The Trauma Myth, Revisited

The Trauma Myth may be one of the most misunderstood books of the past decade. Based on its regrettable title, pedophiles erroneously believe it minimizes the harm of child sexual abuse; in the opposite corner, some misguided anti-abuse crusaders have demonized the Harvard-trained author as a pedophile apologist. As guest blogger Jon Brandt explains in this review -- first published in the Summer 2016 issue of The Forum, the newsletter of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) -- both fans and detractors of Susan Clancy have gotten the courageous researcher all wrong.

The Trauma Myth

by Susan Clancy

Book review by Jon Brandt, MSW, LICSW*

As a former child protection social worker, and now working with both victims and offenders, I was drawn to The Trauma Myth because of both the title, and subtitle: “The Truth About the Sexual Abuse of Children – and its aftermath.” When I first read Susan Clancy’s book, in 2010, nearly every page confirmed my professional experience with victims. I’m offering this review some six years after the book's publication because I believe most experienced professionals will agree that Clancy’s thesis is not just well-researched, but articulate and luminously persuasive.

Dr. Clancy is a Harvard-trained experimental psychologist. Her expertise is not in the field of sexual abuse; it is in the field of memory. This information is important in understanding how Clancy endeavored to interview adults who had been victims of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) – in part, to further understand the role of memory in how adults recalled traumatic experiences. Clancy acknowledges that her career had a rocky start – not only investigating adult memories of childhood sexual abuse, but to understand why some people seemed to believe in alien abductions. Clancy writes about the challenge of having to reconcile her research with two deep concerns: first, she had to abandon some of what she had been taught about the ‘trauma’ of sexual abuse, and second, she had to try to save her reputation and career.

After Clancy interviewed more than 200 Boston-area adult victims of CSA, she came to recognize that most victims’ memories were consistent with previous research – the vast majority of victims knew, liked, and/or trusted their abusers. And she confirmed another finding – that most CSA was tricked and manipulated, not the product of threats, force, pain, or injury. Even young children intuitively understand that when an older person inflicts pain, injury, or fear (elements of trauma), something is very wrong. But when sexual violations occur in the absence of violence and in the presence of trust, most victims reported being confused by the encounter, rather than traumatized. Less than one in ten adults that Clancy interviewed described being sexually abused as “traumatic.” Clancy considered that perhaps CSA is so traumatic that adults had repressed their memories, but that hypothesis ran counter to research that: (1) discredits repressed memories and (2) indicates that the more powerful life experiences are to an individual, the more the events are both strongly embedded and vividly recalled. Clancy goes on to articulately detail how children are indeed harmed by sexual abuse – in the aftermath.

Dr. Clancy has expressed some regret about the title of her book, but does not back-peddle from her findings – that CSA is not universally traumatic. She asserts that many professionals don’t really understand how, why, and when CSA is harmful, and imputing trauma when it’s not present might actually introduce secondary harm. Clancy expresses that children clearly do not have the developmental capabilities to understand interpersonal sex, that acceding to sexual touching is not the same as sexual consent, and that naïve cooperation is not complicity. In the absence of veritable trauma, the harm of CSA comes not from sexual touching, per se, but from relationship violations – a sense of betrayal, shame, and misplaced blame. Clancy explains that as a CSA victim begins to sexually and socially mature, and comes to understand what motivated their abuser, they feel duped and exploited. As victims try to reconcile how and why someone of trust would use them for sexual purposes, the ‘harm’ evolves. Clancy’s message is clear: if we don’t talk to kids about sex, we leave them vulnerable; if we don’t listen to kids who have been sexually abused, we re-victimize them; when we truly listen to child victims, we empower them to guide their own recovery – that helps to turn victims into survivors.

Dr. Clancy uses the controversies around her book to illustrate how difficult it is for professionals to navigate the nuances of CSA, and that it is incumbent on adults to protect children until they are mature enough to navigate the world of interpersonal sex. Clancy acknowledges that she was perhaps naïve in believing that rigorous science would protect the integrity of her research. What she was not prepared for was that CSA is virtually unspeakable – so abhorrent that, even among the educated, it was difficult to separate legitimate research from prevailing public opinion, or simply the politics of sex.

In 1998, psychologist, Bruce Rind and colleagues published an article on CSA in the American Psychological Association journal Psychological Bulletin. It was peer-reviewed, sound research, but so contrary to conventional beliefs of CSA that it resulted in an Act of Congress condemning his work. In 1981, Professor Alfred Kadushin (one of my graduate school advisors at the University of Wisconsin) published a book titled Child Abuse, an Interactional Event. He spent the rest of his career explaining that he was not blaming children for being abused.

The truth is, there has never been any time in history that sex could be separated from politics, or that science hasn’t waged an uphill battle against public opinion. The Socratic Method, or the applications of logic and scrutiny to understanding complex problems, is a predecessor of the Scientific Method, and one of the most important legacies of Socrates. It is ironic that Socrates could not survive the politics of his own time – he was condemned to death as a heretic. Nearly two millennia later, perhaps Galileo had taken note of the fate of Socrates. When Galileo found himself charged with heresy, to avoid being executed, he recanted his theory of the heliocentric solar system, and lived out his life under house arrest. It took another 350 years for the Catholic Church to acknowledge that Galileo had been right all along.

Susan Clancy wasn’t charged with heresy, at least not formally, but by her own admission, after a firestorm of controversy over The Trauma Myth, she fled the US to work in Nicaragua for several years. If Clancy was flattered by a favorable book review in the NY Times, she must have been horrified by a book review by NAMBLA [the North American Man/Boy Love Association]. Clancy’s book, and her story, are a testimony to professional courage in the face of deeply held, widespread, long-standing beliefs about the sexual abuse of children. Apparently, Clancy no longer writes or teaches about sexual abuse, based on a Google search, but she is still professionally active in research and education about the functions of memory.

