The Criminal Personality - by Samuel Yochelson & Stanton Samenow (Paperback)

About the Book

This is the second of a three volume landmark study of the criminal mind. This book describes an intensive therapeutic approach designed to completely change the criminals way of thinking. The authors reject traditional treatment approaches as reinforcing of the criminals sens...

Book Synopsis

This is the second of a three volume landmark study of the criminal mind. This book describes an intensive therapeutic approach designed to completely change the criminals way of thinking. The authors reject traditional treatment approaches as reinforcing of the criminals sense of being a victim of society. Rather Yochelson and Samenow stress that the criminal must make a choice to give up criminal thinking and learn morality. A Jason Aronson Book

Review Quotes

Drs. Yochelson and Samenow's work constitutes an unprecedented scrutiny of criminal behavior, going beyond mere microscopic analysis. Volume II makes good the promise expressed in Volume I: that the fruition of fifteen years of research would be no less than an entirely new approach to understanding and modifying the criminal's thought patterns.

Yochelson and Samenow have definitely profiled the characteristics of the errors of criminal thinking, together with their derivatives-feeling and behavior. They show persuasively that because of ingrained and pervasive errors of thinking, criminals live and act in a world with entirely different assumptive bases than those of noncriminals. The authors then proceed to develop a treatment program using a phenomenological approach. This exhaustive and painstaking study marks a turning point in the history of efforts to rehabilitate criminals.

About the Author

Samuel Yochelson, Ph.D., M.D., was until his death in 1976, director of the Program for the Investigation of Criminal Behavior at Saint Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D.C. and research professor of clinical psychiatry at George Washington University School of Medicine Stanton E. Samenow, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in Alexandria, Virginia. He is also the co-author of The Criminal Personality, Volume II: The Change Process, and The Criminal Personality: Volume I, A Profile for Change.