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28 April 2007, Toronto Keynote speaker: J. Reid Meloy: “A Psychoanalytic View of Psychopathy” Donald Carveth, Judith Deutsch, William Watson, Richard Weisman
The clinically and medico-legally important construct of psychopathy was the subject of the day-long discussion at the 2007 Toronto Annual Day in Psychoanalysis. The keynote presentation was given by J. Reid Meloy a widely recognized and much-honoured authority on psychopathy, and currently associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, adjunct professor at the University of San Diego Law School, and an academic graduate of the San Diego Psychoanalytic Institute. Dr. Meloy is the author of numerous books and articles on psychopathy (e.g., Meloy, 1988, 1997, 2001a; Meloy and Gacano, 1998; Meloy and Meloy, 2002). Responses to Dr. Meloy's paper were given by Donald Carveth, professor of sociology and social and political thought at York University, Glendon Campus, and a training and supervising analyst in the Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis; William Watson, assistant professor, Woodsworth College, University of Toronto, who teaches in the University of Toronto's criminology program; and Richard Weisman, cross-appointed to the Division of Social Science, Law and Society, York University, and the Department of Sociology, Glendon Campus. In addition, one of the attendees, Judith Deutsch, was subsequently encouraged to circulate a written response to Dr. Meloy's paper among the Toronto-based speakers.
Dr. Meloy presented a multi-faceted exploration of psychopathy, summarizing much of his writing on the condition (see especially Meloy, 2001b), and the broad range of contemporary scientific findings. He described psychopathy in terms of core psychological and behavioural sympto-mology, abnormal neurophysiology, and distinctive psychodynamics.