14 Concepts To Understand Psychoanalysis - Dr Jonathan Shedler

1. 0:00 – 0:48

   Intro

   1. JSDr Jonathan Shedler0:00

      I can't speak to do we or do we not have free will. What I can say with some confidence is there are things that we can do to develop a freer will, freer than before, and that might make all the difference. We can come to know ourselves more fully. Fundamentally, there are things about ourselves and why we do what we do that aren't fully under our control. (wind blows)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:21

      For the people who aren't familiar with you, what's your background? Who are you and what do you do?

   3. JSDr Jonathan Shedler0:26

      Uh, I'm a psychologist. I'm a professor of psychology at University of California, San Francisco. Uh, I practice psychoanalytic psychology, which for people who may not know, uh, is based on the understanding that we don't fully know ourselves, that there's such a thing as unconscious mental life, and that we can explore it and understand it and be better for it.

2. 0:48 – 1:16

   The Need for Psychoanalytic Psychology

   1. CWChris Williamson0:48

      What is unique about that compared with other approaches for psychology?

   2. JSDr Jonathan Shedler0:54

      Yeah. That's a good question. Um, there's been a trend. Uh, so, so first of all, I mean, there's just, just mind-boggling psychological illiteracy in the culture. And, and it's not the fault of... You know, it, it, i- i- it's not the fault of anyone. It's what they're teaching in universities. And, I mean, v- even people who, you know, even people who take university level courses in psychology,

3. 1:16 – 6:11

   6:01 Where to Find Dr Shedler

   1. JSDr Jonathan Shedler1:16

      um, (laughs) are gonna miss something really important. And the important thing is that over the last 25 to 30 years, the entire field of psychotherapy has really been getting very, very shallow, and there's been, there's been a focus on increasingly brief, increasingly superficial, and increasingly cheap interventions, and they get sold to the public by academic researchers. And I'm not taking shot. I, I am an academic researcher. (laughs) I mean, I'm not, I'm not trying to trash anyone. But they, they get sold to the public as, you know, these are scientific, you know, scientific forms of treatment, they're evidence-based, they're the gold standard, but, but actually they're, they've been getting increasingly superficial. And what I mean by superficial is there's an assumption that, that it can happen very quickly, um, that we can deal with what's on the surface of consciousness, right? So your conscious beliefs and thoughts. Uh, so the focus is very much on managing symptoms and dealing with thoughts and behaviors that are very much on the surface of things rather than the underlying psychology that gives rise to them. The entire tradition that, that I'm part of is, is based on the understanding that, uh, w- we don't fully know our own hearts and minds. Nobody does. It's the nature o- of the human condition. It's rooted in the structure of the brain. We don't fully know ourselves. And, you know, because we don't fully know ourselves, we find ourselves repeating the same kinds of patterns and getting in the sa- into the same kinds of difficulties over and over again in life. And the idea is that by coming to know the parts of ourselves that were previously unknown, uh, that gives us some freedom to be able to do things differently so that we're not doomed to repeating the same patterns over and over.

   2. CWChris Williamson3:11

      Given that we don't know ourselves, does that not provide a very difficult challenge when it comes to trying to uncover that? If somebody doesn't know, how do you get to know?

   3. JSDr Jonathan Shedler3:24

      Well, I mean, it, it's a matter of degree. And this entire approach to therapy is all about, you know, how do we work in a way that makes the u- unknown parts of ourselves more known. And, and actually, uh, uh, you know, probably the most straightforward way to explain it is the unknown parts of ourselves emerge in a relationship. It doesn't happen in a vacuum, right? Which, which is why all these, you know, self-help programs, and wellness apps, and, you know, online things are, uh, they sort of miss the point that the things about ourselves that we don't know are manifested in our relationships. We tend to repeat the same kinds of re- relationship patterns over and over again, for better or worse. Um, and psychotherapy, meaningful psychotherapy is also a relationship. So we tend to bring our patterns and our templates for relationships into the psychotherapy relationship, and they get repeated there. And a therapist who really knows what he's doing, uh, that's not... You know, um, that's not a distraction from the therapy. That is the therapy. It's because we bring our patterns into the therapy situation, right, that it becomes possible to recognize them, understand them, and hopefully to rework them. I mean, our, our pat- When I say, you know, parts of ourselves we don't know, I mean, uh, our repetitive relationship patterns have been there from the very beginning. They're, they're formed in our, you know, our earliest relationships with caretakers. And because they've been there from the beginning, you know, they're as invisible to us as water is to a fish, right? For us, that's just how it is. So it, it's in the context of a relationship where somebody else can say, you know, "W- well, wait a minute. You know, you're assuming this, you're doing that. Perhaps there's another way to think about this." Hmm. So that, that's kind of a (laughs) short, quick answer. You look, you look puzzled. (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson5:19

      No, I like it. I like it very much. I, um, I, I mean, I'm fascinated by human nature and by the parts of us that we don't understand, and as far as I can see it, the only way to transcend your programming is to become aware of it, or at least first you have to become aware of it.

   5. JSDr Jonathan Shedler5:34

      You have to become aware of it, and you have to become aware of it not in some just, you know, cognitive or intellectual sense. You have to become aware of it, uh, uh, you know, in a sort of deeper emotional, you know, lived way that actually makes a difference because, uh, you know, intellectual knowledge is kind of cheap. So wh- when we say in psycho- in psychoanalytic therapy, we talk about insight, you know, we don't mean something that somebody can just tell you or that you can read in a book. We mean insight that really, you know, sinks in at a deep emotional level in a way that leads you to do something different. So I would say it's, it's lived insight, not intellectual insight.

4. 6:11 – 15:32

   What is Moral Masochism?

   1. CWChris Williamson6:11

      So, you had this thread. This is how I came across you. You did this brilliant thread on Twitter, which broke down a bunch of psychoanalytical concepts and ideas.

   2. JSDr Jonathan Shedler6:19

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson6:19

      Some of them, people are probably going to be familiar with, and some will be new to them. But the reason that I really liked it was it identified to me where I had misunderstood some ideas that I thought I had a really good grasp on. So, I just want you to go through a bunch of them today-

   4. JSDr Jonathan Shedler6:33

      Okay.

   5. CWChris Williamson6:34

      ... and we can riff off some of my favorite ones from that tweet thread. And for the people-

   6. JSDr Jonathan Shedler6:37

      Sounds good to me.

   7. CWChris Williamson6:38

      ... who haven't read the thread out, I'll, uh, I'll link that below and they can go and check it out once we're done. So, moral masochism.

   8. JSDr Jonathan Shedler6:43

      (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson6:44

      Believing your suffering makes you more important or virtuous than others. For example, feeling superior to based on your self-deprivation or self-sacrifice. What's that?

   10. JSDr Jonathan Shedler6:56

       Um, so this is a, a very interesting concept. We, we all do things, we have to do things, to try to find a way to, to feel good about ourselves, you know, to feel like we're, you know, w- w- we're good people. Other people like us, other people care about us, you know. We're, we're a good human being. And, um, but moral masochism is, is something really specific, where somehow the person's self-esteem gets tied up with how much self-renunciation or self-suffering they endure, right? So, the idea is, um, "I'm a better person than you because I suffer more. I'm more morally virtuous than you, you know, because, uh, you know, because I'm a victim. I'm more morally virtuous than you because I, uh, you know, I deprive myself of more, give up more." It's, it's kind of the, we could say kind of the martyr complex, right? And, and it's very difficult to treat it in psychotherapy. That usually people c- y- you know, nobody comes in and says, "I'm here for- I'm here because I struggle with moral masochism." That, that has just never happened in the history of the world. Usually, when somebody like this comes to therapy, the way they experience it is as depression. You know, they're, they're, you know, they're, they're down, they're listless. You know, they've lost their enthusiasm for life. They're, you know, they're despondent. And normally, when you treat depression in psychotherapy, eh, eh, there's a, there's an improvement, you know, fairly quickly, at least initially. The, the- it comes about just by virtue of being in a relationship with a person b- can be, you know, heard deeply, you know, listened to, understood, where there's an expectation of help. I, I, there's, there's, there's usually a fairly quick shift, at least, you know, at least at the, at the start. And what happens when you see somebody where moral masochism is prominent is they don't respond positively to the therapist's, you know, sort of sympathetic, compassionate interest. They, th- it's, it's unconscious, but there's a, an important way they don't want to feel better, because their suffering and their, their self-deprivation and their self-punitiveness is what makes them feel like they're a better person. And, you know, and actually, we see this, uh, we, we see this in social media all the time (laughs) . I mean, you, you can get, look in your Twitter feed. You know, just, just look for five minutes and you'll find examples of moral masochism. Where basically the message being broadcast is that, "I'm somehow morally superior or morally more virtuous than you because I'm more deprived." I- so then the, the person ends up, it's, it's not just that they're deprived, it's they have a, they really have a strong psychological incentive to remain deprived.

