The REAL therapist who fixed the King's Speech

The REAL therapist who fixed the King's Speech: How long-forgotten papers told touching story of George VI's battle to cure his stammer



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The REAL therapist who fixed the King's Speech: How long-forgotten papers told touching story of George VI's battle to cure his stammer

These long-forgotten papers chronicle how the Duke of York turned to a failed Australian actor in 1926 to cure his speech impediment.

The man who became King George VI decided to turn to therapist Lionel Logue - who was regarded as a ‘quack’ because of his lack of medical training.

The extraordinary story of how an outsider helped the King for years looked like it would be a forgotten part of our national history.

Long-forgotten: An appointment card showing King George VI's visit to Lionel Logue's Harley street clinic. The long-forgotten documents were not found until last year

It wasn’t until a year ago that Mark Logue, the grandson of the self-taught therapist, discovered the Duke of York’s appointment papers in a pile of old documents left to him by his father.

A film - The King's Speech - was released yesterday telling the tale.

Mark Logue knew little about his grandfather’s significance in British history until he discovered the documents when leafing through them one afternoon in his North London home.

Now he has written a book with Peter Conradi about Lionel Logue, who had only arrived in the UK two years before the King turned up at his Harley Street clinic on October 19, 1926.

Unlikely story: Lionel Logue, pictured here with his fiance Myrtle in 1907, arrived in the UK as a failed actor without medical training. He was regarded as a 'quack' for his speech therapy techniques

Unexpected find: Lionel Logue's grandson Mark (left) discovered the files in a pile of old papers. In the film his grandfather is played by Geoffrey Rush (right)

As he rifled through the historic papers, Mark found details of all George VI’s appointments with Lionel Logue neatly recorded on index cards and some detailed diary notes.

When the King George VI died in 1952 the Queen Mother wrote the therapist a handwritten note of thanks for all he had done with the King.

The letter from Buckingham Palace, embossed with a Royal logo, is written in neat handwriting and signed ‘I am, yours very sincerely, Elizabeth’.

She writes in the letter that she hopes Lionel, who was ill at the time, ‘will soon be better’.

The critically-acclaimed new film, which is tipped to sweep the board at this year’s Oscars, stars Colin Firth as King George VI and Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue.

On his first patient card Lionel Logue had neatly written in the top corner that his latest visitor was ‘His Highness The Duke of York’.

He wrote in his notes: ‘Has an acute nervous tension which has been brought on by the defect... is of a nervous disposition.’

And the therapist remarked the King is: ‘Well built, with good shoulders, but waist line very flabby’.

It was only as the film was being put together by director David Seidler that it emerged the papers and diaries had been found and could be consulted.

The movie begins with the Duke of York – Colin Firth – failing to deliver a speech to the crowd at the Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium in 1925.

Hit film: Colin Firth plays George VI and Helena Bonham Carter plays his forceful wife Elizabeth

Royal mail: A letter from the Queen Mother sent after the death of George VI in February 1952. The text is recreated in full below

There are long sections of Mr Logue, who had no formal medical qualifications, with the King in his consultation room.

The notes kept by Lionel about his Royal patient are detailed and give a remarkable insight into the personality and public speaking insecurities of the King.

In one section of the documents, recreated below, the speech therapist reveals the anxieties of the Monarch as he delivered his coronation speech.

The film has been on general release since Friday January 7. ‘The King’s Speech’ book, by Mark Logue and journalist Peter Conradi is out now.

AN INCREDIBLE TALE: EXTRACTS FROM THE LONG-FORGOTTEN DIARY

April 19, 1937

Went to Windsor.

King in grey clothes, blue stripe.

Came forward with a smile: 'Hello Logue, so glad to see you. You can be of great help to me.'

Went through Coronation Broadcast speech and altered it considerably.

King in excellent health, a bit stiff about jaw, most anxious to do best.

April 30, 1937

Went through Coronation speech with King. When I told him he took two reputations into the box with him, he said he knew he did, that’s why he was laughing. He is a good fellow and only wants careful handling.

The King's Coronation - Wednesday May 12, 1937

A car took me to the Palace at 7 o’clock. Went upstairs and found His Majesty, looking very fit after his very emotional day. We went through the speech once, at the mike, and then back to his room, where the Queen joined us, looking tired but very happy. We discussed the Coronation, particularly the solidness of the Archbishop and I told the King how we all noticed he took over the doing up of his belt. He told me that in some Coronations, the King was naked to the waist.

