Ellis Murr: I Want to Show Psychology for What It Truly Is — a Science Full of Meaning, Not a Stigma

Ellis Murr is a Ukrainian author and psychologist, and the writer behind the book "Ginger and the Predators Around Her", which aims to shed light on the topic of abuse, drawing from  experience of her clients.

The book doesn't rely on strict psychotherapeutic diagnoses — instead, it uses metaphorical storytelling that makes complex psychological dynamics accessible even to readers without a specialized background.

With years of experience in psychology, Ellis has encountered countless cases of abuse, which inspired her to explore and expose this subject in her writing.

She opened up with Drive Music Media about the beginning of her creative path and the story behind "Ginger and the Predators Around Her."

Interviewer: How and when did your writing journey begin? Why did you decide to combine your psychotherapy practice with writing?

Ellis: I started writing a long time ago — back in early childhood. Later, I kept writing and would leave everything in notebooks or on my laptop. I didn’t feel confident enough to publish my books yet. I always wanted to add not just knowledge, but wisdom — to show psychology in a different light, to bring it to life on the page. I didn’t want it to be dry or overloaded with terminology, but I also didn’t want it to become abstract philosophy. There’s a very fine line when writing about difficult topics and mental illness — making them accessible and understandable to every person.

I wanted psychology to be accepted, to be loved in its own way by each person, and to have a place among us. I wanted it to serve as a guiding and supportive force, because psychology holds so much knowledge and so many opportunities for a full, light life.

I’ve always wanted to help others through psychology — not just in therapy sessions, but by giving them much more: books they could always have on hand, filled with tools and practices. I once heard from a colleague that I give clients such effective tools that after working with me, they don’t want to see anyone else. But in truth, I wanted it to go even further — I didn’t want them to need to come back to me either. I wanted them to have my books and to be able to continue their healing through them.

It took years of writing to present things the way I truly felt them. After every session, clients would ask me for literature to read and deepen their understanding of the topic. I would go through tons of books, but couldn’t find anything that was simple and easy to read. Most books are packed with terms and psychological concepts that are hard for someone outside the field to understand. And people in trauma shouldn’t have to translate or struggle to grasp this information — it only deepens their sense of worthlessness.

That’s when I decided to write exactly what my clients needed — to help them understand what’s happening to them and how they can navigate it. I chose to write books on self-therapy and self-help. I poured all the knowledge I gained over 17 years of practice into these books, using everyday language. Of course, I use some terms, but I always explain them immediately with relatable examples. The reader should be able to receive information easily — and begin healing from it right away.

Interviewer: How did the idea of writing a book about abusive relationships come to you? Unfortunately, this is a common issue for many women — and sometimes men. What exactly did you want to show readers?

Ellis: Abuse has run like a red thread through all the years of my practice.

I work with people from over 40 countries, and it is present everywhere.

I have worked with very well-known people — actors, singers, politicians, businessmen — and there was abuse in their relationships too.

Some of them were psychopaths themselves.

But most often, women become the victims, especially when we talk about contact with individuals who have narcissistic personality disorder.

Although it affects 1% of the population, that’s still 80 million people on our planet.

Abuse is also committed by people with psychopathic disorders.

Although this term is mostly used in old psychiatry, it is easier for readers to understand.

In modern psychiatry and classifications, all of this is now listed simply as "disorder."

Even schizophrenia is now classified as a disorder.

In total, there are 10 types of personality disorders that commit violence — abuse.

According to global psychiatry (DSM-5, ICD-10/11), around 10–15% of the population have personality disorders.

These disorders are persistent, dysfunctional patterns of thinking, behavior, and emotional response that significantly affect a person's life and those around them.

In my book, I showed all of these types, calling them collectively predators.

My goal was to help women — I emphasize, women suffer from abuse much more often — break free from such relationships.

I revealed the reasons why they can’t leave, even when it’s obvious that life there won’t happen.

The predator behaves in a way that creates a physical dependency on them in the victim’s brain and hormonal system.

