I have used telling the criminal who he is and how he thinks often in my work. This alone gets their attention. To be so accurate about their thinking and reasoning has won hands down their interest and willingness to participate in the change process. They can't imagine you know already what really happens in their day to day thinking. To me this is the reference work I go back to time and again especially with difficult clients that have failed all other attempts at change. This book gave me the tools to work with the most hardened cases. If you don't understand the change process how can you guide them through it. Its most useful feature is the cases that are presented and the methods used to create change in thinking and action. If I had to choose which to buy it would be this one as it has taught me not only about the criminal mind but how it can be changed.

This is a great book! The author breaks the criminal down into parts such as what a criminal thinks about people, in general, what needs to take place within the criminal in order to change, and how they view the world. I was somewhat surprised the author views criminal behavor as a choice, not due to poverty, a fatherless home, or any of the usual reasons cited for a child becoming a criminal later in life. The author is a psychologist, but communicates logical concepts in language that is easy to understand by the layperson.

This is a great book! The author breaks the criminal down into parts such as what a criminal thinks about people, in general, what needs to take place within the criminal in order to change, and how they view the world. I was somewhat surprised the author views criminal behavor as a choice, not due to poverty, a fatherless home, or any of the usual reasons cited for a child becoming a criminal later in life. The author is a psychologist, but communicates logical concepts in language that is easy to understand by the layperson.

This is an excellent book to continue the journey of understanding the Criminal Mind. This book is more detailed. It shows the drawbacks and the difficulty working with this population. It examines every approach from the past up to and including the present in trying to change Criminal behavior. Why methods have failed and what holds promise. Most of the research was done by a man named Samuel Yochelson who shared his ideas and work with Dr Samenow. Together they untangle the maze that has baffled many on this topic. A must have for those working in the criminal justice fields.

"Conventional wisdom" about criminals is wrong. Dr. Yochelson found why criminals are the way they are and how to habilitate them. Volume I exposes the areas in which criminals are different than responsible people. Volume II is a method for correcting those differences, but, as joke says, "they gotta wanna change."

Read these books to find out why the current system doesn't rehabilitate habitual criminals.

Dr. Samenow collaborated on these volumes and wrote other books for the general audiance.

I first became familiar with Yochelson's and Samenow's work at a seminar on adolescent offenders. I got a copy of Samenow's 'Inside the Criminal Mind' and as I began to read it, mental light bulbs of recognition started poping off in my mind. But that book wasn't enough for me because it was more for the lay reader and I needed something more in-depth. I decided I would go to the source material for that book,The Criminal Personality. This monumental three volumn piece of work turns previous thinking and theory on its ear with regard to treating the crimminal offender, hence it is controversial. I started with Vol III--The Drug User because that is what I do -- treat adolescent offenders with chemical dependency issues. What I discovered was a method of working with this population which differed significantly from more traditional treatment approaches with normal populations. And I found it was more effective in establishing rapport and doing real work from the start! True criminals think differently than most others. Their use of anger, violence, sexual pursuits and drugs are for the most part pre-meditated and are used to satisfy or feed into their powerlust. It is their thinking which is grossly distorted (the Doctors list 52 identifiable distortions in Vol. I) yet all the while remaining rooted in reality that drives their actions. This book describes in detail how first Dr. Yochelson and later Dr. Samenow came to these realizations while working at St. Elizabeth's in Washington D.C.with the "criminaly insane". A term they came to discount in large part. What is presented is a systematic, matter-of-fact confrontation (not judgemental)of these thinking errors stressing honesty in all things, assumption of responsibility for all actions, and a highly disciplined structure that offers little or no retreat into the offender's rationalizations, his "victimization" in the past or his ego-centric view of the world. If you are ready to get serious about providing effective treatment, or are a frustrated professional in the Criminal Justice system, a legislator, a State's Attorney, in law enforcement, or a sitting judge in Drug Court, this book is a must read!