Dangerous Minds: A Forensic Psychiatrist’s Quest to Understand Violence

’Exceptional . . . This thoughtful and engrossing book is as much about law as it is about minds’ THE TIMES

What drives someone to commit murder?

What makes some people lash out on those that they love?

Can we predict whether a child will grow into a violent adult, and what can we do to prevent it?

These are just some of the questions that forensic psychiatrist Dr Taj Nathan interrogates every day in his work with violent offenders. Stories about violent or deviant behaviour are the subject of sensational headlines or inflated dramatic portrayals, but infinitely more complex and intriguing are the real people behind labels like ’psychopath’, ’sex offender’ or ’serial killer’.

Taking us from secure hospital wards to high-security prisons to courtrooms, Dangerous Minds offers compelling and deeply compassionate accounts of ten people whose lives have been shaped by violence. From the impact of traumatic events in childhood to the evolutionary and cultural influences on the emergence of the social mind, this book is an insider’s account of the origins of violence that asks its readers to re-evaluate all that they think they know about the people society deems most dangerous.

Taj Nathan is a medical doctor who has worked for over two decades as a forensic psychiatrist. In his clinical practice, he continues to assess and treat the perpetrators and victims of violence who reside in secure hospitals, prisons and the community. Alongside his clinical work, he has carried out extensive research in many areas of forensic psychiatry (including aggression and its causes), and he has led the development of innovative services for offenders with psychiatric difficulties. Drawing on both his clinical and academic expertise, he is frequently asked to provide expert evidence in criminal and family law courts. Having authored numerous scientific papers and academic book chapters, he turned to writing for a wider audience and in 2018 he won the John Murray and Spectator Essay Prize for a piece on the origins of violence. This is his first book.