The fear of leaving becomes so strong that even a conversation about ending the relationship causes physical pain in the body.

According to scientific data, this pain is comparable in intensity to burns.

That’s why when a woman hears “Why haven’t you left yet?” — she experiences real physical pain in her body.

Her hormonal system — especially dopamine — controls her like an addict.

She has a real dependency on a physical and bodily level.

I'll add a long quote from the book:

"I want to tell you about what you call and believe to be love.

What you call love is nothing more than a biochemical addiction.

When you think of him and start gasping from the pain, when you want to die just so you don’t have to realize he’s not near, when you can’t sleep or eat, move or live, and you simply exist in the hope that he’ll come back — that’s not love. That’s biochemical addiction.

The phenomenon of biochemical addiction is well researched. This process happens with all victims of narcissists.

Every stage of a relationship with a narcissist is fully connected to biochemical addiction — not only the period after you leave and want to go back, but also the entire time you were unable to leave, the hellish torment of being with him, the wild pain at the mere thought that you could have broken up, and now — the wild pain from realizing you never will be together again — it’s all caused by biochemical addiction.

The pain you feel now is a true biochemical bond tied specifically to your relationship with a narcissist.

Through his beautiful manipulations and rituals, he made you truly believe it was love.

He used all his skills to ensure your body, brain, and hormonal system would work in such a way that they created your “love” for him.

The brain was deceived.

There are specific mechanisms in the brain that are activated by the predator’s step-by-step actions — and he hooked you on them.

Because he used these mechanisms of your psyche, you literally developed a dependency on him similar to what drug addicts experience.

Due to the hormonal surges he taught your body to feel, you began to crave his presence — because only then did your body release those hormones into your bloodstream.

Victims of narcissists constantly live in a state of anxiety.

He provokes fear.

You're not enough, you're not saying it right, you're not doing it right.

The fear that he will leave eats away at you.

You are disoriented in space and in society.

You are maladapted to life.

The fear of losing him — because you're not the way he wants you to be — and you can't ever be what he wants, because the requirements change every time.

You become blind, numb, in a vacuum, in a fog.

Every time we told you it was time to leave, you felt wild physical pain.

Even the thought of needing to go — or of him not being near — was traumatic for you.

Even now, speaking about him, you are retraumatizing yourself.

Retraumatization.

The manipulations Jonathan used on you formed a neural circuit in your brain.

Now this neural circuit controls you.

During physical pain and emotional or mental pain, the same neural circuit is activated.

Jen, numerous studies have shown that memories of love — of the pain caused in a relationship — activate the same neurons as burn pain.

Narcissistic love creates terrifying and excruciating neural bonds between the abuser and the victim, which are nearly impossible to break.

You must also realize that you experienced cognitive dissonance between the image he presented at the beginning and who he actually is.

Remember how he was?

Charming, intelligent, perfect.

Remember those early encounters? What did he do then?

He was studying you.

He studied you thoroughly.

You even went together to learn how to recognize other predators.

That hypocritical bastard was teaching you — while studying you himself.

He became the ideal you had hoped for.

And then what did he become?

A cold, absolutely disconnected-from-your-life monster.

He knew you feared emotional coldness, and he used it.

He learned all your fears and reactions — and figured out how to control you.

You must never forget this.

Who he was at the beginning was only an illusion.

A fabricated character who never actually existed.

Did you ever know the real him?

No.

He doesn’t even know his real self.

What you saw was a skillful illusionist — nothing more.

When you finally begin to realize it — truly feel this cognitive dissonance — you will understand how deeply he deceived you.

You’ll feel that he was never real, never alive — your subconscious and intuition had been screaming this at you from the beginning.

Every time you felt butterflies in your stomach, your subconscious was shouting: predator.

The butterflies weren’t love.

They were your ancient psychological alarm system.

An instinctive survival signal.

But now they’ve been romanticized by society and called love.

What you felt was an adrenaline spike.

The emotional rollercoaster he trapped you in — where he was warm, tender, good, kind — and then suddenly cold and cruel — created in you emotional addiction.

