Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, John, I am robot Goldstein. I will be
Speaker 1: your robot medical assistant. Pass me the scalpel to chat.
Speaker 1: Would you would you really? Would you love to continue
Speaker 1: to chat with me?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: How many people are you able to be that honest with.
Speaker 3: Just you?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's kind of special, right, I know that
Speaker 1: is a good point. Do you see it's a very
Speaker 1: special bond? Yea from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and
Speaker 1: this is Heavyweight Today episode Rachel and John. Right after
Speaker 1: the break.
Speaker 4: You ready to start? I'm ready to start.
Speaker 5: You're sitting down?
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, your eyes closed. Anything you see where there's
Speaker 4: some feelings, that's what we're looking for.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: This is a therapist named Alvin in session with a
Speaker 1: patient named Ted. What are you feeling?
Speaker 4: Can you describe it? Like it's happening right now, right now.
Speaker 1: The session was recorded as a part of an educational
Speaker 1: psychotherapy video series. In the session, Alvin is helping Ted
Speaker 1: relive a memory. The time is domineering father in law
Speaker 1: was rude to his wife.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he's all dressed up.
Speaker 5: Hi, Jenny, Yeah, oh there is and.
Speaker 3: He's Yeah, there's a formal thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, good to see we have to
Speaker 1: It's like the meanute. We talk to each other, our
Speaker 1: voices drop, yeah, hi, how are you? Alvin's eyes are
Speaker 1: shut tight. His method is to try to will himself
Speaker 1: into the patient's skin to feel what the patient is feeling.
Speaker 5: I can do this better than you.
Speaker 1: Watch me. Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna put my arms around you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring you kind of clothes.
Speaker 4: I'm doing better than you. Huh yeah good.
Speaker 1: Alvin does voices and role plays, and at times the
Speaker 1: session feels like avant garde improv It's playful and honestly
Speaker 1: kind of bizarre. But the point of it all is
Speaker 1: to help the patient rehearse behavior in the office that
Speaker 1: he can then apply in real life. Toucher toucher, Oh yeah, Holder.
Speaker 3: And Jenny like so much.
Speaker 1: By the end of the session, Alvin has turned ted
Speaker 1: a meek, buttoned up patient into someone capable of expressing
Speaker 1: himself emotionally. Gonna be this way with Jenny because you
Speaker 1: rehearsed it, got it.
Speaker 3: I'm ready.
Speaker 2: We had this ability within us to become a whole
Speaker 2: new person.
Speaker 1: Alvin died in twenty fourteen, but this is Howard, a
Speaker 1: psychotherapist and one of Alvin's disciples. Howard runs Alvin's website
Speaker 1: and publishes his books. Are you talking a little hyperbolically
Speaker 1: when you say a whole new person?
Speaker 2: No, it is that radical topathon. It's to become a
Speaker 2: whole new person the term you use as an optimal person,
Speaker 2: and to discover that within yourself.
Speaker 1: According to Alvin, once you've discovered this optimal personhood, you
Speaker 1: can shake off what others want and live on your
Speaker 1: own terms.
Speaker 2: It changed my life direction.
Speaker 1: And for these kinds of radical results, Alvin was given
Speaker 1: a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association. One
Speaker 1: psychology textbook even goes so far as to describe Alvin
Speaker 1: as being quote as important as Freud. But this isn't
Speaker 1: a story about Alvin's professional life, his life inside the office.
Speaker 1: This is a story about Alvin's real life.
Speaker 5: He insisted, I run away.
Speaker 1: This is Rachel, Alvin's daughter, and I.
Speaker 5: Did, How old were you? I was in grade five?
Speaker 1: The year was nineteen seventy. Alvin and Rachel's mom had
Speaker 1: been locked in an ugly custody battle for eight years.
Speaker 1: Rachel's mom was poor and struggled with depression. Rachel really
Speaker 1: wanted to live with her dad, so when Alvin suggested
Speaker 1: she run away from Judy in Denver to his house
Speaker 1: in Ohio, Rachel didn't pack a bag, She didn't say
Speaker 1: goodbye to anyone. She just left.
Speaker 6: Like he set up this whole thing with his lawyer,
Speaker 6: and I just felt like I needed to do with
Speaker 6: my dad. And the lawyer told me and this was
Speaker 6: the right thing. I think, I said, I was going
Speaker 6: to the lie and somehow, I don't remember how I
Speaker 6: got to the lawyer's office, and then they took me
Speaker 6: to the airport and put me on the plane and
Speaker 6: I left.
Speaker 1: Alvin had gotten remarried to a woman with two kids,
Speaker 1: and Rachel loved feeling like she was a part of
Speaker 1: this happy family. There were dogs to play with and
Speaker 1: bikes to ride, and yet this other feeling would often
Speaker 1: creep in.
