Interestingly, a friend of mine who read my post about the Barbie movie loved what Ruth says to Barbie. This friend told me that her mother always competes with her and makes her feel small. She just wishes that her mother would stand still and let her forge her own path. My friend has a point. I suspect that if her mother would learn to understand and love herself, she wouldn’t need to compete with her daughter. Imagine, they could both look back together and honour how far each of them has come.

I said in my last blog post that one of the messages from the Barbie movie echoes a theme that runs through the book Women who run with the wolves: integrate Life and Death, dark and light, the beautiful and not-beautiful. This is what we (and my friend’s mother) should do, but how exactly? One way I thought of was to embrace imperfection. This brought me back to Brené Brown’s The gifts of imperfection that I first read just before she became a TED-talk sensation.

Thirteen years later, I read The gifts of imperfection again for this blog post. My experience of reading the book now was very different from the first time. To begin with, I read it through the lens of many new life experiences. I also read it through the lens of my rating criteria and how I structure my blog posts. Not to mention that this time Brené Brown’s voice rang in my head as well.

So, let’s consider what I think is good and bad about the book before I explore cultivating courage, connection, and compassion that can flow out of imperfection.

The Good

Brené Brown tells a good story in simple, accessible language. Not only that, her book benefits from her experience as an educator. Every chapter follows a similar structure that builds from the previous one. Brown uses headings well, makes links backwards and forwards, and ends every chapter with some practical things you can do. Additionally, she provides clever—or annoying, depending on your taste—acrostics to help you remember what you are learning. In other words, you always know where you are and what to expect.

Another benefit of Brown’s experience as an educator is her ability to model what a healthy alternative to shame and blame could be. Without this, many of us would have little idea of how to change our inner dialogue. We also wouldn’t know how to work with the many layers of our stories until we get to the root story underneath. And she reminds us through the stories she tells that every individual is different; what might be courageous for one person could turn out to be cowardice for another.

All in all, Brown does a good job of making her 10 year’s worth of research digestible for everyday people. She groups the qualities embodied by people who are good at wholehearted living into ten categories that she calls guideposts. She gives each quality it’s own chapter which makes it easy to choose to focus on only one at a time. Each guidepost chapter describes the quality as understood by the wholehearted, what barriers the research reveals, and some practical steps you can take towards reaching the guidepost.

Lastly, Brown’s appeal to her credentials as a social-work researcher using Grounded Theory to analyse over ten thousand accounts adds weight to her arguments. But don’t be deceived; there are some flaws.

The Bad

Brené Brown’s deep engagement with her research, and her year in therapy as a result, seem to have made her a bit cocky. The tone of The gifts of imperfection can come across as overly confident and categorical. If you’ve listened to her on podcasts, Instagram, and TED, you’ll know Brown speaks forcefully and her book comes across the same way. Consequently, there is a subtle undertone of judgement that undermines the most important message of her book: worthiness of love and belonging has no prerequisites.

One example of a subtle judgement is the statement that babies should come with a warning label not to trade their authenticity for safety. Crikey! This is a total (categorical) lack of nuance. Brown omits that we develop all the tactics she’s found get in the way of wholehearted living as bids to stay safely attached to the adults we depend on to reach adulthood ourselves. She also fails to acknowledge the trauma that often informs these tactics, or the distress that trying to let go of them can unleash.

So, this book fails in a very important way. It posits that you will live wholeheartedly if you follow the ten guideposts of authenticity, self-compassion, resilience, joy, intuition and trusting faith, creativity, play and rest, calm and stillness, meaningful work, and laughter, song and dance. It doesn’t inform you of the risks linked to embarking on the journey towards these destinations. It doesn’t identify the signs that tell you when you should seek therapy or urge you to do so. It doesn’t mention the preconditions needed to do the work.

Brown never tells us about the life circumstances that enable her research subjects to live wholeheartedly. She writes as if we are individuals who, like her, are white and privileged enough to have a loving family, a stable job, a group of trusted friends, and the finances needed to take on this work. Nowhere in her book does she discuss the social injustices that so many people face daily due to their various identities. The gifts of imperfection never recognises how society traps so many people in not-good-enough boxes not of their making.

