Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
416: Ask David: The "Soul" Revisited; Acountability: Is "personality" another illusion? And more!
Mon, 30 Sep 2024
Podcast 416 Ask David is it reckless to question the existence of the "soul?"' How can I make myself accountable? Do we have a "personality," or is that just another illusion? Do questions about the "self" and "free will" involve All-or-Nothing thinking? The answers below were prepared prior to the podcast, and simply based on email exchanges. Be sure to listen to the live podcast discussion to get a variety of opinions and comments! Questions for today’s podcast. #1: Weren’t your comments on the self a bit reckless, given that the existence of / or belief in the “soul” is a prerequisite for most religions? #2: How can I make myself accountable for doing the exercises in your books? #3. Holy asks if the concept of having “a personality” is the same as the question of having “a self?” #4. Could questions about the “self” and “free will” involve All-or-Nothing Thinking? Question #1. (not question, just a comment worthy of a response) Your comments on the “self” were shallow, mocking and restless. The recent episode on ‘Do I have a self?’ (Episode 406) was very shallow and mocking of people who thought there was a soul/self. Given a soul is a prerequisite for most religions, dismissing it out of hand without meaningful discussion seems reckless. David’s response Thanks, there’s a lot of truth in your comment and we’ll definitely include this on an upcoming Ask David! To give a brief response prior to the show, I would say that I am not trying to defend or attack any religion, but don’t want to give up my right to freedom of thought. I, David, am not saying that the “soul” does not exist, but what I am saying is hard to convey, and I probably won’t be successful now, either. But, when you talk about a “soul,” I do not have any idea what you mean by that word, or what you are referring to, if anything. To me, words like “self” or “soul” are simply language that is “out of gear,” as Wittgenstein might say. Meaning can only occur in a specific concept. It is not the case that there are “pure meanings” for abstract concepts. Thinking along those lines was the huge error that Plato and Aristotle made. Now, let’s say I go to YouTube and listen to some really kick-ass music that I totally love. I might say, “Wow, that guy (like James Brown, for example) really has soul!” What I’m saying is that I tremendously admire and appreciate his talent, his energy, and so forth. I am not referring to something metaphysical. My concern about your comment is that it sounds scolding, at least to my ear, like the “morality police,” perhaps. Personally, I have seen a great deal of evil done in the name of this or that religion, and I have no doubt that you have, too! Still, I am sure you have strong religious beliefs, which I respect, and apologize for having offended you. But I admit I am ambivalent, and partially happy that you are offended, and speaking out, because I believe that critical thinking is also tremendously precious, just as your religious beliefs are precious to you. In a selfish way, I have to confess I am also happy for the criticism, because controversy stirs up interest, and I am trying to interest people in our podcasts, which are ultimately dedicated to healing and relief of suffering. Still, I cannot deny the truth in your comment, that my “critical thinking” can be a disguise for a put down. When I wrote Feeling Good, I was very aware already (in the 1970s) that the chemicals categorized as “antidepressants” had few or no clinically significant effects above and beyond their placebo effects, and subsequent research has validated this. But I did not emphasize this in that book because I did not want to pull the rug out from anybody, and hurt anybody’s feelings. After all, if you are getting a nice “placebo effect,” that’s a good thing, at lest to some extent. Now, I’m older, so I’m more willing to speak my mind, and let the chips fall where they may. And you have bravely spoken your mind, too. Kudos to you! And that’s the end of my prayer! Keep those good thoughts rolling along. Amen Best, david (PS I’m sure you’ll get way better answers from the others on the podcast tomorrow!) Question #2. How can I make myself accountable for doing the exercises in your books? Good to have Fabrice back. Regarding your books I have a question. I have trouble holding myself accountable doing the exercises in the book. Do you have any advice on how to prioritize doing the homework and being disciplined with it? How did other depressed people get better using your books? I already filled out multiple notebooks but appear to be stuck. Any help appreciated! David’s Response Thanks, we will address your question on a future Ask David podcast, if that's ok. Question #3. Holy asks if the concept of having “a personality” is the same as the question of having “a self?” @HolyLoveQuest • 1 day ago Thank you for this video on this topic, it was very clear to me! It's a shame that this chapter of your Feeling Great book was removed, because to me this philosophical point is one important tool (among the many techniques that you propose) to get read of negative thinking, and to heal. What you said about the DSM is refreshing, and I agree with it. So, you said schizophrenia and bipolar1 are mental disorders, and you explained why, but what would be the third: psychopathy? It would be nice if you do another video where you dig on this. Your voice on it is really important. What the APA is doing is really concerning. Other psychiatrists disagree with this business of labelling people. And you're right, it's detrimental to human beings. There is another psychological concept that you didn't talk about, but who looks similar to the "self", which is the "personality". What is your take on it, the same or different? Lastly, now in the spiritual domain, is the notion of the soul the same for you than the "self"? Or, in your opinion, could it be a possibility of an essential part of us which links us all to the Spirit, to spirituality? Looking forward to watching the other philosophical videos! David’s Response Will include in next Ask David Podcast! Question 4. Could questions about the “self” and “free will” involve All-or-Nothing Thinking? Matt send me the following email he received and asked if we could include it in our next podcast, and my answer was “of course!” Hi, I'd like to tell you about my experience with my son. He is 14 years old and despite our honest attempts not to label, he has always been the problem child: selfish, disobedient etc. Recently we started him on Prozac and the changes have been incredible. Things that have been way beyond his best times are now simple, like going to sleep on time or having a good time with his brother. Every night my wife and I tell each other about some new miracle. So, I wonder what you can say about this from the lens of free will. An obvious conclusion would be that the choices he made until now were not "free" because his brain was not presenting him with the same set of choices that other kids experience. On the other hand, if he is acting better now, we could say that it is not his choice, just a pill making the decision for him. I feel like that would be insulting and degrading. I wonder if a lot of resistance to therapy and especially pharmacotherapy is related to anxiety about the question: "If I can be changed by a pill, then who am I?" I had another thought after listening to the episode on "self". The position that self doesn't exist seems extreme to me, maybe like "all or nothing thinking". Maybe we could answer that question with a "magic dial". How much do we agree that there are selves and free wills? I agree that there are problems associated with having a self and free will, but I think there are practical and theoretical reasons on the other side as well. Maybe the golden path is in the middle? David’s Response: Will include your excellent question in the next Ask David Podcast! I am so happy to hear the good news about your son! At this point I will briefly say that concerns about “free will” might definitely include all-or-nothing thinking in the following sense. There is an awful lot of our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, behaviors, preferences, and so forth that is kind of hard-wired by evolution, genetics, and who knows what. For example, I really love blueberry pie that way my mother made it, but I never cared for pumpkin pie. I cannot “will” myself to like pumpkin pie! So I don’t have free will in that sense. Similarly, I can’t “will” myself to want to stop breathing permanently, or to stop feeling hungry when I haven’t eaten, and I can’t “will” myself to levitate when mediating or being able to high jump over something five feet high. The list goes on and on. And even when I freely chose something, like what type of new shirt to purchase, I have no doubt by genes and innate preferences, and possibly my upbringing, will strongly influence my choices. We all have biases, preferences, and desires that we do not choose, at least not consciously, Like sexual preferences, for example. We’re kind of stuck with what we’ve got. Now we can make free choices, of course, but we cannot be “totally free,” because we exist and are human. A cat can’t “not” get excited by a wiggly piece of string or a mouse that’s running away. But we CAN make conscious choices, obviously, just as I made the decision to print your excellent question and type out this brief response! Warmly, david
Hello, and welcome to the Feeling Good Podcast, where you can learn powerful techniques to change the way you feel. I am your host, Dr. Rhonda Barofsky, and joining me here in the Murrieta studio is Dr. David Burns. Dr. Burns is a pioneer in the development of cognitive behavioral therapy and the creator of the new Team Therapy.
