Not As Crazy As You Think Podcast
Mental Health is attainable for anyone--especially those labeled with mental illness. Join artist, memoir writer, and bipolar psychiatric survivor, Jen Gaita Siciliano, as she challenges our world's current limited understanding of mental illness in interviews with artists, healers, educators and shamans, who offer fresh perspectives on mental health and creativity. Episodes also include Jen's personal writing on living as a bipolar creative, as well as news commentary that exposes psychiatry as an incompatible paradigm with the true landscape of the human mind. If you are ready for a new narrative on the mental realm in a place that celebrates crazy and cool without penalty, then Not As Crazy As You Think is for you!
Not As Crazy As You Think Podcast
Spotlight on Psychotherapy Beyond Traditional Boundaries with Al Galves: Finding the Underlying Causes of Mental Distress. (S6, E6)
In the episode, "Spotlight on Psychotherapy Beyond Traditional Boundaries with Al Galves: Finding Well-being by Targeting the Underlying Causes of Mental Distress, (S6, E6)" psychoanalyst Galves joins the show to share his own personal lived experience and his insight on the problems with the traditional treatment model in psychiatry. Author of "Harness Your Dark Side: Mastering Jealousy, Rage, Frustration and Other Negative Emotions," Al shares compelling stories that reveal the importance of addressing unmet emotional needs to combat depression and dissatisfaction.
Galves challenges the medical model of mental illness arguing that mental health issues are not just biological disorders to be masked with medication but are tied to our emotions and life experiences. He emphasizes taking personal responsibility and explores the profound benefits of psychotherapy and other alternative approaches like support groups and exercise. Discover why confronting your emotions—even the negative ones—can lead to authentic personal growth as Al underscores the significance of connection, self-expression, and capability in fostering mental health and happiness.
Al dives into the complex nature of diagnoses like psychosis, highlighting the importance of understanding these conditions as responses to overwhelming experiences rather than mere pathologies. Through therapeutic approaches like the Soteria House model and the work of psychologist John Weir Perry, we explore how psychosis and other mental health issues can be seen as survival strategies. Al’s compassionate insights challenge the limitations of the medical model, offering listeners a glimpse into a more humanistic and empowering approach to mental well-being.
Don't miss Al’s generous offer of his book and insights for those eager to explore these ideas further. If you'd like a copy of his book, email him and let him know: agalves2003@comcast.net
Follow Al Galves at:
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albert-galves-b9b26752/
YouTube: @algalves3512
website: www.algalves.com
Don't forget to subscribe to the Not As Crazy As You Think YouTube channel @SicilianoJen
And please visit my website at: www.jengaitasiciliano.com
Connect: Instagram: @ jengaita
LinkedIn: @ jensiciliano
Twitter: @ jsiciliano
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jengaita.bsky.social
Hi guys and welcome. This is Jen Gaeta Siciliano artist, memoir writer, bipolar psychiatric survivor and your host of Not as Crazy as you Think podcast, the place that offers an alternative perspective on mental illness, highlighting creativity, non-conventional healing and breaking on through to the other side. If you are ready for a new narrative on the mental realm that celebrates crazy and cool without penalty, then Not as Crazy as you Think is for you. Hello, this is Jen Gata Siciliano, your host of Not as Crazy as you Think podcast. I am really thrilled to have a wonderful guest with us today. His name is Al Galves and he received his PhD in clinical psychology from the Union Institute in 1997, becoming a licensed psychologist in Colorado in 2001 and in New Mexico in 2015.
Speaker 1:With 27 years of experience, he is now based in Las Cruces, new Mexico, and he is providing psychotherapy to children, adolescents, adults, couples and groups in mental health clinics, community health clinics and public schools. He was also a patient as well as a therapist. He first went into therapy at the age of 25 in the throes of severe depression. Since then, he has been graced with the help of 10 different therapists and has learned valuable lessons from a personal growth program and numerous training programs. He is also the author of Harness your Dark Side Mastering Jealousy, rage, frustration and Other Negative Emotions, which can be purchased on Amazon or Barnes Noble and his book provides the keys to living well by teaching us how to be aware of all the emotions that we are experiencing, the good and the bad, and using them to express ourselves. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your insight.
Speaker 2:You're welcome, Jen. It's good to be here. It really is, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, let me first start with my joy in finding your angle and how you approach mental illness and mental health, and basically the idea is that mental health is attainable for anyone. And that's kind of where I'm coming from, because there has been this long, lasting narrative in our culture that has told people who suffer from mental distress that these things are a result of a broken brain, it's in their biology bad genetics, a brain disorder issue, a chemical imbalance. I know that these are not only, you know, not supported by evidence, but also, as you have said, it's disempowering and harmful to people. Can you elaborate on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd like to do that. Yeah, see, when you believe that. Okay, so the symptoms of mental illness are states of being, right, we're feeling a certain way. The symptoms of mental illness are moods, states of being, how we're feeling, thoughts, emotions, uh, perceptions, intentions, behavior, reactions to emotions. Right, that's what the symptoms are. So, so this is our life, this is we're living our life. You know, we're using our thoughts and our emotions and and we're feeling how we're feeling, etc. Etc.
Speaker 2:Well, when you think that that, that those things are caused by brain disorders or genetics or biochemical problems, you believe you don't have control over those things. Because we don't have control I mean, I don't have much control over my brain function or my biochemistry or my genetics, chemistry or my genetics, and so you're really believing that you are at the mercy of forces you don't have control over that. You don't have control over the things you use to live your life, the faculties, your thoughts, your emotions, your intentions, your perceptions, your behavior. Well, that's very disempowering and cynical. I mean, really I don't have control over the things I use, the faculties, I use, the skills that I use to live my life.
Speaker 2:So I'm not sure if people realize that when you believe in that medical model, you're actually believing that that you don't have control over all of these things that you use to live your life. Yeah, so yeah, I think that's a big problem. Because it's a problem? Because two reasons One is people then don't they're not likely to take responsibility and to take the task on. Take the work let's do the work and learning how to use their thoughts and their emotions and their perceptions and their intentions and their behavior to live the way they want to live. They're less likely to take that on, you know, and say I'm going to do it Right.
Speaker 2:And the other thing is they're more likely to look for treatment, to look for help in the form of medication, and the problem with that is that if you look at the benefit risk ratio of psychotherapy treatment with psychotherapy and the benefit-risk ratio of treatment with medication, I mean it seems to me like the benefit-risk ratio of treatment with psychotherapy is so much better that it's hard to believe that anybody would opt for treatment with medication. And let me just say a little more about that. So let's say, with medication, okay. So what are the benefits? Well, you might feel better, you know. It might make you feel better. It might help you to be not so agitated or not have racing thoughts. It might calm you down some, it might pick you up a little bit. So, you know, there's some benefits there. Although, jen, if your life is not going well, if your life is really not going well and you have deep, deep concerns about your life, I don't think it's a good idea to feel good.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:I mean, you're a la-la land. If your life is not going well, you know, I want you to feel badly, I want you to feel horrible, I want you to be depressed so you can do something about it and say, oh, my life is not. I don't like what's going on in my life, right?
Speaker 1:See, this is like one of the main things that is pushed upon a lot of people who start taking these medications is this idea that we don't really have, I guess, free will like, as you're saying, or agency over our own mind, over our own thoughts and feelings.
