Speaker 1: Today, It's great to chat with the Worry Gottlieb and
Speaker 1: Guy Winch on the podcast Worri is a psychotherapist, a
Speaker 1: New York Times best selling author of Maybe You Should
Speaker 1: Talk to Someone, which has sold over a million copies
Speaker 1: and is currently being adapted as a television series. In
Speaker 1: addition to her clinical practice, she writes the Atlantics weekly
Speaker 1: Dear Therapist advice column and is co host of the
Speaker 1: popular Dear Therapist podcast, produced by Katie Kirk. She contributes
Speaker 1: regulary to The New York Times and many other publications,
Speaker 1: and in twenty nineteen, her TED talk was one of
Speaker 1: the top ten motes watched of the year. A member
Speaker 1: of the Advisory Council for Bring Change to Mind, she's
Speaker 1: a sought after expert in media such as The Today Show,
Speaker 1: Good Morning America, CBS, This Morning, CNN, and MPR's Fresh Air.
Speaker 1: Now Up is Guy Wench, internationally renowned psychologist who advocates
Speaker 1: for integrating the science of emotional health into our daily lives.
Speaker 1: His science based self help books have been translated into
Speaker 1: twenty seven languages, and his three TED talks have garnered
Speaker 1: over twenty five million views. He writes Dear Guy for
Speaker 1: ted dot com, the Squeaky Wheel blog for Psychology Today
Speaker 1: dot com, and is the co host with Worri Gottlieb
Speaker 1: of the Dear Therapist podcast. Guys, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: talking with me today to superstar therapists. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having us. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: My pleasure. I tried to do a little bit of
Speaker 1: that Chicago Bulls intro. It didn't quite land. You know, No,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it sounds like, so starting center
Speaker 1: for the Chicago Bulls. Next up is guy went anyway
Speaker 1: to make it work? You do? You do? I realized
Speaker 1: that immediately after I did it, But anyway, look so
Speaker 1: great to chat with you guys today. You have this
Speaker 1: really successful podcast that you both do together, but you're
Speaker 1: all both individually truly uh successful therapist, and I would
Speaker 1: like to know how you two found each other and
Speaker 1: how you came up with the idea for the really
Speaker 1: innovative show that you're doing today. Laurie, do you want
Speaker 1: to Okay? Laurie and I met at a conference two
Speaker 1: summers ago, and we were on a panel together, and
Speaker 1: we had known of each other's work, and Laurie said
Speaker 1: to me, Hey, I'm going to be doing this advice podcast,
Speaker 1: and you have an advice callum and I an advice column,
Speaker 1: and I you have tech talks, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: do a tech talk. Maybe we should do it together.
Speaker 1: And we had just been on the panel, and my
Speaker 1: impression from the panel was, Wow, that we really think
Speaker 1: alike And you don't always think that when you're on
Speaker 1: a panel with people. You often think, get me out
Speaker 1: of this room very quickly. So we really think alike
Speaker 1: was great and we decided to do it from that
Speaker 1: point and we started working on it soon if thereafter.
Speaker 1: It was it was almost like a shotgun marriage. It
Speaker 1: was one of these random, spontaneous things where we just
Speaker 1: sort of had this mind meld around how we wanted
Speaker 1: to help people. And I think we both had this
Speaker 1: goal of democratizing therapy because we both felt like not
Speaker 1: everybody can go to therapy or wants to go to therapy,
Speaker 1: but there's so much that people can learn from the
Speaker 1: experience of what I like to say is getting a
Speaker 1: really good second opinion on your life from someone who's
Speaker 1: not already in your life. And so here on the podcast,
Speaker 1: I feel like what we're doing is we're giving people
Speaker 1: the benefit of a therapy session, which is you know,
Speaker 1: obviously these aren't our patients, but people who write in
Speaker 1: and people can hear what actually sounds like to sit
Speaker 1: with not just one, but two therapists at the same time.
Speaker 1: And what we wanted to do in the end was
Speaker 1: to give people something even more than the session would provide.
Speaker 1: So we give people concrete, actionable advice at the end
Speaker 1: of the session, which we don't normally do in the
Speaker 1: same way in the therapy room. And the guest on
Speaker 1: our show has a week to actually execute the advice,
Speaker 1: and then they come back and they tell us what happened,
Speaker 1: did the advice work, what happened, how? Why? And I
Speaker 1: think that's another place where people can grow because even
Speaker 1: if you didn't have the exact same issue as the
Speaker 1: person on that week's episode, often there will be nuggets
Speaker 1: of advice that you could apply to your own life.
Speaker 1: Did you want to add anything to that guy? You
Speaker 1: don't have to, Oh yeah, and I will, I will
Speaker 1: add this. The thing that I didn't think, sir, I'll
Speaker 1: say differently, The thing that I think was most scary
Speaker 1: for me and maybe the Laurie as well, was that
Speaker 1: we didn't really know each other Laurie said, it was
Speaker 1: a short down marriage. It was we had met that
Speaker 1: one time and from there we are doing conjoint therapy
Speaker 1: and we do not discuss the cases ahead of time.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what she's thinking. She has, there's
Speaker 1: no idea what I'm thinking. I don't know where she
Speaker 1: wants to go in the session, neither does she know
Speaker 1: where I want to go. And we're taping it live,
Speaker 1: so we have to figure that all out in flight,
Speaker 1: and that can go all kinds of ways, including smash
Speaker 1: into the ground, you know, And so it was a
Speaker 1: little scary when we started, but truly, I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: within five minutes of our first episode when we were taping,
Speaker 1: we just fell into this groove where we kind of
Speaker 1: we know where the other person wants to go because
Speaker 1: we know what the roads are, we can tell and
Speaker 1: we just fell into this groove of being able to
Speaker 1: really in tandem like work off one another. I think
Speaker 1: so well. And again we met in person once. That's it,
Speaker 1: and so that worked out very fortunately. I think that's wonderful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of unique features of the show.
Speaker 1: One is I noticed, do you give your guest actionable homework?
Speaker 1: Each week, right, and then you have them report back
Speaker 1: and tell you what happened? Why do you guys decide
Speaker 1: to do that? And how do you just? How do
Speaker 1: you is the kind of homework you give them, the
Speaker 1: kind that you would give your patience in your own
Speaker 1: private practice. Yeah, but not in an overloaded way. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they are five parts to the homer. Can they give
Speaker 1: it after one session? That would be a little you know,
Speaker 1: a little intense for sure psychotherapy. But to me, the
Speaker 1: thing I always found slightly annoying about advice, and I
Speaker 1: write an advice column, so even about my own is
Speaker 1: that I'm writing these letters, I'm responding to them, but
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened, even as a person who's
Speaker 1: giving the advice I'm Sometimes people will write and say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is what happened, and even then it's an email,
Speaker 1: so it's not really I can't tell tonality. I don't
Speaker 1: really know how they felt or whether they were emotional.
Speaker 1: So it was both very important for us to add
Speaker 1: that piece at the end of we want to hear back,
Speaker 1: we want to hear how that went, because to me,
Speaker 1: that's the completion of the story. That's the closure that
Speaker 1: you want after you hear a whole session with someone.