He's the author of Feeling Good, which has sold over 5 million copies in the United States and has been translated into over 30 languages. His latest book, Feeling Great, contains powerful new techniques that make rapid recovery possible for many people struggling with depression and anxiety.
Dr. Burns is currently an emeritus adjunct professor of clinical psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine.
I had to squeeze that one out. Wow.
You kind of sound like the giant fee-fi-fo-fum. Anyway, hi, David, and hello, Matt, and welcome to all of our listeners around the world and throughout the galaxy. This is the Feeling Good Podcast, and it's episode 416. And because Matt's here, you know it's another Ask David episode.
So glad to be here with both of you and all of our listening audience.
Yeah, and this is a favorite time of the week to hang out with you folks and with all of you who are listening and write in with such beautiful comments and wonderful questions for us to reflect on. We didn't know if people would like the philosophical bent that we've had in the last four or five episodes.
Well, I have an endorsement about that.
Okay, cool. Yeah.
So this fellow, Brian, sends me very short messages about the podcast every once in a while. And he was talking to me about episode 410, which was What is the Purpose of Life that we published on August 19th. And he sent me just this really short thing saying, this was an awesome podcast today. The last 10 minutes especially were great. And I can't wait until the next one.
Great. What did we do in the last ten minutes?
I don't remember, but it was good, I guess.
Good, yeah. I think people have enjoyed these podcasts about philosophy. Is there such a thing as a self or a soul or a personality? We'll get a little bit more into some of that today.
Wait, and I have one more I want to bring.
Oh, okay, yeah.
And this is about the first philosophy...
episode which was 407 that was on is the is there a self and that was the one that had fabrice nye with us and ed wrote us and ed is a frequent writer and we really appreciate when ed writes his comments and he said dear dr david i just want to let you know how good i believe your last couple of podcasts have been i especially enjoyed the one with fabrice nye episode 407 on is there a self
It brought back memories of when I first discovered you all. I submitted comments to this effect on the webpage, but I also want to contact you directly. Best regards always, Ed.
Oh, nice. Thank you, Ed, for that comment and all the lovely comments you've sent in the past. And should we give a little report on the intensive at all? Just a moment or two? Yeah. Well, give us your assessment.
Well, the intensive was magnificent. You were on top of your game. You had lots of really fun stories to tell. It was very inspiring. It was fun that you taught with Jill because she also added specific details. And it was great that the two of you played off each other, taught back and forth with each other. You did a really great example of offering personal work to someone.
who I believe are going to publish the personal work on the podcast pretty soon. Oh, good. And then pretty much everybody had a very positive experience learning how to apply the Team CBT model on Saturday evening. And I believe that all of the feedback scores that you got,
from the participants on all of the days were extremely high and they got higher as the intensive went on um it was for me as someone that was it was like the 10th one i've gone to it was always it was inspiring and rejuvenating so i loved being there
Thank you for the hard work that you put in and the contribution you made. Earlier today, I got the feedback from the online group. I haven't seen the feedback yet from the in-person group. And I was expecting something a little lukewarm because it's hard to be watching your computer for 40 hours over three and a half days. But I was just shocked by the feedback that it was just over the top.
The comments were They were tremendous. They were heartwarming and touching. And, you know, it was really great working with you, Rhonda. It was great teaching with Jill. And I found myself kind of opened up emotionally during the intensive. Every now and then when I tell a story, I'll get a little bit choked up. But not very often. But that was happening constantly in the intensive.
And Friday night, when I had the interview with Lee Harrington, and she just asked, you know, one question. She was going to ask a bunch of questions. And she just asked to talk about the trajectory of my life. And I just started talking with, you know, being a senior at Amherst and
not being able to understand Wittgenstein for a number of months until it suddenly occurred to me what he was trying to say and then where my life went from there. And I was, I think, choked up, you know, half the time or 90% of the time Friday night. And I was pretty self-revealing.
And I didn't know if I was making a fool of myself or what, but people stood and gave a standing ovation at the end, which was very reassuring to me and a kind of a relief. But, you know, I just think that there was so many tears and laughter all throughout the intensive, and I thought it was probably going to be our last one
because it was so damn much work for Jill Lovett and Moore and all the people at the Institute. Angela. I won't name all these people, people I haven't heard of, but fantastic effort to put something like that into production. And so I was thinking, you know, maybe that'll be it, and we'll just do half-day online things from now on.
But people were really saying, we want more of this kind of intensive training. It's something that you can't get in any other way. And so it was really nice from that point of view. It wasn't huge in numbers. We didn't fill up in the in-person part there at the South San Francisco Conference Center, which costs a fortune to rent the place.
But the quality of what was going on was pretty, pretty fantastic.
Yeah, and people came from all over the world. There was people there from Australia, from Switzerland, from Canada. I can't remember where else, but people were— Well, there were even some from San Francisco. San Francisco! Yeah.
They came like 10, 15 miles in these newfangled automobiles.
Yeah, people came from – but also people came from New Jersey and San Diego, like throughout the country and around the world.
Yeah, it was amazing. We thought they'd all come online so they wouldn't have to travel, but a lot of them – came in person anyway, and it was just really special. Well, shall we get into our agenda for today? We've got four great and somewhat controversial questions that are likely to inspire some strong emotion and opinion.
Sure. So let's start with question number one, which is not really a question. It was a comment that someone made on Reddit that we thought was worthy of a response. And the summary is that, you know, somebody wrote that your comments on the self were shallow, mocking and restless. And what he wrote was the recent episode on Do I Have a Self, which was actually episode 407.
were very shallow and mocking of people who thought there was a soul or self. Given a soul is a prerequisite for most religions, dismissing it out of hand without meaningful discussion seems reckless. And I just want to say before you answer it that often I read these endorsements which are pretty glowing of you and the podcast and the work that you do and so we also appreciate these kinds of
Communications with us that are more challenging. You know, we want to show all of people's thoughts and feelings.
Absolutely. Well, I'll let you guys give your responses first, if you like, or I'll go first if you prefer.
I have maybe one brief thing to say about that, which is just guilty as charged. I'm often very aggressive when I'm debating an idea. And sometimes that even kind of crosses over a boundary, I think, of attacking the person with the idea. And I feel really sad if I have harmed anyone or disrespected someone based on their belief system. I respect anyone of any belief system.
And yeah, I have no place to judge others based on their belief system. I do like the freedom that we have to kind of debate ideas. I think that's important and would like to continue to do that. But I don't want to do any harm or cause anyone suffering or to feel judged based on the way I'm approaching this conversation. So, yeah, I'm sad. I'm sad that they experienced that.
