Though small boys may find it hard to believe, there is something to the old saw "This hurts me more than it does you." For at the very moment when he raises his hand to strike his son, the angry father may suffer such a violent (though subconscious) emotional storm that his arm drops to his side, paralyzed. He may even collapse in a heap on the floor.
The phenomenon is called cataplexy (literally, being struck down). Manhattan Psychiatrist Max Levin has collected dozens of such cases over the years. Last week, in the Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, he offered an...
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