Part of the book is one of the parts is called social Schisms, and it's mental health myths and in Society, and a couple of the chapters I talk about how just political the field has become and how there's you know, some people come from this school of and I do my best to be really objective, like I certainly have my opinions and personal philosophies about this.

And my personal opinion philosophy is that if you are going to over prioritize systemic change, you shouldn't be a therapist.

You should be an activist, like you should go and advocate for the change of laws or you know, whatever it might be.

Because I believe in the individual's ability to kind of rise above, to play your book, you know what I mean, and to transform.

But it seems that a lot of people will, you know, take different studies or different thinkers, whether it's their sound bites or an insight from their research, and then run with it as a way to conduct therapy that is overly one sided in terms of advertising individual autonomy versus systemic change.

And I think that for me, I really strive to be able to do both in my practice, because either route can be helpful and curative depending on the person in front of you.

Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we explore the depths of human potential.

Today we have Joe Nucci on the show.

Joe's a psychotherapist and writer whose content contextualizes mental health misinformation, pop psychology facts and fallacies, and culturally misconstrued ideas.

In addition to having a large Instagram following, he is author of the new book Psychobabble, Viral Mental Health Myths and the Truths to Set You Free.

As Joe notes, while the speed at which talking about mental health has increased at an unprecedented scale, not everyone is qualified to talk about mental health.

In this chat, we deflate some myths about mental health, such is the idea that everyone should go to Therapyizing your thoughts is always good for you, hurt people, hurt people, your ex is definitely a narcissist, and mindfulness is good for everyone.

We also touch on some heavier issues, such as the idea that everyone has trauma and that everyone is neurodivergent.

This was not only a fun chat, but I think also an important one, as so much misinformation is propagated on social media and Joe is here to set you straight.

So that's further ado.

I'll bring you Joe Nucci, Joe Nucci, the Nous.

How are you doing.

I'm good.

I'm really happy to be here.

Thanks for having me on your show.

Oh it's an honor, really great book you just wrote called Psychobabble Viral Mental Health Myths and Truths to Set You Free.

I give it a ten out of ten.

Ten.

That is the best thing to happen to me this week.

Yes, because it's so it's Oh, yay, that's awesome.

That's pretty good.

I'll take that.

I'm glad I could contribute to that.

Well, yeah, it's it's such a great book because it's needed in this time.

There's so well, as you say, I'll pay it in your words this quote the speed at which talking about mental health has gone from taboo to commonplace.

The speed at which talking about mental health has gone from taboo to commonplace is unprecedented.

Well, everyone is talking about mental health, this is the key part.

Not everyone is qualified to do so.

And so this is why your book, this is why your book is so necessary, because there's so many myths being propagated.

I think that's the word promulgated, pro propagated, something just floating around the cybersphere.

You know, if I open up TikTok for three seconds, I'm bound to run across some babbel psychobabbel that just isn't true.

So you really tackle comprehensively virtually all the ones that I could think of.

Maybe maybe some about intelligence, but we can talk about that, but maybe I'd love to talk about that.

Maybe maybe you could have added one at IQ, you know, or something like that.

But but nevertheless, we're really comprehensive.

And so I had a lot of fun trying to just pick which ones I wanted to select for our conversation today.

All right, well, let's get started.

I'm curious, did any of them like surprise you or was it kind of like back to back, like agree, agree, agree.

I've got to be honest, it was really like herd degree hard degree nice.

Nice, let's do it.

Yeah, yeah, because a lot of these things are things that I've been trying to I mean that we're we're definitely on a similar frequency, you know, we're definitely vibrating on a similar frequency.

So uh, and you put it and you just put it in such such great accessible language.

So I think the one that that just makes sense to start with is the myth everyone should go to therapy.

So now if you're not going to I have a friend, Uh, well, I was on a podcast with someone the other the other day and she goes, She's like, what, my friend shamey that I that I'm the only one out of my friend group that doesn't go to therapy.

Should she feel shamed?

Well, it depends.

I don't know what's going on with her.

If she has a diagnosable mental illness, or if there's a ton of dysfunction in her relationships or at work, then maybe maybe it's it's worth getting at least a consult to see.

The reason I started with this myth is this is actually a mental health myth that I believed for a very long time as someone who went to therapy when he was younger and really benefited from it.

And of course I am a therapist and see how beneficial it can be.

But what I write about in the book is there's just such a big difference between benefiting from something or hoping to benefit from something and then like actually needing it to be functional.

I don't talk about it in the book.

But I've thought long and hard just about the supply and demand of the mental health marketplace.

And you know, let's say there's five hundred thousand therapists in the United State, which is a definitely like a gross overestimate, and we have over three hundred million people, and all of those people are seeing forty all those therapists are seeing forty patients a week, which is again an unsustainable case, like an overestimate.

There's still tens of millions of people who who fit that one in four people being diagnosed with the mental illness who would need weekly therapy that just can't get it.

And so something I talk a lot about in my content and I touch on the book one of my other chapters is you know that's therapy isn't the only way to work on your mental health.

I think I'm very pro coach.

I'm very pro like other types of support, and I think we it's less of like, oh, this is kind of my philosophical position I'm planting in the sand.

It's like, well, I think, just like the demands of the economy in general, like society, I think we actually need it to be thinking outside the box.

Okay, so not everyone needs to go to therapy.

No, and there are other It is therapy the only way to heal someone or increase their well being.

It depends on what you mean by heal.

I think that I'm very partial to something that doctor Alan Francis writes about in his book Saving Normal, which was a huge inspiration for my book and view on a lot of stuff.

Have you read his work are you familiar?

He published it in twenty thirteen, and the idea is essentially, we can't be medicalizing everyday life.

And he has this wonderful quote in there.

I remember where he says, you know, if it's a mental illness, it is not going to get better on its own, like it needs intervention, and the longer it goes without intervention, the harder it's going to be a quote unquote cure.

But if it's just a regular problem of living, if it's a problem that we kind of all deal with, the healing powers of time and like support from loved ones, you know, will take care of it.

And so I think I would paraphrase that to adapt it to my answer.

Depending on what you mean by healing, maybe maybe you need therapy.

But I think that a lot of life is just really hard and kind of inherently tragic, and and time and just general support or even stuff like personally, I'm not in therapy right now, but I am spending that money I would spend on therapy.

And I go to the spa every once in a while.

I work with a trainer at the gym.

I'm just kind of like taking care of myself in other ways.

And let me tell you the right head, neck, and shoulders.

