ABSTRACT
The psychological treatment and rehabilitation of offenders received a considerable setback in the late 1970s and 1980s, following an influential article by Martinson arguing that ‘nothing works’ for recidivists. Cognitive psychological treatments require a positive and trusting therapeutic alliance. If a psychoanalyst suggests a man’s chewing of a cigar represents a phallic symbol to hide impotency, and the man denies it, the psychoanalyst may suggest that the denial confirms how anxious about impotence the man is. A psychodynamic perspective would accept the core psychopathology proposed for the psychopath, namely that there is a lack of an empathetic resonance with the victim. The psychodynamic hypothesis would be that the psychopathic individual during development has experienced such extreme trauma in the form of physical, sexual, emotional abuse that they develop a method of managing the trauma that they experience. Psychopathy as a characteristic defence of some personalities occurs when such extreme trauma has been an everyday developmental experience.