And I'm glad that they brought it up on Reddit for us to talk about here.
Thank you. That's beautifully stated. Very gentle and warm and loving and accepting. And I think that's why you're so popular, not only with your patients and family and colleagues, but why David and Rhonda love you so much, too. Oh, right back at you guys. Yeah.
You're such a great role model, Matt. I really appreciate everything that you said. And I, I have to agree with you that I think I also was kind of mocking and these philosophy podcasts, a lot of it went over my head and I felt a little pressure to add things when I caught, I would probably would have been better for me to just keep nodding and saying, uh-huh. Uh-huh.
And I, I could have, um, you know, as a Jewish person, I often find like I, I'm taking another online class and the person scheduled two of the dates on pretty significant Jewish holidays. And I thought, oh, you know, it's just sort of something I'm used to because people don't pay attention to Jewish holidays the way they do to other holidays.
And I felt kind of left out and that there was a shallowness. And so I really related to this person's comment that if we said anything that was disrespectful to any religion or any spiritual belief system, that I feel a ton of regret about that and also feel sad and unhappy and a little irritated with myself for participating in that.
And I'm thankful that they brought this up so that we can, you know, like repair this and talk about it and, you know, encourage them to keep listening to and keeping us on our toes because it's really helpful.
Great, beautifully and gently stated. And now I'll throw away all the goodwill you two have created by giving my response. You know, I've mentioned, well, let me just say a couple different things. It's hard for me to express my thinking about philosophy Because it is very simple, but almost impossible for most people to grasp.
And it took me months, six months really, reading Wittgenstein's philosophical investigations before I got it. And now I can understand his... Some of his despair throughout his life. He struggled with depression and loneliness because no one understood what he was trying to say. It was rumored only seven people, you know, when he was alive understood him.
And I think the Buddha had the same kind of frustration that I've heard a rumor, and who knows, these things are probably just bullshit that's made up, that only three people were enlightened because of the Buddha, which would mean people who understood what he was trying to say.
And so when I would talk about a word like self or soul, the kind of thing I say is, I don't know what you're talking about. What you're saying has no meaning because you've taken a word out of its context where it lives in the English language and concrete specific applications, and you've made it into some kind of abstract language. thing that we could have or not have.
And I'm not saying that we have a soul or that we don't have a soul, and I'm not saying I don't know if we have a soul. What I'm saying is when you use a word in that abstract context, it has no meaning to me. It's just language out of gear. And as far as attacking your religious beliefs, your spiritual beliefs are your own. It's between you and your maker or however you want to think about it.
But I'm just saying that that use of language means nothing to me. But my dad was a minister, and he was a little on the rigid side, and that brings out my hackles when I sense judgmental rigidity in people. And when you're saying my discussion seems reckless, I would say, go to hell. I mean, but I'm being very gentle now. That was an attempt at humor. LAUGHTER
I don't like that morality police because my dad was kind of like that. And I didn't, you know, what I saw in the name of religion, I didn't admire. And what I see in the name of religion today, I see a lot of torture in the name of religion. I see a lot of war, a lot of murder, a lot of hatred. And to me, I think spiritual beliefs are very, very important.
But when you're trying to control somebody's thinking and say, oh, you're not allowed to say that the word soul and the abstract concept has no meaning to you, that's reckless. Well, what did Walt Whitman say? You say I'm reckless very well. I'm reckless a thousand times. You remember when Walt Whitman said that, Rhonda or Matt?
I am not learned enough to remember that. No, he did.
I just made it up. He made similar neat comments like, do I contradict myself? And I contradict myself a thousand times. That's something he really said. But, um, You know, I think that freedom of speech is precious and it's important to my value system as well.
But at the same time, when you attack me like that and tell me I'm not allowed to say, you know, to speak my heart and to speak what I believe and what I think... It's kind of cool because it stirs up controversy and then people want to say, oh, Burns must be horrible. I want to go and listen to his podcast, too. And so our audience grows that way. So in a way, you're kind of helping us.
But whatever your religious beliefs are, I can respect that. But I don't appreciate personally being told that my spiritual beliefs and my intellectual beliefs are reckless. I'm not trying to protect people from my thinking or from anyone's thinking. But my dad was the same way.
He didn't even want me to go to Amherst College because he thought, well, you know, they'll take your religion away from you and turn you into a communist, that kind of thinking. And I resented it then, and I resent it now.
Gosh, David, I really appreciate your honesty.
Well, I'm being more honest now because I'm elderly and half-demented. My wife says I'm old enough now to speak my mind. So I'm trying to do that a little bit more often. I mentioned in my thing, in my response in the show notes, that when I wrote Feeling Good...
I had a chapter on Consumer's Guide to Antidepressant Drugs, and I had that in there because I knew that a lot of my readers were taking antidepressants, and I wanted them to be able to look up each one and see the side effects, the dangerous effects, and so forth. But I knew at the time... And this was in the mid to late 1970s.
I could see very well that the chemicals called antidepressants did not, in fact, have any meaningful antidepressant effects above and beyond their placebo effects. But I didn't put that in the book.
And the reason was I didn't want to pull the rug out from under anyone because I knew a lot of people took antidepressants and a third of them got a lot of improvement after taking antidepressants, which they wrongly attributed to the antidepressant. It was actually due to their expectation of improvement.
Their thinking, their hope brought them the improvement because if you look at the literature, the world literature comparing antidepressants with placebo pills, the differences are not meaningfully different. Statistically, maybe every now and then, but not clinically. But I didn't want to put that in there because I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. Now I'm older.
I'm being less political. I'm saying more what I believe and let the chips fall where they may.
I love that too, David. Yeah. Just to further the conversation a little bit, I'd be interested in your response. I can't read the mind of the person who posted on Reddit, and I actually haven't gone to track down their actual statements, but imagine that their personal experience was that they were helped significantly.
Through the their religious beliefs that the idea that they have a soul that's eternal, that they'll have an afterlife, that God loves them, that that has led to a sense of safety and peace and comfort for them and for their and for their community. It makes sense to me that they might feel threatened. Right. Sure.
Uh, or scared if people are trying to pull the rug out from under their feet on a set of ideas that has been extremely comforting to them. And, and so my guess is that he's trying to be in a protective role. Um, and yeah, I, I can kind of see where that's coming from. Sure. I, I, and I also, also totally as a bit of a hero, right. Sees himself as a bit of a hero protecting folks who might, uh,
Not be as smart.
Straight from the faith.
Yeah. There was a lot of that when I grew up. Even different brands of Lutheranism we looked down on. Like the Missouri Synod. We were some other synod. And there was always about who's thinking is superior and who's thinking is inferior. And it's addictive.
Yeah, exactly. And it leads to this in-group, out-group thinking that is so dangerous in humans to think of ourselves as, okay, we're in this group. We identify as Christian or Lutheran or Muslim. And therefore, everyone else is on the outside. Yeah, right. And that creates so much conflict and suffering.
Yeah. That's the cause of war.
Yeah, and I guess if we wanted an aggressive response to this individual, we could ask, well, what about all the brainwashing of children at a young age before they can actually think through ideas that are presented to them? It's not a mystery that most people who are Christian were raised in Christian families, and most people who are Jewish were raised in Jewish families. Yeah.
