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 stringent critique of the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which came into vogue after the Vietnam war. Despite his skeptical subtitle, Young (Anthropology/McGill Univ.) doesn't doubt the existence of PTSD. However, he offers convincing evidence that this diagnosis is of recent vintage- -largely in response to the experiences of Vietnam veterans—and that it is used most imprecisely, ``glued together by the practices, technologies and narratives with which it is diagnosed, studied, treated and represented.'' Young painstakingly traces the evolution of the concept of trauma, from studies of 19th-century victims of railroad accidents who suffered ``traumatic memory'' to the many incidents of ``shell shock'' during WW I to the contemporary idea of PTSD, developed largely during the 1970s and '80s. He notes that this diagnosis is used far more broadly than past formulations. For example, veterans often are labeled as suffering from PTSD not for war-related traumas they have suffered but for recurrent aggressive feelings or guilt deriving from acts they committed against others, even if these feelings developed years after the original acts occurred. Young drives this point home by providing excerpts from group and clinical evaluation sessions at an unnamed VA hospital specializing in PTSD, whose therapists sometimes seem to bandy about the label as freely as some of their colleagues elsewhere do the diagnosis of ``borderline personality disorder.'' Young's work is scientific in the best sense, i.e., clear, precise, and free of jargon and polemics. However, this is also a difficult, even formidable book, which at times digresses to somewhat tangential psychiatric matters. But if it is not for the general reader, Young's work will provide rewarding reading for clinicians, as well as for academics and other specialists interested in PTSD and, more generally, in the nature and pitfalls of contemporary psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. (5 line drawings)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-691-03352-8
Page Count: 327
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
A British psychoanalyst perceptively explores the creative potential—and social suppression—of maternal ambivalence. Parker argues that it is quite common for women to hold passionate feelings of both hatred and love toward their children; she calls this disruptive combination ``maternal ambivalence.'' Drawing on her own patients' experiences, as well as on images of mothers culled from popular culture, journalism, psychoanalysis, and literature, she argues that this culture has been reluctant to acknowledge the complexity of maternal experience. We demonize ``bad'' mothers: child abusers or the much-publicized real-life couples who go on vacation, leaving their children home alone. We also idealize ``good'' ones: the Virgin Mary, the perfect homemaker, etc. Either way, we seem to ignore most mothers' emotional reality, because to acknowledge the complexity of the maternal experience is too threatening to cultural stability. This is a moment in history, Parker asserts, in which parenting and women's roles are changing profoundly, yet our construction of motherhood may be more rigid than ever. She argues that this is unfortunate because when mothers repress ambivalence, it may come out in destructive ways (from literal abuse and abandonment to quiet hostility that children may sense). In addition, understanding the depth of hostility a mother has for her children can help her to better understand the depth of her love for them, which can also be difficult and painful to acknowledge. Parker's psychoanalytic jargon is tough on the lay reader at points, but her examples—voices from mothers and from the culture—make this quite readable. A well-timed exploration of motherhood by a therapist who is equally thoughtful about her patients, her profession, and her culture.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-465-08661-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996
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