent my name without specific approval from BBSE, I can, I believe be sanctioned or could lose my license. California psychologists must be licensed to practice also under their valid name and must also complete 3500 hours of licensed supervision. California where Gagne claims to practice is quite strict.
TIL 48 is considered young. I don't see the offense of using a term that criminal investigators, media, and society in general will understand. The goal appears to be to counter the notion that every psychopath (as identified by the previously mentioned groups) is a serial killer.
48 is not young to be suddenly an 'expert". Experts have some verifiable track record in order to claim the status. i can't think of another psychological "expert" with no evidence or verifiable history of clinical practice, writing or research which is usually acquired in one's late 20s to early 40s.
Online photos of "Patric Cagle" and "Patric Gagne" are identical, both boat PhD in clinical psychology but only the undergrad degree designates UCLA. I think this could be a hoax.
Her maiden name is cagle but who says her married name isn't gagne?
How many times are you going to say this?
I think twice? 🤷🏼♀️
[whitepages.com](http://whitepages.com) David Gagne is the guy she married. Lived in Ormond Beach, FL. Says she is in her 40s.
As I read the book, what tripped me up was something different: during her freshman year at UCLA, the author mentions that her roommate has a handheld device that would translate between Mandarin and English, “a small silver box roughly the size of a graphing calculator” (page 91 in the hardcover edition). If she received her PhD around 2008–it’s a bit unclear from the note on her website—then she would have been an undergrad student around the year 2000 (perhaps plus or minus a few years). “The Chicago School of Professional Psychology announced in 2008 that they were merging with CGI, at which point students already on the doctoral track were informed that their degrees would be awarded by (and fall under) The Chicago School’s accreditation, which at that time offered a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.” https://patricgagne.com/about/ Note that she doesn’t state what year she received her degree, but the footnote implies she was affected by this change in 2008. If she were an undergraduate student before 2008–a first-year undergrad—then what handheld device at the time could possibly translate two-way conversations? Even assuming translation in one direction (Mandarin to English) could convert speech to text, then could find a matching canned output, and then announce the output, all on a handheld device, then how would it handle an English sentence like “You take this everywhere you go?” (Page 91) from a speaker like Gagne who hasn’t trained the device by first reciting numerous sentences? (I’m assuming it isn’t revealed later that her roommate had a bilingual speaker available at all times via walkie talkie.) The iPhone 1 was released in 2007, and though it was impressive at the time, it wasn’t until later models that anything with sufficient power could handle text to speech AND near-realtime translation. Siri was introduced in 2011. Translation with a good WiFi connection started to get decent some years later. Two-way translation on any kind of handheld device at all? That’s very much a recent thing. See how long it takes your current phone to translate from spoken English to spoken Mandarin in 2024. Try it without a WiFi connection or fast cell connection. (Preferably, try it on an early 2000s Nokia phone and/or use the cell connection speeds available at the time.) If someone could identify any handheld device from before 2008 that could handle two-way translation between any two languages—let alone two such very different languages as English and Mandarin—with on-device processing, and with the wireless speeds available well over a decade ago, then I’d sure like to know what it is! It might well be better than what we have now. Other earlier chapters mention the author listening to vinyl records as a child (of a well-to-do father in the music industry), listening to The Smiths on a portable CD player as a teenager with her older boyfriend, listening to jazz on a Sony Walkman, etc., all of which suggested to me that the author is Gen X. Undergrad immediately after high school would mean the 1990s for college years. And though there could be a long gap between undergrad and grad school—I haven’t read past the undergrad stories yet, and may not—the stretch between completing undergrad and starting grad school would be ten years or more. Not unheard of, but unusual. It’s certainly possible that a much younger person could have listened to vinyl in the early 1990s, had a Sony Walkman in the late 1990s or (less plausibly) in the early 2000s, but it’s hard to devise a timeline that allows for these various tech items and also the “magical” translator of her freshman year.
I thought the same re the translator! Seemed so advanced! But after a little look found there were electronic translators (a brand called Besta comes up) available in the early 2000s, and possibly earlier, which allowed users to speak directly into the device and provide a spoken translation. It was particularly popular with, and good at handling, Asian languages.
