Dr. Frankenstein states in his preface: “This book is a study in clinical semantics,” and indeed it is! The book’s function is to fill a present gap resulting from a “prevailing tendency among modern clinicians to emphasize the importance of observation and induction at the expense, as it were, of classification, definition and concept analysis.” Dr. Frankenstein undertook, then, the tremendously difficult and highly needed task of clarifying the concept of psychopathy. He did this by synthesizing jung’s typological scheme (of introvert and extrovert) with principles of modern dynamic psychology into a new analytic typology.
The author’s hypothesis is that psychopathy is a definite clinical entity, essentially different from the wide spectrum of neurotic (e.g., phobias, hysteria, or “waywardness”) or psychotic (e.g., autism or schizophrenia) illnesses. According to his theory, there are two basic life tendencies in every person. The first is expansion, which is relatively negative, and