Kept him talking right up to the loud speakers playing the National Anthem. The Queen said 'Good Luck Bertie' and he walked right up to the mike and began (the perspiration was running down my back). He went on beautifully, a splendid voice, flexible, slight trouble with one word… he had me so worked up, that I could not talk at the end.

In a few seconds, he walked out into his passage and gave me a warm pressure of the hand as he said 'Good night Logue, I thank you very much' and the Queen did the same, her beautiful, indescribably blue eyes shining.

I said 'The greatest thing in my life your Majesty is being able to serve you'. She said 'Good Night. Thank you' and, softly, 'God Bless You'. This bought the tears to my eyes and sent me feeling like a fool. I had a whisky and soda, a silly thing to do on an empty stomach, and the whole world began to go around.

Letters between the Queen Mother and Mr Logue

Feb 20 1952

Her Majesty

Queen Elizabeth

The Queen Mother

Buckingham Palace

Your Majesty

There arrives a most wonderful letter from His Majesty on December 16th telling me all about his health and what he had gone through - unfortunately I had to go into hospital before I could reply.

The King’s letter is in front of me as I write, and I cannot realise that it is the last one I shall ever receive.

Since 1926 he honoured me, by allowing me to help him with his speech, and no man ever worked as hard as he did and achieved such a grand result.

During all those years you were a tower of strength to him, and he has often told me how much he owes to you.

I have never forgotten your gracious help, to me, when my own beloved girl passed on.

I have the honour to be your Majesty’s humble servant.

Lionel Logue Feb 28 1952 Buckingham Palace

Dear Mr Logue

I am so grateful for your kind letter, and very much touched by what you write - I am indeed sorry to hear that you have been so ill, so it was most kind of you to make the effort to write to me.

hat his whole life, and outlook on life. I shall always be deeply grateful to you for all you did for him.

I think that I know perhaps better than anyone just how much you helped the King, not only with his speech, but through that his whole life, and outlook on life. I shall always be deeply grateful to you for all you did for him. He was such a splendid person, and I don’t believe that he even thought of himself at all - I did so hope that he might have been allowed a few years of comparative peace after the many anguished years he has had to battle through so bravely. But it was not to be.

I do hope that you will soon be better, and with again my heartfelt thanks, I am, yours very sincerely.

Elizabeth R

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A Triage to Save the Ruins of Babylon

So many answers lie underneath those sands. Along with new questions that are waiting to be asked.

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A Triage to Save the Ruins of Babylon

An Iraqi helicopter hovering over the Ishtar Gate in May. Groundwater and excavations have eaten away brick reliefs at its base.

JIMIJMA, Iraq — The damage done to the ruins of ancient Babylon is visible from a small hilltop near the Tower of Babel, whose biblical importance is hard to envision from what is left of it today.

Across the horizon are guard towers, concertina wire and dirt-filled barriers among the palm trees; encroaching farms and concrete houses from this village and others; and the enormous palace that Saddam Hussein built in the 1980s atop the city where Nebuchadnezzar II ruled.

Something else is visible, too: earthen mounds concealing all that has yet to be discovered in a city that the prophet Jeremiah called “a gold cup in the Lord’s hands, a cup that made the whole earth drunk.”

On the hillside during one of his many visits to the ruins, Jeff Allen, a conservationist working with the World Monuments Fund, said: “All this is unexcavated. There is great potential at this site. You could excavate the street plan of the entire city.”

That is certainly years away given the realities of today’s Iraq. But for the first time since the American invasion in 2003, after years of neglect and violence, archaeologists and preservationists have once again begun working to protect and even restore parts of Babylon and other ancient ruins of Mesopotamia. And there are new sites being excavated for the first time, mostly in secret to avoid attracting the attention of looters, who remain a scourge here.

The World Monuments Fund, working with Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, has drafted a conservation plan to combat any further deterioration of Babylon’s mud-brick ruins and reverse some of the effects of time and Mr. Hussein’s propagandistic and archaeologically specious re-creations.

Ruins at Ur and Nimrud are also getting more attention.

A bas-relief of the Babylon god Marduk adorns a wall.

In November, the State Department announced a new $2 million grant to begin work to preserve the site’s most impressive surviving ruins. They include the foundation of the Ishtar Gate, built in the sixth century B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar’s father, Nabopolassar, and adorned with brick reliefs of the Babylonian gods Marduk and Adad. (The famous blue-glazed gate that Nebuchadnezzar commissioned was excavated in the early 20th century and rebuilt in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.)