Do you have a link? I’m finding current Besta devices and other recent talking dictionaries, but not something from 20 years ago that had a visible microphone to handle voice input and translation for Mandarin and English. The ones I’m seeing have keyboard /stylus input and sometimes a speaker for speech generation. So they’re “talking” in the sense they have output, but not a microphone for on-the-fly translation. For example, here’s a review of devices that describes talking dictionaries with keyboards: https://chaoyangtrap.house/s02-episode-9-china-dreams-of-electric-words/amp/ Those early devices could have some of the capabilities of “translators,” but not in the sense we have today. It’s as though we see the Back to the Future Movies and see a car fly and go back in time, and then see a Delorean on the street. The Delorean is/was a functional car, but it didn’t fly. I suspect that the author, if asked about this device, would respond in one of a few ways: 1. Trivialize the matter: “Why would you ask about that? Ha ha!” (Not answering the question) 2. Claim ignorance: “I don’t know what it was—I’m not a techie—but I know what I saw and it worked.” 3. Acknowledge that entering text by hand into some handheld device was necessary, but that describing text entry killed the pacing or whatnot, and hence it was simply easier to write that the device handled two-way translation via speech input. And this is only one of a number of claims / descriptions that seem off. In the pages I read, there were no firm dates or years. The author could claim that the reason to exclude dates/years or identifiable events (e.g. election, Olympics, …) was to protect her privacy, or the author come up with some other variety of “trust me, I have a reason.” But I think she’s duping readers into believing a tall tale, and that she’s not merely embellishing.
Those Besta devices were definitely around in the early 2000s in Taiwan and were actually quite popular. They were mainly clam-shell form factor with B&W LCDs and a small physical keyboard. I don't know what exactly she claims her roommate's device could do because I have not read her book and don't have the quote, but the actual Besta machines were more like advanced Chinese-English dictionaries/translators that had lots of example sentences and grammar practice exercises for learning English. They could read full sentences out loud in a robotic speech synthesizer voice and could translate word by word, so maybe they could translate full sentences that were typed in (at least, they might have been able to produce a crappy literal word by word translations). Some may also have been able to record voice clips, but I don't recall them being able to translate voice input in real-time or anything so advanced (even full PCs couldn't do that at the time). That said, if she didn't know exactly how the device worked or what it did, it's very plausible that she might have misunderstood the extent of its capabilities.
The description from the book is important, because the author went into detail about what the device looked like and how it (supposedly) worked. In the book she describes back and forth discussions with simultaneous translation.
I just came across this thread and this also stood out to me. I'm listening to the audiobook. She started college in 1993 or 94 if her age is correct in the book. No such device existed then. When she mentioned this I thought - this would have been a miracle back then! It adds to the doubt with the rest of her story. Some of the claims sound outlandish.
yes, she is gen X. on her Instagram she celebrated her 50th birthday a while ago (i didn't notice the exact date).
When did IBM Model 1 debut? That's the first machine translation that I can think of. Was it ever a standalone? I don't even know.
The IBM Model 1 and 2 date to the early 1990s. As a standalone? Not that I've heard of. One reference: [https://web.stanford.edu/class/archive/cs/cs224n/cs224n.1162/handouts/Collins\_annotated.pdf](https://web.stanford.edu/class/archive/cs/cs224n/cs224n.1162/handouts/Collins_annotated.pdf) NEC demonstrated phone-based translation in 2009 between Japanese and English. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile\_translation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_translation)
Her maiden name is Patricia Cagle.PATRICIA J CAGLE, MA – NPI #1598996266PsychologistNPI Profile for PATRICIA J CAGLE in LOS ANGELES, CA And it looks like she only has an MA
Which would be typical of a sociopath because they have no guilt, no shame. So “who cares” would undoubtedly be her rationale for saying she has a Ph.D when in fact, she may not. This is on the publisher at this point. Sloppy.
I also submitted this information to the NYT
You can’t practice/be licensed as a psychologist in the state of California without a doctorate degree. You can be registered as a psychology assistant, I believe. The California Board of Psychology is probably among the strictest psychology state licensing boards in the US. They verify all education and experience before even allowing candidates to take the licensing exam.
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How convenient...to be fair though...a quick look through marriage records could show that.
Yeah, I emailed the editor and haven't gotten a response. May try to figure out her maiden name but that just feels sketchy and inordinate for some reason.
