Latest / psychophobia* podcast / Episode 06: The Seduction of Certainty - Curiosity, Complexity and the Unknown
Transcript
- 0:05What if the institutions designed to help us understand the
- 0:09human psyche are
- 0:10SPEAKER_01: actually afraid of them?
- 0:12Hosted by Dr.
- 0:13Michael Montgomery,
- 0:15this podcast explores the uncomfortable questions.
- 0:18Together we'll examine how the mental health systems meant to
- 0:21heal us instead
- 0:23SPEAKER_01: perpetuate cycles of dependency.
- 0:30SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the psychophobia podcast.
- 0:41SPEAKER_02: You look great.
- 0:42SPEAKER_02: You look all relaxed.
- 0:43SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 0:44SPEAKER_00: I've been here for a month now.
- 0:46SPEAKER_00: It's been really, really, really incredible.
- 0:49SPEAKER_00: So I'm on the northern end of the Nicoya Peninsula, currently in Nosara.
- 0:55Wow.
- 0:56SPEAKER_00: I took a surf lesson this morning, which was really fun.
- 1:00SPEAKER_02: I'm so envious.
- 1:01SPEAKER_02: It just feels so exotic.
- 1:03SPEAKER_00: It's been so beautiful,
- 1:04but I'm happy to see you and I'm sorry that it's been kind of
- 1:08challenging to
- 1:08SPEAKER_00: schedule this time.
- 1:10Actually it worked out okay because we've been constantly
- 1:13trying to refine the
- 1:15production values and the studio and sort of literally changed
- 1:19camera and got more
- 1:20lights and signs and so what began as a small project has sort
- 1:25of turned into
- 1:26SPEAKER_02: something a little bit bigger.
- 1:28Delighted to see you because I feel that we had that sort of
- 1:31intense meeting and
- 1:33SPEAKER_02: encounter and then there's been a sort of a gap,
- 1:37SPEAKER_02: probably a gap to process and to think about it and
- 1:40SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 1:41Usually what I do is I show you something and then ask you
- 1:44what,
- 1:44what your response is.
- 1:45SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to show you this.
- 1:47SPEAKER_02: You tell me what you think.
- 1:55Well,
- 1:56to me,
- 1:56it looks like a man who is either in charge or believes he's in
- 2:00charge.
- 2:02SPEAKER_02: I like your analytic.
- 2:04SPEAKER_02: So that, that is not a, that's not a man.
- 2:06SPEAKER_02: That is the man.
- 2:07SPEAKER_02: That is Sigmund Freud.
- 2:10SPEAKER_02: But I didn't know whether you recognized it,
- 2:11SPEAKER_02: because what I did is,
- 2:12SPEAKER_02: it was a classic photograph,
- 2:14so I took some inspiration from some of the art that you and
- 2:18Steve had showed me,
- 2:19SPEAKER_02: the artistic artist.
- 2:21SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
- 2:21And then I kind of played around with his image and sort of AI
- 2:28type graphics to see
- 2:29SPEAKER_02: what would happen.
- 2:31SPEAKER_02: But yeah,
- 2:31SPEAKER_02: so the link for me with Freud is very contentious,
- 2:36SPEAKER_02: but to me symbolizes something that is getting squeezed out,
- 2:41SPEAKER_02: both clinically and if you like,
- 2:44SPEAKER_02: in our common parlance and that's the unconscious.
- 2:48SPEAKER_02: And it was one of the big takeaways of visiting you,
- 2:52SPEAKER_02: many,
- 2:53SPEAKER_02: many takeaways,
- 2:53but I kept coming back to this juxtaposition between you and
- 2:58Steve talking about
- 2:59SPEAKER_02: evidence and science,
- 3:01SPEAKER_02: but yet talking about the unconscious.
- 3:04SPEAKER_02: And that really fascinated me,
- 3:05SPEAKER_02: both just in how you approach life,
- 3:08SPEAKER_02: your engagement with everything and very much the work that you do there.
- 3:17And also the tie in with neurodiversity,
- 3:19that blew my mind hearing both of you talk about that.
- 3:23SPEAKER_02: So that was the opener.
- 3:25SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
- 3:26SPEAKER_00: we had a really,
- 3:27I think you're right in that it took some time to digest the
- 3:31experience for sure.
- 3:34And my preference is typically,
- 3:38you know,
- 3:38intensity followed by an extreme lack of intensity.
- 3:43SPEAKER_00: You know,
- 3:44I like existing at one or the other end of the spectrum and the
- 3:50in between,
- 3:51SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 3:52SPEAKER_00: as well.
- 3:54But I just wanted to say that it was,
- 3:57again,
- 3:57it was just such a charming experience to have you
- 4:02SPEAKER_00: With us,
- 4:02Steve and I have both reflected on it as the beginning of a
- 4:07friendship and
- 4:08SPEAKER_00: hopefully some interesting projects,
- 4:11SPEAKER_00: including the one that you're in the middle of right now.
- 4:15Yeah,
- 4:15it's really been fascinating because firstly,
- 4:18thank you for saying that.
- 4:20The memory is kind of surreal because it was such a perfect day
- 4:23with meeting you
- 4:25SPEAKER_02: right up to,
- 4:25SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 4:26SPEAKER_02: having the meal.
- 4:27SPEAKER_02: And then the context of the backdrop of everything that was going on in
- 4:31SPEAKER_02: Minneapolis,
- 4:32SPEAKER_02: it was like,
- 4:32SPEAKER_02: wow,
- 4:33SPEAKER_02: it's so strange to have this meeting,
- 4:37SPEAKER_02: but yet the backdrop,
- 4:38SPEAKER_02: it was all going off and the weather and that,
- 4:43SPEAKER_02: but the response from people has not ended,
- 4:46SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 4:47SPEAKER_02: the curiosity and the interest in
- 4:51Both the Chamber and just your work and the number of people
- 4:54who've reached out who
- 4:55SPEAKER_02: I think have connections with you and Steve just to say,
- 4:58SPEAKER_02: oh,
- 4:58SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 4:59SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 5:00SPEAKER_02: has been very worthwhile.
- 5:02The other thing that has really moved me is I've had people
- 5:06reading what I was
- 5:08SPEAKER_02: writing about tying in with mental health and that is really
- 5:14SPEAKER_02: spoken to people,
- 5:16SPEAKER_02: particularly people who have got loved ones,
- 5:18SPEAKER_02: who they feel are kind of trapped,
- 5:21SPEAKER_02: maybe lost contact with consensual reality,
- 5:24SPEAKER_02: and their mind is bringing up very frightening experiences for them,
- 5:29which was the whole initial approach to sit in the chamber and
- 5:34then for me to face
- 5:35SPEAKER_02: what came up in my mind.
- 5:37SPEAKER_02: So I've literally had to say to people, look, I
- 5:41SPEAKER_02: Was able to sit there and I came up against what I was bringing,
- 5:45but I've done years of training in silence and meditation and
- 5:49psychoanalysis.
- 5:50SPEAKER_02: You know, your loved one could be in their early twenties.
- 5:55SPEAKER_02: They haven't had any of those inputs or training.
- 5:58SPEAKER_02: So whatever is there will come up.
- 6:01SPEAKER_02: And I said that if I had have been that age and tried it,
- 6:04SPEAKER_02: I probably wouldn't have come out alive,
- 6:06SPEAKER_01: you know,
- 6:06SPEAKER_02: in terms of
- 6:09SPEAKER_02: what my own unconscious would have brought up at that time.
- 6:13SPEAKER_02: So I've had to give a lot of context to it,
- 6:15SPEAKER_02: but it really has stimulated conversations around your work,
- 6:21SPEAKER_02: around silence,
- 6:22SPEAKER_02: around confronting our own fear.
- 6:25SPEAKER_02: So it really touched all the things that I had hoped for and much more.
- 6:32SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 6:34SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
- 6:35SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy to hear that it really resonated deeply.
- 6:39SPEAKER_00: And I think that that was, in many ways, the expectation, you know.
- 6:43SPEAKER_02: People did freak out around me for going in.
- 6:46SPEAKER_02: You know, psychophobia was apparent.
- 6:49SPEAKER_02: You know, it generated all the things that I thought it would.
- 6:51SPEAKER_02: So today I just wanted to
- 6:54Challenge you a little bit in some of the things you said and
- 6:56then get into it a
- 6:57SPEAKER_02: little bit,
- 6:58SPEAKER_02: because you challenged me in many of the things that you said.
- 7:02The first thing I wanted to ask you about was the whole concept
- 7:07of silence.
- 7:09When I researched silence,
- 7:11I actually wrote about the lab,
- 7:13I never thought I would get there.
- 7:14The most quiet place I got to on earth was I think in Arizona,
- 7:19up some mountain.
- 7:21SPEAKER_02: And as I sat down, Steve uses the language to explain.
- 7:25SPEAKER_02: It's like a shift in perception, right?
- 7:30So the minute I hit the pure silence,
- 7:33then I start to hear everything else.
- 7:36SPEAKER_02: The rocks move, the insects, my own tinnitus.
- 7:42SPEAKER_02: And when I researched everyone who'd gone into chambers,
- 7:46SPEAKER_02: they often came up with the same sort of thing.
- 7:48But the minute I went into the chamber,
- 7:51I immediately went into the connection with stillness
- 7:57SPEAKER_02: So my question was,
- 7:58SPEAKER_02: when we talk about silence,
- 8:01SPEAKER_02: are we actually talking about something else in that moment,
- 8:04SPEAKER_02: in that experience in the chamber?
- 8:06Because I think the broader conversation is how do you make
- 8:10that therapeutically accessible?
- 8:13SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 8:13So what are we actually talking about when people have that
- 8:18experience of what
- 8:20SPEAKER_02: we're calling silence?
- 8:22SPEAKER_00: Silence in the chamber.
- 8:24SPEAKER_00: One thing that we spoke about that I keep coming back to with my clients,
- 8:30SPEAKER_00: the patients that I'm working with in the anechoic chamber,
- 8:33SPEAKER_00: you,
- 8:34SPEAKER_00: myself,
- 8:36SPEAKER_00: is that we can't reflect on our experience in the anechoic chamber.
- 8:42You can't reflect on your experience in the anechoic chamber
- 8:45based on the lack of
- 8:46SPEAKER_00: light or based on the lack of sound.
- 8:50SPEAKER_00: You can really only reflect on it based on what's left.
- 8:55Right so when you're in an environment that's acoustically very
- 9:01very quiet and
- 9:04visually completely dark and there's no difference between your
- 9:08eyes being open and
- 9:09closed you you've lost the two main ways in which you're
- 9:14connected to the world in
- 9:16SPEAKER_00: which you're connected to yourself in which we're connected to each other
- 9:20SPEAKER_00: And those two things anchor us to our reality,
- 9:25SPEAKER_00: in addition to of course our other senses as well.
- 9:28And so the biggest piece of clarification that I'd like to make
- 9:33is that silence is
- 9:36SPEAKER_00: thought of as an acoustical issue.
- 9:38SPEAKER_00: And it is an acoustical issue,
- 9:40but it's also an issue that manifests across all of the other
- 9:44ways in which we
- 9:45SPEAKER_00: perceive the world.
- 9:47SPEAKER_00: And so we'll often refer to silence as acoustical silence,
- 9:53SPEAKER_00: silence as visual silence,
- 9:55SPEAKER_00: silence as thermal silence,
- 9:56SPEAKER_00: right?
- 9:57We'd like to clarify on top of just the word silence what
- 10:02modality we're speaking about.
- 10:06SPEAKER_00: So my view on silence is that it's absolutely a multi-sensory issue.
- 10:13SPEAKER_00: My view is that
- 10:14SPEAKER_00: Unless you're isolated to one particular modality,
- 10:19SPEAKER_00: just vision,
- 10:19SPEAKER_00: just sound,
- 10:20SPEAKER_00: just the way in which your body is thermally experiencing an environment,
- 10:27SPEAKER_00: which we very seldom are.
