ABSTRACT
This paper by the forensic psychiatrist Seymour Halleck was first published in the Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic in 1966. His fundamental hypothesis is that psychopathy is a defensive search for painless freedom from objects. His premise is thought provoking and was partially stimulated by the previous work by Miller. To be sure, the scientific evidence concerning psychopathy points toward an objectrelational world that is preoedipal and dyadic, not absent—a biology that predisposes the psychopath to be both underaroused and less influenced by bad consequences. His behavioral degrees of freedom are quite limited. He paradoxically exercises less choice, certainly less meaningful choice, than normals. The appearance of greater freedom in the psychopath is often caused by some observers’ wishful projections, as is noted in this study. They are reminiscent of Norman Mailer’s idealization of Gary Gilmore and Jack Abbott, two unrepentant but talented psychopaths. Nonetheless, Halleck’s paper sheds light on the phenomenology of the psychopath, his psychodynamics, and society’s morbidly curious reaction to him.