Speaker 1:And it seems to me that somewhere along the line psychotherapy started not getting a lot of respect. So I know, in the dsm-3, when they tried to push more the biomedical model over, say, forms of like psychotherapy for assistance, it seemed to be like the thing to kind of put psychiatry a little bit more into like the field of, I guess, a little bit more structural and materialist science rather than, you know, a little heady, a little out in the realm of the mind. Now, what is the difference between these two ideas? Like this idea that you know the thoughts and the feelings come from this area of the mind, you know that's kind of like a little philosophically different than that of the brain, which is just this physical entity that we have no control over. I mean, these are two very different ways of looking at why these things occur and then how to treat them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, Absolutely. Well, okay, so we'll talk about the difference between the mind and the brain. Well, let me go, we'll do that. But let me go back to this idea of what's the benefit risk. So you might feel better taking medicine, right, Using medicine, but I mean, they're pretty serious side effects. I mean, with antidepressants you're going to lose some sexual function. Your sexual function is going to be impaired. You could get thrown into mania. You, if you try to withdraw, you're going to have a hard time and you and you and you, your emotions get numbed, your emotions get, get damped down and you don't process your emotions.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a pretty big problem, because we use our emotions to live our lives. I mean, our emotions tell us what's important to us, what we like, what we don't like, what we want to avoid, what we want. We learn that from our emotions, what we care about. So there are some really bad side effects to medication. Now, in the case of antipsychotics, and more people are taking those now, you're talking about big problems. Now you're talking about tardive dyskinesia, which is Parkinson's disease. You're talking about brain shrinkage, cognitive impairment, increased risk of diabetes and early death. People who use antipsychotics die 25 years earlier than people who don't. So, wow. So the benefit-risk ratio not that good, not tremendous benefits and a lot of risk.
Speaker 2:Now, with psychotherapy, what's the benefit of psychotherapy? Oh my God, in good psychotherapy that works. You, you learn about yourself. You get to begin learning about yourself. You begin to develop a good relationship with yourself, understand why you do what you do and why you don't do what you don't do, and what's driving your behavior. And you and you and you and you learn to use your thoughts and your emotions and your intentions and your perceptions and your behavior. You learn to use those faculties to live more the way you want to live. And you learn how to connect with other people without giving up too much of yourself. And you learn how to manage stress. And you learn how to you develop some compassion for yourself.
Speaker 2:Because, guess what, you didn't choose your early life. You didn't choose your early life. You didn't choose your parents. You didn't choose your early life and your early life has a tremendous impact on your later life. So you get all these benefits from psychotherapy, yeah, that you can use for the rest of your life. Yes, you use these. You're going to use these skills and knowledge you get from psychotherapy to live your life for the rest of your life. So pretty big benefits. Well, there's some risks, you know. You might hear some things you don't want to hear. You might get sent down the wrong path, you might feel bad, you might go through some trauma, you know. So there are some risks, but they're not. I don't think they're tremendous. The risks aren't that big in psychotherapy. So, anyway, that's one of the problems with believing in the biopsychiatry that I'll take the medication Because you lose an opportunity to really learn some things about yourself and learn how to manage yourself. Right.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about the difference between the mind and the brain, and this gets really kind of out there, jen. You know the brain is an organ, right? It's an organ in the body and we know something about it and neuroscientists are learning about it. You know neurons, billions of neurons, trillions of connections, synapses, neurotransmitters, chemistry, a lot going on going on, right? So the brain is this organ.
Speaker 2:Now, the mind is a vastly powerful faculty that we use to do everything we do, right? So we use our minds to live our lives, not our brains, right? To do everything we do to understand the world, to solve problems, to make plans, to make decisions, to build things, to build everything we do to understand the world, to solve problems, to make plans, to make decisions, to build things, to build everything we build, to interact with other people, to use our bodies in satisfying ways. We use our mind to do that. Now, here's the weird thing, jen. In some ways it's weird. The brain and the mind are not the same thing, right? No way, yeah. And the neuroscientists who study the brain, they know brain and the mind are not the same thing, right? No way, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the neuroscientists who study the brain, they know nothing about the mind, right, they know very little about it. They don't know, for instance, what. They don't know what's going on the brain differently when, let's say, I'm planning a vacation. What's going on in the brain when I'm planning a vacation? They don't know, right, what's going on in the brain when I'm planning a vacation. They don't know what's going on in the brain when I'm having the insight that the reason I need a lot of approval from men is because my father hurt me. Right, right, those are two very different things going on. Neuroscientists have no idea what differently is going on in the brain when I'm doing those two different things.
Speaker 2:Right, no idea, yeah, and a guy named William Udall who was actually a neuroscientist. He wrote a book called Brain and Mind, a critique of cognitive neuroscience, and in that book he says you know, neuroscientists think they have a theory about how the brain creates the mind. They're not even close to a theory. They have no idea, right, they have no idea about how the brain creates the mind or the relationship to the brain and the mind. So this is the problem All these neuroscientists are studying the brain, but we don't use our brains to live our lives. We use our minds to live our lives. So let me give you another example, just a little example.
Speaker 2:We use our minds to live our lives. So let me give you another example, just a little example. Okay, so when I make a decision, I made a decision recently to go to Los Angeles to watch my grandson wrestle. He's a high school wrestler. Did my brain make that decision? Did that piece of protoplasm in my head here, that organ? Did my brain make that decision? No, my brain didn't make that decision, I made that decision.
Speaker 2:Now, I don't know what I'm saying when I say I made that decision. That's the problem. It's mysterious. I made that, I made it. My brain didn't make it, I made it. Don't make my brain make anything, don't make any decisions. I make the decision. Well, it's my mind, it's my emotions, it's all of me that's making those decisions. So just to go on with this. So psychotherapy and of course I have to say you know full disclosure, I'm a psychotherapist, so I'm not going to tell you psychotherapy is shit. You know, full disclosure, I'm a psychotherapist, so I'm not going to tell you psychotherapy is shit. Right, but I've experienced, I've been a 19-20 therapist now in my life and I'm in therapy even now.
Speaker 1:So it just has terrific benefits if you work at it and if you have a good therapist and you to, but, but, but it's a slow process of becoming healthy. Well, that's one of the issues too. I think that, like so many people in our society are interested in the quick fix so that they could say, get back to work or get back to their kids, or you know and I see it with a lot of my friends who are dealing with things with their kids, you know, and that's they're so overwhelmed with, maybe, a problem that the kid is having that they see that as a real viable option, like, oh, ok, this is going to solve this, at least for now, and then later maybe we could deal with, like, getting off. The problem is because the underlying philosophy is that there's something wrong with the kid's brain, right, there is no getting off these medications, in their opinion, like, in other words, there is no exit plan when you get on them. And that is one of, I feel, the worst like things that you could do.
Speaker 1:Because, as you know, with antipsychotics the medication that I was on for so long, I started realizing, if I don't get off this stuff, I'm gonna have an early lay.
Speaker 1:And to my let like, why would I put myself in that situation.
Speaker 1:Well, because I tried to get off them before and there's all these withdrawal symptoms that occur.
Speaker 1:So there's no information out there except from the people who are, say, psychiatric survivors, who have managed over the course of, say, 15 years, the last 15 years to organize some information on how to get off these things safely. So I mean, as a person in the field coming across, you know that there are a lot of stand-up people who are, you know, trying to do the right thing, but they are psychiatrists and they do believe in that model. Like how do how does a person deal with the options that are offered to them when a full disclosure is not, given that some of this stuff is is very harmful and could potentially lead to much worse symptoms later on, like like organ failure. For instance, a friend of mine whose father's been on these terrible medications for so long, he's now suffering organ failure from the medications. So, you know, is this something that more people should be concerned with when they go to their doctors and they ask for help. How does a, how do you, how do we give a regular citizen information that can help them deal with their doctors?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a big problem. It's a big problem because you know I'm pretty sure I don't know this for for certain I'm pretty sure that when people go to a psychiatrist, they never get all the information they should get before they decide to take one of these drugs, because the psychiatrist is not going to give them all the information about the negative side effects, the harmful side effects harmful.
