foofighter
Jedi Council Member
Hi all,
Yesterday me and Starlight conducted our first joint seminar, and the topic was "Understanding and dealing with psychopaths". The group who invited us was an NGO called Women for Equality Association, which runs a shelter for abused women here in KL. Below is a brief summary of what happened, and some thoughts that came up.
There were roughly 20 in the audience, from teenage daughters, to shelter workers, all the way to people who have worked with counceling for a long time. One of the ladies was in the process of doing a PhD on sexual abuse. There was also one reporter from the main newspaper in Malaysia, with a photographer.
Before us there was a police officer talking about sexual abuse, but mostly from a "this is what the law says" point of view. It was unfortunately not very good, and some of the shelter workers pointed out that the police and lawyers they had to deal with were as much of a problem as the husbands and boyfriends who abuse and rape the women. One of the worst offenders they had to deal with was a police officer who used his gun to threaten his wife. The police officer even suggested that a good self-defense option was to get a pen and ram it into the eyes of their abusers, which is just ridiculously stupid.
Anyway, after the police officer finished and left, me and Starlight started our presentation. At the beginning of the talk we did a quick show of hands for how many already had some idea what psychopathy was about, and if anyone of them knew someone like that. One hand was up. I then first explained that psychopaths are not like in Hollywood, which seems to be the biggest misconception from people I've met. They think it's basically serial killers only. After that I went through material from Without Conscience, and also In Sheep's Clothing, on understanding traits and behaviours. At this point there were LOTS of lightbulbs turning on, including the journalist ("I meet this kind of people every day"). This segment was ended by presenting some of the research on causes of psychopathy, and getting a sense of how common this is.
Starlight then continued with the topic of how to deal with psychopaths. Her part was based on In Sheep's Clothing (ch10), self-esteem/self-confidence issues, past abuse issues, stages of grief, the Energizer Bunny Syndrome, and what can be done in terms of work on the self, and understanding the causes for wanting to be with psychopaths. We had great engagement with the audience, as they had lots of experience and stories to relate with.
In the end we showed all the recommended books (we had our library with us basically), including Ponerology, listed documentaries they should watch on topdocumentaryfilms.com, and also listed websites they could use (such as Sandra's and Fried Green Tomatoes). We had also printed business-card size reference sheets, with ISC ch9+10 and Without Conscience summarized in bullet points, that we handed out.
Afterwards we had more discussions, clearing out some remaining questions, and explaining how important it is to work on themselves for gained self-esteem/self-confidence, and so on. I showed some more practical self-defense tips, that does not include poking peoples eyes out. One of the councelors said that this was the first time someone had given her a good explanation for what she had seen, so that was good.
We then did another show of hands, and this time they all raised their hands on if they understood psychopathy better, and now almost all of them raised their hands for whether they had met or knew of any psychopaths.
One question that came up was: what can be done? Our suggestion was basically learning+networking, as we didn't think anything could be done on a societal level, due to ponerization.
And that was basically it. In three hours I think we managed to convey a lot of the information that has been painstakingly gathered by so many researchers, including YOU, in a way that it can be useful and will help this group be better at supporting abused women.
Basically, THANK YOU for making it possible for us to do this! One step at a time...
Yesterday me and Starlight conducted our first joint seminar, and the topic was "Understanding and dealing with psychopaths". The group who invited us was an NGO called Women for Equality Association, which runs a shelter for abused women here in KL. Below is a brief summary of what happened, and some thoughts that came up.
There were roughly 20 in the audience, from teenage daughters, to shelter workers, all the way to people who have worked with counceling for a long time. One of the ladies was in the process of doing a PhD on sexual abuse. There was also one reporter from the main newspaper in Malaysia, with a photographer.
Before us there was a police officer talking about sexual abuse, but mostly from a "this is what the law says" point of view. It was unfortunately not very good, and some of the shelter workers pointed out that the police and lawyers they had to deal with were as much of a problem as the husbands and boyfriends who abuse and rape the women. One of the worst offenders they had to deal with was a police officer who used his gun to threaten his wife. The police officer even suggested that a good self-defense option was to get a pen and ram it into the eyes of their abusers, which is just ridiculously stupid.
Anyway, after the police officer finished and left, me and Starlight started our presentation. At the beginning of the talk we did a quick show of hands for how many already had some idea what psychopathy was about, and if anyone of them knew someone like that. One hand was up. I then first explained that psychopaths are not like in Hollywood, which seems to be the biggest misconception from people I've met. They think it's basically serial killers only. After that I went through material from Without Conscience, and also In Sheep's Clothing, on understanding traits and behaviours. At this point there were LOTS of lightbulbs turning on, including the journalist ("I meet this kind of people every day"). This segment was ended by presenting some of the research on causes of psychopathy, and getting a sense of how common this is.
Starlight then continued with the topic of how to deal with psychopaths. Her part was based on In Sheep's Clothing (ch10), self-esteem/self-confidence issues, past abuse issues, stages of grief, the Energizer Bunny Syndrome, and what can be done in terms of work on the self, and understanding the causes for wanting to be with psychopaths. We had great engagement with the audience, as they had lots of experience and stories to relate with.
In the end we showed all the recommended books (we had our library with us basically), including Ponerology, listed documentaries they should watch on topdocumentaryfilms.com, and also listed websites they could use (such as Sandra's and Fried Green Tomatoes). We had also printed business-card size reference sheets, with ISC ch9+10 and Without Conscience summarized in bullet points, that we handed out.
Afterwards we had more discussions, clearing out some remaining questions, and explaining how important it is to work on themselves for gained self-esteem/self-confidence, and so on. I showed some more practical self-defense tips, that does not include poking peoples eyes out. One of the councelors said that this was the first time someone had given her a good explanation for what she had seen, so that was good.
We then did another show of hands, and this time they all raised their hands on if they understood psychopathy better, and now almost all of them raised their hands for whether they had met or knew of any psychopaths.
One question that came up was: what can be done? Our suggestion was basically learning+networking, as we didn't think anything could be done on a societal level, due to ponerization.
And that was basically it. In three hours I think we managed to convey a lot of the information that has been painstakingly gathered by so many researchers, including YOU, in a way that it can be useful and will help this group be better at supporting abused women.
Basically, THANK YOU for making it possible for us to do this! One step at a time...