These caveats are unfortunate. Forewarned, though, now you can engage with all that rings true, and there is a lot.

The How To

Embrace imperfection

Brown tells us that people who manage to live wholeheartedly are people who embrace imperfection. They know in their bones that they are worthy of love and belonging in spite of their imperfections. Therefore, when they encounter human imperfection (and the shame and fear that comes with it) they respond with courage, connection, and compassion.

How do they do that? To begin with, they know that shame and fear get bigger with secrecy. So the solution is to tell our story. It’s to choose the right person at the right time to connect with courageously. According to Brown, courage means sharing honestly about who we are, our experiences, and how they make us feel. Courage means risking being vulnerable. It means risking making other people feel uncomfortable by setting boundaries, and risking being disappointed by their response.

Still, this authenticity makes us own our story and integrate the part of the story we think doesn’t belong. When we do this, we meet others as our equals and communicate we are worthy of love and belonging. Plus, it makes it possible for us to be present with other people’s darkness and that is the essence of compassion. Finally, by measuring authenticity as our goal, we set ourselves up to still be okay even if the other person chooses not to like us.

So, how did this work for me?

A friend and I had dinner a while back. I laughed in recognition when they showed me the plethora of draft messages in their notes app that they never intend to send. My laugh meant I had to prove that I do the same thing by revealing the four different drafts I have of the same message. After some discussion, my friend reminded me that something good could come of sending the message, but not sending it probably guaranteed I’d poison the relationship as I feared.

The next day, I wrote draft five of the message and sent it while my heart pounded, my hands ran cold, and my nausea rose. Why such a strong reaction? The battle I’d won was to honour my needs and feelings to the point that I felt strong enough to cope with a shaming response should it come to that. After all, my own internal shaming voice was judging me for being ridiculous.

The friend I was writing to had promised to get back to me within a week of me offering to do them a favour. More than a week went by and their silence should not have been a big deal really. In fact, it was their loss and saved me some effort. Nevertheless, it bugged me. So I sat with that annoyance for a while and learnt three things:

1. I feel triggered because important people throughout my life have created false expectations or have reneged on their promises. Then I become resentful and distrusting because of it.
2. I value the friendship more than I realised.
3. I should communicate my boundaries and expectations if we are to have a healthy relationships characterised by respect.

In my message, I explained what was happening for me and how I would like to know what was happening for them. They responded within an hour. They did not ridicule me or question the validity of my need. Instead, they met my bid for connection with an equally vulnerable response. Of course, this reestablished safety and connection for both of us. Now, if my friend had responded differently, I would’ve learnt that I can’t be authentic with them and that would’ve helped me create a new boundary.

Conclusion

Brené Brown’s book, The gifts of imperfection, summarises 10 year’s worth of research amongst people who live wholeheartedly. The book explains how to courageously reach out and connect in our moments of shame to increase the chance of reaping compassion. As these three qualities of courage, connection and compassion emerge in moments of rupture to our relationships with ourselves and others, they gain the power to repair and reinforce love and belonging, which all humans need and crave.

Brown eloquently and adeptly guides us through her research and identifies many practical ways to start putting the findings into practice. Unfortunately, writing to us as if we were her ignores many nuances and risks that people with other identities and life experiences face. These risks and barriers can stymie their efforts to live as if they are enough and worthy of love and belonging right now, just as they are. Brown’s shortsightedness makes her book come across as categorical and overly confident. Even so, many ideas and suggestions ring true. Just remember to have a therapist waiting in the wings as you go on this journey.

Tell us how it worked for you in the comments and tag a friend or share on social media.

It’s been a while. I never published the last blog post I wrote way back when because fact-checking revealed something about the author that I’ve been struggling to reconcile. Then, the Barbie movie brought me back.

I know, I know—this is a surprise because I seldom played with dolls as a kid, I regard myself as a feminist who survived the anorexic experience, and I’m reviewing a movie instead of a book. The Barbie movie prompted a thousand thoughts the morning after and made me think of a book: Women who run with the wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. So you will get some insight into a book after all, but I won’t share all my one thousand thoughts.

