Abstract
This chapter reflects recent UK legislative proposals for the detention of dangerous individuals with severe personality disorder as a starting point for deriving insight into the deployment of the terminology of evil in everyday discourse. We concern ourselves specifically with the public safety role of high-security hospitals and consequent contribution to the assuagement of collective anxieties. This, in turn, is linked to Julia Kristeva’s notion of the abject, with an analagous relationship to anxiety containment seen in people’s encounters with horror movies.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Wells, P. (2000) The Horror Genre: From Beelzebub to Blair Witch. Wallflower, London, UK.
Jodelet, D. (1991) Madness and Social Representation. Harvester Wheatsheaf, London, UK.
Gleeson, K. (1991) Out of Our Minds: the Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Madness. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, UK.
Hyler, S., Gabbard, G., and Schneider, I. (1991) Homicidal maniacs and narcissistic parasites: stigmatisation of mentally ill persons in the movies. Hosp Community Psychiatry 42:1044–1048.
Kristeva, J. (1982) The Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Columbia University Press, New York, NY.
Creed, B. (1993) The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Routledge, London, UK.
Department of Health/Home Office (1999) Managing Dangerous People with Severe Personality Disorder. Department of Health/Home Office, London, UK.
Blackburn, R. (2001) Treatment or incapacitation? Implications of research on personality disorders for the management of dangerous offenders. Legal Criminol Psychology 5:1–21.
Mullen, P. (1999) Dangerous people with severe personality disorder: British proposals for managing them are glaringly wrong—and unethical. Br Med J 319:1146–1147.
Pilgrim, D. (2001) Disordered personalities and disordered concepts. J Ment Health 10:253–265.
Forrester, A. (2002) Preventive detention, public protection and mental health. J Forensic Psychiatry 13:329–344.
Department of Health. (1999) Modernising Mental Health Services: Safe, Sound and Supportive. The Stationary Office, London, UK.
Gledhill, K. (2000) Managing dangerous people with severe personality disorder. J Forensic Psychiatry 11:439–447.
Padfield, N. (2000) Detaining the dangerous. J Forensic Psychiatry 11:497–500.
Chiswick, D. (2001) Dangerous severe personality disorder: from notion to law. J Forensic Psychiatry 25:282–283.
Davidson, L. (2002) Human rights vs. public protection. English mental health law in crisis? Int J Law Psychiatry 25:491–515.
Kendell, R. (2002) The distinction between personality disorder and mental illness. Br J Psychiatry 180:110–115.
White, S. (2002) Preventive detention must be resisted by the medical profession. J Med Ethics 28:95–98.
Ramon, S. (1986) The category of psychopathy: its professional and social context in Britain. In: The Power of Psychiatry (Rose, N. and Miller, P., eds.), Polity Press/Blackwell, Oxford, UK, pp. 214–240.
Pritchard, J. (1835) A Treatise on Insanity and Other Disorders Affecting the Mind. Sherwood, Gilbert & Piper, London, UK.
American Psychiatric Association (2000) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 4th Ed. Text Revision. American Psychiatric Association, Washington, DC.
World Health Organization. (1994) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. 10th Revision. World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
Cleckley, H. (1976) The Mask of Sanity. C.V. Mosby, St. Louis, MO.
Hare, R. (1980) A research scale for the assessment of psychopathy in criminal populations. Pers Individ Dif 1:111–117.
Geertz, C. (1979) From the native’s point of view: on the nature of anthropological understanding. In: Interpretive Social Science (Rabinow, P. and Sullivan, W., eds.), University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Coid, J. (1993) Current concepts and classification of psychopathic disorder. In: Personality Disorder Reviewed (Tyrer, P. and Stein, G., eds.), Gaskell, London, UK.
Mental Health Act (1983) HMSO, London, UK, pp. 113–164.
Bean, P. (1986) Mental Disorder and Legal Control. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Blackburn, R. (1988) On moral judgements and personality disorders: the myth of psychopathic disorder revisited. Br J Psychiatry 153:505–512.