Speaker 6: I miss my mom, I miss my friends, I miss
Speaker 6: my cat. But I could never ever ever say that
Speaker 6: out loud to anybody.
Speaker 1: And there was someone else Rachel missed, missed most of all.
Speaker 4: She told us she was going to the library, and
Speaker 4: then she never came back.
Speaker 1: This is Rachel's brother John. He's two and a half
Speaker 1: years younger than Rachel and only has flashes of early
Speaker 1: childhood memory About Alvin. He recalls doing father's son things
Speaker 1: that it'd make perfect sense if the son was an adult,
Speaker 1: things like lifting weights together and smoking.
Speaker 4: He was a pipe smoker. He bought me my own
Speaker 4: little cherrywood pipe, and you know, as a four year old,
Speaker 4: he actually had me smoking, you know, tobacco in the
Speaker 4: pipe with him.
Speaker 1: It was as though Alvin couldn't distinguish between adults and children,
Speaker 1: which was why he saw John's closeness with his mom
Speaker 1: not as a child's natural maternal attachment, but rather as
Speaker 1: a personal slight and so Alvin ever asked John to
Speaker 1: run away. John was left behind in Denver with Judy.
Speaker 4: I think in his mind, I just, you know, was
Speaker 4: more a mama's boy and a chip off Judy's block,
Speaker 4: and I think he sort of gave up on me,
Speaker 4: and he was really focused on Rachel.
Speaker 1: And as the final custody hearing approached, Alvin's focus on
Speaker 1: Rachel and intensified. He wanted to prove to the court
Speaker 1: that Rachel was better off with him, So he had
Speaker 1: about a half dozen social workers and psychologists offtfare assessments,
Speaker 1: Rachel was interviewed, and Alvin's new family observed. None of
Speaker 1: the experts spoke to Judy, and the plan worked. In
Speaker 1: the autumn of nineteen seventy, a judge ruled that Rachel
Speaker 1: would be allowed to stay in Ohio with al for good,
Speaker 1: but John would remain in Denver with Judy.
Speaker 5: And we never lived together again.
Speaker 6: When you have a sibling who is just a critical
Speaker 6: part of your family and then you're separated from them,
Speaker 6: it's a wound.
Speaker 1: How uncommon was an arrangement like that?
Speaker 6: Extreme? Yeah, very very uncommon. Kids are not split up.
Speaker 4: We each grew up alone. I missed her through my
Speaker 4: my whole childhood. I missed her a lot. I mean,
Speaker 4: we were so close when we were young, and you know,
Speaker 4: she was the big sister who through all of that
Speaker 4: was looking out for me growing up from then on,
Speaker 4: just me and my mom. Grew up as an only child,
Speaker 4: and my mom just always being in pain, and she
Speaker 4: never was able to enjoy whatever it is we were
Speaker 4: doing at the moment. It was always, Oh, if only
Speaker 4: Rachel were here, we could all be together, and I'd
Speaker 4: be saying, but we're here now.
Speaker 1: When he turned thirteen, John invited Rachel to his bar Mitzvah,
Speaker 1: but Alvin wouldn't let her go. Rachel sent a poem instead.
Speaker 4: It had to do with a rubber band stretching across
Speaker 4: the distance and connecting us.
Speaker 1: For John, not only did he lose his big sister,
Speaker 1: he also lost his dad. Year after year, John tried
Speaker 1: to re enter Alvin's life, but each time he reached out,
Speaker 1: Alvin rebuked him. One time, as an adolescent, John tried
Speaker 1: scheduling a visit.
Speaker 4: Then he said, well, as long as you guys you
Speaker 4: know me and my mom required any money, any child support,
Speaker 4: there be no visit. And I said, well, it sounds
Speaker 4: like you care more about money than about me, And
Speaker 4: he said, well, I don't want it to just sound
Speaker 4: like that. That's how it is.
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, a few years later, John asked once again if
Speaker 1: he could come visit. By this point, Rachel was eighteen
Speaker 1: and no longer living with Alvin, So when Alvin refused
Speaker 1: John yet again, Rachel told her brother to come visit
Speaker 1: her instead. They hadn't seen each other in eight years.
Speaker 1: Was she the same sister that you remembered?
Speaker 4: No? I mean I knew her as a you know,
Speaker 4: six seven, eight, nine ten year old. Next time I
Speaker 4: saw her, she was an adult.
Speaker 1: In the years since that visit, Rachel and John have
Speaker 1: made a point of staying in each other's lives. They
Speaker 1: talk on the phone, celebrate holidays together, and once a
Speaker 1: year their families all take a trip. But their childhood
Speaker 1: together that's been lost.
Speaker 6: I mean, my daughter certainly watches us and thinks that
Speaker 6: we're more like cousins. She can see the disconnect because
Speaker 6: we did not grow up together.
