I've been meaning to do a post on the Atlantic's interview with James Fallon (Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath) about his new book, "The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain." Both the book and the article are worth reading in their entirety.
My favorite part in the article was Professor Fallon describing his relationship with his close associates, wife and sister:
I started with simple things of how I interact with my wife, my sister, and my mother. Even though they’ve always been close to me, I don't treat them all that well. I treat strangers pretty well—really well, and people tend to like me when they meet me—but I treat my family the same way, like they're just somebody at a bar. I treat them well, but I don't treat them in a special way. That’s the big problem.
I asked them this—it's not something a person will tell you spontaneously—but they said, "I give you everything. I give you all this love and you really don’t give it back." They all said it, and that sure bothered me. So I wanted to see if I could change. I don't believe it, but I'm going to try.
In order to do that, every time I started to do something, I had to think about it, look at it, and go: No. Don’t do the selfish thing or the self-serving thing. Step-by-step, that's what I’ve been doing for about a year and a half and they all like it. Their basic response is: We know you don’t really mean it, but we still like it.
I told them, "You’ve got to be kidding me. You accept this? It’s phony!" And they said, "No, it’s okay. If you treat people better it means you care enough to try." It blew me away then and still blows me away now.
My second favorite part was on the possibility of change:
I think people can change if they devote their whole life to the one thing and stop all the other parts of their life, but that's what people can't do. You can have behavioral plasticity and maybe change behavior with parallel brain circuitry, but the number of times this happens is really rare.
Interestingly, I've felt like with my life being somewhat ruined by publishing the book, I have plenty of time now to do this very thing. I'm curious where it will take me.
Other topics include how sociopaths have a Zen Buddhist perspective, the difference between someone who becomes a violent sociopath and someone who does not, how and why treatment of infants and small children is critical to their development, and why sociopathic traits might not really "mature" until the adult brain has matured.
My favorite part in the article was Professor Fallon describing his relationship with his close associates, wife and sister:
I started with simple things of how I interact with my wife, my sister, and my mother. Even though they’ve always been close to me, I don't treat them all that well. I treat strangers pretty well—really well, and people tend to like me when they meet me—but I treat my family the same way, like they're just somebody at a bar. I treat them well, but I don't treat them in a special way. That’s the big problem.
I asked them this—it's not something a person will tell you spontaneously—but they said, "I give you everything. I give you all this love and you really don’t give it back." They all said it, and that sure bothered me. So I wanted to see if I could change. I don't believe it, but I'm going to try.
In order to do that, every time I started to do something, I had to think about it, look at it, and go: No. Don’t do the selfish thing or the self-serving thing. Step-by-step, that's what I’ve been doing for about a year and a half and they all like it. Their basic response is: We know you don’t really mean it, but we still like it.
I told them, "You’ve got to be kidding me. You accept this? It’s phony!" And they said, "No, it’s okay. If you treat people better it means you care enough to try." It blew me away then and still blows me away now.
My second favorite part was on the possibility of change:
I think people can change if they devote their whole life to the one thing and stop all the other parts of their life, but that's what people can't do. You can have behavioral plasticity and maybe change behavior with parallel brain circuitry, but the number of times this happens is really rare.
Interestingly, I've felt like with my life being somewhat ruined by publishing the book, I have plenty of time now to do this very thing. I'm curious where it will take me.
Other topics include how sociopaths have a Zen Buddhist perspective, the difference between someone who becomes a violent sociopath and someone who does not, how and why treatment of infants and small children is critical to their development, and why sociopathic traits might not really "mature" until the adult brain has matured.



