Being with Others

Dr Nelisha Wickremasinghe is a psychologist, entrepreneur, educator and international leadership/organisational change consultant who has worked in the field of human development for 25 years. She has postgraduate degrees in psychology and family therapy, a Master’s in public sector management and a Master’s and Doctorate in organisational change. Her work at the boundary of psychotherapeutic practice and management development has taken her across the globe to support organisations like Fujitsu, Thomas Cook, Amec Foster Wheeler, Nielsen, Lloyds Banking Group, Aviva and BT to develop their leaders and implement complex change. She also developed and ran a successful organic food business and restaurant and, for ten years, was clinical and management lead in mental health and social care services. Dr Wickremasinghe works internationally with large corporates teaching and consulting on healthy growth. As part of her corporate practice, Nelisha is currently an Associate Fellow at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School where she facilitates sessions for business leaders on the neurobiology of personal and team resilience. She is Founding Director of The Dialogue Space, which provides unconventional, whole-person facilitation and coaching for individuals, groups and organisations. Her professional practice combines brain science and developmental psychology to develop individual, team and system resilience. The concepts and applications in this book have grown out of her personal experience, professional practice and doctoral research and draw on many conversations with groups and individuals working in diverse organisational contexts.

Part One: Curses
Introduction
Curses
Blessings
The spell of the Big O
Submission
Doubt
Staying curious
Reading

1. Curses, emotions and threat brain
The consequences of an over-active threat brain
Behaviour starts in the body

2. The curse of consciousness
Self-reflection
Worry and rumination
Distraction and obliteration
Beyond consciousness

3. The curse of memory
Our vigilant brain
Memory and the unconscious
Memory and consciousness
Memory and learning

4. The curse of character
Nature, nurture and calling
Dependency and shame

5. The curse of the family
Relational dances
Disconfirmation
Double binds
Collusion
Parental projection
Affect, power and meaning
From the family to the cultural dance

6. The curse of culture
Culture as collective habits
Gendered beliefs
Rationalism and Descartes’ error
Individualism and the demise of context
Reflections on Part One
Venturing forth

Part Two: Spells
Introduction
The neurobiology of spells
The Big Os
To submit or to dominate?
The ingredients of a spell
Compassionate awareness

1. Lovers
The parental imago
The misinterpretation of emotion
Projection - meeting our unconscious in romantic love

2. Children
Reproduction – a creative, transcendental act?
Thy mother’s glass – parental projection revisited
Children as symbols of lost innocence
The construction of childhood
Children and the cultural curse
Big O love and overparenting
Disinterested love

3. Charismatics
What is charisma?
Charismatics as transference objects
Charismatics and alienation
Charismatics and the cultural curse
Charismatics and toxic drive

4. Groups
The impulse to sociability
Destructive affiliation
Collective narcissism
Herds
Hordes
Brilliant following

5. Imaginals
Belief as subjective reality
Fantasies
Introjection
The Inner Critic
Reflections on Part Two

Part Three: Scintillations

1. Freedom
Utopia – freedom from
Re-orientating – freedom with
Scintillations and the growth of consciousness

2. Perception Practices
Practice One: Returning to centre
Practice Two: Receptivity – noticing our scintillations
Practice Three: Hermeneutic inquiry
Practice Four: The inward turn

3. Being with others
Self-creating
Indifference
Beyond thou
Epilogue
Coda
Bibliography
Glossary
Index