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Aaron Balick – Why does social media weaponize our reactions? · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod. Well, welcome.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: We're really pleased with this episode. I feel like it
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: was such an interesting conversation we had with us, Dr.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Aaron Bailick, and he is a psychoanalyst and has special
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: knowledge in the area of social media. And we've been
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: talking about reactivity, projection, the wounds and how we deal
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: with those wounds and how sometimes we become very reactive
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: in the face of those wounds, and then how that
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: all plays out on social media, especially in light of
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: global events of the past several weeks. So I'll just
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: tell you a little bit about Dr. Bailik. He is
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: a psychotherapist, a consultant, a cultural theorist, a public speaker,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: and an author of Drawing on more than 20 years
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: of clinical and academic experience, Aaron is a leading voice
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: in the public understanding of psychology and how it can
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: be directly applied to benefit individuals, organizations, and society. And
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: he's the author of the book, The Psychodynamics of Social Networking.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: And he has also written two self-help books, The Little
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Book of Calm and Keep Your Cool, which was written
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: for children. So we really appreciated having him on and
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: we think you're going to enjoy this conversation. So Aaron,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: you and I actually know each other from Twitter, which
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: is interesting because I think we're going to wind up
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: talking a little bit today about the ills of social media,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: or at least some of the dangers of social media maybe.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: But of course, you know, it also does this wonderful
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: thing like connect people. me with interesting people. And I
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: saw you posted this really terrific, interesting blog post in
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the past several days about reactivity. And I just so
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: appreciated that. And I know you, you you have an
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: expertise in social media, and you've you've written a book
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: about that. And it just seemed like a good time
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: to invite you on to the podcast, because reactivity, I think,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: is a real a real issue out there.
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm really
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: pleased to be here. And I'm a big fan of
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: the podcast. So it's really ticks a lot of boxes
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: for me. So thank you. And it's nice to start
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: with that warmth because that is right. You know, we
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: came into each other's purview on, on Twitter, which I
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: continue to call it for right reasons. Yeah. Which has changed,
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: you know, since those days, I think it's, it is
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: a less nice place. There is a place for social media.
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: but I have really struggled with it myself. So, you know,
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: since the events on October 7th, knowing how inadequate it
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: is at dealing with complexity and knowing how reactive it
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: can make people and knowing that it almost completely lacks nuance.
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: I was kind of on the one hand frozen because
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: I didn't know what to do. I felt like I
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: felt a little bit like I ought to say something
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  Speaker 5: about it. I was tweeting the regular sorts of things
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: and on my Instagram, you know, kind of just not
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: mentioning it all because I just didn't want to step in.
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: And then I ended up sort of just putting a
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: note up saying, don't interpret my silence on this, a
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: silence about the issue. I've just identified that social media
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: isn't where I want to share it. And then that
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: pernicious impulsivity started to seep in, right? So I started
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: getting angry and I started reading things and I wanted
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: to comment and I didn't know how to comment. So
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: started commenting about the process itself, you know, about Twitter
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: in the context of global events. And that blog post
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: that you read was the second in that period where
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: what was going on social media just really forced me
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: to think yet again about what it's doing, particularly when
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: there is intensive conflict. And with this conflict, how it
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: plugs into, to use probably the words more familiar with
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: you guys have a ton some really archetypal moments in
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: our history, which I think is why it's so fundamentally activating.
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  Speaker 2: So what do you think it's doing?
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  Speaker 5: That's a question I've been asking myself a lot, right?
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: So why would I go on to Twitter? And I
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  Speaker 5: think how people are going on to Twitter is because
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  Speaker 5: they're very angry and they're saying, this is how angry
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  Speaker 5: I am. And then they're evidence gathering and saying, see,
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  Speaker 5: this is why I'm angry. And then posting really distressing
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  Speaker 5: and disturbing videos, you know, really distressing clips of news,
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  Speaker 5: almost like doubling down on the fury. You know, I'm
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  Speaker 5: not a catharsis guy. You know, I did my bit
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  Speaker 5: of Gestalt back in the day, but sort of, you know,
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  Speaker 5: getting your anger out, I don't think is particularly productive.
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: So there might be a sense of, you know, people say, well,
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  Speaker 5: at least it's being vented. But I don't think at
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: least it's being vented. I think that venting is toxic.
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  Speaker 5: and contagious, and then other people start venting on one
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: side or the other. And I think it's mostly, not
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: necessarily entirely, but mostly destructive. Not entirely for everything, right?
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: But around this, around what's going on in the Middle
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: East right now, it feels like it's having a destructive role.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I think it often has a destructive role. I mean,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I appreciated your your use of the word emotional, your phrase,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: emotional contagion in that blog post. And I do think
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, first of all, emotion is incredibly contagious, right?
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Like this is, this is not speculative. We have, we have,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think we all know this. And then
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  Speaker 2: there's also a ton of research about it. And it's
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: a whole field of study. And, and, and there's, I believe,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: and you can fill me in if I'm getting this wrong.
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  Speaker 2: But I believe there's quite a bit of research about
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  Speaker 2: how social media is a kind of vector of emotional contagion.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: There was an interesting study done a number of years
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: ago with Facebook, I believe, you know, that, that if
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: you're kind of reading all these posts where your friends
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: are distressed, or whatever, your your mood actually goes down.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: That's a really important thing to know. And to me,
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: it hooks in with Jung's ideas about what he would
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: call mass psychology, which he was incredibly distrustful of. And I,
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: you know, I I mean, first of all, Jung was
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: a real introvert. So it makes sense that he was not,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: you know, a big fan of sort of mass events,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: but also kind of where he lived. I mean, he
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: lived through World War I. He lived through World War II.
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  Speaker 2: He saw how incredibly destructive kind of mass psychology can be.
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  Speaker 2: So I don't think he... had anything good to say
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: about it. But he did write quite a bit about
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: how we get swept along on an emotional current, and
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: how there is a kind of lowering of level of consciousness.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: You know, he did not think that kind of mob
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  Speaker 2: psychology was a very kind of elevated space for discourse
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  Speaker 2: or nuance. And I try to imagine what he would
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  Speaker 2: have to say about Twitter.
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  Speaker 5: Maybe there is no wisdom in crowds. I think there
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: is a point.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, the thing is, it's regressive.
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  Speaker 4: I'm listening to what you're both saying, and I find
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: it all incredibly distressing because your word regressive, for me,
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: hits the mark. It takes us back to just very simple, emotional,
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  Speaker 4: reactive stances, a simplification that is contrary and blocks any
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: possibility of actual understanding. And how do we get from
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  Speaker 4: reactivity to response that's nuanced, that can understand context and
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: is willing to engage complexity rather than what you talk about,
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: this binary thinking of that's wrong, that's bad, and I'm outraged.
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  Speaker 5: Well, see, I think the problem is it takes us
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: to do that. And it feels less good to do that, right?
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: Because you're not venting, you're not splitting, you're not defended,
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: you don't get to be as righteous, right? So, and
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: I don't use a lot of Melanie Klein, but I
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: find Melanie Klein's positions quite helpful in this, you know,
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  Speaker 5: that the regressed position is the paranoid schizoid position, right?
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  Speaker 5: So that is the split position, idealized or debased, right?
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  Speaker 5: And you flip from one to the other. And than
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  Speaker 5: the depressive.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Can you, no, wait, just, I'm, wait, I love this.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Cause I, I love Mel and I love these too,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: but we have a general audience here. So you have
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: to explain who Melanie Klein is and what the paranoid
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  Speaker 2: schizoid state, like, let's, let's do this. Cause this is really,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: this is great.
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: Somebody wants to hear about paranoid schizoid with me. I'm
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: very happy to go into the details.
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  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I'm here for this.
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: So, Basically, so Melanie Klein was an early psychoanalyst, you know,
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: around the Freud and Anna Freud set in the early days.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: Ended up in here in England. So I won't go
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: into the whole, you know, that whole thing. But basically,
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  Speaker 5: she was among the very first to look at child psychology.
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: And developmentally, she had these two positions there. that she
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: called them. And the first one was about zero to
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: about eight or nine months. And the second one was
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: about nine months onward. But as adults, we flip between
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  Speaker 5: these two positions and we regress to the earlier position.
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  Speaker 5: And the first position she's called the paranoid schizoid position.
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  Speaker 5: And this is related to in her mind, and lots
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: of people think this is really crazy stuff because she
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: has a very imaginative mind that a child might experience
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: that we know cognitively children don't do anymore, but you
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: see it as a metaphor. And in a sense, she
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: said that the child's relationship with the breast, the breast
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: becomes idealized when it's present and it's warm and it's
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: providing milk. And when it's not there, it becomes, in
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: a sense, demonized because it becomes this withholding breast, right?
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: The The mother's not there. The baby is hungry and
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: crying and the whole world falls apart. The breast comes.
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  Speaker 5: It's the most wonderful thing in the world and everything
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: is fine and safe. And until the baby is able
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: to understand that the breast that's there is the same
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  Speaker 5: breast that isn't there, which we came to understand as
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: object constancy, right? You can keep that breast or that
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: mother in your head even when she's not around. Then
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: you move into depressive position. And what boggles everybody's mind
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: is like, why is the depressive position a better one?
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  Speaker 5: It doesn't sound very good, right? And that's because you
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: also lose the ideal, right? So you lose the hellish version,
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: but you also lose the ideal breast because it's the
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: one that's sometimes not there when you want it to
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: be there. So you have to give something up in
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: order to move into the depressive position. And it's paranoid
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: schizoid because schizoid means split. So the good breast is
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: not the same thing as the bad breast. And paranoid
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  Speaker 5: is it's not just that it's not there, but almost
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: like it's not there on purpose. Like it's there. It's
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: not there to get you right. So you split it
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: off and then it becomes nasty. And when we are
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: challenged as adults, when we're reactive in that Kleinian model,
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: we move from the depressive position into the paranoid schizoid position.
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  Speaker 5: So to say, as I said in that blog post,
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: that the Secretary General of the United Nations gets pilloried
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: for saying we must understand why acts of terrorism happen,
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: that's a very depressive position to take, right? It's not
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: just There's no context. This is just bad. Let's bomb
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: them all, right? It's like, this was a heinous act
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: and we need to understand, just like we do in
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: psychology and psychoanalysis, right? We always want to understand what
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: the symptoms are arising from. The paranoid schizoid response is,
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: how dare you understand? Social media, particularly short form like Twitter,
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: I think is largely a paranoid schizoid enabling platform. And
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: that actually, it's very difficult to bring people into depressive
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: through the platform. So to kind of roundabout answer your question, Deb,
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: it's like, it has to be in forums like this,
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: like forums that enable person to person, small scale, impactful
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: conversations is where depressive positioning happens. You can't do it.
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: I don't know a way to do it on the
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: mass scale. I certainly don't know how to do it
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: when it's being mediated through social media.
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: It seems to me that the part of the regression
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: is as with a baby, Everything is related to the me.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: You know, what gratifies me if I get what I
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: want to be held, fed, sung to, versus stepping away
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: from just the me to being able to consider context,
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: to be able to consider the position of the other
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: doesn't mean I have to agree with it, but at
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: least to have a little distance between my ego and
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: my feelings. and a wider context, which is what we
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: hope kids achieve, you know, as they realize, oh, gee whiz,
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: mom is just a person. And sometimes things don't go well,
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: but most of the time it goes pretty well. But
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: it seems like we lose that very quickly and very,
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: very easily.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: So it's really interesting that you bring ego into it,
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: because part of what I talk about in My book,
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: The Psychodynamics of Social Networking, is how social networking, not
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: all of it, but much of it is an ego based.
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: And I mean that in the technical sense and not
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: necessarily narcissistic, but an I based function. And it's not
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: just an ego function. It's kind of an exposed outward ego. So,
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: you know, the technical idea is that the ego looks
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: inward and mediates one's own feelings and one's internal life,
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: makes assessments about the external world and mediates between those
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: two things. When you go on social media, it's like
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: that tipping out part, the part that's looking at everybody
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: else and showing up for everybody else is amplified because
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: that's the nature of the platform, right? It's kind of performative.
