Ethics, Triangulation, and Child Pressure

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, deserve listeners. I thought I would answer some of
your patron emails. This email is from annual long term
anonymous patron. She says, would it be unethical for your
past therapists to listen to your podcast? Thanks? EOE or
end of email. So the question is would it be

(00:22):
unethical for your past therapists to listen to your podcast?
To my podcast? Well, at first reading this question, I
think it's a typo that you meant past clients. But
if I were to answer this as it's written, which
is also possible. The key here is that we must

(00:43):
understand what ethics are trying to get at, which is harm.
The ethical codes are there to prevent harm and to
give us a guide regarding managing the risk of harm,
because a lot of things in therapy do risk harm
to the clients, but we have to balance that with

(01:06):
the justification to do so. Like if we enter into
PTSD treatment of any sort with a client, there is
a risk of harm, but it is justified usually, you know,
case by case basis by the fact that the research
shows that the treatment models that are that have been

(01:27):
research to work if used by a competent therapist most
of the time there's tremendous benefits, so there is a
justification to risking that harm. Now, obviously, if there's just
not only risk, but actual harm of a client, then
that's a whole other story. But typically when we're thinking

(01:48):
about ethical codes, ethical decision making questions on the internet
about is this ethical or not, usually we're in that
limbo zone of possible harm, risk of harm. Right. So,
for example, when I am given presentations on this podcast

(02:09):
or as a professor or in workshops or something, and
I provide a case example, there is a risk of harm.
I could harm the client that I'm talking about because
I could break confidentiality. I could represent the profession in
a bad way and cause people to not want to

(02:30):
go to therapy, that sort of thing. But when it
comes to the justifications of providing a case example, we
would have that decision making process of well, what can
I do to mask the identity? But whenever you talk
about a client, even if you change details, there's always

(02:51):
a risk, right. There's even a risk of a client
misidentifying themselves, even if you're just making up a story, right,
So that risk also needs to be considered, you know,
just because you in your mind don't think you're talking
about a particular client. That doesn't mean that that client
a client that could reasonably think that they were being identified.

(03:13):
It doesn't mean that they can't complain about you or
sue you. Even so, we have to have guidelines about
how we justify that. Well. The decision making process is
such that before I'm about to include a case example
in my outline or my curriculum, I ask myself is

(03:36):
it worth it? Is it worth these risks? Now, the
risks are pretty small if you take precautions, but it's
still a risk. Well, the justification is education will be enhanced,
and therefore the public or other clinicians will be enhanced
benefited so that they can go out and do good
or the general public can be normalized with their issue.

(03:57):
If I'm talking about a similar issue or something like that.
These are the ways that we make decisions. So if
I were to answer the question is it unethical for
a past therapist of mine to listen to my podcast?
The question we have to ask is would it harm me?
Does it risk harm of me for one of my

(04:17):
past therapists to listen to my podcast? And the answer
is maybe it does possibly risk harm because if you know,
one of my past therapists were to listen to a
lot of my episodes, or even just one episode, and
then I want to go back to them and engage
in therapy again, then having listened to my podcast, the

(04:41):
therapist might be biased, right, or they might be insulted
by you know, if I talk shit about them or something.
You know. So it is a consideration right now. Is
that likely? No, It's extremely unlikely for a past therapist,
if they were to listen to one of my podcasts episodes,
to be significantly harm or affected in a way that

(05:07):
would cause harm to me. You could even say that
it would benefit because if I ever did return to them,
they would already be up to speed on a lot
of things in my life, you know, or at least
they would be familiar with me, and so we could
maybe accelerate through the first phases of therapy. We wouldn't
have to become reacquainted, right, So that could be a

(05:29):
justification in that scenario. But I don't know a single
person that would even have a yellow flag if they
heard a colleague listening to a past client's podcast, you
know what I mean? Now, if I am right that
this is a typo, which I'm beginning to think it wasn't.
But if is it unethical for a past client or

(05:52):
a current client of mine to listen to my podcast,
that's a completely different scenario, right, because it's not harm
to me that we're worried about. We're worried about harm
to the client, to the listener. And I have been
thinking about this even well before I even published my
very first episode seventeen years ago, because I'm a stickler

(06:13):
for this sort of thing, and there are literally no
guidelines out there about this sort of thing, because it
takes forever in psychology to catch up to society, and
so we just don't have anything out there that is
a viable guide. So that's why I wrote my own
white paper that's available on the website to address this.

(06:37):
I did a lot of research. I gave it a
lot of thought. I looked at the various ethical codes,
and given my experience with a variety of content provision,
I felt like I was in a unique position to
be able to provide that discussion and that best practice recommendation.

(06:59):
And part of the reason why I wrote that white
paper was just for my own benefit because nothing existed
out there and as I was becoming more popular, I
became more and more worried about being sued. And the
way that we protect ourselves as clinicians is that if
we are sued or there is a complaint, we're able

(07:21):
to point to a set of guidelines or policies or
research or literature or guidance from supervision or something. You know,
we can point to some area within our field that
gave us the justification for why we did X, Y,
and Z. Well, since that doesn't exist for you know,

(07:42):
therapy individuals, psychologists on the internet, you know that are
heavily involved in podcasting and youtubing and tweeting and that
sort of thing. Since nothing like that existed, if I
ever did receive a complaint, I would not have that
ability to protect myself. Plus, writing a white paper, I
can formalize and explore and determine really what the guidelines are.