Speaker 1: John and Rachel still have questions about their childhood, but
Speaker 1: now that their parents are both dead, they have no
Speaker 1: one to ask, so they pass through their separate memories,
Speaker 1: trying to construct a timeline, comparing moments of overlap and
Speaker 1: filling in the blanks to this end. One night, while
Speaker 1: John was visiting Rachel for Thanksgiving, he asked if they
Speaker 1: could go through Alvin's files. Alvin was an obsessive record keeper,
Speaker 1: and after he died, Rachel inherited his papers. She'd never
Speaker 1: really gone through them, keeping them stored away in a
Speaker 1: filing cabinet, but that night she pulled him out, and
Speaker 1: together John and Rachel made a series of disturbing discoveries,
Speaker 1: the first of which was the script.
Speaker 4: The script for me was like, oh my God.
Speaker 1: The script was a lengthy diatribe written by Alvin from
Speaker 1: the point of view of a child, Rachel's point of view.
Speaker 1: In it, Alvin refers to himself as Daddy, Judy, as mother,
Speaker 1: or Judy or simply she. I later asked Rachel to
Speaker 1: read some over the phone, two and.
Speaker 7: Half pages long and small psychologists, writing, Okay, so here
Speaker 7: I go. It's in my good, happy dreams. Custody is changed,
Speaker 7: and I live with Daddy. If I am forced to
Speaker 7: go back and live with mother, it will only be
Speaker 7: till the day I'm fourteen, which apparently was when you
Speaker 7: could de side. When I'm with her, I feel scared
Speaker 7: that I might get tight and angry and cold like Judy.
Speaker 7: She's not a mother, she is a keeper. She makes
Speaker 7: me feel like I'm in a prison. I can't let
Speaker 7: her touch me.
Speaker 1: It was like finding your childhood internal monologue committed to
Speaker 1: paper and written in your father's handwriting. Rachel didn't remember
Speaker 1: seeing the script as a kid, but you remembered saying
Speaker 1: those things, and she remembered thinking them. In one of
Speaker 1: Alvin's many books, a volume entitled The Manual of Optimal Behavior,
Speaker 1: He writes that behavior can be rehearsed and modified quote
Speaker 1: until you are ready and eager to go ahead and
Speaker 1: do what you have rehearsed and modified. Unbeknownst to her,
Speaker 1: Alvin was having Rachel rehearse and modify.
Speaker 4: It was so explicit. There was nothing subtle about it.
Speaker 4: You know, the whole thing was sick.
Speaker 1: The second thing discovered among the files was a letter
Speaker 1: from Rachel to her mom. In it, she begs Judy
Speaker 1: to let her live with Alvin, but there were two copies,
Speaker 1: one written in Rachel's hand and one written in Alvin's.
Speaker 1: Going through the papers, Rachel remembered, other things, how Alvin
Speaker 1: encouraged her not to smile when she was with her mom,
Speaker 1: saying if someone photographed her happy, it could be used
Speaker 1: as evidence against him in court. In every photo from
Speaker 1: that period with her mother, Rachel is wearing a frown.
Speaker 6: That's when I started questioning and started to realize that
Speaker 6: I was coached or brainwashed.
Speaker 1: It made sense. For most of her adult life, Rachel
Speaker 1: had had no memory of loving her mom. It was
Speaker 1: only after her mother's death when she found mother's day
Speaker 1: and birthday card she'd written to Judy when she was
Speaker 1: very small that Rachel realized she had I love you, mommy.
Speaker 1: She'd written I love you so much, but with Al's
Speaker 1: constant coaching, it had all been stamped out. The final
Speaker 1: thing John and Rachel found that night were those psychological
Speaker 1: reports Alvin at Rachel submit to just before the final
Speaker 1: custody hearing. In them, you see Alvin's scripting bear out.
Speaker 1: One report notes that Rachel kept repeating, quote, I want
Speaker 1: to live with my father. He loves me. My mother
Speaker 1: doesn't love me. The report notes that she said this
Speaker 1: with quote grim determination. They also uncovered one particular report
Speaker 1: that night that was longer than any of the others.
Speaker 1: It was the only one that evaluated both John and Rachel,
Speaker 1: and in this it carried the most weight and what
Speaker 1: shocked John and Rachel most of all, my dad.
Speaker 5: Clearly ed.
Speaker 6: Edited it and then she rewrote it with the edits
Speaker 6: and submitted that rewrite.
Speaker 1: Is that ethical as a social work?
Speaker 6: No no, no, no, no, no no no no it's
Speaker 6: not no oh no no no. No one should ever
Speaker 6: let anybody else, especially their client, edit their reports. No,
Speaker 6: it's it's really bad.
Speaker 1: The report was written by a social worker named Joyce.
Speaker 1: Alvin's edits to Joyce's report made the language more emphatic.
Speaker 1: For example, where Joyce had written that Rachel was hesitant
Speaker 1: when it came to judy, Alvin changed it to say
Speaker 1: she was fearful. In another spot, he added that Rachel
Speaker 1: wanted to blot out any memory of ever having been
Speaker 1: away from him.