Speaker 1: I think the common thread in all of the letters
Speaker 1: that we get, and I feel like it's almost like
Speaker 1: a textonomy of, you know, modern day problems in the
Speaker 1: sense of what are people actually struggling with today. And
Speaker 1: when you get thousands of letters between our columns and
Speaker 1: our podcasts and so, you're really seeing this collection of
Speaker 1: what people are dealing with on a daily basis, and
Speaker 1: you can start to see some themes, you know, that
Speaker 1: people are dealing with. And I think what happens is
Speaker 1: that when we write our advice columns, like Guy said,
Speaker 1: sometimes people will write to us after and say, here's
Speaker 1: what happened, you know, just personally, but we don't get
Speaker 1: to share that with our readers. And I think what
Speaker 1: you hear on the on the Dear Therapist podcast is
Speaker 1: that sometimes people follow our advice exactly. Sometimes people then
Speaker 1: take it and make it their own. And that's when
Speaker 1: it's really useful when they say, oh, that gave me
Speaker 1: an idea, and then I went off and I did
Speaker 1: this other thing as well, and we're shocked. We can't
Speaker 1: believe how much they changed or shifted their perspective or
Speaker 1: they actually did something very concrete that for years they
Speaker 1: couldn't get themselves to do, and they did it after
Speaker 1: one conversation. And so I think that what we're trying
Speaker 1: to show people is that people know what they need
Speaker 1: to do. Sometimes they just need someone to help them
Speaker 1: understand why they're resisting doing what they already know they
Speaker 1: need to do. And what we really do on the
Speaker 1: podcast is we help people to see what are the blocks,
Speaker 1: what's getting in your way? Why are you self sabotaging?
Speaker 1: Why are you doing the exact opposite of the thing
Speaker 1: that you know will bring you the kind of freedom
Speaker 1: that you're looking for, the kind of piece that you're
Speaker 1: looking for. Do you guys? Ever, I'm sure you disagree sometimes,
Speaker 1: and what is the best course of action for there is?
Speaker 1: I'm curious if your disagreements ever fall along like different
Speaker 1: psychotherapy orientation lines. I've just been That's my nerdy question
Speaker 1: for you too, because I'm curious, first of all, what
Speaker 1: are both of your you know, would you say your
Speaker 1: orientations are. I'm sure you're bringing a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: but what do you like to focus on? And then
Speaker 1: and then are your disagreements several along those kinds of lines?
Speaker 1: I would say I would say, I'll be curious to
Speaker 1: hear what you have to say about this guy, But
Speaker 1: I would say that guy is very, very compassionate to
Speaker 1: the the person on the show. Right. We call them
Speaker 1: fellow travelers based on Irviolum's view that we're all more
Speaker 1: similarly all different. Yeah, yeah, and so and so we
Speaker 1: you know, we we consider them our fellow travelers. And
Speaker 1: and the people who come on the show, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, often Guy will will be really really compassionate
Speaker 1: and and he'll almost sort of take their side. But
Speaker 1: I know what he's doing, Like, I know that he's
Speaker 1: he's trying to get them to a new place, and
Speaker 1: I tend to kind of sometimes feel like, well, I
Speaker 1: want them to see this thing right away, so I'm
Speaker 1: kind of gonna go there. And so sometimes we sort
Speaker 1: of like have a different way of getting in there.
Speaker 1: And then there'll be other times where it's flipped where
Speaker 1: Guy will like really want to get in there and
Speaker 1: I'm going to step back a little bit. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the benefit by the way of having two
Speaker 1: therapists on is like if somebody's going too fast or
Speaker 1: somebody's you know, find needing to find a different way
Speaker 1: in one person can take on one role and the
Speaker 1: other person can take on another role. I would say
Speaker 1: in terms of theoretical orientation, I have a very eclectic
Speaker 1: theoretical orientation. I do a lot with attachment, so that's
Speaker 1: a that's a big part of how I sort of
Speaker 1: conceptualize somebody's issue. I think the culture is really important
Speaker 1: to look at. I think that therapists don't look enough
Speaker 1: at situational factors, circumstantial factors, race, ethnicity, background, and I
Speaker 1: think I look at this this question of agency. You know,
Speaker 1: how do people lose their their sense of agency? What
Speaker 1: makes them think that they're trapped? For me, I got
Speaker 1: my PhD at NYU, and it was a very psychoanalytically
Speaker 1: oriented program, devout in certain ways, so much so, for example,
Speaker 1: that when my patients would say where are you from?
Speaker 1: Because I have a bit of an accent, I was
Speaker 1: told I'm not supposed to say where I'm from, and
Speaker 1: I'm introducing extraneous material into the therapy, I should explore
Speaker 1: what the fantasies are about where I'm from, which I
Speaker 1: had a trouble with because my accent might be hard
Speaker 1: to place. It was pronounced French or German, that wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a question. So just because it's a little hard
Speaker 1: to place, I didn't And I also didn't see why
Speaker 1: I needed to make myself the focus of that session.
Speaker 1: That wasn't necessarily a transference issue. It was truly just
Speaker 1: a simple question like, oh, I can't place the accent.
Speaker 1: People ask me that all the time and when I'm told,
Speaker 1: And so at my schooling we were exposed to a
Speaker 1: couple of different orientations, but they were pretty psychodynamic and psychoanalytic.
Speaker 1: They were quite devout. And when I'm told you must
Speaker 1: believe in this, then my natural rebellious tendency is to say,
Speaker 1: in fact, I'm going to go and explore it. Else
Speaker 1: I can believe in other than that. And so I
Speaker 1: spent my pH d really trying to explore other modalities.
Speaker 1: Significantly among them were couples and family and systems therapy
Speaker 1: and some CBT and some other kinds of approaches narrative therapy, etc.
Speaker 1: And so I feel that I'm eclectic in the sense
Speaker 1: that there is no one style of therapy that's good
Speaker 1: for everyone. People's circumstance changes, why they come to therapy changes,
Speaker 1: how long they want to be in therapy changes, and
Speaker 1: each of those considerations can dictate what the tools are
Speaker 1: that you get to choose as a therapist. And so
Speaker 1: for me, as long as the therapist has tools from
Speaker 1: which to choose, then they can adapt that to the
Speaker 1: needs of the patient that they have. I was just
Speaker 1: going to say, I think that's such a great point
Speaker 1: because if you listen to the podcast, you hear that
Speaker 1: we sound different as therapists in different episodes depending on
Speaker 1: what the person is coming to us for. And so
Speaker 1: there are times when we'll take an approach that sounds like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're those kinds of therapists, and then in a different
Speaker 1: episode you'll hear us and we sound very different. So
Speaker 1: I think what guys saying is really true that you
Speaker 1: have to adapt what you're doing for the person who's
Speaker 1: right in front of you. Yeah, I mean, as you're
Speaker 1: describing the merits of two therapists at one time, I
Speaker 1: actually think maybe we should start a new psychotherapy technique
Speaker 1: that involves two therapists with a peach patient, like in
Speaker 1: Realize we actually did that in my training. So when
Speaker 1: I was I did a specialization in couples when I
Speaker 1: was training, and I see a lot of couples in
Speaker 1: my practice, and in fact, we have couples in season
Speaker 1: two that we're taping right now of the podcast, we
Speaker 1: have several epis coles, and in season one too, that's right,
Speaker 1: and in season two we have When I say couples,
Speaker 1: I mean that broadly, so not just romantic couples, but
Speaker 1: also we have a mother and an adult daughter, you know,
Speaker 1: different kinds of couples. But what I was going to
Speaker 1: say is when I was training for the specialization in couples,
Speaker 1: we had two therapists in the room. So it was
Speaker 1: me as the junior therapist at the time, and then
Speaker 1: a senior couple's therapists, and we would do couples therapy
Speaker 1: in the room together. That was how I learned, and
Speaker 1: I thought it was so useful for the couple, not
Speaker 1: just for me as somebody who was learning, but for
Speaker 1: the couple because they got these two perspectives. And I
Speaker 1: think what they get with two therapists on our podcast
Speaker 1: is they get those two perspectives. Guy and I might
Speaker 1: know we're trying to get to the same place, but
Speaker 1: we may have very different ways of getting there, and
Speaker 1: so we kind of tag team. I wish everybody could
Speaker 1: have the benefit of two therapists in the room when
Speaker 1: they go to therapy. It's totally impractical, but it's totally impractical,
Speaker 1: but I think it's really useful. When I trained in
Speaker 1: couples in family therapy, I trained with with Salvador mi Nucin,
Speaker 1: who you know, originated systems, and the training, even in
Speaker 1: graduate school before I worked with sal was through one
Speaker 1: way mirrors. In other words, the supervisor the rest of
Speaker 1: the team would sit behind the mirror. The patients, to
Speaker 1: be clear, knew that there was a team that was
Speaker 1: observing them. That wasn't some CIA situation, it wasn't Clandestein.
