I would like to introduce you to Nick Duffell psychotherapist and author of “Wounded
Leaders - British Elitism and the Entitlement Illusion”.
In this controversial essay – brimming with politics, history, psychopathlogy, neuroscience, anecdotes, passion and humour – Nick Duffell, psychotherapist, psychohistorian and author of the acclaimed The Making of Them, argues that the British national obsession with sending the children of the well-heeled away to school has a major impact on our society, our institutions and our attitudes
If you've ever wondered why generations of privileged and
'well educated' politicians have failed to deliver us into utopia, Nick Duffell
may just have an explanation.
Nick is giving three of my readers a chance to win a signed
copy of his latest book. I met up with Nick and asked him a few questions about "Wounded Leaders".
Giveaway Open Worldwide
.
1. What
inspired you to write this book?
The 2010 UK
election. I just couldn't bear our appetite for such wounded leaders. Britain voted
back into power dysfunctional ‘boarding school survivors’, whose psychology I
had been studying for 25 years and described in detail in The Making of Them
in 2000. I had to write about the political implications of the privileged
abandonment of the children of the elite. But also Breaking
Bad – I wanted to write a book that zoomed in on a subject from all kinds
of different angles and perspectives and told a good story!
2. Are the experiences
based on someone you know or events in your own life?
I have seen
the negative traits of being institutionalized in childhood – especially on
marriages - in myself, in many friends, in hundreds of clients, and via
thousands of letters from the general public responding to my work.
3. What books
have most influenced your life most?
Mostly
American: Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great
Notion, Robert Prisig’s Lila and Moby Dick. Then there’s William Wharton
and Anne Tyler, but I can’t leave out the novels of Thomas Hardy and D.H.
Lawrence.
4. If you had
to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Brilliant
question! Robert Prisig – a master of the art of good storytelling while
unfolding a serious commentary on life. Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was seminal but he perfected it 25
years later with Lila. So far – he’s
86 – he’s only written two books.
5. If
you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
Yes, I’d try to
make less typos and not fill it with so many ideas.
6. Do
you have any advice for other writers?
All I can speak
about is non-fiction. Make it personal enough to have authority and passion but
not so personal it becomes confessional … and don’t include your own poetry!
7. What were
the challenges (research, literary, psychological, and logistical) in bringing ‘Wounded Leaders’ to life?
Plenty: to show
the entitled confidence of the Establishment is a compensation for loss, built
on fragility; to explain the subtlety of the personality ‘born to run’ that
ex-boarders inevitably develop, regardless of ‘damage’; to invite people to
think about the limits of rationality through this specific lens and take the
argument much wider; to make the recent important findings of neuroscience
easily understandable to the general reader.
Thank you so
much Nick it was a pleasure to meet you again. Good Luck everyone
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