Speaker 1: Hello, Odd LODs listeners, It's Joe Wisenthal. Psychiatrists see us
Speaker 1: in our most vulnerable moments, all of our problems and
Speaker 1: dysfunctions laid bare to a stranger. We hope that they
Speaker 1: keep our secrets and help us solve our problems. We
Speaker 1: place our inherent trust in them, But what if they
Speaker 1: use that knowledge against us for their own benefits. In
Speaker 1: a brand new podcast from Wanderian Bloomberg, The Shrink next Door,
Speaker 1: host Joe No Sarah takes you deep into what it
Speaker 1: looks like when a psychiatrist becomes something much more. You'll
Speaker 1: hear of extravagant parties attended by movie stars, a lavish
Speaker 1: home in the Hamptons, and the man at the center
Speaker 1: of it all. You're about to hear a preview of
Speaker 1: The Shrink next Door in which you'll meet host Joe
Speaker 1: No Sarah and hear about a relationship that would go
Speaker 1: on to affect two people's lives for twenty nine years.
Speaker 1: While you're listening, go subscribe to The Shrink next Door
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening now. There's also
Speaker 1: a link in the episode notes that will take you there.
Speaker 1: Wondering by any measure. Marty Markowitz was a success. He
Speaker 1: had an IVY lead diploma, a law degree, his own business,
Speaker 1: and plenty of money. But when he hit thirty eight,
Speaker 1: he found himself feeling seriously overwhelmed. His Rabbi recommended a
Speaker 1: therapist he knew who had an office on Manhattan's eas Side. Well,
Speaker 1: I go into his office, which was, you know, a
Speaker 1: modestly furnished office with a desk and a chair and
Speaker 1: a couch. The therapist name was Dr Isaac Hirshkoff, but
Speaker 1: he told Marty to call him Ike. He was a young,
Speaker 1: handsome man with a round face, a close crop beard,
Speaker 1: and curly black hair. He was dressed casually in an
Speaker 1: open collar shirt and shorts. I sat down right across
Speaker 1: from him, and we looked at each other, and he said, okay,
Speaker 1: why are you here. Marty had seen a therapist before,
Speaker 1: the kind you would listen while you lay down on
Speaker 1: the couch and talk about your dreams. This therapist was different.
Speaker 1: His modus operandi was basically, I'm your pal, tell me
Speaker 1: what's bothering it, and let's take it from there. Marty
Speaker 1: spent the whole session laying out his problems. He told
Speaker 1: Ike how his father and mother had recently died, how
Speaker 1: he'd inherited the family business, how he was having a
Speaker 1: hard time dealing with his new responsibilities. When he finished,
Speaker 1: Marty says, Ike looked at him and said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to take him on as a patient, and I said, okay. Nice.
Speaker 1: Not only was I taking him on as a patient,
Speaker 1: but he made Marty a promise. He said, don't worry,
Speaker 1: I'll take care of everything. I was overwhelmed and to
Speaker 1: have someone say to me, don't worry, calm down, this
Speaker 1: is nothing to get upset about. We're gonna straighten everything out,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna do it fast, very comforting to me.
Speaker 1: Marty wrote him a check. I think it was for
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty dollar or something like that. Back
Speaker 1: back in the day. It was June. Marty had come
Speaker 1: to I because he needed help, But if he had
Speaker 1: known what his new therapist had in store for him,
Speaker 1: he probably would have walked out the door and never
Speaker 1: come back. From Wonderie and Bloomberg, I'm Joan No Sarah,
Speaker 1: a columnist with Bloomberg Opinion, and this is the Shrink
Speaker 1: next Door. This is episode one. Welcome to the Neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Every neighborhood has its share of mysteries. We can live
Speaker 1: our entire lives and barely know the people just one
Speaker 1: door down. I have a summer house in Southampton, a
Speaker 1: couple of hours outside of New York. This part of
Speaker 1: the Hamptons is called the Bay Side. It's quiet, peaceful,
Speaker 1: a place to escape from the city in the hot
Speaker 1: summer months. Sampson and Jackie Guillott have a house on
Speaker 1: the same street as me. My name is Jacqueline Guillott
Speaker 1: and we're married thirty five years. We're married fifty two years.
Speaker 1: They've been coming here since the eighties. Most of the
Speaker 1: houses on our street are single story with wooden clapperd fronts.
Speaker 1: Sampson and Jackie's house is no different, so lovely home.
Speaker 1: But there's one house on the street that stands out
Speaker 1: for starters. It's just bigger than most of the other houses.
Speaker 1: It's two stories instead of one, and it's the only
Speaker 1: one on the street with a separate guesthouse out back.
Speaker 1: And then there's the way it looks. The houses spectacular
Speaker 1: with windows and windows and windows. Everything about it is
Speaker 1: over the top. There's a pond with goldfish, lots of fish,
Speaker 1: and a waterfall to the pond too. It's bigger, bolder,
Speaker 1: brasher than anything else on the street. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten, my wife Dawn and I bought the house
Speaker 1: next door. It wasn't long before a man popped over
Speaker 1: to our house to introduce himself. He was dressed like
Speaker 1: a maintenance man, green khaki pants, a long sleeve workshire
Speaker 1: and a faded baseball cap. He welcomed us to the
Speaker 1: neighborhood and then he handed us a folder of press
Speaker 1: clippings and I literally just took them and said thank you.