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: It's public. It's an ego expression. So not only does
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: that mean that you might be looking in a little
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: bit less because you're so hypervigilant to how you're being
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: perceived or what you want to express, but the ego
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: is also the psychic body that does defense, right? It
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: wants to protect itself from being wrong, right? Or even
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: from being perceived in a complex way, you know, because
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: it wants to be okay. So you're out there, you're
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: amplifying that out there-ness and you're defensive while you're out
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: there because you're so invested in how you're showing up
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: in a particular way. And social media does that so
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: well because it's about gesture right it's it's not about
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: complexity it's about saying i'm with or i'm against that's
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: what it can handle um that you really get stuck
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: in an identification with the outward facing part of the
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: ego which is amongst the most vulnerable and defended part
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: of ourselves which obviously can also launch into attack you
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: know attack often comes from vulnerability not just you know aggression.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Wow, there's just so much in there. There's like all
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: these points I want to unpack. But maybe just to
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: be with that kind of defendedness for a second, you know,
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: one of the things about the depressive position, which I
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: love how you explained that, by the way, that was
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: just so clear and so great and nice to revisit
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Melanie Klein with her very expressive, colorful metaphors. But one
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: of the things about the depressive position is that we
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: have to give up the fantasy of omnipotence. Think that
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: that fantasy of omnipotence goes along with outrage. You know,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: that's a kind of inflated state to put it in
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: some Jungian language a little bit, to recognize that, you know,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: being very angry makes us feel puffed up, it makes
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: us feel big, it makes us feel it makes us
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: feel safe. So I think there's something about outrage that
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: makes us feel safe. And it is very much in
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: that kind of paranoid schizoid place.
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah. And I think that that safeness, you know, and
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: then you bring in projection, right? And probably all sorts
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: of other tools as well. I won't go into because
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: we've had enough on the table, right? But you protect
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: yourself by, in a sense, putting all the bad stuff
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: out there, right? So they are the bad people. We
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: are fine. And then there's this kind of And I
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: say the we too, because then we have the algorithms, right?
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: So then we have the filter bubbles. So the social
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: media goes and then creates this kind of automated confirmation
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: bias in a sense. You're exposed to the other side,
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: but you're also, you know, you get a lot of
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: feedback from the split pieces, if that makes any sense, right?
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: I do want to say, I mean, I'd like to
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: dip back into the depths in a minute, but I
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: do just want to quickly say that I, I think
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: I have a partial answer to how we have conversations
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: like this on social media, which is to avoid pronouncements,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: but to share long form writing. So for example, I
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: think your blog post, which I found on Twitter, really
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: helped me think more about this. But I had to
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: click on it and then spend, you know, 10 or
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: 15 minutes reading it. So I had to slow down.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: I couldn't just react really quickly to some emotional statement
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: that someone made. I had to slow down. I had
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: to read it. It's not a light read. It's well
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: worth reading. And that required me to go from reactivity
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: to response and to engage and to try to understand.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Even if I didn't agree with everything you said, I
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: was thinking, huh, well, that's really interesting.
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: Yes, but you had to choose that. So I agree
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: with you. I think things like Twitter can be really
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: great for signposting. So I'm not gonna go into nuance here,
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: but I'm gonna signpost you to where there's some room
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: for nuance, which is what both of those blog posts
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: were about. But you had to choose not just to
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: click it, but to read it, because oftentimes they're re-shared
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: and people are saying, great. And actually there were some
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: people that had re-shared it. I thought you definitely didn't
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: read the first one because if you had, you probably
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: wouldn't have re-shared it. So you, Lisa, had to make
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: the choice to be impacted by what I wanted to say.
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: And maybe some of that capital was earned because we
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: were on Twitter and we've encountered each other's content there.
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: So maybe that's a plus for it. But I think
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: on the platform itself, it's still very hard to find
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: a way that it can help us do that, right?
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: Without in a sense, leave it. It helps us be reactive.
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: It doesn't really help us say, oh, let me ponder that,
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: you know, other person's point of view that makes me
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: feel quite activated for a little while rather than type
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: off a quick response.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: It feels like, One of the dilemmas here is how
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: do we as human beings overcome our essential needs? wiring
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: you know we're wired for emotional reactivity if you're sitting
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: in a movie theater in the summer in sandals and
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: somebody steps on your toe accidentally trying to get past
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: you to another seat you're going to yelp stand up
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: and go hey you know what's what are you doing
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: So how do, and the social media is exacerbating by
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: its very nature, our tendency to be reactive. So how
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: do we notice our feelings, name the feeling, and then
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: move into a more reflective and choiceful, responsive space? That's
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: a lot to ask.
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: It is, and it's an uphill battle. The metaphor that
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: works for me and has worked for me for a
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: long time as the fast food metaphor and kind of
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: linking it to evolutionary psychology, right? So it used to
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: be that we would have to run around, right? And
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: capture this animal, right? Take it to pieces, share it,
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: save it to get everything we need, that fat, that protein,
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: that carbohydrate, right? You can get all of that in
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: a bacon double cheeseburger, you know, which I'm a fan of.
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: Every now and then, right? But not only do you
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: get everything that you need without working for it, like
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: today with a smartphone, you can just press a button.
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: There's not even an exchange of value that you can see.
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: And then you can have that bacon cheeseburger come to
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: your door immediately, right? So the bar to access what
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: we're evolutionarily leaning into, you know, our first step is super,
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: super low. Bacon double cheeseburger isn't such a terrible thing
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: to have now and then, but you can't live on it.
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: And the problem isn't so much that social media offers
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: us relational donuts, I call them. So it's like the
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: fast food of relationality. It's just you can't live off that.
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: It's fine to like engage with it.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: But then have the real conversations elsewhere. But it's the
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: same problem, Deb. Right. It's like you've got to, you know,
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: if you're comfort eating, if you're not exercising, you're living
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: off bacon cheeseburgers. Nobody's going to do it for you.
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: You just someday realize how miserable you're feeling. And you
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: think I need to be eating healthier food and exercising
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: and contravening every biological desire in my body to, you know,
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: eat a salad. Well, maybe I'm speaking for myself more
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: than others, but we're set to be negatively biased by evolution.
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: We are set to be more aware of those that
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: are against us than those that are for us. We
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: are set to regress negatively. to making subjects objects when
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: we're under threat. So what we have to bring to
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: bear ourselves is hard because it works against that programming.
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: And I think the first step is realizing how sick
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: it makes you feel. And I think some people are
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: beginning to do that, that they get the doom scrolling,
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: that they get the sense of nausea and overload and decide,
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: I need to come away from this.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: I've been thinking since the start of our conversation about
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: the idea of affective ventilation versus a kind of hyper-aroused inflammation.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: And that in order for us to actually vent our emotions,
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: there has to be another person who's co-regulating. If we
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: go to our analyst and we're distraught, we don't want
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: the analyst to start screaming with us or planning the
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: demise of our enemy and really cheering us on. Much
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: like that parental relationship that you were leaning into, Deb,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: we need the other to be giving us full attention
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: and to be regulating themselves in a way that we
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: can't find so that the fire actually dies down. So
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: we still have that impulse to bring our distress somewhere.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: But there's something missing, of course, in social media. There
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: isn't a regulated other who's making eye contact. And I
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: think more importantly, when we think about it culturally, There
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: is a lack of an internal other that even whatever
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: people are fantasizing Twitter is or fantasizing that Facebook is,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: there doesn't seem to be an adequate internal representation as
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: if they were speaking to an other that is co-regulating them.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: So there's societally a missing piece that has to do
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: with the great problem of alienation in the culture. So
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: I take your meaning that we're constantly self-stimulating or we're
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: in a fantastical inflammatory place. What puts the brakes on anywhere?
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: And I think what you're saying is there's an object
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: relations problem that's going on inside of people and then
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: therefore the ego has to stand up in its place.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: And the example that I would use is once in
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: a while I'll have an analisand who had an absent
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: primary caregiver or perhaps mom was wildly mentally ill. And
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: then later on in life, they'll exhibit strange behaviors like
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: not brush their teeth, although they could be wildly successful
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: in other realms because there isn't an internal figure that's
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: reminding them, well, take care of yourself or it's time
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: to go to bed or you have to brush your
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: teeth or you have to take a shower. And so consequently,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: the ego has to step in and has to decide
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: to do those self-caring and regulatory processes. So again, in
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: that larger sense, there's something missing inside of Western culture
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: that I think we're seeking when we're going onto social
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: media in all its ways. We're seeking an other, and
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: the absence of that makes us wildly vulnerable to this hyperarousal.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: And saying all of that, I'm not sure what the
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: solution might be yeah because there's so many implications for
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: that well.
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: I've got like three three things bouncing around let me
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: just get them out and you can kind of choose
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: which one so it's stimulated me because i'm thinking about
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: that like i make a distinction between recognition and validation
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: so recognition is what you're talking about so good enough
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: recognition from the primary caretaker enables one to build an
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: ego that can recognize itself and make those kinds of
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: decisions about brushing teeth, right? Or coming off the social media. So,
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: you know, if you're starting from, say, a privileged position
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: of having had good enough recognition, you don't need it.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: You don't fall into a narcissistic requirement, right? You're less
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: likely to fall into a narcissistic requirement, which comes from
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: the wound of not having recognition, right? It's not about self-love.
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: It's about feeling empty inside and needing. And when people
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: go to social media, they get validation often, but they
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: don't get recognition. You can only get, and that's just
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: like a surface level thing, right? It's just a like,
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: a share, more followers. That's the donuts, right? That's the
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: one thought. The second thought is this thing about subjects
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: and objects. So from the social brain theory, I don't
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: know if you've heard of Dunbar's number. He's come up
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: with this idea that we pretty much have room for
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: about 150 relationships in our brain. So people that you
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: know enough that you could basically trust them or not
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: trust them, right? You lent them food last winter, you
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: run out of food this coming winter, you can trust
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: enough that they're going to lend you food, right? It's
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: sort of a hunter-gatherer era kind.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Of a thing.
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: We can sustain about 150 complex enough relationships. So when
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: you're on social media, obviously there are thousands. So that
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: subject relating becomes object relating. It's just too many to
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: be able to retain that state.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: What that takes me to is how human beings have
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: gone from hunter-gatherer, small societies, villages, where we all kind
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: of know who's who in our village, to cities and
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: city-states and nations and empires, where what seems to be
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: the glue that holds it all together is a belief system.
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: The belief might be democracy. It might be some sort
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: of imperative from the deity to do this or that
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: or the other. It might be lots of different things.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: And I'm wondering if there is any sort of governing
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: mythology that underlies social media, the kind of connectivity, any
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: kind of morality there. that people have as a common understanding?
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: Or is it just a free-for-all?
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: So the third thing Joseph asked, you know, is there,
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: can there be an internalized other in this? And in
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: a sense, when you have someone like Elon Musk running Twitter,
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: literally a reactive person running a platform, that's very, very problematic.
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: That's what makes it more problematic than it was. So
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: I just want to say that out loud so we
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: don't lose number three from the previous question. And Deb,
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: I think the problem is, we'll kind of be talking
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: about identity a little bit here because I think it
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: would be great if there were like a Joseph Campbell-esque,
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: you know, myth theme that we could all share that
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: would unite us through something like social media. And I
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: think essentially there is, I really do think that it
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: is a lot to do with the fault in the
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: platforms that actually platforms can be developed to, increase togetherness
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: more than they currently do. I do have a hope
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: for that. But I think people have their own stories
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: and those stories are about identities. And I think that's
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: why this issue around Israel and Palestine is so emotive
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: because particularly today in 2023, when we are more aware
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: than ever of race, religious difference, colonialism, injustice, white privilege, right?
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: Like all of this kind of set, like if you
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: want to find one issue that ticks off all of
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: the emotive issues in today's world where people have a
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: real beef, like I think a real right to have
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: a beef with the consequences of, you know, post-colonialism, consequences
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: of colonialism. And then it's like here, this has all
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: the elements, right? So rather than moving to kind of
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: a universally shared story where there are oppressors and victims
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: in time contextualized situations and that it goes back and
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: forth and we can go way, way back to find that,
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: it becomes one's preferred story of injustice, in a sense,
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: that one is identified with, and then collects all of
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: the evidence to double down on that story. And I
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: think a Often that's a personal story that's then projected
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: onto a global story, which is also harmful because in
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: some ways it means you forget the actual people on
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: the ground who are suffering from what's happening because you're
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: so involved in your identification with that suffering from your own.
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: And they're not mutually exclusive things, but I think that's
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: what's so activating about it, right? So if you feel
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: that you have been oppressed and if you feel that
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: you have been oppressed, particularly in a post-colonial world, and
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: you see what's going on there, then you're going to
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: have a very strong, very righteous story about that. And
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: that's going to inform everything. And while I think essentially
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: bare bones, those things are shared or should be shared
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: in some kind of a way, because that's just the
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: experience of humanity. And I think we can all look
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: back ancestrally and find evidence, you know, on both sides
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: sounds so quite haphazard and dumb, but I think you
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: know what I'm kind of getting at. We can find
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: evidence of, you know, Aggression and victimization. We're really stuck
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: in an incapacity to work through the very real consequences
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: of all that stuff because we're just continuing the repetition
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: of the split narrative.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: You know, I remember Chloe Valdore once who we've had
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: on the podcast. She said something on Twitter. She said something,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: but I really appreciated it and remembered it. She said
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: something like, when are we going to acknowledge that we've
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: all oppressed and victimized each other? Something like that. That unfortunately,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: this goes along with being human. You know, that groups
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: at various times, you know, that this is just, if
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: you're a student of history, I mean, people have just
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: been awful to each other throughout history. Not that we
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: shouldn't try to do better. course, we should. And I
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: do believe in a kind of evolution of norms and
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: even an evolution of consciousness. But that narrative of difference,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: rather than a narrative of universality, kind of perpetuates the problem.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: And I also was really resonating with what you said
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: about how we project our own story onto global events.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: so that sometimes we have a very deep unconscious hurt
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: that might not be related in any salient way to
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: global events, but that's what gets awakened in us in
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: this emotional reactivity. And then we're kind of in this
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: moment of identification with something that we're not even really
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: understanding that that's what we're doing. So we're, I think,
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: moving into the territory of projection a little bit.
