does psychotherapy do psychopaths more harm than good?
One good reason for studying biological anomalies in psychopathic offenders is that psychotherapeutic approaches rarely are successful in treating these criminals. In fact, Robert Hare, an expert on psychopathic behavior, argues that current sociological and psychological interventions may be worse than useless. In a recent presentation to the American Neuropsychiatric Association, Hare noted that treatment seems to increase, rather than decrease, the rate of recidivism among criminal psychopaths. Among the research he cited: • One study of criminals released from a program for personality-disordered offenders compared 176 who received intensive group and individual therapy with 146 who were not treated. The rate of violent offending decreased in non-psychopaths receiving t treatment, but increased among treated psychopaths when compared with psychopaths who received no treatment. • Another study of more than 300 offenders receiving social skills training and anger management therapy f