You know, routine can be just as cathartic, you know, is a good cry or a good session.

Good good.

So we've just we've just cracked two myths.

We've just what's what do you do with myths?

You debunk?

We just debunked.

I don't know if you crack this.

I once I once was watching this YouTube video who was it?

Where the metaphor was a myth is like an air mattress.

It's wonderfully comfortable, but it's filled with nothing, and then deflation causes an uncomfortable jolt.

And so I guess that's what you kind of do with myths.

Yeah, okay, we just thank you.

I have trouble with metaphors.

Yeah, so I always mix my metaphors so yeah, good.

I like that we deflated.

Just we just depleted two metaphors.

Let's keep going, Let's do keep going.

Analyzing your thoughts is always good for you.

There is definitely definitely false, And this is certainly one that I used to believe in practice, particularly when I was younger.

It was actually a I think it was an episode you did with doctor Jonathan Height that I listened to on on on your show where I picked up on the term co rumination and I immediately flashed back to being on the phone with family members or friends growing up, and you know, and we're just yapping and yapping and analyzing and analyzing, but really we weren't moving towards anything productive.

There was no emotional integration, no catharsis, no problem solving.

And I also know that, just as a trained practitioner, that engaging somebody in analysis when it's not clinically indicated can lead to a disintegration of their personality structure.

And I think in severe cases it can lead to types of psychosis like delusions, or if you're you know, working with someone you know with pre existing psychosis, that's not how you work with them.

You know, you don't necessarily help them like analyze, you help them kind of form a different relationship to their thoughts.

And maybe I'm biased because I'm very partial to cognitive behavioral therapy.

I think it's sort of like the bread and butter of what any therapist can do.

But I think a lot of people are analyzing and then they're complaining that they go to therapy and that they know why they are the way they are, but nothing's changing.

And for me, that's a sign that the therapist needs to then engage you in a cognitive modality or a behavioral modality, or some sort of problem solving, sometimes a little bit of an Sometimes less is more when it comes to thinking about your thoughts.

Can you say that last line again?

Yeah, Well, sometimes less is more when it comes to thinking about your thoughts.

Yeah.

And I think there's this it's maybe not fully appreciated how it could be damaging detrimental to your mental health too, every single therapy session ruminating about this one thing that happened to you when you were three.

Sure, well, I've had patients come in that we're you know, previously had a practitioner that was very partial to the kind of old school psychoanalysis modality.

And you know, it's something I get a lot of flat for on my platforms when I when I criticize psychoanalysis, but I think I think the criticism is well deserved.

I was primarily trained psychodynamically, so that's kind of like the for those of listening, that's like the modern version of psychoanalysis, a little bit shorter and a little some modern twists on it.

But I've inherited more than one patient who they come in and they're really they're really good at ruminating that, they're really good at talking about the tragedies of their childhood and their trauma and and you know, all of it.

But it's it sometimes feels like therapy has become more of this like ruminative performance.

And when I gently and passionately and sensitively try to move them out of that, they give me this look, well, that's not what this is for.

And I always have to wonder to myself as like, well, what do you what is it's for?

Because I think it's to help you get better?

You know I And and even though they're often reluctant, that they often do and it's often because we actually move out of the thinking about their thoughts and analyzing their.

Thoughts so much.

I mean, what do they say it's for.

Yeah, well, it kind of depends on where they're at in the stages of change, right, And so some people, if they're in that contemplation stage, which means that they're aware that a change can occur, but they're not really ready to take action yet, it can manifest as all sorts of different things.

Sometimes people are a little bit rebellious and it's a little bit like, don't tell me what to do, even though that's not what I'm doing.

Some people are very ambivalent, you know, about maybe trying a different modality, and some people are just resigned.

They've been in it for so long that they can't really even imagine any sort of action planned working, even though they can maybe intellectually understand that they could try different things.

And so that's one of the benefits I think of working with a skilled practitioner is those are the details that we're paying attention to, you know, when you're trying to develop some sort of self awareness or you're resisting some sort of change.

And I don't think I don't know if the dopamine hits from TikTok and Instagram, even in my own content, to be clear, are necessarily going to kind of give you that more kind of bespoke approach that I think is often required to help people.

Yeah, yeah, there is this tension.

But there's definitely tension between the cognitive behavior therapy people and the act people and the psychoanalysts.

There's you know, at the conferences, you know, there's it gets off for a cocktail parties.

Yeah, at the conferences, you know, because one I definitely want to hear you to say, but I want to just state the tension.

A lot of people on the psycho at or psychodynamic approach feel like there's great value in talking about your relationship to your mother, and there's great value in talking about your early childhood experiences, and a lot of especially the mindful CBT approach, which I'm a big fan of.

Big shout out to Seth Gillahean and my boy.

His approach has really changed my life.

But it's very present focused.

It's very present focused.

Yes, yeah, well, I completely agree.

I'm aware of the tension as well.

I was what I was going to ask was, sometimes do you think to what extent do you think how different are these things because sometimes if I'm conceptualizing a case cognitively and we're thinking about their underlying core beliefs, and like the cognitive restructuring require to maybe get at some of those core beliefs so then we can talk about the nor productive way.

Sometimes it feels very similar to pushing past defenses from the more kind of dynamic or analytical way.

So just a basic example could be, you know, like the dichotomist thinking or the black and white thinking.

You know, sometimes I'm kind of like, well, is there a meaningful difference between this and splitting?

And I think it's a I think it can depend on the practitioner and of course, like the person in front of you and how they want to go about it.

And I'm not saying there are no meaningful differences, because I think, you know, restructuring your belief is meaningfully different from having a corrective emotional experience or some sort of a like emotional catharsis.

But sometimes I'm kind of like, and maybe it's just because I'm so integrative, I'm kind of like, oh, yeah, like this feels pretty similar.

You know, Yeah, yeah, I like I like in a great yes, and yeah, I mean it depends the tolls.

You know, you have a lot of tolls in the toll box.

Sometimes it's the psychodynamic seems most appropriate for what the person's going through, especially you know, in trauma and formed therapy.

I think that that can be valuable.

But I also think that CBT can be very valuable even for people with trauma who would like to stay more present focused.

You know, it's interesting.

It's not something I think I talk about in the trauma section of my book, but there's this believe I see all the time on the Internet that cognitive behavioral therapy is not just unhelpful for trauma, but it actually can be really really damaging.

And as someone who's certified in cognitive processing therapy and administers it with fair regularity, I just don't get it.

