Because of the way the human brain is designed, it feeds resources to the most basic functions first. This is for survival, so our autonomic functions (breathing, heartbeat) are first. Emotions and survival instincts are second. Finally, last is our cortex and rational thinking.  

While writing the book we are working on, Brett and I often use terms familiar to those who work in psychology but may not be familiar to others. The Parental Introject is an example of one such term. In this episode, we discuss the parental introject and provide answers about how to correct/change introjects that may be problematic or harmful.

Big boys don't _____________. Fear is a sign of _______________. If you know the answers to these questions, then you know that the way our culture conditions men and women to process their emotions is different.

What are emotions? Brett and I delve into the biology of how emotions work in the human body.

Do you know what an emotion is? Well listen to the next two Psych with Mike and Brett episodes and see if your definition changes. 

According to the Census Bureau, this year (2024) the largest proportion of the baby boomer generation will turn 65. By 2030 all baby boomers will be 65 or older. This means that in 2030 the 65 and older population will comprise 20% of the total population in the US. This is the largest percentage of elderly persons in the US population in the country's history. This has profound implications for the workforce, economy, and every aspect of life in the nation. What are the significant psychological issues this poses for those living longer in the US? https://www.census.gov/library/storie... 

We usually think that all stress is bad, but that is actually not true!

This is the most listened-to Psych with Mike that Brett and I did. The episode is all about Transactional Analysis. When reviewing the numbers it was not even close. Enjoy!

This was the first Psych with Mike that Brett and I ever did. The audio is horrible and there was no video but the conversation was great!

With Brett no longer on the show, I am looking for the path forward for the show!   https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acceptance   https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/click-here-happiness/202108/how-practice-acceptance   https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-closure-in-a-relationship-5224411   https://theconversation.com/the-psychology-of-closure-and-why-some-need-it-more-than-others-104159   https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/closure    

It is often very difficult to say goodbye. Whether the result of life passing, ending a relationship, or, moving far away, there is a period of our lives that are ending. On the other hand, there is a new period of life that is beginning. As for my friend, Brett Newcomb, I will forever be grateful for the contributions he made to the show and for being my friend!  https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/issue-135 

You make the decision to go to therapy. Good on you! Now make sure you are ready to make it a useful and rewarding experience! https://psychcentral.com/lib/therapists-spill-tips-for-making-the-most-of-therapy   https://www.healthline.com/health/what-to-talk-about-in-therapy  

This is a revisit of one of the most downloaded episodes of Psych with Mike. This is a topic close to my heart since I believe that emotional regulation is the central issue is all psychotherapy. 

The Surgeon General of the US recently released a report on loneliness. In it, the physiological effects of loneliness were found to be equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. These kinds of physiological findings just affirm what all of us already know, loneliness hurts! It hurts us both psychologically and physically.  Surgeon General's Report  https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/03/new-surgeon-general-advisory-raises-alarm-about-devastating-impact-epidemic-loneliness-isolation-united-states.html#:~:text=Disconnection%20fundamentally%20affects%20our%20mental,levels%20comparable%20to%20smoking%20daily. Articles of Loneliness  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-be-yourself/202001/7-ways-feel-less-lonely-and-more-connected https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/feeling_connected  Link to Epidemic of Loneliness from Psych with Mike https://psychwithmike.com/the-epidemic-of-loneliness  

Many people find it harder to forgive themselves than they do to forgive others. We may feel like we do not deserve forgiveness or that if we forgive ourselves then we were never truly sorry for the behavior. Whatever the reason, when we do not forgive ourselves we remain in perpetual psychological bondage.    https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-forgive-yourself-and-move-past-a-hurtful-mistake?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f4ecbb6ed5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_03_29&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-66d1b44a50-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D  

What is nihilism and what does it have to do with psychology? Most of us have heard of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and some know that he is credited with promoting the ideas of nihilism. But how many actually know what nihilism is and how it plays a role in psychology? https://psyche.co/ideas/for-nietzsche-nihilism-goes-deeper-than-life-is-pointless?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=639b69be36-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_04_06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-0a72083c10-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

Does our personality change and evolve over the lifespan? Or does personality remain consistent and static from adolescence?   https://psyche.co/ideas/theres-a-reason-some-of-us-find-it-easier-to-change-than-others?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8e4e0f2ec4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_03_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-b1f49aa884-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D  

The term "Brain Fog" has been around for a long time but has gained increased significance during the pandemic. What IS brain fog and can we do anything about it?    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/31/neuroscientist-how-to-avoid-brain-fog.html  

Communication is the most basic way that humans connect. Good knowledgeable skills are the foundation of good interactions! https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/3-things-people-who-are-good-at-conversation-dont-do-according-to-a-research-psychologist.html  

Research is building an indisputable record of evidence supporting the belief that the experience of trauma changes the way the brain is wired. Trauma that is low-level over a long period of time (chronic) can be just as transformative as trauma that is intense and sudden (acute) https://www.sciencenews.org/article/trauma-distorts-time-self-new-therapy  

The introduction of concepts like "mindfulness" and "positive psychology" is only helpful if they can be defined. In science, this is called operational definition. Is Positive Psychology an actual theoretical orientation or just a new-wave fad?  https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-positive-psychology-2794902  

As long-time educators, Brett and I have always accepted the concept that different people learn in different ways. A recent article in Aeon magazine challenges this long-held belief.    https://aeon.co/essays/the-evidence-is-clear-learning-styles-theory-doesnt-work?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=83087b53bc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_01_24_05_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-83087b53bc-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D 

Heinz Kohut and Self Psychology establish the foundational understanding of the development of emotional regulation. But perhaps his most impressive contribution to the field was his introduction of empathy into the therapy relationship.     https://www.selfpsychologypsychoanalysis.org/about.html 

Clients are often very curious about the private lives of their therapists. But therapists are educated to present themselves as a blank slate. The amount of self-disclosure that a therapist engages in therefore is a balance between what is most therapeutic for the client and the therapist's presentation as genuine and sincere.    https://aeon.co/videos/pondering-the-peculiar-one-sided-intimacy-of-the-client-therapist-relationship?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=974bf7efe0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_01_16_06_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-974bf7efe0-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D    

Breathwork is a core technique in counseling and psychotherapy. It has also been a central tenet of practices as old as Zen meditation. But what are the therapeutic and/or health benefits of breathwork?  https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/science-says-use-relaxing-breath-method-to-fall-asleep-faster-starting-tonight.html  

Otto Kernberg is one of the most influential theorists responsible for our understanding of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)!   https://www.verywellmind.com/borderline-personality-disorder-meaning-425191  

There is a whole vocabulary associated with recovery from alcohol and drugs. For those who are not in the program or do not work professionally with those in recovery, this can be very confusing. Brett recently was talking to a friend about what it means to be a dry drunk and found that even he had many questions.  https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/what-to-know-dry-drunk-syndrome  

Ketamine is the only psychedelic substance that has been approved by the FDA for the treatment of depression, so far. How does this drug help depression and will other psychedelics get approval in the future?  https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/09/12/ketamine-therapy-explained/  

The Enneagram is a personality classification system based on the work and theories of Carl Gustav Jung. 

In early 2023, Brett and I discuss 10 lessons from 2022. https://www.wellandgood.com/best-advice-from-therapists/  

Attachment styles play a huge part in successful and enjoyable relationships. But most of us do not even know what our attachment style is.    https://www.verywellhealth.com/insecure-attachment-5220170

A current buzzword in psychology and also society at large is, entitled child. But before that psychology had a word for those who saw themselves as wonderful and that was narcissism. Are these separate concepts or just opposite sides of the same coin?    https://awarenessact.com/narcissistic-children-are-raised-by-parents-who-do-these-8-things/?fbclid=IwAR1wcd8eu0xHxiY3nW24f3mZ9Dr7zxmg2jo9jwcULvBPhqIt1lcKoDXwJts  

Happy New Year to you and your loved ones from us at Psych with Mike. This is a revisit of a conversation that Brett and I had on making resolutions that work. Enjoy and the best of luck in the new year!

It's been a long two years. Over this holiday season, many of us may be re-evaluating our behavior in the hopes of making better choices and improving our physical and mental health in the new year. But to do this effectively we need to know what behaviors we may have fallen into that are not the healthiest for us.  https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2016/07/26/10-troubling-habits-of-chronically-unhappy-people/?sh=33018b6b70f3

All of us have past trauma that affects us in the present. It is cliche to hear someone say "you have to let it go". But how do you do this?   https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/letting-go.html   https://unfoldingtheuniversewithin.com/the-art-of-letting-go-of-the-past/  

Relationships are at the core of being a healthy human being.  We develop attachment styles as a result of our experiences early in our lives. One of these attachment styles is avoidant attachment. Today we discuss the characteristics of this attachment style and how it impacts our relationships.    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-clarity/202206/what-is-avoidant-self-attachment  

As better ways of exploring the way our brains are connected become available, we are mapping these connections with greater precision. Does a better, more comprehensive map of the way areas of the brain operate make psychology more of a "hard" science?    https://neurosciencenews.com/amygdala-emotion-20969/  

We all have heard someone accuse someone of being passive-aggressive. But how many of us really know what that means or how to identify the behavior?    https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/25/the-3-biggest-signs-of-passive-aggressive-and-childish-behavior-harvard-body-language-expert.html    

Therapy and mental health are recognized as being in epidemic-like short supply. With the pandemic and political division, people are finding their mental health has taken a big hit over the last couple of years. And yet there is growing dissatisfaction among therapy devotees and unequal availability of therapy services across socioeconomic domains.  https://www.wired.com/story/therapy-broken-mental-health-challenges/

As we move beyond the pandemic we are seeing a significant increase in the number of persons who express that they are feeling lonely. What are the factors that are contributing to this besides the isolation of the pandemic?  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-ptsd/202207/how-childhood-trauma-can-lead-adult-loneliness

We could all use a little boost to our self-esteem. You're welcome! https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/18/want-to-sound-and-feel-more-confident-ditch-these-11-phrases-from-your-vocabulary-say-psychologists.html 

Studies indicate that the human attention span has significantly shortened since the rise of social media. Why is it getting so hard for us to focus our attention?    https://www.ranieriandco.com/post/changing-attention-span-and-what-it-means-for-content-in-2021   https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/16/got-a-minute-global-attention-span-is-narrowing-study-reveals  

Enlightenment, self-actualization, and, mindfulness are ideal states of being that we are all striving for. But what is the neuroscience that supports the idea that enlightenment is a real phenomenon that has beneficial effects?    https://bigthink.com/the-well/neuroscience-of-enlightenment/  

Should you go or not go to Thanksgiving? Are you the one tearing the family apart when you identify familial dysfunction? Good questions. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brothers-sisters-strangers/202206/how-family-estrangement-echoes-across-generations  

Sure your therapist has framed pieces of paper on the wall, but how do you truly know if your therapist is any good?  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-out-your-mind/202209/how-tell-you-have-good-therapist    

Sometimes a child's parent goes beyond the stereotypical defaming of the other parent. When this happens we have to think of this process as similar to the type of programming associated with a cult.    https://www.familylawpleasanton.com/blog/2020/10/the-8-symptoms-of-parental-alienation/  

Have you ever wondered what is the most important question in psychotherapy? No spoilers here just check out the conversation!   https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202209/the-most-important-question-in-therapy   Transcript: you're listening to psych with Mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:07 guest go to www.psychwithmike.com follow the show on 0:12 Twitter at psych with Mike or like the Facebook page at psych with Mike now 0:18 here's psych with Mike welcome into the site with Mike Library this is Dr Michael Mahon and I am here with Mr Brett Newcombe hello the uh psych with 0:26 Mike Library window is open that's a new way to start yeah I mean I 0:32 guess people could walk by and ask for ice cream but you can either look in the window or jump out yeah whichever you 0:37 want whichever you feel is how do you feel about that I I feel really good about it I'm the point is that it's it's 0:45 very nice outside and after the summer that we've had in St Louis I am really 0:53 glad that the weather is milder it's been a beautiful week yeah so uh we 1:01 don't even need to get into global warming because that's because that's a crazy kind of divisive 1:07 topic but uh it was really hot this summer yeah and it's hard still hot in 1:14 major sections of the country and the world yeah it and and when you look at what's been going on in India uh in a 1:21 third of the country underwater that's I can't even conceive of what that would 1:27 be like yeah so anyway so I'm glad that we're going to get some milder temperatures I am uh a feared that the 1:37 Farmer's Almanac is predicting a tremendous amount of snow in the St 1:44 Louis area for this winter so we'll see how how that works out yeah 1:50 so how are you today I'm doing well you don't want to talk about anything we were talking about before the before we 1:56 started this do you no okay because there's been lots of stuff going 2:03 on there is always always interesting in doing therapy people come in and it's 2:08 like there's always going on lots of stuff going on yeah so 2:14 um when you were doing therapy I think that 2:19 uh probably each individual person doing 2:26 therapy has their own style obviously yes yeah 2:34 and probably most people would have a different answer to this question but 2:39 what was your favorite or most important question in therapy 2:52 how are you this week and what would you like to talk about so what's hot what's Burning uh in your 3:00 mind your Mentor slash hero um 3:05 blanking on his name yellow yeah Irving yallum uh uh his intro question was what 3:14 hails so in all of his books that's how he would start out all of his therapy 3:20 sessions what what else what else yeah um which I always found pedantic and 3:28 beatnik like yeah but uh but yeah I mean he always wore the black turtleneck and 3:34 I don't know that he wore what is the the cap that the French wear you know we all have our affectations in 3:42 our presentation exactly I used to tell people would call and say yeah I'm thinking about coming to you I've been referred to you uh 3:49 How will I know and I would say you know it is incredibly important that there is 3:55 a sense of safety and connectivity for this to work so come see me come see me 4:00 once or twice and don't pay me but if you come back the third time pay me for 4:06 three sessions and every session after that but I really feel like if you spend some time with me you'll get a sense of 4:13 whether I'm going to be a fit for you whether I'm going to be able to hear you and what you need to talk about right uh 4:21 well you're Jumping the Shark because we we definitely want to talk about what is a good therapist yeah but so when we're 4:29 talking specifically about the questions do you believe 4:34 that the therapists questions 4:41 are important for directing the course of therapy or do you believe that the 4:46 therapist is more of a passenger a passive so I taught in a counseling 4:52 program for 35 years and I would constantly say to my students who wanted 4:58 to become therapists and in addition to having my private practice for all those years but I would say to my students you 5:05 cannot do formula therapy you can't have a formula that you follow for every client that comes in whether that's a 5:13 label that you apply to yourself I'm a cognitive behavioral therapist or I'm a union therapist or whatever 5:21 uh because people don't know that and don't understand that they don't know what it represents what it means what 5:28 you need to say is I am invested in paying attention to you and 5:35 hearing what it is that you need to have heard and then proving to you that I've heard you 5:41 accurately and correctly both both in terms of what you say and in terms of what you're feeling when you say it so 5:47 we will explore that reality for you and if that's a fit then be spending time here will help you 5:54 make progress with whatever concerns that you have I think you'll get better but if if I'm not the fit then go 6:01 somewhere else don't say well therapy doesn't work I went to this guy he was a bozo there are bozos out there but if 6:07 you feel comfortable with me and we can spend time together I believe that we 6:14 can make progress in terms of what hurts you or what you need to address in your life to make your life better but just 6:22 as far as the the who's driving the train yeah do you 6:27 believe that the therapist no drives a trainer do you believe the client right yeah yeah and I'm not bringing it to the 6:35 table you are my job is to ask you what are you bringing to the table right what what's going on and then do reflective 6:41 uh listening to say well this week you said you were bringing to the table an 6:47 argument that you had with your boss but we spent 45 minutes here talking about other things and I'm wondering how to 6:53 understand that if that's what was hot for you when you got here we haven't even approached it and we've nibbled at 6:59 a time or two but we keep going down these other paths about this or that or the other so I'm wondering how to 7:05 understand it I'm wondering how you understand that so the most important question is the question that helps to 7:12 direct the client towards themselves better self-awareness right and they'll 7:19 come out in and they'll throw out red herrings so that they feel like we spent a 7:25 productive hour and you feel like we spend a productive hour because we try to solve this puzzle it's a very seductive thing they'll ask for advice 7:32 what do you think in your experience how does this work uh why and they always 7:37 want to talk about somebody else why is my mother doing this why is my mother this way and the 7:44 to my thinking the point of being there isn't to figure out why your mothers are your boss or your next door right why 7:50 you are enduring this or tolerating this or making these choices 7:56 and we talk about emotional economics you know you're frustrated you're upset you're angry you're hurt you're sad 8:01 whatever how's that costing you what's that costing you in terms of physiological 8:08 issues are you having chest pains or you're having anxiety attacks do you have headaches you're having trouble sleeping you've got TMJ problems what's 8:16 going on with the way that you handle this issue and then in terms of your emotional 8:22 status are you grouchy are you angry are you sad are you numb uh are you 8:28 frustrated I so many times having conversation with parents and they would come in and talk about 8:34 and I said to my child how many times do I have to tell you and I'd start laughing at them and I'd say you know if 8:40 you've heard yourself say that more than twice you've said it too many times yeah so let's let's talk about Plan B if just 8:48 telling them you need to do your homework and they're not or you need to wash the dishes clear the table whatever 8:54 it is you've asked them to do and they haven't done it what's next so I think that 9:01 many therapists we've both been involved in programs teaching in programs that 9:07 educate the next generation of therapists and 9:12 from the therapist that I know and the students that I've taught 9:18 it feels like to me and I could be wrong so I'll ask you what your reflection on 9:23 this is that a lot of their a lot of people who are going to school to be therapists want the formula they want 9:31 some kind of reassurance that you you give me the formula the questions to ask 9:37 I'll ask the questions and then I've discharged my duty that'll make me feel like that I'm doing what is right and 9:45 you know the insurance companies uh support that thought absolutely because they want to pay certain amounts for 9:51 certain things and they claim that the data collection that they have justifies the approval or the expense or the money 9:57 investment at a time uh but I I keep coming back to you know formula therapy 10:02 and agenda therapy I think both are not therapy and I also would say 35 years of 10:11 teaching and counseling program at two different universities um a lot of people who come to try to 10:18 become therapists are so seriously wounded that they're going to hamstring 10:24 themselves right by their issues right uh and their agendas you know you can't be 10:31 proselytizing for your agenda uh whatever it may be 10:36 whatever you're really promoting is the right answer that's not doing therapy yeah and when we were in grad school and 10:44 and you did Role Play Everybody did role play we hate role play okay but but everybody does it and and I did it 10:51 poorly well but we did I mean we had actual groups in in your group therapy 10:57 class we did and but I said we're not role playing what what whether you call that role playing or not but but you 11:05 know I used to say all the time the next time that somebody says to me the reason I got into this because everybody asks 11:11 oh why'd you get into this program you know that's the first that's the Icebreaker for every class that you go to so the next time somebody says oh you 11:18 know I have a dysfunctional family I wanted to understand it but I'm gonna punch him in the throat okay you know no which is a very clinical reaction well 11:25 you're in a Therapy Program well I was in there yeah it wasn't like I was doing therapy uh and and no doctor said oh I 11:32 went to medical school because I knew my appendix was going to go bad at some point and I wanted to be able to take it out I know how to deal with it yeah so 11:39 you know that's a bad bad reason to go I went to to school to be a therapist 11:44 because I couldn't pass calculus is what they're saying it's the answer that they 11:49 give but they're not deep enough there's something under that for what drives you I want to help people I'm on a mission 11:55 from God I believe in doing good in the world whatever it might be or I think uh 12:00 I know I was abused as a child and I know how damaging abuse is and so I want 12:06 to protect all children from being abused but that's a reason to be in therapy not a reason to do therapy 12:12 exactly yeah yeah I agree with that 100 yeah and and so you know that doesn't 12:18 mean that you shouldn't be doing therapy but you shouldn't be if you're using your own dysfunctional past as the 12:25 motivation for why you're doing therapy I think you're going to get caught up in that agenda profile 12:32 well that is uh one of the reasons why for a number of years I refuse to see 12:38 active acting out alcoholics because I came from a violent alcoholic family and 12:44 I had so many of my own personal and that's called counter okay don't feed me lines like 12:50 that you want to say it say it that's called counter transfer yes I know okay uh so you try not to do that you don't 12:58 want to do that as a therapist yeah it disrupts the connection the dynamic the 13:05 orientation of the session they're paying you to listen to you and that's 13:11 not what you're supposed to be doing right and I didn't work with and still don't if I can help it work with sexual 13:18 abusers and people say oh well you should you know work with everybody or what you know I didn't feel like I don't 13:26 work with borderlines I don't feel like that that is my clinical expertise yeah I don't have the expertise or you say 13:32 those those issues are too close to me I can't I can't see clearly I can't hear but it is the therapist's responsibility 13:40 to know what you know the Old Dirty Harry line a man's got to know his limitations yeah you got to know what 13:45 your limitations are and you have to practice within those limitations I don't I don't not see borderlines 13:53 because I don't think I'm clinically able I don't see borderlines because I find that push your buttons yeah I get 13:59 seduced by the borderline presentation seduce or distracted 14:04 yeah because they'll say here chase this rabbit or here chase this rabbit and every once in a while you're so focused 14:11 on a particular kind of rabbit that you're like oh I'm after that and then again they're steering the 14:17 direction of the conversation to reinforce their own circumstances 14:23 right and justify them but it isn't to me it isn't a weakness 14:28 for a therapist to say this isn't my area of special I agree it's a string I 14:34 would agree with that yeah now that at the same time I also don't think that 14:39 new therapists should say I'm exclusively an alcohol substance abuse 14:46 counselor no because I think that makes them feel safe because they are trained or they know the right answer they know 14:53 the theories that they're taught in school or that they've been taught in school slash AAA uh and so they notice 15:00 that you know one day at a time uh let go and let God and never say those 15:05 things automatically in conversations uh they can laugh about things like 13 15:12 stepping uh on a 12-step program the hell does that mean what's going on there uh so they know the inside Works 15:19 they feel safer but individuals are never limited to 15:25 whatever the presenting pathology is and so if you say oh I can only work with 15:31 substance abuse individuals then but but those people have other issues this 15:36 diamond only has one facet right yeah right so I'm my you know 15:42 encouragement my advice to people who are doing therapy or newly thinking about going into therapy is you got to 15:49 find that balance don't try and practice outside your expertise but also don't limit yourself to one specific pathology 15:58 so then that brings me to therapists need to either uh okay hold 16:05 on to that question and or that thought and we'll pick that up after our break I might forget 16:12 hey Brett if you were going to tell somebody to check out something on the 16:19 Internet to help them with their mental health what would you tell them I tell them to listen to sex with Mike why 16:25 would you tell him that because it's probably one of the most easily listenable experiences you can have that 16:32 would give you information that's useful for a whole spectrum of concerns that 16:38 people have I agree and I have actually been told that by at least a dozen 16:44 people several of whom were not married to me and some of them didn't even know 16:50 me that's amazing that is amazing it's when when we get that kind of feedback 16:56 from people it is so incredibly humbling and overwhelming for me it is for both 17:03 of us so we really appreciate it and as always if it's Friday it's Mike 17:09 [Music] all right we're back did you forget I 17:15 don't know like it just comes and goes so quickly now what I was going to say is and again the thing that I used to 17:21 say to people all the time never practice alone if you practice alone it's too easy to get distorted and 17:29 caught up in rhythms that uh if you had supervision or and even collegial not 17:36 hierarchical supervisor yeah working for a boss who can tell you yes or no but uh 17:42 collegial supervision and most therapists I know do have those kind of groups that they meet with and they talk 17:47 to and you say I have this client that's really pushing all my buttons all right this client that's presenting this this 17:53 singing and it makes me so sad or I'm so concerned about them that I am losing my objectivity uh or I have issues with 18:02 keeping boundaries for this particular kind of experience and other therapists 18:08 and clinicians can say well I have that so you're not crazy you're not not rare and this is a way that I work with it 18:15 how do you work with it and we can have those conversations to help keep you professional and focused keep both you 18:22 and your clients safe from contamination and it's really an important issue so do 18:27 you think that therapy so if I'm doing therapy and I'm in therapy does that 18:33 serve that was the same question that we had for 35 years yeah does every therapist need to be in therapy and I 18:40 would not make that as a legalistic qualifier I would say it's probably a good idea but I would say you need to 18:47 have collegial or hierarchical supervision over your cases so okay so 18:53 uh I want to I want to drill down on that a little bit because you know I think that you should be in therapy if 18:59 you're doing therapy because I think it keeps clean the transference counter transference projective identification 19:05 but I'm not sure that it serves the same function as collegial supervision 19:12 I'm not sure anymore okay so if I'm going to therapy and I'm talking about my counter transference that may help me 19:20 be cleaner in being able to identify and deal with the counter transference but 19:25 may not necessarily help me in the area of boundaries so I I went to therapy and 19:34 one of the challenges that I understood going in that I discussed with my 19:39 therapist going in is having done therapy as a provider for 35 19:45 years I feel like I'm at risk to play therapy games and 19:51 head games if you helped me find a live nerve that might 19:56 be painful or frightening for me instead of going with that and 20:02 experiencing whatever that is I'm capable of distracting you with something else 20:07 and I don't want to do that so we both need to help watch me and so that I can 20:15 avoid that because as any other human being when I 20:20 get to the most raw places inside me that I'm trying to get out and put on 20:25 display for the therapist to say how do you understand this uh what does 20:31 that make you think about me am I accurately pulling it out of me or am I 20:38 still guarding it and guiding it and lying about it uh it's a scary proposition so I will avoid 20:44 it and people do that in therapy all the time that's why the presenting problem that they first come to you with is almost never the real issue in their 20:51 lives it is an issue it's a real issue but it's never the issue 20:57 so you have to spend enough time making them safe solving problems not solving 21:02 for them but with them so they can build the trust in the process and in you and 21:10 in themselves to be able to look deeper yeah so do you agree though that therapy 21:16 is not the same as collegial supervision yes I do and and so if you're going to have 21:21 one you should definitely have collegial supervision you can certainly have both 21:27 yeah absolutely okay so that's what we're saying to people is that you got to at 21:32 least have the collegial supervision yeah and and it doesn't have to be formalized like you and I have had a 21:38 relationship since before I was ever a therapist so for as long as I've been a 21:44 a practicing therapist you and I have had that relationship 21:51 okay not not that I'm aware of okay uh but I mean you you have to you're trying 21:57 to blame all that on me I know where this is you have to take that responsibility for yourself but uh so 22:02 sometimes that was more formalized when we were in a group practice together and sometimes it's been less formalized I 22:07 don't think that it needs to be formal I think that you have to oh you're gonna do it over coffee you just need to get 22:14 it on a regular basis right and and all of the knowledgeable or trained or licensed participants need to bring 22:21 something to the table mm-hmm well what have you been seeing because another thing that happens is really that's such 22:27 a great point though is themes or threads go through a community and it's 22:32 like wildfire contagion so you get a half a dozen new clients and they're all 22:39 dealing with depression and you go to collegial therapy and everybody else is saying my god I've had so many people 22:44 coming in with depression in the last couple weeks which it's in the water uh just to by way of an example and it's 22:51 helpful to get that feedback and it's helpful to get everybody else's perspective on how are you dealing with 22:58 that how are you approaching that I remember having a meeting I don't know if you'll remember this but when we were 23:03 in a group practice right and the gal who was the director actually took you 23:09 and I into a room because she wanted to have these Grand uh clinical meetings 23:16 yeah and so we would have these meetings and say okay somebody needs to present a 23:21 case and crickets crickets crickets and she took you and I into a room and said you guys are the seniors here everybody 23:29 looks up to you and you guys need to present because that'll make everybody 23:34 else feel safe and and I don't know that either one of us well 23:39 I wasn't opposed to the presenting I was opposed to the way it was presented to 23:45 me yeah because I quasi staged yeah well I mean it was like you you like we were 23:51 getting dressed down because nobody else would participate but I will say that we started doing those things regularly and 23:58 other people did start to open up and some of those meetings were really 24:04 really good and beneficial I think not just for the individual who was presenting the information but for 24:10 everybody the community that was in that room yeah exactly yeah I mean that can be so powerful absolutely and 24:17 encouraging you know you get reinforced that you're not saying it wrong you're not seeing it 24:22 incorrectly you're handling it well according to the committee opinion and 24:28 that's positive affirmation and we all appreciate positive affirmation so let's Circle back to what the original topic 24:34 was which was the most important question in therapy and this idea of the 24:41 difference between an open-ended and a closed-ended question what's the difference between so a couple things 24:46 occurred to me one is when clients becoming new clients would come in sometime in the first session or two one 24:53 of the questions that I would ask is if our work together is productive and 25:01 positive and on target how will your life be different if what we do together is beneficial for you 25:08 what will be different what are you looking for do you know do you think do you feel 25:15 your relationship your mother be improved your relationship with your mother will be severed you'll get out of 25:20 bankruptcy who knows what it's going to be but you have a concept of that so 25:27 then they start talking and what that does is sets for the 25:33 therapist if not the client what the goals of therapy are so a lot of times people talk about oh you had to have 25:39 goals and you got around but it doesn't have to be that formalized that question right there helps me as the therapist 25:45 understand that may be you know what the client says in in response to that 25:51 question might be what they're looking for but it might not I mean it might just be what they're talking about 25:57 because they haven't they don't feel safe enough to really peel back the layers of the onion yeah yeah right 26:03 right but but those are ways of establishing goals in therapy so if you're a new therapist and you're asking 26:10 that question what you're getting the information you're getting back helps you to understand where the client might 26:17 want to go in the therapy session and so as you listen to a client 26:25 one I mean there are different labels and skill techniques that this discusses 26:31 but you you listen to the phraseology and the verbalisms that they use 26:39 and that helps you learn how they think and how they experience 26:45 neuro-linguistic programming is a term and you listen to what they say and you 26:51 you listen between the lines you hear more and you're watching on verbals and you learn when to say wait a minute I'm 26:59 I'm picking something up here it's not in focus it could be me that's out of focus but 27:06 it could be you and so give me some feedback you're not getting this 27:11 accurately are you struggling with this did you just twitch did you just have a flash of a distraction or a thought and 27:17 you that's called uh I think it was a call it just went blank 27:24 uh silent uh okay uh I'm I lost it okay well but so a 27:34 closed-ending question is in question that can be answered with a single word so if I say did you go to the store 27:40 yesterday yes sir you can say yes or no yeah on which store right but an open-ended question it requires more of 27:48 an elucidation so if I say to you you know what it was your fun this childhood 27:54 memory and you say Saturday well obviously it requires more input than 27:59 that so in therapy we're trying to ask open-ended questions because the answer 28:08 that is provided by the client could give us additional information that's 28:14 more than Justice it gives you a directional approach but but there is one open-ended question that you never 28:20 ever ever ever ever ask you like me everybody always does no why oh yeah 28:26 yeah yeah I lost my temper and punched my questioning us why would you do that 28:31 why do you lose your temper I don't know how they're going to answer that yeah so 28:36 you don't say why so you don't ask open-ended questions that put the client 28:43 in a down position no you don't do that 28:49 you ask them exploratory questions yeah how do you understand that how did you 28:54 experience what did it feel like yeah uh well and then so now you're going back because I asked you originally what was 29:01 your most important question in therapy but I never answered that for me it is 29:06 how do you feel about that because emotional regulation is so much a central part of how I see human 29:15 pathology that that for me is the most important question how do you feel about that I think most people answer that 29:20 with how they think about that and and I point that out yeah because you got to get to the field right and so one of the 29:28 first things that I do is to train clients that if I say how do you feel 29:34 about that you have to answer glad mad sad or scared you can't because if you 29:39 don't use an affective AFF ECT affective word which is the psychological word for 29:47 emotion then you're telling me how you think so if I ask you how do you feel about that and you say I felt 29:54 disrespected well you can't feel disrespected that's not a Feeling you can think that you were disrespected and 30:00 let's assume for the sake of argument that you did think that you were disrespected how do you feel about that 30:05 well I felt angry okay now we're talking about affect and so I train people to 30:11 use that affective language so that and as they start to go through therapy they 30:18 get reinforced with that hopefully they'll take that outside of therapy so when they start talking to other people in their lives they'll actually start 30:25 having those affective conversations rather than just talking about how they think because you're absolutely right 99 30:32 of us 99 of the time when we are asked how we feel we tell people what we think 30:38 well and classically Men answer I don't know yeah how do you feel about that I don't know yeah I I and I'll end with 30:45 this little anecdote but uh when I was working at the hospital there was another guy that worked there and 30:52 I'm not going to say his name but to be honest with you I don't remember what his name was this was a long long time ago uh and he would do groups and his 31:02 response to everything that anybody said in group was anger about that anger 31:09 about that yeah anger about that and I said to him one day you know there are more emotions than 31:17 just anger I I you know I how how much it would have just been so easy to say oh so how did you feel about that how 31:23 did that make you feel but he would just always say anger about that and yes maybe the person was angry but maybe 31:31 they were hurt and they were using anger as a cover-up and that's one of the things and that's what I want to end on 31:37 is that most people in our society at least and I think in the 31:43 world in general use anger as a way to cover up hurt and a part of therapy is 31:50 to go deep enough to help people recognize the way that they might be 31:55 covering their emotions with other emotions camouflage yeah yeah accurate 32:00 reflective listening yes what I couldn't remember so important yeah essential the 32:06 music that appears inside with Mike is written and performed by Mr Benjamin declue what we would love is if you are 32:13 a regular listener to the show or even if you're not even if you this is the first time you've ever heard the show if you're irregular yeah go to Apple 32:20 podcasts and find psych with Mike and rate US and leave a review that is super super beneficial we would really really 32:27 like it if you would go on to the YouTube spine psych with Mike and subscribe to the show there that is very 32:34 very helpful and as always if it's Friday it's psych with me foreign 32:41 [Music]  

Sometimes it is important to try and re-focus our perspective. A great deal of anxiety is about the privilege we enjoy because of the place we live. Trying to understand that concept can help us consider how the perspective of the world at large. Refocusing is an essential tool for reducing anxiety.    https://forge.medium.com/panic-is-a-luxury-c4330107b80a   Transcript: you're listening to psych with Mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:07 guest go to www.sitewithmike.com follow the show on 0:12 Twitter at psych with Mike or like the Facebook page at psych with Mike now 0:18 here's psychic welcome in Insight with Mike Library this is Dr Michael Mahon and I'm here 0:24 with my good friend and colleague Mr Brett Newcombe I love it when you say that which part good friend or colleague 0:30 both because it gives me some identity yeah well I I am very aware 0:38 um that there was a period of time where I was an experiment for you 0:44 Oh I thought I kept that better hidden oh no you used to tell me that all the time I don't know how how you thought it 0:51 was hidden when you used to say that you used to say like those words to me well you're just really an experiment well I 0:57 mean if if you were feeling anxiety about that it's exactly what I wanted you to feel because anxiety can be a 1:03 motivator yeah and I was trying to motivate you well I was if you don't turn your sound machine you're going to 1:08 fail I was initially reluctant to believe that you would care enough about 1:14 me to want to be my friend well and I understood that and you said well there were reasons why but I'm in a period of 1:20 my life where I'm trying to be a better person and I'm using that I can bring 1:25 along as an opportunity to try and yeah I promise a turd yeah yeah and I was 1:31 like oh no thanks that's wonderful okay now you're making me anxious yeah so so 1:38 uh do you get anxious a must it's part of the human condition 1:43 yeah but I don't know that anxiety is a part of the human condition and this is why I say that because 1:50 where even if there are other uh psychological conditions that may be 1:58 actually linked to some kind of chemical imbalance or some neural processing I 2:04 don't think things I I've always believed anxiety is a thought disorder and so if you can correct the thought 2:13 disorder then you don't have anxiety so what I mean by that is that anxiety generalized anxiety other than the 2:19 fear-based anxieties I believe we should make a distinction between fear-based non-fear-based anxieties okay say more 2:26 so fear-based anxieties which are like post-traumatic stress disorder things like that those actually are ways in 2:33 which the brain processes information incorrectly so instead of the cortex 2:39 which is the area of your brain where rational thought lives processing information first and then giving 2:45 information to the limbic system which is your emotional Center and then that triggering the 2:52 fight-or-flight response when you have post-traumatic stress disorder that's turned upside down you just immediately 2:57 get into fight or flight and you don't ever process the information but generalized anxieties which are 3:03 situationally based you always process the information first and those are the result of cognitive dissonance so the 3:10 inability for the human mind to hold two conflicting thoughts comfortably so I 3:16 want to ask a girl out but I'm afraid of rejection right that's that's a that's a 3:21 a a a a conflict and the friction of those two ideas rubbing together in our 3:28 brains causes what we consider to be anxiety so if you don't have any cognitive dissonance if you don't live 3:34 with that and you don't fuel that on a regular basis then you could live fairly 3:40 anxiety free my question would be it is The Human Condition such that a person can do that 3:48 um I don't think so yeah because I think things happen I mean uh I recently had I was reflecting on your question about 3:55 anxiety uh I don't think I'm very situationally anxious uh 4:03 I mean it does happen but it's really rare uh if I'm in a dangerous environment and 4:10 I see I'm Jesse Jackson talking about walking down the streets of Chicago being followed by a group of young black 4:16 males I said made him anxious just because they were there because the reputation of the area and the community 4:21 and so on I've had that experience I remember hitchhiking through Hartford 4:27 Connecticut in the Spanish section being followed by a bunch of teenagers because 4:32 I was obviously an outsider didn't belong in that neighborhood and they wondered who I was and what I was doing there I felt some anxiety while they 4:39 followed me to the edge of the boundary and then they went away they didn't do anything they were just there but I felt 4:45 anxiety and and was asking myself questions like how'd you get here stupid well it's not where you should be get 4:51 out of here uh I had a I had a cancer scare earlier this year 4:58 and I had a lot of anxiety about well if I have cancer I'm going to die and do I have cancer am I going to die is it now 5:04 time to make my peace with that and figure out you know how to get from here to there to 5:11 an acceptable death right uh assuming I have anything to do with that at all or do I and so there's a lot of existential 5:18 anxiety uh so I think that may be the two types of 5:24 anxiety that you're talking about one one is a situational existential anxiety a baseline level of anxiety one's one is 5:30 an immediate reaction to a set of circumstances it could be scary causing you to have a reaction so I 5:37 don't think I'm very prone to one but I think I'm prone to both so I don't know 5:44 how to answer your question well I originally answered the question because of all of the people that I know 5:50 you demonstrate what I would consider observable anxiety 5:56 the least good yeah good and and I've always and I've always thought that now I've I've been in situations and I've 6:05 seen times where I have where I know that you were anxious but that's pretty 6:12 rare and so what I wonder is because anxiety is just so ubiquitous now in 6:20 society it's actually overtaken depression as the number one diagnosis 6:26 diagnosed psychological disorder in the United States and so is that a real 6:32 thing has anxiety overtaken it do we see it more and so when we're treating it 6:39 are we treating it in a way that is effective and beneficial 6:47 thank you I don't know yeah and I I don't know the 6:52 answer to the question because I don't have a global map for 6:58 society I try to see clients as individuals when somebody comes in and they're struggling 7:05 to digest something they want to figure out what that is and and try to find a way to help with that problem 7:12 uh now what I'm aware of doing counseling is that we may make progress 7:17 on this problem and when we take it off the table another underlying problem or 7:22 what we call comorbid problem will surface because it's like cards in a 7:28 deck and you play some down but there's still some there and I think life is a statement that there are problems 7:35 and you're going to experience having to encounter them and having to manage them 7:40 and resolve them to the best of your ability all of your life if you're alive there's going to be something out there 7:46 yeah that you need to be dealing with right and 7:51 I'm so so being anxious about it just saying oh my God I'm anxious I'm Frozen with 7:57 anxiety yeah isn't helpful to me no so so then my question becomes well what 8:03 are the things that we can do about the anxiety when I reframe the way you expand define it experience while I was 8:10 listening to you talk what I was thinking about was at what point did 8:17 things like psychological disorders start to become an actual thing like 8:22 when we were hunter-gatherers did we have the ability to experience 8:28 depression anxiety bipolar disorder and my guess would be long enough yeah even 8:34 if we did it didn't matter because environmental factors were such you had to have the survival skills right right 8:40 if they were survival skill enhancing yeah we had them yeah if they weren't no 8:45 and and so for me a lot of what we consider 8:50 mental disorders are really the luxury of our Advanced Society well I agree 8:56 actually okay you do agree with that I do and I also think that a lot of them are artificially created yeah uh by 9:02 advertising you know you watch Saturday morning television Sunday morning television every ad is a medical ad yeah 9:09 and they don't tell you what the product is for they they show glorious happy uh 9:16 sunshiny smiling people because they take this drug and then they and at the 9:21 end of the commercial they give don't take this drug if it can cause bleeding it cause heart attacks it can kill you you can't take it with other drugs be 9:27 sure to talk to your doctor about it oh and by the way if you have trouble forwarding it we can get it to you too yeah uh and then and then so then I sit 9:35 around like do I have that yeah is that do I have that so I don't know just call your doctor and tell them you want the 9:40 medicine ah yeah just in case yeah exactly right well you know that's magical thinking 9:46 everybody's medicine cabinet is full of drugs they didn't take a full dosage yes especially uh I I remember 9:52 20 30 years ago doctors were regularly talking about we don't want to give people penicillin because they're going 9:58 to be superbugs that come along that don't respond to those things and uh sure enough there were then there are 10:05 and so now they've uh I was in hospital one time because I got bitten by a spider a black widow spider yeah I 10:10 remember and I had uh my I think it was a brown recluse yes yes she was I said Black Widow yeah 10:18 yeah that was a different issue uh but we're not going to talk about that the doctor told me you're in the hospital 10:24 and I was there for a week yeah because we have to put you on this drip antibiotic because we can't give you anything strong enough that isn't coming 10:30 through an IV feed in your arm yeah uh to kill this bacteria because it 10:35 it'll kill you yeah so I lead in the hospital for a week waiting on the fight to be resolved while I read books no I 10:43 remember that and that was terrifying ah so if if 10:49 the if a lot of psychological disorders are the result of the luxury we have by 10:58 living in such an advanced Society does that matter in the context of doing 11:03 Psychotherapy can you say to a client you know a lot of what we suffer from is 11:10 the result of how good we have it is that a message that matters doesn't make them feeling better yeah I mean so what 11:17 the point is I have it now I'm worried about it I'm upset about it uh I'm in 11:24 the hospital with something that's probably going to kill me unless this drug works right so what can I do but 11:30 that's now that's an extreme case I mean but I mean that's where you get to well but I mean most of the time we see people in therapy they're not there 11:37 because they got bit by a spider and almost died they're there because you know their teenager is back talking them 11:45 and they don't have the intestinal fortitude to enforce consequences to make stop 11:51 or the societal support system you know I'm a five foot two 35 year old woman 11:58 with no husband and a job uh trying to manage a 13 year old who's starting to 12:04 feel his oats and get in my face and tell me you can't tell me what to do he's bigger than I am and I'm worried 12:10 about okay yeah that that is that is an um yeah that is a situation we I didn't 12:16 see a lot of people in that situation because we live in a fairly affluent part of St Louis I had a number of 12:22 clients that were dealing with that yeah and and that certainly is much more 12:27 problematic than the guy who is just so distracted by work that he's not really 12:32 active in the daily discipline of the children the mom is just furious because 12:38 the dad is checked out I mean that's mostly what I saw in therapy and and uh 12:44 to me those situations are the result of 12:50 I mean too much affluence I mean you're we're lucky that we have the uh the 12:59 luxury of having psychological disorders you whip out a chart of Maslow's 13:04 hierarchy I don't explain to them you have meals I mean this is yeah this is more of an uh a kind of a 13:12 intellectual argument between you and I as as people who did therapy for a long 13:17 time but the goal is to discuss with 13:22 clients what their situation is from their perspective in their reality and 13:29 I'm aware of that and I try and do that but for myself I see a lot of 13:35 psychological disorders as a luxury that we have because of the society that we 13:43 live in and that doesn't make them less real to the person I understand that but 13:48 I do think that if a individual can put that in context it could make it easier 13:55 for them so couple thoughts 14:03 when you address let's identify this let's look at other options 14:09 other considerations one of the things that 14:15 people are regularly told is you uh you can't think your way out of this 14:21 it's not an intellectual problem to solve it's not a data-based resolution you know the old Ben Franklin uh 14:29 conflict resolution thing pros and cons make a list divided up and weigh them 14:35 out I remember when I had a job in sales I used to teach us what they call the Ben Franklin close if you had a client 14:41 Mr Prospect who's considering uh because you've been so forceful your product 14:47 purchasing your product they're thinking yeah and you say well you know Ben Franklin had a solution for that to take 14:53 out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle of it you say yes and no you see make up all the reasons for why 15:00 this is a good decision and then you help them with that he said well look it's cheaper it's affordable and you get 15:06 monthly payments it's guaranteed for five years it comes in multiple colors and whatever and then over on the other 15:12 side Ben Franklin put all the reasons for not buying it and then you don't say 15:17 a damn thing you make them come up with it and so if you're a trained professional you've given them 20 things 15:23 for doing it you give them nothing for not doing it they'll come up with two or three but then you're looking at the 15:30 balance it's like oh my God that's an obvious decision and that closes the sale right okay let's run to our break 15:36 and when we come back we'll pick this up hey everybody Dr Michael Mahon here from 15:41 Psych with Mike and I couldn't be more excited to talk to you about athletic greens which is a new sponsor we have 15:48 here on the show I started taking athletic greens watching some YouTube 15:53 videos and doing my own research I wanted to add something to my daily workout program to give me some energy 16:00 and to support gut health and that was the one thing that kept coming up again 16:05 and again with athletic greens is the guy who started the company did a bunch of research because he was having some 16:11 gut health issues that he couldn't get any resolution for he developed athletic 16:17 greens and it's just exploded from there so it's 75 superfoods vitamins minerals 16:23 probiotics Whole Foods sources that's all in one daily scoop you put it in 8 16:30 or 12 ounces of water you shake it up and you drink it The Taste is very very 16:35 drinkable I actually enjoy it and I have been using and my energy levels have 16:41 just been through the roof I really like athletic greens because of some of the sustainability things that they do so 16:48 they buy carbon credits and you know to help protect the rain forest which is 16:54 something that I really like but if you order athletic Greens in your 16:59 subscription you're going to also get a year's supply of their vitamin D 17:05 supplementation and five free travel packs and that vitamin D is so important 17:11 during those winter months when we're not getting enough sunlight we've talked about how that decreases your mood and 17:18 increases depression and that can be a real deal changer so you go to 17:24 athleticgreens.com emerging that's athletic greens.com 17:32 emerging that's the psych with Mike promo and you're going to get that additional vitamin D support for a year 17:40 and five free travel packs so take control of your own health today and as 17:46 always if it's Friday it's psych with Mike okay so before the break you had 17:53 adroitly refocused us and and on to what we wanted to talk about which was 17:58 anxiety and some of the ways in which people ineffectively try and deal with 18:03 it and so you're talking about this idea that I can think my way out of something which is the message that we get from 18:11 our Protestant upbringing which is hey you know you should be able to think 18:16 your way out of this situation and you had given an example of a way that you did that in business so are you saying 18:24 that that works in therapy or doesn't uh it does not yeah because it's not you're 18:30 dealing with a an affective State not an intellectual problem so it's not a 18:35 weights and measures kind of uh problem can we weigh this amount of anxiety and 18:41 say well I've got two pounds of anxiety today but tomorrow I'll have one pound yeah yeah 18:48 and so but but we are uh conditioned to say we should be able to problem solve 18:55 by thinking our way through it well if I just focus on One credit card payment 19:00 leave the others alone maximize my payment on the one until I get it paid off then I can roll over what I'm paying 19:06 on it into the next one and focus on them one at a time and solve the problem so and then I'll solve all my financial 19:12 anxieties over time typically doesn't work that way because other things intervene right uh most 19:19 people are not able to do that not able to do that for a long enough time that they have success so somebody comes 19:27 along gives them another credit card says I can help you out here there's 500 that you can charge and so they charge 19:32 up to the max they have 12 credit cards they're all charged to the max they're making minimum payments and they're 19:38 screwed so you got to figure how can I resolve this but it's not as much a 19:45 dollars and cents solution as it is an effective solution why do you keep buying stuff you can't afford right 19:51 what's the hunger driving the need to possess right you know what are the feelings involved 19:57 can we identify them and address the feelings that drive you as opposed to 20:03 focusing on the mechanics of operation that are the expression or the outcome 20:10 of being driven by those feelings right you know I need to keep up with the Joneses all my neighbors have a newer 20:15 car we haven't bought a new car my kids need to go to college and everybody in town is going to this college I got to 20:20 at least be able to you know so people get trapped in those binds that 20:25 generate anxiety and in fact affective discomfort right but they can't think 20:31 their way through it but problem solving we oftentimes talk about emotional economics and so I think what we're 20:39 saying is you may not be able to think your way intellectually out of a problem 20:44 but you can consider what is the cost liability 20:49 or the the liability benefits of my emotions of my ethics so when you have 20:56 to feel the feelings first okay you have to feel you have to label you have to externalize them then you can process 21:02 them if you just stay in your head and don't feel any of that stuff you'll come up with logical Solutions right that 21:08 don't solve anything yeah because you aren't dealing with the affect right which is the argument that's made in the 21:14 article that you have listed about thinking your way through anxiety the other thing that people get bound up in 21:21 with regard to anxiety is thinking that they have to find a perfect solution camp and that's Sometimes the best 21:28 solution is to throw a whole bunch of crap on the wall see what sticks and then among the things that stick which one is a more attractive piece and can 21:36 you get there but if you're invested in thinking there is a perfect 21:42 solution I'm going to not take a vacation until I get all my 21:48 bills paid off right I can go and pay cash for my vacation you may work your entire working life and never take a 21:54 vacation so then you say well the alternative is I can go on vacation but then I'll just 22:00 go deeper in debt right well but you know I think that the the 22:06 intellectual exercise oh yeah butt thing is a way of 22:12 restricting yourself to an action yes or from an action because you think oh I'm 22:18 investing all of this energy in trying to think about this problem so I'm doing something when in reality you're not 22:26 doing anything because all you're doing is sitting there thinking about the problem and sometimes all you just have to take in action even if it isn't 22:33 beneficial just to get mobile my father used to say on a regular basis to me son 22:39 you have to do what the fighter pilot does yeah uh that's what I don't know what that means because I'm not a fighter pilot and neither you did uh but 22:46 it would be lead follower get out of the way do something he could have been a fire pilot 22:51 no uh yeah because they say when the plane's 22:57 gonna crash yeah you got to do something even if it's wrong it doesn't at that point it doesn't matter what he was 23:03 riding on the plane right you're gonna die anyway yeah so you might as well do something even if you don't think it's 23:10 gonna help do something don't just sit there immobile so I was raised in an era 23:16 uh where the lesson that I learned is whenever you get in financial trouble 23:22 go get another job yeah get an additional job work a second job work a third job bring in more income 23:29 pay these so that you don't negatively impact your standard living so I became 23:34 a workaholic and I spent most of my adult life being a workaholic working two and three jobs working 70 80 hours a 23:41 week making good money but for much of my life didn't manage my 23:47 money just no matter how much I made it all went out the other end and it wasn't even better 23:53 so that was a real mental adjustment to 23:58 recognize that solution wasn't a solution and that other things had to be 24:04 dealt with that I won't deal with they hurt and going to work didn't hurt right and 24:11 so do you is that an example of trying to think your way out of a problem yeah 24:17 yeah I'll just go get another job yeah absolutely yeah which then actually kind 24:23 of I'll see five more clients this week right that brings in money it kind of feels like that's a solution because 24:29 you're doing something but then it really isn't solving the problem you're 24:34 not changing anything right right and then you kind of touched on the third one which is to think that you have to 24:40 pause everything to and tell you in 2010 right yeah and you were talking about 24:45 not taking a vacation and you know a lot of times that feels like good 24:53 advice stop doing everything else and just focus on this problem right and that I even argue that might be good 25:01 advice if you were actually going to do something about the problem but if you're gonna pause everything else and 25:08 just sit and focus on the problem and not do anything then that's not really helpful so as a 25:13 therapist when you look at suggesting behavioral interventions behavioral changes 25:19 one of the things that you can suggest that your client initially will think you're really stupid I'm paying you 25:25 money for this and you're saying this to me you have to challenge habituated automation 25:32 so an example that I would give to people most of you get up in the morning 25:38 and get dressed in the exact same way right every day if you put your pants on first you put your left leg in first 25:45 then your right leg then you pass your pants then you put your t-shirt on then you put your shirt on you put your socks 25:50 on what order do you do that well I don't know well think about it pay attention just watch yourself because 25:55 you'll do it and you'll do it the same way every day so do it differently what do you mean I said well for instance lay 26:03 your clothes out tonight that you're going to wear tomorrow and when you wake up in the morning go take a shower brush your teeth do whatever you need to do 26:09 without opening your eyes come back in and get dressed without opening your eyes 26:15 you always put your wallet in your left Hip Pocket put your right hip pocket do something different and be aware that 26:23 you're doing something different notice the difference and how uncomfortable it makes you how comforting it is to have 26:30 an automated ritual because we have to break the rhythm of the automated ritual 26:35 and so even stupid little things like put your wallet in a different pocket give you an opportunity to say well I'm 26:42 going to do that differently uh so you challenge them to do little things that are under their control you 26:49 can decide this morning not to have four cups of coffee you can decide to have three glasses of water 26:55 oh that's stupid well no it's really not if you make it as a proactive choice 27:00 and then we can decide and it's really an exercise in being able to get out of 27:07 the comfort zone yes people don't recognize automated if it's anxiety yes 27:13 that's your comfort zone people say well I'm I'm uncomfortable with my anxiety no 27:18 you're not yeah because if you were uncomfortable with an old friend right 27:23 you would not live in the anxiety and so that's something that I think people get 27:28 stuck with is that they assume that because they say to themselves I feel 27:35 uncomfortable with my anxiety that that means that they're out of their comfort zone no that's what you know well and so 27:43 then there are classic defenses resistance as we call them against 27:48 challenging the anxiety provoking situation yeah one is well wait a minute that's not logical I have to think my 27:54 way through it one is I have to find the perfect solution because let lesson that 28:00 will solve the problem so it's got to be perfect and the third one is I can't do anything else until I find this right 28:06 solution right so those mental traps are defenses that preserve the anxiety right 28:14 exactly yeah they stop you from being able to work your way through the 28:19 anxiety to an actual resolution yeah and 28:24 you know that touches on this fifth one which is people believe that if they didn't have 28:33 anxiety their lives would be better and that's just not true because as you 28:38 and I started this discussion just have different anxiety exactly you're going to having having anxiety is an artifact 28:44 of the society that we live in and now if you know the world Goes to Hell and we have a nuclear Holocaust and 28:51 everybody's living in survival mode people are going to have less anxiety that's why millions are going to be 28:56 living in survival would that be better no that wouldn't be better millionaires can never have enough money 29:01 right they have to have a billion and billionaires can never have to have money they have to have more because you've always got to have more because 29:07 enough is Never Enough right even if you have more money than Jesus 29:14 you still have to have more because well if somebody took some away from you right well if somebody used uh control 29:19 of the state to limit what you could do with your money you know like the Jerry Reed song you know uh 29:26 it's a song You country singer I had a song about playing dice in the alley and 29:32 they're going to put him in jail and he said who's going to collect my welfare check who's going to pay for my Cadillac 29:38 if I'm in jail I can't do those things rich people have the same issues you 29:43 know it's not so much I got to pay rent it's like I got to pay fifty thousand dollars in Property 29:50 Maintenance right for all my houses right you know and so I have to make more money 29:55 and that's the Trap of anxiety that those individuals live with right and so the 30:02 question is if you gave all that up yeah and said okay I'm just gonna live on the 30:08 beach and you know not worry about making money well you we did a podcast a 30:15 few weeks back and you spent a considerable amount of time talking about messages from the Buddha about not 30:21 being invested in things owning things having things doing 30:27 things but just being uh as a goal for life 30:34 in which you didn't experience anxiety and so I am not 30:40 capable of citing the references that you decided but you were making the point that your understanding of the 30:46 message of the Buddha was the less invested we are in things attachments 30:52 relationships the less anxiety we will experience the less suffering we will experience the 30:58 more at one with the universe will become and that that was a goal of life 31:04 so so do you agree with that do you think that's no I'm not smart enough to know I 31:11 just we were talking about someone who's negatively and adversely impacted by anxieties to the point that they're 31:17 crippling how do they deal with them one of the ways if you could get the perfect 31:23 Buddhist solution you wouldn't feel them because you wouldn't have right investment in those things those agendas 31:29 those needs those goals those desires but being a normal person 31:34 which is a given uh I got them you got them everybody I know has them how much do they interfere how 31:41 much of a problem are they that's what brings some people to therapy so and 31:46 we'll go out on this question but uh if we're 31:53 correct and what we're saying that anxiety is a part of the human existence there's no 32:01 way to separate that out then control the volume yeah physical can can a can 32:07 an individual monitor their own anxiety or do you think that it is 32:15 necessary for someone to get some outside perspective 32:21 I don't think there's a I don't have a single answer that to me it depends on how much distress are you in do you have 32:28 the resources to moderate it yourself or do you need help yeah yeah it's my old 32:34 adage about no one goes to therapy because they have a problem they go to therapy because a problem they have 32:39 causes them emotional dysregulation right yeah 32:46 so the message is be less anxious 32:51 yeah as as Nancy Reagan used to say just say no just say no just say no but don't 32:57 just say no to contacting us if you have a question or reaction to today's podcast and would like to be involved in 33:05 topics for the future that's so beautiful I'm a professional the music that appears inside with Mike is written 33:11 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For most, the goal of therapy is to increase your self-understanding. The only way to truly do this is through honest self-reflection.    https://medium.com/perennial/the-discipline-of-clarity-according-to-jung-630e8434252f   Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psycho welcome into the psych 0:19 with mike library this is dr michael mahana i'm here with mr brett newcomb and intern michael 0:25 hello again good morning how are you guys doing great you guys are i guess i guess i should say consummate 0:32 professionals yes i think you could basically say that you can say i've always said the 0:37 shenanigans that were going on before we turned the mics on were 0:43 raucous and and then the mic goes on and you guys are like i'm much more well behaved when the 0:49 camera is on it's the sunday paper rule never put it in writing unless you want it to end up 0:54 in the sunday paper exactly true don't say anything that you don't want somebody to shout with a megaphone 1:01 in the local mall yes dear yeah although now malls are 1:07 empty yeah going out of business it's amazing so how can the economy 1:13 be running so hot and yet have just facilities that sell 1:20 stuff going out of business left and right there's this really cool new invention uh came out in the 90s or 1:25 something called the internet and uh people what's this internets that you speak of well everybody has a box in 1:32 their house and when they get sad or lonely they get on the box for several hours and advertisers show them pictures 1:39 and then they buy things for dopamine hits this is it's it's great it's going to be the next big thing i think al gore 1:45 had something to do with that did he invent it actually all right i think amazon has had a lot 1:51 more to do with al gore mm-hmm with the changes that you're talking about yeah so happy i could support jeff 1:58 bezos riding into space he's flying that phallic symbol all the way to the moon 2:04 oh jealous we're along for the i am jealous because i want to go to space but i'll never have that kind of money 2:11 so i'll miss it by just a couple of of years probably like like 2:18 three years after i die space travel will be affordable that i could have done it but i'll be dead well 2:24 now you've spoken it and manifested that into the world so that's your own fault so yeah i got 2:30 nobody to blame but me so i wish i could be more clear 2:37 i do too but i struggle with that you've been telling this 2:42 story all day well this 2:48 use your words yeah uh uh you've been talking about this phenomenon all day where i will start multiple sentences 2:56 and build this large narrative rather than just answer a simple question 3:02 and i feel like that uh this subject is very apropos for that 3:10 it's a reflection of reality now yeah so i have for the last year 3:16 been really really into reading jung so reading original young 3:22 like not reading things but one of the things that i was kind of like reading the bible yeah you actually read the 3:28 bible or just read stuff people say is in the book exactly yeah right because 3:35 i feel like there's a lot of literature out there in psychology which there obviously is 3:41 but what happens if you go back and you read the original stuff that the original 3:48 person like if i decided that i wanted to be a jungian therapist call myself a union 3:54 therapist then the psychoanalytic community here in st louis would say well you can't be a jungian therapist 3:59 because you haven't gone through our classes and been officially sanctioned 4:04 by us but the truth is how many of them have read jung 4:09 jung's original work probably not very many of them they've read a lot of stuff that people have said about jung just 4:14 like i feel about heinz kohut a lot of people have read a lot of stuff that peop that that people have said about 4:20 heinz kohut but how many people have gone back and actually read heinz kohut's original work so i've really 4:26 been trying to pay a lot of attention to jung's original works 4:31 and one of the things that that i am very aware of is that a lot of the 4:39 a lot of what i think people think they know about jung is not accurate 4:46 say more okay so uh young so the the the types that jung 4:55 came out with and and that now are manifested in the myers-briggs or are 5:01 you know explored through the myers-briggs there's very little of what jung 5:08 originally wrote that actually supports that 5:15 so that doesn't mean that what the myers-briggs tests is necessarily 5:21 wrong but i don't know that jung would have 5:26 necessarily supported the myers-briggs in its current 5:31 iteration i don't know maybe he would have but it didn't exist when he was 5:37 alive and so we don't know what he thinks about it but a lot of people would tell you that 5:43 the myers-briggs represents essentially the principles of jung's type typology and 5:52 maybe it does i don't know i don't know what young would think about that but i do know that he was very specific about what he 5:59 what you're talking about the distinction between the manifestation of his theory yeah 6:05 and the origination of his theory and your argument is if you go back and read what he originally wrote 6:11 then you have a clearer understanding of his thoughts exactly but as i understand it when 6:16 when he wrote this stuff it was coming out of his intellect not scientific experimentation 6:24 um brilliant man conceptualized these things wrote them 6:30 down the myers-briggs is someone else taking that and trying to interpret it or 6:36 develop a mechanism that would evoke it when clients take a test right 6:43 so they're not the same thing but they may be different facets of the same diamond 6:50 yeah that's a political scientist and you hear it's that we're saying that law is the manifestation of philosophy 6:57 but the philosophy is not born to the end of law most of the time yes 7:03 got that so one of the things that jung wrote about 7:09 that i would like to explore is this concept 7:14 of clarity so i sent you guys an article about uh jung's thoughts on clarity and so i 7:21 would just ask you what was your guys's thoughts or reflections about that 7:29 michael you wanna sure um i have always looked at young's clarity 7:36 going back to stoicism right marcus aurelius know thyself um and i think 7:42 there is a lot of wisdom in this and how we interpret this and how we can use 7:47 this uh to better our lives or to to connect with people around us 7:52 um i in my everyday job right as an engineer 7:58 i will get into uh not tiffs but uh confrontations with a teammate of mine 8:05 because he's very wordy right and the more words he uses the less i understand about what he's actually saying 8:13 and i think young's argument here is if you don't know yourself how can 8:18 anybody else know you and to get to the point where you can other people can know you or you can 8:25 enact that get really deep with yourself and understand what your you are what 8:30 your convictions are and what you want them to be um i think there's wisdom in that i also 8:36 think there's always some understanding that you even like knowing them knowing them is different than 8:42 choosing them and you can do both you can do both 8:47 so what would what would you say is the difference between the knowing and the choosing i would say that knowing a 8:54 conviction that you currently hold for for example my father is relatively 8:59 religious yes he knows that conviction of himself but it wasn't until much 9:04 later in his life that he really wrestled with his own faith um that did he choose that 9:11 conviction oh i got you himself so you could be brought up in a family where a conviction were indoctrinated into you 9:17 and it could be something like racism you could have been indoctrinated into a racist 9:22 family and you could have that as a part of you but you hadn't ch chosen it and 9:29 then if you actually look back and and at yourself critically and say is this an aspect of my personality that i want 9:36 to embrace you could choose not to you could choose to change yes i think young falls in that camp as well not only can 9:43 you choose to change but you have a responsibility to make the choice it falls back in that 9:49 stoicism or even back to the aristocracy of i have the responsibility of knowing 9:54 myself of understanding this philosophy in myself because eventually as a human being or a 10:00 member of society i should i need to make the choice 10:06 okay i thought you had something but uh so for me this is 10:11 from the psychodynamic perspective the real distinction between what they call 10:17 catharsis and cathexis so catharsis is the evocation of a strong emotional reaction 10:23 cathexis is like an epiphany understanding into the true nature of a thing and 10:29 i have always believed that cathexis is the goal of therapy at least for me 10:36 if i'm going to go to therapy cathexis is my goal and i try and create cathexis 10:42 for my clients but i've had a lot of people tell me that capexis is could be 10:48 could be a goal but is not a necessary goal of therapy so do you guys think 10:53 that better personal understanding is a required goal of therapy or should 11:01 be an expectation of therapy or do you think that just alleviation of symptomology 11:07 is the goal or the point of therapy 11:16 so i think that depends on if we're talking about therapies and intellectual exercise in this field of study 11:21 or if we're talking about what the client coming to see you is hoping to achieve 11:26 because they're the ones that get to decide so it's really in service to what the client's 11:32 goals are it should be but then there's also a pure intellectual 11:38 description that you can buy into as a therapist but i don't think you can impose it on 11:44 the client i had i had dinner this week with an uh old friend of mine 11:52 who is struggling with some things in her life right now and she was saying i was raised lutheran 11:57 i feel these shoulds about how i should be certain ways 12:04 and i'm discovering at this point in my life i don't want to be that way and so i'm feeling guilt about it she said talk 12:09 to me about guilt and i said my personal belief because i'm not doing 12:15 therapy with her so i'll talk more about what i believe with her 12:22 is that guilt the feeling of guilt is an imposed script 12:27 that was internalized inside you in your early childhood messages that you were given to try to 12:33 control your behaviors your options and your thoughts remorse is something totally different remorse 12:40 is something comes out of my own personal sense of integrity to be the person i 12:46 want to be as i understand it requires me to behave this way think this way feel this way 12:54 so if i'm not behaving in a way if i idealize myself for instance this is a good christian 12:59 how do i understand the message about christianity in christ i said well you should behave this way 13:04 okay so i want to behave this way but then i'm walking through the mall and i see somebody that i immediately just 13:10 want to go slap i have a visceral sense of antagonism to this person i don't 13:16 know where it came from i just feel it that primitive part of me wants to go punch me in the nose when i recognize that the christian part 13:23 of me or the the integrity part of me is saying wait a minute a good christian 13:28 wouldn't have those feelings you wouldn't respond to those people what the hell is wrong with you you're a sick person so then i'm in conflict 13:36 internally between the person i'm now seeing myself to be and the idealized person that i would wish to be 13:43 so what i try to explain to my friend is i make a distinction between feeling remorse if i did or didn't do something 13:50 i drive down the highway and these people are standing on the side of the road with homeless signs and little children a woman a man and a couple 13:57 little children and i think i can't believe that the city hasn't run 14:02 them off they're interrupting traffic it's dangerous they shouldn't be there then i drive half a mile on i think what 14:07 if they're really homeless well if those little kids are hungry you got some money you could have given them what's wrong with you you're not a 14:13 good person so i get caught up in those conflicts so then i ask myself who do you choose to 14:19 be do you choose to be a person who tries to help the downtrodden if so 14:25 how do you do that do you support a food pantry do you 14:31 support a homeless shelter do you physically go down and cook meal i mean what do you do to say well i'm helping 14:38 and then can you discriminate between that and passing somebody on the highway with a 14:44 homeless son as as a matter of personal choice so we get into the shoots and what i told 14:50 my friend is the way i try to distinguish this with clients who are suffering from this 14:55 is can you make a distinction between the have two shoulds and the chooser shoots the behavior may be the same the 15:01 visible behavior i'm going to put twenty dollars in a pot somewhere the have to should 15:07 if i listen to that and i do it i'm go the way the way i'll know i'm going to 15:12 feel resentful and angry the choose to should i'm going to feel good about it because my superhero will 15:18 come in and give me an atta boy oh you did the right thing you did what we wanted to do so i try to make the distinction between 15:24 the have two shoulds and the choose to show but so then the only way that you can know the difference between the have two shoulds and the choose two shoulds 15:31 is to find this clear clarity absolutely which brings us back full circle so i 15:36 want to go back though and ask you a question about why i was listening to this well actually let's go to our break and 15:42 then we'll come back and i'm going to ask you a question hey brett if you were going to 15:48 tell somebody to check out something on the internet to 15:53 help them with their mental health what would you tell them i tell them listen to psych with mike why would you tell 15:58 them that because it's probably one of the most easily listenable experiences you can have that 16:05 will give you information that's useful for a whole spectrum of concerns that 16:10 people have i agree and i have actually been told that 16:16 by at least a dozen people several of whom were not married to me and some of 16:22 them didn't even know me that's amazing that is amazing it's when when we get 16:27 that kind of feedback from people it is so incredibly 16:32 humbling and overwhelming for me it is for both of us yeah so we really 16:38 appreciate it and as always if it's friday it's side with mike [Music] 16:44 okay we're back and and so the question that i wanted to ask you is so do you conceptualize guilt as an 16:53 external message and remorse as an internal message no uh i conceptualize guilt as an 17:00 indoctrinated message okay so but that's what i mean the the the the it's coming from outside the message is coming from 17:06 outside originally yeah but i've internalized sure sure yeah yeah okay yeah but but remorse has to 17:12 come from inside right for my own developed sense of integrity the person that to be the husband that i want to be 17:19 requires me to behave this way and not behave that way so even though 17:25 the primitive me may want to behave that way right the chosen me 17:30 shouldn't it's a should is it a have to should is it coming from my religious training as a child or is 17:37 it a choose to should come into my sense of grown-up integrity i walk this path because i choose to walk this path it 17:43 makes me feel better about me so would you would you say that remorse yes is more a function of clarity yes 17:51 yes okay because i think that's really helpful when thinking about you know 17:56 we've all treated individuals who are sexual abuse surprisers right and we've 18:02 always had and we've had we've talked about this multiple times you come to thanksgiving i got to go to belong to 18:08 you belongs to the perpetrator and but i think that that's a great way to be able to present that to the 18:15 client to say you feel guilty but do you feel remorse so that's what you have to do you have to break up the script that 18:21 they've internalized and offer them the option to write a new one right because if you feel guilty 18:28 then that's pressure that's coming from you from outside from other members well the rest of the family still wants to 18:34 keep the imagery in place and so they're going to be really devastated if you out uncle joe at thanksgiving dinner you 18:41 ruined our thanksgiving right and so if i say to the client let's not focus on your guilt let's 18:48 focus on your remorse where's your remorse comfort my remorse comes from that i couldn't protect that little girl 18:54 my remorse comes from that my other people in my family didn't protect that little girl and so that wouldn't be 19:00 remorse that would be anger oh well i mean it could be yeah i mean if if johnny didn't protect 19:07 susie i don't own any of that it's regret okay it's really rewarding okay okay yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i 19:13 think is that they're both rooted they both gain power through shame yes both guilt and remorse and 19:20 even regret all three gain their power through an unspoken shame yeah but who's right but where's the shame 19:26 coming from is it coming from an external message or is it coming from an internal message a whole personal integrity so that's the conversation i 19:32 want to have with the client what is your sense of integrity not my 19:38 judgment not my external observation saying good girl bad girl but what do you see when you look in the mirror what 19:43 do you hear in your head and i think that's what jung was suggesting in the 19:48 article about clarity of self-awareness self-perception uh 19:54 self-examination michael you were gonna say something no okay so so uh uh 20:04 have you ever used that terminology though in therapy i would like for you to have more clarity 20:11 no yeah i haven't either no um have you ever conceptualized it that way in a way 20:17 that you were aware of i don't know okay because i think i do 20:24 that i think i do and i don't know that i ever used the word clarity but it is 20:31 i tend to be fairly socratic and you know there's a whole 20:38 controversy in psych how should you be so should you teach in therapy or should you let the 20:44 client come to their own conclusions and i tend to be more socratic and that's 20:50 just how i am and so i know that about myself but i want people to genuinely come to an 20:58 understanding of themselves not one that i've 21:03 given them or projected on to them but one that they internally believe is true because i don't think you can make 21:10 accurate choices about your behavior and how you want to be if you don't understand that so what 21:16 i try to talk about a teaching moment what i try to do is teach a client that 21:21 words matter and that it's really important if we can get to the manifestation of the script that 21:26 they hear in their head what are the words that you hear with my friend what she was saying is i hear should 21:34 and so i said could you work on changing every time you hear [ __ ] in your head 21:39 stop and say will or won't i should take my friend to dinner 21:45 stop and say i will take my friend to dinner this week or i won't take my friend to dinner this week and let that 21:51 go and re-script the words you hear in your head because i believe if the script is 21:58 rewritten the message changes we find that there's a powerful effect 22:03 um this reminds me a lot of uh danny kahneman again right uh danny kahneman and amos tversky have this whole idea of 22:10 framing as a language frame yes right and they would say people are much more effective at quitting smoking if they 22:16 say oh i'm not a person who smokes right right or i'm not smoking today right yeah you 22:23 say you if you pull that into your identity as a person uh it was much more powerful 22:31 so if you okay so then that's a choose to sure so so we're focusing on this idea 22:40 of clarity when we're we're connecting it to those choose to shoulds 22:46 well the clarity comes as young says the clarity comes from self-examination and self-reflection 22:51 so when you can examine this the language of the script 22:57 then you can edit it to your liking right okay so now 23:03 this is kind of blowing my mind but okay so uh one of the things that that we 23:10 struggle with in therapy all the time is the client who is struggling to be able 23:17 to conceptualize themselves as a good person or a bad person so 23:22 using what we're talking about here how how do we apply that to help the 23:29 client with that kind of struggle 23:36 do you understand what i'm saying i think so i think my approach to that would just simply be to ask them for more clarity 23:44 definition of how they experienced them as bad how they experienced themselves as being 23:50 bad and unworthy and so what they will tell you is they've had this behavior that behavior or they'll tell you that 23:57 their church says they should do this that the shoulds from other message points and then you start to take those one at 24:03 a time just examine them where does it come from is that yours do you own that or somebody hand you that well i think 24:09 that coming from you know the the old albert ellis kind of rational emotive therapy 24:14 you know messaging unconscious self-talk uh that a lot of what i see 24:22 as the affliction of our society in in western culture is 24:29 unworthiness unlovableness that people are carrying from those pre-verbal years 24:36 and that we go go back to we were talking in a previous episode about the 24:42 unthought known that we've learned from michael garanzini and that that is one of those 24:48 really profound deeply rooted unthought knowns i am unlovable and that you know 24:57 looking at this idea of clarity what i would say to that client is what makes you 25:03 unlovable is this a message that you've internalized from your environment 25:10 if you really believe that about you what is it about you that you think 25:16 so the way i understand guaranteeing you used that in connection with something called attachment theory 25:24 your ability to have attachments to make relationships to be connected um 25:30 a lot of the pain that people experience and the dysfunction that they experience comes from their feeling of 25:36 not being securely attached not being safely attached 25:43 and so you have to spend enough time to get to that messaging 25:49 what did you hear and learn about your worthiness to be 25:54 attached about your expectation that you will be abandoned right uh cast out 25:59 because you're unacceptable and that didn't come into your head the incident that you 26:05 were born right as a tabula raza blank tablet that was written by someone on the wall 26:12 you know like the biblical message about the finger of god writing a message on the wall somebody wrote that on your wall can we 26:19 examine it can we possibly edit it and if we can 26:24 what does that suggest to you right about relationships about self-acceptance about self-worth 26:31 because if you got a message from your family of origin from your primary so i 26:37 think this is what i believe is that you are born into a family that this family 26:42 demonstrates appropriate emotional regulation to you you internalize that 26:48 if that message of a regulation but the the the effectiveness of that 26:53 internalized process is really based on the extent to which you feel secure and attached and so when you don't have good 27:01 secure attachment in those early years it's going to be really really difficult to develop effective emotional 27:07 regulation later in life and so then now you're an adult coming to my office 27:12 telling me that you don't feel loved and what i'm wanting to say to that person 27:18 is where is that coming from if we look at if we go through a process of 27:24 delineation to try and figure out clearly where that message comes from from 27:30 inside you where do you see yourself being unlovable and and you know clients will 27:36 always have examples well you know this person says the messages they were yeah they're exactly 27:42 i was just going to say i saw this movie once yeah yeah they're they're but they're all messages it's not an actual 27:49 real intrinsically felt kind of thing and so then when we get to the heart of that and and we we 27:56 say okay this sense of unlovableness isn't coming intrinsically from you 28:04 then i think that it comes back to what michael's talking about with this identity internalization if that's not really 28:10 your identity are you willing to now challenge that and reject this idea of 28:16 unlovableness in favor of some identity structure that's more congruent with 28:22 what you truly see about yourself i think for me that is that is the the 28:28 core of this idea of clarity it's the theory is that clarity is the 28:34 groundwork earlier you mentioned is should the goal of should one of the goals of therapy 28:40 be getting a client to know themselves and we said ultimately it depends on what what are 28:46 the goals of this particular client but that has to leave me wondering can you do 28:53 work with a client without that level of clarity i think you do have to reach a certain point of clarity with a client 28:59 either understanding the messages that they're receiving understanding um the dialogue within themselves 29:05 understanding the propensities within themselves um and then additionally finally their convictions right so 29:11 that's a great question michael my experience the presenting problem that brings 29:16 somebody to therapy is almost never the underlying problem that's causing real difficulty in their life 29:22 but if you don't appear to address the presenting problem and make progress with the presenting problem you'll never 29:28 get the opportunity to go beneath that so it is a dance that again the therapist is challenged 29:35 to track at a existential level and at a superficial 29:41 level to keep the client secure 29:46 and uh wanting to come back feel good about 29:51 what they're getting out of coming to therapy and it's a real challenge sometimes and 29:57 you know the the idea of clarity is a spectrum right and so if you're doing 30:02 cognitive behavior therapy somebody comes in and says i'm always late to work so we're going to do cognitive behavior therapy to identify why it is 30:10 that you're always late to work and you know we identify all of these unconscious self-talk messages you know 30:18 like oh i have more time or i you know i i need to eat a good breakfast all these things and then we we you know modify 30:26 those so that you're more on time that really isn't getting to oh i was 30:33 unloved as a child but it is getting to a level of clarity that is dealing with 30:39 that very specific symptomology presentation so yes we always are going 30:44 to be working on clarity because there's just no other way to be able to do therapy you can't 30:51 get change if you don't work on that process of clarity but my question is 30:58 you know are we and i don't want to say disservice because it always does always have to be 31:03 with the client but for me psychotherapy is good really really foundational 31:09 psychotherapy is a deeper process that does get to that point of cathexis at 31:15 least for me that's at least a part of my goal now i'm not going to force that on a client that doesn't want to go 31:21 there but i am always looking for the avenues for 31:27 what helps me to clinically understand that 31:32 individuals process that that that process of catheters more what are you laughing 31:38 about i'm sorry i when you said i'm not going to force that on the client i flashed i remember 31:43 one time working with a family the mother had lost her cool because she had gotten up 31:49 at four o'clock in the morning taking these three kids to six flags and she wanted to ride a particular ride 31:55 that they didn't want to ride and she lost it and went in this whole diatribe about i got up at four o'clock in the 32:02 morning i drove several hours to get here you're going to write every right out here and you're goddamn going to have fun 32:09 so that's where i flashed when he said i'm not going to push that on my client here's your interpretation of reality that i insist you had what you wanted 32:15 was the recognition you wanted yes you did that's awesome yeah did i get that did they ride the ride 32:22 yes and they cried the whole time nobody had fun 32:27 all right that sounds like a good place to uh leave it for today we would really love it if you would go 32:34 to the youtubes and find psych with mike and subscribe to the show there you can also go on to the 32:41 apple podcast site and find psych with mike and leave us a comment and a rating that always helps people find the show 32:47 and we really appreciate that as always the music that appears inside with mike is written and performed by mr benjamin 32:53 the clue and if it's friday it's cycling  

