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1. 00:09 okay now we are in a new episode with professor sakn how are you thank you
2. 00:15 better every minute yeah and now today we will talk again the mental illnesses
3. 00:23 and first i want to ask you are we all mentally ill depends how you define mental illness 20 years ago i wrote the following definition so allow me to read it to you
4. 00:34 this is a bit long someone is considered mentally ill if number one his or her
5. 00:42 conduct behavior rigidly and consistently deviates from the typical
6. 00:48 average behavior of all other people in the culture and society that fit his or
7. 00:54 her profile whether this conventional behavior is moral or immoral is immaterial number
8. 01:02 two his or her judgment and grasp of objective physical reality is impaired
9. 01:09 reality testing is impaired number three so these are these are cumulative conditions number three his or her
10. 01:18 conduct behavior is not a matter of choice but is innate and irresistible
11. 01:25 mhm number four the behavior causes discomfort and distress
12. 01:33 number to to the per to the individual mhm number five dysfunctional
13. 01:39 self-defeating and self-destructive behavior even by the standards of the individual involved so we have all these
14. 01:46 conditions today we decide if someone is mentally ill on two grounds in modern
15. 01:53 practice modern clinical practice clinicians decide on two grounds the first question is is the person unhappy
16. 02:02 is the person distressed is the person would the person like to be different
17. 02:08 and the second question we ask is the person functional in a variety of settings not only in one setting not
18. 02:16 only in the family for example but in all settings family workplace church you know the public and so if the answer to
19. 02:23 these questions are that the person is happy or egoonic
20. 02:29 feels comfortable comfortable with himself and functions well relatively well in
21. 02:36 all settings regardless of what the diagnostic manual
22. 02:43 say we don't treat this person we don't regard this person as mentally ill and we don't treat them so you could have in principle someone who is psychotic mhm
23. 02:54 schizophrenic or someone who has borderline personality disorder
24. 03:00 and they don't feel that anything is wrong with them they feel they're okay they're pretty content and they're happy golucky and you know they're having fun and where where their life revolves in
25. 03:13 in their different environments they're pretty functional they work from home let's say and they don't have a family but they have a pet and netflix and
26. 03:24 that's okay they're functional they're self-sufficient they're not reliant on anyone they don't harm anyone it's a
27. 03:30 critical feature they don't hurt anyone and so on this kind of person we will not treat even if we know that this
28. 03:37 person has schizophrenia or borderline and so on we will not regard this person as mentally ill in short mental illness
29. 03:45 combines three elements distress mhm self-destructiveness
30. 03:52 and harm to other people it has a social dimension mhm an individual dimension
31. 03:58 and an experiential dimension how do you experience yourself we have two conditions ego syintony and egoistony
32. 04:05 ego syony i feel good with myself ego deston i don't feel comfortable with
33. 04:11 myself i wish i were different by these criteria
34. 04:17 uh there are far fewer people with mental illness than we think mental
35. 04:23 illness is actually a rare event by this criteria however
36. 04:31 there are strong economic and financial interests the pharmaceutical industry the insurance industry the healthcare industry and they are pushing to pathize more and
37. 04:43 more behaviors additional behaviors all the time we're constantly pathologizing what used to be normal we are constantly medicalizing what used to be ignored mhm
38. 04:56 and so we've reached a situation where about half the population would define themselves as mentally ill judging for example by the diagnostic and statistical manual i will give you a
39. 05:07 number and that will explain everything i'm saying mhm in 1952 the first edition
40. 05:14 of the diagnostic and statistical manual was published it had 100 pages
41. 05:21 in 2022 mhm the text revision of the fifth edition of the diagnostic that
42. 05:27 means five editions later the number of pages was 1,100
43. 05:34 very big difference yes there is no other field in medicine cancer to
44. 05:42 pulmonary disease cardiovascular disease no other field where the textbook went
45. 05:48 from 100 pages to 1,100 pages it is inconceivable that many behaviors
46. 05:56 for example drinking coffee too much uh being surfing the internet too much
47. 06:04 all these are pathologies now they're all considered mental illnesses or mental disorders mental health disorders at least and there is of course the question what is too much the definition of what is too much should be completely
48. 06:16 subjective not objective what is too much for me is not too much for you
49. 06:22 may find people or the company of people suffocating and problematic and you need a lot of alone time you need a lot of privacy you're a bit schizoid maybe i am
50. 06:33 even worse than you other people cannot live alone they must be with people they must be in company they spend hours with other people they that's my wife so you
51. 06:46 know there's a huge there's a huge spectrum there's a huge variety we need to be a lot more tolerant a lot more
52. 06:52 tolerant a lot a lot le a lot less less assured that our way and how we are is the only
53. 07:00 correct way and everyone that deviates from it is somehow sick or or mentally
54. 07:06 ill we like to label people i think we like to label people because it pays
55. 07:12 there are huge industries by labeling people they're huge industries yeah so for example taking into take the
56. 07:18 following example until 1973 homosexuality was defined as a mental illness in the
57. 07:24 diagnostic and statistical manual mhm consequently homosexuals were medicated
58. 07:31 there were special centers where where experts scholars clinicians tried to convert
59. 07:37 homosexuals into heterosexuals there was a whole industry around it people were making millions tens of
60. 07:44 millions hundreds of millions of dollars of course it pays to pathize take in take for example narcissistic
61. 07:51 personality disorder i started everything that you see today i started it in the 30s 30 years ago i'm sorry not
62. 07:59 in the 30s i'm not that old you're a vampire yeah yes but 30 years ago i meant to started everything you see
63. 08:05 online definitely 30 years ago and when i started it there was nothing today it's a huge industry industry yeah
64. 08:13 thousands of people are coaches and and they make millions and tens of millions
65. 08:19 possibly uh hundreds of millions of dollars from youtube revenues from it's
66. 08:25 so there is a big interest today to insist that narcissistic personality disorder exists that it is an illness
67. 08:33 that it needs to be medicated or treated that and so on mhm mhm while the the
68. 08:39 truth is that we have two diagnostic manuals mhm one of them is the diagnostic and
69. 08:45 statistical manual and the other one is the international classification of diseases the icd mhm dsm dsm and icd the
70. 08:55 icd for example does not recognize the existence of narcissistic personality disorder 80% of humanity use the icd not the dsm mhm 80% of humanity do not accept that there is narcissistic
71. 09:12 personality disorder because it's not in the icd only 20% of humanity which is
72. 09:18 essentially united states canada and some parts of the united kingdom only
73. 09:24 they insist that narcissistic personality disorder exists and of course the reason is most of the money mhm is made in this country for you sorry does it does it exist no i completely disagree with the whole
74. 09:41 classification method with with making lists with with what we call differential diagnosis for example any
75. 09:48 clinician will tell you any clinician will tell you that a person is uh a
76. 09:54 narcissist on monday psychopath on wednesday and borderline on friday chooses not chooses the all these
77. 10:03 disorders exist in all patients all the time and in patients so when someone has
78. 10:10 a cluster b disorder is very likely to have all of them m there is no type
79. 10:17 constencancy there's no disorder constancy what the icd does is very very advanced and very clever and reflects the latest knowledge the dsm is about 25
80. 10:28 years back in terms of knowledge it's a very badly outdated book what the icd
81. 10:36 does the icd has a list of traits they call it trait domains they have a list of traits for example anenastia anenastia is a tendency to be
82. 10:48 obsessivecompulsive mhm for example dissoci this sociality is when you are
83. 10:54 either asocial or in most cases antisocial mhm and so on so they have
84. 11:00 list of traits when a patient comes to to a clinical settings what the
85. 11:06 clinician or diagnostician does he like lego he takes various traits and he
86. 11:13 combines them to a highly specific tailored customized profile of that
87. 11:19 specific patient mhm that is much better system much better system because each
88. 11:26 one of us indeed has a unique combination of traits and these traits can lead to dysfunctional behaviors or even to pathologies but these pathologies are never confined to a single differential diagnosis these