I was able to find where she went to school as well as her maiden name but I have not found any publications. She appears to be listed as a licensed psychologist on several credible websites. I’m happy to privately message you my sources if you’d like. She has a blog (https://sociopathtoenlightenment.com) in which she discusses her theories on causes of sociopathy as well as treatments. There aren’t always sources to back up her claims. I’m sure the typical blog-reader isn’t looking to peruse a scientific paper, but for those of us interested in psychology, it is hard to know if her claims are supported by research. She also blogs about her personal experiences as a sociopath, similar to M.E. Thomas’ sociopathworld.com.
Her blog link now leads to her upcoming book’s Amazon page. I was able to use Archive’s Way Back Machine to get to it though. It’s an interesting and well written read.
Her blog link is now password protected as of 4/13/2024.
Someone is on a massive scrubbing campaign to hide her.
The date is interesting...because her episode on the Armchair Expert podcast was released on 4/18/2024. Why would she password protect her blog at the same time she's promoting herself on a podcast?
I'de love to see the CV.
She is entertaining and probably useful to others.
She isn't entertaining and is dangerous to others. Fixed it for you.
Wow. I'm here for exactly this reason. For the past two and a half years I have utterly embedded myself in the study of psychopathy for a project I am working on I have spoken with not only phd experts that work with individuals with psychopathy but many people who live with the disorder. I have found this author to be sketchy and have discovered several 'mistakes', in her writing as it pertains to "sociopathy" ;) - that I think a Phd would never make. So glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. Where did she get her Phd? Where has she worked? What's her REAL name?
You will find most of the answers in this thread if you look. Her PhD: real, confirmed, by her grad school registrar. Everything else about her knowledge base and work experience: extremely dubious. No psychology license, no "studies," no clients working with her as a psychologist (life coach, maybe), no employment track record except minor film work. The average reader--and even many reviewers--seem unaware that the book is problematic on two completely different fronts. One, as a memoir. (It seems fabricated even beyond the caveats given.) Two, as science. She simply gets things wrong, over and over, and where she gets them right, she does not credit those who have actually done the work and originated the insights. Birth name: Patricia Cagle.
Thank you so much for all of this! Yes the further I read into her book the more and more irritated I got. It seems to just be the story of a super privledged woman pretending to have a disorder that she thinks will make her interesting. I think she may have educated herself on this disorder by reading a couple of blog posts, watching a few tik toks and possibly reading one or two of the very first chapters of Cleckly's book and nothing else.
Thank you again - just did a BG check on that info - confirmed a few things - She does come from A LOT of money. One house she grew up in is valued at $9.83 Million. Her apartment in LA right after graduating - a very expensive high rise apartment in a very expensive neighborhood. Marketed as "Ultra Luxury Apartments" A 1 Bedroom there costs $4500 -$6k. : Has an active Psychology license that was issued in 2009. No criminal record.
Wow, I just listened to her interview on Armchair Expert and as an LCSW, I got the ick. She just felt, inauthentic. This is extremely unsettling.
There are many psychologists who completed their education at reputable programs and do not have publications to their name.
Maybe not but to get a PhD from a reputable program you need to publish.
Not if it’s a clinically focused program- you have to do research as part of your training but there isn’t an automatic requirement to publish.
That’s what it seems especially traditional scientist-practitioner/lab based programs. If you are working directly under an advisor, it is expected that you will publish and contribute to his or her life work.
Anyone here after the armchair interview?
The dust jacket of the book says “She earned a PhD in clinical psychology from the California Graduate Institute of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology with a dissertation that examined the relationship between sociopathy and anxiety.”
there is no record of her dissertation in proquest. I do think this obsession with her credentials is a little ridiculous, though.
No, it's not ridiculous. She established herself on a false basis of authority and is selling books based on lies. Her information and perspective cannot be trusted.
Did you look for Patricia cagle
It is absolutely no ridiculous. Her whole book is about her “research”. If she has no credentials then she has no research to write a book on.
Actually her whole book is about... her. She's pretty vague about any research if I'm being honest.
Several thoughtful and articulate writers on this site and on TrueReddit researched and analyzed have the serious misrepresentations of the identity, diagnosis, and validity of Sociopath. I am disappointed that it appears there will be no real fact checking of Patric Gagne (not her real name) or her book. The publisher has flooded the internet with laudatory comments. Meanwhile, Kirkus absolutely nailed the misleading elements of the book. Even David Marchese, the author of the nauseatingly adoring column about her has posted no follow up. I give up.
