Inside the Criminal Mind
 | Inside the Criminal Mind: Revised and Updated Edition author: Stanton Samenow rating:  asin: 140004619X binding: Hardcover list price: $25.00 USD amazon price: $16.50 USD |
Have you ever asked: “How could a person do such a thing to another person?” “Why doesn’t he seem to care for others at all?”
Is there something about the permissive society of Dr. Spock that disturbs you? Do you wish to see the courts put real teeth into the way the law is written?
There is a really great cartoon in which Frank turns drunkenly to the bartender and says, “My therapist believes in Reality Therapy so now he’s blaming me for everything I do!”
Quotes: pg. xxii:
“When I began this [my] work, I believed that criminal behaviour was a symptom of buried conflicts that had resulted from early traumas and deprivation of one sort or another.” … [Criminals] “were victims of a psychological disorder [or] oppressive social environment…”
pg. xxiv:
“The essence of [my current] approach is that criminals choose to commit crimes. Crime resides within the person and is “caused” by the way he thinks, not by his environment.”
Recent Amazon Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic on the criminal mind
Great summery on criminal thinking. Much easier to read then original case studies were, but less information if researching for a serious project.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Horrible, misleading, irresponsible
By Dr. J.C. (Sacramento, CA)
This author has written a book that emphasizes an ’us and them’ mentality as if criminals are completely different than other human beings.
Full of interesting actual case studies and conversations with career criminals, this book is often denigrated for not toeing the politically correct interrpretations of criminality.
Chapter Titles:
Chapter 1: A new beginning
Chapter 2: The Basic Myths about Criminals
Chapter 3: Parents Don’t Turn Children into Criminals
Chapter 4: Peer Pressure: No Excuse for Crime
Chapter 5: “The Hell with School”
Chapter 6: Work and the Criminal
Chapter7: People as Pawns
Chapter 8: “Getting Over the Shrinks”
Chapter 9: Locked Up
Chapter 10: Criminal’s Self Image: “Decent People”
Chapter 11: The Conventional Wisdom: How Wise?
Chapter 12: Coping with Criminals: Dusty Trails, Dead Ends
Chapter 13: To Change a Criminal
Chapter 14: Corrections that Correct
Dr. Samenow did not arrive at his conclusions by cataloguing his teenage criminal clients into pigeon holes created by some sort of theory.
Rather, he actually listened to his clients and, believing what they were telling him about their thought processes, defined them by their own realities.
Controversial and thought provoking, this work is often put alongside that other icon of modern thinking about criminal behaviour, Dr, William Glasser, who pioneered Reality Therapy, the idea that “Everything a person does is by choice.”
No Review available:
Reality Therapy: A New Approach to Psychiatry
author: William Glasser
asin: 0060904143
binding: Paperback
list price: $12.00 USD
amazon price: $9.60 USD