There is so much right about The Trauma Myth that I am hesitant to be critical, but I think Clancy missed the mark on a few points. In my experience, some victims of CSA have the internal constitution to avoid both the trauma and the harm of sexual abuse. Other victims seem to have the resiliency and tenacity, with or without professional help, to truly earn the moniker of ‘survivor.’ Clancy views CSA as dichotomous – if there is a victim, there is an offender, who must be punished. If Clancy understood offending with the same verve, complexity, and nuances with which she understands victims, I think she would forgo the black and white, victim-offender paradigm in favor of the complex dynamics of offending, and the range of uniquely tailored interventions that serve victims, offenders, and their families. With a focus on the etiology and aftermath of CSA, it might not be obvious that Clancy was also advocating for both more prevention and better public policies.

The Trauma Myth is well researched, with endnotes in APA format. With just over 200 pages, and still professionally sound, it is easy reading. Most individuals are likely to approach the book with the same skepticism with which Clancy pursued her research. In the end, I think most professionals are likely to agree with many conclusions that Dr. Clancy found unassailable: that the popular, one-dimensional understanding of ‘trauma’ caused by child sexual abuse is largely a myth – a vestige of the 20th century.

*Jon Brandt is a clinical social worker who specializes in the evaluation, treatment and supervision to sexual offenders. His previous guest posts have reported on the link between pornography and contact sex offending and on an ongoing legal challenge to Minnesota's civil commitment of sex offenders. Many thanks to the editors of The Forum for granting me permission to post Mr. Brandt's review. The original review can be found HERE.

The Psychology of Arson

Each year, about 60,000 bushfires rage across Australia, wreaking environmental devastation and costing lives and economic losses. An estimated half or more are deliberately set.

Considering arson's devastating toll, surprisingly little is known about who sets fires, and why. Intensive efforts to catch and prosecute firesetters have also done little to douse the flames.

It is no surprise that Australia is the epicenter of efforts to fill that gap, with several ongoing research and intervention programs. Now, two forensic psychologists and a mental health nurse have published a book that brings together cutting-edge theory and practical advice grounded in empirical research.

The Psychology of Arson represents the collected knowledge of 30 experts from around the world. Chapter by chapter, it explores the psychosocial factors underlying arson by children and adolescents (who make up a large share of firesetters), by suicidal and homicidal people, by women, by the mentally disordered and cognitively impaired, and by men who set fires for purposes of sexual gratification.

Forensic practitioners will find especially useful the sections on risk assessment, treatment, and management of firesetters, while researchers will benefit from the concluding chapter identifying research gaps and needs in this understudied area. The organization facilitates digestion: Each chapter starts with a clearly written summary of key points, followed by logically organized subheadings and text.

Particularly innovative is the authors’ attempt to go beyond the simplistic theorizing of early research to offer up an evidence-based theoretical model that can inform clinical interventions and even prevention efforts. Their nuanced multi-trajectory theory classifies arson based on four key factors: fire-related scripts, offense-supportive thoughts, emotional regulation issues, and communication problems.

Forensic psychologists Rebekah Doley

 and Theresa Gannon

The editors and lead authors are highly qualified for this project. Rebekah Doley of Bond University in Australia is an internationally recognized authority on firesetting who co-directs the Centre for Forensic and International Risk Management; Theresa Gannon of Kent University in the UK, Director of the Centre of Research and Education in Forensic Psychology, is similarly renowned, with numerous scholarly publications on firesetting. Rounding out the team is a widely published mental health nursing professor, Geoffrey Dickens of Abertay University in Dundee.

Sex addiction: Science or pop fad?

Thirty-one years ago, when Patrick Carnes walked onto the Phil Donahue television show to promote his new book on sexual compulsivity as an addiction, his notion was – in his own words – “widely perceived as a joke.” 

But Carnes got the last laugh. With the mainstreaming of the addiction industry (eating, gambling, exercising and working are all potential addictions now), Carnes has risen to become guru of a lucrative empire with dozens of rehab centers staffed by thousands of paraprofessionals. Media outlets including Newsweek have uncritically jumped aboard, warning of a grim, pornography-fueled plague afflicting up to 5 percent of the U.S. population.  

With neuroscience all the rage, celebrities including Bill Clinton and Tiger Woods have been recast from mere cads to tragic victims of a progressive and often-fatal “brain disease.” The push for scientific legitimacy reached a zenith in 2013, with an unsuccessful bid to legitimize “hypersexuality” by adding it to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).

So, what changed over the course of the last three decades that made the public more receptive to seeing sexual misconduct through the lens of addiction?

In their meticulously researched Sex Addiction: A Critical History, three cultural historians from the University of Auckland in New Zealand trace the rise of this social movement primarily to a politically conservative, sex-negative backlash against the sexual liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. 

One clue to its underlying cultural values, historians Barry Reay, Nina Attwood and Claire Gooder observe, is the movement's enduring strand of homophobia. Even before Carnes's 1983 book Out of the Shadows popularized sexual addiction, the term had been invoked by Lawrence Hatterer, a psychiatrist whose work in the 1950s-1960s focused on curing the “illness” of homosexuality. Heteronormativity remains prominent in the field, with gay men who violate heterosexual norms of sexuality labeled as sex addicts.

Unlike many purported disorders that are promoted by researchers or the pharmaceutical industry, sex addiction is a bottoms-up movement, with people self-diagnosing themselves via self-help books or quick-and-dirty Internet surveys. Its infiltration into popular culture owes in large part to the media’s abdication of its role as scientific gatekeeper, argue the authors of Sex Addiction. As the Columbia Journalism Review also pointed out in a critique of the Newsweek puff piece, “The problem with relying on therapists, as most of the articles over the years have done, rather than qualified experts in academia, is that they have a vested interest in promoting the idea that there’s a widespread problem. The more people believe it, the more money they make."


