Every year, millions of unsuspecting Americans are diagnosed with severe LFE: Lack of Facial Expression. LFE can strike anyone at any time, even those with no family history of a complete disconnect between their faces and their moods or actions.

For decades, LFE was considered an adult-onset illness, afflicting those so beaten down by the various disappointments of daily life that they lost the will to care. In the last several years, however, researchers working with gymnasts across the country have begun to identify unmistakable signs of LFE in children as young as five, children who display no noticeable response to stimuli such as positive feedback or the accomplishment of a goal. These juvenile cases of LFE tend to reach crisis around the age of sixteen or seventeen, at which point they become chronic and, some argue, irreversible. 

With more and more cases gaining national prominence every year, it is natural to wonder whether LFE can affect you or your loved ones. Unfortunately, there is no 100% reliable defense against LFE, but it pays to be aware of the signs so that they might be addressed immediately. Early symptoms include a total lack of awareness of music (sufferers often maintain complete blankness even when music is jaunty), an inability to understand the concept of beat, and a profound deadness in the eyes, as if there were no more joy left in the world. Because sufferers of LFE have no concept of emotional interpretation of music, when instructed to dance they will often simply flap their wrists up and down in a manner one scientist likened to “a T-Rex waving goodbye.” This excessive wrist flexion is a sign that the disease has advanced to a more extreme stage and that intervention is necessary.

While many people live for years with LFE, explaining away their illnesses with commonplace defenses such as “I just can’t be bothered,” “so what,” and “meh,” if untreated, the lack of expression can occasionally mutate into a permanent look of sour disappointment, a syndrome Dr. Valorie Kondos Field, lead researcher in Hitting Refresh Studies at the UCLA Institute of Calm Confidence, has termed “poopy face.” Dr. Kondos Field is one of the few experts in the country who believes that LFE, even when it has advanced to poopy face status, can be cured.

Dr. Kondos Field with patient

Many of Dr. Kondos Field’s patients suffer from LFE with severity as high as “Category 4” or “Second-Tier Elite” status. Treatment of these cases often must begin at a very primitive level. In the image to the right, taken from an intensive group treatment session, the doctor begins with mirror therapy, pointing out to patients that they possess items like teeth and eyes that may be used to communicate an attitude to others. In addition to mirror work, the UCLA Institute has also reported great strides from experiments with “stop looking like a hot mess” therapy and “Canadian exposure” therapy, both of which work by introducing the sufferer to her potential self and thereby raising expectations. If this treatment is started by the time the patient reaches late teens, Dr. Kondos Field insists that full a recovery can be made and that former sufferers might even one day become performers. Sadly, others are not so lucky.