Jekyll on Trial: Multiple Personality Disorder and Criminal Law
Multiple Personality Disorder And Criminal Law
- Editore:
NEW YORK UNIV PR
- EAN:
9780814780428
- ISBN:
0814780423
- Pagine:
- 278
- Formato:
- Hardback
- Lingua:
- Inglese
Descrizione Jekyll on Trial: Multiple Personality Disorder and Criminal Law
Why do we find multiple personality disorder (MPD) so fascinating? Perhaps because each of us is aware of a dividedness within ourselves: we often feel as if we are one person on the job, another with our families, another with our friends and lovers. We may fantasize that these inner discrepancies will someday break free, that within us lie other personalities - genius, lover, criminal - that will take us over and render us strangers to our very selves. What happens when such a transformation literally occurs, when an alter personality surfaces and commits some heinous deed? In Jekyll on Trial, Elyn R. Saks carefully delineates how MPD forces us to re-examine our central concepts of personhood, responsibility, and punishment. Drawing on law, psychiatry, and philosophy, Saks explores the nature of alter personalities, and shows how different conceptualizations bear on criminal responsibility. A wide-ranging and deeply informed book, Jekyll on Trial is must reading for anyone interested in law, criminal justice, psychiatry, or human behavior.