The objective is to prepare the site and other ruins — from Ur in the south to Nimrud in the north — for what officials hope will someday be a flood of scientists, scholars and tourists that could contribute to Iraq’s economic revival almost as much as oil.

The Babylon project is Iraq’s biggest and most ambitious by far, a reflection of the ancient city’s fame and its resonance in Iraq’s modern political and cultural heritage.

“This is one of the great projects we have, and it is the first,” Qais Hussein Rashid, the director of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, said in an interview in Baghdad. “We want to have it as a model for all the other sites.”

The task at hand is daunting, though, and the threats to the site abundant. In the case of some of the Hussein-era reconstructions, they are irreversible. The American invasion and the carnage that followed brought archaeological and preservation work to a halt across the country, leaving ruins to wither or, in the case of looting, much worse.

The American military turned Babylon into a base. It was later occupied by Polish troops and, though it was returned to the control of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in 2004, the detritus of a military presence still scars the site.

The World Monuments Fund has been carrying out what amounts to archaeological triage since it began its conservation plan in 2009. It has created computer scans to provide precise records of the damage to the ruins and identified the most pernicious threats, starting with erosion caused by salty groundwater. “What we’ve got to do is create a stable environment,” Mr. Allen said at the site in November. “Right now it’s on the fast road to falling apart.”

The wicking of groundwater into mud bricks, compounded by a modern concrete walkway and the excavations conducted by the German archaeologist Robert Koldewey more than a century ago, have already eaten away some of the 2,500-year-old brick reliefs at the Ishtar Gate’s base.

“They took care of Ishtar Gate only from the inside, because you had visiting leaders and dignitaries who would come,” said Mahmoud Bendakir, an architect who is working with the fund, referring to the site’s caretakers during the Hussein era. “The outside is a disaster.”

The grant from the United States will pay for repairs to channel the water away from the gate’s foundation, which stands several yards beneath the surrounding area. Similar repairs are planned for two of Babylon’s temples, Ninmakh and Nabu-sha-Khare, the most complete sets of ruins, though they too suffer from erosion and harmful restorations with modern bricks.

“It’s difficult to say which is doing more,” Mr. Allen said, “but the two together are nearly toxic for the preservation of monuments.”

The American reconstruction team has refurbished a modern museum on the site, as well as a model of the Ishtar Gate that for decades served as a visitors’ entrance. Inside the museum is one of the site’s most valuable relics: a glazed brick relief of a lion, one of 120 that once lined the processional way into the city.

The museum, with three galleries, is scheduled to open this month, receiving its first visitors since 2003. And with new security installed, talks are under way to return ancient Babylonian artifacts from the National Museum in Baghdad.

The fate of Babylon is already being disputed by Iraqi leaders, with antiquities officials clashing with local authorities over when to open it to visitors and how to exploit the site for tourism that, for the most part, remains a goal more than a reality. Even now they are clashing over whether the admission fee should go to the antiquities board or the provincial government.

Another of the more dire threats to the site has been unchecked development inside the boundaries of the old city walls, enclosing nearly three square miles. The fund’s project has plotted the old walls on a map, causing trepidation among Iraqis who live along them now.

They fear the preservation of Babylon’s ruins will force them from their homes and farmlands, as when Mr. Hussein expelled residents of a local village to build his palace. “They took them from their lands,” said Minshed al-Mamuri, who runs a civic organization for widows and orphans here. “It’s psychological for them.”

Mr. Allen, who oversees the fund’s work, said the preservation of Babylon would require collaboration among competing constituencies that is extremely rare amid Iraq’s political instability.

“We’re looking at not just archaeology,” he said of the project. “We’re looking at the economic opportunities and viability for local people. They need to see something out of this site. That’s possible, and possible at the same time to preserve the integrity of the site.” Read more at www.nytimes.com

 

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5,000-year-old site found in Iran Malaysia Sun

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5,000-year-old site found in Iran Malaysia Sun Wednesday 5th January, 2011

Iranian archaeologists have discovered ruins in the Khajeh Askar region near the historical city of Bam. The ancient site in Kerman Province could date back 5,000 years. The site was discovered during a construction project in which parts of the ancient ruins were damaged. Excavations have discovered artifacts at the site, showing that the buildings beneath the earth once housed early residents in the area. A number of earthenware shards and intact pieces of pottery have been found. Two cemeteries with skeletal remains belonging to a male and a female have also been unearthed. Kerman Province has been described as a prolific site which has yielded for archeologists many interesting relics and artifacts. Read more at story.malaysiasun.com

 

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Magnetic Pole Shift Causing Chaos & Death

A magnetic pole shift has happened recently and rapidly, causing chaos and may have been the cause of thousands of death of birds across the globe, according to a variety of online sources.