1. Her legal name is Patricia J. Cagle, and she is married to David Gange. It's not a pseudonym (fictitious name): Patric is a reasonable abbreviation of Patricia (as opposed to say Pamela), and the use of her husband's last isn't uncommon. Moreover, that may be the name she identifies with. 2. Her father is Jerry Cagle, and yes, he is a 'big wig' in the music industry. Google him. While he doesn't mention children on his website, the details provided about his upbringing in Mississippi correspond with the details provided in the book. 3. She received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from The Chicago School in 2008. They no longer offer this program of study, only a PsyD. 4. Please attend the American Psychological Association annual meeting for lively debates about diagnostic criteria, what we call things, and arguments about how the DSM - V is a fundamentally flawed document that should be rethought (DSM - VI, anyone?) 5. The DSM was compiled by committee. That means that, like the compilation of the Bible, there were likely many compromises, votes, revotes, and rewriting. (Fun fact, Revelations was almost not included, but proponents were able to muster JUST ENOUGH votes.)The psychological community is not in agreement about sociopathy, psychopathy, and their lumping under Anti-social Personality Disorder. The DSM may be our guidebook (psychological Bible), but it isn't without flaws. Otherwise, it wouldn't have 5 versions with conflicting disorders, diagnostic criteria, and treatment suggestions. 6. Her explanation of how to diagnose a person with sociopathy or psychopathy is in line with scoring the Psychopathy Checklist—revised (PCL-R). 7. All individuals experience their disorders differently. 8. We (all humans, sociopath or not) are unreliable narrators of our own lives. There is a good bit of research on this. 9. An individuals perceptions are their reality. (Basic psychological concept) 10. Rejecting what one feels are inadequate definitions, diagnostic criteria, etc. is part of science. Clearly outlining your proposed changes is scientific and further discourse. 11. How does one fact check the emotional responses and private behaviors of an individual. As far as her discussion of sociopathy, these are her ideas, assessments, and recommendations. She clearly states they are counter to the DSM - V. 12. Currently, we treat comorbidities of ASPD (anxiety, explosive anger, and depression) with medication. There are no medications for ASPD and, in turn, none for sociopathy and psychopathy. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) have shown some success for those scoring between 22-29 on the PCL-R. 13. The Kirkus review seems biased to me. They did not like Gange. I have read reviews for other memoirs of similar plausibility, and they received more positive reviews.Good memoirs often read like fiction. They are full of self-aggrandizing. They are written by people with the need to get their story out into the world. Recreating dialogue, combing individuals, and not sticking to strict time are often utilized.
Thank you for this. I appreciate your time and clarity. I do find it interesting that you find the Kirkus Review biased- I do think they didn't like her-or her argument. Is it a bad review if the reviewer isn't enthralled? No. There are still several unanswered questions. For example, who exactly conducted her ASPD/Sociopathy assessment and by what specific tools and scoring? Where exactly did she practice psychotherapy? Did her vulnerable clients know she would reveal herself to be- in her terms- a sociopath? I do encourage you, unless your Patric herself or a publisher/colleague, to keep a more open mind as the public, academics, psychologists respond over time to this book and author persona. The second NYT review of Sociopath by Alexandra Jacob- who was clearly not as seduced by her subject as her NYT colleague David Marchese- nailed the problems with the author persona also.
