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Title: Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder by Donald W. Black, C. Lindon Larson ISBN: 0-19-513783-3 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: May, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (9 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Bad Seeds
Comment: Genetic determinism has been with us since the bible. Recent advances in genome and proteome studies debunk both radical claims: "people are born bad" (bad seeds hypothesis) and "people are corrupted by bad parents and society" (the tabula rasa approach). It seems that genes and environment interact, recursively influencing each other. So are crime and moral dissolution hereditary mental disorders - or learned behavior patterns? The author votes for the former in this impressive but accessible introductory text, replete with dozens of case studies and recent scientific data. Still, social and domestic ills such as abuse and poverty, admits Black, a psychiatrist, play a role, at least in unlocking the criminal "potential". One should applaud the author's honesty in admitting his own profession's helplessness in the face of these depraved and largely untreatable personality disorders. Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited".
Rating: 3
Summary: Conscientiously Without Conscience
Comment: Are there some people who simply make it their mission to be bad? The psychiatric circle is now beginning to believe so. In this groundbreaking look at Anti-social Personality Disorder (ASP) psychiatrist Donald Black charts the process and problems of men (for they are primarily men) who know no conscience and simply refuse to obey the rules. Typically, these men are white and working class, who go through jobs, money, homes, prisons, and family with a virtual disgregard for those around them. They may have come from poor families and broken homes, they are likely to have been juvenile delinquents, their parents may have been antisocials as well. But the Antisocial is a very dangerous person who comes in any size, shape, or form.
At the risk of seeming like another attempt to plead pity for criminals, Donald Black insists that these men be held responsible for their actions, and avoids placing blame on anyone but them for the destruction they seem to willfully cause. He discusses various causes for the disorder (ie: genetics, brain trauma, abuse, poverty), the history of its discovery, and gives us case studies of men who he has tracked down more than twenty years after their initial hospitalization and diagnosis with ASP, often with unsettling results.
I liked this book for its scholarly treatment of this psychiatric subject. It was complex and in-depth, but at the same time, still accessible to me as a non-psychiatrist. I was fascinated with the descriptions of personalities that he gave, and riveted by the petrifying account he gave of the sociopath John Wayne Gacy. At the same time, I did have some problems with this book. At times, it did not hold my attention and would read like a textbook. I also found that Dr. Black's treatment of the antisocial was rather contemptuous and seemed to emphasize the fact that these people are virtually impossible to treat, rather than trying to show optimism or enthusiasm. I don't think you can help somebody (no matter how unlikeable they may seem at face value) recover if you attack them. There is a difference between holding someone responsible and beating them up over their bad choices. (Or perhaps this shows I didn't get as much out of this book as I should have.) Along the same lines, Dr. Black did not support his descriptions of antisocial behavior with the responses of the patients. He told us antisocials have no remorse, but I don't feel he really articulated that in telling the stories of follow-up interviews.
Overall, I felt that this was a pretty good book, and an important introduction to a disorder which has extreme ill-effects on society (poverty, crime, etc.). Hopefully, over the years, their can be more research to define a way to treat these individuals.
Rating: 2
Summary: A simplistic, superficial, very limited treatment...
Comment: Although the general approach and anecdotal content of Bad Boys, Bad Men were quite interesting, Dr. Black's approach seems simplistic and he takes inexcusable liberties in attempting to "dumb" down" the book for its intended audience. For example, how can it possibly be true that "[e]very antisocial leaves a trail of disruption, deceit, and even violence...." Mistakes in grammar and usage, such as "to loan" instead of "to lend" and "pled" instead of the proper legal usage of "pleaded", also undermined the credibility of this work.
The book's anecdotal content reflects the limitations of the sources from which they were drawn and have a decided bias toward lower-class, violent antisocials. Although a brief and rather superficial chapter discusses "successful" antisocials, the text constantly returns to the extreme and violent end of the scale.
Throughout the book, a tone of subtle condescension toward the lay-reader and the antisocial is detectable, albeit disguised in simple vernacular. When serial-killer Gacy responded to the author that he was filing their correspondences under "People Up to No Good", the author seems to find this a humorous anecdote which he rather smugly posits as an example of Gacy's pathology. Perhaps Gacy may have recognised that the author, like so many others, had intended to exploit him in order to produce a work that would be sold for financial reward and for personal benefits to career and reputation.
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Title: Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Robert D. Hare ISBN: 1572304510 Publisher: Guilford Press Pub. Date: 08 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Antisocial Behavior: Personality Disorders from Hostility to Homicide by Benjamin B. Wolman ISBN: 1573927015 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: October, 1999 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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Title: The Antisocial Personalities by David T. Lykken ISBN: 0805819746 Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc Pub. Date: November, 1995 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: The Emptied Soul by Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig ISBN: 0882143719 Publisher: Spring Pubns Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.50 |
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Title: The Psychopathic Mind: Origins, Dynamics, and Treatment by J. Reid Meloy ISBN: 0876683111 Publisher: Jason Aronson Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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