   11. CWChris Williamson9:47

       To further the deprivation.

   12. JSDr Jonathan Shedler9:49

       Yeah. Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson9:51

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JSDr Jonathan Shedler9:51

       Because if they gave up the deprivation, well, then they're just a human being like, like the rest of us, you know? They're not self-righteously virtuous or morally superior in any way. They're just, you know, just people.

   15. CWChris Williamson10:05

       It feels like there's maybe two broad categories that are contributing here. One being, um, what the world is doing to the person, uh, i.e. the world, um, holds back from them or puts them into a situation which causes them to suffer. And the other side of this is what the person does to themselves. It's how they either continue to propagate or cause in the first place and instigate the issue.

   16. JSDr Jonathan Shedler10:27

       Yeah. And the person who is not morally masochistic, who is put by the world, you know, circumstances, social conditions, you know, put in a position of deprivation or suffering, uh, they will do whatever they can do, whatever they know how to do, to try to escape those conditions, right? R- it's, it's not like they see any particular virtue in it. It- it's like they're like, "This sucks." Like, you know (laughs) ? "How can I, how can I, you know, find something better for myself in the world? How can I find a better place for myself, you know, where I'm, I'm not being so put upon or so deprived?" Whereas, for somebody with, with moral masochism, uh, it's like th- you know, they'll complain bitterly about it, but a part of them is, you know, is really, really attached to the suffering.

   17. CWChris Williamson11:17

       They're reveling in it, almost.

   18. JSDr Jonathan Shedler11:19

       There's a way that they're reveling in it.

   19. CWChris Williamson11:21

       Mm. Are these... So, just for when we go through these concepts, are these all, uh, clinically diagnosable, or th- these are, uh, represented in the clinical literature?

   20. JSDr Jonathan Shedler11:30

       Th- th- yes. But, but, see, all of these things are matters of degree. Like th- these aren't, these aren't special, you know, mysterious things that, you know, apply to some disturbed subset of the population. I mean, these are things that apply to humans to, to varying degrees, right? Every... I mean, all of the things we're gonna talk about today, I mean, every one of us does some of these things, you know, some of the time, to some extent, right? It becomes a problem when this becomes a, you know, sort of dominant w- way of living in the world.

   21. CWChris Williamson12:01

       Yes. So, the moral masochism thing, my eyes lit up when you first said that.Throughout most of my 20s, I attached my sense of self-worth to the business that I ran, which I don't think is too uncommon. You know, you're a young guy going out into the world, not really much of a sense of self. You find something that you're good at, and then you begin to attach you to the performance of the thing that you do. I imagine that athletes and, and, um, classical music players probably have the same sort of thing. They have a good recital or a good practice or a good game, they feel great. They have a bad one, they feel bad. The interesting thing that changed after a little bit of time was I started attaching my sense of self-worth to the amount of suffering that I went through in order to achieve the outcome of the event. So, let's say that the club night that we ran went well or badly. That would be the first phase. So, if it went badly, I was going to feel bad. But if it went well, I would always look at, "How much did I suffer in contribution to this performance?" And if it had come too easily, I'd feel like I'd cheated somehow or, or, or like, like I owed something. It was like a Puritan work ethic that just came through.

   22. JSDr Jonathan Shedler13:11

       Well, I would say that, you know, that sounds more like... Uh, that sounds more like internalized guilt. Like, if things are going very well for you, you know, maybe you don't deserve it. Maybe you're doing better than other people in your life that you've, uh, that you care about, you know, friends, family, loved ones. You know, maybe you feel like you're getting, getting away with something. Right? So, so, uh, that's, that's actually a little different than moral masochism because w- what you're, what you're describing, it's not that you're feeling, you know, superior or virtuous or especially righteous because, you know, because you've worked so hard and, and, and suffered so much. It's... I mean, it, it sounds like, you know, things were doing, going pretty well and you were having some, some real successes, right? And, and then you have something... It's, it's, it's kind of closely related to survivor guilt. Like, you see this in, in, uh, I mean, you know, uh, most saliently in the military, in a combat veteran. Uh, you know, their, their whole, you know, their whole platoon gets attacked, you know. Every, most everybody, you know, gets killed, you know, and a lucky one or two come home. And you think, "God, they've got it made." So, no, they... Uh, there's a real likelihood they might suffer the rest of their lives because they have this guilt. It's like, "Why did they deserve to die?" I mean, why did... Sorry. Why did they deserve to live when people who were, you know, equally or more deserving or worthy and, you know, as good of human beings as they are, you know, when they didn't live? Right? So, so some of us have to, like, uh, expiate or atone for our guilt-

   23. CWChris Williamson14:41

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JSDr Jonathan Shedler14:42

       ... as a precondition for being able to enjoy our successes. Some of this, you know, it's th- really... You know, you asked, is this just about, you know, pathology or these disorders or, or is this everyone? It's, it's everyone. (laughs) And some of this is, um, you know, different societies and religions have found ways of institutionalizing, you know, ways of handling this. So, you know, like, the, the, the confession in Catholicism is a kind of an institutionally structured way of dealing with guilt. You can be successful, you know, in your life and, and, you know, feel good about it. But here we have this very structured, channeled place where you can go and, you know, confess to your, your sins and your crimes, real and imagined, and be granted absolution and, you know, then you can carry on.

   25. CWChris Williamson15:30

       I like that. Okay, so next one.

5. 15:32 – 21:16

   Developing a False Self

   1. CWChris Williamson15:32

      False self, a false sense of identity borrowed from others in place of exploring and developing your own.

   2. JSDr Jonathan Shedler15:39

      Yeah. Um, you know, of all of the ones, uh, I wrote... I wrote 16, you know, 16 concepts. That, that's actually the one I was least happy with how I described it. (laughs) Um, I, I don't think I did justice to it. So, um, this goes back to early childhood and infancy, that under ideal circumstances with, you know, sort of empathic, loving parents who are not using a child, you know, to, to sort of compensate for some, you know, some felt deficiency of their own. I mean, w- the, the, the parent is in the business of helping, helping the child to grow and discover who they are. Right? That's what we'd ideally like, like to see. And it's, it's sort of a process of, you know, growing up is, is becoming more fully ourselves. But, but often something goes wrong. Right? So, you have, um, you have a parent, you know, typically a parent with some narcissistic difficulties. They don't feel good about themselves in, in some important way. And they need the child to be something to make them feel better about themselves. So, rather than, you know, rather than parenting as being about, um, you know, we're discovering together who this growing person is becoming, right? It becomes about the child has to be something. They have to do something. They have to behave a certain way. They have to be very good at something. They have to look a certain way. Not for their own sake, but, but basically for the parent's ego. And, you know, when this starts very early on, it's like this way a child really never has an opportunity to discover their own thoughts, their own feelings, their own experience, their own, you know, preferences, likes and dislikes. They end up kind of having to mold themselves into being something that, that serves a parent's needs. And we call that a false self as opposed to a true self, and that can last a lifetime.

   3. CWChris Williamson17:45

      And I-

   4. JSDr Jonathan Shedler17:45

      You see it in-

   5. CWChris Williamson17:47

      I just imagine that-

   6. JSDr Jonathan Shedler17:48

      ... y- you see it-

   7. CWChris Williamson17:48

      ... when you get to later, later into adulthood and people really have this discordance, there'll probably be almost kind of two versions of themselves battling inside of their mind.

