Speaker 1: Psychiatrists see us in our most vulnerable moments, all of
Speaker 1: our problems and dysfunctions laid bare to a stranger. We
Speaker 1: hope that they keep our secrets and help us solve
Speaker 1: our problems. We place our inherent trust in them, But
Speaker 1: what if they used that knowledge against us for their
Speaker 1: own benefit. In a brand new podcast from Wondery and Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: The Shrink next Door, host Joanna Sarah takes you deep
Speaker 1: into what it looks like when a psychiatrist becomes something
Speaker 1: much more. You'll hear of extravagant parties attended by movie stars,
Speaker 1: a lavish home in the Hamptons, and the man at
Speaker 1: the center of it all. You're about to hear a
Speaker 1: preview of The Shrink next Door, in which you'll meet
Speaker 1: host Joanna Sarah and hear about a relationship that would
Speaker 1: go 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
Speaker 1: there by any measure. Marty Markowitz was a success. He
Speaker 1: had an Ivy League 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 e 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 had inherited the family business, how he was having
Speaker 1: a hard time dealing with his new responsibilities. When he finished,
Speaker 1: Marty says, Ike looked at him and said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take you 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 dollars something like that. Back back
Speaker 1: in the day. It was June. Marty had come to
Speaker 1: Ike because he needed help, But if he had known
Speaker 1: what his new therapist had in store for him, he
Speaker 1: probably would have walked out the door and never come back.
Speaker 1: From Wonderree and Bloomberg, I'm Joan No Sarah, a columnist
Speaker 1: with Bloomberg Opinion, and this is the shrink. Next to
Speaker 1: this is episode one, Welcome to the neighborhood. Every neighborhood
Speaker 1: has its share of mysteries. We can live our and
Speaker 1: tie our 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 Gillatt 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 house is 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 neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and then he handed us a folder of press clippings.
Speaker 1: I literally just took them and said thank you. And
Speaker 1: but he wanted us to have them, you know, he
Speaker 1: really wanted Joe to have him. There were articles that
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist, Dr Isaac Hirshkoff had written, and articles that
Speaker 1: had been written about him. In mid August, an invitation
Speaker 1: around five to a summer barbecue next door hosted by
Speaker 1: Dr Hirshkoff Ike. This would be the last of three
Speaker 1: big summer parties he threw every year. I went alone.
Speaker 1: To reach the front door, I had to cross a
Speaker 1: bridge over a fish pond. There were maybe forty or
Speaker 1: so guests hanging out in the backyard. I roamed about,
Speaker 1: stopping here and there to chat. I spotted the actor
Speaker 1: Richard Kind, just in time to see him do a
Speaker 1: belly flop into the pool. There were a handful of
Speaker 1: other people too, people I recognized as prominent New Yorkers,
Speaker 1: like Dr Ruth, the TV personality and sex expert. It
Speaker 1: was a warm afternoon. I chatted with a few people,
Speaker 1: sipped on my glass of wine, and began to wander around.
Speaker 1: At some point I found myself in the living room.
Speaker 1: There was a fake draft bust, Phoenician masks, plastic parrots
Speaker 1: hanging from the ceiling, even a giant gong. But what
Speaker 1: struck me most were the photographs. Lots and lots of photographs,
Speaker 1: and in nearly every one of them there was Ike
Speaker 1: Hirshkoff with a different celebrity, Ike with Henry Kissinger, Ike
Speaker 1: with Ellie Wizzell, Ike with Brookshields, Ike with Gwyneth Paltrow,
Speaker 1: even ike with O. J. Simpson. It was like one
Speaker 1: of those diners where the walls are covered with pictures
Speaker 1: of celebrity patrons. At that moment, the man himself appeared.
Speaker 1: He greeted me like a long lost friend and said
Speaker 1: that my wife and I should come over soon for
Speaker 1: a drink, and then he was gone. Sure enough, a
Speaker 1: few days after the summer party, the same maintenance man
Speaker 1: we've met before showed up at our door again. This
Speaker 1: time he brought an invitation for drinks. It was very formal,
Speaker 1: as if he was reading from a script. I mean,
Speaker 1: like Dr Hirshkoff would wants you to come over at
Speaker 1: such a such a time, on such and such a day.
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 Hampton's. It was pouring rain. We headed over umbrellas
Speaker 1: in hand to get to the front door. We crossed
Speaker 1: the 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 celery. 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 m I felt suffocated. I talked about
Speaker 1: his work. I've never say thing like it, but I
Speaker 1: remember thinking it was very brazen about the details of
Speaker 1: his life, considering we were strangers, and also considering what
Speaker 1: he does. He did talk about an NBA sports guys
Speaker 1: and somebody a Yankees player. I just thought he lacked
Speaker 1: a lot of discretion given his field. We listened politely
Speaker 1: as he went on and on. I just remember looking
Speaker 1: towards the door. Finally, after about an hour, I said
Speaker 1: we needed to get home, and we got up to leave,
Speaker 1: and it was very clear that I wanted a photograph,
Speaker 1: a photograph of me. I think he came out and said, well,
Speaker 1: we'd like to get a picture of you, and it
Speaker 1: was just Joe. It wasn't Joe and I. So I
Speaker 1: let I take my picture, hint it to his wall,
Speaker 1: and then we left as fast as we could. I
Speaker 1: remember getting to her home, collapsing I'm a couch or something.
Speaker 1: Dawn told me she never wanted to go back. There
Speaker 1: was no sign of the maintenance man the night Dawn
Speaker 1: and I went over, but I knew he was still around.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we'd be on our deck and we'd see him
Speaker 1: outside working in the yard. When I returned to the
Speaker 1: Hamptons the following summer, I noticed something strange at the
Speaker 1: house next door. I would see the maintenance man out
Speaker 1: on the property doing his usual work in the backyard,
Speaker 1: but Ike kursh Cough was gone. I would never see him,
Speaker 1: or his wife, Becky, and the Hamptons again. There were
Speaker 1: no more summer parties. It was as if they had
Speaker 1: simply disappeared. And that's when I learned that everything I
Speaker 1: had thought i'd known about my neighbor was wrong. It's
Speaker 1: it's a wild story. That's the maintenance man, the guy
Speaker 1: who came to our door with the press clippings, the
Speaker 1: guy we saw working around the yard. That was Marty Marcuitz,
Speaker 1: the same guy who had first gone to see Dr
Speaker 1: Isaac Hirstkoff as a patient nearly thirty years earlier. That
Speaker 1: was just a preview of the Shrink next Door. To
Speaker 1: listen to the rest, subscribe to The Shrink next Door
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now.