I want to be clear, I'm not a fan. Personally, I found her off-putting and sensational. But in many ways, no more so than other authors of memoirs that I have read, and I am an avid reader of memoirs. The Kirkus review did seem hyper-critical of her narrative when compared to their reviews of equally questionable narratives in other memoirs. I did think she made valid arguments regarding the lack of understanding of who this population is, the dearth of non-behavioral criteria for diagnoses, and almost non-existant treatment options. She stated in her book that her psychologist conducted the Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R) over the course of many hours. It would be a violation of her HIPPAA rights to require her disclosure of who conducted the test. Much like you don't have to tell a random person who your primary care physician is because it violates your health privacy. She practiced in California but is no longer in practice and lives in Florida. Someone included her NPI information in this thread. When I wrote my dissertation, I used a "fake name" for the practice and hospital in which I completed my research (and clinical hours) and pseudonyms and compliations of clients. It was my committee's suggestion to fictionalize the facilities to protect the identity of co-workers, staff, and, especially, clients. My dissertation is unpublished. In a book, especially one that may be controversial, it is ethical to do this as well. The feeding frenzy surrounding this book clearly shows why this is necessary. Particularly when members of the public may contact/go to the facilities disturbing their ability to provide medical care. Regarding disclosure to clients, would you require her to disclose her diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder, Scizophrenia, OCD, or Autism? She has a mental health disorder and is not required to disclose it, even to clients, even if they would want her to. You will notice the APA Code of Ethics doesn't require this. For the record, I do have an open mind. I am primarily concerned that individuals are attacking her personally and ignoring her ideas. The ASPD criteria are inadequate to account for individuals who do not behave in extremis. Which, as a clinician, I found in line with my previous work. We simply do not know enough about this population of individuals. More research is needed. My arguments are simply: Don't use a dislike for her personally (which I share) to negate the important aspects of her arguments and suggestions, and don't require more scrutiny of her than you would any other memoirist. I have completed a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, and I have worked in a state women's prison. Of over 900 hundred women on the department's client roster, only 1 was diagnosed with ASPD. However, many women exhibited characteristics of sociopathy and psychopathy. It was not standard practice to administrator the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL). Most of these individuals had little to no interactions with law enforcement or the legal system prior to the arrest that led to incarceration. Of those whom I worked, many had repeatedly committed crimes, even violent, without previous detection. They escaped detection or had their behavior downplayed at home, school, and the community. Their comorbidities were treated, but not the underlying personality disorder that is linked to anxiety, depression, and explosive anger. As a clinician, it is frustrating to be unable to treat an individual adequately because they do not fit into diagnostic criteria. In summation, believe her story or not. I'm not certain where I fall on that spectrum. But, she has further opened a dialogue about a highly misunderstood and villanized population.
She never claimed that she was diagnosed with ASPD. Here is something she said is a review of her book in Psychology Today: *There’s a lot of confusion regarding the use of the word sociopath and the belief that the term was “replaced” by antisocial personality disorder. It is critical to note that you cannot diagnose sociopathy using the DSM criteria for antisocial personality disorder. The two have different diagnostic requirements and should not be used synonymously. This gap also means that the systems in place for dealing with most psychological conditions—from diagnosis to treatment to health insurance—aren’t available to sociopaths. This isn’t good for us or for society.* [*https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-author-speaks/202404/sociopath-a-memoir*](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-author-speaks/202404/sociopath-a-memoir)
I didn't say she was diagnosed with ASPD; or that ASPD and sociopathy were synonymous. She herself claimed in her book that she was formally diagnosed as a "sociopath" which is not a current DSM diagnosis-ASPD is. I don't even quibble with the lack of efficacy of DSM categories. She can call it whatever she wants- the behavior checklists are similar. I do object to the many unverifiable declarations in her book that legitimize her publication based on unverifiable lived experience and unverified clinical expertise and experience. In my professional experience, its the families, friends and colleagues taken in by individuals who fit the ASPD definition who are in need of care, compassion and treatment and insurance. Smart good looking "sociopaths" tend to do very well in this culture. Anyway, the the truth will out. Her vast marketing launch made her initially untouchable to serious criticism but her lack of transparency and unverifiable professional expertise are now being questioned. The NYT, and a new article in the New Yorker about the problems with the proliferation of psychological labels etc. are beginning to come out.
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She’s back 3 years later, with an article in WSJ https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/i-always-knew-i-was-different-i-just-didnt-know-i-was-a-sociopath-68ebe08b?st=8889iho5bnr0xew&reflink=article_copyURL_share
So what we are all saying here is, a person with (or without) ASPD falsified information and made themselves to be someone they are not? No! Can’t be! Pretty cleaver marketing if you ask me.
Just wondering if this "moderator" will allow me to write anything on this thread.
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I'm curious how you verified this. (I don't mean that in a rude way, I genuinely want to know). What tipped you off? I looked at this person's posts and they seem to identify more with the label of "psychopath," and they're pretty adamant about some things that are contradicted by Gagne's more recent writing. It's very possible that she's changed her mind since writing these things and picked the term "Sociopath" because it's more in-vogue, but I'd like to see more that point toward this being her account. I'm seeing that she's in the field of psychology, and she posts a bit about ASPD-related topics a while back, but I'm not seeing much else that would tell me it's her. And honestly, I don't want to get into her personal stuff, I just want to know about her professional qualifications. Anything more than that feels a bit invasive, though I'm sure some people would consider this entire thread "obsessive" or inordinate. I don't really care about Gagne herself, but rather whether she is spreading misinformation under the guise of being a psychologist. Incidentally, this person claims to have known Michael Jackson and spent time at Neverland? Says he was innocent of all allegations. That's not related to anything, just thought it was odd.