   8. JSDr Jonathan Shedler17:59

      Well, you see it in entertainment a lot, in celebrities a lot. Uh, uh, you know, like, looking from the outside, it's like, "My God, this person has everything." You know, fame, wealth, looks, talent, right? And inside, uh, there's something about it that all feels empty. And it's late- it's like it's never enough. No matter how much success, how much money, how much fame, how... Accolades, it, it, it's sort of never enough to fill the emptiness inside. A- and it's because-And- and it's because it's like they- they have to be these things. The, uh, I'm not really explaining it very well. I mean, imagine, you know, a child is very just physically attractive, and the parents take great pleasure in that for their own purposes, right? They don't love the chi- the child experiences... They don't feel loved because they're them, they feel loved because they look a certain way, and that does something for the parents, right? Well, now they grow up. Imagine they become a, you know, an actor or a model or- or something like that. And it- it- it's like they end up living out, you know, living out somebody else's needs, living out their parents' needs, rather than discovering and living their own, right? So, they perpetually feel unhappy and empty. And then people look from the outside and say, "I, you know, I don't get it. This person has everything."

   9. CWChris Williamson19:25

      But it's because they can't see this discordance that's going on inside of them?

   10. JSDr Jonathan Shedler19:31

       It's because they never had an opportunity to discover who they are and what's meaningful to them, what brings them satisfaction and, you know, and meaning, you know, independent of serving a function for somebody else.

   11. CWChris Williamson19:49

       Is it-

   12. JSDr Jonathan Shedler19:49

       So, you-

   13. CWChris Williamson19:50

       Is- is it always, um, parentally induced? Is there any other way that a false sense can, a false self can come about?

   14. JSDr Jonathan Shedler20:00

       Um, huh. Good question. I- I think it starts in early childhood with your primary caretakers. But then it, you know, but then it tends to continue elsewhere, right? It- it begins that way, and then it develops a certain, you know, a certain momentum. So, you know, suppose a child feels, you know, the parent and suppo-... Usually the child has some gift or ability. Suppose they're, you know, very bright and parents take great pleasure in this. But, you know, it's like, it's not that the child enjoys being bright, it's that they have to be. Otherwise, they feel like, you know, they're- they're not, they're not really loved, they're not loved for themselves, right? Well, now they go to school and maybe they attract teachers' attention because they're, you know, particularly bright, right? And th- and then it, and then it just- just kind of, um, you know, it- it- it kind of creates a- a sort of vicious circle. It feeds on itself, right? You do more and more of the thing that you get attention for, that you get positive attention for, but at the expense of, you know, discovering what's actually meaningful to you and at the expense of feeling loved and worthy for your own right, you know, versus some particular, you know, gift or ability.

   15. CWChris Williamson21:15

       Transference.

6. 21:16 – 27:49

   The Relationship Pattern of Transference

   1. CWChris Williamson21:16

   2. JSDr Jonathan Shedler21:16

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson21:16

      Responding to another person as if they were someone from your past. For example, punishing someone in the present for wrongs someone else did to you when you were growing up.

   4. JSDr Jonathan Shedler21:27

      That's the big one. The, so... (laughs) Let's go back to we, what- what I said at the beginning. We- we form certain kinds of patterns, of relational patterns, of ways of relating to other people, and we tend to recreate these patterns for the rest of our lives. You know, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. But, and the patterns are formed in our earliest attachments, you know? They begin with our- our parents and- and family, siblings, and so on, and they continue through other people. Um, and, you know, the- the patterns are in- invisible to us, but the thing is, um, our expectations of what happens in relationships are, you know, are forged in our earliest relationships. Um, so we don't see other people so much as, you know, who they are in any- any objective sense. We see them through the lens of our own patterns, our own experience, our own relationship patterns, you know? So, I mean, let me make it a little more, you know, clear. You know, in our earliest relationships we learn, you know, how to be with another person, you know, how to respond when somebody is angry with us, how to make somebody like us, how to, you know, get attention, you know, what other people find charming, what other people find intolerable. It's like we kind of internalize these- these rules of the relational road about, you know, how to live and how to be in relationships with other people. And now you go out in the world and you encounter new people who you don't know and you apply the old rules of the road (laughs) for better or worse. It, so- so it's like our experience of other people in relationship is always experienced through the lens that, th- the lenses that we bring with us. Now, you know, this is the- the- the sort of gradations, you know? I- I, like, that's always the case. We always bring who we are into a relationship. It, you know, ideally, there's some, you know, some relationship (laughs) , some- some- some, you know, some, I don't know, synergy between what we're bringing and being able to experience the other person as they are. When things go wrong, it's like we don't even see the other person. We just bring our own, you know, our own assumptions and our own, you know, desires and wants and needs, and it's like the other person is irrelevant. It's like they- they get shoehorned, you know, to fit into our patterns, right? So, you know, imagine somebody who's grown up in, you know, a family where they were mistreated in some way, or mistreated or coerced. They- they just, they experience other people as, you know, angry and hostile and trying to control and coerce them. Now they go into the world and, you know, and bump up against all kinds of people who do what they do, but everything is through the lens of they're feeling put upon, they're feeling mistreated, and they tend to lash out at the people-... and the, the, the person getting lashed out is like, you know, like, like, "What the hell? What, uh, what did I do?" Right? (laughs) So, this is the most important concept, I think, in all of, in all of psychology. Um, so the idea is we transfer ... The tr- right, the word is transference. We transfer our early patterns, wishes, desires, fears, needs that were created in early relationships, we transfer them into current relationships.

   5. CWChris Williamson24:57

      I imagine that somebody that has more extreme transference will start to believe, uh, w- will see more, uh, not serendipity, but a déjà vu occurring because all of their relationships, they always end really bitterly. They're always, people are always this to me, and people are always that to me.

   6. JSDr Jonathan Shedler25:18

      Yes.

   7. CWChris Williamson25:18

      Well, is that the case? Or is it-

   8. JSDr Jonathan Shedler25:20

      Yes. Uh, no, no. And, uh-

   9. CWChris Williamson25:21

      ... just the lens through which you're seeing this is coloring whatever they do?

   10. JSDr Jonathan Shedler25:25

       W- w- well, it's a little bit of both, b- r- it's the lens through which you're seeing it. But if you then respond accordingly, you know, if you think somebody is being, you know, hostile, or controlling, or coercive, right, and then y- you know, you respond to that. You know, you, you respond with hostility yourself, right? And now there's a way we end up creating, we draw the other person, we draw the other person into our patterns. We end up recreating (laughs) , um, you know, recreating the patterns that we brought to it. Le- let me give you, like, a con- concrete example of this. It comes up a lot. So, one of the personality disorders is, is paranoid personality. So these are people who go through the world with, with constant chronic suspicion. They think other people are out to do them harm. That's their default assumption. And it's like water to a fish. It's not like, "Well, I think that about this particular person because here, this unusual thing happened." It, it, it's like there's always something in their mind that explains why they think somebody else is, you know, is, is out to hurt them. And so they begin acting very, you know, angrily, and belligerently, and become controlling a- around other people, you know, out of a desire to protect themselves, right? Well, if you're on the other end, if you're on the receiving end of that, it's like, "Who the hell wants to deal with that person," right? So, you know, now you don't include them, you're not up front with them, you don't share things with them, you watch your back, you know? Like, y- you tend to get more controlling yourself because you know the other person's gonna take advantage of you if, if you don't, right? So, someone with a paranoid personality style, there's a way that they create (laughs) a paranoid environment for themselves. Right? They make it come true.

   11. CWChris Williamson27:06

       Mm. What's-

   12. JSDr Jonathan Shedler27:08

       So, so there's a way we, we bring these lenses, you know, from past relationships, we bring them with us into new relationships. But the other people, you know, they're, uh, they're involved. It's an interaction. There's, there's, there's two people here, right? The other people get kind of drawn into the, like, you know, into the magnetic field of, of, uh, you know, of, um ... It's, it's like, it's like they get, it's like they get gravitationally pulled in to the other person's distorted view of things. And now it's actually happening, (laughs) right?

   13. CWChris Williamson27:44

       It feels to me like you have another concept that m- might be very closely tied to this,

7. 27:49 – 46:11

   How Projective Identification & Splitting Works

   1. CWChris Williamson27:49

      projective identification.

   2. JSDr Jonathan Shedler27:50

      Oh, boy.

   3. CWChris Williamson27:50

      Projecting unacknowledged feelings, motives, onto someone else, then behaving in ways that provoke the very feelings you have projected. For example, projecting rage onto someone else, and then treating them so badly that they actually become enraged.