89. 11:43 pathologies all over the place if a narcissist experiences stress and anxiety if a narcissist is challenged
90. 11:52 mortified narcissistically injured has no supply collapses in all these situations narcissists essentially become borderline they develop emotional dysregulation they become suicidal this
91. 12:05 is borderline classic borderline so a narcissist very often becomes borderline a borderline who is faced with abandonment rejection real or imagined
92. 12:17 anticipated a borderline is likely to decompensate
93. 12:23 lose her defenses and act out she's likely to become reckless defiant aggressive sometimes
94. 12:31 violent dangerous to herself and to others and so on so forth and this is a great description of a psychopath so a
95. 12:39 borderline becomes a secondary psychopath when she's faced with with adversity we see that all these differentials between that's a narcissist that's a borderline that's they're not true they're counterfactual that's not the
96. 12:54 way humans work humans are much more malleable and flexible add to this the
97. 13:00 fact that if you do have one mental health disorders you're extremely likely to have others so if you have a
98. 13:07 personality disorder you're very likely to have substance abuse disorder to be an alcoholic or a drug user if you have
99. 13:15 substance abuse disorder you're extremely likely to have a mood disorder mhm if you have certain mood disorders
100. 13:22 coupled with personality disorders you're very likely to have in the background an anxiety disorder you can't
101. 13:28 make these these distinctions are not nonsense that's not the way human beings work that's not the way human psychology
102. 13:35 works so uh today we over pathize overmedicalize
103. 13:42 and overdiagnose people definitely you can see it for example with adhd or with
104. 13:48 autism mhm you know autism diagnosis went up five six times i understand
105. 13:54 people are more aware they're more willing to come forward but the likelihood that autism now is six times
106. 14:01 more common than 40 years ago is complete unmitigated nonsense there's no
107. 14:08 question that autism is overdiagnosed hysterically mhm and same with adhd
108. 14:14 which to this very day no one knows what it is so many of these diagnosis are so fuzzy so little based on so little evidence-based there's no evidence
109. 14:25 almost the definitions are so uh ambiguous and equivocal
110. 14:31 that sometimes i don't understand what they're talking about for example i have extreme difficulty to understand what is
111. 14:38 adhd and and i can almost recite by heart the entire dsm and the entire icd i i'm
112. 14:46 really i really know psychopathology psychology and i have difficulty to
113. 14:52 understand many of these disorders especially the new ones and so mental illness is what clinicians and scholars decide it's not a real
114. 15:06 objective clinical entity you cannot have a group of doctors deciding that
115. 15:12 tuberculosis is a disease and you cannot have a group of medical
116. 15:18 doctors deciding that tuberculosis is not a disease mhm tuberculosis is independent of medical doctors they
117. 15:24 cannot die tomorrow and still we will have tuberculosis however it's not the case with mental
118. 15:30 illness you can have a group of people sitting and saying "okay from 1974 homosexuality is not a disease 1972 it was a disease this is ridiculous this is
119. 15:42 not science this is nonsense." and that's one of the reasons and there are many others where i say that
120. 15:48 psychology and is pseudocience pseudocience not science um
121. 15:55 for the last years do you think that narcissistic traits rise in the people
122. 16:01 uh because of the technology maybe social media because you said that if the majority uh if you align with the
123. 16:08 majority you you look normal then if the traits rise the the new normal is
124. 16:16 changing yes do you think it's as simple as that mhm if we all become narcissists it's no longer a disease because there was a massive rise in the number of homosexuals
125. 16:27 it stopped being a disease because there was a massive rise in people who who used bdsm sex people who exercise
126. 16:35 practiced bdsm sex it was removed in uh in 2013 until then it was mental illness
127. 16:43 mental disorder so practice commonality
128. 16:49 when it spreads when something spreads it is no longer by definition a disease for example i can make an excellent case that religious people are delusional that they are mentally ill excellent
129. 17:01 case and no psychiatrist will succeed to show that i'm wrong mentally religious
130. 17:07 people are mentally ill they are exactly they're delusional mhm but we will never
131. 17:13 diagnose religious people as mentally ill because there's too many of them mhm the minute you have too many the minute the culture and the society reflect new mores new conventions new beliefs even if the beliefs are delusional and
132. 17:28 even if the conventions are for example antisocial
133. 17:34 then it makes no sense to diagnose mental illness for example in nazi germany a psychopath would not be
134. 17:40 mentally ill he would be mentally healthy in nazi germany psychopaths psychopathy
135. 17:47 was a positive adaptation it allowed you to rise to the top to make money to advance in society to so let me give you another example um
136. 17:59 depression ask anyone is depression bad yeah it's bad it's horrible it's sick
137. 18:05 it's a mental illness we need to medicate it we need to treat it we need to counter it we need to fight it we need to heal people and so on but if you are you are in awitz in awitz in a concentration camp yes
138. 18:18 extermination camp and you were not depressed it means you are mentally ill yeah it's a problem mhm so it's context
139. 18:25 dependent you cannot say this is ill this is healthy this is wrong this is right mhm in awitz depression is a sign of mental health not mental illness
140. 18:37 outside aitz it's mental illness in uh germany in nazi germany psychopathy was
141. 18:44 a positive adaptation sign of mental health and it it looks like power that time maybe it's it depends on context
142. 18:52 depends on period in history of psychotic people and i i mentioned it in
143. 18:58 our previous conversation psychotic people throughout human history people who were psychotic schizophrenic people
144. 19:05 who heard voices who had hallucinations and so on they established religion they are they were the prophets they were they the ones who established religion they were mentally ill by today's
145. 19:16 standard jesus christ would be in mental asylum and never ever leave it mhm they
146. 19:22 will throw the key and he would be heavily medicated every day but he
147. 19:28 established christianity so until the 19th century psychotic people were considered to to be in touch with god mhm they were considered to be advantaged and it was normal psychosis
148. 19:41 was considered not normal but was considered to be a positive adaptation an advantage it was considered to be a gift an asset the your ability to hear
149. 19:52 voices and to see images or visions that was a gift and and these people were
150. 19:58 considered to be saints or sacred or and so on so it's all critically dependent on culture society period and so on and
151. 20:06 we say that many mental illnesses are culture bound culture bound means they
152. 20:13 are artifacts of the culture then uh then we can see some disorders or
153. 20:19 illnesses in in some cultures more yes and that is because cultures
154. 20:25 broadcast messages cultures culture is a form of signaling culture tells you what is how is it appropriate to behave not
155. 20:33 appropriate what you're doing wrong what you're doing right there is a process of socialization where society shapes you
156. 20:41 informs you and regulates your behavior via socialization agents such as your parents mhm so you become socially adopted via the process of socialization
157. 20:52 and culturally adopted via this process of acculturation in this messaging process in this
158. 20:59 signaling process you also get information about expected behaviors expectations and you conform to these expectations because you don't want to be an outcast you don't want to be
159. 21:10 ostracized mocked ridiculed and so on so forth many many mental illnesses are the
160. 21:17 are secondary illnesses they are reactive illnesses let me give you an example
161. 21:23 you're born there's a newborn a baby is born and this baby has an a
162. 21:29 neurodedevelopmental problem has a problem with the brain and this baby becomes autistic autism is a
163. 21:35 neurodedevelopmental problem becomes autistic and as an autistic uh baby the
164. 21:42 baby is doesn't interact with peers the baby is highly fixated on specific
165. 21:48 activities repetitive stereotypical activities the baby has extreme difficulty to process environmental cues because they overwhelm the baby and so on this kind of baby grows up to be a
166. 21:59 freak an outcast um you know other peers
167. 22:05 other children mock this child all the time ridicule mhm attack bully this kind
168. 22:12 of child this kind of child suffers horribly in peer groups mhm one of the
169. 22:18 main defenses against peer bullying and peer pressure is narcissism so in this particular case narcissistic personality disorder which will emerge
170. 22:29 is secondary is reactive the core disorder is autism spectrum disorder and
171. 22:36 then we develop a defense which becomes narcissism later in life so a theology