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: And the timing is interesting, right? Because I wrote a
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: paper a while back when the Ukraine war was coming
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: out and looking at how that was being expressed over Twitter.
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: And I can't remember the full title, but I kind
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: of used the phrase careful culture in there. And what
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: I noticed happening is that people on Twitter anyway, were
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: vocally voicing support for Ukraine. And there was a lot
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: of attack about how, you It was the accusation was
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: basically this is happening in Europe. This is happening to
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: white people. And you should be upset about all the
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: stuff that's going on in the world all the time.
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: Why Ukraine?
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: So in a move for solidarity with Ukraine, people were
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: being attacked for not having expressed solidarity for a whole
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: series of other causes. Right. And I found this really
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: problematic because here in the UK, I mean, I remember
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: before the Iraq war being part of a million person
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: march to prevent invading from Iraq. And I was thinking, well,
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: I know very well that that's not true because there
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: were a million of us there who didn't want to
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: go into a non-European country. So I felt like the
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: thing that was being seen on the one hand was
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: being equated, what I said, the support for Ukraine was
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: being equated with global injustice and the way in which
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: mainstream media prefers European causes and all that stuff, righteous
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: criticism of but it's all kind of, it gets tightly
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: wound together, right? And now we have the situation in
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: the Middle East where lots and lots of people in
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: Europe are up in arms about what's going on in Palestine,
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: directly contradicts the criticism about the people that were standing
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: behind Ukraine, right? So it can't be true that if
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: you stand in solidarity with Ukraine, that you're not standing
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: in solidarity with other things. You just might not be
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: aware of those things as much. And a lot of
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: people are aware of Palestine. They're less aware of, Myanmar.
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: So it's not a fault that there's not enough sensitivity
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: for Myanmar. It's just like, if it's local to you,
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: if you know about it, you're more likely to be involved.
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: But on social media, it becomes yet more evidence of
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: post-colonial global inequity, which I think is really what's being
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: worked through a lot of that kind of accusation. And
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: because the platform is is gesticular because it's a gesture
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: because you're putting a Ukrainian flag or a Palestinian flag
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: or an Israeli flag. It doesn't say anything about your activism.
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: You know, you could be doing all sorts of stuff, right?
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: All around the world, but somebody seeing the gesture, they're
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: making the symbolic equation of the gesture with global injustice
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: and then perhaps attacking you when it happens exactly the
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: other way around, the other way around as well. You know,
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: how can you stand for this when they did this? And,
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: you know, then you're back into paranoid schizoid again.
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: So I'm wondering if that might be a thread that
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: runs through it. I'm back on your statement about shattering
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: the narrative, you know, the splitting, the binary thinking. And
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: so I'm trying to think, okay, is there something, a
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: substrate here? And maybe the substrate, at least possibly, is
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: a concern about inequity, a concern about injustice. And a
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: desire for unity, a desire for, you know, something that
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: would be more uniting. That underneath it, that that's, you know,
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: what the wish is. And we don't know how to
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: get it. We don't know how to achieve that. Because
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: it gets so concretized that you're on one side versus
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: the other. It's out there. So you have to take
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: a side.
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: That's really beautifully put. And I think that was really like,
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: I feel quite touched by you saying that because I
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: feel like what you're talking about is a wound, right?
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: You're talking about a wound of injustice, right? And a
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: will to heal under all that shit that's flying around
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: is a wound to heal. But you have to get
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: past blame. And there's a lot of blame, a lot
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: of blame. You know, and I think about, you know,
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: a married couple or an unmarried couple, a couple, right?
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: And one of them has an affair and then the
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: couple has to recover from that affair. At some stage,
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: if you want to recover from that affair, you're going
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: to have to relinquish blame, even if the bad stuff
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: was done, right? If you're going to recover. And I
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: think it's very hard to recover, sorry, to relinquish blame.
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: And I'm not suggesting that can happen in this moment,
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: you know, with what's going on. This isn't the moment, right?
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: This is a very different moment. But if there's going
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: to be a progress, it's getting in touch with exactly
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: what you're describing, which is an acknowledgement of being wounded
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: an acknowledgement of a will to heal, so much so
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: that you're willing to have a seat at the table
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: and start from today. Because, you know, we can't start
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: in 1948. We can't start in 1933, right? We can't
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: start in AD1, which this before that, right? Or AD70
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: or whatever, you know, we have to acknowledge just as
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: we've done. Well, we haven't done it particularly well. what
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: our countries are and what they emerged from and how
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: we understand what we've inherited through history. You can't take
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: it back, but you have to start from today at
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: some point. And I think that requires so much.
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: It's hard to go to the feelings of that people hurt,
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: people are wounded. It's hard.
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: And there's so often loss under anger, isn't there? And
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: we know this from therapy. You sit with that anger
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: and you say, what's under that anger? And almost invariably,
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: these deep tears of loss arrive.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: And I think the hard part, you know, certainly in
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: the consulting room around really feeling the grief and the
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: loss is that we feel helpless, you know, that this
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: is what happened. Something awful really happened, whether it's a
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: marriage or a force of nature or financial reversal or
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: a And we can't do anything about it. As you say,
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: we have to start from today. And feeling the helplessness
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: and the confusion of all those uncomfortable feelings versus righteous
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: wrath against, I'm going to get the government, they're going
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: to pay for this, or whoever that other might be
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: in such a scenario. Anger is activating. Now I feel better.
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: I feel more powerful now. I'm back in my ego
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: and it's delusional, but I feel like I can do
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: something about it.
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: And then what happens? You create the context for the
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: next repetition of the breakdown, right? Then the pendulum swings exactly.
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: So what you need, I guess, maybe Joseph, you were
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: asking a little bit about this and we've been searching
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: for it. In a sense, symbolically, you need an adult
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: who can mediate. Who says, yeah, you know, like you do,
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: like you do in, you know, really good group therapy,
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: really good couples work, really good individual work where you're
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: actually mediating just between the superego and the ego or
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: whatever you want to call it. Right. And sadly, we
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: really have very few adults now. I mean, they're not
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: really adults in charge and that's very scary too, because nobody's,
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: you know, and it's very difficult and I'm not a,
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: you know, I can't speak for global society in the
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: way I can for individual psychotherapy, right? But you need
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: a figure who can hold the depressive position for others, right?
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: Who says, I'm not going to satisfy your bloodlust with
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: bombs right now. And the fury that that will produce
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: and the pressure, the person who identifies when you've had
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: a pattern over and over and over again, and you're
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: sick of it, well, we're just going to bomb them
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: and they're going to buy the border. No, we're just
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: producing a whole new generation of people to hate us, right? Okay,
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: this was heinous, but we really need to stop and rethink. Sadly,
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: we don't have a figure like that. It's very difficult
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: in the global situation.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: It is. And as you were talking, I was thinking
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: that there is one adult in the room all the time,
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: which is the dream maker. That from a Jungian standpoint,
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: that there is a corrective, equilibrating impulse at the center
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: of the personality that is trying to come forward in
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: this kind of symbolic place. Whether or not that's dismissed
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: or minimized, of course, is one of the challenges. But
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: I do think that dreams are trying to compensate from
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: these massive deficits, whether that's brought on by the culture
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: or circumstance or character disorders, there is constantly a corrective process.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: Why that does or doesn't have enough impact is always
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: interesting to me. I mean, every night we're getting these
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: little corrective slaps on the wrist. Why they work or
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: don't work is always interesting to me in one sense.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: That said, I wanted to take just a little bit
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: of a pivot because we're talking a lot about the content.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: that shows up in Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all these different platforms,
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: and how the ego can develop attitudes in order to
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: evaluate the veracity of the content or self-regulate in our
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: own fantasies that are revoked by images and content. But
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: I've been sitting here asking myself, what is the archetype
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: that makes us even want to use Twitter or Facebook, etc.,
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: And I found myself thinking about the archetype of gossip,
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: which is ancient. And in its most harmless sense, you know,
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: everybody going to the river to wash the clothes. And
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: there's no formal mechanism for news or even information about
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: the community or whether it's danger or entertainment. So there
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: is something really deep inside of us that wants to
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: get together and gossip in a way.
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: And I was.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: While we were chatting, I was looking at the etymology
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: of the word gossip. It wasn't easy to be. And,
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: you know, it comes from the word God-sibling, which really
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: means God-parent. And so the feeling is that we would
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: come together in these informal family networks and share news
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: and speak in this kind of familiar way. So there
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: is something inside of us that does want to pretend
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: to that we're kind of coming to the fence between
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: neighbors with coffee and gossiping about the things that are
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: happening in the world. And I don't know that that's
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: good or bad, but I think it's ancient and it's
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: an impulse. So it speaks to a need, I think, that, again,
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: this kind of alienation in the culture has produced. I
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: don't know anybody who can take a cup of coffee
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: over to their neighbor once a day and sit down
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: and gossip with your buddy. I mean, that's all just
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: kind of disappeared. So that impulse, I think, goes underground
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: and it's seeking some form of expression. So when something
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: like Twitter pops up and says, you know, here it is,
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: this is your 20 minutes of chatting with your neighbor
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: or something like that, it tickles something very, very deep
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: inside of us. That is not inherently good or bad,
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: but it is, I think, a primal need.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Well, that's really interesting, Joseph, because I'll just say quickly
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: that gossip, you know, part of the function of gossip,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: it's been theorized, is to sort of police norms. So someone,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: you know, your neighbor buys, you know, a super fancy
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: car or something, and everyone's, you know, gossiping about how
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: gauche that is or something.
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: So, and there is a way that that is exactly
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: what these platforms do is kind of police norms about
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: what you're allowed to say or think or that kind
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: of thing in a way that I think is kind
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: of destructive, but that's like maybe for another podcast. But
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: what were you going to say, Aaron?
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: Something very similar that I think gossip has a, it
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: has a defensive quality, right? So you get your team
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: around you to kind of like get at the other
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: person and get agreement on. But I think to bring
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: it back to the Dunbar's number thing, I think if
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: you are in a, in a community of 150 or
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: fewer people, and anybody who lives in a small village
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: will know this, or even a small community, gossip is
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: regulated by personal knowledge as well, right? So you might
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: hear that this person's got, you know, they've got a
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: new car, right? But you might also know that they
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: donate like half of their earnings to some sort of
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: charity or do like loads of volunteer work and that
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: they just have a thing, you know, like you would
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: regulate through personal knowledge that gossip. So I think Twitter
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: has one element of that, which is the defensive, news-spreading,
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: othering quality without the knowing that would regulate it in
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: a smaller community.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: But I'd like to be willing to lift the malice
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: out of the archetype of gossip. Because if we think
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: about it in ancient communities, it could take you five
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: years to figure out that a war might have happened.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: in another part of the country. So gossip is an
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: informal news network where people aren't necessarily always looking to
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: wound each other, but they're also just talking about the news,
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: that this happened and that person did this and this
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: person became ill and this person is doing one thing
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: or another. So I think if we were to take
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: the intent for malice out then I think it becomes
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: just a little bit more interesting. What is it that
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: we need as human beings?
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not implying malice. And this is actually a
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: kind of social science theory about gossip. I mean, actually
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: norms need to be policed. And I agree with you.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: I think another function of gossip is just exchange of information.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: So it's just an aspect of gossip that there's a
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: kind of.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Policing of norms. But I don't actually necessarily see that
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: as malicious. I think there's some utility to it.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: Sure, but I think we're concerned about the malicious part
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: of it in terms of social media.
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: And I also don't know that social media is gossip
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: because there isn't somebody talking back to you, not really.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: But I think that it captures that archetypal dynamic, which
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: is why it's compelling.
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: I think there's, I would agree, So I want to
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: think about intention and consequence, right? So I think that
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: there is a malicious consequence to gossip. Can be both,
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: like regular gossip and, yeah. And I want to bring
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: the ego back in. So what happens when somebody is
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: gossiping about their neighbor's new car? Is there possibly defending
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: themselves from their own envy for that new car, right?