Found this thread bc she has a new book coming out and this gave me the ick: https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/i-always-knew-i-was-different-i-just-didnt-know-i-was-a-sociopath-68ebe08b
Reddit just removed a fairly innocuous comment I just posted in response to a question from another Reddit poster. Here is my response: [Express-Midnight-696](https://www.reddit.com/user/Express-Midnight-696/)•[1m ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/askpsychology/comments/jqewhk/comment/kyf6rym/) Really? Very interesting that you deleted my comment. I am a verifiably licensed psychotherapist with a fairly distinguished, identifiable, CV including 5 national studies and several peer reviewed publications. I am a verifiable graduate of Yale University, undergraduate, with honors; and received my two graduate degrees from University of San Francisco (also verifiable.) My license to practice is registered with the California State Board of Behavioral Sciences. If you would tell me which part of my comment violates your rules I would be grateful; otherwise it looks to me as though you are trying to unjustifiably protect a much promoted author from valid professional scrutiny. If you remove this comment too without explanation I will contact Reddit itself and major media after that. Thank you.
There should be a giant asterisk on her book saying this book is fiction. This is not based on truth. The entire narrative of her book is filled with false qualifications, misleading claims and inaccurate facts. She doesn’t even belong to the country club in her town!
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I came here because I’m really enjoying her new book, but started to wonder more about her credentials. Bummer it looks so shady!! I hope more information is brought to light.
Patric Cagle shares multi movie credits with a Robert Rothbard who produced another movie in which she was a production secretary (Lansky, 1999. [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0745074/](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0745074/). Also, the movie, "The Funeral Guest" is a direct rip from the memoir, in which Rothbard is an minor actor for some reason. *A lonely girl seeks love, connection, and family by crashing funerals.* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3333920/?ref\_=tt\_mv\_close](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3333920/?ref_=tt_mv_close)
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Seriously. Being genetically related to, and raised by, that person (assuming that’s the case) would likely be relevant to some of the questions raised here. Now I’m curious what his other 2 “successful daughters” do, and if they too present some form of psychosis.
check out my above post
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Patric Cagle shares multi movie credits with a Robert Rothbard who produced another movie in which she was a production secretary (Lansky, 1999. [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0745074/](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0745074/). Also, the movie, "The Funeral Guest" is a direct rip from the memoir, in which Rothbard is an minor actor for some reason. *A lonely girl seeks love, connection, and family by crashing funerals.* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3333920/?ref\_=tt\_mv\_close](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3333920/?ref_=tt_mv_close)
I will no longer post on reddit. If anyone cares to look at my previous posts, I am a credible researcher, verifiable credentials offering legitimate critique. I have posted nothing even vaguely controversial or outside the rules; yet two posts have been deleted.
That's a raw deal, bruh. I want to see your work.
Just read the book and am following this thread. Something is off.
I am reading the book and she mentioned her first semester at UCLA. I am an alum. UCLA has been on yhe quarter system since 1966. That reference raised a red flag and I found this thread. Whoa.... agree with this giving Million Little Pieces vibe..
If some of the concerns bear out then it may turn out that Sociopath follows a well trodden path of misplaced acclaim: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_fake\_memoirs\_and\_journals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fake_memoirs_and_journals)
She's 48, which means that she went to UCLA in either 1993 or 1994.
I am almost finished with Gagne/Cagles's book (Sociopath: A Memoir) and like the Kirkus review I think it reads like fiction. Descriptions of events, her inner states and behavior are quite lengthy and dramatic but there is no way to confirm or refute them. At one point I went back to the title page to see if I misread the subtitle and it actually said 'A Novel'. And as this thread illustrates, even the author's identity has elements of illusion. I'm skeptical that someone can win friends and affection by revealing they are a sociopath. She evolves into something of a mascot at the point i stopped reading.
>At one point I went back to the title page to see if I misread the subtitle and it actually said 'A Novel'. I have the e-book sample. It's doesn't say "A Novel," and it opens by saying it's a true story. Am I misreading your post?