In contrast to the lay public, academic scholars have remained skeptical of a construct that is too broad and amorphous to have any scientific validity; everything from viewing pornography or having an illicit affair to feeling ashamed about one's sexuality can count toward a diagnosis. Indeed, research studies have found that people’s anxiety over their sexual behavior is tied more to their moral values and level of religiosity than to the actual intensity of their behavior.

It is findings such as these that open sexual addiction up to ridicule. One prominent critic, David Ley, author of The Myth of Sex Addiction, has mocked sexual addiction literature as "valley-girl science" -- a hodge-podge of anecdote and metaphor rather than any provable theory. As he told a Salon interviewer:

“All of these behaviors have been happening for millennium — people cheating, people having lots of sex…. There’s nothing new about this…. For every one of the behaviors they raise as addictive — whether it’s porn, strip clubs, masturbation, infidelity, going to prostitutes — I can present 10,000 people who engage in the exact same behavior and have no problems, and they can’t explain why that is.”

Historically, hysteria over sexual depravity is somewhat cyclical. Way back in the 1870s, a crusade against "smut" by a U.S. Postal Inspector and politician named Anthony Comstock resulted in thousands of arrests and the destruction of 15 tons of books. Interestingly, Comstock's passion for moral purity stemmed from his own personal demons; as a youth, he was said to have masturbated so compulsively that it almost drove him to suicide.

Treating a case of "Madness of the Womb" (1600s)

The pathologizing of female lust has a particularly long tradition, dating back hundreds if not thousands of years. In the late 1600s, women were diagnosed with nymphomania (a diagnosis that still exists in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases, or ICD), or “madness of the womb," a disease said to be triggered by amorous courtings, lascivious books and dancing. As with today’s sexual addiction, the condition was considered progressive; if not promptly treated it would lead to “true and perfect madness.” Treatment included bleeding, cool baths with lettuce and flowers, marriage to "a lusty young man" or -- no kidding -- rubbing of the afflicted woman's genitals by "a cunning midwife."

Nowadays, as then, there is a common pattern in the way proponents of scientifically questionable new problems attempt to establish their legitimacy. First, they announce discovery of the problem; next, the problem’s lineage is traced back through time to show that it existed all along but was overlooked or neglected. Finally, and most critically, alarmist claims are made about a growing epidemic.

This pattern could be observed in the 2013 campaign to legitimize “hypersexuality” by making it a DSM disorder. For example, the claims-making process included articles by psychiatrist Martin Kafka  tracing hypersexuality’s lineage back to the pioneering sexologists of the 19th century. But in their first-rate scholarship, the Auckland historians scoured those primary sources – the writings of early sexology heavyweights such as Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis, Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Iwan Bloch – and found that their descriptions of the sexually compulsive bore little resemblance to contemporary hypersexuality or sex addiction. Rather, the early sexologists described tortured souls who were both rare and bizarre, typically suffering from more global psychiatric or organic maladies rather than a primary sexual disorder. For example, writing in 1908 about the “sexually insane,” Iwan Bloch described him as resembling a “wild animal” who:

“rush[es] at the first creature he meets … to gratify his lust …. He seizes in sexual embrace any other living or lifeless object, and in this state may perform acts of paederasty, bestiality, violation of children, etc. In these most severe cases we can always demonstrate the existence of mental disorder, general paralysis, mania, or periodical insanity … as a cause.”

Judging from singular descriptions like this, the early hypersexual was an extraordinary creature, a far cry from the mundane individual proposed for the DSM-5. Indeed, the proposed operational definitions for contemporary hypersexuality are striking in their breadth. For example, one diagnostic criteria proposed for the DSM-5 was experiencing seven or more orgasms per week by any method. Based on one survey of the general population in Sweden, this arbitrary cutoff would have pathologized almost half of all men (44%) and more than one out of five women.

Despite official rejection of hypersexuality by the American Psychiatric Association in 2013, the ideology of sexual addiction is gradually seeping into forensic quarters. For example, in some civil detention sites for sex offenders, minimally trained "treatment providers" play the role of moral arbiters, determining what forms of sexual desire are "appropriate" based not on their illegality or potential harm but whether the providers find them "healthy."

To be deemed “healthy” in some such programs, captive patients are required to develop vanilla “masturbation fantasy scripts” that resemble a corny Hallmark card:

"My masturbation fantasy involves Amanda. She is 40* years old, with flowing auburn hair and large green eyes. We enjoy cuddling by the fireplace, taking long walks on the beach in the moonlight, and gazing into each other’s eyes by candlelight."

(*The fantasy object must be the same approximate age as the offender; if she is more than five years younger, he will be told to rewrite his script to make it more "appropriate.")

Despite the enduring popularity of teachers, nurses and -- especially -- librarians as objects of male fantasy, in the burgeoning sexual offender treatment industry, even these cultural tropes may be labeled as "deviant." In one case I was involved in, a man's fantasy of seducing a librarian was advanced as evidence of sexual danger, based on the notion that the library (even after hours) is a public setting.

Of course, this not-so-thinly veiled moralism masquerading as treatment has no empirical support as a method to reduce former sex offenders’ risk to the public. But it does comport with popular cultural notions of addiction and sexual compulsivity, however unproven -- even bizarre -- they may at times be.

* * * * *

Sex Addiction: A Critical History by Barry Reay, Nina Attwood and Claire Gooder is as well written as it is insightful; I highly recommend it. Also recommended is clinical psychologist David Ley’s thoughtful work, The Myth of Sex Addiction.  