I mean, I think, you know, bad therapy is bad therapy, and good therapy is good therapy.

But I'm always fascinated to see these posts that's like CBT is essentially gas lighting, or you know, cognitive therapy can't work if you have complex PTSD, and I'm just I don't have the anecdotal evidence for that.

Personally, Yeah, I wouldn't know when they asked it on like making absolute statements.

Yeah, so sure, yeah, so that makes sense.

So expressing your feelings is always valid.

I feel like that's that's something that a lot of young people are being taught right now.

Quite frankly, Joe.

Yeah, well, you know, I had on on my show, I had Are you familiar with doctor Darby Saxby at the University of Southern California.

She's great, She's a clinical psychologist and one of their departments there.

She had this wonderful op ed which is how I discovered her in the New York Times that was titled this is Not How You Help Team Depression, and in it she cited some wonderful studies, some of which were, you know, very kind of critical of these social emotional learning initiatives that are kind of teaching like mindfulness in school, like just really like feeling your feelings and stuff like that, because what the what the data has found, it's not even just her opinion, but the data has found is that oftentimes when they implement these across large groups, particularly amongst adolescents or children, is that the mental health outcomes are worse, not better, which is concerning on its own, but one of the things that we talked about when I had her on my show was that if you are experiencing clinical depression or anxiety because you are suppressing emotions, mindfulness is a wonderful tool because what we often see is that when you start expressing those feelings, when you start to become more gruent or more express then the symptoms actually go away.

And I certainly endorse that.

I see that in my practice all the time.

But if you're helping a teenager who is, you know, afraid of public speaking, self conscious, kind of developing these skills for the first time, maybe what they don't need is to really breathe into all of their you know, social anxiety and feel it to its depths.

Maybe they need to learn how to kind of adaptively suppress it and go and experience the positive reinforcement of, oh, that actually wasn't that bad.

I got up in front of my class and that was that was good.

So that's really the the spirit of what this chapter was written about.

Because people talk about how feelings are always valid, and they are in the sense that all feelings are understandable, but expressing them and acting on them, well, the only person that has that deal is an infant.

You know, and the last I checked, no one thought that infants were very you know, emotionally intelligent in any meaningful sense of the word.

Oh man, there's a start in my live skit.

I need to find it and send you the cliff.

Uh.

It's like a trauma support group, and the guy running the group is like, just everyone knows all feelings are valid, and like, you know, and like the one you know person talks about you know, this their hobble childhood.

And this other guy is like, I can't stand it when people eat broccoli around me and it traumas I have trauma over it.

And anyway, He's like, it's just like and and the other people snicker.

And the guy, the head guy they run, is like, do not snicker at Robert.

All feelings here are valid.

Anyway, I'm gonna I'll send it to you.

I don't think I forget what his thing was, but it was something trivial, but it wasn't, you know, broccoli, but.

I might have some traumatic experiences around broccoli myself.

My parents were no joke around the dinner table.

There was none of this I'm not eating my vegetables pas happening in household.

Well, if well, that's valid, that's valid.

It is it is valid.

Oh boy, this is a big one.

Okay, we kind of got the easy pasy ones out of the way.

Let's like dive into let's type.

Yeah, so there's a there's an expression hurt people, hurt people, and I I mean, anecdotally, I think there are a lot of hurt people, hurt people, But anecdotally I also see a lot of hurt people who are some of the most empathetic people on this toy.

And so it seems like too blank at a statement even and if it is true in some cases, what are your thoughts?

Right exactly?

Of course, we can trace back the like the origin of someone's motivation to hurt someone to their own hurt.

It's been my experience as a practitioner that the vast majority of people who have suffered, you know, some pretty just like unbelievable stuff Like That's the thing that I think is sometimes missed on social media when we're talking about mental health and destigmatizing it is some of the stuff I hear during the week.

I mean, you just can't even believe it, like, and it's not something I can I even want to kind of paraphraser or summarize even with keeping confidentiality right now, because it's just so awful.

And I think about how that's impacted these people who have shared their stories with me, and they are often actually more of like the people pleasing, highly agreeable, super gentle.

They can't even you know, make a simple request from their partner, you know, because of their hurt.

And so I think that that's one thing that I highlight in this chapter.

But then there's this other thing where I think a lot of times people use this blanket phrase hurt people, hurt people to actually stay in unhealthy or unstable relationships, to accept treatment that they know they don't deserve, because they're so empathetic that they understand, oh, well, this isn't personal.

This is because of their childhood, or this person's having a hard time at home, or whatever it might be.

And I don't actually think that's good for the person committing the hurt or for you either, And that's why I think the myth needs to be held up to scrutiny.

I think if I could upgrade it, I might say something like, hurt people who do not process their hurt in an adaptive way, or who have an undiagnosed mental health concern might hurt people.

But I also am skeptical, and this is one of the other chapters in the book.

I'm skeptical of putting out there that you know, we only hurt people, or we only do bad things because of a mental illness.

I'm not sure that's true.

I think my view on human ure is a little bit more tragic than that.

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Okay, now back to the show.

I appreciate your perspective very very much, and I'm just gonna add that we kind of in that equation to kind of ignore, we kind of absolve the person of responsibility for being an asshole, because I mean, assholes hurt people.

It's like, it's almost like I'm trying to articulate my point, but the hurt people hurt people thing, it's like it also absolves them of the responsibility.

A lot of hurt people may say, may feel justified to hurt others because they're like, well, I've been hurt, so therefore it all for justification like I didn't get my do so I'm kind of like correcting the cosmic balance of this great injustice against me by hurting innocent people.

I think some people hurt people do think that way.

But if you're a hurt person and you think that way, like you should take responsibility for thinking that way, which is not a very helpful or healthy way of thinking about the world.

It's not just that you were hurt.

They were hurt, and you also developed some cognitive biases that are not accurate.

Yeah, well, I think there's also I agree with all of that, and there's also an undeniable element of subjectivity when it comes to emotional hurt and pain that makes this myth even more precarious because I think if we're talking about, you know, physical abuse or violence, there are certainly patterns that you can see where people repeat things that happen to them in childhood with their intimate loved ones, and I think that they're there's great clinical intervention and hope for people that are that are struggling with that, But as soon as you kind of move it into where it's like, well, you know, my feelings were hurt, you know, and then using that as a justification to to hurt others.