- 10:29SPEAKER_00: We very seldom have isolated sensory experiences.
- 10:33You can't really achieve silence if it's not cared for and
- 10:41amplified in every area.
- 10:45SPEAKER_00: If that makes sense.
- 10:47So we like to speak about it as a multi-sensory issue and
- 10:50that's been one of the
- 10:51largest guiding principles in our design work and our
- 10:55architectural design and
- 10:56SPEAKER_00: research work for decades.
- 11:00And it's also what's become the launching place for the
- 11:04therapeutics program that
- 11:07SPEAKER_00: I've been building out of the lab as well.
- 11:09SPEAKER_02: So there was an immediate quality in the chamber.
- 11:14But my sense was that quality I was familiar with and could
- 11:20recognize if I was in
- 11:21SPEAKER_02: Times Square,
- 11:24SPEAKER_02: but I could easily forget being in Times Square,
- 11:26SPEAKER_02: whereas the chamber brought me into it immediately,
- 11:29SPEAKER_02: rapidly.
- 11:30SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 11:34SPEAKER_02: So is it
- 11:37SPEAKER_02: Necessarily what we're calling silence or is it the shift?
- 11:41SPEAKER_02: Like if you're in a room with people in silence meditating,
- 11:46SPEAKER_02: it's very unusual to be in a room with people in silence.
- 11:50Like when people do a minute silence,
- 11:51they usually do it for like 15 seconds.
- 11:53SPEAKER_02: They don't even do the whole minute.
- 11:55SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 11:55It's almost like being in a room with people and all being
- 11:58silent is like,
- 11:59it's defying the metaphors of what it means to be in a room
- 12:02with many people.
- 12:04SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 12:04SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 12:05SPEAKER_00: Because metaphorically to be in a room full of,
- 12:07SPEAKER_00: or not,
- 12:07SPEAKER_00: not just metaphorically,
- 12:08SPEAKER_00: literally,
- 12:09SPEAKER_00: right.
- 12:09Literally speaking to be in a room with many people,
- 12:12it often implies noise.
- 12:15SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 12:16SPEAKER_00: You know, it often implies commotion.
- 12:18SPEAKER_00: So I agree with you there.
- 12:20SPEAKER_02: So I, I think I might've said you something there.
- 12:22So I was meditating a lot on my own and it's been a while since
- 12:25I sort of live in a
- 12:27SPEAKER_02: group setting and I went to the Quaker church.
- 12:32SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 12:32SPEAKER_00: You did mention that.
- 12:33So immediately struck by how different it was sitting with
- 12:37others than it was
- 12:38SPEAKER_02: sitting on my own.
- 12:40And then of course it was the noise of the benches creaking and
- 12:44it's like,
- 12:45SPEAKER_02: wow,
- 12:45SPEAKER_02: this is actually so noisy,
- 12:46but you wouldn't ordinarily hear that because there's so many
- 12:50other things that
- 12:52SPEAKER_02: you're bringing in.
- 12:54Really powerful experience just to sit with people that you
- 12:58don't know for one hour
- 12:59SPEAKER_02: in silence and not saying you're meditating.
- 13:02SPEAKER_02: You're just sitting in silence and you're waiting for what comes up.
- 13:09So again,
- 13:11it's like the John Cage orchestra piece,
- 13:16you know,
- 13:17which he writes a lot about.
- 13:21SPEAKER_02: So what would be enough?
- 13:22SPEAKER_02: I know you talked about
- 13:24SPEAKER_02: Altering the level of silence to make it therapeutic,
- 13:27but what would it be that could recreate that experience of
- 13:34this is a very new
- 13:38SPEAKER_02: perceptual experience for people?
- 13:40Because what I hear you say is when people go in there with
- 13:44your clients and stuff,
- 13:45SPEAKER_02: patients,
- 13:47SPEAKER_02: they often report really positive.
- 13:49SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
- 13:51SPEAKER_02: You know, you name it.
- 13:53SPEAKER_02: It's like, wow, there's something happening here.
- 13:56SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 13:58SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I guess I'll answer your question in a few parts.
- 14:01One thing which I think you were kind of alluding to is,
- 14:04you know,
- 14:06silence is relative.
- 14:08And so if I have a client that is living in a busy neighborhood
- 14:15in New York City,
- 14:18SPEAKER_00: In order for them to be immersed in silence,
- 14:21they really need to be immersed in an environment that
- 14:24demonstrates enough
- 14:25SPEAKER_00: contrast,
- 14:26SPEAKER_00: right?
- 14:28If I have a client that's living out in the woods with very few
- 14:33people around them,
- 14:35SPEAKER_00: they're not in the flight path,
- 14:37SPEAKER_00: it's very quiet.
- 14:39SPEAKER_00: I also need to demonstrate some sense of contrast as well.
- 14:45SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's relative to the user.
- 14:48SPEAKER_00: I think it's relative to the occupant, to whoever the client is.
- 14:52SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I mean when I say I think silence is relative.
- 14:58SPEAKER_00: My view is that you don't need to be in a negative 26
- 15:06SPEAKER_00: DBA environment in order to be immersed in silence.
- 15:13SPEAKER_00: And there's a few technical reasons for that,
- 15:16one being that zero decibels is considered the threshold of
- 15:20perfect infant hearing.
- 15:22The other piece is,
- 15:24and so that's beyond what's considered within our hearing age
- 15:28range.
- 15:30SPEAKER_00: The other piece is I think that we can demonstrate contrast,
- 15:33we can achieve silence and demonstrate difference without such
- 15:38an extreme.
- 15:40SPEAKER_00: Which is something that,
- 15:41SPEAKER_00: yeah,
- 15:41we're absolutely looking at in the PTSD study that we're
- 15:45working on and that we're
- 15:47SPEAKER_00: considering as we go further into developing our therapeutics program.
- 15:55SPEAKER_02: You talk about taking away the two things, the silence and light.
- 16:02SPEAKER_02: How important is the darkness to the experience, do you think?
- 16:06It's very important because if the lights are on,
- 16:10your vision is your perceptual anchor.
- 16:13SPEAKER_00: And so the experience is meant to be
- 16:18you know overwhelmingly about being able to absorb what it's
- 16:21like to be in an
- 16:22acoustically very very quiet space if the lights are on you're
- 16:26not able to absorb
- 16:27that as much because you're anchored to your ability to see
- 16:30what's around you so
- 16:34I'm fascinated by the fact that whether we look at Eastern
- 16:36medicine or Western
- 16:37medicine or you know more homeopathic approaches for medicine
- 16:43less homeopathic
- 16:44SPEAKER_00: approaches for medicine
- 16:47Across the board,
- 16:48it's about what do we add on to make ourselves feel better,
- 16:51right?
- 16:52SPEAKER_00: Feel better, feel more alive, feel more connected.
- 16:54And what we're working with and what I'm very curious about is
- 16:59what happens when we
- 17:00SPEAKER_00: start taking things away?
- 17:02SPEAKER_00: You know, what happens via the process of elimination?
- 17:07And since our ability to perceive is the only reason why we
- 17:14know we're here,
- 17:17SPEAKER_00: What better area to work with?
- 17:21SPEAKER_02: So this was a big one for me, right?
- 17:23SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to come back to that.
- 17:25SPEAKER_02: I want to ask you quickly, did you say homopathic medicine?
- 17:28SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 17:29SPEAKER_02: What are your thoughts on that?
- 17:32SPEAKER_00: I'm very interested in homeopathic medicine.
- 17:36I'm interested in general in terms of my own personal health
- 17:39and getting to the root cause.
- 17:41I accept Eastern and Western medicine and I am very integrative
- 17:47in my approach in
- 17:48SPEAKER_00: terms of my health personally.
- 17:50SPEAKER_00: I also feel that the two inform one another in significant ways.
- 17:54SPEAKER_00: So I'm not
- 17:59SPEAKER_00: I don't have a singular relationship with either.
- 18:02SPEAKER_00: I use both.
- 18:03But being somebody that is less interested in masking a problem
- 18:09and more interested
- 18:10SPEAKER_00: in solving the problem and getting to the root cause,
- 18:13SPEAKER_00: not just in terms of my health,
- 18:15SPEAKER_00: but in terms of essentially every area in my life,
- 18:19I find it to be very interesting and it's helped me in many
- 18:24ways having studied it.
- 18:27SPEAKER_02: Because it gets a lot of bad press.
- 18:29All I can say about it is I used to have chronic hay fever and
- 18:34I took homopathic
- 18:37SPEAKER_02: hay fever and it went,
- 18:39SPEAKER_02: it went away.
- 18:39SPEAKER_02: I had it from,
- 18:40SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 18:42until I was about 20 and I took this homopathic and it just
- 18:45went away and I hadn't
- 18:47SPEAKER_02: heard,
- 18:47SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 18:48SPEAKER_02: the sort of more negative discussion of homopathic,
- 18:50SPEAKER_02: like it worked.
- 18:52SPEAKER_02: What else is there to say?
- 18:53SPEAKER_02: And I did recommend it to other people and it didn't work.
- 18:59SPEAKER_02: But yeah, sorry, I was just interested in your thought there.
- 19:02I like what you said though,
- 19:03but I think you're inferring you'll use whatever works.
- 19:08SPEAKER_00: I'll use whatever works.
- 19:10SPEAKER_00: That being said,
- 19:12SPEAKER_00: my instinct,
- 19:14SPEAKER_00: if I have the ability,
- 19:15SPEAKER_00: the resources,
- 19:16SPEAKER_00: access and whatnot,
- 19:18SPEAKER_00: I'll go towards the treatment modality that is looking at the root cause.
- 19:26SPEAKER_02: That's good.
- 19:28SPEAKER_02: Okay.
- 19:28So say your phrase again so we get it word for word about
- 19:33what's when you take perception away.
- 19:35SPEAKER_00: Since our ability to perceive is the only reason why we know we're here.
- 19:42So you said that a few times when I was last with you and it
- 19:46really stuck with me.
- 19:47SPEAKER_02: So define, perceive,
- 19:53Well,
- 19:53perceived is essentially us absorbing what's happening in the
- 19:57world around us.
- 19:59SPEAKER_02: So you're talking about the senses?
- 20:02SPEAKER_00: Yes.
- 20:03SPEAKER_02: So smell, taste, touch, sight?
- 20:07SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 20:10SPEAKER_02: So I take those away.
- 20:10SPEAKER_02: What are you left with?
- 20:15If you take away,
- 20:17I mean,
- 20:17we spoke about this when you were in Minneapolis,
- 20:19right?
- 20:19Because you have some views about a sixth or a seventh or an
- 20:24eighth sense that
- 20:26SPEAKER_00: exists,
- 20:26SPEAKER_00: which I'm very interested in.
- 20:31SPEAKER_00: From a perceptual angle,
- 20:33SPEAKER_00: if I can't see you,
- 20:34SPEAKER_00: if I can't hear you,
- 20:35SPEAKER_00: if I can't feel you,
- 20:37SPEAKER_00: if I don't have any of these other things on a perceptual angle,
- 20:41SPEAKER_00: there is nothing left.
- 20:43SPEAKER_02: But what about the mind?
- 20:46SPEAKER_00: I think that in order for the mind to be connected,
- 20:50SPEAKER_00: we need all of those other things to pursue more clearly.
- 20:56SPEAKER_02: So I think when I was very, very young, I used to reflect on this a lot.
- 21:02SPEAKER_02: So what if I took away my perception, what would be left?
- 21:06SPEAKER_02: And then I used to have these
- 21:09SPEAKER_02: Wild dreams were,
- 21:13SPEAKER_02: the dreams were of having kind of no perception,
- 21:16SPEAKER_02: so like nearly existing except in the mind space.
