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Summary: Brilliantly Written Exploration of the "Insanity" Defense
Review: .
Dr. Dorothy Olnow Lewis provides compassionate, three-dimensional glimpses into the shattered minds of individuals like Ted, Arthur, Johnny, Roger, Marie and others convicted of murder, exposing various forms of neglect, abuse and violence they themselves apparently suffered as children at the hands of their own parents, grandparents, and/or foster parents and siblings.
Dr. Lewis reveals a lot of biographical information about her own childhood. She demonstrates how psychiatry and the criminal justice system interlock, and how the system often fails to serve the needs of those young accused murderers who are without available funds to retain articulate and competent legal representation.
Her explanation of "dissociative disorder" as a psychiatric defense for defendants who have experienced childhood sexual abuse, provides dramatic, yet compelling reading.
In "dissociative disorder," as she convincingly explains, children who have suffered SEVERE emotional and physical neglect and abuse by their own parents and/or foster parents or others frequently represss the painful and unbearable memories for a variety of speculated reasons, on which she elaborates.
It is alarming that many people, including judges and prosecutors, are uncomfortable when confronted with evidence that a heinous murderer was himself or herself repeatedly heinously abused, often by the very people he or she is accused of having murdered.
Consequently, many, many young adults who suffer from dissociative states of mind (a form of insanity) are nevertheless executed by the state, which Dr. Lewis believes to be a crime in itself.
I strongly recommend this well-written book to parents, lawyers, students of criminal justice and anyone working in psychiatry or the mental health system.
Dr. Lewis is not only brilliant and compassionate, she is courageous in trying to educate, civilize and reform a barbaric criminal justice establishment that is frequently more geared to punishing and executing than in trying to understand the CAUSE of antisocial behavior.
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Summary: Abnormal psychology/ psychopathology students MUST READ!
Review: A very interesting look into the process of researching criminal minds. Dr.Lewis maintains a balence of scientific terms and telling a case by case story. If you have thought about going into this realm professionally, then this book can give you agood look into the types of scenerios delt with. I thought the focus of child abuse and multiple personaility/dissociative disorder was facinating, hard to put down!! Also check out her partners work Dr. Jonathen Pincus, for further reading
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Summary: A "must read" for layperson and professional alike.
Review: Anyone concerned with issues of violence, child abuse, legal defense and prosecution should read this compelling narrative. The vivid scenes, rendering of character, and fascinating dialogue make the reader read on in a process accessible to the layperson. As Dr. Lewis learned and refined her diagnostic skills, the reader learns with her in a truly pioneering work. The book makes the reader consider many critical issues in the fields of law, public policy, psychiatry, and family dynamics. Never are these problems dry or academic; they are gripping, troubling, and vitally important.
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Summary: An Insightful Contribution!
Review: Dr. Lewis has made a significant contribution to the forensic arena of literature. Her strengths, so it seems, developed over years of direct interaction with snumerous violently inclined individuals, and, perhaps, most importantly her willingness to both admit and learn from her earlier mistakes. Her partnership with Jonathan Pincus, as she so aptly describes it at different points, clearly illustrates the old saying; "Two heads are better than one." This is a book which ought to be required reading for anyone seriously interested in the field of forensic psychiatry/psychology. The book The Violent Dangerous Criminal (written by Lonnie Athens) ought to be read in conjunction with this text, because of the outstanding manner that they both deal with so many topics of the same complex nature. Reviewer is the author of the book Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity: One Man's Recovery.
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Summary: Very good -- slightly flawed. Still worth reading.
Review: I borrow the word "flawed" from another one of the reviewers. She's right. It is flawed. This book is at once incredible and frustrating. It makes some important points, it's written from a well-educated and well-informed perspective, but it "feels" less rigorous than would satisfy me... not because it isn't, but because the author's style is very conversational, even at times like stream-of-consciousness writing, wandering from point to point without following a clearly defined path. I appreciate that the author's personality is so "present" in the text. But, at the same time, the conversation she's having with her reader could do with more focus. I was both happy to go along with her wandering style, and also constantly wishing she'd stop and tell me more about her points (support them) and return to them to help conclude her delivery with strength. Nevertheless, this book was, for me, an excellent introduction to the psychology of violence and the "big secret" kept about killers on Death Row: that they're mildly to severely neurologically impaired. Almost every one of them.
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Summary: What is insanity?