   4. JSDr Jonathan Shedler28:05

      Well, that's, uh, yeah. That's, (laughs) that's the most complicated one of all. And in fact, that, that is a very particular version of transference. Um, and we're seeing a lot of it in public life right now. So, uh, so let's start with the simpler instance. The simpler instance is just plain projection. Plain projection is there's something unacceptable, you know, something that I feel unacceptable in myself. You know, my anger, my hostility, you know, my sexual wishes, my whatever. Unacceptable to myself. I don't wanna know it about myself. I defend against it. I'm not these things. And the way I defend against it is I project it onto someone else, onto you. I'm not, you know, angry, and toxic, and, you know, destructive, and wanting to hurt people. You are. Right? That's the projection. Um, what makes it a projective identification is the person takes it a step further. It's not just that I see you as being angry and hostile when you otherwise might not be at all. It's that I then proceed to treat you in ways that, uh, you know, that, that actually evoke those feelings in you. In other words, I make the projection come true, right? So if I see you as angry and hostile, and I then treat you so badly and do it so relentlessly until you actually become angry, and it's like now it's confirmed, right? It's not defense. It's really true. You know, it wasn't a projection that I saw you as angry and hostile. Look at that. You are angry and hostile. So, right? So projective identification is getting rid of some, you know, some feeling or motive that we f- find is intolerable in ourselves, mistakenly imagining that it, that it applies to somebody else, and then treating them (laughs) in such a way that you actually, you know, you actually manage to ... Uh, you have actually managed to create the kinds of, you know, feelings and attitudes that you projected to begin with. Could think of it as a kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

   5. CWChris Williamson30:12

      Precisely what I had in my mind, yeah. And also, um, it, it ends up justifying your own viewpoint to yourself, right? If you do provoke somebody to become enraged or whatever it might be, when they do finally snap and treat you in that manner-... it is a reinforcement mechanism for your prediction. You go-

   6. JSDr Jonathan Shedler30:33

      Yes.

   7. CWChris Williamson30:34

      ... "I knew it. I knew it all along."

   8. JSDr Jonathan Shedler30:34

      It's con- Exactly. It's confirmation, right? So, you know, the way it, it, it works, it, it goes hand-in-hand with another defense, but, uh, y- peop- people who do this tend to see the world in very black and white terms, you know. So other people are, are, you know, good or bad caricatures. You know, they're heroes or they're villains. And-

   9. CWChris Williamson30:53

      Oh, that's, uh, splitting, right?

   10. JSDr Jonathan Shedler30:55

       That is splitting, yes.

   11. CWChris Williamson30:57

       Yes.

   12. JSDr Jonathan Shedler30:57

       (laughs) Um, so, i- i- you know, projected identification, you decide that someone or some group or some identity is bad, you know, they're evil, and then you treat them as if that were true, as if it were a fact. You treat them like they're evil, right, and you treat them so badly, you know, that they, they finally react against it and, you know, and, and push back and, you know, and, you know, become angry and aggressive, because they've got no choice. They've been pushed into it. They're getting, you know ... They're, they're getting treated like a punching bag, (laughs) you know? And, and, you know, and they, and they put up with it, you know, so long and finally they punch back and say, "Ha! See? That person is toxic. I knew." You know, "I knew they wanted to punch me." (laughs) It's kind of like that.

   13. CWChris Williamson31:46

       Mm. So going on to splitting, perceiving others in black or white categories, seeing them as one-dimensional, as purely good or purely evil. This is something that I see so much-

   14. JSDr Jonathan Shedler31:57

       Yes.

   15. CWChris Williamson31:57

       ... online at the moment.

   16. JSDr Jonathan Shedler31:59

       Yes.

   17. CWChris Williamson31:59

       And I've always wondered what's going on psychologically that is causing people to choose a lower resolution view of other people. Like, w- w- what ... I understand that it's simpler to throw people into categories of either good or bad or evil or my team or their team or whatever, because the nuance of, "I disagree with this person on X but may agree with them on Y," requires an awful lot more mental effort.

   18. JSDr Jonathan Shedler32:27

       Well, everything you said is right, but it, it goes much deeper than that. So, uh, the, th- ... Our, our understanding of early, you know, early childhood development is, um ... Let's see. How do I ... Uh, we have a, a concept in, uh, called object constancy. So, uh, object constancy. So, um, if you spend time with, with little children, you, you know, y- you see it. That before a certain developmental stage, if, if something isn't, like, physically present in front of them, the, the, the child or the infant doesn't really have the capacity to hold it in mind. So, you know, for example, parents all over the world play m- ... You know, usually mothers and children, they play the peek-a-boo game. And, and there's, you know, with the squeal, you know, "Peek-a-boo," and there's, like, squeals of delight from the children. And the children never get tired of it, you know. They can play peek-a-boo forever. But, you know, why is it so exciting? What's, what's really going on? Um, they just ... When the, when the mother, you know, covers her face, "Peak-a-boo," up to a certain developmental level, the child actually doesn't have the, the, you know, the mental equipment at that point to say, "Oh, yeah. She's still here. She's just, you know, behind her hands." Right? Right? So the child's experience is something like she magically, you know, vanishes and magically reappears. And, and the moment the child, uh, uh, uh, uh, you know, achieves what we call object constancy, which is the ability to recognize that something still exists whether we see it or not in front of us, right? The moment that happens, then the game stops being fun. It's just like, "Oh, you know, Mommy's hiding her face," right? (laughs) Right? The magic of it is gone. So, if you take that concept and you apply it to people, when ... You don't have a stable, enduring sense of, you know, "This is my mother. This is my mother, you know, in this setting. This is my mother when she's cuddling me. This is my mother when she's scolding me or punishing me." Right? In the ab- in the absence of object constancy, it's like the child keeps having these unrelated experiences with different mothers. We know it's the same mother, right? (laughs) But up until a certain developmental point, the, the child doesn't know. Right? So, so you can think of it as this, like, kind of shifting kaleidoscope of mental representations of the other person or the, uh, the, the self in relation to the other person, and they're all separate. It's like this shifting kaleidoscope of, like, fragmented parts and pieces. And with development comes the ability to start to integrate those different representations, and you recognize, "It's the same mother," you know? "The mother who accidentally poked me with a diaper pin, you know, and made me cry is the same mother who held me and cuddles me and feed me. It's not two different people. It's one person." Right? So you can think of these, these, these, you know, snippets, pieces of relationships as the, kind of the building blocks of, of mental life. Now, when the building blocks start getting integrated into what we call, you know, a whole representation, right, a three-dimensional representation of the mother, and it's the same mother, right? "The mother who's angry at me is the same mother who, you know, who loves me and, and cuddles me. It's the same person." Uh, w- w- w- w- you now have what we call a more integrated representation of the person, right? It, it encompasses, you know, both things that we feel good about and things we feel bad about. And as the building blocks come together, they don't come together randomly. They come together along emotional lines. So the different images of the mother that are positive, that we feel good about, come together and create one image of, you know, good mother. The, you know, images that we feel, you know, bad about, you know, th- pain, hurt, aloneness, anger, whatever, those come together and we have an image of a bad mother, right? They're like two different people, the good mother and the bad mother. And then with further development, the good and the bad get integrated, and it's like, "Oh, you know, it's Mother, and sometimes she's good and makes me feel good, and sometimes she's bad and makes me feel bad, but it's the same person, and I have all the ..." Right? So in a way, the child achieves ambivalence, right? Ambivalence means you have-You, you know, you have multiple and sometimes conflicting or contradictory feelings toward the same person, right? So I, I like this about you, I don't like that about you, right? That's, that's ambivalence. That's a, that's a very, you know, uh, nuanced three-dimensional view of you. So when something goes horribly wrong in development, um, and, and often it's related to, uh, abuse or neglect, that level of integration doesn't happen, and you experience the world in this, you know, fragmented way, where, you know, people are good or bad. You don't see people in their, in their complexity, right? And, uh, you know, and, and you carry that forward, right? It, it, it's like something that was supposed to happen developmentally never happened, and you know, what happens is when the person gets upset, they completely lose the capacity to recognize that somebody else is another human being, you know, just like them, with good qualities and bad qualities, and you know, that people are nuanced and complicated and, you know, exist in shades of gray. That's just, you know, that's the human condition. That's so. We- the person loses the ability to perceive it that way, so then- and certain other people are seen as, you know, all good, all virtuous, heroes, you know, that ... And others are seen as all bad, as villains. So the person ends up seeing the world in this very caricature, cartoon-like, you know, cartoon-like way, you know, when there's heroes and villains, and no three-dimensional, whole people. And when you're on the receiving end of it, you know, (laughs) right? Because y- you know, you're just going about your life, you know, interacting with them, doing whatever you do, and all of a sudden, you know, you're getting vilified in this extreme way. You're getting seen as somebody that just, uh, has no relation to, to how you experience yourself. It's like, where did that come from? Right? Well, where it came from is this, this bad, you know, this bad representation inside the other person, right? They don't recognize it as a part of themselves. It's gotten projected onto you, and now you're the bad person, and they can treat you that way. And, you know, and I honestly think this, this goes a long way to explaining some of the, the, the worst aspects of the culture wars, because we be, we lose, we lose the ability to see other people as complex, three-dimensional human beings, and we start seeing the world as, you know, as caricatures of good and evil. And the good people are, you know, completely right and virtuous and in the right, and what they wanna do is, you know, what, what they wanna do is the right way, and the people who become the bad objects, oh, you know, they're evil and they should be treated that way.