Tampa International Airport has had to close down their primary runway until January 13th. The runways listing on aviation charts will be changed from 18R/36L to 19R/1L, according to a variety of sources. This has been necessary due to the shifting of the earths magnetic fields, which has resulted in the north pole shifting further towards Russia.

While it is quite normal for the poles to move a few degrees every year, it is extremely rare for such shifts to require an airport runway to do some adjusting.

Residents in the Italian town of Faenza have reported thousands of turtle doves raining down from the skies. It would seem that the number of dead birds was around 8,000. The deaths are reported to have been caused by poisoning or hypoxia [lack of oxygen]. Results of testing done on the dead birds will be available in about a weeks time.

So we have had 15 reports of global incidents of dead fish in the last few days. Plus thousands of dead birds falling from the skies. Airport runways having to be adjusted and many are blaming it on a rapid movement of the Magnetic North Pole towards Russia. Up until recently it was believed that the pole was drifting towards Russia at a rate of around 40 miles per year. However, there are no reports available for the distance of this latest rapid shift, if indeed it has happened, as reports suggest.

You may be interested in the following;

Nostradamus 2012 – Documentary

The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus [Paperback]

Earth Magnetism: A Guided Tour through Magnetic Fields (Complementary Science)

Our Magnetic Earth: The Science of Geomagnetism Read more at www.worldnewsinsight.com

 

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Profile of Jared Loughner: ‘I can't trust the current government’

Rambling, philosophical YouTube videos from man with same name as gunman identified by law enforcement sources

"I can't trust the current government," and "I'm a sleepwalker," Jared Lee Loughner proclaimed in an Internet video weeks before the shooting of a federal judge, congresswoman and others.

Federal sources identified a Jared L. Loughner, 22, of Tucson, as the suspected gunman in the shooting Saturday at a meet-the-constituents meeting in Tucson.

Public records in Arizona showed a Jared L. Loughner, born in September 1988, which would make him 22 years old. He was living on Soledad Avenue in Tucson, about a five-mile drive from the Safeway store where the shooting occurred, in the Foothill Malls area.

Records from a public records service showed only a minor criminal charge against a Jared L. Loughner with the same date of birth, though such records can be incomplete. The charge was dismissed in 2008 by the city attorney after Loughner was ordered to make restitution. The records available online do not say what the charge involved.

Federal law enforcement officials were poring over copies of a MySpace page that belonged to Jared Loughner, as well as YouTube videos published to the Internet weeks ago under an account "Classitup10" and identifying the author as Jared Lee Loughner. Thusfar there has been no official confirmation that the man who posted the videos is the same man who is suspected in the shooting, and no charges against Loughner have been announced.

The videos are not blatantly political, in the sense that they do  not mention the congresswoman or federal judge that he's suspected of shooting, nor any specific legislation. They do complain that too few people speak English — immigration has been a hot-button political issue, particularly in the border state of Arizona, and the federal judge who was killed had handled high-profile cases about immigration, after which he received threats.

‘I can't trust the current government’ Referring to District 8, the congressional district served by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Loughner wrote, "The majority of people who reside in District 8 are illiterate — hilarious. I don't control your English grammar structure."

And he adds, "I can't trust the current government because of fabrications. The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar."

The MySpace page, which was removed within minutes of the gunman being identified by U.S. officials, included a mysterious "Goodbye friends" message published hours before the shooting. It also exhorted his friends to "Please don't be mad at me."

Screenshots that appear to come from that page show a handgun on top of a U.S. history textbook.

Pima County Sheriff's officials said the gunman used a pistol to carry out the shooting spree. U.S. officials who provided his name to the AP spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release it publicly. Sources also gave NBC News the same name and age.

In one of the videos, Loughner claims to have been a military recruit. NBC's Pete Williams reported that officials have not confirmed whether or not Loughner was ever in the military.

