Abigail Marsh

““Fearlessness is a core part of a psychopathic personality. … People with psychopathy are really bad at recognizing when other people are afraid. And the reason we think that is because they don’t feel fear strongly themselves.””

““The most effective way to conquer fear with anything is just to deliberately expose yourself to it in small doses, and gradually up the level of threat, with a professional (counselor) if necessary, because fear in some ways is a habit.””

““Yet another problem with the ‘threat response’ theory is that it has difficulty explaining why damage to the amygdala impairs not just people’s ability to respond appropriately to fearful expressions but their ability to even identify them … like a colour‑blind person searching for a number in a featureless array of brown dots.””

““Once the proto‑mammalian brain was equipped with the wholly novel and evolutionarily necessary capacity to care about the welfare of other beings outside the self, there was no limit to what other kinds of love could theoretically be felt.””