April 24, 2025 • 48 mins
In a special role-reversal episode of The Psychology Podcast, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman is interviewed by renowned social psychologist Dr. Jonathan Haidt to discuss Scott’s brand-new book, Rise Above: Overcome a Victim Mindset, Empower Yourself, and Realize Your Full Potential. This powerful conversation explores how modern culture can reinforce limiting beliefs and emotional fragility, and how we can instead reclaim agency, resilience, and meaning in our lives. Scott opens up about the myths of self-esteem, the emotional toll of victimhood culture, and the surprising strengths that come from sensitivity. Together, Scott and Jonathan unpack the cultural narratives that hold us back and offer practical strategies for developing emotional strength and personal empowerment in an age of anxiety.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, the word trauma is just now means everything every
in so there is something in the in the zeitgeist.
There's definitely something in the zeitgeist that is making us
more conscious of trauma. And and and the body keeps
the score is still on the New York Times bestseller list.
So one could argue, in a nuanced fashion, as we
(00:24):
like to do, that that's not all, that's not entirely
a bad thing, that that it's good that we are
becoming more aware of the extent to which really challenging
experiences in our lives can play a role in who
we are today. Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast.
(00:49):
Today the table is turned and I am interviewed by
my friend and colleague, doctor Jonathan White about my new
book Rise Above Overcome a victim mindset, Empower yourself and
realize your full potential. Does life feel smaller than it
used to? Does it seem that the people around you
have taken a step back from doing hard things, preferring
to stay in their comfort zone. In the era of
(01:11):
Tiktakis therapy, it's tempting to see ourselves as damaged and powerless,
defined by our past traumas our emotions and the struggles
we face. But it's more important than ever to rise
above the limiting beliefs and widespread anxiety that puts us
in boxes, lowers our expectations, and holds us back. In
my new book, which was just released yesterday, April twenty second,
(01:33):
I unpact the dangerous myths and misleading buzzwords swirling around
the public imagination, revealing the truth about managing our emotions,
the double edged sword of self esteem, the surprising gifts
of sensitivity, and ultimately, the power each of us has
to overcome challenges and to shape the course of our
own lives. In this episode, we discuss actionable solutions to
(01:55):
own your life and reach your full potential. So, without
further ado, bring you myself. Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Okay, Scott Barry Kaufman, also known as Okay, how are you?
And where are you?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I'm good, Jonathan, I'm good. I'm the last lap here
in California, in Los Angeles. I'm moving to New York,
going to be teaching full time.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yes, how exciting. Let's hope Columbia is still there when
you arrive.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
That boy, your mouth to God's ears. Crazy times We're
living in very crazy times, and I think the best
we can do is show up according to our values.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
You know, that's right, That's right. How are you dealing
with it? Do you? What's your attitude towards all of
the craziness and insanity hitting the country and higher ed.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
You know, I think it is very much in line
with what I just said about showing it. Just the
best you can do is show up and like decide
how do you want to show up in this world?
You know, like get very clear on that. I like
to lead with a term I use in my new book,
Rise Above, which thank you for interviewing me today about.
There's a term I use called honest love. I had
(03:05):
felt as though two extremes have not really sit well
with my own way of being and my own presence.
On the one end, you see a lot of coddling.
I think you know you've written something about that as
an understatement. Yeah, yeah, and in that and I don't
the coddling way of dealing with the world doesn't seem
to uh didn't resonate with me. But then the other extreme,
(03:26):
that pull yourself up by the boots by the bootstraps mentality,
that ignores contact that ignores individual differences. That didn't really
suit me either, So I propose a new term which
just suits is what I feel like is resonates with
the way I the tone I wanted to set for
this book, and and also how I try to show
(03:47):
up in the world. Honest love and honest has two parts.
The love part is acknowledging the real felt experience of
someone else, you know, acknowledging where they're at. But the
that's the love part. But I don't want to stop there.
I need I need to be honest or how I
go crazy. The honest part is talking honestly and openly
(04:09):
about what is as a roote to what could be.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Well, Scott, I think that's beautiful the way you put that,
because it's interesting you and I we come from sort
of different perspectives, we come to a commonplace. A quote
that I keep close by is from Joseph Campbell. He says,
participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot
cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to
live in joy. The warriors approach is to say yes
(04:33):
to life, yea to it all, And so a similar
sort of attitude of you know, however, crazy things get,
that's just the world, and we shouldn't go along with
I shouldn't let it sweep us away. We should take control.
We should have an empowered mindset. I say, what's they
you Scott? Okay? And this turns us to your to
your book that Rise Above. So that's yeah. Yeah. I
(04:57):
was gonna say I should have'b blazed it on my forehead,
but then I would be able to do it backward.
Yeah tattoo m Yeah. So okay. So let's so let's
talk about your your your wonderful new book Rise Above.
Overcome a victim mindset, empower yourself and realize your full potential.
So let's start at the beginning here. You and I
(05:18):
first met when I think as you were post talk
or you were were you were you were studying creativity
and you were hosting YEA and you were hosting a
session with like me and Marty Seligman a few others
on like on creativity. This was like back, it's just
like two thousand. I don't even remember when you don't.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Feel like lifego no, no, fifteen, It wasn't that long ago.
Twenty sixteen, fifteen fourteen, maybe maybe fourteen fifteen, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Okay, twenty fifteen, fourteen, yeah, yeah, So how do you
how do you get from just telling you know, just
how do you get from being, you know, an expert
on creativity and intelligence? You also writing intelligence? How do
you get from that to the current book?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
So I've always been and it's a very fair and
good question. I've always been interested in human potential more broadly,
you know, what does it take to to reach your
goals in life? What does it take to self actualize?
To to you, I've always been a big daydreamer and
and and so that's been a thread running through my
whole life, even as a kid when the school system
(06:20):
didn't really have high expectations of me because I had
some warning disabilities that I have overcome at this point.
But I always just really pondered these kinds of questions.
Was it take to kind of overcome our circumstances? And
a lot of ways, I feel like everything led up
to this book. So I'll explain that this book is
like I felt like it was fate fates, you know,
(06:41):
when I was in as my I tell my personal
story in this book. But long story short, there was
this moment. I was kept in special education till ninth
grade to high school, and there was this moment where
this teacher took me aside, who had never seen me before,
this special ed teacher, and she said, you know, what
are you What are you still doing here? And I realized,
is that that's just that one question. It just empowered
(07:04):
me to I thought of my head, Yeah, what am
I doing here? And it just really a surge went
through me. And I also had this realization in that moment,
and it became so crystal clear to me that no
one is coming to save me, you know that that
if I want to demonstrate my potential to the school system,
to the world, you know, I had to do it myself.
(07:26):
And I took myself out of special education, and I
became the first kid in my school system for the
special ed kid himself took himself out, and I said,
I want to I want to see what I'm capable of.
And so a lot of the roots were there, Jonathan,
you know, and I thought when I started my career,
I thought that the way to study human intentional was
through studying intelligence and changing the way that we measure
(07:48):
intelligence in our school system, and that only took me
so far, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Oh how interesting In other words, in other words, sort
of over focus on or narrow conceptualization of intelligence was
part of what was holding you back. And then in
the current book, you're going beyond that. You're looking at
a certain mindset, a certain way of thinking about the
world is what's holding a lot of people back, and
you're trying to help people break out.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
You nailed it. And then there was the creativity phase
of my life too. I thought that was the thing
to unlock human potential, was the human imagination. I still
think it's a big I still think all these things
are important, you know, how we measure intelligence, how we
use our imagination to think of a better future. But
there was some research I was conducting over the past
ten years that just kept I kept being striking data
(08:36):
and I just I didn't think that it was the
main part of my research, but it got so so
much data on it that I just couldn't ignore it anymore.
And that's the research I did on vulnerable narcissism. And yeah,
so that's the link into all this. That's the link
into all this.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Okay, that's the missing link here.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, that's the missing bunch, just explain.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I mean, I guess you know a lot of listeners.
I'm sure I've heard you talk about it, But just
give us the thumbnail sketch of the vulnerable narcissism. What
is it? And can they really be cured? How do
people overcome that?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
There's different forms of narcissism that are associated with different
forms of entitlement. Entitlement is a thread that runs through
all forms of narcissism. That's psychologists trying to converge them.
That's the thing that's central to all forms. But when
you have grandiose narcissism, you have this grandiose based entitlement,
which is, I'm entitled to special privileges because I'm inherently
superior to others. I was born this way, I was
(09:28):
born better than others. But with vulnerable narcissism, and I
find it very fascinating. This different form of entitlement, called
vulnerable based entitlement kept cropping up, which is, I'm entitled
to special privileges because I've suffered or I'm fragile, so therefore,
you know I deserve these special privileges in a generalized way.
We're not talking about a single instance We're not talking
(09:48):
about real victimization, where you are rightly should be speaking
up and saying something was unjust or unfair. We're talking
about a personality trait. We're talking about it, or even
a generalized mindset that applies to almost everything in your life.
From waiting in Starbucks. You know, I deserve you know
this was a long line, but I deserve my drink
first because I bet I have a longer day than
(10:09):
everyone else in this line. You know that, you know
that kind of thinking, and and it kept cropping up
over and over again that this was the biggest inhibitor
to self actualization. More than anything else I had studied
in my career, more than IQ, more than more than
creativity intelligence. I found this way of thinking about your
life and the world was the biggest thing holding you
(10:31):
back in your life for reaching your goals and dreams.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Okay, so so when but when it's called vulnerable narcissism?