It just gets into such a murky territory where I think the vagueness of the myth makes it unhelpful, you know, because there's so many different people have different levels of well, different levels of traite, neuroticism, right and trade agreeableness and and all these different things to where you know, I like I have, I have a dark and irreverent sense of humor, and sometimes I know I accidentally hurt people, you know, in just socializing and and you know, and of course, like you, I'll apologize or say face or whatever I have to do, but you know, it's if they're really really hurt by that, Like, is this like a helpful way to understand my sense of humor?

I would argue, No.

You know, plenty of people with very cushy and privileged childhoods also, you know, hurt people.

And they probably hurt people due to their entitlement and maybe they're a little bit spoiled, not because they necessarily suffered.

It may have been the lack thereof.

And then you kind of hear that phrase, it's like, oh, like so and so needed to get spanked more when they were growing up but I'm not endorsing that as a as a parental discipline, but I'm just saying that that's like a thing that you hear, right, and so yeah, it just starts to collapse in on itself, this myth.

I don't I don't buy it.

Yeah, great, Well another another deflated?

Is that was that right?

Deflated?

Oh?

Yeah, deflated myth.

Let's let's cover ADHD.

ADHD it's the area of mutual interest of ours, something I have a.

Little a little of.

So, but I think a lot of people say they're ADHD if they just have trouble focusing or you know, you see a lot of just flip and comments like it, not just the DHD.

Also with OCD, right, it's like, oh, I'm so OCD, you know, because I'm acting a certain way.

But does that mean you really have OCD.

So let's let's deflate the myth that the reason you can't focus, the reason you can't focus is going to be ADHD.

Yeah.

Well, one of the things I was a very ADHD way of asking you this question totally.

Well, one of the things I talk about in the book is I I go through like a very brief historical analysis, a just different time periods, and it's like, are we are we really gonna sit here and say that, you know, before the internet, everyone you know was super focused and nothing, you know, distracted us.

Are we gonna really believe that, you know, in medieval times when monks are learning how to meditate, you know, however many decades or hundreds of years ago, like pick your period in time history.

I mean, did did Michael Angelo never once falter?

You know, and all of these these projects, And I just think the obvious answer to me is, of course this has been a timeless problem.

Like lowers and poets and writers have all mused about this, and it just seems to me that this is such a great example of medicalizing everyday experience.

And I don't know if I talk about it in this chapter in general, but I do think it's it's worthwhile to just bring up capitalism here, because I think a lot of us, you know, in a capitalistic society, we tire worth to our productivity and our purpose and and all that stuff.

And it you know, I think a lot of people want to get an adderall prescription.

I'll just say it, for the performance enhancement.

I mean, I don't think that's like a secret, is it?

Like I don't know, you know what I mean, Like, I'm pretty sure any psychiatrist or you know, anyone on a college campus is aware that this is just not a secret.

Yeah, And I think it's okay to be honest about that.

But I don't think it's okay to say that, you know, I I need this to function.

I mean, I have patients in my practice with ADHD, and you know, they are usually very late.

I don't mean they're a few minutes late because they're kind of scattered.

I mean like it's fifteen minutes in and I have to wonder whether or not to reinforce my rule that I end the session, you know.

But then this is like the third week in a road.

They're missing it or you know, whatever it is, and we need to review our skills, like there there are levels to how impactful that wiring can be to your functioning.

Good.

Good.

I'm just thinking, is there anything we want to add because ADHD is such a rich topic and there's so there are actually so many misconceptions about it.

I mean that's you know, you you couldn't you could write a whole book right on just the myths of ADHD.

I think there are a lot of things.

Here's another one that's folding around your ADHD is caused by your trauma.

That's a big one that that's where I remind yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I've been, I've been.

Maybe you see me writing my responses to that.

Yeah, Well, here's what I'll say about that specifically, is the reason why you want to get diagnosed by a psychiatrist or a psychologist that is competent in assessing for ADHD is because it can look like a lot of other things.

I had a great testing psychologist on my show, and one of the things we talked about was it's something like one in three or two in three Americans have disordered sleep, so not a sleep disorder per se, but their sleep is not optimal.

And let me tell you when I don't have great sleep, my ADHD symptoms.

I don't know if I've said this on this show, I have on other shows on my platform.

I'm formally diagnosed with it.

If my sleep isn't good, my symptoms are so much worse like it's it's actually like almost unbelievable because I'll I'll start the day and I just I just noticed that I'm just like walking in circles and I have to go take my medication.

You know, it's one of the if the sleep is bad, that's one of the only things that really counters it.

And so you know, if you're doom scrolling to four in the morning every night and you're not kind of taking care of your body, your vessel, maybe you don't have it.

Maybe adderall still helps, right, maybe these executive functioning skills still help, but that doesn't mean you have it.

In a similar way, I could see how an over activated nervous system due to trauma or chronic stress.

I can see how it mimics some of the symptoms.

But me personally, I mean, I would love to talk to doctor Mate because I do think he's very smart, and I feel like what I'm saying is not all that controversial or original.

But I do think that what I'm saying is true and ADHD can also be real.

I don't think we need to bring it to the extreme that it's just caused by trauma.

Yeah.

Well, I've written some very extensive critiques that people can consult Psychology Today article about that, and I've had some very intense and detailed email correspondences with doctor Mante and my latest one to his I want to say we we kind of ended it on a very friendly mutual respect notes where I was quite pleased with where we landed after not starting that way at all in the email.

Change was like not the tone was not starting well, but it ended.

You know.

Our most recent correspondence is that we actually agree in a lot more than we disagree with.

And it's just the big sticking point with him that we I guess agree to disagree at this point is that he is I think genes play a far greater role than he gives it credit for and uh and trauma plays far lesser role than he gives it credit for in terms of the development of ADHD symptoms.

So so we can kind of we can we can say that both contribute somewhat, but I think we really fundamentally just gray on the nature nurture sort of contributions, because there is something it means for your brain to be wired in a certain way and genes play a pretty substantial role in that.

Yeah.

Interesting, Well, I wonder what like an epigenetics expert might say, or like a behavioral biology expert, like I'm a big fan of doctor Robert Sapolski at Stanford in his work or someone kind of in his field, could be it could be interesting to continue the exploration in terms of where the line is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I present some data to him, to doctor Mante, but he I present if I gave him those precise studies that are relevant.

But anyway, we don't need to go down this whole rabble.

Well, what I do want to say about that before we move on is, while I might disagree with him, I do think it's it's not like the proliferation of that myth on social media and into culture.

It may not be entirely his fault or the people that kind of of parrot those talking points, because I know that.