For context, it would be useful to first give a quick summary of the plot. Most of the action happens in Barbieland where all the different versions of the Barbie and Ken dolls commercialised over the years by Mattel play out a typical, perfect day. However, everything gets ruined when a tear appears in the membrane between Barbieland and the real world. Stereotypical Barbie, aka Blonde Barbie, must travel to the real world to fix it. Ken only feels important when he’s noticed by Barbie, so naturally he finds a way to tag along.

The real world is not what Barbie and Ken expect it to be and they both return independently. Ken tries to impose patriarchy with what he’s learnt. Meanwhile, together with a real mother and her real daughter, Barbie escapes the Mattel executives who aim to capture her and put her back in a box. Now these three women must send the real world back where it belongs and restore Barbieland.

You can tell that this is fertile ground for more social commentary than anyone can possibly fit in a single blog post. As with all my other posts, I’ll review what’s good, what’s bad, and how to be enough a la Barbie and Ken in the movie.

The Good

If you haven’t already seen this movie, you should definitely watch Barbie. You’ll both laugh and cringe as you appreciate the attention to detail, dialogue, and design. It’s obvious that Warner Brothers did not skimp on expenses or pink paint to make this humorous satire that spares few gendered ideas or archetypes, except possibly mothers (I’ll come back to this in the section on what’s bad).

The way this movie is put together is delightful:

• The dialogue reflects the type of language used when girls play with Barbies, and the people from the real world speak like their characters would.
• The sets are put together in a way that mimics the ratios and proportions between the Barbie and Ken dolls and the toys that come with them.
• The pool is a sticker and for this reason everyone can walk on water.
• The closet looks like the box a collection of Barbie outfits would come in.
• The screenplay is also very clever; watch for iconic scenes that reference other movies and important world events.
• The strategic but infrequent use of a narrator gives helpful asides in moments that could be confusing or open to misinterpretation.
• The performances of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as stereotypical Barbie and Ken respectively really lean into the characters and the humorous spirit of the movie.
• The feminist critique of the Barbie phenomenon is built into the plot.

The Bad

While you watch the Barbie movie, you should bear its limitations in mind. The first is that it remains true to the Barbieland and associated paraphernalia that Mattel has commercialised (including dolls that were withdrawn or canceled). Therefore, expect the story to be almost 100% heteronormative. Also, inclusion happens to the extent that Mattel’s Barbie and Ken dolls are inclusive. In other words, there are superficial hints at inclusion but no more than that.

Then, the movie rolls for 114 minutes. The length feels right but it’s too short to introduce nuance to most of the themes running through it. Not to mention that any parody is often at odds with nuance.

The fact that the film is parody and satire introduces another limitation. For it to work, the screenplay has to be close enough yet far enough from “reality”. Naturally, the ambiguity here makes it difficult to know which commentary is really just meant to make you laugh—which you’ll do a lot—and which commentary is serious. So, I may have gotten different messages from the ones intended by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, the screen writers.

I found two things in the Barbie movie that don’t ring true for me, namely the treatment of:

1. Mothering and–or motherhood; and
2. War.

A movie that spoofs patriarchy (among other things) would be incomplete without a nod to war. The Kens go to war against one another when the Barbies strategically provoke jealousy amongst the Kens. I’ve seen men hit other men for hitting on their wife or girlfriend uninvited but not when it’s the other way around. In my experience, men seldom punish the other party with whom ‘their woman’ (sic) is provoking jealousy; more often than not, they subtly and overtly take their jealousy out on her. Personally, I think the Barbies’ jealousy strategy is more likely to end in intimate-partner violence than war against the other Kens.

Do not be deceived by the Barbie movie or Homer’s claim that the beautiful face of Helen of Troy launched a thousand ships. The masterminds of war are not motivated by a woman. I believe that war is the maximum expression of patriarchy because war leverages power to dominate and control of resources. The authors of war are artful at masking their real motives, though, by motivating others to do their dirty work for them in the name of defending the honour of a woman, including Lady Justice and the Motherland.