So narcissism is a personality disorder, right? Or is it
just like a trait on which some people try low?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Oh yeah, we published a paper, A personality Perspective on narcissism.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, okay, so okay, so let's go into the themes
of the book then because ish, well, okay, let's go
into the themes of the book. So the book starts
part one, don't be a victim, and you go through
don't be a victim to your past, your emotions, your
cogniti distortion, self esteem. So just situate us here, what
(11:09):
is the what is the problem that you're seeing out
in the world, What is the you know what? Who
are the people who you think are limiting themselves by
embracing this victimhood? And then let's talk about the different
kinds of victimhood.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah. Great, I think this is a book for everyone.
So I make very clear that that all these traits
and ways of thinking are in a continuum that are
part of being human as well. Obviously from a trait perspective,
there are some people that reliably, on average, tend to
engage in these things more. But I want all of
us to look within. And that was the biggest challenge
(11:43):
of this book. Jonathan. You don't see many self help books.
You don't see many self help books that say maybe
the problem is partly you. You don't see that, right, the
ones that sell well, or the ones that say it's
not you. You it's not you, it's your it's your
ex husband's narcissistic ex husband's fault, or it's you're it's
the Jews or whatever you like, whatever, who do we
(12:05):
want to blame? You know? Today? And and I really
want us to change our cultural consciousness away from feeling
the need to knee jerk blame a person or an
entire group of people on all your problems, and shift
our societal thinking to how are we showing up in
the world, How are we uh living by our own purpose,
(12:27):
our own values, and not be consumed by the need
for resentment, for uh, for uh hostility, for uh, for
this kind of victim mindset that I talk about.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Okay, and have you do you believe that this has
been increasing? I mean, as of course this has always
been there. There've always been people like this and doing this.
But just just do you think that either American culture
or Western culture, or just as a product of getting
wealthier and you know, societies get wealthy and more comfort focused,
(13:03):
just historically, do you think we're facing an increase in
this or is this a sort of a steady state
and you're trying to help people get over.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
So the two most popular words most searched for words
in the past couple of years have been trauma and narcissism.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
What what do you mean? That's what Narcissism is one
of the most searched for words.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yes, usually in this the context of you know this
other person, you know, why are there so many narcissists
around me? You know? Not?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Not?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
What can I do? What can I do about narcissists
in my life? You know? And and the word trauma
has has ballooned in importance and.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
In I've been seeing that everywhere.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
And the word you know, talk about concept creep, concept creep, well,
the word well, the word trauma is just now means everything.
Every So there is something in the in the zeitgeist.
There's definitely something that's like I S that is making
us more conscious of trauma. And the body keeps. The
(14:07):
score is still on the New York Times bestseller list.
So one could argue, in a nuanced fashion, as we
like to do, that that's not all, that's not entirely
a bad thing, that that it's good that we are
becoming more aware of the extent to which really challenging
(14:28):
experiences in our lives can play a role in who
we are today, and I'm a fan of certain forms
of therapy, and I think that a lot of people,
and I'm a fan of healing. So that's the one hand,
But on the other hand, something is different about what
we reward in our culture and what we promote. I
(14:53):
am desperately in this book trying to argue that we
need to think about the importance of overcoming trauma, not
just staying and talking about trauma your whole life. There's
a really much more empowering way about go about this,
I think.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Okay, so just just lay it atter us. I have
not read The Body Keeps the Square. I don't know
what that theory is, but I see references to it everywhere.
And of course nowadays, you know, I'm always looking at
how my book sales are doing and comparing it to others.
But tell us, like, so, what is the what is
the way that this this cultural movement, this new increase
to focus on trauma, trauma informed education, trauma informed counseling,
(15:38):
trauma informed everything. What is the way that they're saying
people should deal with bad things that have happened to
them more with life in general, and then contrast yours
with that.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
This this gets to the crux crux of it. And
you know, I don't want to denigrate those with trauma
informed therapy or those went through that lens because they
are a lot of them are very, very compassionate people
that really truly want to help people who have gone
through terrible things in their lives heal. But like for instance,
(16:12):
Bessel vander Kock who wrote The Body keeps the Score,
he has this way of outsourcing it all to trauma.
So everything is, you know, it's stored in the body.
The things that the assaults of the of the world
that have happened outside of us are stored in our body.
And he posits a particular type of memory that is
(16:32):
not in the brain but in the body, that remembers
these traumas. And that's not how it works. That's not
how it works. I mean, memories as we typically think
of them in the cognitove science literature can only be
in the brain. There are certainly, you know I talk
(16:52):
about survival. Stress is a real thing. Certainly, certain things
can register in our nervous system and can cause us
to be very uncomfortable and and painful, especially when similar
things arise. However, the problem with it. And this is
the question you asked me, is that it lacks a
(17:13):
lot of nuance here. It lacks it for first of all,
it ignores pre existing individual differences. It ignores the role
of genes almost completely, as though genes don't make us
who we are at all today, as though genes don't
color the way we see the world at all. Like,
for instance, if you have the genes that code for
(17:35):
the personality trait neuroticism, it's going to really fundamentally give you,
give you a different view of your life experiences than
someone who is very, very emotionally stable. And and I
say this in the spirit of honest love, you know,
I say it's in the spirit of really peering as
strongly as possible to the extent to which, yes, terrible
(17:56):
things happen to us, But what are how what are
our own mindsets and of reacting to the environment that
may be holding us back and to just in my view,
the body keeps the score is one big book of
a victim mindset about your life experiences. It's it's all
the world's fault. It's stored in your body. And you
(18:16):
just to heal, You just need to somehow make contact
with that.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Okay, let's work through the case, you know, work the
case of someone whose parents were violent towards them and
they had a terrible that some terrible things happen in
their childhood. On the adverse child experienced scale, they've had
in a number of those events happen to them. How so,
how what would they actually do if they come to
see doctor Scott Barry Kaufman, or at least if they
(18:43):
read if they read Rise Above, what exactly should they
should they do to break out of that, to to
change their thinking?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Okay, so my colleague a Columbia Georgia Banano, has has
shown that people are a lot more resilient than we
give them credit for, even under the worst kinds of circumstances.
Most people are actually resilient. And then you of you
sometimes actually dare I say, see post traumatic growth, which
is something else I bring up in the book. So
even just pointing that out changes the narrative, you know,
(19:16):
to someone they you know, going from this mindset of
it's kind of hopeless. I can't even access it, you know,
like there's not a lot cognitively I can do here.
You know, it's stored in my body. I think is disempowering.
So even just like educating people that you have a
lot more resilient to within you than you realize. And
(19:38):
then going through the various things that I go through
in my book of don't be a victim to various
things within your own self. That's the spin on this situation.
Part one. Are all the things that we don't have
to be a victim to that are happening inside ourselves.
Not blaming the outside world, but for instance, don't be
a victim to your cognitive distortions. I know this is
(19:59):
one that both of us are very interested in. And
what I mean by that is, you are a victim
to your cognitive distortions when you take those things at
face value, right at your catastrophizing you're black and white
thinking your I talk about inferring malevolent intentions on neutral stimuli.
That's a big one. That's a big one. Don't you're
a victim to it if you take all of that seriously.
(20:19):
And then I talk about don't be a victim to
your emotions. So we are a victim to our emotions
when we don't realize that we don't have to act
or believe everything that our emotions are telling us we
are allowed to create, We're allowed to do some practices
that create a bit of a distance between our emotions
and our cognitive thoughts, so we can meditate on them.
We can reflect on whether or not there is a
(20:41):
lot there is value there. How do we want to
reframe them? There is so much we can do to
not be a victim to ourselves. And that's the spin
of this book, Jonathan. I hope that makes sense. That's
the spin here because we often talk about and everyone's
so focused on pointing the finger outside themselves to uh
get rid of their uncomfortable emotions. But I think it's
I actually think it's more empowering. This is the case
(21:03):
I make in the book. I think that it's actually
more empowering to realize there's so many things you can
change with yourself. Let me read a Joan Rivers quote
that opens up the whole book. She says, Listen, I
wish I could tell you it gets better, but it
doesn't get better. You get better.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Hmm right, right. All of this reminds me, so I'm
I think you know what humanistic psychology is for you,
Stoic philosophy or stoic writings are are for me as
sort of a perspective that we come back and they're
very compatible. So as you were talking, I just looked
up some of my favorite Stowe quotations. Here's Marcus Aurelius
(21:40):
you don't have, and this is Marcus writing and meditations.
He's writing this to himself. He's like doing cognitive therapy
on himself. He doesn't think anyone's ever going to read.
This is just his notes to himself. He says, you
don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have
to upset you. Things can't shape our decisions by themselves.
And then in another book of meditations, he says, today
(22:02):
I escape from anxiety or no, I discarded it because
it was within me, in my own perceptions, not outside.
So I think what we're seeing here is is some
of the greatest human wisdom that comes down to us
from thousands of years ago, across multiple cultures, and that's
now instantiated in CBT and cognitive behavioral therapy as a
(22:23):
way to do this. So so, okay, so you've laid
out what you need to escape from. Just be more specific,
how do you actually do this? You can't, you know,
in my first book, The Happiness Hypothesis, I put forth
the metaphor the mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict.
Like a small rider is conscious reasoning on top of
a very large elephant, which is our intuitive, automatic emotional processes.
(22:48):
And you can, you know, you can lecture the rider.
The writer can say, oh, yeah, okay, I should not
blame others, I should blame I should I should look
with it. You know, you can say that, But that
doesn't change the elephant. That doesn't change the automatic processes.
