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Anyone already acquainted with Professor Brett Kahr's previously published books will be pleased to know there is now a new arrival ready to join those delightful volumes already on our shelves. For those not yet acquainted? A joy awaits. With both a deep and wide understanding of psychoanalysis, Kahr's writings range from Freud and Winnicott to bombs, celebrity, and of course, sex. In How to Flourish as a Psychotherapist (2018) Kahr generously shares his valuable, practical experience on how to look after ourselves in order to live fully and practice well.
Dangerous Lunatics is one of the first ten titles published by the newly launched Confer Books and is aimed at “an intellectual readership in an engaging, readable and narrative-led form”. Sitting comfortably within the readable, narrative flow, Kahr takes us through a fast-paced history of responses to criminal behaviour, noting the development from violence to a more nuanced understanding of the forensic individual today in the West.
Beginning with his own introduction to the forensic patient, we meet Fred, “so sane and chipper”, that it was difficult for Kahr to connect the old man in front of him with the man who had taken a handgun and shot both of his parents in the face at close range. This engaging, opening vignette, is an excellent reminder to clinicians and general readers of the importance of containing both the sweetness and charm of the forensic patient and the destructive, violent emotions expressed by the criminal act. In his warm and lively style, Kahr's refreshing humility reminds us that we cannot identify murderers, or even our friends, solely on the basis of “physical appearance or indeed, as a result of a one-hour conversation”. There is no good scientific evidence to suggest that there are such things as recognisable facial expressions for basic emotions that are universal across cultures. Developing a relationship and really beginning to communicate is more complicated than just looking at a