Blackburn, R. (1990) Treatment of the psychopathic offender. In: Clinical Approaches to Working with Mentally Disordered and Sexual Offenders, Issues in Criminological and Legal Psychology, 16 (Howells, K. and Hollins, R., eds.), British Psychological Society, Leicester, UK, pp. 54–66.
Chiswick, D. (1993) Forensic psychiatry. In: Companion to Psychiatric Studies (Kendall, R. and Zeally, A., eds.), Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, UK, pp. 793–816.
Levenson, M. (1992) Rethinking psychopathy. Theory Psychol 2:51–71.
Reed, J. (1996) Psychopathy—a clinical and legal dilemma. Br J Psychiatry 168:4–9.
Dolan, B. and Coid, J. (1993) Psychopathic and Anti-Social Personality Disorders: Treatment and Research Issues. Gaskell, London, UK.
Shea, M. (1993) Psychosocial treatment of personality disorders. J Personal Disord 7:167–180.
Collins, P. (1991) The treatability of psychopaths. J Forensic Psychiatry 2:103–110.
Black, D. A. (1984) Treatment in maximum security settings. In: Mentally Abnormal Offenders (Craft, M. and Craft, A., eds.), Bailliere Tindall, London, UK.
Bailey, J. and McCulloch, M. (1993) Characteristics of 112 cases discharged directly into the community from a new special hospital and some comparisons of performance. J Forensic Psychiatry 3:91–112.
Faulk, P. (1990) Her majesty’s prison, Grendon Underwood. In: Principles and Practice of Forensic Psychiatry (Bluglass, R. and Bowden, P., eds.), Churchill Livingstone, London, UK, pp. 1347–1351.
Roth, M (1990) Psychopathic (sociopathic) personality disorder. In: Principles and Practice of Forensic Psychiatry (Bluglass, R. and Bowden, P., eds.), Churchill Livingstone, London, UK, pp. 437–451.
Norris, M. (1984) Integration of Special Hospital Patients into the Community. Gower, Aldershot, UK.
Grounds, A. (1987) Detention of psychopathic disorder patients in special hospitals, Br J Psychiatry 151:474–478.
Dell, S. and Robertson, G. (1988) Sentenced to Hospital, Offenders in Broadmoor. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Bowers, L. (2002) Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder: Response and Role of the Psychiatric Team. Routledge, London, UK.
Eastman, N. (1999) Public health psychiatry or crime prevention? Br Med J 318:549–551.
Freeland, C. (1995) Realist horror. In: Philosophy and Film (Freeland, C. and Wartenburg, T., eds.), Routledge, London, UK, pp. 126–142.
Glenn, M. (1967) Press of Freedom. Village Voice, September 14:1.
Foucault, M. (1976) The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1: An Introduction. Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK.
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK.
Parker, I. (1992) Discourse Dynamics: A Critical Analysis for Social and Individual Psychology. Routledge, London, UK.
Gergen, K, (1992) Towards a postmodern psychology. In: Psychology and Postmoderism (Kvale, S., ed.), Sage Publications, London, UK, pp. 17–31.
Bauman, Z. (1992) Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge.
Levin, D.M. (1987) Psychopathology in the epoch of nihilism. In: Pathologies of the Modern Self (Levin, D.M., ed.), New York University Press, New York, NY, pp. 21–83.
Slugoski, B.R. and Ginsberg, G.P. (1989) Ego identity and explanatory speech. In: Texts of Identity (Shotter, J. and Gergen, K., eds.), Sage, London, UK, pp. 36–55.
Henriques, J., Holloway, W., Urwin, C., Venn, C., and Walkerdine, V. (1984) Changing the Subject: Psychology. Social Regulation and Subjectivity. Methuen, London, UK.
Holloway, W. (1989) Subjectivity and Method in Psychology: Gender. Meaning and Science. Sage, London, UK.
Stainton Rogers, R., Stenner, P., Gleeson, K., and Stainton Rogers, W. (1995) Social Psychology: A Critical Agenda. Polity Press, Oxford, UK.
Shotter, J. and Gergen, K. (1989) Texts of Identity. Sage, London, UK.
Curt, B. (1994) Textuality and Tectonics: Troubling Social and Psychological Science. Open University Press, Buckingham, UK.