Speaker 1: And there was a phone and the supervisor would call in.
Speaker 1: And then I spent quite a few years supervising couples
Speaker 1: and family therapy at different hospitals in New York, and
Speaker 1: I would either call in with suggestions or walk into
Speaker 1: the room if I needed to do something very quickly
Speaker 1: because something was going very wrong. And what I found
Speaker 1: was that and we're sitting behind with the team with
Speaker 1: two or three other people behind the mirror, and so
Speaker 1: there's a constant conversation going on, and you're constantly teaching.
Speaker 1: When you're teaching, it like this, not that this is
Speaker 1: where they should be going. Now, now this is why
Speaker 1: they're might be a problem. You don't get that an
Speaker 1: individual therapy. When you're training, you're coming with your notes
Speaker 1: to the supervisor and saying, well, this is what happened.
Speaker 1: And what some minuchin would do is you had to
Speaker 1: either do live sessions with him there in behind the
Speaker 1: mirror or bring him videotape. And when you brought him videotape,
Speaker 1: a lot of people in our team would curate like
Speaker 1: their most magnificent moments and they would put the tape
Speaker 1: in and it would be like, oh my god, that
Speaker 1: should just take that and print it and sal every
Speaker 1: time somebody brought a videotape he would take it. He
Speaker 1: would just fast forward randomly to a spot and say,
Speaker 1: let's look at this. And so it would be like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're not letting you choose the moment the supervisor gets
Speaker 1: to see. The supervisor will just find the spot and
Speaker 1: see what happens. So it kept you really, really honest.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing about this training that the couples
Speaker 1: and family training. It keeps you really honest because it's live,
Speaker 1: people are actually watching you. There's no hiding but there's
Speaker 1: so much learning because you get called out on everything.
Speaker 1: I love that. I remember recently I was talking to
Speaker 1: Early and you know who's sort of I think he's
Speaker 1: sort of liked the Oliver Sacks of the psychiatry world
Speaker 1: or the therapy world, and he was saying that he
Speaker 1: when he was trained, when he was training people, they
Speaker 1: decided that instead of so guy was talking about being
Speaker 1: behind the one way mirror and then talking about what
Speaker 1: was going on in the session, they decided to switch
Speaker 1: it and they had the patients then discuss how the
Speaker 1: therapist did and the therapists would have to listen to that,
Speaker 1: and it was incredibly illuminating to hear well, what was
Speaker 1: resonating for the patients, what did not work for them,
Speaker 1: And so the therapists were actually learning from the patients
Speaker 1: as well. And I think that what I think all
Speaker 1: of this adds up to is that it's a very
Speaker 1: collaborative process. A lot of people have this misconception that
Speaker 1: therapy is about the expert who's the therapist and who
Speaker 1: has all the knowledge, and the patient who has no
Speaker 1: knowledge and is coming in to get the expert's opinion
Speaker 1: or take on their life. And I think the guy
Speaker 1: and I come from the perspective of the person who
Speaker 1: comes into us knows a lot. They have a lot
Speaker 1: of answers. They just don't have access to those answers.
Speaker 1: And what we're doing is we're helping them to find
Speaker 1: access to the answers that they already have. We're helping
Speaker 1: them to hear the voice inside that gets drowned out
Speaker 1: by all the noise out there, by people in their lives,
Speaker 1: by the culture, by you know, whatever is, whatever history is,
Speaker 1: still kind of care they're carrying inside of them. So
Speaker 1: I think that when we talk about people from this
Speaker 1: very human perspective, and I think this more leveling of
Speaker 1: the playing field perspective, I think that's what helps people
Speaker 1: the most. Well, that's wonderful, you know, you this leveling
Speaker 1: the playing field. There's also something that's always struck me
Speaker 1: about when you hear enough clients, you start to hear
Speaker 1: very common issues over and over, and every single one
Speaker 1: of them thinks their issues is unique, like like they're
Speaker 1: the only one in the world who suffers from like
Speaker 1: a well sense of self worth, you know. And then
Speaker 1: sometimes I find they just feel better if you just
Speaker 1: tell them just so you know, you're the tenth person
Speaker 1: today is to talk about low self worth. There's something
Speaker 1: kind of like relieving about that, knowing that you're part
Speaker 1: of a common humanity in some way. I was wondering
Speaker 1: if you both of you could kind of tell me
Speaker 1: some of the most recurring themes that you get in
Speaker 1: your own practice and in your columns. One thing I
Speaker 1: will say is that I think both Laurie and I
Speaker 1: and this is definitely something that I connected with Lori
Speaker 1: even before I met her, even just reading her book,
Speaker 1: I was like, ah, yes, and her columns, because we
Speaker 1: both really believe in psycho education. We really believe in
Speaker 1: not just saying you know, you're not the first person
Speaker 1: to come into the less low self esteem, but to say,
Speaker 1: you know, yes, self is low self esteem is really common.
Speaker 1: Here's what we know about it. Is what we know
Speaker 1: what allows that to happen. Here's what we know is
Speaker 1: not useful. Here's why negative self talk is not really
Speaker 1: helping you, even though it's extremely common. In other words,
Speaker 1: we will do a lot of education because the goal
Speaker 1: is we want people to you know, sorry, We want
Speaker 1: people to come out of the therapy process with a
Speaker 1: mantle of responsibility of continuing and being responsible for their
Speaker 1: own emotional health going forward. So we need to give
Speaker 1: them the tools with which to do that and the
Speaker 1: understanding generally, not just of themselves, but how they fit
Speaker 1: in to the larger world. I always bring in a
Speaker 1: lot of research because I find that it's very comforting
Speaker 1: to people. So, for example, one of the things I
Speaker 1: am sensitive to as a therapist is this issue of rejection,
Speaker 1: because in the age of social media, we all experience
Speaker 1: that a thousand times a day. If you have, you know,
Speaker 1: five hundred friends on Facebook and two of them liked
Speaker 1: your post, you feel rejected by the other four hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety eight and that can smart, you know, just
Speaker 1: a little or a lot, depending on the circumstance. But
Speaker 1: when you hear about the studies of rejection that show
Speaker 1: that when rejection is manipulated in the lab and people
Speaker 1: go through a rejection experience and then they are told
Speaker 1: that the actual experience was rigged, that it actually didn't happen,
Speaker 1: it was confederates, it doesn't make their hurt go away.
