OLIVER JAMES

Oliver James

According to someone who worked in a psychiatric hospital:

"Patients had 'events' mostly on days when visited by... 'loving, supportive families'.

"One girl in her twenties, who was before that time a school teacher, climbed the wall when she was told her mother was coming to visit her that day.

"Climbing the wall is an understatement, she became inhuman - not a pretty sight."

Comment by a member of the public on The Genes Don't Fit, by Oliver James, 16/10/2010, New Statesman (Read more)

1. Psychologist Oliver James has analysed the behaviour of George W Bush

"Barbara Bush is described by her closest intimates as prone to 'withering stares' and 'sharply crystalline' retorts.

"She is also extremely tough.

"When he was seven, Bush's younger sister, Robin, died of leukaemia and several independent witnesses say he was very upset by this loss.

"Barbara claims its effect was exaggerated but nobody could accuse her of overreacting: the day after the funeral, she and her husband were on the golf course."

Read more

2. According to UK psychologist Oliver James:

"The closer a nation approximates to the American model ... the greater the rate of mental illness amongst its citizens".

According to Oliver James, Americanism means, for example:

1. Women rejecting the role of the mother.

2. Television corrupting people.

3. Children spending too much time at school.

(OLIVER JAMES INTERVIEWED (2004): If You're Happy and You Know It)

3. Oliver James has written 'How Not to F*** Them Up'.

"Basically I was fucked up by my mother," says Oliver James.

"She had four children under the age of five and found it difficult to cope.

"Often, I was left crying in my pram at the bottom of the garden."

(Oliver James: It's all about you - Profiles, People - The Independent)


4. "Christmas time," explains Oliver James, "is a fixed ritual setting which triggers historic enmities like nothing else.

"The culmination of all these; in the form of present-giving, the pecking order at the table, who does the washing-up, means the shit really hits the fan at this time of year.

"People revert back to being a child without realising it."

To avoid the usual tensions ... Oliver James suggests that we identify what role we occupy in our family, then do the exact opposite.

(Jingle hell: Stories from those who avoid christmas.)

5. Oliver James is in favour of 'love bombing' for children.

He argues that feeling loved is a better remedy than dishing out rules and punishment.

"In fact, feeling loved is far more important for childhood discipline than rule-making and punishment.

"At the heart of the matter is that a sense of being satisfied only comes from having demands met - needy, aggressive behaviour comes from feeling dissatisfied."

(Love bombing kids to get happy results thetelegraph.com.au)