   19. CWChris Williamson39:33

       Mm. You had this other tweet thread that I loved. I think splitting projection and projective identification seem to all tie into this, "Severe personality problems find camouflage. No one thinks, 'I'm a sadist,' or 'I'm a malignant narcissist.'"

   20. JSDr Jonathan Shedler39:47

       (laughs)

   21. CWChris Williamson39:47

       "They find a belief system or social group that validates their most hateful, destructive impulses and construes them as virtues. The most toxic and hateful people in the world are 100% convinced they fight for what is true and right."

   22. JSDr Jonathan Shedler40:01

       Yeah. Well, well, think about it. You know, nobody thinks, well, with very rare exceptions (laughs) , nobody thinks, "I'm a bad person. I'm cruel and I'm vicious and I want to hurt people, and, you know, I, I like, you know, I like destroying things. I like doing damage. I like causing other people pain." Right? I mean, it's pretty hard to live your life and think that about yourself, right? Now, in fact, there's something inside the person. They, they do want to, they do wanna do damage to others. They, there is something in, en these people that's very cruel and very destructive. But that's not their experience of themselves, right? Their experience of th- their experience is, "All o- that evil isn't inside of me. It's inside you. You're the one who's evil," right? So, so, th- there's the splitting and the projection, right? The, the, the splitting, if, if the person were not splitting, they'd be like, "You know, this is me, and I have some good qualities, and God, sometimes I'm, I'm just an asshole, and you know, sometimes I'm just needlessly cruel. But you know, I'm more than that too. I'm also kind and loving," right? We have this very complex, nuanced view of ourselves, ideally. When splitting happens, we don't have that. (laughs) "I'm good, you're bad, you're cruel, you're violent, you're destructive, you're a bad person." Right? So, so that's the splitting and the projection. If I see you as a bad person, you know, who's harmful and destructive, you know, and needs to be reined in, now I feel fully justified in, you know, in, in, in treating you horribly, you know, in, in abusing you, mistreating you, hounding you out of a job, you know, canceling you. I can do anything to you because you're evil and you deserve it. There's no limits on, you know, how ... There's no limits to my cruelty, because in my mind, it's not my cruelty. You're the cruel, evil person, and you need to be held to account, right? So a- a- and you treat somebody that way long enough, you know, well, they will become enraged, and they will want to fight back, right? And like we were talking about before, that now confirms my view. You really are, you know, you really are this evil, violent person who wants to, you know, who wants to do harm, right? So we find a way to justify our worst impulses and imagine ourselves to be very good and virtuous while we're doing that, right? "W- we're not being cruel."... we're fighting evil.

   23. CWChris Williamson42:46

       The problem is, even with this understanding, even knowing the fact that most people see themselves not as evil or bad or purposefully trying to do ill stuff to everybody else, when we see the imp- impact of what these people's actions do, it's very hard to find empathy for them. You're like, "Why should I, why should I care? Why should I care that you have this litany of issues which is contributing to the way that you're behaving?" And that there's maybe even some clinical diagnosis that could look at this person as toward the upper end of this particular spectrum of, of disorders or a combination of spectrum of disorders. You just think, "That person's a dick."

   24. JSDr Jonathan Shedler43:22

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson43:22

       "And I need to respond to them in kind."

   26. JSDr Jonathan Shedler43:25

       And, and that's the projective identification, right? Now, you don't get to respond to them the way you might otherwise spontaneously, you know, want to treat them, right? Y- Y- You're now responding to the provo- provocation. They are turning you into the worst version of yourself. R- Right? So the, the projection becomes true. Right? "I think this person is a dick. I treat them horribly, and lo and behold, they start acting like a dick." (laughs) You know? "I was right." Right? So, so the, the person engaged in this gets a, it's a, it's a very primitive kind of defense because, uh, y- you know, it, I mean, it's really saying, "Here are these, you know, things about me, you know, my capacity for cruelty, you know, my, you know, my, my pleasure in hurting people, my destructiveness." We all have it. It's in all of us. Everybody has the capacity for these things. And it's saying, "No, no. These don't, don't belong to me." You know? "This is not me. This is you." And so, it's a defense that, that really distorts our perception of the world and our perception of other people. It's a, it's a costly defense be- because, um, uh, i- it, it really causes us to lose touch with who the other people are around us.

   27. CWChris Williamson44:46

       What's the role that the group, the group plays here? So you said, "They find a belief system or social group that validates their most hateful, destructive impulses and construes them as virtues."

   28. JSDr Jonathan Shedler44:56

       Yeah. Uh, so, uh, so some people get, you know, some people get p- the goodness projected onto them. And they're, you know, and they're treated wonderfully. They're, they're, they're heroic. They're good people. They're virtuous. They can be appreciated. They can be admired. Well, those people start thinking, "Oh, you're a great guy." The people that you're projecting the badness onto and mistreating, they think you're a horrible person. So you've got, you know, two, two groups of people that are having completely different experiences of the same person, right, depending on, depending on whether the good or bad is being projected onto them. So, uh, you know, usually, um, i- it, you know, especially if you, you spin it in, in sort of moral terms, you know, "They're bad and immoral and they need to be stopped, and we're good and we're moral and we're gonna stop them 'cause we're, we're fighting the good fight." I- you know, if, if, if you, um, you know, if you do that, then the people doing the most cruel and toxic and destructive things, you know, kind of find an in group that cheers them on and says, "Yes, yes," you know, "We're on the side of good and right and, and virtue."

   29. CWChris Williamson46:10

       Mm. Repetition

8. 46:11 – 50:50

   Everyone Engages in Repetition & Enactment

   1. CWChris Williamson46:11

      and enactment, when something we do not want to know or understand about ourselves gets played out with others over and over.

