The Mark of Cain: Psychoanalytic Insight and the Psychopath

by Meloy; J. Reid

• ISBN13: 9780881633108
• ISBN10: 0881633100
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781134902378
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-07-01
• Publisher: Routledge
• More Book Details

Summary

The Mark of Cainmakes available for the first time the accumulated psychoanalytic understanding of the psychopathic mind. Editor Reid Meloy, a leading authority on the psychology of the psychopath, has brought together in a single collection the most historically important psychoanalytic papers on the psychopath and delineted their continuing relevance to contemporary understanding. According to Meloy, two theoretical traditions flow into the psychoanalytic understanding of psychopathy. The first tributary focuses on the early development of the psychopath in order to illuminate how a profound alteration in self-regard leads both to a denigration of the other and to an impulsive search for gratification in the present. The second tributary seeks to locate the psychopathic miscarriage of human potentiality within analytic theories of personality structure and clinically grounded differential diagnosis. Meloy presents the major contributions associated with both of these traditions. Included within this body of literature are the original formulations of concepts that have long since become part of the psychoanalytic nomenclature: the "affectionless" juvenile offender, the diagnostic significance of "affect hunger," the behavioral consequences of "superego lacunae," the recourse to promiscuous identification in "the impostor," and the paradoxically lethal lure of "malignant narcissism." Of special interest are Meloy's historical notes to each chapter and two section introductions, the latter major essays in their own right. The explosion of empirical research on psychopathy over the past two decades masks the fact that much contemporary work in this area is grounded in the clinical formulations of leading psychoanalysts of the twentieth century. The Mark of Cainrescues this intimate understanding of the inner world of the psychopath and thereby contributes to clinical realism in the face of deception, manipulation, exploitation, and even frank dangerousness.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xiii
SECTION I. DEVELOPMENT AND PSYCHODYNAMICS	1	(180)
Introduction to Section I	3	(22)
J. Reid Meloy
Primary Affect Hunger	25	(10)
David M. Levy
Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves: Their Characters and Home-Life	35	(8)
John Bowlby
Conscience in the Psychopath	43	(20)
Phyllis Greenacre
Psychopathic Behavior Disorders in Children	63	(16)
Lauretta Bender
Latent Delinquency and Ego Development	79	(12)
Kate Friendlander
Sanctions for Superego Lacunae of Adolescents	91	(24)
Adelaide M. Johnson
The Impostor: Contribution to Ego Psychology of a Type of Psychopath	115	(18)
Helene Deutsch
The Antisocial Tendency	133	(12)
D. W. Winnicott
Time and the Character Disorder	145	(10)
Milton H. Miller
Psychopathy, Freedom, and Criminal Behavior	155	(16)
Seymour Halleck
The Psychology of Wickedness: Psychopathy and Sadism	171	(10)
J. Reid Meloy
SECTION II. TREATMENT, RISK MANAGEMENT, AND PSYCHODIAGNOSIS	181	(158)
Introduction to Section II	183	(22)
J. Reid Meloy
The Phallic-Narcissistic Character	205	(8)
Wilhelm Reich
The Narcissistic Transference of the ``Juvenile Impostor''	213	(14)
August Aichhorn
Some Characteristics of the Psychopathic Personality	227	(12)
Betty Joseph
Some Narcissistic Personality Types	239	(26)
Ben Bursten
Outpatient Treatment of Psychopaths	265	(18)
John R. Lion
The Response Aroused by the Psychopath	283	(14)
Neville Symington
The Treatment of Antisocial Syndromes: The Therapist's Feelings	297	(18)
Larry H. Strasburger
The Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the Differential Diagnosis of Antisocial Behavior	315	(24)
Otto F. Kernberg
Index	339