With each new chapter, I am astounded by the level of intensity and difficulty of the cases that Perry takes on. I appreciate Perry's distinction of the consequences that can come from early childhood neglect and abandonment and that not every outcome will result in such violent acts. The fact that Laura and Virginia did not experience similar emotional indifference highlighted to me that the combination of nature and nurture can be expressed in extremely interesting ways that are difficult to identify.
Not too long ago, I worked with my first patient who I believed to have antisocial personality disorder. I don't believe it was actually diagnosed but I knew immediately that I had never encountered a similar person before. This patient had a history of substance use issues and violence against his family. Something was different about him- an inability to connect or empathize with the harm he had instigated against his own blood. His demeanor stuck with me for days after his discharge. Reading of the heinous acts that Leon committed was difficult and I cannot imagine having as much composure or gracefulness sitting in a room with him like how Perry did. I was very surprised to learn that Leon's family was seemingly entirely different and had no past indications of violence or abuse. I imagine that this made Leon's acts even more difficult for his hardworking family.
I appreciated learning that Leon was not unintelligent but instead wasn't capable of taking into account others feeling in any other way than to manipulate. On the surface, I feel like the general public would slap a label of "stupid" when learning about crimes that occur. It's an easy way to dissociate from other people as a way to distance them and believe that there aren't similarities between themselves.
I liked that this chapter and Leon's story showed how powerful an individual's environment can be. As Perry said, there were no other signs of similar traits or behavior in his family history. I was very surprised to learn of the neglect that Leon's mother caused and it's heartbreaking to imagine all of the different systems, checkpoints, and agencies that should have helped that from occurring. While it seems like common sense, I had not thought much about the negative consequences that could arise from forming a group of children with behavior difficulties. Perry's explanation of the snowball effect and how risk factors seem to build upon themself strikes true to almost every patient I have worked with. It feels like Leon and Maria didn't stand a chance.
It's important that information of how people can develop in this manner and for the general public to understand the severity of what neglect can do to children. This case is tricky because I believe that most people would feel like Leon is guilty and therefore should be held accountable for his actions by being inprisoned. What is often less thought about is if treatment or interventions can actually "undo" the personality and lack of connection and empathy that has already been formed.
I’m also amazed at Perry’s ability to tolerate the “intensity and difficulty” of the cases he’s written about. Two of the cases we’ve covered so far have hammered home the fact that forms of abuse and neglect can be subtle and not immediately discernable to the casual observer. Laura’s “failure to thrive” was a revelation to me in that a parent can be physically present every waking moment of their child’s life and still do life threatening and irreparable harm by not interacting, attuning or physically comforting her child. I had a similar revelation regarding Leon. It is amazing to me, as horrible as the neglect was that he experienced as a child, that his neglect contributed to a trajectory in life that resulted in the murder of two innocent girls. It really speaks to the power and gravity of raising a child well. Of course, the proper rearing of a child also demands that the parents are psychologically healthy and ideally are securely attached. All of this reminds me of a topic from my Attachment course a couple of semesters ago. Researchers found that children in foster care had below average rate of secure attachment which doesn’t come as a surprise given the history of many children in foster care. The remedy or intervention considered was to have a healthy, securely attached foster parent model and interact with the children in their care to nurture or “foster” secure attachment. So, the same researchers set about testing foster care parents and found that foster parents also had a below average rate of secure attachment!
ReplyDeleteI would venture to say that most people would look at an incarcerated or perhaps see a mugshot or read the criminal record of an individual and then think to themselves, "That's what they get!" or "They deserved it!" "Serves them right" "One less to worry about". But we don't think about the reasons that led them to where they are. Yeah they absolutely might have made a bad decision, but there is always more to it than that. We quickly assume that we know everything about an individual, but we have no idea if they grew up in a household without any parents, or in a household with an abusive father or a mother that neglected her children and smoked drugs instead of being nurturing and spending quality time with them. It's all much more complex, and there are a lot of factors that come into play when we examine individuals in the prison system and why it is that they do the things that they do.
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