Stewart Cook
A guide who has walked the path first. Not a clinician standing apart from the work, but a fellow traveller who found his way through and came back with a map.
Born into a world in motion
I was born in Hong Kong in 1969 to an army officer stationed there, serving with The Queen's Gurkha Engineers. British by birth, I was immediately surrounded by the multi-ethnicity that was to be the hallmark of my childhood: a Scottish father, an English/Irish mother, a Filipino maid and childminder, my father's Gurkha driver, Chinese bus drivers, shopkeepers and restaurateurs.
My childhood memories were vivid. We were always moving: Germany, the USA, spells in southern England and two more tours in Hong Kong. Lots to explore, and a lot to lay the foundations for a life of curiosity. Schooling was tricky with all the upheaval, so I was packed off to a boarding school from Hong Kong aged seven. Quite a shock, but one that suited me and the life of adventure I was growing into.
It was also a respite from the beatings at the hands of my father. I understood the "all good character building stuff." What I objected to, bitterly, was the injustice of it. I was a lad very happy playing with his Lego in his room. My sister, younger by a year, liked company and, failing that, drama. She would enter my room and bait me until she got the reaction she needed for the crocodile tears, the victimhood and the retribution she sought. He never wanted to hear my side of the story, never sought the truth, and it etched within me a burning passion for truth and justice that lives in me to this day.
I never wanted to be in his company alone, and to this day have no idea why. But I didn't need it. I was very close with my mother, academically unqualified but with a PhD in emotional intelligence, an amazing lady and a true empath. The inspiration behind my healing journey.
"When at fifteen my father sat me down and asked me what my career aspirations were, 'Professional Photographer' was the response without hesitation. I was told that was not the sort of career that significant school fees were being handed over for. A rabbit caught in the headlights, with no other career in mind, 'Err, Army Officer?' was all I could muster. Talk about the butterfly effect."
Learning how real life works
After ten years of institutional life, I was eager to understand how the world worked, and took a gap year between school and university. Five months backpacking across the States, New Zealand, Australia, up through Indonesia and Thailand, and on to Nepal to visit for the first time the land of the people who had become my second family. For a precious few weeks I managed to volunteer teaching English to children who had never even seen a white man, let alone ventured from their mountain village. Then back out overland via India.
At Southampton University studying Civil Engineering, I threw myself into the Officer Training Corps. Playing soldiers was fun enough, but not as much as adventure training, something in which I excelled, picked up various qualifications for, and eventually became an instructor. That was my first real taste of personal development: learning and teaching. I loved it.
The making of a maverick
On graduation I progressed to Sandhurst for a year's intensive training and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1993. When the opportunity came to serve with The Queen's Gurkha Engineers, the same regiment I had last seen aged seventeen, I jumped at the chance.
A tour back in Nepal, months running around training areas in the UK, and a three-month stint based in the Canadian Rockies for adventure training. Time was flying and my Short Service Commission was drawing to an end when the Squadron received notice that it was to deploy to Bosnia on real operations. My boss was keen that I should extend my commission and go. I jumped at the chance.
Once there, I was the only troop mounted in armoured vehicles: the maverick without long-term aspirations to stay in the army, given the trickier engineering tasks to do well away from the Squadron. I was in my element.
Two weeks after returning to the UK, I was back at university: Business School, an MBA. A career between London and New York followed, management consulting at the intersection of the emerging internet and blue chip companies, primarily in the healthcare and financial sectors. When the world changed on 9/11, my world changed with it. I sensed it was time to get out and strike a better work/life balance.
The relationship that changed everything
I had met her in 1991 when I was in my final year at university and she was in her first. The relationship was fraught with drama from the outset, but it excited me for reasons that took me twenty-five years to work out. There was always a reason for the tension: I was away with the Army, she went on to Bar School, we were renovating houses, stress of jobs, stress of babies.
Over a decade we worked with three separate therapies. I even read twenty-five books on marriage and relationships in the hunt for answers. Books I still have, and which have helped pull together certain streams within PATHFINDER. Not one of them mentioned Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
The moment everything shifted
By 2015, I had much of my life sorted. Living in south-west France, a successful business, three beautiful children, a stunning ten-bedroom chateau that hadn't been lived in for twenty-five years when we bought it in 2007, now fully renovated, pool added. And yet something was still off, and we had started to run out of excuses.
