Is Rob Ford A Clinically Diagnosable Psychopath?

Here's a fun little exercise for a Monday.

We've been laying off the Rob Ford story/trainwreck/crap-o-rama for the last little while because we (by which I really mean I) were starting to seem kind of obsessed with the whole matter.  It started to feel a little unseemly.


But I am back in Toronto right now, and I was sitting on the porch with my family last night having a conversation with my father about Rob Ford's behaviour throughout his tenure in the public eye.  The consensus that resulted from that discussion among the two of us is that Ford is a fundamentally amoral person - he acts irresponsibly and, in some cases, illegally; his first instinct every time he's caught is to lie repeatedly and to cover up his actions even as evidence builds that he's doing so, only admitting to what he's done when confronted with irrefutable proof; even once admitting to an anti-social, irresponsible or criminal transgression, his apologies tend to be manipulative, self-serving, and weak; and he harbours opinions well outside the current mainstream concerning minority groups while showing a complete unwillingness to reevaluate his bigotry based on objective rationality, even when doing so would benefit the community he leads (i.e. his continued refusal to fund or even attend Pride despite the huge positive economic impact it has on his financially strapped city).

It's obviously not a huge shock to find out that a politician is amoral.  Politicians have been lying, cheating, stealing and bullshitting their way through it all for millennia.  But it got me thinking.  Ford seems to go beyond simple political Machiavellianism.  His seemingly total and unrepentant lack of remorse for the things that he's done even when they're publicly acknowledged and admitted to, coupled with his continuing to commit anti-social acts following these provable incidents, along with the almost unbelievable personally and professionally irresponsible acts he's alleged to have committed recently on that video, all seem to indicate that his amorality might extend beyond the usual lust for power and instinct for self-preservation that motivate the below-board actions of your run-of-the-mill lying politician.

So what if Rob Ford has a clinically diagnosable psychological disorder?  What if he's compelled to act the way he does because he's really sick in the head?  What if Toronto (or those pockets of it that voted for the man) elected itself a truly dangerous person to lead our city?

Obvious disclaimer time: anything regarding psychological disorders, their criteria as properly defined, and the diagnosis of Ford based on those criteria, is pure speculation from a person with no background or expertise or even much knowledge beyond some Wikipedia searches and the skimming of some medical journals and psychology texts.  I'm no qualified clinician.  I haven't ever met Ford, much less performed tests for hours with him under scientifically controlled conditions.  I'm basing my hackneyed opinion on what I know of the man from the media, and I'm including things he's alleged to have done along with things that are proven when evaluating him.  Hell, I'm just choosing psychopathy as my disorder to attempt a diagnosis with because it sounds cool - he might meet factors more closely for other disorders, or he might not meet the factors for psychopathy at all as far a psychologist would be concerned.  He might be a totally healthy person who just happens to be an awful, lying dick.  Basically this is all, well... I'm not going to say total bullshit, but it's about as amateurish an operation as can be conducted.  Like I said, it's just a fun little exercise, that wouldn't pass a smell test or rise in importance anywhere beyond being food for thought.

Now that that's all out of the way, on to the entertainment.  We'll start with a little background on psychopathy that I just learned about.  There is no clear definition of what a psychopath is.  It's not like having cancer or AIDS or athlete's foot or some other physical disease or ailment that can be quantifiably diagnosed with controlled technological tests.  Like many psychological disorders, its scope and criteria are  open to interpretation and debated fiercely in the psychology community.  The widely used test performed by clinicians for its diagnosis is also open to the subjective interpretation of the person doing the diagnosing.  It's scientifically messy, is what I'm saying.

But, as I just said, there is a test, and it is the most accepted diagnostic tool out there for identifying psychopaths.  It was developed by a Canadian psychologist named Robert Hare.  It's current iteration is known as the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, or the PCL-R.  It breaks down into two factors - the interpersonal-affective scale and the antisocial scale.  Within each of those is two facets - interpersonal and affective within the former, lifestyle and antisocial within the latter.  Within these facets are specific criteria which we'll get to below, as well as two additional criteria that fall outside the two factors completely.  All in all there are 20 specific criteria for diagnosing a psychopath, each scored on a scale of 0-2.  Zero means that the criterion doesn't apply at all, 1 that it applies to some degree, and 2 that it completely applies to the subject.  The maximum score, therefore, is 40.  Most of the psychology community uses a minimum score of 30 to apply a diagnosis of psychopathy.  The British use 25.  Since this is all just for fun anyway, and since our mayor has so lowered the bar for everything from civic leadership to public discourse to common decency, let's lower the bar for him and use the UK standard of 25.  Fuck it, right?  My hypothesis is that based on my own observations of the reporting on his behaviour, his interviews, news conferences and  radio appearances, his proven criminal and anti-social actions, and the things he's alleged to have done when they're widely accepted as having occurred, that Rob Ford is a psychopath, as defined and diagnosed by the PCL-R.  So let's dive in.