And C. B. T As I understand it is a
way of practicing and catching yourself, and you correct yourself,
and you go through a process hundreds and hundreds of
times until it becomes automatic. Is that what you're advising
(23:11):
people to do? Just be very specific, how if a
person is plagued by this chronic victimhood mindset, chronically blaming others,
what exactly do they do to break free? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And I think it's also important answering that question to
distinguish the majority of this book is not for trauma survivors.
It's for people who didn't get a memo, didn't get
the memo that uncomfortable emotions is part of the price
of admission of being human. You know, we seem to
live in a society now where we expect happiness is
(23:42):
the default, and whenever that expectation is violated, we look
for something to blame, or we don't we don't accept it.
So I wanted to start off there, and so I
think that for most the majority of people who I
am trying directing this book to, you know, I talk
about the various things to refocus your attention on what's
(24:07):
good within you? What is I have a whole chapter
on find the parts of you that aren't broken. You know,
so much of traumba and form therapy, you keep talking
over and over again about how you're broken or what's
broken inside you and your childhood, and you keep ruminating,
And I would argue that's not productive rumination. There's also
it's possible to you know, just even take the free
(24:30):
Character Strength Survey, find out what are your top character strengths.
Try to see how you can try to deal with
your your past in a way where you're bringing your
strengths to bear. You're bringing your Maybe humor is your thing,
you know, so you use your humor as a way
to help you cope or your creativity and how can
(24:50):
you put that into your work, so finding the light
within yourself. I also talk about creating a gratefulness orientation
in your life. Really could to a grateful orientation towards
everything in your life, not cursing all the bad things
that happened to you, and having gratitude only for the
good things. But in along the for the root of
(25:11):
post traumatic growth, really being able to be grateful for
everything that comes your way. What is it here that
I'm going to learn from the situation? How do I
how could I grow from this? So that that's another thing.
And then I do have very specific techniques for your
emotions for for not being a victim to your emotions.
(25:33):
That's a big part of our emotional life often. I mean,
you're right, your theory is right, John, your theory is right.
Our emotional life is usually controlling us. It's not like, yeah,
you our reasoning and we don't. But it doesn't have
to be that way. I think the research does show
that we can train our elephants a bit processes. Yeah,
(26:00):
we can train it. It's not helpless. It's not helpless
just because it's hidden. We can really read, you know,
through habits of mind and habits of behaving. We cannot
let it rule us. I have an example in my book,
and I talk personally in this book because I am
not above any of this. I have gone through such
(26:22):
a journey as a very highly anxious human being overcoming
a lot of my fears, and I talk and share
some of the techniques that have really transformed my life.
You know, I used to be terribly, terribly scared of flying.
It was a great fear of mine. And then when
my book und Gifted came out and I had to
(26:44):
go in the talk circuit and had to suddenly fly
here and there and everywhere. You know, what was I
going to do? You know, be a victim to my
fears and not grow and be the person who I
want to be.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
No.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I tried everything I possibly could to get to to
really be able to deal with it. And I did
an eight week MBSR course Mindfulness Stress Based Reduction course
that John Cabins and teaches. I took it at Penn
with Michael Beam, and it was really really valuable. I
learned a lot of techniques to deal with with my
(27:20):
anxieties and my over catastrophizing because I realized it was
mindful of that cognitivestortion. I'm a big fan of mindful
cognitive behavioral therapy Seth Guilahean I would direct people to
and a lot of his work on being mindful.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Seth is great. I studied with Aaron Becky, I signed
I signed some of his work in my Flourishing classes
part of Flourishing. Okay, So, Scott, you've told us a
great story about about your own overcoming. Can you tell
us any stories about people who who basically found these techniques,
people really were able to break out of this mindset
on their own. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I was really inspired by brothers Ali and Ottmann Smith
along with their colleague Andrea's Gonzalez. They wrote the book
What Your Light Shine, How Mindfulness can empower children and
rebuild communities. And I really like their approach. It really
encapsulates a lot of what I talk about in my
book because they go into really underserved communities. They go
into a lot of communities where there really isn't a
(28:17):
lot of hope in these children. These children have maybe
there's it's very gang laden or very poor neighborhoods, and
they go in and they teach yoga and mindfulness, and
they have a lot of stories as they told me,
about how they see a shift in a victim mindset
(28:38):
that these kids have to really having greater hope for
their future and just having someone come in who just
believes in them is also a really big deal to
these kids because you can stay focused so much on
what you don't have, but being able to kind of
get a focus on, you know, what you still can
(29:00):
contribute to this world despite the really difficult situations. I
think this was really really inspirational to me because I
want to make it clear this book is not just
for the quote privileged, right, this quote is for everyone.
I really believe that. Of course people have different life
circumstances and people are coming from different places. But regardless
(29:23):
of that, I think we as teachers, as coaches, as
parents need to still be on the lookout for the higher,
the higher potential of everyone.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
M Right, as someone was well, actually yes, as someone
was with you, as that teacher was with you your
turning point, turning point in your life. Right. So let's
I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about
social media? What role do you think what role do
you think? You know? Because you know Facebook. So modern
(29:52):
social media comes out around two thousand and three with
Facebook and MySpace and friends there, and at first it's
all just like, you know, here's my page, here's your page. Here,
photos of my trip, here, photos of your trip. And
then it changes once you get the newsfeed and you
get the algorithms driving This all begins two thousand and
nine to twenty eleven. If social media really changes becomes
(30:14):
much more well, all the stuff that I that I
write about in the Anxious Generation, it all begins the
early twenty tens. So that's where I'm coming from on
this question. What role does social media play in changing
the way the way people think?
Speaker 1 (30:30):
A big one. I think that the reward structure of
social media has caused people to think they need to
have a victim mindset in order to get likes, in
order to be promoted. First all I want to say,
I really appreciate your work on this, and it's extremely important,
and your book was a bestseller for a reason. It's
really it really strikes a nerve right among a lot
(30:54):
of parents and people who want better for young people.
In answering that question, I interviewed quite a lot of people,
and one person I thought. Who gave me some really
insightful information on this was Susan David. It researched her
studies emotions. She hasn't she gave She gave me a formula,
and I want to see what you think of this.
(31:14):
The reason why I think she a reason why she
thinks social media is really bringing out the worst in us,
especially a victim mindset, she said, pathologizing of normal human experience.
The rapidity with which we label things as quote trauma,
plus the addictive qualities of social media plus co rumination
(31:35):
plus social contagion equals disastrous effects.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Wow, that is a good list. I love it. I
love it because right I've certainly I've written about co
rumination back in the calling the American Mind, and then
emotional contagion. Just when you hook people up sharing sharing
emotional interpretations of things, we influence each other. So that
is that is a good list. So sort of like
whatever whatever these problems were before the great we Wire
(32:03):
in the period when everyone goes is online a lot
run early twenty ten, saying whatever was the process before
that is just sort of supercharged by those four or
five different processes. Could just say the list again, let's
just make sure we all get.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
It absolutely pathologizing of normal human experience, and in parentheses
that she's referring to the rapidity with which we label
things that we're quick to label uncomfortable experiences as trauma.
Plus the addictive qualities of social media plus co rumination
plus social contagion equals disastrous effects. A big part of
(32:40):
this as I see it, and I want to know
what you think. I want to just have a conversation
with you about this. You know, it's no shocker that
teenagers go through an identity crisis. This has happened since
the dawn of teenagers, So it's not like this generation
they having an identity crisis. Every generation, around age fourteen
(33:01):
to seventeen, or maybe eleven to seventeen, you go through
identity crisis. But it seems like social media is changing
the way that people feel the need to create an identity,
a victimhood identity. Now it feels like there's peer pressure
among young people to create or to express a victimhood identity,
(33:26):
not to express I've overcome this, I've overcome that. Look
at me, I've you know, I'm successful. It's almost like
that's denigrated. What gets you the likes is you create whatever,
Maybe it's the maybe it's some label that you say
you have. And a lot of people legitimately already you know,
(33:47):
have been diagnosed with these things, so I'm not saying that,
but a lot haven't. Let's be honest, a lot haven't
been formally diagnosed. And they there's a peer pressure to
belong by fitting in with a group, and so you
desperately try to see what victimhood group can I fit
in with amongst my peers. Do you agree or disagree
with that?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Well? I do, but let me just put let me
just reinterpret it just a little bit. So when I
was writing The Answers Generation, I read there's a really
great textbook on adolescence from Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at
Temple University, and Steinberg says that that adolescence is not
necessarily a difficult or what's the word. It's not necessarily,
(34:33):
you know, a difficult or traumatic time, but it is
a time when stress and difficult experiences will have a
bigger impact on both your brain development because the neurons
are sort of rewiring much more quickly during adolescence and
your identity development. So so many people make it through
(34:56):
adolescents without any identity crisis, without any of this, you know,
the whirlwind of emotions. I mean, it's a time of
there's always more emotion, but it's not necessarily a difficult time,
but it is a time when the sense of identity
is forming. You don't have a story about yourself when
you're seven or eight, but by the time you're eighteen
or twenty, you often have some sort of implicit or
(35:17):
intuitive stories. That's why I picked up from some some
earlier work that I read long ago, and so now
let's look at the need for an identity. So I'm
kind of a I sort of you know, read all
the social sciences to try to put them all together
to understand originally morality in now mental health, and identity
(35:39):
in you know, an anthropology. It's a big concept in
anthropology and sociology. Your identity is not something that you
you make up or invent yourself. It's not up to you.