Lacan, J. (1977) Ecrits: A Selection. (Sheridan, A., trans.). Tavistock, London, UK.
Weatherill, R. (1995) Violence and privacy: what if the container fails? Free Associations 5(2):34,150–170.
Nietschze, F. (1969) Thus Spake Zarathustra. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, UK.
Sass, L.A. (1992) The Epic of Disbelief. The postmodernist turn in contemporary psychoanalysis. In: Psychology and Postmodernism (Kvale, S., ed.), Sage, London, UK, pp. 166–183.
Frosh, S. (1992) Identity Crisis: Modernity. Psychoanalysis and the Self. Routledge, London, UK.
Kristeva, J. (1980) Feminism and psychoanalysis. In: Julia Kristeva Interviews (Guberman, R., ed.), Columbia University Press, New York, NY.
Grant, M. (1996) Psychoanalysis and the horror film. Free Associations 6:483–491.
Tudor, A. (1997) Why horror? The peculiar pleasures of a popular genre. Cultural Studies 11:443–463.
Valier, C. (2002) Punishment, border crossings and the powers of horror. Theoretical Criminol 6:319–337.
Wilson, W. (1999) The Psychopath in Film. University Press of America, New York, NY.
Hardy, P. (1997) The BFI Companion to Crime. Cassell, London, UK.
Banks, G. (1990) Kubrick’s Psychopaths: Society and Human Nature in the Films of Stanley Kubrick. Available from Web site: http://www.gordonbanks.com/gordon/pubs/kubricks.html. Accessed on January 1, 2005.
Tithecott, R. (1997) Of Men and Monsters: Jeffrey Dahmer and the Construction of the Serial Killer. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.
Coid, J. and Kahtan, N. (2000) Are special hospitals needed? J Forensic Psychiatry 11:17–35.
Rose, D. (1986) Worse than death: psychodynamics of rape victims and the need for psychotherapy. Am J Psychiatry 143:817–824.
Young, A. (1996) Imagining Crime. Sage, London, UK.
Horowitz, M. (1976) Stress Response Syndromes. Jason Aronson, New York, NY.
Feldman, T. (1988) Violence as a disintegration product of the self in posttraumatic stress disorder. Am J Psychotherapy 42:281–289.
Foucault, M. (1978) About the concept of the “Dangerous Individual” in 19th century legal psychiatry. Int J Law Psychiatry 1:1–18.
Owen, D. (1991) Foucault, psychiatry and the spectre of dangerousness. J Forensic Psychiatry 2:238–241.
Cheung Chung, M. and Jenner, F.A. (1996) Understanding of schizophrenia through Wittgenstein’s early metaphysics and later pragmatism. Changes: Intl J Psychol Psychother 14:14–25.
Wittgenstein, L. (1922) Tractatus Logico—Philosophocus. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, UK.
Pilgrim, D. and Rogers, A. (1999) A Sociology of Mental Health and Illness, 2nd Ed. Open University Press, Milton Keynes, UK.
Hinshelwood, R. (1999) The difficult patient: the role of “scientific psychiatry” in understanding patients with chronic schizophrenia or severe personality disorder. Br J Psychiatry 174:187–190.
Gunn, J. and Robertson, G. (1976) Psychopathic personality: a conceptual problem. Psychol Med 6:631–634.
Cawthra, R. and Gibb, R. (1998) Severe personality disorder—whose responsibility? Br J Psychiatry 173:8–10.
Deacon, J. (2004) Testing boundaries: the social context of physical and relational containment in a maximum secure psychiatric hospital. J Soc Work Pract 18:81–97.
Deutsch, M. (1990) Psychological roots of moral exclusion. J Soc Iss 46:21–25.
Mercer, D., Richman, J., and Mason, T. (1999) The social construction of evil in a forensic setting. J Forensic Psychiatry 10:300–308.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Humana Press Inc.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McKeown, M., Stowell-Smith, M. (2006). The Comforts of Evil. In: Mason, T. (eds) Forensic Psychiatry. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-006-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-006-5_6
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-1-58829-449-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-59745-006-5
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)