And those ideas can have a danger in and of themselves, too.
Yeah.
So I agree with you that it's important to be able to talk about these ideas as adults in a format where we can just be open to talking about it. Yeah.
Some children were born, were raised to believe that anyone Christian or Jewish is bad and needs to be killed. Right? Right.
Right. That seems like a bad idea to me. And we can attack that idea without attacking the people, whoever has that idea. You know, it's, it's problematic. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, anyway, I think we've given this one its due, and thanks for putting us on the hot seat. I don't think you gave us your name, but whoever you are, you can put us on the hot seat any time you like because that stirs up a lot of really good thinking, and we appreciate the chance.
sometimes to be in a defensive posture rather than, you know, we love the praise, so much praise that you all send to us as well. But we want to take the yin with the yang, I guess. We do. And I don't have no idea what yin and yang mean, but it sounded so good. Okay.
Well, I know what that feels like. All right. Here's question number two. How can I make myself accountable for doing the exercises in your books? Again, somebody said, it's good to have Fabrice back. And that's relating to episode 407, which we were just talking about. Regarding your books, I have a question. I have trouble holding myself accountable doing the exercises in the book.
Do you have any advice on how to prioritize doing the homework and being disciplined with it? How did other depressed people get better using your books? I've already filled out multiple notebooks, but I appear to be stuck. Any help is appreciated.
We'll let you guys go first again, but I'll set you up with a bit of a hint. It's probably not necessary, but this fellow is asking us to help him with his procrastination. Right? Right. He's asking us to be wise experts who are going to tell him the answer of how to make a commitment. So I'll let you guys go first.
So can I just be clear? So you're framing what he's saying as holding himself accountable to doing homework is the same thing as? holding himself accountable not to procrastinate or to overcome his procrastination?
Well, right. I mean, he's someone who's asking for help. Do you have any advice on how I can overcome my procrastination? Do you have any advice on how to prioritize doing homework and being more disciplined? He's asking us to help him with this. So we'll let you guys have first shot at it, and then I'll give you my answer. Or I'll go first if you prefer.
I mean, I can dive in there with a couple of quick thoughts, one of which would be to respond with a question, which is what would it be worth to him for him to be accountable to doing his homework? How important is that to him? What would he be willing to give in order to be accountable and consistent doing his homework?
Oh, it's very important to me, Doctor. Just show me how to do it, because I can't seem to make myself accountable. And I know you have the secret for that, because I've read your Yelp ratings. I just know you're going to help me with this. I asked my mother, and she couldn't explain to me how I could make myself accountable.
But I told her, don't worry, Mom, I'm going to see Matt, and he's going to give me the answer. And if he doesn't, Rhonda will.
Okay, want me to dive in?
Sure.
I loved everything Matt said. I would say you don't have to do any homework. You don't have to do the exercise in your book. In any of David's books, one thing that he or she, I don't know who it is, could do is make a list of all the good reasons not to do homework. all the advantages of not doing homework and all the disadvantages of not doing homework.
And then take a look at which list seemed like it carries more weight. Or you could ask yourself the triple paradox questions. What are all the advantages of not doing homework? What are all the disadvantages of changing that and doing homework? And what does not doing homework say about him that's super awesome? And take a look at that list and That's a little bit more complicated.
Then you could start challenging some of those reasons that you've listed in those three categories.
Or you could just decide not to do the written exercises. That's the true paradox. But I love what you both said. And it's just so easy for shrinks to get sucked into helping and rescuing people. And there's going to be an article coming out in the next New England Journal of Medicine. And it's such an important article. They're also going to headline it in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
Nice. And they have found records going back several thousand years of all the kind of shrinks and spiritual experts who have tried to help people become more accountable. And 1,400 schemes have been attempted by 72,000 therapists or spiritual gurus on 14 million people. And they were able to calculate the exact success rate.
Zero percent.
Correct. Absolutely. And I love both of your answers because you're not getting hooked into trying to help. Ultimately, it's his decision. And to answer, oh, you could make a schedule or get someone to help you is putting him down as if he couldn't think of those obvious things himself. But the real reason is like what you said there was brilliant, Rhonda and Matt, to say the triple paradox
I would say list all the really good reasons not to do the exercises in the book and not to do homework and not to be disciplined. And there's plenty of reasons not to. And that's a left-hand column. And in the middle column, you can put a... piece of paper, put it on its side and make three columns.
And the middle column is put all the disadvantages of doing the homework and being disciplined and making yourself accountable. And that's very, very sucky. And then in the right-hand column, list what it shows about you and your core values as a human being that's positive and beautiful and awesome about not being disciplined and not making yourself accountable.
And you should be able to come up with at least 10 to 15 overpowering reasons in those three columns. These are reasons not to change. And then read them over and ask yourself, well, given all these reasons, why in the world would I want to change?
I like that a lot. I think what you were getting at earlier, David, too, is that there's even an upstream question when it comes to procrastination, which is a person willing to pay the price of getting started when they don't feel like it. Exactly. Exactly. Are they wanting to feel like doing the exercises first and then do the exercises?
Or are they willing to commit to doing the exercises even when they really, really, really don't want to?
No, doctor, that's what I need you to help me with, my motivation. I'm just not in the mood. But if you can show me, I heard you have a trick for getting people in the mood to do their homework.
Yeah, I'm afraid to let you down there. I've got methods that can just, you know, return the joy to your life and the happiness. But it would be something that you'd have to do all the hard, hard work on. And it's really unfair.
Yeah. And then we can also ask them, we can't motivate you, but we can certainly help you get started. Would you like some help? Yes. And then what's the first thing you'd have to do? Well, I'd have to sit down at my chair at my desk. Correct. What's the second thing?
I'd have to pick up a pen and a piece of paper, you know, just record those first three or four steps and then just say, now, let's see which help step did you want my help with? Would you like me to drop by your house and help you sit down in your chair at the desk? Did you need help with that? Did you need help picking up a piece of paper and a pen? I'm also a little thirsty. Yeah.
Pour some water in my mouth. That's a nice iced Coca-Cola or whatever. And it's just reducing, in a gentle way, the absurdity of needing help getting started.
And that can be a very effective technique to to write down as an exposure exercise. What would I have to do? Yeah, because people can get kind of deer in the headlights and frozen up. And oh, yeah, you helped me when I was stuck doing my laundry. I couldn't do my laundry.
Oh, is that right? I don't remember that.
Yeah, I was stuck in a kind of rebellious phase, and I'd gone to Costco many times just to buy new packages of underwear, 30 pounds.
It's almost cheaper to buy new stuff at Costco than to have it cleaned.
I got really into it for a while, and I had a pile of laundry bigger than me.
Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like you have more underpants than anyone else in California.
I'm pretty well prepared for underwear emergencies.
When you get to my age, you'll need it. You'll need them.
I'm set.
I'm ready to go.
You said you want to ask, is the person willing to pay the price?
Right.
What's the price?
$7.95.
The price of sitting down to do the work when you don't really feel like it? Is that the price?
That's the price. Okay. I think other considerations are things like making very small commitments and giving yourself credit for doing those. To put a star in your calendar every time you do your homework. Because people return to doing things because they get some positive, you know, stroking or experience or something like that as a result of doing it.