Speaker 2:They're also not going to be told about the options. You could find a therapist to work with. You could get into a support group. You could exercise. You know you could. I mean, one of the biggest studies of depression found that that the best treatment was exercise, just exercise. They're not told you know there's different things you can do here. You know that could help out. So I don't know. It's just a matter of people trying to get the best information they can get about it. Let me say one other thing about you know. The problem with understanding the moods, the states of being, the emotions, the thoughts, the behavior associated with mental illness understanding that as a brain disorder is is that you lose the chance. I always said you lose the chance to get to know yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So if it's not a brain disorder or a biochemical problem or a genetic problem, what is it? What is going on. You know why am I experiencing these moods, this state of being, these emotions, these thoughts, these behaviors? Why?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the answer to that is the reason you're experiencing them is you're trying to live your life the best you can and you're trying to cope with your life and and what you're, the way you're feeling or what you're doing, is how you're doing your best to survive. So the the symptoms of mental illness are caused by your life situation, your reaction. It's caused by what it is not even what it's caused by. What mental illness is is how people are reacting to their life situations and the concerns they have about themselves and their lives. That's what it is.
Speaker 1:Well, I like this take because a lot of the struggle is that some I mean and I have to to, you know, ascribe to this too, that there's so many social, political issues right in the lives of so many people that cause all this little t big t trauma. You know, whatever it is, and but the thing is, life is well, this is what we. We know it as there's some people who are, you know, lucky to be in, say, the class they have, you know, with the amount of money that they have, but they're still not necessarily happier than those who are poorer. Right, we know that, that there's evidence base for that. So the thing is, what is it exactly?
Speaker 1:I know that you mentioned, like the stress response. What is it exactly? I know that you mentioned like the stress response, which I think is so interesting because, again, if we can kind of like zoom in on, like this thing that we have control over, that's like the essential element that we have control over. I guess the response to, to way things are unfolding in our lives, like, can you speak to that a little bit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me. Let me speak to that because I'm glad you asked that. So okay, so here's what it takes for people, most people, what it takes for most people to be happy or to feel good about their lives or to be mentally healthy. Here's what it is and I'm going to give you a little bit of evidence here.
Speaker 2:Somebody asked Sigmund Freudud, you know the famous psychiatrist. Actually he was a neurologist, you know, he was in a right, he was, he was a doctor. Yeah, somebody asked him when he was older. He said so, dr freud, what's the key to mental health? And he said the key to mental health is the capacity to love, the capacity to work and the capacity to enjoy life. Yeah, that's, the key to mental health is the capacity to love, the capacity to work and the capacity to enjoy life. That's the key to mental health.
Speaker 2:Now there's a guy named Matthew Fox who is a priest or a cleric, and he said I don't like the word work, I'm going to change it to express oneself. So he would say the key to mental health is the capacity to love, to be connected to other people and satisfying ways, all kinds of love. Uh, the key, uh the, the capacity to express yourself, to use your abilities and satisfying ways and the capacity to enjoy life right now. So, um, the positive psychologists you know they're a bunch of psychologists who work on happiness. Yeah, what makes people happy, positive psychologists? So here's what they say is the key to happiness?
Speaker 2:First, using the best part of yourself in the interest of something bigger than yourself. Using the best part of yourself in the interest of something bigger than yourself. Second, positive relationships. Third, achievement, competence and mastery. So, very similar to what Freud said. So, basically, what it comes down to is, for most people and this is not for everybody, but most people in order to feel good about their lives, in order to be happy, in order to be mentally healthy, they have to be connected to other people in satisfying ways.
Speaker 2:All kinds of love, yeah, sexual love, romantic love, family love, collegial love, friendship love all kinds of love right connected and they have to be using their abilities in satisfying ways their ability to use their mind, use their bodies, uh, create, uh, solve problems, discover things. They have to be, they have to be expressing themselves using their abilities singing, dancing, sports, all of that and they have to feel like they're capable and they're able to do what they want to do. So here's the deal. Deal, jen when people, when that's not working right, yeah, when people become, oh shit, you know, I don't have good connections. I don't. I don't have another person I'm connected to very well, I'm not connected to other people. I don't have a love relationship. I don't have many friends. I feel isolated, I'm alone. I have a love relationship. I don't have many friends. I feel isolated, I'm alone. I'm not using my abilities, I'm kind of dead stuck.
Speaker 2:Somehow or other, they're going to get upset. If they're healthy, they're going to get very upset. And if they begin to believe they'll never be able to do that, they begin to lose hope. They begin to say, oh my God, I'll never be able to live the way I want to live. They're going to get very depressed, yes, very depressed, and actually that's a good thing, because it'll stop them from doing what they're doing and force them to go inside and take a look at their life. Yeah, okay, so I'll give you some examples of how this works. So why did I get so depressed when I was 25 years old? And I was severely depressed, really bad shape, and if you looked at my life objectively, jen, I had a great life. Yeah, I've been married for a year to the woman I'm still married to. I had a great job. I was training Peace Corps volunteers. I was living in the rainforest in Puerto Rico. I was earning good money good money. I had no expenses. I'm getting free food, free rent. I'm working with interesting people, exciting people Great life, right, yeah, I'm sick, I'm done. I'm done. I can't even I can't much of the day, I'm blank. Wow, I am lost, I am gone.
Speaker 2:What was going on? Yeah, well, here's what I figured out after I recovered Sort of I was trending. I was spending a tremendous amount of my energy hiding the truth from myself and hiding it from other people. The truth was that I actually was very scared. I didn't think I was smart enough, good looking enough, personable enough, humorous enough, wise enough to do any kind of any of the work I wanted to do. I hadn't satisfied my wife sexually. I wasn't satisfying my wife sexually. I didn't think I would be able to. I wanted to kill my father. That that wasn't all right, you know. And I was hiding all this from myself and from other people, using a lot of energy, yeah, and so it brought me down. Yeah, that's what happened.
Speaker 2:So what happens to people who say they have attention deficit disorder? Right, attention deficit, hyperactive disorder? What's going on? Here's what's going on they're being forced to do something they don't want to do. Right, right, right, yeah. Or they have a big problem, there's a big problem in their life that they're not dealing with. They're not dealing with it. And when you have a big problem in your life, you're not dealing with it, you're not going to be able to focus on anything yeah until you deal with it, right, right, so, right.
Speaker 2:So you know people diagnosed with ADHD and they say, well, it's a brain disorder, it's neurodevelopmental. It's really not true, because they can focus on things they want to focus on, right.
Speaker 1:Hyper focus.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, so the kids that are not paying attention in school. Watch them play a video game Right. They'll be able to focus on a video game. Yes, or you watch them play a video game right, they'll be able to focus on a video game, yes, or you watch them play sports, and they'll play sport, right, okay.
Speaker 2:So here's another example. Just one other example bipolar disorder, right? A lot of people getting diagnosed with bipolar disorder now, yes, and illegitimately. This shouldn't be, because in the DSM, in order to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, you have to have had a manic episode, and lots of people who are diagnosed with bipolar disorder have never had a manic episode, right? So what's going on? Here's a manic episode.
