Hey everyone, welcome to the drive podcast. I'm your host Peter Atia this podcast my website and My Weekly Newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health and wellness. And we've assembled a great team of analysts to make this happen if you enjoyed
This podcast we created a membership program that brings you far more in-depth content. If you want to take your knowledge of the space to the next level at the end of this episode. I'll explain what those benefits are or if you want to learn more now head over to Peter Atia m.com forward slash subscribe. Now without further delay. Here's today's episode my guest. This week is author speaker and family therapist Terry real as a family therapist and teacher for more than 25 years. Terry's the best.
Author of a number of books including I don't want to talk about it overcoming the secret Legacy of male depression. How can I get through to you? Reconnecting men and women and I believe his most recent book is the new rules of marriage what you need to know to make love work. Terry also founded the relational love Institute offering workshops for couples individuals and patients around the country along with a professional training program for clinicians. Now if you've listened to this podcast for a while
I think on at least three or four episodes I have brought up Terry's name and his book. I don't want to talk about it. And I think I've even alluded to it as probably one of the books. I have gifted more than any other. I've wanted to interview Terry for quite some time now because I just think that the way he thinks about the relationship between anger depression and enter relational Strife is so Illuminating and you know, I sort of
Sheepishly worked up the nerve to ask him at some point. Hey, Terry. Do you know would it be okay if I interviewed you and I was just delighted that he agreed to an agreement on very short notice like in a matter of days and this episode we talked about Terry's background he grew up with an abusive father and that has turned out to be a while in offline unfortunate thing that happened to Terry probably the greatest gift that came to many of us who have been helped by Terry because it was that relationship with his father that really forged his path to become a therapist.
And to better understand male depression and anger we talked about how trauma during a child's upbringing can shape them later in life and how it can be passed on for Generations over and over again. We talked about why people sometimes need to be in painful situations to have breakthroughs what it means to hit rock bottom how to live a relational life in the importance of living with healthy satisfying Rich emotional connections. We talk a lot about narcissism and touch on David Foster Wallace in the idea of how we don't truly know what
Someone is going through in life this idea of being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes. We talked about a lot of other things but I think in the end, I hope you'll just take my word for it that this is worth investing the time and listening to I enjoyed this discussion immensely and I look forward to sharing it. So without further delay, please enjoy my discussion with Terry real Terry. Thank you so much for making time to speak with me. It's been a long time that I've wanted to.
I don't know turn the tables a little bit and ask you the questions.
Yeah. Well, it's a great pleasure to be here and I'm looking forward to an interesting conversation.
I think I just want to kind of jump into some stuff maybe for the listener. I'll tell a little bit of a story about how we were connected and then jump into you telling your story. So about 18 months ago a woman who I have yet to interview on the podcast, but certainly Willis their apparel who I was working with at the time and still continue to work with said Peter. You've got me and Lori is
These two amazing therapists in your life, but you don't have a male therapist and you need one and I'd already worked with two or three guys, but I just didn't have that connection. And she said I want you to read a book and next week when we meet. I want you to tell me what you thought about the book and if the book resonated with you and if it did I will introduce you to the author and if it didn't that's okay. We'll keep looking and the book was I don't want to talk about it. And so I went home.
bought the book
Read the book and came back in a week and said even if not one other person has read that book. He wrote it for me and it was worth the effort he put into it and the rest is sort of History. So, can you start with a little bit about your background how you grew up? Well, I mean, it's a
little glib but people always ask me how I became a family therapist and my stock answer is I started about 4, I grew up at
In Camden, New Jersey a little Hanging On by your fingernails middle-class Enclave in a town that was rapidly becoming a ghost town. My parents were under a lot of stress. My father was a loving smart violent emotionally brutal man, and I went to therapy school. I'd already spent before years in a doctoral program in literature, and then I went to therapy school after
That and I had to go to therapy school to get the skills. I needed to talk to this man to get him to open up to me and I needed to understand what the hell had happened to him. I needed to make sense out of my father and his violence so that I would not repeat it and I have
Terry you described him using three phrases. I might be paraphrasing a little bit, but I could have sworn you said loving.
And brutally violent or at least violent those people don't think of those is going together. That seems like a contradiction in some way.
Yeah, it does for me to imagine what it felt like to a four-year-old. It's confusing but real life is confusing. There are many many parents who are warm and nurturing when they're warm and nurturing and they turn on you and they're brutal. That's not an uncommon pattern and what that does to a child. That is confusing.
So it's very confusing and it breathes a great deal of mistrust because the rug is always being pulled out from under
you. When did that first occur to you? That something wasn't right. I mean, I know it sounds odd that a four-year-old could be even perceptive that anything that they're experiencing is not the norm we've glossed over this but I do want to go back into it. I mean you weren't exactly the perfect child. You were kind of a bad kid growing up if I recall right?
Well, I became a bad kid. I didn't start off today.
Kid, I
would guess nobody does
right. Yeah, I was invited to be a bad kid and I took the invitation and then I was punished for it. You know, I was the scapegoat child Peter. You're three years old 12-step the hero child the good one the achiever the scapegoat child the bad worm the rubble and The Lost Child the one that nobody pays any attention to it all and I was a scapegoat job and skate coach. I'm really happy. I feel it's a gift to have been the scapegoat job.
The scapegoat child is the one that wants to bring up to the surface all of the pathology and the truth that's being denied and suppress and they usually do it through action rather than verbs but they express the family dysfunction or pathology or ill he's and then they get punished for it or they tell the truth. They literally tell the truth about the family and they dad's an alcoholic only you would say that so I was a scapegoat and I was a truth teller and now
Professional truth teller and that's what I do for a living and instead of getting punished for it. I'm getting paid for it. So there we are.
So it's not a given that when you were sitting there in high school. You were going to quote unquote make it tell me a little bit about that transition from high school into college. There's a story in your book about I think your dad even accompanied you off to college, didn't he that first
trip? Yeah. They did. First of all, oh my gosh, let me go back of my
Schooling if the whole thing really started in about second grade. I came home with bad report card and you never know what my dad was going to do. I was scared to death, but he looked at it and he threw it on the floor and he left.
And he said it's just because those assholes are so stupid and you're so bright. They don't know what to do with you. Okay. Now the technical term for my father is doing just then it's called false empowerment. He was pumping me up. It was no favor to a little boy. I didn't get good grades in school until I got to college. I went through elementary junior and high school. I figured out that if I showed up every other week, that would be enough to get a
Courage and that's what I did and then I went to the Boardwalk in Atlantic City and I sat down at Woolworths and I spend the whole day writing and I would show up at school once every 10 days to 2 weeks. I was going to go to Europe and be a writer but I got a 1A in the draft which is a whole other Story scared to death and I went to college to get out of the draft.
And I had no grade. So the only College you would accept me was Atlanta Community College and that's why I spent my first year and I need to get out and I got all A's because I wanted to get out and then I transferred from there to Rutgers my mother and my father came to visit me. They stood out like sore thumbs. I was completely embarrassed by their blatantly blue-collar out of place Nest the last word. My father said before he left me it was key.
Your nose to the grindstone and your pecker dry which to this day. I don't really quite know what the hell that was supposed to mean and my mother who's six foot and obese bang on the car that I was driving off in with friends bang on the car. So the guy jammed on his brakes and she gave me a little wave and I kiss. Goodbye.
Were you the oldest of your siblings?
No, no and in truth
Birth order the older one is more the hero child usually in the second one is the scapegoat holding one goes to Father second one goes to mother if you have two boys. So The Story Goes anyway, that's what happened to me. I have a fraternal twin brother. He six minutes older than I am and he's every inch the older brother and I'm every inch the younger brother
how much did you know at the time of your father's pathology in his upbringing? What brought?
Into his
life. Oh nothing. He wouldn't talk to me even talk to me about anything of consequence. Let alone his own life and it wasn't until I was in my late twenties and I'd already become a therapist that I finally had enough skill to persist and get through be gentle enough to get through his defenses and finally it about 28 29 years old. He told me his story which is a pretty horrific story in its own right.