Speaking of mothers, for me the movie inadvertently traps real girls and women just as Barbie inadvertently traps them. I’d love to have a conversation with Greta Gerwig about this. I suspect that the message I’m getting isn’t inadvertent at all. The message I’m getting is:

Barbie smashes a girl’s interest in being a mother to smithereens (see the opening scene). Barbieland does this because it excludes children, as well as cancels Skipper, the babysitter, and Midge, the pregnant woman. It also makes Ken an accessory to Barbie’s perfect life and self-actualisation. But it’s a real mother who repairs the rip in the membrane between the real word and fantasy by articulating the impossible standards imposed on women. It’s also the mother who frees her daughter to be whatever she wants to be and ‘stands still so that her daughter can look back and see how far she’s come’.

That final phrase is what Ruth, Barbie’s creator, says to Barbie as Barbie tries to decide who and how she will be after her brush with reality. Then they hold hands and Ruth transmits images of motherhood to Barbie. You’ll have to watch the movie to find out what Barbie does after that.

Other than perhaps to set an impossible standard to which our bodies should return after giving birth, as a mother I can confidently say that Barbie has hardly made a dent in the mythos of motherhood. I have mothered in three different cultures in three different countries, and motherhood is alive and well in all of them. Actually, what needs an overhaul is the mythos of motherhood and mothering. It starts with ending this idea that you’re only a real woman once you’re a mother.

When mothers—and the cultures they’re embedded in—choose to act differently, then things will change. For instance, standing still is the last thing a mother should do in my experience. If mothers stand still, so do their children of all genders. I realised this when one of my own children repeated the unhealthy things I said and did. That was my wake-up call to act differently in my marriage and eventually divorce their dad. While this was difficult for everybody, my children have wisdom now that I wish I had had at their age. I can only hope they are going to act differently in consequence.

It’s also a fantasy if we think that mothers can save women from patriarchy by vocalising all the contradictory ways in which the culture tells a mother she is not enough. Women have already been doing this for a long time to little avail. And this is where I think the Barbie movie gets interesting. A theme that emerges towards the end is how Barbieland is not enough for Barbie while both the real mother and Ken feel like they are not enough. To my mind, the movie doesn’t solve the not-enough feeling for mothers, although it does show how to solve the not-enoughness for Barbie and Ken.

How to

Be enough a la Barbie and Ken

As I said at the beginning, the Barbie movie brought to mind the book, Women who run with the wolves. More specifically, it brought to mind two stories—Manawee and The skeleton woman—that Pinkola Estés analyses in her book. It’s when Barbie is willing to entertain the skeleton woman, that is the spectre of death, that she rends the veil between fantasy and reality. Doing so sends everyone and everything in Barbieland and the real world into crisis with each of them going on a journey of their own to resolve it. 

It’s significant that although Ken goes along with Barbie for the ride, in the end, each of them has their own experience and makes their own independent decisions. As a result, Barbie must come to terms with the dark side of Ken, and Ken must acknowledge what he doesn’t like about Barbie. To manage that, they must both also make peace with what they don’t like in themselves. Integrating the dual nature of life and death, good and bad, beautiful and not-beautiful is what love and life is all about according to the Manawee story that Pinkola Estés tells. 

As they both untangle what makes themselves and Barbieland not-enough, Barbie learns that Barbieland is not enough for her because it is perfect whereas sadness, death-awareness, and difficulties are what make life worth living. Ken learns to face his fear of becoming nothing without the female gaze valuing him, and discovers his inner worth on his own.

The details of how Barbie and Ken do this are obviously not given in the movie; there’s no time for that. You can read much more about how to do this in the Manawee and Skeleton Woman stories along with the analysis Pinkola Estés provides. I strongly encourage you to do so. I know I need to return to these stories time and time again because integrating my dual nature and learning I’m enough is a life-long journey.