So if you're you know, if you're in a traditional society,
if you're born into the blacksmith guild or you know,
lineage that you become a blacksmith. If you are now
(36:00):
you're going to be a mother, in some cultures, you know,
or a career person, depending on the culture. So your
identity is ascribed to you by your community, and that's
the way people will treat you. And so it's kind
of like saying, you know language, like you know, I
make up my language, you make up your language. We
each have to make up our own language. No, No,
(36:22):
that's not the way it works. Identity is something that
is ascribed to you by others. So that's at least
I think the more traditional way, that's the more common
way in human history that identities are conferred by you know,
your religion. It could be by your race, your gender,
all these things will situate you somewhere. And what happened,
I believe during the Great Rewiring, so this is twenty
(36:44):
ten to twenty fifteen. What happened I think was before then.
Teens used you know, they were on Facebook early on,
but it's and you're putting forward. You are beginning to
put forward a vision if your fun loving, or you're sexy,
or you're serious or whatever it is. But once you
get the sort of the super viral social media with
people commenting on each other's posts and people spending a
(37:05):
lot more time now as I see it, teenagers are
pushed into into working full time as brand managers, and
the brand that they're managing is their own brand, which
is the terrible thing to do to a t well
year own So so, so what I'm saying is I
basically agree with you that there's been this big increase
(37:27):
in the degree to which young people have to do
this job that they're not ready for. It's incompatible with
the fun and joy and learning of childhood to be
a brand manager where at any moment there could be
a brand crisis. You know, you know, someone you know
made a bad report about our product. There was a
post on us social media criticizing me. You know, better
have a team meeting and how do we defend the brand?
(37:52):
So I do think that identity is part of it here,
and in some subcultures there would be it would be
advantage just to claim more victimhood, and others it wouldn't.
So I wouldn't say it's a universal thing that kids
are pressured to be victims because of social media, but
I think there are some some circles in which it
would And so, yeah, so that's where we would especially
(38:16):
find I believe higher levels of depression, anxiety, and insecurity.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
We're definitely yeah, thank you so much for that. This
is that's very exciting, Nuance. I love learning about that.
We definitely see a trend on TikTok, for instance, for
everyone to be neurodivergent. So, for instance, neudivergency has is
so hot on TikTok and amongst young people. And for
someone who's a big advocate of the nerd diversity movement,
(38:48):
at first, I'm like, oh, that's great, you know, but
then I started to look into it, and there's so
much misinformation. This is what really bothers me, John, so
much misinformation about different forms of nerd vergency. Everyone's a scientist,
now everyone knows here are the five traits of ADHD.
And a scientific analysis was done on TikTok of of
(39:10):
these kinds of videos and they found that something like
eighty percent had incorrect, erroneous information, and and so that
really bothers me and and people feeling the need to
pick something so that they're special, you know in some way,
you know, as opposed to well, you know, what what
(39:32):
do you bringing to the table that you know that
to really you know, uh, to make the world a
better place. To uh, you know, what are your strengths,
leading with your strengths, your character, you know, not not
just the leading and feeling. The only way to be
special is by by picking some sort of disability you
have or something that's wrong in your environment.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah, that's an important point about TikTok and social media
that you know that at first you might think, well,
this is great, like, of course they should. Everybody should
be able to find support groups. Of course, people should
feel you know, valued and not not ashamed of whatever
whatever is going on with them, or certainly whatever mental
(40:13):
traits or certain mental illnesses they have. And so and
so I agree that it's a good thing that mental
illness in particularly has been destigmatized. When I was a
kid in the seventies, late seventies, my mom sent me
to a couple of different psychologists, and psychiatrists had a
variety of like nervous ticks and habits, and so she
thought this was you know, back in the age of
(40:33):
like Freud. She grew up in that sort of predian
not that she was around in the nineteen tens, but
you know, I'm saying in the nineteen fifties sixties, it
was a very Freudian age, and that was very shameful.
I mean I was really embarrassed to admit that to
anybody else. And so there was a stigma on anything
about mental health, mental illness, certainly in the seventies and eighties,
(40:54):
and then it really begins to drop in the eighties
and nineties and into the twenty first it really drops.
And so agmatization is a good thing. And some people
have argued against me that all those graphs I show
of rising levels of depression anxiety, that's just decimatization. That's
just gen Z is perfectly comfortable talking about it. You know,
(41:15):
social media's freed them up. They're not embarrassed about it.
That's a good thing. Well, we want we don't want
people to feel stigmatized, but we also don't want to
valorize mental illness. We just have a post today on
my substack after babbel dot com from Christina Laerman at
USC on how social media pushes girls into eating disorders
(41:35):
by valorizing being bone thin. I'm just horrible. Horrible images
are all you can find easily on Twitter. There's very
little content moderation on Twitter, So if you just look
for a thin spo or bone spo well, you know,
bone thin inspiration, horrific videos praising and encouraging and giving
(41:57):
girls confidence to go further, further, further into intererrect This
is really really bad, especially for adolescent girls who are
the most open, as it were, to sort of interpersonal influence.
Girls a little more than boys. Girls a little more
emotionally open and receptive. Boys are a little bit more clueless,
a little bit not as much affected by each other's emotions.
(42:19):
So yes, I think we're on the same page here
that social media in its once it became super viral,
it put a lot of kids into communities that would
then encourage this kind of victim mindset, valorizing of are
what are considered to be mental illnesses, except that they
(42:40):
interfere with the ability to love and to work. So
you know, that's so that's why I've been a big
fan of raising the age of social media to sixteen
and just recognizing social medisa just not appropriate for kids.
So any any further thoughts from you on on social media,
so I could talk all day about what it's doing
to kids.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
This is a great nuance. This is a really great
nuance because there is a one hand and on the
other hand, here and I have a whole chapter in
sensitivity which which talks about on the one hand, on
the other hand, so for instance, we do want to
celebrate some of the strengths of being a highly sensitive person.
That's that's a phrase that you see a lot, and
there is research on that. But you don't want to
(43:20):
have a victim mindset you. You don't want any of
these traits to become the totality of who you are
in a way that limits you from a full range
of expression in your life. And that's a point I
want to make here so that you can see that
on social media, where you've come so consumed about this
part of you that it's all all you are and
you can't even see the world in a different way.
(43:41):
You know, I argue that, you know, I think I
have a highly sensitive person temperament, but I have learned
throughout my life the ways in which it holds me back.
By saying I'm a highly sensitive person at all times,
sometimes I don't want to be the highly sensitive person.
Do we allow anyone the freedom anymore to have a
flexible identity or a flexible dare I say ideology? Like
(44:03):
we don't allow that in our society.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Mm. And this is helping me see that certain certain
things that might be in DSM and the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual, like anorexia. I don't think there's any strength there.
I think that's it's a dangerous disease. It's a mental illness.
Nobody would want their child to have anorexia. And but
(44:29):
there are but there are some things and I guess
you're suggesting like being neurodivergent or being a sensitive person.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
So ADHD is, for example, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
That's right, that's right. So tell me how you think
about that, because I like I was going to say, well,
it is a mental illness, but I think you're saying
it might cause problems for in some ways, but it
gives you strengths and and open things up. So tell
me about how you think about ADHD.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Yes, I just wrote an article ADHD is not a
trauma response because the predominant narrative from like ab or
mate friends and says that ADHD is a result of
your parents not hugging you enough when you were a kid,
like ignoring the genetic component. I argue that ADHD it's
(45:11):
best thought of just like any other personality source of variation,
a mix of nature and nurture, and it's an extreme trait.
It's it's extreme constellation of heterogeneic heterogeneity. There's so much
heterogeneity there, so you have maybe it's impulsivity, Maybe it
could be cognitive control issues, maybe it could be risk taking.
(45:36):
Just because you have one of these behaviors doesn't mean
you're gonna have all the other behaviors. So that's a
big mess with these kind of diagnoses. So I really
like this high top approach. I don't know if you've
heard of the high top approach to psychopathology where they're
arguing the DSM, we need to move away from the
DSM that you either have the disorder or you don't
have the disorder and think of all these things. There's
traits that lie in a continuum in the general population
(45:59):
and then a result of just like any other personality trait,
a mix of nature and nurture. It's not all trauma.
You can't blame it all in trauma. You can't blame
it all in your genes either. I mean, it's important
to view these things with that level of care. And
it can be a superpower in certain context, and it
can be a disorder. It can absolutely be it can
(46:19):
be a disorder, but it's not always a disorder, and
it's not always a superpower.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
It's almost like I'm the centrist of psychopathology talk, right,
I'm just trying to be reasonable about this stuff. But
everyone so talks about everything in such extreme terms these days,
including disorders.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Right, once we moralize things, we lose the where it
damage our ability to really understand what's going on. So
for listeners who are considering the book, just tell them
something that you think they'll get from the book, some
way in which you think they'll enjoy or benefit from
reading the book.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Thank you, John. So, this book is for anyone who's
ready in their journey to rise above. You know, there
there's a spirit in me that I've always had since
I was that little kid of like like let's go,
let's let's not be a passive victim to life. Let's
take control of our lives and and wean into our
(47:17):
own values and purpose. And for those that are ready
in their their self actualization journey to do that, I
think you'll really get a lot out of this book.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
That's beautiful, all right. I will just end with here's
the here's the blurb that I sent in a few
months ago for the book. I don't know if it's
a on the printed on the printed edition, but here's
what I said. Okay, good. Scott Barry Kaufman has made
so many contributions to research on creativity, positive psychology, and
the science of flourishing and rise above. Kaufman draws on
(47:50):
ancient wisdom and modern psychology to address some of the
disempowering ideas and mindsets circulating widely in recent decades. Kaufman
shows us all how to stay, end up and walk
through the many doors that are always available. So, Scott
Barry Kaufman, while I've never really been a podcast interviewer,
I've always been on the other side of the mic.