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: Wanting to denigrate the other because they don't have a new,
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: car trying to get people on so it's not malicious
• 49:22
  Speaker 5: consciously it's a little bit unconsciously again in that uh
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: especially the kleinian idea again if you envy something you
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: want to attack it right but thinking about on the
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: as you're talking maybe on the broader scale twitter you
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: know all of the torturing I've been doing to myself
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: about whether I should tweet or what I should tweet
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: or how I should tweet over the past month, doesn't
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: matter a lick, right? Like when you think, okay, so
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: we're gossiping about a war going on in the Middle East,
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: you know, I'm not going to change anybody's mind in
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: Palestine or Israel. And that's when I really kind of
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: had this awakening thinking, wow, I'm spending so much time
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: thinking about this for a contribution that may land as
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: heavily as talking to my neighbor about whether this person
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: You know, like what is the end game of working
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: ourselves up when we're just having an opinion on something
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: we have no control over? It's egoic again, right? It's
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: I am telling you about myself because of how I'm
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: angry about this, right? That would be the ego, the
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: unconscious ego motivation.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: But I'm glad you took it there. because I wanted to,
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I've been thinking about that too. And, you know, for example,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: you're saying you felt like you had to post something.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: And I think, you know, universities have been going through this, right?
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: Universities feel like they have to make a statement and
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: they're in this pickle because, you know, what if you
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: make the wrong statement? So, and I think about, you know,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: why do we need to put up a Ukrainian flag
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: or any flag? Or why do we need to change
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: our social media profile to show what we stand for when,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: as you're saying, it's not going to have any impact.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: And to go back, I think, a little bit to
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: what you were saying before, Deb, about the wound is,
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: does speaking out in outrage and posting something on social media,
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: does it help us defend against feelings of helplessness? Because
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: when I read about what's going on in the I
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: am actually so overcome with horror and grief and, and helplessness.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: You know, that there's such extreme suffering, it's hard to
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: let it in, you know, a photograph of a mother
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: cradling a dead child.
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: It's impossible to let it in.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, how do I look at that and then
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: go on with my day? And it may be that posting,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: you know, something, making a strong statement on Social media
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: kind of makes me feel like I'm doing something. Ultimately,
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to metabolize these feelings that really can't be
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: metabolized of kind of horror at the suffering.
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: I want to jump in here for a second and
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: kind of take a step or two back. There's a
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: whole theory in evolutionary psychology that humans really evolve language
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: in order to gossip. We need to know what our
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: neighbor's doing and, you know, why does she do this
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: and what's the matter with him and so on. As
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: a way of reinforcing social norms through, as you said, Aaron,
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: through personal knowledge so that we have a cohesive society,
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: that there is the desire for unification, cooperation, et cetera, which,
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: of course, helped us evolve. And its opposite is competition, right?
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: and all the rest of it. What I'm wondering is
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: whether there's a substrate here to the gossip function of
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: social media, where there is some intent to get to
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: a common thread, but that we really cannot translate something
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: that was meant for small groups with personal knowledge into
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: something global, massive, where there is absolutely no personal connection
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: and can't be a personal connection, but that the substrate
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: is a desire for a common thread, a desire for
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: some kind of place of sameness and unity. And it's
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: a false effort in terms of social media and what
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: social media can do but the underlying urge is perhaps healthier,
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: more connected.
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: I think that's totally right. And when you look at,
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: and this isn't particularly my area, but when you look
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: at where there have been successes around dialogue, there are
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: almost always very small groups of people, whether it's interracial
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: groups around sexual orientation or gender or around transgenerational trauma, right?
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: You're talking about a group of maybe 12 people working
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: very hard over a long period of time to hear
• 54:14
  Speaker 5: each other and to be impacted by each other. And A,
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: I think you're totally right. It's inappropriate and won't happen
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: on social media. But B, social media is private enterprise, right?
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: So it's not, the intent isn't that anyway. The intent
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: is engagement. So you sell more donuts than you do salads.
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: They're not interested in selling, right, salads. Which is why,
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: I mean, I'm just like, I'm so sad about Elon
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: Musk because I think he bought this platform that had
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: such potential that he's just throwing into the wind, right?
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: So I don't think you can do the small scale
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: stuff on Twitter, but I think you probably can do something.
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: I mean, there's some really smart people. If your intention
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: was to, you know, was to create dialogue, you could
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: create algorithms or ways in which a platform engaged that
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: would at least lean into that more than it does.
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: Capitalism has something to answer for, right? And just because
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: it's a business, right? I think you can have a
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: business and it can be humane as well. But way back,
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: I mean, my book's 10 years old now, but when
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: I was looking into Facebook 10 years ago, it was
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: interesting because what they called maintained relationships, so you could
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: have 500 friends on Facebook, but maintained relationships were generally
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: under 130 people. So right inside Dunbar's area. So those
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: were people that you regularly... send messages to, talk to,
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: kept up with, and then you'd be all these extraneous people.
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: You know, you can imagine a situation where you build
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: small hubs, you know, and it's funny because I always
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: use Israel and Palestine as an example when I was
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: talking about my book in the early days. Like, what
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: if on Facebook you lived in Israel and you had
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: to have a certain percentage of your friends come, you know,
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: that are Palestinian and vice versa? That was part of
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: the algorithm, right? Or that if you're a U.S. Republican,
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: you had to have so many Democrats in your feed. Now,
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: I'm not saying that would fix it because the medium
• 56:12
  Speaker 5: is still problematic. But if you could create a way
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: that enhanced curiosity and dialogue, maybe it was an opt-in something, right?
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: I think there are peripheral ways in which you can
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: bring elements of that desire in.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: I'd love to see someone develop that network.
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, me too. And I wish people in our jobs,
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: I wish depth therapists... we're more at the table in
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: the development of different kinds of technology, because I think
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: we have a lot to offer in relation to what
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: intersubjectivity means and what the difference between recognition and validation
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: is and how we might be able to inform how
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: that works.
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: So this is a call out to all developers listening.
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: Call us.
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: We do that all the time in the consulting room of,
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: It's not just what, you know, you, whoever our client
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: might be, are doing, but why you're doing it and
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: how you're doing it. What's the process underneath of the
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: old trope of, you know, what it's about is not
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: what it's about.
• 57:18
  Speaker 5: And that's kind of what needs to happen now on
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: the social media side of the, well, actually on both sides, right?
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: So on the kind of geopolitical side. We know the
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: content narrative of what it's about, that people will have
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: very different opinions where they put their emphasis. But under that,
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: what do people need? Because then there's got to be
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: tomorrow so you can spend the rest of the time
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: totting up blame and responsibility and accountability. But where are
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: you going to live tomorrow? And how are you going to...
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: Most people really do want to be able to wake
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: up in the morning have a job to go to,
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: have food and water and all of Maslow's stuff, right?
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: And not be in danger. But there's a lot of
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: generational baggage and accountability. Germany is actually a really good example.
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: The work that Germany did after the Second World War
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: to integrate its atrocities into its education system and come
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: to terms with it. it's really remarkable. And it's done
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: it in a way that lots of other countries haven't
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: managed to integrate their colonial histories or their history of
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: old or continuing atrocities into a kind of reasonable, pragmatic,
• 58:38
  Speaker 5: thoughtful process to move forward with.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Germany sort of achieved the depressive position.
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: I think so.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: Not that there still aren't pockets of neo-Nazis in Germany.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: I don't want to lie over that. But I want
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: to maybe bring up another concept that I think is
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: related to all of this, which is this idea of co-rumination.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: My understanding from the research is that in general, when
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: we talk to each other about our problems, we tend
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: to to feel better. There's one form of talking to
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: each other about our problems that makes us feel worse.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: The research around this really noted the propensity of adolescent
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: females to to do this with one another. So they
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: get together and they talk about their problems and they
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: commiserate with each other to an extent where they just
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: kind of spin each other up. But I mean, I
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: think all of us can relate to this. And I
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: think this maybe is happening on social media. I'd be
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: curious if you would agree with that. But one of
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: you said before, Joseph, I think it was you, that
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: when you go to your analyst and you're complaining about something,
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: you don't want your analyst to you know, start, you know,
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: yelling at you with the Oh, my God, that's terrible.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: What you want is that you want the creation of
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: this space, where your feelings can be heard, recognized, held,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: you don't want to be told, well, that's not a problem,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: you know, we'll fix that right away, right? You don't
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: want to go right to fix it mentality, you want,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: you want capaciousness, you want space to have that reaction,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: but you don't want someone to join in with you. Because,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: you know, that's like throwing gasoline on the fire. And
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: it can feel good initially. It can feel really good.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: But it just deepens the experience. It doesn't help you
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: achieve a kind of broader perspective on it. So I
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: think that we can really see that in social media.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: And sometimes you go there because you want someone to
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: kind of commiserate with you about whatever the thing is.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: But if you just stay in that loop, you don't
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: achieve any kind of transcendent position on the problem.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I've been thinking, you know, like lately
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: Twitter is kind of like, it's all look how bad, right?
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: So look how bad, look how bad, and look how bad, right? Yeah,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: that's really bad, look how bad. And that is a co-ruminative, right?
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: As you said, putting gasoline on the fire situation. And
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: I'm thinking about, I think, and you may not agree
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: so much clinically, but when you identify yourself It's one
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: of the few areas where I think interrupting, say, is
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 5: an important thing. So when you identify a neurotic response
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: to something that you're familiar with with someone, you know,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: what you don't do is just give them space to
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: pile on themselves with it, right? So let's pause for
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: a second. Let's stop for a second. You're winding yourself up, right?
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: Like particularly when you know them pretty well and you
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: can spot it, right? So you're not correcting it, but
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: you are kind of saying that this is not a
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: productive use of emotional energy. I think the opposite is
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: what's happening online. online is that whenever anybody tries to regulate,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: they are shut down. It was funny, in my experience
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: that I was writing about, you know, I said this word,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: I said in one tweet, you know, we shouldn't condemn
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: people for understanding. Understanding is not justification. And someone said,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: you know, you're justifying. And then someone else, and then
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: I said, well, look at the tweet. I literally said,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: understanding and understanding is not justifying. How can you rationalize terrorism?
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: And there was a willingness to read it, not as
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: I had put it, right? So that's actually an attachment
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: to the amplified, like, I want to be angry with you, right?
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 5: I don't want to hear you saying, pause, regulate down.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: I'm angry. I want to be angry. And now I'm
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: going to show you loads of evidence why I should
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: be angry. So I was getting loads of videos about
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: how bad Hamas is. And I'm like, you don't need
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: to show me. I know how bad Hamas is, right?
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: But can we stop saying how bad it is and go,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: and obviously not in that case, and obviously not on Twitter,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: and obviously not when you're in a state of trauma.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: I mean, there's a whole lot of obviously not. I'm
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: not asking war combatants to stop and empathize with each other.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: I wish they would stop, right? But you just have
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: to stop the damage first. But you do have to
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: stop the self-perpetuating intensity of emotional contagion. That is very problematic.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: It seems to me that we don't do a good
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: job in the public sphere or social media sphere, of
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: separating feeling from thinking. And that happens between individuals all
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: the time, too, of that the recognition is you're upset,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: you feel bad, it's disturbing, and then it gets conflated
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: with thinking. And if you are disturbed and upset and angry,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: then you must be right, that that's correct, that the X, Y,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: Z factor is bad and wrong. versus I hear that
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: you're upset and angry and distressed. Now let's see, once
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: the feelings have been recognized, let's see if we can
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: understand this. Take a step back. Let's see how we
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: can actually relate to it. But it's very easy for
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: people to conflate recognition and validation. Very, very easy. We
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: slip into it all the time.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's the fallacy of emotional reasoning, right? If
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: you feel it, it must be true.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: I'm thinking about what I always find very helpful is
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: Jung's conception of kind of being paralyzed, I was going
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: to say possessed by a complex, right?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: So, you know, and I think that's what happens. You're
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: identified with this complex, you're possessed by it, and you
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 5: need to be outside of it to do what you're
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 5: asking people to do, Deb, or what I'm asking people
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 5: to do.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: And what's happening is we have a promotion of identification
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 5: with complex. So everybody's got their own complex. They're fully
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: identified with it. And they're going online, possessed by the complex.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: And I guess you could go archetypal on it because
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 5: of where this particular conflict comes from. Then we go archetypal.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 5: So you're culture complex, archetypal complex, and possessions are very dangerous.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 5: I think this is, and I hope to be more
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 5: hopeful than I am in this moment, but I think
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: when you have identification issues, with a complex on a
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: global scale is when you really have major world moments, right?
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: I think that that's what the first and second world
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: war was about. That's what slavery was about. That was
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: colonialism was about, right? This kind of mass identification with
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: a complex. So you don't even see the complex because
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 5: you're it in the capacity to have an observing ego,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 5: experiencing a complex is a whole different thing, but you
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: have to let go of that identification in people's, are
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: very reluctant to do that because then you're back in
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: depressive to kind of mix models, right?