   2. JSDr Jonathan Shedler46:20

      (laughs) Yeah. Well, that would be an example, all right? (laughs) Like, if something we don't wanna know about ourselves is just our capacity for, for cruelty and destructiveness, and you know, we keep making other people the villains, I mean, not, not because the other people are inherently villains, because we need to see them that way. And we keep reliving this relationship over and over and over again. You know, it's just the damnedest thing. Wherever I go in the world, you know, there's just hor- horrible, vile, evil people that need to be stopped (laughs) , no matter where (laughs) , no matter which social media site I go on. By God, there, here they are also. Right? And there, there's no acknowledgement, you know, that, that, the, the, the hate and the cruelty and the destructiveness comes from within. Uh, th- that, that's an extreme example. We're, we're all involved in repetition and in enactment. So repetition is the idea that w- you know, we have, um, we all have all kinds of unresolved conflicts, uh, that we sort of carry with them. And this isn't good or bad or pathological. It's just, it's just human nature. You know, and in one way or another, we tend to repeat it over and over again as we go through our lives and what... Right? Uh, so that would be, that's called a repetition. When we draw somebody else into playing out that script with us, we call it ena- enactment, 'cause now there's two people involved in enacting it out together. And, and actually, this is th- how the kind of therapy I practice works. People come into therapy and they begin repeating what they repeat, right, in relationships in general, but now they're doing it in a therapy relationship, 'cause that's a relationship too. And they draw the therapist in to reenacting something. It's, it's almost unavoidable. You get pulled in to enacting something and... The therapist does. And what makes therapy, therapy, good therapy, and not just, you know, one more relationship where the same old thing happens, is, uh, in the rest of life, you just continue reenacting the pattern. In therapy, you reenact the pattern, but somebody, hopefully the therapist, has the capacity to step back and say, "Basically, something's going on here. What are we doing? Let's think about this." You know, "Did you notice, you know, did you notice, you know, you seem to assume this or that about me, and you know, and, and treated me on that basis." You know, wh- wh- when, when, uh...I don't know. When I had to cancel, when I had to cancel our appointment because of, you know, an emergency came up in my life. In your mind, it's because I don't like you, I'm fed up with you, and I would rather not have you as a patient. I would rather, you know, I'd rather be done with you. And you responded to me on that basis that, you know, I, I wonder if we can think about... You know, um, that may be true. But I wonder if you can think of other reasons why I might have had to cancel the appointment, right? We're trying to, sort of, expand the person's capacity to think differently so that the things they take for granted, right? The things that I call, uh, like water to a fish, suddenly become things that we can, you know, call into question and reflect about. It's like, "Oh, like maybe you didn't hate, maybe you don't really hate me and wanna be rid of me with a patient. Or, you know, maybe you have a sick child at home or," (laughs) you know, whatever, right? So, right, we, we, we take these patterns that we just reenact, you know, kind of, mindlessly throughout our lives. And we basically say, "Look, there's a pattern going on here. Let's, let's really think about this. How did this come about? What led up to it? You know, how did you understand when I did thus and so? How did you understand it when you responded, you know, thus and so?" Right? So, that what we're, what we're really doing is, in the rest of life things happen very automatically and, and rapidly. You know, we go from point A to point B, and it just, you know, i- in our mind that's just, that's just the way it is. What we do in therapy is we slow things down and say, "Well, between point A and point B, a lot has gone on." There's all kinds of thoughts and feelings and experiences and memories, and maybe it's not a foregone conclusion that, you know, (laughs) that A leads to B and that just, you know, that's just a fact. Maybe there's choices between point A and point B. Maybe A, you know, maybe A doesn't have to inevitably lead to point B. Maybe there's more freedom there than we realize.

   3. CWChris Williamson50:49

      Reaction

9. 50:50 – 54:22

   Using Reaction Formation as a Defence

   1. CWChris Williamson50:50

      formation. Masking underlying feelings and attitudes by expressing their opposite to an exaggerated degree. For example, expressing exaggerated approval and admiration towards someone you secretly look down on.

   2. JSDr Jonathan Shedler51:03

      Yeah. So, it, it, it's a pretty straightforward defense, where we protect ourselves from knowing something that we don't wanna know about ourselves by e-experiencing the opposite of that. Um, an example would be, uh, i- imagine somebody who's just absolutely fascinated, drawn to pornography. But, but that's completely unacceptable. They weren't raised in a, you know, they weren't, you know, they weren't raised in a community that has any place for that, that could possibly, you know, accept it or understand it. It's bad. And they say, "I'm not the kind of person that's interested in pornography. In fact, I hate, I detest pornography. It needs to be, you know, condemned." Right? So, imagine somebody like that who then devotes themselves to becoming an anti-pornography crusader, which requires constantly looking t- to find pornography, right? So, that you can condemn it. Right? That's a reaction formation. It's saying, you know, "I'm not, I'm not interested in this. I'm not drawn to this. I'm disgusted by it." Right? So, we often, you know, we, we can mask a particular feeling or attitude by substituting the opposite. The example I gave in the, in the thread that you, uh, that you read was, um... Well, what did I say again? R- r- read that part to me again.

   3. CWChris Williamson52:23

      Expressing exaggerated approval-

   4. JSDr Jonathan Shedler52:25

      Yeah. Okay.

   5. CWChris Williamson52:26

      ... and admiration towards someone you-

   6. JSDr Jonathan Shedler52:27

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson52:27

      ... secretly look down on.

   8. JSDr Jonathan Shedler52:28

      So, so suppose you look down on someone, you know. You, you loathe them, you think they're inferior. But you're not the kind of person that would ever look down on and think somebody was inferior. Certainly, not on the basis of, you know, some identity characteristic. You've just, you know... You're just not that kind of person. Well, you know, if, if the impulse to look down on them is, you know, is, is strong and you d- defend against it, you know, maybe you turn it into the opposite. Or, you know, you valorize and glorify them, right? And then, you know, all of a sudden, you know, a- all of a sudden the person could do no wrong in your eyes. When you scratch, you know, scratch the surface of those attitudes, though, you know, sometimes you find quite the opposite.

   9. CWChris Williamson53:10

      Mm. So, this performative empathy that is often being used.

   10. JSDr Jonathan Shedler53:16

       Maybe you become, you know, very deferential and worshipful (laughs) to, you know, to the group that you look down on.

   11. CWChris Williamson53:23

       I'm seeing many, many, many parallels with the modern world at the moment.

   12. JSDr Jonathan Shedler53:28

       Yes.

   13. CWChris Williamson53:29

       Yeah.

   14. JSDr Jonathan Shedler53:29

       You see, that, that's the thing, you know. The- these are concepts that go back to the turn of the, you know, the turn of the century, the turn of the 20th century. Uh, you know, these are, you know, 100-plus-year-old ideas and people s- sometimes they get discussed as if they were, like, these ancient artifacts, you know. "We, we don't, we don't have to deal with that anymore." Right? When I, that's when I meant we, when I said we have very, uh, cheap, superficial kinds of therapies now, right? "Th- these, these ideas don't apply to us. These are, you know, f- things from the distant past." Like, no, they're not. They're here with us every single day (laughs) . We're, we're, we're swimming them all the time. You know, people, people may not know the words or the concepts, but we are living with them all the time. And it, it's not like this is some dated, outmoded thing that's not relevant to day-to-day life. It, it could not be more relevant to our day-to-day life.

   15. CWChris Williamson54:21

       Displacement.

10. 54:22 – 1:00:46

    The Sub-conscious Act of Displacement

    1. CWChris Williamson54:22

       Shifting feelings from one person or situation to a different, safer one. For example, attacking someone who cannot defend themselves in the place of attacking-

    2. JSDr Jonathan Shedler54:31

       (laughs)

    3. CWChris Williamson54:31

       ... someone who can retaliate.

    4. JSDr Jonathan Shedler54:33

       Yeah. You know, so the classic example of that is, uh, you know, somebody feels badly treated at work, you know. They're, they're angry at their boss. They feel like their boss, you know, their boss didn't, you know, did wrong by them, you know.I, you know, they'd like to shout at the boss or punch the boss. But, of course, you can't do that. You know, maybe they come home and kick the dog, right? That would be a pure example of displacement. Uh, so one of the things that we, you know, we understand in psychology is that, that there's something about feelings, that they're, they can be, they can be shifted very easily. They can be redirected so that a feeling that originates in one place can be expressed in another place. And that's what, that's what displacement is. The feeling is still there, right? What, whatever, you know, what, what, whatever the feeling is, but we're directing it at something else, something or someone else other than where it really started.

    5. CWChris Williamson55:29

       That sounds quite cowardly. That seems like a, a, a cowardly approach to whatever's going on. Rather than pushing back against the person or the thing which is causing you issue, you go to something which is more vulnerable.

    6. JSDr Jonathan Shedler55:43

       W- well, it would be cowardly if it were a conscious choice, and we knew that that's what we were doing. But, right, the, the, the thing about, you know, all of these defenses is they operate relatively unconsciously. While we're doing it, we think we're just dealing with reality. We kick the dog 'cause the dog was being bad, you know? Right? So, I mean, you know, when you, we start to talk about, you know, m- m- cowardice, that implies understanding and choice, whereas-

    7. CWChris Williamson56:10

       Like volition. Yeah, yeah.

    8. JSDr Jonathan Shedler56:12

       Yeah. And volition. Whereas, if this is operating outside of awareness, it, it's not clear that there's that much choice.

    9. CWChris Williamson56:18

       Well, that is where the difficulty in culpability comes from. You know, b- we like to think that people are the architects of their own actions, you know? We, we definitely like to think that we are the architects of our own actions. We don't have to feel like-

    10. JSDr Jonathan Shedler56:35

        (laughs) We like to think that.