Conclusion

Even if you were always just an observer, the Barbie movie will take you back to your childhood. As a parody, this well scripted and beautifully designed movie will be entertaining and make you laugh. If you choose to, you can ignore that it’s satire as well. If you engage with the satire, there will be much that you can appreciate and that will make you think. Just remember that ultimately Mattel sold the movie rights to Warner Brothers. So, don’t expect it to be too nuanced in its critique of consumerism, the industrial-beauty complex, war, patriarchy, or how Barbie has furthered or fettered feminism. Still, the message that you are enough comes through, and that life’s richer when it’s not eternally picture perfect. 

Here I look at what’s good about the book, what’s bad, and how to be an anthropologist who studies the romantic rituals of a foreign culture.  

The Good

In Untangled Lisa Damour tackles three things that get in the way of girls’, and therefore also women’s, well-being:

• The myth that adolescence is chaotic, difficult and impossible to understand so we must all just grin and bear it while we muddle our way through.
• The reality that we mimic the parenting that we grew up with (especially under stress) and not all of it was adequate to the task.
• The limiting beliefs and values that society imposes on girls and women which get in the way of bringing our full selves to the table.

The writer looks for a new way to talk about teenage girls that is fairer to them and their parents.  She untangles adolescence from what looks like chaos into seven predictable strands of development that teenagers negotiate in order to become functioning adults.  They are:

1. Parting with childhood
2. Joining a new tribe
3. Harnessing emotions
4. Contending with adult authority
5. Planning for the future
6. Entering the romantic world
7. Caring for herself

The focus of this book is on how girls specifically negotiate these strands of development within their social context and the confines that come with it.  To do this, Damour uses case studies that are a composite of the many situations she has dealt with in her practice as therapist, guidance counsellor, university teacher, and parent.  She also refers to a lot of research and explains it in lay terms.  The research is sensitive to how girls of different racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds are affected differently.  Additionally, she reveals the outworking of social norms and attitudes on the lives of girls and women and offers some alternatives for what to do about it.

As she goes, the writer suggests ways to handle common challenges teenage girls experience, and confront adults with, so that they can successfully move forward.  It’s very helpful to know that teenage girls do not all take these tasks on in the same order, nor do they complete them at the same pace.  Some girls will do really well and sail through some tasks, while resisting and stumbling through others.  They are all usually progressing down multiple strands at any given time too.  Once we understand what these strands of development are and can recognise them, we will be in a position to celebrate what seemed like a parenting hurdle or rebelliousness for what it really is: a sign that she is doing the work of growing up.  We will also be able to identify the best approach to accompanying her in a healthy way.  And we will know not to let her success in one strand distract us from the difficulty she may be having in another.

I really appreciate that Lisa Damour does not shy away from concretely addressing issues around sex, drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, gender identity and sexual orientation. The author is a total realist.  She invites adults to acknowledge and work with the options most girls actually have, rather than with the social options we wish they had.  She says that if we can do this, we will protect our daughters. We will also avoid setting up a dynamic where our daughters are forced to lie to us in order to complete their growing up; something which ultimately prevents them from asking us for our help when they need it. The other thing she is a realist about is the high-speed culture of intense competitive pressure and 24/7 digital connection that todays’s teenagers are growing up with.  She provides some good ideas and guidance in this regard as well.

One of the things that I found so helpful about this book is how Lisa Damour gently yet firmly reminds us of what our task is as adults walking with teenagers who are trying to become adults themselves.  In every chapter there is some anchoring statement or idea that centres us and reminds us what we want to be as parents, and what goal teenagers are pursuing and that we want them to pursue too.  For instance, making sure that their safety comes before any of our disciplinary policies.  In other words, they can count on us when they get into a complicated, difficult and risky situation.

Another thing that is really good about this book is that the author does not downplay the importance of seeking professional help as a parent.  I have personally found that seeking advice and counsel for myself has been of utmost importance.  It acknowledges my role in whatever is happening in my daughter’s life without her feeling like there is something wrong with her for having growing pains.  In addition, Damour clearly outlines how to recognise when it is time to worry and seek professional and third-party interventions for a teenage girl at the same time.

