Speaking with the Devil: A Dialogue with Evil

by Carl Goldberg

Examining the cases of such serial killers as Jeffrey Dahmer and child killers such as Susan Smith, a psychoanalyst explores the roots and character of evil behavior from the diverse perspectives of philosophy, theology, law, psychology, and literature. Tour.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1996

Reviews

[Efren Lawag · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the flap before buying this book. It is not a novel and it may even be illegible for those not familiar with basic psychological concepts.

Those that know exactly what they're getting, however, will be delighted with Speaking with the Devil.

Goldberg explains effects of shame, isolation and a lack of self-worth and how they can 'destroy' a person to the point where he or she begins hurting other people - physically or psychologically; consciously or unconsciously.

The final chapter also briefly - too briefly in my opinion - explains how those in the mental profession focus too much on what's wrong. This isolates a malicious person and makes him/her feel even more worthless. Goldberg shows how connecting with a malicious person on an individual level is the only way for these destructive, often stubborn people to begin the healing process in the first place.

too long, didn't read:
Speaking with the Devil is heavy reading for those that want to know why some people hurt other people. Get past the psychological jargon and you will take a lot from this book.

[Portia]

no rating--I'm really surprised I finished this one. Not particularly recommended to anyone, although this very intelligent and experienced author occasionally deigns to distill all that wisdom into a gem of a useful paragraph. The rest is mildly interesting, somewhat hard to follow, not well organized, repetitive, and almost --but not quite?-- self-congratulating. (Is an author supposed to reference his own previous works so much??) Sometimes he is adamantly faithful to his own course, and others he seems to relent to an editor's [usually good] influence (as with the title itself), which leads to the organizational/consistency/repetition problems?.
Luckily I read the whole thing with a pack of sticky notes so I think I was able to come away with the useful bits intact. Insightful and true-to-my-experience explanations in a helpful way, but so rare in the 300+ pages. Annotated well.
Interesting, though Goldberg directly disagrees with the whole premise upon which the problem I face is based. He discounts the whole possibility of it existing, even though I am certain it does so I wonder if I could convince him. Of course, that would cause his whole brilliant theory to crumble since he seems so sure he can trace/locate/understand/treat the certain behaviors and symptoms discussed as malevolence. Since so many other specialists DO acknowledge sociopathy and ABD with distinct un-circumstantial origins, I wonder how he can sustain his view now. And I really, really wonder what he would make of a session or two with my kid.

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title does help sell the book, but that's what titles are suppossed to do. The author, gratefully, immediately announces that you won't find gratuitous gore. I was a little disappointed in that initially. But Goldberg is coming from a professional, clinical standpoint. To me the book reads well and offers NUMBEROUS 'ah-ha' moments. The laymen (me) finds Goldberg's five steps to be believable; a reliable tool for researcher, analyst, monday morning psychologist (me again) for understanding the developmental stages toward malevolence.
On the downside, the book could've been edited once more for some non-sequitors, and confusing language (it happens). And I wish he would have played out more detail of the individual case studies, partly for my own gore-lust, but more, so that the reader would be drawn to the actual circumstances of the case and have more investment in the overall story, connecting the reader to the patient's actual life story. "What did this guy do that was so bad?" The editor should have recognized when the clinician (Goldberg) was inside his career bubble and rewrote for the average reader.
I wish I didn't have to return the book to the library but fortunately my evil development was stunted at stage two :)

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading the title of this book, I thought, 'ohhh, I have to read this one'. It is an overinflated title, even sensationalistic. In spite of that, I enjoyed the frank handling of the subject matter.

Carl Goldberg, in his author's notes at the beginning of the book states: "I use the term 'evil' in my subtitle because 'malevolence'—strictly speaking, more appropriate to my argument—is less likely to be recognized by most readers as a strong destructive force that causes serious social problems." It's one thing to talk down to your readers, but it is so faux pas to admit it. In spite of that admission, I found the material to be well represented.

We are all provided opportunities to choose right from wrong, good from bad regularly. And with each decision, we move in a direction toward one or the other. The Jeffrey Dahmers of the world were not created over night, but rather evolved through the decisions they made along the way. Malevolence is learned.

Unfortunately, healing is also learned. Healing appears to be a long slow process. As a writer, I was less interested in the healing process. My malevolent characters only heal by way of expiration.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

"To create a just society . . . we must first place greater emphasis on people than on property or policies. . . regardless of the accumulation of information we acquire about the nature of malevolence, we will be unable to successfully utilize this knowledge until we regain a trust in the inherent goodness of ourselves and our fellow humans,"

An excellent, compassionate and erudite overview of the evil that we do to ourselves and one another by the psychoanalyst, Carl Goldberg. Who, thankfully, moves beyond the Freudian worldview.

Highly recommended.

[Susan Anderson]

Contary to the sales pitch, this is not a book about serial killers. It is a book about the human condition and how many people struggle with their own demons.

[E. G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Acknowledgements
Author's Note

--Speaking with the Devil: A Dialogue with Evil

Notes
Index