CONFESSIONS OF SON OF SAM

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1985

How often did David Berkowitz masturbate? When he crept up alongside the parked cars in which his young victims sat, did he get an erection? Readers keen for answers to such questions will not be disappointed by forensic psychiatrist Abrahamsen (The Murdering Mind, The Mind of the Accused)--who testified for the prosecution on Son of Sam's competency, firmly believes Berkowitz ""faked insanity,"" and here tosses the convicted killer's psyche into a sort of Freudian cuisinart, in an effort to probe the Why. Though the result may not constitute ""a first in the annals of psychiatry,"" as Abrahamsen bills it, there's no shortage of material for an analyst. An adopted child who'd been told (incorrectly) that his natural mother had died, young Berkowitz craved attention desperately (nightmares ""almost every night,"" chronic absences from school), became obsessed with murder and death, and developed an abnormally close (""deeply unresolved,"" to Abrahamsen) relationship with his adoptive mother. Her death and his adoptive father's remarriage caused Berkowitz to seek out his natural mother, which brought the crushing realization that he was the illegitimate offspring of her liaison with a married man named Kleineman (""My dream family didn't exist. It was my last hope""). The Why, says Abrahamsen inevitably, is sex. The ""demons"" Berkowitz blamed were his sexual urges; castration anxiety was deeply rooted in his relationship with his adoptive mother; his obsessive sexual fantasies can be traced to the ""primal scene"" of watching his adoptive parents' lovemaking (which Abrahamsen theorizes is ""almost certain"" to have occurred); and the killer himself now says ""my mother. . . was sitting in those parked cars with Kleineman."" Diagnosis: psychopathic personality with malingering concomitant paranoid and hysterical traits. In claiming that Berkowitz killed young women to prevent them from giving birth to illegitimate children who would face the same misery he himself had endured, Abrahamsen pushes his theory to the limit, if not beyond. And his style--often condescending (""some of what follows may seem a bit farfetched to those unacquainted with the work of psychiatrists"") and pompous (""during my extensive practice as a psychiatrist. . ."") --doesn't help.

Pub Date: May 1, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Columbia Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1985

Categories: NONFICTION