Speaker 2:A manic episode is one week of elevated mood, grandiosity I can do anything, maybe irritability, press to speech, talking a lot, very distractible, racing thoughts, sleeping two, three hours a night, very involved in goal-oriented activities, doing very dangerous things, having sex with people you don't know, buying things you don't need, entering into business agreements that are not good, getting into fights with people you don't know. This is a manic episode, right? What's going on, right? Well, here's some idea. You know it's different for everybody, but just some ideas.
Speaker 2:One of the things that's going on is this person has somehow or other gotten the message they have to be successful, they have to be very, very successful, exalted, big time, they have to be great, and they can't be, and so they have the illusion of being all powerful and successful. I can do anything I want to do. I can do this, I can do this, I can do that. Right, that's one of the things that's going on.
Speaker 2:The other thing that's going on is this person is tired of having to make the everyday decisions that we have to make. What am I going to do with my money, you know? Am I going to go to the Bahamas or am I going to put it in a savings account for my kids college? What am I going to do with my time? What am I going to do? You know, am I going to, uh, am I going to go to the bar and or go with my friends, or am I going to go, uh, help people in the soup kitchen, or study, or we have to make these decisions every day. They're difficult.
Speaker 2:It's not that easy to make these decisions yeah, no, it isn't and you know, every time we decided the one thing, we decided not to do 50 things, many of which might be very productive and enjoyable, you know. So life is difficult this way. We can only do one thing at a time anyway. Yeah, in a manic episode you don't have to do that, right in a manic episode.
Speaker 2:You can do anything. You can do everything. Yes, you don't have to do that, you see. So I'm just making the point that all of these things we call mental illnesses are how people are living their life best they can. It's all emotional distress, life crises, difficult dilemmas, spiritual emergencies, all kinds of overwhelming fear. It's all about your life, folks. Let me tell you what we call mental illness. It's all about your life.
Speaker 1:Exactly, it's the human experience.
Speaker 1:And I appreciate what you're saying about the bipolar disorder too, because that was what I was labeled with and there were points at which I would return to this state. Ok, but to stay the way you described, it was really a beautiful way to put it into this story. That is valid. I mean, like I can literally say, every time I experienced one of those states that I had to, like you know, be hospitalized for and all this nonsense, I was in some kind of turmoil of feeling either overwhelmed or too much or not being respected, so that I felt I had to, you know, create like a larger idea of myself or all of these things that are just part of how we interact with our worlds, you know, and, as a creative person, a lot of creative people in the arts have that label, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I like that phrase. How do we interact with the world? It's about how we're interacting with the world, with other people, and how we feel about it. Yeah, you know, if I begin to feel that my life is not going to go well, I'm not going to be able to do these things I want to do. My God, if you don't get mentally ill, there's something wrong with you, right? If you don't get mentally ill, there's something wrong with you Right.
Speaker 2:Which is, by the way, I have to tell you that, one of the things I do as a therapist. Almost in 100% of the cases, people come in and tell me about what's happened in your life. If you weren't feeling badly about this, there'd be something wrong with you right right you'd be in la la land yes you know, yes, so so let's see if we can understand what this symptom is telling you about yourself and your life absolutely you know, let's not try to get rid of it right, because this is how you live in your life
Speaker 1:yeah, right well, one of the things I think that we got away from in the the area of like who are the experts? Okay, like what you're saying, you're so compassionate. A lot of people have gone away from religious um communities. You know they're less involved with that. That used to be a huge influence in so many people's worlds that they could just like go to their community and maybe talk to their priest or so this sense of like just holding space for someone is so important because so many people don't have that.
Speaker 1:So if you start with like such a lack in that area, that's already a state of you know, like grasping right. People are desperate. So you know, if we just started there now, what happens a lot of times when a professional mental health professional believes in this biomedical model, say, they can look at the person complaining with like this clinical gaze and they don't really feel as though they they should talk to the person and kind of nurture those emotions around the experience. They're just really like think the way I see it is they're checking off things in the dsm like what medication am I going to give this person?
Speaker 1:right and I'm just going to visit this for a moment because this is where we kind of came across each other was at the ISPS conference, that there's this place now that's holding this conference in a lot of areas of the nation and abroad, where there's lived experience people coming together saying I'm not so happy with the way I was treated. This might be a better way to look at it, alongside these mental health professionals who are so open-minded and willing to see these things through a new light. So in your experience with people who have come to you, say, with like stories of psychosis or I don't know if you've had that much experience with a lot of people who have psychotic issues but even if they've expressed some symptoms, say in bipolar disorder or something like that, how do you honor that state of mind without necessarily putting it in the box of pathology, you know?
Speaker 1:where it's just like a throwaway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's tricky. It's tricky, Absolutely, absolutely. And I'm glad you brought up, you know, isps, the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis. So we're talking about psychosis now we're talking about the most serious mental illness. We're talking about people who hear voices or who have visions, see things other people don't see or believe things that no one else would believe. You know that are totally out of the range of consensual reality. You know, believe that someone that the CIA has implanted a device in them that's reading their thoughts? Or I've had a patient who believes that her whole life has been controlled by the answers she gave to questionnaires she took in middle school. Or I have a patient who believes she's being stalked by the man she had a love relationship with for 10 years, being stalked by him and his new girlfriend, with, for 10 years being stalked by him and his new girlfriend. Or people who well hearing voices. You know serious illnesses, serious symptoms.
Speaker 2:So how do we understand those if we don't understand them as a brain disease? Or well, we understand them as how a person is surviving, how a person who's been hurt very badly, as how a person is surviving, how a person who's been hurt very badly. So the research tells us that the great majority of people who experience psychosis schizophrenia, the most common psychotic the great majority of them have been hurt very badly. They've been put down, dishonored, discounted, made to feel inadequate, rejected, in some cases abused sexually, emotionally, verbally, physically. They've been hurt adverse childhood experiences. So when they fall into this state of being we call schizophrenia, essentially that's how they're surviving the idea of living in the world as it is, with people, with human beings who have been toxic, who have hurt them no way. They're not doing that, and so a part of them now it's not their rational part. It's not their rational part, it's a part that's much deeper than that and actually healthier. A part of them actually finds a better way to survive.
Speaker 2:And there was a great psychologist named John Weir Perry who spent a lot of time with people who were diagnosed with schizophrenia. He wanted to understand what's going on with these people. You know, if it's not a brain disorder, if I don't want to see it as a brain disorder, how do I understand it? Yeah, and what he came to understand is that when people have suffered these hurts and this rejection, that the way he would put it a change is initiated. That's the way he says it, a change is initiated. The psychic energy of the person attaches to a more powerful but imaginary part of the person. Wow, some part of the person that's more powerful, maybe the part that we would say is like a king or a warrior or a magician. Yes, so they can move forward, so they can survive in this toxic world. So that's what's going on with the person. Yeah, so when I am working with a person like that, um, I don't, you know, I I sort of try to go with them, yeah, if they tell me.
Speaker 2:Well, if they tell me that they're a cia agent, that the cia, the CIA, has put a device in them to monitor their thoughts, I ask them well, why are they monitoring your thoughts? Because I'm important. I'm involved in a battle between good and evil and between communism and democracy, so I'm important. That's why they're oh okay. Well, how's the battle going? Yeah, you know you may get them talking about it. Yes, you know, so that they they feel like they're being affirmed, they're being supported, so they can go through this experience.