Can you
Tell us some of that story
sure. My father's mother died when he was nine.
It was during the Depression in America. He had a younger brother. He was 11 his younger brother was nine. His mother was dead his father who he describes as a passive loser of a man owned a little candy store and lost it the family broke up and lived in various people's houses and one day in a fit of depression. My father's father tried to kill him and his
Her and himself. He tried to guess them in the garage with his car. My father remembers his father craving him in his arms saying.
And at 11 my father knew something horribly wrong and he began to fight. So the story goes and he kicked the window out of the car and that woke his father up and he grabbed his little brother and got out of the car and according to my father. That was the last real authentic contact. He had with his father for the rest of his life.
So it's safe to probably assume that is Father also inherited a legacy of pain that may have gone beyond just the experiences. He had in the loss of his
wife. Yes. I think that's right. I think depression runs up and down my family. I've struggled with depression in my day. I am gratefully on antidepressants as we speak and happily so I'm sure that my grandfather was subject to depression and insert.
Um stances were dire.
So when you talk about your dad, you said brutal loving smart, but you didn't say depressed. So how does depression fit into what your father was experiencing and and also at lashing
out? Well, there's a saying in a a they say hurt people hurt people and as you know Central to my work on masculinity is the translation of Shame and the grandiosity of feel.
Last man inadequate unlovable somehow to the one down of shaming and then you flip into the one up of grandiosity superiority better than attack avenging Angel righteous indignation. And this I believe is the dynamic of abuse and most violence on this planet and if Central to masculinity and traditional manhood the flip from the one down,
Victim to the one up Avenger. Anyway, what's devilish about shifting from shame in the grandiosity from injury to attack is it works? It makes you feel better in the short run. It just creates havoc in your life. And that's what happened with my father my father despise vulnerability because he despises own problems. He saw his father is weak and he despise weakness ever since and so
I was in his eyes week and precisely when I was vulnerable is when he would attack. He was punishing his own father and punishing his own vulnerability. It was a hyper masculine response to trauma. Does that make sense to you and I'm saying
it does how prevalent do you think this is I mean, it's possible. I think if I just consider the sampling of my own population of male patients
Which may be males make up two-thirds of my patients 60% say I wonder just how prevalent this is in the lives of people who haven't been maybe so literally abused the way your father was.
Yeah. Well I wasn't I mean I was actually my father what did give physical but there are many look one of my great mentors woman named p.m. LED defined trauma or injury as any
If I can't lie less than nurture and transaction between parent and child any significantly less than nurturing transaction between parent and child injures the child now that's a whole range, of course, and we're all imperfect and it's exactly our parents imperfections and how we adapt to them that shapes what most people would call our character. I call it our adaptive child self, but at any rate, we're all shaped by
My injuries is the question is are they part of the imperfect dealings of being a human being with other human beings is their repair is their accountability. Is there something beyond the rupture or is it just injury and rupture my model for relationships comes from Ed tronic who was the pioneer of infant observational research you actually stuck a camera in front of
There's some babies and saw what they did and Ed believes that the basic rhythm of all relationships is harmony disharmony and repair closeness disruption and returned to closeness and in my dysfunctional family and all the dysfunctional families. I've treated over the years. There's little to no repair. The repair process has gotten jammed up somehow and so there's just injury and then you live with it until
Oh the next injury
so it's not the disharmony you're saying it's not the harmony to disharmony. That's the problem. It's the inability to go from disharmony to repair
right at the upper levels. We all heard our kids. We're all imperfect. I told a story about putting Justin's hockey shoes on the wrong
feet. Why don't you tell that story? Actually, I think it is a great illustration that any parent can relate to
yeah. Well, we were really Rush Justin was a hockey player, which is
In general is completely not my domain my kid is a total jock. He's been really disappointed in some ways. He doesn't have a Boston Sports dad. And I appreciate that. You said I'm going to go to South Boston Irish South Boston, and I'm going to find a beer-drinking trump supporting real father. It has nothing but Sports all day that ain't me. Anyway, we were playing hockey. I was already feeling a little overwhelmed because it's not mine.
Domain we were late. He was whining. I was putting his shoes on the parents were trying to talk to me. I was trying to get him out on the ice. He goes out on the ice comes back. You must have been like I don't know eight or nine comes back ten minutes later says my feet hurt. My boots are killing me. They will come on Justin just go out there and
play over. He's got his skates on right now. You're
saying it's Kate. Yeah, and then any does obedient little boy and he plays this
Will her dad when I'm taking his skates off at the end of the game to my horror. There are two red pre blisters on his feet. I had put the damn shoes on the wrong feet God but here's what I say. When I tell this story if it had been Justina instead of just in what I have been so firm, where would I have listened to my daughter? And I think the honest answer is I would have listened more this
His masculinity in that moment. I was the voice of patriarchy inflicting itself on my son.
You've spoken about this patriarchal model. That is I mean, it's really everything you rail against isn't it? You're not a fan of this. Can you vent a little bit more about this? Because for many men, it's all we've known. I mean it is you describe we're going to get to what relational living means which is I mean, I think prior to meeting you I didn't
Just couldn't have fathomed what you were talking about.
So if you pause for a moment, that's a hell of a sentence that just came out of you know, sure that's a big sentence and you speak for an awful lot of man. Most many many many of the men that I see simply don't know what living in healthy satisfying Rich emotional connection feels like they just don't know. What what are you talking? It's Greek.
Yeah, it is a little bit abstract and it's if it hasn't been modeled for you, which it's not generally that's not a common model. I would that's the less common model. I guess I would say I don't can't speak to prevalence again, but say a little bit more about this. What is it that you're talking about is the norm. Let's start with what this sort of traditional model
is. Sure. Well there never ways of saying it the simplest way of saying is when I mean patriarch, I'm talking about traditional gender roles for men and women.
And I mean traditional pre feminism but still very much with us. So the traditional role for women is everybody's written about for the last 50 years is to be accommodating and resentful to lose their voice Carol Gilligan wrote this back in the 80s in a different voice and she wrote about the woman's loss of voice loss of authentic connection about the edge of adolescence 13 14. They fall prey to what Carol Qualls the
Many of the night and the kind and they lose their voice. They stop telling the truth. They start being to be honest manipulative. That's part of the traditional female role. So traditionally what you've got is an accommodating resentful woman and on the other side you have a shutdown driven inwardly haunted out were they successful one of things I say Peter. Maybe you'll be able to relation that
I mean I say is inwardly shame-based outwardly Driven Man coupled with inwardly resentful outwardly accommodating warmer. That's America's power couple man successful couple in the world.
Well, it's a dangerous combination because there's not enough there's not enough inertia to question or challenge it internally that probably doesn't make sense what I'm saying, but I think you know what? I mean? It's it doesn't
Enough of a forcing mechanism to call into question whereas at least if one of those two phenotypes is different there could be more tension that drives a change potentially
and then feminism hit and there was tension that drove the change and I'm going to say something and maybe even some of your listeners will push back on those but I believe that in the sixties seventies and eighties. Here's a question Peter what value
is shared by mainstream patriarchal culture and almost virtually all of the so-called counterculture personal growth most that's what value is shared but mainstream and counterculture.
Hmm. Probably some semblance of Independence or Freedom.
Yeah, you're close the individual the sanctity of individualism personal growth is personal growth not relational growth.
And so I summarized personal growth where personal empowerment as I was weak. Now, I'm strong go screw yourself and it was big. I lived through that revolution in the 70s and the 80s and women were mad at us guys. And I was weak now I'm strong. I'm going to stand back and say it in the old way. I want to and you best listen and like it. Okay, that's a step in the right direction, but I think there's another step and if I can be so bold.