- 21:23SPEAKER_02: So I think from some traditions, the fifth sense would be the mind.
- 21:31SPEAKER_02: Or perhaps the mind with a small m as in thoughts.
- 21:40If you were able to take all those away in some sort of a super
- 21:43advanced chamber,
- 21:46SPEAKER_02: surely you would still have awareness of your thoughts.
- 21:51That's probably the only thing you could be left to be aware
- 21:55of,
- 21:56and awareness itself.
- 21:57SPEAKER_02: So you could say, six?
- 22:05SPEAKER_00: Well,
- 22:05I think that from the perspective of sensory science and the
- 22:11work at our lab,
- 22:12SPEAKER_00: removing the external senses does not remove the mind.
- 22:18SPEAKER_00: What remains is
- 22:20SPEAKER_00: Consciousness itself,
- 22:22SPEAKER_00: what remains is internal perception,
- 22:25SPEAKER_00: thoughts,
- 22:25SPEAKER_00: memories,
- 22:26SPEAKER_00: imagination,
- 22:28SPEAKER_00: the body's internal signals,
- 22:30SPEAKER_00: heartbeat,
- 22:30SPEAKER_00: breathing,
- 22:31SPEAKER_00: blood flow,
- 22:32SPEAKER_00: awareness of time passing,
- 22:35SPEAKER_00: emotion and cognition.
- 22:36SPEAKER_00: So, you know, in the anechoic chamber,
- 22:40SPEAKER_00: Experiments and experiences that I'm running with clients,
- 22:44SPEAKER_00: when external stimuli approach zero,
- 22:48people begin to perceive the internal landscape of the body and
- 22:55of the mind itself.
- 22:57SPEAKER_00: And so they hear their heartbeat,
- 22:59SPEAKER_00: they notice subtle muscle tension,
- 23:03SPEAKER_00: thoughts become louder because there's nothing competing with them.
- 23:11SPEAKER_00: You know?
- 23:12SPEAKER_02: So because people like Jean-Paul Sartre,
- 23:16SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 23:16SPEAKER_02: they would argue consciousness always has to have an object.
- 23:23SPEAKER_02: That's complicated, but what you're saying is definitely your...
- 23:29SPEAKER_02: So when I use the mind, I'm talking about really about the aspect of
- 23:37SPEAKER_02: Being that is aware.
- 23:40SPEAKER_02: So I, that is mind with a capital N for me.
- 23:44SPEAKER_02: And then mind with a small M is kind of our,
- 23:46SPEAKER_02: our thoughts or ideas of who we are,
- 23:49SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 23:49SPEAKER_02: the things that are not constant.
- 23:53Whereas I see mind with a capital M as,
- 23:56um,
- 23:58pure,
- 23:58unconfined,
- 23:59spacious,
- 24:02um,
- 24:04never changing.
- 24:06Like the blue sky that's always there as opposed to the clouds
- 24:09that come and go.
- 24:10SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 24:12SPEAKER_00: I think,
- 24:12SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 24:13SPEAKER_00: when the outside world disappears,
- 24:16SPEAKER_00: the internal world becomes more perceptible.
- 24:20So,
- 24:21in a scientific sense,
- 24:22what's left is the human perceptual system observing itself.
- 24:28SPEAKER_00: And philosophically, we might say, you might say,
- 24:35SPEAKER_00: When the senses fall silent, what remains is awareness.
- 24:43SPEAKER_02: So could be onto something here.
- 24:44SPEAKER_02: So is it then an accelerator into that space?
- 24:50SPEAKER_02: The chamber?
- 24:51SPEAKER_00: Yes.
- 24:52You know,
- 24:53I dropped right in to what I recognized as very familiar,
- 24:57but it was kind of rapid.
- 25:00SPEAKER_02: So the point was, it came up rapidly.
- 25:05SPEAKER_02: Whereas in Times Square,
- 25:06SPEAKER_02: if you said,
- 25:07SPEAKER_02: okay,
- 25:07SPEAKER_02: drop into pure awareness and stillness,
- 25:10SPEAKER_02: I could do it.
- 25:12SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't be distracted.
- 25:13I just might need to remember more quickly than I would when I
- 25:17went in the chamber
- 25:18SPEAKER_02: because it was like,
- 25:18SPEAKER_00: boom.
- 25:21SPEAKER_02: So therapeutically then,
- 25:23would it be an accelerator to people coming into contact with
- 25:28their own awareness?
- 25:31SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
- 25:33SPEAKER_02: That's exciting, right?
- 25:35SPEAKER_00: It's very exciting.
- 25:39SPEAKER_02: Because for some people,
- 25:40SPEAKER_02: so when I first started meditating and when I,
- 25:43SPEAKER_02: I mean meditation is such a misused word,
- 25:45SPEAKER_02: so when I started practicing mindfulness of breathing,
- 25:51it took me a year before I had any sense of what my mind was
- 25:57like when my thoughts
- 26:00SPEAKER_02: settled.
- 26:02SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like, why am I doing this?
- 26:03SPEAKER_02: It's like my mind's all over.
- 26:04SPEAKER_02: Then one day it was like, poof.
- 26:07SPEAKER_02: There was a recognition of a stillness,
- 26:10of an awareness that transcended my everyday experience to the
- 26:16point where the
- 26:20SPEAKER_02: clouds became less dominant and I could see them as fleeting.
- 26:25SPEAKER_02: But that took a year.
- 26:27SPEAKER_02: What I've
- 26:28SPEAKER_02: Hearing you say,
- 26:28SPEAKER_02: I think,
- 26:29is people who are drawn to it come in with you and have some
- 26:33sort of experience
- 26:34SPEAKER_02: more or less immediately in that territory.
- 26:37SPEAKER_02: Would that be right?
- 26:39SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 26:40SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 26:40SPEAKER_00: I mean,
- 26:41SPEAKER_00: I think if you remove the normal inputs to the perceptual system,
- 26:48SPEAKER_00: sight,
- 26:49SPEAKER_00: sound,
- 26:50SPEAKER_00: and other sensory cues,
- 26:52SPEAKER_00: perception itself doesn't disappear.
- 26:54SPEAKER_00: The brain doesn't shut down.
- 26:56What happens instead is that the perceptual system begins to
- 27:01self-reference.
- 27:03SPEAKER_00: So without external stimuli,
- 27:05SPEAKER_00: people start to notice all the internal signals that we were discussing.
- 27:10And so the experience becomes less about the outside world and
- 27:14becomes more about
- 27:17SPEAKER_00: observing the internal landscape of perception.
- 27:20SPEAKER_00: So in that sense, environments like the anechoic chamber
- 27:25SPEAKER_00: Don't create awareness.
- 27:27SPEAKER_00: They simply remove the noise that normally occupies attention.
- 27:32SPEAKER_00: So when that noise is reduced, awareness naturally turns inward.
- 27:38SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I don't think that the chamber adds anything to perception.
- 27:43I think it subtracts the external world into the perceptuals
- 27:47until the perceptual
- 27:47SPEAKER_00: system then begins to observe itself.
- 27:51SPEAKER_02: I love that.
- 27:52SPEAKER_02: To me,
- 27:54SPEAKER_02: The awareness is always there, but we fail to recognize it.
- 27:58SPEAKER_02: So arguably in the more advanced,
- 28:02SPEAKER_02: uh,
- 28:02SPEAKER_02: Tibetan,
- 28:03SPEAKER_02: uh,
- 28:05SPEAKER_02: meditation practices,
- 28:07SPEAKER_02: if you like,
- 28:08SPEAKER_02: you get to the point where the meditation is non-meditation.
- 28:13SPEAKER_00: So,
- 28:14so if you like meditation training is doing something to get to
- 28:17the point where you
- 28:18SPEAKER_02: can recognize and rest and awareness.
- 28:22SPEAKER_02: But when you're resting and recognizing awareness,
- 28:24you're not actually doing anything because there's nothing to
- 28:28be done only to
- 28:29SPEAKER_02: recognize.
- 28:32SPEAKER_02: What I have observed is,
- 28:33SPEAKER_02: I mean,
- 28:34SPEAKER_02: I used to live in a more or less a monastery,
- 28:36SPEAKER_02: Buddhist monastery,
- 28:36and people would come on retreat and it would take about at
- 28:41least two days for them
- 28:42SPEAKER_02: to begin to settle.
- 28:43You know,
- 28:43they're bringing their lives,
- 28:45their problems,
- 28:46their hustle bustle.
- 28:48They were joining a community of really dedicated heavy duty
- 28:51practitioners.
- 28:54It took about two days to settle and then maybe another couple
- 28:57of days for the
- 28:58SPEAKER_02: retreat to go deeper and deeper.
- 29:00My sense from the Chamber was there was something captured of
- 29:04that essence more or
- 29:06SPEAKER_02: less immediately.
- 29:07SPEAKER_01: Now I don't know whether that was me.
- 29:09I don't think it was because I think what I'm hearing you say
- 29:11is all sorts of
- 29:12SPEAKER_02: people are having an experience that has value to them.
- 29:18SPEAKER_02: Very quickly.
- 29:20SPEAKER_02: And I'm not overly prizing quickness,
- 29:23SPEAKER_02: because that would be in the area of McDonaldization,
- 29:27SPEAKER_02: but just more that there is real benefit potentially in this.
- 29:34SPEAKER_02: I think you had mentioned when I was there,
- 29:35I was just fascinated by the opportunity to rule this out in a
- 29:38way that makes it
- 29:40SPEAKER_02: more accessible.
- 29:41SPEAKER_02: That perhaps doesn't need the level of silence,
- 29:44but you do create a space where people can experience it to
- 29:50enough degree that
- 29:51SPEAKER_02: makes it therapeutic.
- 29:53SPEAKER_02: Where are you with that, do you think?
- 29:56SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can give a little bit of background into this.
- 29:58SPEAKER_00: The therapeutics program, as you know, is very new.
- 30:06SPEAKER_00: It's just something that we've been doing over the past couple of years.
- 30:11And it followed my spending a significant amount of time in the
- 30:16antichloric chamber
- 30:19SPEAKER_00: for two primary reasons.
- 30:20One reason was I was interested in immersing myself for
- 30:25consistent periods of time.
- 30:27SPEAKER_00: And I was interested in taking my meditation practice in there.
- 30:31And the second piece is that I was starting to self-diagnose
- 30:34with a variety of
- 30:35sensory processing issues that in many ways I had known and
- 30:41thought that I had had
- 30:42SPEAKER_00: for many years but was never properly diagnosed.
- 30:45I think it's becoming more and more common for people to
- 30:48self-diagnose as in their
- 30:51adult years and that certainly happened to me and that's
- 30:54probably a result of the
- 30:56SPEAKER_00: work I'm doing and
- 30:58SPEAKER_00: Just as a strong personal interest.
- 31:02So,
- 31:03historically,
- 31:05people have come to our lab in order to be immersed in all of
- 31:09our work.
- 31:10SPEAKER_00: We're set up as an immersive facility.
- 31:13As you know,
- 31:14we feel very strongly that you can spend time trying to
- 31:19convince people
- 31:20SPEAKER_00: of this or that.
- 31:22But it's much easier if you have the opportunity for them to
- 31:25convince themselves
- 31:27and immersing them in our various labs and immersing them in
- 31:31the anechoic chamber
- 31:32SPEAKER_00: is much more meaningful.
- 31:35SPEAKER_00: It's much more, it's easier for them to understand what's going on.
- 31:39SPEAKER_00: So the anechoic chamber,
- 31:41SPEAKER_00: which is traditionally a product testing environment,
- 31:44SPEAKER_00: following my really committing to spending time in there,
- 31:48SPEAKER_00: I started opening it up to other people.
