ABSTRACT
This paper, by the psychoanalyst John Lion, was first published in William Reid’s The Psychopath: A Comprehensive Study of Antisocial Disorders and Behaviors in 1978. With a clear and elegant style, Lion provides a primer for the outpatient treatment of psychopathically disturbed patients. His chapter addresses the patient who has sufficient anxiety and attachment capacity to make the treatment endeavor worthwhile. Lion discusses the importance of sadness, if not the emergence of depression, as the patient’s narcissistic defenses are confronted over time; but, if the psychopathy is severe and biologically rooted, such emotional states will not occur. The therapist may find, instead, that his time has been squandered by a chameleon.
