Customer Reviews

The Clinton Syndrome: The President and the Self-Destructive Nature of Sexual Addiction

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Dr. Levin is an expert on addictions and the psychological forces that fuel them. His professional knowledge, combined with a good deal of research on Clinton's life, make his "speculative" case compelling and convincing. Clinton's stormy childhood has been acknowledged, but Levin is the first to trace cause and effect, and to try to penetrate Clinton's psyche--the place, of course, where the Lewinsky scandal sprang from. Levin pieces together past and present, and makes a compelling case for sexual addiction and unconscious trauma. Levin needs a writer, however, to craft his argument into a more convincing and fleshed out whole. A voyeuristic psychological profile of a political figure is a treacherous endeavor, especially considering the moral miasma that political scandals wade in. And Levin's conventional and informal prose do not do his subject, or his professional knowledge and experience, justice. But if you realize that Levin is a psychologist, and not a writer, you will be rewarded with a much needed and convincing portrait of our President as a psychological being.

This book is a must read for everyone who is so quick to condemn President Clinton on the grounds of his "zipper problem." It is a poignant biographical book that follows his problem [addiction] through his life.

I have found this book to be highly speculative, on the part of the author. The only existing "facts" lay in previously printed material. Much of the book deals with what Clinton "must " have felt, or even worse what he "was thinking". It is my opinion that, one would be better of reading two separate books. One about Clinton's life and another about sexual addiction, since all this book does is perpetuate what most of us would like to keep just where it belongs. In the Presidents private dwelling.

I think the Dr. has spent too much time in session and not enough time in front of the keyboard. And definitely not enough time involved in Clinton research.

My personal struggle with the book, besides the loosely tossed-about facts and speculation, was the boring and sterile way in which it was written. ZZZZZZZZZZZ! I was sleeping before Chapter One even had a chance to go anywhere.

This book is an overpriced mess.

Now, on the other hand, I had the opportunity to read an internet press release of a book on a very similar topic coming out at the end of September, entitled "Addiction in the White House." THAT book is gonna kick butt and rule, because the author (I forget his name, something Canyon...)doesn't seem to sit there and stroke his academia beard. Instead, I noticed that he ripped into the scandal, and the addiction, with the hard cutting bias similar to a Hunter S. Thompson or Thomas Wolfe. I'll buy that book as soon as it's released, but this book here....it's fireplace fodder.

Well... I'm from Sweden, and that's all there is to say! We love these sexual affairs that involves your president Bill Clinton. The book is well written with a great deal of wise psychological explanations of his behaviour. We would like to send our greetings to the author.

Shallow Pop Psychology -- this is the kind of thing that gives Psychologists a bad name.

Prima Publishing, a small company known for appealing to a market segment of right-wingers who have $24.95 to throw around on tacky books like the Starr Report, was counting on this book to be their big bestseller this year. Whoops. It's a clumsily-written analysis of Clinton that will surprise no one. Near the end of the book, the author -- some bearded, wild-eyed quack who no one else would publish -- appeals for the President to get help by going to see a therapist like the author himself. How touching.

The only word I can think for this book is BUNK.