Speaker 1: And when they go through that experience in the lab
Speaker 1: and then they're told that the person who rejected them
Speaker 1: was actually a member of a group, they despise. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make the hurt go away, because we are wired
Speaker 1: so strongly to experience rejection is painful that we will
Speaker 1: experience it as painful even if it wasn't real, or
Speaker 1: even if the people who rejected us the people we
Speaker 1: would never want to affiliate with. When people hear that,
Speaker 1: it starts to help them organize their own feelings about Oh,
Speaker 1: that's why I'm hurting so much that my colleagues went
Speaker 1: to lunch without me. They're not even colleagues I wanted
Speaker 1: to go to lunch with. But now at least it's
Speaker 1: not because I'm a loser or I have this. So
Speaker 1: I think the research is really useful to bring in
Speaker 1: as well as the psycho education which involves the research,
Speaker 1: because it helped people get an angle on Earth. Oh
Speaker 1: that's why this is happening in my head. And I
Speaker 1: think that when we talk about the common themes that
Speaker 1: come in and people feeling not just like they're not
Speaker 1: the only ones, but also when we get these common themes,
Speaker 1: people can take something from that episode and apply it
Speaker 1: to their own lives. We've had We've had an interesting
Speaker 1: one was we did one We did one that was
Speaker 1: about a breakup and it was a really painful breakup.
Speaker 1: And the person said, I used that advice at work
Speaker 1: in my career. And that's the kind of thing where
Speaker 1: we feel like these themes are so universal. We get
Speaker 1: so many letters about, you know, heartbreak, about relational difficulties,
Speaker 1: about questions about am I with the right person? About
Speaker 1: questions about is the other person crazy? Or am I crazy?
Speaker 1: We get we get a lot of questions about family.
Speaker 1: You know, how much do I forgive? Where are my boundaries?
Speaker 1: You know? What is my role at this time in
Speaker 1: life with my parents, with my children? You know? What
Speaker 1: do I do about the fact that my child is
Speaker 1: doing this thing that you know makes me wonder about
Speaker 1: whether they can be happy doing this thing? All kinds
Speaker 1: of you know, I mean, you know, it's like it's
Speaker 1: family relationships. I think ultimately all the questions sort of
Speaker 1: come down to how can I love and be loved?
Speaker 1: If you go to the core of all of the questions, wow,
Speaker 1: in terms of love as part of that accepted, how
Speaker 1: can I be accepted? I will say that it's I
Speaker 1: would expand love beyond romantic love, of course, because for me,
Speaker 1: one of the themes that I'm seeing more and more
Speaker 1: and more in recent years. And I'm seeing it in
Speaker 1: my practice, but I'm seeing it in the letters we get,
Speaker 1: the advice cools and in a lot of interactions. Is
Speaker 1: this feeling of disconnection of loneliness that people have today. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously the pandemic did not help that situation, but you know,
Speaker 1: the American Psychological Association in twenty seventeen put out a
Speaker 1: press release declaring loneliness to be a public health crisis
Speaker 1: because of the impact it has on physical health and longevity,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, the equivalent of smoking fifteen cigarettes
Speaker 1: to day. That's how much chronic lonliness impacts your health.
Speaker 1: And so I hear a lot about disconnection. And the
Speaker 1: loneliest cohort are not the elderly. Maybe they used to be,
Speaker 1: but today it's the eighteen to twenty four year olds.
Speaker 1: They are the loneliest code. And this is true the
Speaker 1: world over, not just in the US. And that means
Speaker 1: and because young people are and truly because of social media,
Speaker 1: because everyone looks so happy on social media, even they
Speaker 1: look happy on their own social media, but they know
Speaker 1: they're not when they're not taking those pictures. But when
Speaker 1: you have so many people, you're connected to and you
Speaker 1: don't feel seen by any of them, and you don't
Speaker 1: feel really cared for by any of them. They're all
Speaker 1: superficial or they don't seem to be actually in touch
Speaker 1: and engaged. It can be extremely, extremely painful. And I
Speaker 1: think that loneliness is one of the biggest themes that
Speaker 1: I see in my work right now. And I want
Speaker 1: to just say about loneliness that I think when Guy
Speaker 1: was saying that there are all these people who are
Speaker 1: maybe following them, but they don't really feel seen, truly
Speaker 1: seen by anybody. I think that we have this idea
Speaker 1: about vulnerability in our culture now, which is that everybody
Speaker 1: understands that it's important to talk to someone, it's important
Speaker 1: to be open with people. It's important to have people
Speaker 1: with whom you can be yourself, you can show the
Speaker 1: truth of who you are, which is what we call
Speaker 1: being vulnerable. But what we see on social media is
Speaker 1: you have people post and they'll say, you know, I've
Speaker 1: never told anyone this before. They're on Instagram and I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell all of you guys, all of my
Speaker 1: followers that I've never met in real life. You know,
Speaker 1: some of them might maybe I have, but you know
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell all of you this very vulnerable thing,
Speaker 1: and they say something about their life and they get
Speaker 1: tons of likes and comments and people are so supportive
Speaker 1: and oh my gosh, you're so brave because you were
Speaker 1: so vulnerable. That is not true vulnerability. True vulnerability is
Speaker 1: sitting face to face with someone in real life, in
Speaker 1: your life who matters to you, where the stakes are high.
Speaker 1: You matter to them, they matter to you, and that's
Speaker 1: where you show up. That's where you're present. People aren't
Speaker 1: doing that. Instead, they're saying, hey, I'm going to reveal
Speaker 1: this very personal thing about myself, but it's curated because
Speaker 1: it's on social media and they know they're going to
Speaker 1: get a lot of likes for it. So I think
Speaker 1: that leaves people even lonelier because they feel like, well,
Speaker 1: I opened myself up, and why don't I feel filled
Speaker 1: up by that? You don't feel filled up by that?
Speaker 1: Because it's empty, it feels one way, doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: a mutual relatedness to it. Well, you know something that
Speaker 1: struck me in reading all the positive reviews of your podcast,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure you guys, I hope you read your reviews.
Speaker 1: They're pretty good. They're pretty good. A lot of people
Speaker 1: say that they felt like they got a free therapy session.
Speaker 1: Even though they didn't necessarily share the same problem you tackled,
Speaker 1: they could still resonate, you know, with a lot of
Speaker 1: the issues. And I think there's something that's maybe even
Speaker 1: your show itself is making people feel less lonely just
Speaker 1: by listening to it and hearing that others are are
Speaker 1: suffering too. I think you'll write, though, Scott, what you
Speaker 1: said about it needs to be connected, right, and so yes,
Speaker 1: I think people might feel less lonely in the sense
Speaker 1: of Okay, it's not just me. But if they then
Speaker 1: use that to reach out and to connect to someone
Speaker 1: else so they know might be feeding that way, then great.
Speaker 1: And we post all shows on social media, they can
Speaker 1: reach out, you know. I mean, I remember I did
Speaker 1: this interview once and it was people were sending in
Speaker 1: pictures via the show's Facebook page, right, so it's Facebook,
Speaker 1: their names are there. And one person said to me,
Speaker 1: but you don't understand I feel this way and I
Speaker 1: don't know anyone else who feels like me. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: we just got fifty questions about from people who feel
Speaker 1: like you and that they are on Facebook. You could
Speaker 1: reach out to twenty of them. You could say, hey, An,
Speaker 1: if you're fifty people, do you want to contact me?