How our bodies experience and process stress and anxiety are important considerations when examining situations like police shootings. It is also important for therapists to understand when working with clients who have experienced trauma.    https://www.verywellmind.com/general-adaptation-syndrome-gad-definition-signs-causes-management-5213817   Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:20 welcome into the psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon and i am here with intern michael and mr brett newcomb 0:27 what's this how you doing everybody i i you know we i did this again i did it 0:32 again i'm so used to there only being two people in the studio that when we have more i don't know what to say so 0:41 i apologize how are you gentlemen doing good somebody has to be in charge yeah as 0:47 well be one of us might as well yeah yeah so who's got gas 0:53 um i don't know i can't go [Laughter] 1:00 yeah so uh i wanted to talk about something i don't 1:06 know um how familiar that the two of you were with the 1:12 general adaptive syndrome before i sent the article did were you 1:17 guys you know to me again and especially after having read the article which i thought was fine 1:23 it's just a rehash and restatement of old thoughts under a new name 1:28 well i mean sally who who started this work i mean this was back in the 1940s so so i mean this was 1:37 a work that i don't that i think gets less 1:42 talked about and you're right people repackage it but the reason 1:48 why i wanted to talk about this today is actually twofold number one is that the 1:54 general adaptive syndrome is a very good biological explanation of how we 2:00 experience stress and or anxiety certain types of that but number two is 2:06 that we've seen so many examples of police shootings and 2:12 all of these things that are going on and one of the things that i don't hear being talked about and i want to say up 2:18 front that i am not condoning shooting an unarmed man i'm not condoning police 2:24 brutality none of these things are right and appropriate they should be investigated they should be stopped 2:31 but what i am saying is that if we look at the general adaptive syndrome there are 2:37 things biologically that are going on in the body of a human being that we can't expect to be turned off 2:44 just because something changes in three seconds and so that needs to be a 2:52 part of what we look at we need to look at the biology of the human being and 2:57 talk about how do we incorporate that into the training that we are giving 3:04 these individuals and so then the second part of it for me is 3:09 because when i worked at the eap we had the st louis police department 3:16 contract and so whenever there was a police shooting we would have to 3:22 do therapy with these gentlemen to get them back on to their job and for 3:29 therapists who are working with individuals in whatever capacity whether they're first 3:35 responders they're they're riding the ambulance whether they're going on to the you know responding to fires or 3:42 responding in police matters this is something that therapists need 3:48 to be aware of this is the biological process that's happening in the human 3:53 person and so then when you are debriefing them that needs to be something that you are cognizant of 4:02 i think there are two parts to this right one one is that in in situations 4:07 of shooting people can go through all five stages of general adaptive syndrome right you're allowed 4:14 to get to the exhaustive syndrome um where i see a lot of popularity in 4:20 culture and in academia right now is work by robert zapolsky where he's talking about human beings 4:28 not being allowed to get into that exhaustion syndrome so they do further damage to their bodies he calls it 4:34 speciocentric or speciesocentric uh stressors and this idea that only 4:40 human beings can can cognitively place themselves under such stress that it it 4:46 uh has a negative cortical response oh i think that's 4:51 interesting to consider you're absolutely right when it comes to law enforcement officers as well um that 4:58 there are uh different psychologies and different biological underlyings for those psychologies uh in high stress 5:05 situations um one idea that comes to mind just the contagious shooter syndrome 5:12 um the fact that other officers are much more likely to shoot if they're in one shot by an officer 5:17 so how do we how do we make people aware of that bias training with with law enforcement and 5:23 the criminal justice system and progress forward i think we should go with the barney fife 5:29 solution you only get one bullet 5:34 no i'm just joking so what's going on brad what are you what i'm just thinking about the things you're saying and 5:41 i have incredible sympathy for a police officer in a high-risk situation like a 5:48 high-speed chase in traffic where gunshots are fired somewhere by somebody 5:54 and you ultimately go through whatever you have to go through to get the car stopped and 6:01 the guy gets out of the car and he runs away and you're adrenalized to the max 6:06 because you've been driving high speed through traffic with potential gunshots worry about somebody that you care about 6:13 or know getting harmed or shot or killed or what have you and worry about yourself am i going home today you know 6:19 i got to do this job am i going home today and then you get somebody who is 6:25 running away or you get somebody that's giving you lip or attitude when you stop them and all of your 6:31 human impulses try to break through whatever training you've had and then i'm concerned about 6:38 small town cops in america who don't get good training or don't get any training they get a gun and a badge and they're 6:45 told okay go get them and they have whatever biases and prejudices and 6:51 ignorance they bring to the job in addition to a sense of responsibility and a need for courage it's an 6:56 impossible situation right so in some respects it sounds like us just talking into the wind about ethereal 7:03 intellectual concepts it's a real world crisis that we need to have 7:10 a way to explain so that police officers can embrace the concept 7:15 right that there's something worth obtaining right uh like debriefing therapy talking people 7:22 that that aren't on the job but expecting that those people can 7:28 understand you and respect you and might be able to help you right then the flip side of that is the guy 7:35 who's in the car running away you know what what are his uh adrenal responses what's he going 7:41 through if i'm a black man and i'm being chased by a policeman i'm thinking there's a 70 chance i'm not going to 7:47 survive right so what does that do to my body my attitude that's my response so it's a it's a really complex and you've 7:54 hit on exactly the point that i wanted to make with this whole topic and that 8:00 is that both individuals are experiencing exactly this kind of physiological 8:07 response and you know i want to say up front i believe in systemic racism i'm 8:13 not trying to say that there aren't biases on both sides of this equation what i'm trying to say 8:20 is instead of talking about oh people are bad and trying to keep other people 8:25 down let's talk about what is the biology of what's going on here how do we use that to inform us to be able to 8:33 do things differently inform us but not limit us yeah i mean like the young man that was killed last week 8:40 did all the stupid things that he could possibly do to ensure his death i mean he put on a ski mask as he broke from a 8:47 car and ran away from police and contagion effect he was shot 60 8:54 times offering no threat no immediate in the moment threat to the officers he may 8:59 have offered threat in terms of driving recklessly trying to escape driving dangerously what have you 9:05 adrenalizing them in their response how much of their response is power syndrome 9:10 yeah i'm a white man with a gun i'm in charge how dare you uh challenge that authority and the 9:16 psychology from the victim side i mean i understand that he's running from the cups because he knows he's got a 70 9:23 chance of not going home tonight yeah he probably put on the ski mask not you know because he's now trying to be a 9:28 criminal we don't know but he just got stupid whatever well because if he he's probably thinking okay i gotta you know 9:35 protect my identity from the cctv and all these cameras right and so if i so then this is a stolen car 9:42 i don't know and then they found a gun in it was it a spare drop gun or was it the gun that supposedly was fired from 9:47 the car or was there even shots fired from the car we don't know right supposedly this is so 9:52 and this is the that's exactly the point that got me thinking about this is 9:58 you know whether there were shots fired from the car or not what i believe is that the policemen 10:05 that state that they saw shots fired from the car believe that statement and 10:11 they will pass lie detector tests in their perception of reality they believed that that happened and that 10:17 contributed to their actions but i also think as a more fundamental concern 10:24 men and i don't know about women men who are drawn to 10:30 police officer work especially in the south especially in 10:36 rural communities tend to be more macho dominant and if you challenge 10:41 their machismo they want to physically beat you into submission they want to 10:46 take you and make you surrender and break you if they can my father was one 10:52 of those he was a cop after world war ii he was a very violent man at home and away from home and whenever 10:59 somebody challenged him he wanted to break them down and beat him and or shoot him or whatever 11:04 uh and i know that he i don't know but i wonder was he representative of a 11:11 group and can we do something about our selection process that hires these individuals and and go ahead you guys 11:19 i think you're there's an exhibition of a a response 11:25 mode here right you're saying that these individuals are experiencing a low feeling of control and a low feeling of 11:32 predictability so that really puts them in high stress panic absolutely so how can we 11:37 as as therapists or as psychologists as clinicians train 11:43 police officers that one right their primary job is crisis response and then 11:49 the first three steps of that of crisis response are response to itself so getting more information containment of 11:56 the situation and de-escalation of the situation so they have to be trained to de-escalate the situation they may also 12:02 have to be trained to de-escalate themselves right and yes and that's the part the the self-soothing and the kind 12:10 of every cop anywhere knows that the single most dangerous call is a domestic call 12:15 right so how do we move them we can't really change the predictability of the situation any of these situations are 12:21 going to be low predictability but maybe we can change the level of control uh 12:26 law enforcement feels over their situation so we move them out of panic and into defense mode 12:32 well another good example last week's fourth of july parade when the cops caught that guy they 12:38 asked him to please kneel on the ground and he did now he wasn't physically resisting at that point 12:44 but those guys were trained differently than what i've seen before they just blow him away then jump on top of him and punch 12:51 him and tase him and and beat him uh they didn't kneel on his neck but was that really because he was a white 12:57 girl i mean we don't know that sick uh and was it because he adopted a 13:03 submissive attitude right from the minute they stopped it yeah yeah so you know but when we talk about the idea 13:10 of solutions to me there are two uh real qualities to that that i'm not 13:16 sure we have any control over the first one is that we have to start to think in 13:22 our society about what are the things that we believe are truly important 13:28 right should you be making billions of dollars literally billions of dollars a year as a hedge fund manager when a 13:34 policeman is making thirty two thousand dollars a year and if we increase the 13:40 amount of money that we invest in those social goods do we then draw from a 13:46 larger pool of qualified individuals so in the last 15 years the federal 13:51 government as well i don't know i correlate to time frames 13:56 but one of the things that they have done is arm local police departments with military caliber weapons 14:04 tanks anti-personnel machines uh riot control machines 14:11 and you know there's the law of the hammer and you you know the law of the hammer if you give a three-year-old a hammer 14:16 everything is a nail right and so they have this equipment they want to use it and they want to they want to have a 14:22 swat team you've aldi had a swat team swat team doing respond right well 14:29 didn't show up the guy that was there only part-time that that was there and had the bead on the perpetrator was 14:36 waiting for right approval that he never got yeah and so then missed the shot right uh so you're now you're hitting on 14:42 my second point which is we have to have some kind of 14:48 realistic conversation about the proliferation 14:53 well so let me come back and finish my thought well because you know about funding yeah uh 14:59 funding individuals so paying them more money paying individuals more money yes not giving departments more money to 15:04 spend on fun toys and gadgets uh the ability to track your cell phone the ability to break the encryption all of 15:10 those kind of things cost money as well and that's where the money that we give police departments tends to be going 15:16 and to administrative level responses but in the city of st louis nine-minute 15:22 wait for an emergency call to be answered by the police department they have two separate systems one for police one for 15:28 fire which makes no sense at all so you got to call the right people and then you have to wait because they don't pay 15:34 the people answering the phone they haven't upgraded the computers they don't know what to to how to prioritize 15:41 and respond to the calls and so people are dying because they can't get an answer from a 9-1-1 call 15:48 so if you're talking about investing money or time i pay i mean what's the best use of the money pay those people 15:53 more salary more for training more for equipment it's that's what i'm saying we have to 16:00 have that conversation so your leadership is another question here why absolutely going to 16:06 they these toys are fun right these are fun toys encryption breaking tanks these 16:11 aren't toys um the very real toys with very real consequences um 16:18 what if we ran police departments like we run tech corporations where when we have an influx of money we 16:25 prioritize things that will garner responses so hang on let's let's take our break 16:31 and let's come back and pick that point up and then we'll garner a response right what helps 16:37 hey everybody dr michael mahon here from psych with mike and i couldn't be more excited to talk to you about athletic 16:43 greens which is a new sponsor we have here on the show i started taking athletic greens watching 16:50 some youtube videos and doing my own research i wanted to add something to my daily workout program to give me some 16:57 energy and to support gut health and that was the one thing that kept coming 17:02 up again and again with athletic greens is the guy who started the company did a bunch of research because he was 17:08 having some gut health issues that he couldn't get any resolution for he developed athletic greens and it's just 17:16 exploded from there so it's 75 superfoods vitamins minerals probiotics 17:22 whole foods sources that's all in one daily scoop you put it in eight or 12 17:28 ounces of water you shake it up and you drink it the taste is very very 17:33 drinkable i actually enjoy it and i have been using it and my energy 17:38 levels have just been through the roof i really like athletic greens because of 17:43 some of the sustainability things that they do so they buy carbon credits and 17:49 you know to help protect the rain forest which is something that i really like but if you order athletic greens in your 17:57 subscription you're gonna also get a year's supply of their vitamin d 18:02 supplementation and five free travel packs and that vitamin d is so important 18:09 during those winter months when we're not getting enough sunlight we've talked about how that decreases your mood and 18:16 increases depression and that can be a real deal changer so you go to 18:21 athleticgreens.com emerging that's athleticgreens.com 18:28 e-m-e-r-g-i-n-g that's the psych with mike promo and 18:33 you're going to get that additional vitamin d support for a year and five 18:38 free travel packs so take control of your own health today and as always if 18:44 it's friday it's psych with mike okay we're back so you were talking 18:50 about if we somehow created and whether it was an algorithm or not 18:57 but but some kind of checklist that graded the way in which the police were 19:03 delivering their their their services and we did that more like it was a privatized 19:09 institution would that create a different outcome well we do have a checklist of 19:16 a theoretical societal checklist requirements that we have for police officers and we and we are for police 19:23 departments and we enact that through through democratic voting vote for those people to put them into those positions 19:30 based off of a feeling of how good or bad they are performing 19:35 so i question whether or not that's an effective 19:41 method sometimes um is there a better way to do that can we 19:46 as a society hire better leaders and pay them more well how can we hire the ceo of a 19:52 criminal justice department yeah i mean larger cities do do that yeah for instance the chicago police department 19:57 does this um where they do bring in consultants from business and from industrial and organizational psychology 20:03 uh backgrounds to take a look at their police department and find where are my holes where can i 20:09 be using my funding so i i appreciate your thinking i don't know 20:14 that i agree with it and the comparative basis that i have for saying that is as a school teacher 20:20 every year my school district would hire expensive outside consultants to come in 20:26 and have faculty meetings for the district teachers all together and those 20:31 people tell us how to be better teachers how to better manage our classroom and i'm sitting out in the crowd and all the 20:37 people i'm sitting here are scoffing under their breath saying this is a complete waste of time i need to be in my room getting my bulletin boards ready 20:43 i need to be going over my student lists i need to be making lesson plans why am i listening to this bozo he's not in a 20:49 classroom in this district he doesn't know what i deal with and i think that police officers would 20:54 be similar you have been under fire you haven't been under fire my city right i don't know and then you have 21:01 within the context of the police officers in st louis you have the black police officers union the white police officers union the general police 21:08 officers union and then you have the administrative system 21:13 so and so my first point is if we had a different financial structure and we 21:21 actually invested in the things that we believed as a society were important i i'm a big advocate of that i know that 21:28 that's big that that's a heavy lift my second point is that if the police 21:33 had some way of being able to know if i see a gun that's a bad guy right 21:39 now you don't know that because the proliferation of guns is so ubiquitous 21:44 everybody gets to have a gun everybody gets to carry a gun openly and so now whenever the police show up they always 21:51 have to assume that there's a gun they always have to assume that that could be potentially used against them if we had 21:57 fewer guns if we had a real conversation about how we want guns to be seen or 22:04 used in our society we don't have a conversation the only conversation we have is you have a second amendment 22:09 right to have a gun and so we have no restrictions on it the only thing they say they say two things thoughts and prayers second amendment 22:16 um but there are some new things being done even in the st louis area 22:23 which involves sending trained mental health professionals mental 22:29 health professionals thank you on calls that 22:34 are potentially violent and having those people supported by an armed police officer but 22:40 not have an armed cop have to be the enemy to absolutely so you don't have the law of the hammer in operation as uh 22:47 efficiently uh as you historically have had yeah the other thing i love about this this new 22:53 initiative that st louis is really taking forward is the idea of involving community leaders in these calls as well 23:00 we're not only trying to send the right professional to the right call but we're also looking at church leaders or 23:07 neighborhood watch leaders or people who are in their community who know their people and who can effectively say yes 23:14 that person's a danger to themselves and others right now this is what they need they do need it they do need armed 23:20 police response or know that person is uh unhoused and mentally unwell they are 23:26 being a disturbance but they're not violent and maybe they just need a visit from a social worker absolutely and and 23:33 the police know now they're able to know where the concentration of danger is where the 23:39 concentration of gunfire shots and killings are in the community and so they know some 23:44 neighborhoods it's extremely rare and highly unlikely that that's what we're facing in other neighborhoods that's 23:50 almost exactly what we're going to be facing so if you get the right combination of public servants 23:55 who can do their jobs you have a better opportunity 24:01 but you still don't have you and i don't know that there is a universal answer but we take one step at a time and try 24:07 to so let's bring this for the time we got remaining let's let's bring this back to a 24:12 clinical discussion so when we have this particular police officer who is 24:18 involved in a shooting and he's got to be debriefed before he can be cleared to go back into service 24:25 what should the therapist be doing to address that man in that room or that 24:31 person i should say in that room first you have to evaluate the mental 24:36 state of the individual are they consenting to feedback at this point right are they okay well and that's 24:43 issues so that's a good point so if a person is in a position to not hear what 24:49 you're saying it doesn't matter what you say right well and as a clinician one of the things that you have heard 24:56 from clients is have you been through my experience were you sexually abused were you abused at all were you an alcoholic 25:03 uh have you ever been in prison then how can you advise me if you haven't had that experience you can't advise me 25:10 cops are gonna have the same reaction oh yeah oh i know because i've done it but uh uh uh you know and then people say 25:15 that all the time about substance abuse well if you've never abused a drug you haven't been raped yeah you can't you don't know and and what i say to people 25:23 is this you're correct i've never experienced what you experienced but what i know is 25:29 there are four primary human emotions that every human being has and i have those emotions i know how those emotions 25:36 get triggered i know what it feels like to be scary i hear that as an argument and i quit listening i don't want to 25:42 hear it okay i would want you to 25:48 defuse my hostility and if you rebut me that isn't defusing 25:54 me okay so how do you show empathy through that how do you how do you forward your empathy so that that 26:01 diffusion and that understanding can take place i think you use reflective listening i hear what you're saying you 26:07 think i don't know enough to be able to be helpful to you can you tell me more what would be helpful to you 26:14 if i did know enough what could i say i'm not challenging you i'm not 26:20 disagreeing with you i certainly confess that i've not been in that situation or walked in your shoes 26:26 but i want to know can you talk to me and you just get them to talk and as they do that windows open that's what 26:34 therapy is about that's how it works as those windows open i think those are your opportunities for training 26:39 absolutely we talk about um in crisis intervention and crisis response we talk about using 26:45 transactional analysis to look at different situations and and respond in different ways right can we 26:52 do open-ended questions can we um can we do minimal encouragements and 26:57 paraphrasing right absolutely all those things help and so much of it in a crisis especially is uh like blah blah 27:04 ginger it's just background noise conversation while you wait for a window to open and then when the window opens 27:10 you seize that moment for connection for tension reduction um and the 27:17 key term that i use is reflective listening if you feel like i hear you 27:24 and understand you you calm down and imagine if we 27:30 required police officers well what if we paid them more in two who required a four-year degree and part of that 27:35 four-year degree was was counseling or therapy i mean i think that that's 27:42 that's a of way to think about it but i'm not sure that i want my law 27:48 enforcement officers to be therapists i don't know that i mean because those are 27:53 two different specialties and i think there is a place for law enforcement and i think there is a place for therapy 28:00 that's why i like the idea of therapists working in conjunction with the police department because i 28:07 think those are two different things like i wouldn't want a therapist to get training as a police officer i don't 28:14 necessarily 28:20 i want there to be fewer guns not more guns but uh you know that that puts me in a 28:25 certain segment of the population i even saw that a republican politician in texas the other day was suggesting we 28:30 should arm students yeah well that's a good idea how young 28:36 i quit listening if they get their heritage card i was doing some confirmation bias research and i changed 28:41 channels yeah that's uh that seems like a recipe for disaster 28:47 but you know i need to be able to hear that person's point of view and 28:53 say i respectfully disagree and here's why one hopes yeah 28:58 so uh going back to this idea of the policemen in the room 29:05 my concern always was when i was working with law enforcement is that they are 29:13 very very resistant to the idea of self-care that they hear that as 29:21 a weakness as a personal failure they should be able to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps they should be able 29:27 to be stopped but you also don't acknowledge that police spend their days dealing 29:34 with the dregs of humanity the human condition is the most negative form 29:39 and that's poisonous and so over time not just in the moment of a crisis somebody 29:46 goes into a building where the shot's been fired and bodies laying on the ground but just 29:52 ordinary everyday moments you deal with corruption you deal with hostility you 29:57 deal with viciousness victimization wounded people of all kinds of wounds 30:03 and it poisons you if you don't have a way to get rid of that or reframe that 30:09 every day that you go to work so i think when we talk about counseling for police officers uh or 30:17 training i think part of the conceptualization of a training module involves 30:24 how do we prevent them from getting poisoned by 30:30 the negativity of humanity that they experience every day and they do that through self-care 30:35 that's the only way that you can do it you have to do something else to number 30:41 one detoxify yourself but number two then replace that with positive energy 30:47 that makes you feel recharged and rejuvenated and and i just i i'm in my 30:53 own personal experience that's that's a hard sell yeah yeah and and so you know 30:59 and and i want to say up front i have no idea what police officers go through on a daily basis i've never been a police 31:06 officer and so i don't have that experience but what i would be 31:11 interested in is if there are police officers who are listening to this is 31:16 for them to inform us what would they find beneficial to hear 31:22 from someone when they are in those debrief sessions or even if they just sought therapy on their own which is 31:28 rare but could happen what do what would what would be beneficial for them to hear 31:35 in that area of self-care what's what's language that would be less 31:42 cause them to put up then less likely to cause them to put up a wall more likely to be impactful and and and language 31:50 that they could hear in that realm of self-care because i don't know what it is because 31:55 i don't know what their life is like so i do what i what i normally do and i 32:00 don't know if that's effective great question so hopefully those musings were 32:07 beneficial for somebody out there um i thought we got a little bit passionate and fired up about it so i think we had 32:13 a good time but the music that appears in psych with mike is written and performed by mr benjamin the clue as 32:20 always we would love it if you would go to apple podcasts find psych with mike 32:26 and leave us a comment and a rating but mostly what we really like is for people 32:31 to go to the youtubes and subscribe to the channel there that's really really helpful so that's like with mike on 32:37 youtube and as always if it's friday it's psych with mike [Music]  

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is recognized as a significant issue that can affect people in everyday life. The sum total of small traumas can have the same biological effect as those experienced in combat. It is important for therapists and clients to understand the biology of this process to best help those dealing with this potentially debilitating issue.    https://www.ptsduk.org/what-is-ptsd/the-science-and-biology-of-ptsd/ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-ptsd/202206/the-common-effects-complex-relational-trauma    Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:21 welcome into the site with mike library this is dr michael mahon and i am here again with intern michael and brett 0:26 newcomb once more dear friends into the fray that's what i i'm leaving into the breach into the breach yeah yeah 0:33 i hadn't started the quotation yet you you say that every time i never mind say that once 0:40 okay and then i say oh yeah you're a shakespeare guy and then you say no i'm not i'm not like oh yeah you always 0:46 quote shakespeare i'm a liar okay 0:54 all right so how's everybody doing today doing well um you 1:01 said some incredibly nice things about intern michael before 1:07 the mics were hot and you don't say those things to me and i'm jealous isn't that interesting isn't 1:13 that interesting i wonder why you're going to have so are you begging what do you want i think nicest not no 1:19 yes you are so 1:25 yeah i secure need those that's what it is i don't know i feel like i got a little post traumatic your wife has asked me to stop blowing smoke in your 1:31 direction you inhale too much of it your shirt looks nice today michael thank you 1:37 thank you i appreciate that so uh so speaking of ptsd speaking of 1:42 yeah um this is not your forte right 1:48 it's not a biology not this aspect right yeah um so you're gonna try and hang with it and see i'm waiting for clear 1:55 elucidation from michael yeah because i know all you'll do is build a clock well the reason why for me 2:03 the biology is important is because understanding the biology helps me to 2:10 understand the concept and i understand i get that that isn't everybody's cup of tea but i've had 2:17 clients who have said the reason that i come to you is because you understand the biology 2:23 really well and you are able to explain that and that's really meaningful and that's why uh i have always said you know there's 2:30 different therapists for different people not all therapists are going to be for everybody but 2:36 a person shouldn't assume that just because they go to one therapist and that wasn't for them that that means 2:43 that therapy doesn't work no i and i and i can conceptualize being able to get some 2:50 comfort from saying i'm really sorry about the way that i behaved when i lost my temper and 2:55 slapped you but it wasn't really me it was my amygdala i'm sure that will help her 3:01 that's not exactly what the article talks about oh it is exactly what the article talks 3:08 about it doesn't say that you say i'm sorry that i said no it doesn't say that it says you need to understand that your 3:14 amygdala is out of balance and that's why you have these reactions when your stress triggers are pulled well so 3:21 the idea here that i think is so important 3:27 for both clients but also for therapists to understand is that 3:33 instead of thinking about anxiety as a 3:39 thing what we really need to start doing as a i think as a community of helping 3:46 professionals is to start thinking about the difference between anxieties and 3:51 fear-based anxieties because the way in which those things operate in the brain 3:58 are vastly different okay 4:03 so i if i can paraphrase just a little bit yeah understanding of the biology can help 4:11 drive the therapeutic approach because fundamentally there are 4:17 different mechanics underlying what may appear to be the same consequence but isn't 4:23 necessarily the same concept exactly and and i don't hear this being talked about 4:28 a tremendous amount this is what i did my dissertation on and i don't hear this being talked about a tremendous amount 4:34 in psychology but i do believe that in the future we are going to see exactly 4:40 that distinction instead of talking about depression and anxiety as two 4:45 sides of the same coin i think we have to think about depression as a separate 4:50 entity anxiety as a separate entity but within anxiety the generalized anxiety 4:57 disorders and the fear-based anxiety disorders 5:02 okay okay so in a regular anxiety disorder so just the 5:08 kind of run-of-the-mill generalized anxiety disorder what i say is that those things operate on the concept of 5:16 cognitive dissonance so you have two conflicting thoughts that causes distress in the human brain trying to 5:23 resolve that is what creates the energy for anxiety that 5:28 most people feel so i want to go to the grocery store but i have agoraphobia 5:34 and i don't want to go to the grocery store so that conflicting thought is going to cause me a lot of anxiety 5:43 even easier for i worked with a lot of adolescent males that's typically what i 5:48 do and when an adolescent male comes in and says hey i want to ask this girl out but 5:55 he treats it as if it's a schrodinger experiment where he wants to ask her out but he's afraid of creating 6:02 the answer so he lives in this perpetual world of i could ask her out but i could 6:09 also you know then be uh what do you call it rejected and then 6:15 then you know that's scary so i don't ask her out now i'm living with both of those things potentially available to me 6:23 i could ask her out and or i could not ask her out and and that's what i think is generalized 6:28 anxiety so that operates on the same kind of top-down brain function where your the 6:36 the cortex of your brain operates on the information and then informs your limbic system whether or not there's a reason 6:41 to become excited and then if there is a reason to become excited then your adrenal gland tells or or your pituitary 6:49 gland tells what gland to distribute the hormones to start an emotional reaction 6:55 that's slow responsible yeah yes exactly so that's typically the way the brain works is top down in ptsd or in 7:02 fear-based anxieties that gets flipped on its head so that the immediate activation 7:09 of the brain are the fear-based response areas like the cerebellum like the 7:17 medulla oblongata and then that causes a fight-or-flight response to be initiated 7:24 over which the person has no rational control so an individual who's been in 7:31 combat and has seen horrible horrible things and then gets triggered by a car 7:37 back firing the response that gets activated in that person is not a 7:43 top-down response it's a bottom-up response and so in those fear-based anxieties the 7:50 way in which the individual is triggered is radically different and if you don't 7:56 appreciate that in therapy then you could be treating that 8:02 inaccurately and appropriately or ineffectively so that's my my 8:07 conceptualization in a nutshell so you're following me so far i think so okay do you agree with that 8:13 or yeah absolutely okay i don't have any trouble understanding the concept i have trouble understanding how to 8:18 apply it um in counseling clients which is my 8:23 primary frame of reference i also have 8:28 some issues and been able to sort out anxiety from depression because they're often 8:34 comorbid and if you in my experience if you deal with one of them if you can alleviate a level of 8:40 intensity for anxiety the depression explodes then you have to do that and you need to 8:46 tell the client this is likely to happen and when it does it doesn't mean what we're doing is not 8:52 working it doesn't mean that you're unable to change it means that's part of what's stuffed down inside you and we're 8:58 going to have to come to grips with yeah then you have taught me a lot 9:05 over the years about the biology of depression and the issues there 9:11 in terms of chemical responses and so on it's just really um 9:19 an incredibly complicated challenge to then say however much of that i understand 9:25 how do i apply what i understand to hearing the client accurately and being helpful to them and that's where i get 9:31 lost in this conversation so for me and and what i would say is 9:37 the extent to which an individual therapist understands or wants to understand 9:43 better the biology of these different disorders is whatever it is and and i'm not saying 9:50 that everybody has to be a neurobiologist but what i am saying is that specifically 9:55 in the venue of anxiety it is very very important to identify 10:01 whether you think the anxiety is just a generalized anxiety disorder or it's fear i see that 10:07 uh and i see the value of the merit and saying okay this is a 10:13 reflex driven fear anxiety that you'll see triggered in this way when a car back fires or when a door 10:19 slams a loud noise goes off so 10:25 if we know that you're susceptible to that can we take that piece out and work on it loud noises anticipating it 10:33 responding to it differently because you're conditioned by the trauma experience to have this response 10:39 immediately overwhelmingly then the generalized anxiety is is a different issue 10:45 that we want to approach differently is am i understanding what you're saying absolutely and and so then when we think about 10:52 individuals who have experienced childhood traumas right so for a person 10:58 who has been abused by a family member sometimes it's hearing the creaking of 11:04 the floorboards yeah there's some research that shows that that's imprinted on these children if it happens in an early enough age 11:10 and so their response to that almost as hardwired in your brain yeah but it is hardwired when i i think 11:17 you're asking the question how do i use this to guide my practice yeah uh and maybe one way that i'm seeing 11:24 uh as an opportunity here is to think of the brain as taking the path of least resistance with different experiences 11:32 so in the instance of ptsd right we're saying that we no longer have to involve 11:37 the the prefrontal medial cortex right we no longer have to involve this expensive 11:42 part of the brain to deal with the same reaction as a brain 11:48 that we would around certain events so car backfiring is gunshot 11:54 floor creaking is fear in a child right um for whatever abusive reason 12:01 maybe as a clinician understanding that that is the current path of least 12:06 resistance says exactly what you're saying already we need to take that out look at that as a part and find other 12:13 paths that work better because that's no longer serving okay right no longer 12:20 this is actually more resistant and i think that that really fits in very well with your idea of emotional 12:28 economics so is this old behavior too expensive yeah yeah 12:33 yeah and and would you like to try and investigate other avenues that helps i 12:39 mean i have to have a way to frame it i have to have a way to hear it and when i read these articles 12:44 that in what happens to me so i need a better 12:52 modulator no not not analogy so much as uh i need a better understanding of how 12:59 this is applicable as you were suggesting i think one of the places that uh i i am by no means an expert 13:06 right but one of the things that i see keep popping up um is bessel vander kulk's work 13:12 the body keeps the score um he's a medical doctor that's gone into this foray of of um 13:18 psychology really one of the trauma i mean trauma informed therapy is his whole deal exactly one of the foundational uh creators and 13:25 understanders of ptsd as a as a condition um and i really did like that book i think 13:32 that book does help frame an idea of why is some of the biology important or like 13:38 how can it drive my practice so i have met and talked with and read a 13:44 book by dr mark gordon who's a neurophysiologist and he does a lot of work on traumatic 13:51 brain injury for the military and much of that work is focused on what's his name 13:57 mark gordon and much of his work is focused on 14:03 the biochemical aspects of the brain and where the brain injury occurs and how 14:09 the system adapts and responds and what needs to be rebalanced 14:14 biochemically so that you can then do other things it's a it's a whole area that i don't know 14:21 enough about to talk about or do work with but i think it's in line with what we're discussing i think it 14:28 comes back to some of the philosophies that i have around psychiatry right psychiatry is 14:34 a medically assisted therapy overall right it's drug assisted therapy but 14:39 overall the point is still the therapy right i would hope 14:44 we know that a lot of the time uh antidepressants or anti-anxiety or even 14:50 things like antipsychotics aren't as effective as they could be they they're they have 14:56 a five percent difference in the overall efficacy without therapy included 15:03 so i look at understanding the biology as just another tool to help assist this idea of getting 15:09 somebody back to a place of security and getting somebody back to a place of um being in control of what they want 15:16 exactly okay so let's take our break and when we come back i'm going to ask you a question brett all right 15:23 well one of the reasons that i want to participate in this show is because it gives me an opportunity 15:29 to clinically review my understanding of what therapy is and 15:34 how it works especially for the consumer so my hope is that we will find 15:41 conversations that broaden my understanding of that and my hope is that we do that in a way 15:49 that is useful but also entertaining for people so that they want to listen 15:56 not only because they're getting good psychology information but because they 16:01 just enjoy the show easy listening with an informational twist 16:06 that's a new tagline they're not sitting there going huh easy listening with an informational twist i'm really good at 16:12 this i'm a professional you're a professional if it's friday it's psycho 16:18 okay we're back and so uh does the idea or the the language of the 16:24 emotional economics does that make that the the what what yeah that all makes 16:29 more sense to me that's the language i can hear yeah i get bogged down in the analysis of the prefrontal cortex and 16:36 the amygdala and all that that to me is not a language i'm comfortable 16:41 and you make a great point though that that therapists who are doing therapy to the extent that they're not comfortable 16:47 with that then they're not going to hear that message all i'm talking about is the first thing you got to do when 16:53 you're dealing with an anxiety is to identify whether or not it's generalized anxiety or fear-based anxiety and then 16:59 and the most obvious way for you to know that is what well for me what i would say is 17:05 whether or not you think that the anxiety is based on cognitive dissonance 17:11 so is it is it what i'm hearing is if it's a global reflexive response boom 17:17 yes then that's on the floor ptsd yeah yeah uh yeah and so when i'm talking about kind of 17:23 distance you know do you see the anxiety as based on two conflicting thoughts 17:28 that the individual is trying to harbor give me an example 17:34 so uh uh i want to ask a girl out but i'm afraid to ask her out okay so that's not you know that's not 17:40 interesting anxiety okay yeah that's generalized anxiety and then you know i'm i hear the floor creek and i'm 17:48 terrible that's like albert ellis with rational emotive therapy uh the experiment that he offered you 17:54 know a guy that claimed i could never have sex with him and he said i want you to stand on the street and ask the first 100 women that 18:00 walk by if you can you have sex with me and you'll get slapped you'll get rejected 18:06 the police may be called but you know four out of 100 they'll say sure let's go and you're not going to know whether 18:12 it's real or not unless you do it mm-hmm so he would give people assignments like that 18:18 which you couldn't do today but well you can't really well yeah yeah 18:23 you have to deal with the clarification anticipatory set right right so uh 18:29 in my view then if you are if you've identified that you are dealing 18:36 primarily with a post-traumatic stress disorder then the first thing that you 18:41 have to do is to try and find some way into that because 18:48 what you have to recognize is that a lot of the techniques that we use in therapy 18:54 are directed at talking to the person's cortex you got to have rational thought 19:00 so cbt is an approach that's often recommended for post-traumatic stress yeah may not 19:06 be as effective because that's not really the right part of the brain yeah you're not talking about exactly exactly 19:12 so then we get things like emdr emdr here's where we start to move into let's get out of the head and start 19:19 feeling the feelings we we're having a good conversation about this earlier yeah well and feel those feelings 19:26 and you don't understand those feelings and find a way to redirect that energy 19:34 but i also think that that brett's idea of emotional economics when he talks 19:39 about that what i hear and i don't know if this is what you intend but 19:45 what i hear is that that's affective aff ect emotion-based therapy that's not 19:52 cognitive behavioral therapy when you're talking about emotional economics that is the way to approach the 19:59 post-traumatic stress disorder when we're talking about it's an activation of those baser areas of the brain you're 20:06 not going to approach that by talking to somebody's cortex you're going to approach that by talking to their limbic 20:12 system to their emotions so we're back to what does the therapist need to know in 20:17 order to do what they're doing and how much of that is even relevant for the client to know so if i'm talking to you about emotional 20:24 economics i'm not going to have this more extended exactly you don't have to now yeah i would i know you know but for 20:31 me that's a waste of time i know okay and well i think part of that conversation is valuable right in in 20:37 behavioral economics and emotional economics we talk about the idea that people have biases and those biases 20:42 aren't necessarily rational right and maybe we stare away from the word rational it's also a 20:48 message of power there's an empowerment if i say to you okay you could choose to behave differently 20:54 if you wanted to and if you could afford it you know i could choose to drive a corvette 21:00 but do i want to can i afford it uh what would i do i want you to fight can i afford it yeah what am i willing 21:06 to give to have one so that allows you a weigh-in 21:11 that isn't a direct challenge that they can rebut or refuse to hear 21:17 because you come up with an example or they come up with an example of some behavioral choice driven by cost 21:27 and you know so for me i don't really it doesn't bother me whether the therapist 21:33 talks about the biology or talks about emotional economics as long as they understand that when i am looking at 21:40 this presentation trying to do regular cbt is probably not 21:46 going to be as effective because that's not the area of the brain that this person is operating out of and i think 21:52 that the ubiquity of cbt and now we're talking more and more about trauma and i 21:58 think that there's going to be less effectiveness of that 22:04 of those treatment outcomes because that's not the area of the brain that that person's operating in yeah that 22:10 makes sense ultimately the goal is to move someone from that external locus of control to 22:15 that internal locus of control yeah with cbt emotional economics they're all saying the same thing right of 22:22 i'm putting the power back in your hands to make a choice of this thing which is one of the goals we have when we talk 22:28 about increasing your level of your sense of security if you have the power and the autonomy to make the choices if 22:34 you're free to choose you can freely choose to behave differently and i think that that's the goal so the internal 22:41 locus of control as opposed to the external locus of control is the goal but that's a rational concept so 22:49 initially that person may not be thinking in that area of the brain and 22:54 so you you that may be the goal for the therapist right but that isn't the way you go in to the therapy so the way you 23:02 go into the therapy is through that affective aff ect the the emotional 23:08 economic way however that makes sense to you as a therapist but you have to apply 23:13 some kind of effective therapy so not ptsd per se 23:20 but i had an adolescent male client that was on the autism spectrum and he was really in trouble a lot 23:26 because he would decompensate and act out because kids bullied him and picked on and what have you 23:32 uh and i had to work with the school the teacher the family and the student to 23:38 say is there a way we can get a handle on this and achieve different outcomes 23:44 and it wasn't useful at all to understand or explain where why how is he autistic 23:53 what makes that happen it was more useful we found that to say 23:58 can we find a way to characterize this for him where he can 24:04 feel a sense of power and where he can choose from that power to make different 24:10 choices and so i was able to ask him i said do you want to be popular do you want to be 24:16 liked and he was like yeah i said you have any idea why people don't like you no 24:22 i said well you're a snot sucker you make these horrible noises all the time and people react negatively to it 24:29 and you don't even see it you don't even notice it you just do what you do and i had to work with the teacher on 24:35 like a red card or a yellow card whenever he would suck snot and she could hold it up and he would 24:42 consciously learn to recognize after the fact oh i did that 24:47 and then we worked on could you do something instead like burn your nose is this just a reflexive habituated 24:54 behavior or is there some do you know we need to go to an ent and find something to deal with this which isn't going to 25:01 change the autism spectrum but it can change your acceptability level right and your 25:07 intensity level to maybe a better place sure and and what i would say is that that is an 25:13 example of behavior modification right which is a different 25:19 kind of therapy that we haven't talked about but but at least in this show 25:24 but the initial way you went in was through emotional economics yeah so you 25:31 didn't you didn't start with the behavior modification you started with the presentation of the emotion 25:37 life sucks and you're screwed right you know it it helps to say we can do something with this if you'll work with 25:43 me and if your system will tolerate it yeah and and it goes back to the what michael was talking about when you were 25:50 moving him from an external locus of control to an internal locus of control and all of those things are i mean those 25:57 are the goals of therapy but if you are talking to a part of the brain that 26:03 isn't being triggered it's going to be less effective i'm not saying that no one ever got help through cognitive 26:10 before post-traumatic stress through cognitive behavior therapy but i'm saying that if you think about what the 26:16 biology is my sense my my understanding of human 26:22 pathology tells me to be informed by what i think is the biology and then use 26:30 that to help me to devise a treatment plan that i think is going to be most effective efficient effective economical 26:38 sure yeah then i think further about um other types of therapy modality uh like 26:43 drug assisted therapy so if we look at things like psilocybin assisted therapy or ketamine assisted therapy these are 26:49 really getting a lot of attention right now in the ptsd community and understanding that 26:55 neurobiology and the neurobiological effects of the different drugs what are those pharmacodynamics of those 27:02 different drugs um we can build are you better tool kit are you asking or is that rhetorical it's 27:08 rhetorical okay because you go into 30 minutes 27:13 no i took your addiction and treatment yeah yes and and you know and and i'm not saying that that isn't 27:21 going to be a breakthrough i think that especially for me you know when you're talking about the 27:27 medically assisted treatments for anxiety or for post-traumatic stress 27:32 i think psilocybin is a is a is a more effective molecule than the ketamine i 27:37 agree but uh but there are real reasons why that happens and they're based in 27:44 biology i mean the way in which that the psilocybin molecule opens up the 27:50 connectedness of the brain can allow you to have a conversation with that person 27:57 in a different way that isn't necessarily triggering for them and they can get realizations out 28:04 of that experience that they might not get any other way and and so i think that can be very 28:09 effective is the reverse true for depression with ketamine being the predominant or ketamine is the preferred 28:15 for depression yes and and um i don't know i i don't know my my sense is that the 28:24 reason that ketamine was the initial breakthrough drug was because it was the 28:29 one that they were able to aerosolize and be able to deliver in the context of 28:35 the doctor's visit and the ketamine is a 15-minute reaction 28:41 rather than a six-hour reaction so i mean if you're going to do drug the these these 28:47 psychedelic drug-assisted molecule therapies you're talking that's an all day just 28:52 stay there for 90 minutes afterwards so don't you for the ketamine yeah yeah it's yeah just to make sure that there are no 28:58 adverse reactions but you don't have to stay there for six hours yeah if you took silicibe and you'd be there for all 29:03 day all day oh and just uh just to reiterate that this is another tool in the toolbox right i see a lot of 29:10 instagram ads or snapchat ads for this idea of ketamine assisted therapy 29:16 on people saying oh i feel so much better i feel so much better and there's a real danger in that 29:21 advertisement i think it's important to understand that this is another tool 29:27 in a large toolbox um and isn't the only thing to reach for and might be 29:33 one of the last things you start to reach for other work has to occur first that's right i see the same conflation 29:40 with emdr right people look at the exercise of tapping and they look at different um the light bar exercises and 29:47 that is just so far down the line in emdr and so far removed from the actual 29:53 work that's taking place the emotional lifting that's taking place and especially with what you're saying 29:59 with the the you know the ads but to me that's just like any pharmaceutical agent it's not the 30:07 patient's job to decide what medication is best for them yes and it really burns 30:13 my behind that you have ads on television for any pharmaceutical talk to any physician in america they say the 30:20 same thing about any drug that somebody comes in because they've watched all these ads on tv oh i want this truck and 30:26 that is exclusive to the united states yes um other countries don't not allowed to do it well because it doesn't make 30:32 any logical sense no it's economic yeah i mean a controlled market even if you 30:37 are a doctor you're not supposed to devise your own treatment plan and if you're not a doctor you don't really 30:44 have the informed ability to decide that this medication is a right fit for you 30:49 so yeah i but that point is well taken just because you 30:55 even if you anecdotically know somebody who had psilocybin treatment and that 31:01 person said oh it was great for me it may have been great for them that doesn't mean it's a great choice for you 31:07 but if it is something that you are interested in it is a growing network what happens all the time 31:13 think back about your years of doing therapy with adolescents on adhd medicines right and their family members 31:19 would say oh joey takes this bill why don't you give it to bobby it'll make him better yeah and not involve any kind 31:25 of professional medical or psychological in that loop 31:31 yeah well and this is apropos of nothing but what really burned my behind is that 31:37 i always wanted to know this would always happen or most commonly would happen 31:43 at the end of high school when the person was getting ready to take the act or the sat yeah and then they'd say oh 31:48 well this medication take it on wait a minute no if you're just going to use this as a performance enhancing drug that's not 31:56 the point of the medication yeah but a lot of people used it for that 32:02 tisk disk disk so how how did this strike you 32:08 was the conversation okay uh yeah because we got away from and 32:13 intense analysis of the chemicals in the amygdala and we talked about how that knowledge is useful to a therapist and 32:21 to a person in therapy good good so hopefully good article right we've 32:26 taken something from it to us exactly that's always a good thing 32:33 so hopefully that was helpful for other people in the audience as always if you have any questions or comments you can get us at psychwithmike.com we would 32:40 love it if you would go to apple podcasts and find psych with mike and leave us a comment and a review but most 32:46 importantly the thing that is most helpful for us is for you to go to the internet and find us on the youtubes 32:53 site with mike there and subscribe to the show that really helps other people to be able to find the show and as 32:59 always oh the music that is inside with mike is written and performed by mr benjamin the clue and as always if it's 33:05 like with mike