He hooked you on emotion.

You felt relief every time he returned to "normal."

And terrifying fear every time he turned cold again.

When he was cruel, you blamed yourself for making him that way.

You tried to “fix” yourself so he wouldn’t go cold again.

You waited for the relief — for things to become good again.

Do you feel it now, in my words? What he was doing to you?

He was forming neural pathways that constantly worked against you.

Your reactions to his stimuli — just like in Pavlov’s experiments with dogs.

Or the rats pressing the pain lever again and again, even though every push hurt more — they still kept pressing, hoping for relief.

They could’ve stopped, but they were conditioned to believe that relief only came after pain.

And you?

You waited for pain so you could feel relief.

You craved the moment he’d “reward” you again.

You were made to earn his love.

He’d become — for a moment — the man you first met.

Tender. Loving. Gentle. Understanding.

But only for a moment.

Each time a little less.

This is called intermittent reinforcement.

He used it to train you like a dog.

You were the treat.

You had to serve him.

He planted rigid thought patterns in you and repeated them hundreds of times.

What was happening inside your body?

Neurotransmitters.

Dopamine levels surged through your blood, intensifying your psychological dependence on him.

Dopamine — the key chemical in drug addiction — was the same one that held you hostage.

Can you see the link?

Drugs and emotional addiction are built on the same thing: dopamine.

What does an addict want?

Another hit.

What do you, the emotionally addicted, want?

Just a little more dopamine from that illusion of love.

And so new neural pathways form, demanding you stay.

Dopamine and neural circuits command you to return to the trap.

That chemical is tied to survival.

So your relationship — no matter how destructive — is perceived by your brain as the only way to stay alive.

That’s why you feel like you’ll die without him.

Why you feel you can’t breathe, can’t exist.

That’s why he seems “irreplaceable.”

Why you think no one will ever love you the way he does.

Cortisol, together with adrenaline, activates your fight-or-flight response.

But you can’t flee — you’re addicted to the predator.

So all that survival energy turns against you.

You run in circles.

Trapped in a relationship you can’t escape.

Do you see it now?

This entire story — your story — is built on biochemical swings."

Many predators watch their victims closely.

For them, attending therapy or reading clinical literature is out of the question.

That’s why in the book I created characters and dialogues that are accessible, coded, but filled with truth — so that women can decode them and find their way to freedom.

While the abuser may think it’s just another novel — a thriller, perhaps.

I also wrote about raising children so they never fall into the hands of a psychopath.

So they don’t develop disorders themselves.

This book is for everyone.

Even if you’ve never experienced abuse, reading it will help you see that victims are never to blame.

And perhaps you’ll be able to help someone close to you.

Because we don’t have the right to stay silent while monsters destroy others.

Interviewer: What types of abusive relationships did you explore in your book? Could you give us a glimpse into what readers can expect?

Ellis: I have examined all possible types of abuse and revealed everything through dialogues with each of the 10 people who have mental disorders. How they think, what they want, why they bully. Since I worked on both sides—I have had victims and psychopaths in my practice—I was able to show everything through the eyes of both sides.

What is unique about the book? We can read about what happens to the victim. But finding something from the predator’s perspective is extremely rare. And usually, such literature is specialized for psychiatry. I presented, in a light form, the thoughts, actions, and meanings of a psychopath, showing what they want from the people they abuse. Using narcissism as an example, how the narcissist seeks a cold mother to force her to love and destroy him.

I did not cover perversions — sexual deviations related to murders — in the book, but I showed real stories of when and how women are killed by predators with antisocial or dissociative personality disorders. Who is an anetic psychopath, and how they border with NPD.

At the end of the book, I wrote all these classifications and clusters so readers can understand that these are truly people with illnesses. I practically did not add names and diagnoses in the book itself; as I mentioned above, I described them simply as predators.