To be a male therapist, but I haven't doing feminist family therapy 40 years. Look the next step is loving voice when women moves from voiceless NE sand resentment to finally like all a stash in blue. I see it all the time in my office. Finally when women do speak they often speak in ways that are so aggressive that nobody in there. I might can listen to him. So relational empowerment is the next step relational empowerment is
I'm going to be strong and loving at the same time in the same breath. You see, I believe that under the patriarchal system. There's a little bit abstract. But let me say it under the patriarchal system one can either be connected or powerful but you can't be both at the same time. Let me say that again under patriarchy which is a system where all and we're fish and patriarchy's the water under the system. We're all in you can.
Either be connected that's affiliative feminine or you can be powerful that's independent masculine, but you can't be both at the same time when women do become powerful and when they did as a movement back in the 70s and 80s, it was a lot of the women in my office. I say to them you after 50 years of feminism. You have earned the right to be as obnoxious as men have always been congratulation. The next step is loving voice.
And that's true for both men and women that standing up for yourself and cherishing the other person relationship in the same breath honey. I love you to pieces. Could you please tone down the way you're speaking to me right now so I can hear you versus I don't like how you're talking to me your ways of saying the same thing.
Yeah, you've talked a lot about this idea of enlightened self-interest. This might be one example of it.
Yeah, because under the Patriot patriarchy is linear.
And there are two aspects of patriarchy for men. The essence of traditional masculinity is twofold one is the denial of vulnerability the more invulnerable you are as a man the more manly you are the more vulnerable than more girly you are it's like physics. It's just straightforward. It's misogyny is my dad. It's despising the vulnerable.
And then the second issue is the delusion of dominoes. God gives Adam dominion over the Earth, which is really a bad idea. The Greeks knew better the Greek spoke about you Burris placing yourself above nature was the tragic flaw in every Greek tragic figure. They knew better. They knew about you melody the delusion of dominance feeling that you are over nature that you have the right the entitlement.
Even the responsibility to be above nature is a core delusion that will kill us if the nature that you're above is your wife or your kids or your body or your own thinking or if the planet at large mother nature don't worry about it. We'll cook up something in line and take care of it. We'll kill ourselves if we don't come out of this delusion. That's the masculine part.
Part of the traditional gender role cut off and false empowerment.
You alluded to shame earlier. I want to go back to that because I think it sets the stage for some of the other Concepts that I want to explore. Can you explain the difference between shame and
guilt? Yeah. Well, this is brene brown. I used to say healthy shame and unhealthy shame, but she kind of ruined that made Shane bad altogether. So for Simplicity sake healthy self-esteem.
Start off with that. That's one of those things that everybody talks about and who really defines it. What do they really mean? Healthy self-esteem. It means the capacity to cherish yourself to esteem yourself healthy self-esteem to esteem yourself in the face of your imperfections and screw-ups what you do and I have to teach this to people in general men in particular. What you do is just what we want to do with our children when they
Grew up, you hold the person in warm regard you cast a very sober I on the bed Behavior feel bad about the bad behavior you've done but don't take yourself apart as a person. You're a good flawed person who screwed up you're fine learn from it make amends and get on with it. Shame is I'm a bad person.
Shame if I feel bad about Behavior, I feel bad about who I am as a person.
And it eats you up alive is for many of us a constant companion for those of us who were unloved or shamed of children. We contend with that Allah and shame is the feeling of unworthiness impedance helplessness unloved ability defective months.
Why does it happen though? Terry, is it something we are born? Is it the default setting that were born with
I don't believe so I believe that we are ashamed.
We're ashamed of children by even being neglected and abandoned somehow and or by being mistreated and misaligned somehow and we take on that shame and we feel bad about our cells usually now guilt is feeling bad about the bad behavior. And one of the things that I teach particularly men is when you go from some sort of acting out some offensive behavior when you're in doing that offensive Behavior your
Or in a state of grandiosity. You're entitled you're better than you deserve it.
So you're in a state of grandiosity and you're in a state of self-entitlement selfie occupation when you go from that when you go from inflation to deflation from I deserve to I'm big shit what I tell my guys is you go from one form of self preoccupation to guess what another form of cell preoccupation just went from positive to negative. You know, what here's what I want you to do Bill. I'm sitting with Bill and his wife and Bill just screwed up. Here's what I want you to do.
What I want you to do is what my kids tell me. I want you to get over yourself. I want you to stop thinking about what a shit you are and start thinking about how you hurt your wife pay attention to her feel bad for her make amends to her. Let the energy go out to her now shames really hard to get over. I understand that. I'm going to give you 60 seconds ready go.
And they do
they come out of shame, but do they need your permission? I mean, do you think that and again we could even use examples of patients is there a sense of I feel guilty about what I've done the right thing to do is to dwell on it for a very long period of time and despise myself for
it for all the good it does
well notwithstanding the lack of productivity, but is that the underlying
Lying sort of emotional logic behind shame or at least in the example you gave of Bill.
Oh, no, it goes way beyond that. Look Mom shame starts in childhood. And there are big forces at play. First of all, I was an exception most children if you mistreat them, if you're harsh to them, if you don't meet their needs, they will blame themselves and they will
Try to contort themselves into whatever the parent needs in order to win that connection and love where love seeking animals and you blame yourself a you try and get that parent back in the connection with you. You start reading them. This is the gift of the drama of the gifted child the gift you read them you blame yourself and you see Peter it's compassionate to blame yourself because
You feeling bad for your when my father would beat me. I would feel bad for him. That's a messman. I would feel sorry for him. He was pathetic to me
at what age Dairy does that a four-year-old would experience that or is that a ten year olds
experience? Thanks. Thanks. The point being for most children is safer to blame yourself then to come to grips with a random hostile Universe. It makes a lot more sense than I
I brought this on myself. That means that if I do something different I might be able to control it versus the people are supposed to protect me from the world are inflicting me with the brutality of the world and I'm completely in their care and helpless. That is a scary thought.
Some people do shame to protect themselves and people also do shame because this is complicated. It's a multi-generational legacy.
My father beat his depression into me with the strap his father beat the depression into my father with gas.
We pass this on from generation to generation until somebody does something about
one of the most profound things. I remember you've ever said to me and again, I think I don't maybe you were paraphrasing but it's I wrote it down and I see it often in my journal is every man is a bridge spanning two legacies the one he inherits and the one he passes on did I get that about
right? You got that? Absolutely right? Let me give you another one. They say it's the hypertension to quote yourself.
but I do it in this one butcher it but here it goes family pathology rolls from generation to generation like a fire in the woods taking down everything in his path until one person in one generation has the courage to turn and face the Flames that person brings peace to his ancestors and Spares the children that follow
that's what I'm about. I'm about facilitating that
what's the natural history of not doing anything about this. I mean is this literally something where you could say look shame will little laws of entropy basically dictate shame will always propagate unless there is deliberate and active attention brought to Halt
it. Yeah, because even the best of parents will injure will neglect. Oh honey. I'm
Sorry, you skin your knee level? Let me just okay Doris. Let me call you back. Okay, and you know what? You should have hung up the phone and dealt with the knee on the spot. That's a little misalignment. That's a little injury. That's normal. It's part of human development. It's okay the child cries maybe in a very safe house. The child says Mommy. Why don't you just put bang up the phone? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, honey, and there's repair and this is the kind of traffic that
it is part of being human. That part's fine. But when you start going lower down on the Spectrum, then things get a lot less fine.
How does one differentiate between preventing the propagation of shame or trauma and the over coddling of kids because right now the pendulum has really swung the other way and Society where there were books about this entire topic of how we've coddled an entire generation and as a result of that there's an entitlement.