Speaker 1: I'd love to talk. It's that thing that when we
Speaker 1: feel lonely, when we feel disconnected, it comes with a
Speaker 1: huge psychological whammy of this self fulfilling prophecy in which
Speaker 1: we are so convinced that people won't be responsive to us,
Speaker 1: that people aren't truly interested, that we don't reach out,
Speaker 1: or we reach out in such ways that is going
Speaker 1: to turn people off. And that's the real problem with loneliness.
Speaker 1: It really gets you to be so risk averse and
Speaker 1: so self protective. You're not being authentic, certainly not being vulnerable.
Speaker 1: And it comes across in a way that people don't
Speaker 1: feel it vulnerable. They feel it's agenda driven, or they
Speaker 1: feel it's too desperate, or they feel us to self apologetical,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And that's the trap of it, to
Speaker 1: be able to reconnect to your authentic self in the
Speaker 1: way that you can take the risk and truly be you,
Speaker 1: rather than bring too much of that pain to the encounter.
Speaker 1: One of the paradoxes I think that guys talking about
Speaker 1: is that there's this distortion of ourselves when we feel lonely.
Speaker 1: It is the way that depression distorts are thinking same
Speaker 1: with loneliness, and of course loneliness and depression often go together.
Speaker 1: And during the pandemic, it's interesting because when I was
Speaker 1: seeing patients, especially during the real beginning of lockdown, the
Speaker 1: people who were living alone, who were single or you know,
Speaker 1: didn't have anybody else living with them, would say, I'm
Speaker 1: so lonely, and I don't want to reach out to
Speaker 1: my friends who are married or have kids, who are
Speaker 1: living with families or you know, other people because they
Speaker 1: have so much on their plates. They're juggling so much.
Speaker 1: I don't want to bother them. And then I would
Speaker 1: have sessions with those people who were married with kids
Speaker 1: or whatever, and they would say, I don't know why
Speaker 1: my friends aren't calling me. I don't know where they are,
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened to them, and you know,
Speaker 1: they're like, I just I need to talk to someone
Speaker 1: who's not in my family, like I miss my friendships.
Speaker 1: And so a PSA to all the single people out there,
Speaker 1: which I which I put out widely at the time,
Speaker 1: and I and I hope people still listen to this
Speaker 1: is please don't make assumptions about who wants to hear
Speaker 1: from you and who doesn't want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: So when these people started reaching out to their friends,
Speaker 1: who you know, were busy with families, those friends were
Speaker 1: so relieved. They said, I missed you. Tell me what's
Speaker 1: going on. You know, nothing's going on here. It's the
Speaker 1: same old, same old with you know, the partner or
Speaker 1: the kids or whatever. And they're really they really miss
Speaker 1: those friendships. And so I think that loneliness can distort,
Speaker 1: and it can can cause people to make assumptions and
Speaker 1: then start isolating even more, and that just exacerbates the loneliness.
Speaker 1: Such good advice, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's got There's one
Speaker 1: other aspect of this I want to bring up, and
Speaker 1: it's a city one in a way. But it's about
Speaker 1: how we connect and how we communicate these days, which
Speaker 1: is electronically. And people know this, but they always forget
Speaker 1: it that there is no tonality in electronic communication. What
Speaker 1: you intended is not necessarily that's true in any communication,
Speaker 1: but certainly in electronic communication, what you intended is not
Speaker 1: necessarily what the recipient of that message is going to read. So,
Speaker 1: for example, you might think of your friend and think,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I haven't seen them for so long.
Speaker 1: When you write them and you go, I haven't seen
Speaker 1: you in four weeks, I haven't spoken to you in
Speaker 1: four weeks, and you're thinking. You're saying that with a smile,
Speaker 1: and now you're thinking of them. They might read that
Speaker 1: as I haven't seen you in four weeks as accusatory,
Speaker 1: and that happens all the time. Electronic communications because of
Speaker 1: the lack of tonality, get misinterpreted all the time. And
Speaker 1: what I say to people, I say this, I say,
Speaker 1: first of all, use an emoji and a smiley face
Speaker 1: after things people say really am like, yes, twelve years
Speaker 1: of schooling, this is what I happened, elogi. But it's
Speaker 1: really useful. And the smiley face because it's clear that
Speaker 1: you mean that loving me, and it makes a difference.
Speaker 1: And if you think, no, they'll get it, No, they
Speaker 1: won't because if they just stub their toe before they
Speaker 1: got that message, they're not going to read it that way.
Speaker 1: Even if they know that you care about them, they're
Speaker 1: going to read it as accusatory and they'll go, you know,
Speaker 1: screw you. There's a story, and maybe you should talk
Speaker 1: to someone in my book where one of the stories
Speaker 1: that I share is this young woman in her twenties
Speaker 1: who's dating and she keeps dating the wrong men. She
Speaker 1: keeps like hooking up with the wrong guys, and then
Speaker 1: she starts hooking up with someone from the waiting room.
Speaker 1: Not in the waiting room, but they meet in the
Speaker 1: waiting room. It did not help soap office. And at
Speaker 1: one point she's telling me about something that happened with
Speaker 1: this guy that she liked, and she's got her thumbs
Speaker 1: in the air like this. She's like, and then I said,
Speaker 1: and then he said, and then I said, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what is she doing? And then I realized. I said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute. You had this conversation on text and
Speaker 1: she said yeah. And then I tried to explain to
Speaker 1: her that you can't read body language, you can't feel
Speaker 1: sort of the energy in the room, and she said,
Speaker 1: oh no, no no. We also used emojis. And so while
Speaker 1: I agree with Guy's advice about, you know, the emoji,
Speaker 1: I strongly encourage people to actually pick up a phone.
Speaker 1: I think it's so important that we really lose an
Speaker 1: entire dimension. It's why before the pandemic, a colleague had
Speaker 1: said that doing therapy online was like doing therapy with
Speaker 1: a condomant, because because it's just there's no substitute for
Speaker 1: the what it feels like to be in the same
Speaker 1: physical space as another human being. There's just nothing that
Speaker 1: can replace that. And I think we've all noticed that
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. Finally people have said, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: there really is a difference. And so I hope that
Speaker 1: people take with them from that the idea that maybe
Speaker 1: I should call my friends sometimes, maybe I should FaceTime
Speaker 1: them when I you know, until it's safe, and then
Speaker 1: maybe when it is safe, we should actually get together
Speaker 1: in person, because an entire dimension of the relationship is
Speaker 1: lost if you don't do that. Absolutely. So, yeah, my
Speaker 1: faces are not a panacea that that's true, but you
Speaker 1: know you is there is there can we reverse what
Speaker 1: you said? Are not reverse? But but are there any
Speaker 1: potential benefits of doing it online versus in person? As
Speaker 1: you know, you talked about the disadvantages, but are there
Speaker 1: any context in which it actually could be better online?
Speaker 1: I would say, we have this couple on for season two.
Speaker 1: By couple, I mean mother daughter couple, And without giving
Speaker 1: away any spoilers, here, guys looking at me like, wait,
Speaker 1: don't tell them. We're not giving away anything that happens
Speaker 1: in that episode. In very general terms, the mother has
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble. So this is like a grown
Speaker 1: daughter and her mother, and they have a long history
Speaker 1: of difficulty, and the mother, when she actually sits back
Speaker 1: and reflects, can give her daughter exactly the kind of
Speaker 1: mirroring and understanding and compassion that the daughter needs. But
Speaker 1: in the moment, the mother feels so accused by the daughter,
Speaker 1: she feels so wounded. She hears the daughter's requests as judgment,
Speaker 1: and so then she defends herself. She sets up this
Speaker 1: entire defense, and the daughter feels completely unseen, unheard, uncared about.