Speaker 2:Now it gets hard, for you know a therapist. Uh, because I'll just tell you, I have a patient who I told him, who believes that she's being stalked by her, her former lover and his girlfriend, his new girlfriend. Now, she's been believing this for nine years. Wow, she doesn't want to leave the house because every time she leaves the house, they come in and steal stuff, break stuff. When she goes out and drives, they have people who follow her. They're on her roof every night. She doesn't sleep, she hears them. They've, they've gotten into her computer, into her phones, they've broken. She believes this and she, she creates the evidence, you know.
Speaker 2:So how long do you go along with it? Because you know you want to say you want her to somehow move forward in her life, not be so hurt by all this. So it's kind of tricky and you know I try to encourage her to try and move forward in your life. She has grandchildren, she has a daughter. You know work with with them and you know she's an artist, but still she's troubled by all this and so it's very tricky. So but let me tell you one other thing, because this is really significant. Jen, and you may know this back in 1971 okay, you witness this 50 years ago, okay, there was a psychiatrist named Lauren Mosier. Yes.
Speaker 2:Who was? He was the head of the schizophrenia research project of the National Institute of Mental Health. Ok, and he, he saw what was going on with psychiatry going towards the medical model to a materialistic science, and he said I'm going to try something out here. I'm going to just create a home them into that residence and provide them with safety, support and affirmation as they go through the experience. Now was that the Soteria house? Exactly the Soteria house, the Soteria project, s-o-t-e-r-a-a.
Speaker 2:And we're going to help them. We're not going to stop the process because we understand that they're in some kind of a survival. They're moving towards survival, healing and recovery. So we're going to help them go through it. Yes, right, and once they stabilize, which typically happened in six to eight weeks, we're going to help them go out into the community and encourage them. Get out in the community, go take a class, get a job, support an employment volunteer, go to therapy, go to support group, recreation, art, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:So this is a research project of the National Institute of Mental Health, right? So they did a good study. They randomly assigned people to Soteria House or to the hospital and two years after treatment they went and checked to see how people were doing. Well, what they found was that the people treated at Soteria were doing significantly better in terms of social functioning who they were living with, who they were interacting with, employment, working symptoms, less symptoms and re-hospitalizations, less trips to the hospital. Those people treated in Soteri were doing better in terms of those symptoms than the people treated at the hospital.
Speaker 1:Now, why did they get shut the whole thing down?
Speaker 2:Ah, they shut it down. They fired Lauren Moser. They shut it down because psychiatry was going towards the medical model.
Speaker 2:They were going toward materialistic science. They weren't interested in that kind of stuff. So instead of replicating it, instead of trying it again in different ways maybe more beds or different people they shut it down. They fired Lauren Mosier Right. Different people, or they shut it down, they fired Lauren Mosier Right. And so there have been Soteria houses in the world since then, but not very many. There's one in Bern, switzerland. It's been there since 1978. There was one in Anchorage, alaska, from 2009 to 2015. There is one today in the United States, in Burlington, vermont.
Speaker 2:It's been operating for nine years, very successfully operating for nine years in Burlington, vermont, you know, and there are four in Jerusalem now.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but check it out, jen, there's only one in the United.
Speaker 1:States. I know it's absurd and Medicaid won't pay for it.
Speaker 2:Medicaid won't pay for that. They'll absurd and Medicaid won't pay for it. Medicaid won't pay for that. They'll pay for drugs. They'll pay for medication. They'll pay for the psychiatrist. They won't pay for the Soteria House, which has proven to be the best way you can help people with schizophrenia.
Speaker 1:See, this is the thing that has stressed me out for probably my whole time I've been in the system, and it's that they I almost feel like they've hijacked the word science because it's not other things have evidence behind them and if you look at the evidence, like Robert Whitaker is great, you know, greatly organized in so many of his books. All of this evidence of how these drugs, on a long-term scale, are harmful to so many people and so many of us survivors have been speaking about this now for years and yet what I still see and hear is that, okay, well, the experts say or, the science says or, and those, these alternative approaches are not included in the science that's discussed. So this sense of there's only one way to look at it and it's through the materialistic lens. And if it doesn't fit, then we're just going to like, not even explore that. I don't think that they have in mind an overall like view of well, let's get the, let's get the people.
Speaker 1:Well, again, like there's a sense that they're just kind of taking care of these people and putting them on you know, something that can remove them from society rather than reintegrate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, because that drug that they give you. You know how the drug works. Basically, the antipsychotics, in other words, zyprexa, raspiradol, geodon, abilify all of those drugs, all the antipsychotics. What they do is reduce dopamine in the brain, right? Well, guess what? Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with liveliness, vitality, creativity reward. So what they are is extreme sedatives, tranquilizers that take the vitality out of people. They basically take the vitality out of people, right? They basically take the vitality out of people, make it hard for people to use their minds, use their emotions, experience their emotions, and so that's why they're so hurtful and why people don't want to stay on them, right? So, I mean, I told you about Soteria House, right? Let me tell you about another alternative, right? Just to give you some idea about there's another alternative. It's called open dialogue yes, in finland.
Speaker 2:Right, it started in finland developed in finland, in northern finland, by a psychiatrist named hako sekula, now in open dialogue. What happens is, um, the first sign of psychosis. You know hearing voices believing, you know that I'm God or I'm Jesus, believing that I'm Jesus and I'm going to save the world. The first sign of that kind of stuff they call the hospital. The hospital sends one or two people out within 24 hours. If it's a crisis to 48 hours. They send, send two people, like they meet with the person who's suffering the psychotic experiences, and they ask them okay, we're going to have a bunch of meetings, we're going to have a, a bunch of meetings here. Who do you want there? And they ask for who do you want to come to that meeting? Anybody that cares about you, that you're comfortable with.
Speaker 2:And so they, they, they have these meetings and they'll have a you know, like a meeting every day, or every other day, every third day, for a couple of weeks or three weeks. In other words, an intensive series of meetings where you know the person's parents, siblings, coaches, spouses, significant others, friends. They get together in a meeting and the professionals open things up. They talk. They talk about what's going on, what's happened. There's a tolerance for ambiguity. There's a tolerance for uncertainty. Everyone gets to speak. They don't close it down, they open it up and they do it and they and all treatment decisions are made in the presence of everybody. Drugs are not used as the primary modality treatment right yeah they have an 80 percent full recovery rate.
Speaker 2:Oh my, 80 percent full recovery from first episode psychosis, compared with less than 20% in this country, maybe less than 15%. So that's another. And now people are learning about open dialogue in this country it's beginning to happen. People are getting trained.
Speaker 1:I know that there's open dialogue chapters, like in the UK, and is there any going on in America?
Speaker 2:Well, there's some training going on. There's a woman named Mary Olson and there's been training at Emory University. Actually, at Harvard there was some training going on Nice, at MIT rather I think MIT, mit there was training going on. There's training going on other places and you know, I do an open dialogue thing with uh, with a, a therapist in in new york. We we actually have open dialogue meetings with a, a man in el paso, and his, his mother, his godmother, friends of his and uh, you know you have the meeting that's great.
Speaker 2:So again, it's the idea we've been talking about. We see schizophrenia as how a person is dealing with their life. It's strange, it's bizarre, it's scary. It's not dangerous. By the way, although people believe that people you know who experience schizophrenia are more dangerous, they aren't. The research says that unless they use illegal drugs, they're not more dangerous. They aren't. The research says that unless they use illegal drugs, they're not more dangerous.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, and also, you know people believe they don't know what's good for them. You know they're not competent, it's just not true. They know exactly what's good for them, right? Well, I can tell you. Here's an interesting thing.