In a whole bunch of other things that are the result of it internally. I have my own litmus test, but I don't know that it's worth much. I'm very curious as to how an expert thinks about
this. I don't know that I have a particular formula. I would say trust your gut and civilize the little creatures. The thing is that you have to understand self-esteem like the California no fans the California drive for self-esteem was so misguided. It just made me pull my hair out what most people think of a self-esteem is
hence and Mastery. Okay, that's fine. That's what it is. But that ain't self-esteem self-esteem is spiritual this ontological you have worth and dignity as a human being because you're here on this planet and you're worth cannot be better or worse than the guy to the left of the guy to the right of you no matter what you say or do it can't be added to it can be subtracted from it's a spiritual fact, you know, this is the doctor Peter. This is part of the Hippocratic Oath if one guy is pulled in
Ye are and he's a skid row bomb and the other ones state senator by the book at any rate is triage based on need because you don't triage based on status. That's grotesque. Every person is equal. We know this in the abstract, but we don't live it unless you do some of the work that I invite you to do. You don't live like that you judge other people it's better than or less than and you judge yourself is better than less than all day.
A long I have to tell you I've been doing recovery work for 30 40 years ever since I was a teenager and 69. I don't do that anymore inside my head. I don't go up and I don't go down not much. It's not my Baseline. And if I do run out of 10 times, I'll catch it. It's a lot better living like this. Then it was living like that. I help men and women move from that to this.
All day long. That's what I do for a
living.
Say more about the up in the down. You've alluded to it already with the one up one down cycle, but say a little bit more about that. I suspect that resonates for people when it's described in some
detail. Yeah, the field of psychotherapy and self-help and all that for 50 years. We've done a great job of figuring out how to help people come up from the one down of Shame Oprah Winfrey. All the stuff has been great in the trauma two.
Nick's in therapy, we've done a terrible job of the other self-esteem this order helping people come down from the one up of grandiosity and their flip sides of the same coin one down one up inferiority superiority and it's our grandiosity that gets us into so much trouble in our relationships. Shame is an implosion grandiosity is acting out or some kind of explosion the great secret that I run around the country telling
Therapist is this chain feels bad. Grandiosity feels good. That's the Open Secret. It feels good to get drunk or feels good to get high feels good to make out with your secretary feels good to tell your boss to shove his job in the moment that you're being grandiose is like an intoxicant. It feels good. So you have to think your way down from grandiosity. It takes a smarter person and you think you a tell you come down.
from grandiosity even though it feels good because it's in your interest to come down from
Are men more susceptible to grandiosity than women
well men's grandiosity in this culture tends to be more overt maintain to lead from the one up grandiose position and have covert shame 10 to 2 tons of exemption. Whereas women tend to lead more from the victim one down position and have covered issues of grandiosity. So we're compliments for each other.
Yeah. Let's go over that a little bit more.
Because in the book, I don't want to talk about it. You talked a lot about overt and covert depression and it's the opposite of that as you said the on average for what it's worth men tend to be more covert in their depression women more overt explain that distinction.
Well, when I first wrote I don't want to talk about it depression were seen as a woman's disease. This was the first book that had ever been written about male depression. Nobody said that phrase May
what year was the first
Titian of that early
90s late 1997 98 and the idea was that women were two to four times more prone to depression than men the subtitle of my book. I don't want to talk about is the hidden epidemic of depression and Men And if hidden for two reasons, the first is the men are ashamed of it. It's not unwomanly to be depressed. It is unmanly to be overwhelmed by feelings and vulnerable so with
In face the sigma of a mental disorder, but men feel that very personally, it feels like they're unmanned by this disorder and they're ashamed of it and they hide it and the people around them will often collude with their hiding in family physicians are the first line of defense and depression and 70% of them. Do not diagnose a patient with depression the studies indicate and I believe it's because we're afraid to
Unmask that poor man and further, shame him wives are like that kids are like that. Everybody gets very protective some men do such a good job of hiding the depression that they hide it from themselves. And this is what I call covert depression and what you see is not the depression so much but the defense is the man who directed to defend against the depression and you see acting out you see sexual act p.m. You sleep
I want addiction usually self-medication. You see anger. You see sudden isolation in withdrawal. I talked about the Unholy Triad of covert depression radical isolation anger and acting out sexual acting out and of course the self-medication includes drinking and drugging if you look at women and men look at what I now call over depression. It's like two to four times more women than
Amen, if you add into the grid domestic violence and alcoholism and drugs, it comes right back up to equal and we know things like for example in areas where men lose their job. There's a dramatic rise in domestic violence and the missing billiard ball in the middle between those two points is depression low self-esteem. And what happens to men with covert depression is what I've been talking about all evening.
Which is the transliteration of shaming the grandiosity of helplessness into righteousness of victimhood into attack and that translation of Shame into grandiosity helplessness and to attack is a central motif of traditional American masculinity. Look at all the adventure movies. I wrote about this and I don't want to talk about it Rambo. These guys are innocent guys who are pressed to the wall.
My bad guys, and then finally about halfway through the movie they pick up an Uzi and start blowing people away. And we cheer reach are the move from shamed grandiosity feels like the swell of empowerment and we get drunk on it, but it's silent. It's emotionally violent. It's violent to the person your grandiose to and it does violence to your own soul.
And this comes back to the sort of patriarchal society. Which place
This has a value on that strength. I mean, what do you think biologically or socially accounts for that distinction
we could wrestle around this one for a long long. Most of the people in my field are not saying is it biological or is it cultural and social that's not the question for almost anybody? Anyway, the question now is how do they interact because it's both it's both of course it's both but just because something biological doesn't mean
Necessarily mean that we should cede to her aggression in biological Freud said the first man to hurl and epithet instead of a rock was the creator civilization. We have all sorts of impulses that are biological but that doesn't necessarily mean we're supposed to go with them the thing between our raw biological impulses and our behavior is called civilization.
Yeah, you've talked a little bit about.
This idea in the past you've written about it that the steps to sort of fixing this. So if everything we've talked about is recognizing this how hard is that? How long does it take for you with a patient? I know you work a lot with couples. Do you work individually with men and women equally or disproportionately with one of the other
know I work the proportioning with man. I'll see a woman now and again and but I do mostly come you see it.
I don't know somebody May correct me on this. But what I do is I teach people how to live relational lives how to open their hearts and open their voices have a listen how to respond without getting defensive and egotistical how to do this how to live relationally is what we're born fourth. The only thing that really makes us happy and I do believe that the best way of teaching somebody how to live a relational life is to get their partner and maybe their kids and
and work on the relationship rather than do it abstractly on the
side. Do you find that most men need to be in crisis to hear what you're saying right
now? Yeah. I had a guy an older gentleman very successful businessman and we started talking about men and grandiosity and he got very resonant with it and he came to me and he said I have a young colleague that I just I brought
To our team and he's the most brilliant young man I've ever met but he's so narcissistic. It's impossible to work. What do I do? And I sadly said to him I think he's too young. I think that life hasn't roughed him up enough yet. You have to start to get it that your old tracks are not working and for some men particularly if they're successful and Wealthy, they're shielded from those consequences, but it's not it doesn't do them good.
Good. Yes, you want to crisis look the so-called midlife crisis in men is this is my read on it. The midlife crisis comes of whatever age when you've peaked when you're at the top of your game and you either feel that the masculine agenda is something that you have failed. You have not caught the brass ring. You're not rich enough. You're not smart enough or you feel that the agendas failed you you have the brass ring.
A lot with high rollers. You have the brass ring. Guess what your the Miserable as you were before.
So that's kind of a damned. If you do damned. If you don't realization that seems to suggest as you've said, once you reach a point at which either you've reached or achieved whatever success is supposed to be if you deem it to be Hollow you're hosed and if you haven't achieved it, you're hosed because your Willy Loman or pick your favorite example, right,
right. That's right.
You fail or the agenda failed you and that's a great opportunity. I like Crisis is a family therapist the other crisis of course for men is their women or if they're gay their male Partners. I like to say that most of the men I treat or what I call wife mandated referrals. They've been sent or their marriage is in crisis or they've already separated from their wife of 30 years and they're erect but there's some sort of crisis in their
This is driving them deeper
in your book. You certainly most of the case studies fit that description right? I'm trying to remember is there an example of a man in the book who just showed up on his own doing sort of self-exploration and
introspection. Yeah. There are a few there are few and I love them dearly. There was a young fella Kurt.