Piper Kerman presents 3-point plan for prison reform

It can be fortunate for the world when a middle-class person with a social conscience gets hauled off to prison.

After spending a year in a women's prison, Piper Kerman wrote the bestselling memoir Orange is the New Black, which spawned a hit Netflix series that has galvanized the public. Now, she is jet-setting around the country, raising awareness on the U.S. prison crisis among people who have given it nary a thought up until now.

Last night, San Francisco's intelligentsia came out en masse to hear the celebrity ex-prisoner at a City Arts and Lectures benefit for an innovative university program at San Quentin Prison. The venue was the splendid Nourse Theater, a newly renovated, 1,800-seat Beaux-Arts palace that had been shuttered for decades.

Kerman did not disappoint. She remained poised and affable as her interviewer, author Nancy Mullane, peppered her with a series of alternately prurient and silly questions about sex in prison, her life as a 10-year-old, and similar drivel. It was disappointing yet illuminating to see Mullane -- who should know better, given her recent interviews with ex-convicts for her book Life After Murder -- fritter away a golden opportunity. Instead of helping Kerman express her critical message, she ogled and dehumanized her guest as an exotic "other," ironically showcasing the very disrespect of ex-convicts that Kerman has dedicated herself to combating.

It was not until the informed and perceptive audience's turn to ask questions that Kerman got the air space to expound on her vision for reforming America's prisons, which are bursting at the seams with 2.4-million members of this wealthy nation's neglected underclass.

Three transformative steps we could take to restore rationality, in Kerman's view:

1. Reform draconian sentencing laws. The harms outweigh the benefits of sentences longer than five years, especially for nonviolent crimes. Reentry becomes more difficult, harming not just the prisoner but his or her family, community and larger society.


2. Provide adequate defense services. If everyone was afforded access to zealous representation, a far smaller proportion would end up in prison. Public defender offices throughout the nation are stretched too thin, leading to unjust outcomes for the poor.


3. Stop criminalizing children. Paying attention to at-risk children and adolescents makes more sense than waiting until they have become hardened criminals and then warehousing them. And, stressed Kerman, children should never, ever be sent to adult prisons. 

A perfect agenda.

Taylor Schilling plays "Piper Chapman" in the TV series

(Of course, it assumes a degree of rationality that is absent from contemporary U.S. policies, and it is also at odds with the massive privatization movement that relies on prisoner bodies for its profits.)

Kerman also answered a couple of questions that I had been curious about, including her motivation for writing the book, and what she thought of the TV show that radically distorts her memoir.

Kerman said she is not disturbed by the liberties taken by Jenji Kohan in writing the Netflix adaptation. Going to prison is an introspective experience that can only be captured in writing, whereas a TV drama relies on interpersonal conflict to keep its audience's attention, explained Kerman, herself a theater major in college.

From Season Two, premiering June 6

In her memoir, Kerman projects herself as a typical privileged person. The young Smith College graduate fell into a relationship with an older woman who turned out to be a drug smuggler, and ended up smuggling a suitcase full of drug money across international borders. Years later, a federal indictment was handed down, and she landed in federal prison, an awkward setting for a young middle-class woman, and most especially a blonde.  

But the story she revealed last night was a bit more nuanced, and helps to explain how she ended up in her present role as a voice for justice. She was raised in a progressive, feminist household, with two teachers for parents. This likely equipped her both to get along well and make connections in prison, as she did, and to be outraged and galvanized by the inequities she witnessed.

She wrote her memoir neither as an exercise in catharsis (she didn't even keep a journal in prison, she confessed) nor to share with other prisoners and ex-prisoners (although she is happy that many of them can relate), but with the aim of reaching a mainstream audience heretofore ignorant of prison realities.

In that, she has undoubtedly succeeded beyond her wildest expectations.

* * * * *

Thanks to Lorelei for providing helpful feedback. For more background, and my reaction to the book and TV series, see my Jan. 20 post, Orange is the New Black – Read the Book!

(c) Copyright Karen Franklin 2014 - All rights reserved

Orange is the New Black -- Read the book!

Taylor Schilling plays Piper Kerman in the TV series

Hollywood prison scenes are so revolting. Most revolting are the depictions of women’s prisons. They superimpose onto female prisoners the worst stereotype of male prisoners as hulking, sexually aggressive brutes. And, even more so than for male prisons, the public has little direct information to counter this distorted image.

Blasting apart this image is Piper Kerman’s outstanding memoir. Detailing her year in a minimum-security federal camp, Orange is the New Black is a first-rate effort to educate the public about the realities of women’s prison.

Promo for blockbuster Netflix spinoff

Kerman tiptoed into prison with the trepidation one might expect of a white, college-educated woman thrown into the lion’s den. But instead of prisoner-on-prisoner predation, she found a sense of community, where women survived by forging family-like relationships among their “tribes.” The greatest dangers in prison came not at the hands of other women, Kerman found, but from the agents of bureaucracy who wielded the threat of the SHU* (Security Housing Unit) or loss of good-time credits for any petty misstep.

I found myself grateful that, once in a blue moon, a middle-class person with a social conscience is sent to prison. Kerman’s bad luck is the public’s fortune. With the overwhelming mass of prisoners voiceless, who else can speak the truth and be heard? Kerman is the everywoman; through recognizing ourselves in her, we feel the prisoner’s plight as our own.

Her sense of not belonging among the underclass was shared by correctional officers and prisoners alike, who more than once asked the blond-haired, blue-eyed Smith College graduate: “What’s someone like you doing in a place like this?!”