You know, for example, Brene Brown is really famous for talking about like vulnerability and courage and all these things, and a lot of people have taken that.

I write about this in the book too, right where it's like, well maybe more intimacy isn't better, Like maybe there's actually like a healthy amount here.

But in my research for the book, I went and rewatched one of her ted talks and I had forgotten about this, But she actually talks very frankly and writes about in her books she goes the kind of complete, raw vulnerability she's talking about.

Not everyone she talks about this, not everyone is entitled to your story or your whole story.

Maybe one person is all you really need.

And I think a lot of people actually miss that, you know what I'm saying.

And so i''m sure that some people are maybe taking a clip of you know, mate, or whoever it might be, and then running with and being like, oh, well, this is all just trauma based where you know.

It sounds like even though he has a very strong point of view, he is capable of the nuance and maybe that just doesn't get passed to long in the game of telephone that we're all playing.

I would completely I would very much agree a lot of his ideas get incredibly simplified and taken out of context to serve people's personal agendas.

And the same thing with Bernie Brown.

I write about that in my book Rise Above Youously in the introduction I talk about we have the culture of vulnerability on steroids, and you can't believe that on Bernie Brown, but you know, you can kind of blame it on a lot of people on the internet right to an ad mass group of nameless people on the Internet.

We can kind of blame it on them totally.

Yeah, well, you know, people do take You know, there are scientists who try to be objective, who try to publish in journals and then get peer reviewed, but there are there's a whole other world where people in the general public and on social media are cherry picking scientific findings to serve their activist agenda or to serve their own personal to confirm their own personal viewpoint or ideology.

And you see that a lot.

And that's unfortunate because the truth is often way you know, all this I'm not saying this.

I'm more saying this to my audiences are often way more gray than black and white.

Yeah.

Well, it's something I write about in a part of the book is one of the parts is called social Schisms, and it's mental health Myths and in Society, and a couple of the chapters I talk about how just political the field has become and how there's you know, some people come from this school of and I do my best to be really objective, like I certainly have my opinions and personal philosophies about this, and my personal opinion philosophy is that if you are going to over prioritize systemic change, you shouldn't be a therapist.

You should be an activist, like you should go and advocate for the change of laws or you know, whatever it might be.

Because I believe in the individual's ability to kind of rise above, to play your book, you know what I mean.

It's a and to transform.

But it's it seems that a lot of people will you know, take different studies or different thinkers, whether it's their soundbites or an insight from their research, and then run with it as a way to conduct therapy that is overly one sided in terms of prioritizing you know, individual autonomy versus systemic change.

And I think that for me, I really strive to be able to do both in my practice because either route can be helpful and curative depending on the person in front of you.

Yeah, you're a very interesting presence in the in the in the public therapist realm because as well as private therapist realm, because you, I mean, I actually don't know what your politics are.

I you keep me on my toes.

You say one thing and then I think, oh, yeah, Joe's like totally libertarian, and then you'll say something else and I'll be like, oh my god, that was a woke thing for Joe to say.

Basically, you mix it up, you know, like one second you're talking about how we're over systematized, you know, we're focused too much on systems, and the next breath you're saying critique of capitalism.

So I'm like, what are you, Joe?

And that's okay.

I like to be the same way, So I I get, I get, I get you, I see you that vibe, I get.

I like it.

But do you have critiques?

You know, given all that, do you have critiques of the wocization of therapy training that's going on right now?

Yeah?

Absolutely.

One of the the textbooks that I cite my book is a textbook called Counseling the Culturally Diverse by doctors Sue and Sue.

They were at Columbia.

I don't know if they are anymore.

I've never corresponded with them directly, although I would love to, but I know that in their textbook they they write about the superordinate nature of multicultural counseling, and multicultural counseling by their definition is you know, however you want to define it very woke, very kind of postmodern, progressive, various systems change focused, and it's their words, not mine the super ordinate nature as in, this is more important than the other kind of clinical models and frameworks that we have.

And I know that I have encountered colleagues both when I was in grad school and even after grad school, where this is their primary theoretical orientation.

This is how they treat people.

And for me personally, I cannot see how they are a competent and well rounded psychotherapist.

I just I simply cannot see it.

And I.

Mean that with with like the hope that if that's you, it might maybe it encourages you to seek some pure consultation or to kind of think about how you're conceptualizing cases, because the truth of the matter is, yes, of course systems matter, but at the end of the day, engaging someone in a systems change conversation when number one, there are things they could do as an individual to improve their situation, and number two, it's not a systemic change that is going to happen in a timely fashion.

I think that is a recipe for increased stress, and I think the increased stress will make their symptoms worse.

Let me tell you a story just to kind of exemplify this.

I've had more than one patient in my practice, and I think because I am so politically ambiguous, I do attract people all from all sorts of kind of backgrounds and belief systems.

And I've had many people who are are more on the left who who come in and they're often so constrained by their beliefs around like identity.

So I'm thinking of more than people have you know, felt like, well, they don't want to really tell me what's what's going on because they're white, or they're rich, or they're privileged in some capacity, and other people have it so much worse, and they just feel so guilty for even feeling like they have a problem.

What I often do with that person is I don't engage them in a in kind of a philosophical exploration.

I will, you know, if that's if they're really intellectual, and it seems like that would be good for apport.

But what I often do is I actually get curious about the underneath.

And it is almost always connected to you know, growing up, the parents told them to never complain and always be grateful, or you know growing up, this is you know, they were felt, you know, a kid you know, bullied them for having money, and it really like stuck with them in a profound way, and so they always kind of over corrected or like whatever it is.

And I have found that, you know, we work through that and they're they're political philosophy on like you know, systems or identity.

It just doesn't even matter anymore.

And my concern is that a lot of therapists aren't doing that because they're so married to this kind of multicultural counseling model that I think is I think is very shallow at best.

Well you don't mince your words, do you, sir?

No?

One of the I think it's you know, it's one of the strange benefits of doing what I do because I got I got hate from an early video, a video where I said the whole point of the video was we were talking about it earlier, you know, not everything you think is significant, don't analyze all your thoughts.

And I got so much hate from it, and in a way it was a blessing because it kind of made me realize.

I was like, well, I might as well be honest, and it's it is I think in a healthy way.

Speaking of behavioral therapy systematically desensitized me.

You know, fair enough.

You you you you crack me up.

You you say great things.

We also your your your delivery cracks me up sometimes on Instagram because you have a little bit of this like, you know, like this kind of like for the camera.