Who came from the Midwest he was a farmer's son. He came to me because he couldn't get girls. You couldn't get past the first date. This is deconstructing patriarchy. So I said, well, what do you do because he was a good-looking guy and he was intelligent. He said well, I just I tell them that I do this and I do that and I'm capable of this and I've won that award and said we never what are you doing? That's not a date. That's a resume.
And he said to me I just figure I've only got one shot so I better make it good.
It's funny, but it's
sad. Well, it's patriarchy men are taught that just being who you are is not enough that you have to earn connection through achievement and turn your back on relationship. I call this The Icarus syndrome. You have to leave Hearth and Home go flying into the sun to be worthy of guess what Hearth and Home you're the one that left to begin with they're waiting for you. This happens all the time guys go off and work a hundred hours a week.
To be worthy of the wife and kids who just want to come home
already. Where does that come? From? Where is that drive coming from? Where is this inferiority coming from does it all stem from this shame that you've talked about the seeds of which are sown in little
boys. Yes. We're taught to supplement the lack of inside out healthy self-esteem with outside in false self esteem, and there's
Three, this is Pia. There are three there's performance-based esteem. I have worth because of what I can do and that's a big ones from men. There's other basis team I have worth because you think I do and of course push through extreme that's love addiction and that's big for women and then you have I have worth because of what I have I have big muscles. I have a beautiful wife. I am in Boston. I have a kid at Harvard. That's the be-all and end-all attribute-based. The theme is what our culture runs on.
If everybody woke up tomorrow with healthy self-esteem and full recovery. Our economy would collapse the whole advertising industry is built on use this deodorant be a special
person. What was the first one the second one was other based the third one was attribute-based. What was the first one
interesting you forgot a performance-based. I have worked because of what I can do.
Okay, I guess funny guy. It's ironic that I forget
that yeah, they're kind
of
partying or anything.
Well while we're on the topic of deconstructing people like me, let's talk about narcissism a little bit. You've already alluded to the Greek gods you write very eloquently about this.
Yeah. Thank you. Narcissism is largely. Misunderstood narcissism is not a disorder of too much self-love, but too little narcissus is an addict if you
The myth he pisses off. I forget who you know, I thought doesn't fall for any of her nymphs and she curses him and says you're going to fall in love with the first next thing you see Wiley curse. The next thing he sees is he bends over well to get some water is the image of himself. He is rooted from that moment to the well bent over endlessly sighing as he tries to grasp.
The beautiful creature in the world and every time he tries to touch it. It dissolves. The great thing about narcissus is if narcissus had to self-love he could leave the well, he's rooted to the well because he's Addicted To His Image not the internal self, but the image to construct itself that comes when you have no internal self. That's what he's addicted to and he dies.
He dies on that. Well, he starves to death.
And Echo beautiful Echo is placed next to him. This is to me the essence of heterosexual relationships traditionally, our assistance has been over as well and Echo has been over Narciso.
And our sisters has no motility and Echo has no voice and our sisters endlessly size and his own beautiful reflection and the echo endlessly repeats the size as she size for him. There we are.
Is there any benefit in narcissism? Is it always pathologic
know? There's healthy we talk about healthy narcissism healthy entitlement. That's good. Does your Healthy entitlement?
Strain through patriarchy it goes back to what the great Anthropologist Mary-Ann Heisler speaks of is the difference between power over and power with.
Is your narcissism about agency and assertiveness and power with fine is your narcissism about superiority and contempt not so fine
these Concepts they resonate I think you and I we've spoken about David Foster Wallace. I'm such a fan of the commencement speech. He delivered 2005 at Kenyon College. This is water and so much of what he's talking about is the sort of grandiosity one up.
Men ship that he describes as being the root of so much misery and that's the interesting side of it isn't it? Right, which is in the short run that grandiosity is an amazing anaesthetic but it it has a very bitter
aftertaste. Well, it's like drinking three Martinez. They really would have been better with just one and that third one makes you feel better in the moment. But oh boy, do you pay for it? This is how I describe it to my using my guys into audiences.
Bear with me I'll Meander a little bit. So Boston, I'm convinced and I think statistically as the worst drivers in the United States. I come from New Jersey. I lived for ten years in New York in New York or Jersey somebody will cut you off because they're kind of a pig and they'll speed up and keep going in Boston. Somebody will cut you off and then they'll drop down the 20 miles an hour because they're passive aggressive and they'll just stick their Fanny in your face and make you sit there all.
So I got one of these guys pulls that move on me pulled out ahead of me and then slows down and looking through the windscreen at that fat little head in front of me and I'm doing that Star Wars laser beam thing. You know, I'm like like exploding that fat little in and I'm way into grandiosity. I mean this guy is the shit this guy is a moron. This guy is whatever dire barely deserves to breathe in a former day. I would have pulled up roll down my window.
Oh and let him have it now as I'm looking at that fat little head through the windscreen. I start breathing myself down from my anger from my indignation from my superiority from my contempt and I say to myself as I look at that head this isn't for you. This is for me. You may deserve to have somebody pull next to you and blow you away, but I deserve to not be that person.
Here's when I say Peter I grew up in the contempt drenched family. I internalized that contempt and it became depression. I've wrestled with for 40 years. I played out that contempt and I did damage to a lot of nice relationships that way. You know, what fat little head. Not today. Not today. I've had enough contempt in my life. I can do without it.
So that's an interesting take that's the take that is coming out in a very self-interested way, which is just from a pure self-preservation standpoint. There is no upside to you being upset about this and to just preserve your own sanity. You're saying look assume the worst about this person which is to say they've done this deliberately or they've somehow done this to spite me and it's all about me. Even if that were true. I'm not going to give in to it now the flip side to that.
The thing that is, you know, I work on and I'm I think I'm batting 50% at this now. I'm batting 500 to use baseball terms, which is a hell of a lot better than what I used to bet which was Zero just straight-up 0 is I go through that sort of Foster Wallace Narrative of I don't know the story of what's going on. I don't know that maybe that person that's as fast as they're able to drive. Maybe there's something else going on in that person's like maybe that person's
wife just left them today. We're maybe that person lost their kid and they're so distracted. They can't driving around or something as mundane as that is so trivial and I'm trying to share with you an interesting story because I had a pretty interesting example of this a couple of months. So I don't think I told you this story but we have this thing. It's a grocery delivery service. I'm blanking on the name of it, but it's like instacart something like that. It's awesome. You've literally on your phone pick up what the groceries are going to be in the grocery show up. This is a bit of an embarrassing story.
Bear with me it's embarrassing in the sense that as I tell it it highlights. What a sort of grandiose prick I can be so it's four o'clock and I pull out the instacart and it says, you know, it'll be here in 90 minutes. And I think that's perfect because it'll be here at 5:30 on Saturday. I got to make dinner and it's got to be ready by 6:00. So it's perfectly timed and to make a very long story short at every step of the way Terry. This thing just keeps dragging it out. So
Sorry, it's going to be 15 minutes late. The store is crowded. Sorry, it's going to be another 20 minutes late. The store is really crowded. Sorry to do to do to do to do to do and I'm too stupid to put the phone down and go and do something else and I'm not making this up. I wish I was making this up. I actually pace around the kitchen for about an hour just waiting for the updates because now I realize I've lost my window to go and work out which was I was what I was planning to do or something else and
So it's now seven o'clock. It's a full three hours late. So I've blown my window to make dinner. I sort of feel like I screwed up and you know, whatever whatever and if I get one more text message from this thing giving me one more dumb excuse. Like I'm going to lose my mind and my wife who is now sort of hovering around me has a real practical concern, which is this person is
Going to come to the door and get blasted by me being the idiot that I am and sure enough the doorbell rings and I beeline to the door with every intention of obliterating this person. I have no idea what I'm actually going to say by the way, it's not like I've rehearsed what I'm going to say, but it's how does it take you? Yeah. I know what I'm capable of let's put it that way and Jill is on my heels, basically.
Thinking to herself. How am I going to mitigate this damage because this person even though their hour and a half late does not deserve what's about to come and I open the door.