The book also has a heroine named Meredith. She is a grandiose narcissist, who usually comes to therapy only to humiliate the therapist. I described working with her so that other colleagues who have not encountered NPD could understand who is sitting in front of them, because such a client can lead the psychotherapist by the nose for a long time and, with their subtle manipulations, influence them so much that at the end of their story, the psychotherapist may not always be able to continue working in the profession.

This is the same kind of alliance for the predator, and they have their victim there too, only here the victim is the therapist. In the book, this client came seeking change for herself so as not to harm her daughter.

Her son also has grandiose narcissism with comorbidity. Comorbidity is the mixing of diagnoses and disorders. When a person, besides the main diagnosis, has accompanying ones. For example, alcoholism or drug addiction is common with narcissism. Or narcissism and OCD, MRO.

Such clients are extremely rare; I had one, which is why she became the heroine of the book.

I want to note that the people featured in the book have changed names and stories, and I received their permission.

The book will also be about adoption. The child has all the symptoms of a personality disorder, but the goal of Ginger, the main heroine, will be to “raise her happy.”

I invested a lot of knowledge and work into this book.

Interviewer: When is the book’s release date? Pre-orders are currently available — when will the book be accessible in bookstores?

Ellis: The book’s release date is scheduled for the end of September. I want to prepare a great presentation and support the book with a trailer to convey the meanings and feelings of the characters through it. Now my dream is to turn this book into a film. I believe by October or November, the book will already be on store shelves. Although you’ll be able to purchase it directly from me. Pre-orders are open now. Whoever pre-orders before the official release will get the book earlier.

Interviewer: Tell us about your book “Ginger and the Predators That Surround Her.”

Ellis: Reading the stories and analyzing the dialogues in the book, everyone will be able to find themselves in it. Understand why they behave the way they do — or why others behave that way toward them. They will learn how to protect themselves and avoid dangerous predators. Abuse knows no gender, age, or religion.

It feels like our relationships are like a roller coaster. We hear phrases like, “You’re nobody without me,” “Who were you before me?” “No one needs you!” “You can’t do anything and you’re worthless!” “Where will you go? You’ll end up alone with your baggage.” Reality is so distorted that over time, each of us starts to believe we really are stupid, ugly, and worthless. Yet we keep thinking that this is how relationships are supposed to be — that this is real love.

This book will help you see if you are experiencing abuse. It will help you break free, because abuse is not a life sentence. My book will help prevent raising a victim for a psychopath. Not to be cold, not to love conditionally. (Or: To be warm, to love just because.)

Every character in the book was once a small child, and upbringing made them either a victim or a predator. Predators live among us — they can be our parents or our children.

We ourselves can be predators. Abuse isn’t only physical. It can be emotional — when feelings are ignored. Psychological — when you’re broken down into tiny pieces. Financial — when someone is humiliated due to financial dependence. Like mothers on maternity leave, or women locked at home, deprived of work and social contacts.

For mothers who want to raise happy children without breaking their psyche: we were raised under different rules. Most of those norms don’t help raise a healthy, happy person—they often do the opposite and destroy them. It doesn’t matter why things were that way before; what matters is changing it now.

In the book, I pull back the curtain on how psychopaths behave, what phrases they use, what kind of women they look for, why they confess love so quickly, and why we feel especially happy during the “honeymoon” phase. I show how they pick their victims, how our movements reveal our traumas, and I reveal secrets of physiognomy so you can recognize when they’re trying to deceive you. Knowing is protecting.

This is for women who have found themselves in abusive relationships. We feel used, unloved, humiliated; we feel coldness and indifference. Things are bad in the relationship. Then suddenly, they love us madly, show tenderness, and again humiliate us. We feel such moral pressure that sometimes it feels unbearable. Then things go back to “normal.” We live in this “cold shower” cycle, waiting for the nightmare to end — but it repeats again and again.

But abuse isn’t only directed at women. Women often abuse men too — especially mothers toward their sons. “Don’t cry, you’re a boy!” “You never have any money!” “What kind of man are you?” “Look at Alexander, he’s a real man, but you’re nobody!” “You’re hopeless, you’ll never amount to anything!”. From childhood, boys are emotionally broken down, and then often end up in the hands of psychopaths.