    11. CWChris Williamson56:36

        We don't wanna feel like we're at the mercy of our programming, and there's just some several hundred thousand year old biological predisposition just pulling the strings above us. That's definitely not something that we want. I mean, you know, maybe, maybe other people, but certainly not us, and certainly not the people... So, it seems like a very difficult situation to be able to find the requisite understanding and empathy for people who do these things, especially given most of the stuff that we've gone through today is really fucking annoying. Like, if anybody did that, it's so super, super irritating, you know this.

    12. JSDr Jonathan Shedler57:12

        And people do it every day. There's nothing mysterious about any of this. We encounter this, you know, w- we encounter this regularly. It's-

    13. CWChris Williamson57:21

        There is this sort of Motton Bailey thing as well with the pullback, like, "This is what I'm s- well, that wasn't what I was saying. I actually meant this." And then you get the response, and then somebody complains about the response. And then, maybe they end up doing something to somebody else because of the response that you gave to them. And I can see that these all kind of, uh, I would imagine, not like comorbidities but co-, uh, psycho-

    14. JSDr Jonathan Shedler57:41

        Yeah, they're all inter- complexly interrelated.

    15. CWChris Williamson57:44

        Yes, yes. And one will cascade down into others.

    16. JSDr Jonathan Shedler57:47

        Well, and, and, and, and this is the essence of it, right? The, I mean, this, this traces all the way back to, you know, to Sigmund Freud and, you know, turn of the century Vienna, that he... You know, I mean, some of what he wrote has stood the test of time, some not so much. But the fundamental breakthrough is we don't fully know ourselves. We don't fully know our hearts and minds. There's such a thing as unconscious mental life. And that is the essence of it. That has stood the test of time. And now we have research, you know, that they couldn't do it in Freud's day. We have research in experimental psychology. We have research in cognitive neuroscience. We know that it's true. We don't have one brain, right? The, the brain didn't, you know, evolve all at once. The brain is con- composed of multiple structures that came about, you know, at different points in the evolution of the species, and they're not in harmony, right? The, the conflict, meaning contradictory, contradictory experiences about, about things, contradictory motives, is, is rooted in the architecture of the brain itself, right? We, we know that now. So, so Freud said, in his own time, he said that his insight was the third of three great blows to human dignity. And the first blow was Copernicus said, "We are not at the center of the universe." (laughs) We're just one more planet among, you know, many others, right? Man is not at the center of the universe. The second blow came from Darwin, who said, you know, "We are not separate and apart from the animal kingdom. We are part of the animal kingdom. We are biological... You know, we are animals. We are biological beings with all of the evolutionary heritage that goes with that." And the third, the third great b- blow is the one that, you know, that, that Freud himself identified, and it is, we're not masters of our own house. We think that we're doing things because we've decided to, and it's volitional, and it's conscious, and, you know, what we consciously think about something, i- i- is all there is. Whereas, in fact, you know, mental, you know, consciousness is like the tip of the iceberg of mental life. So, we're doing all sorts of things all the time for reasons we don't fully understand.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:00:20

        Extremely.

    18. JSDr Jonathan Shedler1:00:20

        The other, the other contribution was, you know, it doesn't have to stay that way to that extent, right? That, in fact, we can come to know ourselves more fully. And that's what this kind of therapy is about. That, you know, but fundamentally, you know, fundamentally, there are things about ourselves and why we do what we do that, you know, aren't fully under our control.

11. 1:00:46 – 1:03:21

    One Thing Dr Shedler Wished People Knew

    1. CWChris Williamson1:00:46

       What do you wish more people knew? If you could try and give-... a, a, a single insight that you think would have the most impact to the wellbeing of people's psychological health, would it be that? Would it be the fact that we are not completely in control and that there are mechanisms that are working below the surface, or is there something else?

    2. JSDr Jonathan Shedler1:01:06

       Uh, there, uh, there's mechanisms working below the surface. But, you know, many of them, you know, can be brought to the surface. And then I, you know, I mean, we get into the question of free will, which, you know, is a phil- philosophical question that's not going to have an answer. You know, I, I, I can't speak to, you know, do we ha- do we or do we not have free will? What I can say with some confidence is, there are things that we can do to develop a freer will, mm, freer than before. And, and that might make all the difference. And as far as what I'd like people, you know, to know, right? So, people are getting sold a bill of goods about what psychotherapy is. You know, take depression, for example. That's the most, you know, d- probably the most common diagnosis that, you know, that you see in, in, you know, medical records. Um, there's a kind of this cultural myth that depression is like a disease. You know, depression, you have depression. Well, for most people most of the time, depression is, is an effect, not a cause. Right? The thing that's wrong isn't your depression, right? The thing that's wrong is something going on psychologically that's causing distress. And we experience distress in the form of depression, right? So, good therapy, as I understand it, is let's find out what's underlying this depression, so that maybe it doesn't have to continue. Versus, you know, you have depression. Depression is the problem. Here's techniques and interventions we use for depression, you know? "We'll change your thoughts. We'll try some medication," without any concept of wait a minute, there's more to this than meets the eye, you know? W- we're more than our symptoms. We're more than our conscious thoughts and our behavior. There's more to us than that. And before we get in, you know, in such a hurry to get rid of a symptom, which generally doesn't work, get rid of the depression, maybe it's there for a reason. Maybe we can understand the reason, right? And out of that understanding comes the freedom to do things differently, so that we don't have to keep experiencing the same kind of distress.

12. 1:03:21 – 1:16:48

    How to Choose the Right Therapist

    1. JSDr Jonathan Shedler1:03:21

    2. CWChris Williamson1:03:21

       How can people choose or work out whether they are currently with a therapist that is useful and effective for them? What is a way that a patient or somebody that is going through therapy would be able to judge the usefulness of the therapeutic relationship with the particular clinician they're working with right now?

    3. JSDr Jonathan Shedler1:03:41

       Yeah. So, so there's different... I should, you know, I should put it this in context. I mean, there's different kinds of therapy for different purposes. The kind of therapy that I'm, uh, you know, that I practice and that I talk about is called psychoanalytic or psychodynamic therapy, which is oriented around, you know, coming to know aspects of our experience that, that, you know, are not fully known. And that requires a relationship. It happens in a relationship. So remember, I said you come into the therapy relationship, you bring your lenses or your templates from your past relationships and you start reliving them, reenacting them in therapy, right? That's where the information is. So once you understand that, what it means is, if you're in meaningful therapy that's aimed at insight and understanding, it means you're gonna be talking about the relationship in the room with the therapist. So here's like a two-question test (laughs) where... are you getting meaningful for psychotherapy? It comes from, uh, a friend and colleague of mine, Michael Carson. I can't, I can't take credit for it. Think of a time that you were upset with your therapist. Did you tell them? Yes or no, right? If the answer is yes, you might be in meaningful therapy. If the answer is no, you're not in meaningful therapy.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:04:59

       Why?

