The editor, an enthusiastic and grateful supervisee of Dr. Revitch, portrays this book as a memorial issue (gedenkschrift) published after the subject's death. The editor's introduction also immediately categorizes this work as a labor of love (dare we say transference love? Perhaps). From the introduction:
Although many of Dr. Revitch's papers were published 50 years ago, they are as relevant today as when they first appeared. I edited this book because I did not want these seminal papers to become lost in the archives, to be only referenced in term papers or literature review [p. v].
This description is not entirely hyperbolic; some of the conditions discussed below are not as well described as elsewhere. The introduction is followed by a biography of Dr. Revitch.
Like any collection of papers, the essays range over a considerable field, sometimes redundant, always intriguing. The book is divided into three major sections, each with its own introduction, and each with six or seven component chapters.
Section I is entitled “Sex Murder and Sex Aggression” and includes articles on the titular themes, “gynocide” [sic], unprovoked attacks against women, and sexual aspects of burglaries, the latter perhaps the first discussion of this topic.
Section II is entitled “Mental Disorders and Crime” and includes discussions of psychopathy and pedophilia, patients who kill their physicians and examples of conjugal paranoia. This last concept was completely new to me in this form. The essay provides useful guidance, not only to forensic psychiatrists, but to attorneys involved in marital disputes. A highly important point here is the manner in which the paranoid member of a couple may seem more organized and superficially rational.
Section III, “Psychiatric Aspects of Epilepsy and Epileptoid Violence,” includes discussion of psychiatric problems in epilepsy, differing forms of paroxysms, and social effects of epilepsy.
Two points that may be stressed about the clinical work described is Dr. Revitch's use of sodium amytal interviews and his insistence on a thorough and patient clinical examination as the sovereign approach to assessment. As can be inferred from these titles alone, the forensic relevance of these topics is obvious.
Dr. Revitch's approach could be described as a mixture of forensic, descriptive, dynamic, and neuropsychiatric viewpoints, fairly smoothly integrated; the author's disdain for psychoanalysis, however, is noted in passing. The great strength of this work is Revitch's professional access to a very large number of cases, expressed in his writings in the generous salting of case examples, rich in descriptive detail. Several of these examples are cited repetitively in different essays in the book. He makes connections often forgotten in current clinical work, such as between lingerie fetishism, breaking and entering, and assaults on women. His crossing of models reveals the uselessness of “box diagnosis.”
Besides the occasional redundancy, another problem with this book is the goodly number of typographic errors, distracting but not fatal to the author's points. Surprisingly, although they are early, these papers do not feel dated, and contain several useful suggestions on approaching often-difficult patient populations. It is clear that this book would justify a sampling approach, turning to the relevant chapters to help with clinical problems, rather than seeing it as belonging on every clinician's shelf. Helpful they indeed may be.
Footnotes
Disclosures of financial or other potential conflicts of interest: None.
- © 2017 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