In a rambling, philosophical YouTube video titled " My Final Thoughts: Jared Lee Loughner," the author does not appear. There are only words on the screen with background music, more of a slide show than a video. He muses:

“All conscience dreaming at this moment is asleep. Jared Loughner is conscience dreaming at this moment. Thus, Jared Loughner is asleep."

He describes a loss of property rights by Americans, and ends with, "Terrorist: If I define terrorist then a terrorist is a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon. ... If you call me a terrorist, then the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem. You call me a terrorist. Thus, the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem.”

In one of several Youtube videos, the author described inventing a new U.S. currency and complained about the illiteracy rate among people living in Giffords' congressional district in Arizona.

"I know who's listening: Government Officials, and the People," the author wrote. "Nearly all the people, who don't know this accurate information of a new currency, aren't aware of mind control and brainwash methods. If I have my civil rights, then this message wouldn't have happen (sic)."

His online profiles say he attended Northwest Aztec Middle College and Pima Community College, both in the same county as Tucson.

He listed his favorite books:

He listed his favorite books: "Animal Farm," "Brave New World," "The Wizard of OZ," "Aesop's Fables," "The Odyssey," "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," "Fahrenheit 451," "Peter Pan," "To Kill A Mockingbird," "We The Living," "Phantom Toll Booth," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Pulp," "Through The Looking Glass," "The Communist Manifesto," "Siddhartha," "The Old Man and the Sea," "Gulliver's Travels," "Mein Kampf," "The Republic," and "Meno."

A 22-year-old woman in Arizona, Caitie Parker, claimed on her Twitter feed that she went to high school and college with the gunman, and was in a band with him. She described his politics in the past as "left wing, quite liberal, & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy." She also described him as having a lot of friends "until he got alcohol poisoning in '06" and dropped out of school. "Mainly loner very philosophical."

Parker described the gunman meeting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords previously: "He was a political radical & met Giffords once before in '07, asked her a question & he told me she was 'stupid & unintelligent.'" Read more at www.msnbc.msn.com

 

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I'm a psychopath!

this is AWESOME.

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I'm a psychopath! BBC presenter Michael Mosley's shocking discovery thanks to a revolutionary brain scan

Why do we behave the way we do? What really makes us tick?

These questions have traditionally been left to philosophers and theologians but now scientists have come along with machines that can probe our brains in ways we never dreamed possible.

Their work has led to discoveries that are often surprising and sometimes disturbing.

Until recently, if you wanted to really understand what made someone tick, you would have had to rely on their own account of themselves, or perhaps guess what they were really like by close observation.

Disturbing discovery: BBC presenter Michael Mosley was shocked by the results of his attempt to find out what goes on inside our brains

However, the study of the human brain has been transformed by scanners which can go beneath skin and bone, revealing what is actually going on inside our heads when we are thinking and feeling.

get hands-on experience of the latest research for my new BBC series, The Brain  -

In the city of Groningen, scientists are doing particularly interesting work on empathy, the capacity to share thoughts and emotions with someone else.

We all know what empathy is. When you watch a James Bond film you may be aware that your heart has started to beat faster as our hero jumps from a plane or dangles over a precipice.

to get hands-on experience of the latest research for my new BBC series, The Brain  -  A Secr

Last summer I went to Holland to get hands-on experience of the latest research for my new BBC series, The Brain  -  A Secret History.

Or perhaps you see a child fall, and hurt their arm. You wince.

You touch your own arm in sympathy, then feel the urge to go over and try to help. It is instinctive; something we are all born with.

If we didn't feel empathy we wouldn't behave altruistically, recognising what others are going through.

Empathy is what binds societies together and its absence leads to many of the problems we see in the modern world.

People who don't have empathetic responses, who don't have any feelings when they see somebody else in pain, are called sociopaths and psychopaths.

They have long been a staple of thrillers, and throughout history there are countless real examples of the evil that happens when such people get into positions of power.

But is empathy something you can study and measure?

Professor Christian Keysers, based at the Neuro Imaging Centre in Groningen, thinks it is.

'When you see someone accidentally hurt themselves you don't just realise that the other person is in pain in a rational way, you also embody the pain of the other,' he told me.

'We are trying to find out what gives us these insights.'

I had volunteered to take part in Christian's research, investigating the extent to which our own feelings of pain are important in understanding the pain of another.

