child psychopathy

Patrick Swayze · May 14, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html

interesting read. glad it doesn't make too much of the link between the Mum's career/psychopathy as genetic/high instance of indicators among CEOs but leaves it there implicitly.

sadly its concerns about labelling anticipate the attitude of some its readers.

ANetlinerWashington said:
Superb article, and my heart goes out to Michael and his family. I hope that Michael is one of the children whose symptoms abate during adolescence, and that he turns himself around as his father did.

Mr. Tea · May 14, 2012

Huh? What's that comment got to do with "labelling"?

Patrick Swayze · May 14, 2012

Mr. Tea said:
Huh? What's that comment got to do with "labelling"?

if children start to get labelled as 'psychopaths' then they're likely to be discriminated against.

saying you hope the child 'turns himself around' seems to contain an implicit threat. it struck me as ironically ominous and lacking empathy.

Mr. Tea · May 14, 2012

Then what's the alternative? There has to be some way of identifying kids with severe behavioural disorders otherwise they'll never get the help they need, will they?

Patrick Swayze · May 14, 2012

Mr. Tea said:
Then what's the alternative? There has to be some way of identifying kids with severe behavioural disorders otherwise they'll never get the help they need, will they?

treatment is a response to behaviour(s) labels are a product of efficiency demands. so no they are not absolutely necessary when treating children.

did you even read the article lol?

Mr. Tea · May 14, 2012

Not all of it yet, I'm at work. I was just trying to figure out what it was about that particular comment that had got your back up over "labelling".

mistersloane · May 14, 2012

Patrick Swayze said:
treatment is a response to behaviour(s) labels are a product of efficiency demands. so no they are not absolutely necessary when treating children.

Yeah sometimes - the overprescribing of ritalin/labelling of 'bipolar' etc have all been due to pushes from drug companies.

Some kids are genuinely mental and genuinely need helping out though. Truly disturbed/brain damaged kids are well scary when you meet them. It's not just efficiency demands that makes some people lala.

Patrick Swayze · May 14, 2012

mistersloane said:
Yeah sometimes - the overprescribing of ritalin/labelling of 'bipolar' etc have all been due to pushes from drug companies.

Some kids are genuinely mental and genuinely need helping out though. Truly disturbed/brain damaged kids are well scary when you meet them. It's not just efficiency demands that makes some people lala.

I didn't really mean it was financially expedient to label loads of kids and medicate them, I just meant that labelling kids is basically a form of short hand. it does result in blanket medication though.

Patrick Swayze · May 14, 2012

Mr. Tea said:
Not all of it yet, I'm at work. I was just trying to figure out what it was about that particular comment that had got your back up over "labelling".

well yh it deals with some of the things you're asking, 'child psychopathy' hasn't really been established as a condition (or the pre-existing condition hasn't been definitively identified in children) so that's obviously a big problem with labelling. the comment I highlighted seemed to indicate to me that the person writing it had already decided these kids have a definite condition and seemed a particularly unsympathetic reading of the article.

I fell victim to the urge to sensationalise with the thread title.

Mr. Tea · May 14, 2012

Whoever wrote that comment is probably not a psychologist specialising in abnormal child development, but I don't think you have to be a child psychologist to realize that Michael has something quite profoundly wrong with him. The earlier and more accurate a diagnosis, the better the chances of some successful intervention being made, wouldn't you say?

Though personally I think the answer's pretty obvious:

dyn002_original_544_355_jpeg_2608177_1391946a0d6b60aaa1131c5b79050fe0.jpg

baboon2004 · May 14, 2012

Society has lots of uses for psychopaths. I'm sure he'll find a good job somewhere.

Mr. Tea · May 14, 2012

baboon2004 said:
Society has lots of uses for psychopaths. I'm sure he'll find a good job somewhere.

Well yeah, that's touched on in the article.