Adolescence is a time of distance from the family of origin and identification with a peer group. So what are the perils and benefits of attachment during this developmental period? https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/mental-health/teen-attachment-disorder/   Transcript you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page with mike now here's psych with mike 0:19 [Music] welcome into the psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon i am here with 0:24 mr brett newcomb hello i have too many pens well you know freud has an explanation 0:29 for that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar that's what they say but sometimes not huh 0:36 how are you today i'm good so anything uh new and exciting going on in your life 0:41 not a thing yeah life is just bland is that well bland or just 0:48 stable good yeah yeah yeah so not blank life is good yeah life is good and you're wearing a pink shirt today for 0:54 anybody who is watching you on the youtubes i've always liked the color pink do you yeah 0:59 you don't feel uh conscientious in a pink shirt 1:05 no yeah well i always feel conscientious uh conspicuous is it oh well well can't 1:11 you i mean yeah conspicuous yes or or uh 1:17 uh what would what would you call it if you were were worried about what other people thought not conscientious 1:22 well yeah okay anyway it doesn't matter all right so uh good segue though 1:29 yes because we we're going to talk about um 1:34 attachment i would say that's because i'm a professional exactly uh you know 1:41 that the foundation of what i believe in 1:46 psychotherapy is emotional regulation i believe that that emotional regulation 1:52 is the result of how you are how you internalize the external objects 1:58 so you're the quality of the relationship with the primary caregiver when the child is young 2:05 and we talk a lot about how childhood trauma and this emotional regulation 2:12 developmental process can cause issues when the child is developing one 2:19 of the things that we've never talked about and i found an article about it and then i thought oh yeah we definitely should talk about this 2:25 is how does this affect the developmental process during adolescence 2:30 and i know that you were talking about this morning that 2:36 when you were young you felt like that 2:42 the movers and shakers of the peer group that 2:48 you were associated with didn't really give you a lot of positive 2:53 feedback no uh if that's what you heard i didn't say it clearly okay 2:59 i grew up in a large suburban high school yeah when i got to high school and adolescence 3:06 that was very cast organized i grew up in a southern town where 3:12 your social standing could be measured by how far away from the railroad tracks you lived the closer that you lived to 3:19 the railroad tracks the poorer and less socially acceptable your family was 3:24 but when they put us in high school they lumped us all together so people had to have identifiers we had groups that we 3:30 belong to we had letterman jackets for band and for athletics and debate team 3:36 and and what have you to find little sub categories and clicks and so on 3:42 i was acutely aware of how all that played out when i was in high school because i read all the time 3:48 and i had a curiosity about how does this work and what i was telling you is that by 3:55 definition i was relegated to the lower socioeconomic 4:00 community because of where i lived what my father did for a living how much money we had those kind of things 4:07 but intellectually i was put in accelerated classes so i was mixed in with 4:13 kids from the upper social spectrum who who tended to get put in those accelerated classes 4:21 and i was commenting that it used to frustrate the heck out of me because sometimes i would tell a joke 4:27 that i thought was funny and they would all sneer about how low class i was and 4:32 how horrible it was that i told that joke and it wasn't couth and you know nobody would laugh and 4:37 everybody act like they smelled something bad and then later over the course of the next day or two i would hear various 4:44 ones of those individuals tell that joke and have it laughed at as if it was 4:49 hysterical because they were telling it within their own social subgroup 4:55 so there was no cross-boundary there that had to be acknowledged but you 5:01 have said many times that you didn't feel as though the quality of the emotional 5:07 relationship that you had with your primary caregivers growing up was positive 5:12 yeah and did you feel as though that impacted you 5:17 during adolescence when you were in junior high school or high school i don't know that i thought about 5:25 it that until years later uh when i was in junior high in high school 5:31 what i and that's probably fair i don't know that anybody does that that anybody i 5:36 mean i don't i was obviously not consciously aware of the quality of the 5:41 relationship that i had with my primary caregivers and the effect that that had in high school i know that during high 5:48 school i felt profoundly like 5:54 the things that i knew from my family of origin didn't make any sense 6:00 in the context of things that i was learning in high school so i grew up 6:06 in a violent alcoholic family one of the rules of the alcoholic family is you never talk 6:12 outside of home about home you don't talk about what happened at home last 6:18 night you don't talk about the way your father behaves or your mother behaves or any of that stuff you just don't say anything about it 6:25 so because i read all the time i learned i remember vividly in the third grade 6:33 that you could read and go away somewhere and so i could read a story 6:40 about something in ancient history or something in another country and transport myself to that place and 6:47 be caught up in that book and not be in the environment that i was in so i read 6:53 voraciously most nights i read a book in overnight just read all night 6:59 a lot of nights and uh would try to incorporate within my personality 7:05 presentation traits uh that i read in the books that the hero had 7:12 uh dialect dialogue information whatever 7:17 so i consciously created an identity a public persona for 7:25 being at school that was different from the person that i was at home 7:30 so do you do you know 7:35 did you know then have you thought about it in retrospect and do 7:41 you know now how you were able to come to that that realization for yourself where you 7:47 actually would read the books and then select specific personality traits 7:54 i think that's pretty unusual i don't know i only have my own experience right well 8:00 what i know is there was a a boy that went to it's almost like you re-parented yourself by reading the 8:06 books yeah yeah yeah yeah i think that's pretty unique i learned it from somebody else 8:13 there was a boy in the third grade that was bullied by everybody including myself 8:20 trying to fit in trying to socialize with that group of aggressive nine-year-old boys 8:27 and i noticed this kid would go out at recess and climb to the top of the jungle gym we had an old-fashioned 8:32 jungle gym in the playground and sit up there at recess and read a book and he would be out of reach of 8:38 everybody most of the boys would go off and play ball or tag or what have you and the girls would go off in little 8:44 groups and do whatever they did i kept watching him and so one day i asked him i said what are you doing and 8:49 he said i'm reading and i said why and he said because i'm not here 8:55 so i thought oh that's interesting and so then i got a couple books and read them and 9:00 started to realize i didn't have to be there either i could do it at home i mean my father could be in a drunken rage and breaking furniture and knocking 9:07 people around i could sit in my bedroom and read a book and not be afraid so so the article that i sent 9:16 is actually a science-based article and it talks about the attachment with the primary caregiver 9:24 the quality of that attachment and that's you know all goes into john bolby and mary ainsworth's 9:30 attachment theory so you have secure you have the ambivalent and then the resistant attachments and then the 9:37 disorganized we don't really look at disorganized much because that's pretty pathologic so the insecure attachments 9:44 are the ambivalent and then the resistant and then how that plays out during 9:50 adolescence but we know now that these attachments and specifically trauma 9:58 has a real biological impact on the development 10:04 of the brain physiological development and yet i think you and i both would say 10:11 that our histories with our families of origin were difficult traumatic 10:17 and yet i think we turned out pretty good so 10:22 clearly there are ways that you can compensate for that but then there are 10:28 some people who really struggle with that and then they get to adolescence and i just i i just weep 10:36 for the individuals that were like you and me that didn't find 10:43 some way of being able to transcend that so my father was married to 10:49 married five different times and in the course of my early childhood 10:56 regularly i mean when i was nine years old i came home and they'd all moved away yeah i mean the house was empty i 11:01 mean you tell that story and and and i know you to be a person who doesn't 11:07 tend towards a hyperbole no that's an absolute literal story i know and and and i just think of a nine-year-old 11:14 coming home from school and the house being empty and not knowing where in the world everybody went yeah i 11:21 thought we've been robbed it's just that's that's i i don't even know how to wrap my head around that well so but 11:26 that wasn't the point of i don't know what to say um 11:32 i want to say that i don't know who can't identify especially in infancy 11:38 who was the object in object relations theory 11:44 who provided the consistent nurturing presence in my life what i do know is that as i grew up 11:52 there were teachers and scout masters and coaches who 11:59 played significant periods of support 12:04 that gave me positive reinforcement and a sense of security about capacity yeah 12:10 about intelligence about performance about courage whatever and the books that i read 12:18 gave me an understanding for how to manipulate the environment at 12:24 home and differently manipulate the environment in school so that i felt more safe 12:32 and more capable of moving through 12:38 the social hierarchy one of my absolute expectations in high school because of 12:46 where i lived and the circumstances of small southern town was that i would get a college education 12:52 to be able to get a job that would pay me enough money to live in a different social custom level 12:59 uh so that's what i did i mean i knew i had to otherwise my my destiny uh was the 13:05 script that was written for me by generations of my family none of whom had ever gone to school right and and no one in my family ever 13:12 went to school and i and and i hear very profoundly what you're saying about there were teachers there were coaches 13:19 there were other persons adult persons in the environment that provided you with an example that 13:26 you could use in place of that external object you know i i 13:31 really felt like i was was bumbling through you know grade school and junior high 13:38 school and then uh you know went to high school and started playing football mostly because 13:45 i was trying to get my dad's attention yeah but every year that i played and i 13:50 tell people all the time the only thing that stopped me from being able to 13:55 play professional football is a general basic lack of coordination 14:01 i was i am not what you would consider an athlete but i 14:07 played every year and i worked hard and every year that i played football at the 14:12 end of the year i got the most improved player award which is what you give to 14:18 the guy right who who is not going to get it but and i was willing to do anything that a 14:24 coach asked me and and they and i won these awards and i really genuinely 14:31 attribute that to profoundly changing my conceptualization 14:37 of myself because i wasn't getting that anywhere else and i don't know what would have 14:43 happened to me if i hadn't done that so i i'm thinking in particular and it's just it's a good 14:50 time to have this conversation because a lot of conversations out right now about teachers yeah and the role that teachers 14:55 play in society i had several teachers in high school in particular 15:02 that reached out to me and said you have these abilities you have to learn how to 15:07 navigate it so that you can get something out of it one of whom was the school librarian 15:14 and i became a volunteer library assistant and became the president of the arkansas junior librarians 15:21 association through her support and auspices which means nothing 15:26 to anybody now but it meant a lot to me then mm-hmm uh 50 years after i graduated my high 15:32 school i went to a high school reunion first time i'd gone back 50 years later so i'm having dinner with 15:37 some friends and we were talking about school and i said well mrs carpenter elaine carpenter mrs carpenter was such 15:43 a significant person in my life i wish i had been able to tell her that and somebody said well you still can't i 15:49 said what do you mean i thought she was dead no she's not dead so i called her mm-hmm and i said i want 15:55 to tell you you steered my life into the survival lane 16:01 and you helped me become a teacher and you have helped me reach other kids and 16:06 i want you to know that 50 years after you worked with me your lessons are still echoing into generations of kids 16:13 you've never met five years later i heard from one of her 16:18 sons she had died and he said i just want to let you know my mother 16:23 uh became senile to the end of her life toward the end of her life there were very few memories that she could hold 16:30 and she held the memory of your phone call wow and it she repeated it to me every day 16:36 the last few weeks of her life about how important that phone call was and what it meant to her 16:42 that you had called her and you told her she was that seminal in your life yeah 16:47 and that's what i want to say is if you have a teacher who has touched 16:53 your life who has reached you at whatever level of education let them know 16:58 tell them because they do an incredible service to all of us and 17:04 they need more respect so let's take our break and when we come back i'm going to tell you my story all right 17:10 oh because i was your teacher yes [Laughter] hey everybody dr michael mahon here from 17:16 site with mike and i couldn't be more excited to talk to you about athletic greens which is a new sponsor we have 17:22 here on the show i started taking athletic greens watching some youtube videos and doing my own 17:29 research i wanted to add something to my daily workout program to give me some energy and to support gut health and 17:37 that was the one thing that kept coming up again and again with athletic greens is the guy who started the company 17:43 did a bunch of research because he was having some gut health issues that he couldn't get any resolution for he 17:50 developed athletic greens and it's just exploded from there so it's 75 17:56 superfoods vitamins minerals probiotics whole food sources that's all in one 18:02 daily scoop you put it in eight or twelve ounces of water you shake it up and you drink it the taste is very very 18:09 drinkable i actually enjoy it and i have been using it and my energy 18:15 levels have just been through the roof i really like athletic greens because of 18:20 some of the sustainability things that they do so they buy carbon credits and 18:26 you know to help protect the rain forest which is something that i really like but if you order athletic greens in your 18:34 subscription you're going to also get a year's supply of their vitamin d 18:39 supplementation and five free travel packs and that vitamin d is so important 18:45 during those winter months when we're not getting enough sunlight we've talked about how that decreases your mood and 18:53 increases depression and that can be a real deal changer so you go to 18:58 athleticgreens.com emerging that's athleticgreens.com 19:04 e-m-e-r-g-i-n-g that's the psych with mic promo and 19:10 you're going to get that additional vitamin d support for a year and five 19:15 free travel packs so take control of your own health today and as always if 19:21 it's friday it's psych with mike okay we're back so you know 19:27 uh i hadn't originally thought about this in the context of the current 19:34 societal uh zeitgeist but you're you're absolutely right this is a great time to 19:40 and this wasn't why i had originally thought about this topic but you but this is a great great segue or great 19:47 avenue to go down you know my son is a teacher my son is a teacher in the 19:53 school that you started your teaching career yeah which is amazing to me 19:58 but uh so i i have a great and respect for teachers and i i don't know why 20:05 while you were telling this story this came to me i do not remember i remember the name of 20:12 the all the names of every football coach i ever had i do not remember the name of a single teacher save two 20:20 when i was living in granite city illinois going to washington elementary school 20:25 which doesn't exist anymore there were two teachers there that i actually remember mr dixon and mr 20:32 swabota i know these are real people because downstairs in my workshop i actually 20:40 have a ruler that has swaboda written on the back of 20:46 it that was a ruler that he gave me when i was in fourth or fifth grade and 20:52 the reason why these names stay with me is because we were having a 20:59 discussion in a class about 21:04 origins and mr dixon had who taught social studies was talking 21:11 about you know origins and he was asking kids in the class 21:16 what is your family origin and he got to me and i 21:22 said i've known jim beam i said you know i don't think i have an origin and he said 21:29 your last name is mahan and i said yeah he said that's irish and that was the first 21:35 time that anybody had ever given me any kind of a compass 21:40 to be able to think about in terms of who i was 21:47 and and and that changed my foundational perception of 21:52 myself finally i could say oh my family comes from ireland i'd never known that no one in my family ever 21:59 talked about such things yeah so then mr swabota taught math 22:05 but i would go to summer school every year not because i had to i made great grades 22:11 but because i didn't have anything else to do so back if i walked to school every day 22:17 which is what we did back then they would let me go to school and so over the summer i would just walk 22:24 to school because i didn't have anything else to do and i would hang out there and in mr swabo's class we didn't have 22:30 air conditioning and so we would open all of the windows and turn on these gigantic fans and sit on 22:39 the floor and turn out all of the lights and during summer school mr swabota 22:45 would read to us the hardy boys and nancy drew mysteries 22:51 and i would go every day just to be able to go 22:56 and sit on the floor and have him read to us that's one of the more important things that parents can do yeah 23:03 and and my kids will tell you to this day that there was not a single day that 23:10 went by in either one of their lives that they can remember from the time that they were born until they started 23:16 school when i did not read to them that's really important and i was i i 23:24 these memories that that that i i hadn't thought about these things until you were telling me this and you're 23:30 absolutely right those were seminal things that's the impact of teachers and 23:35 so whatever people think about teachers right now in our society and i can't even imagine a more difficult time to be 23:42 a teacher and i think about this with my son every day i mean if if somebody walked into a school that my 23:49 son were teaching at with a gun i i don't know what i would do well it's not that's not the only issue 23:56 you also have the issues about he's a social science teacher does he use critical race theory uh what does he 24:01 teach about the transgendered and other sexual orientations or realities what does he 24:07 teach about what's going on in our society because there's rage in the community about how what 24:13 should be taught and how it should be taught and how pathetic teachers are and how they're all on some kind of liberal 24:19 agenda and change the world and destroy christianity and so on i i think it's a 24:25 horrible time to be a teacher but i would also say thank god for the teachers absolutely 24:31 who were seminal in my life i mean yeah i i don't even know 24:37 and thank god for the opportunity to tell elaine carpenter what yeah it meant to me well i was just thinking you know i 24:42 i don't think i could find these gentlemen i i may try and and see if i can 24:48 can can discover uh uh but you know just the the fact that this is 24:55 all coming back to me is making me recognize that you are absolutely right 25:02 in those fam when those family of origins are not good where are you getting somewhere to go 25:08 yeah and and thank god that you and i had teachers in 25:14 our lives let's also make the point coaches our teachers yeah and if you had coaches who encouraged you and got more 25:21 out of you than you would normally give that needs to be acknowledged and validated yeah yeah yeah yeah mr 25:27 jennings and mr robbie do that my coaches were debate coaches yes i know because you're so much more intellectual 25:33 than i am uh more verbally verbally astute i think yeah yeah and you know what but 25:40 i mean we're obviously i'm making light of that and i shouldn't because there's no question that choir debate 25:49 those kinds of pursuits are just as legitimate as playing football 25:56 or soccer or baseball amen yeah but uh 26:02 okay so i i teach college i 26:08 i call myself a professor well the college calls me a professor um i don't think of myself as a teacher i 26:15 don't feel did you feel like that teaching college was the same as teaching high school 26:24 teaching is teaching the content 26:29 is what you present but what you do is make connections with your students 26:35 and open windows for them maybe i feel like it's different because i feel like by 26:41 the time they get to me in college most of that 26:47 formulative development has already taken place i don't feel like i'm probably making the 26:53 same kind of impact because 26:59 if you're the second third or fourth grade you have a very limited range of access 27:05 to world experiences the older you get if you're in the 10th 11th and 12th grade and that's same 27:10 thing with doing counseling with adolescents they can find other 27:16 reference points to pay attention to and other things to invest themselves in than you and your opinion of them and by 27:23 the time they're in graduate school that's even a broader challenge yeah so 27:29 you have the opportunity you present your material you're committed to knowing what you know and you're offering that to the people 27:35 that say i want to know what you know but it's still the dance of relationship 27:40 and the effort to open windows in their mind 27:45 but i think that both of us then are saying that 27:52 these individuals who are spending time with our children 27:58 in these classrooms from first grade until high school 28:04 are the people who have the ability to potentially correct 28:10 damage that may be being done to those individuals in their families of origin yes yeah absolutely and that any teacher 28:18 who might be hearing this and and hopefully this will be disseminated broadly and other and lots of teachers 28:24 will hear it any teacher that's hearing this do not take that for granted don't 28:30 undersell the potential impact of that because you have two people who had horrible family 28:36 of origin stories who are sitting here saying that we attribute our ability to 28:43 have transcended that to the teachers that we knew in our lives yeah 28:49 and and that's i i just can't imagine something that is more profound than 28:55 that i wish more people saw it that way so 29:02 do you think that that's what caused you to want to be a teacher absolutely oh okay 29:09 i don't think i ever knew that yeah and not that one no no yeah yeah yeah two or three other 29:15 teachers did the debate coach but i'm saying teacher you had a much more 29:22 profound understanding that these teachers had given you something that you didn't get 29:28 from your family of origin then i did until i was much older 29:34 i'll have to accept your analysis there well but i'm saying because it drove you to want to be a teacher absolutely yeah 29:40 and and i'll tell you i love teaching high school as much the day i quit teaching high school 20 29:46 years down the road as i did the day i started yeah but i don't think i would teach high school today yeah 29:52 yeah it's changed too much it's changed too much and and uh it's just amazing to me 29:58 there's too many agendas too many uh righteously indignant people and people 30:05 managing headphones hedge funds are just making out like 30:10 robber barons and we can't pay teachers a living wage that's unbelievable it's you know we we 30:17 our culture doesn't value it no we've we need to have a come to jesus meeting 30:22 about what we think the priorities are in life but that's not 30:27 a topic for this show for today all right hopefully uh people enjoyed that and if you are a teacher and you 30:36 have a perspective that you would like to share with us we would certainly be open to that you can get us 30:42 psych with mike.com as always the music that appears in psych with mike is written and performed by mr benjamin the 30:49 clue we would love it if you would go on to the apple podcast find psych with 30:54 mike and rate us leave a review but most importantly please go to the youtubes if 30:59 you haven't already done so and subscribe to the show that is super super beneficial for us and as always if 31:07 it's friday it's psych with mike

The news seems to get crazier and people are getting more polarized. How is a person supposed to find solace and meaning in life? Perhaps the best way is to learn to appreciate the small things.  https://neurosciencenews.com/meaning-life-small-things-21063/   Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:19 [Music] welcome into the psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon and i'm here 0:25 with mr brett newcomb hello it's really hot and it's well there are 0:31 issues of concern around something called climate change and drought climate change is a pigment of your 0:37 imagination that's what some people say with sweat rolling down their face yeah 0:44 yeah and no water in the pipe yeah and i guess uh uh we should clarify or or at least set 0:50 the the the frame of reference it's the end of july 0:55 in st louis missouri and it is it's just oppressively oppressively hot i heard 1:02 you supposed to get to 104 today 104 today i that i heard on the radio this 1:08 morning that there was a uh 1:13 that the the the mercury reached 115 in oklahoma yesterday wow 1:19 yeah so my sound quality just changed did you turn something down i i manipulated 1:25 something because it was really loud in my in my it's just only mattering if you can be heard 1:31 we'll see everybody can be heard one one hopes you know uh i think that 1:37 um you would live longer if you could reduce your 1:43 level of anxiety and one way to do that would be to learn how to appreciate small things like oh well i'm not this 1:50 is amazing i'm not anxious i'm perfectionistic 1:56 is there a difference i'm not sure they are yeah yeah so i i sent you this article on uh 2:03 from neuroscience news yes not psychology today or bride magazine 2:09 well you're reaching more a field for your your intellectual acumen we've had 2:15 articles from neuroscience before i know but i just was recognizing today that you but 2:21 my reluctance to do that is because then you say oh she's got all these 2:26 words and things in it that you can't win yeah yeah that's true i should just change the rules for the conversation i 2:32 should just learn to appreciate that yeah as long as you're not anxious about it yeah yeah you appreciate the small things that 2:39 uh enjoy the moment set in the moment meditate and you but 2:45 the reason that i wanted to uh so this is an article about enjoying 2:50 the moment what's it what's the title of the article searching for meaning try appreciating the small things right 2:57 yeah and my philosophy is that there are no new 3:02 things that everything's a rebranding of something that somebody did before i 3:08 mean obviously maybe if you discuss that's actually been said before yeah nothing new under the sun exactly i read 3:14 that years ago and you talk about this all the time that that people come up with new theories or come up with words 3:20 they just rebrand old theories yeah and put them back in the mixer come out with something else i remember when 3:29 back in 2008 2009 2010 when we were still at webster and 3:36 the concept of mindfulness was huge in the zeitgeist of the psychological 3:43 community and all of our students would come in and talk about oh i'm going to be a mindfulness counselor 3:49 that's what i'm and and i would say what do you use the word zeitgeist yeah when i was young it was uh the term was 3:56 velchong world view mm-hmm yeah 4:01 same stuff yeah same point so they're going to be mindful counselors and you said what are you going to be mindful ah 4:07 yeah and i would say what does that mean and it was 4:12 if you ask 10 different people what it means to be mindful you're going to get 10 different answers we will all emote 4:17 and obfuscate because there really isn't a definition of that i mean we all think 4:24 we know what that means but there's not an official psychological definition 4:29 well and even if there were people wouldn't adhere to it rigorously right 4:35 yeah it's because it's all smoking mirrors well i don't know about that 4:41 actually yes you you you have said that for so okay so explain what you mean by that 4:47 um it's not a hard science it's not replicable you can't do an experiment 4:53 with measurable ingredients and then have someone on the other side of the world with similar training and equipment replicate the experiment get 5:00 same results so it's a fluid medium it's a dance of relationship and understanding of 5:05 connectivity where people who are struggling in their lives with with 5:12 pain or distress of one kind or another frequently referred to you by someone else like the 5:18 wife says if you don't go to counseling we're going to get a divorce or the judge says if you don't go to counseling 5:24 you're going to have a longer prison sentence or the employer says if you don't go to counseling you're not going 5:29 to have a job be employed so you get people to come in and say my life is really 5:35 i'm unhappy and i'm angry if they'll say that they'll frequently make a joke if 5:41 they're men and say i don't know why i'm here but my boss or wife told me i need to be here i don't really agree 5:47 and then you start trying to have conversations with them and you have to do all the posturing of who's in charge 5:54 whose is the biggest who has the most authoritative interpretation of reality uh and who's 6:00 going to win the competition so my original question was i'm sorry 6:06 did i lose the thread how is well no you you created a tapestry ah there we go uh 6:12 my original question was how is this what we're talking about learning to appreciate the small stuff 6:17 different from mindfulness but now i'm interested in exploring this idea of 6:26 then what really is therapy so you're saying that that it's smoking mirrors in that it's 6:33 about the quality of the relationship so does that mean that you don't think that 6:40 it really matters what the therapist says well i think it matters exponentially i 6:45 i just don't think that i have a defined answer it's not like you bring it to me and say how much does this cost and i 6:51 say oh it's 32 dollars and 12 cents or how much does this weigh and i sell it 18 ounces 6:57 it's not it doesn't work that way it is an interactive experiential medium 7:04 where we spend time together and i try to facilitate a conversation 7:10 that you have with yourself with me being a reflector and a repository so i listen to what you say 7:17 and i reflect it back to you and if i do that accurately it's like holding a mirror up and what i try to 7:24 surround the mirror with is a zone of safety so that you're not feeling attacked or 7:30 criticized or threatened by what you see in the mirror you're able to express it 7:35 reflect on it reflect back on it and then we can discuss if you wanted to 7:41 see a different vision what would that look like and how could you implement it 7:47 and if you do that then you can make different choices in your life that hopefully will alleviate 7:54 or remediate the pain that's existing so when i would talk to students they would 8:00 say oh i'm going to be a mindfulness counselor i'd say what does that mean and they would oftentimes 8:06 say to me things that are in this article i'm going to ask people to you know slow down to deep breathe maybe 8:13 meditate pay attention to the trees listen to the birds and that may actually be 8:19 good advice but if you are delivering that advice to a really anxious person 8:26 who doesn't see the ability to slow down and look at the trees and listen to the 8:32 birds that messages is is useless isn't it yeah it is it 8:38 reminds me of the opening song of the music band where all the traveling salesmen on the train are 8:45 confed fabulating about professor harold hill being so successful selling boys bands 8:51 around the midwest and especially in iowa and their constant reiteration or complaint 8:58 is he doesn't know the territory meaning he doesn't follow the rules he doesn't do it the way he's supposed to he doesn't do it the way we do it 9:05 he manages though to make an incredible living and impact and influence lives 9:10 doing what he does he just doesn't do what they do what they want him to do and the outlier then is always 9:17 criticized by the mainstream because he's not walking in the middle of the road that they want him to walk 9:23 in and that they are convinced is the right road so they society puts pressure on you to 9:29 stay in the middle of the road and so then you inculcate that pressure 9:35 with an impact on your self-image your sense of 9:40 what do i need to accomplish what's a positive win for me how can i avoid losing 9:47 how will i know when i've what what how will i know when i'm satisfied happy are you happy 9:54 i don't know i don't have this or that or the other and so this approach the 10:00 neurology news approach article is saying that there is value 10:06 and potentially progress in learning to slow down the mental script that's echoing in your head 10:13 that's been imposed on you by your culture your family your religion 10:18 your boss your corporate messaging 10:23 and just experience something so you just hit on a on a point that i 10:28 think is salient but is really the heart of the issue which is 10:33 you know to slow down the mental processing 10:39 to me that's more what mindfulness to the extent that meditation is an 10:46 allegory for mindfulness that's really what is the the the 10:51 therapeutically effective part i think so uh but it's like my wife and i were 10:58 commenting the other day in conversation we're both retired and people will ask us well what do you 11:03 do now that you're retired and i give some smart ass comment i'll say like i don't do i be 11:11 and they don't understand what that means and so they they think i'm being a smart aleck which of course i am 11:18 but what we are astonished by my wife and i 11:23 is we pretty much do whatever we want to do although she will put me in the trick 11:28 box on a regular basis because she'll turn up me and say what do you want to do today and i don't have a road map for today 11:35 sometimes i do oh i want to go to the botanical gardens or i want to go to the art museum or i'm going to go to the movie or what have you but oftentimes i 11:42 don't i don't have a map for today i just want to be here and do whatever comes to mind so then what is your 11:48 response i don't have a map for today i just want to be here and do whatever comes to mind do you have something you want to do 11:53 i'll consider that and sometimes she does because sometimes it's a lead-in like when where do you want to go for dinner any kind of question uh but 12:00 sometimes no neither of us have anything to do we'll just sit here and stare at him so then if if 12:06 are you okay with your wife's name yeah absolutely i love her no no but i mean if i say that yeah so if if you and 12:13 phyllis are having a conversation and she says what do you want to do today and you say i don't have a road map and 12:20 did you have something and she says no is she okay with that answer or does that answer 12:26 make either her or you feel like oh now i'm anxious now i need to find because i 12:31 think that that's a lot of times what we we go out and we try and find things to do because we think we're supposed to be 12:36 doing something yeah well she's more that way than i am she she still hears voices in her head about you need to be 12:43 doing something yeah at the end of the day she'll think back and say did i do anything today and or did i was i just a slug 12:51 and she gets herself worked up about that much more than i do i don't i'm not that 12:57 self-aware or self-reflective that at the end of the day i add all the pluses and minuses to give it a point value i 13:04 think the old white protestant message is 13:09 you must be productive you must be doing something yes that is the message and it's a cultural imperative it was for 13:15 men of our generation but what i've found is now that i'm off the treadmill now that i'm not uh a wage slave or 13:23 don't work for someone or for something i don't have the same yardstick to 13:29 measure progress so this article is suggesting that there is 13:35 benefit to just being but being aware that you are being but that's the the 13:41 we've done shows on the difference between doing and being right and we both agree that 13:48 being is superior a way of if you can it's hard that's a challenge i think 13:55 that the that you know white anglo-saxon protestant messaging is what gets in the 14:00 way of that because people have that is you your word inculcated into them 14:05 and and how do you stop hearing that message so that you can 14:11 just sit and be um for me 14:17 it's a i think it's a reflection of my stubbornness and my oppositionality i have always been oppositional i don't 14:24 like authority i don't like rules that limit or constrain me 14:30 in in service of someone else's agenda 14:37 i'm willing to be self-disciplined if i set an agenda for myself i will limit or constrain myself to try to reach that 14:43 goal but if someone imposes one on me you've got to increase your sales output 14:48 by 32 this month it will fire you i don't like i don't respond well to that 14:53 okay let's run to our break and when we come back we'll pick this up all right 14:59 hey guys dr michael mahan here from cyclic mike and do you think that you 15:05 have a story to tell i know that when we started cyclic mic 15:11 the things that we really wanted in a podcast hosting 15:16 company was that they knew what they were doing and libsyn has been around since the 15:22 very beginning they're the oldest running consecutive still existing podcast hosting company in the entire 15:29 world i think but certainly in the united states so they've been around since people started uploading things to 15:37 the internet and so they have a lot of experience but we also needed a service 15:43 that was easy to use and libsyn is just so intuitive and even 15:49 though they've got all of this experience they just keep on upgrading so they just recently went through a 15:56 major renovation a major upgrade to libsyn5 and made the service even more 16:02 intuitive and user friendly than it was before and it was so user-friendly before that i was able to figure it out 16:10 and get site with mike up on the surface so we've been using uh libsyn since the very beginning of 16:16 psych with mike for over two years now we love them and as a friend of the show 16:23 if you go to libsyn and start a podcast right now you get your first month free 16:29 so you go to libsyn.com and use the code 16:34 n f-r-i-e-n-d so friend of the show friend that's l i b 16:40 s y n dot com and use the code f r i e n 16:46 d and you get your first month free and as always if it's friday it's cycling 16:52 okay we're back and so all right so i hear you saying that that you can be oppositional and so someone says this is 16:59 the message or this is the expectation you will try and bristle against that so does that 17:04 well i will try to find a way to do it but differently from how you told me to okay just to prove to you that i was 17:10 smarter than you were and i could but then how do you at the end when you get to retirement how do you 17:17 exist mental adjustment it's a significant one yeah and it doesn't happen overnight and 17:23 as a counselor i worked with a lot of men who reached retirement age or families where the men reached retirement age and men would retire and 17:30 they would say well i sold my company or i've taken my buy out and now i'm gonna play golf every day 17:36 and so they play golf every day for six months and then they come in saying i'm going crazy right uh 17:42 i need to find something to do i need to to measure myself against another hill to climb i remember one man telling 17:49 me i need the force of a wind to lean against something that will push me 17:56 so i can overcome so it it's still part of his internalized script that he needs to be a go-getter 18:02 and conquering mountains right uh and so we had conversations but what if 18:07 you you don't find that what if there's not something to lean against and he's a 18:12 pretty smart guy and his response was his life will give you one mm-hmm you know his wife got sick or you'll create 18:19 one same difference yeah um but he had to find it wasn't what he expected to find 18:25 to lean against but he had to find a way to survive that particular set of obstacles 18:30 so when i hear all of that yeah that you're talking about and and 18:36 you know when i've done therapy and come up against this where people are struggling to hear that message you 18:42 know appreciate the small things see the trees hear the birds to me especially when you're talking 18:49 about retirement what that comes down to is a 18:54 lack of identity so the the protestant message says you'll be a good person 19:02 you'll have an identity if you are working towards these productive goals 19:07 when you're talking about mindfulness and appreciating the small things and slowing that 19:13 mental kind of of rush of thought down 19:18 what i see is that people then are forced to 19:25 be more aware maybe not even consciously but intuitively of this 19:30 question of identity and they don't have an answer for that and that's what they struggle against and so for me i want to 19:38 try and help people to establish an answer to those existential questions 19:44 i think that that has to be a part of learning how to slow down 19:49 i think there's significant value in having the conversations but i think you have to frame it in your own mind not 19:55 necessarily in the client's mind in terms of trying to identify the 20:00 cultural messaging that creates the world view of your client whether it's a religious one you know i 20:08 think a cotton mather a famous puritan preacher in the 1700s 1600s 20:14 gave a speech called sinners in the hands of a sermon centers in the hands of an angry god 20:21 the theory was that it wasn't a matter of grace if you got 20:26 to heaven it was a matter of earning brownie points with god so if you behaved 20:32 in a set of strictures uh that were defined by what would get you to heaven 20:38 meaning not sin and these ways this is one this is one that's one those are three 20:44 don't do those then you can go to heaven when you die and the whole philosophy of life was that this life was to be one of 20:52 uh woe and conflict through which you navigated to get to a place where you could get off and be in 20:58 a joyful state for eternity um so if that's the messaging that you 21:04 received from childhood and from the surrounding culture it's going to be internalized in your 21:09 head and if it's not working for you as a message you find out that you're inherently 21:15 sinful and they say oh that's satan talking to you you know be alarmed alarm 21:20 what if little pleasures are not sinful what if little pleasures are okay what if 21:26 sitting on the mountaintop watching the birds fly beneath you and seeing the valley out in front of you 21:31 is a pleasurable thing for you but you're not 21:36 productively digging in the coal mine so as a therapist 21:43 my job is to say well what if right and so then okay so i'm going to be the client yeah and you just said to me what 21:50 if what is sitting on the mountain top watching the birds below you and the the clouds and all 21:56 is pleasurable and then i say well then my family won't eat because i'm not working in the coal mine 22:02 possibly but what if your family then had to get their own food 22:07 could they have you raised have you raised your children to be able to support themselves right 22:12 and so when do you let go of that right i think the not in this lifetime right yeah i think 22:18 that's the the expectation of most people and certainly the majority of 22:23 males so what happens then when you become physically disabled and you're not physically able to go to work and 22:28 bring home the bacon right you had better take out disability insurance to make sure that you can cover your wages 22:35 for the rest of your life i mean that's what that's what the protestant message why not just go rob a bank 22:42 because that would have a lot of other consequences associated with it that you might not 22:48 want to negative consequences negative costs for the choice behavior right if the choice behavior you have is i'm 22:54 going to sell drugs on the side right or i'm going to rob a bank you might make good money 23:00 but if you do there are going to be consequences that society will impose right are you willing to accept those 23:06 well no i don't want that to happen to me well then you need to consider are there other alternatives for what to do 23:14 i don't like my job i don't like doing physical labor i don't want to be a physical laborer all my life i don't want to wear a shirt that says dave on 23:21 it and work for minimum wage well 23:27 what other choices could you make right to impact that outcome right but 23:32 you know i think that when we're talking to people about this idea of slow down 23:37 you know you don't have to be so driven then i think that what for a lot of 23:42 people where the uphill swim is or the the upstream swim is 23:50 that okay even if i choose this for me yeah then what about my wife what about my 23:56 kids what if they what if i can't make as much money and now we can't go on as many vacations right so uh 24:06 i am 75 years old i grew up and was functionally productive in an era where 24:11 there was a world view about making a commitment to a job showing up for work every day my 24:19 some of my clients came from similar backgrounds and i remember having a number of 24:24 conversations of frustration about the younger group today 24:30 aren't driven by the same messaging and so they're willing to take a job on the assembly line at 24:36 chrysler but they'll call in two days a week and say they're going fishing because they want to go fishing more 24:41 than they want to come to work but i worked that job and i worked overtime 24:47 in double time and saturday time to make money to get to a significant place of financial stability 24:54 and i was very successful i managed to do that but these kids are not doing that and yet they want the new pickup 25:00 truck and they want the big house and they want it all right now well how are they going to get it all 25:05 right now well some of it is going to come from me you know i don't have to pay for my kids truck well 25:11 i remember one of the most devastating life lessons is that i learned early i 25:16 learned sitting next to a friend who experienced it i was able to observationally encounter it and he had 25:23 bought a college mate of mine we were working together in the student center and he 25:28 had bought a brand new mustang convertible and his father told him don't buy that 25:33 you can't afford it you have these other things that you have to pay for like college 25:39 and he said i can do it i can do it right now i've got this job i can make this money summer summer off 25:45 so he came summer ended he lost his job and then now we're working at the student center for three bucks an hour 25:51 right and he can't make his payments so he goes to his dad and says can you pick up the payments on my car instead 25:56 said no he said but but then they'll repossess my card which i told you that's the cost of the choice you made 26:02 so he lost his down payment he lost his licensure fee lost his insurance fee he lost his car 26:08 and still had to pay off the note yeah so he didn't have a car and he still owed the bill right so he was devastated yeah it was it was his dad's fault right 26:15 my dad's a cheap sob he wouldn't pay for the garden he could afford to sure so he wants me to suffer 26:22 but i know that guy now 50 years later and he still has that car i mean bought 26:28 years later he bought that car back but he still has it and he drives a 15 year old car as his everyday car he 26:35 doesn't go spend money willy-nilly he doesn't buy things that he can't pay cash for he learned a lesson in college that hurt 26:42 significantly yeah but it changed his world and and this is obviously going down a different tangent thing yeah 26:48 sorry sweating the small stuff no no but but you make such a great point that's such a hard 26:55 thing to do in therapy is to talk to parents about setting boundaries for 27:00 their adolescent children and then consistently enforcing them i think that that's a lost art i don't think that 27:06 people do that very much anymore how many conversations do we have with parents that came in because they had adolescent 27:12 boys were acting out and they couldn't find any way to have consequences that worked right i'm 27:18 telling me he has to stay home he doesn't stay home he sneaks out and then what and he steals my car uh he goes out 27:24 with his buddies well you have to you have to find what does he value well he values soccer 27:30 well don't let him play soccer oh no the team counts on that yeah he's the best player on the team 27:36 and the coach and the team will be upset we can't take that away right you know right so your suggestion is 27:42 well let the team put pressure on him to behave my you know my remembrance of the early days in the 27:50 group practice was that cell phones were just starting to think yeah and i 27:56 remember that in the early days of our the group practice one of the things 28:02 that we struggled with was as a group coming up with a philosophy for what we 28:07 were going to say to parents about what was the age to give your child a cell phone and then 28:13 once they started to become more and more ubiquitous i would have conversations with parents all the time 28:19 and and one of the things that i would say is you know you can take away that cell phone and be like well no we can't 28:25 because then we won't be able to get a hold of him and i'd say to the parent how often does he answer the phone when 28:31 you call him they're like well never i'm like well then you can't get a hold of him now but they still 28:37 couldn't pull the trigger on taking the phone away and i can't take the car away from my kid as a consequence of bad 28:43 behavior because i need him to drive his sister's right well what if you had a rule that he 28:49 couldn't drive it for his own personal reasons he could only drive it for the reasons that you wanted right oh we can't do that right well why can't you 28:55 do that well because it won't work so as long as they put themselves in that box of i can't do that i can't do 29:00 this i can't do that nothing changes exactly and so then what are you so then you say 29:06 well learn to appreciate the small things yeah you know your garage is empty right now you could 29:11 clean it up or you just sit in it and say wow it's a nice garage you could do that you could do that yeah 29:18 yeah and then they left and you said that's really stupid and he said well you're the one that's tied to not right 29:23 can you untie it exactly yeah and so and then what am i paying you for well i 29:29 don't know i don't know what are you paying me for exactly uh so what 29:34 i've learned from this conversation is that what it all comes down to 29:41 is every human being is involved in a series of 29:47 psychological gymnastics that they are conducting within their own mind 29:53 and what we're trying to do is to help them learn some new moves you got to 29:58 walk that lonesome valley yeah you got to walk it by yourself nobody else can walk it for you and anybody who can't 30:06 take away their child's cell phone is going to have the same problem when we talk about learn to slow down and see 30:14 the trees and hear the birds until the individual is ready to hear that 30:20 message and which will happen when they can't hear any other message yeah as 30:26 long as they can still hear the siren call they're going to try to respond it that's their preference right and i've 30:32 said that forever about people who abuse substances that a person's going to abuse substances until the consequences 30:40 for doing that is no longer acceptable to them not to the boss not to the wife not to 30:46 the police officer and that's really the the secret of psychotherapy 30:52 it's all about trying except there's a there's no corollary that i agree with you but the coral area is that they have 30:58 to have a glimpse of an alternative way forward no that's what i was going to say and that's what psychotherapy is is 31:05 trying to give them an opportunity to see a different candle 31:10 in the darkness and can you choose to walk towards this candle rather than 31:16 staying in within the the boundaries of the light that the candle you're with is casting and for a lot of people that's 31:24 scary because there's a period of time where you're walking in darkness between the two 31:30 glows of light and i think that's hard for people but to me that's what psychotherapy is is holding that 31:36 person's hand while they're walking through that darkness and hopefully they can find that other 31:42 candle sometimes people don't yes but because you also creature 31:48 your acculturation you have to be leery of not taking on responsibility for the 31:54 outcome if you're the therapist you have to provide the options you have to provide the safe holding environment 31:59 you have to provide the reflective listening but you can't provide the solution right and it's so damn tempting 32:05 to do and what you can't do quit your job stop drinking get a divorce kick your kid out 32:13 those are not answers that you can provide that solve a problem 32:18 and you can't take responsibility for the client not being able to take positive action in their lives that's 32:25 not the therapist's responsibility i mean can you imagine how narcissistic that 32:30 you have to be to be able to think oh but i should be able to change this 32:36 person's behavior well i just had to think of some of the bosses i had yeah yeah 32:42 is that a shot i mean not at me well you're never my boss no yeah no okay i 32:48 think it's time to close this all right hopefully that was beneficial for people as always if you would like to get a 32:54 hold of us at psych with mike you can get us through psych with mike.com the music that appears in psych with mike is 32:59 written and performed by mr benjamin the clue and we always love it if you want to do us a solid go on the youtubes and 33:07 find psych with mike and subscribe to the show there and as always if it's friday it's cycling 33:20 [Music] 33:37 you AllRecently uploadedWatched

Emotional regulation is a necessary skill for secure attachment. In other words, people who are a "hot mess" have difficulty feeling secure about themselves or having good relationships with others.  https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/head-games/202206/how-become-more-secure-person    Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:20 welcome to the site with mike library this is dr michael mohan i'm here with mr brett newcomb and intern michael 0:25 hello hello how are you gentlemen doing doing well i i asked if we were ready and the response i got did not seem 0:32 overly enthusiastic ho-hum is a response it is a response sometimes no news is good news uh that's 0:40 yeah that's what they say no news is good news so uh 0:46 this is uh a subject that i find compelling i'm not sure the rest of the room finds 0:53 it compelling is that fair to say interesting uh i i don't know how compelling it 0:58 needs to be to to talk about it uh what what are you talking about 1:04 what are we talking about uh my i told you this morning when you got 1:10 here that i did something that i never do which is i actually listened to an 1:15 episode of psych with mike and i listened to the episode that i 1:20 posted today which is friday the 8th of july for anybody keeping track at home 1:29 and in that show we had michelle stieg here who you had brought 1:37 with you a couple of weeks ago and uh we were talking about theoretical orientation and i was saying that you 1:45 know my theoretical orientation comes from the psychodynamic perspective and 1:50 heinz kohut and the development of 1:55 parenting models which leads to attachment and i have talked about piaget's original stage of 2:03 development which is trust versus mistrust and it's just so 2:08 uh that is so much the foundation of how i understand human psychology that when i 2:16 think about doing therapy and i think about people who have had challenges in their sense 2:23 of security and in their attachment styles the question becomes as an adult 2:30 what can you do about that let's assume that this underlying 2:36 theory of psychology that i subscribe to is cogent that it makes sense that it's 2:42 accurate and you have struggles with those early 2:47 years in those early relationships as a lot of us have brett you and i know that we talk about that all the time we don't 2:53 know as much about michael's relationship with his primary caregivers as an infant but we know that you and i 3:00 really struggled with that and so as adults we've had to learn compensatory 3:05 behaviors or whatever compensatory abilities to be able to be 3:13 in attached relationships and to feel more secure and so how do you give that 3:18 to somebody in therapy that's that's really kind of my my focus 3:26 so you are questioning whether or not 3:31 atypical if there is such a thing client coming in for the first time that you don't know 3:37 whatever their presenting uh issue or reason for being there is is in all likelihood suffering from some 3:45 kind of attachment disorder suffered from childhood 3:50 distress or trauma is that is that what your postulate 3:59 i think i would agree with that that that that's an accurate 4:05 encapsulation yeah and capitulization of what's going on in therapy yeah and i 4:10 think a lot of therapy if it's successful involves re-parenting 4:15 that wounded inner child whether that's the individual learns how to reparent 4:21 themselves or whether you model and demonstrate for them how to re-parent themselves i think if the 4:28 therapy is beneficial and successful it will involve re-parenting some of 4:33 those scripts that are wounded in broken scripts that we carry around inside ourselves yeah i remember when i was in 4:40 graduate school i don't know if you knew this at the time but 4:46 uh people talk about inner child and and back in the uh in the mid 90s when i was 4:51 actually in grad school uh it was a buzz it was like absolutely and i used to say all the time the only 4:58 thing that i want from my inner child is his skittles and then i'm going to kick his ass 5:04 you know and because i didn't want to hear that kind of language it felt 5:12 i mean i it felt offensive to me and what i realized later was not because that's not true 5:20 or accurate but because i wasn't ready you were too resisting yeah yeah i 5:25 was resisting it big time um and so i think that that that that we 5:30 look at things like internal family systems right where when we ignore or suppress those inner children or 5:37 whatever parts of us that they are they really show up in other places in our life yeah and in ways that we didn't 5:44 necessarily absolutely yeah absolutely i think that's the central premise of ifs yeah yeah 5:50 and listen to your parts and be aware of their existence and i don't know if you've seen the episodes that we've done 5:56 with michelle but she is an ifs therapist and so that was exactly the 6:02 conversation that we were having and you know brett and i have always been i think brett's more open to it now i'm 6:09 still less open to it the idea of ifs which i don't for me it's a it's a 6:15 descriptor you have to find a language that you and your client can share yeah so one of the challenges of being a 6:21 therapist is to listen to the language that the client uses so that you can 6:27 do appropriate feedback and and reflective listening in a way that demonstrates that you hear 6:34 them accurately uh so if i have a client who's a truck driver 6:39 and i can do it appropriately i try to use driving analogies as often as i can because it's like what you experience if 6:46 i have a client's computer programmer i'll use computer examples whatever i can do if i can do it if i 6:53 can't do it then i say you have to educate me i don't know teach me your language but i listen and 6:58 some of it is neuro-linguistic programming you hear the things they say 7:04 and you can determine the way they experience the world if they do it visually if they do it orally if they do 7:09 it tactically and that helps you then speak in the rhythm that they can hear so i think 7:15 that's a critical component i think ifs also offers that language too because children talk about 7:22 this idea that oh there's a part of me that got angry and so it's really easy to latch on to that apart oh let's talk 7:29 about this part and not take ownership of the whole thing that was just a part a minute and it reminds me of um uh you 7:35 talk about it's just another frame or another language or another structure on top of some very good very old ideas it 7:42 reminds me of you know gestalt's uh empty chair technique where we 7:48 set somebody down and we say what would you say to yourself but now instead of talking to your whole self maybe you're just talking to one part of yourself 7:54 absolutely and if you've ever had an opportunity to experience that literally making them move from one 8:01 chair to the other yeah is an essential component of that technique they they sit in one chair and 8:08 they say what their mother said then they sit in their chair and say what they would say right if their mother 8:14 could hear them if you're if you're saying you want to your mother even if she's dead 8:19 and she could hear you and understand you what would you say give yourself permission say it out loud then get back 8:25 in the chair and so the you facilitate that conversation but they do all the work yeah they have all the conversation 8:31 they generate all the concepts but let's not gloss over the technique it's super 8:37 super important that they change chairs oh absolutely because psychologically they change they shift the viewpoint and 8:44 and you don't have to understand why that happens as a therapist but you got to understand to try and ask them to 8:51 remain in the same chair and have that dualistic kind of 8:57 message going on in their brain is extremely difficult which one you can't do therapy with yourself you need another what what you hate 9:04 you can't do therapy with yourself and therein lies the rub [Laughter] 9:11 well even the article talks about this idea of when you're making interpersonal changes making peace with the past 9:18 they quote one participant is saying that she was able to observe 9:24 something that happened in her past and become aware of it so we're talking about how do we inch towards security 9:31 and how do we how do we progress towards that idea of the secure attachments and awareness i think is what we're 9:37 really touching on being critically aware of all of these things that got you to the place that you are 9:43 and then being able to critically ask yourself what do i like what don't i like what do i just have to live with 9:51 and because they said it doesn't make it so correct uh i was told you're too 9:56 stupid to go to college 10:02 so okay also the article the article talks about in the process of doing that this individual was able 10:08 to reframe her understanding and compassion for her mother who had 10:13 been pretty traumatizing for reasons that she now had a better uh grasp on 10:20 which helped her reframe the dance between she and her mother 10:26 and you know that i'm like in a real young phase right now i'm reading all of 10:32 young stuff and everything and so that's kind of my where my focus is and one of the things 10:38 that i am really starting to realize 10:44 and i'm going to go off track here because i'm building a clock uh you know you talk about all the time 10:49 um whose perspective is it that you can't uh uh 10:55 kernberg's idea that you can't really address your 11:00 whatever they are bipolar or narcissistic or whatever personality issues until in your 50s or later late 11:07 40s early 50s and i am so in that vein right now because i've been doing all of 11:12 this study with jung and one of the things that i'm recognizing is this idea 11:18 of trying to embrace the shadow and so you know this and michael you probably may or may not know this but i'm blind 11:24 in my left eye and it doesn't always track with my right eye when i tell 11:29 people this the first time most people say oh i never knew that i never and and it's amazing to me how little other 11:37 people but people don't really pay attention to their environment and and so it's amazing to me how much people will say 11:44 oh i never knew that because it's been such a my retina detached when i was in high 11:50 school playing football it was the end of my football career and if i tell people this it makes me 11:57 seem very sympathetic to most people right to me it's something that is 12:03 embarrassing and shameful and i've always tried to hide it so it's been a part of my shadow and so i've really 12:09 been trying to work on embracing that but that to me that's what young's 12:17 so what jung talks about in the shadow and the persona and the self is really 12:23 an aspect of ifs sure yeah and and i know i only just now 12:30 made that comparison because we've been talking to michelle and there's nothing new under this 12:36 there's nothing new under the sun yeah it's amazing but so when we're talking about the inner 12:41 child what seems to me to be the clinical 12:47 focus would be how do i help you brett or you michael 12:53 identify what are those pieces of your wounded 12:58 child that you live with or try and hide and how can i help you to embrace that 13:06 not so that you can resolve the trauma but so that you can live with it without 13:13 fear insecurity or shame so i think one of the ways that a therapist does that is to begin with 13:22 what carl rogers called unconditional positive regard i 13:27 want to say to you that i hear what you are saying and i 13:33 honor you for surviving whatever your experience was nothing shameful or 13:38 disgusting or horrible or evil or wicked in what you did to survive 13:43 however you managed it you got here how you got here today is 13:49 not on you that's on others and the adults in your life in particular how you leave here is on you and what i can 13:57 offer you is the the promise that if we do this work properly you will leave here 14:05 with more power and more control than you've ever had yeah at 14:10 hearing the voice from among those voices inside you that you want to hear that you need to hear 14:17 so if you will talk to me and you will trust the process what you'll see is that i absolutely 14:24 accept and honor who you are and how you got here especially those that have had 14:31 severe and chronic abuse experiences in right life who were shamed 14:36 and threatened and punished because of that to say to them you don't have to be in 14:42 touch with that part of that any longer than you want to you don't need it anymore to survive you survived to this 14:48 point let's talk about what you need to go out of here and be able not necessarily to get rid of that but to 14:54 put it back in the bag and keep it so that you can take it out if you want to so let's go to our break and then when 14:59 we come back i really like the language that you're using here and so i want to ask you a question about that but let's 15:04 go to our break and i'll do that on the other side all right hey everybody dr michael mahon here from site with mike and i couldn't be more 15:12 excited to talk to you about athletic greens which is a new sponsor we have here on the show 15:17 i started taking athletic greens watching some youtube videos and doing my own 15:22 research i wanted to add something to my daily workout program to give me some energy and to support gut health and 15:30 that was the one thing that kept coming up again and again with athletic greens is the guy who started the company 15:36 did a bunch of research because he was having some gut health issues that he couldn't get any resolution for he 15:43 developed athletic greens and it's just exploded from there so it's 75 15:49 superfoods vitamins minerals probiotics whole foods sources that's all in one 15:56 daily scoop you put it in 8 or 12 ounces of water you shake it up and you drink it the taste is very very drinkable i 16:04 actually enjoy it and i have been using it and my energy levels have just been through the roof i 16:11 really like athletic greens because of some of the sustainability things that they do so they buy carbon 16:18 credits and you know to help protect the rain forest which is something that i really like 16:24 but if you order athletic greens in your subscription you're going to also get a 16:30 year's supply of their vitamin d supplementation and five free travel 16:35 packs and that vitamin d is so important during those winter months when we're 16:41 not getting enough sunlight we've talked about how that decreases your mood and 16:46 increases depression and that can be a real deal changer so you go to 16:51 athleticgreens.com emerging that's athleticgreens.com 16:58 e-m-e-r-g-i-n-g that's the psych with mike promo and 17:03 you're going to get that additional vitamin d support for a year and five 17:08 free travel packs so take control of your own health today and as always if 17:14 it's friday it's psych with mike okay we're back and so i really like 17:21 that language that you're using and what i'm wanting to to know the the 17:28 to try and crystallize this for me is how do you initially 17:35 approach that shame that the client 17:40 feels how do you do that in a way that doesn't get them to turtle up and 17:45 and want to defend themselves so one of the things that 17:50 occurs and do you understand what i'm saying yeah okay i think yeah one thing that 17:56 occurs is i get angry that some adult has abused a child i am angry 18:02 a child that survived that kind of abuse is hypersensitive to my anger 18:08 so i want to identify it and say i am angry but i'm not angry with you i'm not 18:13 angry at whatever you had to do to survive i have no antagonism towards that at all wow okay okay this is what 18:20 this is exactly where i wanted to go yeah yeah because i and i didn't know that it was but yeah this is exactly right so you're counter transference 18:28 is to be angry shutting off their their radar though but their transference then 18:34 is to experience that anger as similar to similarly traumatizing 18:40 to their original experience it interferes with the connection yeah and the and the uh 18:47 strengthening of that individual mm-hmm so what they have to experience from me and i don't know if you pay close enough 18:54 attention but my when when i drop into therapy mode that way my voice changes my delivery changes it's more soothing 19:01 yeah i've never noticed that uh then when i'm just casually in conversation uh that's because you've never been in 19:06 therapy with me yes i've noticed that a million different i could i could identify a million different times when 19:12 i knew brett just dropped into the he's doing it oh he's doing it yeah and i'm sure if i called your wife she would be 19:17 able to correct it robin williams and matt damon spent an entire movie getting to this point that 19:24 we're getting to here where it's not your fault it's a very powerful message 19:29 absolutely it's it's an incredibly powerful message and necessary but okay so so let me let me go back to this and 19:35 so so the the the counter transference is you would be angry and just counter 19:40 transference is the therapist projected onto you and then the the transference is the client's experience of the 19:46 therapist and therapy and and so uh well the client is constantly going to try to 19:51 manipulate me into the traditional response that they have received yeah which is you have to 19:57 they're going to say today they say are you going to give me homework i said well do you need 20:02 homework do you want homework yeah i think so well all right here's some homework the next week thinking oh 20:07 you're going to be really mad yeah i didn't do my homework well why am i going to measure i didn't do my homework okay so what 20:13 no i didn't want i wasn't going to give you homework to begin with yeah what grade yeah exactly but but i really want to go back failure you loser so so the 20:21 transference is the counter transference is that you get angry because the child's been abused the transference is 20:26 this is re-traumatizing the same way so you're saying okay so i say to them 20:32 uh i'm not angry at you i'm angry that the situation occurred 20:38 do you ever try and not be angry i don't try to not be angry if i'm angry 20:45 i'm angry what i try to do is is clarified right you are picking up accurately what you're getting 20:52 but let me clarify it's not you that i'm angry with but this is the point that i think is so 20:58 important for therapists generally and for new therapists the goal isn't for you to not have 21:04 emotions right you're not the blank mirror that beginners are told they need to be 21:10 exactly uh you are a real person with real feelings and the client picks up on all that so you have to be able to say 21:16 i'm sad and cry when you hear something sad or laugh when something's funny to you 21:21 and then say i didn't mean to offend you it just struck me as funny uh 21:26 how do we work past right but you have to be aware enough of your own internal processes i had a couple come see me one 21:33 time a black man a white woman came from marital counseling first session i'm talking to him about coming for marriage 21:39 counseling and i said i really was that clarence thomas 21:44 want to communicate to you that i think i can hear you and i want 21:50 to hear if you have any concerns about my ability to hear you and the 21:56 black man looked at his wife they looked at me and he said one of the troubles that we are having 22:02 has to do with sex and i fantasize all the time about having sex with white women 22:10 are you too white to hear that which i thought was a brilliant question 22:17 and one he needed to have answered if i was going to be able to help him if i was going to be able to sit in a room with him if i'm sitting there judging 22:22 him and and condemning him for his fantasies right i can't help him right 22:28 and i know that and he knows that so he was able to ask can you listen but i think here and and i'm glad that that 22:34 the client was able to do that but i think the point that you made about therapists in in their training are 22:42 conditioned to believe they're supposed to be blank slate which is that is an 22:47 unachievable goal it's impossible you have to be a human person in humane but 22:52 you have to be a human person capable of monitoring their own processes well enough to know when it's not your i'm 22:59 sitting here i'm angry because you're telling me this story of abuse but i'm not angry at you 23:06 because this happened to a child so that's the point of the conversation about modeling 23:12 and re-parenting because they experience in their most vulnerable and anxious moments 23:19 modeling of appropriate responsiveness not what they experienced in their childhood yeah and so then you can 23:25 process that and discuss what did that feel like what just happened do you are you aware of that can we can do what are 23:31 your reactions to it what's your level of awareness to it because in doing that we're 23:38 re-parenting their script and one of the things that i will point 23:44 out now because this is sailing or coming into my consciousness is i have had many clients 23:52 especially when i was younger because now i'm pretty old but when i was younger i had many clients who were much 23:58 older than me that were able to experiencing experience me 24:04 as a caring nurturing parent so you don't have to necessarily think oh 24:11 i'm 32 how am i going to do this for a 50 year old man you can do it because 24:16 it's not yours to do it's the client's experience that matters and the client 24:23 can have that experience i don't know if i fully agree with that you don't i i think i do but i'm mindful of the fact 24:29 that for years what i would tell my students in counseling program younger students especially is i don't care what 24:35 skills you learn you need some aging because if i walk into your office with 24:41 marital issues and i look at you and you're 27 and i'm 70. 24:46 i'm not going to talk to you i'm not going to take that risk because i can't imagine that you can understand my 24:51 circumstances so i don't know how that changes but there's a there is a presentation that they have 24:58 to learn how to make yeah that says to me okay there's something here that maybe i can take this risk right there's 25:04 something here that maybe i'm willing to float this out here right but initially my impressions 25:10 are you're too young to know what you're talking about have you ever had any children and been a parent 25:15 and i think that this goes back to the idea of there are different therapists for different people absolutely and so 25:22 if the 70 year old man comes in and can't put themselves in that position then that's not a good therapy experience for 25:28 them and they should find somebody else but what i have experienced is that you 25:34 can present yourself as timeless once you learn how to do if you get the 25:39 opportunity yeah yeah but but the client has to buy into it right and if the client doesn't then no then it's not 25:45 going to work but i have had men who were twice my age yeah who i know experienced me as a nurturing 25:53 parent and so that can happen as long as the therapist is good at their job and 25:59 doing things right and the client is able to open themselves up to it i think another part of your point there is also 26:06 you were speaking about getting angry with the not angry at the client i'm 26:12 angry with the client for the client or the client that's the language that i think i want 26:17 to pick on maybe a little bit because your job as a as a therapist is not to 26:23 feel the emotion for the client oh absolutely i have to take clearly say this is mine it's coming out of me and 26:30 my friend at the whole counter transfer message but it's not at you 26:36 it's at however you were wounded and the fact that any child is wounded that way 26:41 and that comes from me i take ownership of it and you don't need to feel it and 26:47 we need to have this is not one-time trial learning we will repeat this conversation a number of times before 26:52 you can internalize it and and the clarification the clarification though that i would make is that 26:59 we are not so counter transference i guess if technically if it's counter transparency could be the therapist's 27:05 own stuff but when you're doing therapy you are going to experience emotions as 27:12 a therapist that are being projected by the client so you're not feeling it 27:17 for them you're feeling it with them and they may not have the language to be 27:23 able to identify like the client may be experiencing shame over that trauma 27:29 event and you may be experiencing anger and so it's important for the therapist to help them be able to identify that 27:36 language and then once you do that then the client says you know what i i'm pretty angry about that yeah and i 27:42 didn't know that and so it's important for the therapist to be able to help the client develop 27:48 language around their own emotional regulation michael's right you have to make the distinction yeah 27:54 these are not your feelings or my reflection of your feelings these are mine and they're not really about you at all 28:01 they're about the circumstances you're describing and that's a it's hard and i think there's a consent 28:07 there too but your client has to be willing to feel that with you and maybe they don't feel that at all 28:14 nudge it repeatedly right if they keep coming back right right right they will and that's the other piece that shocks 28:21 me about what doesn't necessarily shock me about security but that i find interesting about becoming more secure 28:28 somebody very close to me is going through a therapy process right now and they have had an [ __ ] an abusive 28:35 an emotionally abusive mother for almost all of their lives um then they're also gay and they came out with this 28:43 they came back to me one day and said i said well how did therapy go and they said i didn't realize that not 28:49 everybody's parents called them a [ __ ] and i said that's correct 28:54 that is an emotionally abusive situation and that hurts um 29:00 and he said i got a lot out of this therapy session because suddenly i realized that that wasn't 29:07 normal and that i didn't like that i said okay very good right and so that 29:12 i i really felt that there's a marked difference in this person and how they see themselves and 29:19 how they accept themselves and their sexual identity after that conversation 29:25 right good and and and so wow you know i think that that when it works it's beautiful 29:31 it's powerful you can see it yeah you know we started this out talking about the idea of the inner child and the 29:37 relationship of that to jung's theory of the the shadow and you know 29:43 so i think that there is a part of therapy that is directed 29:50 towards helping people embrace the shadow i think that's how you truly are able to establish security as an 29:57 adult is to be able to embrace those parts of yourself that you have felt either shame or 30:03 you know tried to hide i think that that is the healthy way to be able to do that but you know when you're talking about 30:10 this is he going to embrace the idea that his 30:15 mother called him a [ __ ] for all of his life maybe not and so he it it's about acceptance i got to find a way to 30:23 accept that so do you think that he found that or is he still looking for 30:29 that i think he has accepted that that is his reality yeah and that that was and 30:36 that's very liberating and i think he always accepted that that was what happened right he didn't deny that as as 30:43 a reality it was more the understanding that that wasn't the norm yeah that that when that 30:50 happens to other people they also get angry and it is okay to feel that anger right he is 30:56 justified in that anger and it doesn't mean so maybe that's what he's working to accept is the anger that he yeah 31:03 because he was always in denial about that yes yeah well he wouldn't he wasn't allowed to feel that feeling because on 31:09 top of on top of the hate that he gets from the idea of the sexual identity there are 31:16 other ideas of masculinity underneath that and a less than man who 31:23 is gay right if i show emotion if i express this idea well that makes me 31:29 more feminine and that leans into this idea of being this thing that my parents 31:34 dislikes or my parents is picking on so many so many shame-based messages yes 31:39 it's a shame yeah so i think that's a good point to jump 31:44 off the train um hopefully this was beneficial for people as always if you have any questions or 31:50 comments about things that we're talking about please reach out to us at psychwithmike.com we would love it if 31:55 you would go to apple podcast find psych with mike and leave us a comment and a rating but most importantly we really 32:02 really really really really love it when people go to the internet and find us on 32:08 youtube psych with mike and subscribe to the show that's super super beneficial helps people find the show as always the 32:15 music that appears in cyclic mic is written and performed by mr benjamin de clue and if it's friday it's psyched  

