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 use that knowledge against us for their
Speaker 1: own benefit. In a brand new podcast from Wandering and Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: The Shrink next Door, host Jonah 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 Hampton's, 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, which you'll meet host
Speaker 1: Jonah 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
Speaker 1: there by any measure. Marty Markowitz was a success. He
Speaker 1: had an Ivy League diploma, a law degree. His own
Speaker 1: business 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 East 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 Wonderie and Bloomberg, I'm Joe, No Sarah a columnist
Speaker 1: with Bloomberg Opinion, and this is the shrink next year.
Speaker 1: This is episode one. Welcome to the neighborhood. Every neighborhood
Speaker 1: has its share of mysteries. We can live our entire
Speaker 1: lot fives and barely know the people just one door down.
Speaker 1: I have a summer house in Southampton, a couple of
Speaker 1: hours outside of New York. This part of the Hamptons
Speaker 1: is called the Bay Side. It's quiet, peaceful, a place
Speaker 1: to escape from the city in the hot summer months.
Speaker 1: Sampson and Jackie Guillatt have a house on the same
Speaker 1: street as me. My name is Jacqueline Guillott and we're
Speaker 1: married thirty five years. We're married fifty two years. They've
Speaker 1: been coming here since the eighties. Most of the houses
Speaker 1: on our street are single story with wooden clappered 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 books. The house is spectacular,
Speaker 1: with windows and windows and windows. Everything about it is
Speaker 1: over the top. This 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: 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. I 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 to draft bust Veoenician masks, plastic
Speaker 1: parrots hanging from the ceiling, even a giant gong. But
Speaker 1: what struck me most 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 Wizell, 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 and such a time on such and such a day.
Speaker 1: And the formality of it blew me away. And he
Speaker 1: was very, very exacting about how it had to go.
Speaker 1: So we went one of the strangest evenings I've ever
Speaker 1: had in the Hampton's, or anywhere else for that matter,
Speaker 1: but definitely the Hamptons. It was pouring rain. We headed
Speaker 1: over umbrellas in hand to get to the front door.
Speaker 1: We crossed a bridge. We could see COI circling in
Speaker 1: the water below. Ike and his wife, Becky welcomed us
Speaker 1: in and ushered us to a round kitchen table. There
Speaker 1: were snacks laid out, carrots and salary. I served white wine.
Speaker 1: So what I remember is him talking incessantly about being
Speaker 1: a sex therapist and a celebrity therapist. And I can't
Speaker 1: remember the details, but that that it just really sticks
Speaker 1: in my mind that he kept going on and on
Speaker 1: about that it was more like a monologue than a dialogue.
Speaker 1: That's what I remember, what do you remember. I just
Speaker 1: remember thinking these people are I felt suffocated. I talked
Speaker 1: about his work. I've never say 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 we'd 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 karsh Coough 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 war
Speaker 1: with the press clippings, the guy we saw working around
Speaker 1: the yard. That was Marty Markoitz, 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.