Laverne Cox as trans prisoner Sophia Burset

Don’t think that if you’ve seen the blockbuster TV spinoff, you know the story. While colorful, the series is by comparison shallow and exploitive. Netflix does a public service by counteracting Hollywood’s crude stereotypes, portraying incarcerated women as diverse human beings, but the semi-fictional show’s biggest accomplishment may be to steer intelligent viewers toward the book. (As an aside, it has also given greater visibility to the issues of transgender women of color, with trans actress Laverne Cox outstanding in the role of a transwoman prisoner.)

For a real-life visual representation of the lot of the woman prisoner, I recommend the documentary Crime After Crime. The story of battered woman Debbie Peagler’s struggle for justice is far more heart-wrenching than Kerman’s memoir, but both dramatize how a soulless bureaucratic machine chews up and spits out human potential.

The real-life Piper Kerman

Kerman is a fluid story-teller, and her saga is intrinsically gripping. But, as writer Mary Karr points out in a recent interview, the "through-line" of an effective memoir is the character’s transformation. Seeing herself through the eyes of other women in the bleak prison milieu, Kerman realizes virtues in herself that she never knew. And she confronts for the first time her own complicity in her comrades' oppression, through her former role as an international heroin smuggler.

The sincerity of Kerman’s transformation is evident in her life since leaving prison nine years ago. She serves on the board of the non-profit prison reform group Women’s Prison Association and does public education on the plight of women prisoners -- especially the two-thirds who are mothers -- through influential media outlets such as National Public Radio. As she writes in a recent op-ed in the New York Times:  

"Harshly punitive drug laws and diminishing community mental health resources have landed many women in prison who simply do not belong there, often for shockingly long sentences. What is priceless about JusticeHome, however, is that it is working not only to rehabilitate women but to keep families together -- which we know is an effective way to reduce crime and to stop a cycle that can condemn entire families to the penal system."

* * * * *

*I listened to the audiobook version. The reader was quite good. Her only false steps came in reading the word "SHU": She read it aloud as "S-H-U," instead of the way it is actually pronounced in prison ("shoe"). The SHU is too ubiquitous to merit three syllables at every utterance.

(c) Copyright Karen Franklin 2014 - All rights reserved

Spring reading recommendations -- forensic and beyond

Marauding bands of juvenile killers. Gang rapist-kidnappers. Wife beaters.

We’re talking elephants, dolphins and parrots, respectively. That's my forensic psychology angle on Animal Wise, a fascinating new book by nature journalist Virginia Morell.

Not long ago, it was taboo in science circles to claim that animal have minds. But the burgeoning field of animal cognition, having broken out of the strait jacket imposed by 20th-century behaviorism, is now mounting a full-on challenge to the notion of an evolutionary hierarchy with humans at the top. Morell, a science writer for National Geographic and Science magazines, traveled around the world interviewing animal scientists and observing their research projects on everything from architecturally minded rock ants and sniper-like archerfish to brainy birds, laughing rats, grieving elephants, scheming dolphins, loyal dogs, and quick-witted chimpanzees.

She found cutting-edge scientists who not only regard animals as sentient beings, but even refer to their study subjects as trusted colleagues. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa in Kyoto, for example, has set up his lab so that when the chimpanzees "come to work" each morning, they enter on elevated catwalks and sit higher than the humans, which makes them feel more comfortable. He cannot understand why humans feel so threatened by his discovery that chimpanzees are capable of holding much more information in immediate memory than can we humans.

"I really do not understand this need for us always to be superior in all domains. Or to be so separate, so unique from ever other animal. We are not. We are not plants; we are members of the animal kingdom." 

 

 

YouTube video of Alex the parrot showing his cognitive skills

Animal researchers are realizing that not only do all animals have individual personalities, but some -such as chimpanzees and dolphins - even develop cultures. This engaging and thought-provoking book can be read on many levels. It is highly informative while also being quite entertaining. But on a deeper level, it probes the moral dimensions of science.

Morell’s 2008 National Geographic article in from which the book grew is HERE. Her Slate article, "What are animals thinking?" is HERE.  My Amazon review (if you are so inclined, click on "yes," this review was helpful) is HERE.


The Signal and the Noise

If you haven't yet read Nate Silver's important The Signal and the Noise, it’s past time to grab a copy. Silver’s analytic method is central to forensic psychology. Best known for his spot-on predictions of U.S. presidential races, Silver argues that accurate predictions are possible in some (limited) contexts -- but only when one learns how to recognize the small amount of signal in an overwhelming sea of noise. And also when one approaches the prediction using Bayes's Theorem. This is one of those engrossing books that really stays with you, and has very practical applications in forensic assessments. I find it especially useful in writing reports. Plus, it helps one understand current events involving prediction, like the story of six Italian scientists being sent to prison for failing to predict a deadly earthquake. (Earthquakes are inherently unpredictable, and Silver explains why.) 

* * * * *

Speaking of forensic report writing, if you want to tune up your own report writing skills, or you are teaching or supervising students, I highly recommend Michael Karson and Lavita Nadkami's book, Principles of Forensic Report Writing, due out at the end of this month. Karson and Nadkami take an innovative and thoughtful approach, helping us to think outside of the box about this essential aspect of our trade.


Other  recommendations

Beyond forensics, here a few other worthwhile books I've read recently:

If American history interests you, check out bestselling author Tony Horwitz's Midnight Rising, about John Brown's ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry and its role in the abolitionist movement, or Tim Egan's The Big Burn, about the massive fire in the U.S. Northwest that helped change the political landscape and establish the national Forest Service. Both are engrossing and educational; I listened to the audio versions during lengthy road trips.