Narcissism is both necessary and pathological. Every individual needs some narcissism for the Ego to develop, but too much can become a personality disorder. Understanding narcissism can help us recognize the difference and better understand ourselves.  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/peaceful-parenting/202205/how-narcissist-manipulates-the-love-language-concept Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:19 [Music] welcome into the psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon and i am here 0:25 with mr brett newcomb good morning it is the dog days of summer uh yeah so 0:31 second or third longest day of the year or no they're starting to shorter starting shorter yeah yeah 0:37 like a couple days ago was was equilateral 12 and 12 right 12 hours a day like 12 0:43 hours it was the summer solstice yeah that's where for for your wiccans out there yeah 0:49 so i have an acceleration of stonehenge for that we just yes they do we just uh 0:54 read the news about the supreme court and roe v wade uh do we want to comment 1:01 at all about that or wait and see what happens um i don't know what that has to do with 1:07 providing clinical services or being a better therapist so i think that 1:13 i would withhold comment at this point all right uh how are you 1:19 i'm good i just wanted to say that um we had uh michelle stieg here last time 1:27 with us and that i thought that the 1:33 material the information that the the quality of the show 1:38 was fantastic with her you're trying to say she clashes up yeah i thought she i 1:44 thought she did a great job but then who wouldn't yeah yeah well i mean there are a couple of people i could 1:49 think of but uh you know so i don't know that michelle listens to this on the regular if she 1:55 does i just would like to say i i thought she did a great job i thought she really added something to it she's 2:00 always welcome i will be sending her the links to the shows that we did with her and i hope 2:07 that maybe we will see her again sometime all right well reach out touch someone 2:13 oh you get in trouble for that nowadays yes you do so uh one of the things that 2:21 was i think not was is misunderstood i think 2:26 is hugely misunderstood in the field of psychology 2:31 is the concept of narcissism would you agree or disagree i i don't know i 2:38 i think everybody kind of has an understanding from mythology of the 2:44 intense self-focus of the narcissist and then you know i i don't know i can 2:50 separate myself out from my education yeah we were all taught that everyone has 2:56 traits of narcissism uh but that those who have 3:02 complex organized traits that are that predominate in their life pattern have a personality disorder 3:08 the challenge is always where do you make the distinction how do you determine if what you're looking at is just a narcissistic trait or if it's a 3:16 if was intense and organized enough to be a personality disorder and when 3:23 you talk about our education if you go all the way back to the early psychodynamic theorists we're 3:31 really into otto kernberg and heinz kohut if people want to look those people up and 3:36 people like that said that it is imperative to have a 3:42 healthy amount of narcissism for the ego to be able to form you you awesome yeah exactly and and so you're exactly right 3:50 is where is that line between what is healthy and necessary for good ego 3:57 development and where does it become pathologic so do you have an idea about where you see that line 4:04 uh when i look in the mirror if i'm looking at me or if i'm looking at others 4:10 you are or are not pathological you know since it's a yes a radical 4:17 shift in the conversation the question is what constitutes pathology and is a behavior pathological or an 4:24 attitude or a presentation i think that i would answer that question by saying how much damage does 4:31 it do to you or the people in your environment that's are you behaving in ways that are 4:37 counterproductive painful destructive uh or not and i would say that those 4:44 behavior patterns are the indicators of pathology 4:49 so the point at which it makes it impacts your life is the point at 4:55 which where pathology would begin yeah and so when you do therapy you 5:02 beat around this bush until both you and the client have somewhat of the same viewpoint 5:08 perspective for what you're looking at and then you ask the questions how painful is this 5:13 how problematic is this what's it costing you to behave this way 5:19 and if you had an option to make changes that were 5:24 options uh to make changes that were at affordable levels would you want to change 5:31 and so then you have a discussion about what's an affordable change right you know i cut off my if my eye offends me 5:37 do i pluck it out or do i change jobs because working at this job is causing me so 5:43 much stress at home that there's confrontation there's distress 5:48 my children are not being attended to i'm not doing the things that i want to do to be a good husband or father uh 5:56 because i'm so focused on being a good employee for this company that i think is probably corrupt 6:02 so i'm in i'm in pain i'm in distress it's pathological or if you have a behavior habit like an 6:09 addiction like alcoholism do i drink to the point that it causes 6:14 me to get traffic tickets to get arrested to get into fist fights that it causes me to have a wife that says i'm 6:21 gonna uh take you to court and take your kids away from you because you're irresponsible and dangerous 6:28 how much problem is it causing me right and do i if i could change it would i change it 6:35 because sometimes i have behaviors that other people say oh my god i can't believe you're that way and i'm like you 6:40 know what i don't really care yeah i i like being this way right uh and so well do you know what it cost you 6:47 i have a reasonable estimation and i'm okay with the price i don't i don't 6:52 build my life around whether or not you approve right i build it around something else and and 6:57 i think that's a legitimate point of view and i can say that it would it would that would it depends 7:03 on who's saying that to you though because if that's your special judge or the police or your spouse is different 7:08 than if it's just an acquaintance yeah so you know that level of 7:14 cost to you personally right i've always said that a person who uses substances 7:20 is going to use substances until the cost of that to them to the person who abuses is no longer acceptable it 7:28 doesn't matter if it's not acceptable to a judge or to a spouse it's got to be unacceptable to them so if if you had a 7:35 person so narcissism is a profound focus 7:40 on the self to the extent it comes from the greek mythology uh the the myth of narcissus yeah 7:46 who saw his reflection in a pool of water and loved it and loved it so much that he froze there just staring at 7:52 himself until he died yeah uh then there's a segway from that 7:58 narcissus had a cohort 8:03 called echo whose job was to listen to everything that narcissus had 8:08 to say and accept it embrace it without challenge 8:15 uh so one of the things when you work with narcissists is you try to determine is 8:20 there an echo in your life who is that how does that work how's it paying off for both of you 8:26 because it's a symbiotic relationship one has to have the other to survive although a person could function as 8:34 their own echo well that's the argument that gets made sometimes yeah i don't know that i agree with that okay okay but so 8:42 if a person were narcissistic let's assume for the sake of argument that they they were and 8:48 that would make it difficult for them to be in meaningful sustainable relationships 8:54 and so they're alone and you say to them okay you're alone and they say well that's okay with me 9:00 so then is that pathologic or not pathological how disturbed is their life how satisfied with the balance of their 9:07 life are they it kind of goes back again to childhood development theories if you talk about 9:13 the grandiose narcissism of the infant the newborn infant hasn't a perspective vocabulary 9:21 awareness of other even they just have awareness of self and everything is totally consumed with self 9:29 gratification so the argument the presumptive persuasion is 9:35 that grandiose narcissism is a natural artifact of child development 9:41 but that as the child matures develops control over his body learns to go through separation 9:48 individuation in eight or nine months and recognizes that there are others there is an other and then there are 9:54 others uh he realizes he's not the only object in the universe and so then he begins to 10:00 experience frustration because those objects in the universe don't perfectly meet all of his needs but you can't 10:06 articulate it eight months because he doesn't have vocabulary so if he screams and yells in rage or hunger or 10:12 frustration or disappointment then mothers and dads are like what is it what are you hungry are you does your 10:19 stomach hurt what's going on and baby can't tell them so they try to do things they run through a gamut of behaviors 10:25 and say well is this better you know and moms will learn what certain cries mean the total 10:31 quality of the cry they'll say oh he's just wet or oh he just woke up or oh he needs to take a nap 10:38 and dad's like huh because they don't spend typically as much time around the child 10:44 um so if we all have grandiose narcissism in that kind of way which theoretically 10:51 it's positive that we do as we mature and encounter these other 10:56 reality points we begin to bob and weave we begin to recognize that 11:02 there's a relationship dance that has to be done and so we become seductive we try to seduce people with happy smiles 11:08 and gurgling laughs and cute little things that we say or do you watch those kids grow up and and they go through 11:15 stages where they're trying to tell jokes and develop humor and make people laugh and initially they don't have a sense of 11:21 humor and so they're really into slapstick stuff prep falls and and knocking things over uh they 11:29 learn a joke and they understand they're given to understand oh that's a joke then they repeat that joke 75 times 11:35 straight and finally you have to teach them the concept of funny wants just tell me that i joke one time after 11:42 that it's not funny yeah uh so so it's all developmental but for narcissistic personality 11:48 disorder someone who is in adolescence or beyond 11:54 who has a more complex map of where they fit in the world but who still holds 12:00 onto that narcissistic focus of i'm the one that has to always get his way i'm the 12:06 one that's always right i'm the one that should always be pleased then that starts to disrupt other relationships 12:13 and destroy them so do you do you conceive narcissism as a pathology as a 12:20 developmental artifact so yes this individual lived in an environment where that narcissism was 12:28 fed by the other the you know projected or by the intensity of his demand his 12:33 rage uh oh so the narcissist could have created that responsibility 12:39 you know like the the uh seymour 12:45 in the little uh shop of horrors you know feed me yeah no matter what and 12:50 i could be cute he could sing songs he'd be seductive he could tell jokes but if you got in his way he'd eat you 12:57 yeah and so then when that person gets to 13:04 the therapist's office do you see the therapy for that as we've 13:10 talked about the narcissist that comes to the therapist's office yeah is 13:16 manipulating yeah they didn't come to therapy because they're in pain or because they want to change they came 13:22 to therapy they didn't have any participation of some kind incoming therapy and it's 13:28 very often uh their boss or their wife says you have to go to therapy you don't want more of people and so they think 13:34 okay i'll go dance this dance learn to say some of the right words or persuade and spend a lot of time persuading you 13:40 all the other people in my environment are unreasonable and they're they're not very smart because they just don't understand or 13:46 they don't see and don't you sympathize with me they want you to become their echo 13:51 so they recruit you as a clinician you have to be aware of that and know how to resist it 13:58 but still invite the engagement so you have to dance with them uh 14:04 and hope that there can be an epiphany if you can get them to feel their 14:10 emptiness and kernberg says you can't do that until they're in their late 40s early 14:16 50s there are too many other places where they can be fed and so they just like they'll get a 14:22 divorce and they'll go marry somebody else that'll be echo for him and then maybe they'll get that divorce and go marry another echo and then they'll 14:28 generalize about the quality of women or the quality of men and typically more men are diagnosed as narcissistic than 14:35 women yeah and women are diagnosed borderline uh so 14:40 it's uh extremely difficult to do access to personality disorder therapy 14:48 but consistency in those situations is key consistency 14:53 on part of the therapist yolim says you have to do supportive expressive 14:58 psychotherapy with them that's the only thing that will work which means you have to give them enough 15:04 encouraging support and allow them to express and vent their 15:12 frustration in their world view but then give them some feedback about where walls and boundaries are that 15:18 they're going to come up against and what's the cost of trying to break through that wall or that boundary 15:24 so that you can make a judgment now you have to realize narcissists are 15:30 very typically brilliant and they will convince themselves there has to be array around this block 15:38 and they'll recruit you if they can to help justify or build an argument or 15:44 explain a rationale for why they should be allowed to get around the block 15:49 so let's go to our break and when we come back i'm going to ask you another question is it about politics no 15:56 okay hey guys dr michael mahon here from cyclic mike and do you think that you 16:02 have a story to tell i know that when we started cyclic mic 16:08 the things that we really wanted in a podcast hosting 16:13 company was that they knew what they were doing and libsyn has been around since the 16:19 very beginning they're the oldest running consecutive still existing podcast hosting company 16:26 in the entire world i think but certainly in the united states so they've been around since people started 16:32 uploading things to the internet and so they have a lot of experience but we also needed a service 16:40 that was easy to use and libsyn is just so intuitive and even 16:46 though they've got all of this experience they just keep on upgrading so they just recently went through a 16:53 major renovation a major upgrade to libsyn5 and made the service even more 16:59 intuitive and user-friendly than it was before and it was so user friendly before that i was able to figure it out 17:07 and get site with mike up on the surface so we've been using uh libsyn since the very beginning of 17:14 psyc with mike for over two years now we love them and as a friend of the show if 17:20 you go to libsyn and start a podcast right now you get your first month free 17:26 so you go to libsyn.com and use the code f r i e n d so friend of the show friend 17:34 that's l i b s y n dot com and use the code f r i e n 17:43 d and you get your first month free and as always if it's friday it's 17:50 okay we're back so one of the things that 17:57 i try and conceptually wrap my head around and i actually have an answer for 18:02 this but i'm going to ask you first is what is the difference between narcissism and sociopathy oh i 18:10 don't know you do too hi mike norton are you listening 18:17 no he didn't ask me that he asked me what's the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath oh yeah yeah 18:23 i love when people say that yeah well first off psychopath isn't a diagnostic term so 18:29 so what's the difference between a sociopath and a narcissist yeah 18:38 as i understand it the sociopath has no 18:44 moral foundation or concerns about consequences other than 18:50 victory so they don't have they're not going to have biological components for empathy exactly yeah 18:56 that's the difference okay and so when you're doing therapy 19:02 if you get to a point and you're thinking about a differential diagnosis 19:07 and because a lot of narcissism can look very sociopathic 19:12 but the difference is that a narcissist does have the ability to experience 19:18 empathy and they may not they may not it may not appear that way but as a therapist hopefully you'll be 19:25 able to sense that that they have the ability to feel the emotions of other so what i say 19:32 is that in in you know sociopaths are like a black hole like they just absorb all of the emotion in the room and they 19:39 don't give you anything back with a narcissist you might get really frustrated with the way in which they're 19:47 relating the story about their relationships and why it has to be like you were saying they have to find a way 19:52 around the block but you can kind of sense that they have some empathy they 19:59 understand that other people do have emotions so they 20:04 they do because it uh it gets that awareness that knowledge gets 20:10 incorporated into their manipulation strategies narcissists are 20:15 incredibly attractive exactly uh and seductive and often very very bright 20:21 and determined and if something becomes too expensive they'll abandon it 20:27 and move to the next opportunity 20:33 but without changing their strategy or their approach to life so they burn through relationships you 20:40 know they they use them up when your container is empty i'll discard you and get another container that will give me 20:46 the things that i need applause accolades money 20:51 power sex whatever it is and then when i use you up i'll discard you and get me give 20:58 me another one i'm not changing i'm not changing my approach i'm not changing what gratifies me i'm not changing my 21:04 payoff i'm changing my provider and the sociopath won't do that the 21:09 sociopath is going to they may very may be very manipulative but they're going 21:16 to be very on track with their agenda and they're probably not going to be 21:22 dissuaded from that yeah so we had read an article about uh 21:27 how manipulative narcissists can be especially in terms of the love languages chapman's love languages 21:35 and the articles postulated that they can learn 21:41 sorry i said postulated i posited i i heard the word and i liked 21:46 it oh okay they can learn by observing acutely what your love 21:54 language is and then they can provide that to you 22:00 as a feeding source for manipulation so if your love language is acts of 22:07 service right the exactly for you they'll cut your grass they'll wash your car they'll cook your dinner 22:14 and then say to you well why are you beefing on me because i did all these things for you so you 22:21 should be happy with me right and you should do whatever i want mm-hmm yeah yeah and 22:26 if you don't it's on you but i've been so nice to you and i've done the things that you define oh this is nice uh or or 22:34 this is love i've been very loving to you and now you're not being loving to me loving to me is give me my way now 22:41 i think that it's important to make sure that we are recognizing that 22:48 so first off let me start a different way so chapman's five languages of love it's important to understand your love 22:55 language but it's more important to understand your partners yes so it's not about you knowing what your love 23:01 language is and being able to tell the world yeah it's about sometimes ask people what is yours i know i don't know 23:06 yeah and well i i say to people all the time once you're partners i don't know i know mine but i don't know well then 23:12 that's that's you're missing the whole point but you're also into checklists you know i mean i'm supposed to remember 23:18 all these things yeah i'd have to look it up every time so uh 23:23 but you could get into a situation where you are actively trying to understand your 23:29 partner's love language speak to them through that love language if their love language is acts of service then you're 23:35 you know you're doing the dishes and doing things like that and then your love language is words of affirmation and they're not giving you any kind of 23:42 positive feedback for that it's okay for you to say hey i am doing all these things for you i 23:48 would like reciprocity yeah but that's not what the narcissist is doing the narcissist is keeping score right yeah 23:55 and and so they're using it specifically as a tool of manipulation that's what the [ __ ] so then the foundation of that 24:01 is the degree of empathy yeah of which they are capable oh okay yeah that's i hadn't thought of it that way but i 24:07 think yeah i see that go ahead no i just really say it if they don't have 24:15 empathy then they don't really feel what you feel and so then it's just a manipulation 24:21 it's just a strategy it's cosmetic yeah and so uh 24:26 for the partner who may be in that relationship where 24:31 they feel the first few times they're like oh okay he gets it he's really crying and they back off 24:38 from their level of distress but when it becomes repetitive and they 24:44 recognize well we always get to this point and then you confess and say you're going to change 24:50 and then i back off and then nothing changes so you just bought some more time and eventually they'll say i'm not 24:58 backing off anymore yeah either either you make a change or we're done and then the narcissist will say i can't believe you treat me this way this is horrible 25:05 uh see what you've made me do see what you've done you're wrong uh 25:12 what was me but what i would encourage the partner who gets up to that point who recognizes 25:19 the manipulation and wants to try and change that you have the right 25:24 to ask for that in the relationship i don't believe that's going to be very successful because as you point out the 25:31 narcissist is going to use up the tube of toothpaste and then get another toothpaste 25:37 in those situations i really encourage you to elicit a third party there are other toothpastes on the shelf saying pick me 25:43 pictures yeah yeah so it's easy to get another one yeah i was talking to a friend of mine the other day about someone who has these issues in their 25:49 lives and she was saying well this particular partner they've attached themselves to 25:55 isn't going to put up with that they're just going to leave and then the narcissists will be sorry i said no no 26:00 they'll just get another volunteer to do the same thing same different day same stuff right because 26:06 they're not changing and so the partner has to understand has to be empathic 26:13 towards the narcissist and understand that the narcissist is not going to be 26:18 sorry you may want them to be but that's a projection of yours on to the partner that isn't real i 26:26 think in those situations it's a really good idea to elicit a third party and so clinically yeah the challenge for the 26:33 clinician is not to chase the rabbit right because if i'm talking to the narcissist who 26:39 wants to talk about why his or her wife and children are inadequate and why they behave this way and why don't they 26:45 understand what they see we're talking about there and then stuff right those people over there why are they behaving 26:51 that way instead of the person in front of me as the client said why are you behaving this way what are you getting 26:57 at is what's your payoff uh same thing happens if echo comes in and you're talking to the wife and she's like why 27:03 doesn't he change and you have to come back to uh charles townsend's book on boundaries boundaries 27:10 excellent uh reference because it's about developing and having boundaries 27:15 you start with a premise you have a right to have a boundary and then you have to learn how to assert that boundary in a non-aggressive 27:24 non-destructive way but a healthy boundary can be to say no 27:29 i won't be with you anymore because you're not good for me uh my choice i'll 27:35 pay the price right so well but but that's the rub yeah is being willing to 27:40 pay the price yeah i mean you're absolutely right that you have the right to say 27:46 okay this is my choice i'll pay the price but a lot of people say that and they don't recognize 27:53 the difficulty with actually consistently following through with that which goes back to which is why the 27:59 initial boundaries yes the cost of your choices and you can choose to do this you can 28:04 choose to stay with this person all you're ever going to get out of them is glass half full so if you if you're 28:09 content if you can build a life with a half full glass that's okay that's your call 28:15 but you know he goes don't go sit in the corner and stare at your nail and say well it's me saying hey i like having a 28:20 half full glass because he's charming he's witty everybody else likes him i get to take 28:26 nice trips because you know we live at this level and if there are 28:32 needs in the relationship that are not being met you have to take responsibility for either accepting that 28:38 and owning that or finding other ways to get those needs met right and that's a part of living with the glass half full 28:45 and that's where therapy has to go you have to do the here and now work with the client that's in the room 28:52 about what they are experiencing what their goals and cost choices are 28:59 and you know i think that it is fair to say 29:04 that narcissists because they are really intelligent because they are very charming they can be good in 29:12 relationships up to a point there's going to be a limit to how much they can give back and so if you're the 29:19 partner of somebody like that and you're going to try and remain in that relationship and you accepting what 29:28 those limitations are then you have to be honest with yourself you 29:33 have to accept that you if you're saying i'll live with him or her long enough for them to change 29:42 that's probably a delusion right probably yeah absolutely yeah yeah 29:47 but i think that people you know they think oh i'll be a martyr and i'll live with it but they're still talking about 29:54 how to manipulate a change in someone else's life and the only person you can change is you is you that's exactly right now so 30:01 and i don't want to go down this tangent but but but i do want to ask you a question you know the as we're talking about this one of the 30:08 things that i sometimes think is that people are too quick to separate the 30:15 couple i hear all the time people say oh these people came in for couples therapy i told them they need to go do 30:20 individual and then come back yeah and and i don't i don't know i mean do i 30:25 think that there's ever a point where that is therapeutically sound advice absolutely sure and i'm not i'm not even 30:31 judging anybody if you've ever said that but i think we're too quick to separate 30:37 the couple if the couple comes to you as the identified client i think it's okay 30:42 to treat them that way it may be frustrating because you may be saying to them hey could you do this and they 30:48 could say no or they could say yes and then not do it but i think it's okay to treat the couple 30:54 as the client to to to work with that and and to try and make that 31:01 the reality of the therapy do you agree if you come from that perspective as your approach 31:07 to doing therapy then you should probably educate yourself about virginia's tears and family systems 31:16 i tend to believe that the therapists 31:22 shouldn't be driving the bus from a power position i think you need to spend enough time 31:28 getting to know people and listening to what they have to say that you can then 31:34 help them steer but they have to make the decisions about i want to there may be a situation where 31:40 you say i want to see you individually because you suspect there's some abuse or something exactly that's not going to 31:45 come out in a power complex but i agree with you i wouldn't break up the couple's therapy yeah 31:53 per se and you probably need to walk through the legalities of confidentiality if you've come as 31:58 couples and you're coming for a single or small series of individual sessions 32:04 about privacy and confidentiality and you probably should also talk about if this goes to a divorce and i get 32:11 called in as a witness in the divorce none of this stuff uh is retained under 32:16 the the right of confidentiality so we need to discuss that before we make this decision 32:22 and i think all those are fair and valid points to make but if you're in that 32:28 situation where you're seeing a couple and you as the therapist are frustrated and don't know where to go that doesn't 32:35 mean you go to supervision yeah yeah that doesn't mean split them up and say hey you guys go to individual therapy 32:40 that means you exactly go to supervision and try and figure out ways of being able to interject more energy into and 32:47 how am i getting in my own way here what am i not seeing yeah yeah okay so hopefully that was 32:53 good for everybody the music that appears in psych with mike is written and performed by mr benjamin the clue we 32:59 are always asking people to go to the apple podcast and 33:04 find site with mike leave us a review and a rating that is super helpful but the most important thing is going to the 33:12 youtubes and finding psych with mike and subscribing to the show and as always if 33:18 it's friday it's psych with mike 

When I worked in a behavioral health hospital, all the nurses said it was because she was borderline (BPD) when there was a difficult female patient. Obviously, no one can be so easily diagnosed but it is a common belief that individuals with BPD have difficulty in relationships. How true is this and just exactly what is Borderline Personality Disorder?  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/toxic-relationships/201909/the-drama-loving-borderline Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:19 [Music] welcome into the psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon and i am here 0:26 with mr brett newcomb along one more time i'm sorry to interrupt i'll shut up on 0:31 your line we'll go ahead and introduce the our guest i brought a friend of mine with me today her name is michelle stieg 0:37 and she is a licensed professional counselor here in st louis who is so good that she hasn't accepted 0:44 any new clients in two years is that a is that a true statement uh it's no we are at two and a half years 0:50 at this point oh and over two years right i think the correction yeah right yeah one more time for the cheap seats yeah 1:01 not if you're not accepting clients for two and a half years yeah well that's awesome yeah yeah it's been 1:06 when you're good you're good say it one more time i couldn't hear you well you're good that's right you're 1:12 good okay got it yeah yeah uh i'm i got dynamic i'm telling you this dynamic 1:18 is freaking me out 1:24 all right does your wife know you're here with her yes okay 1:30 when i'm with michelle my wife is almost always with us yes so i'm feeling her energy that's this girl 1:37 is here now thank you not here oh okay except she's probably some spirit something snarky yeah she is she sending 1:43 me energy yeah snarky vibes yes yes snarky vibes i'm surprised that she 1:50 lets you hang out with the two of us unsupervised it's only because i'm here yeah exactly it's only because i'm here 1:56 yeah so did he tell you so uh we go to colorado every year 2:02 and one year he had devised this plan where he and 2:08 his friend paul brett he being brett uh 2:14 took the truck and drove around the corner and hid 2:19 so that when i got to his house uh his wife was there and and frantically 2:26 like oh my god you're you're late and they've already left and i am 2:31 freaking out there's a history here when mike was in graduate school and was one of my 2:38 students yeah he didn't turn in his assignments uh they were late too 2:44 considerably it's late yeah so much so that like a year later we had to go before the provost and work out a deal 2:50 to accept and finish the classwork sure yeah so mike has always had problems 2:57 with time management and being on time exactly and so we're going skiing and it's and you 3:03 and i are compulsively early forever absolutely if i'm not early i'm late yeah uh but we were once again 3:09 and we're gonna leave like at four o'clock in the morning and i said be on time i said matter of fact once you come up 3:14 spend the night and then we'll get you up and we'll get you in the car and we'll be ready to go now i need to be with my wife and my family because i'll 3:20 be gone for a week you know okay we'll be here on time so he was late 3:25 so i waited a few minutes and i said paul let's move the car so we already had it loaded i really appreciate it we 3:31 moved the car mike comes in we're hiding in the back room good for you mike comes in he's like where's your car they'll say oh 3:37 they left four o'clock you weren't here and he just blanched oh wait bet uh and 3:42 for the first 75 miles he didn't have anything to say done 3:48 i can't believe him you guys love me but in subsequent years 3:55 man was never late i bet yeah i thought okay so you brought it up sucker yeah yeah all right so i i don't 4:02 have a problem with it yeah i'm 60 years old now i'm do what i want and now you're on time 4:07 yeah yeah i actually i i am pretty much on time i don't think i'm late to anything anymore 4:14 but that's not what we're here to talk about what are we here to talk about what are 4:19 we here to talk about so i had sent you an article on the 4:25 difficulty that individuals who have borderline personality have 4:32 with relationships and so i actually sent this to spark the 4:38 clinical discussion i think that that is a thing that is 4:47 stereotypically believed and what i'm wondering is from because we have three 4:54 very experienced clinicians here in our experience is that a true thing or is that 5:01 something that gets hyped but really is more pop science than it is 5:07 true therapy that people who have been diagnosed as borderlines have histories of relationship problems right 5:14 and if they do why you want to deal with that 5:21 kind of but i want to hear yours first your take first and then because i have some different things yeah part of the reason that i 5:27 bring this up is because when we first met each other brett and i 5:33 you had a whether it was overt or covert a reputation for working with access to 5:41 personality disorders and in the group practice that we were in i know for a fact that it was routinely 5:49 said that if somebody had a personality disorder client they either had to do 5:54 therapy or had to do uh uh supervision with you or you had to do 5:59 the client and so you have experience in this area so i think we should define what we mean 6:06 by absolutely personality disorder uh in the dsm the diagnostic and 6:12 statistical manual whichever iteration it is 567 uh of the american psychological 6:17 association they have a 6:22 list of identified traits and the characteristics of those traits that come with a label 6:29 that's used in medical situations and for insurance coverage to say oh this person has 30928 and then everybody 6:36 knows what that means they go look it up and it's like looking at encyclopedia 6:41 there's a cluster of personality disorders and the idea is that all of us have 6:48 personality traits there are parts of us or elements of us that manifest in situations 6:56 the more complex and pervasive that trait is as the way we present ourselves 7:03 to the world the way other people experience us the more likely it is to be called a personality disorder if it's 7:10 dysfunctional if it if it causes us life cycle problems relationship problems 7:15 so the more it's a consistent articulated pattern as the way we and everyone else around us experiences us 7:21 the more likely it is to be a personality disorder which is an axis 2 disorder than to be just a personality 7:28 trait which might be a part of who we are but it's not all of who we are borderline personalities one of those 7:35 traits uh are that get extrapolated into a disorder 7:40 and it is a comprehensive way of being experienced experiencing self and of 7:45 others experiencing us and in my experience yes relationships are extremely problematic for people 7:53 whose central manifestation in life seems to be caught up in this complex of 7:59 traits so my introduction to borderline personality disorder was working in the hospital before i got my 8:07 graduate degree and started doing therapy i worked in a hospital from my 16th birthday until 8:14 eventually i left to go into practice with brett and [Music] 8:20 i worked on the unlocked behavioral health units and whenever there was a 8:26 female patient that was difficult and oftentimes med seeking all of the nurses 8:33 would label this person as borderline so that was my experience anybody that you 8:38 didn't want to deal with according to the nurses female specifically it's female specific right right right uh uh 8:45 was borderline and i'm like okay well what does that mean that 8:50 so anytime you so so what is this this constellation of behaviors that makes up 8:57 borderline and obviously they didn't know what they were talking about so what is the constellation that 9:04 makes up that personality you said they didn't know what they were talking about but one of the jokes in the practice over years was 9:10 that if the uh receptionist secretary hated your client female client she was 9:17 borderline yeah and she very often was i know because i really struggle because i think there's a lot of like internalized 9:23 misogyny within the dsm and all of that but you know when these difficult patients come in 9:29 and yeah they're probably borderline but the the unfortunately a lot of it is true yes right yeah so it's a it's a bit 9:36 of a frustrating topic for me well the whole idea of labeling is frustrating for me because the tendency 9:42 then is to see the label and you look up the description in the dsm and you start trying to find well how does this fit 9:48 they have to have three out of five or five out of seven and do they have these and okay then they must have these others 9:55 or just in the background let's find them and we spent all our time and energy trying to validate that in our 10:00 thinking and in our notes and in our treatment plans instead of being able to just see the 10:06 person in the room they're human here and now stuff yes and the trauma 10:11 that has led them to being a borderline i don't know ifs really changed the way 10:17 i see a lot of these like you know access to diagnoses things and 10:23 i guess as it should right yeah and you know kind of like what we were saying about sitting with a man who is who's 10:29 raging and not being activated like i don't know when i 10:34 when i work with and have worked with borderline clients it's the ifs world changed it in terms of 10:41 like being really curious about the behaviors instead of diagnostic and judgmental and 10:48 how how do we deal with the symptoms here when what we're dealing with is a wounded part of this person who has 10:54 experienced trauma and found a way to survive although it is problematic maybe now in adulthood 11:02 we need to honor that like that problematic behavior as an adult was a survival skill for them 11:09 as a child amen it deserves the respect one of the fundamental lessons you have 11:15 to learn if you're going to be a clinician is that all behaviors are in service of the self right 11:21 and so the challenge becomes when behaviors are problematic in your life 11:26 how is that in service to you what needs within you are being met by that behavior 11:33 and so then we talk about emotional economics and cost-benefit ratios do you understand that that particular 11:38 behavioral pattern whether it's emotional regulation i'd are you a sex addict are you an 11:44 alcoholic are you a workaholic how does that pay off for you right and what does 11:50 that cost you and then these labels that come with negative or pejorative 11:56 conceptualization oh you're borderline how do those behaviors manifest how do 12:02 we identify them as black is asking and how do they serve your needs and is that the most effective efficient 12:09 satisfying way to live and if it's not could we make some changes 12:15 and that's what therapy is about can we have these conversations where you're in a safe holding environment and you can 12:21 explore and experiment with identifying uh the behavioral choices and emotional 12:27 reactions that you have understanding where they come from what they cost you what how they pay 12:34 because often they're protective they're very you know i behave in a way that makes you reject me that protects me 12:40 from caring about you or having you make demands on me and i can say well you rejected me uh 12:47 can i examine that and say would it be possible to behave in a way that doesn't 12:52 require you to reject me right what would that look like and what would the cost of that would it feel like yeah what would it cost me exactly so when 12:59 you do therapy with these people who have been labeled this way those are the conversations that you try 13:05 to have something that i learned really is so we we talked in 13:10 the last episode about like how i figured out how to play the game in my masters right and 13:16 you know my auditory listening skills uh observation skills and how 13:22 most of my work is like a very sensory experience of just knowing when to push the gas knowing 13:29 when to downshift it's very sensory for me and at the beginning of my career i was 13:35 not very skillful in catching um some of those cues that i might be 13:42 working with a borderline client or whatever what started to happen to me is 13:47 my body would have a physiological reaction when i was in the presence 13:53 and one day i just like put the puzzle pieces together 13:59 that when you are with these you know this person here this person here 14:05 my body like would shut down i'm smiling because i remember a few months back you called me yes about a client that you 14:12 had that you were suddenly having this epiphany right i'm dealing with this borderline situation right because the 14:18 clinical issues were about boundaries right and these 14:23 people are so skilled at getting beyond or behind your boundaries and i am a master of better 14:32 having boundaries like it is like the foundation of what i teach with 14:37 people and and she got me you know she got me and at the same time well done you know what 14:43 i mean so i had this conversation with y'all and i said okay you need to do this and this and this and this and this 14:49 and she said i think you need to come out of retirement and take this claim 14:56 just once 15:04 so let's go to our break and then when we come back um i want to maybe kind of uh 15:11 set up a foundation for what we understand borderline to be from our clinical 15:17 perspectives hey everybody dr michael mahon here from psych with mike and i couldn't be more 15:24 excited to talk to you about athletic greens which is a new sponsor we have here on the show i started taking 15:30 athletic greens watching some youtube videos and doing my own research i wanted to add something to my 15:37 daily workout program to give me some energy and to support gut health and 15:42 that was the one thing that kept coming up again and again with athletic greens is the guy who started the company 15:49 did a bunch of research because he was having some gut health issues that he couldn't get any resolution for he 15:55 developed athletic greens and it's just exploded from there so it's 75 16:01 superfoods vitamins minerals probiotics whole food sources that's all in one 16:08 daily scoop you put it in eight or twelve ounces of water you shake it up and you drink it the taste is very very 16:15 drinkable i actually enjoy it and i have been using it and my energy 16:21 levels have just been through the roof i really like athletic greens because of 16:26 some of the sustainability things that they do so they buy carbon uh credits and 16:32 you know to help protect the rainforest which is something that i really like but if you order athletic greens in your 16:39 subscription you're gonna also get a year's supply of their vitamin d 16:45 supplementation and five free travel packs and that vitamin d is so important 16:51 during those winter months when we're not getting enough sunlight we've talked about how that decreases your mood and 16:58 increases depression and that can be a real deal changer so you go to 17:04 athleticgreens.com emerging that's athleticgreens.com 17:10 e-m-e-r-g-i-n-g that's the psych with mike promo and 17:15 you're gonna get that additional vitamin d support for a year and five free 17:21 travel packs so take control of your own health today and as always if it's 17:27 friday it's psych with mike okay we're back and so 17:33 i think well let me ask the question 17:39 probably the single most significant clinical 17:45 presentation of borderline is a profound 17:50 fear of abandonment would we all agree with that yeah okay and so then that 17:56 fear of abandonment creates a dynamic of behavior where the individual may 18:02 approach these kinds of interpersonal relationships because that's what they 18:09 desperately desire but will ultimately do things to undermine and even to 18:15 destroy those relationships and so it's an approach avoidant kind of behavioral 18:20 pattern and that's what makes their ability to be in interpersonal relationships complex do we all agree 18:27 with that yes and it's intensely repetitive yeah they cycle through relationships where 18:32 different persons same issue different person same issue different person same issue same behavior 18:38 they are incredibly seductive and i don't mean the sexual sense although they can be what they do 18:44 um in their neediness i need you to love me to accept me to help me 18:52 but i'm going to test it do you really love me do you really need me and so i'm going to constantly test it if you get 18:59 frustrated with me if you reject me if you punish me then i was right all along and you didn't love that self-fulfilling 19:05 prophecy yes the reason why that's so hard is because the vacillation of the affects so their moods will change 19:13 rapidly and unpredictably so you may think that you're in this really intense 19:19 relationship and all of a sudden this individual does something out of left field and then you react to that in a 19:26 negative way and then that confirms their world see what you made me do yeah i knew you were gonna do this well and i 19:31 think as a clinician you have to be acutely aware of your parts right when it comes to 19:38 because it is a constant dance right so like oh and they're so subtle and their 19:43 productiveness they want to be your first client or your last client they want to walk you to your car they 19:49 want to bring you donuts first thing in the morning to have with your coffee they want to be special they want to be 19:54 different uh they will study your office when they will study you yes 20:01 they find out what tv shows you watch they'll find and they look you up on the internet they find out where you live they drive by your house i love your 20:07 roses they look so good you're like wait a minute you don't know where well they do know they do and so i 20:13 think it's imperative that you be aware of the shifts that happen inside your system and your own internal 20:20 system will tell you yes if you listen yes because they as a borderline client will pick up on 20:26 the shift before you even do and they will call you on it which then puts you 20:32 into or can like um into a defensive position where then you're trying to scramble 20:38 and make up and be like no it's not like this when they can read you so you're aware your self-awareness 20:47 is imperative because they will know you when that when a new part steps in with 20:53 you they're on it well and they they know the buzzwords to use to to push your 20:58 buttons they'll say you don't really care about me you're just a paid friend you're just doing it 21:03 for the money and you have to say i'm not your friend at all right i'm not a paid friend i'm not a friend right that's not my role in 21:10 your life i care about you i'm your clinician i'm your therapist i'll pay attention to you 21:15 as long as you pay your bill yep right i am paid right but you're buying a 21:21 professional service and you're not buying friendship right i don't actually think about you over the weekend when 21:27 you're not here although they will try to get you to they'll send you letters they'll call you they'll have a crisis 21:33 call yes you have to so working with these individuals borderline is about borders 21:39 you have to have boundaries you have to have lines you have to say this is not the way it works right so i 21:46 used to teach my students who wanted to be clinicians if you have one of these clients that send you a 10 page letter 21:52 during the week because they can't hold you from week to week session they don't remember what you said they can't they 21:58 can't hear your voice they become terrified that you don't really exist so they write your letter you're supposed 22:03 to read that letter that makes you think about them when they're not there so the way you handle that is you bring 22:09 them in the office and say read this to me you don't have have not read it 22:17 they get really rattled and that's not the objective is to get them rattled the objective is to say 22:22 you exist and i exist in separate planes when we come together it's predictable it's 22:28 consistent i'm available i'm available for you now whatever you needed me to hear share it with me now so 22:34 what is the feeling of the room here because everybody obviously is a 22:40 well-trained experienced clinician as to whether or not these individuals 22:47 can make because what you're talking about brett is you're setting boundaries yes 22:53 can that individual then understand those boundaries accommodate them can 22:59 they move beyond the borderline kind of insecurity to 23:05 have a secure interpersonal relationship okay theoretically 23:13 no okay most of them right and from our training so we 23:19 grew up with the whole kohut kernberg kind of access to understanding and from 23:26 our training what we have been taught is that it would be extremely difficult for 23:32 an individual who has this personality disorder to move past they can learn 23:38 compensatory behaviors the theory is that you can provide benefit by doing supportive expressive psychotherapy 23:45 i support you i let you express your feelings i'll let you experience your feelings in a safe holding environment 23:51 but i don't fix you i don't change you you may be able to do that yourself but 23:57 the theories that i've read say you can't do it until you're in your late 40s right 50s 24:02 only then if you intensely want to and have a supportive environment to work on it and i want to be clear that 24:09 from our kohut kernberg kind of psychodynamic education that's what we've been taught 24:16 if there are other people out here who have different ideas we're not saying you're wrong we're not saying that we 24:21 know everything we're saying that from our clinical perspective that's what we've been taught i would be interested 24:28 from an internal family systems perspective is that different yeah so i think again 24:34 a common thing for me you'll always hear is that awareness and so when we work with you know trauma backgrounds or 24:41 did um borderline dissociative identity disorder yes um 24:47 so it's a really interesting approach when it comes to the ifs work because what 24:52 we're doing is creating awareness of when a a part steps in and blends with the 24:57 client or when a client becomes hijacked with a part triggers triggers and then you know prior to learning about ifs and 25:04 how parts work um they're just functioning right like they're just going through their day and 25:10 they don't understand why why they're getting triggered or why they're repeating the same patterns of 25:15 putting pushing people away or feeling abandoned or feeling like nobody loves them and so our our job in internal 25:22 family systems is to um map the different parts of them that hijack 25:29 them right so it's a constant awareness of of parts 25:34 stepping in and swooping in and me saying to them like mike it seems like 25:40 your suicidal part has really stepped in because i've learned the tone of the voice that your suicidal part has 25:47 um so then we work directly are you aware that that part's here in the room right 25:52 yeah probably talking with me yeah it's here well so from my union perspective 25:57 that would be my animus part and yes i'm very aware of but most clients aren't yeah i mean 26:03 that's part of what you tried by that invitational oh to invitation to awareness what you were talking about our first episode you asked them get in 26:11 touch with that and you're trusting your own radar i am sensing it 26:17 i'm wondering if i'm getting that accurately are you aware of it can you feel it but so when they when you teach 26:23 them when you map the parts and then you work directly with the protective parts and you understand so 26:30 we always say like all parts of us are welcome because all parts intentions are honorable they show up in really messed 26:36 up ways though sometimes but their intention is honorable even suicide even self-harm 26:42 that part gets to be here because its intention is honorable it loves and cares about you so much it will do 26:48 whatever it has to do to take care of you even kill you yeah 100 because the only 26:53 way for you to not be harmed in this way is to die it's to be taken out which is the ultimate loving act as seen 27:00 by this part of that part and so we teach people because we're we're walking around fats 27:07 i'm unhappy i don't know why i keep doing this i don't know why i keep ending these relationships and this is anybody who comes to therapy right and 27:13 so when we map the parts and we learn the parts and we understand the intention of the part and the fear 27:19 i am afraid if i don't make mike suicidal x y and z can 27:25 happen so we learn their narratives so then we learn how to negotiate and we work with them and we heal the trauma that's 27:31 underneath the protective part the trauma that that part is protecting so that extreme part of 27:39 their personality like a borderline for example that extreme part of their personality 27:45 doesn't have to hijack them or get so activated because we are working with the trauma that it's protecting does 27:52 that make sense yes it does to draw to me yeah right right um what i'm thinking is though 28:00 again the importance of not identifying a diagnosis and seeing a label correct 28:06 seeing a person and the awareness that there are traits 28:11 that can become developed to the point that they take over the personality and then you have a 28:17 personality disorder but lots of people have the traits and so the 28:23 at different times when i'm out of balance one trait is stronger for me than at other times and if i come to 28:28 therapy and they see this trait i don't want them throwing a big whole label on 28:34 me right because that's dangerous in a lot of different ways right so i think clinicians need to be super 28:41 tentative and cautious about access to labeling well and i also would say i 28:47 mean whether it's borderline or i think women get diagnosed borderline men get diagnosed narcissistic 28:54 and whether or not that's a different set of constellations or not 29:01 the truth is that there should be an even distribution of those disorders right so 29:07 there should be just as many men who are borderline as there are women even though there's a tendency to identify 29:13 women that is something that has developed in the zeitgeist of the practitioners 29:20 it shouldn't be a real thing in the population yeah and so that's for me that's why 29:28 because you taught us early brett don't label people there's no reason unless they need to get reinsured 29:34 reimbursement from reins from insurance what what value is there in the label 29:40 well they're true potentially a reason if they're going to go to other therapists or be in the hospital other professionals 29:46 will if you look at that label have a certain data transfer to say okay 29:52 i know what i'm dealing with as long as it's an accurate label as long as they don't have a bias though yeah right 29:57 because when i was in the hospital like i said you know every woman who was hard to get along with was borderline well 30:02 clearly that then i should be able to then i should be borderline don't you think i'm pretty hard to get along with 30:08 yeah crickets look at that i don't have a problem with this 30:16 but but obviously you're more sociopathic but yeah 30:22 now we got to tell people what sociopathy is no we're not going to do that so uh 30:27 but uh what i'm hearing though from you michelle is that your 30:34 clinical perspective is much more optimistic about how these individuals could 30:42 learn new adaptive behaviors than what brett and i have been taught to believe 30:49 ish so um i'm more optimistic at the potential 30:54 and the um [Music] i think there's more potential 31:01 for healing from this angle from this model and and where we have always been 31:08 taught that this is an age-related thing like you have to be later in life to really approach these issues from an ifs 31:16 perspective that age restriction wouldn't be a part of it right you could do that at 18 as well as 31:23 you could do it at 58. correct but i but there's a part of me that does but still buy into the the age yeah you know what 31:29 i'm saying like from a realistic standpoint from what you've seen i mean people have to have i think you have to have the life experience yeah yeah yeah yeah 31:36 exactly because otherwise you don't if you don't have the life experience you don't have the perspective to understand you sabotage more quickly it's an empty 31:43 it's an empty container and so well and i think that the ifs standpoint 31:48 allows for you know if we're talking about like like a cancer diagnosis right if we 31:55 provide these therapeutics it gives you a longer better quality of life and ifs i feel like offers that in a sense when 32:02 it comes to trauma and and the personality disorder access like i think we can offer better quality of 32:10 life throughout the lifespan if you learn this at a particular spot they have the awareness 32:15 learn about the parts and and we can go in and heal specific traumatizing events so 32:21 parts don't have to get so activated and if nothing else it gives you the 32:26 opportunity to see the behavior in real time like when you 32:32 say oh i see your your self-destructive part has come in well now that 32:37 individual can say oh okay i see that exactly yeah that's exactly it so they can start to 32:43 identify it within themselves and when they're so we can take it outside of the petri dish of the the office they 32:51 can i catch it possibly i see that with all clients yeah in 32:56 terms of identifying the behavioral matrix that they experience 33:02 to i mean people that are dissociative that have uh they have the ability to 33:08 disconnect or go away and if you're talking to them and you're trained you can see them go away you can see when we 33:15 start to talk about grandpa there's something shifts right and their expression in their eyes sometimes in 33:21 their bodies they cross their legs or whatever and so then as a clinician you start to 33:26 point that out to them and show them you say well you just went away somewhere no no i'm right here it's creating the awareness yes back to the awareness yes 33:34 it's everything it's crucial yes because you you see so you don't muscle up and say i'm the brilliant 33:40 person in charge here you say okay it's really important for me to understand 33:45 not supposed to can i point this out to you again just so that you can clarify for me that i'm wrong one more time i'm okay with 33:52 hearing that because i want to learn to hear you accurately and if if if i think red and you think blue then i need to know that so then they're like yeah okay 33:59 and you just keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it if you're right if you're on target with what 34:04 you're seeing there will come a point where they will laugh and go oh i just did that didn't i 34:09 exactly awareness awareness consistency yes of the message from the theory 34:16 i'm not attacking you i'm just saying i think i see this i think i'm feeling this it's just an observation am i out 34:22 of balance here yeah you are and when you do that consistently then it creates 34:27 a less threatening opportunity for the client to then allow it to boil up into 34:34 their own internal awareness yeah exactly exactly yeah okay hopefully that was beneficial for people um we 34:41 may be get kind of heady in some of these clinical discussions so if anybody ever has any questions or would like a 34:48 clarification of anything i'll share real therapy somewhere go see a real therapist you can also send us questions 34:53 you can get us at psychwithmike.com as always the music that appears in psych with mike is 34:59 written and performed by mr benjamin the clue we are asking everybody please please please go to the youtubes find 35:05 psych with mike and subscribe to the show that is super beneficial for us and as always if it's friday it's psych with 35:12 me [Music]    