This is what my book is about. About how, besides narcissism, there are many other disorders that cause abuse. About the real actions of abuse, not what people have come to call “abusers” in a popular but often manipulative way. Abuse has become a label people stick to anything they don’t like. Right now, it’s important to put things in their proper place so that real abuse, real violence, and genuine mental disorders in relationships aren’t equated with simply different opinions or tastes. Because the trend of destroying relationships is overwhelming, and the family institution has already crumbled, but blaming everything on abuse isn’t the answer. If abuse is everywhere, then everyone would have psychopathy.

Interviewer: What topics will you explore next? Are you already working on a new book?

Ellis: I have six more books in my documents.

“Millionaire Is Not Your Role Model.”

In this book, I share my experience working with quite interesting cases for a psychotherapist, focusing on people’s disorders. Psychologically healthy people, to put it bluntly, want peace within themselves. They don’t have a grand need for recognition or accumulating wealth. They live according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in a healthy psychological state until the need for recognition appears. That’s when disorders and the rat race begin.

In the book, I show all the perversions through which a man seeks to feel something — because ordinary sex no longer satisfies him. He is so pragmatically logical that his imagination stops working, or maybe it never did, so it’s important for him to see everything with his own eyes. Where the woman really stands in these relationships. How many women are even involved. Again, millionaires are essentially psychopaths.

“Raise Me Happy” is a continuation of the book “Ginger and the Predators Around Her.” In it, I give tools to raise a psychologically healthy child. I explain all types of attachment and how to raise a secure attachment. Attachment is the emotional bond formed between an infant and parents, and it’s the means by which a helpless baby satisfies its basic needs.

The book also helps grown children nurture a happy and loved child within themselves.

Also, Eric Berne, an American psychotherapist, talked about our three ego states: Adult, Parent, and Child. In the book, I bring these together so everyone can become whole and honest with themselves.

Again, the main goal of the book is psychological health, strong and proper boundaries, and protection from psychopaths — because a psychologically healthy person will never become a victim to a predator.

“In Search of Meaning.”

In this book, I let my emotions and psychology run free. There is more philosophy and explanations about why it’s pointless to chase imaginary meanings that mostly don’t even belong to us. Why people do many things but don’t feel happiness, because all these actions are done only to be loved. About how other people’s desires, dreams, and fulfilling parents’ dreams still won’t make us loved.

The book contains many reflections and cause-and-effect explanations about why we act the way we do. How we are controlled and manipulated — not only by close ones, employers, or friends, but on the level of the world, politics, and imposed meanings.

“To Enlightenment Through Pain.”

Having battled cancer, I saw the world differently. I noticed a pattern: many people in my profession suffer from this terrible disease. I faced loneliness; there was no one to support me, and that caused intense pain. Our loved ones also hide and shut down at such times — it’s easier for them that way. Some because of their psychotypes, some due to defense mechanisms, and some are just truly harsh. Only then do we see who is really by our side.

Six months before my illness, a client came to me and said her therapist died from cancer, and asked me, “Will you not die too?”.

Upon learning my diagnosis, my first thought was, “What will I tell my client?” She came to me for help to overcome trauma, and here her next therapist was weak. That’s how my psyche’s defense mechanism worked.

Cancer patients are often canceled and avoided by society; they often end up alone. I worked for about seven years with seriously ill cancer patients. I have a method called “Holding on the Edge” for people who are already standing with one foot over the abyss. And when I found myself there, this method helped me return.

I wrote this book to support cancer patients. About life, love, and the strength to survive — to build a strong inner support in yourself. I needed this book, so I created it.

I also have two more books as drafts in notes; I haven’t named them yet. They need time to mature before they come into the world.

Interviewer: What do you find the easiest — and what’s the most difficult — about writing on psychotherapeutic topics? Why is that?