I was warned before I arrived that to do this it would be necessary for Christian's team to inflict pain on me.

'Basically, there are two phases to the experiment,' explained Christian. 'First we will ask you to watch some movies inside a brain scanner, and then you will experience pain. It will not be excruciating.'

'How are you going to create this pain?' I asked anxiously.

'I want you to find that out a little bit later on,' Christian replied enigmatically.

I was taken into a basement to be strapped into an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) machine, which would measure the activity of different parts of my brain.

Christian's assistant, who was wielding a fierce-looking plastic ruler, got me settled into the machine.

The first part of the test was a film of people's hands being hurt, which was quite surreal.

All I ever saw were the hands. Sometimes the hands were pinched, sometimes slapped with a plastic ruler, occasionally twisted into unnatural positions.

There was no commentary and no sound. Watching it I could feel myself wince.

This, I thought, was good. It clearly showed I was a warm, sympathetic character.

After a break we moved on to the more brutal part of the test.

Every so often, and without warning, Christian's assistant would hit the back of my hand with the ruler.

It started off mildly painful and then, as my skin got more tender, it became uncomfortable though never excruciating.

After about an hour I was released from the machine and given a questionnaire designed to measure how empathetic I think I am.

It consisted of questions where I had to give a high or low score depending on how strongly I felt the statements applied to me.

They were scenarios such as: 'Unhappy movie endings haunt me for hours afterwards'; 'I share the joys and pains of people around me'; 'I detect other people's moods quickly and easily.'

Afterwards I went back to my hotel and waited for my results.

I hadn't realised until then just how anxious I would feel about the outcome.

I have this picture of myself as a compassionate person.

Perhaps the fMRI machine would reveal my ideas about myself were wrong.

Would it show I was warm and empathetic? Or a secret psychopath?

When I met Christian the following morning, he had my results up on a computer screen in the form of a series of brain images.

He explained that what they and others had discovered is that many of the same areas of the brain light up whether we are experiencing pain or watching someone else in pain.

He and his team have tested a wide range of people, from volunteers like myself to convicted killers.

His studies have shown people display very different responses to seeing others in pain.

There are some people who are truly empathetic. When they say: 'I feel your pain,' their brain activity shows they mean it.

There are others, notably the sociopaths and killers, whose brain scans suggest they feel nothing but indifference.

The first results Christian showed me were my brain's response to getting slapped.

'These are reasonable results,' he said. 'When you get slapped, four brain regions get activated. The first two process sensation, then the activity goes into two brain regions that add an emotional flavour.'

So far I was normal, but what Christian said next, made me lean forward.

'This is the part where you may want to distract your wife or ask her to fetch something from another room,' he said.

'When it came to responding to your own pain you were average. But while we were showing you the movies of others in pain, none of the expected areas were activated.'

My face must have registered shock, because he added: 'It's OK, what we then did was lower the threshold a bit, looking for weaker activity. When we did that we saw that you do have activity, but it's lower than average.'

What made it more embarrassing was that the results from the brain images did not match the answers I had given on the questionnaire, which had suggested I am soft-hearted.

I asked Christian if my results might have been biased by the fact that I was tired, or by my prior knowledge of what to expect. He looked sceptical.

'When we scan psychopaths, their brain images suggest they aren't all that empathetic, but their questionnaires make it look as if they are model citizens,' he said.

'Oh my God, so I am a psychopath?'

'Well, maybe that's pushing it,' Christian reassured me, 'a little bit.'

He grinned, so I knew he was joking, but it was still unsettling.

The technology Christian uses is still quite crude, but improving all the time.

It is possible that in future it could be used as a screening test for people joining, say, the police or Army.

It is, after all, important that people who wield authority or guns should have some sensitivity to other people's feelings.

But Christian believes its real value will come from helping us understand how emotions, reason and sensation interact in our brains.

'While I'm witnessing you go through some experiences, my brain doesn't just make me see what is going on in you, it makes me share all the different senses,' he said.

'And the fact that we can now measure this reminds us that everybody is not just around us, but in us.'

Technology such as Christian's has opened a new window into our minds. But there is another way we have come to learn more about ourselves.

Some of the most fascinating insights have came about as a by-product of accidental damage to the brain.

A few years ago I met a young man, Philip, who had been in a car crash and afterwards developed something called Capgras syndrome.

He appeared normal, except for the fact that he was now convinced his mother had been replaced by a look-a-like.

