Comments on: In Praise of Shyness, Solitude, and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (And All Other Personality Disorders Associated with Reading): Or, What’s Wrong With Being Disconnected? http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/ Just another WordPress.com weblog Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:16:48 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Toni Kay http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-519 Toni Kay Wed, 21 Jan 2009 03:40:08 +0000 http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-519 Ho hum, yawn. I think the good professor just wants to write books and make money. True pathology is not the type of behavior we see that runs the gambit of average range behaviors. Average being something between bookish and shy, to confidently - bubbly extroverted! What the measure of true pathology is, is the degree to which these behaviors adversely impact functioning in a variety of arenas and settings. And don't get me started on oppositional defiant disorder. Pathology is serious, maladaptive and pervasive behaviors that render the person incapable of functioning to a healthy degree. Pathology is not common social variations in behavior and express. Carry on.... Ho hum, yawn. I think the good professor just wants to write books and make money. True pathology is not the type of behavior we see that runs the gambit of average range behaviors. Average being something between bookish and shy, to confidently – bubbly extroverted! What the measure of true pathology is, is the degree to which these behaviors adversely impact functioning in a variety of arenas and settings. And don’t get me started on oppositional defiant disorder. Pathology is serious, maladaptive and pervasive behaviors that render the person incapable of functioning to a healthy degree. Pathology is not common social variations in behavior and express.

Carry on….

]]> By: Peter Kerry Powers http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-505 Peter Kerry Powers Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:09:04 +0000 http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-505 Glad to be of some encouragement. I will say, though, that I keep running across things in books and films about how pathological readers are. Oh Well. Glad to be of some encouragement. I will say, though, that I keep running across things in books and films about how pathological readers are. Oh Well.

]]> By: Claire http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-499 Claire Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:07:00 +0000 http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-499 Woof. I googled pathological need for solitude because I'm trying to cope with the last three days of my husband's enforced Christmas-through-New Year's vacation. I need time by myself. Not to myself, *by* myself. Feeling like there's something wrong with me because of it. For the record, I am also a constant reader. So maybe this isn't a pathology. Hmm. When I was a child, people always commented, "She's shy," as if it were a deformity. Woof. I googled pathological need for solitude because I’m trying to cope with the last three days of my husband’s enforced Christmas-through-New Year’s vacation. I need time by myself. Not to myself, *by* myself. Feeling like there’s something wrong with me because of it. For the record, I am also a constant reader. So maybe this isn’t a pathology. Hmm. When I was a child, people always commented, “She’s shy,” as if it were a deformity.

]]> By: Jessica Bennett http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-256 Jessica Bennett Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:30:53 +0000 http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-256 Thanks for helping to defend the right to curl up with a book and engage in other "antisocial" behaviors! You may be interested in a piece Chris Mercogliano posted at Beacon Broadside (the blog I edit) about the <a href="http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2008/02/drug-free-schoo.html" rel="nofollow">over-medicalization of behavioral differences</a>. I hope you'll come by and take a look. Thanks for helping to defend the right to curl up with a book and engage in other “antisocial” behaviors! You may be interested in a piece Chris Mercogliano posted at Beacon Broadside (the blog I edit) about the over-medicalization of behavioral differences. I hope you’ll come by and take a look.

]]> By: Kay ben-Avraham http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-99 Kay ben-Avraham Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:38:14 +0000 http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-99 Madeleine L'Engle wrote young girl heroines with a penchant for solitude, which is why I devoured her books as a teenager. One of them, Katherine Forrester, went to a boarding school where every room swarmed with other girl students and she nearly went out of her head trying to be alone. A chapel below the school served as sanctuary until one of the teachers discovered her sneaking off to kneel and think and be silent there, and her "misdemeanor" was treated as a serious and troubling offence, not only because of its secrecy but because there must be something wrong with her, to want to be alone. This would track back several decades, of course, to Madeleine's own boarding school experiences in the first half of the 20th century, and so apparently the total misunderstanding of human need for solitude, silence, contemplation, and (for some of us) books, goes back a ways beyond our more modern and technological times. Madeleine L’Engle wrote young girl heroines with a penchant for solitude, which is why I devoured her books as a teenager. One of them, Katherine Forrester, went to a boarding school where every room swarmed with other girl students and she nearly went out of her head trying to be alone. A chapel below the school served as sanctuary until one of the teachers discovered her sneaking off to kneel and think and be silent there, and her “misdemeanor” was treated as a serious and troubling offence, not only because of its secrecy but because there must be something wrong with her, to want to be alone.

This would track back several decades, of course, to Madeleine’s own boarding school experiences in the first half of the 20th century, and so apparently the total misunderstanding of human need for solitude, silence, contemplation, and (for some of us) books, goes back a ways beyond our more modern and technological times.

]]> By: Jeff Rioux http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-62 Jeff Rioux Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:28:56 +0000 http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-62 I appreciated your talk two years ago on reading and solitude. The talk caused me to reflect on my own patterns, and the continued reflections on the topic in this blog keep me pursuing it further. Thank you for that. I have been reading your blog semi-regularly since you started. I think that if I was writing a blog, it would be good to know that someone was reading. I appreciated your talk two years ago on reading and solitude. The talk caused me to reflect on my own patterns, and the continued reflections on the topic in this blog keep me pursuing it further. Thank you for that.

I have been reading your blog semi-regularly since you started. I think that if I was writing a blog, it would be good to know that someone was reading.

]]> By: Miscellany: More Literary Politics, Teleread.org, arbiters of celebrity, Technomyth 101 « Read, Write, Now http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-49 Miscellany: More Literary Politics, Teleread.org, arbiters of celebrity, Technomyth 101 « Read, Write, Now Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:45:23 +0000 http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/in-praise-of-shyness-solitude-and-oppositional-defiant-disorder-and-all-other-personality-disorders-associated-with-reading-or-what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-being-disconnected/#comment-49 [...] there writing about the current state of digital books and literature. Primarily because he gave my blog about the pathologization of solitude and its effect on reading a big plug. My blog stats—not that I pay ANY attention to them–nearly doubled. Nice to get [...] [...] there writing about the current state of digital books and literature. Primarily because he gave my blog about the pathologization of solitude and its effect on reading a big plug. My blog stats—not that I pay ANY attention to them–nearly doubled. Nice to get [...]

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