The Mark of Cain

Author: J. Reid MeloyPublisher: RoutledgePaperback:ISBN 10: 1138005517ISBN 13: 978-1138005518Hardcover:ISBN 10: 0881633100ISBN 13: 978-0881633108The Mark of Cain makes available for the first time the accumulated psychoanalytic understanding of the psychopathic mind. Editor Reid Meloy, a leading authority on the psychology of the psychopath, has brought together in a single collection the most historically important psychoanalytic papers on the psychopath and delineted their continuing relevance to contemporary understanding. According to Meloy, two theoretical traditions flow into the psychoanalytic understanding of psychopathy. The first tributary focuses on the early development of the psychopath in order to illuminate how a profound alteration in self-regard leads both to a denigration of the other and to an impulsive search for gratification in the present. The second tributary seeks to locate the psychopathic miscarriage of human potentiality within analytic theories of personali