You're a little bitchy sometimes, do you know what I mean?

And totally and it's uh it, I mean, I see why you're so popular.

First of all, I mean, congratulations on what you've built, you know, on uh, your following, because you're saying you're saying truthful things that are very science uh, you know, evidence based, and but you have this sort of funny delivery.

So anyway, let's let's move on to something no less controversial, but mindfulness.

Mindfulness is you know, uh, Mick mindfulness is also is a thing.

You know, mindfulness is important, but Mick, mindfulness also exists, right like this kind of you know, yeah, this this that you talk about.

You talked about capitalism earlier, right, don't don't you know isn't there a connection between capitalism and the flourishing of mindfulness in the West?

But probably, I mean it's not something that I'm only like getting present to it for the first time in this moment.

But I think that it's funny because right ten twenty years ago, people that preached mindfulness or meditation, it was like you quack, like you hippie.

And now if you talk to your doctor that you've been feeling off mentally, they're like, well, have you tried meditating?

Like it's just like the first thing that they slide your way.

And what I talk about in the book is I say, look, I mean mindfulness, to be clear, is such an important skill that yeah, if not everyone, most people could benefit to learn and practice and develop that muscle.

I often think of mindfulness like a muscle, but it is not the correct intervention or skill for every situation.

And when it comes to your mental health, I think it can actually be harmful.

I talk about in the book a very early patient of mine, I actually facilitated the meditation perfectly because they got very settled in their body and out of their head and they had a full blown panic attack in front of me in the office, and I remember being so bewildered.

But they didn't they didn't have the skills to navigate that baseline, which was panic and self loathing, and you know, all these trauma responses and all this stuff.

And so I think you have to be thoughtful whether you're a therapist, whether you're seeking therapy, about what to do first and in what order.

I'm assuming you're familiar with like DBT dialectical behavioral therapy.

Absolutely, yeah, wonderful modality to skills based modality.

A lot of fans.

I'm a fan.

Oh, I'm a fan too.

Well, I'm such a fan that I you know, I when I was learning how to facilitate it, I remember reading my textbook and being like, wait, I can't believe I didn't know this.

I was like, I was learning some help.

I felt the same way I went to I happened to see a therapist once, and I didn't know until later that they specialized that their whole thing is like for people with borderline and that wasn't my issue that I was presenting.

But so I accidentally stumbled into a borderline clinic and they taught me DBT to to help me deal with some stress I was experiencing from just teaching at Columbia, and those techniques helped me with all my issues, even though they were the issues weren't borderline specific, you know, being able to help me, you know, like being wise mind when I'm you know, dealing with conflict or I'm dealing with you know, difficult students totally.

Well, that's the thing, you know that that they don't tell you about DBT.

It's not just for borderline personality disorder anymore.

It's I've never brought someone through it who didn't benefit from it.

And the way I was taught was to do the distress tolerant skills before the mindfulness skills, and a lot of people aren't taught that way and they don't facilitate it that way.

But for any therapists who are listening, I think it's worth assessing your different cases on a case by case basis and just being curious, Well, if I do the mindfulness skills first, do they have like a baseline where they can handle it?

And not everyone does who's in therapy.

And that's okay because they can learn.

To get there.

Okay, So just I want to just put a to wrap up in a neat bow.

This myth we're talking about, so we're not all over the place.

Mindfulness is good for everyone?

False?

Correct, False?

It is.

It can be good for you in certain situations, but kind of like we were talking about earlier.

You know, if.

The teenager that needs to practice public speaking, right, I would argue that that might actually be the opposite of what the correct intervention or coaching technique is.

It could actually make things worse depending.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.

I do assign my students a paper showing that for some people with who are still stuck in this ruminative, unhealthy and ruminative stage from trauma's mindfulness can actually make can exacerbate certain mental issues.

You don't talk about that finding enough as we probably should.

Yeah, well, especially in the trauma conversation, right, because it's it is a formal definition of PTSD.

There's the avoidance of the stimuli.

But you may also see like the rumination or like they they are seeking out the stimuli, and in that latter case, being super mindful might not be what's needed.

It makes more sense if you're avoiding it because it's too triggering or too activating, and so learning to be mindful, learning that the feeling will pass, that might make more sense.

And so it's just another really great example of how a lot of times these sound bites aren't maybe as psycho educational as we'd like them to be, because these nuances really matter, you know, this isn't I find it that I feel like I've been saying this a lot, you know, on different podcasts and different stuff that I've been on, Like I'm not doing this because I'm like, you know, well, I'm a licensed therapist, and I'm wagging my finger at you for not using this term like correctly.

It's like, no, this has consequences for your mental health, Like this is actually important to talk.

About, absolutely, and a good therapist is aware of all this and and you know, may assign certain things for the client to work on with the caveat this doesn't work for everyone, and if it's not working, we'll move on to something else.

So yeah, just having that flexibility, I think it's key as a therapist.

Yeah, so that's Hopefully therapists are listening to this podcast episode and reading your book.

Hopefully, if for nothing else, it gives them more flexibility in their toolkit.

Okay, next one, this one's very near and dear to my heart is neurodivergency nerdiver so that the myth is your awkward friend is neurodivergent, but so, but really, what's underneath this is aren't we all just neurodivergent?

Joe?

Right?

Well, you you're familiar with this movement and also the literature, maybe even more than I am, so I would love to know what you think.

The thing that kind of tickles me about the neurodiversity movement is the idea is that we all have different nervous systems that we need to honor.

And I'm kind of like, but didn't we know this before?

I'm like, I don't, Like, I feel like, didn't I learn that like in high school?

Like, you know, like, it just doesn't seem to be the be the the bold claim that a lot of people treat it as.

But maybe maybe I just got that listened early and I was lucky.

Like I'm not sure.

I mean, individual differences exist, yeah, and there are so many dimensions upon which we differ, But the key question on the table here is are we all nerdivergent?

And then it begs the question like what does it mean to be nerd divergent?

And historically it's tended to focus on a subset of individual differences, things like autism, primarily, but then expanded to dyslexia and sort of like any kind of developmental disorder that you have, and it's expanded to that all mental illnesses, and then on TikTok it's expanded to your if you're just thirteen years old, do you know what I mean?

Like a lot of teenagers, like almost all teenagers on TikTok id as neurodivergent.

Right, Well, you know, I'll tell you a personal story.

