Homicidal insanity has remained a vexation to both the psychiatric and legal professions despite the panorama of scientific and social change during the past 200 years.The predominant opinion today among psychiatrists is that no correlation exists between dangerousness and specific mental disorders.But for generation after generation, psychiatrists have reported cases of insane homicide that were clinically similar.Although psychiatric theory changed and psychiatric nosology was inconsistent, the mental phenomena psychiatrists identified in such cases remained the same.The central thesis...

Homicidal insanity has remained a vexation to both the psychiatric and legal professions despite the panorama of scientific and social change during the past 200 years.The predominant opinion today among psychiatrists is that no correlation exists between dangerousness and specific mental disorders.But for generation after generation, psychiatrists have reported cases of insane homicide that were clinically similar.Although psychiatric theory changed and psychiatric nosology was inconsistent, the mental phenomena psychiatrists identified in such cases remained the same.The central thesis...