- 31:52And something clicked for me,
- 31:56and that was that I realized that we'd never
- 32:00SPEAKER_00: created a strong definition,
- 32:02SPEAKER_00: a strong narrative about what the chamber was meant to do for people.
- 32:07SPEAKER_00: So it's internationally known,
- 32:09SPEAKER_00: it's gotten all sorts of press for being a space that's challenging,
- 32:14SPEAKER_00: right?
- 32:14SPEAKER_00: When you think of silence and when you think of darkness,
- 32:17SPEAKER_00: a lot of people think,
- 32:19SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 32:20SPEAKER_00: are afraid.
- 32:21And that's a narrative that exists in a lot of different areas
- 32:24when it comes to
- 32:25SPEAKER_00: things like sensory deprivation,
- 32:28which by the way has a very bad rap and we don't use that
- 32:31terminology because of
- 32:34SPEAKER_00: that.
- 32:34SPEAKER_02: I was just going to say,
- 32:36so I just want to interject there because that's really
- 32:38interesting because the
- 32:39thing about sensory deprivation is people pay for it and also
- 32:44it's a punishment.
- 32:48SPEAKER_02: So the
- 32:49SPEAKER_02: Back to what you said about the context is very, very important.
- 32:52SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
- 32:54SPEAKER_02: But this idea, to me, this is the center of kind of my world.
- 32:58SPEAKER_02: I use the word pharmakon,
- 33:01SPEAKER_02: which is a Greek word,
- 33:02SPEAKER_02: which means could be translated as a poison and a cure.
- 33:06SPEAKER_02: So for some people, silence and darkness has great appeal.
- 33:10SPEAKER_02: And for other people, they're terrified of it.
- 33:13SPEAKER_02: Right.
- 33:14SPEAKER_02: For some people being admitted to hospital,
- 33:17SPEAKER_02: Consane of their life.
- 33:18SPEAKER_02: For other people, it can potentially ruin their life.
- 33:22We have to stick with those two,
- 33:23which is basically what the asterisk represents.
- 33:28It represents that these things are in the territory of nuance
- 33:33and complexity and
- 33:34SPEAKER_02: we don't necessarily have all the answers to it,
- 33:38SPEAKER_02: but we need to ask these difficult questions.
- 33:42SPEAKER_02: So sorry, I had to jump in because I think it's fascinating.
- 33:45The fact that people would pay for silence and the fact that
- 33:48people will be
- 33:48SPEAKER_02: punished by silence fascinates me.
- 33:51SPEAKER_00: Well, and I'm actually, it is a really interesting paradox.
- 33:55SPEAKER_00: You know,
- 33:55humans will pay to enter environments of reduced sensory input
- 33:59and yet sensory
- 34:00SPEAKER_00: deprivation,
- 34:01SPEAKER_00: as you said,
- 34:01SPEAKER_00: has been used historically as a form of punishment or torture.
- 34:07SPEAKER_00: I think the question isn't simply about sensory deprivation.
- 34:12It's about whether the mind experiences the environment as a
- 34:15place of safety and
- 34:16SPEAKER_00: curiosity or as a place of uncertainty and threat,
- 34:20SPEAKER_00: right?
- 34:21And that nuance exists across,
- 34:23I mean,
- 34:23we could talk for hours about all the things in which
- 34:27There's lots of things in the world where some people choose to
- 34:30experience it as
- 34:30SPEAKER_00: pleasure and some people choose to experience it as the opposite of that,
- 34:35SPEAKER_00: right?
- 34:38But there is something that I would like to get into that's
- 34:44come to mind based on
- 34:45SPEAKER_00: what you're saying and that's that
- 34:49SPEAKER_00: The way that I have set up these sessions,
- 34:53SPEAKER_00: the way that I'm facilitating my belief in what has,
- 35:00SPEAKER_00: my belief in
- 35:02The anechoic chamber's potential in silence and darkness and
- 35:06perhaps other
- 35:07SPEAKER_00: modalities of reduced sensory input.
- 35:10SPEAKER_00: I really believe that it could be a strong, strong therapeutic modality.
- 35:16SPEAKER_00: And that experience being held by somebody that feels that.
- 35:22I think is part of what creates that place of safety and
- 35:26curiosity rather rather
- 35:28than a place of you know uncertainty or threat and so part of
- 35:32part of my designing
- 35:35these sessions and kind of founding this program has been about
- 35:39trying to be
- 35:40exquisitely clear about what the narrative is not because we
- 35:44think that something
- 35:46SPEAKER_00: is going to
- 35:48SPEAKER_00: Always happen to somebody when they walk in there.
- 35:50SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't talk about what the outcome is supposed to be.
- 35:53We don't talk about what it's meant to achieve,
- 35:58what you're meant to achieve.
- 35:59We simply speak about the anechoic chamber and the experience
- 36:02as a lubricant upon
- 36:04SPEAKER_00: whatever,
- 36:05SPEAKER_00: I think as I said to you when you were with us,
- 36:09SPEAKER_00: a lubricant in hopefully a very positive way.
- 36:15SPEAKER_02: So are you in the territory of set, set and setting?
- 36:18Because you present with a commanding presence and stillness
- 36:27and confidence.
- 36:28SPEAKER_02: So, you know, as a guide,
- 36:33SPEAKER_02: I would easily resonate towards you,
- 36:34SPEAKER_02: well I did,
- 36:36SPEAKER_02: you took me into the chamber,
- 36:37SPEAKER_02: but do you think that,
- 36:39are you saying that there's something about being in
- 36:41relationship with the guide
- 36:43that helps it become grounded and more meaningful as opposed to
- 36:50the contrast which
- 36:50would be a seclusion award for instance in a psychiatric
- 36:54facility where people are
- 36:56Perhaps throwing might be the wrong word but often they are
- 37:00throwing and then it
- 37:02SPEAKER_02: sort of excluded from sensory stimulation.
- 37:07SPEAKER_02: You're in a way partnering with them on that journey to some extent?
- 37:14SPEAKER_00: Yes.
- 37:17Most people that are coming,
- 37:21my clients when I meet them for the first time,
- 37:24SPEAKER_00: Many of them have never been in an environment that's completely dark.
- 37:29Many of them have never been in an environment that's extremely
- 37:34quiet acoustically.
- 37:35SPEAKER_00: So they're having a profound experience just because of that.
- 37:43SPEAKER_00: You know,
- 37:44SPEAKER_00: I've done a lot of work with groups,
- 37:47SPEAKER_00: and I'm transitioning more to working one-on-one with individuals,
- 37:51SPEAKER_00: and I'm not a clinical psychologist,
- 37:53SPEAKER_00: I have a cognitive and perceptual psychology background,
- 37:58SPEAKER_00: but I'm not a psychologist,
- 38:00SPEAKER_00: I'm not a therapist,
- 38:02SPEAKER_00: and so I am,
- 38:04SPEAKER_00: sorry?
- 38:05I wouldn't even say that,
- 38:07because you'd wipe the floor with the most therapists I've met.
- 38:14SPEAKER_00: Well,
- 38:14SPEAKER_02: it's about awareness,
- 38:17SPEAKER_02: it's about self-reflection,
- 38:18SPEAKER_02: it's about humility,
- 38:20it's about meeting the people with a non-judgmental and I think
- 38:25a lot of that can
- 38:26SPEAKER_02: be polluted by overtraining and theory and you know,
- 38:33SPEAKER_02: so I think it's an advantage in your case rather than disadvantage.
- 38:38SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for saying that.
- 38:40SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
- 38:42I feel that there's a strong energy exchange that goes on
- 38:45between between me and
- 38:47the people that are coming in and despite being in a very
- 38:51professional environment
- 38:53SPEAKER_00: and despite being the person facilitating or being the guide
- 39:01I feel that I also learn a lot about myself through my clients
- 39:06and people that are
- 39:07SPEAKER_00: coming in as well.
- 39:10SPEAKER_00: So it's extremely fluid.
- 39:14SPEAKER_02: Beautiful.
- 39:15SPEAKER_02: I love it.
- 39:16SPEAKER_02: So you said something.
- 39:18SPEAKER_02: I don't know how much you want to talk about your own experience.
- 39:21SPEAKER_02: I'll certainly reveal if you reveal, right?
- 39:25For some people,
- 39:27I certainly became much more aware of noise after the chamber
- 39:31was driving me.
- 39:34Oh my goodness,
- 39:34it's just overwhelming,
- 39:39the level of noise that we deal with.
- 39:42But you mentioned something about the world and I immediately
- 39:47went to this idea of safety.
- 39:49SPEAKER_02: So I think when people are in distress, they seek safety.
- 39:55SPEAKER_02: And what they do not receive is safety.
- 39:57SPEAKER_02: So for example,
- 39:59SPEAKER_02: in many states,
- 40:00SPEAKER_02: if you were to phone for services in distress,
- 40:02SPEAKER_02: you'll get an ambulance,
- 40:03SPEAKER_02: a fire truck and a police car.
- 40:06SPEAKER_02: So imagine you're in a state of emotional,
- 40:08SPEAKER_02: mental distress and you open the door and that's what you see.
- 40:11SPEAKER_02: That's not safety.
- 40:13SPEAKER_02: Or you go to hospital and you're taken away by security.
- 40:16SPEAKER_02: Very common occurrence that I witness.
- 40:22SPEAKER_02: But there are also people that the world
- 40:26SPEAKER_02: For different perceptual reasons,
- 40:28SPEAKER_02: perhaps let's say that to begin with,
- 40:29is very frightening and jarring and certain spaces are
- 40:33particularly frightening and
- 40:34SPEAKER_02: jarring.
- 40:36My sense is both you and Steve have really,
- 40:39really,
- 40:39really tuned into this and actually are
- 40:43Marrying the two,
- 40:45your deep understanding of silence and the benefits,
- 40:49acoustics,
- 40:52architecture.
- 40:53Some of the stuff that you were telling me about what you've
- 40:57designed and how
- 40:58SPEAKER_02: you've designed it and how you thought it was off the scale exciting.
- 41:01SPEAKER_02: Do you want to speak to that a little bit?
- 41:06SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, certainly.
- 41:07SPEAKER_00: I'd be happy to.
- 41:09SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, Steve and I both
- 41:12SPEAKER_00: self-identify as being sensitive and likely hypersensitive.
- 41:18And so we have the pleasure of working for a population that
- 41:25we're included in,
- 41:28right?
- 41:28Which I think people are often best at working for a
- 41:33demographic if they're
- 41:37If they resemble that demographic themselves,
- 41:40if they resemble that population personally.
- 41:42SPEAKER_00: So I consider myself a hypersensitive person and as I mentioned before,
- 41:49I have a variety of sensory processing issues that I've noticed
- 41:53for multiple
- 41:55SPEAKER_00: decades in my life,
- 41:57SPEAKER_00: but have thought of more seriously recently.
- 42:03And I think that when you get into this field,
- 42:06which is quite a niche,
- 42:07right?
- 42:07SPEAKER_00: Steve was really the first person that we know of globally that's taken a
- 42:13SPEAKER_00: multi-sensory approach to architecture.
- 42:16SPEAKER_00: He's taken a multi-sensory approach to product development.
- 42:20SPEAKER_00: And as far as I know,
- 42:22I'm the first person that's taken a multisensory approach to
- 42:25therapeutics within
- 42:28SPEAKER_00: the context of a built environment condition,
- 42:32SPEAKER_02: right?
- 42:34And so our sensitivity probably has partially to do with the
- 42:38fact that that's our
- 42:39SPEAKER_00: nature and partially to do with the fact that we're existing within this
- 42:49SPEAKER_00: Continuum that's been relatively like left alone,
- 42:56SPEAKER_00: hasn't really been looked at broadly,
- 42:59SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 42:59SPEAKER_00: among other people.
- 43:03SPEAKER_02: I really do believe that your work is unique.
- 43:06SPEAKER_02: So I also believe people are always meant to meet at a particular time.