Speaker 2:So I treated a woman for five years when I was working in Colorado, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, absolutely Illusions. I don't know about hearing voices, but she believed that she was an Indian princess and anyway, when she was talking to a policeman or applying for welfare, she was totally grounded and lucid, totally. My name is such and such is my social security number. Here's my. You know I live here. In other words, she could be right and that's true. That's true of, uh, of the people that I treat. I treat a man, uh, who if you met him, you have no idea he ever was psychotic. He's totally rational, grounded, good looking, smart, terrific guy. Well, since I've been working with him, he's been in three psychotic experiences where he was hearing voices, believed he was being surveilled in my session he'd go huh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He went through three episodes like that, yeah yeah because he was scared.
Speaker 2:Various reasons for being scared yeah uh, but if you, you meet him, you have no idea. Yeah, so people have this idea also that you know people never recover from schizophrenia. Right, I can give you 10 people who have been totally diagnosed, totally diagnosed with schizophrenia, medicated, hospitalized against their will, who are totally fully recovered. Yeah, very, very productive. Right, right.
Speaker 1:Right. I mean, then this has to be see, this is what I've been waiting for, right, all of these years. When is that whole narrative going to be rewritten? And it doesn't seem to be the rewriting of the field. It's not going to be done by, say, the psychiatrist. However, I will say that there are holistic psychiatrists that see like biology, biological issues, underlying you know, problems that could lead to things that look like symptoms of mental illness, like, say, you know, if you have too much sugar in your system, or you know you are dealing with inflammatory issues, like it could be like a thyroid issue, or that could look like an expression of something that others have termed as mental illness. So, in other words, they're willing to like guide the person back to a healthier lifestyle. I mean, I think this is, like you know, the way to change things. However, they are dealing with a lot of pushback by their own field.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because and I think I think it's going to change I'm glad you brought that up and I think it's going to change. It may take some time because young psychiatric residents, a lot of them, are interested in some other approach. Yes, because you know, just taking symptoms and prescribing is not very interesting.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But working with a person, a human being, with their story and what's happened to them, is pretty interesting, pretty interesting. So so let me I'm glad you brought this up Because, let me say this you know, I'm sure that when people are in different mental states or emotional states or states of being, their physiology is different, right? I mean, I, I'm certainly not surprised. Surprised if, for instance, when I was depressed, if you had taken a look at my brain, it might have been different from the way it is when I'm not depressed, or my biochemistry may have been different, maybe more cortisol in my system. So there is this and there is evidence, you know, that people with certain diagnoses have certain different physiology characteristics. So, for instance, I guess there's a lot of evidence that people diagnosed with schizophrenia have large ventricles in the brain. But that's just a correlation, right. All they have is an association. They don't know what's causing what, right? They don't know what's causing what right? They have no evidence about whether it's the schizophrenia that's causing the large ventricles in the brain or it's the large ventricles in the brain that's causing the schizophrenia. Right now, the neuroscientists since they're doctors and they're big into materialistic science they assume that it must be the large ventricles, it must be the physiology that's causing the psychology. But actually there's a principle in science called parsimony and it's this when you have a finding, you have an association between two things like, let's say, schizophrenia and large ventricles in the brain. When you have a finding and you don't know what the cause of relationship is, and you have no way of finding out what you do, is you look at other mind-body dynamics that we do know about to get some idea? Well, if you do that, you're going to look at, let's say, three things. You're going to look at the stress response, okay, so the stress response is a profound physiological dynamic. I mean your endocrine system secretes norepinephrine, noradrenaline. Your blood flows to the extremities. I mean it stops flowing to the extremities. Your blood has more oxygen in it. The blood goes to the heart, the brain and the muscles, not to the digestive organs. This is a whole body. Physiology, yeah, but it doesn't just happen. It doesn't happen. It happens because the person has perceived a threat. Something psychological is going on. Yes, there's a threat and it's a serious threat. So it's the psychology that causes the physiology. Yeah, I mean the same is true of blushing right blushing. All of a sudden the blood goes to the extremities. Well, why did it happen? It happened because the person got embarrassed. Right, something happened psychologically. Yes, the same thing is true of any voluntary movement.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm going to move my hand at the count of three. Okay, one, two, three. Right, one, two, three. Now, how did I do that? Right, there's a guy named Sir John Eccles who wrote a whole book about that. We don't know how that happens. Happens because what's going on is a mental event Me saying three, me saying three, triggers that. How did that happen? There's no, something went on between my mind and this arm here. He thought it was some kind of quantum dynamic, but nobody knows. But again, that's a case where the psychology, a mental event, preceded the physiological event. When you decide to do anything let's say you're playing a sport you know, I don't know if you're playing sports, but I play tennis. Let's say I go decide to serve right so I do this.
Speaker 2:Well, the reason I do it is because I decided I'm going to do it Right. So it's the psychology. It's more likely that the psychology causes the physiology.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:Than the other way around right, Of course. But that's mysterious. There's something mysterious about that. Yes, kind of hard to wrap your arms around that Right Right.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, do you think that? You know? Philosophically it comes down to a little bit of the problem, the hard problem, I guess, of consciousness. Yeah, yeah, exactly, you know it's like they're trying to find a physical location for it and they're not giving up that story because then it would like undermine the entire framework of materialism.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, this is a hard problem, right? There's a psychologist, a philosopher named Schumacher, ei Schumacher, and he wrote a book called A Guide for the Perplexed the name of A Guide for the Perplexed, the name of A Guide for the Perplexed, he said. Here's one of the things he said look, with materialistic science, you can understand the brain with materialistic science. But you can't understand life, you can't understand consciousness and you can't understand self-awareness. You can't understand that with materialistic science, you just can't understand self-awareness. Yeah, you can't understand that with materialistic science, right, you just can't. And so if you study the brain to try and understand mental illness, you're in trouble. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because mental illness doesn't have to do with the brain. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It has to do with the mind or with the emotions or with it. And so well, this is a big problem, you know. Now the scientists would say, oh well, you can't study the mind, you know, because you can't see it, or see it in a microscope, or measure it on a weight or see it on a brain scan. No, but you can. We could study it using what's called phenomenology, which is the study of experience. Phenomenology is the study of human experience. Yeah, and we could study the mind using phenomenology, so we could put people through different experiences using their mind, right, which really is what psychotherapy is. Yeah, what I'm doing as a therapist is helping people have experiences in the room here with me, having experiences using their mind, their emotions, feeling their emotions, using their minds, thinking about what they want, their intentions yes, understanding their behavior, actually behaving.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we could study the mind, but the national institute of mental health doesn't do it right, but but you, you see, that book just came out from the director of the national institute of mental health, uh tom incel. That talked about healing and the the. The book is called healing and it talks about that. They were looking in the wrong spot. That he doesn't think is genetics and they put millions of dollars into this billions, billions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but he's. But he still thinks they're gonna look for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even though he said it's not right he hasn't given it up, hasn't fully given it up.
Speaker 2:Hasn't fully given up. It's not helping people, but we're not giving up, we're still. Look, I just did a study of the NIMH with a bunch of other people and they spent $2.3 billion a year and 75% of it is spent on studying the brain and genetics, 5% on psychotherapy.
Speaker 1:It's just so strange to me when they even the field of genetics generally. Like if you look at what they think is actually linking to genetics, it's such a small percentage so for them to just go in that area it just feels like it's so random. It's almost like it's an area to spend money and do research so that people could have jobs, but they're never going to find any answers. You know that are going to help people you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right. And also, you know, whenever they find some association between genes and some diagnosis, there are always hundreds of genes involved in that right right, hundreds of genes, so are you going to pick out one? What are you going to do with that right? What are you going to do with that information? Uh, uh, you know, I don't know that we don't have answers, but they're still looking for it and, uh, it's a big problem, it's a big problem and it's very perplexing.