Speaker 1: And so I think in that case, that's a great example.
Speaker 1: And when you hear the episode, there's much more to it, obviously,
Speaker 1: But when you hear the episode and you see the
Speaker 1: homework and how well that worked out, you can see
Speaker 1: that the homework we gave them had to do with
Speaker 1: the mother being able to write something to the daughter
Speaker 1: so that it was reflected on, it was digested, it
Speaker 1: was thought through, and she wasn't setting up her defense
Speaker 1: in that so first we had her right, I think,
Speaker 1: like the defense right, here's the defense, and then we
Speaker 1: had her not send that part and write the rest
Speaker 1: of it. And in season one there's an episode it's
Speaker 1: called Mike's Messy Affair, and it's about this guy who
Speaker 1: had an affair while his wife was pregnant with their
Speaker 1: second child and then told her or it was discovered,
Speaker 1: I guess. And did he tell her I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I think he told her a few weeks after. He
Speaker 1: told her a few weeks after they had the baby.
Speaker 1: And he comes off in the beginning, is very unempathic,
Speaker 1: very unsympathetic to his wife and what had happened. And
Speaker 1: we do an exercise in that episode of perspective taking,
Speaker 1: and it takes a lot to get him there, but
Speaker 1: he gets there, and it's a really beautiful shift that
Speaker 1: he makes from this person who seems like completely unopened
Speaker 1: because of his shame and his guilt, to considering how
Speaker 1: much damage he has caused, to really being able to
Speaker 1: take her perspective and tell the story entirely from her perspective.
Speaker 1: And so we did something similar with him where we
Speaker 1: had him write something that included all the stuff that
Speaker 1: we don't want him to say to her, but that
Speaker 1: he needs for himself. So that he doesn't just drown
Speaker 1: in shame. And then we had him take that part out,
Speaker 1: and what he did in the homework was he didn't
Speaker 1: even do that part because he said I didn't need to.
Speaker 1: After that session, I felt like I understood it and
Speaker 1: I got it was very cathartic, and I didn't even
Speaker 1: need to write that part down and discard it. I
Speaker 1: had already done that in the session with you, and
Speaker 1: we were just so proud of him. I can tell you,
Speaker 1: Scott in my practice, and I've also written an article
Speaker 1: I think for Today about it, and I think the
Speaker 1: article was like why some couples should fight via email
Speaker 1: we'll text, And I think that that is useful for
Speaker 1: couples who get too inflamed too quickly. When it goes
Speaker 1: from zero to name calling with them to sentences. Then
Speaker 1: those are not you know, they often they just cannot
Speaker 1: argue and it's going to take them. Yes, we can
Speaker 1: teach them some tools, it will take them a while
Speaker 1: to really use them because one will use it once,
Speaker 1: the other won't, so they'll stop and the the other one
Speaker 1: do it once they didn't the other won't. I mean,
Speaker 1: it just it's it's it's difficult it takes a while
Speaker 1: to get the couples there, but when you can, and
Speaker 1: I say that the whole rule is you write what
Speaker 1: you write, you wait one minute, and then you read it,
Speaker 1: and then you make sure that you modify it so
Speaker 1: it's easier for the other person to hear. You cannot
Speaker 1: take back what you say and do that, but you
Speaker 1: can in writing. And I think so for some people
Speaker 1: who can you know, have a little bit of a
Speaker 1: hair trigger temper, or who just whose relationship and who's
Speaker 1: just a style of communication it's really combustible. It can
Speaker 1: be useful to use you know, online text emails, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, but really to slow things down, we always
Speaker 1: say the couples, before you speak, ask yourself, how will
Speaker 1: what I'm about to say be received by the other person?
Speaker 1: How will it land on that? And some people cannot
Speaker 1: do that in the moment, and that's where stepping back
Speaker 1: and reflecting and writing something down and making sure that
Speaker 1: it's something that will land on them in a way
Speaker 1: that will be useful to the two of you. That's
Speaker 1: a situation where that works. In general, we like face
Speaker 1: to face communication, but again, like I was saying, until
Speaker 1: a couple is there, sometimes that's very helpful. How can
Speaker 1: you guys apply these techniques to heal the world not
Speaker 1: just individuals, because you know there's the political discourse in
Speaker 1: this country in America. Is you hear a lot of
Speaker 1: this just name call it. I mean, what you all
Speaker 1: are describing is like, I'm a good That sounds like
Speaker 1: a lot of the public discourse we're having right now
Speaker 1: in politics and a lot of things that people don't
Speaker 1: agree with each other. Do you think we can apply
Speaker 1: some of these tools more large to kind of help
Speaker 1: even groups heal that are groups that view each other
Speaker 1: as the group out group. Yes, I mean I think,
Speaker 1: and I've spoken about this and I've written about this,
Speaker 1: but I think that we both think, and we both
Speaker 1: said on the show numerous times to numerous people, that
Speaker 1: your goal here, especially when we have two people on
Speaker 1: it's a couple of other daughter or whatever the combination,
Speaker 1: your goal is to understand the other person, not to
Speaker 1: prepare your rebuttal, not to figure out how you can,
Speaker 1: you know, respond, but to understand them. See arguments as
Speaker 1: having two parts. In the first part, there's the discovery stage.
Speaker 1: All you're trying to do is understand the other person,
Speaker 1: and that means you're not making any statements, You're just
Speaker 1: asking questions. And I think if people did that, you know,
Speaker 1: if people on two sides of the political divide, for example,
Speaker 1: decided that rather than just arguing their points, which I
Speaker 1: assure you will be an argument that's not going to
Speaker 1: yield any new information for either of them because they've
Speaker 1: heard it before, They've said it before thousand times. If
Speaker 1: they really just became curious about why does this person
Speaker 1: think this, why do they believe this? Let me ask them,
Speaker 1: Let me ask them how they feel about it, what
Speaker 1: they think about it, where else that resonates in their lives,
Speaker 1: how long they've thought it, What is that based on
Speaker 1: how they feel about those things? What are the values
Speaker 1: that it? If they ask a lot of questions, then
Speaker 1: you will find that there's much more overlap because a
Speaker 1: lot of the times when the people get to the
Speaker 1: value is actually their values their goals. Even if, for example,
Speaker 1: wanting America to be the best country it can be,
Speaker 1: or wanting any country to be the best country it
Speaker 1: can be, or whatever, there's overlap and where you want
Speaker 1: to get to. Ultimately you're just disagreeing about the journey,
Speaker 1: But even that understanding would do a lot to bridge
Speaker 1: some of the divides that we have. And I think
Speaker 1: what you're saying, Guy about curiosity is key, and what
Speaker 1: we're trying to do on the podcast is model curiosity.
Speaker 1: So you can see sometimes at the beginning we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily agree with what someone is telling us. In fact,
Speaker 1: we see it sometimes is quite distorted, but we're not
Speaker 1: saying uh uh ah, that's really distorted at least in
Speaker 1: the first half of the show. Right later we'll kind
Speaker 1: of help them to ask themselves some of these questions,
Speaker 1: but we're modeling that curiosity and we're asking the questions.