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: Well, and the models do mix.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: Thank goodness. And that's the same thing. Look at psychoanalysis, right?
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: It's just like identified with the person, the school, you
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: can't see the perfect resonances on the other side because
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: you're so identified with whether it's Jung or Klein or
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: Freud or whatever process. It's like, we're all kind of
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: talking about the same thing. We're just using different language
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: and have different affinities. You know, let's get over it.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: I say to this Jungian life, I think you do
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 5: it really well.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: We're totally down with that.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I figured that.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: To use your word, we're theoretically promiscuous.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 5: Yes. I think it's a good position.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: But speaking of Jung, and I appreciated you bringing in
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: the idea of complexes, I want to go back to
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: this idea that's come up, but we haven't really addressed
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: it head on, which is projection. Of course, that's not
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: just a Jungian idea at all. It was very important
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: to Klein, but it was also something that Jung talked
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: a lot about. And I think we kind of know
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: what that means. It's an unconscious process, right? where we
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: see what is actually inside us, we see it kind
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: of pasted on to someone or something in the environment.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: And it's totally natural, it's normal, it has an important
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: function psychologically, well, several different functions psychologically, but it's also,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: it can be dangerous. In Jungian thought, we talk about
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: projecting out shadow contents, and I think that's a lot
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: of what's going on When we're reactive, I think we
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: can think about shadow projection and social media a lot
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: so that we take those parts of ourselves that we
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: don't like. Unconsciously, we disidentify with them. We say that's
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: not me. That's them.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: And.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: There was a very important book written by Eric Neumann,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: who was an analyst and kind of a follower of
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: Jung and a colleague of Jung. They knew each other.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: And in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Neumann
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: wrote this book called Depth Psychology and a New Ethic.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: And essentially what he said is we are living in
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: a world where we can no longer manage shadow by
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: projecting it. If we continue to do this, we will
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: destroy ourselves. And Jung has this great quote that I
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: wish I could lay my hands on. Maybe I'll be
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: able to find it in a minute. He said, the
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: most important work that we can do politically is to
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: reclaim our shadow projections. So I think You know, Erin,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: to use your great concept of kind of reactivity, which
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: is basically like being in a complex. We're really in
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: this state where we're probably projecting shadow. And it can
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: be helpful to remember that, slow down and say, wait,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: what am I seeing out there? And where might that
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: be in me? Where can I find that in myself?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: I'll have to paraphrase it, of course, but you know
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: that thing about that which you don't integrate from your shadow,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: it feels like fate when it happens, right? And I
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: think that's what you're seeing, not on the personal scale,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 5: but on the kind of population level, right? And when
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: you see the content of the discourse on Twitter or
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 5: coming out of those places, it feels like a fatedness. Well,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 5: it is a fatedness because those wounds haven't been worked through.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: I think that is a really brilliant conception of his,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 5: the way in which personal shadow, if unintegrated and unacknowledged,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: will come out as if it happens outside of you. Yeah.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: So, he said, projections change the world into the replica
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: of one's own unknown face.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's not the quote you were thinking of.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: That's another great quote.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: But yeah.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about that a little bit.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: What I'm thinking of is very popular on Instagram.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: Sorry, Joseph.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: Because I think reclaiming shadow is actually very nuanced and
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: very complicated. So, for instance, if we're looking at the
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: newsreel about the war going on between Ukraine and Russia,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: and as many Americans have, feeling identified with Ukraine as
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: being victimized, There can be enormous intense feelings, aggressions, projections.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: But where I think it becomes difficult when we talk
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: about this is that the projection of shadow is not
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: an absolute correlate. It's often very nuanced. So for instance,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: if someone is outraged at Russia, does it literally mean
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: that I unconsciously want to attack my neighbor and annihilate them?
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: Because some people will look at shadow that concretely, and
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: then they'll say, well, I don't have any neighbors that
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: I want to hurt, and then they'll dismiss it. So
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: I wonder if we could talk about how to make
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: use of that idea in terms of reclaiming shadow in
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: that subtle self-inquiry. So I'm wondering what you guys think
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: about ways that people might do that.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 5: I think we're talking about wound again. and the will
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: to heal. And I think when you're in, so I
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 5: think that Ukraine is an example of what, what could
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 5: be projected onto that is like, like you say, it's
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: super nuanced and individual, you know, it could be an
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 5: abusive father, for example, it's still kind of a basic,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 5: you know, reduction, right. But it could, it could be
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: something like that. Again, it could be a value of,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: It could be an identification with the underdog, a whole
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 5: combination of those sorts of things, right? In an ideal situation,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: let's say the person has integrated their nuanced shadow as
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 5: well as one could, right? The response to the external situation,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 5: it's like the pain and the effrontery and the anger
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 5: is still present, right? but you're not drawing it into
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 5: your own, you're not using it for yourself to process
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 5: your baggage, right? So you would engage, I guess I'm
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 5: kind of talking in almost in the words of how
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 5: they talk about enlightened people, right? That enlightened people in
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 5: the kind of, you know, Eastern sense, right? They don't
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 5: stop experiencing attachments or love or pain or anger or
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 5: any of that, but they're egoless about it. So it's
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 5: just kind of, they're passing phenomena and then you make choices, right?
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 5: in relation to the passing phenomenon. I think it's a
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 5: very similar situation. You don't stop being activated. You just
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 5: don't use what's activating you as a way to process
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 5: or not process. It's actually not processing, right? It's reconfirming
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 5: your wound, right? Or reconfirming your pathological dynamic of lack
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 5: of control. And it's a very interesting question because I
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 5: think this has a lot to do with activism. Right.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 5: So and how people become activists. So a lot of
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 5: people are activists in one way or, you know, in
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 5: the more enlightened way, in a sense, or the very
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 5: more personal way. It's a personal vendetta that gets sublimated
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 5: through activism, which isn't necessarily helpful for that person. It
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: might be an outcome that pushes things along. But, you know,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 5: people get burnt out because they're identified with something personal
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 5: that they're playing out through the activism. which can look
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 5: very similar to someone who isn't identified with it and
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 5: doing the same thing. So I think that's where you
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 5: have a very subtle, like behaviorally, it might look exactly
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 5: the same, but they're just not being burnt out because
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 5: they're a little bit less identified with something personal.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 4: So in a way, maybe your question, Joseph, goes to
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: how do we identify and disentangle our personal history and
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: our personal shadow from an issue, an outer world issue?
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: and that I've done that part, but it doesn't mean
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: that we can never take a stand. You know, that then, okay,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: then everything is, you know, something to be understood and
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 4: related to. No, we do take a stand, which goes
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: to Jung's ethical stance, and that ultimately it is our
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: responsibility to make ethical decisions. And that there are no
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: really easy answers. It takes us right back to where
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: we started. Is my ethical stance reactive of that I
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: want that double cheese, whatever it was, burger, you know,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: and I'm calling it an ethical decision, but it's reactive?
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: Or is it actually an ethical decision that just, today
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: for these various other reasons and opportunity and so on.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: I'm really deciding. It calls for a lot of discrimination
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: inside oneself that's hard to achieve.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: And of course, having an ethical stance is a thoughtful process,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: which is, I think, different from what Lisa was bringing
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: forward in terms of shadow, which is shadow projection is
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: a very unconscious process. And so, It requires an almost
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: forensic attitude to be able to pick up a thread
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: of where is this going in one way or another.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: So just in terms of our listeners, I'd like to
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: offer just a few forensic clues around this. So one
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: of the things that I find really interesting, one is
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: for people to really name the feelings that they're having
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: about the outer event. So like you said, is it grief?
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: Is it fear? Is it anger? What kind of anger?
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: Is it defensive anger? Is it aggressive anger? What are
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: the fantasies around it? And I'm often very interested in
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: phrases that they will often repeat when they're talking about
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: something that's activating them. For instance, a client who talks
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: about the Ukraine-Russian conflict, and they keep saying, they're monsters.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: They're just monsters. And that happens numerous times in our conversations.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: So one of the things I might ask them to
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: do is let's just take that phrase, they're monsters, and
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: just move it out of that context. Let's just keep
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: talking about that phrase, they're monsters, and tell me where
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: else have you heard that or where else have you
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: said that or where else has that been important? And
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: sometimes that very subtle, indirect way can give us a
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: sense of some unfinished wound, as you were saying, Aaron.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: But there's something going on inside of us that we're
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: projecting onto the situation as a way of making it
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: more obvious to ourselves, as a way of kind of
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: ringing an internal alarm. That doesn't in any way, Deb,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: suggest that the outer situation doesn't involve a moral intervention.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: because there's enormous unnecessary suffering that's being inflicted for awful reasons.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: But to your point, Lisa, is if our response feels
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: disproportionate to our personal and actual danger in the situation,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: then we could rightfully become interested in And how much
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: of my own material has invaded the narrative or invaded
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: the images. So I am curious, Lisa, when you feel
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: that shadow projection is just substantially involved. I mean, how
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: do you lead somebody out of the collective fantasy and
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: into that interiority?
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think there's sort of how I
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: try to do it for myself and then there's how
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: I might try to do it for someone that I'm
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: sitting with. And I think you're, you're, you've really, you're
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: really touching into it, Joseph. Um, you know, it's, it's
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: kind of, it's sort of focusing on the feeling first
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: of all, and, and often it's the vulnerable feeling. So it's, it's, yeah,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of anger there, but you know, what,
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: what else is there and trying to forensically maybe, uh,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: research where that original wound might be for that person?
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: You know, was it back in childhood? Where was the
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: earliest version of this wound that might be, you know,
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: we're hearing echoes of it now? I was going to add,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: and I really like everything you said. You know, I
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: was talking with our friend and colleague, Putti Laro at
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: some point recently, and she used this phrase that I
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: really liked. She said, you know, you have a question
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: and then you hold it, you hold it as an
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: internal question. So if you feel like your response is disproportionate,
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: not to the situation, I mean, it's hard to imagine
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: an emotional response that's disproportionate to the situation that, you know,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: such as Ukraine or the middle East, but to my
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: own actual, uh, sort of in the moment experience, you know,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: so I'm feeling just overwhelmingly devastated and I'm here safe
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: in my home in Philadelphia that might want to give
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: me pause that I could ask myself what's going on
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: with me. And I could hold that as an internal question.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: And I think the reason I like Putty's phrase is
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: because it kind of carries with it the sense that
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: I'm going to keep on thinking about it. That I'm
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: going to let it rest there. That I'm not going
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: to have an immediate answer. But that, in other words,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: it really conveys this attitude of curiosity. And so, you know,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: in some sense, curiosity is the antidote to projection. That
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: I could get curious about myself. I could get... curious
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: about my emotional response, that that somehow might help me
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: find a way through it if I can sustain it.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: I have to sustain the curiosity and not ask myself
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: the question and then immediately think I have the answer.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: I have to live with the question.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: So the curiosity is about perhaps finding kind of internal
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: facts or psychic facts inside of ourselves and And the
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: curiosity can also be extended to find external facts. One
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: of my friends who is Jewish is, of course, incredibly
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: distraught about what's happening. But one of the ways that
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: she is proceeding is going into a very assertive study
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: of the geopolitics of the Levant to just have a
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: much larger mental context. How does one understand this kind
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: of devastating events? Not to explain it away, but just
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: as you were saying, Erin, to have larger and larger
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: frames of understanding so that at least the mind can
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: contain the images, ideas that we're hearing, that we have
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: to grow in any number of our functions to be
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: large enough to tolerate a concept and to develop a
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: concept that's large enough to at least lean into the
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: amount of data that we're receiving. So I thought that
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: was a wonderful beginning in terms of relating to the
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 3: images there. So outer facts, inner facts, and not being
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 3: satisfied with being just reactive.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that there are lots of ways to
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 4: be curious. And that that in itself is a wonderful
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 4: touchstone of, am I curious? Can I get interested? Whether
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: it's introspective curiosity or study and learning in the external world,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: curiosity is a way to really mark, where am I
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: with this?
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 3: And it's a dangerous sign when curiosity is demonized, which
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: I think goes to what you were saying, Aaron, how
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 3: dare you understand? Or how dare you communicate your interest
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: in understanding more and more and more about what's happening.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 3: So there's a threat that you better shut that down.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 3: Or I'll be gunning for you. I'll be coming after you.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 3: Or it's just so wildly provocative to suggest that we
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: penetrate the mysteries around us.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 5: Or that we might. understand something about ourselves that we're
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 5: not ready to, which I feel like that's the fear
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 5: of the curiosity, right? I might discover that this narrative
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 5: I've had about what's right in this situation isn't what
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 5: I thought it was. And then your identity is challenged, right?