FACTOR 1 - INTERPERSONAL-AFFECTIVE SCALE

Facet 1 - Interpersonal

Criterion 1 - Glibness/Superficial Charm: we know he's glib.  The smirking performance he gave in the press conference where he finally denied he smokes (not "smoked") crack, which came the day after Gawker admitted it couldn't find the guys who had the video anymore, is a shining example.  Rather than showing any regard for the seriousness of the allegations or the turmoil they'd caused, he comes off like the cat who got the canary.  He then proceeded to give his Sunday radio show a couple of days later, during which he still failed to show an understanding for the seriousness of the charges against him, preferring to scapegoat the media as a bunch of "maggots."  As for superficial charm, well, you don't get elected mayor of a major city without possessing a good measure of charm.  He's a great retail politician, always ready to shake a hand, pose for a picture or take a phone call from a constituent.  I would give him a score of 2.

Criterion 2 - Grandiose Sense Of Self-Worth: this is a guy who called 911 twice when Mary Walsh from This Hour Has 22 Minutes showed up at his house, and when he didn't feel the dispatcher was responding with proper deference, allegedly screamed "Don’t you fucking know? I’m Rob fucking Ford, the mayor of this city."  He also apparently feels he's above the law, as demonstrated by his driving while reading and his indifference to the accusation that this is something he shouldn't do.  Definitely a 2.

Criterion 3 - Pathological Lying: oh, let us count the ways.  I'm going to refer to this Toronto Star list of some of the shit he's pulled, and mention a couple of highlights.  He lied about his DUI and marijuana bust in Florida until he was confronted with direct evidence that the arrest occurred.  Even then he lied about the severity of the charge, claiming he was charged with "failing to give a breath sample" rather than the DUI he was actually charged with.  Even more damning, he denied for days even being at a hockey game where he berated a couple.  He lied about that even while knowing that not only had he been there, he had actually handed out his business card.  Lying as a reflex when you know you can easily be proved to be doing so is the very definition of pathological lying.  Absolutely a 2.

Criterion 4 - Conning/Manipulative: he expertly played on the fears and resentments of suburban voters toward those in the city core during his election campaign and ever since.  He stokes those resentments with diatribes against liberal elites and "gravy train" spending while claiming to be a fighter for the little guy, the ordinary taxpayer, even though those claims are overblown or outright fabrications.  The guy is a master at manipulating a certain segment of the population into voting for him based on a public image despite the fact that he's actually detrimental to the things that would help them the most - public transit, social programs, etc.    Here he gets a 2 as well.

Facet 2 - Affective

Criterion 5 - Lack Of Remorse Or Guilt: never once has he apologized for any of the things he's been caught doing or proven to have done until it becomes politically expedient/necessary for him to do so.  All apologies are carefully weighed against the political measure of whether they'll be more or less helpful than a denial.  And even when he does apologize, he invariably does it in a self-serving way, admitting to only the bare minimum that he can get away with while trumpeting his own accomplishments and scapegoating various left wing councillors or media outlets.  This gives the overall impression that he's only ever actually sorry that he's been caught, as opposed to sorry for the actions for which he was caught.  He gets a 2.

Criterion 6 - Shallow Affect: this one's harder to call.  The guy is definitely passionate about some things.  And he's certainly up for a good time, so I can't say he's joyless.  On the other hand, as mentioned, he doesn't seem to fully experience, at least publicly, an emotional connection with the things he's done or the people who are angered by those things.  I would give him a 1.

Criterion 7 - Callousness/Lack Of Empathy: well, he did show up to Peter Worthington's funeral with staffers who handed out Rob Ford campaign fridge magnets to people at the service.  That's pretty callous and certainly not empathetic to Worthington's family.  Here comes a 2.