But this is fine, you're talking to you. It's oh,
(48:12):
thank you. It's a great book. I head listeners to
check it out.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
M
Well, the word trauma is just now means everything every
in so there is something in the in the zeitgeist.
There's definitely something in the zeitgeist that is making us
more conscious of trauma. And and and the body keeps
the score is still on the New York Times bestseller list.
So one could argue, in a nuanced fashion, as we
(00:24):
like to do, that that's not all, that's not entirely
a bad thing, that that it's good that we are
becoming more aware of the extent to which really challenging
experiences in our lives can play a role in who
we are today. Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast.
(00:49):
Today the table is turned and I am interviewed by
my friend and colleague, doctor Jonathan White about my new
book Rise Above Overcome a victim mindset, Empower yourself and
realize your full potential. Does life feel smaller than it
used to? Does it seem that the people around you
have taken a step back from doing hard things, preferring
to stay in their comfort zone. In the era of
(01:11):
Tiktakis therapy, it's tempting to see ourselves as damaged and powerless,
defined by our past traumas our emotions and the struggles
we face. But it's more important than ever to rise
above the limiting beliefs and widespread anxiety that puts us
in boxes, lowers our expectations, and holds us back. In
my new book, which was just released yesterday, April twenty second,
(01:33):
I unpact the dangerous myths and misleading buzzwords swirling around
the public imagination, revealing the truth about managing our emotions,
the double edged sword of self esteem, the surprising gifts
of sensitivity, and ultimately, the power each of us has
to overcome challenges and to shape the course of our
own lives. In this episode, we discuss actionable solutions to
(01:55):
own your life and reach your full potential. So, without
further ado, bring you myself. Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Okay, Scott Barry Kaufman, also known as Okay, how are you?
And where are you?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I'm good, Jonathan, I'm good. I'm the last lap here
in California, in Los Angeles. I'm moving to New York,
going to be teaching full time.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yes, how exciting. Let's hope Columbia is still there when
you arrive.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
That boy, your mouth to God's ears. Crazy times We're
living in very crazy times, and I think the best
we can do is show up according to our values.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
You know, that's right, That's right. How are you dealing
with it? Do you? What's your attitude towards all of
the craziness and insanity hitting the country and higher ed.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
You know, I think it is very much in line
with what I just said about showing it. Just the
best you can do is show up and like decide
how do you want to show up in this world?
You know, like get very clear on that. I like
to lead with a term I use in my new book,
Rise Above, which thank you for interviewing me today about.
There's a term I use called honest love. I had
(03:05):
felt as though two extremes have not really sit well
with my own way of being and my own presence.
On the one end, you see a lot of coddling.
I think you know you've written something about that as
an understatement. Yeah, yeah, and in that and I don't
the coddling way of dealing with the world doesn't seem
to uh didn't resonate with me. But then the other extreme,
(03:26):
that pull yourself up by the boots by the bootstraps mentality,
that ignores contact that ignores individual differences. That didn't really
suit me either, So I propose a new term which
just suits is what I feel like is resonates with
the way I the tone I wanted to set for
this book, and and also how I try to show
(03:47):
up in the world. Honest love and honest has two parts.
The love part is acknowledging the real felt experience of
someone else, you know, acknowledging where they're at. But the
that's the love part. But I don't want to stop there.
I need I need to be honest or how I
go crazy. The honest part is talking honestly and openly
(04:09):
about what is as a roote to what could be.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Well, Scott, I think that's beautiful the way you put that,
because it's interesting you and I we come from sort
of different perspectives, we come to a commonplace. A quote
that I keep close by is from Joseph Campbell. He says,
participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot
cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to
live in joy. The warriors approach is to say yes
(04:33):
to life, yea to it all, And so a similar
sort of attitude of you know, however, crazy things get,
that's just the world, and we shouldn't go along with
I shouldn't let it sweep us away. We should take control.
We should have an empowered mindset. I say, what's they
you Scott? Okay? And this turns us to your to
your book that Rise Above. So that's yeah. Yeah. I
(04:57):
was gonna say I should have'b blazed it on my forehead,
but then I would be able to do it backward.
Yeah tattoo m Yeah. So okay. So let's so let's
talk about your your your wonderful new book Rise Above.
Overcome a victim mindset, empower yourself and realize your full potential.
So let's start at the beginning here. You and I
(05:18):
first met when I think as you were post talk
or you were were you were you were studying creativity
and you were hosting YEA and you were hosting a
session with like me and Marty Seligman a few others
on like on creativity. This was like back, it's just
like two thousand. I don't even remember when you don't.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Feel like lifego no, no, fifteen, It wasn't that long ago.
Twenty sixteen, fifteen fourteen, maybe maybe fourteen fifteen, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Okay, twenty fifteen, fourteen, yeah, yeah, So how do you
how do you get from just telling you know, just
how do you get from being, you know, an expert
on creativity and intelligence? You also writing intelligence? How do
you get from that to the current book?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
So I've always been and it's a very fair and
good question. I've always been interested in human potential more broadly,
you know, what does it take to to reach your
goals in life? What does it take to self actualize?
To to you, I've always been a big daydreamer and
and and so that's been a thread running through my
whole life, even as a kid when the school system
(06:20):
didn't really have high expectations of me because I had
some warning disabilities that I have overcome at this point.
But I always just really pondered these kinds of questions.
Was it take to kind of overcome our circumstances? And
a lot of ways, I feel like everything led up
to this book. So I'll explain that this book is
like I felt like it was fate fates, you know,
(06:41):
when I was in as my I tell my personal
story in this book. But long story short, there was
this moment. I was kept in special education till ninth
grade to high school, and there was this moment where
this teacher took me aside, who had never seen me before,
this special ed teacher, and she said, you know, what
are you What are you still doing here? And I realized,
is that that's just that one question. It just empowered
(07:04):
me to I thought of my head, Yeah, what am
I doing here? And it just really a surge went
through me. And I also had this realization in that moment,
and it became so crystal clear to me that no
one is coming to save me, you know that that
if I want to demonstrate my potential to the school system,
to the world, you know, I had to do it myself.
(07:26):
And I took myself out of special education, and I
became the first kid in my school system for the
special ed kid himself took himself out, and I said,
I want to I want to see what I'm capable of.
And so a lot of the roots were there, Jonathan,
you know, and I thought when I started my career,
I thought that the way to study human intentional was
through studying intelligence and changing the way that we measure
(07:48):
intelligence in our school system, and that only took me
so far, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Oh how interesting In other words, in other words, sort
of over focus on or narrow conceptualization of intelligence was
part of what was holding you back. And then in
the current book, you're going beyond that. You're looking at
a certain mindset, a certain way of thinking about the
world is what's holding a lot of people back, and
you're trying to help people break out.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
You nailed it. And then there was the creativity phase
of my life too. I thought that was the thing
to unlock human potential, was the human imagination. I still
think it's a big I still think all these things
are important, you know, how we measure intelligence, how we
use our imagination to think of a better future. But
there was some research I was conducting over the past
ten years that just kept I kept being striking data
(08:36):
and I just I didn't think that it was the
main part of my research, but it got so so
much data on it that I just couldn't ignore it anymore.
And that's the research I did on vulnerable narcissism. And yeah,
so that's the link into all this. That's the link
into all this.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Okay, that's the missing link here.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, that's the missing bunch, just explain.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I mean, I guess you know a lot of listeners.
I'm sure I've heard you talk about it, But just
give us the thumbnail sketch of the vulnerable narcissism. What
is it? And can they really be cured? How do
people overcome that?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
There's different forms of narcissism that are associated with different
forms of entitlement. Entitlement is a thread that runs through
all forms of narcissism. That's psychologists trying to converge them.
That's the thing that's central to all forms. But when
you have grandiose narcissism, you have this grandiose based entitlement,
which is, I'm entitled to special privileges because I'm inherently
superior to others. I was born this way, I was
(09:28):
born better than others. But with vulnerable narcissism, and I
find it very fascinating. This different form of entitlement, called
vulnerable based entitlement kept cropping up, which is, I'm entitled
to special privileges because I've suffered or I'm fragile, so therefore,
you know I deserve these special privileges in a generalized way.
We're not talking about a single instance We're not talking
(09:48):
about real victimization, where you are rightly should be speaking
up and saying something was unjust or unfair. We're talking
about a personality trait. We're talking about it, or even
a generalized mindset that applies to almost everything in your life.
From waiting in Starbucks. You know, I deserve you know
this was a long line, but I deserve my drink
first because I bet I have a longer day than
(10:09):
everyone else in this line. You know that, you know
that kind of thinking, and and it kept cropping up
over and over again that this was the biggest inhibitor
to self actualization. More than anything else I had studied
in my career, more than IQ, more than more than
creativity intelligence. I found this way of thinking about your
life and the world was the biggest thing holding you
(10:31):
back in your life for reaching your goals and dreams.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Okay, so so when but when it's called vulnerable narcissism?
So narcissism is a personality disorder, right? Or is it
just like a trait on which some people try low?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Oh yeah, we published a paper, A personality Perspective on narcissism.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, okay, so okay, so let's go into the themes
of the book then because ish, well, okay, let's go
into the themes of the book. So the book starts
part one, don't be a victim, and you go through
don't be a victim to your past, your emotions, your
cogniti distortion, self esteem. So just situate us here, what
(11:09):
is the what is the problem that you're seeing out
in the world, What is the you know what? Who
are the people who you think are limiting themselves by
embracing this victimhood? And then let's talk about the different
kinds of victimhood.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah. Great, I think this is a book for everyone.
