The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog - Reflections

In chapter seven we learn about the town of Gilmer, Texas and the alleged strange goings-on there: Satanic cults, human sacrifice, cannibalism, and child abuse. Of all the stories that Perry has recounted so far, this one was, to me, the most bizarre and outlandish - almost too much so to be true, and if it weren't Perry telling the story I can imagine being much more skeptical of the events as they are recounted. It all just sounds so surreal, almost like a bad movie or an episode of a TV crime drama. The story is complex, with many characters involved and many moving parts, including coerced confessions and false memories, political threats, and conspiracy, and I'll admit that the way it was told made it a bit difficult to follow at first; but the more I read of this chapter, the more it started to come together, and by the end I was left in an incredulous haze. The core messages of this chapter stand out to me as being twofold: the first is the susceptibility of the hum...

In chapter six, we follow the stories of both Justin and Connor as Perry explores the particulars and nuances of the effects of trauma on human cognitive and social development. We first meet Justin, who we soon learn is himself the titular boy who was raised as a dog. Placed in a cage and raised alongside dogs from the time he was about a year old, Justin was nonverbal and significantly stunted in terms of his neurocognitive and social development when Perry first encounters him as a six-year-old on the PICU. In the case of Connor, whom we meet as a teenager, we learn that he was routinely left alone for hours and hours by a negligent babysitter while his mother was working, resulting in years of sensory deprivation and limited human interaction. For several chapters and cases in a row now - Laura, Leon, Justin, Connor - Perry has been painting a grim picture of what neglect and ignorance can do to a developing child, particularly in tandem. But what I keep seeing, the theme I ke...

Another graphic and disturbing chapter, the titular "coldest heart" of chapter five is a reference to the case of Leon, a teenager whom Perry visits in a maximum security prison for an assessment pending the sentencing phase of his trial. When we are introduced to him, Leon stands accused of the murder and subsequent rape of two girls, ages 12 and 13. Perry's role is to interview him and to gather information on any "mitigating circumstances" that might be relevant to Leon's defense. Leon's case is a fascinating one, to me, because of the degree to which it is an outlier in terms of psychiatric prevalence. Leon is given a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), known colloquially as psychopathy or sociopathy, a cluster B personality disorder characterized by "a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others..." According to the DSM-5, the prevalence of ASPD in the general population ranges from 0.2% and...

"Skin Hunger" was a short yet remarkable case study in human development. In chapter four we follow the case of young Laura, a child who cannot seem to grow and gain weight, weighing only 26 pounds at age four, despite having access to the full support of medical and nutritional science, as well as psychological and psychiatric disciplines. We also are introduced to, and spend much of the chapter discussing, Virginia, Laura's loving but physically and emotionally distant mother, and a character called Mama P, who is a zealously affectionate woman and from whom Perry gleans the insight of how the simplicity of love can affect the entire trajectory of a patient's outcome. This chapter put into perspective for me an entirely new aspect of human development, one that I was unaware could result in the kinds of inhibited physical growth that was seen in Laura's case. Laura, despite receiving the adequate nutrients and being hooked up to feeding tubes in all different...