I was thinking, like, when you face an anxiety, like, David, you talked about facing your blood phobia when you were an intern. And I've been working with Werner Spitzfaden on my driving phobia. And to me, the price is going forward with the task, even though I feel uncomfortable physically.
Right. Right. Okay. Question number three from Holly. Oh.
Okay, Holly asks if the concept of having a personality is the same as the question of having a self. And she said a lot of things. She said, thank you for the video and I assume also the podcast on this topic. And it was really clear to me. It's a shame that the chapter of your Feeling Great book was removed because to me this philosophical point
is one important tool among the many techniques that you propose to get rid of negative thinking and to heal.
That's the chapter on the book on the Grateful Dead, you know, the great death of the self. And do you have a self? Do you need one? Something like that. And it was so disturbing to people that I removed it. Just like it was disturbing to this fellow, the first question, didn't like the...
criticism of the concept of of the self and uh so people just said this can be too upsetting to people so i i removed it and now she and a lot of other people say i wish you'd put that chapter in there and and talk more about this topic okay so let me oh thank you david that was helpful to clarify that so mark noble was one of the ones who didn't want me to put it in by the way um
He said it was very disturbing to think that we don't have a self.
That's interesting. I think we'll probably be talking about that soon on another podcast. So going back to Holly, she wrote, what you said about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is refreshing, and I agree with you. You said schizophrenia and bipolar I are mental disorders, and you explained why. But what would be a third disorder? Psychopathology? Psychopathy?
I'll just answer that right now. Psychopathy. These people who were into, you know, sadistic serial killing, it's almost like they're a different species of human being. It seems qualitatively, not quantitatively different. That could be certainly a third category. And certainly Alzheimer's is an organic brain disorder.
So she continued that it would be really nice if you did another video where you dug into this topic. Your voice on it is really important and what the APA is doing is really concerning and other psychiatrists disagree with the business of labeling people. She's saying that she believes that you're right. It's detrimental to human beings.
There's another psychological concept that you didn't talk about, however, but who looks similar to the self, which is the personality. What is your take on it? Is the self the same or different from the personality? And lastly, now in the spiritual domain, is the notion of the soul the same for you than the self?
Or in your opinion, could it be a possibility of an essential part of us which links us all to the spirit, to spirituality? I'm looking forward to watching other philosophical videos. Holly.
Well, thanks. I'll give first answer since I gave you guys first dibs on the other two. Then I'll give you first dibs on this phenomenal final question that's about to come up. But I would say that the personality is much like the word self. There's no such thing as a personality. You don't have a personality. The personality is just a form of shorthand. Oh, you're grimacing, Rhonda.
Oh, because I'm trying not to make noise and I'm taking notes and I'm aware that I'm taking notes. I mean I'm making noise while I'm taking notes. That's all. I'm grimacing because of me, not you.
Yeah. But we all have certain characteristics like – Certain dogs, when they're born, just love humans from the moment they're born. They're very outgoing and they're very loving and friendly. And some dogs are born with a gene that makes them fearful of human beings from the moment of birth. I think pointer dogs can come with and without this gene.
this particular gene and similarly we as humans some of us are born to be very kind of outgoing and some have a sense of humor and some tend to be kind of more shy and withdrawn and you know some are you know get up on stage and they have a big personality on stage like who's that fellow that that
Robin Williams.
Please, please, please. You know that one? He's the James Brown. And the Famous Flames. He's like one of the greatest performers of all time. And you could say, boy, that guy's got soul. Well, that just means I love his tremendous skill and the energy he puts into his singing and dancing. And he's unbelievably talented. And
entertaining, but I'm not saying he has some substance called a soul attached to his body or something of that nature. I'm just giving a compliment. And similarly, when you say to someone, I like your personality, you're just saying, I like some of your behavioral characteristics and the way you relate to me and the way you relate to other people. And
Matt, you have a personality where you're very kind of calm and, well, you have many personalities, many different ways of being. But one of the ones we admire is your warmth and kindness and compassion. And that's part of what you do. That's not part of what you are.
And a lot of the problems of philosophy, perhaps all of the problems of philosophy and religion as well, arise from what I call nounism. You know, we have shorthand for talking about people's characteristics. Like, he tends to be very outgoing. But then to say he has an outgoing personality... That's to attribute some metaphysical thing there that doesn't actually exist.
These words are just shorthands for a series of behaviors that people have. And it's great that we're all unique and we have our own behaviors. Rhonda, you have just a very lovely description. Personality as well. You're you're you have a great sense of humor and you're light and loving and and joyous and curious about people and curious about ideas. And you're humble and warm. And, you know.
Oh, my gosh. Thank you.
OK, that's good.
And those are things you do, not things that you are or are hiding somewhere in your brain or body. They're just behaviors that we have. And so that would be my answer to it. I think that this reader, let's see if we can find your name, Holy? Holly. Holly. Yeah, I think you've got it.
You're on to something and you're beginning to think in a way that's very similar to the way that I think about these concepts and words. Done. Love that answer.
Me too.
On to question four.
Yeah, one thing that they all have in common is they're all immortal. Right. So like when you die, your soul dies and your personality. And if there is a self, which we don't think there is, will also die.
why I added that it's just you know like when you've seen a dead body you know that their soul which I don't I haven't that often because Jews actually don't believe in open caskets so but anyway you know clearly when someone has passed away they do not you can't feel a soul any longer
Like that emotional, I don't know if it's emotional or spiritual energy, but the energy that's named, that's given the sounds and the syllable of soul seems to have left.
I'm glad that you added that. It actually, it sounds similar to something I was going to add into the conversation too, which is the idea of having a personality or a self implies that it's unchanging, right? And I think that's a problem or can lead to a sense of hopelessness. Yeah, right.
Like one useful way of defining a personality might be, you know, the habits that we have in our thinking are ways of relating to other people in our behaviors. And those are just habits or behaviors that, in fact, we can change. We can practice a different set of behaviors. If I wanted to be more outgoing, I could just practice being more outgoing.
Or if I wanted to be more at peace, I could practice being more at peace. And yeah, to not...
identify with having a certain bad self or good self I think is helpful but to see it as behaviors and habits that we can practice and change over time another misuse I think of thinking that you have a personality or a self I've seen so many examples along the lines of let's say a fellow gets angry and smashes his wife in the face during a moment of anger.
And then you hear him later on saying, well, that wasn't the real me. And it always pissed me off to hear that as if he had some real ideal self. And so anytime he does bad stuff, it's not really him, but it is really you, buddy. And that's a part of who you are. It's a part of your behavior. And if you keep saying that that's not the real me, you're just full of more denial and bullshit.
You got angry. You wanted to hurt your wife. You intended to make a fist and smash her in the face, and you wanted to hurt her. And you can do all the denial you want, but that's what actually happened. Now, there's all kinds of things you can do to change that, to work on that, but to start out with that's not the real me. Come on, give me, as the Buddha so often said, give me an effing break.
Yeah, who was it then? Right.
Yeah.
Good point.
Good point. That's powerful.
Now we have one for you to feast on, Matt. And I think that there might be some area for overlap in our thinking on free will. And I'm very excited. I don't know if you read the notes I added earlier.
