Gary Brucato
Gary Brucato, Ph.D. is an American clinical psychologist, researcher and author in the areas of psychosis and serious violence who has been the Assistant Director of the Center of Prevention and Evaluation (COPE) at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYPSI) and Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUMC) in Manhattan, New York since 2013. He is an Associate Research Scientist at CUMC.[1]
Biography[edit]
Brucato was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1978. He received his B.A. from St. John's University (New York City campus) in 2000, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from The New School for Social Research in 2003 and 2008, respectively. His mentors and teachers have included forensic psychologist Dr. Ali Khadivi; neurologist Dr. Marcel Kinsbourne; clinical psychologists Dr. David A. Shapiro and Dr. Herbert J. Schlesinger; developmental psychologist and historian Dr. John D. Hogan; and forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael H. Stone. Prior to CUMC, his clinical and research training, and postdoctoral work included positions at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, Beth Israel Medical Center, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, The Zucker Hillside Hospital at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, and Mount Sinai Services/Elmhurst Hospital Center (including the Rikers Island women’s forensic unit). He resides in New York City.[2]
Research[edit]
Brucato’s research has focused upon the phenomenology of early psychotic conditions, including schizophrenia and mood disorders with psychotic features, in their attenuated or prodromal phases,[3][4][5] as well as the relationship between psychotic symptoms and violence risk.[6][7][8] He and his research team at COPE investigate potential biomarkers[9] and screening measures for optimally identifying vulnerability for psychosis;[10] study related issues of stigma;[11] and examine distinctions between individuals experiencing auditory versus visual hallucinations and illusions.[12]
Alongside Dr. Ragy Girgis at CUMC, Brucato has proposed a model of psychosis and violence in which approximately one-third of individuals at risk for psychotic illness experience intrusive, ego-dystonic violent thoughts, images and fantasies, with a small portion progressing to actual aggressive acts which closely temporally coincide with the onset of syndromal psychosis. Such aggression is random and unfocused, rarely affecting previously envisioned targets. He and Girgis have proposed that violence risk remains elevated through the resolution of the first episode of psychosis, and thereafter becomes rare across the lifetime, except with poor adherence with prescribed psychotropic medications, or the disinhibiting effects of substance or alcohol use.[13][14] Their research group has also described abnormal amygdalar morphometry in persons at risk of psychosis who experience intrusive violent ideation.[15]
In 2019, Brucato and Dr. Michael H. Stone coauthored The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime,[16] in which they collaborated to expand upon and better distinguish between 22 motivational profiles of persons who engage in serial murder, mass murder and spree murder; protracted torture; rape and sexual assault; cannibalism; child abuse; and other violent acts, previously proposed by Stone on the Discovery Channel program "Most Evil," which he hosted from 2006 and 2007, and further delineated in his book The Anatomy of Evil in 2009.[17][18] The now expanded Gradations of Evil scale Stone and Brucato describe in The New Evil delineates between acts with more “human” motivations, such as homicides in self-defense and crimes of passion, and violence associated with personalities characterized by various levels of psychopathic and sadistic traits and behaviors.[19][20][21][22] Additionally, they addressed the psychological, biological and sociological factors behind particularly cruel and violent acts, exploring the wider question of “evil.” They considered the effects of new technologies, and sociological and historical factors since a possible cultural tipping-point in the 1960s that may have set the stage for an era of what Stone and Brucato call "new” evil. This includes (1) crimes that were not possible due to technologies that did not exist prior to the 1960s, such as the Internet, social media and availability to civilians of semiautomatic weapons; (2) violent acts not known to have ever occurred before the 1960s, such as fetal abduction; (3) offenses, such as serial sexual homicide, which became far more common in the Western world during this period; and (4) crimes which have been common across history, but which appear to have taken on new levels of audacity or cruelty in the post-1960s era, which the authors attribute to cultural changes affecting personality and behavior.[23][24][25][26]
Stone and Brucato have also worked with Dr. Ann Burgess and colleagues at Boston College to establish systematic definitions for the terms dismemberment and mutilation, and examine various motives for homicides involving these features.[27][28]
References[edit]
- ↑ "Gary Brucato, PhD". Columbia University Department of Psychiatry.
- ↑ Michael H. Stone & Gary Brucato. The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2019), pp. 503-504.
- ↑ Brucato, Gary; et al. (August 2017). "Baseline demographics, clinical features and predictors of conversion among 200 individuals in a longitudinal prospective psychosis-risk cohort". Psychological Medicine. 11 (47): 1923–1935. doi:10.1017/S0033291717000319.
- ↑ Crump, Francesca; et al. (December 2018). "Attenuated first-rank symptoms and conversion to psychosis in a clinical high-risk". Early Intervention in Psychiatry. 6 (12): 1213–1216. doi:10.1111/eip.12529.