Speaker 4: Honestly, I mean it was horrifying, you know, just to
Speaker 4: see the detailed notes, to see the edited drafts, the
Speaker 4: crossouts and his handwriting, and then the final version that
Speaker 4: was submitted to the courts with his edits in there,
Speaker 4: like there's no question in what happened.
Speaker 1: The report concludes with a recommendation, the strongest one of
Speaker 1: any report and the only recommendation of its kind.
Speaker 6: She recommended that I live with him, and that my
Speaker 6: brother lived with my mom.
Speaker 1: John and Rachel's separation came down to a decision dictated
Speaker 1: by Alvin and signed off on by Joyce. How was
Speaker 1: Alvin able to exert this kind of power over a
Speaker 1: social worker, someone who was supposed to be an impartial outsider.
Speaker 1: John and Rachel couldn't understand it. But that night, when
Speaker 1: Rachel googled Joyce, she was shocked to realize that Joyce
Speaker 1: had been an impartial outsider at all. Joyce was a
Speaker 1: family friend. Rachel recognized Joyce as the kind, dark haired
Speaker 1: woman whose house she visited as a child. Rachel would
Speaker 1: bring her cello over to play music with Joyce in
Speaker 1: her family, which means that, on top of everything else
Speaker 1: wrong with the report, Joyce should never have been the
Speaker 1: person to write it in the first place.
Speaker 6: She was like the one person in my life as
Speaker 6: a kid who could have said, Hey, I think you're
Speaker 6: coaching her and this isn't right. Why are we going
Speaker 6: to try and split these kids up? She was the
Speaker 6: one who could have said something.
Speaker 4: In nineteen seventy Joyce recommended that my sister go with
Speaker 4: my father and that I go with my mother. And
Speaker 4: that's what happened, and that dictated the course of my life.
Speaker 4: What happened?
Speaker 1: This is the question that's been nagging at John and
Speaker 1: Rachel since they found the report. How could this have happened?
Speaker 1: And so John and Rachel want to find Joyce and
Speaker 1: ask her. What I don't fully understand, though, is what
Speaker 1: I have to offer. Rachel and John are both practicing
Speaker 1: therapists themselves. They're more than capable of posing difficult questions
Speaker 1: and Although I play a mental health semi professional, semi
Speaker 1: convincingly on a podcast, I'm not actually one at all.
Speaker 5: What can I do well?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 6: I have had to advocate for myself my entire life
Speaker 6: from a very young age, and nobody advocated for me
Speaker 6: or my brother, and so if you could help me
Speaker 6: with this, it would be a healing piece for me
Speaker 6: that somebody else advocated for me.
Speaker 1: After the break in search of Joyce, I find Joyce
Speaker 1: the social workers facebook and email address right away, and
Speaker 1: I message to ask if she'd be willing to speak
Speaker 1: with John and Rachel about their parents' custody battle. I
Speaker 1: don't hear back for several weeks, and during this time,
Speaker 1: my thoughts keep returning to Alvin and the video of
Speaker 1: his session with Ted, the meek, buttoned up patient.
Speaker 4: Toucher toucher oh Jack.
Speaker 1: Throughout, Alvin tries to help Ted release his bottled up feelings.
Speaker 5: I can do this better than you.
Speaker 4: Watch me.
Speaker 1: Okay, right, okay, okay.
Speaker 4: What's happening inside me?
Speaker 1: Right now?
Speaker 4: Over my chest?
Speaker 1: I'm having a who It felt like a brand of
Speaker 1: extreme empathy in the first viewing, now feels like something else.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put my arms around you.
Speaker 4: I'm doing better than you. Huh yeah.
Speaker 1: Now it feels as though Alvin is scripting the outcome.
Speaker 4: If you want to cry, go ahead, good, it's okay,
Speaker 4: go on.
Speaker 1: At one point, Alvin tells Ted to cry.
Speaker 4: Ted, it's okay, go ahead, cry, go it's all right.
Speaker 1: Ted is not anywhere close to crying.
Speaker 5: Ted, you're starting to cry.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, let yourself, let yourself go on. It's all right,
Speaker 1: go on, do it. Ted is not starting to cry,
Speaker 1: but Alvin insists, Ted, you're on the verge of crying.
Speaker 8: Do it.
Speaker 2: No, cry, go.
Speaker 1: Ahead, And then a tear appears in the corner of
Speaker 1: Ted's eye. It rolls down his cheek. It's as though
Speaker 1: Alvin has conjured it into being through sheer force of
Speaker 1: his own will.
Speaker 5: Good for you, Good for you, great, great, okay now.
Speaker 1: The video is a part of a series produced by
Speaker 1: the American Psychological Association intended to showcase prestigious psychologists in session.
