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In the wake of the civil rights movement, the legal system dramatically changed its response to discrimination based on race, gender, and other characteristics. It is now showing signs of yet another dramatic shift, as it moves from considering difference to focusing on neutrality. Rather than seeking to counter subjugation through special protections for groups that have been historically (and currently) disadvantaged, the Court now adopts a “colorblind” approach. Equality now means treating everyone the same way. This book explores these shifts and the research used to support civil rights claims, particularly relating to minority youths' rights to equal treatment. It integrates developmental theory with work on legal equality and discrimination, showing both how the legal system can benefit from new research on development and how the legal system itself can work to address invidious discrimination given its significant influence on adolescents—especially those who are racial minorities—at a key stage in their developmental life. The book articulates the need to address discrimination by recognizing and enlisting the law's inculcative powers in multiple sites subject to legal regulation, ranging from families, schools, health and justice systems to religious and community groups. The legal system may champion ideals of neutrality in the goals it sets itself for treating individuals, but it cannot remain neutral in the values it supports and imparts. The book shows that despite the shift to a focus on neutrality, the Court can and should effectively foster values supporting equality, especially among youth.

Toward the end of the twentieth century, the solution to mental illness seemed to be found. It lay in biological solutions, focusing on mental illness as a problem of the brain, to be managed or improved through drugs. We entered the “Prozac Age” and believed we had moved far beyond the time of frontal lobotomies to an age of good and successful mental healthcare. Biological psychiatry had triumphed. Except maybe it hadn't. Starting with surprising evidence from the World Health Organization that suggests that people recover better from mental illness in a developing country than in the first world, this book asks the question: how good are our mental healthcare services, really? It picks apart the science that underlies our current psychiatric practice, and puts the patient back at the heart of treatment for mental illness, making the case that a good relationship between patients and their doctors is the most important indicator of whether someone will recover. Arguing passionately for a future of mental health treatment that focuses as much on patients as individuals as on the brain itself, this is a book set to redefine our understanding of the treatment of madness in the twenty-first century.

Adolescents are infamous for their rebellious behavior. Indeed, much of the focus of therapy and clinical intervention with troubled adolescents focuses on their presumed need to rebel against their parents as they define their own identities. Yet this book argues that approaching work with adolescent clients with this presumption in mind is likely to miss the roots of their problem behavior. Rather than acting out against parental authority, adolescents in need of clinical help are most often dealing with their disappointing comparisons with their peers—the most relevant others to them during this period of their development. The book explains that it is countless interactions with their peers, at school and elsewhere outside of the home, that are the primary mode of psychological and social development for adolescents. Practitioners must recognize this crucial influence, and perhaps forgo traditional approaches, in order to better work with their adolescent clients. The books is a practical professional guide for how to approach and aid troubled teens by accessing the wealth of insight to be gained from understanding the influence of peer interactions on development and on behavior. Full of diagnostic categories and protocols for use with all types of adolescents, as well as guidance, tips, case studies, and offering a targeted model for adolescent group therapy, it provides professionals with all the tools they need to assist teens on their road to adulthood.

The last two decades have seen tremendous growth in biological research on psychopathy, a mental disorder distinguished by traits including a lack of empathy or emotional response, egocentricity, impulsivity, and stimulation seeking. But how does a psychopath's brain work? What makes a psychopath? This book provides a concise, non-technical overview of the research in the areas of genetics, hormones, brain imaging, neuropsychology, environmental influences, and more, focusing on explaining what we currently know about the biological foundations for this disorder and offering insights into prediction, intervention, and prevention. It also offers a nuanced discussion of the ethical and legal implications associated with biological research on psychopathy. How much of this disorder is biologically based? Should offenders with psychopathic traits be punished for their crimes if we can show that biological factors contribute? The text clearly assesses the conclusions that can and cannot be drawn from existing biological research, and highlights the pressing considerations this research demands.