Transitions
Authonomy, the HarperCollins on-line community has closed, and I now know how lucky I have been, to be part of that. The friendships and companionship I found there have been incalculably valuable, the humour and shared solidarity irreplaceable and, for me, uniquely rewarding: With the best will in the world, hubby cannot console me when I am working away in the dead of night, on yet another scheme and hope. Across the airwaves I have found genuine understanding, love and empathy that has fuelled my hopes and kept them alive.
If I am ever invited to speak about my experiences of writing, I favour a very lose, informal beginning, something like, ‘If anyone had told me ten years ago, what I might expect to encounter when setting out on the writer’s journey, I would have run screaming in the opposite direction and not stopped until I had reached rural Italy!’ It is often just as well that we don’t know what’ ahead, and that life proceeds, one step at a time.
I wonder at my fear of authority, for example, that has often left me mute and desperate (yes, rather like the old joke of the boy at the public toilet holding a bent penny in his hand) while others have appeared to surge easily forward. Now I know two things. First, other people are just as fearful and as brave as me; and Second, that life will not fall apart if I ask for what I would like. Indeed, if I am fearless, I may find Life falling together rather well. I just have to locate the courage to ask simple questions, and proceed gracefully from there. Me? Graceful? I can be, apparently, just as we all can. Other people don’t make such a fuss, is all.
I am also deeply saddened at the death of one of my favourite authors, Judith Williamson, a long-standing and much valued member of Authonomy. I just finished reading her first novel, ‘The Mark’ written under her pen-name JL Fontaine. Numerous heartfelt tributes on Facebook and elsewhere testify to the deep love and esteem in which Judith was held.
I was so relieved to have found Judith’s book, and pleased to have become re-acquainted with writing which I can recommend unreservedly, for being empathic, careful and extremely thoughtfully set down. What a pity that Fontaine’s first offering, ‘Stonebird’ (about which there are still a few cache memory references to be found on the Web) has not been published. Now, there would be a project worthy of completion.
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October 25, 2015
The Psychopath Code by Pieter Hintjens
Fran Macilvey Books I Have Reviewed 4 Comments
The Psychopath Code by Pieter Hintjens
This book may well prove controversial. Packed full of practical examples and observations, I wonder exactly what the author has had to endure to come up with a volume about psychopathy and how to survive it. The author is relentless and thorough, and has produced a book that makes depressing reading, at times. But far more importantly, he develops several convincing theses – which work well for me – to explain not only what psychopathy is, but why, in evolutionary terms, it exists: Using a basic ‘predator and prey’ model, it is easier to see what we can do if we are in any kind of relationship with any kind of psychopath.
The author explains in detail the mechanisms we can use to help us notice those whom we might consider psychopaths, and, more crucially, enables those whose lives have been blasted by them, to find ways into recovery. The question that those who live with abusers are often asked is, ‘Why don’t you just leave?’ but, as the author makes clear, you cannot ‘just leave’ if you take with you an entire catalogue of negative beliefs (‘It must have been something I did’) and negative patterns that you have learned to accept in close relationships overshadowed by psychopathy.
I have read Hintjens’ book twice, each time finding things to reflect and learn from. The examples he cites are convincing, the explanations he offers are well thought out, and his solutions for the re-discovery of our personal power are strong and helpful. He does not claim to have all the answers, but he has enough of them, even in such a controversial field, that I can ponder, reflect, and make up my own mind. And if I do meet a psychopath – it turns out, I have not met very many – I can understand what makes them tick without becoming embroiled in fruitless personal introspection about what I could have done differently. I love having the power at my fingertips to observe and become more aware, without worrying that there was something I could have done better, something I should have understood. When things go wrong, it is tempting to blame ourselves: ‘If only I had been more…or less…’ The Psychopath Code’ makes it clear that the best we can do is wise up, move on, and learn from our mistakes.
You don’t have to agree with all its ideas to find this volume beneficial. The basic themes are all there, and leave us room to develop our own views and insights. That in itself is very empowering. Thank you, for a most useful volume which tells me, in relatively few words, not only how to spot psychopathic behaviour, but what I can do if it fixes its laser beam on me.
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