095 - Face Blindness aka Developmental Prosopagnosia with Erling Nørkær
The Sustainable Healthcare PodcastShow Notes
Developmental prosopagnosia – also known as face blindness – affects an estimated 1–3% of the population, yet most people have never heard of it.
In this special episode of the Sustainable Healthcare Podcast, Frederik steps into the role of patient and speaks with psychologist and researcher Erling Nørkær about his own recent condition discovery and what it means to live in a world where faces don’t reliably “stick.”
Together, Frederik and Erling unpack: What developmental prosopagnosia is – and how it differs from simply being “bad with names”
How face recognition normally works in the brain, and what seems to go wrong in prosopagnosia
The social and emotional consequences: fear of seeming rude, anxiety in crowds, and why modern life makes the condition harder to live with
Practical coping strategies and how people learn to rely on clothing, context, voice, and other cues instead of faces
Why prosopagnosia is not yet a formal diagnosis, and what that means for patients
Current research efforts, including studies of infants of parents with prosopagnosia, and what this might reveal about early development and future interventions It’s a deeply personal conversation about neurodivergence, identity, and how better language and awareness can make everyday life less stressful for people with face blindness – in schools, workplaces, and healthcare.
About our guest Erling Nørkær is a psychologist, PhD, and researcher at the Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, specializing in developmental prosopagnosia – the reduced or absent ability to recognize faces. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erling-n%C3%B8rk%C3%A6r-0558a11b8/
Copenhagen Neuropsychology Lab (CopNL): https://psychology.ku.dk/research/research_groups/copnl/
Research profile: https://researchprofiles.ku.dk/en/persons/erling-n%C3%B8rk%C3%A6r/
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