172. 22:44 theology means the chain of causation chain of cause and effect is very very
173. 22:50 critical in mental health diagnosis and um is unfortunately missing we don't
174. 22:57 have a narrative in the dsm or the icd it's not a narrative approach mhm it's a
175. 23:03 it's like automized approach when the patient comes diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder
176. 23:10 identified labeled and given a bill of course to pay and that's it there's no
177. 23:16 holistic holistic picture which takes into account also other family members
178. 23:23 exposure to environment including including medical exposure like exposure to pollutants and there's not there's not this whole holistic picture mhm and um
179. 23:36 consequently we have three types of schools in in psychop in clinical psychology we have the medical school
180. 23:43 medical school says everything is the brain everything is biochemicals in the brain if you are mentally ill it's
181. 23:49 because your brain is not working well and the medical schools school says i can prove it because if i give you give
182. 23:55 you medication that changes the these biochemicals you change you're no longer
183. 24:01 mentally ill so this is proof that your brain is a problem that's a medical school then you have the holistic school
184. 24:08 the holistic school says a human being is not only body it's human being is also mind is also environment is also
185. 24:15 spirit spiritual dimension is also this also also history personal history experience this that so the holistic
186. 24:21 school says we need to look at a human being as embedded in much larger frameworks and then we need to study all
187. 24:29 these huge frameworks to gain a better deeper understanding of the moment in time where the patient presents himself mhm to you so that's the holistic school the problem with the holistic school is
188. 24:41 not very realistic is not very helpful we have for example psychoanalysis psychoanalysis is an a holistic approach
189. 24:48 because psychoanalyst analyzes your childhood and your mother and your this and that i mean everything comes into
190. 24:55 the picture experiences you had dreams this that and it's very nice and it may well be the correct approach but it
191. 25:02 would take 63 years until you see any change or any improvement or any so it's
192. 25:08 a useless approach it may be theoretically very sound but it's not working and the third approach is the
193. 25:15 functional approach functional approach is the one i started with is the patient happy and is the
194. 25:22 patient functioning if yes leave him alone if it ain't broken don't fix it
195. 25:28 mhm so this is the functional approach the problem with the medical approach is that it is reductionist it says
196. 25:34 everything is a brain everything is a brain and if we just fix the brain all the rest will follow behaviors will
197. 25:41 change attitudes will change and so on so forth and that is of course unfortunately simply not true simply not
198. 25:48 true not supported by by evidence it is true that we can give certain medications and these medications will alter certain neurotransmitters and neurom modulators and biochemical substances in the brain and consequently
199. 26:05 some symptoms will disappear that much is true it seems we are not quite sure
200. 26:11 why mhm we're not quite sure why by the way and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you for example we have no
201. 26:18 idea what's a connection between serotonin and depression only recently we discovered that there
202. 26:24 is actually no connection actually and therefore the biggest class
203. 26:30 of anti-depressants known as ssri regulate reeregulated or re-uptake of
204. 26:36 seotonine probably is based on completely wrong science this is recent discovery so uh we know that some things work but we don't know why as long as we don't know why the medical school is not scientific
205. 26:53 also we cannot say that because we see an effect we know the cause sometimes
206. 27:00 you see an effect and you don't know the cause for example you may come into the room and you will see this glass broken
207. 27:06 on the floor you cannot say i know the cause i see the effect i see the mug
208. 27:12 broken and i know what happened you don't know what happened that you gave me a medication and
209. 27:19 consequently some symptoms disappear is the effect however you don't know the cause because there could be multiple causes mhm and there could be even
210. 27:30 combinations of causes and there could be something third a third issue that
211. 27:36 has nothing to do with my depression or with the medication but is is the thing that determined it so ignorance is
212. 27:44 everywhere and the pretention to knowledge the narcissistic hubris of we know everything and you
213. 27:52 know is really infantile it's a medical school is totally infantile school
214. 27:59 totally grandio you know the holistic school is useless is nice but useless
215. 28:05 and the functional school is the only one that remains so that's what we ask are you happy do
216. 28:12 you want help mhm do you want help and are you functioning i'm happy leave me alone and i'm okay and maybe the third
217. 28:20 you don't give harm to people yes and when we say functional we we take into
218. 28:27 account or we assume that if you harm people there will be some some reaction mhm which would mean that you're not
219. 28:33 functional because if you assass if you murder someone you may feel very good with it and so on but you're likely to
220. 28:40 end up in prison so it's not a very functional way of managing your life then uh for example uh anxiety and uh
221. 28:49 sadness are natural responses but at what time they become disorders or at
222. 28:56 what time uh do they become disorders again context is critical i gave you the
223. 29:02 example of depression in awitz mhm or anxiety i think anxiety is a very
224. 29:09 healthy reaction to the current world the current world is is seriously frightening that's right seriously threatening and i think the normal healthy reaction would be anxiety i i
225. 29:20 would be very worried if people were happy in this kind of world you know with wars threat of nuclear war climate
226. 29:27 change crazy politicians all over the world you know it would worry me a lot if people were extremely happy when i see happy people on instagram i'm kidding you not i'm worried about their
227. 29:37 mental health something's wrong with them something's wrong with them so anxiety in this particular case is the
228. 29:44 appropriate reaction the test for mental health mhm is not whether something is wrong or right there's no wrong or right in mental health the test is is your reaction
229. 29:55 context appropriate is your reaction appropriate take taking into account the
230. 30:02 circumstances so anxiety and depression are in my view healthy enough healthy in my view
231. 30:08 indicators they're not healthy but they're indicators of mental health of mentally healthy uh processes and
232. 30:15 dynamics so but we we diagnose people with uh with
233. 30:22 diagnos about one onethird of the population with anxiety and depression after covid after covid there was a survey in the united states and onethird of the
234. 30:35 population mhm were diagnosed with anxiety and depression and in i thought it was an excellent
235. 30:42 sign because really the appropriate appropriate reaction to co would be anxiety and depression absolutely and if we are beginning to look at it this way
236. 30:53 then we would realize that uh clinical science psychology can never
237. 30:59 be a science mhm and and it is more much more like literature much more like
238. 31:06 literature because it describes narratives as the circumstances change and so on so forth certain behaviors and traits uh would become adaptive would become
239. 31:18 correct right so for example i think narcissism is becoming more and more
240. 31:24 correct more and more a more and more correct response to reality and in this
241. 31:30 sense narcissism and psychopathy in due time not right now but let's say if this continues another 10 20 years
242. 31:37 like it is now i think they would should be considered normal they should be normalized they should consider be
243. 31:43 considered healthy healthy reactions if you were in nazi germany a goodhearted
244. 31:49 altruistic person and you were hiding jews in your house that means you were suicidal
245. 31:56 that means you were self-destructive mhm if you were hiding jews from from the nazis from you know you're a good person
246. 32:03 you're a good person you're a moral person you're altruistic person you're wonderful person but you're also totally
247. 32:09 crazy you're also mentally ill to do this because it means they will kill you and your family you know it's totally suicidal totally self-destructive
248. 32:20 so you cannot generalize and the minute you cannot generalize you don't have a science
249. 32:26 i can generalize about cancer when i say cancer it applies equally in
250. 32:33 india in bangladesh in brazil in macedonia in russia it applies in the
251. 32:40 19th century in the 20th century and it will apply equally in the 25th century it will be the same everywhere and at
252. 32:47 all times this is called invariance the principle of invariance clinical
253. 32:53 entities are invariant tuberculosis cancer influenza
254. 33:00 they are invariant they are a doctor from the 25th century can communicate