* * * * *

If you are into dystopic fiction, I recommend Hillary Jordan's When She Woke. In the not-distant future, the government has gone broke, and can no longer afford to maintain its massive prison system. So, instead of incarceration, law-breakers -- in a modern-day riff on The Scarlet Letter -- are dyed bright colors for the length of their sentences. In a globally warmed Texas ruled by Christian fundamentalists, Hannah Payne wakes up bright red, for the crime of aborting her baby. This edge-of-your-seat tale isn't too far-fetched, given current trends, as laws are being passed in Oklahoma and elsewhere to criminalize abortion, and as the public shaming of sex offenders (who in the novel are "melachromed" blue and killed on sight by vigilantes) becomes more and more entrenched.

* * * * *

Finally, I'm just launching into Gary Greenberg's hot-off-the-press book on the DSM, The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry, and I can already tell it's going to be a doozy. More on that soon, time permitting....

Evaluating juveniles: Grisso's classic updated for new era

In the 1990s a moral panic swept through the United States over juvenile "super-predators," ruthless youngsters devoid of empathy or morality who would terrorize the good citizenry -- raping, looting and murdering with abandon. Although the hysterical, racially coded predictions proved unfounded (the spike in violent crime was just a historical blip on the radar screen), politicians passed harsh new laws that set the U.S. apart from all other nations in the magnitude of penal warehousing of children.

At the pinnacle of this frenzied "get-tough era" in juvenile justice, the eminent forensic psychologist Tom Grisso authored Forensic Evaluation of Juveniles, a groundbreaking text that guided practitioners into the burgeoning niche of psychological evaluations in delinquency cases.

Now, in a major overhaul of that influential 1998 text, Grisso writes optimistically of a new trend in juvenile justice that he labels the "developmental era." Social science evidence about adolescent brain development and social maturation will contribute to greater judicial and societal recognition that much delinquency is time-limited, he believes. Although this new direction comes too late for the youths and families shattered by the get-tough policies of the past few decades, Grisso hopes that forensic psychology can help judges, probation officers and policy makers understand the potential of rehabilitation for today's wayward youth.

Photo from Richard Ross's Juvenile In Justice photography project

I'm a little less sanguine about a newer, gentler era. Yes, the U.S. Supreme Court has outlawed the death penalty for juveniles, life without parole for crimes other than murder, and mandatory sentences of life without parole for murder.* But such reversals are a drop in the bucket so long as the punitive architecture remains in place that allows, for example, prosecutorial "direct-files" of juvenile cases to adult courts. We are living in an increasingly repressive culture. About 70,000 young people -- disproportionately poor and non-white -- are currently incarcerated in the U.S., many serving ridiculously long sentences that give them no chance of ever leading productive lives. 

Grisso's practical guide strikes a humanistic tone, refreshing in a field increasingly infiltrated by a gloomy, pathologizing, technocratic worldview. The award-winning director of the Law-Psychiatry Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School for example cautions evaluators to avoid simple tallies of actuarial risk factors in informing the court of a youth's risk. Rather, evaluators should understand and incorporate the two broad, and complementary, theories of delinquency: The biological and personality-oriented theories of psychology, and the social-environmental theories of criminology, such as the notion of "drift" into delinquency. Evaluators should also understand the individual child's context, and the factors that contribute not only to pathology but also to resilience in the face of adversity.

Perhaps the most radical departure from the first edition is a newfound emphasis on understanding racial, ethnic and cultural factors, historically a major blind spot in forensic psychology. With non-white children comprising the overwhelming majority of those incarcerated in America, this principle cannot be overstated. Grisso addresses the barriers to even basic communication that will become all the more challenging as young immigrants arrive from far-flung lands, many carrying inside them the weight of untold traumas. Although he proffers no facile solutions, he preaches greater awareness of cultural blinders and of the inherent limitations of forensic tools that were not normed on diverse populations.

Disappointingly, given this humanistic tenor and discussion of racial and cultural issues, Grisso soft-pedals criticism of the growing practice of labeling juveniles as psychopaths. He describes evidence for the validity of the psychopathy construct in juveniles as "mixed," yet omits mention of the calamitous -- and often self-fulfilling -- consequences to youths when the psychopathy label is introduced in court.

Like the first edition, this is a practical manual that provides a clearly written historical overview of the field for novice practitioners, and useful review material for more seasoned juvenile evaluators. Chapters address specific types of evaluations, including competency to stand trial, waiver of Miranda rights, risk assessment, waiver to adult court, and rehabilitation and treatment recommendations. New statutes, case law, scientific findings and assessment methods are interwoven throughout, making this an indispensable addition to the juvenile evaluator's bookshelf.

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*The cases are Roper v. Simmons (2005), Graham v. Florida (2010), and Miller v. Alabama (2012), respectively.

God's Jury: Exploring Inquisitions, then and now

The word "Inquisition" harkens back to medieval Europe - Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Catholic Church. But in Cullen Murphy's frightening account, that repressive past was only prologue: The self-propagating bureaucracies of the modern world contain the seeds of inquisitions potentially far vaster and more destructive than anything wrought by the Catholic Church. 

Murphy seamlessly traces the 700-year history of successive Catholic Inquisitions to expose their underlying mechanisms, and highlight the fundamental similarities between then and now. The "enhanced interrogation" practiced at Guantanamo is not so different from the Roman rigoros esamine (rigorous examination), he explains. Indeed, modern interrogation methods as outlined in a U.S. Army manual eerily parallel to the sophisticated techniques first outlined in an inquisition manual from the 1300s.

Inquisition waterboarding

Murphy, himself a Catholic, encourages us to broaden our historical lens to see that inquisitions need not necessarily be religious. They can occur any time members of a dominant group - whether religious, political, corporate or national - appoint themselves "God’s jury," believing that they alone are privy to the true and right path. The "inquisitorial impulse" springs directly from moral certainty. Think about the inquisitions over the last century alone, just in the United States: The Palmer Raids (an early Red Scare led by the young J. Edgar Hoover), The Japanese internment, Cointelpro, the Patriot Act. The McCarthy Era alone was more far-reaching than any church inquisition, he argues.

