Gwen Adshead Quotes

If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.

It was also crucial for me to talk with Zara about how frightening it is for any child to be neglected or treaded with hostility by a parent. Even if they never lay a finger on them. Angry parents generate fear in their children. And over a long period, chronic fear can impair a child’s self esteem, their sense of value and their ability to regulate their moods.

metaphor of the dark lamp (as I mentioned in the Introduction) and paid such exquisite attention to language. He described how a patient moves from ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ to ‘It wasn’t me’ to ‘It was me, but I was mentally ill at the time’ to ‘I did it when I was mentally ill,’ until they finally land on ‘I did it.’ Cox called this coming to terms

know the words but not the music’ of emotional encounters.

revenge is a basic human impulse, a kind of wild justice that keeps us stuck in our fear and anger, mirroring the very cruelty we claim to abhor. This can be painful; there is wisdom in that popular notion that hating someone else is like taking poison and waiting for them to die. And, as Gandhi and others have observed, it is a measure of a just society that we treat the worst of us with compassion.

Offenders tell me that they often find it easier to work with older probation officers than younger ones, who can sometimes present as more rigid and controlling.

I reflected that as a child, each time she thought she’d found a safe harbour, it turned out to be full of danger. And so she would destroy or disrupt her ability to settle in one place.

Any difference in our sympathy towards her suggests that we have a gendered view of evil. Whereby men’s violence is seen as essentially different to women’s. Which profits no one. If anything, it bolsters the punisher’s concept that it is somehow normal for men to be destructive and violent and that victim hood is part of the essential identity of a woman.

I fell back on my favourite question, “If this was a story, where would it start?

It [evil] is really a term, much like beauty, which says more about the viewer than the object.

people who have killed can make something of themselves, even if they face many years in prison, 'otherwise two lives are lost rather than one'.

No, no, not you. I want to be both Charlie and Charlotte in here. Is that okay?

Chapter by chapter, as the light grows stronger, I hope the reader will be able to visualize new possibilities for acceptance and change.

Richard Rohr, “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.” 2

fear and trauma have to be transformed, or they will stay in the mind like an unsheathed knife, a real and deadly blade moving in unreal time, transmitting pain to others.

In real life, people with narcissistic personalities struggle with relationships and tend to die early. Occasionally they will seek treatment, but it is rarely successful because therapy requires trust and vulnerability, and a narcissistic person uses grandiosity and entitlement to suppress feelings of need. Controlling and belittling others brings them superficial relief, even if it means alienating people who might be able to help.

wisdom in that popular notion that hating someone else is like taking poison and waiting for them to die.

Deceit is a hallmark of psychopathy, which is a severe disorder of the personality that I knew was associated with serial killers.