255. 33:06 safely and without any problem with a doctor from the 20th century that's not the case in psychology not
256. 33:14 the the so the only other discipline where we react to context and changes is
257. 33:22 literature you have wonderful literature about mental illness by dstyfki
258. 33:28 the greatest psychologist to have ever lived this is so psychology is a branch of
259. 33:35 literature that's why freud for example was a great author he's a wonderful writer i don't know if you ever read him he's like flowing it's like reading a a mystery novel he's amazing you know and
260. 33:47 that's why he's you know one of the fathers of because he he was a great writer and um so we can then say that mental illness is a narrative a story piece of
261. 33:58 fiction a movie and so we have two kinds of movies mental health movies and mental illness
262. 34:05 movies they're both stories they're stories they're narratives about people mhm and so we we create a narrative about someone who is other not the same
263. 34:18 as us there's an element strong element of othering in mental illness we exactly
264. 34:26 like we reject immigrants we hate foreigners and so on so forth we other
265. 34:32 the mentally ill they are the ones who is we are afraid of they're the ones we hate sometimes they're the ones we keep
266. 34:39 our distance there's a strong element of othering the state likes that states
267. 34:47 political systems they like to make enemies between people because then they gain control
268. 34:53 the more they can the more they can have conflict suspicion divorces
269. 35:01 they they like that because it creates a possibility for social control
270. 35:07 psychiatry was used by all the dictatorial regimes in nazi germany psychiatry was used to kill people psychiatrist diagnose mentally ill people these mentally ill people were
271. 35:18 executed in soviet russia psychiatrists diagnose people as mentally ill and put
272. 35:25 them in asylum for the rest of their lives psychiatry was always abused by dictatorial regimes because it is a tool
273. 35:33 of social control uh and do you think that dictatorial regimes have psychopaths or sociopaths
274. 35:40 and they are using it
275. 35:47 dictatorial regimes can a normal person be a dictator for example
276. 35:53 no to be a dictator you definitely need narcissistic pronounced narcissistic or
277. 35:59 psychopathic traits absolutely i don't believe anyone can be a dictator without these traits because first of all you
278. 36:05 need to have reduced empathy definitely you have you need to have a lot of negative effects in other words you need to have a lot of hatred a lot of envy a lot of rage especially rage
279. 36:17 dictatorships are built on anger collective anger channeled through the leader and there are too many followers
280. 36:23 for dictators then uh followers are also mentally healed dictators legitimize
281. 36:31 mental illness what they do they normalize it and and they they allow people to express these parts of themselves the shadow parts or the dark parts they allow they say to them it's
282. 36:43 okay to express this it actually is beneficial to the collective it's the right thing to do it's moral and so on so they create alternative realities where the dark side is is the light side is is the right side people like that
283. 37:01 because one of the biggest tasks of being a human is the constant
284. 37:07 self-control self-discipline and suppression of the parts of you which are very threatening to yourself and to
285. 37:14 others the shadow if you wish you you invest huge amounts of energy not being
286. 37:20 evil not being cruel not being sadistic not being so a lot of the work that goes
287. 37:27 into you uh being a human being is about self-denial you deny yourself you
288. 37:34 suppress parts of yourself you and then comes a dictator and tells you you can be you can be yourself you can be
289. 37:41 yourself you can be an animal you can be primitive you can be barbarian you can kill you can steal you can it's okay
290. 37:49 just be yourself to caught their shadow part on such easily yeah there's a resonance between between the what could
291. 37:57 be called the shadow part of the dictator and the shadow part of the people also the the dictator idealizes
292. 38:03 the people the dictator tells the people you're special in some way you're superior because you are the master race
293. 38:10 or you are amazingly intelligent or you are you know the dictator always idealizes the people because the people
294. 38:16 idealize him it's core idealization it's another reason to think that most dictators are narcissistic of course
295. 38:23 dictators are grandio they believe they have a cosmic mission they believe they're connected to history they believe they they embody raify the nation they are personal representation
296. 38:34 of the nation so all these are grandio fantasies sacrificing themselves to the society for example there is this
297. 38:40 victimhood narrative which is also very common in in narcissist and generally the the narcissistic or psychopathic
298. 38:48 leader the dictator creates a shared fantasy uh exactly like the individual narcissist and has a relationship with the with the people that is highly erotic it's a highly erotic relationship
299. 39:00 they make love to each other when you see followers of dictators or fans of
300. 39:06 dictators and so on so forth they can die for it's a sexual ecstasy it's orgasmic you you they're having sex not
301. 39:14 in the physical sense but they're definitely having mental sex it's not the same when you see supporters of a
302. 39:20 typical politician they may be enthusiastic and so on so forth but with the dictators intimacy it's huge
303. 39:27 intimacy and this is completely irresistible because the fantasy says several things
304. 39:34 it says you're good as my supporter as my fan that proves you're good or
305. 39:40 superior somehow number two you don't have to make decisions you don't need to
306. 39:46 be to be anxious leave everything to me and feel safe you know focus on your life your money leave the rest to me and i will make you feel safe the third is
307. 39:57 the fantasy i will make you great again or there will be i will conquer territory or i will make you rage or that always some fantasy always there is
308. 40:08 some fantasy so the shared fantasy is irresistible and the fourth the fourth element is
309. 40:15 please feel free to be exactly who you are you no longer need to internalize
310. 40:21 the constraints of civilization you no longer need to be civilized and give you permission to not be civilized and uh
311. 40:28 also against to the opponents um the ones who are against you you can
312. 40:34 show your the other face easily i give you permission to not be civilized or
313. 40:40 you can get not be civilized means not tolerate other pe other people not tolerate other opinions be violent be i
314. 40:47 give you permission to not be civilized i give you permission to forget about civilization and become the animal that
315. 40:53 you always wanted to be but you were suppressing it you in this sense
316. 40:59 dictatorships are therapeutic the forms of therapy because when you when you attend therapy
317. 41:08 therapy is a process of legitimizing who you are mhm therapy doesn't give you
318. 41:14 permission to be cruel or sadistic and so on so forth but it does give you permission to be who you are
319. 41:22 most therapeutic traditions most treatment modalities most schools of therapy believe that the core problem
320. 41:29 the core the engine of mental illness is denying who we are one way or another
321. 41:35 denying betraying who we are pretending to be someone else or obeying someone
322. 41:41 else's expectations not being us so when you go to therapy most treatment modalities are about making making you a friend of yourself reestablishing trust
323. 41:53 between you and yourself self love mhm dictatorships are exactly the same
324. 41:59 they're they're forms of therapy mass therapy no that's that's true you the dictator legitimizes who you are says you're okay as you are what's wrong with you why are you depressed why you
325. 42:10 anxious you're wonderful you're amazing and after that we see so many angry people around because they let
326. 42:17 themselves to be angry anger is usually the result of frustration and
327. 42:23 frustration because there is a theory it's called frustration aggression hypothesis in 1939
328. 42:30 anger is result of frustration aggression is result of frustration but frustration is in 99% of the cases a
329. 42:38 result of denying who you are if you are faithful to yourself if you're loyal to yourself if you if you're authentic
330. 42:46 you will almost never be frustrated because you are who who you are
331. 42:53 you can be frustrated from the outside outsiders can frustrate you but then if
332. 43:00 you are who you are you will react appropriately you'll put boundaries you will punish them and so on so again you
333. 43:06 will not be frustrated mhm and dictatorship tells you i have a perfect way i found the perfect solution for you
334. 43:14 to never be frustrated just be yourself mhm be yourself it's therapy definitely
335. 43:21 the dictator is the master therapist and the cult that he creates and the fantasy that he creates and so on are therapeutic in nature and that's why many many people many scholars
336. 43:34 have a pretty negative view of modern psychology and modern psychotherapy is
337. 43:41 they believe that um it encourages
338. 43:48 uh psychotherapy encourages selfac self-acceptance