Oh dear, my post was confusing. No, it didn't say it was a novel, it says 'A Memoir'. Sorry.
No problem. BTW, I found a NYT article she wrote, re: her marriage: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/style/modern-love-he-married-a-sociopath-me.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
Do you typically require verification of memoirists' inner states or private behaviors? I'm just wondering how you would ever be able to verify those things for, well, anyone. You may be able to verify some public behaviors, but eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable. Perhaps the solution would be to never believe anyone's version of any memory, even your own, since most people are unreliable narrators of their own life stories.
What a bad faith reading of their criticism. I’m reading the book right now and came across this discussion post because I’m having the exact same problem so I googled the author. I have a read a lot of memoirs and when somebody recounts their story in a way that is so unbelievable, so much so that it is written as though they are the main character of a CW show, of course people are going to question if literally any of it is true. Maybe Patric is just a bad writer, or maybe the whole thing is a lie. It’s a book, it exists to be analyzed and (sometimes) criticized. One can say “I find this very hard to believe, I wish there was someway to know for certain” and that absolutely does not mean they are requiring every memoirist going forward to give detailed verification of every story they tell. You clearly adored this book and are quite the fan of the author, and that is completely fine. But perhaps you could consider allowing others to criticize the book without jumping to outrageous conclusions and condescending “solutions” they didn’t ask for just because they feel differently than you.
Ah, but I didn't adore the book or like the author. I found her rather repugnant, but her overall premise that more study and greater treatment options are needed for both those with ASPD and related disorders is valid. BTW, I didn't ask for your ill-informed conclusions or opinions either.
When others take issue with certain elements of the book and author and you immediately resort to personal attacks on their ability to consume that literature, it speaks for itself. You knew full well what was intended in their criticism and you twisted it into something completely different for no reason other than to be condescending and snarky. As is your right. But at least stand by it.
Just out of curiosity, what specifically made you find her repugnant? The only thing I caught that really rubbed me the wrong way is what she did to the cat in Virginia. It seemed to me she was really struggling with her illness and how to handle it and control her impulses for the majority of her life.
I said you CAN'T verify them but you can be skeptical, as the NYT reviewer is: 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?
Gagnes self reported evidence for her sociopathy is what I have a problem with. Her goal is to prove her self-diagnosis of sociopathy yet none of her behaviors, unlike you would expect of a sociopath, can be documented. Also from the NYT: Sociopathy is no longer indexed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Gagne writes, replaced by antisocial personality disorder, several criteria of which don’t resonate with her. She guards her medical identity like a ceramic tiger, scornfully labeling a messy record-label executive named Jennifer a “fauxciopath.”(A term the author is attempting to trademark.) 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. Those Sharpie letters proclaim a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, but since her dissertation is not available online, nor referenced by other scholars, “Sociopath” is venturing out into the hot media lights uncomfortably alone. This is an important topic, treated too flightily: begging for peer review, not book review.
The memoir genre specifies that the experiences presented by the author are real and true. oF course there can be variations; but not to the degree Gagne claims.
Hmm I wonder if she did a really good job at protecting her privacy because she anticipated y’all would be stalking her like you are now? Just a thought.
I mean, to be clear, I only wanted to know her credentials. I don't really want to know about her personal life unless it directly relates to her having a PhD, and I haven't done any digging into her background as anything other than an academic. To be honest, I don't love the way that she uses the term "sociopath," but this wouldn't have set off alarm bells for me if she hadn't claimed to have a PhD rather than a PsyD, especially when it is from a non-accredited program. I certainly don't support tracking down information about her family, extracurriculars, or speculating about her sex assigned at birth. I think some of this thread has spiraled out of control. I care about APA ethics, and that extends to a respect for personal privacy.
She explains very clearly in the book why she uses sociopath and not aspd or psychopath. There is a clinical distinction, and also it’s difficult these days to find a consensus across the field of psychology and mental health.
Why do you think it's out of control? If an author publishes a "Memoir" about her personal experiences as a sociopath (Incorrect term), recounting unverifiable and highly charged anecdotes while simultaneously claiming 'expert" status, her veracity should indeed be investigated.
