The Devil You Know: Stories of Human Cruelty and Compassion (Hardback)

'Exceptional.' VAL McDERMID 'Gripping . . . and ultimately enlightening.' PHILIPPE SANDS 'Extraordinary.' SEBASTIAN FAULKS 'Fascinating, erudite and beautifully written.' CHRISTIE WATSON 'Urgent and invaluable.' DAVID LAMMY 'Meticiulous, elegant, provoking.' MARINA CANTACUZINO A perspective-shattering work into the minds of violent criminals that reveals profound consequences for human nature and society at large. A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK I'm a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who works with violent offenders. Every violent crime is a tragedy, for the victims and their families as well as for the perpetrators. Over the years, I've come to think of my patients as survivors of a disaster where they are the disaster and my colleagues and I as first responders. I meet them at a turning point in their lives and help them to come to terms with a new identity, which may feel indelible; as one of my patients memorably put it, 'you can be an ex-bus driver but not an ex-murderer. Serial homicide. Stalking. Arson. Gang crime. Who are the people behind these acts of terrible violence? What are their stories? And what is it like to sit opposite them? Dr Gwen Adshead is one of Britain's leading forensic psychiatrists, and she has spent thirty years providing therapy inside secure hospitals and prisons. Whatever her patient's crime she aims to help them to better know their minds by helping them to articulate their life experience. Through a collaboration with co-author Eileen Horne, Adshead brings her work to life in these fascinating, unflinching portraits of individuals who newspaper headlines, TV dramas and crime fiction label 'monsters'. Case by case, Adshead takes us into the treatment room and reveals these men and women in all their complexity and vulnerability. She sheds new light on the unpredictable nature of the therapeutic process as doctor and patient try to find words for the unspeakable. These are stories of cruelty and despair but also of change and recovery. In a time of increasing polarisation, in the face of overcrowded prisons and devastating cuts to mental health care, Adshead speaks to our shared humanity and makes the case for compassion over condemnation, empathy over fear. The Devil You Know challenges what we think we know about evil. It is a rare book that has the power to change minds.