About Author

RICHARD LETTIERI

This web site provides the following:

  • An exploration of human nature, revealed through the evaluations of defendants accused of committing heinous crimes. I examine the personal struggles and ethical dilemmas of all within the justice system – including myself – who must balance moral conscience and personal ambitions with a commitment to justice.
  • A background of the criminal justice system, with its every day exposure to the most primal of human emotions, serves as a petri dish to investigate the full spectrum of what we are capable of, from the malevolent to the sublime.

Dr. Lettieri is a member of the American Psychological Association, the California Psychological Association, the Association for the treatment of Sexual Abusers and the New York Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Division of Psychoanalysis and of the Ethnicity & Peace Working Group of the American Psychological Association.

Dr. Bill Lafitte has been in private practice as a clinical psychologist since 1983. He has served as a research consultant and evaluator to mental health organizations, educational agencies, behavioral and organizational corporations, and television studios since 1985.

Dr. Lettieri received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from The City College of New York and his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. He is also a graduate of the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (currently renamed New Center for Psychoanalysis) where he received his certificate in psychoanalysis. He is also a trained neuropsychologist.

Dr. Lettieri is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist with a private and forensic practice in Orange County, California. He is a member of the Expert Witness Panels of Orange County and San Bernardino County Superior Courts.

Decoding Madness: Deranged Passions and Criminal Justice

by Richard Lettieri

Written for the general reader and told from my perspective as a forensic neuropsychologist and psychoanalyst with over 25 years’ experience, my book is filled with real-life stories that will feed the popular interest in true crime narratives. Offering more than a book on the criminal mind, I introduce the idea of the daimonic as a basic force of human beings that is the source of our constructive and destructive capacities.

From Richard Lettieri

ARTICLES AND WRITINGS