And it's this overweight woman who's sweating profusely.
And she's got the three five whatever bags of groceries on the ground and she says, I'm sorry. I'm late. It was really crowded and I broke the eggs.
And I'm not kidding Terry. I almost started crying and I thought my God you asshole. How could you have almost torn into this person? I don't know how to describe it. I just in that moment. I couldn't get out of my own way. I invited her in I said, ah don't worry about the eggs. I think I ordered them by accident. I don't even want eggs. We don't eat eggs. I hate eggs. Come on and do what you like a drink. I mean, I practically invited her to stay for dinner in that moment because I felt so
About how I had been thinking about her now to this day. I don't know what changed in me and how I got lucky in that moment, but I thought to myself if I could reproduce this at every moment of my life. I would be a happy man. I wouldn't be the piece of shit that I'm probably hardwired to be or at least softwired to be
you're not a piece of shit. You're just like the rest of us. Listen. That's a beautiful story Peter.
And what you had was a moment of empathy of compassion and Humanity, that's like what I teach sex addicts who stared women to remind themselves. This is Somebody's Daughter Somebody's Mother somebody's sister. There's not a porn queen or a blow-up doll. There's the person and that's what you did. You got past your entitled indignation the thing about it is it's case in point.
What I've been talking about you felt helpless you wanted the goddamn food and it was not going to get there until it was ready to get there. And you had nothing to say about it. The more helpless you felt the more Angry you got that's how it works. The helplessness is one down in shame. The anger is grandiosity and righteousness and like a lot of men the longer that food took the more helpless. You got the more Angry. That's the formula.
You describe it that way it seems so obvious and so predictable does the knowledge of that in any way help us.
I think it does.
I think it does it's funny just before I started this I would spend all day with a couple and she was about to leave him after 25 years of marriage both in their 70s and they have a wonderful time except once or twice a day he'll scream at her.
Or he'll yell with utter annoyance and contend what I got. He was raised by two alcoholics. His father would talk to his mother this way all day long. It was a terrible terrible childhood growing up and I told him that he had adult child of Alcoholics stamped on his far ahead in the D issue when you grow up with alcoholics his trust. Why would you trust what is intimacy ever done for you? And I know this from my own dysfunctional family at what?
Comes to him as he described the he was waiting for her and they relate to get to somewhere and he got annoyed with her and if she were responsible and if she were competent then and if she loved him then she wouldn't be dragging her feet like that. Well, we get to the details was up early parents and guess what they're not responsible or competent.
But can I pause for a second and ask you a question Terry? Well, when you're doing that type of work with a couple in that situation, does he actually believe?
Leave that or is that a subconscious thing that you have to extract that is part of the template of his belief
system like did he actually believed that his wife is incompetent irresponsible? Yes. Yes. He actually believes that but he hired her because she is a little dizzy. We always marry her unfinished business. So he gets triggered. That's not the issue. We all trigger each other. We all pick people who will trigger us. That's all other conversation. I call that the mysticism of marriage that's
Point the point is what happens then and what happened then to him is he would move into control now? Listen, what I said is I'll bet every time you get angry is the moment when you feel you're dependent on her and she's not coming through for you because your anti dependent and the more dependent on her and the more she doesn't come through for you the more helpless you feel and the angrier you feel and then it all comes out.
And he got it. He got it and he started to cry.
And I say listen, I have a move I have way out. I have a movie can make
next time you feel that Rush of annoyance you memorize and he is going to repeat this ten times a day to himself when I'm annoyed. It means that I'm dependent and I don't like it or trust it. That's what this means. I'm feeling helpless and I want you to go to your wife and say one word to her vulnerable.
And a honey you've You're vulnerable you stop on a dime and you go give your husband because he just did a good piece of work and she said fine and he said fine. I honestly believe that after this day with me. He's not going to yell at her anymore. And if he does if he slept she can touch him on the shoulder and remind him vulnerable. Oh, yeah vulnerable that's leaning a couple out of patriarchy
we talked about relational living you once explained.
Me something. You used Dickens as a way to describe it, which is the sort of the Ghost of Christmas future the Ghost of Christmas Past and the Ghost of Christmas present and you did it in that order. Do you remember this discussion?
Oh, yeah. This is what I tell my therapist my students. This is the best rendition of the work that I've created. I call it relational life therapy for obvious reasons. I guess the essence of that Rhythm. Well, let me just say it this way.
Okay, let me do a straight first relational therapy as I've created it has three phases. The first is loving confrontation. This is what you're doing Peter to blow your foot off take a look at it and feel bad about it. You've been on cruise control wake up the second phase of family of origin were where did you learn that? Where did you learn this prying up? Who did you see do it or who did it to you or who did you do it too? And nobody stopped you in corrected. Where did this come from?
And I'll do trauma work deep family of origin inner child work in the presence of the other partner sitting there. That's the second faith. And then the third phase is teaching. This is how you do it right this how you stand up for yourself in a loving voice. Not a large pond. This is how you listen to your partner's complaint and don't get defensive but enter into their experience and be compassionate like you did with that woman. These are skills. So the third phase is skill so good to go back.
The Dickens I said it best rendition of our LT relational length therapy is A Christmas Story You've Got Scrooge use anti relational and self-medicating with attribute-based esteem. The more money you have the more self-esteem you feel via and he's visited by three ghosts. I don't know Dickens order, but I'll do it. Mine. The first is the Ghost of Christmas future and he takes Scrooge to his own funeral and everybody's delighted that he's
Ed that's the negative consequence that's the confrontation then it goes back into his past and he had a miserable childhood miserable sad childhood that goes back to the family of origin and where all this comes from and then he goes to Bob cratchit's house Tiny Tim where he sees what a functional family looks like and he learns what connection looks like then it goes buys a whole bunch of turkeys and he's a transformed human being. What is the transformation?
Ation, he's relational. He's in
connection. It seems that that order is necessary. It doesn't always occur in that order but it goes back to sort of a question. I asked you earlier, which was how do you get somebody to do this? If they're not in crisis and my own personal experience and that of the people that I've known is everything you're talking about. Terry is really hard. It's harder than anything I've ever described or tried to do if you said to me
You're just go run a marathon. I'd be like, okay, I know how to do that. You put one foot in front of the other and you just keep doing it until you're done and you'll get blisters and it won't matter but at least for me the type of work that you describe is so challenging that the activation energy to get there the barrier to overcome that you have to be in incredible pain. You have to be incredibly miserable incredibly depressed incredibly angry or see incredible pain and other
Sirs that you've caused. I mean it's some combination of these things and and that's why I do like the way that that story the way you tell that story but I mean,
let me tell you another story which I think illustrates the work and sort of Dickens in the Flash.
Man, can I tell you a story of Harry absolutely Harry comes to me his marriage is in crisis. You're absolutely right about that. It's wife is about to leave a my Sheba them as a couple and it's a typical. He said she said a couple never prevents with a presenting problem there always to his and hers or his in his hurting her anyway.
His problem with her was that she was a deaths quote unquote. Okay, and her problem with him is that he was brutal quote unquote. Okay, Harry give me some examples of surely being a death. Well, she's often 1015. Sometimes you in 20 minutes later. She never apologizes Senator store for five things will come back before and she just did. Okay surely tell me about Harry's being a brute well in just the last
Two weeks. He called me the c-word he stood in the doorway and physically barred me from leaving and he spit on my windshield. It's absolutely true story. I got a hairy I say to him. I picked the most egregious one. I say you spit on her windshield. Oh, yeah. First of all, let me pause and say in the work that I do I take sides. We're taught as fact a couples therapist to never take sides and always be even bullshit. This is a bra.
Problem. This is not surely problem. It's a hairy mean name names and we tell it like it is and this work. Anyway, Harry you spit on her windshield. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, but you should have heard what she was saying. You don't expect me to take that kind of bullshit. And just so I look at them for a little bit. Bee bee bee bee and I say to him Harry. I don't know I barely know you but it occurs to me. You don't know the difference between standing up.