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 5: So it's like, okay, so if I am what I thought,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 5: and I think that the the situation in the Middle
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 5: East is a really good one for that. I thought
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 5: I was this person because I had these beliefs and
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 5: this was my narrative. I start to get curious. I mean,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 5: spreading curiosity about what's going on or what's happening as
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 5: your friend had. It's like, okay, well, I might find
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 5: that my identity is challenged by what I'm being curious about.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 5: And then I find out that I might be kind
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 5: of a different person. I mean, this is speaking to
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 5: individuation now, isn't it? Like my inferior parts, whether that's, well,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 5: I don't want to I don't want to kind of
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 5: confuse that in there because I think it's more about
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 5: narrative and self-story, right? I might have to give up
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 5: my story about myself if I understand something that challenges
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 5: that story in a way, which is a loss that
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 5: then would need to be grieved and which is challenging
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 5: to the people around you, which is, I think, what's
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 5: happening with a lot of people, whether Jewish or Palestinian
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 5: or have leanings either way, who kind of says, well,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 5: this is where I'm coming from, but I can see
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 5: the other side, that the people who are more attached
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 5: to the identity proposition says, but you must not see
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 5: the other side because then that challenges my story about
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 5: what the other side is.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 4: Which takes us right back to Klein. That's the depressive position.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 4: If I lose my story about one side good and
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 4: one side bad, that's that paranoid schizoid position. And the
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 4: depressive position is, oh, God. I might have to modify
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 4: my story. I might lose part of my story in understanding,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: to go back to Klein, that mom has her upside
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 4: and her downside. Things are complicated.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 5: And then the consequences of that in the real world, right?
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 5: Suddenly you have different ideas, maybe, from the people, the
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 5: close people around you. And then, you know, how do
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 5: you live that difference? when there is not so much gossip,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 5: but that kind of regulating, local regulating environment that says, well,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 5: this is how we think, maybe not so much. And
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 5: then you're introducing a friction, like in a familial group, right?
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: You had mentioned something, Aaron, briefly, and Lisa, you were
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 3: leaning into it in terms of this co-rumination process, which
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 3: has to do with identity formation. And I know that
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: you have explored and written about the impact on identity
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: formation with all of these social media channels. So I'm
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: wondering if you can introduce us to a sense of
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 3: that impact, perhaps how we experienced identity formation before social
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: media became so central, how social media has changed identity formation,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 3: what's the cost, possibly even what are some of the benefits,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: just being fair-minded about it?
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 5: On the positive side, I think what social media has
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 5: enabled is for people with less conventional identity formations. So
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 5: whether that's around gender or sexual orientation or race or
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 5: neurodiversity or race, You can you can easily find people
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 5: that share that with you in a way that previously
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 5: you were unable to do. Right. So, you know, I'm
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 5: a gay man. I grew up in the suburbs of Wilmington, Delaware,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 5: in the late 70s and early 80s, and I didn't
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 5: have any positive representations of gayness around. I couldn't reach
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 5: out to other people. online, right? So that was a really,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 5: you know, I give a lot of credit to Dr. Ruth, actually,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 5: who normalized that and came through on her radio show
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 5: and was like, she was just wonderful, right? So there
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 5: was a Westheimer.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: Yes, she was amazing.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 5: And there was this voice, this adult voice that was like,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 5: you're okay, you know, in the early 80s. And that
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 5: was very, very helpful for me. Yeah, not social media.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 5: And I so I think there's that opportunity on there.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 5: But then like everything, there's the shadow side, right? So
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 5: what happens is you find an identity that resonates with you,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 5: You club up with a bunch of people to whom
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 5: it resonates. But because it's gesticular, because it's a gesture,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 5: it's not a very deep and meaningful and complex. Everybody
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 5: has their own deep and meaningful and complex relationship with
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 5: that identity. But the way it's shared is a word
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 5: for it. It could be a diagnostic category in the DSM.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 5: It could be a pronoun, whatever it is. Where the
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 5: differences between the people who share that identity then get missed.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 5: And then what we know from the quantitative data is that,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 5: and I don't have the numbers in front of me,
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 5: but it is in that paper. We might link to that,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 5: that the people who are sharing information on things like Twitter,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 5: it's something like, you can check it later, but it's
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 5: something like more than 75% of the material shared is
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 5: shared by sort of like less than 10% of the
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 5: people that are tweeting. That set of people who are
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 5: the 10% or whatever, these numbers are up for grabs.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 5: They're out there somewhere we can find them, right? But
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 5: that subset of people who are actually saying something tend
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 5: to be more polarized because what they're saying is a
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 5: short thing. They're not saying a bit of this and
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 5: a bit of that because it doesn't really track on
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 5: social media. So what you end up having is 80%
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 5: of the voices who aren't identifying with the polarity of
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 5: identity category. This is what everybody's like who experiences this.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 5: And I use the example, there's a meme that goes
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 5: around of a of a guy on a lift with
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 5: a look of relief on his face saying, what introverts
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 5: feel when people don't step onto the lift with them?
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 5: An elevator, yeah. And I'm like, nobody wants people to
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 5: step into an elevator. Like, you know, that's not under
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 5: the domain of introverts only. In any way, an introvert
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 5: is not a kind of a person. You know, you
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 5: guys know this more than anyone. You know, we have
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 5: our inferior and superior. So suddenly we have this identity
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 5: category of introvert who's different from everybody else because we
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 5: don't like people... in our elevator, which nobody likes, right?
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 5: So I find that example works really well because it
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 5: takes an identity category, it reduces it ad absurdum and completely,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 5: and then divides you from other people, right? So I'm
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 5: nothing like all you other people because I'm an introvert
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 5: who shares a theme that most people share. It's completely madness, right?
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 5: So you have reductive nature of, identities as expressed on
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 5: social media lack nuance and complexity and depth. It feels
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 5: scary or impossible to go out there and say, I
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 5: experienced it like this, but I also like it like this,
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 5: which is not what other introverts would say to use
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 5: as an example. So on the one hand, it's like, oh, well,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 5: what they're saying about introversion really appeals to me. So
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 5: I must have some introversion in me, but then that becomes,
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 5: so I'm an introvert and now I'm like surrounded by
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 5: everybody else who identifies as introvert. And now I'm so
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 5: different from everybody else that I can't really relate to
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 5: them and they don't really understand me, which is the
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 5: polarizing effect, which I think is really dangerous.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 3: I'm just really appreciating.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 5: It's great to have a language.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 3: I'm really appreciating that the two sides of identity formation,
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 3: you know, for Jung, the ego differentiates from the unconscious.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 3: We're so unconscious. And then, Heroically, we fight our way
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 3: to a self-definition, but also self-defining also means I am
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 3: not you. I am over here and you're over there.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 3: And then as you said, if we ever make it
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 3: to enlightenment, those barriers have been dissolved again. So it's
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 3: this necessary cycle of separation in order to then come
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 3: back together with some sense of consciousness.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 5: I love the idea. I mean, I use this a
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 5: lot to be provocative, but I call it the myth
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 5: of heteronormativity. So you get a lot of people getting
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 5: incensed about heteronormativity, right? And I'm like, I've never met
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 5: a heteronormative person in my entire life. Like you talk
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 5: to someone as a therapist or as a friend, you know,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 5: people have ideas, fantasies, desires that are like, nobody just
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 5: wants to go home to their, you know, monogamous partner
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 5: and have vanilla sex with them. And there's never any
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 5: fantasies or anything, right? Heteronormativity is a conceptual thing and
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 5: a cultural thing is real and there are consequences to
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 5: the conception of heteronormativity, right? But no individual person is
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 5: heteronormative in the sense that there isn't an archetypal autistic
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 5: person's experience that everybody shares or an ADHD experience or
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 5: a gay experience or, you know, that's what's so great,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 5: you know, our individualized experience. And then we get in
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 5: arguments with concepts and then we feel like, well, now
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 5: I've identified as this, I should be like this. It's
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 5: a bit limiting, right?
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: And the thing is that the incredible complexity and absolutely unknowable,
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 2: ultimately unknowable nature of each one of us in our,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: you know, unbelievable individuality, that's universal. Like we're all that
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 2: complex and unknowable. And, you know, that's one thing you
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: can count on. is that we're all like that.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 5: The depths are, yes, are universal, right?
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 3: Well, so much of identity formation, I think, has to
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 3: do with finding accurate descriptive language and whether or not
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: that's taken from the culture or whether it rises up
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: inside of us. If we can't describe ourselves to ourselves
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: and we're overly mysterious, and then we're also very vulnerable
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 3: to this kind of over-identification with a meme. at the worst,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 3: or a religious sect or something like that. So this
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 3: is partially the ambivalence that people have about Jung's typology system,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 3: that it really does exist as a way of trying
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 3: to give people descriptive language, and also more importantly, which
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 3: I think many people have dismissed, that by identifying some
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 3: major markers in one's typology, there is a suggestion of
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 3: what is undeveloped. that one could become curious about even
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 3: before it sends up a little flare later.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 4: On in life.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 3: So if one identifies with being an introvert, one can
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 3: decisively become interested in what does extroversion mean and what
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 3: might it be to develop this other side of my personality.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 3: But as you're saying, if people over-identify with it, it
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 3: begins to feel like a straitjacket.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 5: But it also enables us to understand the extroverts, right?
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 5: So when we really kind of stick our noses in
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 5: that one category, because we share more than we don't share,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 5: and I think it's the same case in the global
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 5: thing that we're talking about now, when we get stuck
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 5: in the different, the narrative of difference, and I'm not
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 5: dismissing the importance of those categories in the capacity to
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 5: label them and put language on them. My whole thing,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 5: I just always say, okay, hold it lightly or hold
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 5: it heavily at first and then hold it lightly. So
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 5: like I'm going all in, I found out I'm this thing,
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 5: I'm like, okay, great. Do what you need to do
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 5: with it, and then maybe you can hold it a
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 5: little bit more lightly so it doesn't define every kind
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 5: of possibility for you.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: And that goes to that first, right, first half versus
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 3: second half of life. You know, tightening the grip and
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 3: then loosening the grip.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 5: St.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: Francis has this beautiful phrase that I always think about that.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: He says, wear the world as a loose garment.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 5: Oh, that's beautiful.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: So you could wear these different concepts as a loose
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: garment and not become sort of overly identified with them.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: I want to just take a minute, maybe just zooming
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: out a little bit, to talk about at least what
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: I think about this, kind of why this discussion matters.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: Because I think it really does matter, this discussion we've
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: been having. You know, Jung said, I was looking, he
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 2: said this a bunch of different ways, and I didn't
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: find the perfect quote, but I found one that sort
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: of works. He says, we're on our guard against contagious
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: diseases of the body, but we are exasperatingly careless when
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 2: it comes to the even more dangerous collective diseases of
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: the mind. And what he was talking about there is
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: he said a couple of times, you know, don't forget
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: about earthquakes, forget about, you know, pandemics or You know,
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 2: the real danger to humanity is us and these, you know,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: these sort of contagious diseases of the mind as he
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: calls them. And I do think that if you look
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: at history, even just say 20th century history, these emotional
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: contagions have the potential to do very, very great harm
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: to And that not only leans into kind of huge
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: geopolitical things that are frighteningly on the horizon. But even just,
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: you know, some of the footage that I've seen on
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 2: Twitter of, say, what's going on in college campuses, you know,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: with people really hurting each other or really threatening to
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: hurt each other, you know, over, you know, what's going
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: on in the global situation. And it's like, this really
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: matters what we're talking about. I mean, this ability to
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: step back from reactivity and get curious about our process or,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: you know, reach the depressive physician or withdraw our projections
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: or whatever language you want to use for it. I mean,
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: it has a potential to really make a difference in
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: the world if more of us can do that.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: Aaron, you've also written about distress management, I believe, and
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 3: stress management and emotional regulation. So just reaching down into
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 3: that in just very pragmatic terms, because I think that
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 3: would help people. So There's a listener who's doom-scrolling about
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 3: anything under the sun, whether it's politics or geopolitics or,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 3: I don't know, pollution. They're in a state of distress.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 3: So could you speak a little bit about how could
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 3: someone imagine what's going on inside of them when they
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 3: begin to feel that mounting reactive distress? And what are
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 3: some practical things that somebody might do to get some
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 3: breathing room around that?
