The New York Times magazine ran a chilling article yesterday about psychopathic children, and how the features that lead to anti-social personality disorder and sociopathy may be identified as early as age five. If you haven’t already seen it, I suggest you give it read. Researchers uniformly focus on lack of empathy as the best… Continue reading Empathy for the Psychopath
Category: Social Behavior
Anders Breivik, You and Me: What We Have in Common
When an anti-Islamic loner explodes a bomb outside a government building, killing eight people, then travels to a nearby island where he guns down 69 more, we naturally view that man as a dangerous lunatic. His paranoid tirades against multi-culturalism and “Eurabia”, along with his grandiose view of himself as crusading member of the fictional… Continue reading Anders Breivik, You and Me: What We Have in Common
Mothballing Your Parents
Last night, we were out at our favorite restaurant, celebrating my daughter Emma’s birthday. After a fine meal, we came home and sat up late, discussing, as we often do, the fact that she seems more like 26 than 14 — not precocious in a pseudo-mature way, but genuinely older than her age. People with… Continue reading Mothballing Your Parents
‘Butterfly’s Child’ by Angela-Davis Gardner: A Review
For the last 12 years, I’ve belonged to a writer’s group that meets every Thursday afternoon for two hours. We read our works-in-progress, giving support and constructive criticism to each other; we spend years reading and listening to different drafts of our books, so it’s an important event, something to celebrate, when a book by… Continue reading ‘Butterfly’s Child’ by Angela-Davis Gardner: A Review
Narcissistic Rage and the Failure of Empathy: ‘Citizen Kane’
Charles Foster Kane from the classic film ‘Citizen Kane’ displays narcissistic rage and a lack of empathy, psychological features that show up in different personality and autistic spectrum disorders.