Psychology jargon goes through a cyclic evolution just like any vocation. Are "new age" concepts like self-love and mindfulness new concepts? If not what were they known as in the before times?  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/new-gps-intimate-relationships/202205/the-keys-self-love   Transcript: you're listening to psych with Mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:07 guest go to www.sitewithmike.com follow the show on 0:12 Twitter at psych with Mike or like the Facebook page at psych with Mike now 0:18 welcome into the site with Mike Library this is Dr Michael Mahon I am here with Mr Brett Newcombe and intern Michael 0:24 hello hello good morning how are you gentlemen Exquisite yeah my uh 0:30 daughter's dog is staying with me for a couple of days and he made some noises 0:36 from the other room to which I said be quiet dog and you guys said that sounded like an old man in the other didn't 0:42 sound like a dog yeah how do you train that dog to make those noises yeah well I don't know he doesn't live with me 0:48 anymore but um yeah yeah that was funny so uh 0:55 I think that there is at least okay let 1:01 me ask a different question Brett you are and without meaning any 1:07 any uh uh negative connotation you're the oldest person in 1:13 the room yes absolutely okay and and the reason that I say that experientially and cosmically 1:18 yes is because you were a teacher born earlier ever yeah yeah and then you also 1:26 were a therapist forever you actually taught me and even though I feel like 1:32 I've done therapy for a long long long long time you've done it even longer than that and so what I would ask is 1:40 it feels to me like this idea of mindfulness this idea of self-love this 1:47 idea of uh aware of all all of these kinds of of new age new age right 1:57 kinds of Concepts that are being baked into psychology feels newer to me but I 2:06 also recognize things are cyclic and so what goes around comes around so what I would ask you is 2:12 are you aware of a a time in Psychology where these Concepts were being promoted 2:20 more than in my experience or do you feel like these things are 2:26 newer age they weren't being framed this way they weren't being this phraseology was not being used 2:32 these are marketing strategies my argument is frequently made that every so often you 2:40 have to change what you call it yeah so that you can charge more money for it right because the insurance companies are in this constant chess game to 2:47 reduce your payments so DSM has to be revised I also think though that people want to continue to 2:55 propose new theories and so you have to repackage things to be able to make it 3:00 fresh so that you can sell it as a new idea uh yeah but they're also 3:08 I mean when you sent this article for us to talk about my first reaction is you know Psychology today is becoming like 3:15 Brides magazine yeah these articles this article you read this article you just won't let that brights thing go well you 3:21 sent me the article that's all I can say all right um it's just fluff it's pablum it's 3:27 verbiage so I was going to say well I'm gonna throw fit and we're not going to do this conversation and then I thought 3:33 you know there is a legitimate conversation to be had around the idea 3:38 of doing therapy with t people and trying to facilitate their ability to be more 3:45 self-honest self-accepting self-actualize another term from the past uh you don't have to 3:51 call it self-love but don't that's why I agreed I would have the conversation that's exactly though the point you're 3:58 trying to make yeah is that that uh I think that these things aren't new I think that they have been in Psychology 4:05 before I think self-actualization which was a meslovian uh idea is exactly this 4:14 same thing it was just so phrased We Come Back to Basics yeah 4:19 my basic concept of doing therapy is that I have to have excellent attending 4:25 skills I have to be able to do reflective listening accurately and 4:31 empathically and I have to create a safe holding environment if I can do those three things and you spend enough time 4:37 with me I will learn Who You Are what's going on with you to the point 4:43 that I can then facilitate your exploration of issues that are causing 4:49 you pain behaviors that are causing you difficulty and I can throw all kinds of words and theories and terminology and 4:55 labeling and all that into the mix but the reality is if I do that I believe I 5:01 can help you improve your quality of life and reduce your level of frustration and pain so by doing so if 5:09 you're improving that individual's quality of life yeah how is that happening do you believe 5:14 that they are internalizing some of the skills that you are demonstrating in 5:21 that therapy session yeah I hope so because that's the microcosm of the universe the two of us are here well and 5:26 you know all the theories say well whatever they're struggling with in life they're going to project onto you and you're having a chance to react to it 5:33 differently and cause them to have to go home yeah what because how many times have you had clients that would come in 5:39 and say are you going to give me homework I said well do you need homework you don't need homework okay I'll give you homework but you won't do 5:45 it and then you'll come in next week and say you're going to be really mad at me I mean why would I be mad at you well I didn't do the homework that's all yeah 5:52 and why did they even ask if you're going to give them because they've been taught exactly and they want to feel 5:57 like they have quality for cost oh you gave me something to do right even if I'm not going to do it right right 6:02 and and for anybody who is very very structurally 6:09 a cognitive behavioralist and you really believe in home homework we're not 6:14 saying homework assignments aren't beneficial what we are saying is that homework assignments should never be 6:20 given because to make sure to hold the client responsible for doing the 6:26 homework it's always about if you give the client this assignment yes if you do 6:31 it we can talk about what the effect was but if you don't do it there's just as much information to be gleaned in 6:38 therapy from a client who doesn't do their homework as a client who does do their homework so years and years ago 6:45 before you were born okay there was an argument about that's hard to believe differential between counseling and 6:52 therapy and the argument was made that counselors provide behavioral 6:57 interventions like I can help you stop having panic attacks or I can help you quit smoking or I can help you lose 7:03 weight we use this cognitive behavioral stuff teach you new language teaching new habits uh and therapy was about 7:10 personality change self-structure change 7:16 I don't know that I could make a distinction or have a horse in that race I believe 7:22 fundamentally if you come to me and I pay attention to you and I see you accurately and empathically reflect that 7:29 back to you that we can dance a dance that offers you an opportunity for 7:34 growth and change I don't know what the outcome is going to be but I believe it's beneficial on 7:40 average and don't help everybody I'm not everybody's cup of tea but if you give me that opportunity I believe I can help 7:47 you and that really is about what we would call re-parenting 7:53 which is the dance which is the danceholding environment and we were recently as you repair it yourself I 8:00 don't parent you I don't say okay that's the point I wanted to get to that's the point I wanted to get to is right who's 8:05 doing the parenting and yes the clients re-parenting themselves by internalizing some of the things that are being 8:12 presented especially in emotional regulations you're getting in your way yeah yeah is it fair is it unfair is it 8:18 sad is that okay it reality is let's deal with reality but what options do you have in one episode recently we were 8:24 talking about personality and I was saying that at my stage now almost 60 years old whereas I felt like the 8:30 personality was immutable I kind of feel like now you do have some uh advocacy or 8:36 or nothing is immutable death in taxes I know yeah it it and and but it's through 8:42 that re-parenting that you have the ability to be able to maybe make some changes so we have the younger smarter 8:48 element here let's ask what do you think well I I think it's interesting I see 8:54 you twitching I just like no Warriors it's interesting that you bring up the idea of self-love and self-care in the 9:01 Zeitgeist I think you're absolutely right I I think about uh shows like queer eye right 9:07 um very popular on Netflix Jonathan Van Ness comes out one of the cast members of query comes out with uh this book 9:14 called Over the Top which is all about his own self-love his own self-reflection um and he really dives into Richard 9:21 Schwartz's Parts Theory right he really starts to talk about that it's really starting to dissect one's own 9:27 personality and finding the aspects of one's personality that serves one right 9:33 um so we talk about if you were press apart uh that part can act out in a 9:38 different way if I repress the depression in me that part eventually will either take over the driver's seat 9:44 because it hasn't got the attention or um or act out in another way I have a 9:50 number of friends who are family systems trained and believe and work and I've 9:55 seen it work I mean it's beautiful work it can really it's another way to speak it's another language but I love to jack 10:02 around with them because I'll say part of me really resists what you're saying yeah and you know they just roll their ass and and part of them wants to slap 10:09 me when that happens you know again I I we've talked about this that that is anything new or is everything always 10:15 repackaged you and I being more psychodynamically focused uh neither one 10:23 of us really use that language of Parts theory that doesn't mean that it isn't real or isn't relevant it's such an echo 10:31 of all that I learned about working with multiple personalities yeah uh which I mean it is an in a fight with it's just 10:38 an echo of how I learned to understand it uh but I don't know that it matters at the 10:44 end of the day I have to hear you accurately and reflect to you what I'm hearing not judgmentally but accurately 10:51 so that it resonates with you I mean he sees me he understands me he accepts me then I can challenge you can you accept 10:57 yourself right the whole thing about guilt I don't accept myself because I'm so guilty I've I'm carrying this burden 11:04 of of angst and regret and so on and we have to find a way to say what 11:11 is that in service how is that impacting your survival and your progress yeah 11:16 could you let it go and if and what would it take for you to be able to let it go what would it be worth I believe 11:23 that all behaviors cost and pain all choices cost and pay we have to do the 11:28 emotional economics can we give you new coin of the realm to play with uh 11:34 that's the challenge of the dance well dance with me the only thing that I can 11:40 or there is something that I am very aware of as we're having this conversation that just recently happened 11:46 and there's no reason for people to know this you guys know this my daughter just graduated from medical school and we had 11:54 graduation last weekend and while we were at graduation my daughter said to 12:00 me I just want to tell you that when we 12:05 were little you were a really big advocate of we have to love ourselves 12:11 and that that has to be the focus of Our Lives because on my email there's a 12:17 Latin phrase that is Nemo debt quad non-habit which means you can't give away something that you don't have and I 12:24 always told my kids you can't really love somebody else if you don't love yourself you can't really trust somebody 12:29 else if you don't trust yourself and I've always believed that that is a foundational psychological principle and 12:36 she said you know I just have to thank you for in ingraining that in us because 12:42 it was not something that was looked unfavorably in my family I remember my daughter said when she was 12:50 still in a pumpkin seat in the back of my mom's car grandma do you love yourself and my mom said well I don't 12:56 know probably not and my daughter would just went off on oh well I want you to love yourself and because my dad says 13:02 that you got to love yourself and you can't and I just want you to be happy grandma and my mom came over that day 13:08 and and confronted me and said what are you teaching your kids you're messing your 13:13 kids up and all this stuff and because that wasn't something that was promoted in my family the idea of 13:20 self-love was not something that was okay your shame is a very powerful language yeah speak it's also a very 13:25 easy language to speak and and I think brene Brown has a quote out that shame derives its power from being unspeakable 13:33 and so if we Revel in that shame and we we exist in that shame we will never 13:38 truly love ourselves um and it's so I'm a member of the queer community and it's really prevalent uh 13:45 Jonathan Van Ness is also in the queer Community um there's a another person uh RuPaul 13:50 um very famous for being a drag queen and ends every episode by saying if you can't love yourself how in the hell are 13:57 you going to love anybody else right and I I it's interesting too I think you got that from me I might have yeah no no I 14:03 think RuPaul was I might have gotten that from you uh possibly um but I really do think it's 14:08 interesting that that has come out of a community where shame tends to be a 14:14 driving motivator a driving uh factor in a lot people's lives there's another 14:20 book called The Velvet rage whose author I can't remember at this moment but all about shame right does shame 14:28 research and says these are the stages that uh that a queer man goes through as he grows into into life um and it's it's 14:35 focused on shame back in the 90s there was got an author Leo buscalia yeah the 14:40 doctor of love love doctor he was on he was huge on Hugh Donahue back when you 14:45 Donahue was still on yeah yeah I think he was replaced by Dr Ruth but I think they had a different Focus Savage has 14:52 his problem yes right Savage Love is no self-love ultimately and it's it's interesting to me that that these ideas 14:58 of self-love really find pillars in in the queer community and in other 15:04 marginalized communities um and it's and then people who tend to 15:09 pillars can be anchors yes they can help stabilize you and ground you if you can buy the same thing religion can do for 15:15 people yes can anchor you in times of turmoil 15:20 I've often said that clients who have a religious anchor to 15:26 hold on have something additional to fight with in times of trouble and crisis then 15:33 clients that don't have that and but you've also said that that can both be a 15:38 benefit but also a liability that religion can give you the illusion 15:45 of having some sense of certainty and maybe I'm maybe I Mis well no I think 15:50 the caution that I would offer is the things that I say personally in my personal life are different than the 15:55 things that I say counseling my job is not to proselytize my beliefs about religion and faith my job is to take 16:03 what you believe and help understand how it anchors you or how it gets in your 16:08 way and then offer to you new ways to think about that not as a as a 16:15 conviction of my premise but as a growth within you that gives you more freedom 16:20 and less okay so if if if religion causes a blockage for growth yeah then 16:29 it's not a positive well what I kind of heard you you picking at there is uh the 16:34 idea that while religion can anchor you say somebody comes that can also come with a risk of an existential crisis yes 16:41 in and of itself if they start to question or doubt their own religion right with that gain comes comes another risk 16:49 yeah but yeah to my question to my answer is what doesn't come with other risks right right that doesn't exist 16:55 okay let's run to our break and we'll pick this up on the other side hey guys Dr Michael Mahon here from 17:02 Psych with Mike and do you think that you have a story to tell I know that 17:09 when we started psych with Mike the things that we really wanted in a 17:15 podcast hosting company was that they knew what they were doing and libsyn has 17:21 been around since the very beginning they're the oldest running consecutive still existing podcast hosting company 17:29 in the entire world I think but certainly in the United States so they've been around since people started 17:36 uploading things to the internet and so they have a lot of experience but we 17:43 also needed a service that was easy to use and libsyn is just so intuitive and 17:50 even though they've got all of this experience they just keep on upgrading so they just recently went through a 17:57 major renovation a major upgrade lips and pride and made the service even more 18:03 intuitive and user friendly than it was before and it was so user friendly before that I was able to figure it out 18:10 and get site with Mike up on the service so we've been using uh Lipson since the 18:16 very beginning of Psych with Mike for over two years now we love them and as a 18:22 friend of the show if you go to libsyn and start a podcast right now you get 18:28 your first month free so you go to libson.com and use the code 18:35 f-r-i-e-n-d so friend of the show friend that's l i b s y n.com and use the code 18:44 f r i e n d and you get your first month free and as always if it's Friday it's 18:52 cycling okay we're back and the one part of the 18:57 article that I actually liked was there's a section where the author is 19:03 talking about you know you can kind of monitor your own sense of self-love by 19:10 are you quicker to self-criticize or are you quicker to self-praise and I think 19:16 that that's a really important concept so I think a lot of that is driven by the scripts that you internalize as a 19:23 child the parenting scripts that your parents used who in the hell do you think you are 19:28 messaging that you internalizing well who do I think I am what makes me better what makes me different I have to be 19:34 this way shame power control pain or levers that many people parent with 19:42 mm-hmm there's a a line in a song that I like where this guy is talking about his 19:50 experience in Catholic school and he says that he got his knuckles bruised by 19:56 a nun dressed in black who told him that fear is the Heart of Love so he never 20:02 went back and I think that that is so true that's my daughter's dog is so true 20:08 in a lot of our experiences that people taught us that fear is the Heart of Love 20:16 and it's not it's not when we love other people and it's not when we love 20:23 ourselves my father specifically said to me I don't care if you love me but you will fear me 20:28 yeah there's a great Michael Scott quote from the office it's would you prefer to be feared or loved and he says is it too 20:35 much to ask for both I want people to be afraid of how much they love me and I 20:40 said yeah that sounds good oh afraid that's a nice thing yeah I didn't think that's where that was going in the 20:46 beginning yeah uh okay so now actually now I'm gonna pose a question uh because 20:53 if you look awe up in the dictionary the definition of awe is Majesty with a 21:02 sense of fear I mean that's that's the that's the definition so is sinners in the hand 21:09 you're an Angry God well but but is fear required as a part of Love reverence and 21:18 respect are different are different okay I think they are different um and I think reverent 21:24 in in religion in particular at least how I have understood um Christian religion as I've grown up 21:29 is that uh God has two parts to him right um grace and mercy whereas Grace is 21:36 receiving something you don't deserve and mercy is not receiving something you did right uh and so I I think love can 21:44 exist without that I don't I I agree love can't exist without fear in some sense because if 21:51 you aren't afraid of either losing it or um what can come as a result of this 21:56 vulnerability right that you're entering into someone with someone else it does it have vulnerability at all so the 22:02 Buddha said that the heart of all despair is attachment and so the 22:07 Buddhist concept is Love without attachment and so there is no fear of 22:12 losing that and that you know Buddha said that the greatest love is love that doesn't have that fear of loss 22:19 associated with it transcendentalism and and so I and and I will be honest uh I 22:28 believe that human beings are ingrained at the level of our DNA to be in committed relationships so to me the 22:35 idea of Love without attachment is something that I feel is alien to Being Human but that 22:43 you know that that caveat put out there you know we do have a concept in uh in 22:50 in our world of love without fear and is that a superior form of love should we 22:59 even have fear associated with love 23:06 I think it's uh I don't know I don't I'm not clear on 23:12 what I want to say um I think the idea of humanity 23:21 is that we try to hold on to things to Anchor ourselves to things and people 23:27 to be safe before we stay in one place instead of wrong motions 23:32 the idea that you're articulating about The Love without fear is a greater love a larger love a more encompassing love 23:40 and as the Buddha is suggesting transcendentalism is suggesting if we can detach ourselves from these fears 23:47 and these inhibiting anchors then we can be more expensive and we can see a larger part 23:55 of the universe I don't know if that's doable or not yeah I think that's my understanding of 24:00 the discussion and it you know this is something that I've really thought about 24:06 a lot in Greek in the Greek language there are six or seven words for love 24:12 depending on which reference choice you look at and we don't have that broad kind of love language in our society and 24:21 I think that we're missing something because of that I think that we should be more focused on that but let's go 24:27 back clinically to this idea of are you quicker to self-criticize or are you quicker to self-praise you know if you 24:34 look at yourself and you answer that question in the negative I am much more 24:40 quick to self-criticize that's actually something that we can help you with in 24:45 therapy we can help you learn compensatory measures where you can 24:52 practice trying to be more self-presentative amazing and in the 24:58 beginning that's going to be really hard to do so one of the ways you approach that 25:04 clinically use a specific example I was talking to somebody the other day was telling me that they get in depressive 25:09 cycles and they stand at the front door they want to go outside and they know they need to go out and walk and be in 25:15 the Sun but they just can't go out they just can't go out and I suggested to 25:21 them that words matter and the language you hear in your head structures reality 25:26 and so you have to learn to recognize that voice that says can't and change it 25:32 to will or won't so it should shouldn't can can't get rid of those and make 25:39 affirmative choices but it's not one trial learning you can't do it today and say I will go outside and go outside but 25:45 you have to change the script that you've internalized from childhood that gives you an opportunity to 25:53 be more free right and less bound to your depression and while that isn't one 25:59 trial learning I do think that that is spotter than for the therapy session so 26:04 you can say I will go outside today and go outside and then the next time you come back and see me we can talk about 26:11 how was that you didn't die was it do you want to get to a place where you can say I will stop therapy 26:18 some people do yes there's a lot of um like reaffirmation in that language yes 26:24 I I've heard the same example with vegetarianism people are really wanting to become vegetarians and they say 26:30 instead of saying oh I can't eat meat they say oh I shouldn't eat I don't yeah exactly tell their friends I don't teach 26:37 me I'm not smoking today yeah I don't smoke yeah right right no I think that words matter the the 26:44 words absolutely matter and that's why it I feel like it's super super 26:50 important to work with people who are overly self-critical to try and even if 26:58 it isn't change that to self-praise at least start by modifying the 27:05 self-critical language you know because it can make a huge difference just like 27:10 you're saying the difference between I don't eat meat and I won't eat meat 27:15 is only one letter but it makes a huge difference in the way 27:21 that you perceive it in yourself well it kind of brings us back to the new age word of empowerment yeah you accept your 27:29 power to act you're not trapped you're not stuck you're not limited you're not bound by these strictures you have the 27:36 power to choose we just did a whole episode on personality I think one becomes a behavior you are exhibiting 27:42 and the other is a choice in your personality trait yeah and and choice 27:48 among personality traits yes you know I I I'm really 27:54 so I am very aware that uh 28:01 there's and and it's always this way but there's a a real 28:07 um sense in our society that we have 28:13 so many more opportunities we have so many more people encouraging people to 28:19 be empowered to express their to be you know body what's it what's it called 28:26 when body uh uh happy when you're happy in your own body body positive 28:32 um you know and and so we reject the old kinds of of 28:38 media driven ideas of what is attractive and just be body positive and so we have 28:44 these messages and then on the other still sell Barbie dolls little girls yeah and but but and and I have I've 28:52 heard from clients that they feel like it's harder today to be able to feel 29:00 loved because the ideas that they see on social media of people promoting their 29:08 lives is is so incredibly difficult to live up to and I tell people all the 29:14 time what you see on social media is a lie I mean nobody's living that life maybe you just don't turn off social 29:19 media well well that I think that's the problem is that they are living that life now previously when we look at at 29:26 advertisements or Hollywood that is separate and that is removed from your pocket but now I think we have children 29:34 and teens in particular have social media and they build lives that portray 29:40 this image they build false identities yes it's not real and that becomes their 29:47 entire existence and that's that's not a job for them that is them now 29:52 well I don't know I disagree because I influencers you mean yes because they're 29:58 promoting that and that may be their social Persona online but they're still 30:04 you know so I see these these you know depictions every year the social media of you know people at Thanksgiving and 30:11 everybody's having a great time and they're cutting the turkey and everybody's happy and laughing but I 30:16 know at that table there's a lot of dissension people are arguing with each other and somebody left and you know was 30:22 angry and somebody else drank too much Rockwell painting no huh but but I think that but I wonder if 30:30 there are more opportunities to be yourself today but that some of the 30:38 straitjackets that we live in are just as real today as they were in the 1960s 30:44 right yeah but you could live in a 50 Cent video today instead of a Norman Rockwell painting sure 30:49 and I so I guess it's picky poison but but in the end that hurt but in the 30:57 end you do have some agency to be able to 31:04 change the language that you use to be able to think about yourself to me the 31:13 language the self-talk is more important than the social media projection is that 31:18 fair yes yes and so what I would be saying to 31:25 individuals is it's more important how you conceptualize yourself than whether 31:31 or not you get 10 million likes on your Facebook feed 31:38 well it's Fame is so microscopic now that it truly is fickle and brene brown 31:45 talks about this idea of scarcity in life and a focus on scarcity uh which eventually 31:51 she she argues leads to a focus in scarcity of oneself uh and you know we 31:57 talk about um the generation between the Boomers and the Gen xers uh really had to uh 32:04 keep up with the Johnsons right or keeping up with the Joneses that was a whole big thing then 32:09 um and I think in some ways is now too but just in a much more microscopic way 32:15 um I mean I get on my social media and I feel as though I can never keep up with 32:21 all of the things that I should do I should be an interior designer and a 32:26 photographer and a musician and uh and uh and uh you can have it all you can't 32:31 have it all um so I wonder how and when we I I'm grateful for some 32:39 of the self-love talk but I I hear your point around there is now a societal 32:44 pressure to say you have to love yourself and if you don't well what's wrong with you yeah like like that's the 32:52 normal the the normal state would be to love yourself when I'm not sure that 32:58 that's ever been the normal state but it is a state that we should aspire to we would like to Aspire to 33:04 yes yes those language matters all right hopefully that is beneficial for people 33:10 as always the music that appears inside with Mike is written and performed by Mr Benjamin de clue uh if you want to do 33:17 something nice for us you can find us on Apple podcasts and give us a comment and 33:23 a review a a rating but if you really really want to be kind go to the 33:30 YouTubes find us on YouTube and subscribe to the show that's super super beneficial and as always if it's Friday 33:37 it's like with Mike [Music]

So upfront I want to apologize for the sound quality (or lack thereof) on this episode. Brett, Michelle, and I just started riffing completely off-topic and unplanned, and wouldn't you know it there was some great content but the sound buggered out on me. I have tried to clean it up the best I can. Enjoy!   What are the major school of theoretical orientation? https://counseling.northwestern.edu/blog/five-counseling-theories-and-approaches/   Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's cycling welcome to the site 0:19 with my vibrate this is starting did you want to repeat that no did i edit all your best 0:24 no i don't need to people that watch it regularly know that and we are here with mr brett newcomb 0:31 hi miss michelle steg how are you doing michelle good for you it's good to have you here again 0:37 thank you oh okay i thought you had something no i just i'm happy to be here with two clinicians 0:43 that i've trained and mentored through the years to be more like me 0:49 does it make you you know what i actually and this is the first time i've ever 0:55 thought this how does it make you feel to be in a room 1:01 with other individuals that you have trained and to know 1:09 is that exactly what i said 1:16 no you know one of the reasons that i've agreed to do this podcast that we've done over the last couple of years and we get close and flow 1:23 towards me and gold is to make the podcast address itself to 1:28 people that are interested in doing therapy as clinicians or 1:33 in getting understanding what therapy is like without being in therapy from clinicians 1:38 and so we try to have conversations and address those issues so i'm intrigued 1:44 with the three of us talking because we've all had similar clinical training 1:49 and similar clinical experiences but we have different perspectives on how to do it in the room and so i was hoping we 1:56 could kind of talk about some of those differences one of my arguments has always been that 2:01 psychologists rewrite the same articles and put different words and 2:07 call it something new so it sounds like something fresh is out there it's the same old stuff right 2:12 but fundamentally i believe that to be a clinician to do therapy 2:18 you have to have a mind map that helps you 2:23 understand what everything is going on with people and where the pieces that are out of 2:28 focus or that are broken might reside and how to find them and help bring them 2:34 into focus help correct them uh that's a clinical challenge yeah and 2:40 you have to do it with respect you have to do it with passion uh you have to do it 2:45 with consummate attention i i used to for 30 years i taught at university in a 2:50 nighttime program from 5 30 to 9 30 at night and i would regularly say to my students because 2:56 they'd be great at 5 30 6 6 30 quarter 7 then they start checking their money 3:02 they're gone and they'll check their emails and stuff and i would say to them this is what it's like to do there 3:08 you have to this opportunity to learn how to discipline yourself to be in the background and pay attention what's going on what people are bringing to you 3:15 to consider and they will look at each other what the hell was he talking about yeah i hear all your voices once a week 3:22 i swear to that because i on those days where you're tired or you know i was telling you i had an 3:28 insane day with my kid and i mean i lived like four days already and then i had to go to therapy 3:35 and i but i do i remember that and i hear your voice saying these people are paying you you're on the clock right 3:41 you are on the clock their money is worth something and you show up yeah you bring it you bring it you have to worry 3:47 about it put your stuff in a box and bring it right yeah right at least i i do passionate believe that 3:54 i agree completely i always called that a theoretical orientation that a person has to have a theoretical orientation 4:00 and if you don't have a theoretical orientation that you can define then you don't have a theoretical orientation and 4:06 it isn't easy in knowledge that was a collective jeff well then people say eclectic and so what eclectic means is 4:11 that you have i don't have uh kinds of tools to be able to be 4:19 effective in therapy and it's fine to be eclectic as long as you can define it but if you say i'm eclectic and you 4:25 can't define it then you don't why is that really important to you because what brett was talking about he 4:32 uses the concept of mind map and whether it's a mind map or however you think of it if you don't have some 4:39 idea of where you think that human pathology evolves from then you don't 4:45 have an idea of how human pathology evolves and if you don't have an idea then you're just shooting in the dark 4:52 and if you're getting paid to do it i don't believe that that's how you should 4:58 approach i think that you should have a very clear like i can use cognitive 5:03 behavioral interventions but my understanding of how human 5:08 pathology evolves is through the heinz kohut theory of how 5:14 emotional regulation develops through the concepts of idealization twinship 5:20 and mirroring and i can explain in great depth and detail what all of those things mean so i would say that i am 5:28 psychodynamic very specifically object relations and even more specifically 5:34 cohadian within that field of object relations but i use other techniques as well but i 5:41 can define what that means for me and you don't have to understand it that way yeah but i have to understand it that 5:47 way so that i have a frame of reference to approach when i'm working with a client but you don't need to explain 5:53 that to the client well well i think that you're i know getting 5:59 off on it when you do this i know uh you need to know that because you're putting yourself in the room saying i 6:04 think i can help you the client needs to know i'm going to get heard this is going to be a safe place and this person 6:11 can help me they don't need to know your theory and for you to spend i mean to me it's the same conversation as i'm a christian 6:18 therapist yeah i work with christians i work with jews i work with catholics i work with arabs it doesn't matter but i don't 6:25 proselytize my theory of religion or counseling 6:31 and i struggle with that you know i struggle with that because you know my i 6:36 have a a a belief that language matters and that 6:42 agree if you present the language to the client that that gives them them a basis 6:49 to start to use language for themselves they don't have to use the same language that i use but if they don't have a 6:56 language then they need to be able to develop a language to be able to start to think about so it's like 7:02 metacognition thinking about thinking you have to be able to have the language to do that to be able to do that i can 7:08 buy that argument yeah yeah what do you think um i just have here 7:13 comes your part stuff right everybody likes to make the part of me party was so a part of me immediately 7:20 shuts down when we talk about theories but that's that's just like my stuff i think that's my 7:26 system that really um struggled in school to understand the 7:32 context of like um it probably had some learning disabilities that went under diagnosed 7:38 as a kid or undiagnosed as a kid and so when we start using the language um so 7:46 you don't see yourself as an intellectual well and you see this as an intellectual discussion i do and i just 7:51 i just shut down and then i then i get also oppositional but she can't count the question 8:01 so you're obviously much closer to brett i haven't seen you since the last time 8:06 that i had you in class and i was a lot less wrinkled we were trying to we were trying to i was trying to figure out 8:12 when that was uh but my recollection of you was as a superior 8:19 student and so now i'm hearing you say that you didn't feel that way and i'm wondering 8:26 i mean was was my impression because you put a show you know what i'm 8:32 saying say it yeah no i'll explain why but that's a fair question yeah so um i 8:38 i got my first 4.0 when i went to grad school like i i it was it was like i 8:44 found my home but i didn't find i 8:49 at that stage of the game i realized how much of an auditory learner i was so 8:55 realistically i was not reading the books with the theories and 9:01 what i learned to do was sit and master auditory learning and skills of 9:08 observation and was able to retain all the information that way through 9:13 observation so when i was like spitballing in class and making observations it wasn't bs 9:21 it was that i wasn't finding who i was as a therapist through textbooks i was 9:27 finding it through my experiences with you in class with you in class and 9:33 you talking about caseloads or um you know the group therapy class it was 9:39 like that was where i learned to be a therapist when it came 9:44 to the theories it was all lost on youtube gotcha in a sense so you can see the modeling and internalize the 9:50 modeling correct but you couldn't read the books the script it was very much like a 9:55 sensory experience like i could cure the model 10:01 experience it see it play out but i i couldn't read the words and so there's 10:06 always a party that kind of does shut down when we talk about the truth that's fascinating in part because i've always had the 10:13 opinion that good therapists have to be acute observers 10:19 and the subset of that is most of them are survivors of one kind of trauma together 10:26 because that chatter or channel that's going on in all of us all the time as we scan 10:33 uh you have to be able to process and understand and apply yes 10:39 and those are clinical skills and what you're saying is you had those when you came to the program 10:45 and you use them to develop your clinical clinical skills i believe i mastered that now you are 10:51 living i do right right and and i think 10:57 yeah very much so like it's a little embarrassing because i don't want somebody to take my license but like 11:02 i don't remember reading a lot nobody listens to the show right okay all right then we're safe here 11:08 for sure right it was such a sensory experience for me like 11:14 um i was i i just i quit fighting the game of the battle of college like i figured out 11:21 how i was a good learner and it was through like mastering the art of observation and becoming acutely aware 11:28 of subtle shifts and movements and whatever and it shows but but i i hear you 11:35 saying that as if it were a deficit but i hear it as a strength 11:44 where your strong suit was what you're where your wheelhouse was and then you played to that that just seems smart to 11:49 me well i think you know early on when i was early in school like early in my master's it felt like a deficit because 11:56 there were all these like cerebral conversations happening because everybody read the book and i'm sitting there intellectual masturbation exactly 12:02 exactly what it was and so then i remember sitting there being like feeling embarrassed or self-conscious 12:08 like i didn't understand the material and it just clicked one day and i was like stop reading the material and just 12:14 absorb because you'll gather everything you need to know from what brett tells you and when you know mike starts to speak 12:21 on this and it i i feel like i did i turned it into a real positive i was really insecure about it at first and now 12:29 i don't know i think it's kind of my memory skills so then i i feel i'm gonna ask this question 12:35 yeah maybe it's a bad reflection on me i didn't teach you ifs i know that no you 12:40 did not so so uh so how did you how did you find internal family systems from my own 12:47 therapist uh karen grayson so another uh right 12:54 so yeah she um we're very ancestors i was literally about to say that yeah um yeah i was doing my own work with her 13:00 and then she introdu the world's collided at the same time leading education 13:08 and she introduced this to me and my mind exploded because 13:14 probably because i'm a visual learner an auditory and when you learn ifs and you learn about parts white its way it's so 13:21 beautiful for men because men really struggle right we talked about with having these feelings 13:27 they're just these like abstract thoughts that are like floating around and they don't quite know what to do with them and when we talk about parts 13:36 it takes feelings and it grounds them and it makes them very it gives them a place to be it 13:42 makes them visual and men like visuals and it makes it turns feelings tangible 13:49 and it rocked my world it absolutely rocked my world it was 13:56 struggling i'm saying that because you're i wasn't struggling in terms of like 14:02 being able to identify what my theory was like i can tell you what i pull from and whatnot but 14:07 when i found ifs it was like 14:13 you know when you fall in love and you're have you been all my life like it 14:18 solidified i have art in my office from a client that's um that says we are not just one 14:25 we are made up of parts and she drew that for me over 10 years ago 14:30 and then i was introduced to ifs and it gave me the language and i was like holy 14:36 you know holy i've been doing this this entire time and it just gave me the language right 14:42 i did like i am that good i just now have language for it you know yeah so that so yeah i found ifs probably six 14:50 seven years ago maybe um yeah just it you know why i really love it is that 14:56 it's it's not super clinical i am not 15:02 a stuffy like i just i'm not a clinical person um 15:07 in therapy because i don't think my clients really care about the clinical side they just want 15:13 to get better and they just want to i think it's constant does that make sense of course it makes sense you help me you 15:20 know we get better yeah better yeah and so ifs did that for me well i think that that 15:27 there are a lot of people i've always said there are two ways you can do therapy you can just alleviate symptomology and feel 15:34 better and that is one way you can do it or you can dive into a real headlong if you know 15:42 seeking hypnosis and epiphany and genuine self-understanding and i think 15:48 that different people have to do it differently and that's why they're different therapists and i don't think that any way is necessarily superior but 15:57 i do think that there need to be people who do it different ways because it's going to 16:03 reach different people absolutely not every teacher is good for about differently 16:09 every student right and i tell people all the time i i am not 16:14 for everyone exactly i am direct i can be polarizing at times like i i 16:20 but a lot of it comes from the things we learned in class of like 16:25 i'm not going to sit here and waste your time i cost a lot of money so we're going to we're going to move and typically by the time somebody's 16:31 found me they've heard that reputation but absolutely yeah um but people pay a lot 16:38 of money and so let's not waste their time and but a lot of the directness comes from the yelling 16:44 stuff of working in the here and now right right so that's all you really 16:50 have absolutely because our offices sitting in the room what do we feel what do we have what information what 16:56 behaviors here and now are we in touch with not there and then out there somewhere 17:01 we can speculate we can anticipate we can plan but all we really have is what's here and if you think about what 17:08 we talked about last time in terms of how do you help as we were talking specifically about men but creating that 17:14 awareness for men is processing in the here and now and sitting across from a man and going hey i'm holding my breath 17:21 right now that tells me you are yeah why why aren't we breathing here's the projective identification 17:27 yeah yeah so let's take our break and let's pick this up on your site okay 17:33 hey everybody dr michael mahon here from site with mike and i couldn't be more excited to talk to you about athletic 17:39 greens which is a new sponsor we have here on the show i started taking athletic greens watching some youtube 17:46 videos and doing my own research i wanted to add something to my daily workout program to give me some energy 17:53 and to support gut health and that was the one thing that kept coming up again 17:58 and again with athletic greens is the guy who started the company did a bunch of research because he was 18:04 having some gut health issues that he couldn't get any resolution for he developed athletic greens and it's just 18:12 exploded from there so it's 75 superfoods vitamins minerals probiotics 18:18 whole food sources that's all in one daily scoop you put it in eight or 18:23 twelve ounces of water you shake it up and you drink it the taste is very very 18:28 drinkable i actually enjoy it and i have been using it and my energy 18:34 levels have just been through the roof i really like athletic greens because of 18:39 some of the sustainability things that they do so they buy carbon credits and 18:45 you know to help protect the rainforest which is something that i really like but if you order athletic greens in your 18:52 subscription you're going to also get a year's supply of their vitamin d 18:58 supplementation and five free travel packs and that vitamin d is so important 19:04 during those winter months when we're not getting enough sunlight we've talked about how that decreases your mood and 19:12 increases depression and that can be a real deal changer so you go to 19:17 athleticgreens.com emerging that's 19:23 slash athleticgreens.com that's the psych with mike promo and 19:28 you're gonna get that additional vitamin d support for a year and five free 19:34 travel packs so take control of your own health today and as always if it's 19:40 friday it's psych with mike okay we're back so uh that here and now 19:47 focus that comes from mount yavan which is an existential that's that known as an existentialist 19:53 uh is so important 19:58 for really any kind of therapy but when you're saying okay we're not breathing 20:05 why aren't we breathing and that's a here and now focus then 20:10 how where is i where does i at best come into that so it doesn't okay 20:18 it doesn't so um i i mean it can 20:23 but i find myself just oscillating um when appropriate to so you're not 20:29 getting limited by the structure no you are engaged in the process of the 20:35 conversation correct so like remember so i said i i have a tendency i have a part of me right that shuts down when we talk 20:41 about theories so if someone were to label me as an ifs therapist i'm immediately 20:46 going we're not labeling that either that is a very big piece of what i do but if we're 20:54 processing and you're now saying like so i'm not breathing that tells me you're not breathing 21:00 help me help me understand what's happening here i can say if i want to incorporate ifs i can say because it 21:05 happens often i feel like there has been a shift inside of you which tells me a part of 21:11 the stuff then can you be aware of that can you check in with your assistant 21:16 and tell me what part just stepped in because we were guiding and we were we were moving 21:21 and then i said this and there was a shift in your energy which leads me to believe a part again 21:27 it's constant teaching of awareness so we mentioned y'all yalum 21:34 was a leading author and theorist in the field of counseling 21:40 psychology i'm enamored with him in his work one of the things that he talks about 21:48 is that all of us and it drives a lot of dysfunctional behavior especially in men 21:53 uh having anxiety about death and fear of death uh and as we get older or as 22:00 critical events happen in our lives the underlying issue that therapist 22:05 needs to be aware of is this person is fear-dying facing their own immortality whatever 22:11 that means and i remember because i came to you as a therapist 22:18 and i remember getting in touch with that because i turned 74 i retired 22:25 couple of friends that died my age good friend of mine committed suicide 22:30 and i was really struggling with that i but i hadn't put it in purpose right and i'm sitting in the room with you and 22:36 you're inviting me to get in touch with all those feelings and i just started crying 22:43 wrong grief of loss and fear and you just very quietly sit there my 22:50 wife was placed on me and you were sitting there and you just softly said breathe 22:56 just breathe stay here and i couldn't i mean when my chest was frozen my throat was frozen my tears were i mean 23:03 like a blubbering child but in a little while it passed and i 23:09 could breathe so what you're describing about that isn't a technical theory it's not 10 23:17 chapters in a book that you can read and learn how to do right you have to be able to do it on the if somebody walks 23:22 in the room and they get in touch with these emotions you have to be able to be present and catch it and catch it and 23:29 hold them in a safe holding environment whatever it is when we were talking in the previous episode that we did about 23:35 rage yeah same thing a man who's grateful or angry in this moment and you're boiling with 23:42 it inside you as the clinician have to be able to sit and say it's okay stay with it 23:48 you know i hurt yourself you're not gonna punch the ball you gotta hurt me but you could feel his feelings and then this process was talking about but what 23:55 is time right now here now and my 24:00 orientation has always been and you know i say this all the time that 24:05 really everything comes down to the ability or lack thereof to 24:10 emotionally regulate so when i did my dissertation i was doing my dissertation on 24:16 substance abuse as an attachment disorder which there's very little information on but i 24:21 can make an argument for why i believe that uh and i got one third of the way through it and my 24:28 my uh chairperson who did not was not very confrontational uh came to me and 24:34 said oh you have to start over because all of this you know information is 20 years old and we want something that's 24:40 more recent and so i re did it and i did the biological similarities and 24:46 differences of depression and anxiety because i knew that i could get very very current research on that but the 24:52 point being that you know for me i've always said no one ever goes to 24:57 psychotherapy because they have a problem people go to psychotherapy because a problem that they have has 25:03 caused them emotional dysregulation if you can emotionally regulate you don't 25:08 need psychotherapy when you can't emotionally regulate the smallest problem in the world can cause you to 25:15 not be able to function and so for me it's all about trying to find 25:20 where is the dysfunction in the emotional regulation some people have never 25:26 been able to emotionally regulate they don't even know what that means they don't even yeah and and so it's all 25:34 about trump so to me it doesn't really matter like i have a very clearly 25:39 defined process or understanding of how i think 25:44 that emotional regulation develops that i can explain to people at great detail and nobody cares brett tells me all the 25:51 time nobody cares but it doesn't matter to me how people 25:56 come at that but that's the goal is how do i identify 26:01 where your emotional regulation breakdown is and how do i help you be able to emotionally regulate better and 26:09 when you can do that you don't need me anymore how does your theory though 26:14 lead people to the awareness of like needing to um 26:22 towards that emotional regulation like where how does that show up in your work 26:27 so for me the emotional regulation comes from as i said the co-hunting ideas of 26:32 mirroring idealization and twinship so you have a external model when you're 26:38 born you don't know how to emotionally regulate you're just emotion you have all of the biological components you have hormones 26:45 that get released in your body that change your body and you have emotional responses but you don't have any 26:50 self-soothing ability no emotional regulation and so you look to the external examples when the external 26:58 examples are good you learn how to emotionally regulate when they're not good or you don't internalize them 27:04 efficiently then there's a breakdown in that and so then you grow up and that's where to me 27:10 the insecurity comes from so for pj what he said is that that first stage of development is security versus 27:17 you know trust versus mistrust that's where security comes from if you don't 27:22 have grounded securities because in that very very early model 27:28 that wasn't modeled for you and so the process of psychotherapy is about giving 27:34 the client an alternative yes yeah okay 27:40 okay and so if i can come into that situation consistently enough yeah 27:47 and you can do whatever you want you're great it's not me re-parenting you right it's me 27:54 facilitating your ability giving you an example right yeah right and then you internalize a 28:00 different grown-up yes but but the therapist has to be able to 28:06 provide a consistent model for the client to be able to 28:12 see that and then internalize that what i call i say that therapists loan 28:18 their clients a little bit of ego until the client builds that for themselves 28:25 and can carry around with them 28:31 so one of the clinical arguments about that is do you as a clinician encourage 28:38 codependency of the client on you and there is an argument that can be 28:44 made that initially you need them to be dependent on you but you need to teach them how to become 28:50 independent in a healthy way exactly i mean when they are they leave but it's free parenting so i mean you 28:56 know that all goes into it now but but you know the the for me the difference 29:01 is the motivation of the therapist it's all about the counter transference if i feel 29:06 intentionally eliciting the dependence because that i get off 29:16 a part of the process of re-parenting with no 29:23 ego invested in it from my side then it's just a part of the process 29:31 well we were talking about that other way here like that constant awareness for clinicians to have the power 29:37 differentials that are in that space at all times and so yeah i feel like it's my job to be checking in on a regular 29:43 basis and having the uncomfortable conversations and essentially just modeling boundaries and how to 29:50 communicate and saying am i still meeting the needs in which you came here is there are you know is there anything 29:57 that we are doing that just doesn't feel right for you because people will stay because they want to be pleasing 30:02 and you know continue work that's not fulfilling what they need so i think 30:08 i think that's a way to to check those power differentials and not create that codependency or the 30:13 lasting codependency on the relationship but even when you're talking about these 30:19 angry males and so the angry male comes in and they can rage and then you can 30:24 sit with that and not react in a way that is cowering or 30:30 is submissive maybe for the first time yeah maybe for the first time in their experience that that's ever happened 30:36 that's giving them a different dynamic to play off of now i have an alternative 30:42 way of being able to understand this anger now can i allow myself to be 30:48 vulnerable enough to start to explore that that's the process of therapy right absolutely looking across from a man who 30:55 is raging and looking in the eyes and saying i'm not afraid 31:01 and 31:14 um when you to square a man up and say you are 31:20 not afraid of you can be significant yeah 31:26 but i think that that is that's a part of 31:32 the therapy experience and not that so so let me just say this start differently like 31:37 it's never occurred to me that i'm afraid in therapy like i've always said if i if 31:43 i ever went to work and i was afraid i would stop doing it yeah um and so i've never been in a situation where i mean 31:51 i've been in a situation point of situations where men have been rageful it's never occurred to me that i have to 31:57 say i'm not afraid of you because i just that that's not but i understand how that plays 32:04 differently with female therapists and because female therapists are 75 to 80 32:09 of the population of therapists the only way men are going to get therapy 32:15 statistically is a lot of them are going to be in therapy with females and 32:20 you know i so i think that what you are talking about is so salient how is a female going to sit in that and 32:28 be able to absorb that anger because of what what so what 32:33 is the counter transference for that female when the man is raging 32:40 and how do females learn to be able to [Music] 32:45 okay so let me ask you a question so do you do you resist 32:51 your is there something in you that says oh this guy's angry i should be subservient no i can't because i'm doing therapy or 32:58 have you trained yourself not do you understand what i'm saying i think so keep going finish that so do you or do you train yourself to 33:05 not be to not have that reaction uh i think not having the reaction comes 33:11 from my childhood number one and being around a lot of chaos and like knowing how to navigate that 33:17 um but number two um like we said in the last episode like 33:22 when i see that anger in that rage i see wounding and i feel compassionate 33:29 like i i don't know that i've had to train myself to do that as much as it just 33:35 organically is part of who i am i think that 33:40 talking about a marital situation when a couple's situation where the man is raising your ability to 33:47 experience that and reflect back to him i'm not afraid i'm aware that you're angry but i'm sitting with him and i'm 33:54 not afraid he's modeling for him what that's like in his life 33:59 other people and particularly women don't react that way but you're also modeling for the woman 34:04 who may be seeing this for the first time and may discover that's a thing that she can do absolutely 34:10 they both have a learning curve for helping survive his rage well and i'm even was 34:17 thinking as we were processing this that it's one thing for a man to come into therapy with another 34:24 man and to not have that man experience his rage as 34:30 uh yeah but it's a different thing for him to go to therapy with a woman and not 34:36 have the woman experience that rage as intimidating and i think both are beneficial both are 34:43 necessary for good therapy but go ahead as a flip side of that argument 34:48 i've had women say to me you can't know this yeah you can't know this because you're a man yeah and you can't know 34:54 what i'm feeling or you can't know what i'm seeing and yet they were experiencing that i want to snow yeah 35:00 and it wrote right it doesn't matter which sex if your world view is 35:06 people respond to this behavior this emanation from a particular way and you 35:12 have something that doesn't do that it's like well what the else going on here well right now i don't know what to 35:17 do right you change the script on me yeah exactly which is what you're trying to do absolutely it is 35:23 yeah so hopefully that was beneficial for people i think that was another really excellent clinical discussion and 35:29 i know that that is the aim uh for mr brett newcomb so i hope that he is just 35:34 delighted as always 35:39 i'm not gonna go uh as always the music that appears inside with mike is written and performed by mr 35:44 benjamin the clue we would love it if you would find us on the interwebs and uh 35:50 on apple podcast leave us a comment and a rating but most importantly if you go 35:56 to the youtubes and find psych with mike and subscribe to the show that would be fantastic and as always if it's friday 36:04 [Music] 36:12 [Music]  

One of the most obscure concepts in psychology is personality. We all know what that means and at the same time, it would probably be hard to define it in psychological terms.   https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-personality-2795416    Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike personality 0:22 i don't know if that got caught welcome into psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon i'm here with 0:27 mr brett newcomb and intern michael hello good morning how are you both of you yeah yeah i'm so used to 0:34 saying extroverted how are you and now when there's more people in the studio then i don't know i don't know what to 0:39 say when you don't know what to say say nothing at all that's what they advise crickets missouri says uh you and all so 0:48 how are you all is how that works out yes yeah colloquialism 0:53 yeah we're gonna all go wash our clothes and get on the way right next to 1:00 illinois where they drink milk you are just too sensitive oh man all 1:07 right we got to stop because that's going down a dark road so uh 1:14 i remember a long long time ago you and i brett 1:19 were playing golf and i don't know why 1:26 but for some reason i was really 1:33 worried about this idea that somehow i was being fake because i 1:40 would act differently when we would go to the golf course than when we were in the office than when i was teaching 1:47 at the university and i remember having this conversation with you 1:52 about is it are you are you being real if you act differently in different 1:58 situations and do you remember what your answer was no but i know what it should have been 2:04 what what do you think it should have been you are different in different situations that's exactly what you said you said not only is that real but if 2:10 you act the same in every situation that's probably pathological yeah yeah okay yes okay okay yeah so yeah we all 2:17 do that i mean i used to teach psychology classes in high school and college and one of the things that i would talk about is we all have 2:23 different vocabularies we use for different settings when i worked my way through college working on a factory 2:29 floor on an assembly line the guys that i worked among were you putting tires on cadillac's 2:35 okay i worked in a bicycle factory the the guys on the factory floor 2:42 all cursed as they breathed so i found myself doing the same thing 2:48 but as a classroom teacher going into a seventh grade classroom i can't talk that way and when i go to church on sunday 2:54 morning i don't want to talk that way so i present myself differently depending on the context cues and the agenda and 3:01 the goal you do too and everyone does so if you recognize that that the trick isn't are 3:07 you consistent the trick is there enough consistency that the people who know you will recognize you in multiple 3:13 environments yeah so i i know who that is right yeah and and i think that that was what the 3:21 crux of my dilemma was that day is that i'd always prided myself i didn't recognize you on the golf course 3:28 i had prided myself on thinking that i was the same person in every situation 3:35 because you know i just i found that to be hysterical yeah and and they're j and they still do it just wasn't true and 3:40 then when i came to realize oh no i'm a different person depending on the context 3:45 i felt like i was betraying myself and then you said no that's just the way that everybody said 3:52 don't be pathological they have drugs for that and shock treatment yeah yeah so then 3:58 you've taught personality theory i've taught personality theory um 4:03 for you what is personality well you know it starts with the birth of an infant baby so i believe some 4:10 babies are born with personality orientation yeah to be more open and 4:16 gregarious or to be more closed and watchful some of them avoid contact and some of them 4:23 seductively embrace content and then as parents how do you interpret 4:29 what your child is doing i mean the whole thing about mother child bonding uh if the mother is not emotionally 4:35 available then the theory is a child panics and feels disconnected and is in dire 4:42 straits if the mother is emotionally available then the child is pulled into that warmth 4:48 those things impact the way the child then evolves from that point but i believe there is a starting point 4:56 of predisposition or orientation so uh it's biologically encoded into the 5:01 individual i think so okay but i i couldn't prove that scientifically that's just no no yeah but i'm just yeah so it's 5:09 interesting from there to say well how does your personality develop and i think a lot of it is fundamental orientation 5:15 impacted by training and experience how do your parents train you to handle 5:22 anger you see a one-year-old who's so frustrated because he can't have a piece of candy that he bites somebody or he 5:28 hits somebody uh how do the parents respond to that i know parents just said well i'll buy 5:34 you back teach them not to bite well i think that's just among the stupider and more abusive things that you've heard 5:40 but that's what they say proudly i teach my child uh i don't know the right answer i just 5:46 know a lot of the wrong answers i wonder if they say oh that's not working if they train their dogs the same way 5:52 probably my dog bites them but i'll just bite him back yeah okay well then the dog's probably gonna bite you 5:59 yeah yeah yeah so for me i would say that in 6:05 my view of psychology that personality 6:10 is really if not equivalent to very much ingrained 6:16 in emotional regulation so i think that those things are somewhat 6:21 synonymous so your personality is the way that people experience your personality is based on your emotional 6:29 regulation capacity does that make sense yeah but so then i wondered is 6:36 stubbornness and oppositionality is that ingrained or learned 6:43 do you learn to be stubborn are you just stubborn think you learn to be stubborn 6:49 i think you respond to your environment for the most part and i think i do i do think you respond to your 6:55 environment in that in that regard so what about resilience 7:00 i think you can change these things okay yes yeah so we are educable yeah i think 7:08 we are we are generally responsive to different things right we talk about um so pavlova stuff disorders right and 7:16 how do you treat a personality disorder when you introduce other tools or you 7:21 introduce other methods to uh lean on instead of whatever that undesirable person otto kernberg 7:28 contends that you can't really modify personality disorders until the personally disordered individual is 7:34 between 40 and 50 and wants to work hard enough to change the only thing that you can do he says and he and masterson the 7:41 two main voices in this field that i studied he says what you have to do is 7:47 supportive expressive psychotherapy you have to give them ways to vent and relieve their emotional cycles 7:55 but try to encourage them to be stable and sometimes that takes medicine sometimes that takes training sometimes 8:02 it takes discipline whether it's exercise diet sleep patterns whatever it may be but you 8:08 teach them over time the crash and burn phenomenon 8:13 is less frequent but the rhythm is still there uh until they hit that age where 8:20 potentially they could change but they can't do it until then yeah and and you i i agree with that and and you and i 8:27 really studied kernberg and and and heinz kohut and all of those guys uh which are not necessarily as 8:36 rigorously today um but i absolutely agree with that and because before i was 55 8:43 i would have said because i think of personality as synonymous with emotional regulation i think emotional regulation 8:49 is seated in the attached or lack of relationship with the primary caregiver 8:55 attachment theory yeah that it's that it's all about the security or insecurity that you learn in the first 9:01 two pre-verbal years of life and i would have said before i was 55 that that was 9:06 immutable you couldn't change that that if you were that way you would be that way you could find compensatory measures 9:14 to be able to be less reactive but you couldn't change the foundation of that 9:19 since i've been 55 and i i have a different view of that i think that i have been working on my own 9:27 intrinsic sense of security but i don't think i could have before then so i 9:32 absolutely agree with kernberg i think that there is something about that and i 9:38 don't know that there's an age range that i would identify but there is a point at which in life 9:45 i think there is somewhat of available to that yeah yeah i wonder if that's 9:50 correlation and not causation right i wonder if it's not so much that you are between 40 and 50 but that the vast 9:57 majority of people who were who cranberry studied and who he was able to successfully 10:04 work with and personality changing um happened to be at a stage in their 10:09 lives when they were 40 or 50. and if that if that is actually shifting right we look at like actualization of 10:15 identity and different identity crises and we found that people 10:21 are starting to have their identity crises earlier in life and i wonder if that 10:26 is a focus on self-improvement i wonder if that's a focus on entering into dialects with 10:33 oneself so what you're in life i think i mean that's a really intriguing question 10:38 um to which i don't have the answer but what i was about to say is i think some 10:45 of it i was having a conversation earlier this week with a friend who has a family member that's diagnosed as 10:50 borderline and this friend was talking about the kind of aggressive anger that happens 10:56 uh when the hypomania occurs and how frustrated she is that this is 11:03 happening again with this individual and you know she this individual will not have 11:10 someone in their life that will put up with that and i just laughed and said yes they will they have a radar that 11:15 lets them find them if this person gives up they'll go find another one that will take that crap and they will find another one that takes crap yeah and so 11:21 they just keep replicating that persona to bounce against but 11:27 the question that you raise is is it possible that they could discover 11:32 earlier a different way to do it and invest themselves in trying to do it differently and i think that's one of 11:38 the goals of doing therapy is to try to create that matrix right but i think it really occurs well so but but for that 11:45 to be salient i think we have to then explore what michael said about it could 11:50 be correlational but is it causal so then we have to say okay well then what is 11:56 causal because you know when i think about my own looking at me 12:01 um i think that part of the reason why there was an opener an open window after 12:08 the age of 55 is i think it's partly biological i think it's hormonal i think it's partly because i had lived through 12:17 the process of industry the the stage of industry according to piaget where i had built a career that i was feeling good 12:23 about and successful which gave me a different understanding of myself than was based 12:30 on my early experience so i think that there are a lot of dynamics that go into 12:35 that i don't know which one of those is the cause or if it 12:40 is a myriad of things or if neither one of them even is impactful and i'm just 12:46 you know whistling across the through the graveyard but but i think that they're 12:52 what what is the causal if we could identify what the causal 12:58 factors are then we could more directly so there are studies that attempt to do exactly that yeah and 13:05 categorize the responses uh character traits right are you agreeable 13:11 are you conscientious are you eager to please are you an extrovert are you an introvert or you're neurotic 13:16 find those clusters uh and that's exactly though you know that part of the article is exactly what i say why i say 13:24 for me personality is equal to emotional regulation because i think all of those things are about how well you're able to 13:31 what we used to call self-soothe yeah 13:37 you brought up an interesting point around an individual with bpd finding others 13:43 who will well dance the same dance the same dance right and what i've always heard i when you said that 13:50 the attachment theory bit clicked for me because i always think anxious avoidant right anxious finds avoidant avoidance 13:56 finds anxiousness and they and they end up in these situations um and that that really draws a parallel 14:02 for me so i think there might be some merit to what you're saying about but the anxious avoidance deal slides into a 14:07 concept called the isolator and the pursuer right and the isolator chases the or it runs from the pursuer until 14:14 they get to the extreme end of the pendulum swing then the pursuer finally says screw it this didn't work and i give up and in that exact instant they 14:21 reverse rolls then the pursuer becomes the isolator starts to go back and and the isolator chases them 14:27 and said wait wait wait they get to the other end of the pendulum so they just their relationship is a cyclical history 14:33 of role reversal so uh harper hendricks is the guy that uh developed that there yeah i know that 14:39 from uh the american whitaker and and judith uh 14:45 i'm blanking on her last name divorced no um uh 14:53 anyway i'll think of it eventually hopefully but but and and they talk about this idea of they call it 14:58 dismissive and preoccupied instead of pursuer and and and yeah and isolator um but exactly that dynamic 15:06 that that and that that it has to do with the way in which that they utilize conflict in the concept in the context 15:12 of the relationship so one person's going to use conflict to try and initiate intimacy the other partner is 15:18 going to use conflict as a way to gain distance and that yes they're going to use that at cross purposes until the 15:26 pursuer yeah then feels frustrated stops and then yeah then they switch roles so 15:31 we do a lot of couples counseling marriage counseling in our career okay before we do that let's go to the break 15:36 and then uh we'll pick that up on the other side no i'm gonna pound okay hey guys dr michael mahan here from cyclic 15:42 night and do you think that you have a story to tell 15:48 i know that when we started psych with mike the things that we really wanted in 15:54 a podcast hosting company was that they knew what they were doing 16:00 and libsyn has been around since the very beginning they're the oldest running consecutive 16:06 still existing podcast hosting company in the entire world i think but certainly in the united states so 16:13 they've been around since people started uploading things to the internet and so they have a lot of 16:20 experience but we also needed a service that was easy to use and 16:26 libsyn is just so intuitive and even though they've got all of this experience they just keep on upgrading 16:33 so they just recently went through a major renovation a major upgrade to 16:39 libsyn5 and made the service even more intuitive and user friendly than it was 16:44 before and it was so user friendly before that i was able to figure it out 16:50 and get site with mike up on the surface so we've been using uh libsyn since the very beginning of 16:57 psych with mike for over two years now we love them and as a friend of the show 17:03 if you go to libsyn and start a podcast right now you get your first month free 17:09 so you go to libsyn.com and use the code 17:14 f-r-i-e-n-d so friend of the show friend that's l i b 17:20 s y n dot com and use the code f r i e n 17:26 d and you get your first month free and as always if it's friday it's cycling 17:33 are you still pouting no okay i'm over it go ahead in doing a lot of couples counseling 17:38 yeah you have to have a way to explain why does this always happen to me why you're like the alcoholic female 17:45 again the females married to an alcoholic male won't statistically divorce him just because 17:51 he's an alcoholic however should that ever happen then she says i've washed my hands of 17:57 that i'm going to go find somebody new right she goes and finds another alcoholic nine times out of ten and she swears 18:03 he was coming that wasn't visible and what you work on this thing it was 18:08 visible you have and we use the radial band theory frequency band theory you have certain 18:15 frequencies of attraction that you both send and receive like a radio 18:20 transmitter if we sent you to the convention center there were ten thousand people there there'd be a thousand people or 500 people 18:27 on your frequency those are the ones you would notice everybody else would just be a blob walking by but your radar says 18:33 target target target and you choose from among those targets and that's an 18:38 unconscious process yeah you're unaware oh yeah but but then you replicate the dance of relationship and get to the 18:44 same place and so if you want two chains one of the things you have to work on is 18:50 learning what your frequency modulators are and change them so that you then go out i mean how many conversations have 18:55 you had with somebody that says i don't find so and so to be attractive and i said well that's exactly i know that way exactly you know and they're like oh 19:02 that would be horrible well that's if you go find what's attractive to you right now it's going to get in the same 19:08 boat you're going to exactly there's a great um very approachable couple sets of books uh by 19:16 catherine woodward thomas uh one is called conscious uncoupling it's really good about how do i 19:22 end a relationship without a whole lot of drama and angst yes yes how what's the 19:29 best way to what's the best way to do a divorce yeah got a lot of attention like glenn paltrow and a few other 19:34 celebrities a while back the other one she has is called calling in the one um and it's talking exactly about what 19:40 you're talking about here setting your frequency dial to what you want in a partner and what you're saying you want 19:46 in the partner not just what you've had and what you say is not necessarily what you want because you gotta learn how to be honest with yourself who am i what am 19:52 i looking for let's say the average what is the the average distance between marriages right 19:57 between divorce and second marriage or next marriage is about nine months right and how much growth and personal 20:04 reflection can you really do in those nine months well there are some patterns there too i mean typically uh 20:10 men won't ask for a divorce unless they've already found a replacement 20:15 women will ask for divorce because they feel unfulfilled violated frustrated empty and they say 20:23 you're not doing it for me so i want you to go away they haven't even begun to look for a replacement at that point but they're 20:29 able to say this is not good for me men typically are not they they're like little kids on the jungle gym they won't 20:35 turn loose to this bar until they have this one in hand 20:40 so i think you have to look at the sex of the person uh as you have those conversations what 20:46 language can you hear which is one of the clinical challenges you face as a therapist how do i hear the language of 20:53 neurolinguistic programming the the usage of the person sitting in the chair 20:58 ops at me as i try to learn who they are and how they reveal themselves to me because when i want to make an 21:04 intervention i'm much more successful if i can intervene with terms that resonate with 21:11 them yeah well and so you know then 21:17 i think let me start a different way based on the conversation that we're having 21:24 i would ask you guys would you agree with this that we started this by talking about is personality 21:30 indelible across the lifespan is it is it is it consistent from the money that you're born until the minute you die and 21:37 i think what we're all saying is that may not be that's what i was taught when i was an undergraduate at st louis university 21:43 back in the 1980s that personality was pretty fixed that there wasn't a whole lot you could do to really 21:50 change that you could learn write different behavior modifiers but the personality was pretty consistent but i 21:57 think what we're saying is maybe that's not as fixed as 22:02 people used to say that it was is that fair yes okay so would you agree i don't i do 22:08 agree i do agree i remember i'm trying to look it up because i don't remember who did the study 22:14 uh but there there was a really controversial study that come out maybe 10 years ago that says you get a new 22:21 personality every five years or so that would be interesting and i i thought about 22:27 my my 10-year high school reunion is supposed to be next year and i thought about how excited i was and like most people 22:33 aren't very excited for their 10-year reunion um well unless they did really well in life and want to go show off 22:39 but how excited i was to meet some of the people again and and meet who they had become 22:46 because i i'm really viewing it through the lens of not catching up with old friends but rather meeting new people 22:52 where they are at now right okay so what i would though my my reaction to that 22:58 would be just because so like all of us are clearly very different than we were in 23:05 high school is that do we have new personalities because of that or 23:10 is that just a function of the developmental process we have more and 23:15 better clothes we have more money we present ourselves with some of the better cosmetic 23:20 presentations right i've been to high school reunions where the high school stars the star athlete 23:27 the cheerleader you know are they never moved beyond those days their best days are behind them and they were behind 23:33 them at 17. they're stuck they're frozen in time 23:38 but i would say that you know and and even before i was almost 60 23:45 you know let's say even 40. at 40 years old i represented every single thing 23:50 that i despised when i was 16. and was my personality different 23:56 i don't know so if you want to you want to make your wife upset say to her that you hear her mother's 24:02 voice coming oh no i would no my god no i would never say that because we all 24:07 say that i don't want to hear my dad's voice come out of my mouth but my children have heard it and he's been 24:13 dead all their lives but they've heard his voice saying his words 24:18 because he never met him so right so infuriates me yeah you know he's dead he's supposed to stay dead 24:24 why is he talking to him well i wonder if the question that you're getting at here is where do we draw the line between personality and environment 24:31 or or just reaction or evolutionary development yeah 24:37 yeah and are those are are they different i mean are they the same thing right because if personality 24:43 is a function of development well then obviously yes it should evolve over the 24:48 course of the lifespan but if personality is different from emotional development if it's a separate thing 24:54 like you said we were talking earlier and we were talking about that a lot of 24:59 people say that as you get older you return to a 25:04 lot of childlike behaviors right and you had said that uh brett you had said that if you were a curmudgeon at in your old 25:11 age you were probably a curmudgeon as a child and i said oh well that's great because i was a delightful child which 25:18 may or may not have been true there are those among us who would disagree yeah but but if you do return to a lot of 25:25 those same characteristics childlike behaviors as you get older that would actually be 25:31 a a plank in the in the in the board or in the the 25:36 platform that says personality is consistent well all i can say to that is people who 25:42 are listening if they have those questions come back next week and see if we were saying see if we're saying the same thing 25:48 yeah well we probably won't be because we'll forget what we said because that's a function of old age yeah right so uh 25:55 you know i don't know if i am after this conversation if i'm more 26:02 on the side of personalities consistent or more on the side of the personality can change but i will say 26:07 that i do have very different ideas about the consistency of that 26:15 at you know 58 than i did when i was 40. certainty is a problem 26:21 and for clinicians you have to understand you live in a land of smoke and mirrors constantly evolving constantly changing 26:28 i wish somebody had told me that when i was starting out somebody did tell you when you were starting out i was there 26:36 but you are so right that that uh everything is an evolution and it you 26:42 know you if you have an opinion that you feel like you are absolutely wed to that 26:49 is the core of your identity that will never change 26:55 i mean i i would not i would not encourage anybody to hold fast to those things 27:01 because you may find yourself at a point in your life where that no longer applies i've gone to the place where i 27:07 don't think donuts are nearly as good as i used to think donuts were amen yeah well i used to say the same thing 27:14 and now that i'm older it's it's changing yeah it's funny we face the same problem in engineering um so i don't know if 27:21 people remember was speaking last time on the show my day job i'm a i'm a software engineer and we talk about 27:29 the level of risk and reward between putting out new features so every time 27:34 you you release a new feature you carry some level of risk with that feature because there's a process going from in 27:42 development to in production and in whenever you run through that process you always run the risk of 27:48 introducing a bug or introducing a problem into the system and so we really hit at the dichotomy between reliability 27:55 engineers and feature engineers who say reliability engineers say i never want 28:00 this thing to change i've got automatic processes that spin it back up if it goes down or if there's a bug and 28:07 feature engineers who say well nobody's ever going to get any value out of this thing if there are no new features 28:14 and so it's one of the challenges for microsoft word yeah they they don't add new features but they change features around right yeah under the illusion 28:21 that there has been change and so then you have to figure out how the hell does this work now mm-hmm so i wonder buy an apple it's so interesting to see to hear 28:28 the parallels between between um psychology and engineering and clinician 28:34 work and all of these things it always my family is diverse my wife is a 28:40 microsoft person and i'm an apple person i hear her cussing her computer much more often than she hears me cussing 28:46 mine i wonder if that's because she cusses more than i do i don't know 28:52 [Laughter] she has more reason that's i know your wife a little bit and i find that 28:57 difficult to believe oh well but uh yeah i know i the the day that i took the job 29:04 running the graduate program at webster there was an apple on the desk and i 29:11 said to myself i'm going to figure out how to use this because the whole campus was was apple um and i and it and it's 29:17 familiar enough if your pc apples are familiar enough that you know you should 29:23 be able to do a thing and that you can do it but it's dissimilar enough that it's hard to figure out how to do it and 29:29 i got so frustrated i called after about 20 minutes called i.t and said look you're not the same person yeah 29:38 i i was going to throw it out the window they came and replaced it with a pc thank god let's end this thing yeah okay 29:44 all right so hopefully uh that was elucidating for somebody out there um 29:50 elizabeth okay yeah what what what's it's elucidative not a lucid dating 29:57 elucidative why one's a process if it's a process it's elucidative 30:05 okay so what is it if it's dating it's uh adverb 30:10 okay i still don't understand the difference it's a verb oh okay then but 30:15 okay fine yeah you can be both okay yeah but elusive 30:28 there you go so uh the music that appears inside with mike is written and performed by mr ben we'll miss you next 30:33 week uh who's going to be not be here 30:40 any of us apparently uh we really would like it if anybody 30:46 would go to uh the websites find us on apple podcasts and uh leave us some 30:52 comment and rate us but if you really really want to help us out the best way to do that is to find us on the youtubes 30:59 search psych with mike and subscribe to the show and as always if it's friday it's psych with mike 31:05 my father used to say to me on a regular basis we'll miss you at the next family reunion