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 5: Okay. What I like to say is let your freak
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 5: out be your ticket out. If you're freaking out in
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 5: your way or spinning out, if you're freaking out in
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 5: the way that you freak out, that's what you become
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 5: aware of. Because that means that somebody has touched your
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 5: button for whatever reason. And it's the greatest gift in
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 5: the world. I'm talking more about sort of maybe emotion
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 5: rather than doom scrolling. We can get on that in
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 5: a second. But if somebody, you've had a conversation or
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 5: argument with someone, or you've seen something that triggers you
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 5: and you're, you notice that you're having the conversation in
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 5: your head, or you're in a state of high anxiety,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 5: or like you feel like you need to react to
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 5: quell it, that acknowledgement that you're freaking out is all
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 5: you need to do, right? Well, it's not all you
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 5: need to do. It's the main thing that you need
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 5: to do. The forensic analysis can come later, right? The
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 5: first thing that, is like, okay, for whatever it is,
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 5: and I don't know, I'm freaking out in the way
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 5: that I freak out. And I know that better than
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 5: anything else, because I hate it when I'm freaking out.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 5: And then it's just like, I'm freaking out. So I'm
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 5: going to leave it. Like, I'm just going to, I'm
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 5: going to acknowledge that I'm freaking out. I'm not going
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 5: to try and solve it. I'm not going to engage
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 5: in the conversation that's going on in my head to
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 5: solve it, because then you're engaging in the same register
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 5: as the freak out, right? Which is why CBT often
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 5: fails with this kind of stuff because then you just
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 5: get a better language for standing on the other side
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 5: of the irrational thinking or whatever it is. And I
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 5: do think there's a place for CBT, but not in
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 5: this space, right? And then you get to know like, well,
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 5: later it's like, well, of course I was freaking out
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 5: because I always freak out when something like so-and-so happens.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 5: And that's when you can really own it. And that's
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 5: when you basically are saying, I have a complex, right?
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 5: I have a complex about criticism or I have a
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 5: complex about getting it wrong or injustice. Right. So I
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 5: was inside my complex. I'm not going to do anything
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 5: until I come outside my complex. And the way I
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 5: know I was in my complex is because I was
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 5: freaking out. So that for me, that's always because I
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 5: know exactly what my freak out feels like, you know,
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 5: and I'll have one when this podcast is over and
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 5: I'll think about something I said that didn't come out right. Or,
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 5: you know, it feels like, well, you know, and then
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 5: I'll freak out about it. I'll be like, are you
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 5: freaking out? And then you can, you can make that decision.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 5: But then what happens, I find, is you can go
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 5: to therapy and do the forensics around it. You get
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 5: more and more familiar with that. So that takes the
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 5: heat off of it. But it's also like, OK, I
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 5: freak out in these circumstances. And then when you recognize that,
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 5: you tend to freak out less. You tend to freak
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 5: out less intensively. And you tend to freak out for
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 5: as much time as before.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. You recover faster.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 5: I mean, the triggering events will always kind of, you know, some...
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 5: the triggering event will happen where you'd be like, Oh,
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 5: but this time it's serious. Like I'm not just, I'm
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 5: not in my complex. I'm really, you know, and you
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 5: have to listen out for that because it's like an
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 5: immune system, right? It doubles down. But if it feels
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 5: like that 98% of the time you're in your complex
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 5: and you probably don't have to worry as much as
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 5: you are about it. You know, there is that 2%
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 5: of the time, which is what keeps us on our toes.
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 5: So with doom scrolling, it's, it's actually kind of a
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 5: similar solution except with a slight nuance since we're all
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 5: about nuance here. It's also about insight and it's also
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 5: about awareness of one's emotional and visceral state. So when
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 5: you're in that other situation, you're triggered because you've been
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 5: kicked into a complex or whatever your trap door was
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 5: to be having an emotional response. When it comes to
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 5: doom scrolling, it's registering the fact that your activity is
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 5: causing a reaction that doesn't feel good. So again, we're
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 5: back to the metaphor of, you know, eat donuts while
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 5: they taste good, but don't eat them until you feel sick.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 5: So when you start to notice anxiety rising, frustration happening,
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 5: eyes getting tired, a compulsive sensibility to it, again, that's
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 5: your ticket to awareness. And then it's your ticket out.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 5: It's like, this isn't bringing me happiness at the moment.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 5: Now I'm going to put it down. And people really
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 5: do lose sight of their own emotional and psychological discomfort.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 5: And it's kind of crazy because It doesn't feel good,
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 5: but people carry on. So it's really just, okay, I
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 5: acknowledge this isn't feeling good anymore and I'm putting it away.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 3: So people could think of that as a form of
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 3: just being gentle with themselves, a bit of kindness towards themselves.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 5: And that's in the moment, right? That's a kindness in
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 5: the moment. I think that strategically, it is also wise
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 5: to have some boundaries around stuff like that. So that
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 5: you don't go through the day looking at things like
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 5: social media. Find periods where that's kind of what you
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 5: want to do. Turn your notifications off. Make sure that
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 5: you're making an active choice to go look at something.
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 5: Don't be responsive to the default settings. So there's a
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 5: macro and a micro view. When you're in it, register it,
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 5: come out of it. In the micro view, what kind
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 5: of intelligent decisions do I want to make about my
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 5: use of social media and technology? And try to gently
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 5: abide by them.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 3: Sounds like great advice.
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 5: Don't always keep to it myself, but it's an ideal.
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 3: It's an aspiration.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: Well, it's aspirational. And Aaron, before we switch to a dream,
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about your book.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 5: So coming up on 10 years now, so I'm working
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 5: on a revised edition now. Hopefully it'll be out by
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 5: the end of 2024. The book emerged from a very
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 5: interesting moment where I was Googled by a patient while
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 5: they were feeling quite anxious. This was years ago. This
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 5: is years ago, I can't remember what it was now,
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 5: maybe 2005, something like that. And when in a state of, um,
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 5: anxiety was Googling me because they wanted a sense of
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 5: the safety that I provided them as a therapist and
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 5: found a piece of information about me. That's kind of interesting,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 5: but sort of innocuous involves having found a nine inch
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 5: centipede crawling up my wall, which is a whole other
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 5: story on its own that had escaped from somebody's exotic
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 5: pet collection. So it was like a, it was a,
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 5: it was actually like this global story, you know, North
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 5: London psychotherapist finds prehistoric beast. But because of the state
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 5: of mind, the person was in, this was very upsetting
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 5: for a whole variety of levels that I talk about.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 5: So I wrote a paper about what it's like to
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 5: be discovered on Google as a therapist called TMI and
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 5: the Transference LOL, a title I'm very proud of. And
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 5: I can share that in your show notes if people
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 5: want to see it. And then I thought, my gosh,
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 5: you know, we had this therapy session, like my client
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 5: and I had this therapy session where we could discuss
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 5: what had just happened, where he discovered an important other person,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 5: information about them online. So the book actually is not
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 5: written for therapists. It's applying therapy psychoanalytic theory, particularly relational
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 5: psychoanalytic theory, to understand what happens when people go online,
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 5: how being online, particularly through social media, mediates those relationships
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 5: and how we can understand it from a broadly psychoanalytic
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 5: point of view. For the reasons that we talked about
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 5: in the beginning, I just think it's really important for
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 5: therapists to contribute in the broader social scene, not just
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 5: thinking about how it impacts the consulting room.
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 2: It was born out of an encounter with a centipede.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 5: Yes. And actually, I found out many years later that
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 5: without my consent, there's a story about it on Netflix.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 5: The world's most dangerous animals, Latin America edition. An old
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 5: friend from high school sent me a message over LinkedIn saying,
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 5: do you know that you're featured in this Netflix special?
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 5: I had no idea, but they had picked up the
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 5: original news story. And you can actually see it on there.
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: Was it actually dangerous?
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 5: It couldn't have killed me, but it would have hurt
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 5: really bad if it had. Because I caught it. I
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 5: put it in a Tupperware and I took it to
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 5: the Natural History Museum to have it identified, which is
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 5: how it became a news story. It's all in Chapter
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 5: 2 of the Psychodynamics of Social Networking. So there's a
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 5: teaser if you ever needed one.
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 4: But talk about reactivity. I mean, that's alarming. I mean,
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 4: I think all my bells and whistles would go off. Yes.
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 5: Yes, and actually, you know, in discussing it, because I
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 5: wrote the paper, but I also brought the client in
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 5: on the paper and shared the paper with them. And,
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 5: you know, they gave me feedback that I was unaware of.
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 5: And it was actually, it hadn't occurred to me that
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 5: its dangerousness was part of the provocation. I thought it
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 5: was more about, you know, information that I hadn't shared
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 5: and information that other people knew. And, you know, that's
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 5: all in there. But actually it was, you know, what
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 5: would happen if something terrible happened to you and I
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 5: didn't know?
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 5: So it really opens up. But the interesting thing is,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 5: you know, this happens between people all the time, right?
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 5: On Facebook, on Twitter, whatever, people are getting information, they're
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 5: having fantasies and reactions, and they're not exploring, for the
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 5: most part, they're not exploring them. So this was just
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 5: an opportunity to say, how do we understand those relations
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 5: from that point of, you know, looking at the relational unconscious?
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 5: Why are we on there? What does it provoke? What
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 5: are we looking for? And what are we getting? And
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 5: it asks and hopefully answers some of those questions.
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: Well, and Aaron, maybe if you have it, maybe you
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 2: can provide a link to that original article, TMI.
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 5: I do, yes. I'd be happy to do that. Okay, great.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we'll put these resources in the show notes.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 2: But let's move onward to a dream, if that's okay.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 3: Hey, everybody. This is Joseph, and I'm just taking a
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 3: moment to step outside of the frame and to ask
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 3: a few things of you. If you are watching us
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 3: on YouTube, please press the subscribe button. It'll just take
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 3: one second and it is so helpful to us. If
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 3: you're listening on Apple Podcast, like us and perhaps leave
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 3: a review, a couple of stars, very helpful. There's a
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 3: few other resources that we always like to remind you about.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 3: One is our Dream School. We've worked very hard to
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 3: create a way for people to advance their own understanding
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 3: of dreams, their ability to harvest what they can from
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 3: that wisdom and then apply it. So you can go
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 3: to our website, thisjungianlife.com, just click on Dream School, check in.
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 5: Out.
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 3: We'd love to have you with us. And one more bit,
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 3: please take a look at our Patreon page. This is
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 3: an opportunity for you to help us keep the lights
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 3: on and keep corporate sponsorship away from us. So thank
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 3: you so much and back to the episode.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 4: Okay, today's dreamer is a woman. She's 29 years old.
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 4: She's a dog walker. And here's the dream. I'm in
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 4: a castle that I know is about to be under attack.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 4: It's dark and cold in here. I am gathering up
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 4: small animals and putting them in a closet to keep
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 4: them safe. I pull out a magic wand that I
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 4: didn't know I had and do some kind of spell
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 4: to lock the closet door. I double-check that it's locked,
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 4: and it is, but then I worry it's not locked
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 4: strongly enough, and so I go to find someone who
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 4: can help me lock it even more strongly. I find
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 4: a professor who tells me how to do it, and
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 4: I go back to the closet to fortify the door.
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 4: I check the door again, but this time it opens.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 4: I'm now frustrated with myself for trying to fix something
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 4: that wasn't broken, and I redo the lock as I
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 4: had originally done. Now I am late to hide myself,
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 4: and I rush to the basement where I will stay
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 4: safe from the attack. As I descend the staircase, I
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 4: realize I'm headed to my parents' basement. I notice a
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 4: painting hanging on the wall of the stairwell, and I
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 4: know I painted it, but I don't recognize it. It's
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 4: better than anything I remember painting, a lively scene of large,
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 4: colorful bodies dancing. The basement is crowded and chaotic, filled
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 4: with old stuff and people. I recognize a childhood friend
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 4: who I know to now be a tarot card reader.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 4: I want to talk to her, but as soon as
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 4: I get close, she disappears into the crowd. I wonder
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 4: if it's safe to go back upstairs to check on
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 4: the animals, and I notice a woman coming down with
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 4: laundry in her arms. I figure that if it's safe
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 4: enough for her to do such a mundane task, it
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 4: must be safe for me to go back up. The
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 4: next thing I know, I am sitting in the dark
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 4: closet with all the animals I protected, two ravens, two cats,
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 4: a teacup pig, and a small dog. The guinea pigs
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 4: are missing, and I know the woman doing laundry must
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 4: have them. I go back downstairs to find her to
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 4: make sure she doesn't accidentally put them in the wash.
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 4: She has them tightly wrapped in white towels, and I
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 4: free them from their bind. For context, our dreamer adds,
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 4: Over the last few years, I've become aware of how
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 4: much I struggle in relationships with I have a hard
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 4: time building healthy relationships and an even harder time maintaining relationships.
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 4: I'm currently in group therapy, which forces me to confront
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 4: the ways in which I'm terrified of true connection. I
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 4: hide and keep secrets and build tall walls to keep
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 4: people out when I so desperately want them in and
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 4: want to be seen. The main feelings in the dream,
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 4: she says, were fear, anxiety, and confusion. And she adds
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 4: for additional context, It looks like I associate with my OCD.