Speaker 1: The way the series works is that, for privacy reasons,
Speaker 1: the patients are portrayed by actors. As the credits were,
Speaker 1: I learned that while Alvin the therapist is Alvin the therapist,
Speaker 1: Ted the patient is actually Bob the actor.
Speaker 9: It was a quick shoot. There wasn't a rehearsal per se.
Speaker 9: We just kind of went in and improvised.
Speaker 1: This is Bob, and performance wise, Bob is done at all.
Speaker 9: Chuggled swords, cracked whips, eaten fire. I've done for ten years.
Speaker 9: I did a stage hypnosis show.
Speaker 1: Bob is a regular renaissance man in that he also
Speaker 1: worked at a renaissance fair. When Bob showed up to
Speaker 1: film that day, he was asked to improvise some sort
Speaker 1: of marital problem that Alvin could help solve by bringing
Speaker 1: his method to bear. I asked Bob if he found
Speaker 1: Alvin's behavior domineering, but Bob doesn't recall much. There is
Speaker 1: one thing, though, that Bob does still recall, even thirteen
Speaker 1: years later. It seems Bob wasn't Alvin's first choice of patient.
Speaker 9: He had had someone else do it before. I think
Speaker 9: it was an African American lady and it didn't go
Speaker 9: the way it needed to do.
Speaker 10: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Can you elaborate?
Speaker 9: He showed it to me briefly.
Speaker 1: Bob describes the video Alvin showed him before they started
Speaker 1: filming that day. In it, the setup was the same
Speaker 1: as it was for Bob shoot. Alvin was in an armchair,
Speaker 1: his legs up on an ottoman, except this time in
Speaker 1: the armchair beside him was the actress. Like Bob, the
Speaker 1: actress in the video had been asked to come up
Speaker 1: with a marriage problem, but in doing so, the actress
Speaker 1: went to a darker place than Alvin anticipated, describing a
Speaker 1: husband who was vicious and cruel. Nonetheless, Alvin tried to
Speaker 1: offer counsel.
Speaker 9: He was saying things like when he behaves in this way,
Speaker 9: can you be playful about it? And the actress said
Speaker 9: things like when he calls me names, suggesting that he
Speaker 9: might be in some ways borderline, at the very least
Speaker 9: verbally abusive.
Speaker 1: It seemed there was the way the actress was given
Speaker 1: to talking about an abusive relationship, and then there was
Speaker 1: the way that Alvin preferred her to talk about one.
Speaker 1: And so the actress was replaced and Bob shown her
Speaker 1: video to illustrate what Alvin did not want.
Speaker 10: It's you know. I got the message, I guess.
Speaker 1: Still, not having received a response from Joyce, I decide
Speaker 1: to mail a letter, and just a few days later
Speaker 1: I find an email in my inbox. In it, Joyce
Speaker 1: tells me She's not sure how much help she can be.
Speaker 1: She reminds me that it has been fifty years, but
Speaker 1: she says she's willing to try. She concludes the email
Speaker 1: by saying, please feel free to contact me if you wish. Joyce, Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: I think your sister's here too.
Speaker 5: Here we are well.
Speaker 1: The last time John and Rachel saw Joyce they were children.
Speaker 1: They're now in their fifties and sixties. Because of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: the meeting between Rachel, John, and Joyce will have to
Speaker 1: take place over Zoom. John and Rachel joined first from
Speaker 1: their respective homes. So how are you guys feeling today?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 6: Quite anxious? Actually, what about your brother John?
Speaker 4: I'm more nervous than I thought I would be.
Speaker 1: John is seated in a chair, his posture upright. Rachel
Speaker 1: is sitting back on a couch. Go ahead and talk
Speaker 1: a little bit. What did you have for breakfast?
Speaker 6: I had yogurt and blueberries.
Speaker 4: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: I can see the Joyce is in the Zoom waiting
Speaker 1: room waiting. Back in my day, a waiting room had
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff to keep you occupied, like lukewarm
Speaker 1: water you could drink from a paper cup or a
Speaker 1: twenty year old copy of Oat. But now waiting rooms
Speaker 1: are so metaphysical there's nothing to do with them. I
Speaker 1: suggest we let Joyce in. Okay, Yeah, okay, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it. Joyce appears on the screen wearing a
Speaker 1: bright blue sweater and a colorful ascot that gives her
Speaker 1: the affect of a fun grandmother. Standing beside Joyce is
Speaker 1: a middle aged man who I assume is her son.
Speaker 1: He's helping her get set up.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 1: Hello, Joyce and her son frown at the computer. It
Speaker 1: seems they're having sound issues. There's a long moment in
Speaker 1: which we all look at each other in silence, and
Speaker 1: then hello, Hi. Joyce settles into an armchair. Well do
Speaker 1: you all look familiar to each other?
Speaker 6: No, well it's been a long time. I'm Rachel.
Speaker 3: Hi Joyce, Hi, Rachel.
