Word: agee
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...confused with occasional periods of bad behavior or crimes of passion, ASP (also referred to as sociopathy) is defined in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as a lifelong "pervasive pattern" of rule breaking and violating the rights of others that begins before age 15. ASPs are chronic troublemakers whose symptoms vary greatly in severity: they can be constant money borrowers, black sheep, pathological liars, white-collar criminals or, at the most severe end of the continuum, murderous felons. They are impulsive and grandiose, don't learn from punishment, are poor self-observers, blame others for their problems...
Kathleen (not her real name), a suburban mom from Iowa, wishes she'd known about it 27 years ago. She says there was something chilling about the way her only son coaxed her for a cookie at age two. "It was way beyond manipulative. He was very adept at reading me, at figuring out what it took to get him what he wanted." By adolescence, the handsome, popular high school athlete had taken to stealing from her purse, torturing animals, driving drunk and making violent threats against classmates. Typical boyish rebellion? "There was a difference," Kathleen says. "I didn...
...disorder be treated? Though certain medications, like Depakote, curb individual symptoms like aggression and impulsiveness, there have been no drug trials specifically for ASP. Fonagy claims intensive psychotherapy and parent training can help. But researchers say that signs of ASP often show up by age four or five, and that if the behavior is not caught and dealt with before adolescence, there's little hope of making significant change. New York City psychoanalyst Leon Hoffman points out another problem: people suffering from ASP are difficult to get into therapy because they typically don't think anything is wrong with them...
...generally think of pop-cultural children--maybe not children, period--as having psyches, much less diagnoses. Moppets of the Depression and before were uncomplicated, hardy imps, ravenous Little Rascals and ruddy-faced Katzenjammers of simple wants and slapstick antics. Schulz's Dr. Spock-era kids brought cartoons into the age of psychiatric help, 5[cents] at a time. Reflective, neurotic and deadpan, they were to their predecessors what Bob Newhart was to Moe Howard. They were children of postwar prosperity, a time when Americans could afford to have anxieties instead of fears. They played Beethoven; they parked in front...
...mother, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, who seems to have had the most influence. When colleagues at Lesley College in Cambridge, Mass., asked Carlsson-Paige for her son's autograph for their daughters, she instead invited the daughters to a discussion group. She showed them pictures of Matt at their age and explained that he was just a regular person, like them. She acknowledges, however, that in one way her son is different. "It's unusual for children to become interested in something really young and then stay with it their whole lives," says Carlsson-Paige, who encouraged...