This week we are joined by St. Louis Professional Counselor, Michelle Steeg. Michelle, Brett, and. I discuss men in psychotherapy.   Contact Michelle https://michellesteeg.com/   What kind of issues do men face? https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/men-issues   Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:19 [Music] welcome into the psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon and i am 0:25 actually here with mr brett newcomb hello and mystery guest would you like to 0:30 introduce yourself yeah i thought you were going to do my intro i can no it's all right my name is 0:37 michelle stieg i am a former student of both of yours but i'm a licensed professional 0:43 counselor here in st louis as well and i'm here to put my two cents in today and i think that anybody who heard you 0:50 say that should not hold that against you right 0:56 because if the therapy sucks you'll train me right survival here we go i know 1:01 now anybody who's ever been in therapy with michelle says oh well that explains it makes sense now now i get it it all 1:06 checks out so uh we wanted to get together because my 1:13 understanding is michelle that you had had a conversation with brett about 1:18 some epiphanies that you had had and so why don't you tell us a little bit about that and 1:24 how that happened for you sure so i was you know by volume i've seen more women 1:30 in my career but i also think that's just because more women seek out counseling services but i would really 1:36 say that i do uh specialize in working with men and adolescent boys um and that's i mean 1:42 that's been typically from the very beginning of my career and so 1:47 i've seen quite a few more men over the past few years and i would say about 70 1:52 of my practice at this point has been men and what i had reached out to him about for 1:59 a potential topic with you guys was just some patterns that uh that i've been seeing and it and it 2:04 really goes kind of across the board with all of the men whom i see and so 2:10 then i was just also kind of observing the men in my life and seeing some of the similar patterns and so 2:17 um you know a consistent theme that i see with men who come into my office is a 2:23 genuine lack of self-awareness people not just men will come to 2:30 counseling and say i want you know i'm coming to you for this issue and here's what i want to get out of therapy and we 2:35 all know that that's you know what the presenting issue is is never the issue it's never the issue right 2:41 but i tell people all the time men and women alike that i cannot offer you 2:46 anything you are seeking without the awareness 2:51 if you don't have the awareness of the patterns and the things that you're doing in your life i can't offer you anything that 2:58 you've come here seeking so what you're saying is they have to be self-aware correct 3:04 but i would suggest that you can facilitate that if they don't have it absolutely open to the process yes they 3:12 have to essentially surrender to the process and surrender to the fact that they 3:17 aren't self-aware so yeah um i want to lay this on the table 3:22 i have also seen michelle in therapy as my therapist i uh practiced 3:28 therapy as a clinician for 35 years yeah and then i retired and in retirement decided it was time to 3:35 do something that people told me for 35 years i needed to do which is go to therapy and i thought the hell i know 3:40 everything why did i do that amen and i had also read a book which i think 3:46 is seminal for me the book was maybe you should speak to someone about a therapist who went to therapy 3:52 so i went to michelle and i 3:59 was worried about that because of the dynamics of our history student 4:05 friend therapist and all the corruption of those relationships but i was more worried about that 4:11 because of what i knew about myself yeah in that i can be very competitive and very gamey 4:17 and play lots of head games and i had to be and i ask you as a way to insulate you 4:24 from having to be real yes and to protect me and some people in power position and control the 4:30 circumstances yeah the one things that i asked michelle to do i said i am going to make an honest effort not to play 4:35 those games and not to be the professor the knowing therapist the mentor or whatever but be 4:42 me and look in the mirror for me and you wanted her to point it out whenever she saw me 4:47 not doing it and also to compound that issue my wife was sitting there because she went with me so these two women who 4:54 know me very well i asked them if i'm doing the thing please point 4:59 that out they were more than happy to do that [Laughter] 5:06 she and i were great co-therapists oh you are you are is always helpful 5:12 so that's all i want to put all that on the table before we got into this conversation about awareness because i think it's critical the critical 5:17 conditions so in response to what you were saying michelle as far as the idea of being 5:24 more aware i only can come at that from my own 5:30 experience as a man but also as somebody who's been in therapy done a lot of therapy over 5:36 the years and i remember when i first started in the process of recovery 5:44 there was a christmas and my wife had put the tree up and had strung the 5:49 lights on it and after she had done that she had asked me do you want to help me 5:54 put the ornaments on the tree and i said oh i got your ornaments right 5:59 here and i was taking these glass ornaments and i was flinging them up against the fireplace yeah and so i and 6:06 i i was just thinking about a four step for people who don't know a fourth step is where you do it fearless and 6:12 searching moral inventory and uh the first thing that i put on my fourth 6:17 step was people make me angry and so that was my first i thought you said you 6:23 were going to buy her some christmas ornaments no well somebody had to go buy some new produces 6:29 because she was like you're you're insane you're crazy and i was like oh well see here's the problem is people make me angry you make me angry 6:37 and then after a while when i was able to sit with that and think about it then i realized oh no i get angry right and 6:46 then i realized oh i get angry because i'm insecure because christmas in my house growing up was a time of fear not 6:53 a time of joy and so what i want to make sure that people understand is that 6:59 level of awareness is a process and you don't have to get to a point of complete 7:04 nakedness in the first session you should go through a process because 7:11 that's the only way that you're going to allow yourself to be real and genuine and that's my job 7:16 yeah that's my job to walk you through that process because if you could do it on your own we wouldn't be here but i 7:22 also want to state like for the record on records somewhere here in your psych 7:29 with mike library that it was the privilege of my career to work with you so i need that stated 7:35 now with that said um that'll get edited out no it won't okay 7:43 i would say yeah that's my my job is to get you to that level of awareness and 7:48 that it's a bit of an arduous process because i think as we were talking before 7:53 so much of a man's experience you know from 7:59 their childhood on has to be performative right so we're constantly competing with 8:05 one another trying to keep up with each other trying to not look weak trying to not look vulnerable 8:11 trying to look strong so everything up into a certain point in a man's life 8:16 has really been performative so it would make sense that men struggle to have 8:24 a lot of that self-awareness and we think yeah people make me angry when it's actually 8:30 so much deeper than that and i say it all the time like that's why men are so beautifully complicated 8:37 because it's not that they're being obstinate in not having the self-awareness they often just truly 8:45 don't ever see this just to play the game yeah and that's what they learn i'm interested in as you're saying this 8:52 are you framing that in terms of men's interactions and relationships with other men 8:58 or also with women i think it's all relative i think it starts with others yeah so i 9:05 think it starts with with other men you know i 9:11 the last when i was in education the last building i worked in was with 600 teenage boys all day every day so it was 9:18 i mean what i saw was just this highly competitive um 9:24 constant flexing constant roasting i would have kids come in the seniors would come in and they would be balling 9:29 saying like i don't know what i'm gonna do you know brett looks like he knows exactly where he's going he wants to be 9:35 an engineer he's going to ralla that's how it is i'd get him packaged up out the door and brett would walk right in and brett 9:42 would be crying going everybody thinks i should be an engineer and i don't want to do it but it looks like mike knows 9:48 exactly what he's doing so it was this constant cycle of performing that i then saw carry over like in my 9:56 practice like with females but they weren't even necessarily aware 10:01 that they were doing it but they did with females have the ability to soften 10:07 and the females were able their girlfriends or their partners were able to um kind of pull out of them more of that 10:14 sensitive intimate layer yeah and it would approach it from that 10:19 perspective though i want that piece from you i want that i want to know more about you and often men will look at themselves on 10:25 what you're talking about i don't have that people right why are you asking me for that one of my favorite things with 10:30 men and this one client who had so my favorite clients to work with are 10:35 men who think therapy is it's my favorite i love it like they set my world on fire so i have a guy i'm 10:40 working with who thinks therapy is of course and he says i asked him something i said how did it 10:46 make you feel and he goes frustrated because that's all that's typically the first thing i hear from men they're angry or frustrated i've also never met 10:53 a man who wasn't completely terrified of his anger on some level but he says i'm 10:59 it makes me really frustrated it's okay say more about that tell me more and he goes 11:07 i don't know how and we both started laughing because it's true and it wasn't that i was laughing because i was making 11:13 fun of me it's true they don't know how and part of that is vocabulary correct and being 11:20 able to say i'm frustrated instead of i'm angry right big step right i mean it's a breakthrough yes and and then you 11:25 you try to teach them other words for different layers of intensity i'm 11:31 i'm pissed off i'm miffed i'm irritated right i'm mad i'm angry i'm rageful 11:37 those levels are things that they were not taught no to distinguish no they might 11:44 be taught to read them in observation of another man how correct what's the temperature here uh 11:50 is he going to hit me right go to go to fist city uh but in terms of looking in the mirror 11:55 and seeing that no yeah well i always started off especially with men by saying 12:02 that big boys don't cry fear is a sign of weakness and so i did 12:08 he does this to me and i won't answer he won't answer really i know this is my first time i'll i'll let him hang there i'm gonna 12:14 do whatever you want i'll let him hang next time but i've been asking those questions for 12:20 close to 40 years and so thousands and thousands and thousands of times never gotten a different answer 12:26 and i would implore someone to tell me where these things are written down that's 50 of the 12:33 human emotional spectrum that we tell men they don't have the right to feel 12:39 and there's a lot of shame that goes into feeling those things and that to me is 12:45 the big hurdle that we go into therapy with men fighting against is how do we 12:52 make it okay for these guys to allow themselves even to contemplate that it's 12:59 okay to experience the complete spectrum of human emotions you're a human being 13:06 biologically andro chronology wise you are going to have these experiences what 13:12 do you do with that when you have this experience and then this shame message 13:17 tells you that you shouldn't have it you're going to sublimate that emotion you're going to take that energy you're going to dump it into something else and 13:23 usually that's anger and so these guys present as horribly horribly angry and 13:29 it's only because they're taking all of the energy for every emotion they've ever felt in their life and they're 13:34 dumping it into being mad because they don't know what else to do yes and then again like i said i've never met a man though who was not acutely afraid 13:42 of his anger but the shame that men carry is profound 13:49 like the the insecurity and shame that runs through their veins just 13:56 existing is it's i don't know i just have a lot of empathy in working with men because 14:03 underneath that anger is so much softness that 14:09 the world has kind of shamed out of them so a question from you 14:16 how as a woman and a therapist how aware are you of being able to sit in a 14:23 room with a rageful male and not having your own echoes in response to 14:29 that of anxiety or fear or submission yeah 14:36 because when i taught for 35 years people to be clinicians that was a real issue for 14:43 women wanting to be therapists uh how do you get out of your own way with your own passion your own history 14:50 of responding to angry men because the critical point i believe and i've said throughout all these podcasts 14:57 that we've done is you have to create the safe holding environment he has to be able to be there 15:02 and be present with those feelings and you have to be able to hold that and not come with your own issues 15:09 before you answer that question we're going to go to our break and then we'll have you answer that question on the other side okay 15:16 wow we've already done half of this traveler that'll get edited out 15:22 one hopes hey everybody dr michael mahoney here from psych with mike and i couldn't be 15:27 more excited to talk to you about athletic greens which is a new sponsor we have here on the show i started 15:33 taking athletic greens watching some youtube videos and doing my own 15:38 research i wanted to add something to my daily workout program to give me some energy and to support gut health and 15:46 that was the one thing that kept coming up again and again with athletic greens is the guy who started the company 15:52 did a bunch of research because he was having some gut health issues that he couldn't get any resolution for he 15:59 developed athletic greens and it's just exploded from there so it's 75 16:04 superfoods vitamins minerals probiotics whole food sources that's all in one 16:11 daily scoop you put it in 8 or 12 ounces of water you shake it up and you drink it the taste is very very drinkable i 16:19 actually enjoy it and i have been using it and my energy levels have just been through the roof i 16:26 really like athletic greens because of some of the sustainability things that they do so they buy carbon 16:34 credits and you know to help protect the rainforest which is something that i really like 16:40 but if you order athletic greens in your subscription you're going to also get a 16:45 year's supply of their vitamin d supplementation and five free travel 16:51 packs and that vitamin d is so important during those winter months when we're 16:56 not getting enough sunlight we've talked about how that decreases your mood and 17:02 increases depression and that can be a real deal changer so you go to 17:07 athleticgreens.com emerging that's athleticgreens.com 17:13 e-m-e-r-g-i-n-g that's the psych with mic promo and 17:19 you're going to get that additional vitamin d support for a year and five 17:24 free travel packs so take control of your own health today and as always if 17:30 it's friday it's psych with mike okay we're back and so uh the question 17:37 is again can you yeah as a female sitting in the room with a really 17:43 intensely angry man how do you create a safe holding environment for him to experience those feelings without 17:51 having your own alarms set off for your safety yeah so 17:57 a couple things first off my vetting process in working with men like um 18:03 i do believe that i specialize in working with men but i'm also not gonna work with a man who i don't 18:08 like just off the street he's gonna have to have a referral from somebody that i know and trust 18:13 or that i've worked with in the past um because i know the relationships there and they 18:18 wouldn't send me anybody who would harm me okay so first that's um 18:24 kind of the first piece is the vetting process but 18:29 i think you have to understand too that like my entire history has been surrounded 18:36 with men my two mentors were men jerry and jerry johnson and tom michler 18:43 um you know both of them don't you mike i do so they were my mentors when i was in 18:50 school with you guys and then afterwards i had you right we stayed in contact you are 18:55 profoundly impactful in my life then i was already working with men doing therapy i'm in my own therapy 19:04 but working especially with high school adolescent males really set the foundation for me to be 19:11 able to sit with grown men in their anger because you could see the high school 19:16 boy in there absolutely like when it's crazy because when i have a grown 19:22 man and i i mean like there's i'm picturing a handful of my clients i 19:28 mean they are over six three massive massive men filled with rage in front of me 19:35 and i i see a kid yeah so when i experience male rage in front of me 19:41 there is something that happens in my system that immediately softens so you 19:46 see woundedness i do i really i really really do because anger is a emotion it's a mask 19:53 it's it's it's sadness is bodyguard you know it's it's hurts bodyguard or at least that's how i see it in most 20:01 instances so as soon as that rage comes up i'm not activated because i see harm i 20:08 see shame and i also build i feel like the relationship with the men that i work with like 20:15 they're not going to hurt me yeah they care about me yeah and i they know 20:21 that i care about them so like it's not threatening to me 20:27 so you can do the reflective listening to say i feel your rage i feel you wallowing in it but 20:34 i also know that you're not going to hurt me or yourself no in this moment correct and so 20:40 can you talk out loud about what you're feeling can you put words to it yeah 20:47 that's an invitation and an observation but it's also a message correct okay correct because they i mean you have to 20:54 think about it too like i mean the man that i work with i mean they get really protective of me too and 21:00 they are afraid to rage in front of me because they don't want to scare me and so it's this 21:06 shift of energy that happens in that moment in the relationship where i have to show them 21:11 that i'm not afraid of them yeah and there's a lot of not in a muscle up 21:17 muscle up i'm not afraid of you i can't take you out but in a i understand yeah what this is happening 21:23 inside you and i'm not afraid of it tolerate your anger and not 21:29 shy away from it or need to control you or shut it down right so can you then allow yourself to 21:36 not be afraid of it because that's right the next step is that how do you then take that and 21:42 you know for me when i work with men in that situation you know my next step is 21:49 going to be what are you mad about i mean what's going on here that because 21:55 anger is a part of the fight-or-flight syndrome so the only rational reason to 22:01 experience anger is if you're going to defend yourself so you have to feel that whatever the threat is is significant 22:09 enough that that would be a warranted response what's happening in this moment that would make you feel this way and 22:15 99.9 of the time the answer is nothing and so it's not really anger it's it's 22:21 covering for something else i'm fine yeah right yeah right okay cool yeah 22:26 yeah so i lost it um that's because you're old 22:32 that's what nothing because i'm old i can't that's because i don't hear um 22:40 if you can invite them oh i know what it was 22:46 as a clinician one of the skills that you have to learn is to avoid counter transference 22:52 and counter transference issues are so subtle you don't always see them coming you don't know that you have them unless 22:58 maybe you're in therapy yourself which i avoided uh but how do you 23:04 not steer away and uh redirect the conversation redirect the 23:10 emotional experience how do you just sit in the presence of intense emotions whether it's grief or rage or sadness or 23:16 loss or guilt or what shame whatever it is without 23:21 steering it from your own agendas that to me is a clinical question and three clinicians in the room how do we 23:28 learn to do that how do we do that in a way that then facilitates the client 23:33 being able to safely be held while they feel whatever they need to feel 23:39 and then help them put words to it and i'm curious what you both think about that well i would say i mean you've 23:45 experienced so i am trained to do internal family systems theory 23:51 therapy so parts work um in ifs we talk about dropping into self so 23:57 essentially what that means is i'm not i'm not blended with a bunch of parts that are trying to take me places or 24:03 protect me or whatever so essentially i've kind of trained my body to become acutely aware 24:09 of what it looks like what it feels like in my system when i have dropped into some flare when you trigger correct so i 24:16 i'm really aware of the chatter that i hear in my head i think that like you have to train yourself to be like 24:23 acutely aware of parts that step into that have an agenda or they're trying to lead 24:30 um because when i'm in self when i'm sitting with one of those 24:36 clients who's raging or just filled with grief or shame i tell people all the time and it's 24:41 something that i do hear when i'm in self is my my job is not 24:46 my job is to hear you in a way that no one in your life possibly can 24:52 yes that including yourself including absolutely and so 24:59 when i hear a lot of chatter i know i'm uh something's happening there and so i can redirect myself or i 25:05 tell my client flat out like can you keep listening right now right right i'm hearing a lot of chatter in my head 25:10 right now so that tells me something's happening here so why can we can we redirect this i don't know that's 25:16 kind of how i approach it and for me when i hear that chatter what that says 25:21 to me is there's something real going on and this chatter is specifically designed to 25:28 elicit a response from me because people are so afraid of silence and so if i the 25:35 chatter comes up and then i react to it now we're running down the rabbit hole of i'm chasing the chatter and i think 25:42 that that is the point at which silence is a profoundly powerful tool don't 25:49 respond like people experience the emotion don't touch them don't don't 25:54 talk to a clinical skill yeah just absolutely let them be with it and i say you know i'm gonna let you simmer a minute and and we're gonna see what 26:01 happens and you're going to be the next person to respond so michael garzini 26:07 yeah taught us yeah you and i identity about projective identification i really like him and 26:15 his understanding of that was that if you sit in the silence and 26:20 feel the emotions from the client then you need to ask the client 26:27 your definition of understanding what you're feeling is it possible that this is coming from you 26:35 is that a message from you that i need to hear and clients will typically go oh no no no that's not me i i would feel 26:40 that or say that but michael taught us to do that and to work with the data feedback that we were 26:47 getting yes because it's a discovery process it's an invitation to the client 26:53 that says it's really okay if these are words that we use it's really okay if these are feelings that we have we can 26:58 have those we're in here with the door closed nobody else knows and then we can process that what does 27:04 it feel like to be asked that question if i can if you can't feel the feeling can you feel what it feels like not to 27:11 be able to feel the feeling now can we discuss that i do want to say since we are weird this is specifically designed 27:17 to be targeted to people who may be doing therapy right that one of the things that i am very very specific 27:23 about when we get to this point especially with men is i don't want you to act in the real world the way you're 27:30 acting in this room right now i don't want you to take this and act this way because you think this is the 27:36 way you're supposed to act you know and or because you're not ready right right you can't take this show on the road exactly right so it's okay for you to 27:43 feel this here for you to behave this way here but that doesn't mean you should behave this way 27:49 everywhere maybe you will eventually but not right now it's unsafe right yes it 27:54 would be unsafe for them to do that and explaining that to them along the way 28:00 shows them that like i i want you to do this the right way 28:05 because you have power exactly you've got options you've got power and every time you do that and explain that to them 28:12 you're creating more awareness you're modeling the awareness for them like it's it's 28:18 such a journey and the safety and the safe holding right we can have these uh 28:23 you married couples going through divorce counseling or marriage counseling may lead to divorce 28:29 i would often tell them one of the common daydream night dream fantasies 28:34 that people in your situation have is they fantasize that their partner was 28:40 killed in a car wreck or that they're walking down the street and a tree falls on them or something and they die because being the widow or widower 28:48 who now is free from the constraints of this dysfunctional relationship but without any responsibility yes is what 28:54 your subconscious is telling you wouldn't that be nice right and then they look at each other and they both go like 29:00 well but what what they don't acknowledge to themselves is through their own passive 29:05 aggressive behavior they've been trying to play out that fantasy for how many years before they came to the office so 29:13 people do that and i tell people all the time your partner is engaged in a passive aggressive activity that is 29:20 designed to get you to leave so that they can then say it's not my fault exactly right well it goes back to what 29:26 michelle said initially it's not my fault i didn't do it right has the power let's see what you made me do right the 29:31 power to not make choices to force people into corners so they make the choices on your 29:37 behalf and it's just such a delusion because the only thing that any of us actually have control over is our own 29:44 behavior and our own thinking but we delude ourselves into believing that we 29:49 should have control over all of everything everybody else does and never 29:54 take responsibility for what we do it's just so backwards but it feels comfortable but 30:00 it's also a great game that clients can play in therapy if i can get you to talk 30:06 to me about why did my father do this why did he behave this way why do you treat me this way instead of me talking 30:12 about what did that feel like to me correct or how can i respond differently so that i don't become my father but i 30:18 think that also depends on the clinician that you're working with if they're able to catch that we're focusing just on your dad 30:24 instead of we're not talking about you yeah which again i think with men in particular that's an easy dance to do 30:32 and you have to be able to hear it as their therapist and pick up on it like i see what your dad has done here let's 30:38 let's talk about you and that impact on you right so it's not that the information from the family of 30:44 origin isn't important but the only way that it's important is how did that 30:50 behavior how did those situations cause you to feel and respond you used to have 30:55 a conversation with uh people with abuse histories all the time to say you are not responsible for how you got 31:02 here you are a survivor of other people's victimization what you are responsible 31:08 for is how you leave here and you can have the power and the freedom to make these choices and do 31:13 different things and live differently but you have to do that mm-hmm yeah and you if you just keep looking in your 31:20 navel and saying oh this happened this is tragic you won't ever be any different no and your relationships will 31:27 never go to the depths that you're probably seeking yeah 31:32 so that actually is a good point for us to 31:37 bring this thing to a close uh let me just say that was an incredibly clinical 31:44 discussion 31:50 you're welcome as always the music that appears inside with mike is written and performed by mr benjamin the clue and 31:57 what we are asking people to do is find us on the internet's go to 32:03 apple podcast find site with mike and give us a rating and leave us a comment that is super 32:09 beneficial but the most helpful thing for us is for everybody to go to the 32:15 youtubes find psych with mike and subscribe to the show there even if you access the show primarily through the 32:21 audio version if you would go to the youtubes and subscribe to the show on youtube that's 32:26 super super beneficial and as always if it's friday it's psych with mike 32:32 [Music] 32:50 you

The trauma of children is something that I feel very passionate about. But to be good at helping kids process their trauma, you first have to understand how they process information.  https://childmind.org/guide/helping-children-cope-after-a-traumatic-event/   Transcript: 0:00 you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:19 welcome into the psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon and i am here today with mr brett newcomb and with 0:25 intern michael good morning good morning young man how are you doing i'm all right so this is the friday 0:34 after the horrible shooting in texas in uvalde texas and uh 0:41 i'm i feel um i feel uh i feel a certain weight on my 0:47 chest do you guys feel that do you feel a different weight because children involved and then you felt in 0:52 buffalo 10 days ago absolutely yeah yeah interesting um so i read every 0:59 word that stephen king wrote until i read pet cemetery 1:04 and pet cemetery is obviously includes a child in it 1:10 and that was something that profoundly impacted me and i and and included a 1:16 child in a way that made the child kind of evil and that was something that was really 1:23 hard for me to process and i didn't read any stephen king after that i have the same thing with anne rice and 1:30 the way that she uses claudia and interview with a vampire um the the 1:35 when you there's just something different for me there's something different about kids than 1:41 adults and you would not want to read orson scott card's book lost boys 1:47 uh no i'd like watson scott card but i probably would not read that one will make you cry your eyes out yeah tragic 1:53 tale yeah even even some of the ender's game series gets a little dicey in that 1:59 regard yeah absolutely i mean when you're when you're recruiting the children specifically for 2:07 that purpose yeah i mean and and you know that you're doing it i mean it's intentional i mean that's and we're 2:13 getting very esoteric now but but yes i feel definitely that there is a difference 2:18 between children and adults is that is that unique am i 2:24 do you guys feel that way i don't know that i've thought it 2:29 through i would just have emotional reactions i'm not sure how useful that is yeah 2:34 yeah but uh the and and so 2:41 maybe a part of why this is prescient for me is because 2:48 after 9 11 you and i were working in a group 2:53 practice at that time yes yeah okay you remember that of course and 2:58 the day that that happened the day that 9 11 happened i was sitting on the 3:06 parking lot of a computer store retail computer store because the 3:12 person who ran that office had given me permission the day before that to 3:17 actually network the office for the first time in the history of our office and so i 3:23 was there buying cable and routers and things like that to be able to create an internet network at our 3:31 office for the first time that we had ever had and i don't even remember if you remember this but i had ran cables down the walls and stuff like that 3:37 vaguely and tiger woods was in town for 3:43 a pga the pga was at belle reeve in st louis here that day uh that week for the 3:50 pga championship tiger wood was supposed to be putting on an expose he was at the height of his popularity and i was 3:57 sitting on the parking lot listening to the coverage of golf and i heard about the planes flying into 4:05 the twin trade towers and i was mortified and i came to work that day came to the office and i had clients 4:12 scheduled and i said to you i don't know if i can do this 4:18 and you said well if you can't do it that's fine but i would promote the idea to you that if 4:26 you're having a hard time then your clients are having a hard time and so i 4:31 stayed and i and i did therapy that day and i was glad that i did but 4:37 in the aftermath of that because we worked with a lot of school districts i was tasked with 4:42 putting together some kind of presentation about what the impact of this was on kids because if you remember 4:50 that day everybody wheeled vcrs and whatever i mean i don't even remember what the technology was but 4:57 wheeled uh televisions into the classrooms and they were showing this stuff and the 5:03 the the news coverage was putting this on a loop and one of the things that came out of 5:10 the research after that day was kids can't understand the difference between 5:16 this happened once 35 minutes ago and it's the same plane over and over again they were 5:22 re-traumatized every time they saw the new events and so this started a whole 5:28 investigation into how's the difference between the way that kids process 5:34 information and the way that parents process information and as adults and 5:40 especially when we ourselves are having an emotional reaction i don't think we always understand or appreciate the 5:48 differences between the way that the children process that information 5:53 and so one of the things that i'm that's why for me it's different when we talk 5:58 about kids than adults because i did a lot of that research at that time and 6:04 understand that that's different and i just feel for any child right now my son's a teacher 6:11 in and middle school and so not as young as these kids but i was talking to him 6:16 yesterday and i said you know this has just got to be devastating he said i i don't even know he said i don't know what to do we're just we're just 6:23 doing emotional first aid well you still don't know what to do in the state of missouri missouri is the fourth highest 6:30 number of gun deaths per hundred thousand state in the union it's higher than texas 6:36 uh 48 of people in missouri own guns but the state legislature has been 6:43 pushing all this year that teachers are pedophiles that we can't allow them to choose textbooks or curriculum that 6:49 they're all going to teach crt and we need to watch them like hawks now they're saying let's give them guns i 6:54 was just going to say but now they're done what's wrong with them it's you know unbelievable i hate 6:59 it yeah and they all chase their own particular will of the west solution right um 7:08 the argument i don't know there is an argument the question uh about clinicians that comes to my 7:14 mind when you say what you've just said is in a crisis if you're not calm can you do therapy 7:22 should you do therapy if you can become is it helpful to your client for you to do therapy 7:29 and i think you have to ask yourself those questions and because you you can't do the counter transplant stuff of 7:34 working out your own i was just going to say right in the room with the client right and and that's why we always 7:40 recommend that clinicians have supervision and they have other people working that they can go to in a moment 7:46 of crisis i remember working with lynelle sutherland when she found out that one of her clients had 7:52 been killed she interrupted a session of mine and pulled me out in the hall and she said i need a hug and she needed to cry 7:58 and then she needed to stabilize herself before she could go in with a client 8:04 and you have to do that you can't bring your stuff to the table it's a real challenge 8:11 but then as a human being as a parent you have to also 8:16 try to absorb the sense of loss and ask the questions 8:22 how how do we deal with children with questions right we deal with parents with questions well how do we move forward what do we 8:29 do right and and we then even broaden that beyond 8:36 just if you're a clinician every teacher in every classroom in america right now 8:43 is having to do that for themselves and their class well teachers and kids at 8:48 all level brackets are exposed to movies video games 8:55 news media whatever there's a story out this morning about 11 year old girl that survived the 9:02 shooting she laid on top of one of her friend's bodies and scooped up his blood and rubbed it all over and pretended to be 9:08 dead now at 11 she had that much self-awareness and other 9:14 awareness to try to figure out how to survive yeah but then today when she's telling the story about it she can't be 9:20 interviewed by a man so she started hyperventilating she could talk to a woman 9:27 how do kids process how do we help them process and just 9:32 your ordinary classroom teacher i mean i'm just a boy from podunk arkansas sitting in a 9:37 classroom trying to teach social studies what do i know about surviving trauma what do i know about murderers what do i 9:43 know about machine gun assaults in the room and 9:49 how am i going to help those kids right how do i do that well so the first thing is how do kids process information and 9:56 and one of the things that i think is predominantly important is that people 10:02 understand kids process information differently than adults 10:07 and while hopefully most of us as adults we have some ability to use the ducks 10:14 there i love the duck we have the ability to use some form of abstraction 10:19 right so we can understand that these events that happened happened 10:25 in texas and that's thousands of miles away kids process information black and white 10:31 they are just concrete hence the name concrete development right concrete operations and so 10:37 a kid sees something happen in a school that looks just like their school 10:44 they don't know that that school's two thousand miles away from them that could be next door that could be in the 10:50 classroom next door to them so that trauma is much more real for them 10:55 because the way that they're interpreting reality is different than the way that adults interpret reality 11:01 and one of the things that as i said before that they did in 911 was bring the the tvs into the classrooms and 11:08 people were watching it because the the adults wanted to know they were afraid 11:13 they were trying to get answers but they were leaving these things on a loop in front of the kids and every time that 11:20 plane hit a building the kids thought it was another plane hitting another building and so for them instead of two 11:26 planes or three planes hitting buildings they saw a thousand planes hit a building 11:31 you know we were pretty lucky um i i was in the first grade in 911 well there you go and uh 11:38 we they came across the intercom system and told teachers to turn off their 11:44 televisions that's a good administrator i was really very fortunate but you need that kind of leadership that knows what 11:50 to do and steps in and does it and then you need teachers that will follow the directions yes and they did they were 11:55 really really uh well done for the situation that it was so i didn't see any footage until 12:03 well after the day it happened we kept uh so we we had migration of kids from 12:09 classroom to classroom for different classes so you would go to one classroom for really first one for math yeah yeah 12:15 we i went to a fichen school or i'm sorry not a an edison school it's a 12:20 system of like magnet schools that does similar things um like montessori but 12:26 magnet and it's free um so uh they said everybody remains in the 12:33 classroom that they're in right now nobody leaves their current classroom teachers can swell teachers will swap 12:38 classrooms instead of students swapping classrooms um and my mom was a teacher in the in the 12:46 building at the time she was a teacher's assistant for a kindergarten class and she said no i'm smiling because teachers 12:52 really resist that they nest in those classrooms and they want to send the kids out and i got my stuff here my 12:57 coffee cup my picture of my kid yeah so they really they church yeah it was a challenge but 13:04 i think they did a good job with it and and what i remember from that day is 13:10 um my dad was military so he was on base their defcon won right they're on 13:16 lockdown phone calls aren't coming in or going out no no information whatsoever um my teacher asked 13:24 if i would like to call my mom because she was downstairs um and so we had a brief conversation and 13:30 mom said are you okay and i said yes that's all that that was it that was the whole conversation um 13:38 so i heard nothing more about what happened what was going on until uh the next day um dad didn't come 13:45 home that night right so he was stuck on base for well i think it was 48 hours um 13:52 and so i i do think that you know my generation was the last bastion of having tornado and 14:00 fire drills we never had school shooter drills um we were given information 14:05 about what to do in the event of an active shooter this was obviously post 14:12 columbine post columbine post colorado um post kent kent state university 14:19 um however we never had to do the drills and now kids do the drills and i wonder 14:25 about what that is like because 911 is uh is 14:31 is something that's very far away in an office building um and you are inherently removed from 14:36 it whereas an education space to me you're talking about children are sacred to me education spaces are sacred um and 14:43 that that really strikes me every time every time that happens 14:49 so let's go to our break and when we come back we'll talk about specifically what do kids need to hear 14:55 from us as adults to make them feel better 15:01 hey brett if you were going to tell somebody to check out something on the internet to 15:08 help them with their mental health what would you tell them i tell them listen to psych with mike why would you tell them that 15:14 because it's probably one of the most easily listenable experiences you can have that 15:20 will give you information that's useful for a whole spectrum of concerns that 15:26 people have i agree and i have actually been told that 15:31 by at least a dozen people several of whom were not married to me 15:36 and some of them didn't even know me that's amazing that is amazing 15:41 it's when when we get that kind of feedback from people it is so incredibly 15:48 humbling and overwhelming for me it is for both of us so we really appreciate it and as always 15:55 if it's friday it's cycling [Music] 16:01 okay we're back and you know the the research all shows that 16:07 what we need to do as adults and caregivers to help children in a 16:12 situation like this is to make sure that the children know they are safe and that 16:18 the people that are taking care of them are safe so mom and dad are safe the teachers are safe and so that's the 16:25 thing that we need to be able to help them to feel comfortable with so 16:31 you don't have to be able to explain why there are bad people in the world you don't have to be able to go through why 16:37 there are good or bad gun laws all you have to be able to do is to provide a 16:44 structural foundation for that child that lets them know that you're safe 16:49 that they're safe and that you're going to do everything to make sure that they are able to continue to be safe 16:57 you look like you're in i don't know how you do that and depending on the age of the child 17:02 first grade versus a fifth grader versus a ninth grader they're going to have different levels of awareness 17:08 and information sources most of these kids now have cell phones right 17:13 that at least offer the opportunity for news flashes and notifications to come up and how do you tell them you're going to 17:19 be safe we don't know that you know i don't know that you're going to be safe what i can tell you is we're going to do everything possible to keep 17:25 you safe but life is full of unknowns right and so there are things that 17:33 we can try to do to train and prepare you know like we try to teach you drown proofing in case you fall in the pool 17:39 how you can help yourself until somebody can get to you we we have active shooter drills we have 17:44 fire drills we have all kinds of drills hurricane drills what do you do in the circumstances to make yourself as safe 17:52 as you can we try to have leaders in place who have exposure to these drills 17:58 and trainings who themselves can't stay calm because it's not helping my classroom in 30 second graders if i'm 18:04 having a panic attack because i'm frozen and don't know what to do and what i do or what i know to do may 18:11 not be helpful may not be the solution so but i have to go through it 18:17 and help them so let me ask you a question because we are old you and i are old yeah and certainly we are older than 18:24 intern michael so intern michael's never done a nuclear bomb drill uh 18:31 but you and i have yeah and so which at the time i knew better than i knew that 18:36 if i got under my desk and hugged my knees but it wasn't going to make any nuclear bomb going on that desk is not a 18:42 little formica half inch of material not going to help me at all and i also knew that i was 20 miles from 18:47 my home and the school bus wasn't going to run if the nuclear bomb went off so how am i going at home how's somebody going to 18:53 get to me so my question is did you find that to be 18:58 ludicrous you found it to be ludicrous as a child okay okay even as a child you did not it did not give you any sense of 19:05 security didn't make me feel any better about the adults they don't know what the hell they're talking about um because my experience was exactly the 19:12 opposite my experience you're more over sucker than i am more of a sucker than you are uh and i didn't understand the 19:18 dynamics of what a nuclear bomb was or what mother was a little better informed than 19:23 the average person of my age let's just face it you're smarter than the average bear i am but 19:29 i found that to be comforting like i thought okay these these people have my back they know what they're doing and so 19:35 we're going to get under these tables and so if something happens i feel and i am going to offend you but i would say 19:42 that a lot of people who hang on to religion use it for the same reason for the same reason 19:48 and that they don't have any better information than than i have or any better predictability of the 19:53 outcomes so when republican politicians send thoughts and prayers it doesn't solve the gun problems shooting up 19:59 schools well clearly that's true i mean yes thoughts and prayers we got to get beyond that 20:06 well i mean where do we go well i'll kind of push back um i think those are different i think those are different 20:11 situations one is one where you do not have control right if we're talking about nuclear bombs nuclear 20:16 proliferation there is some degree of control at a high policy level but as an individual as a child getting 20:22 under a desk if that brings you comfort what is the sucking your thumb yeah what 20:27 is the problem in the comfort um outside well i don't know if there's a 20:34 problem right long-term resistance to policy change right if people are comforted 20:39 they won't take action right if they're not comfortable if they are uncomfortable they might take action so 20:44 to me the definition there there has to do with the immediacy of the moment if i can comfort myself enough to quiet my 20:51 anxieties then i can brace myself for the next wave whatever that is right so i don't know that it 20:57 impacts the longer term solution to the outcome and i do agree with you if 21:03 there's an immediate way to calm down someone in hysterics and help them stabilize then you can 21:09 help look for a path forward even if you don't see one you can at least be calm enough to look and if you're in the 21:15 middle of a hyperventilating panic attack you can't do that either and as an adult 21:22 i have that responsibility i take that responsibility i embrace that responsibility even if i don't know what 21:27 to do with it but when i go in that classroom just like uh police officer training has changed since columbine and 21:34 they used to say gather and wait and negotiate uh 21:39 call for resources now they say you got to go in you got to go in so now the cops don't go in they didn't go in in 21:45 texas yesterday and the police officer in charge said they could have gotten shot they could have gotten killed 21:51 that's why they didn't go in kids could have been shot kids were shot and killed my response is if i take that job and i 21:58 take the training for that job and i swear the oath what i am saying is given that situation i'll go towards the sound 22:04 of the guns and i expect them to do it they took the job they take the pay they get the retirement they take the risk 22:09 and i love them for it and god bless them and we need them but if you own up and put on the uniform get your ass in 22:15 there so going back though to my analogy of the 22:22 bomb drills that didn't help you it helped me and so when i'm saying that that we need to 22:29 find ways of being oh you got me in trouble because i wouldn't take it seriously make the children feel safe right yeah that was beneficial for me so 22:35 that was that worked for me what would happen that was just how smart i wasn't because i smarted off and got in trouble 22:41 yeah i could have figured that was going to be happening well but but is there anything in that situation that you look 22:47 back on now that you think would have been beneficial for you 22:53 um i don't know yeah because because you you rightly point out kids are different 23:00 every kid is gonna need something different to make them feel okay the bomb drills actually helped me they made 23:07 me feel more safe and so that was a good intervention for me it wasn't a good 23:14 intervention for you so you teach your children at santa claus was a lie 23:19 i don't know what you're talking about because i still think santa claus is an actual man who lives at the north pole 23:25 okay but no i did not teach them that yeah not until they came up with it on 23:31 their own yeah it's it's a question parents have to answer yeah do you buy 23:36 into this myth because it's comforting and it's pretty and it makes a nice holiday picture 23:43 or do you indulge your children's fantasies because it makes their childhood happier 23:49 yeah everybody has to have their own answer now i have my answer but as a clinician i don't impose my answer on my client 23:56 right i listen to the client and seek ways to help them define their own answer right 24:02 but you don't you you don't know of anything that would have spoken to that child that you were no so if if i had 24:08 come to you as an adult if i had come to you and and said hey little brett uh 24:14 this is about i didn't trust adults i lived in a high perspective so maybe that's the day 24:20 yeah but maybe that's the issue is that you didn't trust adults no and so you didn't see adults as an 24:28 arbiter of things that would create safety for you no and so maybe that was really the issue 24:35 if there would have been some other way not through the avenue of an adult but then 24:41 how many kids in our country don't trust adults great question probably a large and so 24:47 if the adults are the ones who are saying oh here let's make these children feel safer maybe maybe those that isn't 24:53 going to work for those children because they don't trust adults and maybe they shouldn't trust but again the conversation is partly 25:00 difficult because you're talking about a huge conclusion you have to break it down into brackets kids from one to six 25:06 from six to ten you know their exposure their life their realities are all different right their capacities are all different but 25:14 so what i would say to that is you use language that is appropriate for the age group so i would speak differently to a 25:21 six-year-old than i would speak to a 12 year old i hope so but the goal would be to make them feel safe and secure 25:30 that would be the goal if you can find a way to do it yeah but also 25:37 how do you do it yeah i i think a lot of the research that i had read in 25:42 like developmental psych classes dealt with building resilience and finding different ways to build 25:48 resilience right kenneth ginsburg is dr kenneth ginsberg is the kind of the author 25:54 in pop psych or i guess also a clinical psych that comes to mind and he talks about these seven c's of resilience 26:00 competence confidence connection character contribution coping and control and he says if you can build those 26:06 things that if you want to if you want to look at the long-term success of a child either economically or emotionally 26:13 resilience is that key and so i wonder if it's less about convincing children that they're safe 26:19 right because i agree right as well as hierarchy of needs you have to understand that you are safe it's less about convincing children they 26:25 will always be safe and more about giving them the tools to be competent 26:31 enough to find their way to safety at all times right to always know that they can rely on themselves 26:39 you can't take education away from somebody yeah so i i would then respond to that i mean because i 26:45 absolutely agree with what you're saying makes perfect sense however my opinion is that over the last 15 26:52 years we've done a major disservice to our kids by teaching that every child always wins so we don't discriminate a b 27:00 c d you know we all get a's we all get ribbons everybody wins nobody comes in second place reality is reality we have 27:07 to teach our kids about reality and we have to give them confidence to navigate the real world 27:13 so in the real world there may be a shooter if there is one here are the things that we can try to do to be safe these are 27:20 the things we'll try to do with and for you to make you safe yeah well so 27:27 but going along that line so i think that you're that what you say michael is 100 correct that that trying to increase 27:36 resilience in those kids is the answer when i say make them feel safe 27:41 i think that that's an issue that's incompetency which is the purpose of the drills right the shooter reels or the 27:46 fire drills you are competent to lead your desk row out of the building you know which way to turn when you go out 27:52 the door you know where to go absolutely yeah all those overlap there they're all 27:57 woven together in fabric that helps the child grow and survive so that comes from ultimately the relationships that 28:04 the child has with the adults and the other children around them it's that connection that it is very relational 28:10 and that is how you build that that safety net that is how you help the psychology of a child and the 28:17 mental health of a child to work through these really really big issues yeah so if there had been 28:25 a designated child to lead the classroom and the school had gone together and said oh 28:31 bret little brett seems like that he's uh pretty good at that he's got some you know stuff going on and so you had been 28:39 designated as the the the group leader for your row or 28:45 whatever to get under the desk and model that would that have been beneficial for you 28:50 would that have have helped you to feel more confident and confident 28:56 i can't speculate i have no idea yeah i wonder if that would have been because now that you're saying that i mean i 29:02 that now that actually goes back to the whole floss about to as a classroom teacher take the bully and draft them 29:09 into authority yeah and give them responsibilities so that they're not bullying but they're taken care of yeah so it's a strategy would that work for 29:16 me i mean it's equivalent of being a bullet i'm standing in the corner snarking and going you guys are suckers um maybe well but i don't know but would 29:23 you have taken it more seriously like if you had that authority i don't know it didn't happen but yeah would it i don't 29:28 know but it's the contribution piece right exactly and and and so you know i'll 29:33 include that an article about that uh with the the show notes but i think that 29:39 that really is probably what we need to try and focus on is exactly that that 29:45 resilience piece and when i say you know make them feel safe that's exactly 29:51 what i would think of however yeah as a grown-up teacher who spent 20 plus years in classrooms of 100 29:59 other teachers i'm also aware of 30:04 imbalances in capacity among the teachers yeah uh 30:11 so what if they can't do it well which is the question comes up when i mean i think i saw in the paper this 30:17 morning 32 school districts in missouri have authorized teachers to carry guns yeah i don't want a second grade teacher 30:23 taking a gun what what do she do with her gun when when little billy throws up and she has to clean it up once you do 30:29 with the gun when two kids get into a fist fight she has to go break them up right what did she do with a gun when 30:35 she squats down to teach somebody reading and somebody pats her butt or some kid sitting there goes oh i want to see your gun 30:41 and is she trying to shoot it does she know what to shoot at and how and when right i mean because if she's going to 30:47 be carrying the gun she's going to be carrying it on her it's going to be unsecured today you don't leave it in your desk drawer right if it's locked 30:53 and you're looking good right yeah i mean that's what they're going to say but those questions haven't been answered the solution is we'll arm the 30:59 teachers yeah harden the schools this school in new valley and fifty thousand dollars hardening the 31:05 school somebody left the back door on right right which always happens always happens well i think that comes back to 31:12 a very juvenile solution to the real question of neglect here right we're saying we're saying that we are 31:18 neglecting our children systematically and instead of changing the system we're going to go with the 31:24 solution of of theoretical and overlap yes yeah and so the real solution there is to you 31:31 said there are different there are differences in the capacity of teachers right there are differences in 31:36 the aptitudes of students and so what we do is we don't build better teachers we build better systems for those teachers 31:42 to exist in that would be ideally so hopefully that is helpful it 31:48 at least was helpful for us to kind of work through this ourselves um we are just human beings living in the world 31:55 the same as everybody else and we have feelings about when things like this 32:00 happen it's traumatic for us the same as it is for we don't have answers either no i mean we're just trying to do the 32:06 best that we can and that's all anybody can do uh the music that appears inside with 32:12 mike is written and performed by mr benjamin the clue we definitely invite everybody to go to apple podcast find 32:18 psych with mike and leave us a rating and a comment you can go on youtube search 32:25 site with mike find us there and definitely subscribe to the show that would be the one biggest best thing that 32:30 people could do to really help us out and as always if it's friday it's psych with 32:40 [Music] 32:48 you

Brett and I are often asked, "what is the most important skill for doing therapy?" While therapy cannot be reduced to a single skill, empathic listening is routinely recognized as the most essential therapeutic skill.    https://www.fastcompany.com/90749446/how-to-become-a-better-listener-according-to-science   Transcrpt: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike welcome into 0:19 the psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon i'm here with mr brett newcomb how are you today so you were 0:25 saying your your favorite food is chinese i was saying that in my somewhat 0:30 less than extensive travels around the world i've never been in a town anywhere that didn't have a chinese restaurant 0:35 yeah and then i was telling you that jane goodall believes in extraterrestrials 0:41 sasquatch and yetis and so you said what i said i would find extraterrestrials to be more 0:48 believable and acceptable uh as a reality than sasquatch right 0:54 because i think the it'd be really hard for someone that uh or some thing 1:00 that is sasquatch is uh defined to have a place to live without being noticeable 1:07 and i made the racist joke that there's probably a chinese restaurant in the town near him but right and that the 1:12 inference was that sasquatch must eat chinese exactly yeah which i think that's the breaking news 1:19 sasquatch's favorite food chinese well maybe so how are you today i'm good 1:26 yeah um it is uh summertime in st louis missouri which is yeah it 1:33 just happened this weekend yeah two days you know what they say about st louis weather just wait 24 hours yeah yeah um 1:39 but man just the last couple of days it's been just it's been really hot really humid yeah 1:46 so it you know things like that happen and then you start thinking about oh i could go live somewhere else but then 1:53 we never do so well we think about a lot of things we never do that just makes us normal yeah 1:58 if only woulda coulda shoulda woulda coulda shoulda yeah all the missed opportunities in life 2:05 so uh one of the things that 2:11 is okay let me start a different way if you 2:16 had to off the top of your head say 2:22 what is the single most important skill that a person could have 2:28 as a psychotherapist what would that be why 2:35 i think the single most important skill i would say is attending yeah which is 2:40 paying attention and listening right uh and then reflecting back to check for accuracy uh to make sure 2:47 that the person that you're attending to feels seen and heard 2:53 and accepted so that starts with good listening good listening and 2:59 yet you we read articles and i'm going to enclose an article in what we do 3:07 in in in the the notes that i post with this the show 3:12 but i've read hundreds of articles on listening and at their core 3:19 they all have something to do with what you just said which is attending which is making 3:25 the other person feel heard and to me i think that is if we are 3:32 talking about what's the difference between listening and paying lip service to listening to 3:39 me that's the difference is the other person feels actually heard and seen as 3:45 an individual there's been a lot of research that 3:50 emphasizes both the verbal component of listening in the non-verbal component of listening 3:56 but the data shows that most of us don't listen we turn talk yeah so while you're 4:02 talking uh because in part because of the science 4:07 my mental process can formulate sentences and thoughts and words 4:12 probably six times faster than i can speak them articulately and if i'm speaking articulately your 4:19 mental processes is checking in to see okay what's he talking about where is he going with that 4:25 and then you go away and formulate four or five responses and then you come back and see if i'm still 4:32 saying the same thing as slowly as i was and then you go away and think about other things wonder what time it is 4:37 where you're going for lunch what your wife's doing then you come back and i'm still talking about the same i still you 4:42 already knew the main gist of what i was saying because it was topically focused so you've gone off five or six times in 4:48 a cycle and you're ready with a packaged response the minute i shut up and if you 4:53 get tired of waiting you'll start to signal and cue me yeah 4:59 and and whatever nod your head and so that i get the message non-verbally 5:04 it's my turn shut up and then if i don't take that you'll override it and you'll interrupt me 5:09 so then you often so then i do the same thing in reverse i listen to what you're saying uh but i immediately start going 5:15 off and sidelining what i want to say in response or thinking about something else all together and coming back 5:21 checking in checking out checking in checking out that's the way most people listen and we turn talk right we learn 5:26 the nonverbal cues to signal the exchange uh so if i've known you for a lot of years i know from watching your 5:32 body language when it's your turn to talk when you want it to be your turn to talk right so so in in 5:39 therapy yeah one of the things that i'm aware of is that when the client speaks 5:48 there are a lot of times when i have they say something and it triggers a 5:53 response and and i hold on to the response until i find yeah as long as it remains 5:59 relevant i mean then the client could take a shift and then it's not but but so do you think that that's okay is it 6:05 okay for a therapist to be listening to the dialogue that the 6:10 client is reporting to come up with a response and to hang 6:16 on to that and then deliver it or do you think that you should listen to the whole message before you even attempt to 6:22 try and formulate a reaction so the article that's going to accompany this 6:27 conversation says you there's no such thing really as multitasking and you shouldn't multitask 6:33 but what i used to try to train people who wanted to be therapists to understand 6:38 is that you have to listen on two or three channels at the same time i listen to your words i listen to 6:46 your nonverbals i listen to the patterns of our conversations over time and i retain those in my awareness 6:53 and so if something is off it it's like an alarm going off and i 6:59 notice it and at some point when you stop talking i'm going to say mike something seems to be off 7:05 and i'm not sure what it is can you help me and you'll say oh no no i'm fine there's nothing wrong okay i just i need 7:11 to check because it's really important for me to hear you accurately that's what you pay me for and that's what we're here to do 7:18 but i have to think about the patterns of i know about which i know how you live your life 7:25 i have to think about the themes that you repeatedly talk to me about what's going on and you'll have today's focus 7:32 you have the crisis of the moment or you'll be focused on something that's really important to you 7:38 but it's one-dimensional and there are other dimensions of you that i need to listen to and check in with 7:45 it's almost like talking to a multiple as if we were all multiples so i think part of being a good 7:51 clinician is developing that awareness that sort of percolates in the 7:57 background of your of your consciousness and will knock on the door and say hey women ask him about this 8:02 so i listen to your conversation and i give you feedback and i check to say am i so this week you're just really 8:08 focused on this my am i getting that right and that's how we teach couples when we do couples therapy you listen what they 8:15 say then you repeat it and you say here's what i heard you say verbally hear the feelings i got from you when 8:22 you said it did i hear you accurately and until the partner says yes you have 8:28 to just keep you say well repeat it again and you ask them to tell it again then you say okay this is what i heard 8:33 you say these are the feelings i got from you as you were saying it am i hearing you accurately so you teach 8:38 people to do that but for a therapist you have to go a deeper level you have to listen 8:44 sort of with your background training uh saying wait a minute there's a red flag 8:49 come back to that and so as you said sometimes you wait you bring it up later 8:54 and sometimes you have to interrupt and say well hold on something's going on so you do think that there are times in 9:00 therapy where it is appropriate to interrupt the client to stop their flow their free flow of information and then 9:07 say hey i need to check in and and see if this is something that i heard accurately right yeah and uh 9:14 my best story about listening is 9:21 so when when my kids were little and i used to watch a lot of football what i would tell people is if my kids walk 9:28 into the room and they say hey dad i can hear them 9:33 but to actually listen to them i have to turn the football game off and 9:38 i actually have to look at them right and so people 9:44 get caught up in the jargon about hearing listening and i don't i don't care what you call it but what 9:51 what it requires is a focus on that individual and a focus on the individual 9:58 not just from the listeners perspective right like i'm watching the football game i'm saying yes go ahead child talk 10:06 to me that's not good enough you have to make the receiver the person who is speaking 10:13 you have to make them believe and feel like your focus is on 10:20 them which is easier to do in therapy because obviously you're sitting in a room with somebody and 10:25 hopefully you're only paying attention to that individual but that doesn't mean that they feel it and so 10:33 you as a clinician your job is to make sure that their experience is that they are 10:40 speaking and you are listening to them and the way that you do that is by what you aptly said is by the attending and 10:47 the way you make sure that they feel attended to is that you check in with them so you're rephrasing things that 10:54 they say you're asking them for clarification and those should always be obviously open-ended questions so when 11:00 we do therapy we talk about open-ended enclosed ending questions and since you're the person that taught me that i 11:08 what's the difference between an open ended and a closed-ended question 11:13 well a close-ended question is one that has a definitive answer are you warm yes 11:18 no yeah and that's the end of the thing an open-ended question is one that invites 11:24 you to speculate and continue wherever it is you need to go there's nothing i want to bring up too 11:30 though about clinical skills that is a question for therapists to be able to answer and 11:36 that is there two elements one is things going on your own life i had a friend that died recently i'm 11:43 grieving the loss of that friend i come to work today and you start talking about somebody dying and it triggers all 11:50 kinds of things in me am i listening to me or am i listening to you and if i if i have a headache 11:58 today uh my stomach hurts uh from whatever reason my friend's death or the grieving that i'm doing or 12:04 physically i have a head cold it's a pollen season in st louis 12:11 do i need to take the day off because can i responsibly listen to you and take your money 12:17 if i'm not able to attend so that's one thing the other thing is as i've gotten older 12:23 my hearing is diminished i can't discriminate your voice out of background noises if i'm watching the tv 12:29 show and you say something to me i would literally have to turn the tv show off i 12:34 do now in order to listen to you my wife and i are learning this as an ongoing 12:40 thing we've been together for 35 years and i'm used to hearing her and talk to me in the background and track 12:45 something else because i was able to do that no i'm not and and i asked her to repeat 12:50 things uh because she speaks softly and she gets frustrated with all those three or four repetitions i'm not getting and 12:56 and i watch her get frustrated and i apologize i'm really sorry you know i'm 13:01 just struggling to hear as a clinician do i bring that to work for me to do it 13:08 that's actually something that i've never considered before but as a super relevant point 13:15 uh yeah if if you are having difficulty and obviously 13:22 i guess what my recommendation would be that if you're having that experience the first thing you do is go see a 13:28 doctor go see an audiologist and see if there's something that can help you be able to hear 13:33 better but yeah if you're really really i remember um do you remember when um 13:40 uh russ limbaugh died rush limbaugh died 13:46 okay it wasn't significant in my car yeah right rush limbaugh is a conservative talk show guy tony snow who 13:53 worked in the white house for a long time took his place and the reason that i remember this is because originally 14:00 and and not when rush limbaugh died but he stopped doing his show this was before he passed away uh but he stopped 14:06 doing his show and the reason was because he couldn't hear and when that happened i actually 14:13 thought that i was losing my hearing like it was happening at the same time tony snow took over brush limbaugh's 14:20 show rush limbaugh was talking about he couldn't hear and it wasn't because you know i was 14:25 simpatico with rush limbaugh i went to the doctor and i said hey what's going on i'm having problems hearing people 14:31 and that's my whole livelihood i can't i could work blind i could work paralyzed 14:36 i can't work deaf and the doctor uh did a cursory examination and said 14:42 michael you're getting older and the allergies that you have that didn't bother you when you were younger now are 14:49 having an effect on you and he prescribed me a decongestant and i was fine 14:55 so the first thing to do is go to the doctor and get it checked out because maybe something is going on which again 15:00 clinically is the thing we recommend to clients all the time they can complain about things and and they're struggling with things and you say let's get a 15:07 physical checkup and refer them out to a physician if that solves the problem they don't need to come and pay you money right 15:13 well or yes but i'm thinking more in terms of the clinician yeah taking their own 15:18 advice and going and getting it checked out okay let's take our break and when we come back i'm going to ask you a question 15:24 hey everybody dr michael mahoney here from psych with mike and i couldn't be more excited to talk to you about 15:30 athletic greens which is a new sponsor we have here on the show i started taking athletic greens 15:36 watching some youtube videos and doing my own research i wanted to add something to my 15:42 daily workout program to give me some energy and to support gut health and 15:47 that was the one thing that kept coming up again and again with athletic greens is the guy who started the company did a 15:54 bunch of research because he was having some gut health issues that he couldn't get any resolution for he developed 16:01 athletic greens and it's just exploded from there so it's 75 superfoods 16:07 vitamins minerals probiotics whole food sources that's all in one daily scoop 16:14 you put it in eight or twelve ounces of water you shake it up and you drink it the taste is very very drinkable i 16:21 actually enjoy it and i have been using it and my energy levels have just been through the roof i 16:28 really like athletic greens because of some of the sustainability things that they do so they buy carbon 16:35 credits and you know to help protect the rain forest which is something that i really like 16:41 but if you order athletic greens in your subscription you're going to also get a 16:47 year's supply of their vitamin d supplementation and five free travel 16:52 packs and that vitamin d is so important during those winter months when we're 16:58 not getting enough sunlight we've talked about how that decreases your mood and 17:03 increases depression and that can be a real deal changer so you go to 17:08 athleticgreens.com emerging that's athleticgreens.com 17:15 e-m-e-r-g-i-n-g that's the psych with mike promo and 17:20 you're going to get that additional vitamin d support for a year and five 17:25 free travel packs so take control of your own health today and as always if 17:31 it's friday it's psych with mike okay we're back and so you know then if 17:39 the therapist goes to the doctor they get it checked out and the doctor says well you 17:46 know it's just a natural form of aging and you are losing your hearing 17:53 what would you say to a therapist what would a therapist in that situation do so again at the end of the day 18:00 are you ethically functional to do your job but there are things that you can do 18:06 for instance if you traditionally have low grade background music playing in your sessions turn the music off 18:13 if you're set 10 12 feet away move four to six feet away 18:20 and then make sure you're looking at them make sure you're physically looking at them i've had clients throughout my 18:26 career that come in and at some point they'll interrupt themselves and say stop looking at me because i i look at 18:32 them and i pay attention i'm watching their body language i'm watching their facial expressions but more than their face because their body will tell you 18:38 more right their breathing will tell you they're fidgeting their knee bump their hand movements their stereotypical 18:45 pattern movements whatever they're telling you something and you're listening to hear what it is that it's 18:50 saying right and i've always been a big believer that nonverbal behavior is much more relevant 18:56 in psychotherapy than the verbal message uh you know even if that isn't true 19:02 accurate yeah and gives you more information i think because there's more of it i mean people don't recognize that 19:09 only 15 percent at most of the communication that we have as human beings is that verbal spoken message 19:16 everything else is all nonverbal information and so the overwhelming 19:21 majority of information that we get from other people is non-verbal which we just 19:27 did recently did a show on you know talking over screens and what is the 19:33 impact that that's going to have on how we communicate because i'm very very 19:38 concerned about that and in that show i was much more dark and negative than you were and you 19:44 were talking about all of the good things that the evolution of technology has brought 19:51 us and i just see it as a real negative because i see people changing the ways that they interact and 20:00 filling in the pieces of missing information with assumptions which i 20:05 think is just a very dark road 20:14 i think assumptive communication is a topic for another day because it's an 20:21 incredibly important topic when you talk about learning how to communicate with people because most of us do that and again it goes back and 20:28 who was it albert morabian and ken cooper did a study and they said when you break down 20:34 a non-mediated conversation mediated conversations something uses a piece of technology like 20:40 writing on a page a phone 20:46 walkie-talkie something like that there's a device or an intermediary between you and the 20:52 recipient of the message non-mediated face-to-face conversation you hear me 20:57 you see me so if you break down those communication components they said only seven percent 21:05 was the words themselves and the rest of it is tone facial 21:10 expression volume right whatever so i 21:16 it's important that even as we move in some ways to 21:23 uh teletherapy zoom 21:28 whatever we have to factor that into our understanding of 21:34 and and evaluation of how do i know what i'm hearing i don't know what i'm seeing 21:40 are you suicidal would i know that would i recognize that how what if i'm in another state i'm in missouri you're in 21:46 colorado you call me sam the press and i know you live in the bump still colorado 21:52 do i have the police department's phone number can i send somebody over to to check on you uh do i have responsibility 22:00 legally can i be sued have i done my job there are all kinds of questions right right so the first 22:08 really big factor that is about listening we've already talked about which is 22:13 focus you have to pay attention to the other person in a way that that person recognizes that you are attending to 22:20 them and we've talked about some of the ways that you do that then the second big thing for me is empathy that that a person has to 22:28 experience an empathic connection and i think that this is really 22:36 the difference between therapy that's going to work for you as a client in therapy that may not is the 22:43 and some people don't want that if you know if they feel that empathic connection they may go find a different 22:48 therapist because that may be scary so i have two reactions now one is a lot 22:53 of times people find a different therapist for different issues so they may be comfortable talking to you about 22:58 their marital problems but they won't talk to somebody else about their child abuse uh and that's fine i mean you should go 23:05 where you feel hurt um but so the safe holding environment 23:10 is that term that i use for the reflection of empathic listening if you feel like i 23:18 really see you i really get you and that i not approve of everything about you but i accept you 23:24 as you are then that is the safe holding environment it's my job as a therapist to create that experience for you with 23:31 my training with my personality with my expectations with my attending and listening 23:37 and so the creation of that unconditional positive regard 23:45 universal acceptance however you want to phrase that you believe that that is how 23:51 the client feels empathically connected to them so i think you may have to make 23:56 the distinction uncond carl rogers term unconditional positive regard doesn't mean approval right doesn't mean 24:03 that i accept or agree with your value judgments or your behavior but it means 24:08 that i globally accept you as worthy of right acceptance and my attention right 24:13 so somehow i have to communicate that even if i then have to say you have to stop hitting your child 24:18 that's not going to go nothing's ever going to get better it's only going to get worse so if we want to make progress here 24:26 that's a behavior that you have to recognize you can no longer do right if i have to say that to you and not in 24:32 terms of of me condemning you you're a bad parent you're an abusive parent although i may have to warn you i'm a 24:38 mandated reporter if you tell me this i may have to call it in but what i am trying to say is i 24:45 recognize that you are struggling with this and i still accept you as a person who's 24:50 trying to make their way with failings but part of what i believe is you can 24:55 change right this is a piece that must change how can we find a way that you 25:02 can attempt to change this piece and still be okay with who you are 25:07 and i i think that that for me when i'm was listening to you speaking there it really 25:15 drew to mind your joke about when people say are you a christian therapist and you say yeah i 25:21 work with christians and and i think that that's really relevant that you know sometimes 25:28 you have to get out of a specific comfort zone if you're just looking for confirmation bias you're not really 25:34 looking for therapy if you know you're struggling with an unwanted pregnancy and you're going to somebody who 25:41 thinks like you i'm not saying that's wrong i'm saying that that shouldn't be 25:47 the reason why you decide to go see that person 25:52 absolutely and that's still talking about clinical issues uh it's more likely to be a problem if 25:59 you are an agenda therapist if i've got an agenda to prohibit abortions or to 26:04 promote abortions that i'm listening for an angle that i can pull you in the 26:10 direction that i want you to go that's not therapy that's right so if you're if you are listening for the 26:17 opportunities to confirm the therapist i'm talking about to confirm your 26:22 beliefs and your worldview that's not listening i used to work with a partner 26:28 that was a very strong religious orientation really active in his church and 26:33 a part-time minister and so on and he would talk in our conferences 26:39 because we do supervision with each other uh he would talk about getting into 26:44 these debates with people and bringing out his bible and reading quotations that seemed relevant to him to whatever 26:49 they were presenting and i kept telling them that that's not your job you're not here to proselytize 26:54 you're not here to convince or persuade to your religious perspective you're here to hear what the client needs to 27:01 heard and help them find a way forward that works for them not for you right right 27:06 and so and this is a little bit tangential off topic but you know so do you ever see 27:13 that as being therapeutically valid let's break out the bible and see what the bible has to say i think it's a 27:19 reasonable thing to do if you have a client with a religious orientation that's struggling with something 27:25 my church condemns this behavior i've done this behavior and and the bible 27:31 says blah blah blah well let's see if the bible says that tell me how you understand this phrase what were you quoting what's it coming 27:38 from oh it's a king james version it's a first corinthians or donald trump would 27:43 say two corinthians uh and he said well what does your church say about that 27:49 and how do you understand what they mean and have you spoken to someone within 27:54 the hierarchy to explain your confusions or your turmoil 28:00 how do you so so again i'm not proselytizing my perspective i am saying 28:06 use your own experience use your own education your own background your own connections to 28:12 find a way to process what you're struggling with that can lead you to peace it can lead you to 28:19 change if change is necessary acceptance if it's not so 28:26 who when would the therapist make that decision that okay this is the time to 28:31 bring so let me start differently so i kind of think of that 28:37 in a similar way as i think of the big book when i'm dealing with people who are substance abusers there are times 28:43 when people want to talk about you know what's written in the literature of the recovery community and i don't typically 28:52 do that but there are times where i say okay this person is making a relevant 28:58 request about understanding or trying to process something and we'll look in the 29:03 big book and read what the big book is you're more comfortable with the big book and your experiences with it 29:10 i would be less comfortable i mean from my background my training my education my life i would be less comfortable 29:17 explaining to somebody something from the bible i would recommend that they go 29:22 to their minister or someone that their minister would recommend for 29:27 interpretation where i use it clinically is more when somebody says 29:32 i've sinned yeah and i can't be forgiven i've done this horrible thing and i said what does your church teach you about 29:38 forgiveness what does your church or your religion teach you about forgiveness can can we find documentation can we find quotations can 29:45 we find something but how do you understand what that means and they'll say well typically they'll say well god 29:52 forgives all sinners who come to him all right so why aren't you included you know what is it about you that's so 29:58 bad and so ugly and so unacceptable that even god would reject you you know isn't that an arrogance on your part in that 30:04 conceit on your part what does your church say how do you find comfort i mean so grieving yeah 30:11 let's talk about the grief less feel the grief but self-punishment 30:16 uh self-entrapment and you know i can't change now i have to carry this and i'm i'm stained and i'm unacceptable 30:24 that's going to get in the way of you living your life can we find a way to put it down 30:30 so kind of just to to wrap this up if you had to 30:39 give somebody doing therapy a a primer on 30:46 good listening how would you define that for somebody doing therapy don't get in 30:52 the way pay attention read the non-verbals check for accuracy 30:57 get feedback and i would say make sure 31:02 that whatever you're doing the attention that you are paying 31:08 to the client is focused on them and what their needs are and not focused 31:16 on you like you're not dropping pearls of wisdom you're not yeah but also like so i taught in a 31:22 graduate program for 35 years and the classes were at night they were from 5 30 to 9 30 at night people that 31:29 came to those classes had worked a full day i remember regularly they would 7 30 8 o'clock start saying 31:36 can we go home i'm tired this is boring you know or they'd start playing especially when computers became 31:42 pervasive they'd be checking their email or checking the bank ballgame score stuff like that and i would tell them 31:47 this is a training opportunity your job is to park your stuff and pay 31:53 attention to mine and if you can't do it in this class how are you going to do it in an office with somebody right so you 31:58 need to look at your own behavior you need to learn your own self-control you need to learn how to pay attention on 32:04 demand because you're on the clock exactly somebody's paying you money right and so you can't just do it when 32:09 you feel like right right you got to learn the skill that's right so hopefully that was beneficial for 32:16 somebody out there and you can always get a hold of us at psychwithmike.com we would really appreciate if as many 32:23 people as well i'm just not even going to say that i'm just going to say go to youtube 32:29 and find psych with mike on youtube go to apple podcast and find psych with mike on apple podcast and subscribe to 32:36 the show and leave a comment on the apple podcast those are things that really really help us out as always the 32:44 music that appears in psych with mike is written and performed by mr benjamin the clue and if it's friday it's cyclic 32:51 [Music]