So I make very clear that that all these traits
and ways of thinking are in a continuum that are
part of being human as well. Obviously from a trait perspective,
there are some people that reliably, on average, tend to
engage in these things more. But I want all of
us to look within. And that was the biggest challenge
(11:43):
of this book. Jonathan. You don't see many self help books.
You don't see many self help books that say maybe
the problem is partly you. You don't see that, right, the
ones that sell well, or the ones that say it's
not you. You it's not you, it's your it's your
ex husband's narcissistic ex husband's fault, or it's you're it's
the Jews or whatever you like, whatever, who do we
(12:05):
want to blame? You know? Today? And and I really
want us to change our cultural consciousness away from feeling
the need to knee jerk blame a person or an
entire group of people on all your problems, and shift
our societal thinking to how are we showing up in
the world, How are we uh living by our own purpose,
(12:27):
our own values, and not be consumed by the need
for resentment, for uh, for uh hostility, for uh, for
this kind of victim mindset that I talk about.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Okay, and have you do you believe that this has
been increasing? I mean, as of course this has always
been there. There've always been people like this and doing this.
But just just do you think that either American culture
or Western culture, or just as a product of getting
wealthier and you know, societies get wealthy and more comfort focused,
(13:03):
just historically, do you think we're facing an increase in
this or is this a sort of a steady state
and you're trying to help people get over.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
So the two most popular words most searched for words
in the past couple of years have been trauma and narcissism.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
What what do you mean? That's what Narcissism is one
of the most searched for words.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yes, usually in this the context of you know this
other person, you know, why are there so many narcissists
around me? You know? Not?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Not?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
What can I do? What can I do about narcissists
in my life? You know? And and the word trauma
has has ballooned in importance and.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
In I've been seeing that everywhere.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
And the word you know, talk about concept creep, concept creep, well,
the word well, the word trauma is just now means everything.
Every So there is something in the in the zeitgeist.
There's definitely something that's like I S that is making
us more conscious of trauma. And the body keeps. The
(14:07):
score is still on the New York Times bestseller list.
So one could argue, in a nuanced fashion, as we
like to do, that that's not all, that's not entirely
a bad thing, that that it's good that we are
becoming more aware of the extent to which really challenging
(14:28):
experiences in our lives can play a role in who
we are today, and I'm a fan of certain forms
of therapy, and I think that a lot of people,
and I'm a fan of healing. So that's the one hand,
But on the other hand, something is different about what
we reward in our culture and what we promote. I
(14:53):
am desperately in this book trying to argue that we
need to think about the importance of overcoming trauma, not
just staying and talking about trauma your whole life. There's
a really much more empowering way about go about this,
I think.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Okay, so just just lay it atter us. I have
not read The Body Keeps the Square. I don't know
what that theory is, but I see references to it everywhere.
And of course nowadays, you know, I'm always looking at
how my book sales are doing and comparing it to others.
But tell us, like, so, what is the what is
the way that this this cultural movement, this new increase
to focus on trauma, trauma informed education, trauma informed counseling,
(15:38):
trauma informed everything. What is the way that they're saying
people should deal with bad things that have happened to
them more with life in general, and then contrast yours
with that.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
This this gets to the crux crux of it. And
you know, I don't want to denigrate those with trauma
informed therapy or those went through that lens because they
are a lot of them are very, very compassionate people
that really truly want to help people who have gone
through terrible things in their lives heal. But like for instance,
(16:12):
Bessel vander Kock who wrote The Body keeps the Score,
he has this way of outsourcing it all to trauma.
So everything is, you know, it's stored in the body.
The things that the assaults of the of the world
that have happened outside of us are stored in our body.
And he posits a particular type of memory that is
(16:32):
not in the brain but in the body, that remembers
these traumas. And that's not how it works. That's not
how it works. I mean, memories as we typically think
of them in the cognitove science literature can only be
in the brain. There are certainly, you know I talk
(16:52):
about survival. Stress is a real thing. Certainly, certain things
can register in our nervous system and can cause us
to be very uncomfortable and and painful, especially when similar
things arise. However, the problem with it. And this is
the question you asked me, is that it lacks a
(17:13):
lot of nuance here. It lacks it for first of all,
it ignores pre existing individual differences. It ignores the role
of genes almost completely, as though genes don't make us
who we are at all today, as though genes don't
color the way we see the world at all. Like,
for instance, if you have the genes that code for
(17:35):
the personality trait neuroticism, it's going to really fundamentally give you,
give you a different view of your life experiences than
someone who is very, very emotionally stable. And and I
say this in the spirit of honest love, you know,
I say it's in the spirit of really peering as
strongly as possible to the extent to which, yes, terrible
(17:56):
things happen to us, But what are how what are
our own mindsets and of reacting to the environment that
may be holding us back and to just in my view,
the body keeps the score is one big book of
a victim mindset about your life experiences. It's it's all
the world's fault. It's stored in your body. And you
(18:16):
just to heal, You just need to somehow make contact
with that.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Okay, let's work through the case, you know, work the
case of someone whose parents were violent towards them and
they had a terrible that some terrible things happen in
their childhood. On the adverse child experienced scale, they've had
in a number of those events happen to them. How so,
how what would they actually do if they come to
see doctor Scott Barry Kaufman, or at least if they
(18:43):
read if they read Rise Above, what exactly should they
should they do to break out of that, to to
change their thinking?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Okay, so my colleague a Columbia Georgia Banano, has has
shown that people are a lot more resilient than we
give them credit for, even under the worst kinds of circumstances.
Most people are actually resilient. And then you of you
sometimes actually dare I say, see post traumatic growth, which
is something else I bring up in the book. So
even just pointing that out changes the narrative, you know,
(19:16):
to someone they you know, going from this mindset of
it's kind of hopeless. I can't even access it, you know,
like there's not a lot cognitively I can do here.
You know, it's stored in my body. I think is disempowering.
So even just like educating people that you have a
lot more resilient to within you than you realize. And
(19:38):
then going through the various things that I go through
in my book of don't be a victim to various
things within your own self. That's the spin on this situation.
Part one. Are all the things that we don't have
to be a victim to that are happening inside ourselves.
Not blaming the outside world, but for instance, don't be
a victim to your cognitive distortions. I know this is
(19:59):
one that both of us are very interested in. And
what I mean by that is, you are a victim
to your cognitive distortions when you take those things at
face value, right at your catastrophizing you're black and white
thinking your I talk about inferring malevolent intentions on neutral stimuli.
That's a big one. That's a big one. Don't you're
a victim to it if you take all of that seriously.
(20:19):
And then I talk about don't be a victim to
your emotions. So we are a victim to our emotions
when we don't realize that we don't have to act
or believe everything that our emotions are telling us we
are allowed to create, We're allowed to do some practices
that create a bit of a distance between our emotions
and our cognitive thoughts, so we can meditate on them.
We can reflect on whether or not there is a
(20:41):
lot there is value there. How do we want to
reframe them? There is so much we can do to
not be a victim to ourselves. And that's the spin
of this book, Jonathan. I hope that makes sense. That's
the spin here because we often talk about and everyone's
so focused on pointing the finger outside themselves to uh
get rid of their uncomfortable emotions. But I think it's
I actually think it's more empowering. This is the case
(21:03):
I make in the book. I think that it's actually
more empowering to realize there's so many things you can
change with yourself. Let me read a Joan Rivers quote
that opens up the whole book. She says, Listen, I
wish I could tell you it gets better, but it
doesn't get better. You get better.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Hmm right, right. All of this reminds me, so I'm
I think you know what humanistic psychology is for you,
Stoic philosophy or stoic writings are are for me as
sort of a perspective that we come back and they're
very compatible. So as you were talking, I just looked
up some of my favorite Stowe quotations. Here's Marcus Aurelius
(21:40):
you don't have, and this is Marcus writing and meditations.
He's writing this to himself. He's like doing cognitive therapy
on himself. He doesn't think anyone's ever going to read.
This is just his notes to himself. He says, you
don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have
to upset you. Things can't shape our decisions by themselves.
And then in another book of meditations, he says, today
(22:02):
I escape from anxiety or no, I discarded it because
it was within me, in my own perceptions, not outside.
So I think what we're seeing here is is some
of the greatest human wisdom that comes down to us
from thousands of years ago, across multiple cultures, and that's
now instantiated in CBT and cognitive behavioral therapy as a
(22:23):
way to do this. So so, okay, so you've laid
out what you need to escape from. Just be more specific,
how do you actually do this? You can't, you know,
in my first book, The Happiness Hypothesis, I put forth
the metaphor the mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict.
Like a small rider is conscious reasoning on top of
a very large elephant, which is our intuitive, automatic emotional processes.
(22:48):
And you can, you know, you can lecture the rider.
The writer can say, oh, yeah, okay, I should not
blame others, I should blame I should I should look
with it. You know, you can say that, But that
doesn't change the elephant. That doesn't change the automatic processes.
And C. B. T As I understand it is a
way of practicing and catching yourself, and you correct yourself,
and you go through a process hundreds and hundreds of
times until it becomes automatic. Is that what you're advising
(23:11):
people to do? Just be very specific, how if a
person is plagued by this chronic victimhood mindset, chronically blaming others,
what exactly do they do to break free? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And I think it's also important answering that question to
distinguish the majority of this book is not for trauma survivors.
