Sexual Murder: Catathymic and Compulsive Homicides / Edition 1

by Louis B. Schlesinger

Overview

In this work of forensic psychiatry, Schlesinger (psychology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City U. of New York) describes his theory of sexually motivated homicide, which he argues are generally of two types. Catathymic homicides are caused by a breakthrough of underlying sexual conflicts, while compulsive homicides are driven by a fusion of sex and aggression. Methods of homicide classification are described and the psychological makeup of the two types of murderers is discussed. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780849311307
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/26/2003
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Louis B. Schlesinger, Ph.D., is Professor of Forensic Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, a Diplomate in Forensic Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology, and a Distinguished Practitioner of the National Academies of Practice. He served as president of the New Jersey Psychological Association in 1989 and as a member of the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association from 1991 to 1994. Dr. Schlesinger is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and was the 1990 recipient of the New Jersey Psychological Association’s Psychologist of the Year Award, and Distinguished Researcher Award in 2014, as well as a recipient of the American Psychological Association’s Karl F. Heiser Presidential Award (1993). He was appointed by the Governor of New Jersey and the commissioner of corrections to be a member (and later served as chair) of the Special Classification Review Board at the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center (1980–1987), the state’s forensic facility; he was also appointed (2001) by the president of the New Jersey State Senate and acting Governor to serve as a member of a Senate task force that rewrote Megan’s Law. Dr. Schlesinger is co-principal investigator of a joint research project between John Jay College and the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico, studying various types of violent crime including sexual and serial murder, rape, bias homicide, suicide-by-cop, and other extraordinary criminal behaviors. He has testified in numerous forensic cases and has published many articles, chapters, and eight other books on the topics of homicide, sexual homicide, and criminal psychopathology.

Table of Contents

1 Understanding Sexual Murder: Problems and Approaches

2 Forensic Assessment: Evaluation of the Sexual Murder

3 The Place of Sexual Murder in the Classification of Crime

4 Catathymia and Catathymic Crisis: Contributions of Hans W. Maier and Fredric Wertham

5 Acute Catathymic Homicides

6 Chronic Catathymic Homicides

7 Compulsive Homicides in Historical Context

8 Planned Compulsive Homicides

9 Unplanned Compulsive Homicides

10 Prediction and Disposition

Editorial Reviews

"Sexual Murder: Catathymic and Compulsive Homicides, is a brilliant integration and application of previous theory and research, and advances the field of criminal forensic psychology." —J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D., Forensic Psychologist, Criminal & Civil Case Consultant, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCSD, Faculty Member of San Diego Psychoanalytic Center, San Diego, California, USA

From the Publisher