When we had yet another wholly unnecessary argument, I decided to do something different. As always, I owned my part in it. But for the first time, I refused to own hers. After three days I searched "Can never be wrong syndrome." The very first result took me to a page describing the dynamic between a narcissist and a co-dependent. Presenting that finding to her was one of the bigger mistakes of my life, triggering what I can only describe as a mission to destroy.
I sought the help of a fourth therapist, turning to her specifically with the challenge of helping me escape someone I suspected of being a high-functioning narcissist. I was too new to the counter-intuitive world of NPD to recognise the warning signs. That trust very nearly cost me my life.
During this period I also experienced parental alienation from two directions. My father, who should have been my closest ally, was sabotaging everything. Part of the unholy trinity that pushed me to the brink. It was only when I confronted him and the best apology he could muster was "I'm sorry you feel that way" that the penny dropped. I now experience parental alienation from both angles, which turned out to be a perfect foundation for developing the PATHFINDER stream on the subject.
"I do not for one second think that any of the four therapists were malignant. But the system simply does not teach upcoming psychologists about Cluster B personality disorders. They have the right tools, but for the wrong job."
Building understanding from the ground up
My qualifications are eleven O Levels, four A Levels, an Engineering degree with honours and an MBA. Nothing to do with psychology. The most relevant certificate, however, is my divorce, closing the chapter on a twenty-five year crash course in Narcissistic Personality Disorder, entirely self-taught after the event.
That education has been enough for the nearly thirty thousand followers I have on Quora. Since I decided to take full responsibility for my own healing in 2016, I have been studying every aspect of it. Every time I come across something new and pertinent, I have logged it on an ever-growing series of mind maps, meticulously mapping out the connections between aspects of our lives that are all so very interconnected.
My writings on Quora were a key part of my own therapy, which eventually segued into coaching. I started to collate my articles into a series of three books, but always felt there was a better way to deliver insights that spanned so many subjects, needs and situations. Photography, the passion I was never allowed to pursue, returned to me through its intersection with trauma resolution, expression and personal development. I spend a great deal of time in nature, not least for its healing properties. Whilst I know that few people have the luxury of accessing nature as I do, I hope that through my landscapes I can bring some of that calm to you.
Everything is connected
Having stepped back from coaching to focus on PATHFINDER, I began to research further the impact of abuse on the nervous system, the health conditions that develop as a result, and the solutions that address them. I started to realise just how interconnected everything is. The mind, the body, the nervous system, the emotions, the spirit. Everything.
The real genius of PATHFINDER, if I can call it that, is the Hawkins Scale of Consciousness. I had long recognised that I could chart the progress my clients were making through their emotions, and where that translated on the scale. When I had the idea to use the scale not just as an indicator of progress but as the spine of the entire map, I found the structure I had been searching for. A route, plotted from the darkest point, all the way through to purpose and peace.
The reason all of it happened
I believe that PATHFINDER is my own soul mission: the capstone to a life built with a wonderful array of experiences, some extraordinary, others hellish, all invaluable.
To my father for setting the mould, and to my ex for providing both the colour and the inspiration, I thank you both for the gift you have given me. For the kick up the backside along my own path of awakening and evolution. And for the gift that I am now able to give to so many others.
I extend my thanks to my children, all of whom have experienced their own challenges and have come out fighting, with dignity and courage. Thank you for giving me the reason to continue during some very dark moments, and for succeeding despite the madness. Parental alienation comes at a huge cost, for both the targeted parent and the alienated child. The Parental Alienation stream in PATHFINDER is, I hope, some way of a refund.
A guide who has walked the path first.
Stewart's authority is not academic. It is lived. Every level of PATHFINDER was built by someone who has stood exactly where you are standing now.
The Way Out is through.
You do not have to understand all of it today. Someone who has walked every step of this path before you has plotted the route out. The next step is right here.
Discover PATHFINDER