NCJ Number
218668
Editor(s)
Louis B. Schlesinger Ph.D.
Date Published
2007
Length
393 pages
Annotation
Emphasizing on psychopathology from a clinical phenomenological perspective, with legal issues and implications playing a secondary role, this book presents a group of scholarly contributors exploring various disorders that have significant forensic implications.
Abstract
The need for forensic practitioners to understand psychopathology and the psychodynamics of crime can never be overemphasized. This book informs forensic clinicians concerned not only with the practicalities of forensic work, but in gaining a deeper understanding of the psychopathology and psychodynamics of the criminal defendants upon whom their opinions are based. In this second edition, chapters covering a number of psychopathological conditions that have direct forensic implications are updated. The book is divided into three sections. Part I includes five different types of psychopathology that lead to distinct overt types of behavior. Part II provides discussions of various disorders of thought resulting in criminal conduct, but not disordered thinking indicative of a formal thought disorder per se. Part III concerns borderline and psychotic-like conditions as well as malingering and deception, important topics in forensic practice. This compilation of chapters provides an understanding to a very specific and important aspect of human behavior: criminal psychopathology. Chapters are written by experienced practitioners of human conduct adding meaning and understanding to these behaviors. The book meets a need in scientific literature as a significant resource for clinicians that are confronted with rare, unusual, or novel disorders. References and indexes