Born that way…
I’m no good at knowing what I’m watching on tv because I tend to just channel surf till something catches my attention. The other night, the show that caught me was about, of course, the neuroscience and neurobiology of psychopaths and sociopaths. The show highlighted a leading neurobiologist researcher who had studied the frontal lobes of countless murderers and found they had a very different brain – lots of action missing in the pre-frontal orbital cortex – an area I’ve been studying a lot in my course with Daniel Seigel. So, then the researcher scanned his brain and the brains of his wife and children. Lo and behold, his brain was the same as the murderers, while the rest of his family’s were fine.
This researcher is a Cornell – as in Cornell University- so he comes from a genetic line that is well documented in history – and so he took a look at his ancestors. He found that many of his illustrious ancestors (including Lizzy Borden) had been murderers, so he assumes this brain anomonaly runs in his family therefore, some evidence for the “born that way” or “nature” argument. However, he also noted that the murderers whose brains he’d studied in the prisons had come from horrible childhoods and chaotic families. He, however, had been raised by loving parents in a safe community with many positive opportunities handed to him in life. Therefore, he went to the “nurture” side of the argument.
He also said that he felt he could have been an awful person, he has always known he had a “dark side” as he called it, but that he never had any reason to dwell in that part of himself. His wife and adult children all described him as a very loving and affectionate and caring man. Interesting stuff. He was nurtured from conception onward, and he turned out great. That sure isn’t the history of so many of our childen, is it.
Many of ours have also come from a genetic background of violence, likely with the same brain issues in the frontal area – but they didn’t get any nurturing or care either pre-natal or post-natal, and by the time we adopt them, many more experiences of rage and victimization and loss and fear have further damaged those vulnerable areas of the brain – so sometimes what we offer is enough to build new neural pathways, but sometimes it isn’t.
Well, I lack any wise insight into this, but it was an interesting show and if I ever figure out what it was I’ll let you know.
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I watched this too. I thought it was by the same people who make 20/20 or Primetime Live or something. I thought it was very interesting how they talked to the serial killer who described his crimes and was so blunt with the interviewer about his lack of remorse/conscience. When he said that he thought about the girl he’d thought he’d left for dead (but who survived and identified him) every day, I got the impression that she was the loose end he was kicking himself for, not that he was sorry he’d tried to kill her – it was creepy. It’s an interesting concept – being born to kill – but if we see this and know that it’s possible, where do we go from there. Obviously the researcher has turned out okay, in spite of his dark side, so the answer wouldn’t be to lock up everyone with brain scans like his “just in case”.
I ask myself what the answers could/should be every day with my FASD kids. I have been trying to give them real world consequences all their lives because the real world will not let them get away with stealing, lying and outright oppositional defiance of it’s rules. it has done no good so far. My 16 1/2 yo just refuses to do anything to help the family in any way. He tantrums and cries like a 2 yo every time we expect anything from him. It’s exhausting and I don’t anticipate any breakthroughs in the next 1 1/2 yrs before he turns 18 and leaves (and he’s assured us that he IS leaving, even if it means being homeless). I know after 18 I won’t be legally responsible, but he does not learn from experience at all and he will end up hurt or in jail – what’s the answer?? It makes my brain hurt to keep contemplating it.