Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editors' preface
- Contributors
- The historical background: the past 25 years since the Mental Health Act of 1959
- The social and medical consequences of recent legal reforms of mental health law in the USA: the criminalization of mental disorder
- The recent Mental Health Act in the United Kingdom: issues and perspectives
- Medical and social consequences of the Italian Psychiatric Care Act of 1978
- Lessons for the future drawn from United States legislation and experience
- Recent developments in relation to mental health and the law in the Federal Republic of Germany
- Psychopathy and dangerousness
- Dangerousness in social perspective
- Psychiatric explanations as excuses
- Detention of patients: administrative problems facing Mental Health Review Tribunals
- Developments in forensic psychiatry services in the National Health Service
- The role of psychiatry in prisons and ‘the right to punishment’
- Human rights in mental health
- Changes in mental health legislation as indicators of changing values and policies
- The Danish experience: one model of psychiatric testimony to courts of law
- A postscript on the discussions at the Cambridge Conference on Society, Psychiatry and the Law
Psychopathy and dangerousness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editors' preface
- Contributors
- The historical background: the past 25 years since the Mental Health Act of 1959
- The social and medical consequences of recent legal reforms of mental health law in the USA: the criminalization of mental disorder
- The recent Mental Health Act in the United Kingdom: issues and perspectives
- Medical and social consequences of the Italian Psychiatric Care Act of 1978
- Lessons for the future drawn from United States legislation and experience
- Recent developments in relation to mental health and the law in the Federal Republic of Germany
- Psychopathy and dangerousness
- Dangerousness in social perspective
- Psychiatric explanations as excuses
- Detention of patients: administrative problems facing Mental Health Review Tribunals
- Developments in forensic psychiatry services in the National Health Service
- The role of psychiatry in prisons and ‘the right to punishment’
- Human rights in mental health
- Changes in mental health legislation as indicators of changing values and policies
- The Danish experience: one model of psychiatric testimony to courts of law
- A postscript on the discussions at the Cambridge Conference on Society, Psychiatry and the Law
Summary
There is an old salesmen's and actors’ axiom which goes something like this: If one's intended audience can be convinced of the premise upon which some subsequent argument will be based, then ‘selling’ the final product – be it an automobile or a dramatic portrayal – is easy. The title chosen for this paper might convey a premise of virtual equivalence between the two terms ‘psychopathy’ and ‘dangerousness’. I do not entirely accept that premise, and hope that by the end of this paper the concept of psychopathy as I have come to know it will be elucidated and that of dangerousness broadened.
Psychopathy
First, the business of elucidation. I will not pretend to define ‘psychopath’ here. I would draw attention, however, to the probable differences between different psychiatrists’ definitions of the term, and differences between possible intellectual, impressionistic, and practical ways of viewing the disorder and its victims. There are intellectual, or at least administrative, differences between the meanings of the term in Great Britain and the United States. One can see these by perusing the work of many psychiatrists, including Craft, Cleckley, Jenkins, and others (Jenkins, 1960, 1973; Craft, 1965; Cleckley, 1976). The mental image or impression which is conjured up by the term ‘psychopath’ is of course a personal one. In my own case I must admit that it is based in large part upon conversations at my father's knee. He is a psychiatrist, not a psychopath.
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- Psychiatry, Human Rights and the Law , pp. 72 - 80Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1985
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