- 43:12SPEAKER_02: I am also in that hypersensitive club,
- 43:16SPEAKER_02: but I only realized in the last probably a year because I thought my
- 43:23hypersensitivity was trauma related growing up in the troubles
- 43:29in Northern Ireland.
- 43:30And so,
- 43:30you know,
- 43:30I followed the emotional,
- 43:33the psychoanalytic,
- 43:37all these different routes.
- 43:38SPEAKER_02: And I guess there was an element of trauma.
- 43:42But then I realized there's a hypersensity and way of
- 43:45organizing the world that I
- 43:47SPEAKER_02: had,
- 43:49SPEAKER_02: the term I've learned is masked,
- 43:52SPEAKER_02: right?
- 43:53SPEAKER_02: And I masked it in ways that I wasn't,
- 43:57SPEAKER_02: didn't realize I was masking it,
- 43:58SPEAKER_02: but it was my way of coping.
- 43:59Now that I'm not masking and I'm really,
- 44:01really aware,
- 44:02it's kind of like overwhelming.
- 44:04SPEAKER_02: And then
- 44:05SPEAKER_02: I'm seeing it in places that I hadn't seen before.
- 44:09And it's this split between primarily a mental health focus
- 44:17being kind of separate,
- 44:19SPEAKER_02: more separate from maybe a neurodiverse focus.
- 44:23So it's like all these different areas,
- 44:25sometimes they don't communicate with each other.
- 44:27SPEAKER_02: So people are getting the wrong
- 44:30support the wrong treatment or no treatment or support at all
- 44:35and one of my
- 44:36aversions to that whole area of sensitivity was the over
- 44:40labeling and diagnosis and
- 44:41over medication and in a way I think I was it made me in a
- 44:47place of denial in my
- 44:49own experience because I hadn't I sort of pushed it away
- 44:52because I was angry about
- 44:54SPEAKER_02: the system once you see it
- 44:59SPEAKER_02: You can't un-see it.
- 45:01SPEAKER_00: Right, it should come with a warning sign, right?
- 45:05SPEAKER_00: Warning, once your eyes are open, you won't want to close them.
- 45:10SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 45:12SPEAKER_02: But I also have,
- 45:13SPEAKER_02: I mean that term sensitivity is beautiful,
- 45:17SPEAKER_02: but I also have this issue with people
- 45:22SPEAKER_02: Appropriating the term because they have a right to do so,
- 45:28SPEAKER_02: but then dictating what that term should or does mean for everyone else.
- 45:33SPEAKER_02: It's a bit like it becomes more division and more groups.
- 45:42And then there's nearly like an oppression where other people
- 45:44can't talk about it
- 45:45SPEAKER_02: unless they identify in a particular way or use a particular language.
- 45:49SPEAKER_02: So I'm kind of torn with the complexity of that.
- 45:56SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm also torn with the complexity of it.
- 46:02I think,
- 46:02you know,
- 46:04Steve and I speak a lot about how there are these really
- 46:10Broad terms that people refer to as if they're much more narrow
- 46:15or much more defined.
- 46:18SPEAKER_00: Sustainability is a great example of that.
- 46:22SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by sustainability?
- 46:23SPEAKER_00: What's your definition of sustainability?
- 46:25SPEAKER_00: Well-being.
- 46:26SPEAKER_00: What's your definition of well-being?
- 46:38SPEAKER_00: So I think that, yeah, I'm with you.
- 46:40SPEAKER_00: I'm with you on this for sure.
- 46:44SPEAKER_02: So what's the answer?
- 46:46SPEAKER_00: The answer is to create clear definitions.
- 46:52SPEAKER_00: The answer is to be more specific,
- 46:54SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 46:55SPEAKER_00: and to push people to say what they think,
- 46:58SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 46:58SPEAKER_00: and to push people to be more specific because I don't
- 47:02SPEAKER_00: I don't feel that people don't want to create clear definitions.
- 47:06SPEAKER_00: I feel that people are not encouraged to be clearer.
- 47:16SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 47:18SPEAKER_02: There's definitely a dumbing down.
- 47:21SPEAKER_02: There's definitely a desire to have easy boxes.
- 47:27SPEAKER_02: It's like I saw,
- 47:31SPEAKER_02: actually I won't go in there because it's too controversial,
- 47:34SPEAKER_02: but I'm presenting in April at a conference and I think it's called,
- 47:38my paper is Unboxed Realities and it comes from the
- 47:44misdiagnosis of people and then
- 47:45SPEAKER_02: the treatment.
- 47:46So I'm not offering potentially any solutions but I'm trying to
- 47:49give specific or
- 47:52SPEAKER_02: more specific definitions to
- 47:57Categories that we don't fully understand yet,
- 48:00but we need to be aware of.
- 48:09SPEAKER_02: For example,
- 48:10certain people get very triggered and elevated when other
- 48:14people don't understand
- 48:15SPEAKER_02: them.
- 48:17And they don't understand why people can't understand what
- 48:20they're saying.
- 48:21SPEAKER_02: And that elevated reaction can be seen as some sort of
- 48:27like mental health crisis but when you get up close and
- 48:32personal and take the time
- 48:34to understand the conflict you can begin to see that some
- 48:38people have a way of
- 48:40organizing and seeing the world that is very unique to them and
- 48:44the person that
- 48:44SPEAKER_02: they're encountering doesn't see the world in that way
- 48:48but it's much more fixed than just holding a view it's actually
- 48:54the person doesn't
- 48:56have the ability to see the other perspective in that moment at
- 48:59least and I see it
- 49:03even within families and what I see is a subclinical
- 49:11presentation say in a father
- 49:15SPEAKER_02: and a
- 49:17Very clinical presentation say on a daughter and what happens
- 49:22is when they get in
- 49:23the conflict the subclinical response gets triggered so you get
- 49:30an elevated
- 49:31conflict between two individuals who fundamentally don't
- 49:34understand each other and
- 49:36possibly in that moment don't have the capacity but from the
- 49:41outside looking in
- 49:43SPEAKER_02: it's really clear how they're missing
- 49:47SPEAKER_02: But in those situations, the complexity is often denial.
- 49:56SPEAKER_02: So you take you and Steve,
- 49:58SPEAKER_02: myself,
- 50:00we're tuned in to some of the sensitivities and we're able to
- 50:04accommodate and work
- 50:05SPEAKER_02: with it.
- 50:07SPEAKER_02: For some people, if you try and bring in the sensitivity,
- 50:14SPEAKER_02: There's an outright rejection of it,
- 50:17which means it's really difficult then to support them or the
- 50:23family or the friends
- 50:26SPEAKER_02: and colleagues around them.
- 50:28SPEAKER_02: What are your thoughts?
- 50:32Well,
- 50:33I think that misunderstanding often comes from a limitation of
- 50:37perspective.
- 50:39SPEAKER_00: And the mind tends to collapse complexity into something that's simpler.
- 50:46SPEAKER_00: But when we become curious about another person's point of view,
- 50:52what once looked unusual or difficult can begin to look like a
- 51:01very particular kind
- 51:03SPEAKER_00: of originality.
- 51:06SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 51:07SPEAKER_02: Because
- 51:10If you have a tribe,
- 51:13if no one had a level of sensitivity,
- 51:16you have a problem.
- 51:18If everyone in the team is super positive,
- 51:22then there's no attention to risk.
- 51:25SPEAKER_02: You need some people to be a little bit paranoid.
- 51:28SPEAKER_00: You need contrast.
- 51:30SPEAKER_02: You need contrast.
- 51:32SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm often talking about
- 51:36SPEAKER_00: In terms of lighting,
- 51:37SPEAKER_00: for example,
- 51:37people love when they're lighting a room to put one light in
- 51:42the middle of the
- 51:42SPEAKER_00: room,
- 51:44SPEAKER_00: whether it's on the fan or it's just a central light fixture,
- 51:48SPEAKER_00: and you turn on the light and everything is featured,
- 51:52SPEAKER_00: right?
- 51:53SPEAKER_00: Well, when everything is featured, nothing is featured.
- 51:57SPEAKER_00: Because you have no sense of contrast in the environment.
- 52:00SPEAKER_00: And so what you're explaining,
- 52:02SPEAKER_00: what I think we're talking about now,
- 52:04SPEAKER_00: is something that exists across all these different types of modalities.
- 52:09And I think that I try my best in my life to embrace difference
- 52:16for the sake of
- 52:18SPEAKER_00: embracing contrast,
- 52:20SPEAKER_00: you know?
- 52:22SPEAKER_02: That's really strong, yeah.
- 52:24SPEAKER_02: Really strong.
- 52:26SPEAKER_02: You know,
- 52:26SPEAKER_02: what's interesting and all that I did,
- 52:28SPEAKER_02: I got into that space because I had my conflict resolution hat on.
- 52:34SPEAKER_02: So I was introduced to different
- 52:37situations because the person of concern had some sort of
- 52:42extreme crisis or,
- 52:44SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 52:45SPEAKER_02: was extremely complicated.
- 52:48When the more extreme crisis dissipated,
- 52:53then there often was still sort of family conflict.
- 52:59SPEAKER_02: So it was me going
- 53:01Taking the different hat off and going back to sort of
- 53:04mediation and peacekeeping
- 53:05SPEAKER_02: and what is causing the conflict and then having the aha moment.
- 53:13SPEAKER_02: Not only do you not see and understand each other,
- 53:16you're going to spend forever trying to shift people to
- 53:20understand when actually
- 53:22SPEAKER_02: what you need to understand is they can't see that perspective.
- 53:25SPEAKER_02: So you need to come at it from a different
- 53:28A bit like a kid who's really struggling with executive
- 53:33functioning and the parents
- 53:35think it's some sort of moral feeling or their lack of
- 53:39motivation or their
- 53:41SPEAKER_02: untidiness is because they're just lazy.
- 53:44SPEAKER_02: That's a really common term, right?
- 53:46At school I was always called lazy,
- 53:48could do better,
- 53:49you know,
- 53:50all this sort of stuff.
- 53:51Very common with dyslexia because the teachers obviously see
- 53:56the potential and high potential
- 53:58SPEAKER_02: And they get frustrated.
- 54:00SPEAKER_02: Why is this kid,
- 54:01SPEAKER_02: well,
- 54:02SPEAKER_02: he must be just lazy because he's got the potential,
- 54:04SPEAKER_02: he's got the intelligence.
- 54:05SPEAKER_02: They don't see all the organizational issues,
- 54:08SPEAKER_02: all the sensitivity issues,
- 54:10SPEAKER_02: the issues in transition and so on and so on.
- 54:13So it was my desire to understand and to understand why people
- 54:20are falling out and
- 54:21SPEAKER_02: getting into conflict.
- 54:23SPEAKER_02: So in a way I came at it from a very, very different angle.
- 54:29SPEAKER_02: than you might think.
- 54:32The other thing is I noticed working very closely with people
- 54:37who had perhaps a
- 54:38mental health diagnosis that when their frustration with not
- 54:44being understood and
- 54:46SPEAKER_02: their frustration with environments and transitions,
- 54:50SPEAKER_02: when that was witnessed,
- 54:52SPEAKER_02: there was a real settling down.
- 54:57There was like a,
- 54:57a,
- 54:58nearly a shift to embodiment that surprised them and me at the
- 55:07same time.
- 55:10SPEAKER_02: Because what,
- 55:12SPEAKER_02: what was clear,
- 55:13SPEAKER_02: what was being said to me was things like,
- 55:15SPEAKER_02: why can't my father see this or why can't,
- 55:17SPEAKER_02: why can't,
- 55:18SPEAKER_02: how come you can see this and they can't see this?
- 55:23And that was terribly sad to hear because they're surrounded by
- 55:27people who perhaps
- 55:28SPEAKER_02: love them,
- 55:28SPEAKER_02: who don't get them.
