Overview

An engrossing look into the heart of twelve of the strangestpsychological disorders known to science In a book reminiscent of Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wifefor a Hat, psychologists Louis Franzini and John Grossberg take usbehind the tabloid headlines and media exposes to tell thereal-life stories of emotionally damaged men and women driven tohorrific extremes in their efforts to gratify their basic humanneeds for love and attention. Writing with compassion and offering many profound insights intothe human condition, the authors provide rare, often wrenching,glimpses into the tortured worlds of necrophiliacs, who make loveonly to corpses, and ""werewolves"" who commit unthinkable acts ofmutilation and cannibalism; of men paralyzed by the terrifyingbelief that their penises are disappearing into their bodies, andcompulsive hair pullers, who pluck every last hair from theirflesh; of paranoids who believe they are being stalked by theirevil twins, and those convinced that everyone close to them is animposter; and many others. All of the stories contained in Eccentric and Bizarre Behaviors arebased on actual case studies. Throughout, Drs. Franzini andGrossberg discuss, in terms that general readers can understand,both the known and conjectural causes for the strange disordersthey describe. And, in many cases, they recount the stirringdetails of how patients were ultimately rescued from the eccentricand bizarre patterns of behavior in which they had becomeimprisoned.

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9780471545200

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Reviews

For the voyeur in all of us, if you can stand the pace, the exclamation marks and the occasional joke in very poor taste. This curious collection of tabloid shock-horror tales is told in explicit detail by, supposedly, two Professors of Psychology at San Diego State University. Here are the gropers, the tube train robbers, the stalkers, the men who think their wives are imposters, the auto-erotic asphyxiators, the hair-eaters... right down to necrophiliacs, vampires and werewolves, not to mention hostages who get fond of their captors and mothers who fake medical symptoms in their children. All pretty gruesome in their different ways, but a good book to keep in the loo to amuse your guests if you, or they, like that kind of humour. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

LOUIS R. FRANZINI, PhD, and JOHN M. GROSSBERG, PhD, are professors of psychology at San Diego State University. Both have contributed extensively to psychological literature.

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