Speaker 1: And but he wanted us to have them, you know,
Speaker 1: he really wanted Joe to have him. There were articles
Speaker 1: that a psychiatrist, Dr Isaac Hirshkoff, had written and articles
Speaker 1: that had been written about him. In mid August, an
Speaker 1: invitation arrived to a summer barbecue next door, hosted by
Speaker 1: Dr Hirshkoff. This would be the last of three big
Speaker 1: summer parties he threw every year. I went alone. To
Speaker 1: reach the front door, I had to cross a bridge
Speaker 1: over a fish pond. There were maybe forty or so
Speaker 1: guests hanging out in the backyard. I roamed about, stopping
Speaker 1: here and there to chat. I spotted the actor Richard Kind,
Speaker 1: just in time to see him do a belly flop
Speaker 1: into the pool. There were a handful of other people too,
Speaker 1: people I recognized as prominent New Yorkers, like Dr Ruth,
Speaker 1: the TV personality and sex expert. It was a warm afternoon.
Speaker 1: I chatted with a few people, sipped on my glass
Speaker 1: of wine, and began to wander around. At some point
Speaker 1: I found myself in the living room. There was a
Speaker 1: fake draft bust, Phoenician masks, plastic parrots hanging from the ceiling,
Speaker 1: even a giant gong. But what struck me most with
Speaker 1: the photographs. A lot send lots of photographs, and in
Speaker 1: nearly every one of them there was Ike Hirshkoff with
Speaker 1: a different celebrity, Ike with Henry Kissinger, Ike with Ellie Wizzell,
Speaker 1: Ike with Brooks Shields, Ike with Gwyneth Paltrow, even ike
Speaker 1: with O. J. Simpson. It was like one of those
Speaker 1: diners where the walls are covered with pictures of celebrity patrons.
Speaker 1: At that moment, the man himself appeared. He greeted me
Speaker 1: like a long lost friend and said that my wife
Speaker 1: and I should come over soon for a drink, and
Speaker 1: then he was gone. Sure enough. A few days after
Speaker 1: the summer party, the same maintenance man we've met before
Speaker 1: showed up at our door again. This time he brought
Speaker 1: an invitation for drinks. It was very formal, as if
Speaker 1: he was reading from a script. I mean, like Dr
Speaker 1: Hirshkoff would wants you to come over at such at
Speaker 1: such a time, on such and such a day. And
Speaker 1: the formality of it blew me away. And he was very,
Speaker 1: very exacting about how it had to go. So we
Speaker 1: went one of the strangest evenings I've ever had in
Speaker 1: the Hampton's or anywhere else for that matter, but definitely
Speaker 1: the Hamptons. It was pouring rain. We headed over, umbrellas
Speaker 1: in hand to get to the front door. We crossed
Speaker 1: a bridge we could see COI circling in the water below.
Speaker 1: Ike and his wife, Becky welcomed us in and ushered
Speaker 1: us to a round kitchen table. There were snacks laid out,
Speaker 1: carrots and salary. I served white wine. So what I
Speaker 1: remember is him talking incessantly about being a sex therapist
Speaker 1: and a celebrity therapist. And I can't remember the details,
Speaker 1: but that that it just really sticks in my mind
Speaker 1: that he kept going on and on about that. It
Speaker 1: was more like a monologue than a dialogue. That's what
Speaker 1: I remember. What do you remember? I just remember thinking
Speaker 1: these people are I felt suffocated. Did I talked about
Speaker 1: his work. I've never seen a thing like it, But
Speaker 1: I remember thinking it was very brazen about the details
Speaker 1: of his life, considering we were strangers, and also considering
Speaker 1: what he does. He did talk about an NBA sports
Speaker 1: guys and somebody a Yankees player. I just thought he
Speaker 1: lacked a lot of discretion given his field. We listened
Speaker 1: politely as he went on and on. I just remember
Speaker 1: looking towards the door. Finally, after about an hour, I
Speaker 1: said we needed to get home, and we got up
Speaker 1: to leave, and it was very clear that I wanted
Speaker 1: a photograph, a photograph of me. I think he came
Speaker 1: out and said, what would like to get a picture
Speaker 1: of you? And it was just Joe. It wasn't Joe
Speaker 1: and I. So I let I take my picture, hint
Speaker 1: it to his wall, and then we left as fast
Speaker 1: as we could. I remember getting to her home, collapsing
Speaker 1: on a couch or something. Dawn told me she never
Speaker 1: wanted to go back. There was no sign of the
Speaker 1: maintenance man the night dawn and I went over, but
Speaker 1: I knew he was still around. Sometimes we'd be on
Speaker 1: our deck and we'd see him outside working in the yard.
Speaker 1: When I returned to the Hamptons the following summer, I
Speaker 1: noticed something strange at the house next door. I would
Speaker 1: see the maintenance man out on the property doing his
Speaker 1: usual work in the backyard, but Ike kursh Cough was gone.
Speaker 1: I would never see him, or his wife, Becky, and
Speaker 1: the Hamptons again. There were no more summer parties. It
Speaker 1: was as if they had simply disappeared. And that's when
Speaker 1: I learned that everything I had thought i'd known about
Speaker 1: my neighbor was wrong. It's it's a wild story. That's
Speaker 1: the maintenance man, the guy who came to our door
Speaker 1: with the press clippings, the guy we saw working around
Speaker 1: the yard. That was Marty Markuitz, the same guy who
Speaker 1: had first gone to see Dr Isaac Hirstkoff as a
Speaker 1: patient nearly thirty years earlier. That was just a preview
Speaker 1: of the Shrink next Door. To listen to the rest,
Speaker 1: subscribe to The Shrink next Door on Apple Podcasts or
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening right now.