But we will certainly certainly talk about it because I've been thinking about this and particularly in your idea of that, you know, part of when someone is a criminal, that they're doing things that perhaps are not entirely free in their in their actions. and to have a more compassionate view of other people, which is very much of a Buddhist thing.
But let's read the question and see what we think.
All right. So the headline for this question would be, Could questions about the self and free will involve all or nothing thinking? Hi, I'd like to tell you about my experience with my son. He is 14 years old, and despite our honest attempts not to label, he has always been the problem child, selfish, disobedient, etc. Recently, we started him on Prozac, and the changes have been incredible.
Things that have been way beyond his best times are now simple, like going to sleep on time or having a good time with his brother. Every night, my wife and I tell each other about some new miracle. So I wonder what you can say about this from the lens of free will.
An obvious conclusion would be that the choices he made until now were not free because his brain was not presenting him with the same set of choices that other kids experience. On the other hand, if he's acting better now, we could say that it is not his choice. It's just a pill making the decision for him. I feel like that would be insulting and degrading.
I wonder if a lot of resistance to therapy, and especially psychopharmacotherapy, is related to anxiety about the question, if I can be changed by a pill, then who am I? I had another thought after listening to the episode on self. The position that self doesn't exist seems extreme to me, maybe like all or nothing thinking. Maybe we could answer that question with the magic dial.
How much do we agree that there are selves and free wills? I agree that there are problems associated with having a self and free will, but I think there are practical and theoretical reasons on the other side as well. Maybe the golden path is in the middle.
I think there's a lot we can do with this, and I'll give you folks first shot. But I want to correct something that I correct over and over again, and it never does any good. And so I'll correct it again, and it won't do any good again. But he says the position that self doesn't exist seems extreme to me. Talking to me, David, as if I have said that or thought that.
And I take umbrage with it and want to say again, and I know no one will listen, no one will understand, I've never said that the self doesn't exist or implied that. What I've said is quite different, and that's that when you talk about the self, I don't know what you're talking about. It's the same way when you talk about God.
I don't know how you're using that word or what meaning you're attributing to it. You can use the word self in specific contexts, and then I'll know what you mean. Like if you say to your child, behave yourself, you're telling your child that you're acting out right now, and your mother and I aren't going to tolerate this, and you better get back into line, and the child will know better.
What you mean, but you're not talking about some metaphysical self that the child have. You're just saying change the way you're acting right now and stop screaming or whatever it is that you're doing. But aside from that, one small criticism. I think there's a lot of merit in this, and you folks can go first if you like, or I'll go first, depending on whatever you like.
In fact, I could just say mine real quickly, that you might or might not... Matt, because I don't know how extreme your thinking is on free will. But in general, my comment about free will is the same. When people are talking about do we have free will or do we not have free will, to me that's a meaningless discussion.
because you're taking freedom out of a specific context and viewing it as some abstract metaphysical substance that we could have or not have. And that's the typical meaningless pathway of most philosophical problems. But I do like this idea of thinking about it in all or nothing thinking, because there's a lot about us that we don't have free will about, but we might think we do.
And that might help a little bit. And, for example, my mother made this killer blueberry pie when I was little. And it was made with frozen blueberries. It was a beautiful crust, and it was very sweet, and it was kind of watery, and it was just to die for. And I just loved that blueberry pie. But I've never liked pumpkin pie. And so it's I don't like blueberry pie out of free will.
I just happen to be genetically or whatever predisposed to liking blueberry pie and not liking pumpkin pie. And there's a great many things about us like this. And I mentioned earlier on the show, some kids are raised from the time they're little in schools to be taught to hate Christians and Jews and taught that Christians and Jews are inherently evil and deserve death sentence, should be killed.
And those children grow up, and we sometimes call them terrorists, but they're kind of doing what they've been programmed to do and to believe. And a lot of what we do is baked into our genes genetically, like lions love to hunt when they're hungry and they kill deer.
And when humans get very hungry, too, if you watch the television show Alone, where people are put in the wilderness with very few survival things, they're allowed to take seven things with them. And then right now, the current episode, they're parked 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle in remote locations. And whoever survives the longest wins a half a million dollars.
But they get so darn hungry. Eventually, they'll eat pretty much anything. And so we have these tremendous drives that are biological, that are genetic, that have tremendous influences on what we do. So we might want to think about, you know, free will issues. Not in an all or nothing way, but in a practical way. And what are the things that we're doing that are heavily predisposed?
Now, you know, just having this and dropping my pen or picking it up or twirling it. I mean, that's something easy to make a decision about, and I don't have strong genetic inclinations, you know, one way or the other. But there are other things where my thinking is very much influenced by my biology, my upbringing, my genes, and who knows what. And so that's the end of my thinking.
my thing there, but I'm trying to concede some ground to you. I don't know if it'll be successful or not, Matt, that this would be saying that our freedom is not all or nothing, but is somewhere in between. And there are some things about us and our inclinations and things we can do and can't do.
I can't, for example, make the choice of floating up off my chair right now because I'm not a helium balloon. But I can make decisions about twisting the chair back and forth and, you know, make all kinds of free decisions. But other decisions I make may be more strongly influenced by things beyond my conscious awareness or control.
Yep.
Yeah, I liked your response. So... My thinking, I'll just re-express, and it hasn't changed much as a result of this question or this conversation. It's simply that I don't, I can't imagine something other than the brain being responsible for our decision-making. And certainly we all make decisions. We can witness that. And the question is, can we control what our brain is doing in the moment?
And I don't think that that's possible. I think our brain just has an atomic structure that operates according to the laws of physics and that there's nothing else that could control it outside of... There's nothing else determining our decision-making other than the operation of our brain. And it doesn't make sense to me the hypothesis of a self that's operating the brain or the idea that we...
could somewhere from some outside space control the brain isn't a reasonable hypothesis in my opinion. I don't know how to explain it that well. It's hard to explain something you don't believe.
Well, I was concerned you'd go to that conclusion still, and so we're still in totally different universes there. And I thought there might be a chance for connection, but no, we're light years apart still.
What do you think of this person?
One thing, do you think if we had the brain that didn't follow the laws of physics, then we'd have free will?
We'd have just a different universe. I can't even imagine what that might be like.
Well, one thing in that universe, you couldn't have free will because you couldn't do anything because there'd be no laws to follow. I just scratched my head. I'm using some deodorant I got from, not deodorant, but shampoo from Amazon, some anti-dandruff shampoo. I don't know if it's working yet, but I'm scratching my head.
But if my brain wasn't following the laws of physics, if my body wasn't following the laws of physics, the laws of the universe, I could not do that. Without the laws of the universe, free will would be impossible because you couldn't do anything. You couldn't raise your hand because it wouldn't follow the laws of muscular contraction and so forth.
Yeah, the reason this topic is interesting to me is that I think it can be useful to rid ourselves of blame, both self-blame and other blame, that if we couldn't have done differently than what our brains chose to do, then we shouldn't have done differently. So if you want forgiveness or if you want to forgive someone else, this is one approach you can take. And I found it useful personally.
A lot of my patients have found it liberating to let go of some idea of a self that's operating their brain and to realize we're just a product of nature and nurture that we didn't choose.