The Bad

I have come back to this book over and over again, as I know others have too.  That is because there is so much great information and orientation here.  Perhaps it is my naivety to think that things should turn out the way the writer confidently predicts.  It has been my experience that some of the anecdotes come across as simple to resolve when, in fact, every situation is unique and complex. I can think of at least one situation where I applied an approach that went awry for us. 

That being said, Lisa Damour does say in her introduction that what she offers are suggestions for responding to the many normal yet perplexing challenges we face with teens.  She also admits that when it comes to parenting there are many ways to get it right.  So maybe it was just me desperately hoping for an instant solution, too wrapped up in my own anxiety to connect with my inner wisdom and the suggestions in her book.

When it comes to discussing sexuality and sex education, this book is written with a conservative Western cultural approach in mind.  Damour does not refer to the Scandinavian and Dutch approaches to Sex Ed and the outcomes of that, or what that might mean for your parenting.  Read this article If you would like to explore this more.

How To

Be an anthropologist of teen romantic rituals

Romance and sexuality are a highly fulfilling part of human life, yet they are also fraught and complex.  Add to this that sex is in many ways a taboo subject.  As parents and caregivers we often feel at a loss to work with this.

When it dawns on us at about age three that our parents have an exclusive relationship, this is the time that we first become aware that we are not the centre of every human relationship.  “At around age four children realise that romantic relationships constitute a very special connection and that they don’t have a romance of their own.” This is why the Dutch school system starts sex education at the pre-primary level already.  I can confirm that around this time both my daughters told us about crushes they had for the first time. 

From that first moment we were anthropologists, which is why Damour’s suggestion really resonated with me.  I saw that this is what we had done.  Being an anthropologist who studies the romantic rituals of a foreign culture means putting aside our own values, judgements, interpretations and assumptions.  It means being curious and observant.  It means asking lots of open ended questions.  When we do this we will glean important information that will guide us towards an appropriate reaction that keeps the door open to further discussions, builds trust and lets girls know they can turn to us for advice and help.  To be clear, this is the opening move and you are encouraged to communicate your values and expectations after you have heard a teen out.

The reason I think this is so important is that we often forget that children are children. When we hear they have a boyfriend or girlfriend our minds have already jumped to what that means for us as adults.  We often read way more into something than is actually there.   I almost freaked and started imagining the worst when one of my daughters was 9 years old and told me that she had a boyfriend.  Then I remembered what we had done when she was four, which was ask questions.  I breathed and said, “What does it mean to have a boyfriend?”  She told us that means you actually talk to this boy, whereas you ignore all the others in your class because they are so annoying.  She wasn’t sneaking behind a bush during break to kiss him!  Of course, that is a likely behaviour later.

Being an anthropologist doesn’t only have to apply to your teen girl’s own experience.  She is occasionally going to tell you stuff about her friends and this is an especially great moment to get curious, observe, and ask questions.  It gives you a way to get her thinking about what it would mean for her to be in the same predicament.  You can also ask her what she thinks about what’s going on with her friend and what advice she is thinking of giving her / him.  Don’t forget that she may be telling you about a friend while in fact she is talking about herself.

Damour specifically talks about being an anthropologist in this context of burgeoning romance.  Actually, it is great advice for all areas of parenting.  If you go back and read with this in mind you will notice that the writer models this throughout the book; no judgement, no advice, just curiosity and well thought out questions.  I am guessing that this is easier said than done for most parents.  We are emotionally involved and afraid of everything we know can go wrong, as well as the things that can go wrong that we have no idea about.  I found it was easier to be an anthropologist when my children were toddlers than it is now.  Then I had no expectation of communicating complex ideas, beliefs and values to them; arguing with them over who is right and who is wrong.  Now it is different.  All teenagers are playing at being adults one way or another.  Some are so good at it that we can easily forget they are still children.  Being an anthropologist is still a good antidote to falling into this trap.