Speaker 1: And so it's really about asking the right questions from
Speaker 1: a genuine place of curiosity, not from a place of gatcha,
Speaker 1: not from a place of let me show you, let
Speaker 1: me try to catch you in some inconsistency, but to say,
Speaker 1: I'm really curious about this. I really want to understand
Speaker 1: more about why you think that, or where that thought,
Speaker 1: where that belief comes from. Tell me more about that.
Speaker 1: And if you just keep going through that process with them,
Speaker 1: you're going to learn so much about the person and
Speaker 1: find those places of commonality even if you don't see
Speaker 1: it at first. And then they're going to start ask
Speaker 1: getting curious about themselves. A lot of times people come
Speaker 1: in and they're not that curious about themselves. They're very
Speaker 1: curious about other people, like why does my husband do this?
Speaker 1: I don't understand why he does this? And we want
Speaker 1: them to get curious about Let's get curious about you
Speaker 1: and what happens with you. And the more curious you
Speaker 1: get about yourself, the more capacity you'll have to be
Speaker 1: curious about someone else. Yeah, I'm just imagining like bringing
Speaker 1: in like Antifa and Proud Boys in the same room
Speaker 1: and having them practice these techniques with each other, Like
Speaker 1: is that possible? Like what I'm taking the most extreme example,
Speaker 1: because when you it's easier said than done. Sometimes, when
Speaker 1: when someone feels like their whole identity is thread end
Speaker 1: and that there's a fundamental conflict, not just in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, there's something a deeper conflict in terms
Speaker 1: of like, well, this person's actually against me because of
Speaker 1: the car of my skin or against me because of
Speaker 1: my identity, you know. And so when when when emotions
Speaker 1: are turbo charged, how do we lower the temperature? I
Speaker 1: think it's it's really tricky territory. And I love what
Speaker 1: you all are saying, you know, but you understand what
Speaker 1: I'm saying to you. Yeah, And I think that you
Speaker 1: have a very very good point. But I think even
Speaker 1: within what you said, right, I mean, if you had
Speaker 1: Proud Boys and Antifa come in, then they would each
Speaker 1: agree from a very different perspective. They would each agree
Speaker 1: that what they're doing is trying to advance the nature
Speaker 1: of this country or trying to really make sure that
Speaker 1: their identity doesn't get erased or dismissed. Both sides feel
Speaker 1: that their identity is being threatened now for very different reasons,
Speaker 1: in very different ways, and there's very big differences between them.
Speaker 1: But even if both people could come to a recognition
Speaker 1: that that's what you're both really kind of fighting about,
Speaker 1: that's something you actually share, then it starts to create
Speaker 1: some bonds between them, some connective tissue that can be
Speaker 1: built upon. But you have to find those commonalities even
Speaker 1: in the passion of what the purpose is that you're
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish, And sometimes you can have the same
Speaker 1: purpose and the same passion trying to get there in
Speaker 1: different ways. Are trying to get someone slightly different but
Speaker 1: with the same purpose intended And seeing that, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: they're like me, but just in a different way, a
Speaker 1: very very different way. That can start to get people
Speaker 1: to like, huh, maybe we do have some things in common.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're not entirely one hundred and eighty percent different.
Speaker 1: And I think too, that when an idea becomes an identity,
Speaker 1: that usually stems from somebody feeling like nobody really saw them,
Speaker 1: nobody really understood them, and so the idea stands in
Speaker 1: for the identity. So you're going to see me because
Speaker 1: I have this idea, and I'm going to have all
Speaker 1: these people around me who share this idea, and that's
Speaker 1: how I'm going to be seen. And I think that
Speaker 1: ultimately what people want is they want people to to
Speaker 1: value them, to see them, to hear them. And sometimes
Speaker 1: if they can be seen or heard or valued in
Speaker 1: a different way, the idea becomes less important to them,
Speaker 1: It becomes it becomes less entwined with their identity. And
Speaker 1: I think some of that has to do with self
Speaker 1: compassion as well, because I think that when you have
Speaker 1: compassion for yourself, you have more compassion for others. And
Speaker 1: a lot of people who get very wrapped up in
Speaker 1: a particular idea don't like themselves very much. They don't
Speaker 1: feel like they have a lot to offer except for
Speaker 1: this one cause or this one idea. So I think
Speaker 1: it's really important to say, well, what else is going on?
Speaker 1: Where were they not seen or heard? You know? How
Speaker 1: do they feel about themselves? Wow? That's really profound. Were
Speaker 1: you always have this way of cutting right to the
Speaker 1: heart of a matter? And you know, just really really insightful.
Speaker 1: You know, my own orientation in psychology, you know that
Speaker 1: is a humanistic orientation, so, you know, a big fan
Speaker 1: of like Carl Rogers, and the notion of unconditional positive regard,
Speaker 1: which I don't think is entirely different from some of
Speaker 1: the aproach you know, active listening approach that Carl Rogers
Speaker 1: talked about as well. I think is relevant here to
Speaker 1: the things you both are saying in your own episodes.
Speaker 1: How do you practice unconditional positive regarded and try not
Speaker 1: to judge? Like I'll give you an example of listening
Speaker 1: to Mike's messy affair, you know, I mean he's talking
Speaker 1: over here talking about having an affair with his wife
Speaker 1: when his wife is pregnant and then leaving her for
Speaker 1: another woman weeks after the baby is born. How do
Speaker 1: you both just like listen to that and be like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm curious, that's very interesting, very you know, how do
Speaker 1: you practice that in you know, in your own your
Speaker 1: goal as a therapist is to understand the person, and
Speaker 1: the only way you can do that is to really
Speaker 1: have empathy for them, is to really try and get
Speaker 1: their perspective and see the world from their perspective. And
Speaker 1: I find people sometime said to me like, well, what
Speaker 1: if you have to work with somebody who you don't
Speaker 1: like Mike. You know, it's been so rare over my
Speaker 1: career really disliked someone, because when you really try and
Speaker 1: understand someone, when you really try and see the world
Speaker 1: through their eyes, you can't help but liking them because
Speaker 1: you get them in a certain way, and that's your job.
Speaker 1: And I think that once you try and see the
Speaker 1: world through their eyes, there's no judgment in what that
Speaker 1: perception is. It's just how they see the world. Once
Speaker 1: you understand it, then you can start to dismantle some
Speaker 1: of the roadblocks or to challenge some of the systems
Speaker 1: and the beliefs that things are based upon. But you
Speaker 1: do that from the place of you get how they feel,
Speaker 1: and you get how they think and you get why
Speaker 1: in part they feel and think those ways, and that
Speaker 1: engenders a certain fondness for the other person. Understanding always
Speaker 1: brings people closer. In a therapist, when we try and
Speaker 1: understand people, you know, that has a humanist assumption embedded
Speaker 1: baked in, and that is that you will be able
Speaker 1: to understand them because they're human, that you will be
Speaker 1: able to get their perspective, and you will be able
Speaker 1: to see the world through their eyes, because that's the
Speaker 1: humanist assumption there, that we can all that we all
Speaker 1: share that basic DNA. Yes, yes, you said about common
Speaker 1: find the common ground. You know, they also to find
Speaker 1: the common humanity, you know, find the common basic needs. Yeah, sorry, worry,
Speaker 1: I saw you were about to talk, but I got excited. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I was excited too, because I think that's exactly what
Speaker 1: we're trying to do. And one of the things I
Speaker 1: think that people could take away from the podcast as
Speaker 1: well is that humanistic perspective in their own relationships. So
Speaker 1: a lot of times we have forgotten that the other
Speaker 1: person that we're dealing with is a struggling human being,
Speaker 1: and we get very rigid in our ideas about them.
