Personality

When I was young, I used to tell my mother, with great gusto and frequency, that "we're the same person." I fully believed it then. I was in awe of her and wanted to be not just her walking, talking mini-me, but her. Not like her. Not sharing her interests. Her. Read More

For the most part, what we "know" about introversion is still more theory than fact. We talk about introverts losing energy in social interactions but what, exactly, is that energy? What is energy directed outward? Or inward? Read More

In the Brother's Grimm fairy tale, "The Old Grandfather and the Grandson," a young married couple has grown tired of the husband's father, who lives with them, and who has become increasingly feeble. They stop inviting him to the dinner table and begin feeding him small portions from a dishpan. Read More

Feeling energetic is a key to feeling happy. Studies show that when you feel energetic, you feel much better about yourself. On the other hand, when you feel exhausted, tasks that would ordinarily make you happy—like putting up holiday decorations—make you feel overwhelmed and blue. Read More

Let's look at the construct of the serial killer persona for a moment. We carve nature at its joints and come to a conclusion that this persona is encapsulated by that sort of foreign and frightening aura carried by that individual who seems to not care, to not feel remorse, to not respond to reason. This is the kind of person that shoots dozens of classmates despite a nurturing familial environment, or the kind of person who kills people over the span of years and "the neighbors never suspected." Read More

Several weeks ago my mother, in her eighth or ninth year of Alzheimer’s Disease, and 63rd year of marriage, began wielding knives and trying to stab people, verbally threatening to kill my father, throwing dangerous glass objects and screaming bloody murder at her own image in the mirror—“I DON’T WANT YOU HERE, GET OUT!!!” My brother and I finally intervened and had her temporarily hospitalized in a psychiatric ward, hoping we could buy more time for her at home through stabilizing her on the right meds, and getting Dad more help. Read More

Why did Nidal Malik Hasan and other spree shooters murder their victims? One approach would concern the cybernetics of emotion involving recursive loops of shame and anger.
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There are various criteria used by any person's psyche (psychological processes) that will determine whether anger gets repressed or not. And, of course, if the anger is large or huge the probability that it will be repressed decreases and the likelihood of acting-out increases. Why is that? Read More

"He's such a bright little boy!" My mother and her friends said things like that all the time, as they pointed to me when they thought I wasn't paying attention. Read More