Speaker 1:You know we're talking a lot about mental illness and what it is, but you have had so much experience with your practice of dealing with people getting better, so, and you've also written a book that deals with, like, dark side issues, right, things that we don't want to admit, that we need to deal with and try to like, like, come to terms with.
Speaker 1:And yet, if we incorporate it somehow and learn how to use these things in a healthy way, like they can lead to much more stable mental health health. So how you know, like, say, for anger, for instance, is one of the biggies, right, because that can lead to violence and it could lead to, you know, problems in relationships and loss of income and all sorts of things if it gets out of hand. But you're, one of your main things is that you feel that it really needs to be expressed in a healthy way and then perhaps it could be like channeled. So like what are some of these dark areas? You know of our, of everyone's, personalities? That if we learn to harness their I guess what they're trying to tell us and how to steer, re-steer our lives, you know we could bounce back and create more health in that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, let me go into some of that, right? Well, the first one you bring up. Basically, one of the ways we can be healthy is to use all of our emotions and all of them, especially the negative ones, to learn how to use them. So let's take anger. Anger is a terrific emotion, right, it's wonderful. I mean it tells us what we don't like, what's in our way, what we want to get rid of, what's what is threatening us, what can hurt us. I mean it's really good to know that. Yeah, right, and thank god, we get it, we get you know things are in our way or things are threatening. We get angry, say wait a second.
Speaker 2:Now, anger is terrific. It gives us energy and sharpness to deal with it, yeah, right. But it can also lead us to do horrible things like kill people, like hurt people, like. So, again, as you said, we have to learn how to use anger in effective ways. So, and it may, you know, you've heard the when you get angry, when you feel that rush of anger, you know, take 10 seconds. Yeah, take 10 seconds. Or five seconds, just take five seconds, just stop Pause, don't do anything, yeah. So a good example actually is you know, compare oj simpson with martin luther king. They're both angry, right? Oj's angry at his wife, his former wife, because she rubbed his nose in it and she, uh, she disses him and yeah, yeah. So he kills her, he kills her and her boyfriend, right, no doubt he did it yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And ruins his life, ruins a life that was the envy of every man in the world. Sure, I mean, you couldn't have a better life than OJ had, right? He has fame, glory, money, women Anything you want. Yeah, ruins his life. And you have Martin Luther King, extremely angry about how black people, how African Americans, are being treated in the South, really being lynched, killed, dissed, disregarded, put down. He's angry about it. He takes that anger and builds a movement, a nonviolent movement that really makes a difference, right? So this is an example, but let's take some other ones.
Speaker 2:Anxiety, you know there's all this talk about, oh, anxiety, what a problem. No, no, no, anxiety is a wonderful thing. Anxiety happens because you care about something. The only reason anybody gets anxious is because they care about something that they care about and they want something to happen, or they want something not to happen, uh, and so they become anxious. Yeah, you know a good thing, right? Uh, because anxiety gives them energy and sharpness to do it, to do what they have to do. So you get a philosopher like Soren Kierkegaard, who said he who learns to ready no anxiety has learned the most important thing the most important thing.
Speaker 2:The problem is we don't want anxiety to get too much or too little. If you have no anxiety, you're dead, yeah Well you're not not doing it, you don't care about anything right, you have no anxiety. So, uh, jealousy. Jealousy is really helpful because it tells me what I want. Yeah, oh, that's what I want. Yeah, oh, oh good now I know now I know what I want. Uh, guilt guilt is terrific. I mean, if we didn't have guilt, people would keep on hurting other people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the reason we have guilt is we've done something wrong. We feel badly about it and maybe we won't do it anymore or we'll make amends. You know, right, fear Fear is very helpful, right, keeps us from getting into situations that are dangerous. But fear is tricky because we can also use it to stop ourselves from doing what we want to do. We're not careful anyway. So one thing is use all the emotions uh, they're all useful. Just experience them, see, get the message and then do something with them. Yeah, okay, because they're telling us something important. Um, the stress response. The stress response is terrific, right, stress is wonderful.
Speaker 2:The stress response happens when something's threatening us or something's going to be hard to do. Yeah, and it gives us the energy and the sharpness to do it right. So, so it's really good if we use it, yeah, but if we don't use it, then it gets to be a problem. If we're in a bad marriage and we're not doing anything about it. If we're in a horrible job and we're not doing anything about it, if our kids are in trouble, getting into trouble, not doing well, sick, if we're financially having problems, if we're under stress for a long amount of time, we are going to get sick. We're going to get very sick. It's very dangerous.
Speaker 2:And so what we need to do when we're in a bad situation like that, we need to find a way to use the energy and the stress. Get some exercise, build something, journal, go to therapy, yell and scream Some way of using the energy, because the energy will hurt us if we don't use it. It's how we manage stress. It's important. So here's another area. You know and this is this is really kind of hard um, there's a part of ourselves we don't know.
Speaker 2:Much of our behavior is driven by forces we're not aware of right below the level of consciousness, we have these assumptions, uh, beliefs, thoughts, habits that we're not aware of, and that is scary. I mean, that's one of the hardest things about being alive. So I can tell you, I can give you some examples of things I've done in my life that have hurt me. And I say, well, why did I do that? Right? Yeah, well, I had to ask myself the question. I say, well, how did you contribute to doing that? I got fired, for instance, one time from a job that I worked for, tried to get that job for a couple of years. How did I contribute? Well, I had a chance to make a good speech and I made a horrible one. And now, why might I have wanted to do that? That's the question.
Speaker 1:That is an interesting question.
Speaker 2:Why might? Is it possible? I wanted to do that. I wanted to get fired. Well, it's possible because I was working for a consulting firm that I thought was in some ways doing the horrible things that consulting firms do, which is convince people that I'm smarter than you are and that you don't know what you're doing and I'm going to tell you what to do. But it's sort of like they tell about. The consultant is a guy who you ask a guy for his time. You ask the consultant what time it is. He takes your watch off, he borrows your watch, he looks, he tells you what the time is. The time is such and such. He gives you, gives you your watch back. Anyway, I had some doubts about, but also I knew if I gave a good speech there'd be a lot of pressure on me in that organization yeah there'll be a lot of pressure to perform, and I didn't want that pressure on me, right?
Speaker 2:so there's some for some reason. Is it possible that some reason some deep down led me to do that? So how do we get in touch with the unconscious? Well, one thing when something happens we wish didn't happen, something that hurts us, but that we did, right, yeah, we ask ourselves those questions. How do I contribute to this? Why might I have wanted this to happen? What does this tell me about what's going on underneath? Maybe, maybe.
Speaker 1:And the other way is to learn from our dreams to successfully, you know, get off the medication and work through all of my, I guess, symbols in the hearing of the voices and all that right, and it was just dream therapy approach was really amazing because it really reduces things to archetypes and symbols that we have learned about in literature and in movies and all of these things our whole lives, and yet they're within us.
Speaker 2:it's right we can learn so much about ourselves absolutely, because the you know the dream is your mind at work. Your mind is working when it's not under your control yeah so, so you can.
Speaker 2:So what you can learn from the dream is stuff that's going on, you're creating. Your mind is creating these images in the dream. You can look at that dream and learn some things about yourself you weren't aware of. Yes, right, and they can be very helpful. So, and mistakes? So that's another thing. Here's the fourth thing.
Speaker 2:I think that we can do that can be helpful is that we all have parts of ourselves that we don't like and we wish weren't there. You can call it the shadow, whatever you want to call it. Shadow, whatever you want to call it. We all have these parts of ourselves that, oh, my God, you know, I wish I weren't that way, or I wish I didn't do that, or wish. It's really helpful to become friendly with those parts and to realize that they're there for a reason and we can learn from them and in some ways, they can actually they can in some ways, be helpful. Yeah, uh, so those parts of ourselves, then. Another thing we can do to to be healthier is learn how to get along with other people without giving up too much of ourselves, and that's a tricky business there's certain things you can do.
Speaker 2:You know, 30 years ago there was all kinds of assertiveness training, teaching people how to be assertive and how to how to ask what they want and bring up issues when they had issues. So but there are ways of doing that that that are better than others. So, just as an example, you want to, let's say that the behavior of somebody is really bothering you. Let's say it's somebody you live with or somebody you're very close to. There's a way of bringing that up and basically it's this. What you do is you say I'm noticing. You tell the person what you notice.
Speaker 2:Let's say my wife, I had this in mind. I'm noticing that whenever our kids get good news, you give it to them. You know they're going to go to camp, they just got, they just got an A, they're going to go to a party. You always give them the good news. I'm noticing that and I have a problem with it and I'm owning the problem. It's not your problem, it's my problem. But I really would like to talk about it and do something about it and I don't know what the answer is.
Speaker 2:I don't have the answer, that kind of thing or it can be little things, you know, yeah, yeah, but you do it that way. I'm noticing I have the problem. I'm owning the problem. It's not you. I'm owning the problem. It's not you. I'm not pointing the finger. I'd like to talk to you about it. You know so. There are ways of addressing issues that enable you to maintain a good relationship with people that you want to have a good relationship with, but if those issues aren't addressed, it'll just get worse. Yeah, right, yeah. So there's some techniques there.
Speaker 2:There's the whole idea of balance. You know, learning how to find a balance in your life. Yes, we all live in these polarities. You know we live in. I mean, there's a part of me that wants to be the leader, wants to be the great man, and there is a part of me that just wants to join in as a part of the team. There's a part of me that wants to join in as a part of the team. There's a part of me that that that wants to be independent. Don't bother me, don't? There's a part of me that actually would like to be dependent, maybe a little bit. Help me. There's all kinds of these polarities. Uh, you know we need to find balance. Yes, find some balance, find the middle ground. I read a book.
Speaker 2:There's a great book by a guy named Tom Thomas Moore, thomas Moore, called Care of the Soul. Oh yes, it's a terrific book. Yeah, and Thomas Moore, one of the things he was working with a guy who came in with this problem. He says you know, I like my marriage, tom, I'm really happy in my marriage, but you know, I also would love the adventure of falling in love with other women. And you know the adventure, just the adventure of that kind of adventure, and you know being with other women. And so Thomas basically told him well, look, here's what I suggest you do. I suggest you use your imagination to find a middle ground, find some kind of middle ground. I don't know what it's going to be and I think maybe the guy. What he did was he entered in friendships with women, but not sexual ones and not ones that, but just ones that were enjoyable, where there was banter going on and fun. He found a middle ground, another guy. Well, you can find middle grounds. You know. I can tell you an example of a middle ground that I missed. That was really too bad.
Speaker 2:My mother lived out here in Las Cruces with me and when she was about 80 years old, 79 years old, she decided to build a house where she and her husband, my father, could live and my wife and our kids could live, house with two dwelling units. Right, I told her well, okay, fine, I'll do that, but I'm not promising, I'm going to stay in Las Cruces. Well, sure enough. About three years later, I left for a job in Syracuse, my daughter left for college, my son left for the Navy. My wife came and joined me. All of a sudden, she's alone, she's alone. Well, she's alone, she's alone. Well, she was a pretty smart, intelligent, lively woman, but she was alone, and you know that was not a good thing. Now, guess what? She had a lot of money. I have four siblings. She eventually had a stroke, like two years later, had a stroke and died. Sorry, I had five siblings, right, right, we had plenty of money.
Speaker 2:One of us could have been there every weekend yeah one of us could have been with her every weekend yeah, yeah no problem, easy, we didn't do it. Yeah, there's the middle ground. She doesn't have to be alone.
Speaker 1:And we're off here we can find the middle ground Right, right Middle ground. We look for middle grounds, I love that you know.
Speaker 1:I had to say, speaking with you today has just really kind of reset a lot of my thinking, just because, don't know, it's just so great to hear someone with such balance in the field coming at mental health, mental illness, with this very rich and holistic understanding and, you know, just with the compassionate edge that you have. I know that you've done so many years of research on these issues because of the of the nature of what we talked about and I just, I really truly think you know you meeting with me and and having you know a go at my program, because it's, oh, it's always great to hear from you know how can I say the people who are legit in the field that I criticize, because I have benefited as well from people like yourself who have you know taken, who know the flaws in the system, but who are so willing to like still go at it and help people, so willing to like still go at it and help people. So I thank you for everything that you know you've you've done and and have you know, uh, given in terms of your wisdom and insight, and I and I, you know, I want you to still keep going.
Speaker 1:Is there anything that well? Two things. Um, I would love for you to give you know to our listeners any way for them to follow you or to look more into your work. I will have your book as a link on the show notes so that and we'll have it that they could get it right from Amazon on the show notes. But I'd like for you to share your website address and if there's any social media platforms that they could follow you at okay, yeah, um, uh, well, my book.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, my book is hard to buy because, for some reason or other, if you go to amazon, it's like 40 a copy. Is that a print or something like that? Let me tell you this anybody who wants my book if you, if you send me an email, I will send you. But I've got a hundred copies of my book here in my garage perfect, I'll send you my book. If you send me an email, I will send you. I've got 100 copies of my book here in my garage Perfect, I'll send you my book. I'll send it to you free, I don't need money. If you send me an email, I'll send you my book. My email is agalves.
Speaker 2:It's all lowercase A-G, as in George A-L-V, as in Victor E-S, as in Sam 2003 at comcastnet. My website is wwwalgalvescom. It hasn't been kept up very well, but I think there's some useless stuff on it. In terms of social media, I have a YouTube channel. If you put Al Galves into YouTube, have a YouTube channel. If you put Al Galves into YouTube, you may be able to find my channel. You may not be able to also, but I have a bunch of videos there which which I think you know could be useful, and, um, I think that's about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and your, and the website is very useful.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I think the website has some good stuff on it. But, jen, thank you so much for having me. I've got to tell you my evil secret. Everyone has an evil secret. You have more than one evil secret, right. My evil secret is I love to be the center of attention. I love it. I love people to be watching me. That's great, I love it. And it's ridiculous. It's so egomaniacal and it's so stupid.
Speaker 1:You know we need people like you because that's the. You're the storytellers, you're the people that bring the information to the, to the others who don't want to be the center of attention. So that's important.
Speaker 2:Now, my father used to say don't be a show off. Well, that's what I am, so, uh, okay, so you gave me an opportunity to honor my evil secret, which I love OK it's great.
Speaker 1:It's great and I thank you for doing that because really it's it's been so informative and, from such an expert, I really am humbled. Thank you so much for joining the show.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me, Jen. Really I'm so glad we met. Keep going, Keep doing your show. I'll keep on doing what I your show. I'll keep on doing what I'm doing. We'll keep on doing our best to make things better.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's the only way to go.
Speaker 2:Okay, take care. Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Not as Crazy as you Think and don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and remember mental health is attainable for anyone, especially those labeled with mental illness. Until next time, peace out.