339. 43:54 that is not always or that may go too far that is not always the best idea
340. 44:01 let's put it this way there's even um there's a recent documentary a series of documentary four four chapters about the rise of psychotherapy and the rise of totalitarianism
341. 44:13 and how psychotherapy legitimize totalitarianism and how totalitarianism
342. 44:19 is actually built on abuse of psychological insights
343. 44:26 how totalitarian regimes and dictators and authoritarian personalities abuse knowledge gleaned from psychology gained from psychology especially clinical
344. 44:38 psychology to manipulate uh the minds of people i forgot the name of this series
345. 44:44 but it's magnificent magnificent we will share uh the link under the video yeah but i forgot the name of the series it's a british series was released a few years ago and it analyzes stalin and
346. 44:56 hitler and mao and stunning series and then i'm reading um from gustav young
347. 45:04 because you talked about the shadow part and gustau young says that one doesn't
348. 45:10 become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious as you said about the shadow part um why can't we accept our shadow
349. 45:22 part and can we talk about the shadow part a little bit what is it
350. 45:29 jung uh is a special case because he he core core tenant core concept of his
351. 45:36 work was complexes and uh he believed that what you what we call the shadow part i'm not sure he ever used this phrase but okay what we call the shadow part is actually a
352. 45:48 repository of of complexes rejected parts of ourselves and and so so forth it's important to understand that yung yung was severely mentally ill jung was psychotic
353. 46:00 and spent actually 5 years in mental asylum not small not short period and
354. 46:06 jung admitted in his writings that most of his insights he gained them while he was in a psychotic state mhm that's he in his writing you can find this
355. 46:17 and so we need to be very careful about jung because should we trust someone
356. 46:23 whose main insights emanated and emerged in a psychotic state when he couldn't
357. 46:30 tell the difference between internal and external of course was not had did not have lucid thinking and so on so forth i
358. 46:38 am very careful when it comes to to you he has some he was a genius so he has
359. 46:44 some brilliant insights but he was not well the concept of shadow or in his work
360. 46:50 complexes is heavily influenced by his own encounter with his own dark side mhm
361. 46:57 heavily his emphasis on the dark side on and on complexes
362. 47:03 uh i think gives them too much power and exaggerates their role their percentage
363. 47:11 and their importance in the mental composition of people because that has been his experience that has been his
364. 47:17 main experience exactly like freud his experience was in a highly specific society with a highly specific father
365. 47:23 and consequently he created a psychology that reflects his own history his own life and so but of course we can
366. 47:32 generalize and say yung or not yung we can generalize and say that there are parts of ourselves that we reject mhm
367. 47:39 even in uh in the work of anna freud um she came up with the concept of
368. 47:45 projection she was the first to go deeply into this so
369. 47:52 projection is when we have parts of ourselves that we don't accept mhm parts of ourselves that we reject we feel
370. 47:58 ashamed we hate these parts and so so what we do we get rid of them we get rid of them by attributing them to other
371. 48:05 people that is projection projection sometimes we force these people that we project onto we force them to behave in a way that confirms this that confirms
372. 48:17 these parts so this is called projective identification why do we reject some parts of ourselves
373. 48:25 there are many reasons sometimes we feel that these parts are dangerous they are threatening somehow they're threatening our inner harmony and peace or they're threatening our lives or they're
374. 48:37 threatening our livelihood or they're threatening people we love so for example in obsessivempulsive disorder there's a feeling that your mental issues or mental illness or dark side is
375. 48:48 threatening people you love and that's why we have rituals in obsessivempulsive disorder there are rituals like in
376. 48:54 religion superstitious rituals that are intended to protect people you love
377. 49:01 washing hands for example or or so that's one variant of ocd but that's an example so protective function that's
378. 49:10 one one reason second reason is society sometimes we have drives or urges and so
379. 49:16 on so forth which society tells us are wrong and ill and then of course we try
380. 49:24 to deny them and bury them and reframe them or project them or whatever and of course it was freud who came up with the
381. 49:30 concept of eid the eid is the repository of drives and so on that are mostly
382. 49:36 socially unacceptable and then what that's why we had to develop the ego and the ego is in touch with reality and
383. 49:43 controls the eid ego is like a parent parental figure so that's another reason to reject some parts of you and to deny
384. 49:50 them and so on take for example a pedophile the vast majority of pedophiles are not active they do not do
385. 49:56 anything to children and the reason they don't do anything to children is because they are aware that there is a dark side
386. 50:03 in them they don't want to hurt children so they suppress it or control their behavior and so on they can control it
387. 50:09 yes vast majority of pedophiles control only tiny percentage are actually active mhm luckily because the prevalence or incidence of uh pedophilia is much much
388. 50:21 bigger than we admit much bigger about 15% of people have pedophiliac fantasies
389. 50:28 15 it's clear um because there are percentages of the porn uh child child
390. 50:35 porn in in in the world it's too high 15% have pedophilia and when i say
391. 50:41 pedophilia is not hepophilia hepophilia is when you're attracted to teenagers
392. 50:47 so if you add this we are probably talking about one/ird of the population maybe more it's so high maybe 40% at least at the very least so luckily the
393. 50:58 overwhelming vast majority of people of these people don't act on their drives
394. 51:04 and so on it's another another way another reason to suppress there is shame shame and guilt are major
395. 51:11 motivators to suppress what you consider to be your dark side and so on shame is
396. 51:17 more powerful than guilt guilt is socially inculcated it's a result of
397. 51:23 social but shame is innate shame is is emerges from the individual and usually
398. 51:29 shame reflects a sit a state of helplessness or hope hopelessness so a
399. 51:35 child who who is abused and traumatized all the time feels shame because he
400. 51:41 feels helpless and and so on this shame gives rise to narcissism later we
401. 51:47 therefore have parts of ourselves all of us have parts of ourselves which we don't accept and uh there is a problem i
402. 51:54 think in all of us uh we try to be perceived good instead of being good
403. 52:01 so uh it's a problem of validation also in the society yes you seek validation
404. 52:08 so much sometimes you want to perceive be perceived as good but sometimes you want to be perceived as dangerous or
405. 52:14 evil or i wouldn't generalize i think most people
406. 52:20 want to be perceived in a way which would advance their interests and we call this self-efficacy
407. 52:27 it's not so much about being good it's about being acceptable being condoned so
408. 52:35 if you are in an environment where being good gets you things advances your
409. 52:41 priorities and goals you would be good if you're in an environment where being bad mhm you're a guard guard in awitz or
410. 52:49 ss officer in awitz in that environment being bad advances your then you would
411. 52:56 be bad if you're in an environment where being greedy mhm so we we constantly
412. 53:03 adapt to societal expectations and reflect them for example in our society being victim and being good yes now we have victimhood as well yes so campbell
413. 53:14 said that we are transitioning from age of dignity to age of victimhood so now everyone in his dog is a victim and the
414. 53:21 problem we are facing there are so many victims there are not enough abusers i'm not kidding so what we are doing now we
415. 53:28 are converting people into abusers mhm because otherwise we will not be justified as victims and so you declare
416. 53:35 yourself as a victim immediately you look around who victimized me who is the abuser and you would impose this
417. 53:41 narrative on someone either via projective identification you would force them to abuse you you would provoke them you would attack them you would challenge them sabotage them and then they will attack you and you say
418. 53:52 "see you see i'm an abuser i'm a victim are being abused uh what is the base
419. 53:58 fear of these actions base fear base fears for example why someone wants to feel victim or uh why someone wants to be seen good what is
420. 54:11 the base fear it's not fear at all it's uh need it pays it's a need it pays it's
421. 54:17 a self-efficacious strategy it's a strategy that pays if you're good in some environments it pays you get uh
422. 54:24 admiration adulation you get money you get it pays and generally we do this uh
423. 54:30 sub subconsciously depends mhm sometimes yes sometimes no