Conclusion

Everyone I know who has read this book has loved it.  I am no exception.  We have all found useful and practical suggestions.  Lisa Damour has definitely managed to strike the right balance between pushing us beyond our comfort zone while affirming all our efforts to get it right.  The well-being of teenage girls and the adults who walk with them is always front and centre.  To achieve this, the writer is a total realist who invites us to be too.  She demystifies the unpredictable nature of adolescence and opens a window for us to appreciate the amazing things that teenagers and their parents do during this important phase of life.  Here too, she brings balance to a conversation that is usually focussed on the pain (dolor) in the word adolescence,  rather than the gain.

Last week we talked about how to hold a grudge, and crazy making behaviour is definitely grudge worthy. Gasligting is crazy making behaviour by another name, and it’s what this week’s book is about. Here I tell about what’s good, what drove me up the wall, and my take on Sarkis’ strategy to document, document, document in her book Gaslighting.

The Good

Through Gaslighting by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis, you will learn in broad strokes what this popular term tends to mean.  You can use the tactic descriptions and case studies to identify ways in which you might be subject to gaslighting or you may be using it yourself.  You will also get a sense of the extent of damage it can do.  Know that you are not alone, that there are ways to talk about it, and measures to take whether you are on the giving or receiving end.

If you have been around people who serially gaslight, you may already have a good sense of the strategies laid out in the book.  You may be so used to it, though, that you see it as normal.  Sarkis explains how this happens.  She outlines what, how and why it constitutes abuse and is clear that abusive relationships do not improve over time, but rather escalate.  Having experienced the destruction wreaked by these behaviours, you may have decided to never practice them yourself!  But have you decided to protect yourself from people who do this to you?  There are many ideas, recommendations and resources in the book to do just this. 

The basic message of the book is to get out of an abusive relationship.  Sarkis helps the reader identify what both healthy and abusive relationships look like.  She is very clear that getting out is almost impossible to do alone.  Getting therapy, along with support and protection from family, friends and the justice system is consistently recommended.  A chapter is dedicated to different types of therapy so that you can select the one best suited to you.  There is also an extensive resource section at the end of the book.  It will be necessary to extrapolate the gist of what she recommends to your local context if you do not live in the US.

Sarkis is careful to avoid victim-blaming.  The experience of people who have been repeatedly gaslighted is also normalised.  This is a great antidote to the chaos and lies sown by someone who emotionally abuses others on a daily basis.  

Another great antidote to judging yourself, victim-blaming, and the paranoia that arises from being gaslit is Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Talking to Strangers.  In it he covers 3 effective human communication strategies that occasionally get us into trouble: default to truth, expectations of transparency, and coupling.  He concludes, “Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic.  But the alternative – to abandon trust as a defence against predation and deception – is worse”.

Many of the articles found on-line, or videos available on YouTube, address gaslighting on an interpersonal level.  Looking at it on a collective level is what Sarkis’ book adds to the conversation.  The discussion shows how it plays out in politics, the media, the internet, cults, and destructive groups like gangs and terrorist cells.  Here again, the importance of strength in numbers is highlighted.  

The Bad

Sarkis has been criticised for using a term that does not appear in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and she is the first to admit that.  She is a seasoned psychologist whose work regularly brings her into contact with this kind of behaviour.  By not using a DSM term, she removes the temptation for her readers to make an unqualified clinical diagnosis of Cluster B personality disorders (like narcissism) while giving the reader language to name and describe what they are experiencing or doing

In the introduction Sarkis explains how the book is structured and urges readers to read all chapters because they each have something useful no matter your situation.  This is true.  However, by structuring the book according to arenas where gaslighting plays out, the reader is invited to skip to the chapter that talks about the context they are in.  I would have found it more helpful if it were laid out according to tactics/strategies that comprise gaslighting.  This would have provided the intellectual space to deal with them in a more complex and nuanced manner.  Each chapter could then include case studies and examples from different contexts to illustrate it more, followed by strategies for dealing with the behaviour in question.  Also, the tactics could be arranged in a way that show how they build and escalate into something surprising, unbearable and abusive.  The information about what healthy relationships look like could be a chapter on its own.  In addition to their modus operandi, a chapter on the profile of why gaslighters (sic) do what they do would be useful.  The creativity in applying gaslighting tactics is as endless as we are unique.  Once we understand what motivates a person to use these strategies along with what they hope to achieve, we will better be able to see through this creativity.  It’s not that this information isn’t in the book.  It is.  It’s just that it is scattered all over the place.