It's for people who didn't get a memo, didn't get
the memo that uncomfortable emotions is part of the price
of admission of being human. You know, we seem to
live in a society now where we expect happiness is
(23:42):
the default, and whenever that expectation is violated, we look
for something to blame, or we don't we don't accept it.
So I wanted to start off there, and so I
think that for most the majority of people who I
am trying directing this book to, you know, I talk
about the various things to refocus your attention on what's
(24:07):
good within you? What is I have a whole chapter
on find the parts of you that aren't broken. You know,
so much of traumba and form therapy, you keep talking
over and over again about how you're broken or what's
broken inside you and your childhood, and you keep ruminating,
And I would argue that's not productive rumination. There's also
it's possible to you know, just even take the free
(24:30):
Character Strength Survey, find out what are your top character strengths.
Try to see how you can try to deal with
your your past in a way where you're bringing your
strengths to bear. You're bringing your Maybe humor is your thing,
you know, so you use your humor as a way
to help you cope or your creativity and how can
(24:50):
you put that into your work, so finding the light
within yourself. I also talk about creating a gratefulness orientation
in your life. Really could to a grateful orientation towards
everything in your life, not cursing all the bad things
that happened to you, and having gratitude only for the
good things. But in along the for the root of
(25:11):
post traumatic growth, really being able to be grateful for
everything that comes your way. What is it here that
I'm going to learn from the situation? How do I
how could I grow from this? So that that's another thing.
And then I do have very specific techniques for your
emotions for for not being a victim to your emotions.
(25:33):
That's a big part of our emotional life often. I mean,
you're right, your theory is right, John, your theory is right.
Our emotional life is usually controlling us. It's not like, yeah,
you our reasoning and we don't. But it doesn't have
to be that way. I think the research does show
that we can train our elephants a bit processes. Yeah,
(26:00):
we can train it. It's not helpless. It's not helpless
just because it's hidden. We can really read, you know,
through habits of mind and habits of behaving. We cannot
let it rule us. I have an example in my book,
and I talk personally in this book because I am
not above any of this. I have gone through such
(26:22):
a journey as a very highly anxious human being overcoming
a lot of my fears, and I talk and share
some of the techniques that have really transformed my life.
You know, I used to be terribly, terribly scared of flying.
It was a great fear of mine. And then when
my book und Gifted came out and I had to
(26:44):
go in the talk circuit and had to suddenly fly
here and there and everywhere. You know, what was I
going to do? You know, be a victim to my
fears and not grow and be the person who I
want to be.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
No.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I tried everything I possibly could to get to to
really be able to deal with it. And I did
an eight week MBSR course Mindfulness Stress Based Reduction course
that John Cabins and teaches. I took it at Penn
with Michael Beam, and it was really really valuable. I
learned a lot of techniques to deal with with my
(27:20):
anxieties and my over catastrophizing because I realized it was
mindful of that cognitivestortion. I'm a big fan of mindful
cognitive behavioral therapy Seth Guilahean I would direct people to
and a lot of his work on being mindful.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Seth is great. I studied with Aaron Becky, I signed
I signed some of his work in my Flourishing classes
part of Flourishing. Okay, So, Scott, you've told us a
great story about about your own overcoming. Can you tell
us any stories about people who who basically found these techniques,
people really were able to break out of this mindset
on their own. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I was really inspired by brothers Ali and Ottmann Smith
along with their colleague Andrea's Gonzalez. They wrote the book
What Your Light Shine, How Mindfulness can empower children and
rebuild communities. And I really like their approach. It really
encapsulates a lot of what I talk about in my
book because they go into really underserved communities. They go
into a lot of communities where there really isn't a
(28:17):
lot of hope in these children. These children have maybe
there's it's very gang laden or very poor neighborhoods, and
they go in and they teach yoga and mindfulness, and
they have a lot of stories as they told me,
about how they see a shift in a victim mindset
(28:38):
that these kids have to really having greater hope for
their future and just having someone come in who just
believes in them is also a really big deal to
these kids because you can stay focused so much on
what you don't have, but being able to kind of
get a focus on, you know, what you still can
(29:00):
contribute to this world despite the really difficult situations. I
think this was really really inspirational to me because I
want to make it clear this book is not just
for the quote privileged, right, this quote is for everyone.
I really believe that. Of course people have different life
circumstances and people are coming from different places. But regardless
(29:23):
of that, I think we as teachers, as coaches, as
parents need to still be on the lookout for the higher,
the higher potential of everyone.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
M Right, as someone was well, actually yes, as someone
was with you, as that teacher was with you your
turning point, turning point in your life. Right. So let's
I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about
social media? What role do you think what role do
you think? You know? Because you know Facebook. So modern
(29:52):
social media comes out around two thousand and three with
Facebook and MySpace and friends there, and at first it's
all just like, you know, here's my page, here's your page. Here,
photos of my trip, here, photos of your trip. And
then it changes once you get the newsfeed and you
get the algorithms driving This all begins two thousand and
nine to twenty eleven. If social media really changes becomes
(30:14):
much more well, all the stuff that I that I
write about in the Anxious Generation, it all begins the
early twenty tens. So that's where I'm coming from on
this question. What role does social media play in changing
the way the way people think?
Speaker 1 (30:30):
A big one. I think that the reward structure of
social media has caused people to think they need to
have a victim mindset in order to get likes, in
order to be promoted. First all I want to say,
I really appreciate your work on this, and it's extremely important,
and your book was a bestseller for a reason. It's
really it really strikes a nerve right among a lot
(30:54):
of parents and people who want better for young people.
In answering that question, I interviewed quite a lot of people,
and one person I thought. Who gave me some really
insightful information on this was Susan David. It researched her
studies emotions. She hasn't she gave She gave me a formula,
and I want to see what you think of this.
(31:14):
The reason why I think she a reason why she
thinks social media is really bringing out the worst in us,
especially a victim mindset, she said, pathologizing of normal human experience.
The rapidity with which we label things as quote trauma,
plus the addictive qualities of social media plus co rumination
(31:35):
plus social contagion equals disastrous effects.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Wow, that is a good list. I love it. I
love it because right I've certainly I've written about co
rumination back in the calling the American Mind, and then
emotional contagion. Just when you hook people up sharing sharing
emotional interpretations of things, we influence each other. So that
is that is a good list. So sort of like
whatever whatever these problems were before the great we Wire
(32:03):
in the period when everyone goes is online a lot
run early twenty ten, saying whatever was the process before
that is just sort of supercharged by those four or
five different processes. Could just say the list again, let's
just make sure we all get.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
It absolutely pathologizing of normal human experience, and in parentheses
that she's referring to the rapidity with which we label
things that we're quick to label uncomfortable experiences as trauma.
Plus the addictive qualities of social media plus co rumination
plus social contagion equals disastrous effects. A big part of
(32:40):
this as I see it, and I want to know
what you think. I want to just have a conversation
with you about this. You know, it's no shocker that
teenagers go through an identity crisis. This has happened since
the dawn of teenagers, So it's not like this generation
they having an identity crisis. Every generation, around age fourteen
(33:01):
to seventeen, or maybe eleven to seventeen, you go through
identity crisis. But it seems like social media is changing
the way that people feel the need to create an identity,
a victimhood identity. Now it feels like there's peer pressure
among young people to create or to express a victimhood identity,
(33:26):
not to express I've overcome this, I've overcome that. Look
at me, I've you know, I'm successful. It's almost like
that's denigrated. What gets you the likes is you create whatever,
Maybe it's the maybe it's some label that you say
you have. And a lot of people legitimately already you know,
(33:47):
have been diagnosed with these things, so I'm not saying that,
but a lot haven't. Let's be honest, a lot haven't
been formally diagnosed. And they there's a peer pressure to
belong by fitting in with a group, and so you
desperately try to see what victimhood group can I fit
in with amongst my peers. Do you agree or disagree
with that?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Well? I do, but let me just put let me
just reinterpret it just a little bit. So when I
was writing The Answers Generation, I read there's a really
great textbook on adolescence from Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at
Temple University, and Steinberg says that that adolescence is not
necessarily a difficult or what's the word. It's not necessarily,
(34:33):
you know, a difficult or traumatic time, but it is
a time when stress and difficult experiences will have a
bigger impact on both your brain development because the neurons
are sort of rewiring much more quickly during adolescence and
your identity development. So so many people make it through
(34:56):
adolescents without any identity crisis, without any of this, you know,
the whirlwind of emotions. I mean, it's a time of
there's always more emotion, but it's not necessarily a difficult time,
but it is a time when the sense of identity
is forming. You don't have a story about yourself when
you're seven or eight, but by the time you're eighteen
or twenty, you often have some sort of implicit or
(35:17):
intuitive stories. That's why I picked up from some some
earlier work that I read long ago, and so now
let's look at the need for an identity. So I'm
kind of a I sort of you know, read all
the social sciences to try to put them all together
to understand originally morality in now mental health, and identity
(35:39):
in you know, an anthropology. It's a big concept in
anthropology and sociology. Your identity is not something that you
you make up or invent yourself. It's not up to you.
So if you're you know, if you're in a traditional society,
if you're born into the blacksmith guild or you know,
lineage that you become a blacksmith. If you are now
(36:00):
you're going to be a mother, in some cultures, you know,
or a career person, depending on the culture. So your
identity is ascribed to you by your community, and that's
the way people will treat you. And so it's kind
of like saying, you know language, like you know, I
make up my language, you make up your language. We
each have to make up our own language. No, No,
(36:22):
that's not the way it works. Identity is something that
is ascribed to you by others. So that's at least
I think the more traditional way, that's the more common
way in human history that identities are conferred by you know,
your religion. It could be by your race, your gender,
all these things will situate you somewhere. And what happened,
I believe during the Great Rewiring, so this is twenty
(36:44):
ten to twenty fifteen. What happened I think was before then.