From being a loving son, Philip now treated her like an unwanted interloper.

There is an explanation for what was going on inside Philip's head that I find strange but satisfying.

If true, it tells us something profound about how our own brains work.

When you see someone you know, two different systems in the brain are activated.

One puts together the features, roots around in memory, finds a match and says: 'Those features are familiar... it's John.'

The other part of the recognition system is an emotional one.

In all of us there is a link in the brain between the visual system and the limbic system, which is involved in the generating and processing of emotions.

When you see something you attach an emotion to it.

It was vital for our ancestors' survival that when they saw something they decided, extremely rapidly, whether it was to be feared, eaten, ignored or mated with.

Even before the word 'lion' popped into your ancestor's consciousness, the emotional part of the brain would have released adrenaline into the body, preparing it for fight or flight.

In Philip's case the link between his visual and limbic systems had been damaged by the car crash.

Before the accident, when he looked at his mother he not only recognised her features, but also felt affection.

Now when he looks at her he feels nothing.

His brain, faced with this contradiction, had made up an explanation: 'If she looks like my mother but she doesn't feel like my mother then she must be an imposter.'

Philip's case adds to a growing body of research that suggests our brains are dominated by our emotions far more than we imagine.

Just as in the story of Jekyll and Hyde, it appears we have several different selves within one brain, one body, all jostling for supremacy.

Like Philip, Dave Wilson from Wisconsin, USA, appears normal. He is anything but.

In 2002, he had surgery to remove a brain tumour.

What neither he nor his wife, Lisa, fully appreciated was the operation would involve removing the frontal lobe, an area of the brain crucial for processing emotion.

Lisa told me the changes in Dave were immediate and dramatic.

'Before the operation he was a very affectionate and loving husband,' she said.

'When he woke up after the operation he was completely different. Angry and cold. He didn't want me to touch him or talk to him.'

Surprisingly, the surgery had no effect on Dave's core intelligence and he has returned to his job as an animal psychologist. But he himself is aware of being changed.

'I am emotionally dead,' he told me. 'I no longer have concern for others. This must be what serial killers are like. Not that I would ever become a serial killer, but I don't think that watching someone else die would bother me.'

Dave has not just fallen out of love with Lisa, he is no longer capable of having feelings for anyone. They have divorced but she remains devoted to him.

Dave's case is being studied by Dr Michael Koenig, who trained under the famous American neuroscientist Antonio Damasio.

In the Nineties, Damasio started researching patients who had, like Dave, damaged their frontal lobes.

He was struck by the difference it can make, not just to a patient's emotional life but also to their decision-making.

Dr Koenig, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, is also continuing Damasio's research into the impact of emotions on our capacity to reason.

He rejects the idea that we'd make better decisions if we were like Spock in Star Trek, devoid of emotion and ruled by logic.

To make his point Dr Koenig suggested Dave and I played a computer version of an ingenious gambling game developed by Damasio.

Damasio had discovered that most people unconsciously learned how to win the game before they had consciously done the calculations.

It's an emotional decision. To play the game, we both started with $1,000.

On the computer we were offered the choice of four decks of cards to play with, some delivering consistent winnings, some not.

Each card, when clicked, turned over revealing varying sums of money that were added or subtracted from the starting pot.

The game was played at a furious pace and the decks were subtly arranged so that while some decks delivered consistent winnings, others did not.

I finished the test $100 up, which I attributed to my mathematical skills.

Dr Koenig, however, claimed that what I saw as a set of logical decisions were actually rationalisations after the event.

My gut, not my head, had been the first to decide which were the best decks to use.

You'd expect Dave, who is intelligent and devoid of emotion, to do well at a gambling test.

But he made catastrophic losses because he had no gut reaction and took much longer to discover how to win.

We go through life thinking the big decisions we make are the result of our ability to think rationally.

But research has shown that the conscious, rational bit of the brain, the bit of which we are so proud, is just the tip of a large iceberg.

We are a mass of unconsciously learnt habits, feelings and prejudices that shape how we think and behave.

Some people hate this idea because they see it as an attack on free will, believing that it undermines the importance of the choices we make.

Personally, I'm not disheartened: in the end it is still my brain making the decisions, even if I'm no longer certain how these decisions are being made.

But I wonder, how many people sitting Christian Keysers's psychopath test would discover, as I did, they are not quite the person they thought they were?  Read more at www.dailymail.co.uk

 

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