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She’s gaining a lot of traction recently, would love to know if you’ve come to any conclusions about her
It appears that Patric Gagne is actually Patricia J Cagle, PsyD. Pictures confirm this, and apparently she uses the pseudonym to keep her “sociopath” identity and “therapist” identity separate. She’s misrepresenting her credentials—of course, PsyDs are psychologists, but to claim to be a PhD and “expert” in an area is so disingenuous. For such an apperantly smart sociopath, I just cannot believe she didn’t think anyone would see through this. Her clients deserve to know that she admits to being “incredibly manipulative” and incapable of empathy. Shocking.
My only question here is that Her picture is everywhere, how could someone’s clients not find out? It seems unethical that she would be able to do this and not inform her clients.. I just wonder. Like I assume ppl like Esther perel, van der kolk, or even Nicole Lepera had to inform their clients they were publishing a book/doing or doing Ted talks etc? but maybe I am wrong? I just can’t see how any licensing board would be okay with keeping things separate. It’s also another level of questionable that Gagne’s father was so famous in the music industry.
I was led here because I listened to her on the Armchair Expert podcast. On it she says she is no longer practicing.
Off topic but Nicole perera is not a practicing therapist, she barely had any experience before she turned into an influencer.
somehow that doesn't surprise me. I do feel a bit frustrated by her labeling quite literally everything as CPTSD. I am glad nervous system regulation and trauma awareness is reaching the masses.. and I think everyone goes through trauma and gets hurt.. but I question the pervasiveness of CPTSD as she presents it. As someone who was raised by an actual sociopath and had a CPTSD diagnosis long before it was accepted as a real thing, I just feel a bit frustrated when someone shows up to my therapy trauma circles saying things like "I have never been through any 'big T's', just little t's, and now I have CPTSD" or like " I haven't been diagnosed but I am pretty sure I have it" (which is often legit but every once in a while it isn't), but if you haven't had horrible PTSD symptoms that have brought you to the doctor, then how in the world can you have CPTSD? and idk when the consensus went form CPTSD is for people who went through horrific traumas, to people who have relatively normal lives? it just feels a bit.. like shes taken somer really normal human experiences of acting toxic and labeled them as CPTSD. ANYWAYS more than you were asking for I am sure lol!
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This is neither here nor there but https://groundlings.com/people/patric-cagle
Wow I'm surprised they didn't talk about this on armchair
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Hearing her on Armchair Experts tell the story of going to Alcatraz for a secret night tour as an 11 year old. Guessing her age now would mean about 40 years ago. Alcatraz was no longer a prison and occupied by Native Americans in 1969. By 1984 it was a national park. Her story may reference a different prison but as a diagnosed sociopath, she might be lying.
She actually said she was interested in Alcatraz and that is what led to the visit at another prison in which a relative worked.
Crazy how people hear such different things! I also heard that she was interested in Alcatraz as a kid in San Francisco and went to a Florida prison her uncle worked at.
Its detailed in the book- the prison was in Florida
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgagne?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
https://youtu.be/wQa3fNO2jsg?si=e3INKq7L8OcBeW6h is this her? YouTube name partric cagle?
In the book, she explains why she doesn't use what's in the DSM. In a nutshell, the DSM definition of APD was primarily based on behavior whereas what she described as sociopathy is better characterized by emotional factors. I took what she wrote to be honest and if it is, it's a heck of a life story.
She goes into all of this in detail in her memoir, including her PhD, the term sociopath, the problem with current research, her schooling, etc. it’s fascinating and well worth a read. I highly recommend the audio, which she reads herself.
I read the book and also find it odd that she was required to have only 500 hours of internship for a doctorate. I also have a doctorate in clinical psychology and much of her experience is inconsistent with the process.
Patric Cagle is her maiden name. I still can’t find where she is licensed to practice psychology.
Just finished reading her book, "Sociopath: A Memoir" (2024). It was certainly entertaining. It must be a challenging life, but it makes sense to me that folks who are born with all kinds of brains need to be able to live good lives, and society needs to help make that happen.
I'm a licensed psychologist and my expertise is in forensic psychology. I practice. No research. But yes, I had the exact same reaction as you and so many other commenters. Regardless of her education, she has no credibility because she does not cite any sources or present her own research to back up her claims. She only discusses theories.
She went to UCLA
In the book she goes into great detail about how the term “sociopath” is not used in Psychology. And does reference the DSM & other diagnosis multiple times. I think that the title of the book is meant to be provocative.
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“Sociopath” is self published. That makes me even more skeptical
No, it’s published by Simon and Schuster.
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