So when I was younger, I was I went through formal like psychological testing, and one of the things the testing psychologist found was because I was probably like I don't know what, like ten, I'd love to look at the results.

I bet my mom still has them tucked away.

This was kind of before everything was digitized, so it might be more difficult to locate.

But the point is is that, you know, I wasn't diagnosed with anything at the time.

But what he pointed to is that there were kind of asymmetries in my development.

So there were certain cognitive capacities that were quite advanced for my age, but then it's like my athletic capacities were very underdeveloped.

I had certain social capacities where I was.

It's funny because I think myself as such a a social person now and like, you know, very like you know, quote unquote emotionally intelligent and all this stuff.

Like I was awkward, Like I was the king that like read in the library during recess instead of playing with the other kids, you know what I mean?

And oh, I know what you mean.

Oh well, all that to say is that I think I was very lucky that I got I had this individuals as a practitioner, because this psychologist, you know, he didn't slop any diagnostic labels on me.

He basically made the recommendation and said, look, this is where he's overdeveloped, this is where he's underdeveloped.

This is the kind of schooling and kind of extra attention that I would recommend, so he grows up to be balanced.

And I do feel balanced as an adult.

How unfortunate would it have been if, at the time my parents interpreted this to mean that I have this condition or this disorder, and so let's just, you know, let's just kind of fill in those gaps however we can.

Let's like get him the accommodations and call it a day.

My parents didn't take that approach.

For better or for worse, they were just like, we are going to force you in sports until you are no longer physically awkward.

And now it's like I identify as that athletic person, you know what I mean, I can hold my own out.

At the time when I'm a teenager, I hated that, you know what I mean, Like I didn't want to go, but I'm so glad that I did.

And so when it comes to the to bring it back to this, the myths on neurodivergency, I bring up the story because I think when it comes to the teenagers and the kids, I think this is super dangerous because any developmental psychologist who has even read one textbook, you know, understands that these are these things are not foregone conclusions.

And yeah, I guess I just wanted to to start that.

I would love to know what you think, because it's it is concerning not just to see how many teenagers.

And I actually have more sympathy for the teenagers because there are identity experimentation and they're trying on hats, but it's also these like parents that are kind of like, you know, kind of claiming these labels and you know, I mean, they'll give me some some trouble for saying it because I am not a parent, but I'm kind of like, are you sure you know what you're doing?

Well?

Your point, Your point is very well taken, and I really appreciate your perspective.

It sounds like you're kind of making the argument that the label nerd diversity in itself we should hold very lightly and maybe it's not even a very helpful label.

I would maybe disagree with you your perspective in the sense that I don't think we're all nerdivergent.

I think it does.

There are some people where they're extreme trait and the way they're wired puts them like one to even two standard deviations out from the mean, which can make it very very It does create and creates a need, and a lot of parents need a label in order to get those resources for certain kids.

So I would say, yeah, yes, and what you're saying, I agree with what you're saying in the general population.

I also think that there are specific cases that whatever we label it, the labeling does create a need that allows important resources for certain people.

No, I completely agree, and I think that's that's actually the reason why this myth needed to be included in the book, because I think that the more people talk about it as in like, oh, well everyone's nerdive verge and everyone's adhd, everyone has a little bit of autism, the less we lose sight of what you just said, which is, well, actually, some people need accommodations, Some people need a little extra support, or they need to design their lives a little differently to be optimal.

I also think too, so I wrote my grad school capstone.

I wrote about disability accommodations in the workplace, and I remember encountering a study in which they found that going into workplaces and doing psycho education explaining the kind of biological bases for mental illness or dysfunction actually increased stigma and punishing behaviors in between colleagues, unlike physical disability, where like you know, someone's in a wheelchair and you might need to help them like reach something up like on a shelf, because the message that ended up getting taken away was something like, oh, this person's bipolar, or this person you know has eight each year.

Whatever it is, it's in their brain.

They can't fix it, they can't change it.

And so that's part of like the stigma is it's like oh, like this is now just like annoying and inconvenient for me.

And so their recommendation was to focus less on that in the workplace and more on just like cooperation and team building and kind of those standard organizational psych principles, which I thought was very interesting.

Like I wasn't expecting that to be the result, but I think it makes perfect sense applying that to the neurodiversity conversation.

A lot of people I think can feel dimpowered to try to get better or improve or just ask for the accommodations that they so clearly need.

Very well said, I think we're definitely an agreement on that.

Yeah, yeah, well, this is the value of conversation.

By the way, I think a lot of people will like in conversations these days, and politics especially, it's like, oh, I disagree with you fundamentally, and then that they shut off from listening.

The more I listen to you talk, the more I really I can calibrate and realize that we are very much on the same page.

And uh, you know, I just think there's great value in conversation totally.

Oh me too, And that's one of the things I love about being a therapist and having a platform is I'm talking all the time, and you know earlier you were acknowledging me for my boldness.

Let's say, but even though it's not always fun and you know, the you know, the emotions can feel intense on all sides of it and stuff.

I do think that just being in the conversation and being honest and doing your best to articulate whatever your your point of view is, Like I like, I'm someone that believes in the truth, Like I I it's one of my core beliefs, core principles.

And I think that you know, we'll we'll all help each other get there one way or the other.

Yeah, we could do our part to try to move in that direction.

This is a big one because I constantly everyone so, okay, everyone's ex is a narcissist, right, myth or not?

Yeah, I think it's a myth.

I think that I think that it's not to say, you know, I like, I think a lot of the awareness around narcissism is is good because it's a real thing, you know, and you encounter these people in your life.

And and here's the thing, even if we're just going to go on the strict like definition of like narcissistic personality disorder.

It's still like what like one in fifty or like whatever, the prevalence is, like you're still going to meet someone like this, Yeah, like in your life.

It's it's really on a continuum though, you know, like oh totally yeah, yeah, well yeah, I.

Guess to say, even in the most like kind of strictest criteria, you're still good to interact with somebody like this.

So it's good that we know.

But I take issue with, you know, a lot of the advocacy that's happening on the internet about this because to me, it seems and I don't I don't say this in the book, but this is the conclusion I continue to write to.

It seems that a lot of these pages that are dedicated to it are perfect.

It's a perfect fertile breeding ground for a lot of vulnerable narcissism and just people who feel like they are always the victim of every single relationship.

Look, here's the deal.

Breakups are really tough, and a grandiose coping style, you know, compared to an insecure one.