Review: I found this book off of a A@E program I viewed a week ago. It was all I could have hoped for. It certainly exhibits what is a problem in our American society. It's in the raising of our children. Once it's reached the point of violence it appears thier lives are beyond redemption. We should all look closely and ask our government to find a way to stop child abuse that basically approachs a family tradition, that through generations produce these children that follow a life of crime over and over again. The book is well written and I will read futher on the subject.
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Summary: Buy the book but read with reservations
Review: I read the reviews-pro and con-of this book before purchasing it from Amazon. I agree, it's a mixed bag of scientific observations and Dr. Lewis' own moral issues. The former are quite interesting and make the book worthwhile, the latter are open to ethical debate. Both science and personal issues are intermingled in her writing. Too bad about that. Her book has an engaging style-I'm not put off by conversational writing-and her years of professional experience require she be listened to. When she quotes verbatim from interview transcripts with a minimum of moralizing--as she does for long stretches--her writing is truly worthwhile.
Dr. Lewis believes that murderous, insane acts must posit either a damaged brain or a psychotic, disassociative mind. All death row inmates she interviewed who were guilty of senseless violence had one condition or the other, or both. Giving such persons death sentences--her argument goes--is unacceptable. Killers who meet the psychiatric definition of illness should not be executed. Since all killers she met meet that criteria, none should be executed. She does not accept the reciprocal aptness of the death sentence for horrible crimes. Dr. Lewis is a New York City liberal who (she writes) still bemoans the deaths of the Rosenbergs. Near the end of her book she suggests that U.S. government may have had a hand in creating some infamous serial killers by experimenting on their brains while they were in the army. Hmmmmmm.
Dr. Lewis cannot account for many in the population with similar physical conditions and life histories of abuse who never kill or maim. She is perplexed on how someone like Ted Bundy fits into her theory. Bundy was not repeatedly sexually traumatized during his childhood, and left no evidence of brain injury behind. She asserts, however, that he just could not stop himself from murdering.
Two-thirds of her book is enthralling. She may, indeed, have discovered a statistically verifiable connection between injury to the brain, coupled with horrific childhood abuse, and later eruptions of purposeless murder by some individuals. Doctor Lewis' observations on the ineffectiveness of lawyers to present adequate defenses, and on the blindness of courts to acknowledge the truly horrible childhoods of some who kill, are wonderfully illustrated by her personal anecdotes.
Some interviews are heart-rendering, from obviously damaged and deranged persons who from babyhood never had a chance to live a normal life. She quotes three brothers, for example, who were given over to foster care on a farm, and forced to bite the testicles off of lambs with their teeth. It is startling how vicious part of humanity is to its own young. But then there are instances like Chapter 19, where Dr. Lewis interviews a state executioner to prove he is secretly psychotic, too. She interprets his inarticulate explanation of why pulling the switch on convicted killers doesn't bother him as the bottled rage of childhood abuse. A couple of times while reading this chapter I actually winced: "His serial executions [!] were but the latest manifestations of his paranoid rage. The line that separated him from Lucky Larson and Johnny Garrett [two executed murderers] was thin indeed." She should be ashamed of herself for that sort of stuff.
Dr. Lewis is at her best when recalling her cases with a minimum of personal intrusion. There are large sections in her book where she does this, and her writing becomes notable and truly worthwhile.
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Summary: Read the second half of the book
Review: The title of this book is misleading. The first half of this book is rather slow with too much info about her herself. If she wanted to write an autobiography she should have done that separately. The author dedicates about three pages to explain how she became the last woman to kiss Ted Bundy. Why is this important? The second half of the book gets much more interesting and focused on the topic: the people who are committing the crimes and their motivations, their histories, and their early years. I give the second part of the book three stars and the first part one.
Rating:
Summary: Read the second half of the book
Review: The title of this book is misleading. The first half of this book is rather slow with too much info about her herself. If she wanted to write an autobiography she should have done that separately. The author dedicates about three pages to explain how she became the last woman to kiss Ted Bundy. Why is this important? The second half of the book gets much more interesting and focused on the topic: the people who are committing the crimes and their motivations, their histories, and their early years. I give the second part of the book three stars and the first part one.
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Summary: Amazing book
Review: This book is valid for professions in criminal justice as well as mental health.
Lewis is not writing this book to empathise with victims, she wrote it to educate people on behind the scene information that the media does not portray.
Background information about the author is not overbearing or irrelevant.
I would reccommend this to open minded, pro capital punishment, enlightened, MATURE readers with a passion for human physiology, psychology and experience.
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