- 55:32SPEAKER_02: That has to be something that would cause you extreme strife,
- 55:39SPEAKER_02: isolation,
- 55:40SPEAKER_02: disassociation,
- 55:41SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 55:43SPEAKER_02: all those different things.
- 55:44SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like, it was like what was presenting as something else made
- 55:50SPEAKER_02: Total sense.
- 55:52SPEAKER_02: It's a bit like the term imposter syndrome.
- 55:58Sometimes people use the term imposter syndrome and it does
- 56:00mean potential anxiety,
- 56:02SPEAKER_02: like I don't feel good enough.
- 56:05But there's also imposter syndrome that's actually not imposter
- 56:10syndrome at all.
- 56:11SPEAKER_02: It's hostility in the environment.
- 56:15SPEAKER_02: I read this article recently by this clinical psychologist that was
- 56:20SPEAKER_02: Really brilliant.
- 56:21SPEAKER_02: So again, it's back to the nuance.
- 56:22SPEAKER_02: It can be both.
- 56:24SPEAKER_02: It can be my lack of self-belief.
- 56:27SPEAKER_02: You know, you hear the story about MIT.
- 56:31On the first day,
- 56:31they say,
- 56:32right,
- 56:32Pat,
- 56:32put your hands up if you don't think you should be here.
- 56:35SPEAKER_02: Like 90% of the people, right?
- 56:36SPEAKER_02: So that to me, that's like an anxiety around imposter syndrome, right?
- 56:41SPEAKER_02: Feeling.
- 56:42SPEAKER_02: It's not really a syndrome.
- 56:43SPEAKER_02: The other one is
- 56:47Perhaps I'm a woman of colour in a meeting and the men keep
- 56:49interrupting me.
- 56:51SPEAKER_02: I've been there.
- 56:52SPEAKER_02: I've witnessed that myself.
- 56:54SPEAKER_02: Why are you shutting this person down?
- 56:59The person has been incredibly expressive of gratitude for
- 57:04seeing it and calling it out.
- 57:06SPEAKER_02: But I had learned that when you see it with your own eyes.
- 57:11SPEAKER_02: That person could take that on and think, well, that's me.
- 57:13SPEAKER_02: I don't deserve to be here or whatever,
- 57:15when actually it's the environment consciously or unconsciously
- 57:18is causing those
- 57:19feelings of exclusion or feeling you have to work 10 times
- 57:22harder than somebody
- 57:23SPEAKER_02: else.
- 57:24SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 57:24SPEAKER_00: I mean,
- 57:25SPEAKER_00: I think that kind of going back to what you said about contrast,
- 57:30SPEAKER_00: which I think is really true,
- 57:32SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 57:33SPEAKER_00: in many ways,
- 57:34SPEAKER_00: perception itself,
- 57:35SPEAKER_00: human perception itself depends on contrast.
- 57:40SPEAKER_00: So we only perceive light because there is darkness.
- 57:45SPEAKER_00: We only recognize quiet because there is sound, noise.
- 57:51SPEAKER_00: And the same principle shows up in many ways in human experiences.
- 57:55So sensitivity and insensitivity,
- 57:58happiness and sadness,
- 58:01and so on and so forth.
- 58:02These contrasts create conditions that allow us to perceive
- 58:06meaning,
- 58:06that allow us to
- 58:08SPEAKER_00: Perceived difference.
- 58:10SPEAKER_00: So when somebody appears very different or very difficult to understand,
- 58:16sometimes what we're actually encountering is a form of
- 58:20contrast that reveals
- 58:22SPEAKER_00: something about the broader landscape of the human experience.
- 58:27And when we're able to hold that contrast rather than collapse
- 58:33it into judgment,
- 58:36It often becomes easier to see the coherence and the uniqueness
- 58:42in that person.
- 58:45SPEAKER_00: And I think that that is so much easier said than done.
- 58:52SPEAKER_02: Why do you think that is?
- 58:57SPEAKER_00: Because I think judgment is part of our nature.
- 59:02SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I'm not against judgment.
- 59:09I'm also,
- 59:10just in addition to judgment,
- 59:12interested in exploring everything else.
- 59:14SPEAKER_00: I don't think that judgment is necessarily implies a negative.
- 59:19SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think it's an incredibly important asset.
- 59:25SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to people, it's extremely nuanced.
- 59:31Yeah,
- 59:31well,
- 59:32I think there's a difference between judgment and being judgy.
- 59:37SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we could get into the semantics.
- 59:39SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.
- 59:42SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, I'm covering this with the term psychophobia.
- 59:45SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 59:49SPEAKER_02: You know,
- 59:49it's nearly like the fear of the other or the fear of
- 59:52difference or the fear of our
- 59:54SPEAKER_02: own difference even,
- 59:55SPEAKER_02: our own perceived difference.
- 59:58SPEAKER_02: But there is a tendency to kind of to push away and
- 1:00:07SPEAKER_02: Without taking the time to understand what that difference is,
- 1:00:10SPEAKER_02: it can be heavily misinterpreted.
- 1:00:12SPEAKER_02: I can tell you a couple of great examples.
- 1:00:18SPEAKER_02: Being a clinician on a ward around,
- 1:00:22SPEAKER_02: terrible experience in London,
- 1:00:24just watching patients being asked to come into a room full of
- 1:00:28clinicians and
- 1:00:29SPEAKER_02: trainees,
- 1:00:31SPEAKER_02: and I watched how
- 1:00:33SPEAKER_02: The judgments and interpretations of difference were so off.
- 1:00:38SPEAKER_02: It was frightening.
- 1:00:39SPEAKER_02: So the story of the young woman where,
- 1:00:43SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 1:00:4410 people agreed she was incoherent and I was working with her
- 1:00:48very intensively and
- 1:00:49SPEAKER_02: I went,
- 1:00:49SPEAKER_02: she's funnier than all of you and she's more intelligent.
- 1:00:53SPEAKER_02: She's just one question behind.
- 1:00:56So if you imagine if I start asking you questions and you're
- 1:00:59answering the previous question,
- 1:01:03SPEAKER_02: And the people in the room don't pick up on that.
- 1:01:05SPEAKER_02: It sounds like you're incoherent.
- 1:01:07SPEAKER_02: The reason she couldn't answer,
- 1:01:09she was one question behind was because of the level of
- 1:01:11medication she was on.
- 1:01:13SPEAKER_02: So I had to bring that to the team's attention.
- 1:01:17Or a young man of color who they say is getting aggressive when
- 1:01:23he's in a room with
- 1:01:25SPEAKER_02: predominantly middle class,
- 1:01:27SPEAKER_02: quite older men.
- 1:01:28SPEAKER_02: Psychiatry was like a class, part of the class system in a way.
- 1:01:34SPEAKER_02: You're more sort of middle class, upper class to be in medicine.
- 1:01:39SPEAKER_02: Um,
- 1:01:39SPEAKER_02: so psychiatrists tend to,
- 1:01:41SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 1:01:42SPEAKER_02: in England,
- 1:01:42SPEAKER_02: they would talk with posher voices and yeah,
- 1:01:45SPEAKER_02: right.
- 1:01:45So immediately you're potentially interfacing with a class of
- 1:01:50people that you've
- 1:01:50SPEAKER_02: never experienced before and nor have they experienced you.
- 1:01:55SPEAKER_02: Right.
- 1:01:55SPEAKER_02: So there's a power dynamic,
- 1:01:56SPEAKER_02: there's a cultural difference,
- 1:01:58SPEAKER_02: there's a,
- 1:01:59and you've just taken away this young man's liberty and you're
- 1:02:02wondering why he's
- 1:02:04SPEAKER_02: responding,
- 1:02:05SPEAKER_02: but you're pathologizing his response.
- 1:02:08SPEAKER_02: That was mind-blowing when you are there to witness that,
- 1:02:11to see that mismatch between somebody's lived experience and
- 1:02:14then how people in a
- 1:02:16position of authority are judging that with consequence and the
- 1:02:21consequence could
- 1:02:22be your liberty or worse it could be forcibly treated with
- 1:02:28medication or restraints
- 1:02:30SPEAKER_02: that could make things much worse.
- 1:02:35So I think it's essential for us to take the time to understand
- 1:02:39difference and not
- 1:02:41make too many assumptions that have ramifications over that
- 1:02:46person's life.
- 1:02:49SPEAKER_00: I agree with you.
- 1:02:50SPEAKER_00: I think it is absolutely essential.
- 1:02:54SPEAKER_02: The bad news is I don't think it's getting any better.
- 1:02:58SPEAKER_02: I think economically
- 1:03:03SPEAKER_02: The systems are looking for faster, quicker results.
- 1:03:07SPEAKER_02: Faster,
- 1:03:08quicker results don't lend themselves to spending longer times
- 1:03:14up close and
- 1:03:15SPEAKER_02: personal with people.
- 1:03:18SPEAKER_02: It's usually a tick box mentality,
- 1:03:21a McDonaldization encounter where I have to get through this
- 1:03:24interview with these
- 1:03:26SPEAKER_02: predestined questions and I have to tick these boxes.
- 1:03:28SPEAKER_02: That's not an encounter.
- 1:03:32SPEAKER_02: Well, it is an encounter, but it's an encounter of sorts, right?
- 1:03:37Sitting in silence with a veteran who's had a heavy traumatic
- 1:03:43experience,
- 1:03:45that's an encounter.
- 1:03:45SPEAKER_00: It is.
- 1:03:52It is and the veterans population especially so because so much
- 1:03:57of their PTSD is
- 1:03:59SPEAKER_00: connected to their fight or flight response.
- 1:04:02SPEAKER_00: So this environment,
- 1:04:04that population has been really fascinating to work with
- 1:04:07because of how directly
- 1:04:08SPEAKER_00: it's connected.
- 1:04:09I agree that I think that understanding differences is
- 1:04:16absolutely essential and I think in
- 1:04:22SPEAKER_00: I think there's lots of examples as to why that's the case.
- 1:04:28SPEAKER_00: Contrast is what allows us to recognize everything at all.
- 1:04:32And at the same time,
- 1:04:34I tend to feel optimistic about where we're going in the world.
- 1:04:38SPEAKER_00: History shows that as our systems of communication and knowledge expand,
- 1:04:44SPEAKER_00: people are gradually exposed to more perspectives than ever before.
- 1:04:49SPEAKER_00: So that doesn't always make things look better in the short term.
- 1:04:55Sometimes it makes differences more visible and that can create
- 1:04:59a lot of tension.
- 1:05:01But over time,
- 1:05:02I think that exposure can also expand our capacity to
- 1:05:06understand one another.
- 1:05:08So I see this current moment less as decline and more as a kind
- 1:05:13of transition.
- 1:05:15SPEAKER_00: So we're learning,
- 1:05:18SPEAKER_00: sometimes in a very clumsy way,
- 1:05:20SPEAKER_00: how to navigate a world with far more visible diversity of thought,
- 1:05:27SPEAKER_00: of culture,
- 1:05:29SPEAKER_00: of experience than ever before.
- 1:05:32SPEAKER_00: So I think that difference has always existed.
- 1:05:39SPEAKER_00: What's changing is our ability to see it and to engage with it.
- 1:05:46SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to say to you what I said to other people this week.
- 1:05:51SPEAKER_02: You're a highly evolved, high vibrational being.
- 1:05:58SPEAKER_02: I encounter a lot of people who are not in that category,
- 1:06:02SPEAKER_02: whose consciousness is at the level of the tribe.
- 1:06:08And they have not got to the position where they can see beyond
- 1:06:12the tribe and the
- 1:06:16SPEAKER_02: potential for contrast,
- 1:06:19SPEAKER_02: collaboration,
- 1:06:21SPEAKER_02: community,
- 1:06:21SPEAKER_02: peace beyond their own.
