Overview
Homicidal insanity has remained a vexation to both the psychiatric and legal professions despite the panorama of scientific and social change during the past 200 years. The predominant opinion today among psychiatrists is that no correlation exists between dangerousness and specific mental disorders. But for generation after generation, psychiatrists have reported cases of insane homicide that were clinically similar. Although psychiatric theory changed and psychiatric nosology was inconsistent, the mental phenomena psychiatrists identified in such cases remained the same. The central thesis of Homicidal Insanity is that as psychiatric theory changed, psychiatrists regarded these phenomena variously as symptoms of mental disease or the disease in itself. It is possible to trace these phenomena throughout the history of Anglo-American psychiatric theory and practice. A secondary thesis of the book is that psychiatrists have used these phenomena as predictors and markers in the practical matters of preventing insane homicide and of testifying in the courts to defend the irresponsible and expose the culpable. For 200 years, scientific and philosophical disagreement raised controversy and brought the issues to public attention. Still, to this day no rational method exists to discriminate the dangerous from the harmless in matters of involuntary commitment, nor insanity from crime in the courts.
Full Product Details
Author: Janet Colaizzi ,
Jonas Rappeport
Publisher: The University of Alabama Press
Imprint: The University of Alabama Press
Edition: New edition
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.50cm
, Length: 24.10cm
Weight: 0.300kg
ISBN: 9780817311858
ISBN 10: 0817311858
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 30 June 2002
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Reviews
"""Colaizzi, a research historian, has done an excellent, scholarly study of the phenomenon of homicide associated with mental illness, including all the players in this sad, cruel game... the psychiatrist, the afflicted, the official authorities, and finally, society at large."" - Academic Library Book Review"
Colaizzi, a research historian, has done an excellent, scholarly study of the phenomenon of homicide associated with mental illness, including all the players in this sad, cruel game... the psychiatrist, the afflicted, the official authorities, and finally, society at large. - Academic Library Book Review
Author Information
Janet Colaizzi is research historian who resides in Williamsburg, Virginia.
