Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?

[laundry_queen]

67. Interesting article.

I think people severely underestimate the importance of maternal bonding in humans. In the rest of the animal world, a failure of bonding means certain death for the offspring. This kind of research was a big part of the reason why I was very big on attachment parenting with my kids. I find it odd that our culture promotes mother/baby separation pretty much as soon as the baby is out of the womb. There have been other studies that show nothing but benefits to babies who are held the longest and studies showing severe attachment disorders for those who were neglected as infants (and those particular babies can never improve - it seems there is a small 'window' where if the child doesn't receive affection, their brain never develops in that area, even with intense therapy).

I do think, however, that there is something physically very wrong with the more severe psychopaths, such as serial killers. I was watching one of those shows about horrendous criminals and serial killers almost all had a history of some kind of head trauma - traumatic birth, severe fall, concussions, etc. Very interesting stuff. The same show said something about serial killers not being your run-of-the-mill psychopath (ie I don't think oxytocin nose-spray will cure them . Definitely a fairly new and fascinating subject of study.