Cell phone attacking somebody that's top a little bit now. Listen, where did you get this from who was the angry person in your family growing up? He says my father. So tell me about it. He would he was horrible. He would come home and man you scattered you getting his way you wish you had. In fact, my mother was never around. She worked three jobs. So she was nobody account. I took care of my little sister.
But I wanted you to I protected her I kept her out of my father's way. I walked her in the basement. You're not old get me wrong. This is a finished basement with TVs and videos and coloring books and all that but I would lock the door so Dad couldn't get her. I said how old was she three? How old were you five true story?
I said, I don't know Harry. I wasn't there but pardon my French but I imagine there were some five-year-old version of looking at your father and say to yourself something like you lay a fucking hand on my sister and I'll kill you. He said yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly what it was. I said Harry, how did I know that?
So, okay. I'll bite. How did you know that I said because you defend yourself like an angry five year old.
Will you let me teach you how to do this and a more civilized way?
And he looked at me. This is not a sensitive to age guy. You looked at me said I think you better.
And we did.
That's how this works.
So in that situation, I'm Amazed by at least one element of that which is maybe you just glossed over it. But what was the pain point that got him to so easily be willing to put I mean, I'm going to come back to the language of wounded children and adoptive children and maladaptive adults in a moment. But in that parlance you very quickly got him to at least agree to put the adoptive child in another chair and I will
Back to that inner child stuff because I really want to dig on it. But I mean is that normal that in such a short period of time you can you can get in particular in angry man to accept the error of his ways.
Yes. I call it waking up the client you'll wake them up
and it's that in part just because you took sides named names and didn't mess
around. Yes large part. I run around the country Peter telling the therapist that there's some
serious design flaws in therapy and the biggest design flaw is that we're all taught to be terminally nice to our clients and people don't tell the truth. I tell therapist what you tell each other at the water cooler after the session can't believe what a bitch you up. I can't believe what a milquetoast this guy and that's when you should be saying in the section find a responsible way to say it there because that's the damn issue, but we therapists are taught to hold back.
And I think it's a great great disservice to everyone.
So let's go back to Harry. So you got a pretty quick pass on the Ghost of Christmas future you talk straight to them. Some people certainly me need a lot more than that. I needed to literally go to some funerals before I could get my head out of my ass. And then you go back and you do the family of origin in the trauma work. You posed a series of questions. Can you
Repeat them. Yeah,
who did this to you or who did you see do it or who did you do it too and no one stopped you
and basically I mean I've thought about this so much Terry it's hard for me to come up with too many examples of behaviors that don't have at least one of those three types of mirroring.
This is how this stuff gets transmitted from one generation to the next.
This is exactly how it's
done.
So Harry was I mean that's just an awful example of how wounded he was as a kid. Fortunately most kids don't need to go through something that extreme. How did Harry respond to that? How would you take use this language now of what was his adaptation to that? And then what's that little adaptation serving him today?
Well, I have a saying adaptive and maladaptive now. I mean, I always teach my students to have great respect for that.
adaptive Child part of the person that the Adaptive Child part of you
when people do trauma work, we always think of the young wounded child and one that was on the receiving end of the abuse or neglect but between that child and the functional adult their stands on older Child part of us older children by conglomerate them and that's how you adapted. So, for example, I have an intrusive mother say, okay. My adaptation is I defend myself from her intrusion by coming behind thick walls.
Erect thick walls interesting me not all that unlike my father's and when he deals with my mother, I married a woman who of course is highly emotional just like my mother and when she gets highly emotional with me. Guess what you think I do. I put up a wall. So she's my intrusive mother. I'm that little boy and I'm using say meditation that I used when I was four now at 45 it
it was exactly what I needed to do it for. It's getting me into a world of trouble at 45
when we do that inner child work. I think that what you just said is an important part of it that sometimes maybe if you're on the outside you missed this distinction, which is sort of one of the first things you do is you think the Adaptive child,
right? Yes, you saved my ass. I have an exercise and your listeners can do this exercise that they want when I do a workshop I do.
Two-day workshop from the general public on basic skills and I give people a homework assignment on the first day and I'm giving away my my secrets here. But this is what I tell you to do and everybody does it. I want you to take at least an hour on them.
I want you to write a letter to your damn to a child dear little Peter dear PD or whatever you call them. First. I want to thank you. You really saved my ass. You protected my autonomy. You preserve me from you taught me this you get okay, this is what you did for me. Thank you. This is what you gave to me.
You gave me drive you gave me intelligence for gave me the sermon you gave me Ambition you gave me goals.
This is what you cost me.
You cost me me because mean connection because Me Love.
You cost me being honest with myself. You cost me getting comfort from anybody else.
And then the last one I'm here now the adult the inner adult and I can take care of both of us. And from now on what that's going to look like is and then you sign love Peter. That's the
assignment this type of work is very
emotional. Yeah.
Does one heal enough from sort of inflicted wounds to ever does the adoptive child ever vanish?
No, I never vanishes and we're always we often mistake our adapter child from the functional adult. But let me just say the functional adult has nuance.
The functional goal is forgiving the functional goal is warm and supple the adapter job is rigid and harsh and black and white and it's a kid's version of a grown-up. Anyway know they're always with us. I don't believe some trauma people say they're gone forever, but I think we contend with these little parts of this the difference is
As you move into deeper and deeper recovery, the Baseline is not this little boy the Baseline of my adult and the little boy takes over episodically and as your recovery where deepens less frequently and you catch it earlier and you bring yourself down from that one up or up from that one down so that the net-net is you're spending it was that Health was the island than peaks of grandiosity
Shane for example were the norm and over time as you tame those Peaks and spend more time in the house that becomes your life and up and down become episodes. So to with fighting in the couple, so too with any of it, you start off all over the place and then you know what? It's like it's like physical training is like core work. This is core work and the stronger your core.
The more you spend your time and health and the more ill health becomes the exemption. That's how it
works. I mean this might be kind of a dumb question. But how long do you think it really takes to go from a state of pathology? So you're a person who is really quite dysfunctional. You've really reached an atar in terms of your misery and the misery you inflict on others, but you've gone through
the first two stages meaning you've confronted what the world in your continued state is going to look like and you've gone back and looked at the family of origin you've gone through the inner child work as appropriate or as necessary and you're now at the teaching skill development stage which strikes me as the most difficult stage and the one that takes the longest is this is this a journey of
years. Yes, but it doesn't mean anything.
Therapy for year. Look it's like once we get to the scale phase is mastering what I call a relational technology. It's a technology. And if I Kenny adult mastering a new skill set. It's like learning to ski in your 40s or learning to play the piano or learning how to speak French and it takes about the same amount of time. If you're assiduous that it takes about three to five years. You don't need to be in therapy all that time, but it takes about three to five years of practice until you really pretty fluent. I remember
we had an interview once and I said that relationality was my second language. My first language is selfishness, which is true the thought it was great. But I feel pretty fluent in relationality have lived in the world of relationality for decades and I speak it pretty well. Is it my native language deeply deeply deeply but in terms of what hits the surface is my second language, but it's the country of it.
That's actually a really great analogy because I think most people who have tried to learn.
Another language can appreciate that it's doable. It's not just something you can decide you want to do without practicing it. It's one thing to say. Oh God. I'm going to Italy this summer. Can't wait to learn Italian. Oh great. Did you hire an Italian teacher now? Oh, did you download one of those Italian teaching apps? No. Did you buy a book about it know exactly. How do you hope to learn Italian? I mean, there's Truth by fire you could just simply go to Italy immerse yourself in it and not allow yourself to speak English and
Eventually, I suppose you'll learn Italian but for most people a little bit of structure can help that but you'll probably never speak it without an accent and that doesn't mean you're not functional. But yeah, I think that analogy is a great one.