424. 54:36 psychopaths and narcissists for example infiltrated victimhood movements and social justice movements mhm because
425. 54:42 they realize that by being a victim they can make money they can get attention
426. 54:49 they can rise to the top so there are studies four studies in israel one study
427. 54:55 in british columbia one study in taiwan and so on there are studies that show that now social justice movements
428. 55:01 activism movements victimhood movements are totally infested and infected with narcissists and psychopaths you can see
429. 55:09 this online of course when narcissists many narcissists declare themselves as empaths whatever this nonsense means
430. 55:16 because when you're a victim u you get attention also you have special rights and you can impose obligations on other people you can't behave this way i'm a victim you know you need to be sensitive with me you need to give me concessions you need
431. 55:33 to allow me to behave badly because i'm a victim you can also make money of course as a victim you can write books
432. 55:40 you can have podcasts you can it's great so there are many incentives to become a victim many incentives to be a good person and many many incentives to be a a bad person of course crime most crime
433. 55:51 pays it's not true that crime doesn't pay most crime pays the detection rate
434. 55:57 rates and incarceration rates of criminals are very low the vast majority of criminals are never caught or rarely
435. 56:05 caught and they end up with a lot of money with you know yeah there are films and books about it's a strategy so these
436. 56:12 are these are coping strategies and they intend to maximize benefits and the whole process is called self-efficacy um if external validation disappeared
437. 56:24 how would we define our own value we need uh we need to distinguish between feedback or input and validation
438. 56:36 feedback or or input is corrective mhm so when you receive feed feedback and input from the environment human environment you are able to calibrate yourself you make slight modifications
439. 56:48 in behavior u you adapt your speech acts you adopt maybe a new thinking or belief
440. 56:56 or ideology and so on you you're modified by input and and feedback
441. 57:03 when validation leaves validation is a reason to not change
442. 57:09 feedback and input is a reason to change validation is a reason to not change we
443. 57:15 seek validation in order to avoid change either we are afraid of change or we are
444. 57:22 grandiose we think we are perfect whatever the reason may be it's about avoiding change validation therefore
445. 57:30 exactly like happiness exactly i mean is one of the worst things that can happen to you if you're constantly validated
446. 57:39 exactly like if you're constantly happy you have no reason to change you have no reason to learn or if you live just for
447. 57:45 validation uh i think it can be a disorder yeah i mean narcissist
448. 57:51 narcissist seek validation all the time but even if you don't live for validation even if you just consume
449. 57:57 validation it's a poison it's not good for you same with happiness
450. 58:03 state of happiness validation they induce stasis they fixate you they freeze you you never grow you never
451. 58:10 develop you never transform it leads nowhere it's a dead end and so on it's very ironic that happiness and validation all these conditions that lead nowhere are considered positive and
452. 58:23 valuable and we should look for them make sure that we have whereas the
453. 58:29 engines of growth and development mhm like loss we should avoid it's bad it's
454. 58:35 wrong grief it's horrible thing we get it completely wrong completely wrong you
455. 58:42 know no wonder majority of humanity is extremely unhappy and dysfunctional because we got it in psychology we got
456. 58:50 it completely wrong if a patient comes to a therapist the therapist is very likely to tell the
457. 58:57 patient you should put boundaries and avoid losses and you should be happy and you should instead of telling the
458. 59:04 patient i will teach you how to accept loss mhm and if your relationship is bad
459. 59:12 you should initiate the loss you know mhm instead of so we are giving we are
460. 59:18 giving in psychology completely wrong especially in the self-help industry yes uh i think u
461. 59:25 anyone uh teaches us how to go through the pain they don't teach us this one
462. 59:32 they always teach us how to run away from and that's wrong this is especially
463. 59:38 in the self-help industry because self-help industry is founded on validation
464. 59:44 not on input not on feedback on validation self help industry is telling
465. 59:51 you if you just take one or two steps you are already perfect just take one or
466. 59:57 two steps and you will change and you will realize your potential and you'll be happy and you'll be rich and you'll
467. 60:03 be powerful and you will have the beautiful girl and you know self happiness is total poison total toxic to
468. 60:13 the core i have never read a self-help book that is not toxic wrong wrong
469. 60:20 factually based on completely outdated or wrong psychology and toxic
470. 60:28 self-help industry should be decriminalized in my view
471. 60:34 uh yeah it is overrated in in kind of it's more than overrated
472. 60:41 is damaging because they say that you are precious you're precious you're perfect or there's only a few things you
473. 60:48 need to and you deserve everything there's only a few things and the message in self industry everything has
474. 60:54 a solution mhm that's the underlying message everything has a solution and while the reality is extremely few
475. 61:02 things have a solution the overwhelming vast majority of psychological situations and states and so on have no
476. 61:08 solution no solution you need to accept the number one loss the loss of yourself
477. 61:14 mhm the loss of yourself is the number one loss and you need to learn to accept it whereas the self-help industry says
478. 61:21 whatever the your problem is there's always a solution don't worry just buy the book of course yes but there's
479. 61:27 always a solution that's a lie it's a deception the industry is deceptive is
480. 61:34 deceptive it's toxic and it leads people to very bad places and very bad situations ultimately that's right and uh people can't accept the things
481. 61:46 without closure or without the results uh sometimes it's so meaningless to wait
482. 61:53 the closure or something else you have to accept and move on by your own power
483. 62:00 and i will ask you something now in societies we have rules and we have religions to show us how to behave good or how to be good if there is nothing
484. 62:12 like this can a human be well with his own uh will for example yes we is like
485. 62:20 uh philosophy for example yes most most philosophers most ethicists most philosophers of ethics
486. 62:28 uh believe that morality is innate it emerges from the inside they don't believe majority of them not there are
487. 62:35 exceptions of course but majority of them believe that uh morality is a natural state of a human being it doesn't come from religion or from the outside or some ideology or even if we
488. 62:48 we take a human being and we isolate him completely which of course we will never do it's not moral but we take an a
489. 62:55 newborn and we isolate this newborn on an island and we never ever expose the newborn to any book and any other human
490. 63:01 being the belief is that this newborn would develop some moral rules but the
491. 63:08 problem starts with how we define morality mhm what is moral to one group of people would be considered immoral and amoral to another group of people let's take the simplest example muslims would consider eating pig and drinking alcohol to be highly
492. 63:26 immoral actually a breach of god's edicts mhm whereas christians would
493. 63:32 think that or jews actually would think that drinking alcohol is a religious observance
494. 63:39 so jews drink alcohol as a religious practice in in passover for example
495. 63:45 while muslims would find this to be abhorrent mhm morality is the same we can we can find moral systems in one society that are considered to be
496. 63:57 totally immoral and immoral in another one example is that there are dozens
497. 64:04 of primitive societies tribes and so on where monogamy is not practiced polyamory is practiced a woman has many men and shares her life with many men
498. 64:16 and her sex with many men and this is considered to be the moral standard
499. 64:23 of course in christian or judeo-christian societies and muslim societies of course this would be considered disastrously immoral or immoral you have in more ancient muslim
500. 64:36 societies a men could marry for for women mhm whereas in the west it's a crime crime literally you go to prison
501. 64:44 so but there are cultural differences for example uh there are basic human
502. 64:50 values for example like being trust trustworthy being loyal even this is a myth to even this is a myth yeah and i'm asking that uh values well that's a myth
503. 65:02 mhm if the social uh pressure uh goes off can we be moral
504. 65:09 again what is morality we will come up we will come up with rules we come up
505. 65:17 with norms we'll come up with conventions but the idea of morality is
506. 65:23 counterfactual there's no such thing what is moral in one society is immoral in another society there is no set of
507. 65:31 rules which are common to all societies and all periods none not even the rule