    5. JSDr Jonathan Shedler1:04:59

       All right? Because the work is a res- (laughs) ... we count on the patient to fuck up the therapy relationship in the same kinds of ways that they fuck up their other relationships, that we have to talk about, we have to pay attention to what goes on in the psychotherapy relationship. It is an... It's a very intimate relationship. We're talking about very, very personal, private, emotionally charged things. It is impossible to have that kind of relationship sustained over time where you do not get upset with the other person. It just doesn't happen. They're gonna say... So they're gonna piss you off. They're gonna misunderstand you. They're gonna say the wrong thing. They're gonna get it wrong. They're gonna say something that sounds cold or callous. It's going to happen, right? What makes therapy, what makes this kind of therapy meaningful is you can tell the therapist you're upset. So that's the thing, you know, step one. Now, now a lot of people are very inhibited about, you know, uh, asserting themselves about saying to another person like, "You know, I don't like this, and this pissed me off." You know, some people have a hard time doing it. So, so I, I wanna add a qualification. Think about a time you were upset with a therapist. Did you tell them, or is the work in therapy moving in a direction where you're going to be increasingly likely to tell them, increasingly able to tell them in the future, right? So (laughs) did you tell them? If you told them, you might be in meaningful therapy. And then part two, when you told them, did they respond with interest and curiosity, or did they get defensive, right? So a competent therapist... You know, you say to your therapist, "You know, you're kind of an asshole about blah, blah, blah," whatever. A competent therapist doesn't explain themselves and say, "Oh no, I didn't mean that. You misunderstood. I meant to do this." They don't rush in with an apology, or the... A competent therapist basically says, "Oh-"... "Tell me more about that. I, I'd like to understand this better." Right? So, the things that are going on in the relation- in the therapy relationship between the two of you that are sources of friction become things to, to think about and talk about and reflect on together. Right? So, when you say, "We count on the patient to fuck up the therapy relationship the way they fuck up their other relationships," by talking about it, thinking about it, reflecting on it together, w- we go through a process of, you know, un-fucking (laughs) it, right? Making sense of it, clarifying it, finding a way to have a relationship that works for two people, not just for one person at the other's expense. Right? And once we know how to have a relationship that works for two people, right, that then, y- you know, that then, uh, th- that understanding, that way of being and thinking, you know, then carries over into other, other life relationships, right? So, we can have a more intimate relationship with our, you know, our partner, our husband or our wife. You know, we can have more meaningful and closer friendships. We can, you know, collaborate more effectively with, you know, coworkers, people at work, right? Our capacity for, you know, communication and, and connection with other people and intimacy with other people increases, right? So, let's come full circle and bring it back to the example of depression. W- there's a lot of ways to get to depression, right? D- Depression is like, um, depression is like the psychological equivalent of fever. So, what's fever? Fever is a non-specific response to an enormous range of underlying, you know, physi- physiological difficulties. You know, anything from, from the common cold to Ebola, right? So, when, you know, when a physician takes your temperature and you have fever, that's, that's not, you know, that's not the end of the diagnostic (laughs) process. That's the beginning, right? So, it's non-specific. Depression is a non-specific response to an enormous range of underlying psychological difficulties. When we know somebody's depressed, we haven't diagnosed the problem. We've, you know, we've described, you know, the most surface, you know, surface manifestation of a problem. Now, we've gotta figure out, well, what's going on? What's making them depressed? So, you know, suppose something consistently goes wrong in your relationships. You never get your needs met. Other people never respond to you the way you'd really like. You never feel cared for. You never feel like you matter in relationships. Is that going to lead to depression? You know, hell yes. You are going to, sooner or later, that is going to show up as depression. What do we treat? Do we treat your depression, or do we look at what's going on in the relationships that's getting in the way of getting what you need from them? Well, that's what we do. We look at what's going on in the relationships that's getting in the way, starting with what's going on in the therapy relationship itself and that understanding then carries over into our other relationships. So-

    6. CWChris Williamson1:10:00

       I imagine that there must be a difficulty if the client, patient, um, is very concerned with politeness, maybe-

    7. JSDr Jonathan Shedler1:10:13

       (laughs)

    8. CWChris Williamson1:10:13

       ... or with, um, uh, not being seen by the therapist as, uh, making too much of a fuss or, or misbehaving in some way, because what you end up with is, is a very sort of, um, sheltered, thin veil that kind of obscures some of the stuff that you're looking to do. It's so, such an interesting dynamic to say that what you're actively looking for as a therapist is for the patient to fuck up the relationship between you and them in the same way that they do with everybody else.

    9. JSDr Jonathan Shedler1:10:42

       Yeah. And we don't even have to look for it. It just happens. What we have to do is be able to recognize it and create a space together where it becomes possible to think about it and discuss it, right? (laughs) They are going to fuck up the relationship in whatever ways they're, they're going to, and, and actually, the example you gave may be the most common, right? So, uh, we see this a lot, th- that there are people who are either relatively unaware of their own emotional needs. They don't, they don't, don't let themselves, don't let themselves know what they need or want. Or, you know, they know, but they have a lot of difficulty speaking up and, and saying so. And they tend to go together, actually, right? So, if you're that kind of person, and it, it's really common. I mean, I mean, I really want, you know, your, your listeners to understand that these are not, you know, obscure, you know, disorders. This is just woven into the fabric of day-to-day life for lots of us. And, and if you're the kind of person, you know, who has difficulty recognizing or expressing, you know, your needs from other people, your experience of life, your experience of relationships is you don't get your needs met. Then a lot of things follow from that. You know, you're likely to feel, you know, depressed, hopeless, deflated. "I, you know, nothing ever works out for me. I never get what I really want." You know, "I met this guy. I thought he was wonderful. This guy was gonna be different, but he doesn't care about what I need either," right? And then maybe the person gets increasingly resentful 'cause they're putting all this effort and energy into this relationship, and their experience is nothing is coming back. You know, it's a one-way street. You say, you know, "What's wrong?" Like, "Oh, my husband doesn't, he doesn't give a shit about my feelings. He thinks only about himself." Maybe you get the husband (laughs) , you know, you get the husband, and you might hear a very different take. The husband be like, "I, I do everything I can to try to please her and make her happy, and, and it's like, you know, nothing I do is good enough." "Why is it not good enough?" "'Cause she never said what she wanted." He's not a mind reader, right? So, the idea is that that dynamic is going to get recreated in the therapy relationship. So, right, all kinds of things are gonna come up day in and day out where the, the, the person, the patient is unhappy about something in the therapy or wants something that they're not getting, and they don't speak up about it-That's the problem right there in the therapy relationship. Now they start to get, you know, resentful. They're sullen. And the thing that makes it therapy is, you don't just relive the pattern with another person or just reenact it with somebody new, right? The therapist says, "But something is going on here. You know, there seems to be something, something that you want from me that you're not getting." "No, no, you're great. No, no, no, you're a really good therapist. You know, every- everything is good." Say, "Well, yeah, I know and, and I- I mean, I appreciate that you're, you know, (laughs) I appreciate that you're being so nice about it, but it seems like we're only hearing from one part of you. It seems like perhaps there's another part of you that, that has something else to say, that we're not getting to hear from." Right? So, you know, repeatedly, we, we just keep inviting into the room what's being left out. Um, I mean, a, a pretty sort of trivial, normal example. Suppose the therapist is five minutes late for the, for the session. A lot of patients who are, you know, sort of agreeable, nice people will say, "Oh," and the therapist says, "I'm sorry I was late, I..." Blah, blah, blah. "Something ran overtime." "Oh, no, it's okay and, you know, you're always here on time, you know, always, I knew there must have been a reason." Right? They'll, they'll sort of, you know, let it slide. And what we say in therapy is, you know, basically, "You know, although that's true, you know, yes, I am always here, but, you know, I notice, I notice we're not hearing. Neither of us are hearing. You know, wh- what, you know, what it was like for you when you were here and, you know, I wasn't here when you expected me. You know? It seems like we're not hearing from that part of you." "No, you've taken very good care of me." And he goes, "Yeah, I, I know, that's, that's true, but perhaps there's something else that's also true. Maybe we could make some room for that." "Well, I, I did think for a moment maybe you just forgot about my appointment." (laughs) Right? Now, we've just, now we've just, uh, you know, got a little crack in the door about, you know, there's a whole world of meaning behind that that we wouldn't otherwise hear from, hear about, you know, unless we pursued it. Chances are, the person who does that is probably, you know, suppose they're, you know, suppose they're, I don't know, happily or unhappily married (laughs) , or they're in a, they're in a marriage and they're dissatisfied with something. Do you think that kind of interaction... "Oh, no, it's just fine." Do you think that doesn't happen every single day in some way or other? Right? Maybe we don't get to hear about the things that aren't just fine. So, right, that's, that's kind of the parallel between what goes on in a therapy relationship and what goes on in real life relationships outside of the therapy.

    10. CWChris Williamson1:16:01

        I really like that insight. Jonathan, let's bring it home. I, I've really, really enjoyed this.

    11. JSDr Jonathan Shedler1:16:05

        Thank you.

    12. CWChris Williamson1:16:05

        I love your insights here. Uh, where should people go if they want to keep up to date with the stuff you do?

    13. JSDr Jonathan Shedler1:16:11

        Um, well, I'm on Twitter. Jonathan, @JonathanSchedler on Twitter. Uh, I've got a webpage online. It's my name, and people can find, uh, articles and blogs and papers that I've written.

    14. CWChris Williamson1:16:25

        All right. Jonathan, I appreciate you very much. Thank you.

    15. JSDr Jonathan Shedler1:16:28

        Thank you.

    16. CWChris Williamson1:16:29

        Well, that's

    17. NANarrator1:16:29

        (instrumental music)

    18. CWChris Williamson1:16:29

        ... people. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:16:48