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 4: When I was a kid, I would obsessively check locks,
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 4: frequently getting up multiple times in the middle of the
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 4: night to make sure all the doors in the house
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 4: were locked. I spent a lot of time in the
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 4: basement when I was a kid. It was a place
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 4: I could go to to hide from my family and
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 4: just be myself. I do paint in real life and
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 4: studied art in undergrad, though I have a hard time
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 4: claiming artist as an identity for myself. As for the animals,
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 4: I do have a cat. I used to have two,
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 4: but the other one now lives with an ex. I
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 4: miss that cat terribly. A few weeks ago, I had
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 4: an encounter with a pair of ravens on a hike.
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 4: I've never had guinea pigs, but we did have a
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 4: pair of rabbits growing up who ended up living in
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 4: the basement as my mom was allergic. I love animals
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 4: deeply and have always found it easy to connect with them.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 4: So with all this on our plates, where do we
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 4: dive in?
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I found this dream really interesting and touching, too.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: And I guess, Deb, I'll take a page from your book,
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 2: which is always a good idea, is to start with
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: the setting. And of course, we're in a castle here. And,
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 2: you know, a castle is, well, you know, I think
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 2: we all have probably a couple of different associations to castles,
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 2: but primarily they're fortifications. And she mentioned in her context
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 2: that she recognizes how she builds tall walls to keep
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 2: people out. And I immediately thought of a castle. So
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 2: we're in this kind of, you know, a castle is
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 2: in a... Middle Ages anyway, they were easy to defend.
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 2: They were defensive structures that had walls around them and
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 2: parapets where you could, you know, climb out to fire
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 2: arrows from and that sort of thing. So here we
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 2: are in this kind of massive defensive structure, perhaps.
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 4: And it's dark and cold. Yeah.
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 3: So it's got a little bit of a Noah's Ark
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 3: feeling to it. You know, this terrible thing's going to
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 3: happen and we've got to get the pairs of, creatures
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 3: on the ark and will survive the event. Because I'm
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 3: so suspicious about the dream ego's interpretation of the events
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 3: when they're happening, there doesn't seem to be actually any
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 3: evidence that there is an attack and the casualness of
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 3: the woman's laundry basket and the basic rhythms of life continue.
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 3: So I am moved to take that phrase, out of
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 3: the dream, and then think of it as just a
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 3: series of events that are self-generated. Of course, I'm curious
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 3: why she thinks she's under attack, but this method of
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 3: locking up the animals and then hiding in the basement,
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 3: that's just where I go over and over again. And
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 3: of course, if she was here, we'd ask her associations
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 3: around all of that, and often animals are indicative of
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 3: our very young, traumatized aspects of ourselves, although it is
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 3: positive that none of them seem injured. All the animals
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 3: seem healthy enough, although two of them are bound up
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 3: in the laundry basket, seemingly uninjured, but perhaps even swaddled.
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 3: But she's got to take them to herself. She can't
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 3: imagine that. The mother figure who's swaddling the guinea pigs
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 3: could possibly do anything good with them or is likely
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 3: to dump them in the washing machine. So there seems
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 3: to be this distrust that nobody but she could possibly
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 3: take care of all these aspects of herself. And that's
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 3: where I go to in my curiosity with the dream
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 3: is who can she trust? Does she ever trust? But
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 3: it's all on her.
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 2: And, you know, it's such a common dream to have
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 2: an image of a kind of wounded animal, a vulnerable
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 2: animal that you're maybe supposed to be caring for, that
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 2: you find yourself forgetting about. I mean, that imagery shows
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 2: up a lot in people's dreams. So I thought it
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 2: was interesting because it's almost the opposite. Like she's so
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 2: focused on caring for the animals, you know, which is lovely.
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 2: And in a way, it says that her psyche is
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 2: very attuned. Let me try that again. the ego is
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 2: very attuned to the vulnerable parts of herself. However, she's
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 2: locking them away. She's locking them away with this kind
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 2: of scrupulousness about making sure it's really well locked. I
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 2: thought that was a great association to her OCD, which
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 2: of course is a kind of elaborate defensive strategy. I'm
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 2: with you in kind of wondering about that. You know,
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 2: who can she trust? And eventually she's in the closet
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 2: with the animals, you know, so she's really kind of
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 2: hidden herself away, too.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 4: I'm interested in the contrast here between all this, you know,
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 4: locking the doors and locking them in a closet, you know,
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 4: where they're going to be secreted away, and then going
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 4: to the basement, which sounds pretty cool. She goes down
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 4: the stairwell and she sees a painting that she's done.
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 4: It's really terrific. Better than she ever thought she was
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 4: as an artist. Then there are a whole bunch of
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 4: people in the crowd, including somebody who does tarot card readings.
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 4: And then the woman who comes down with a basket
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 4: of laundry. The contrast between having to lock something away
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 4: upstairs and the life in the basement... You know, the
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 4: more instinctual realm, the realm below ground, below consciousness, where
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 4: it seems like a better deal. And she says she
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 4: has difficulty with relationships, but there seems like a good
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 4: scene going on, an interesting scene, a lively scene.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. that's a good point.
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 3: I'm also interested in just the sequencing of it's safe
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 3: enough for me to go back up and wham, I'm
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 3: sitting in a dark closet with all the animals. So
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 3: there's a way that even when the ego evaluates and says, oh,
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 3: it must be safe, Something that's not an ego choice
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 3: puts her back in the closet, because in the beginning
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 3: it seems very self-determining. It seems more like compartmentalization or suppression,
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 3: that she's deciding she's going to lock things away rather cognitively,
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 3: which seems like a way to survive. But here, as
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 3: soon as she thinks it's safe, then she's locked in
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 3: the closet. So there's something else that's going on that's
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 3: outside of her reach.
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 5: Well, I was actually struck by something you said, Joseph,
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 5: when you started about the, that they're not seeming to
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 5: be a threat in the content of the dream. And
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 5: that actually I was struck by, because I'm listening to
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 5: this dream and I'm thinking of that old adage about,
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 5: you know, Jungians have Jungian dreams and Freudians, and it's
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 5: very Jungian dream this. And sort of feeling very excited,
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 5: very excited by it because it's like a dream of self-discovery.
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 5: And it was only when you read the context of
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 5: the anxiety that actually I had a little bit of, juxtaposition, like, oh,
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 5: this is an anxious dream, because it was very exciting
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 5: to listen to similar resonances to what you were all saying,
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 5: you know, the vulnerable parts of the self being locked away.
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 5: I love the going downstairs and that she used to
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 5: do art and doesn't do art and it's better than
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 5: she expected. So this resource there. And I was very
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 5: curious about the professor. I thought, okay, this person's probably
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 5: in therapy. I wonder if the professor has to do
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 5: with the therapist. But then also that the professor's in
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 5: her dream. So it's a part of her and that
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 5: she called for help from a trustworthy other, after which
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 5: she goes downstairs to her past where the resources are.
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 5: So I felt it was a very optimistic dream. And
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 5: in a sense, the laundry towards the end was kind
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 5: of like, there can just be an unanxious, pragmatic, doing the,
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 5: you know, the animals don't have to be locked up.
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 5: There's all this cool stuff in the basement and, So
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 5: I really like that juxtaposition that I understand is distressing
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 5: that she experienced that as an anxiety, that maybe that
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 5: anxiety is kind of a remnant of the fear from
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 5: when there actually wasn't fear from in the content of
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 5: the dream. And there were so many resources.
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 2: You know, we're going to have to see what kind
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 2: of dreams get submitted to the podcast, This Freudian Life,
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 2: and see if those are.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 5: Lots of snakes and trains probably.
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 2: I want to pick up on something in this dream
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 2: that I think of as telos. You know, it's this
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 2: kind of surprising part of the dream that draws your
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 2: attention perhaps in a new direction. And for me, in
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 2: this dream, that's really contained in the painting. So the
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 2: painting is lively, colorful, and it's a scene of people dancing.
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 2: So it's not only better than what she remembered. I'm
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 2: thinking about this little kind of window into perhaps an
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: alternative frame, if you will, where things might be able
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 2: to be experienced very differently, where it's lively and it's
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 2: colorful and it's celebratory and embodied. And again, I think.
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 2: Similar to what all of you have been saying, there
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 2: is the sense of like, oh, wait a minute, there's
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 2: a different, the dream points to this very different way
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 2: of being. So the ego is sort of maybe most
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 2: familiar or comfortable with the closet, but there seems to
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 2: be these, something else that's being kind of pointed at here.
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 2: And so I do think there's a kind of optimism
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 2: in the dream as well.
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 5: Maybe even a will for it not to be locked, right?
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 5: So there's just so much trouble locking the door, but,
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 5: you know, maybe there's a, The door can be locked
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 5: because there's no emergency, right? On that fundamental level, there's resource,
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 5: there's not emergency. The door doesn't have to be locked. Right.
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 3: And the fact that she's chosen to do that with
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 3: some magical object, which is unlikely to be as successful
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 3: as just turning the knob or sticking a key in.
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 3: So that fantastical play as part of it. But I
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 3: go to the optimism because if we just look at
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 3: the beginning and the end of the dream, I'm in
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 3: a castle I know is about to be under attack.
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 3: and I free them from their bind. Just linking the
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 3: first and the last sentence.
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 4: That's great.
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 3: We imagine that that's, and everything in between to get
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 3: to that point where she or some part of her
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 3: is freed. It goes to the optimism that several of
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 3: you have felt around this.
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 2: And Aaron, I think you were getting at this about
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 2: the professor. It's like she goes to the professor to
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 2: learn how to lock the door better, but somehow what
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 2: the professor tells her actually unlocks the door. And that
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 2: does sound like potentially that's an experience with therapy. It's like, well,
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 2: I'm going to feel safer, but actually it's going to
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 2: help me lower my defenses.
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 3: It's also that mercurial trickster, you know, that we ask
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 3: for one thing and then we're tricked into something else
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 3: that perhaps is better for us that we can't understand
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 3: at the moment.
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 4: You know, I wonder about, you know, her reference to
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 4: her childhood that she associates to in, in her comments.
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 4: And then she would check the locks and patrol the
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 4: house at night and make sure everything was locked. And
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking about how kids, all kids, all of us
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 4: struggle to develop ego strength. And we're just kids, you know,
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 4: we're seven or 11 or 15. And the world is
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 4: big and we're not so big. And we're really trying
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 4: to keep things under control. I wonder if this dream
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 4: is kind of echoing that, that false attempt to keep
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 4: things under control, all locked up, everything is in order.
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 4: The animals are, as you mentioned, Joseph, two by two.
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 4: At this point, the basement that she literally retreated to
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 4: in childhood to be safe is the place of instinctive life.
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 4: There are people, there's dancing, the woman comes down with
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 4: the guinea pigs. I'm building on your idea, Lisa, of
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 4: the telos of the dream, the forward movement. You can relax.
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 4: Things are okay now. You're not a kid. You have
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 4: a well-developed sense of ego and ego strength. Chill. Go
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 4: to the basement. Have your tarot cards read.
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 2: Hang out with the rabbits.
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 5: In my old life, I used to be a tarot
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 5: card reader when I was much younger professionally.
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 4: We'll get you together with Joseph.
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 2: Of course you were meant to be a good man.
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 3: Me too.
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's true. But I do, I do have a
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 5: soft spot for young, but I'm thinking about the animals again.
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 5: And I'm thinking about, you know, the concept of spirit
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 5: animals and they're locked up too. Right. So I see
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 5: also this opportunity linking with the tarot card reading, like to,
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 5: that they could actually lead her, you know, they're in spot,
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 5: they're swaddled. You open that door, those animals take you somewhere.
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 5: She's a dog walker, right? So I'm curious about what
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 5: the animals mean for her on a deep soul level
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 5: and how those animals can be, you know, if they're
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 5: not in a room where they might take her. And
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 5: it feels like maybe outside those castle gates, because again,
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 5: I do get a strong sense of optimism.
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 2: From, And of course, if we wanted to continue, which
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 2: I think we probably should wrap up, but we could
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 2: amplify those animals. We could talk about two ravens. You know,
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 2: there's the Norse god Odin had two ravens that hung
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 2: out with him.
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 3: I'm fighting with fire, water, earth, and air and trying to,
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 3: you know, the ravens we could put in the air
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 3: and the pig we could put in the earth, but
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 3: the cat and the dog. You know, I'm having a
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 3: harder time with fire and water in there, but I'm
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 3: working at.
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 2: It. But yeah, it's really a very charming dream, even
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 2: if it's, you know, even if there's kind of this
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 2: anxious undertone. So we certainly wish this dreamer well.
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 2: Thank you all so much.
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 5: Thank you for inviting me in for that. I really
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 5: enjoyed that.
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to This Jungian Life. From our website, thisjungianlife.com,
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: you can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook,
• 2:06:51
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• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: and submit your dreams for possible interpretation on another episode.
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: We'd like to thank our listener who shared a dream
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: for today's show and hope you'll let us know what
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: topics you'd enjoy hearing more about. Until next time, keep
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: living this Jungian life.
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 5: Thank you.