So grandiose for those who are listening, a grandiose person might react to relational stress and be like, well, well, I'm the best thing that's ever happened to them, and they would be so lucky, and I'm awesome and I deserve better and all this stuff like that does come across as quite narcissistic, and maybe it is, you know, somewhere like on that spectrum, right, but it is just as normative as the insecure coping style, which is, well, well I'm so unlovable and I'm worthless and I'll never meet someone, and like kind of like those thoughts as well, Like both of these reactions are normal.

I don't think that we should be pathologizing either of them, because no one is at their best in a breakup, you know, or when a relationship starts to kind of die on the vine.

And so one of the things I talk about in the book is that, you know, if we're gonna if we're gonna normalize this term, we have to talk about it like on the spectrum, like you said, And I think that we also have to make room for the for the perspectives that for some people, a narcissistic personality is a is a coping style.

It's it's it's a response to low levels of self worth.

And I think and it's more moderate to mild manifestations.

I think it can be helped with therapy, and I think it could be helped with therapy because I think a lot of therapists have helped it.

Like, I don't think that's a controversial thing to say.

You know, no, that's not controversial.

Though.

You see a lot more vulnerable narcissists, or those who score high in vulnerable narcisism on the couch than grandiose narcissists, usually those with very high scores and grandiose narcissism and on the couch because their girlfriends forced them to see a psycho therapist.

That's that's that.

That's what my That's a quote from Keith Campbell, one of the world's leading narcissism researchers, said that to me.

He said, you know, those who score very high in grandiose narcissism rarely seek out therapy because they see the problem is everyone else.

Yeah, well, you know, it's something I mentioned in that chapter in the book.

But I think the distinction of that maybe vulnerable narcissists are finding their way into therapy more.

I don't know if that's talked about enough, and it's something that I think needs to be because one of the difficult things about being a therapist is you're just going on what the person in front of you is saying, and most good therapists aren't.

You know, We're taking it all with a grain of salt.

We're kind of trying to figure out, you know, like the deeper dynamic here.

But at the end of the day, that could be very difficult.

And that's actually why I love working with couples low key, like, because it's just so nice to have both them there and be like, that's not what happened, or that's not what you said, and you can just kind of get to the truth a little bit easier.

Agreed, Now, that makes complete sense, Joe, That makes complete sense.

And another implication of the fact that narcissism is a continuum is that we all have our narcissistic moments.

And I think there's value in reflecting on the ways in which your own narcissism may be part of the system problem of you and the other person.

You know, if you view if you view it as like an interaction effect, as opposed to it's all my partner's fault and I'm an angel, you know, are you really fully understanding all the dynamics at play?

Probably not if you're doing if you're splitting in that way totally.

Well, you know, And there's the there's the I think the case for kind of like adaptive narcissism to be made, Like if I need brain surgery one day, I would like it if my surgeon was a little narcissistic, you know what I mean, Like I want him to have a bit of a God complex.

Yeah, you know exactly.

We don't want it to be arrogance.

We don't want it to be overcompensating for any deficits.

But I think that you know, there's or like even people like in media right it's been shown have have higher rates of this of this trade.

But I also think it's it's good to have people that are willing to be you know, a spoken or putting their point of view out there, advocating for whatever cause they believe in.

And if that that comes from a little bit of narcissism, my point of view is, you know, I think that's okay.

I think I really like because you talk about this in your book right above, don't you that we need to start thinking about it, like it's like being extroverted or neurotic or kind of like these different things.

Like, I think there is a dimension, not that it's its own standalone personality trait necessarily, but it's it can have adaptive moments and maladaptive ones.

A last question, last one, last myth, last myth.

All right, everyone, okay, everyone has trauma?

Is that correct or incorrect?

I come from the school of thought that this is incorrect.

And the reason I think that's incorrect is for a couple of different reasons.

The first reason is a trauma like having PTSD or c PTSD or just general trauma, like the general label of it.

It's less about what happened to you and more about your current relationship with it.

So we know that two different people can get into a car accident or go to the same war, and one will come home and adapt fairly well, and then the other we'll have a full blown PTSD or some serious dysfunction.

And so that's number one.

I think it's more accurate to say, you know, maybe lots of people have trauma responses they need to work on, you know, But I think that saying that was traumatic or that thing that happened to me was traumatic, it's giving so much more power to the event in your past versus who you are now.

And then the other reason why I don't think it holds up to scrutiny as I think about, well, there's other negative experiences that are deeply meaningful and even life and even can impact you throughout your life that are not trauma.

And one of the things I talk about in the book is there's difference between trauma and grief.

And I talk about losing my dad and I certainly developed traumas reponses from that, and therapy and different support has been wonderful and that whether it showed up in my relationships or whether it showed up for the years after.

But I also deal with grief, and I'm a big fan of the school of thought that grief is cumulative.

It's something that affects you throughout your life.

And I talk about in the book.

You know, there was a everyone is fine now, but I had a family member that a bit of a health scare a year or two ago.

It's actually when I was writing the book, and that brought some stuff up for me and the other family members.

You know, having lost my dad, we are a little sensitive.

You know to this, and I remember talking to my therapists at the time and I was very emotional, and he called it a gift.

He was like, this is such a gift for some of this grief to surface and for you to integrate it and process it.

And I remember being so annoyed because I knew he was right, but I didn't like want to hear it at the time.

I don't know a single therapist out there, myself included, who would call a trauma getting severely triggered, you know, a trauma response getting severely triggered decades later, a gift.

You know.

I just don't know anyone that would do that.

And I think it's important to talk about this difference is and if the field decides that trauma and grief are more similar than they are different, I am super happy to have that conversation.

But at the moment, I don't think that's what anybody is claiming.

Very interesting, Well, I wonder how the post traumatic growth field what to view that.

Maybe not a gifted question, but an event that led to growth, I think is a fair statement.

But that's a different phrasing than gift.

Yeah, Well, it's just my head is just swimming, and we basically we covered like the entire field of psychology today and so it's been so elucidating and I hope helpful to our listeners to be able to sort out the facts from the myths.

And and yeah, I think you're doing such a great service through your online presence as well as your book.

Congratuute, congratulations on the success cue of the online world, and all the best with your book tour.

Okay, yeah, thank you so much.

I'm I'm so glad you had me on the show, and I'm so glad you liked it.

I read Transcend.

I guess when did that book of yours come out?

It was a while ago, and that's my first introduction to you, and so it's it's really like cool, like it's a little bit surreal that we're like here talking about it, and I just I really appreciate it.

Well, thank you, Joe appreciating