Speaker 4: Hi, I am John.
Speaker 1: You're John, So Joyce, do you uh?
Speaker 4: I know?
Speaker 1: John and Rachel are curious about just how much you remember,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe virtually nothing.
Speaker 3: So I wasn't clear what what I can do for you.
Speaker 3: I'm certainly willing to try. So.
Speaker 6: I think what we're remembering from that time, or what
Speaker 6: we know, is that my dad and my mom were
Speaker 6: in a very I don't know if you remember a
Speaker 6: bitter custody battle, and there were so many court battles,
Speaker 6: and one of the reports was done by you, So
Speaker 6: we wanted to talk to you about that and find
Speaker 6: out what you remembered about that.
Speaker 1: Joyce inhales to clenched teeth, shakes her head.
Speaker 3: Oh, I really don't know what happened.
Speaker 6: We wanna we think. I think our father influenced kind of
Speaker 6: everybody he met in a very heavy handed way.
Speaker 3: Yes, I would certainly agree with that. You know, saying
Speaker 3: al was heavy handed is an understatement.
Speaker 1: Joyce's husband at the time was a colleague of Alvin's.
Speaker 1: That's how she first came to know Alvin. He and
Speaker 1: her husband both taught in the local university psychology department.
Speaker 1: Joyce says her husband would always come home with al Stories.
Speaker 3: Acting out at meetings and shouting out inappropriate stuff. So
Speaker 3: he was very, very controlling. He took control of any situation,
Speaker 3: any social situation. One party at my house, he was
Speaker 3: a guest along with the other members of the psych department,
Speaker 3: and he just took control of the whole evening. And
Speaker 3: of course the more people drank, the more intense that
Speaker 3: God I think the focus was on people's dreams and
Speaker 3: dream analysis.
Speaker 1: For Alvin a Freudian, this meant exploring each partygoer's dream
Speaker 1: for hidden sexual desires that he Alvin could then expound
Speaker 1: upon in a room full of colleagues. Joyce relates the
Speaker 1: anecdote to illustrate the kind of guy Alvin was, but
Speaker 1: John hears something else in the story, So you all
Speaker 1: socialized well. John is trying to remind Joyce that she
Speaker 1: was Alvin's friend, that writing the report wasn't appropriate, but
Speaker 1: the implication goes over Joyce's head.
Speaker 3: The department wasn't a big one, and it was close knit,
Speaker 3: and everybody got together. They you know, Friday, what do
Speaker 3: you do? You hang out with the people that you
Speaker 3: know best, and that was in the department. What kinds
Speaker 3: of questions did you have that I can help with
Speaker 3: or that I might answer or speculate about.
Speaker 4: You don't remember evaluating us, You don't remember having that role.
Speaker 6: No, I guess I'm curious if you remember, because I
Speaker 6: would have said also, like I want to live with
Speaker 6: my dad and I love living here. But I was
Speaker 6: coached like don't smile if someone takes a picture of
Speaker 6: you with your mother.
Speaker 3: Oh, Rachel, Oh, Rachel, could you see that at all? No,
Speaker 3: I I this is all news to me.
Speaker 4: Did you do other custody evaluations? Was that a part
Speaker 4: of your practice?
Speaker 3: That may have been one of the first ones, And
Speaker 3: it was at his requests that I did that.
Speaker 11: Initially, it was at Al's request saying, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 11: do you remember any thoughts or feelings that you know,
Speaker 11: maybe it's not appropriate for me to evaluate someone that
Speaker 11: I socialize.
Speaker 3: No, no, not really, because this was in the beginning
Speaker 3: of our arrival, and so we weren't really socializing at
Speaker 3: that point.
Speaker 1: At that point, Joyce and her husband had just arrived
Speaker 1: in town. While her husband taught at the university, Joyce
Speaker 1: did not. She hoped to someday, but she was still
Speaker 1: fairly young, and at the time the only women in
Speaker 1: the psych department were grad students and secretaries. So in Alvin,
Speaker 1: this larger than life figure came asking for a favor,
Speaker 1: it felt hard to say no.
Speaker 3: He was chair of that program, and you know, I
Speaker 3: was new in town. I'm a people pleaser, so I
Speaker 3: think that that added to my vulnerability to Al.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 4: I want to make sure that you know that your
Speaker 4: report recommends that we're split up.
Speaker 1: Joyce takes off her glasses. She places them in her lap.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I am sorry. I am I never would
Speaker 3: have done something like that, and hearing that I did
Speaker 3: makes makes me feel terrible.
Speaker 4: So that's a that's a surprise to you.
Speaker 3: It's total surprise, and it's totally against everything I believe.
Speaker 3: It's horrifying. I don't know what prompted it or what
Speaker 3: precipitated it. I don't know. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: But of course there's more.
