"Don’t be misled by the title, this is no Harry Potter novel but a rounded look at the theory behind some of our ingrained patterns of behaviour and how these trigger our ‘threat brain’ and negatively impact our relationships (the five curses). The author clearly explores the underlying psychology and neuro biology with a light touch and uses stories from her practice to illustrates points. In Part 3 she outlines choice points that enable us to challenge some of our own curses and build imaginal and relational capability and thereby more positive behaviours. 
 
This book will help you to understand both how to live and work more effectively and will be useful for anyone who wants to understand themselves and their relationships better. Partly written during the Covid-19 lockdown it was helpful to see the author reference some of the home and workplace relational and behavioural tensions that so many people have experienced. Highly readable, informative and helpful for both personal and professional life this book resonated with the relationships in complex systems where power and control dynamics are not always healthy and relationships in your ‘work family’ can be hard to navigate. A really useful read for leaders in organisations and commissioners of leadership development programmes."
Elizabeth Bradbury, Director
Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA)

Being with Others: curses, spells and scintillations
Nelisha Wickremasinghe
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Reviews

"This is an important and book which builds on Dr Wickremasinghe’s highly acclaimed first book Beyond Threat. It brings together research from the fields of neurobiology, sociology, psychology and leadership to create a comprehensive hypothesis of the challenges of being with others and offers a path to more successful interpersonal relationships.  This paradoxically starts with our ability to turn our attention within.  
 
Dr Wickremasinghe identifies what she calls the potential ‘curses’ of being human and categorizes them into five clear categories – consciousness, memory, character, family and culture.  She explores in depth how each of these can and will trip us up through life when they stimulate our ‘threat brain’, unless we can develop high levels of awareness and perspective taking.  These are foundational capabilities for effective leadership of oneself and others.
 
Having identified the possible curses, she then looks at how often we try and compensate for these curses by looking for redemption in the other, which inevitably fails; as others cannot be a source of liberation from our own unique ‘adaptations’ to our personal experiences and environment.  As with curses, she categorizes these into five key areas, this time called ‘spells’.  These spells, under a collective term of the Big O, encompass how and where we might look to others for our salvation:  lovers, children, charismatics, groups and imaginals.  She proposes that when we are able to see the darkness is some of our relationships, there will also be an opportunity to see the light.
 
This light appears in part three entitled ‘scintillations’. Here Wickremasinghe provides a very practical and evidence- based approach to help the reader not only recognise their own potential curses and spells, but also how to free themselves from the disappointments, disillusionment and frustrations they bring.  Inevitably, the answer lies not in the other, but in the curiosity and courage to engage in deep development work on ourselves. 
 
In the recent popular book The Courage to Be Happy by Kishimi and Koga, they quote the psychologist Adler as saying “All problems are interrelationship problems”.  In this important book Dr Wickremasinghe brings her experience in corporate, clinical and social settings and her own and others’ research, together with her penetrating insights, to help the reader understand why this is the case. And, most importantly, what each of us can do to change the focus of our attention and realise our ‘creating self’ rather than our ‘cursed self’, leading to a happier and more fulfilling life." 
                                                                                           Liz Straker, Founding Director, TeenMatters UK
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