Bipolar Disorder can be devastating if not effectively managed. Michael Wellington is one of the most recognizable individuals promoting effective treatment in this country. Michael came to terms with his acceptance of his disease while trying to reach his dream of earning a spot on the PGA Tour. Now his life is devoted to helping others. His work on Bipolar Disorder can be accessed at www.birdiesforbipolar.org    Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:19 [Music] welcome into the site with mike library this is dr michael mahan and i am here 0:24 as always with my friend and colleague mr brett newcombe how are you today i'm doing fantastic great 0:30 and we also have with us today a very special guest this is actually our 200th 0:37 episode and so i'm so excited that for episode 200 we are talking to a guy that 0:44 i've actually known for a long time i met you mystery caller when i was working at the 0:52 radio station 971 and interviewed you a couple of times there 0:57 and have been just such a fan of yours but i am super super excited to 1:03 introduce former professional golfer mr mike wellington mike uh how are you doing 1:10 gentlemen thank you so much for having me i'm doing great uh looking forward to uh chopping it up with you guys a little 1:15 bit here so the reason that a former professional golfer is on psych 1:21 with mike is because you have some challenges michael that 1:27 you've had deal with over the course of your career and really your entire life so why don't you 1:33 just give us a little bit of background about that and then we'll talk more about what you're doing today 1:39 of course yeah i was diagnosed in 1:44 january of 2001 with bipolar disorder and at that time i didn't really know 1:51 much about bipolar disorder at all and i had to kind of learn on the fly so 1:57 uh 21 years i guess now it's been that i've been kind of doing my own personal case 2:03 study on bipolar disorder and i've learned a lot of things a lot of what not to do's over the years and 2:09 certainly learned finally some of the things that you need to do in order to have success against bipolar and 2:16 you know i think my my background and competitive sports you know played 2:21 you know soccer basketball and golf in high school then played golf in college played golf professionally 2:27 um you know caddied at the highest level and um on the tours and 2:33 uh things like that i think the mentality that you learn playing sports and competing that's the 2:40 ideal mentality that you need to have when you're taking on something like bipolar disorder and a mental illness 2:46 that is capable of really doing things to you that um 2:51 you know are really you know they're not some of them aren't very fun but at the same time you know 2:57 bipolar is certainly manageable but it's taken me a lot of lessons to learn how 3:02 to manage it properly so back in 2001 when you were initially diagnosed 3:09 how old were you at that time i was 23 23 so were you on the 3:14 professional tour then no so at that point i hadn't turned pro when i uh when i first got diagnosed i 3:21 was still an amateur and i was getting my plan was uh was to turn pro 3:27 you know shortly thereafter but i had kind of my first encounter with bipolar disorder in 3:33 january and february of 2001 and 3:38 i had to learn or kind of realize okay well this this bipolar thing has set me back a 3:45 little bit and i wasn't going to be able to turn pro as quickly as i would have liked i ended up not turning pro until 3:50 the fall of 2001. at least i entered the pga tour q school at that point 3:56 i guess technically i didn't turn pro until 2003 when i made my first paycheck out in arizona but uh the plan had been 4:03 to turn pro you know at the end of 01 or sometime in o2 but i really wasn't able to get there 4:08 for a couple years because bipolar it set me back i didn't um i wasn't really 4:15 uh taking my medication as consistently as i needed to certainly for the first five years after my diagnosis and um but 4:23 yeah at the first part of 2001 i was uh i was definitely struggling with 4:28 something that i wasn't even really aware that i had until the diagnosis and then you know 4:34 had a manic episode of one up in a hospital in sarasota florida uh so all these kind of things 4:40 um were certainly kind of shaking me to let me know hey there's something going on here that's a 4:46 lot more important than golf so when that happened when you got diagnosed and 4:52 you're 23 years old and i'm assuming that at that point you you didn't even know what bipolar was 4:58 did you believe that you were bipolar did did it sink in did it make an impression on you or did you 5:04 kind of just out of hand kind of say no that's not me i'm just gonna keep living my life 5:11 great question yes i did know that i had it okay now i've done a lot of work in the 5:17 mental health community a lot of people will not admit that they have it a lot of people have denial for 5:23 having bipolar or many other mental illnesses but my specific situation 5:29 uh was that i was in florida my parents noticed that my behavior was becoming odd becoming erratic becoming grandiose 5:36 with different thoughts so they brought me to a doctor in south florida excuse me in naples florida and 5:44 um when we went into the see the doctor you know the doc gets me in the room one-on-one and he says michael they're 5:50 talking your parents and it sounds like based on your behavior that you may have bipolar disorder he put down in front of 5:56 me a uh piece of paper a nine and a half by 11 piece of paper and it just it had all 6:01 the traits of someone who lives with bipolar and i had every single one on that list 6:07 it was like you know go going on odd spending sprees i had been doing that very recently around that time i had 6:14 gone into for example i had gone into a sports memorabilia shop and i had 6:19 purchased a bunch of framed pictures and you know autographed memorabilia that 6:25 you know i was putting it in an apartment that i was only going to be living in for like four months and you know i certainly paid more than 6:31 i should have for it and i wasn't sleeping at that time and they had talked about insomnia being a side 6:37 effect and my speech was very very accelerated and very jumbled 6:43 at times and i knew when i saw this piece of paper that the doctor laid out in front of me that hey i've got this 6:49 one i've got this one i've got this one so i guess i was a little bit lucky to understand that i knew i had bipolar i 6:56 wasn't i never went into that denial stage but like i said a minute ago my biggest struggle in the first five 7:02 years was taking the medication consistently every day i would 7:07 i would uh you know at times i wouldn't take the full dosage at times i would just flat out skip it 7:14 all basically because i had a bunch of success as a college golfer i was an all-american at spring hill college in 7:21 mobile alabama and in my mind i thought well i had all this success on the golf course in college and i didn't take 7:27 medication why would i want to take medication now because i thought well it might it might mess up the touch of my short game or it 7:34 might mess up my putting or it might maybe i'll hit the ball shorter or maybe i'll react going down 7:40 the stretch of a round in a poor way um i just didn't know so i wasn't really 7:46 you know committed to taking the meds right away did the medicine make you feel bad at all do you remember any uh 7:51 reactions to i don't want to take that because it makes me not hungry or i don't want to take that because it makes 7:57 me jittery or no i mean good question i i 8:03 i really never felt anything bad for at that time i was 8:09 prescribed lithium which i actually still take today i've tested a bunch of different ones 8:14 but at that time it was lithium and i you know to be honest i didn't 8:20 take it consistently enough to really find out um what the side effects would be 8:27 you know like i was just asking because a number of people who who challenge the need to take the medicine will defend that uh challenge 8:34 by saying well you know it makes me feel this or makes me jittery or makes me go to the bathroom all the time so i can't 8:40 yeah i mean i would i would tell those people to take a three-week experimentation 8:47 period with each of those types of drugs you keep trying one until you find one you like and you know you may think the 8:55 one you take the first experimental week is bad but then you may take a couple others and they're even worse so maybe the one 9:02 you took in the first week is the one you need to use but i think that's really an important point people that 9:07 are looking for the right medication you've got to give it at least two and a half to three weeks in my opinion to 9:13 find out how you feel if there are side effects because you know everybody's different you never know like 9:19 what side effects are going to hit someone's body uh precisely or you know a lot of times 9:24 people tell me that because i do a lot of bipolar coaching uh with individuals and a lot of people will tell me well i read 9:31 on the internet that this is going to do this to me like well you don't really know that it's going to 9:36 do that to you you just know because it's on the internet it's not necessarily consistent to every human being i mean 9:42 you know you've got to be willing to try different medications to get to the point where you find the right one well 9:47 most people don't come to a bipolar designation first they're often diagnosed with other 9:54 labels and medicated for other conditions before they get enough history and 10:00 enough data to say what you're really dealing with here is being bipolar especially with depression or with manic 10:07 or hypermanic episodes so did you was that it seems that your experience was right 10:12 on at the beginning wham just knocked in the face with it yeah i guess i was kind of lucky in that regard because i was diagnosed correctly 10:20 right away yeah but and accepted it you could see it yeah i mean i could have accepted it 10:26 certainly a little better but i i also uh but i've worked with people 10:31 in my coaching my bipolar coaching that had been misdiagnosed as add or 10:36 adhd and then once they figured that out then they were able to get on the bipolar 10:42 meds which were more helpful for them so yeah it's difficult when you're talking about bipolar and schizophrenia because 10:49 those two are only um diagnosable by behavior you know you 10:54 can't like it's not like you could have a blood test or find something out that you know do something specific to find 11:00 out what you have if you have it your your behavior has to almost become erratic enough 11:05 where people notice it and then you can kind of start looking into the details of that behavior to get the proper diagnosis 11:11 but you were not taken or you were inconsistent with your medication regime 11:18 for reasons that felt very important to you you thought that it might change your golf game so what 11:25 for whatever reason that somebody is inconsistent the 11:31 what what finally convinced you that it was important to be consistent with that 11:37 medication protocol well i can tell you precisely when that was that was in 11:43 late may of 2006 when i was at barnes hospital in the 11:49 middle of a 33-day stay and on back-to-back days i had four 11:55 different groups of friends or four different friends of mine in two different groups come and visit me in the hospital the first group 12:02 sat me down in the way in the you know the i don't know not a waiting room but like just in a room we were in and said 12:09 michael we love you we want you in our lives but if you don't take your medication you cannot be in our lives and i said 12:16 okay and then the next day four different friends of mine came and saw me and they had the exact same 12:22 message we love you we want you in our lives but if you don't take your medication we don't want to be around 12:27 you and so was this an orchestrated intervention that all these groups got together and chose to present it this 12:32 way to try to make an impact on you i believe so yeah i think uh you know 12:37 these are guys that i grew up in the same neighborhood with guys that i played sports with in high 12:44 school guys that i was roommates with at certain points in my life they they all 12:49 got together and they came in two different groups and and they knew because they knew me so well 12:55 that particular time i was having real struggles with my parents and my family 13:00 and i think we see this a lot with bipolar and other mental illnesses is for some reason sometimes the family can't get through 13:07 to the person who's struggling and my friend group knew they could get through to me or at least they wanted to try and 13:14 ever since that day that they came in to see me my approach changed 100 i mean certainly 13:21 i was still in the hospital there for maybe a couple more weeks after those guys came and saw me but 13:26 as soon as i got out of the hospital uh from from and i guess that was probably middle of june 13:32 uh 2006 up until now i've been extremely consistent with my medication that's a 13:38 really an awesome story and an awesome story about friendship yeah i'm a very i'm blessed to have 13:45 these guys and they still god love them i mean not only do they come in and and tell me to take my 13:51 medication but some of them you know one of them had to tackle me one time just to get me into a hospital situation 13:57 other ones have you know had to give me kind of a tongue lashing at times and yeah i mean i i'm blessed i wouldn't be 14:04 where i am now without the friends that i have around me just kind of keeping an eye on me for sure 14:10 so we need to go to our break and when we come back michael i got a question 14:15 for you okay you bet hey brett yes what's your favorite thing 14:21 about psych with mike the opportunity to engage in mental 14:26 gymnastics with you wow that is really powerful so it's fun do you think that that's uh 14:34 beneficial for other people i have no clue i would hope so but i have no clue so people should should write us and let 14:40 us know yeah that'd be nice that would be great especially if they agree with me [Music] 14:45 as always if it's friday it's psych with mike [Music] 14:50 okay we're back and the question is is more of a request 14:56 i am very aware that you have a story about tiger woods that i would love for 15:03 you to share with us if you would feel comfortable doing that absolutely you know i uh i just gave a 15:08 talk in pinehurst north carolina and uh talked about that it's actually the tiger story is a uh 15:15 a major part of my speaking career i mean i always mention this story because um certainly when people mention tiger 15:22 woods it gets their attention and uh but basically what happened was this was around the time that i was diagnosed 15:28 in fact it was right before i was diagnosed obviously when you hear it you'll understand why i was diagnosed so 15:34 quickly thereafter but i'd say like probably mid-january of 2001 15:40 i had moved to fort myers florida naples florida area to start my golf career and 15:45 you know i'm literally like two or three weeks out of college and my mania was so intense 15:53 i mean i wasn't sleeping i i i had this paranoia feelings that 15:58 people were looking at me through the windows in my apartment um my i was moving very very quickly and 16:05 i got it in my mind that and i i'm not afraid to say it i'm a hyper competitive 16:11 person i mean i you know playing sports in high school playing college golf and uh some of my 16:17 friends are very hyper competitive i mean one of my best friends in the world is the head baseball coach at university of 16:24 tennessee his name is tony vitello and he's a hyper competitive guy so my competitive juices have always 16:31 been flowing and at this particular time in 2001 in um 16:37 in florida in january i got it in my mind my manic mine my mind was clearly exploding with mania 16:44 that i was going to drive from fort myers florida across the state of 16:49 florida over to orlando i was going to knock on tiger woods front door and i 16:54 was going to challenge him to play a golf match because i i knew he was clearly the best player in 17:00 the world at that particular time he had just won three major championships in a 17:05 row he was about to win his fourth one which was in the masters in 2001 and he was definitely the best player 17:12 and i wanted to find out how my game stacked up to his now when you're manic 17:19 you know you don't really think things through you know things think things through clearly what the the proper way to do that would 17:25 have been to go to the tour qualifying and work your way up the ladder and then take tiger on in a you know regular 17:31 tournament but um my mind was such that you know 17:37 i wanted to find out that day in january you know how good i was or how how could my game stack up against his and frankly 17:44 to be honest you know sometimes i take questions and answers in my speeches and somebody said well what was the what was 17:50 the obsession with tiger woods and it really wasn't about tiger woods it was because he at that particular time was 17:55 the best player in other words if ernie ells was the best player he lived in orlando at that time i would 18:01 have driven to his house if or i would have tried to drive in his house if if vj singh was the best player in the 18:06 world i would have driven to jacksonville you know so it was just about whoever the best player in the world was because i that was my thinking 18:14 when i was you know young in my early 20s like i want to play golf and i want to be the best player in the world like that's 18:20 that's the ego you know part of it but to be honest with you to have success i 18:25 mean there's not a pga tour player in the world who doesn't want to take on tiger so the thought process on one hand was 18:32 kind of okay but then on the other hand it was like well you can't be driving to somebody's house and try to play golf 18:38 with somebody now the funny part is i had met tiger before this happened i met him the 18:43 summer before out in colorado because um 18:48 i'm sorry i met him two summers before that my bad and i met him at a charity golf event because i had a summer job in 18:55 aspen colorado at a golf course called maroon creek and tiger had been there to play in a 19:02 um charity event and my good friend a guy named pj mcdaniel is a st louis and 19:08 pj had caddied for tiger that day and then after the round was over you know pj introduced me to him and we talked 19:13 briefly we got a picture and you know we i kind of wished him well on you know good luck in the ryder cup that was coming up 19:20 so there was when i when i was doing this manic drive across the state of florida 19:26 i think part of me was like well he'll remember me from aspen but the fact is he wouldn't have remembered me and you 19:32 know um i just i wanted to play so i drove all the way up to orlando i got to uh 19:40 his uh he you know it's kind of a famous everybody knows he lives in windermere he lived at that time in windermere and 19:45 i went to the guard gate and of course they didn't let me in i tried to you know see if i could go in they wouldn't let me so then i i leave the uh the 19:52 guard gate and now i've got you know another three and a half hour drive back to fort myers 19:57 um and i pulled over uh right next door to disney world 20:03 or disneyland whichever one it is down there and i i had a crying jig now i 20:09 wasn't i wasn't sad because i didn't wasn't able to meet with tiger i mean my mind was going so fast i wasn't sad at 20:16 all but like i just burst into into tears and then it's so funny because 20:21 about 10 days later that's when my parents came down and i had the diagnosis from the doctor and on that 20:26 list of the piece of paper i mentioned to you guys one of the things on there was crying jigs yeah so 20:32 so then i mean obviously at the time when i when it happened i didn't know what was going on with me but then 20:37 when the doctor put that piece of paper in front of me that was just another sign it's like okay well i definitely have this there's 20:44 no doubting it i mean i was an i'm an educated person you know went to a good high school went to a good college and i 20:50 knew that um this is what i was going to have now i didn't know what was ahead of me and how it would 20:56 how intense it would be and all the things that went along with it but you know i kind of had to learn on the fly 21:02 so one of the things that i've always heard from people with bipolar disorder 21:08 is that a big reason why they find it hard to be compliant with their medication protocol is because mania 21:16 just feels so good that's exactly right is is that what you 21:22 felt that's what yeah that's that is that is a hundred percent right hundred 21:28 thousand percent right so yeah so it's very interesting because certainly before you get to mania 21:34 there's a hypomania infection right and that feels really good too you feel 21:39 like you can accomplish a lot you don't need a lot of sleep all your ideas are brilliant your ego is getting ready to 21:46 go on the loose and then when you tip over the hypomania end zone line into the full-blown mania 21:52 then all bets are off because your brain is going at a rate that's just 21:58 unconceivable and you think that you feel your body feels good you know i 22:03 used to play really good golf when i was manic like i could my body could do things that maybe i 22:08 couldn't do if i wasn't manic and it it feels it's an invincibility 22:14 feeling you you feel like you're untouchable and and all your ideas are golden and you're the smartest person in 22:20 the room and nobody else knows what the hell they're talking about you're you know you're the 22:26 um you just are the aficionado on everything and the the feeling you get when that's why 22:33 it's so dangerous because that's why people don't want to you know get back to kind of the middle ground you know come back down 22:39 come back down from the hypomania stay above depression but stay in the middle ground because the mania it does it 22:44 really feels good mike that's a great point so michael before we put you on the air you were telling us a story about some 22:51 work that you're doing with veterans and i'd like for you to have an opportunity to talk about that while you're on the air as well if if you're in a place 22:58 where we can change focus for a minute absolutely no i always love to talk about my veterans they're the best 23:04 so basically when we started birdies for bipolar back in the summer of 2013. 23:10 we had our first event out of gateway national over in illinois and i just my both my 23:15 grandfathers were in the navy and i called the va hospital and i said hey do you guys have any of your veterans that 23:22 play golf we'd love to invite you out you know you can have two or three foursomes you don't have to pay you know just come and play and just 23:28 enjoy the day have some food and enjoy the tournament and sure enough um they sent us two 23:35 groups and they had uh the director of recreational therapy at the va hospital at the time 23:41 was a gentleman who's now become a very close friend of mine named herman luge uh herman was he held that position 23:49 of recreational therapy director for 36 years at the hospital i mean this guy is a living walking saint he's unbelievable 23:56 and i'm very i'm very proud to know him and he brought out he didn't even play himself he just brought out eight guys 24:02 and they all played i mean one of the gentlemen a friend of mine gary your gary does not have either one of his 24:07 legs he's a double amputee but he still has a custom-made golf cart where he could play awesome and you know there's 24:14 a couple other guys that were amputees that were there and so i just got to know them you know that day and herman 24:20 said something to me at the end of the day he said mike we're going to play golf 24:27 on thursdays at arlington greens you know would you like to join us and i said yes absolutely i'd love to come 24:32 over and play with you guys and maybe give some lessons to some of the guys and just kind of just play golf and so 24:38 you know for the first couple years in the summer times and in the early fall you know i'd go over there and 24:44 you know we had you know two threesomes or we'd have two foursomes and you know never more ever 24:50 more than 10 or 12 guys you know sometimes just six guys sometimes just nine guys whatever 24:55 well i'm proud to tell you that now we have a full-blown league it's called 25:01 the arlington greens veterans golf association because we have the league at arlington greens golf course in 25:06 granite city and it's every thursday and for the last two summers we have averaged 80 golfers everything 25:15 awesome and yeah it really i mean it really took on a life it's owned mostly because of two 25:20 people number one being hermit lugi who he retired from the va hospital but 25:27 he became the commissioner of our league so he resides over the league and i mean this league not only do we have that amount of 25:33 players but we have a little bit of small gambling like a five dollar gambling thing each week they have a 25:38 point system at the end of the year they have a champions breakfast they've got a couple of team events in there like it's 25:45 it's really well organized and it's it's very popular amongst the veterans and the other guy that this league would 25:51 not be possible without is is mark marcus so mark is the head golf professional arlington greens and he 25:56 just he welcomed these guys with open arms from the very beginning and as we grew 26:02 he continued to say keep coming out keep coming out and without those two guys that league would 26:08 not be what it is today but um one of the things we're doing and we literally just started this 26:14 initiative this week is we are going to fundraise and we're going to create an indoor golf 26:21 simulator space for these veterans that they will be able to use during the winter months because as you gentlemen 26:28 probably know there's a horrible number out there right now that number is 22 22 veterans are taking their own lives 26:34 every day in this country and i believe from my own experience that the winter months exacerbate that 26:42 seasonal depression yes and we've had all this positive momentum with our leagues 26:48 and certainly this last fall we had you know all these guys coming every week and i thought to myself man 26:55 this is unfortunate that we have to now stop for basically november 1st until you know the beginning of may because 27:01 you know the weather just won't be conducive so i thought to myself and herman and i had a discussion you know 27:07 what can we do to like help these guys in the wintertime and we came up with the idea to build this space 27:12 and um you know we're going to go full bore with it and we the goal is to have it finished by 27:18 halloween and we've got a simulator company on board we've got 27:23 um the home loan expert which is a mortgage company here in st louis that's behind us 27:29 we've got uh the morning after which is tim mckernan's radio show that's behind us we've got some other you know 27:34 individual donors that are going to be helpful and um you know i think this is going to be 27:39 something that's going to be able to help these guys uh in the wintertime because when they didn't have anywhere to go in 27:45 the winter you know it's cold nobody's getting together you know they need that social interaction with each other to 27:51 fight off that seasonal depression we think that this building we're going to create will do that for them and you know you mentioned the home loan expert 27:58 so that's ryan kelly people louis may know him may you know if you're not in st louis you may not recognize the name 28:04 but you know he's a huge sports guy and when he gets behind a cause that he 28:10 believes in he's a force man he's a force let me tell you i can't say enough good 28:15 things about ryan kelly i i had the pleasure to spend some time with him at spring training a few years back and we 28:20 hit it off a little bit and he's been helpful with us to this point with our veterans but when he found out uh that we were going 28:27 to do this i got a phone call from his marketing team and this is back in like november 28:34 and his marketing team calls me and says hey we want to get involved we want to contribute financially we also want to 28:41 help you raise other funds you're going to have a couple people at our disposal to help with these kind of marketing and 28:47 advertising ideas and they've been outstanding so yeah ryan kelly is certainly one of those people that 28:52 is helpful for veterans and i'm assuming that veterans it is not a requirement that they have 28:59 bipolar to be a part of this league so this is this is separate from what you 29:04 do with uh birdies for bipolar so what is birdies for bipolar tell us 29:11 about that how that started and what you guys do to try and give back to the 29:16 community uh just you know in better mental health awareness 29:21 well i wouldn't say that they're separate i would say that they're i would say birdies for bipolar and the 29:26 arlington greens veterans golf association are teammates that's the best way to explain it right so good 29:31 description um yeah i mean i think we're working together and to your point mike that was a good question about 29:38 you know does bipol do you have to have bipolar to play the league no i mean the reason 29:43 that i started getting involved with the veterans and one of them involved is because i knew what it's like to feel depression 29:49 and anxiety because of my own bipolar right and i also knew from my own research 29:55 that the ptsd that all these guys feel from their work you know overseas and helping 30:01 our country it's the same type of feelings the depression the anxiety uh they're all they're all very similar 30:07 so i just wanted to make sure that you know we were able to get everybody together 30:12 uh to play golf that's how it really just started was just trying to get everybody together to play golf because i knew 30:18 how powerful recreational therapy could be and then you know i i have to tip my cap to the 30:24 veterans because when they do something they do it full out and we this this league 30:30 it it it was a grassroots thing we never advertised for it it was word of mouth and you know we went from literally 30:37 eight guys to now we have 128 people of veterans of a list that is used every 30:44 week now like i said we only average not only but we average 80 a week but there's 128 that are on the list and 30:50 that list is growing yeah so that's amazing um you know birdies for bipolar is just 30:56 is there to be a support for these veterans and some of the things that british bipolar has done and continues 31:01 to do you know we've certainly done a lot of golf events we've done stand-up comedy events we've done trivia 31:07 nights basically just to raise funds and create awareness and we 31:13 would always try to funnel our funds into areas that we thought were going to have a direct impact on groups of people 31:20 and the the organic nature of the success of this league just kind of all made sense 31:28 because it's golf it's getting the veterans together and it's attacking that specific time of year that can be 31:35 more challenging for people you know when the weather is cold in those winter months so um you know i guess you could 31:41 say that bernie through bipolar and the arlington greens veterans golf association are brothers that aren't you know okay so but 31:47 uh bernie's for bipolar itself as an entity is the 31:53 uh i guess it's a 501c3 yes sir and so that's just a charitable 31:59 organization and you started that to really promote the 32:07 message of mental health and mental health awareness to the larger community so what are you 32:14 guys doing with that and if people obviously they can go to birdiesby for bipolar.com but how can people get more 32:22 information about that and get connected to that if they would like to yes certainly our website is a place 32:30 they can go that's birdies for bipolar dot org that's birdies and then the number four bipolar dot org 32:36 and yeah i mean our mission uh is to de-stigma destigmatize you know to let 32:41 people know that hey you know what i may have bipolar i may have schizophrenia i 32:47 mean even though by bipolar is in the name of our organization you know if you go if you go to the home page on our 32:52 site we talk about all the mental illnesses and one of the things that's on our home page is 24 32:58 of the population has been diagnosed with with some form of mental illness right 33:04 well that's only the 24 who are willing to go find out what's wrong with her 33:09 so it's probably closer to 45 or 50 percent yeah you know i mean and anybody 33:14 who's done therapy for any amount of time will tell you that probably 33:20 a hundred percent of the population has either been depressed enough or anxious 33:25 enough to be diagnosed as having a disorder so i would actually argue it's 33:32 just actually a part of the human condition and you're so right we need to destigmatize that so that when people go 33:39 through something that is a notch above what we would just 33:45 consider normal everyday slings and arrows of living life that they feel 33:50 comfortable being able to access the resources that are there because right now the stigma causes a lot of 33:56 people to be reluctant to do that yeah i mean you're exactly right and we wanted to 34:02 create the message that you know let's find out what's wrong and let's fix it let's not just ignore it 34:10 and hope it goes away you know we want to we want to address it we want to address it head on 34:15 and you know it's funny because i always say this to people you know my book came out in 2000 late 2015 34:23 and i would always tell people you know i couldn't do a book like that in 1985 or even a 19 you know but 34:30 i think the conversation and it's all over these days it's all over the television i mean you look at the 34:37 the ads they're talking about mental illness on commercials uh the conversation is much louder now 34:43 which is great you know because that's the way it needs to be the reason people would struggle before is because they 34:49 would sweep it under the rug and they would have think about it they wouldn't want to address it and talk about it and 34:54 you know i got to give my parents a lot of credit they said when i was diagnosed that we're going to talk about this 34:59 we're not going to you know turn our back on it we're not gonna you know ignore it we're gonna we're gonna 35:05 address it and i think that's the best way to make steps forward is to address it 35:10 well michael i just have to say from the depths of my heart thank you so 35:17 much for giving us the time we could talk to you for days if not weeks and 35:23 you know we we definitely want to get you on the show you actually said before 35:28 we started the turn the mics on that you know you'd be willing to come into the studio which is 35:35 great so the next time we do this we will definitely have you in the studio we will definitely get that set up but i 35:41 just really appreciate your time you know you have such a unique voice and to have 35:49 been in the the spheres of influence that you've been in 35:55 really helps to normalize the message and really helps people to be able to 36:02 say hey you know what if a guy like michael wellington can not acknowledge 36:07 this then i can acknowledge it and i just think that that's so powerful so again i really appreciate your time um 36:15 and uh the best way then for people to get more information is to go to british 36:20 for bipolar dot org we will put that on the show notes again michael thank you so much 36:26 for the time today as always the music that appears in psych with mike is 36:31 written and performed by mr benjamin the clue and if it's friday it's psych with mike 36:39 [Music]

What is happiness and how do we find it? https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-happiness-4869755 Athletic Greens https://athleticgreens.com/partner/d35ctoffer-nutrition/en?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=emerging_d35ct__a3878__o27&utm_term=cac__a3878__o27&utm_content=sport__a3878__o27   Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's psych with mike 0:21 welcome into the psych with mike library this is dr michael mahon and i am here with mr brett newcomb good morning 0:27 how are you i am so happy it hurts i was just going to ask you 0:32 what kind of things make you happy hmm time to travel do you have a good books 0:38 to read friends to be with a little bit of alcohol to drink 0:44 humor and loving people do you like loving people 0:53 i think so okay but i don't like a lot of people 0:59 i don't like like hypocritical loving people like some of the religious people i know are pretty damn smart yeah yeah 1:04 you know they love everybody right but uh well i don't like them and and 1:10 i would agree you don't like a lot of people yeah and so the people that you're not that into it 1:19 really wouldn't matter if they were loving right because you it wouldn't be like oh if somebody was 1:24 so you're attempting to go a whole lot deeper than i was planning but yeah you know one of my conceits 1:31 has always been that i can be acceptable in almost any group of people right 1:36 which requires some skill levels 1:42 of engagement of attending of conversation of reading the signs 1:49 warning signals but above and beyond and aside from all of that i i generally like people 1:57 although individuals i make specific judgments about yeah 2:02 uh global category i've always uh 2:08 tried to cultivate and even curate my own chromogen 2:14 personality just because you try to imitate me well maybe i don't know my my family 2:20 says i've been that way for as long as they've known me oh okay but uh so i've always said oh i don't like 2:27 people and my wife has always said oh that's ironic given what you do for a living and i've always said you don't 2:33 have to like people to do therapy would you agree with that no no i think you have to you think you have to i think 2:39 you have to have an investment and i think if you don't invest but what uh what i really think is if you spend time 2:45 getting to know somebody then you will find things exactly so there may be an initial 2:51 reserve right or resistance but if i invest in paying attention to someone 2:57 and learning about their hurts and their losses and their goals and their desires 3:04 and their character i find the human condition to be incredibly strong and incredibly attractive 3:11 and i find something then to care about everybody that i'm working with 3:16 or i don't work with well right right everybody every year they don't work with me everybody that you're working with so so this is what i would say is 3:22 that you know mother teresa probably walked down the street and saw 3:28 everybody and thought oh that's a wonderful person and 3:33 i would love to get i don't think anybody can do that okay i don't i think 3:39 and and so i as a rule wouldn't do that walking down the street but when i do 3:45 therapy you're absolutely right i deeply genuinely care for everybody that i've ever worked with 3:51 so i am very human and i find the human condition to be 3:57 judgmental and i look at people and i make judgments and i don't like that about 4:02 myself and i fight it hard but my unconscious voice is looking at 4:08 somebody i don't even know somebody at the grocery store or somebody driving down the highway somebody walking on the street and i'm like why are they dressed 4:16 like that oh my god they're so fat whatever whatever triggers me 4:22 and i really fight myself comes from your shadow i understand that yeah but i'm saying i 4:28 think it's part of the human communication so one of the things as a clinician that you must learn to do in order to be good 4:35 at what you do is you need to learn to corral that and park it somewhere oh yeah and it's a 4:40 deliberate conscious choice and skill so when i'm not on duty when i'm on 4:46 autopilot i hear that voice in my head that i'm disrespectful of i don't trust it i don't like it 4:51 judgmental uh and like well who are you to say that about those who you don't know you know 4:57 you haven't walked in their shoes you don't know what's going on in their lives you don't know what they're dealing with but that part of me that human condition 5:03 part of me that i don't like uh says you got to work better on being perfectable here you got to work better 5:09 on being the person you want to be instead of the person that you are right and i can honestly say i don't know 5:16 uh that i've ever experienced that really doing therapy i 5:22 mean i experienced it on the on the street all the time yeah yeah yeah i think i've been with you absolutely but but i heard that 5:29 yeah i know that that that we've talked about and we talked about in school 5:35 that you have to learn how to be able to like people even people that you might not like on the street but when i've 5:41 done when you say that that sounds artificial to me michael you have to learn how to like somebody i think what 5:47 you learn is a level of openness a level of receptivity how to position yourself 5:54 it's just like uh to do meditation you have to learn how to get yourself to a centered spot and you say you don't 6:01 have to learn you just have to open yourself to that that's so you're saying that that's a different that we all immediately already know the best 6:08 myself in listening to you with neutrality and accuracy and empathy 6:15 i will discover things about you that i like and admire exactly no i think we're 6:20 we're both on the same page absolutely and and and and that's why i just phrased it differently that's what yeah that's what i'm saying i don't think 6:26 i've ever had that experience doing therapy where i was judgmental for exactly the reasons that you just 6:33 defined because if you listen to somebody openly genuinely non-judgmentally then you're not going 6:40 to do those things that we do when we're on the street 6:46 i remember having a client that was a convicted pedophile he was referred to me by his work 6:52 he had to come he didn't have the option he was very 6:58 unhappy about that and he came in first couple sessions we were gandy dancing around how are we 7:04 going to do therapy what's this going to be like and i said to him at the very beginning 7:10 you have to understand that i have no tolerance no acceptance for your desires 7:17 i will work to be able to hear you and discuss with you whatever about what 7:25 we need to do to help you understand and control your behaviors but if i ever am made aware that some 7:32 child is at risk because of you i will report you in a heartbeat and he said oh i don't think i like that 7:39 and i said i don't think i care it's only going to work my way and so i will 7:45 invest in spending time with you and trying to find out what makes you tick and how to protect you so that we can 7:50 protect children but i'm not ever going to even pretend to be 7:56 okay with what you want or what you have done and if i find out that you're still doing it i'll put you in jail 8:04 so he came to see me for about six months and and he tested it and i mean you have to draw very very firm 8:10 boundaries if i come to know this i will report it 8:16 so he came in one day and told me about a situation and he said that oh this came up and 8:22 my wife called dfs and they came out and they did a report and there's nothing to it and so you don't need to worry about 8:29 it i said i need to see the report from dfs and he said i'm not going to show it to 8:34 you i said okay i'll call him so i called him and he said he called me names he gushed me out i said we're not going any 8:40 further with this you can't come back unless i know that child is safe and has 8:46 been determined by others to be safe and if you can't come back can't go to work it's up to you we'll either do this 8:53 now all right and he's still hot so i called dfs and said i need i need to report 9:00 and when was him sitting there when you were working with him yeah did you like him 9:06 i found things about him to be uh 9:13 sympathetic uh he'd had some real trauma in his life he was a human being he was suffering 9:20 uh he was a smart man he was a manipulative dishonest man uh i i found him to be 9:27 fascinating in a way but almost like uh uh snake hypnotizes a bird 9:34 and there was a constant level of um did you feel like he was a puzzle 9:39 yeah yeah yeah yeah and i can totally see that and and you could like that you could like 9:46 he could be engaged yeah yeah well most pedophiles can be engaging i mean 9:51 that's why they're successful yeah so okay then let's switch gears if 9:57 somebody comes to therapy and says i want to 10:03 learn how to be happier is that a 10:09 realistic goal of therapy and 10:14 a larger metaphysical question people say that the the goal of life is to be happy is that 10:21 true i don't know yeah life just is 10:26 it comes with waves there are storms and there's sunshine they're good people in your life and bad 10:32 people i i don't have a single global answer and the terminology 10:38 is is difficult to uh deal with it's difficult to parse when 10:44 when somebody says teach me how to be happy i don't even begin to know what that means 10:49 and so my first question back would be like explain to me how it is that you're not happy you know what are you aware what 10:55 do you feel what's going on in your life that you define it as an unhappy life and then 11:01 take those one at a time how can we address that if you are unhappy with uh 11:06 the people in your life are we open to talking about how to change the people in your life 11:12 where do you find other people or new people and how are the people in your life impacting you 11:18 and what choices do you have what power do you have to make a different choice and what would that cost you you know 11:23 for instance if you decide my family's really sick and dysfunctional and they're contaminating my life and making 11:30 me miserable are you prepared to walk away from them right do you have what that takes do you understand what that might mean right 11:37 or are you open to trying to see them differently same people but understand them with more compassion 11:44 for instance when when people come down with alzheimer's and they begin to 11:50 deteriorate one of the things that regularly happens at a certain point of that deterioration 11:56 is they become angry and hateful and when that happens if you have if 12:02 we've talked about okay your grandmother's gonna be like this and you see it coming 12:07 can you position yourself to a perspective that can tolerate that or encompass it 12:13 with your greater caring for how is she surviving physically is she she getting baths is she getting food 12:22 their heat in her house uh that she need to go to the doctor even though she's going to be hateful to you and say 12:27 hateful hurtful things to you can you not take that personally at your core identity 12:33 and we can discuss that and we can plan for that and we can picture that and maybe give them some tools for surviving 12:41 it right without destroying that relationship with her memory and so for me that's i i think that what 12:48 you're talking about is really one of the the points that 12:54 are on the horns of the bull that i struggle with which is if you have life circumstances that are 13:01 such that you don't have any good choices then how do you even talk about being 13:08 happy but then i struggle with it because then i'm like okay should the goal be 13:13 to say okay given the life choices that you have select 13:18 one and then we can talk about how to be happiest 13:24 within that life choice and i really struggle with that is that what does that 13:30 what does that mean i think ultimately it comes down to the individual right what does the individual want and how do 13:35 they want to live within the choices i think it comes down to 13:40 patterns and framing uh i know when you're working with people that are chronically 13:46 clinically depressed and they feel trapped and they just sit 13:51 in a chair and stare at the wall or they cry all the time and they they don't they can't do anything i mean 13:57 i talked to a couple people i can't even get out of bed or let him take a shower and brush my teeth 14:02 they feel powerless so one of the ways to attack that is to 14:08 give them some things that they can see concretely that they have power to do 14:15 and so you you start with simple five-step things three-step things 14:20 five's too many start with once for instance oh yeah brush your teeth right every day i yeah 14:27 and write it down i brush my teeth today make a checklist make a chart x all you have to do is make an excellent piece of paper 14:34 but if you can do that then we can say here is 14:40 concrete information that says you can do something that you choose to do 14:47 and so then can we build on that is that a foundation we can build on so tomorrow can we do two things right 14:53 and i've had clients and and people may not believe this but 14:59 i can guarantee you this has happened more than a couple of times where i've done exactly that and they will come 15:06 back weeks later and say i feel horrible about myself 15:11 given myself credit for brushing my teeth that's so ridiculous that i have to give myself credit for brushing my 15:17 teeth and i would say to them but did you brush your teeth and they'd be like yeah and i said did it make you feel better and they're like yeah but it 15:23 makes me mad that something so benign 15:28 as brushing my teeth is something that i have to give myself credit for and i'm like but you're just 15:34 this is a process you're working the process if you work the process it will 15:40 get better but if you tell yourself i can't work the process or i'm a bad 15:46 person because i have to work the process you're just digging the hole deeper there's no value in that but it's 15:52 really hard for people to be able to accept something like what we're talking about just brush your teeth and give 16:00 yourself credit for it it is hard for them to do that and they're using 16:05 every skill that they have to fight getting better to stay sick 16:11 it's a flight called a flight into sickness so you have to learn how to point that 16:16 out you know you have some strength the strength of your resistance to getting better right is strength 16:23 we have the strength it's like gas in a can you can put it in the car you can put it in the lawnmower 16:28 you have it you where you're putting it in the wrong machine you're putting it in service of the wrong action so let's do something 16:36 different and what i tell people is the part of you that wants to stay sick is a real part 16:42 of you and it has a life the same as the part of you that wants to get better and the 16:48 part of you that wants to stay sick doesn't want to get snuffed out and so it's going to fight back 16:55 and you have to be able to gird yourself against that so if you have been able to develop a relationship with them 17:02 then that's part of the dance of that relationship and you're able to say i see honestly 17:08 see real strength in you that you possess control over 17:14 i see that it's misdirected i'm challenging that's good you're redirected even marginally even if 17:20 something is because you never start at the core you never make progress where you need to 17:26 make it uh if you uh if you're agoraphobic and you can't go 17:33 out of the house you're trapped and i can get you to go on the front porch and drink a soda and stay out of the 17:40 front porch for 10 minutes set an alarm clock stay on the porch for 10 minutes and then this week all we do is get you 17:47 on the front porch for 10 minutes next week we get you to go out to the mailbox and check the mail and come back 17:53 we make incremental change that i keep track of because i want to point it out to you look 18:00 your internal monologue is saying you're trapped and can't do anything that life sucks and you're screwed 18:07 but my record keeping says you chose to do this you chose to do this 18:13 and you chose to do this yeah so could you choose right somebody's got to keep 18:18 a record of it that's really important yes and if this client won't then the therapist needs to and the client won't 18:24 other than mentally now obviously we would like to get the client to the point where they're able to do that so 18:31 that's one of the down the road steps right i've been tracking this for you and asking you about it every week same thing you do with a suicide contract you 18:38 make a suicide contract well i'm just going to go kill myself he said well i need you to promise me that you won't do that this week or do anything about 18:44 doing it this week uh until or till you come back whenever your next appointment is ten days out 18:51 um and then when they come back you gotta ask them did you keep the contract right i mean obviously they're sitting 18:57 in the room so they did but then you ask them to extend it yeah okay so now we're gonna do this to the next week because 19:03 if you don't ask them they internalize well you've given me permission you don't care that matter you know i'm gonna do this so then they go home and 19:09 do something it's it's a very complex dance and that's what the clinician has to learn 19:16 the skill to dance but they can't be they can't take the power they can't 19:22 issue commands they have to encourage and persuade and give accurate empathic reflection i have 19:30 to reflect back to you i hear you i see this in you but i i see it differently 19:36 you may wear color black i see pastels let me tell you that's a pastel shirt 19:43 you're wearing now you need to trust me or not but you can't see that color i can see 19:48 it so so let's take a break and when we come back we're going to talk specifically 19:54 about some of the things that we would do we know that work yeah yeah you know if you've gotten this far into 20:00 the show then obviously you find the show to be worthwhile 20:05 beneficial maybe even helpful and so i just wanted to say if you've gotten this far into the show 20:12 and you want to help us out even if you don't want to help us out just do it anyway go to 20:17 apple podcasts and rate us and leave a review that is super helpful subscribe 20:24 to the show on youtube and hit the bell icon so that you get notifications when 20:29 new shows drop that stuff is really really helpful for us and i know that mr 20:34 brett agrees absolutely reviews are positive uh positive reviews are more positive than 20:40 the negative ones are as well because it helps you decide what how to focus and how to how 20:47 whatever you're attending to say is being heard and the secret is the algorithm doesn't care whether the 20:52 review is positive or negative as our friend mike norton says regularly feedback is a gift 20:58 if it's friday it's psych with mike okay we're back and and and so first i 21:04 just have to do a tangential thing so that the duck 21:09 came back and i have the window of the psych with mike 21:14 library open and i actually didn't know if that was a duck outside or if that was a duck 21:20 yeah so i was like where's that duck uh but i think that at this point so up to this 21:28 point we've been talking about trying to break people out of their 21:34 malaise if they're really really stuck in a rut but if somebody is 21:40 has an idea about wanting to try and be happier however it is that 21:48 they define that so the first thing that i would want to do would be to define what does that mean i mean if 21:54 you're telling me you want to be happier is there a way to uh you know 21:59 observation define your terms yeah to to to measure that because otherwise 22:04 how do you know if you're gonna if you're making progress so that's the first thing but then if somebody says okay yes i want to be 22:11 happier and i want to engage in behaviors that are going to make me healthier and happier what are some of 22:17 the things that we would do to try and help them along that road 22:24 well it sounds a little sanctimonious sometimes but doing something for somebody else 22:31 is the thing that makes you feel better so if you see someone that needs help if 22:37 it's like i was at lowe's the other day with my wife we were browsing for something and 22:42 went out to the car and the guy that parked next to me had bought this big lawnmower it was on one of those big 22:48 flat beds and he and his wife were trying to put in 22:53 the back of the car and i walked up and said would you like some help with that and his wife said oh thank god because i don't think i could 22:59 lift this end and he didn't say anything yeah he was like you're a strange man you come out of my car what are you doing i 23:06 just said would you like some help because to me that's what people do as if they have an opportunity and they 23:12 see something that needs to be done or see somebody needs some help you offer to help 23:18 offer to help you know what a lady lives next door off to go to the grocery store for her offer to bring her groceries in 23:24 when she goes to the grocery store do something for someone else 23:29 and that will make you feel better about yourself and there's even biology 23:35 about that so that's pro-social behavior yeah and that's what we call it in psychology and we know that engaging in 23:43 pro-social behavior raises the levels of oxytocin in your body and in the body of 23:49 the person that you do a kindness for and so oxytocin is a positive hormone 23:56 that makes you feel less stressed and it it it makes the it reduces the levels of 24:02 cortisol the stress-related hormone in your body and so we know biologically 24:08 that that actually works not just for you but for the person that you do the kindness for as well so there's an 24:15 article in this month's atlantic magazine about 10 concrete are specific steps 24:21 that you can do to improve your general level of happiness that 24:27 frame you to be in a happier place and the first thing on the article is the one that we're talking about invest 24:32 in family and friends and by that investment what we're saying is do something for someone else 24:39 but there's there are nine more and before we run out of time let's run through what they are these are 24:45 suggestions that this particular psychologist has done some research on and is saying 24:51 these are the concrete things that i would recommend that you try and so part of the dance that he does with his 24:56 clients is try to encourage them facilitate them empower them to try some of these things 25:03 so the second one is join a club join some kind of club it doesn't matter what it is but it's a group of people 25:11 with similar interests at that moment in time who come together to do something it could be a 25:17 remote aircraft uh a radio-controlled aircraft club and you 25:22 can go and watch you can go and buy your own plane you can go and fly the plane my dad other people fly remotely but you 25:29 find a community of kindred spirits or common interests 25:34 i have a friend that belongs to a scotch tasting club and they they dress up in kilts and 25:41 they're like scotsman and they bring out all these different brands of scotch and they sit and debate 25:47 which of these breweries are better which product is is more likable why is it the pahini flavor is it from the isle 25:54 of you know they get into all that stuff and then i have other friends that belong to a bridge club they go and they 26:00 play they build bridges they play duplicate bridge charles goran type four no trump bridge card game 26:08 uh i've not you just said a bunch of words oh i know you don't know but it's a club a chess club 26:16 a club at church uh i have another friend whose husband committed suicide and she's going to a 26:22 club it's a suicide support group for families of people who have family 26:28 members that kill themselves and she says it's very helpful very beneficial 26:34 to go and she feels less alone less 26:39 misunderstood not understood so join a club is a second 26:44 suggestion any kind of club make yourself go i mean so he goes through all 10 of these 26:50 things then he kind of summarizes the main point i'll run through some more of these things but i want to make sure we summarize the main point yeah the main 26:56 point is that you have to have intentionality and a pattern 27:02 so if you select two or three of these things to try it can't be hit or miss it can't be once and it doesn't work and so 27:08 i'm not going to do it again you have to invest in the progress and so it becomes a patterning exercise 27:16 and really psychotherapy for the most part every single issue 27:23 that we talk about is at its core is really about consistency yeah consistency is always 27:29 the key if i offer you and some kind of behavioral change 27:36 that i can tell you will work for whatever your issue is that's true as long as you apply it 27:43 consistently but if you only do it one time then you feel better you have 27:49 catharsis but you don't get better you don't have cathexis or you don't feel better because you tried 27:56 it and it didn't work yeah which sometimes is an agenda i was going to say that can be a self conclusion in 28:02 services yeah so let's go through these other ones mental and physical activity 28:08 you have to be active you have to do something read a book do your times tables memorize the 28:14 presidents in order and recite them do something physically walk around the block take a shower do 10 push-ups i 28:22 mean we can find a specific example for someone to attempt based on their physical capacity if you can't start if 28:29 you haven't done anything physically you can't run 10 miles you have to build up you have to do five setups today 28:36 10 setups day after tomorrow 15 setups three days from now 28:42 you have to build you have to do it every day that's right and you in a month out you're like hey you know what 28:47 i can go up that flight of stairs and i'm not winded uh but it doesn't just happen so mental 28:53 and physical activity is required if you just sit on the couch and watch tv 28:59 in a receptive posture you're not getting better your life is not going right 29:04 practice a religious perspective a religious belief or religious program and that's not to say 29:11 any given church or religion but the 29:16 contemplation of uh something larger and 29:22 ethically more meaningful that you can internalize as a check against your own 29:30 meaningless and impracticality so not advocacy for proselytizing for a 29:36 specific religious interpretation but some sort of 29:41 religious perspective and i just mean i just made a note 29:47 for us to do a show on the difference between religion and spirituality so what i would talk about what you're 29:52 talking about is spirituality right so religion is following a dogmatic path that's already written down spirituality 29:59 is exploring what makes you feel connected to the universe and answers the existential question of why am i 30:06 here or attempts to yeah yeah and and so uh being spiritual is essential to the 30:13 human condition being religious is something that you can do those two things can go hand in hand but they 30:20 don't have to all right yeah physical exercise is the fifth one which to me is a redundancy from the first one 30:27 uh act nicely act nicely you know what that take it till you make it right yeah i was just 30:33 going to say but that's one of the ones where consistency is key if you act nicely one time you might feel better 30:39 because you get a shot of oxytocin if you act nicely act nicely consistently 30:46 eventually that becomes who you are yeah be generous 30:54 it feels good to give people things it feels good to do things for people that you see that they need 31:00 there are many cultures that have histories of say of if someone admires something you have i really like that 31:06 give it to them uh arguments can be made and especially in materialistic societies that that we 31:13 have to accumulate more we have to have more than one that dies with the most toys and obviously having a bunch of stuff 31:19 makes you feel better because you it's a hedge against uncertainty it's a hedge against nature 31:24 i got more stuff than you got so i must be better god or the gods must favor me more that's 31:31 give stuff away my hope for somebody yes my whole premise of why 31:36 christmas gifts are associated with christmas time is because it's actually about the 31:44 giving it's not about the receiving and i think that we have that perverted in our capitalistic society but yeah i i 31:52 think that gifts should always be given without any 31:58 perception of reciprocity well they're not gifts if there's a perception exactly briberies right yeah and i but i 32:04 think there are a lot of people that go around bribing yeah yeah the loved ones in their lives if i do this for you 32:10 you'll like me better yeah check your health 32:15 be aware of your system and how it works it sends you messages it tells you where 32:23 we got to deal with something here you got to listen to it you have to stop and smell the roses right to stop and 32:28 pay attention i had a pain it's caused by something it's a message about something uh inflammation in your 32:36 body is something that is hard to be aware i mean if you have a swollen elbow 32:42 you know that's swollen but you don't know if you have inflammation in your internal system right go to the doctor 32:49 have lab tests done and that's a that's an evolving thing you and i are both at the age where we may not be able to do 32:56 the things that we could do when we were trying to get so mad about that yeah and and if we if you live in your 50s 60s 33:03 and 70s being angry that you can't do the things that you could do when you were 25 then 33:09 you're not going to be a very happy person my wife and i were hiking with some friends in the alps in france 33:15 and show off i was struggling to get to the top of the mountain well but you were in france 33:22 hiking the alps the kids that we were with were running up the damn mountain and i'm huffing and puffing and 33:27 struggling and i was getting really angry because i used to be able to outrun those kids 33:33 and now i'm creaking along at the end of the line and i'm struggling to make it and i pushed myself to get to the top 33:40 and then when i got to the top my blood pressure was up my heart was beating and it was shallow breathing and 33:46 phyllis was like you're gonna have a heart attack yeah and and we're gonna have to leave you here because we can't carry you down right you know sit down 33:52 catch your breath and i was so mad but i it was that thing about you you can't 33:58 run 10 miles if you haven't walked 600 feet a half a mile a mile you have to 34:03 build up to it build your stamina and you have to be aware of your capacity right and your health but then 34:12 at your age you would have been able to take a couple of deep breaths catch your breath 34:19 rest the time that you needed and then look around and genuinely appreciate the 34:25 view that you were witnessing which is something that those kids probably couldn't do 34:32 yeah but i don't know that i mean that's a pretty philosophical point we're talking about uh being a 34:39 i look around at a lot of people my age and older who've lost their balance and their ability to walk they're on 34:46 walk closer they're in wheelchairs they have to use a cane or two canes and i'm like even though it's a struggle 34:52 keep walking as much as you can yeah get up and walk and they say oh i can't i can't walk i said walk 34:59 50 steps walk a block sit down wait till somebody comes to get you but walk a 35:04 block every day and then when you've done that for two weeks try to walk two blocks and and there are 35:11 ways to retrain your proprioceptive senses and it it 35:17 it's an investment i mean it takes a long time and you have to start really small but there are ways to do that but 35:22 we don't do that we don't train elderly people to really be aware of their proprioceptive system their vestibular 35:29 system would give them too many excuses yeah they're not doing it to not do it right we give them a wheelchair or a walker then a wheelchair television and 35:36 everything to sell is a drug right and buy this drug and now and then they say this could kill you it could cause this 35:41 side effect and that side effect and if you're taking these other drugs with it it'll definitely kill you but just talk to your doctor about that yeah but buy 35:48 it first yeah yeah tell your doctor you want it and then talk about all the side effects yeah yeah but but purchase it 35:54 yeah all right so experience nature pay attention to that get out of here 36:00 you know the more civilized our society tech in quotes civilized becomes 36:05 the less contact we have with nature the less we know about is it a full moon is a 36:11 quarter moon is it a waxing moon is it a waning moon uh is it time to plant the harvest is it time to harvest what we 36:17 planted we don't know and we don't need to know we have air conditioning we have running water we have food that comes in 36:23 a can at the grocery store so we don't have to pay attention to that the way mankind has always had to pay attention 36:30 to that and so it enhances your capacity to be happy if you have a level of 36:37 exposure and awareness to some elements of nature go for a walk in the park listen to the birds i just went camping 36:44 last three days at night there was this flock of owls who were talking to each other around our campsite and my wife 36:51 and i sat in our tent and listen to these owls and it's an amazing thing to hear 36:58 so it's a about it's an example of the sound of running water you know 37:03 snow-capped peak there's just so many beautiful things but you have to take the time 37:08 to experience those things and whether it's philosophical or not and to appreciate them you have to mindfully 37:16 participate in that experience sitting around a campfire listening to the crackle of the fire uh seeing the glow 37:23 right of the cult and you can be there with another person and you don't have to be talking you can both be 37:29 experiencing that and that can be meaningful and profound without anybody 37:34 saying a word then the last one of these 10 that this man suggested in his article socialize 37:39 with colleagues outside of work in our society 37:45 we change friendship groups when we change jobs or when we change education levels if you leave high school you 37:53 think oh all these people i went to high school with are going to be my lifelong friends five years down the road most of you 37:58 aren't going to know if you're dead or alive most of that cluster of people right because life moves and people move 38:05 so some of you will have moved away some of you will just lost touch because you have nothing to hold you together 38:15 that happens so you do that in high school you do that in college you do that in graduate school you do that in employment opportunities so when you're 38:22 in a situation where you're in contact with people on a regular basis socialize with them some for enrichment purposes 38:30 make your life better because you have a barbecue you have a birthday party you all go to a concert or you all 38:37 go to some picnic or activity and if you change jobs start that socialization with the new 38:44 people if you can and want to continue with the old people but part of what happens too is you don't fit anymore 38:51 right you don't know the inside you're joking you don't know the personalities the other people rotate and change and 38:56 so you lose that anchor so you need to make a new anchor with your new group 39:02 so try to socialize with people work i worry about that with the movement today 39:07 for working from home absolutely and and the amount of time that even people in our age group spend on 39:16 screens rather than in one-to-one interpersonal communication right yeah so these things that we've listed 39:23 today are things that can make a difference if they are done with intentionality and repetition you have 39:30 to select the ones that you might be willing to try you have to try them you have to have encouragement and support 39:36 from people around you who know that's what you're trying to do and then you have to do it deliberately 39:41 consciously repeatedly if you do those things that way you can expect an improvement in your 39:48 quality of life and consistency is the key amen so hopefully that was beneficial i 39:54 know we ran along today but i think that was a great discussion with lots and lots of information the music that 40:00 appears inside with mike is written and performed by mr benjamin the clue i hope you guys are liking some of the new 40:06 things that are happening here at the show and if you do and even if you don't 40:12 uh share the show with somebody and uh let's see those numbers go up because 40:17 that's really gonna help us over the next couple of months while we're struggling to find our place in this 40:23 space of uh advertisement so the music that appears i said that on site with 40:29 mike is random performed by mr benjamin the clue and if it's friday it's cyclic 40:36 [Music]  