But inquisitions require certain tangible assets, and it is these that the modern world possesses in abundance:  

• A bureaucratic machinery: Bureaucracies are self-perpetuating and expansionistic. They require no evil conspiracy at the helm. Take the Transportation Security Administration, whose methods since 9/11 have grown ever more "invasive, mindless, and routine": A single "credible tip" can get one's name added to the 440,000 on a secret terrorism watch list; but people are not allowed to find out if their names are on that official list. Shades of the inquisition? Repressive regimes are, at base, record-keeping regimes.

• Surveillance: As far back as 1796, philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte noted that "the chief principle of a well-regulated police state" was the ability to identify its citizens and keep track of their activities and whereabouts. Murphy shows how the modern surveillance state has expanded to new heights in the wake of 9/11, especially in the United States and in England. As a British surveillance leader justifies it, "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear." The game of surveillance, says Murphy, ratchets forever upward, so that what was heretofore unimaginable is constantly becoming the new normal. 

• Censorship: Just as the Vatican has its catalogues of banned books (which Murphy spent time examining), the Internet has its "choke points" that can be manipulated to deny the public access to information.  Less obvious but no less sinister are today's "mobious strips of the like-minded," creating an "epistemic closure" in which people are able to avoid exposure to information that might challenge their assumed realities.

Whereas both the targets of an inquisition and the motives of the inquisitors can shift with time and place, these tangible underpinnings - proof of identity, efficient record-keeping, a network of informers, surveillance, denunciations, interrogations - remain constant. And they are all ubiquitous in the modern world. 

 

The history lessons Murphy is able to impart in God's Jury owe in part to the Vatican's decision to open its archives (although only up to 1939) to outside scrutiny, an unprecedented boon to scholars. Murphy is a fluid writer, and his descriptions of the archives and their contents  contain so many riveting nuggets that the book's pages fairly turn themselves. 

Forensic psychologists may be especially interested in his description of interrogations and false confessions, so parallel in many ways to what we witness today in style, if not in content. Armed with a manual on witchcraft, Mallens Maleficarum (which Murphy describes as a cross between Monty Python and Mein Kampf), inquisitors sallied far and wide in search of purported witches, whom they coerced through now-familiar techniques of shaping to admit to such things as having sex with the devil. 

God's Jury is unsettling. But Murphy does offer a ray of hope. Just as the inquisitions of yester-year were extinguished by the Enlightenment ("the intellectual equivalent of habitat destruction"),  Murphy maintains that there is a remedy for contemporary inquisitions. He does not believe they can be legislated away, although more power to those who are valiantly trying to place legal limits on repression. Rather, he believes that "the most effective ally" against inquisitionism is the "seventh virtue" of humility. Inquisitions can only occur, he argues, when those in power insist with absolute certainty that they hold the one and only absolute truth, and that everyone else is wrong. 

If you found this review worthwhile, I would greatly appreciate your taking just a moment to go to my Amazon review (click HERE), and click on the "YES" button at the bottom (this review was helpful). This will help boost the review's ranking. Thanks in advance.  

Of related interest: NPR's "The inquisition: A model for modern interrogators," which includes a downloadable podcast and an excerpt from God's Jury

Special offer on groundbreaking group rape text

The Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrator Rape: A multidisciplinary response to an international problem

Photo credit: Sajjad Hussain

Two current events, on opposite sides of the globe, signal encouraging changes -- dare I say even a tipping point -- in public attitudes toward sexual violence:

1. The giant waves of protest sweeping India in response to the vicious gang rape of a young woman (who died from her injuries) on a public bus in New Delhi. Protesters, spurred on by social media, are demanding that authorities address gender violence in a country in which police and prosecutors have often turned a blind eye to rampant violence against women, including rape, sexual harassment, dowry murders and honor attacks. As Shalini Nataraj of the Global Fund for Women notes in an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle,  what is remarkable is that "people of all backgrounds are coming out into the streets, they are bringing their young children, they are demanding accountability from their government for this culture of violence that goes unpunished. People in India today are talking about rape."

2. The uproar over a sexual assault by members of the high school football team in Steubenville, Ohio against an unconscious girl, and alleged attempts by local authorities to cover it up. After a tenacious crime blogger posted deleted tweets and was (unsuccessfully) sued by a young athlete, the New York Times published an excellent, in-depth piece. Now, in an unprecedented development, the underground hacker group Anonymous has entered the fray, digging up and publishing incriminating tweets and videos (including the disturbing one below, featuring an athlete who has not been arrested) and demanding more aggressive prosecution.

These are precisely the types of cases that I analyzed for an upcoming chapter in the first-ever book on multiple-perpetrator rape, due out next month. My analysis focuses on the subtexts pertaining to masculinity, social status and race that are embedded in media coverage of high-profile cases. But although some of the two dozen cases that I analyzed generated widespread public outrage, it typically focused narrowly on the perpetrators and, at times, their immediate communities. The current international uproar is qualitatively different, in that people are connecting the dots between patriarchal power and sexual victimization.

Given this current level of public interest, next month's publication date for The Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrator Rape is timely. I just finished reviewing the galley proofs and found the book to be a highly informative compilation, written from an international and multi-disciplinary perspective.

From the publisher's promotional blurb:

"The contributions to this collection are written by leading academics and practitioners from a variety of disciplines who bring together research and practice on multiple perpetrator rape by presenting new data from a strong theoretical and contextual base. This book will be a key text for students and academics studying multiple perpetrator rape and an essential reference tool for professionals working in the field, including police officers, educationalists, forensic psychologists, youth workers, probation staff, lawyers, judges and policy makers."

