JudeA said:
I have heard this about so many people that I cannot recall the names. I do not feel as if I am in a position to know the veracity of all the claims that have been made. I too have suffered some absurd invectives. (witness Mr. Kaminski's hallucination, to name one)
I have chosen to "take my own inventory"
We work somewhat differently. We collect data and observations and pool them and discuss them. We know well how much and how often our "hearts" deceive us or can be deceived by the practiced liar. Remember, "Niceness is a decision," as Gavin De Becker says in "The Gift of Fear." It is a "strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait."
Most of the best liars are the nicest people you will ever want to know. Anna Salter writes:
Despite the decades of research that have demonstrated that people cannot reliably tell whose lying and who isn't, most people believe they can. There is something so fundamentally threatening about the notion that we cannot really know whether or not to trust someone that it is very difficult to get anyone - clinicians, citizens, even police - to take such results seriously.
Now, I know you have no problems with Jeff. That's cool. No reason for you to rock the boat if you are getting benefits from the relationship. But for your own sake, I do hope that you will read the several threads on the forum here where we have collected together a great deal of data, that you will consider Lisa Guliani's experiences and read her articles on the subject, and consider my experiences with Jeff and his co-horts. It isn't a very nice picture and you can bet your bippy (I know that dates me!) that the only reason you are there is because you are useful to him.
If you have all of this data in your head, and you are watchful, you can probably continue to negotiate your interactions with Jeff to your benefit. But I would suggest that if your intentions are to truly benefit others, in the long run, you might also be looking to find other places that will publish your writings.
The great danger is, of course, being caught up in "identification" and gradually "assimilated" to certain ideas that, were they presented to you plainly and up front, you might instantly reject them.
