Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder
- ISBN13: 9780195137835
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Product Description
Whether called black sheep, sociopaths, felons, con men, or misfits, some men break all the rules. They shirk everyday responsibilities, abuse drugs and alcohol, take up criminal careers, and lash out at family members. In the worst cases, they commit rape, murder, and other acts of extreme violence as though they lack a conscience. What makes these men–men we all know, whether as faces in the news or as people close to us–behave the way they do?
Bad Boys, Bad Men examines antisocial personality disorder or ASP, the mysterious mental condition that underlies this lifelong penchant for bad behavior. Psychiatrist and researcher Donald W. Black, MD, draws on case studies, scientific data, and current events to explore antisocial behavior and to chart the history, nature, and treatment of a misunderstood disorder that affects up to seven million Americans. Citing new evidence from genetics and neuroscience, Black argues that this condition is tied to biological causes and that some people are simply born bad. Bad Boys, Bad Men introduces us to people like Ernie, the quintessential juvenile delinquent who had an incestuous relationship with his mother and descended into crime and alcoholism; and John Wayne Gacy, the notorious serial killer whose lifelong pattern of misbehavior escalated to the rape and murder of more than 30 young men and boys. These compelling cases read like medical detective stories as Black tries to separate the lies these men tell from the facts of their lives.
Bad Boys, Bad Men not only describes the warning signs that predict which troubled children are more likely to become dangerous adults, but also details progress toward treatment for ASP. This volume will be an essential resource for psychiatrists, psychologists, criminologists, victims of crime, families of individuals afflicted with ASP, and anyone else interested in understanding antisocial behavior.
Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder
This book is excellent and much of it was used for my website regarding psychopathy.
Rating: 5 / 5
Although the general approach and anecdotal content of Bad Boys, Bad Men were quite interesting, Dr. Black’s approach seems simplistic and he takes inexcusable liberties in attempting to “dumb” down” the book for its intended audience. For example, how can it possibly be true that “[e]very antisocial leaves a trail of disruption, deceit, and even violence….” Mistakes in grammar and usage, such as “to loan” instead of “to lend” and “pled” instead of the proper legal usage of “pleaded”, also undermined the credibility of this work.
The book’s anecdotal content reflects the limitations of the sources from which they were drawn and have a decided bias toward lower-class, violent antisocials. Although a brief and rather superficial chapter discusses “successful” antisocials, the text constantly returns to the extreme and violent end of the scale.
Throughout the book, a tone of subtle condescension toward the lay-reader and the antisocial is detectable, albeit disguised in simple vernacular. When serial-killer Gacy responded to the author that he was filing their correspondences under “People Up to No Good”, the author seems to find this a humorous anecdote which he rather smugly posits as an example of Gacy’s pathology. Perhaps Gacy may have recognised that the author, like so many others, had intended to exploit him in order to produce a work that would be sold for financial reward and for personal benefits to career and reputation.
Rating: 2 / 5
A bit ‘technical’, this is an essential read. Knowledge is power. ANYONE who’s ever been in an abusive relationship, personal, professional, platonic, NEVER has to put themself through it again when armed with the fact’s. The fact’s are contained in this book. Insight’s, what to be aware of, answer’s, there’re all here. Antisocial personality disorder is EVERYWHERE, like it or not.
Rating: 5 / 5
When I was a psychiatric resident at the University of Iowa Dr Black was my residency director. Occasionally during my training someone would make an unkind remark about the muddleheadeness thought to be pervasive in mental health circles in places like Cambridge MA and other sites on the East Coast.
As an easterner myself I dismissed these remarks as bedtime stories meant to scare our residents into staying in the midwest. However after reading one reviewer of Dr Blacks book wringing his hands over Dr Black appearing exploitative and sarcastic toward a convicted serial killer I now realize there may have been a grain of truth to what my elders were attempting to teach me.
It is clear that this book is needed more now than ever before. Our mental health system in part is suffering because evil is masquerading as disease. The result is increased stigmatization of the mentally ill and misallocation of resources. As the Jewish religious tradition teaches in Midrash Rabbah “Kindness to the wicked ends in cruelty to the righteous”.
Rating: 5 / 5
I bought this with a few others like it because I was in need to research this disorder. I didn’t read it cover to cover, but the information I pulled from it was very useful.
Rating: 4 / 5
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