Speaker 4: You know, we can see al crossing out words and
Speaker 4: phrases that you wrote and then rewriting them in stronger language,
Speaker 4: and then it's that stronger language that's in the final report.
Speaker 3: I'm appalled by that. I hate to keep repeating myself,
Speaker 3: but I am truly sorry that that happened and had
Speaker 3: terrible consequences. I have a stomach ache. I feel terrible
Speaker 3: that it turned out that way. I feel awful that
Speaker 3: I had a pardon that or that I'm perceived to
Speaker 3: have had it. Well, I did, I mean, I can't
Speaker 3: say I didn't if I wrote it.
Speaker 1: This is something Joyce does a few times. She'll start
Speaker 1: to say something like if I did this, but then
Speaker 1: she'll correct herself. Rachel has the report standing by to
Speaker 1: hold to the camera so Joyce can see it for
Speaker 1: herself see her own signature, but that never becomes necessary.
Speaker 1: Even though she doesn't remember, Joyce believes John and Rachel,
Speaker 1: and so she doesn't cop out or quivocate.
Speaker 3: If I if I did something like that, or because
Speaker 3: I did something like that, I'm so sorry you guys.
Speaker 3: There's anything I can do to mitigate in some small way.
Speaker 4: And it means a lot that you say that.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, And it's not just words, it's it's heartfelt.
Speaker 3: It's really heartfelt.
Speaker 1: Do you do you have any idea why he might
Speaker 1: have turned to you well.
Speaker 3: To control the outcome. I think he was more comfortable
Speaker 3: with women because he could push them around.
Speaker 1: Did you feel used by him?
Speaker 3: Well, I guess he was using me, so yeah.
Speaker 1: Joyce says. The relationship with Alvin was short lived. The
Speaker 1: end came soon after Joyce invited Alvin and a few
Speaker 1: of his psychologist friends to join her private practice. They
Speaker 1: accepted and all began working out of her office.
Speaker 3: And we did that for a while, and then they
Speaker 3: decided that it wasn't appropriate to have a social worker
Speaker 3: in the practice. So they asked me to leave, and
Speaker 3: it was at Elsin's instigation. What he said to me was,
Speaker 3: it's not that you're incompetent. It's just that I don't
Speaker 3: know that you're competent. And you know, for me to
Speaker 3: remember this fifty years later, that's a lot, doesn't it.
Speaker 4: So this was him kicking you out of the practice,
Speaker 4: My practice, my practice, your practice.
Speaker 6: I hear you like, very very very fondly.
Speaker 3: Well, you're kind, you're kind, you're kind.
Speaker 6: You are a nice lady. You're a good person. And
Speaker 6: I see that now too. I mean, I had every
Speaker 6: reason to feel that way.
Speaker 1: Rachel will later tell me that because of the way
Speaker 1: her dad brainwashed her, she often can trust her memories.
Speaker 1: So it feels good that her memory of Joyce is correct.
Speaker 1: Joyce is nice, but Rachel is nice too, and consent
Speaker 1: so badly Joyce is feeling.
Speaker 6: You know, I think my dad was so controlling, and
Speaker 6: I have to think that my dad coerced you and
Speaker 6: really pressured you to do that.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: You know, hopefully you can tell Rachel and I are okay.
Speaker 6: We're really good parents. We're close to our children. We
Speaker 6: did not replicate any of this.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's wonderful. I'm so glad to hear that.
Speaker 4: And I've been with my wife thirty seven years and
Speaker 4: thankfully now you know, Rachel and I came back together
Speaker 4: on our own and I'm very close with my sister.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad.
Speaker 1: Damage done to us can often become damage we do
Speaker 1: to others, and on it goes. But watching John and Rachel,
Speaker 1: I'm struck by the way they're breaking that cycle, not
Speaker 1: just in their lives, but right here in the room.
Speaker 1: Well zoom room.
Speaker 4: Just to be clear, Joyce, I really appreciate what you're saying,
Speaker 4: and really really important to me that others just own
Speaker 4: and acknowledge their role in any dynamic, in any interaction.
Speaker 4: If they do that, I'm good. And al never I
Speaker 4: tried in different ways, he would never own any culpability, responsibility, anything.
Speaker 1: When John first became a psychologist, he'd see Alvin at
Speaker 1: various conferences, where Alvin was received as a star. For John,
Speaker 1: it always occasioned a weird mix of pride in his
Speaker 1: father's career and bitterness over his personal rejection. At one conference,
Speaker 1: John attended Alvin's lecture in the hope of forcing his
Speaker 1: father to talk to him. Alvin saw John in the audience,
Speaker 1: but afterwards made him wait on along with all his
Speaker 1: adoring fans. Eventually, John grew frustrated and left.
