Question: Why do people engage in aggressive behaviour (some, as we know, rather more than others)? Answer: Because they enjoy it. There's a bit of a flutter on the internet (see here and here) about research coming out of Vanderbilt University. Studying mice, Maria Couppis and Craig Kennedy have found that aggression can be as emotionally rewarding as food or sex. The neurotransmitter dopamine has been implicated in nearly every experience we consider rewarding, such as love, drugs, eating, and sex. Indeed, the mesolimbic dopamine pathway is referred to as the reward system of the brain. Dopamine is necessary for reinforcement, e.g. the ex-smoker's craving brought about by the whiff …
After he’s gone: Looking at the sociopath through open eyes.
My 100% responsibility. I had a glass of wine last night with a girlfriend who is leaving for a three month holiday at the beginning of February. Where she's going is not important -- except when put in the context of who is at the place she's going to. A man. A man she once loved who could not, would not commit. A man who hid behind silence. Who never told her where he was, what he was doing or who he was with. She spent the first year after leaving him healing her broken heart. And then she started dating. A few months ago she decided to phone the man far away. "We were such good friends. Friends stay in touch and I just wanted to see how he was," she told me. With that phone call, the …
After he’s gone: Looking at the sociopath through open eyes.Read More