508. 65:37 to not kill it's not true it's not true that the law the rule do not kill other people is
509. 65:45 common to all cultures all societies and all periods completely untrue for example in samurai japan mhm to kill was moral killing was the foundation of the morality there you can watch the series you can kill who for example almost
510. 66:02 everyone almost everyone killing was the regulatory norm in japanese samurai
511. 66:09 society you can watch the the series mhm shugun the new series shugun on netflix
512. 66:17 and you will see what i mean all the institutions of japanese society are founded on killing that's the core
513. 66:24 activity the core moral value then what differs humanity from animals the
514. 66:31 ability to generate gnomes mhm we can disagree about the norm i will tell you
515. 66:37 that to kill is moral you would say to kill is not moral there has been a movement a eugenics movement the
516. 66:44 eugenics movement in the 19th century and 20th century uh advocated killing people advocated
517. 66:53 that was the core moral value of eugenics to kill people to kill the weak to kill the sick to kill the mentally ill to to the the intellectual challenge these ideologies are a bit disordered ideologies i think no
518. 67:09 morality is a myth mhm there's no such no universal morality however it is true
519. 67:15 that human beings generate all the time rules norms conventions and mores and
520. 67:23 that this can be on the individual level it does not have to be on the social individual that part is true however
521. 67:30 it's not true that there are rules that are valid everywhere and at all times that is completely untrue the ten
522. 67:36 commandments mhm they are not valid everywhere all the time not
523. 67:42 simply not humanity is very dangerous if there are no rules we are easily distracted
524. 67:51 you can continue to use morals the world morals when i just explained to you that there's no such thing what is moral in
525. 67:57 japan is in the 16th century is not moral today what is moral in muslim
526. 68:03 society is completely immoral in christian society by the uh technology everything is changing and it has
527. 68:09 nothing to do with technology this the societies precede technology it's not technology is that groups of people
528. 68:16 generate norms and rules and laws and these norms and rule are idiosyncratic they're unique to that group they are not universal there hasn't been a single
529. 68:27 group of human beings ever or individual who generated a universal morality none
530. 68:35 this never happened and uh do you believe in human potential for example we say that create your potential
531. 68:43 uh create your own principles for individual state i say uh if uh do you
532. 68:51 believe that that someone can create himself or herself and create her
533. 68:57 potential generate the potential mhm you can learn new skills you can educate
534. 69:04 yourself you can even modify your behaviors you can even control to some extent your
535. 69:10 cognitions and emotions yes there's a lot of room for change uh must we change
536. 69:16 how we perceive the world for example you can do that as well potential is a much deeper thing mhm it is your potential that dictates your ability to change uh for example we have fear of
537. 69:28 rejection yes uh or we we have need of uh approval there are so many things or syndromes we have and we cannot generate
538. 69:39 our potential what must a person do for example realize you mean not generate
539. 69:45 realize it yes realize that what maslo called selfactualization
540. 69:51 yes that you're right yes by modifying yourself by changing yourself which is
541. 69:58 completely possible you can get rid of the fear of rejection you can get rid of the need for approval in your examples
542. 70:05 you're absolutely right that your capacity to realize your potential to actualize it will improve or we change
543. 70:12 so you can you can play with your capacity for selfactualization
544. 70:18 self-realization by modifying behaviors traits psychological dynamics
545. 70:26 and and needs and so on absolutely uh how can a person start like a journey
546. 70:32 like this for example first steps so the self-help industry tells you that you can do it on your own and sometimes you can but in the vast majority of cases
547. 70:44 the only thing that drives this kind of transformation which is a fundamental transformation is loss trauma
548. 70:52 unhappiness negative situations and negative effects they drive you to change and to transform positivity is not good for you because it keeps you
549. 71:04 static unevolving so you need to go through negativity you need to go through negative experiences
550. 71:11 negative periods loss grief negative emotions such as fear and envy envy is a great motivator to change no and when you go through these you can affect change
551. 71:24 that's one way of of doing this one key i think it's a necessary key i don't think any change is possible without it and the other key uh could be um a motiv
552. 71:38 motivations that are essentially i i would call them narcissistic motivations or even psychopathic motivations you
553. 71:45 want more power you want more money you want more sex you want more so these would drive you also they're also very
554. 71:52 powerful motivator and they would drive you to what we call attitudinal change you will change your attitudes and you
555. 71:58 will be you will be better you'll have a higher agency and self-efficacy so you can change either by going through negative things periods traits this or by
556. 72:10 uh by having goals that are motivational that would cause you to change but
557. 72:17 absolutely there is the capacity for change of course the most optimal way to change is by interacting with another person mhm so if that other person is
558. 72:28 qualified if it's a professional and a good professional the change will be much faster much more profound and much
559. 72:35 more permanent if you do it with a professional but it doesn't need to be a professional and generally people uh
560. 72:41 don't uh need change depends if they're happy they would not
561. 72:48 change if they are invalidated they would not change if there's no reason to change we don't know another way we
562. 72:54 don't know that we must change there are no when you when you're depressed when you when you feel bad when you're
563. 73:01 unhappy about yourself and so on so forth you always seek change but unfortunately the vast majority of
564. 73:07 people they seek change that is self-destructive and dysfunctional for example they begin to use drugs to use
565. 73:14 drugs or drink alcohol is a way to change yourself of course it's a way to change the environment also mhm so this
566. 73:20 is about change but it's a very bad way it's a wrong way to go about change you
567. 73:27 need the presence of another person so the another person doesn't have to be a therapist could be a very good friend mhm or could be a grandmother a wise grandmother but you need this another person is the biggest catalyst for
568. 73:39 change once you have decided to change the first stage is to diagnose yourself
569. 73:45 there's a problem i need to change there's a problem because i i want these goals or there's a problem because i'm
570. 73:51 feeling very negative and i need to change so then then you need another person what the message of the self-help industry that you can do it alone is not
571. 74:03 supported by evidence actually all the evidence shows that the the bigger the number of people you have in your life
572. 74:09 the more likely you are to change the social support network in your life is
573. 74:15 critical to uh change you and to make you egoonic to make you strong resilient
574. 74:23 you know functional it's all function of how many people in your life you have
575. 74:29 that are intimate that are supportive that provide sakur that listen to you
576. 74:35 that you can trust it's a function of this now in 1980 a typical american
577. 74:43 had 9.8 best friends people he could trust people he could share with people
578. 74:49 he could confide in people he could seek advice from 9.8 in 1980 there was a
579. 74:55 study 9 today the number is 0.9 in 40 years the typical american between
580. 75:03 1980 and 2020 uh used to have n 10 friends now he has
581. 75:09 one mhm we are increasingly more isolated increasingly more automized
582. 75:15 dramatically drastically so what is the reason for this do you think
583. 75:21 i think there are two reasons um we're becoming self-sufficient
584. 75:28 we can supply everything to ourselves entertainment and what used to be supplied by other people we now can
585. 75:34 self-supp so we don't need other people there's a decreasing dependency on other people for all kinds of things so you don't have an incentive to socialize because so socializing has a cost when you socialize with other people you have
586. 75:49 to accept them you have to it's very demanding demands energy and resources and time even time you know and trauma
587. 75:56 maybe and maybe it ends badly maybe it ends badly absolutely and so there's a
588. 76:02 great incentive if you're self-sufficient to avoid people to not want people but the second reason is
589. 76:08 what you call fear there's a fear of change there's a fear of change there is an investment emotional investment in
590. 76:15 the status quo we are we affect the status quo we are committed and attached
591. 76:21 to the way we are mhm and to change is terrifying it's very frightening and so