Ad glorifying group rape; my web page with more examples is HERE.

Co-editors Miranda A. H. Horvath and Jessica Woodhams are phenomenal researchers who head an international consortium (of which I am proud to be a part) that focuses on the understudied problem of group rape. Horvath, who has published extensively on sexual violence and violence against women, is the David Jenkins Chair in Forensic and Legal Medicine at Middlesex University, where she is also deputy director of Forensic Psychological Services. Woodhams is a forensic psychologist who teaches forensic psychology at the University of Birmingham, UK and has also published extensively on sex offending.

Chapters include:

• Multiple perpetrator rape as an international phenomenon by Teresa Da Silva, Leigh Harkins and Jessica Woodhams
• Masculinity, status, and power: implicit messages in Western media discourse on high-profile multiple perpetrator rape cases by Karen Franklin
• Variations in multiple perpetrator rape characteristics relative to group size: Comparing duo and larger group MPR offences by Mackenzie Lambine
• Group sexual offending: comparing adolescent female with adolescent male offenders by Jan Hendriks, Miriam Wijkman and Catrien Bijleveld
• Busting the ‘gang-rape’ myth: girls’ victimisation and agency in gang-associated rape and peer-on-peer exploitation by Carlene Firmin
• Streamlining: understanding gang rape in South Africa by Rachel Jewkes and Yandisa Sikweyiya
• Multiple perpetrator rape during war by Elisabeth J. Wood
• Leadership and role-taking in multiple perpetrator rape by Louise Porter
• Offender aggression and violence in multiple perpetrator rape by Jessica Woodhams
• Multiple perpetrator rape victimization: how it differs and why it matters by Sarah Ullman
• Multiple perpetrator rape in the courtroom by Miranda A. H. Horvath and Jacqueline M. Gray
• Issues concerning treatment of adolescent multiple perpetrator rape offenders by Talia Etgar
• Girls and gangs: preventing multiple perpetrator rape by James Densley, Allen Davis and Nick Mason

This is the fourth volume in the book series Issues in Forensic Psychology, edited by Richard Shuker of the therapeutic prison community HMP Grendon in the UK. The series aims to provide analysis and debate on current issues of relevance to forensic psychology and associated fields. Routledge anticipates issuing the paperback in 2014.

To take advantage of a 20 percent pre-publication discount (until February 28), visit the book's web page and use the discount code CRIMHPR12 when placing your order. The same url can also be used to recommend the book to your institution's librarian.

Civil capacity assessment comes of age

What do these three situations have in common?

• A young adult with chronic schizophrenia refuses medication because she believes she is being poisoned 

• A middle-aged adult struggles to pay his bills after a traumatic brain injury from a motorcycle accident 

• An older adult with dementia revises a will to favor one stepchild over another

All are situations in which a forensic practitioner may be called upon to render an opinion on the individual's capacity, whether to make medical decisions, handle finances, or execute a will. As the population ages and family structures become increasingly complex, the demand for such civil capacity assessments is growing exponentially.

So it is only fitting that the inaugural text in the National Academy of Neuropsychology’s new series on evidence-based practice focuses on civil capacities. The book brings together theoretical developments, research findings and practice recommendations in this complex and expanding area.

Volume editor George Demakis, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina with considerable clinical experience conducting civil capacity evaluations, has brought together an impressive array of experts. Together, they discuss the research and practice in a range of civil capacities, including financial, healthcare decision-making, testamentary (executing a will), driving, personal care and guardianship.

The field's evolution is clearly visible in this book's chapters. Only 26 years ago, Tom Grisso issued his paradigm-shifting call for the assessment of "functional capacities." Here, rather than focusing on diagnostic labels or one-size-fits-all checklists of ability, chapter authors urge practitioners to carefully explore the individual's real-life functioning, including through collateral reports and even direct evidence of performance (for example, by observing a subject's driving).

A central goal of the book is to provide practical guidance. Each chapter contains an illustrative case example and discusses the range of capacity instruments available in that particular niche. Later chapters focus on the nuts and bolts of data collection, report writing, and testifying. There's even a chapter from the perspective of "the legal consumer," in which two North Carolina court officers tell us what they would like to see in a civil capacity assessment report. Although it's rather elementary stuff for the seasoned forensic practitioner, the chapter makes for a useful teaching tool for students and other novitiates.

In a glowing review for PsyCritiques, Jennifer Moye calls the text "a must read" that is "certain to advance the field." Her one substantive critique is that it gave short shrift to how values and individual differences (including multicultural and educational influences) play into expert judgments of capacity. This is an important issue, considering the liberties that can be lost when people are declared incompetent to make their own medical decisions or to live independently in the community.

For a more thorough discussion of the issue of social status and capacity assessment, from the perspective of medical treatment, I recommend an essay by Susan Stefan in a special 1996 issue of Psychology, Public Policy and Law on the MacArthur Treatment Competence Research.

I was also a bit disappointed to see that last year's book by colleagues Adam Alban and Eric Mart on testamentary capacity didn't get even a nod. The book, The Practical Assessment of Testamentary Capacity and Undue Influence in the Elderly, is an excellent practitioner guide, which even includes a CD-ROM of assessment tools in this area.

These minor quibbles aside, Civil Capacities is a major advance that is sure to become an essential text for those working in this area, including neuropsychologists, forensic psychologists, attorneys and judges.

My Amazon review of Civil Capacities in Clinical Neuropsychology: Research Findings and Practical Applications is HERE. If you find it useful, please click on "YES," this review was helpful.