Kurt Vonnegut said:
PPs [psychopathic personalities] are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose! . . .
So many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick. They have taken charge of communications and the schools, so we might as well be Poland under occupation.
They might have felt that taking our country into an endless war was simply something decisive to do. What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. They are going to do something every fuckin' day and they are not afraid. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reasons that they don't give a fuck what happens next. Simply can't. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody's telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

baboon2004 · May 14, 2012

Agreed 100 per cent with Mr Vonnegut. What was that quote I read the other day: can't recall, something along the lines of only morons (and psychopaths) know exactly what they think about complicated issues. (Instant) decisiveness is over-exaggerated as a good leadership quality.

grizzleb · May 14, 2012

Stepmum was telling me about a boy in one of her classes who hears voices and thinks that everyone in the class is conspiring against him and stuff. Sounds pretty awful. Poor kid.

mistersloane · May 14, 2012

Patrick Swayze said:
I didn't really mean it was financially expedient to label loads of kids and medicate them, I just meant that labelling kids is basically a form of short hand. it does result in blanket medication though.

Is labelling conditions full stop a form of shorthand, or is it useful for diagnosis? Is it less useful in kids than adults and, if so, why? Because they're 'not developed'?

Not arguing just interested.

Mr. Tea · May 14, 2012

Interesting that you say this:

Patrick Swayze said:
glad it doesn't make too much of...psychopathy as genetic...

because the article does make it clear that genetics seems to have a pretty big say in whether someone is likely to turn out this way. Of course you don't want to actively expect a child born into a family with a history of some particular mental illness to exhibit the same disease, but it would probably be useful for parents to at least be prepared for the possibility that they might have a hard slog ahead of them with a child in need of some heavy therapy.

Patrick Swayze · May 14, 2012

mistersloane said:
Is labelling conditions full stop a form of shorthand, or is it useful for diagnosis? Is it less useful in kids than adults and, if so, why? Because they're 'not developed'?

Not arguing just interested.

well the way I see it is, for diagnosis behaviours would need to be identified and noted down. the label would only come in for later treatment and even then only if it was by a different physician. so yeah it is essentially always shorthand. human categories of this nature are never discrete or stable in my opinion. it's not more useful in adults, but it's less potentially damaging in that adults have slightly more agency and are also better equipped to defend themselves intellectually and socially (especially the psychopathic ones).

Mr. Tea said:
Interesting that you say this:

because the article does make it clear that genetics seems to have a pretty big say in whether someone is likely to turn out this way. Of course you don't want to actively expect a child born into a family with a history of some particular mental illness to exhibit the same disease, but it would probably be useful for parents to at least be prepared for the possibility that they might have a hard slog ahead of them with a child in need of some heavy therapy.

yh I meant it doesn't go as far to say that the mother's position as a high flying businesswoman may owe something to psychopathic features in her personality which could have then been inherited by michael. it's a stylistic point really, I liked the fact that it 'officially', or on the surface, follows the official family line that the dad is the possible genetic source, whilst leaving enough detail to hint at an alternative possibility. I thought it was a sensitive treatment of the family.

Local Authority · May 15, 2012

Interested to read the article.

Never heard of children being diagnosed with PP before but I've been lead to believe that there are several factors that indicate towards or other antisocial personality disorders.

There is a problem with labelling, as always, but I don't think it would hurt if it was done in fair and unjudgemental manner. If your of the view that these issues need to be treated than surely diagnosis at an early age is the best way.

Then again I've never agreed with the way mental health works, purely for philosophical and moral reasons.

Local Authority · May 15, 2012

Sorry if that read poorly, I was on the bus and I suffer from motion sickness.

It seems to me that a lot of personality disorders are inherited culturally as opposed to biologically.

Patrick Swayze · May 15, 2012

Local Authority said:
Sorry if that read poorly, I was on the bus and I suffer from motion sickness.

It seems to me that a lot of personality disorders are inherited culturally as opposed to biologically.

culture is a product of our genetic make up though

child psychopathy

I'm trying to shut up

Let's Talk About Ceps

I'm trying to shut up

Let's Talk About Ceps

I'm trying to shut up

Let's Talk About Ceps

heavy heavy monster sound

I'm trying to shut up

I'm trying to shut up

Let's Talk About Ceps

Darned cockwombles.

Let's Talk About Ceps

Darned cockwombles.

Well-known member

heavy heavy monster sound

Let's Talk About Ceps

I'm trying to shut up

bitch city

bitch city

I'm trying to shut up