Speaker 1: We get very rigid in our responses to them, and
Speaker 1: what we're trying to model these in these episodes is
Speaker 1: that no matter what the other person is coming at
Speaker 1: you with, that they're doing it for a reason. Usually
Speaker 1: it's too psychological. We protect themselves and we forget about
Speaker 1: that that there's some struggle going on for them that
Speaker 1: is making them do or act or say, and you know,
Speaker 1: the things in a certain way we have. We have
Speaker 1: sort of the flip side of the Mike's Messi Affair
Speaker 1: episode in season one where a man comes to us
Speaker 1: because his wife had an affair and he wants the
Speaker 1: marriage to work, and at first she comes back to
Speaker 1: him and says, I want the marriage to work, But
Speaker 1: she comes back really for reasons that don't seem strong
Speaker 1: enough to us, to us to us, yes, he's very
Speaker 1: much in denial. And you know, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where you know, we might say, Wow, this guy
Speaker 1: really can't see it. He really cannot see what's going
Speaker 1: on here. And it's so hard to kind of pierce
Speaker 1: the veil of denial with him because we know we're
Speaker 1: going to hurt him when we do. We know that
Speaker 1: that is going to cause him immense pain. But we
Speaker 1: think it's going to cause him more pain to live
Speaker 1: in this fantasy world, and then you know, really really
Speaker 1: get hurt the longer he remains in the fantasy world.
Speaker 1: And I think again that's sort of the flip side
Speaker 1: of how do you talk to somebody knowing that they
Speaker 1: can't quite see something that they really really need to
Speaker 1: see and in this case, it's really going to hurt
Speaker 1: them when they see it. Is there, you know, just
Speaker 1: a final parting words? Or are there any other things
Speaker 1: you hope that listeners get from listening to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I hope that they get a sense of being kinder
Speaker 1: to themselves for who they are, that maybe they won't
Speaker 1: be so hard on themselves. You know, when I give talks,
Speaker 1: I always say to people, who is the person that
Speaker 1: you talk to most in the course of your life?
Speaker 1: And I'll say from the stage and I'll say show
Speaker 1: of hands, right, so I'll say, you know, is it
Speaker 1: your partner, lots of hands? Is it your sibling, is
Speaker 1: it your best friend? Is it your parents? Is it
Speaker 1: your adult child? Who's the person that you talk to
Speaker 1: most in the course of your life? Lots of hands
Speaker 1: for those, but the person that we talk to most
Speaker 1: in the course of our lives is ourselves, and what
Speaker 1: we say to ourselves isn't always kind or true or useful.
Speaker 1: And I had a therapy client who was so self
Speaker 1: critical and did not realize it. And I said to her, listen,
Speaker 1: I want you to go home and write down everything
Speaker 1: that you say to yourself over the course of a
Speaker 1: few days, and then come back and we'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: And so she comes back the next week. She's dutifully
Speaker 1: done the assignment. It's all in her phone. She starts
Speaker 1: to read it and she says, I can't even read this.
Speaker 1: I am such a bully to myself. And they were
Speaker 1: little things like she made a typo in an email,
Speaker 1: and she said to herself, you're so stupid. We don't
Speaker 1: even realize that we're talking to ourselves that way. She
Speaker 1: passed her reflection in a mirror and she said, God,
Speaker 1: you look terrible, right, And she, of course did not
Speaker 1: look terrible. We wouldn't say that to a friend, not
Speaker 1: because we're trying to sugarcoat or be kind to her friend.
Speaker 1: We just literally would not think our friend was stupid
Speaker 1: for making a typo or look terrible the way that
Speaker 1: she had looked that day. And so I think that
Speaker 1: it's really important that we ask ourselves, is it kind?
Speaker 1: Is it true? Is it useful? And one of the
Speaker 1: things we hope that our podcast does is to help
Speaker 1: people to be a little more self compassionate with themselves.
Speaker 1: For me, I mean, I'll tell you this, when I
Speaker 1: always knew I wanted to become a psychologist. And when
Speaker 1: people say, well, why did you choose psychology? My response
Speaker 1: is always why would you not? I mean, you have
Speaker 1: a mind, you have feelings, you have thoughts. That's what
Speaker 1: psychology is. It applies to everyone. How could you possibly
Speaker 1: not be interested in what's going on up there? How
Speaker 1: could you not be interested in what motivates you, what
Speaker 1: allows you to feel the way you do, what blocks you?
Speaker 1: What stimis you, what advances you? How is that not
Speaker 1: fascinating you? That's you, and it's your relationships? How are
Speaker 1: you not captivated? And because to me it was so
Speaker 1: obvious that, God, this is the most fascinating thing. Everyone
Speaker 1: should be able to connect to it. And clearly not
Speaker 1: everyone chooses to become a therapist or a psychologist or
Speaker 1: someone who deals with the mind. But I hope that
Speaker 1: listening to our podcast will make people curious about their
Speaker 1: own minds will make them interested in like maybe I
Speaker 1: need to get under the hood just a bit and
Speaker 1: think it just a bit. And because people don't, people
Speaker 1: don't actually even ask themselves questions sometimes that just are
Speaker 1: so much of them. They just do what they do.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's not thought through, it's not mindful,
Speaker 1: and it's also they don't understand that there are actually
Speaker 1: we know so much more now than we did fifty
Speaker 1: years ago, one hundred years ago. There's actually a science
Speaker 1: there that can be utilized to advance your knowledge, to
Speaker 1: increase your emotional health, to increase your functioning, to increase
Speaker 1: everything that you do, your happiness, your life satisfaction. So
Speaker 1: to me, it gets people interested in themselves, in why
Speaker 1: they do the way they do, and in their relationships,
Speaker 1: that would be great. And I would say to that,
Speaker 1: I hope that it helps people to ask the right questions,
Speaker 1: the important questions. So when we talk about getting people
Speaker 1: to focus on themselves, we don't mean in a way
Speaker 1: that is navel gazing. We mean in a way that
Speaker 1: is really open and curious, and they're asking the questions
Speaker 1: that they have been afraid to ask but need to ask.
Speaker 1: Love it. Thanks both of you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on the Psychology Podcast. This was a really real nice
Speaker 1: melding of the psychology nerds minds. I mean, you're on
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast, like, and we all three of us
Speaker 1: have this unabiding passion for the human mind, but making
Speaker 1: the human mind heal it, heal it as well, not
Speaker 1: just understand it, right, Like, we're both interested in both
Speaker 1: of those dualities. So it was a real treat for
Speaker 1: me to have you on. And I just want to
Speaker 1: congratulate you again on the success of your show and
Speaker 1: I wish it well. Thank you, Scot. We love your podcast.
Speaker 1: I think it's so great because you know, you've been
Speaker 1: doing this way longer than us sometimes of podcasting and
Speaker 1: bringing this science and bringing the knowledge to so many people,
Speaker 1: and I think you do such an important thing by
Speaker 1: doing that. So it's an honor for me and for
Speaker 1: us to be on the podcasting too and to help
Speaker 1: you with that mission. Yeah, well, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having us. We love these conversations and we listen
Speaker 1: every week, so thank you for having us. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we could make it happen. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to react in some way to something you heard, I
Speaker 1: encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. That's the Psychology podcast dot com. Also,
Speaker 1: if you'd prefer a completely ad free experience, you can
Speaker 1: join us at Patreon dot com slash psych Podcast. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being such a great supporter of the show, and
Speaker 1: tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity.