## The Psychology of Stalking
Book Review

Here's a review of a book on stalking, titled The Psychology of Stalking, and the reviewer, Sheryll Thompson, really has the problem of multiple stalking CLEARLY understood and in focus. Having a psychotherapist ACCEPT that multi-stalking really is happening really makes the heart of this veteran multi stalking target leap for joy!

Here's the review excerpt as I received it, and the book details from amazon.com follow at the end:

    Have you seen a book review on the subject by a Los Angeles
    psychotherapist, Sheryll Thomson?

    She complains that the book doesn't cover multiple stalkers and that
    police don't enforce anti-stalking law.  I can't find her in phone
    directories or the California State physicians directory.

    Here is part of her book review:

    "Meloy doesn't mention multiple stalkers in his book, in fact,
    denigrates such stories by default and by being too vague in describing
    the differences between false and real cases (investigators 'had the
    feeling' the case was false), doing nothing to prevent law enforcement,
    with little more in the way of studies to go on, from concluding that
    more often than not a given case is 'self-harm' or simply a lie.

    Psychotherapists: Many or most psychotherapists also have no choice,
    not hearing or knowing about the increasing multiple stalking cases
    (and being themselves too shocked at such stories and in denial -- as
    the society was about child abuse, wife-beating and one-person stalking
    for decades before acknowledging the seriousness and actuality of these
    crimes; and as we all were about the reality of terrorist threats to our
    nation though there was plenty of evidence for years apparently that
    these threats were real) they leap to the conclusion that their client
    is delusional. In fact, to be fair, most multiple-stalking cases are
    burgeoning exponentially, at the same rate as the internet, and all of
    this is new. (As Meloy, to his credit, attests, and he gives sound
    reasons why a person, who might not have been a criminal before the
    advent of the internet, might resort to deadly and terrorizing tactics
    when he thinks the internet will allow him impunity. p. 12)

    There are now two cyberstalking laws in California (written after the
    book was written); one convicted a man (named Delapenta) who had set up
    a website in the name of a woman he had been turned down by for a date.
    He had published her name, address, phone, and ways to bypass her
    security system on this site; he said (as if he was she) 'she' wanted
    to be raped and to ignore any calls for help she might make -- that
    this was just part of 'her' game. The young woman was terrified at the
    calls and visits by strange men and remained so for at least a year
    after the perpetrator was caught (by her father spending weeks
    searching on line at first and then pretending to be a website visitor,
    and by two men who came to her door admitting what was going on; not by
    any police investigation).

    There are many such stories which have been published, which make use of
    personal identity information on the internet, including photographs (in
    one known case, brazenly taken head-on of the victim by strangers with
    long-distance lenses in food stores, concerts, in an empty hotel lobby
    after a conference, across a children's playground of herself and her
    grandchild -- the stunned victim found that the photographers drove away
    in cars which had no license plates), to recruit and evoke stranger-
    stalkers to target one individual. Some sites might be 'dead pool' sites,
    which include gambling on the person's death date --this is an effective
    come-on as, unlike 'hate sites', 'players' have the impetus of winning
    money or earning it through individual assaults or 'attacks'. These may
    be like a computer game, but in which a real person has been chosen
    (likely by a known perpetrator, maybe a family member -- like the father
    who was afraid without cause that he, himself, would become incarcerated
    or abandoned if his abuse of his daugher came to light) to be the target
    in real life. Some of the sites may require illicitly shared software in
    order to 'play' and the website may not be findable by ordinary search
    techniques. A person playing this 'game' might get points for making one
    or more assaults of some kind on the victim, terrorizing her/him and
    possibly hastening his/her death by suicide or homicide. There was one
    such report (1997) of a Dungeons and Dragons game, originating on the
    internet but played out on the street, which resulted in the suicides of
    three terrified teenagers.

    Clearly a new book needs to be written, and soon, incorporating all the
    now-known cases of multiple (stranger) stalkers elicited on the internet
    targeting a single individual as well as the continued gap in law
    enforcement between what needs to be known about how to investigate these
    cases (sophisticated cyber-training and sections in police departments
    devoted to such crimes) and how victims are being treated today. Likely
    legistatures need to vote money toward these sections and not just make
    new cybercrime laws."

    I [Sheryll Thompson] am a licensed psychotherapist with a personal and
    professional interest in 'multiple stalking' cases, in which a perpetrator
    organizes other individuals, likely strangers to the victim, to stalk
    and harass a feared or hated target individual, often over the internet.

    This is a basic, beginning book, written in 1998 and way behind in
    filling the need, considering the proliferation of actual crimes
    originating on the internet especially those in which a single website
    recruits or incites multiple individuals, usually strangers, as
    stalkers against one individual. In addition, unfortunately, this
    well-meaning but limited book has likely set back law enforcement help
    for victims of multiple-stalker, internet-originating crimes by years:

    In particular, the chapter on 'false victimization' is unnecessary and
    could well have been left out as it gives inexperienced, overburdened
    or uncaring law enforcement personnel, as they read the chapter about
    a variety of cases which at first sound like legitimate stalking cases
    but turn out to be false alarms, rationale to superimpose them upon
    all pleas to law enforcement for help, and justification to dismiss
    out of hand legitimate cases as illegitimate -- without investigation.

    Other examples of little or no cyberstalking training (in the LAPD;
    there is no cyberstalking section though the law now mandates it): A
    lone law enforcement individual manning the phone at LAPD's
    'cyberstalking' section has said, 'cyberstalking is threatening
    e-mails -- period!' (2001)(This misapprehension is not discredited in
    Meloy's book.)Another LAPD detective, a woman, said, 'Just don't go on
    line' and when she heard about skin-burning chemicals inserted in the
    victim's newspapers, 'Just stop taking the newspaper'. Another
    detective, when hearing about a rationally-described but complicated
    case of internet-originated stalking and harassment insisted that the
    victim go into a psychiatric facility for a three-day hold in order to
    'determine what is going on' -- this is without the first attempt at
    interview or investigation. Other detectives, more restrained, have
    explained that they need 'proof' before even beginning an
    investigation and gathering proof,leaving the victim in a helpless,
    catch-22 situation (and, being put off by the multiple-stalker nature
    of the crime as described refused to look at the evidence at hand).
    (...) "

    BOOK DETAILS FROM AMAZON.COM (March 2004):

    ** NOTE:  PLEASE READ THE ABOVE REVIEW.
       IT APPEARS THAT THIS BOOK IS *NOT*
       A FAVOURABLE RESOURCE FOR MULTI-
       STALKING VICTIMS, HENCE, IT IS NOT
       HERE AS RECOMMENDED READING.

    The Psychology of Stalking:
    Clinical and Forensic Perspectives
    by J. Meloy (Author)

    List Price:   $65.00
    Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours
    Only 4 left in stock--order soon
    (more on the way).

    Hardcover: 327 pages ;
    Publisher: Academic Press; (May 26, 1998)
    ISBN: 0124905609

    Book Description

    The Psychology of Stalking is the first scholarly book on stalking
    ever published.  Virtually every serious writer and researcher
    in this area of criminal psychopathology has contributed a chapter.
    These chapters explore stalking from social, psychiatric, psychological
    and behavioral perspectives.  New thinking and data are presented on
    threats, pursuit characteristics, psychiatric diagnoses, offender-
    victim typologies, cyberstalking, false victimization syndrome,
    erotomania, stalking and domestic violence, the stalking of public
    figures, and many other aspects of stalking, as well as legal issues.

    This landmark text is of interest to both professionals and other
    thoughtful individuals who recognize the serious nature of this ominous
    social behavior.

    Key Features:

    * First scholarly book on stalking ever published
    * Contributions from virtually all major
      researchers in field
    * Discussion of what to do when being stalked
    * Uses examples from recent publicized cases