Chapter 1 is a catalogue of behaviours that can be considered gaslighting.  The sketches are caricatures, emphasising one aspect and ignoring or downplaying others.  For almost all of the behaviours mentioned, I could think of a more complex, subtle and nuanced way that I have seen it played out.  I once supervised a twenty-something person whose boundless creativity with employing these strategies was impressive to behold.  

I experienced this book as a relentless onslaught.  The book feels vitriolic.  Although the author admits in passing that we all use gaslighting tactics from time to time, there is little if any compassion for people who do it.  She employs splitting and stereotyping:  people who consistently gaslight are given a label, gaslighters, and they have no redeeming qualities while the people on the receiving end are victims.  Life is much more complex than this.

It seems that her intent is to help people who are victims get away.  By the time I got to the end of the chapter on families (halfway through the book by the Kindle meter) I got the sense that everyone who gaslights is a  psychopath waiting to happen and that extreme measures are warranted always.  Bombarding readers with so much overwhelming and catastrophizing information may just paralyse them more… or make them put the book down and miss some important information.  She talks about how the abuse ramps up over time and that it can end in violence and quite possibly death.  I don’t doubt this in some cases.  It is ironic, then, that Sarkis seldom makes explicit the dangers inherent in taking the actions she lists in the book. 

The How To

Document, document, document — this is one of the strategies that Sarkis is emphatic about.

From personal experience, documentation can be a declaration of war.  This is because documentation belies both the personal image and narrative that are so important to people who gaslight.  I do not recommend using it to hold someone like this accountable on a daily basis. 

Documentation is important first and foremost because of what it does for you:

• It gives you something to refer back to as proof that you are not crazy!  
• The pattern(s) will begin to emerge as you flip back through all the incidents that you have written down.
• You will be able to identify how many qualities are present and how persistent they are.  
• It will reveal whether you need to take steps to protect yourself, and which ones.  
• It will give you material to work with in identifying your beliefs and values, and affirming that you deserve to be treated with dignity, kindness and respect. 

Sophie Hannah’s process for How To Hold a Grudge is a great way to document what is happening, assess the seriousness of it, identify the right thing to do, and affirm your worth while acknowledging that the person who is harming you is a human being worthy of compassion even as they are to be kept very far away.  (You can read my review of this process here).

There are times, however, when you will want to take legal or disciplinary action, and then documentation following the correct format is required.   Writing down the incident as soon as possible is best since memory plays tricks on us later and is influenced by conversations with others.  A very helpful app is Talk to Spot, which will walk you through all the categories that protect you in a court of law.  As a supervisor, I learned the hard way that any old documentation is not good enough.  It has to contain certain key information to stand up to legal challenges.  As such, your HR department won’t allow you to let someone go if your documentation does not make the grade. 

All written communication is a form of documentation.  It is a good suggestion to communicate as much as possible in writing with the person gaslighting you.  Take screenshots of your electronic chats so that they cannot be deleted by the other person.  If this is occurring in a work context, be sure to send screenshots and copies of e-mails to your personal e-mail account, or store on a personal usb device.  Again, seeing the pattern is what will free you to take the next steps you need to and confirm (or not) the extent of what you are experiencing.  If you do have to go to court, then you also have evidence to back you up.

Conclusion

“Educating yourself is one of the most powerful steps you can take to combat gaslighters and their harassment”, so says Sarkis.  I couldn’t agree more.  There is a lot of good and helpful information in her book, Gaslighting, that you can use to educate yourself.  Despite its redeeming qualities, I got bored and annoyed and overwhelmed and had to force myself to read to the end.  At times it feels like all the author’s experience and information was slapped together as quickly as possible.  This may account for the higgledy-piggledy information that you have to wade through all over the place to find what you really need.  There is little acknowledgement of degrees; degrees of gaslighting and degrees of the measures to take. What can happen when you take the recommended steps to put a stop to gaslighting are also hardly dealt with.  She seems to deal in extremes.