592. 76:27 on there is no way to to be with other people to interact with other people and to not change even we think we don't change we change you talk to someone in a pub your your best friend you have a drink you go home she said something to
593. 76:43 you you think about what she said that's a strange you understand you you go to a
594. 76:49 grocery store you buy bread you someone says something to someone and you've heard it overheard it you go home it has an impact there's no way to be exposed to other people without
595. 77:02 change small change big change change always so some people avoid other people because they don't want to change it's terrifying this dynamic so there are powerful reasons today to not be with other people to not be with other people even sex lost its attractiveness
596. 77:20 the vast majority of young people under age 25 don't have sex according to pew
597. 77:26 center studies majority of them didn't have sex the year before complete the whole year u because we lost the
598. 77:33 connections yes because sex for most people there's a small percentage of
599. 77:39 people about 5% who are promiscuous by nature so they prefer uh anonymous
600. 77:46 impersonal mechanical sex one night stands and so there a tiny minor
601. 77:52 minority the vast majority of people men and women they want a connection in the sex mhm even if the sex is one night but
602. 77:58 they want some connection some intimacy some exchange some and again sex changes
603. 78:05 you anyone who thinks otherwise has no idea what they're talking about sex changes you the interaction with another human being the connection changes you so people are avoiding all this they don't need other people they can supply
604. 78:16 everything through the computer and you know and because they don't need other people they don't want to pay the cost
605. 78:22 of associating with other people and i always thought that the natural state of
606. 78:28 people is alone i don't agree with aristotilles aristotle said that human beings are zon
607. 78:36 political in other words human being are human beings are social animals mhm i don't agree at all i think the natural
608. 78:44 state not good now because natural state is being alone i think natural state is to be alone i think when we are not alone we make a lot of sacrifices it's a
609. 78:56 sacrificial self-sacrificial process the sacrifice could be tiny could be huge there is no interaction with another person without sacrifice you have to sacrifice your time your attention your
610. 79:08 there is a sacrifice why should we sacrifice anything if we don't need people so technology is allowing us to
611. 79:15 avoid these sacrifices the problem is that when we avoid these costs and when we avoid these sacrifices we also avoid the potential for change mhm that's the cost that's what we are paying for can't someone change by
612. 79:31 herself no not in my view um not in my view even when you change by
613. 79:37 yourself it's because you are thinking of other people you're saying i'm changing for my for my children observe
614. 79:43 and read and not only that but you say i'm changing for my children or i'm changing because i want a better job it's always referential does not change for yourself it's always in context i'm
615. 79:56 changing because i want more money i'm changing because i want to be a nicer person there must be a purpose if you
616. 80:02 want to change by yourself the purpose always involves other people you cannot imagine yourself completely without
617. 80:08 other people no such thing so always they're involved even if they're not physical ally there they're in your mind
618. 80:14 there it's all change is always in reference to other people we call it relational change is always relational in the 1960s there was a group of very prominent
619. 80:26 psychologists in united kingdom gun trip fairburn winnot and so on they they were
620. 80:33 known as object relation schools and these psychologist said that the self is relational is the result of interactions with other people and consequence ly all our behaviors and any transformation
621. 80:45 they're all relational you cannot isolate you cannot even if you're alone at home and you never see anyone else
622. 80:51 mhm in your imagination other people exist yes you are interacting always even if you're interacting with someone who died mhm let's assume there's someone who died even if you're
623. 81:02 interacting with that it's still someone it's still a person try it try it in the hotel mhm and you
624. 81:09 will see that you cannot come up with any thought about yourself that does not
625. 81:15 involve another person you cannot try as hard as you wish so now i'm going to think about myself only myself and i
626. 81:22 will forget all other people you will fail my internal world is very crowded so all all human beings it's not
627. 81:30 possible to think of yourself without some kind of connection to people dead or alive past future present
628. 81:38 you always imagine always imagine the society always imagine other people they
629. 81:44 are the imaginary space within which we become mhm and in the absence of other people when we removed for example there
630. 81:51 were cases in the 18th century and 19th century of children who were abandoned
631. 81:57 in forests mhm and they grew up with wolves and so on and they were known as feral children kasparaga is a famous case and these children therefore were
632. 82:08 never exposed to other people okay but they grew up they were three years old 7 years old 9 years old when they were discovered in the forest and these children had nothing no connection to
633. 82:20 humanity nothing that was reminiscent of a human being they were complete animals mhm and the only reason they had legs
634. 82:29 they had arms they had a brain why didn't they become human beings why didn't they develop a self why didn't
635. 82:36 they were unable to to speak verbalize make any sound because they were not
636. 82:42 exposed to other human beings the exposure to other human beings makes you a human being you it's a process of
637. 82:49 learning it's not true that when you're born as a baby you're already a human being no human being will learn to be
638. 82:56 human beings you will learn it's acquired absolutely acquired it's not that we are blank slate we are not blank
639. 83:02 slate when we are born we have already apps we're like smartphone smartphone and we have apps we have one app for
640. 83:09 language and one app for space perceive space and one app so we have apps installed but the apps are empty no content and we fulfill the apps with
641. 83:20 content and it's can be done only by interacting with other people that's why
642. 83:27 the role of the mother is super crucial i'm getting many comments you are misogynist it's not only mother it's father it's not father it's mother until age 3
643. 83:40 years it's mother after age three it's actually father mhm mother is much less
644. 83:46 important after age three but up to age three there's only mother there's nobody else in the world by the way literally
645. 83:54 there's nobody else in the world the child identifies mother with the world mhm the child is one with mother mother
646. 84:00 is one with the world there's no distinction no initially after that around age five 6 months the child
647. 84:06 begins to make distinction but initially the child is one mass one big blob child
648. 84:12 mother world mother world child it's the same mother is super crucial it is through mother that the baby becomes
649. 84:19 human being and not a wolf or a tiger or if the child is left alone with no mother and no other human beings he becomes a wolf he becomes a tiger not a
650. 84:30 human being he he has to mirror someone so he will be think that he mirrors
651. 84:38 there is a whole theory it's known as social learning theory or social cognitive learning theory developed by
652. 84:45 bandura in the 80s and this theory explains how how babies acquire humanity
653. 84:51 in effect there is a process of mirroring there's a process of imitation and emulation and many other processes
654. 84:58 that take place but yes generally speaking the baby observes and the baby becomes through observing and um
655. 85:06 pe and many others made the same observations so the mother is critical not only
656. 85:13 because she breastfeeds or and not only because she's loves the baby sometimes she doesn't mhm the mother is critical because she's there and that's why in attachment theory we study not the
657. 85:26 mother's functions but we study the mother's presence if she's there when we
658. 85:32 make experiments in attachment theory for example the famous stranger experiments of mary ensworth
659. 85:39 when we make experiments we tell the mother to not say a word to not behave to stand just to be mhm and then we
660. 85:46 remove the mother from the room we see the reaction of the baby so we know that what matters is not the mother's conduct
661. 85:53 or misconduct or what matters is her presence just by being present the baby is able
662. 86:00 to begin to become a human being but to become a human being is a learned thing
663. 86:06 and this raises a very interesting possibility if we become human beings by learning to
664. 86:12 become human beings we can unlearn it we can learn to not be human beings
665. 86:20 later in life if it's acquired we can get rid of it if we learn when we are
666. 86:28 when we are 10 years old to smoke we can get rid of it when we are 40 years old anything we learn we can get rid