Outpatient Treatment of the Sexually Motivated Murderer and Potential Murderer (From The Clinical Treatment of the Criminal Offender in Outpatient Mental Health Settings: New and Emerging Perspectives, P 163-178, 1990, Nathaniel J Pallone and Sol Chaneles, eds. -- See NCJ-126044)

• NCJ Number: 126054
• Author(s): L B Schlesinger; E Revitch
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 16 pages
• Sale Source: Haworth Press, Inc
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper discusses the psychopathology and psychodynamics of the sex murderer and potential sex murdered, with emphasis on treatment in an outpatient setting.

Abstract

The authors review their classification system based on the motivational dynamics of the act itself; and they profile the catathymic and compulsive murderers, who commit the majority of most sexually motivated homicides. Wertham (1937) introduced the concept of "catathymic crisis" into the field of forensic psychiatry and criminal psychopathology. He used this concept to explain various unprovoked episodes of severe violence without organic etiology. He defines catathymic reactions as the "transformation of the stream of thought as the result of certain complexes of ideas that are charged with a strong affect, usually a wish, a fear, or an ambivalent striving." "Compulsive" murders are at the extreme endogenous end of the motivational spectrum and thus are least influenced by sociogenic factors. The individual's need to commit the act is compelling, and there is a strong potential for repetition. Three cases of the two types of murder involving a male killing a woman shows a treatment failure due to the therapist's inability to recognize important symptoms, successful treatment of a catathymic sex murderer once released from custody, and successful treatment of a potential compulsive sex murderer. 25 references