Remorse and Reparation

Remorse, or rather the lack of it, frequently features in banner headlines. But there is little systematic study of this important inter-disciplinary topic whose relevance has extensive social ramifications. Should a show of remorse by an offender be taken into account in sentencing? Is there a correlation between the experience of remorse and a diminished likelihood of re-offending? And is there a correlation between the experience and the expression of remorse? Such questions, and the complex relationship between remorse, shame, guilt and attempts at reparation, are discussed in this authoritative work.

This volume is the first comprehensive attempt to bring together both forensic clinicians and those working within the criminal justice system. There is also a series of chapters by those writing from the adjacent complementary disciplines of moral philosophy, classics, Shakespeare studies, sociology and anthropology.

Murray Cox M.A.F.R.C.Psych.M.Inst.G.A.(Hon) was Consultant Psychotherapist at Broadmoor Hospital from 1970 to 1997. He edited Shakespeare Comes to Broadmoor and Forensic Psychotherapy: Crime Psychodynamics and the Offender Patient (jointly with Christopher Cordess) and wrote Shakespeare as Prompter and Mutative Metaphors in Psychotherapy with Alice Theilgaard, all published by Jessica Kingsley.