Indeed, Douglas’s advocacy of awareness and observation, combined with his chilling accounts of criminal motivation, offer a...
Renowned G-man Douglas, originator of the FBI’s Investigative Support Unit, offers his fourth collaboration with co-author Olshaker (Obsession, 1998, etc.), a dense admixture of profiling theory, grim criminal history and cautionary admonishment that, though at times unwieldy, adds up to an informative, provocative page-turner.
As fans of Thomas Harris’s novels know, Douglas’s essential thesis is that even the most violent antisocial deeds contain signature elements (as distinct from modus operandi) that allow investigators to construct the framework of what he calls that key question: Why do criminals commit the crimes they do? This technique creates the profile of an unknown suspect that often aids investigations with startling accuracy. Douglas recaps this theory more than is necessary. Fortunately, he also illustrates it with a plethora of actual cases, assembling quite a rogues” gallery: obscure serial arsonists, snipers, and spree killers, along with such media demons as Timothy McVeigh, Andrew Cunanan, and Theodore Kaczynski. Douglas is a good teller of gruesome tales, although he undermines his own insights by referring to his prey as pathetic and with sarcastic asides. The book’s strength is its arsenal of details and insider knowledge: we learn, for example, the profiler’s homicidal triad of early indicators for potential offenders; that the most violent crimes stem from a relatively small population of antisocial loners who are almost always straight white males under 50; and that such figures may be set off by a single dislocating event, often a workplace downsizing. Readers in such diverse fields as human resources and journalism may thus find this thriller to be quite useful.
Indeed, Douglas’s advocacy of awareness and observation, combined with his chilling accounts of criminal motivation, offer a valuable lesson to all in staying abreast of the unlikely but most lethal dangers of our society.Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-84598-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
A demanding if not always well-organized study of why we persist in lying to ourselves. Psychoanalyst Shengold, whose fifth book this is (the best known is Soul Murder, 1989, about children whose parents have emotionally crippled them), develops a kind of phenomenology of such major and common emotional delusions as narcissism, malignant envy, paranoia, and even love (which often involves idealization of the other, accompanied by a suspension of critical judgment). We all are more or less under the sway of such delusions, Shengold observes; in the psychotic they take over the personality, while in the neurotic they coexist with more rational and less grandiose self-conceptions while remaining mentally split off from them. He illustrates the major kinds of delusions with a few case studies and through extensive allusions to and citations from major works of literature, particularly by Sophocles and Shakespeare (there is also a somewhat rambling chapter devoted to Samuel Butler, the misanthropic 19th-century English novelist and essayist). Shengold's basic thesis concerns ``the universal...retentions of delusions as a residue of the earliest mental functioning'' and the claim that delusions ``tie us to our early mental impressions of parents, to whom we cling as indispensable to our existence.'' They are the fruit of the desire to remain parented forever. Shengold has too little to say here about how the psychoanalyst or therapist might most effectively help ``surface'' and work with the patient's delusions. However, this book, which is almost entirely free of the kind of convoluted prose that too often characterizes psychoanalytic writing, will help clinicians focus on their patients' and their own deepest, largely submerged self-myths, and how they contribute to resistance (in both the colloquial and psychotherapeutic senses) to insight and change. Informative and thought-provoking, but of interest largely to clinicians.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-300-06268-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
Based on interviews with 12 articulate and seemingly skillful clinicians, a close study of the craft (first) and science (second) of psychiatry and psychotherapy. Albert, executive director of New York City's Project for Psychiatric Outreach to the Homeless, writes extensively here on the desirability and clinical benefits of therapeutic empathy. In one of many insightful and evocative passages, she notes that ``to really understand the whole person in all his moment-by-moment buzzing presence, the psychiatrist has to let the reality of the patient build up inside her, moving beyond [diagnostic] categories to feel her way emotionally into the other's world.'' Simultaneously, she warns, the clinician must beware of overidentifying with the patient, must balance being empathic with being ``probing and intrusive'' in helping the patient explore subconscious currents of desire and conflict. In 17 succinct, straightforward, and jargon-free chapters, ranging from the background of modern psychiatry to ``The Necessity of Love'' (the clinician's for the patient), Albert explores the unique, emotionally intense, and strangely asymmetrical nature of the therapeutic bond. ``The Real Relationship,'' possibly her best section, examines nonverbal factors in therapy, such as the analyst's health, office decor, and ability and willingness to reveal some of his or her own vulnerabilities. The book's major flaw is that it somewhat romanticizes psychiatry and, in particular, the experience of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The very self-aware clinicians she cites repeatedly reveal a more nuanced attitude: Therapist and patient alike have to work hard to establish and maintain a healing bond. Albert's idealistic approach also causes her to give somewhat short shrift to such problems as analysts who overcharge or cling to patients they should terminate. Nonetheless, the author's skillful interviewing, synthesis, and organization of materialand her subjects' apparent clinical depth and thoughtfulnessmake for a rewarding work.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-571-19869-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