So let me say it takes about three to five years before you're really pretty comfortable speaking this new language of relationality having said that this way of thinking ecologically instead of linearly. You're in the system you're not
Of the system you want Power with not power over these ways of handling yourself are so different from the default that you were raised within the culture at large and they work so much better that doing them poorly will transform your life and your relationship and you can start doing them poorly right away.
That is probably again, there's probably an analogy there within language which is if you even spent a couple of months practicing a
Language you could certainly get to the point where the people in the restaurants and the taxis would appreciate your efforts and make every effort to help you.
Yeah, I think that's right. And you know what in terms of how long it takes is really simple. It depends on the sincerity the person I'm not blown away by diagnosis. I'm not blown away by character disorder who can look I had a couple they would be called in Psychiatry borderline personality disorders bad people tough tough.
People I mean yelling screaming throwing things. He goes to the hotel. She goes after him. She's banging on the door. She's dragged off by the police. This is true. There's actually happened but here's the thing she got pregnant and she was determined that she was not going to do to her kid what was done to her and he came on board and with my help these people cleaned up in about six months. I've dealt with neurotics who
Have attitude and I can't get to them for two years. These people were different people within a matter of months. She went on and became a therapist and she studied she's now a relational life. There has been a good one. So I don't care how far back you are. I just want to know if you have heart.
Do you ever find in couples therapy that you have to recommend to the couple a separation or just a divorce where you realize one person is really in this to change in the other is not is that usually what a break?
Point comes down to
well, it depends on what change were talking about. I mean if one person just wants to be neater in the other one doesn't that survivable if one person wants to be monogamous and the other one doesn't there's more of a serious problem. It depends on what's going on. But there are some deal-breakers. I wrote a piece you can get it off my website which I would love people to come. Check out
your website is your name it is it Terry or Terrence is the website.
Right,
trr. Why reall just Google me and we'll take you there now. We're more the you said you wrote an article. Oh, yeah called rowing the know where you can get it off my website and it's about is for couples therapist, but it's about when to break somebody up and what we put ourselves through when we do that, but they're deal-breaker if somebody has a drinking or drug problem they or do anything about it or somebody doesn't want to be monogamous and the other one does. Here's an interesting one.
Which I think is what you were talking about. If there's a serious discrepancy in the level of maturity between the two people level of Health, if one of them gets healthy and the other one doesn't then eventually the pathology of the unhealthy one is too hard for the other one to stomach and they leave so they are deal-breakers obviously violence is a deal-breaker not every couple is a and in terms of I often
always recommend a physical separation if there's yelling and screaming in the house and their children and now I universally this tell the people about what's called witness abuse children are boundary-less. They're wide open if your child is listening to you to scream at your wife, it goes into them as if you were screaming at them. There's no different.
And so since you're screaming and yelling at each other and your children, are there I give you 30 days to clean up. I do this almost every time if you're still yelling and screaming each other 30 days from now one of you leaves which one should it be
that's an interesting point you alluded to earlier which is up until a certain age a child is incapable of differentiating between being screamed at directly versus just being a bystander. How long does that?
Effect persist
forever persist as long as if it's exactly the same as if you were standing there and your parents being you in persistent oil frankly until you do some trauma work and and metabolizing
how long our kids susceptible to that what's the window in which obviously that I can see that being the case for a five-year-old is that the case for a twelve-year-old as well?
Absolutely the case for a
twelve-year-old. That's really sobering especially.
For someone like me for whom anger is such a easy
default. Yeah, that's right. That's right. You can go to my website. I did a piece for 2020 with a raging woman and are very passive aggressive husband. And I said to her do you have pictures of your kids and she did had beautiful golden youth Latino kids.
They're gorgeous. And I said this is what I want you to do before you raise your husband. I want you to take the picture out of your children. Don't you look at me eyes and I want you to say I know that what I'm about to do is going to cause you harm but right now my anger is more important to me than you are so screw you and if I shall we try that this is on TV, you can see it and I put my arm around her and hold up the pictures right now. I'm thinking about as she sobs and she puts down the
And she said I will never yell at my husband again and that was about 17 years ago and she is true to her word. They're divorced. She got rid of him and whatever on that but no more rage after that session people routinely do the thing about three to five years of learning. Let me do the other side people who team Lee sit on my couch swear off Behavior. They've engaged
Aged in their entire lives get up and it's gone permanently gone. That's what happened today. We would this man he realized every time he was quote unquote annoyed with his wife that the contempt coming out of him was 10 times greater than what he experienced it being because he grew up with so much for contempt. He thinks it's just a love tap and she's flat on the floor and when he got it, he really got it.
He turned to her it just happened before we started our call. He turned to her with tears in his eyes and he said you are the most delicate precious thing in the world to me. Why in the world have I been punching you and he says never again never again. Never again
Terry. Do you find that that type of transformation can also exist when there's an actual chemical addiction involved as well? I mean, you've sort of very Loosely we sort of
glossed over it quickly about the substance addiction sex addiction process addiction other sort of real numbing medications out there. Is it just as easy to get somebody to stop gambling or stop a sex addiction or alcohol
addiction absolutely not they need treatment and they need probably intensive period but
why is anger different I mean anger strikes me as very similar. I mean dopamine-producing it has all of
Same, you know grandiosity anger shame does not have all of the same attributes as alcohol addiction.
Yes, and you know Peter I don't know the answer that's one because you're right. There are many behaviors that will kick out and Dodge enough chemicals that mimic the substances that you ingest and why didn't you have to go to a 12-step program for your anger. I do send people 12-step programs for their anger.
Sometimes I don't know the answer to that what I look for with substance abuse is you wake up and you say okay. I'll go to rehab you wake up and you go. Okay, I'll go to 12-step. I'll go to 90 days minding meeting. So you get committed to recovery and that's the transformation but the recovery takes a long time and a lot of help so does the rest of it? Look I'm recounting these marvelous one session John around but let's be clear when I'm done with people.
Send them back for ongoing therapy ninety-nine out of a hundred times. Yes, you've made the turn around now in order to keep it. You're going to have to have ongoing support for a while. The transformation needs to be digested and made real
Terry you talked about at the outset that the whole reason you turned your life around got into therapy was to fix yourself and somehow reconcile your relationship with your dad. How did that end
sadly in?
As well as can be expected. I'll tell you to little story. My dad died of ALS, which is a great metaphor. He lost his arms and then his legs and finally his lungs and he died when he had ALS before he died. He was paralyzed. My mom was a nurse was taking care of him I ask for his Blessing.
And it was very funny with my mom is holding up the phone and he was going to give me my thing and my mom dropped the phone and my dad said screaming at her only. I can't believe it and she starts yelling die like guys guys guys. Can you stop guys? Oh, yeah. Sorry. Can I have my blessing now? Okay. Okay. That's my family. Anyway,
it's so sad and so funny
Terry.
But my father gave me a beautiful blessing.
He said I remember this. He said May nothing. I've said or done in your life prevent you in any way from achieving your greatest potential and may your work with man be blessed and he was Estonia.
Maybe work with men be blessed. That's a nice blessing.
And on his deathbed as I wrote about and I don't want to talk about it.
He looked at my brother and me and he said listen, I'm really sorry and he apologized for the way he'd been with us and he said I got to tell you when you're looking at this the way I'm looking at this right now in this hospital bed. It's only about love. He said it's only about Rob's everything else which is fucking bullshit. That's probably the last conversation I had with
I mean, I don't think you could say it any better could you
know?
Now, that's the bottom line.
Well, Terry, I promised you we'd wrap this up at a certain time, and we are to the minute at that time. So I want to thank you very much for making the time, especially on a short notice. I've been wanting to have a discussion like this with you publicly almost from the day. I read your book, which was even before we started working together. I want to just thank you for everything personally and
otherwise, thank you Peter. I want to thank you for the service of this pod.
Gasps that you do I want to acknowledge if I may that it's been very moving for me to watch you change in our work together and the changes as I'm sure you speak about at times have been truly transformational. You are one of those people we've been talking about tonight, and I'm very very proud of you if I can say that.
Thank you very much.
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