Teens used you know, they were on Facebook early on,
but it's and you're putting forward. You are beginning to
put forward a vision if your fun loving, or you're sexy,
or you're serious or whatever it is. But once you
get the sort of the super viral social media with
people commenting on each other's posts and people spending a
(37:05):
lot more time now as I see it, teenagers are
pushed into into working full time as brand managers, and
the brand that they're managing is their own brand, which
is the terrible thing to do to a t well
year own So so, so what I'm saying is I
basically agree with you that there's been this big increase
(37:27):
in the degree to which young people have to do
this job that they're not ready for. It's incompatible with
the fun and joy and learning of childhood to be
a brand manager where at any moment there could be
a brand crisis. You know, you know, someone you know
made a bad report about our product. There was a
post on us social media criticizing me. You know, better
have a team meeting and how do we defend the brand?
(37:52):
So I do think that identity is part of it here,
and in some subcultures there would be it would be
advantage just to claim more victimhood, and others it wouldn't.
So I wouldn't say it's a universal thing that kids
are pressured to be victims because of social media, but
I think there are some some circles in which it
would And so, yeah, so that's where we would especially
(38:16):
find I believe higher levels of depression, anxiety, and insecurity.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
We're definitely yeah, thank you so much for that. This
is that's very exciting, Nuance. I love learning about that.
We definitely see a trend on TikTok, for instance, for
everyone to be neurodivergent. So, for instance, neudivergency has is
so hot on TikTok and amongst young people. And for
someone who's a big advocate of the nerd diversity movement,
(38:48):
at first, I'm like, oh, that's great, you know, but
then I started to look into it, and there's so
much misinformation. This is what really bothers me, John, so
much misinformation about different forms of nerd vergency. Everyone's a scientist,
now everyone knows here are the five traits of ADHD.
And a scientific analysis was done on TikTok of of
(39:10):
these kinds of videos and they found that something like
eighty percent had incorrect, erroneous information, and and so that
really bothers me and and people feeling the need to
pick something so that they're special, you know in some way,
you know, as opposed to well, you know, what what
(39:32):
do you bringing to the table that you know that
to really you know, uh, to make the world a
better place. To uh, you know, what are your strengths,
leading with your strengths, your character, you know, not not
just the leading and feeling. The only way to be
special is by by picking some sort of disability you
have or something that's wrong in your environment.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah, that's an important point about TikTok and social media
that you know that at first you might think, well,
this is great, like, of course they should. Everybody should
be able to find support groups. Of course, people should
feel you know, valued and not not ashamed of whatever
whatever is going on with them, or certainly whatever mental
(40:13):
traits or certain mental illnesses they have. And so and
so I agree that it's a good thing that mental
illness in particularly has been destigmatized. When I was a
kid in the seventies, late seventies, my mom sent me
to a couple of different psychologists, and psychiatrists had a
variety of like nervous ticks and habits, and so she
thought this was you know, back in the age of
(40:33):
like Freud. She grew up in that sort of predian
not that she was around in the nineteen tens, but
you know, I'm saying in the nineteen fifties sixties, it
was a very Freudian age, and that was very shameful.
I mean I was really embarrassed to admit that to
anybody else. And so there was a stigma on anything
about mental health, mental illness, certainly in the seventies and eighties,
(40:54):
and then it really begins to drop in the eighties
and nineties and into the twenty first it really drops.
And so agmatization is a good thing. And some people
have argued against me that all those graphs I show
of rising levels of depression anxiety, that's just decimatization. That's
just gen Z is perfectly comfortable talking about it. You know,
(41:15):
social media's freed them up. They're not embarrassed about it.
That's a good thing. Well, we want we don't want
people to feel stigmatized, but we also don't want to
valorize mental illness. We just have a post today on
my substack after babbel dot com from Christina Laerman at
USC on how social media pushes girls into eating disorders
(41:35):
by valorizing being bone thin. I'm just horrible. Horrible images
are all you can find easily on Twitter. There's very
little content moderation on Twitter, So if you just look
for a thin spo or bone spo well, you know,
bone thin inspiration, horrific videos praising and encouraging and giving
(41:57):
girls confidence to go further, further, further into intererrect This
is really really bad, especially for adolescent girls who are
the most open, as it were, to sort of interpersonal influence.
Girls a little more than boys. Girls a little more
emotionally open and receptive. Boys are a little bit more clueless,
a little bit not as much affected by each other's emotions.
(42:19):
So yes, I think we're on the same page here
that social media in its once it became super viral,
it put a lot of kids into communities that would
then encourage this kind of victim mindset, valorizing of are
what are considered to be mental illnesses, except that they
(42:40):
interfere with the ability to love and to work. So
you know, that's so that's why I've been a big
fan of raising the age of social media to sixteen
and just recognizing social medisa just not appropriate for kids.
So any any further thoughts from you on on social media,
so I could talk all day about what it's doing
to kids.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
This is a great nuance. This is a really great
nuance because there is a one hand and on the
other hand, here and I have a whole chapter in
sensitivity which which talks about on the one hand, on
the other hand, so for instance, we do want to
celebrate some of the strengths of being a highly sensitive person.
That's that's a phrase that you see a lot, and
there is research on that. But you don't want to
(43:20):
have a victim mindset you. You don't want any of
these traits to become the totality of who you are
in a way that limits you from a full range
of expression in your life. And that's a point I
want to make here so that you can see that
on social media, where you've come so consumed about this
part of you that it's all all you are and
you can't even see the world in a different way.
(43:41):
You know, I argue that, you know, I think I
have a highly sensitive person temperament, but I have learned
throughout my life the ways in which it holds me back.
By saying I'm a highly sensitive person at all times,
sometimes I don't want to be the highly sensitive person.
Do we allow anyone the freedom anymore to have a
flexible identity or a flexible dare I say ideology? Like
(44:03):
we don't allow that in our society.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Mm. And this is helping me see that certain certain
things that might be in DSM and the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual, like anorexia. I don't think there's any strength there.
I think that's it's a dangerous disease. It's a mental illness.
Nobody would want their child to have anorexia. And but
(44:29):
there are but there are some things and I guess
you're suggesting like being neurodivergent or being a sensitive person.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
So ADHD is, for example, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
That's right, that's right. So tell me how you think
about that, because I like I was going to say, well,
it is a mental illness, but I think you're saying
it might cause problems for in some ways, but it
gives you strengths and and open things up. So tell
me about how you think about ADHD.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Yes, I just wrote an article ADHD is not a
trauma response because the predominant narrative from like ab or
mate friends and says that ADHD is a result of
your parents not hugging you enough when you were a kid,
like ignoring the genetic component. I argue that ADHD it's
(45:11):
best thought of just like any other personality source of variation,
a mix of nature and nurture, and it's an extreme trait.
It's it's extreme constellation of heterogeneic heterogeneity. There's so much
heterogeneity there, so you have maybe it's impulsivity, Maybe it
could be cognitive control issues, maybe it could be risk taking.
(45:36):
Just because you have one of these behaviors doesn't mean
you're gonna have all the other behaviors. So that's a
big mess with these kind of diagnoses. So I really
like this high top approach. I don't know if you've
heard of the high top approach to psychopathology where they're
arguing the DSM, we need to move away from the
DSM that you either have the disorder or you don't
have the disorder and think of all these things. There's
traits that lie in a continuum in the general population
(45:59):
and then a result of just like any other personality trait,
a mix of nature and nurture. It's not all trauma.
You can't blame it all in trauma. You can't blame
it all in your genes either. I mean, it's important
to view these things with that level of care. And
it can be a superpower in certain context, and it
can be a disorder. It can absolutely be it can
(46:19):
be a disorder, but it's not always a disorder, and
it's not always a superpower.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
It's almost like I'm the centrist of psychopathology talk, right,
I'm just trying to be reasonable about this stuff. But
everyone so talks about everything in such extreme terms these days,
including disorders.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Right, once we moralize things, we lose the where it
damage our ability to really understand what's going on. So
for listeners who are considering the book, just tell them
something that you think they'll get from the book, some
way in which you think they'll enjoy or benefit from
reading the book.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Thank you, John. So, this book is for anyone who's
ready in their journey to rise above. You know, there
there's a spirit in me that I've always had since
I was that little kid of like like let's go,
let's let's not be a passive victim to life. Let's
take control of our lives and and wean into our
(47:17):
own values and purpose. And for those that are ready
in their their self actualization journey to do that, I
think you'll really get a lot out of this book.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
That's beautiful, all right. I will just end with here's
the here's the blurb that I sent in a few
months ago for the book. I don't know if it's
a on the printed on the printed edition, but here's
what I said. Okay, good. Scott Barry Kaufman has made
so many contributions to research on creativity, positive psychology, and
the science of flourishing and rise above. Kaufman draws on
(47:50):
ancient wisdom and modern psychology to address some of the
disempowering ideas and mindsets circulating widely in recent decades. Kaufman
shows us all how to stay, end up and walk
through the many doors that are always available. So, Scott
Barry Kaufman, while I've never really been a podcast interviewer,
I've always been on the other side of the mic.
But this is fine, you're talking to you. It's oh,
(48:12):
thank you. It's a great book. I head listeners to
check it out.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
M
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