Well, that's into your gentle and beautiful, kind and compassionate personality. So I won't try to throw a wrench in that monkey works. What's your thinking, Rhonda?
My thinking is this topic is over my head. And it would be a good thing for me to not add anything.
We have two fools and a wise person here.
I am a little curious because you both have strong opinions about psychopharmacology. What do you think about the question, if I can be changed by a pill, then who am I?
Well, just kind of nonsensical, right?
Yeah, I can be changed by a cheeseburger. I can go from feeling hungry and angry to very satisfied.
Yeah, that's right. Who am I is that absurd question of do I have a self? Where is my self located? What's its name? What is its nature? It's just word salad to my way of thinking. But I thought the more interesting question – was whether we can correctly attribute this young man's change to having taken the pill Prozac, or were there other factors that might explain that?
And I don't know if we should go into that because that's the family's official belief system. But, you know, so maybe I shouldn't challenge that.
Well, we also don't know what other factors could be. We don't know enough about what's going on.
Well, we do know what other factors are going on because he described them. He and his wife are lavishly thrilled with all these good things that the son is doing now. And the son is getting tremendous praise. There's a whole different behavioral paradigm going on. So we certainly see that there's a shift in the system.
And that could have been brought about as a result of a placebo effect, thinking, oh, this medication is going to be so powerful and wonderful for our child. And then noticing all these good things he's doing and he starts getting praise and he starts getting reinforced. So there's other ways of looking at it, but either way, it's a beautiful thing that's happening.
I just personally am reluctant to attribute things to medications that can't be supported by outcome research where you're not outperforming placebos because then people are attributing to a pill when they're actually bringing about the change themselves. But I don't like saying things like that because that's like pulling the wool out from under somebody.
And this family is doing beautifully, so I'm not going to say that. And I didn't.
I guess maybe one thing is like saying that is unlikely to change their opinion. Exactly, exactly. And so I don't think you're in much danger of pulling the rug out from underneath them.
Yeah.
Yeah, there was one other statement this person brought up in the email exchange that we had, and I really appreciated that email exchange. But it was a concern about viewing people as like a clockworks, that if my view is that they don't have a self or a soul, that they're really just like machines.
And one thing I wanted to acknowledge there was that we all have feelings, and so we're not machines. And those feelings are very real. And that's why we care about each other. So I think the philosophy that there's no self or free will is actually consistent with caring about people a lot. And I just wanted to bring that out into the conversation.
Well, I sure think that sharing feelings, particularly hurt feelings, is an important key to intimacy and love and closeness, for sure. That can be leading to loving relationships when we share our flaws. In our shortcomings. Well, how was our podcast today, Rhonda? Because we weren't in agreement all the time and we had some sharp agreements.
Me with one of our write-in people and then Matt and David had a disagreement. Is this going to destroy our beautiful podcasts?
I think it'll intrigue people even more. And the thing I meant when I said we don't know all of the conditions or everything that's happening in this family is that there could be lots of other things going on that we don't know about. Exactly. Did he change therapists? Is it a school situation? Did his brother change? Toward him, too.
I mean, there's so many other things going on that I'd want to know about before I make a judgment. But I love what you both said. And you both have so much experience with medication.
The experiences are so great. I was just reanalyzing our data from a test of the Feeling Good app about a year and a half ago. because I'm going to give a keynote address at a conference in September.
This will probably be published after that conference, but I'm giving a keynote address at this Erickson Foundation Depression and Anxiety Conference, and on Sunday, September 15th, I'm giving a keynote address. And so...
I'm challenging a claim that was made on 60 Minutes recently, that empathy is the healing thing and healing has to exist in a human context and a digital device could never mimic human empathy. But one of the things I looked up and was reminded of is that before we did that test, we asked people how much, what did they think their
We had them do a seven-item mood scale, seven negative feelings, a rate each from zero to 100, how you're feeling right now. And so most of them were pretty high at the beginning of the beta test, like, you know, 30, 40, 50, some of them in the 80 or 90, you know, super severe range. And then ask them, where do you think your score is going to be at the end of the beta test?
And this was a four-week beta test. And they made predictions that were quite different from the way they were feeling at the beginning. Like someone might have been a 60 on guilt on 0 to 100 and predict he'd end up with a 15 on guilt. And the predictions were so accurate, it looked like somebody faked the data.
Like the actual was within a point or point and a half of the predictions for the group. Like the mean, say, was 14.5 on gilt at the end, and they had predicted 14.0. It was that close on all seven negative feelings.
Right.
It was really, I've never seen data like that before. It was one of the most striking research studies I think I've ever encountered in my whole career. And so this family may have had the idea, oh, man, we're taking this Prozac, which we had in the 1970s. We were one of the first groups to get it at Penn. It was called Lily 11-014-0. It was an experimental drug.
And we've got this powerful Prozac and this is going to really change our son's life. And there's been all kinds of research on antidepressants and teenagers and showing that they don't have other than a placebo effect. But that placebo effect, the family may have thought, wow, this is really going to help our son. And now things are changing. Now they're acting like everything's changing.
and believing it, and then suddenly things change. So a lot of times our own expectations are operating on us in more powerful ways than what we're aware, and we go attributing changes that we're bringing about ourselves to external factors, like some pill or medication that we're taking. I just thought it was interesting.
That is interesting. Actually, fascinating.
So at any rate, thank you, guys.
Thank you. And I have two more things to talk about today. Recently, Phil Donahue died, David, and I wanted to get your reaction to that because I know you were on Phil Donahue briefly when your book Feeling Good came out.
No, it wasn't when it came out. When it came out, the publisher told me the day it was published, my editor, that the company had made a decision not to support it because the president of the company had decided it had no commercial potential. No one would want to read a long book on depression. And so it limped along for eight years, and I kept trying to get on local shows or whatever I could.
And it was really difficult because I didn't know about marketing. But I got on a show in, I think, Cleveland, Ohio, the Morning Exchange. And a woman who used to do my typing, Mary Lovell, maybe I told this story already, but she said the way to publicize your book is take any publicity you can get and always write a thank you letter to the person who got you on that show or media interview.
And so this was a morning show in Cleveland, and so it was...
bigger deal than I what I was used to but it's still kind of very small time thing in a smaller market but I was thrilled and it went well and then afterwards the producer told me that she had adopted an 11 year old girl because she was unable to have a her own baby or some such thing and she was feeling very guilty because the girl kept running away from home and
She was devastated and thought she was a failure as a mother. So I helped her out and then wrote her a thank you letter. And then one day, years later, that was in the, you know, kind of mid 1980s. And then several years later, I got a call from New York and she said, I don't know if you remember me, but you helped me so much after you were on the Cleveland Morning Exchange.
And I always told myself if I ever got to produce a big show, you'd be my first guest. And I was just got a job as a producer on the Phil Donahue show. If you come day after tomorrow, we'll give you the whole hour of the show. And it was my first chance of being on a big show. And Phil Donahue was amazing. really doing fantastic stuff.
I mean, he had a market, so many tens of millions of viewers that you wouldn't believe. And he had a very dignified talk show. He was serious. He was bringing serious topics and letting the audience participate. And, you know, five or ten minutes after that show, My book sold more than it had in the first eight years of its release, and it went to the top of all of the bestseller lists.