 As a professor of psychology, I have to make accommodations for individuals with diagnosed disabilities regularly. Yet, I did not take a class on disabilities in graduate school and no one I know did either. All the information I have about disabilities I learned for myself. The CDC reports that 26% of Americans have some form of disabilities we need to have better education to support these individuals and their psychological needs.  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/disability-is-diversity/202204/we-need-talk-about-disability-in-psychology-classes https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html#:~:text=26%20percent%20(one%20in%204,is%20highest%20in%20the%20South. Athletic Greens https://athleticgreens.com/partner/d35ctoffer-nutrition/en?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=emerging_d35ct__a3878__o27&utm_term=cac__a3878__o27&utm_content=sport__a3878__o27   Transcript:  you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page at psych with mike now here's cycling welcome to the site 0:19 with my vibrate this is starting did you want to repeat that no did i edit all your best 0:24 no i don't need to people that watch it regularly know that and we are here with mr brett newcomb 0:31 hi miss michelle steg how are you doing michelle good for you it's good to have you here again 0:37 thank you oh okay i thought you had something no i just i'm happy to be here with two clinicians 0:43 that i've trained and mentored through the years to be more like me 0:49 does it make you you know what i actually and this is the first time i've ever 0:55 thought this how does it make you feel to be in a room 1:01 with other individuals that you have trained and to know 1:09 is that exactly what i said 1:16 no you know one of the reasons that i've agreed to do this podcast that we've done over the last couple of years and we get close and flow 1:23 towards me and gold is to make the podcast address itself to 1:28 people that are interested in doing therapy as clinicians or 1:33 in getting understanding what therapy is like without being in therapy from clinicians 1:38 and so we try to have conversations and address those issues so i'm intrigued 1:44 with the three of us talking because we've all had similar clinical training 1:49 and similar clinical experiences but we have different perspectives on how to do it in the room and so i was hoping we 1:56 could kind of talk about some of those differences one of my arguments has always been that 2:01 psychologists rewrite the same articles and put different words and 2:07 call it something new so it sounds like something fresh is out there it's the same old stuff right 2:12 but fundamentally i believe that to be a clinician to do therapy 2:18 you have to have a mind map that helps you 2:23 understand what everything is going on with people and where the pieces that are out of 2:28 focus or that are broken might reside and how to find them and help bring them 2:34 into focus help correct them uh that's a clinical challenge yeah and 2:40 you have to do it with respect you have to do it with passion uh you have to do it 2:45 with consummate attention i i used to for 30 years i taught at university in a 2:50 nighttime program from 5 30 to 9 30 at night and i would regularly say to my students because 2:56 they'd be great at 5 30 6 6 30 quarter 7 then they start checking their money 3:02 they're gone and they'll check their emails and stuff and i would say to them this is what it's like to do there 3:08 you have to this opportunity to learn how to discipline yourself to be in the background and pay attention what's going on what people are bringing to you 3:15 to consider and they will look at each other what the hell was he talking about yeah i hear all your voices once a week 3:22 i swear to that because i on those days where you're tired or you know i was telling you i had an 3:28 insane day with my kid and i mean i lived like four days already and then i had to go to therapy 3:35 and i but i do i remember that and i hear your voice saying these people are paying you you're on the clock right 3:41 you are on the clock their money is worth something and you show up yeah you bring it you bring it you have to worry 3:47 about it put your stuff in a box and bring it right yeah right at least i i do passionate believe that 3:54 i agree completely i always called that a theoretical orientation that a person has to have a theoretical orientation 4:00 and if you don't have a theoretical orientation that you can define then you don't have a theoretical orientation and 4:06 it isn't easy in knowledge that was a collective jeff well then people say eclectic and so what eclectic means is 4:11 that you have i don't have uh kinds of tools to be able to be 4:19 effective in therapy and it's fine to be eclectic as long as you can define it but if you say i'm eclectic and you 4:25 can't define it then you don't why is that really important to you because what brett was talking about he 4:32 uses the concept of mind map and whether it's a mind map or however you think of it if you don't have some 4:39 idea of where you think that human pathology evolves from then you don't 4:45 have an idea of how human pathology evolves and if you don't have an idea then you're just shooting in the dark 4:52 and if you're getting paid to do it i don't believe that that's how you should 4:58 approach i think that you should have a very clear like i can use cognitive 5:03 behavioral interventions but my understanding of how human 5:08 pathology evolves is through the heinz kohut theory of how 5:14 emotional regulation develops through the concepts of idealization twinship 5:20 and mirroring and i can explain in great depth and detail what all of those things mean so i would say that i am 5:28 psychodynamic very specifically object relations and even more specifically 5:34 cohadian within that field of object relations but i use other techniques as well but i 5:41 can define what that means for me and you don't have to understand it that way yeah but i have to understand it that 5:47 way so that i have a frame of reference to approach when i'm working with a client but you don't need to explain 5:53 that to the client well well i think that you're i know getting 5:59 off on it when you do this i know uh you need to know that because you're putting yourself in the room saying i 6:04 think i can help you the client needs to know i'm going to get heard this is going to be a safe place and this person 6:11 can help me they don't need to know your theory and for you to spend i mean to me it's the same conversation as i'm a christian 6:18 therapist yeah i work with christians i work with jews i work with catholics i work with arabs it doesn't matter but i don't 6:25 proselytize my theory of religion or counseling 6:31 and i struggle with that you know i struggle with that because you know my i 6:36 have a a a belief that language matters and that 6:42 agree if you present the language to the client that that gives them them a basis 6:49 to start to use language for themselves they don't have to use the same language that i use but if they don't have a 6:56 language then they need to be able to develop a language to be able to start to think about so it's like 7:02 metacognition thinking about thinking you have to be able to have the language to do that to be able to do that i can 7:08 buy that argument yeah yeah what do you think um i just have here 7:13 comes your part stuff right everybody likes to make the part of me party was so a part of me immediately 7:20 shuts down when we talk about theories but that's that's just like my stuff i think that's my 7:26 system that really um struggled in school to understand the 7:32 context of like um it probably had some learning disabilities that went under diagnosed 7:38 as a kid or undiagnosed as a kid and so when we start using the language um so 7:46 you don't see yourself as an intellectual well and you see this as an intellectual discussion i do and i just 7:51 i just shut down and then i then i get also oppositional but she can't count the question 8:01 so you're obviously much closer to brett i haven't seen you since the last time 8:06 that i had you in class and i was a lot less wrinkled we were trying to we were trying to i was trying to figure out 8:12 when that was uh but my recollection of you was as a superior 8:19 student and so now i'm hearing you say that you didn't feel that way and i'm wondering 8:26 i mean was was my impression because you put a show you know what i'm 8:32 saying say it yeah no i'll explain why but that's a fair question yeah so um i 8:38 i got my first 4.0 when i went to grad school like i i it was it was like i 8:44 found my home but i didn't find i 8:49 at that stage of the game i realized how much of an auditory learner i was so 8:55 realistically i was not reading the books with the theories and 9:01 what i learned to do was sit and master auditory learning and skills of 9:08 observation and was able to retain all the information that way through 9:13 observation so when i was like spitballing in class and making observations it wasn't bs 9:21 it was that i wasn't finding who i was as a therapist through textbooks i was 9:27 finding it through my experiences with you in class with you in class and 9:33 you talking about caseloads or um you know the group therapy class it was 9:39 like that was where i learned to be a therapist when it came 9:44 to the theories it was all lost on youtube gotcha in a sense so you can see the modeling and internalize the 9:50 modeling correct but you couldn't read the books the script it was very much like a 9:55 sensory experience like i could cure the model 10:01 experience it see it play out but i i couldn't read the words and so there's 10:06 always a party that kind of does shut down when we talk about the truth that's fascinating in part because i've always had the 10:13 opinion that good therapists have to be acute observers 10:19 and the subset of that is most of them are survivors of one kind of trauma together 10:26 because that chatter or channel that's going on in all of us all the time as we scan 10:33 uh you have to be able to process and understand and apply yes 10:39 and those are clinical skills and what you're saying is you had those when you came to the program 10:45 and you use them to develop your clinical clinical skills i believe i mastered that now you are 10:51 living i do right right and and i think 10:57 yeah very much so like it's a little embarrassing because i don't want somebody to take my license but like 11:02 i don't remember reading a lot nobody listens to the show right okay all right then we're safe here 11:08 for sure right it was such a sensory experience for me like 11:14 um i was i i just i quit fighting the game of the battle of college like i figured out 11:21 how i was a good learner and it was through like mastering the art of observation and becoming acutely aware 11:28 of subtle shifts and movements and whatever and it shows but but i i hear you 11:35 saying that as if it were a deficit but i hear it as a strength 11:44 where your strong suit was what you're where your wheelhouse was and then you played to that that just seems smart to 11:49 me well i think you know early on when i was early in school like early in my master's it felt like a deficit because 11:56 there were all these like cerebral conversations happening because everybody read the book and i'm sitting there intellectual masturbation exactly 12:02 exactly what it was and so then i remember sitting there being like feeling embarrassed or self-conscious 12:08 like i didn't understand the material and it just clicked one day and i was like stop reading the material and just 12:14 absorb because you'll gather everything you need to know from what brett tells you and when you know mike starts to speak 12:21 on this and it i i feel like i did i turned it into a real positive i was really insecure about it at first and now 12:29 i don't know i think it's kind of my memory skills so then i i feel i'm gonna ask this question 12:35 yeah maybe it's a bad reflection on me i didn't teach you ifs i know that no you 12:40 did not so so uh so how did you how did you find internal family systems from my own 12:47 therapist uh karen grayson so another uh right 12:54 so yeah she um we're very ancestors i was literally about to say that yeah um yeah i was doing my own work with her 13:00 and then she introdu the world's collided at the same time leading education 13:08 and she introduced this to me and my mind exploded because 13:14 probably because i'm a visual learner an auditory and when you learn ifs and you learn about parts white its way it's so 13:21 beautiful for men because men really struggle right we talked about with having these feelings 13:27 they're just these like abstract thoughts that are like floating around and they don't quite know what to do with them and when we talk about parts 13:36 it takes feelings and it grounds them and it makes them very it gives them a place to be it 13:42 makes them visual and men like visuals and it makes it turns feelings tangible 13:49 and it rocked my world it absolutely rocked my world it was 13:56 struggling i'm saying that because you're i wasn't struggling in terms of like 14:02 being able to identify what my theory was like i can tell you what i pull from and whatnot but 14:07 when i found ifs it was like 14:13 you know when you fall in love and you're have you been all my life like it 14:18 solidified i have art in my office from a client that's um that says we are not just one 14:25 we are made up of parts and she drew that for me over 10 years ago 14:30 and then i was introduced to ifs and it gave me the language and i was like holy 14:36 you know holy i've been doing this this entire time and it just gave me the language right 14:42 i did like i am that good i just now have language for it you know yeah so that so yeah i found ifs probably six 14:50 seven years ago maybe um yeah just it you know why i really love it is that 14:56 it's it's not super clinical i am not 15:02 a stuffy like i just i'm not a clinical person um 15:07 in therapy because i don't think my clients really care about the clinical side they just want 15:13 to get better and they just want to i think it's constant does that make sense of course it makes sense you help me you 15:20 know we get better yeah better yeah and so ifs did that for me well i think that that 15:27 there are a lot of people i've always said there are two ways you can do therapy you can just alleviate symptomology and feel 15:34 better and that is one way you can do it or you can dive into a real headlong if you know 15:42 seeking hypnosis and epiphany and genuine self-understanding and i think 15:48 that different people have to do it differently and that's why they're different therapists and i don't think that any way is necessarily superior but 15:57 i do think that there need to be people who do it different ways because it's going to 16:03 reach different people absolutely not every teacher is good for about differently 16:09 every student right and i tell people all the time i i am not 16:14 for everyone exactly i am direct i can be polarizing at times like i i 16:20 but a lot of it comes from the things we learned in class of like 16:25 i'm not going to sit here and waste your time i cost a lot of money so we're going to we're going to move and typically by the time somebody's 16:31 found me they've heard that reputation but absolutely yeah um but people pay a lot 16:38 of money and so let's not waste their time and but a lot of the directness comes from the yelling 16:44 stuff of working in the here and now right right so that's all you really 16:50 have absolutely because our offices sitting in the room what do we feel what do we have what information what 16:56 behaviors here and now are we in touch with not there and then out there somewhere 17:01 we can speculate we can anticipate we can plan but all we really have is what's here and if you think about what 17:08 we talked about last time in terms of how do you help as we were talking specifically about men but creating that 17:14 awareness for men is processing in the here and now and sitting across from a man and going hey i'm holding my breath 17:21 right now that tells me you are yeah why why aren't we breathing here's the projective identification 17:27 yeah yeah so let's take our break and let's pick this up on your site okay 17:33 hey everybody dr michael mahon here from site with mike and i couldn't be more excited to talk to you about athletic 17:39 greens which is a new sponsor we have here on the show i started taking athletic greens watching some youtube 17:46 videos and doing my own research i wanted to add something to my daily workout program to give me some energy 17:53 and to support gut health and that was the one thing that kept coming up again 17:58 and again with athletic greens is the guy who started the company did a bunch of research because he was 18:04 having some gut health issues that he couldn't get any resolution for he developed athletic greens and it's just 18:12 exploded from there so it's 75 superfoods vitamins minerals probiotics 18:18 whole food sources that's all in one daily scoop you put it in eight or 18:23 twelve ounces of water you shake it up and you drink it the taste is very very 18:28 drinkable i actually enjoy it and i have been using it and my energy 18:34 levels have just been through the roof i really like athletic greens because of 18:39 some of the sustainability things that they do so they buy carbon credits and 18:45 you know to help protect the rainforest which is something that i really like but if you order athletic greens in your 18:52 subscription you're going to also get a year's supply of their vitamin d 18:58 supplementation and five free travel packs and that vitamin d is so important 19:04 during those winter months when we're not getting enough sunlight we've talked about how that decreases your mood and 19:12 increases depression and that can be a real deal changer so you go to 19:17 athleticgreens.com emerging that's 19:23 slash athleticgreens.com that's the psych with mike promo and 19:28 you're gonna get that additional vitamin d support for a year and five free 19:34 travel packs so take control of your own health today and as always if it's 19:40 friday it's psych with mike okay we're back so uh that here and now 19:47 focus that comes from mount yavan which is an existential that's that known as an existentialist 19:53 uh is so important 19:58 for really any kind of therapy but when you're saying okay we're not breathing 20:05 why aren't we breathing and that's a here and now focus then 20:10 how where is i where does i at best come into that so it doesn't okay 20:18 it doesn't so um i i mean it can 20:23 but i find myself just oscillating um when appropriate to so you're not 20:29 getting limited by the structure no you are engaged in the process of the 20:35 conversation correct so like remember so i said i i have a tendency i have a part of me right that shuts down when we talk 20:41 about theories so if someone were to label me as an ifs therapist i'm immediately 20:46 going we're not labeling that either that is a very big piece of what i do but if we're 20:54 processing and you're now saying like so i'm not breathing that tells me you're not breathing 21:00 help me help me understand what's happening here i can say if i want to incorporate ifs i can say because it 21:05 happens often i feel like there has been a shift inside of you which tells me a part of 21:11 the stuff then can you be aware of that can you check in with your assistant 21:16 and tell me what part just stepped in because we were guiding and we were we were moving 21:21 and then i said this and there was a shift in your energy which leads me to believe a part again 21:27 it's constant teaching of awareness so we mentioned y'all yalum 21:34 was a leading author and theorist in the field of counseling 21:40 psychology i'm enamored with him in his work one of the things that he talks about 21:48 is that all of us and it drives a lot of dysfunctional behavior especially in men 21:53 uh having anxiety about death and fear of death uh and as we get older or as 22:00 critical events happen in our lives the underlying issue that therapist 22:05 needs to be aware of is this person is fear-dying facing their own immortality whatever 22:11 that means and i remember because i came to you as a therapist 22:18 and i remember getting in touch with that because i turned 74 i retired 22:25 couple of friends that died my age good friend of mine committed suicide 22:30 and i was really struggling with that i but i hadn't put it in purpose right and i'm sitting in the room with you and 22:36 you're inviting me to get in touch with all those feelings and i just started crying 22:43 wrong grief of loss and fear and you just very quietly sit there my 22:50 wife was placed on me and you were sitting there and you just softly said breathe 22:56 just breathe stay here and i couldn't i mean when my chest was frozen my throat was frozen my tears were i mean 23:03 like a blubbering child but in a little while it passed and i 23:09 could breathe so what you're describing about that isn't a technical theory it's not 10 23:17 chapters in a book that you can read and learn how to do right you have to be able to do it on the if somebody walks 23:22 in the room and they get in touch with these emotions you have to be able to be present and catch it and catch it and 23:29 hold them in a safe holding environment whatever it is when we were talking in the previous episode that we did about 23:35 rage yeah same thing a man who's grateful or angry in this moment and you're boiling with 23:42 it inside you as the clinician have to be able to sit and say it's okay stay with it 23:48 you know i hurt yourself you're not gonna punch the ball you gotta hurt me but you could feel his feelings and then this process was talking about but what 23:55 is time right now here now and my 24:00 orientation has always been and you know i say this all the time that 24:05 really everything comes down to the ability or lack thereof to 24:10 emotionally regulate so when i did my dissertation i was doing my dissertation on 24:16 substance abuse as an attachment disorder which there's very little information on but i 24:21 can make an argument for why i believe that uh and i got one third of the way through it and my 24:28 my uh chairperson who did not was not very confrontational uh came to me and 24:34 said oh you have to start over because all of this you know information is 20 years old and we want something that's 24:40 more recent and so i re did it and i did the biological similarities and 24:46 differences of depression and anxiety because i knew that i could get very very current research on that but the 24:52 point being that you know for me i've always said no one ever goes to 24:57 psychotherapy because they have a problem people go to psychotherapy because a problem that they have has 25:03 caused them emotional dysregulation if you can emotionally regulate you don't 25:08 need psychotherapy when you can't emotionally regulate the smallest problem in the world can cause you to 25:15 not be able to function and so for me it's all about trying to find 25:20 where is the dysfunction in the emotional regulation some people have never 25:26 been able to emotionally regulate they don't even know what that means they don't even yeah and and so it's all 25:34 about trump so to me it doesn't really matter like i have a very clearly 25:39 defined process or understanding of how i think 25:44 that emotional regulation develops that i can explain to people at great detail and nobody cares brett tells me all the 25:51 time nobody cares but it doesn't matter to me how people 25:56 come at that but that's the goal is how do i identify 26:01 where your emotional regulation breakdown is and how do i help you be able to emotionally regulate better and 26:09 when you can do that you don't need me anymore how does your theory though 26:14 lead people to the awareness of like needing to um 26:22 towards that emotional regulation like where how does that show up in your work 26:27 so for me the emotional regulation comes from as i said the co-hunting ideas of 26:32 mirroring idealization and twinship so you have a external model when you're 26:38 born you don't know how to emotionally regulate you're just emotion you have all of the biological components you have hormones 26:45 that get released in your body that change your body and you have emotional responses but you don't have any 26:50 self-soothing ability no emotional regulation and so you look to the external examples when the external 26:58 examples are good you learn how to emotionally regulate when they're not good or you don't internalize them 27:04 efficiently then there's a breakdown in that and so then you grow up and that's where to me 27:10 the insecurity comes from so for pj what he said is that that first stage of development is security versus 27:17 you know trust versus mistrust that's where security comes from if you don't 27:22 have grounded securities because in that very very early model 27:28 that wasn't modeled for you and so the process of psychotherapy is about giving 27:34 the client an alternative yes yeah okay 27:40 okay and so if i can come into that situation consistently enough yeah 27:47 and you can do whatever you want you're great it's not me re-parenting you right it's me 27:54 facilitating your ability giving you an example right yeah right and then you internalize a 28:00 different grown-up yes but but the therapist has to be able to 28:06 provide a consistent model for the client to be able to 28:12 see that and then internalize that what i call i say that therapists loan 28:18 their clients a little bit of ego until the client builds that for themselves 28:25 and can carry around with them 28:31 so one of the clinical arguments about that is do you as a clinician encourage 28:38 codependency of the client on you and there is an argument that can be 28:44 made that initially you need them to be dependent on you but you need to teach them how to become 28:50 independent in a healthy way exactly i mean when they are they leave but it's free parenting so i mean you 28:56 know that all goes into it now but but you know the the for me the difference 29:01 is the motivation of the therapist it's all about the counter transference if i feel 29:06 intentionally eliciting the dependence because that i get off 29:16 a part of the process of re-parenting with no 29:23 ego invested in it from my side then it's just a part of the process 29:31 well we were talking about that other way here like that constant awareness for clinicians to have the power 29:37 differentials that are in that space at all times and so yeah i feel like it's my job to be checking in on a regular 29:43 basis and having the uncomfortable conversations and essentially just modeling boundaries and how to 29:50 communicate and saying am i still meeting the needs in which you came here is there are you know is there anything 29:57 that we are doing that just doesn't feel right for you because people will stay because they want to be pleasing 30:02 and you know continue work that's not fulfilling what they need so i think 30:08 i think that's a way to to check those power differentials and not create that codependency or the 30:13 lasting codependency on the relationship but even when you're talking about these 30:19 angry males and so the angry male comes in and they can rage and then you can 30:24 sit with that and not react in a way that is cowering or 30:30 is submissive maybe for the first time yeah maybe for the first time in their experience that that's ever happened 30:36 that's giving them a different dynamic to play off of now i have an alternative 30:42 way of being able to understand this anger now can i allow myself to be 30:48 vulnerable enough to start to explore that that's the process of therapy right absolutely looking across from a man who 30:55 is raging and looking in the eyes and saying i'm not afraid 31:01 and 31:14 um when you to square a man up and say you are 31:20 not afraid of you can be significant yeah 31:26 but i think that that is that's a part of 31:32 the therapy experience and not that so so let me just say this start differently like 31:37 it's never occurred to me that i'm afraid in therapy like i've always said if i if 31:43 i ever went to work and i was afraid i would stop doing it yeah um and so i've never been in a situation where i mean 31:51 i've been in a situation point of situations where men have been rageful it's never occurred to me that i have to 31:57 say i'm not afraid of you because i just that that's not but i understand how that plays 32:04 differently with female therapists and because female therapists are 75 to 80 32:09 of the population of therapists the only way men are going to get therapy 32:15 statistically is a lot of them are going to be in therapy with females and 32:20 you know i so i think that what you are talking about is so salient how is a female going to sit in that and 32:28 be able to absorb that anger because of what what so what 32:33 is the counter transference for that female when the man is raging 32:40 and how do females learn to be able to [Music] 32:45 okay so let me ask you a question so do you do you resist 32:51 your is there something in you that says oh this guy's angry i should be subservient no i can't because i'm doing therapy or 32:58 have you trained yourself not do you understand what i'm saying i think so keep going finish that so do you or do you train yourself to 33:05 not be to not have that reaction uh i think not having the reaction comes 33:11 from my childhood number one and being around a lot of chaos and like knowing how to navigate that 33:17 um but number two um like we said in the last episode like 33:22 when i see that anger in that rage i see wounding and i feel compassionate 33:29 like i i don't know that i've had to train myself to do that as much as it just 33:35 organically is part of who i am i think that 33:40 talking about a marital situation when a couple's situation where the man is raising your ability to 33:47 experience that and reflect back to him i'm not afraid i'm aware that you're angry but i'm sitting with him and i'm 33:54 not afraid he's modeling for him what that's like in his life 33:59 other people and particularly women don't react that way but you're also modeling for the woman 34:04 who may be seeing this for the first time and may discover that's a thing that she can do absolutely 34:10 they both have a learning curve for helping survive his rage well and i'm even was 34:17 thinking as we were processing this that it's one thing for a man to come into therapy with another 34:24 man and to not have that man experience his rage as 34:30 uh yeah but it's a different thing for him to go to therapy with a woman and not 34:36 have the woman experience that rage as intimidating and i think both are beneficial both are 34:43 necessary for good therapy but go ahead as a flip side of that argument 34:48 i've had women say to me you can't know this yeah you can't know this because you're a man yeah and you can't know 34:54 what i'm feeling or you can't know what i'm seeing and yet they were experiencing that i want to snow yeah 35:00 and it wrote right it doesn't matter which sex if your world view is 35:06 people respond to this behavior this emanation from a particular way and you 35:12 have something that doesn't do that it's like well what the else going on here well right now i don't know what to 35:17 do right you change the script on me yeah exactly which is what you're trying to do absolutely it is 35:23 yeah so hopefully that was beneficial for people i think that was another really excellent clinical discussion and 35:29 i know that that is the aim uh for mr brett newcomb so i hope that he is just 35:34 delighted as always 35:39 i'm not gonna go uh as always the music that appears inside with mike is written and performed by mr 35:44 benjamin the clue we would love it if you would find us on the interwebs and uh 35:50 on apple podcast leave us a comment and a rating but most importantly if you go 35:56 to the youtubes and find psych with mike and subscribe to the show that would be fantastic and as always if it's friday 36:04 [Music] 36:12 [Music]

Does communicating over a screen impair our ability to interpret non-verbal behavior? And if so what impact will it have? https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01747/full   Transcript: you're listening to psych with mike for more episodes or to connect with the show with comments ideas or to be a 0:06 guest go to www.cyclicmike.com follow the show on twitter at psych with 0:13 mike or like the facebook page with mike now here's psych with mike 0:22 welcome into the psych with mike library as mr brett newcomb prepares his headphones he's back uh it's not that we 0:28 really need the headphones but it does it does actually keep my head from exploding when i talk to you yeah 0:34 keeps my ears warm you have this capacity to just generate distress that becomes 0:40 i do yeah yeah and and uh if your head exploded that would probably be a mess 0:47 that i would not want to clean up if you could see what was in my head yeah i've said that to my wife many 0:53 times she says hey what are you thinking about i'm like man you don't want to be in my head that's a scary place to be 0:59 yeah yeah so uh i saw a thing on facebook that a cartoon 1:05 and a meme man and woman laying in bed at night both way facing away from each other 1:11 yeah and she's thinking i wonder if he's thinking about other women and he's thinking how will gonzaga win 1:18 the tournament yeah yeah yeah yeah well and she's wondering and and i don't want to this to be a social 1:24 commentary but she's wondering if he's thinking about other women yeah but she's not offering 1:31 will we to be with him we don't know any more than that we don't know any more than that they're together alone yeah which is not 1:37 an uncommon circumstance it is not an uncommon circumstance no it is not that is true 1:42 so uh i have struggled mightily 1:48 uh in my career i don't know if you feel this 1:53 much connection to this specific subject because you spent more time 1:59 before the internets than i do i'm older yeah you're here a little bit it didn't have the option 2:06 so while i grew up without the internets the internets were around by the time i started practicing by the time i had 2:12 books still have books yeah well uh and so 2:18 in another version of our lives we worked at a group practice and in that 2:23 group practice we did a lot of collaboration with the parochial schools 2:30 and a lot of what i did there in that group practice was presentations on 2:36 how the schools could bring technology into the schools safely and effectively 2:42 and how parents could manage the their children's technological lives 2:49 in a way that would be beneficial and healthy for them you know back in the early days 2:56 we were talking about you know things like keystroke loggers where you could actually see the kinds of websites that 3:03 your children visited and things like that and i mean that's like now out the window i mean the technology now has 3:10 advanced to the point where i guess you could still have keystroke loggers but i'm not sure how effective that they are 3:16 anymore but one of the things that was profoundly 3:22 memorable for me was i walked into my son's room one night and he was hiding a screen so he had aol 3:31 if you don't know what that is he had aim which was aol instant messenger 3:37 and so aol was a service at the time the biggest internet service on the planet 3:42 and they had started an internet messaging service an instant messaging service even before that was a thing on 3:49 texting for phones right and i walked in and he was doing he was he was doing his homework but he was 3:55 also going back and forth between doing his homework and looking at this so he 4:01 can figure it out and set up a hotkey so that somebody came in exactly hit the key and yeah but i saw it 4:07 and so i had introduced this idea but i had never really had an extensive conversation so i said 4:15 okay we're going to have an extensive conversation and i said you know i need to know 4:21 that all of the people that you are interacting with are actually legitimate 4:27 people and that you know them and he said well i know everybody on my 4:32 aim and i so we pulled it up and i mean at the time i think he had 104 4:39 connections right which compared to today is minuscule right i mean you'd be embarrassed to say you had 104 4:46 connections today but i said okay i need you to justify to me that all 104 of 4:52 these people are real people where do they live where what classes do you share with them and he could only do 4:58 that with a handful this girl's name is candy does it in dallas yeah who is she yeah yeah 5:04 how do you know her she's in my fifth hour calculus class yeah right um and so i had a rule 5:12 when my kids were growing up that they couldn't communicate with anybody that they couldn't verify the identity of 5:19 i don't even know if you could do that today but what i do know is that 5:24 as the internet becomes more ubiquitous as communication goes more online 5:31 i'm very very concerned with what we are doing to ourselves 5:39 specifically for me the concern is in the area of the 5:45 lack of skills for reading nonverbal human behavior 5:52 so there's a term called mediated communications 5:57 mediated communications use some type of technology as a go-between or an 6:03 interface so it can be your phone it can be your computer it can be a tele it can be a 6:10 teletype or a typewriter or something so that you are not face to face reading 6:17 non-verbals as you exchange communications 6:22 cooper and arabian two social scientists who studied all this early in the early years 6:28 used to talk about nonverbal communications that were not mediated so person to 6:34 person looking at you reading all the different messages that are coming from you you say something orally 6:41 and i hear it and those words that i hear compose about seven percent of the 6:46 message the rest of the message comes from your nonverbals your tone your facial expression your volume your 6:54 rhythm uh your body language of various kinds are you stiff are you relaxed are 6:59 you hyperagitated and all of that factors into the communication and 7:05 children learned this growing up i remember learning how to say 7:10 yes ma'am to my mother and it meant a hundred different things depending on how i said it i said the 7:16 same two words yes ma'am but many times it meant oh enthusiastically yes you know yeah i'd like to have a piece of 7:22 cake yes ma'am but sometimes it meant no way in hell get out of here or sometimes it meant 7:27 just try and make me yeah exactly yeah uh and she always knew which way i meant it because but i would hide behind 7:33 saying but i said yes ma'am you know how can you punish me for that and um 7:39 so when you use a mediated communication device you lose 7:44 that capacity and you develop a certain level of anonymity so if i am communicating with 7:52 you over an ipad screen on the internet and you're a thousand miles away or your 7:57 next door or in the next room it doesn't matter uh i can say something that i might not 8:03 say if we were face to face right because i don't have to deal with your 8:09 misunderstanding or your non-verbal reaction if you roll your eyes you know how many times do you remember being told don't 8:17 roll your eyes at me yeah if they can see them they can say wow you just did that bam if they can't see 8:24 them then they can't see them right right so that affects the communication right and 8:32 the way in which this has been most impactful for me in my professional 8:39 career is the extent to which a client will come into the office and will say to me 8:46 i want to read you some texts yeah and they'll read me a text chain and they will have the they will have 8:53 concluded that this other person is angry with them or hates them or whatever and i will say 8:59 there's nothing in that communication that suggests that and so people are 9:06 projecting onto these written communications and 9:11 an assumption of emotional context that they just can't get which is what you 9:16 just said just in different words and i'm worried that a we do that first off 9:23 so we're projecting so let me just say very clearly 9:28 i cannot assign emotional context 9:34 to a printed communication and i'm really good at nonverbal 9:40 behavior and empathy nobody can do that if you think you can 9:45 do that you are mistaken no one can do that and then they'll say to me but look 9:51 at the emojis and i'm like an emoji is not a substitute for 9:58 non-verbal behavior and people just don't seem to be able to understand that there's so much of this 10:05 message that is missing but the internet offers opportunities for 10:11 even more egregious abuse of that reality oh absolutely 10:16 i may live in your neighborhood i may see you at the grocery store i may see you at church on sunday i am not going 10:23 to have a conversation with you ever under any of those circumstances to talk about how much i obsess about sexually 10:30 abusing a child but i can find a chat room on the internet with everybody else who's found that 10:36 room that does want to talk about that in brutal specifics and i can find a group that i can be in touch with and we 10:43 can share all of this stuff back and forth that we get off on 10:49 that i could not ever share with anybody in my community that knows me as a real 10:54 person that sees me it's secretive it's destructive it's poisonous uh you do the same thing with 11:01 political agendas i mean there's so much out there right now about how divided america is politically 11:08 in part because of the news media are you extreme left are you extreme right 11:14 yeah uh are you on these different websites the q and on whatever that 11:19 promote specific uh political agendas to an extreme level right 11:26 or religion we're about to have an election here in in missouri 11:31 and the elections locally various elections locally for school board members are 11:37 being impacted by nationwide movement that's coming from the far right 11:43 saying uh we've got to worry about critical race theory we have to take certain books out of the curriculum 11:49 we've got to take them out of the library we can't let them you know these teachers are going to corrupt and ruin our children 11:54 if we don't limit them so we need to put cameras in the classrooms and if you elect me for the school board locally 12:00 then i can watch that on your behalf and that's what i'll do right so candidates 12:05 are running like that and they want to take books out of the library and burn books and say we can't expose our 12:10 children to these thoughts we don't want to teach accurate american history we don't want to teach 12:15 racial disparity or disharmony we want to 12:20 we'll teach reading and write we're going to teach arithmetic there's no other thing that should be taught we don't need these cultural biases and 12:26 propaganda happening from these school teachers but what you pointed out and i think is very apt 12:34 is that the internet can be a way 12:40 of exacerbating the pathology of an individual i like 12:45 what you said my wife calls that confirmation bias yeah yeah you look for the things that confirm the way you 12:51 already but i think i think those are actually two different things i think confirmation bias is a thing and the internet is really good at confirmation 12:58 bias but i think it also can exacerbate your own pathology because when you talk about going to you know 13:05 some kind of sub reddit and and finding a pornography or 13:10 a an abuse kind of forum i think that exactly killer chat right yeah where they all get off on 13:16 this this is what i do and how i do it and how i don't get caught and you know that's that's just really scary 13:22 to think of but in a less in a less extreme kind of way because people say 13:28 oh well you're just being hyperbolic brett newcomb but in a less hyperbolic way i had a client 13:34 and he was just obsessed with feedback from people on the 13:40 internet and he would post pictures of himself on these reddit sub forums and 13:45 he would just obsess about the responses and i would say to him all the time but ninety percent of 13:52 these responses are positive and he's like yeah but look at those those negative ones those are the real ones 13:57 those are the people who are telling it like it is i say how do you know that those aren't people who feel horrible about themselves and they get off on 14:04 just making other people feel bad i mean you don't know where this information is coming from why 14:10 would you assume well because that the minority is the only real part it has to do with our 14:16 personalities it's something to do with human nature i remember 14:21 back in the day giving speeches to four or five thousand uh in an audience 14:26 and then they would pass around or ask for speaker evaluation right so i get 5 000 14:32 speaker evaluation forms and 4 800 of them would just be raving oh 14:37 great speaker great speech wonderful job 150 200 of them would be like right 14:43 well 50 of them would be like the room is cold yeah cherries exactly i'm hungry and the other hundred would 14:49 be like this guy's a drip i don't know how do you let him even out those hundred would be the one 14:55 i would hear and feel and obsess about well i'm not saying that i'm not that i'm immune to that because i did the 15:01 same thing and the the most uh 15:07 the way that that that that affected me the most was when we would go out and do protecting god's children when we would do workshops on 15:13 you know child abuse for the archdiocese and you know that exact same thing would 15:18 happen where you'd get just one percent and they would just just rip you up and 15:24 most of the time it was probably because those were the people that didn't want to go there and hear the message right 15:30 and i'm i'm a coach don't kill the messenger coach yeah i love coaching right how can you tell me not to pat 15:35 these kids on the bus right or you know i'm telling you if you do you're get undressed and take a shower with them 15:41 yeah absolutely which is you know that's i i heard that more than one because so 15:46 people in the audience if you're saying oh my god no one ever said that i guarantee you 15:52 i heard exactly that statement more than once but what are you saying 15:57 immediately shower with these kids written documents yeah and then come and stand in front of your face and say it right yeah which 16:04 what we're talking about and it can stir you up i mean it's working you up right now yeah and and 16:10 there's not an individual in front of you whose nonverbals you can read a check messaging interact with and maybe 16:18 reach an accommodation where both of you can go oh that makes sense to me right okay so that's a good time to take a 16:24 break and i will cool down and we'll pick this up on the other side all right 16:30 you know if you've gotten this far into the show then obviously you find the 16:35 show to be worthwhile beneficial maybe even helpful and so i just wanted to say 16:41 if you've gotten this far into the show and you want to help us out even if you don't want to help us out just do it 16:47 anyway go to apple podcasts and rate us and leave a review that is super 16:54 helpful subscribe to the show on youtube and hit the bell icon so that you get 17:00 notifications when new shows drop that stuff is really really helpful for us 17:05 and i know that mr brett agrees absolutely reviews are positive uh positive reviews are more positive than 17:12 the negative ones are as well because it helps you decide what how to focus and how to how 17:18 whatever you're attending to say is being heard and the secret is the algorithm doesn't care whether the 17:24 review is positive or negative as our friend mike norton says regularly feedback is a gift 17:29 if it's friday it's psych with mike okay we're back and 17:34 in the uh the frontiers in psychology article that i sent you they are actually now on the verge of 17:42 creating an entire diagnosis around what we're talking about called internet communication disorder and i don't know 17:50 so specific sub domains yeah so it might be like for pornography you know abuse 17:56 level uh so yeah the internet communication disorder we just saw an example of it 18:02 in the the the brown jackson hearings yeah yeah so so 18:09 we're doing this and and they haven't voted yet we assume that she's going to be confirmed but katanji uh brown 18:14 jackson is has been nominated for the supreme court and in her hearings 18:21 um they were talking about you know that that even one uh download 18:26 or so the the the sensing protocols for pornography child pornography were 18:32 dependent on the number of digital images that could be retrieved off your computer 18:38 and so what the article that i read was saying is when 18:44 they were talking about the time frame they were talking about 100 you could only download 5 000. yeah yeah but now you can press a 18:51 button and get 500 000 in a single download they're just cascading into 18:57 your computer and so is it fair to judge someone off of what was going on 19:03 you know a hundred years ago or not a hundred years ago but so you're looking at technology from the technology or you're looking at the content of the 19:09 message right but the technology has evolved to a point now where it's 19:15 impossible to not have these kinds of communications we're all talking about you know we're 19:21 all walking around with you know essentially super computers in our 19:26 pockets we all engage in some form of digital communication and if i text you 19:34 and you don't answer me back in 10 minutes i'm wondering did something happen to 19:40 you yeah and is that something is that healthy i don't think that's healthy no 19:46 and i mean there's so many different sidebars to that you know corporations are now focusing on telling their 19:53 employees turn turn the thing off and go home we can tell if you check back in we can tell if you check your emails we 19:59 don't want you doing that we want you to have an evening with your family but that's new messaging 20 15 years ago 20:05 10 years ago they were saying we want you ready 24 7. if i call you you better answer the damn phone 20:11 so people are addicted to checking their cell phones at night they take them to bed 20:16 there are sleep problems that are diagnosed because you have blue light in your bedroom you have 20:21 the tv on you have your computer on you have your phone on and it impacts your sleeping uh so so 20:28 there are so many elements of this that could be focused on and say well let's 20:34 make an intervention here let's make an intervention here what they're doing with the jackson hearings 20:41 is trying to build an argument in support of a social 20:47 agenda that they have yeah about pornography or about uh race training 20:52 education crt i mean i saw a meme where they'd taken her three initials and 20:57 scratched them out and put crt next to him for critical race theory uh 21:03 they claim well she's on the board of a private elementary school in washington d.c 21:09 and so she represents critical every single teaching that the school does this elementary school level 21:15 well and the science is critical race is not taught as a theory 21:20 in elementary schools in junior high schools or in high schools it is taught at the university level for higher level 21:26 university training uh when and where it's sought but that doesn't pop in the media of course so if 21:33 we're gonna do it on the internet we gotta find something that makes it pop or we gotta make it pop right but you know i just am amazed at 21:42 the growth i said i was going to say proliferation but i think it's more the growth of this phenomenon 21:50 you know one of the things that they talk about in this article is that the more 21:56 electronic communications that you have oftentimes the more lonely you feel so 22:02 you get driven to engage in a large 22:08 number of electronic communications because you're lonely but that doesn't actually satisfy that 22:15 loneliness we have done podcasts in the last two years uh different ones that focus on 22:21 research that shows that people are getting pregnant less often they're having sex less often 22:28 why would that be well the research supports that many of them are laying in bed next to their 22:33 partner each individually looking at a communication device showing some level 22:39 of pornography but not interacting with each other not having sex with each other so the research 22:44 shows that they lay there and masturbate looking at something on a video screen instead of having sex with their partner 22:51 and that the more that you do that the more that it desensitizes you but 22:56 the more that it desensitizes you to the stimulus input of the porn so the more that's how people get into crazy animal 23:03 porn and stuff yeah it's because they have to increase the level of stimulation to get that you build up a 23:09 tolerance how do you find a crazy animal i don't know you you just give them give them an mmpi 23:17 and rate their results and diagnosis yeah which is a previous conversation but the 23:22 point is that the more that you expose yourself to these digital formats the 23:28 less satisfying that they are and then the solution is to expose yourself to 23:33 more of the digital formats and at the same time you're losing your ability to really be connected to 23:41 real human beings and so this is a tangential thing but something that i wanted to bring up in 23:47 all of this i worked as a clinical director for an eap and employee assistance program for 23:53 about a decade and one of the things and this was a couple of years ago so i've been 23:59 i haven't been there for a couple of years but while i was there they were working with a company to 24:07 develop a mental health bot that would be essentially you would text 24:12 in and say i'm feeling lonely and the bot would talk to you rather than a therapist and the more so the pandemic 24:19 now has exacerbated this because there's a lot of research that's trying to lay the foundation for teletherapy as the 24:27 wave of the future and i'm telling you right now if you're a therapist and you think teletherapy is a good idea you are 24:35 putting yourself out of a job because the insurance companies don't want to pay you to do that therapy they want to 24:42 produce a bot that will do that therapy and they want you to be out of the equation i've seen 24:49 uh some of those programs and they're things like i call up and say i'm feeling depressed 24:56 and the robot says say more about that uh can you tell me more about that and 25:03 you go well yeah i'm depressed because you know my but listen to the way that you said that the way that you said that 25:10 was very warm and very engendering it made me want to say more to you but this 25:17 is what the robot said can you say no more no no it doesn't work that way well i'm 25:24 talking about if it's text now yes okay yes if if they're putting voice synthesized yeah overlays on the text i 25:32 have people read it but the point is this is that's not real therapy that's 25:38 not a real human connection right we are losing our ability to be genuinely 25:44 connected and to be able to understand the empathic responsiveness of ourselves 25:51 so if if if empathy is mapped on the left temporal lobe where your language centers are as it is 25:58 and you are never in the presence of another human being you don't learn how to be an empathic 26:05 person can you say more about that i can say a lot more about it because i am i'm 26:12 really worried that we are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy so 26:18 people are very interested in expanding telehealth and i'm not you know 26:24 if you live in you know some place outside of bozeman montana and it's 350 26:30 miles to a grocery store and you don't have access to a mental health professional do i believe that 26:36 telehealth is better than no health at all absolutely i absolutely do but in that's that's less than one 26:43 percent of the total population of the country most of us live in an area where we 26:48 could drive and get actual professional health help and i think that if we start 26:54 to convince ourselves that we don't need to be in the presence of other human beings that we're just going to be 27:01 exacerbating this slide down this spiral and where does that end 27:07 up if we if we actually educate out of ourselves the ability to 27:13 read nonverbal human behavior and we lose our capacity to be empathically 27:19 responsive to other human beings where are we going to be that's a scary place to be 27:26 yeah and i think that people are creating that reality i know that the 27:33 the insurance companies want that reality because i've been in rooms where insurance companies have 27:39 said exactly that and they're going to deny they're going to say oh no we just want to deliver good mental health 27:44 services to the most amount of people the company wants to make a profit they don't deliver services at all exactly 27:49 they want to deny services you don't need that you're not sick and that's not a real sickness because if i say it is 27:55 then i gotta pay for it the same school districts have been taught around the country tell the teachers not to 28:02 diagnose tell the school counselor oh yeah not to diagnose because if they diagnose if the counselor says to the 28:09 parent we think little johnny is adhd right then the school district becomes 28:14 responsible for paying for the treatment right but if the counselor says wonder if you had him assessed what they 28:21 would discover then they tell you take him out somewhere 28:27 or they say well i think he needs some help he's struggling and he said some 28:32 scary things so you need to get him some help and the parent says no we don't believe 28:38 in that stuff we'll we'll pray we'll we'll sit over the dinner table now we'll pray and that'll be better and then that afternoon because they didn't 28:44 take the kid out of the school and they didn't take him to the hospital after he'd already said i want to kill people he goes out and kills people then the 28:51 parents get arrested and charged and tried for not doing what 28:57 they need to do and you're talking about the guy who shot up it yeah in michigan yeah and and 29:02 uh i i as far as i know the trial of the parents is still ongoing is that correct 29:08 they haven't concluded that right that's right but you know the parents were apoplexic when they got arrested it's 29:16 not our fault and everybody said but the school told you not once not twice but three times that they had concerns they 29:24 not only asked at one point demanded that you take him home and that was the day that he had a gun 29:30 in his backpack and i just am i'm amazed 29:35 when i was young you as a parent you expected that it was 29:41 your responsibility to raise your children and i'm not sure that that is the expectation today 29:50 it's such a loaded statement it is it is okay i'm a little fired up right now yeah 29:56 because this is a topic that really uh is something that i am concerned 30:01 about i'm concerned about it from a professional perspective i'm also concerned about it from a social 30:08 psychology perspective and the the reason why i'm so concerned 30:13 about it is it wasn't like we couldn't see this coming 30:18 and yet we don't do anything until we're in crisis and it's just a shame why can't we 30:26 recognize something might be a problem before it becomes a problem 30:34 so carried to extremes they are developing these 30:39 artificial reality games where you wear equipment and you feel like you're in a room with other people yeah you can have 30:46 a conversation you can see them you can move you can read the non-verbals you can sword fight you can interact 30:51 you can have sex all you need is this pair of glasses and earphones and you go away from where you 30:58 are there's a disney cartoon movie out several years ago i'm blanking on the name of it but uh 31:07 these this robot the earth has been destroyed and this robot's looking around and it has a personality and the 31:14 survivors of earth are floating around in space somewhere for another place to go eva evo yeah yeah yeah and 31:21 it's uh like cartoons used to be when we were growing up a lot of social messages in 31:28 there under the disguise of an entertainment about the internet about 31:34 the way we use our time about the interface with mechanics mechanical systems 31:41 so this kind of stuff is potentially deadly for our culture as 31:48 well as for individuals but it's also potentially rewarding and expansive and we can grow and 31:55 be places we've never been and be places we'll never go and that's fair and it's not yeah 32:01 so you're right i shouldn't make it all about doom and gloom because there has been a lot of benefit and a lot of 32:07 positivity that's come out of the our access to electronic media but 32:12 it just you know i i see the writing on the wall touch the nerve yeah 32:17 yeah so hopefully that was beneficial for people as always the music that appears inside with mike is written and 32:23 performed by mr benjamin the clue we are begging you to go to the internets find us on the youtubes psych with mike and 32:31 subscribe to us there that would be really helpful you can go on apple podcast and find a psych with mike rate 32:37 us and leave us a comment we would really appreciate that as well and as always if it's friday it's psych with my 32:46 [Music] 32:56 [Music]  

We got an intern and a sponsor!   Please check out our new sponsor, Athletic Greens! https://athleticgreens.com/emerging  

Adoption is a complex family dynamic that affects more than just one life or even one family.  https://www.mnnonline.org/news/living-both-sides-of-the-adoption-spectrum/ https://www.adoptionchoices.org/adoptions-positive-impacts/  

We have all heard about the negatives associated with growing up in dysfunctional families. Trauma that is inflicted on individuals in these families can last a lifetime. But is there anything that can be learned from growing up in these situations?  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/invisible-bruises/202204/5-lessons-learned-growing-in-dysfunctional-environments  

All of us at Psych with Mike would like to thank everyone who listens for helping us reach such an incredible milestone! 100,000 downloads! Thank you we appreciate your support! https://brandastic.com/blog/why-are-podcasts-so-popular/ 

The biases that are inherent in mental diagnosis are not well identified or taught. It is important for the mental health industry to examine this issue to better serve the needs of our whole society.  https://psyche.co/ideas/bias-in-mental-health-diagnosis-gets-in-the-way-of-treatment 

All of us have experienced the pain that is associated with what we call a "broken heart". But new science is showing that heartbreak has real physical impacts on our bodies and our minds.  https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/this_is_your_brain_on_heartbreak 

During the pandemic, people left their jobs in droves! Now as restrictions begin to be relaxed we have millions of jobs and record low unemployment. So how has the approach that individuals take to selecting a job changed? https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/3-unfulfilled-psychological-needs-responsible-for-the-great-resignation-320387c0f10c 

Inflammation has been associated with so many negative processes in the human body. Pretty much getting old is an inflammatory process. So it's no surprise that it can have a direct influence on depression.  https://www.psypost.org/2022/03/new-psychology-research-uncovers-an-interesting-link-between-inflammatory-responses-and-depression-62688 

Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. As adults, we often have a more difficult time making friends than we did as children, or at least it can seem that way. As we emerge from pandemic isolation, making friends and reconnecting with existing friends has never been more important. https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-make-new-friends-when-youre-busy-with-adulthood 

Friends are not only great things to have, they are essential to healthy living. As the pandemic wains and we all begin to emerge from our pandemic cacoons a good deal of anxiety and depression are going to surface. It is important to consider how talking to a therapist is different than talking to a friend.    https://www.talkspace.com/blog/why-working-with-a-therapist-is-different-than-talking-to-a-friend/ 

The Freshman 15, the pandemic 20, we have all kinds of euphemisms for emotional eating. Most of us can relate to overeating because of stress and/or depression. The good news is that this type of eating can be stopped and/or avoided. https://www.verywellmind.com/stress-and-emotional-eating-how-to-stop-3144528   https://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/struggling-with-emotional-eating   https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-brain-gut-connection 

In Greece, there was comedy and tragedy or does the protagonist have more or fewer choices by the end of the play. Today we think of comedy as what is "funny", but what is humor and why does it matter? https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/ https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/the-science-of-humor-is-no-laughing-matter 

It is one of the most unfortunate paradoxies that we often hurt the ones we love. But it is also true that we tend to stay in relationships even after they become toxic. How do we know when it is time to leave a relationship and how do we know?  https://psychcentral.com/blog/why-do-we-help-those-who-hurt-us#1 https://psychcentral.com/blog/why-do-we-help-those-who-hurt-us#1 

In St. Louis, where the Psych with Mike library is, we just had our first big snowstorm of the winter. And since it seems to be snowing around most of the country we thought it would be apropos to do a snow day episode! https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychology-behind-a-snow-day-0127165 

The seduction theory is one of Freud's most controversial ideas. But was it? Or was Freud's theory a threat to the stability of the status quo of the day?  As we discuss in the episode these are very dense articles but very elucidating of a new and radical view of Freud and his theories! https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1984/02/freud-and-the-seduction-theory/376313/ https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.800.2066&rep=rep1&type=pdf  

Dealing with anger is one of the most common reasons people seek psychotherapy! Brett and I break down how to more quickly become aware of your anger and how to cope with it. https://au.reachout.com/articles/8-ways-to-deal-with-anger Anger Worksheet https://www.therapistaid.com/worksheets/coping-skills-anger.pdf 

There are plenty of articles in popular magazines that promote themselves as psychologically sound. I say they have a psychologyness to them. It sounds like common sense. The problem is they aren't psychology. https://www.brides.com/one-sided-relationship-5112496 

Abraham Maslow is viewed as the person in psychology who brought the perspective of positive psychology to our consciousness. This is in addition to the contribution of his hierarchy of needs.  https://positivepsychology.com/abraham-maslow/  

Happy New Year!!! In the New Year if I told you that you could have anything you want, would that be a good thing? According to psychology probably not. What we find is that the more choices you have the harder it is to make a choice and feel good about it.  https://procrastination.com/blog/9/decision-paralysis-overthinking-choices   

Trauma can be handed down from one generation to the next. How does this process occur and what are the consequences?   https://oie.duke.edu/inter-generational-trauma-6-ways-it-affects-families 

Brett always says that we are members of a family which are members of a tribe which are members of a nation etc..The point is that we are all nested in a spider web of interconnected systems. In psychology, this is called ecological psychology. How this view affects our development is the conversation today.  https://www.simplypsychology.org/Bronfenbrenner.html

Worrying about what other people think is something we all know is not healthy and yet difficult to put aside.  https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/11/how-stop-caring-what-other-people-think-you/620670/

A lot of us (me included) will say "I don't really remember much before the age of 4 or 5". Some say they don't have many memories before the age of 7 or 8. Then there are those who say they have memories of being n their cribs as infants. What do biology and social development tell us about our earliest memories? https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/childhood-amnesia 

Many of us grew up in what are known as dysfunctional families. What we don't always realize is how that results in trauma or how that trauma may impact the rest of our lives. 

A Thanksgiving Day treat from Psych with Mike to you! A project from one of Psych with Mike's students, Jaden Satenstein. Enjoy!

Understanding how new beliefs are formed is so important to really take more control over our own internal self-talk. Buy The Book https://www.amazon.com/Power-Surprise-Secretly-Changes-Beliefs/dp/153815241X/ref=nav_signin?dchild=1&keywords=power+of+surprise&qid=1626534257&sr=8-1&returnFromLogin=1& 

One of my relatives recently introduced me to my family tree. In many families especially those with substance abuse in them, secrets are the rule. In my family, this included the family history.  https://selecthealth.org/blog/2019/08/5-benefits-of-knowing-your-family-history 

Grief is one of the most difficult issues facing us as humans. Loss creates holes in our lives and the subsequent emotional consequences can linger for months or even years. Understanding grief can help us approach our grief and that of others with sympathy and grace.  https://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief/coping-with-grief-and-loss.htm# 

According to the great existential psychologist Viktor Frankl, the capacity to be psychologically resilient is directly related to our willingness to take responsibility for our actions.    Exercises for resilience: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/31/do-these-exercises-every-day-to-build-resilience-and-mental-strength-says-neuroscientist.html   Viktor Frankl: https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/viktor-frankl/  

Self-esteem is so important and yet not really understood by most of us. Brett and I are here to lay the path for you to improve your self-esteem.

If you argue about facts, then you are arguing about lies. Every persons' reality (their facts) is from their perspective. Even if that perspective is different from yours. They believe theirs over yours. Even science has come to the conclusion that there may be no objective reality! https://interestingengineering.com/new-physics-experiment-indicates-no-objective-reality 

It is something that most of us parents have to do most days...schlep the kids to school. Of course, we love our children and mostly we do this with joy in our hearts and a song on our lips. But sometimes...sometimes things go wrong. If you have even wondered if you are a bad parent because you pulled a gun on another parent in the drop-off line... let me state that irrevocably... YES, YOU ARE. https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/hazelwood-parents-bring-gun-school/63-858a7bac-0311-4c92-8471-c2770c2c7716 

After war has ravaged a country, what is left is the indigenous population. Most of them didn't want the war and may not have even been on one side or the other, but they are left to try and pick up the pieces of their lives. The physical devastation to their environment is a major hurdle but so too is the psychological trauma. The article linked here is long but really paints the picture of the hardship and struggle that is life in the aftermath of war.  https://www.apa.org/international/united-nations/un-matters/rathi-war.pdf  

Alfred Adler was a part of Freud's inner circle along with Carl Jung until the three began to form very divergent ideas and split. Adler formed a theory of psychology based on the concepts of advantage/disadvantage and superiority/inferiority. As with all psychodynamically influenced theories, this is an example of motivational-based psychology. The concept of birth order being an important influencer of an individual's personality development also comes from Adler.  https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/adlerian-psychology

Brett and I discuss the nature of wisdom as well as new evidence from the neuroscience of depression.   https://cathywild.com/understanding-depression-a-woe-that-is-wisdom/ https://www.psypost.org/2021/08/family-history-of-depression-associated-with-altered-brain-connectivity-during-a-social-cognition-task-61726  

The title says it all. 

Systems theory is a belief that we cannot separate the individual from the system because we all influence and are influenced by the system we operate in. From family to peers to the community, the country to the world, we all operate in an ever-expanding web of systems that can impact us.    https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/family-systems-therapy  

We may have all thought that the pandemic was over at the end of May/June. But now in August, it seems like things are worse than ever. It's hard to keep up mentally with all the vacillations. So it may be time for each of us as individuals to start thinking about what we want our own worlds to look like post-pandemic! https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-blog/2021/july/how-to-create-the-life-you-want-post-pandemic   https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/11/our-post-pandemic-world-and-whats-likely-to-hang-round/    

According to the DSM 5, the prevalence of ADHD in society is expected to be 3.55% reported by the National Institute of Health (NIH). But way more than 3.5 percent of the population is diagnosed with ADHD. So understanding what ADHD is and what it isn't is super important!   NIH report on ADHD https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4301194/   Resource for Parents https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/adhd/Pages/Understanding-ADHD.aspx  

Brett and I got into a conversation that was not planned but ended up being pretty fascinating. Please let us know if you have any thoughts on our discussion!

Cognitive Restructuring really just means changing how you think about a thing. It is a powerful tool in psychotherapy. https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-guide/cognitive-restructuring  

Dreaming may seem to be the best part or the worst part of an individual's day. Some people don't even think they dream at all. The truth is there are both psychological and physiological reasons for dreams.  https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_your_brain_needs_to_dream https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/the-importance-of-dreams-what-they-can-represent  

Stress and anxiety are thought of as being the same thing but really they aren't. Understanding the difference can help to manage both better.    What is stress https://www.verywellmind.com/stress-and-health-3145086   General Adaptation Syndrome https://www.healthline.com/health/general-adaptation-syndrome#stages    

In 2004 Brett and I had the opportunity to make several Parent Presentations on substance abuse and parenting of adolescents. I recently found an old recording of one of these presentations and thought I would share it. If you would like to see what Brett and I looked like 20 years ago, you can go to YouTube and search Psych with Mike to find this episode. 

This is a revisit to an episode where my son stopped by to discuss the psychology of collecting. This is the most-watched episode of Psych with Mike on YouTube. 

A psychological diagnosis can be an essential part of the therapeutic relationship. But how do therapists determine which diagnosis is correct and why is it important in the first place?

Our 150th episode! Thank you to everyone who follows the show!

Rational Emotive Therapy, created by Albert Ellis, was the first psychotherapy to explore the link between how we think and what we feel. https://www.healthline.com/health/rational-emotive-behavior-therapy  

Brett and I revisit the subject of psychedelics in the treatment of psychological disorders. https://maps.org/news/media/9154-the-new-york-times-the-psychedelic-revolution-is-coming-psychiatry-may-never-be-the-same 

Living in a sustainably congruent way is the definition of integrity (in other words being able to look at yourself in the mirror and liking the person you see). Self-esteem is your global perception of self. These are important aspects of living.  https://www.mentalhealthforyouth.com/articles/the-psychology-of-self-image-theory   

Life can be busy and hectic and we don't always have the time we would like for indulgences like binge-watching a TV show. It may seem like a good idea to sacrifice sleep time for personal time. But is this a good practice to fall into?  https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene/revenge-bedtime-procrastination