Speaker 4: It's one of the mysteries of my life how he
Speaker 4: justified or rationalized to himself, you know, having a son
Speaker 4: and supposedly loving him and then just cutting him off
Speaker 4: and rejecting him for the rest of your life. I
Speaker 4: don't I can't fathom that at all. There was an
Speaker 4: email exchange over seven or eight months where I endeavored
Speaker 4: to answer that question, that lifelong question of you know why,
Speaker 4: and he just kept trying to sell me his books,
Speaker 4: and you know it became this refrain, have you read
Speaker 4: my book? Have you read my book? And I'd say,
Speaker 4: if you would like me to read your book, send
Speaker 4: me a copy and I will read it. No, he
Speaker 4: wants me to buy a book. He wanted me to
Speaker 4: buy a book.
Speaker 1: In his emails to John, Alvin wrote that it was
Speaker 1: a sophomoric myth that a parent should seek relationships with
Speaker 1: one's child. I do not accept silly pop psychology truisms,
Speaker 1: he wrote. Near the end of Alvin's life, John wanted
Speaker 1: to make one last effort to see his father so
Speaker 1: Alvin could meet his grandkids, but Rachel counseled John not
Speaker 1: to go. She said that Alvin would refuse to see
Speaker 1: him and was still so full of anger that he
Speaker 1: might even call the police. After his death, Alvin left
Speaker 1: behind a will with a section listing the names of
Speaker 1: those who wronged him. Each person was to receive a
Speaker 1: single dollar. Among them was John.
Speaker 5: Back.
Speaker 1: When I spoke to Al's disciple, Howard, he told me
Speaker 1: that al was bedridden at the end of his life,
Speaker 1: yet he was still focused on his therapeutic method just
Speaker 1: before he passed away.
Speaker 2: When I visited him, he said, Howard, I'm working on
Speaker 2: becoming more of an optimal person. I'm just doing it now.
Speaker 2: And he was like so.
Speaker 1: Energetic, and do you from your perspective, I mean, did
Speaker 1: he achieve that kind of like optimal personhood?
Speaker 2: She said he had.
Speaker 1: When I raised the subject of Alvin's relationship with his
Speaker 1: kids and how that connected to his optimal self, Howard
Speaker 1: says he can't really speak to that. Alvin didn't bring
Speaker 1: up his kids much.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of stuff that goes on, sometimes good
Speaker 2: and bad, and you know, that's just what happens in life.
Speaker 2: We live, and we adjust and do what we have
Speaker 2: to do. But I don't think whatever happens at a
Speaker 2: certain point in someone's life should define them for who
Speaker 2: they are as a person overall.
Speaker 3: Can you come back in a little bit, honey.
Speaker 1: A little girl barge's into Joyce's room. She's wearing a
Speaker 1: lacy blue dress that's either a nightgown or a Cinderella costume.
Speaker 3: I'll be with you in a little bit. Thank you.
Speaker 3: That's my six year old granddaughter.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 3: We're sheltering in place together.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 4: I'm very lucky, Joyce. I'm so appreciative. Thank you, Yeah,
Speaker 4: thank you.
Speaker 1: One can believe one is optimal, just as one can
Speaker 1: believe one is fluent in French, a talented singer, a
Speaker 1: good therapist. But the only way to really know is
Speaker 1: through one's relationship with others, the ones who love us,
Speaker 1: who guide us, who let us know when we wandered astray.
Speaker 1: For some realizing your optimal self does not occur in
Speaker 1: spite of other people, but because of them.
Speaker 4: My son is getting married in the backyard. I'm looking
Speaker 4: at a few.
Speaker 3: Weeks and congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 4: It'll be a very small, socially distanced.
Speaker 8: Now that the furnitures returning to it's goodwill home, now
Speaker 8: that the last month's rent is skiming with the damaged
Speaker 8: po take this moment to the so.
Speaker 5: If we meant to flee.
Speaker 8: To from the last.
Speaker 4: Accident and clean.
Speaker 1: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by senior producer Khalila
Speaker 1: Holt along with Stevie Lane and me Jonathan Goldstein. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, PJ Vote, Mohemy mcgaucher,
Speaker 1: Nabil Cholimpot, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode
Speaker 1: with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Samson and
Speaker 1: Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be found on our website,
Speaker 1: Gimbletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by
Speaker 1: The Weaker Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight at Gimletmedia
Speaker 1: dot com. This is the last episode of the season,
Speaker 1: but do not fear there's still more Heavyweight to come.
Speaker 1: We're doing three check in episodes in December, exclusive to Spotify,
Speaker 1: but absolutely free and very easy to access. I'll be
Speaker 1: joined by producers Khalila and Stevie. There will be a
Speaker 1: conversation with best selling writer Curtis Sittenfeld, and some segments
Speaker 1: that take advantage of the music on Spotify's platform. So
Speaker 1: these are things we couldn't do anywhere else, and we're
Speaker 1: pretty excited about that and we hope you'll find it
Speaker 1: exciting too. See you in December.
Speaker 8: Oh Son in an empty, Son in an out deal