It was number two on the New York Times list and number one on the Dalton list and one on the Publishers Weekly list. And it just transformed my life and certainly the life of that book. And I remember I was at Presbyterian Medical Center, and they didn't say where I was from on the show. But so many people found out and called that the telephone system at the hospital shut down.
They couldn't handle all the calls. And it was like a fantastic thing. And so I was always very indebted to Phil Donahue and to that beautiful, wonderful woman who gave me that break that really changed the trajectory of my life. Yeah. I'm sad to see that we've lost him.
Oprah kind of took over after him, and there have been a lot of great talk show hosts, but he was one of the first or the first of his type, and he was like you a lot, Matt. He was very kind of thoughtful and serious but interesting. And it's sad to, you know, lose these people. I never really got to know him or anything. He was very friendly when we were there and that type of thing.
But I know he had millions and millions of fans who really loved him and appreciated him and for good reason.
Yeah.
Sad to lose him.
Yeah, that's an amazing story. And we also wanted to have the opportunity to introduce our sound and video technician who has saved the day many times with our struggling technology. And that's Max Cosma, who just joined us. Hi, Max.
And also slash Max Cosma philosopher.
Ah, thank you, guys. Yeah. Wow. What a great episode this was. There's lots of great questions and comments from the community all around the subject from 407. We covered things all the way from in-group, out-group thinking, how expectations can shape reality to Phil Donahue. This was just a really excellent episode. So thank you guys a little bit of a long run time.
But throughout the entire thing, it was really gangbusters. So I think it went really well. I'd love to bring to the table as a layman, both religiously and in psychotherapy. There's perhaps another perspective that that Reddit writer might have taken. We can't know, obviously. We can't mind read.
But it was the position that occurred to me when I was reading his comments that I'm a fan who is religious and want to make sure that the show is accessible to other people.
who hold the same beliefs as me and so there was possibly not just there was possibly a protector in there not just of himself and his beliefs that comfort him but also of your beliefs and ideas and getting that out to a wider community too making feeling good accessible to everyone even even those religious nuts those religious nuts which is not at all insulting
Well, I think you're aiming your criticisms at Rhonda and Matt.
Which we take.
Love you, Max. We want to get our message out to everybody. And we don't believe that our message is inconsistent with anyone's spirituality. And I've treated so many people. I've had tens of thousands of hours with people with severe depression and anxiety. And at the moment of recovery, they generally get in touch with their spiritual beliefs.
They understand things about their own spirituality, their own religious beliefs, whether that's Jewish or Christian or Islamic or Buddhist or whatever. Or whatever it happens to be. And I've never had a person who felt their religion, their religious beliefs were challenged in any way by the kind of treatment that I was offering. Because when you recover from depression, it's not just...
getting over negative feelings or self-criticisms. It's generally awakening of something spiritual inside of you. And we all describe that with different languages. Different religions have different symbolisms, different rituals of trying to get ideas across, and usually unsuccessfully for the most part. That people love to go to church and dress up and
go to the synagogue or whatever and listen to the sermons and smile and be friendly with everyone, then go out and sin away for another week. Uh, but that's pretty cynical, cynical, but I, but I think it's hard for people to grasp the meaning of Christianity or Buddhism or, or the, you know, the Jewish theological beliefs are pretty deep. And, uh,
And once you get them, then you suddenly understand, let's say, the Christian idea that we're all flawed. That's behind the ritual of Holy Communion. Why do we have Holy Communion? Because you can't go to heaven through your hard work, through your own works. You need forgiveness. Well, forgiveness is the same as acceptance. Right.
And that's the same as the Buddhist concept of the great death of the self and enlightenment. And so we're in no way trying to challenge any of that, but rather bring new meaning into that and make that accessible to more people. My father was pretty rigid, and I'm probably way too hard on him. I talk to him a little bit every day now when I go out on my walk. I finally let him in. But...
He used to think that psychiatrists were of the devil. He really said that. And so I'm sure he didn't like that I became a psychiatrist. But I have experienced the healing I've learned to do as really giving people the gift of their own spirituality in a much deeper level. Does that make sense, Max, at all?
It does. I think that was really beautifully said. And I agree, these concepts are really deep. And I think you're pointing out something really important about these traditions. People look at these traditions and their technologies to help us access those deeper meanings. And I think a lot of people confuse the prayer for the For the them, the act of prayer, them praying is a mundane act.
They confuse them. They bring that spirituality. There's all those deeper meanings and the connection. And they, you know, they try to make those they try to make it like you're saying, like you'd said in the podcast, something that's.
There, besides the actual act, something that's deeper that they have, you know, that they've sent out this this prayer and that has its existence outside of the mundane act of doing it. I would love also to bring in the comparison of what Matt said about personality, that personality can be used as an excuse for violence just the same way religion can.
And how a lot of these concepts beyond personality and religion, but just differences in in-group and out-group thinking, that these get used as a scapegoat to give ourselves permission to make ourselves okay with the way that we are darker and dark.
in the Christian context being sinful originally, um, you know, and, uh, I think that those concepts and those techniques from religion, they're designed to help us live a better, happier life. Um, not just us, but you know, the community and everyone. And, um, Like you were saying, forgiveness is just like self-acceptance. Original sin is a lot like shadow work.
These concepts that help people live lives, they're deeper, and they're discovered by different people at different points in history because this is what works. Form follows function. And so whatever form that takes for you, we're able to get to the same functions together and there's no conflict here. You know, we're not saying don't think the way you do don't, you know, to change anything.
And I just want to illustrate last that, um, the Wittgenstein approach for you fans who are, who may be still perturbed by, uh, David saying, you know, I don't, it doesn't make sense what you're saying. I want to give you another context, um, from more modern days. You know, if I were to ask you, uh, do you think life is a simulation, uh,
We can explore that question, but in the end, no matter what we end up answering with it, does that actually impact anything? Does that actually change anything? Or is it all just a concept that's made up and has no practical bearing on what we're doing? And in the same way, if I'm talking about an actual computer simulation that we're using, those words are in context.
But if I were to just create this idea of nothing, that the world is actually a simulation... And so what if it is? It doesn't change anything. It's not a question that we can meaningfully explore. And that's sort of what Wittgenstein proposes in his writing.
Yeah, he's just saying that we're alive and we're doing shit all the time. And that's what we can talk about. And all this esoteric stuff is just phony baloney. But that doesn't mean that spirituality is phony baloney at all. And that love or compassion for people who are suffering is... is phony in any way.
That's what, you know, real spirituality has to do with response to the suffering of other people in a compassionate way. Yeah, beautifully said. Well, thank you, Max. You'll have to make more cameo appearances.
Yeah, thanks for having me on. It's been a blast. And hi, everybody in the Feeling Great fandom. I'm so happy to be here and I wish you could all connect in such a level that I've gotten to. It's really an honor and a blessing. So keep on listening and we hope to see you again soon. Write in more questions.
Thank you.
Thanks, Max.
Thanks, everybody.
Yeah, thank you all.
This has been another episode of the Feeling Good podcast. For more information, visit visit Dr. Byrne's website at feelinggood.com, where you will find the show notes under the podcast page. You will also find archives of previous episodes and many resources for therapists and non-therapists. We welcome your comments and questions.
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