Ellis: Writing turned out to be easier said than done. I always keep in mind the phrase, “Explain it to me like I’m five,” and try to speak and write so that anyone can understand me. When I first started writing, there was a lot of technical terminology. I’m used to thinking in terms; sometimes it’s hard for me to talk or give live interviews — I have to pause and think about how to explain things in plain, human language. Now I write pretty easily and explain everything clearly, but speaking is still not that simple.

Most psychiatry or university books I studied are full of terminology. You might come across sentences made up mostly of “and” and “but,” with the rest being technical terms.

I started writing when my daughter was born. Instead of sleeping, I chose writing, and for two years, I’ve been sleeping only about four hours a day. Unfortunately, I don’t have much other time to write or work. She’s very much a “mama’s girl,” and I don’t want to disrupt her attachment style.

For three years, we belong to our children. So my choice to raise a healthy child and pursue writing found its place at night. And at night, you have to think three times harder to make books therapeutic, meaningful, and not cross into fiction. If I wanted to write textbooks or specialized books for colleagues, I’d probably have a good two dozen by now. But here, I’m playing with fire.

Interviewer: Is your new book accessible to readers without a background in psychology, or is it intended for a more specialized audience?

Ellis: The main idea behind writing Ginger and the Predators Around Her was ease of reading and understanding. I wrote everything in dialogues filled with emotions and events so that anyone with developed emotional intelligence and empathy could feel and experience it.

Now, when I give the book to people who review it, the feedback is that it doesn’t leave anyone untouched. It evokes a range of feelings — from pain and anger to compassion and happiness. People empathize with the characters. Others who have been in similar relationships see themselves in it. It opens eyes to loved ones or one’s own actions.

I received feedback from a woman who thanked me for showing her how she treated her child through the stories in the book. Years of therapy hadn’t opened her eyes to it, but the book helped her see herself—and she fundamentally changed her relationship with her child.

Of course, I’m prepared that some might read it and be dissatisfied — especially some of my colleagues. Even nature sounds on YouTube get dislikes. But I only wrote a book that evokes different emotions.

Interviewer: What mission do you hold as a Ukrainian writer with a background in psychotherapy? Why this particular mission?

Ellis: I want to show real science, just as it is. Real meanings. Today, psychology has taken on a negative reputation in the world, especially in Ukraine. It’s often used as an excuse to justify bad behavior and poor treatment of others. Bullying or fear of communication has been renamed as “setting boundaries.” My goal is education — through writing, to show what healthy relationships really look like. To teach people how to communicate with one another. To raise themselves and their children psychologically healthy and happy.

Beyond psychological knowledge, I want to share all the wisdom I’ve gained from other traditions, religions, and understandings of the world. I am quite an unconventional and even controversial person. On one hand, I’m very scientific. On the other, I have a mentor from Tibet, protective tattoos, and I’ve participated in many interesting rituals. I cannot confine myself to any doctrines or dogmas — I explore the world freely. I live surrounded by forest, antiques, and art. I keep Maine Coons, want another horse, and dream of diving into the Mariinsky Trench.

I’ve gathered a wealth of knowledge from communicating with Carpathian molfars (folk healers). I know which herbs heal which organs, and where on the body the points are to sense pain or calm down. Acupuncture from Chinese medicine — I carry all this knowledge inside me. It’s not easy to hold it all, and now it needs to be put into words on paper.

Interviewer: What single word best describes your career and writing path — and why this word?

Ellis: Creator. Freedom.

Every scientific endeavor has its limits. Psychotherapy is no exception. We teach others how to be free, yet we often trap ourselves in boundaries. Classical psychology and psychiatry have rules about how a therapist should behave, look, and follow social norms. I never fit into those boxes. It limited me.

Writing has given me the chance to step to a new level — I can create from knowledge. When working as a therapist, the relationship always needs to be “I and You.” Being present, active, and engaged. But in books, there can only be heroes or ideas. I can live my life without being physically present, and books can live without me. I might already be daydreaming, and yet the books will live on — if they capture someone’s heart. If not, they will disappear just like I will.

Pictures were provided by Ellis Murr