- 1:06:25and whether that's a manufactured tribe or not in terms of just
- 1:06:27like say a
- 1:06:28political identification but there's this polarization that I
- 1:06:35see and connect with
- 1:06:38SPEAKER_02: an emotional regression so if you like the child sees good and bad
- 1:06:49SPEAKER_02: So it idolizes and denigrates.
- 1:06:53It can love someone on the playground at the beginning of the
- 1:06:57break and say,
- 1:06:59SPEAKER_02: you're not my friend,
- 1:06:59SPEAKER_02: I hate you at the end.
- 1:07:01As they develop,
- 1:07:02they see that actually I can love someone and they can do
- 1:07:06things I don't like.
- 1:07:07SPEAKER_02: Or I can not like someone and they do things that I do like.
- 1:07:11SPEAKER_02: That's like the maturing.
- 1:07:13SPEAKER_02: They move away from fairy tales.
- 1:07:15SPEAKER_02: And they look for stories that are more complex and less defined.
- 1:07:19But what I witness in society at the minute is this shift away
- 1:07:24from that nuance and
- 1:07:25that contrast to all the good is in our space and all the bad
- 1:07:30is in your space.
- 1:07:32SPEAKER_02: That can't possibly be true.
- 1:07:34SPEAKER_02: There has to be some good and bad on both or all camps.
- 1:07:40A bit like going into kids and talking about drugs and saying
- 1:07:44it's all bad.
- 1:07:46SPEAKER_02: It's a nonsense.
- 1:07:47Everyone knows that there are some qualities on drugs or else
- 1:07:51people wouldn't do
- 1:07:51SPEAKER_02: them in the first place.
- 1:07:54SPEAKER_02: How do we get people
- 1:07:57SPEAKER_02: to appreciate nuance,
- 1:07:59SPEAKER_02: difference,
- 1:08:01SPEAKER_02: less polarization than they are currently able to accept,
- 1:08:06SPEAKER_02: do you think?
- 1:08:09SPEAKER_00: So many things.
- 1:08:12SPEAKER_00: How do we get people to embrace nuance?
- 1:08:16SPEAKER_00: You know,
- 1:08:17it's interesting because what you're describing also shows up
- 1:08:20in developmental
- 1:08:21SPEAKER_00: psychology.
- 1:08:22You know,
- 1:08:23early on the mind organizes the world in very simple
- 1:08:28categories.
- 1:08:29SPEAKER_00: Good, bad, safe, unsafe, right and wrong.
- 1:08:32And those distinctions are useful at first because they help us
- 1:08:36to orient ourselves.
- 1:08:38SPEAKER_00: But as people mature, their capacity for nuance ideally expands.
- 1:08:45You know,
- 1:08:46we start to recognize that multiple things can be true at the
- 1:08:49same time.
- 1:08:50I think that the challenge is that nuance requires a certain
- 1:08:54kind of stability.
- 1:08:56SPEAKER_00: So when people feel overwhelmed or they feel threatened,
- 1:09:00SPEAKER_00: the mind often collapses back into simpler,
- 1:09:04SPEAKER_00: familiar categories.
- 1:09:06SPEAKER_00: So part of the question may not be how we force people to embrace nuance,
- 1:09:12but how we create an environment where people feel safe enough
- 1:09:15to tolerate
- 1:09:16SPEAKER_00: complexity.
- 1:09:18SPEAKER_02: How do you create environments where people can tolerate complexity?
- 1:09:25And I think the ability to tolerate complexity is closely tied
- 1:09:29to the conditions around us.
- 1:09:33SPEAKER_00: And so when people are overwhelmed,
- 1:09:35SPEAKER_00: when they're threatened,
- 1:09:36SPEAKER_00: when they're overstimulated,
- 1:09:37SPEAKER_00: like I was saying before,
- 1:09:38SPEAKER_00: the mind naturally simplifies the world into clear categories.
- 1:09:43SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's a very protective response.
- 1:09:46But when the environment is calm,
- 1:09:49supportive,
- 1:09:50and allows people to slow down,
- 1:09:53then
- 1:09:55SPEAKER_00: Their system tends to relax.
- 1:09:57SPEAKER_00: And when that happens,
- 1:09:58people often become more capable of holding multiple
- 1:10:02perspectives at once.
- 1:10:03So in many ways,
- 1:10:05I think that the question isn't only intellectual,
- 1:10:08I think it's environmental.
- 1:10:10SPEAKER_00: You know,
- 1:10:11SPEAKER_00: how do we design spaces,
- 1:10:12SPEAKER_00: conditions,
- 1:10:13SPEAKER_00: conversations,
- 1:10:15SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 1:10:15even social conditions where people feel stable enough to
- 1:10:18remain curious rather
- 1:10:20SPEAKER_00: than defensive.
- 1:10:22SPEAKER_00: When curiosity stays present, nuance becomes much easier to tolerate.
- 1:10:31And I think that complexity is easier to explore when the
- 1:10:37environment reduces the
- 1:10:39SPEAKER_00: need for certainty.
- 1:10:42SPEAKER_02: Strong.
- 1:10:43SPEAKER_02: Do you think is it, well, fear?
- 1:10:44SPEAKER_02: You know,
- 1:10:45SPEAKER_02: when you were talking,
- 1:10:45SPEAKER_02: I thought,
- 1:10:46SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 1:10:47can you really ask people to look at the nuance and look at
- 1:10:50different perspectives
- 1:10:52SPEAKER_02: if they feel threatened and are fearful?
- 1:10:55SPEAKER_00: I think that fear plays a big role in this.
- 1:11:01When people feel afraid,
- 1:11:03I think the mind also,
- 1:11:05you know,
- 1:11:05naturally simplifies.
- 1:11:08SPEAKER_00: So nuance requires a certain tolerance for uncertainty.
- 1:11:13And that means holding ideas that don't resolve immediately
- 1:11:18into right or wrong.
- 1:11:21So one of the challenges is that if people are operating in a
- 1:11:25state of fear or a
- 1:11:27SPEAKER_00: state of instability,
- 1:11:28SPEAKER_00: the mind tends to retreat into simpler narratives.
- 1:11:32I think that if we create environments where people can
- 1:11:35tolerate complexity,
- 1:11:38SPEAKER_00: It often means reducing that sense of threat.
- 1:11:44SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
- 1:11:44SPEAKER_02: the thing is,
- 1:11:45SPEAKER_02: and again,
- 1:11:46SPEAKER_02: I'm just riffing off what you're saying,
- 1:11:48SPEAKER_02: is what jumped to mind is certainty is seductive.
- 1:11:57SPEAKER_02: So actually being a bigot is much easier than holding both perspectives.
- 1:12:06SPEAKER_02: It's why the easy answer of they're the problem.
- 1:12:11SPEAKER_02: They're the problem.
- 1:12:12SPEAKER_02: We're not the problem.
- 1:12:13SPEAKER_02: They're the problem.
- 1:12:15SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's good.
- 1:12:15SPEAKER_02: I like that.
- 1:12:17SPEAKER_02: I like being on the team that's not the problem.
- 1:12:21SPEAKER_02: I noticed that growing up in Northern Ireland,
- 1:12:23SPEAKER_02: when I saw through the futility of that conflict,
- 1:12:27SPEAKER_02: it was like I missed the simplicity of they're the enemy.
- 1:12:34SPEAKER_02: Like holding the position of maybe they aren't the anime,
- 1:12:36SPEAKER_02: maybe this is way more complex than I was told growing up.
- 1:12:43SPEAKER_02: But I remember this point,
- 1:12:44SPEAKER_02: I remember there was a bunch of,
- 1:12:47SPEAKER_02: somebody said,
- 1:12:50some politicians said they should get an incinerator and burn
- 1:12:54all Catholics.
- 1:12:55SPEAKER_02: Geordie Seed, right?
- 1:12:56SPEAKER_02: Actually, he was murdered for it.
- 1:12:59Somebody repeated this in class,
- 1:13:01and I stood up and said,
- 1:13:02this is wrong,
- 1:13:02you can't say that.
- 1:13:03SPEAKER_02: When I got outside,
- 1:13:04SPEAKER_02: there was a bunch of boys waiting for me to give me a beating,
- 1:13:08SPEAKER_02: just because I had the audacity to say,
- 1:13:12SPEAKER_02: that's not right.
- 1:13:15SPEAKER_02: But I remember a few years after,
- 1:13:18SPEAKER_02: thinking back to,
- 1:13:19SPEAKER_02: wow,
- 1:13:20SPEAKER_02: it would have been easier just to hold the non-nuanced position.
- 1:13:25SPEAKER_02: There's an appeal to
- 1:13:29SPEAKER_00: I think both.
- 1:13:30SPEAKER_00: I think it's best to embrace both.
- 1:13:36I've been having some conversations recently with a friend
- 1:13:40about how we'd really
- 1:13:43SPEAKER_00: like to embrace the idea of being less emotionally tied to things.
- 1:13:52I was taking the surf lesson and we had some kind of type of
- 1:13:56little conflict with
- 1:13:57with our surf instructor and as he was walking away we were
- 1:14:04talking about after
- 1:14:05kind of monitoring his like disposition and you know what he
- 1:14:08was like and this is
- 1:14:09very you know relaxed California surfer guy who's out here and
- 1:14:14we said you know he
- 1:14:15SPEAKER_00: probably isn't walking away with that conflict
- 1:14:20SPEAKER_00: You know,
- 1:14:21and then like bringing it with him on his walk back to the surf
- 1:14:24shop and into the,
- 1:14:25SPEAKER_00: and maybe this isn't true,
- 1:14:26SPEAKER_00: but just for the sake of,
- 1:14:27SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 1:14:28SPEAKER_00: exploration.
- 1:14:32SPEAKER_00: You know,
- 1:14:33SPEAKER_00: what if part of being emotionally less in tune,
- 1:14:41SPEAKER_00: say,
- 1:14:41SPEAKER_00: thinking so deeply,
- 1:14:42SPEAKER_00: intellectualizing all this,
- 1:14:44SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 1:14:44SPEAKER_00: all sorts of things like,
- 1:14:46SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 1:14:46SPEAKER_00: what if there's a sense of peace in that as well?
- 1:14:50SPEAKER_00: You know, there's simplicity.
- 1:14:52SPEAKER_00: But back to what you were saying before,
- 1:14:54SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 1:14:54SPEAKER_00: I think that certainty is seductive because it simplifies
- 1:15:00SPEAKER_00: How we perceive things.
- 1:15:02And I think that the human perceptual system is consistently
- 1:15:05trying to organize
- 1:15:07SPEAKER_00: complexity into stable patterns.
- 1:15:09SPEAKER_00: Certainty provides that stability.
- 1:15:11SPEAKER_00: It allows the mind to stop evaluating alternatives.
- 1:15:16But the trade-off is that once a pattern feels certain,
- 1:15:20curiosity tends to diminish.
- 1:15:22SPEAKER_00: And curiosity is often what allows a deeper understanding to emerge.
- 1:15:31SPEAKER_02: Yeah, once I know or think I know, I close down.
- 1:15:41SPEAKER_02: It closes down the curiosity.
- 1:15:43I think curiosity from a clinical point of view is one of the
- 1:15:46most important words,
- 1:15:48SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 1:15:48SPEAKER_02: to encourage.
- 1:15:50SPEAKER_02: Let's be curious about what's going on here.
- 1:15:52It's so beautiful and it has a lightness of touch rather than I
- 1:15:56know what's going on for you.
- 1:15:59SPEAKER_02: I know what's wrong.
- 1:16:00It's more like,
- 1:16:02I wonder what,
- 1:16:02let's try and understand what might be going on.
- 1:16:05SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful.
- 1:16:06SPEAKER_02: Once I know what's going on, there's less curiosity.
- 1:16:11SPEAKER_02: Why do you think it killed the cat though?