Criterion 8 - Failure To Accept Responsibility For His Own Actions: "The Toronto Star did it.  It's the Toronto Star.  The Toronto Star is making it all up.  I never did anything, it's all a Toronto Star conspiracy.  The Toronto Star is out to get me.  The Toronto Star is on a concerted campaign to ruin me.  The Toronto Star is the root of all evil and everything I've ever been accused of doing, even the stuff that I actually, provably did, is actually a figment of Daniel Dale's imagination.  Toronto Star Toronto Star Toronto Star."  So said Rob Ford (I'm paraphrasing).  The point is, as mentioned before, this guy only admits to as little wrongdoing as he can safely get away with, and even then only when his back is against (or well past) the wall.  Such a 2.

FACTOR 2 - ANTISOCIAL SCALE

Facet 3 - Lifestyle

Criterion 9 - Need For Stimulation/Proneness To Boredom: wanna play some football?  Rob Ford sure does.  You know when he wants to play it?  When he should be sitting through those awful, interminable, unbelievably boring council and committee meetings.  You know what the difference is between him and the other people who sought out the job of having to do just that?  He actually succumbs to his boredom and leaves to coach his football team.  Still, his overall attendance record is average-to-good for a guy in his position.  I'll give him a 1 on this one.

Criterion 10 - Parasitic Lifestyle: hey, for all his faults, he gets a 0 here.  Sure, he did inherit wealth from his dad.  But he is almost pathologically against sponging off of his office for personal enrichment (as opposed to his charity).  He donates his salary and he spends almost none of his office budget.  I have to give him this one.

Criterion 11 - Lack Of Realistic Long-Term Goals: ferris wheel, anyone?  How about a monorail or a waterfront hotel (one where you can pull your boat right into the lobby, because that makes a lot of sense), as proposed by the mayor's brother and closest advisor Doug?  Yes, I realize that Rob himself didn't say this.  Doug was speaking on behalf of the administration however, and he did use the word "we."  That coupled with him often acting as his brother's spokesman, along with the lack of a refutation by Rob, indicates these are policy goals that Rob was or is all for.  His attempt to scrap the reasonable and funded Transit City plan for an as-yet-funded and impractical subway plan was also pretty unrealistic.  I'm going to give him a 2 here.

Criterion 12 - Impulsivity and Criterion - 13 Irresponsibility: I'm combining these two because so many of the things he's done that indicate the former also indicate the latter.  Smoking crack while in office comes to mind.  Spouting racist and homophobic slurs while doing so also applies.  Driving while reading, berating hockey fans, grabbing asses, claiming you probably won't get AIDS if you're not gay or a drug addict, sounding off in council about the effective and canine-like working habits of "Oriental" people... need I go on?  If I could give him a 20 for these two categories alone I would.  But I'm limited by the constraints of the test, so he gets a 2 for impulsivity and a 2 for irresponsibility.

Facet 4 - Antisocial 

Criterion 14 - Poor Behavioural Controls: basically all the things that applied to the last two criteria apply here.  A person in his position doing the things and taking the risks that he does has obviously poor control over his actions and behaviour.  He gets a 2.

Criterion 15 - Early Behavioural Problems, Criterion 16 - Juvenile Delinquency, Criterion 17 - Revocation Of Conditional Release: I have to give him a 0 on all three of these.  Other than a little anecdotal evidence from the Doug Ford hash report and on this blog that he hung around while his brother sold drugs there isn't anything pointing to either of the first two things, and as far as I know he's never been in prison, let alone released from prison and then had his release revoked.

Criterion 18 - Criminal Versatility: smoking crack.  Breaking conflict-of-interest laws.  Illegal campaign spending.  What do these three things have in common besides the fact that they are all crimes?  The were all either allegedly or provably committed by Rob Ford.  Seems pretty varied to me.  Three things is a pretty small sample size (I'm ignoring his DUI and pot bust from his younger days entirely - those were stupid mistakes he paid the price for, these are calculated or unbelievably impulsive and irresponsible crimes he's managed to avoid sanction for), so I'm only going to give him a 1 here.

Criteria Outside Factors 1 And 2

Criterion 19 - Promiscuous Sexual Behaviour and Criterion 20 - Many Short-Term Marital Relationships: obvious 0 on both of these.  I have never seen any evidence that he's cheated on his wife and he hasn't been married a whole bunch of times for a little while at a time.

FINAL TALLY - 25

There you have it.  By my own completely subjective, uninformed, inexpert and unscientific reckoning, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is a clinical psychopath (at least in the UK).

Are you people ready for Olivia yet?