- ↑ Ciarleglio, Adam J.; et al. (May 2019). "A Predictive Model for Conversion to Psychosis in Clinical High-Risk Patients". Psychological Medicine. 7 (49): 1128–1137. doi:10.1017/S003329171800171X.
- ↑ Brucato, Gary; et al. (January 2018). "A Longitudinal Study of Violent Behavior in a Psychosis-Risk Cohort". Neuropsychopharmacology. 2 (43): 264–271. doi:10.1038/npp.2017.151.
- ↑ Brucato, Gary; et al. (April 2019). "Prevalence and Phenomenology of Violent Ideation and Behavior among 200 Young People at Clinical High-Risk for Psychosis: An Emerging Model of Violence and Psychotic Illness". Neuropsychopharmacology. 5 (44): 907–914. doi:10.1038/s41386-018-0304-5.
- ↑ Feng, X.; et al. (May 30, 2019). "Amygdalar volume and violent ideation in a sample at clinical high-risk for psychosis". Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging (287): 60–62. doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2019.04.003.
- ↑ Lieberman, Jeffrey A.; et al. (August 2018). "Hippocampal dysfunction in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia: A selective review and hypothesis for early detection and intervention". Molecular Psychiatry. 8 (23): 1764–1772. doi:10.1038/mp.2017.249.
- ↑ Ciarleglio, Adam J.; et al. (May 2019). "A Predictive Model for Conversion to Psychosis in Clinical High-Risk Patients". Psychological Medicine. 7 (49): 1128–1137. doi:10.1017/S003329171800171X.
- ↑ Yang, Larry H.; et al. (June 2019). "Impact of "psychosis risk" identification: Examining predictors of how youth view themselves". Schizophrenia Research (208): 300–307. doi:10.1016/j.schres.2019.01.037.
- ↑ Lehembre-Shiah, E.; et al. (January 1, 2017). "Distinct Relationships Between Visual and Auditory Perceptual Abnormalities and Conversion to Psychosis in a Clinical High-Risk Population". JAMA Psychiatry (74): 104–106. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.3055. PMC 5337304.
- ↑ Brucato, Gary; et al. (January 2018). "A Longitudinal Study of Violent Behavior in a Psychosis-Risk Cohort". Neuropsychopharmacology. 2 (43): 264–271. doi:10.1038/npp.2017.151.
- ↑ Brucato, Gary; et al. (April 2019). "Prevalence and Phenomenology of Violent Ideation and Behavior among 200 Young People at Clinical High-Risk for Psychosis: An Emerging Model of Violence and Psychotic Illness". Neuropsychopharmacology. 5 (44): 907–914. doi:10.1038/s41386-018-0304-5.
- ↑ Feng, X.; et al. (May 30, 2019). "Amygdalar volume and violent ideation in a sample at clinical high-risk for psychosis". Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging (287): 60–62. doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2019.04.003.
- ↑ Michael H. Stone & Gary Brucato. The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2019)
- ↑ Liptak, Adam (2007-04-02). "Adding Method to Judging Mayhem". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2018-10-27. Retrieved 2018-10-27. Dr. Stone, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia, said he had put the scale together based on the biographies of hundreds of killers.
- ↑ Michael H. Stone. The Anatomy of Evil (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2009).
- ↑ Janos, Adam. ""Dahmer and Others: Ranking Serial Killers on a Scale of Evil"". A&E TV.
- ↑ Haney, Katie. ""What Do We Know About Female Psychopaths?"". New York Magazine: The Cut.
- ↑ "The Karen Conti Show," WGN Radio, April 7, 2019, https://wgnradio.com/2019/04/07/karen-conti-full-show-4-7-19/.
- ↑ "The Dana Prezer Show," Scared Monkeys Radio, April 4, 2019, http://scaredmonkeysradio.com/2019/04/04/the-dana-pretzer-show-thursday-april-4-2019-please-join-dana-pretzer-tonight-at-9-pm-et-with-special-guests-ron-franscell-dr-gary-brucato/.
- ↑ Ramsland, Katherine. ""All Things Truly Wicked"". Psychology Today.
- ↑ Khedaroo, Jennifer. ""Doctors pen book examining the worst crimes in the past 60 years"". Queens Ledger.
- ↑ Interview with David Schrader for "Midnight in the Desert" radio program, Rowland Network Communications LLC, February 18, 2019, http://midnightinthedesert.com/michael-stone-and-gary-brucato/.
- ↑ Ramsland, Katherine. ""What Makes Female Psychopaths Different? Callous and opportunistic, female psychopaths are the rarest of a rare breed. Though they share much with their male counterparts, they may be even better equipped to elude detection."". Psychology Today.
- ↑ Michael H. Stone & Gary Brucato. The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2019), p. 83.
- ↑ Ramsland, Katherine. ""All Things Truly Wicked"". Psychology Today.