- 1:16:16SPEAKER_02: I was always curious about that, right?
- 1:16:19SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 1:16:21The difficulty is I see with young people,
- 1:16:23God,
- 1:16:24I sound old saying young people,
- 1:16:26right?
- 1:16:28SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they're given very easy cooker-cutty,
- 1:16:32SPEAKER_02: cooker-cutty,
- 1:16:32SPEAKER_02: cooker-cutty,
- 1:16:33SPEAKER_02: cooker-cutty,
- 1:16:34cooker-cutty answers that who wouldn't want certainty in such
- 1:16:42an uncertain world.
- 1:16:44But those views become very simplistic and very hardened and
- 1:16:48close down other
- 1:16:49SPEAKER_02: perspectives to the detriment of their experience,
- 1:16:53SPEAKER_02: I think.
- 1:16:55SPEAKER_02: But I totally empathize why
- 1:16:58SPEAKER_02: It's so seductive.
- 1:16:59SPEAKER_02: You know, if you go, here's the problem, here's the cause of the problem.
- 1:17:04SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
- 1:17:06That's much more appealing than,
- 1:17:08I'm not really,
- 1:17:09I don't really understand the problem.
- 1:17:10I certainly don't understand the cause,
- 1:17:11who's to blame and,
- 1:17:13you know,
- 1:17:13so on.
- 1:17:15SPEAKER_02: And again,
- 1:17:17SPEAKER_02: it's this idea of,
- 1:17:19SPEAKER_02: you know,
- 1:17:19being able to think a bit more critically about things in a
- 1:17:23place of safety.
- 1:17:26SPEAKER_02: I draw a parallel a little bit with the cancel culture.
- 1:17:29SPEAKER_02: So one of the things I observe with the cancel culture,
- 1:17:34and I mean even people being fired because the company's afraid
- 1:17:40of what they've
- 1:17:40SPEAKER_02: done might blow back.
- 1:17:42SPEAKER_02: What I'm really picking up on is there's no chance for redemption.
- 1:17:45SPEAKER_02: There's no chance to learn.
- 1:17:48SPEAKER_02: Like if I've done something to hurt you and I just kind of get cut off,
- 1:17:53SPEAKER_02: There's no chance for me really to learn why I hurt you,
- 1:17:58SPEAKER_02: what that was like for you,
- 1:18:00SPEAKER_02: how to change my view so that I don't hurt anyone else.
- 1:18:04SPEAKER_02: It's just like... No nuance, no curiosity.
- 1:18:09SPEAKER_02: It's just like...
- 1:18:11The other thing I pick up on is sometimes people have to fumble
- 1:18:18through their
- 1:18:18SPEAKER_02: understanding to get to the deeper truth and meaning.
- 1:18:23SPEAKER_02: But sometimes for me to fumble through,
- 1:18:25SPEAKER_02: to understand,
- 1:18:27SPEAKER_02: I might say things that aren't appropriate,
- 1:18:31SPEAKER_02: that might offend,
- 1:18:32SPEAKER_02: that might be difficult.
- 1:18:34But if I'm completely shut down in that process,
- 1:18:37I'm not going to get to the other side.
- 1:18:38SPEAKER_00: I think those things are just part of the process.
- 1:18:49To your point about the importance of contrast,
- 1:18:55one could argue they're necessary.
- 1:18:57SPEAKER_02: Should I say more about that?
- 1:19:03SPEAKER_00: I'm mostly referring to what you said about what if I hurt someone,
- 1:19:08SPEAKER_00: what if I make mistakes,
- 1:19:09SPEAKER_00: what if I hurt myself,
- 1:19:11SPEAKER_00: all of that.
- 1:19:11SPEAKER_00: I'm just simply saying let's assume those things were necessary.
- 1:19:18SPEAKER_02: Necessary to hurt?
- 1:19:19SPEAKER_00: To get you to, you know, wherever you went as a result.
- 1:19:24SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, yeah.
- 1:19:26So because there's this thing between the difference between
- 1:19:28intention and impact.
- 1:19:31So I might say something that really upsets you,
- 1:19:36but that was not my intention.
- 1:19:38So what happens is people go,
- 1:19:40but it wasn't my intention to hurt you,
- 1:19:41Emma.
- 1:19:43But then I closed down the opportunity to understand,
- 1:19:46but it still had an impact.
- 1:19:48SPEAKER_02: Right.
- 1:19:49SPEAKER_02: So it's a bit like,
- 1:19:50SPEAKER_02: I don't know whether you noticed the,
- 1:19:52it was a huge story about the BAFTAs in the UK where the kid
- 1:19:55with Tourette's.
- 1:19:57SPEAKER_00: I'm not familiar.
- 1:19:59He said a couple,
- 1:20:01so there was no,
- 1:20:03there was a kid there,
- 1:20:03sorry,
- 1:20:04he's a grown man.
- 1:20:06It's a big movie called I Swear and it's about a drama about a
- 1:20:11real guy who had Tourette's.
- 1:20:13SPEAKER_02: So two black actors got up to take an award for Sinners,
- 1:20:20SPEAKER_02: and as they get up he said a couple of racial slurs,
- 1:20:26SPEAKER_02: that if you understand Tourette's you can understand how it happens,
- 1:20:31SPEAKER_02: but it still had an impact.
- 1:20:34So it's very important to recognize that even though that was
- 1:20:39not the young man's
- 1:20:42SPEAKER_02: intention,
- 1:20:43SPEAKER_02: it's had a huge impact on people.
- 1:20:47And I think sometimes that we focus on intention and then the
- 1:20:53impact gets lost.
- 1:20:56SPEAKER_00: Yes.
- 1:20:57SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 1:20:58And again that takes us to enter a space that is uncomfortable
- 1:21:03and difficult and
- 1:21:04SPEAKER_02: challenging to have that conversation.
- 1:21:08SPEAKER_02: Both are true.
- 1:21:10Both here's somebody who's suffering from an affliction that
- 1:21:14they have no control
- 1:21:15over and who's trying to bring attention to a broader audience
- 1:21:20and then here's two
- 1:21:20people at a peak moment in their life that gets overshadowed
- 1:21:25briefly with this
- 1:21:26SPEAKER_02: terrible experience that they had.
- 1:21:28SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 1:21:31SPEAKER_02: It's complex.
- 1:21:32SPEAKER_00: It is complex.
- 1:21:34SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 1:21:35SPEAKER_02: Is there anything I
- 1:21:38SPEAKER_02: needed to ask you or you wanted me to ask you?
- 1:21:41Maybe to circle back to the conditions under which we met with
- 1:21:46the anechoet
- 1:21:46SPEAKER_00: chamber,
- 1:21:47SPEAKER_00: with your experience in there.
- 1:21:49I don't think I really very clearly answered your question
- 1:21:52before about where are
- 1:21:53SPEAKER_00: we going with all of this.
- 1:21:56SPEAKER_00: And where we're going is
- 1:21:59SPEAKER_00: Historically,
- 1:22:00we have always relied on people to come to us in order to
- 1:22:05experience our facility,
- 1:22:07SPEAKER_00: to be immersed in our practice.
- 1:22:10SPEAKER_00: And over the past two,
- 1:22:12SPEAKER_00: three years as I've been running this therapeutics program,
- 1:22:15SPEAKER_00: it's based in Minneapolis exclusively.
- 1:22:17SPEAKER_00: It's based out of the Anticolor Chamber exclusively.
- 1:22:21SPEAKER_00: And we have many people come in from all over the world for sessions.
- 1:22:25SPEAKER_00: I have clients that are local, international.
- 1:22:30SPEAKER_00: And we would,
- 1:22:32SPEAKER_00: in addition to that,
- 1:22:34like to see this potential therapeutic modality being developed
- 1:22:40far outside of the
- 1:22:42SPEAKER_00: walls of our building.
- 1:22:44SPEAKER_00: We'd like to
- 1:22:46SPEAKER_00: See how it can manifest into various wellness environments,
- 1:22:51SPEAKER_00: various therapeutic environments,
- 1:22:52SPEAKER_00: various medical environments,
- 1:22:54SPEAKER_00: corporate environments.
- 1:22:56SPEAKER_00: So we're looking at how a
- 1:23:00Physical space can be developed that resembles the experience
- 1:23:04of the Anacoa Chamber
- 1:23:06SPEAKER_00: to help all sorts of populations of people because it is so broad.
- 1:23:11SPEAKER_00: My clients are so broad in their demographics.
- 1:23:17And part of that is about feeling that we owe it to our clients
- 1:23:22to also to come to them.
- 1:23:27And part of it is that we feel that we're on the edge of what
- 1:23:31could be a really
- 1:23:33SPEAKER_00: significant modality.
- 1:23:37SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I concur.
- 1:23:41I'm really taken by the depth of your knowledge,
- 1:23:46your thoughtfulness,
- 1:23:47your experience.
- 1:23:49Your curiosity and your desire to bring it to more people
- 1:23:54because I think it would be helpful.
- 1:23:55SPEAKER_02: I think it's going to happen in a big way.
- 1:23:57SPEAKER_02: Do you think Steve will come on?
- 1:23:59SPEAKER_00: For the podcast?
- 1:24:02SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 1:24:02SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
- 1:24:03SPEAKER_00: I think he would love to.
- 1:24:05SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
- 1:24:07SPEAKER_02: I always feel enriched,
- 1:24:09SPEAKER_02: expanded,
- 1:24:10SPEAKER_02: inspired,
- 1:24:12SPEAKER_02: left with the feeling of I want to do more in the world.
- 1:24:16SPEAKER_02: I think I said to you, you're an old soul.
- 1:24:18SPEAKER_02: I hope that wasn't an insult.
- 1:24:22The depth of your knowledge and your presence speaks to me of
- 1:24:27someone who's been
- 1:24:29SPEAKER_02: around for a long time.
- 1:24:33SPEAKER_00: That could be true.
- 1:24:36SPEAKER_02: Many lifetimes, I think.
- 1:24:38SPEAKER_00: Speaking of lack of certainty versus certainty,
- 1:24:44SPEAKER_00: on that one,
- 1:24:46SPEAKER_00: I live in the realm of uncertainty and I'm,
- 1:24:50SPEAKER_00: to be honest,
- 1:24:51SPEAKER_00: I'm perfectly content there.
- 1:24:54SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
- 1:24:55SPEAKER_02: I mean,
- 1:24:56SPEAKER_02: I remain in the area of uncertainty,
- 1:24:58but when I meet people like you and then I meet people who have
- 1:25:01a connection with
- 1:25:02SPEAKER_02: like you,
- 1:25:03SPEAKER_02: I go,
- 1:25:03SPEAKER_02: that's something more than just this,
- 1:25:06SPEAKER_02: surely.
- 1:25:08Maybe that's my own fantasy,
- 1:25:10but I mean it as a deep compliment to who you are.
- 1:25:14SPEAKER_02: It's an absolute pleasure, both you and Steve.
- 1:25:16SPEAKER_02: So thank you for your time.
- 1:25:18SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip.
- 1:25:20SPEAKER_02: So if you're talking to Steve, send him my love.
- 1:25:22SPEAKER_02: I will be in touch.
- 1:25:23SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 1:25:23SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I definitely will.
- 1:25:25SPEAKER_02: I'll reach out to him.
- 1:25:26SPEAKER_02: So let's speak soon.
- 1:25:28SPEAKER_02: Enjoy yourself.
- 1:25:29SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
- 1:25:30SPEAKER_02: I'll catch up.
- 1:25:31SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
- 1:25:32SPEAKER_02: Catch up when you get back.
- 1:25:33SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
- 1:25:34SPEAKER_00: All right.
- 1:25:34SPEAKER_00: We'll talk soon.
- 1:25:35SPEAKER_02: All right.
- 1:25:36SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
- 1:25:36SPEAKER_02: Bye.