(08:08):
And so yeah, I wrote that paper. Another reason why
I wrote it was because I was starting to supervise
other clinicians who were providing content on the Internet. And
that's a whole other ball of axe, right, because if
they're out there doing random things and I'm not there micromanaging,

(08:31):
which I don't do as a supervisor, then how can
I be assured that I've communicated to them what they
need to be doing, what guidelines they need to follow.
And I wrote the white paper. The beginning of the
inspiration to write the white paper was that was at
first I was just going to write up a little

(08:52):
policy for supervision, but then it grew into an official
kind of document, and that was another reason. But the
question if a past client of mine or a current
client of mine were to listen to my podcast, could
it harm a client, Yeah, it could. There's a greater
risk of harm about that than harm to me as

(09:15):
a client. If a past therapist or a current therapist
were to listen to the podcast. I'm trying to remember
if my past therapist did listen to my podcast. I
have a feeling maybe I don't remember talking about it much.
It wouldn't have really pertained to what we were talking,
you know, because what we talk about in therapy is
like deep emotional wounds, and you know, all the things

(09:38):
that you do and the sort of academic and podcastery
stuff that I get into, it's not really relevant to that.
But anyway, although I have gone through bouts of emotional
turmoil in relation to the podcast that I could have
talked about but didn't anyway, So could it harm a
current client of mine? Yeah, if I talked about something,

(10:01):
and I think about this all the time, not only
as I'm prepping, as I'm recording, as I'm editing, I
will edit stuff out sometimes with the thought of that's
too risky, I could harm a client. There's various different
ways in which a client could be harmed that I
lay out my white paper, but just as a off

(10:22):
the head summary, one is that say I was to
say something political and a client felt unsafe with me
for whatever reason, or if I attacked a group of
people like Republicans or something like that, then that would
obviously interfere with treatment. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that

(10:46):
treatment has been harmed, which is the harm that we're
thinking about with a client, because you know, if I
just say something insulting about Republicans and a client is
you know, their feelings are hurt, that is kind of harm.
But that's not often the harm that we're thinking about,
because you know, people have their feelings. Sometimes the real
harm that we're thinking about is, you know, clients are

(11:06):
hiring us to work on something, and we are providing
treatment to achieve that goal. So if treatment is harmed,
that's mainly what we're concerned about, because that's our ethical
responsibility is to their treatment. We're not ethically responsible necessarily
for their feelings or for making sure that they have

(11:27):
self esteem in their you know, identifications, like their political
identification or something. It can, but sometimes people confuse that.
They're like, oh, it's unethical to say something insulting about
a client because their feelings are hurt and therefore harm
has occurred, and therefore you've been unethical. It's not really
how it works. It can work that way, but generally speaking,

(11:50):
like I said, we're thinking about treatment. So if the
treatment is harmed, which could absolutely happen, right, even if
I do everything right as a treatment provider, a client
could just be standoffish, mistrust me, not feel safe around me,
even though they are safe around me. But because I

(12:11):
said something, you know, it could lead to that. Now,
that doesn't mean that it can't be addressed. Right, if
I said something insulting and a client were to bring
it up and we were to repair that rupture, it
can be actually a very therapeutic moment. Now that requires
the client to bring it up, which is asking a lot.
Sometimes I might even bring up stuff myself, and I've

(12:35):
done that as a therapist. I might know that a
client listens to the podcast, and I might get out
ahead of something and say, hey, there's an episode coming
up that I just want to make sure that we
talk about it beforehand, because I don't. I'm trying to
think of a scenario where specifically this happened, but maybe, like,

(12:58):
let's see where I talk about out my own emotional
ups and downs, And if I knew a client listen
to the podcast or I suspected, and if I thought
that that client would become overly concerned about me and
my feelings and that would interfere with their treatment and
having the sessions be about them and not about me,

(13:19):
then yeah, I might get out ahead of that for sure.
So you know, is it unethical for those things to happen?
We typically can't answer that without actually getting into a
case by case basis. So yeah, all right, let's take
a break. Another email. All right, This next question is

(13:43):
from YouTube member and annual long term highest tier patron
Jamie from South Korea, just chiming in your first Jamie,
thank you for being all those things YouTube member, annual patron,
long term patron, and highest tier patron. That's really quite
a thing, So thank you. You're the wind beneath my wings.

(14:05):
So you write in and say hello. I have been
listening to your deep dive on Boenian therapy and I
have a question about triangulation. Could you tell us more
about the difference between venting to someone versus triangulating someone
into the tension. Could you tell us more about the
difference between venting to someone versus triangulating someone into the tension.

(14:28):
I have been venting a lot about my family member
to my partner recently. Venting a lot about my family
member to my partner recently. My intention of venting is
to get my feelings out when the trigger comes up,
and I'm not expecting him to take any sides. It
has been very helpful to talk it out with him
to process my feelings about my family, and I also

(14:49):
check in with him if he's okay with me venting
so much, which he says he is okay with. He
agrees with my frustrations around my family, and I do
not believe that my venting will ruin his relationship with
my friend family member, but I'm concerned that I'm trying
to triangulate him into the tension. Thank you, end of email. Yeah,
this is a great question and it is answered fairly simply,

(15:13):
which is to say that I have an approach to
triangulation that I think is maybe a little particular. I'm
trying to remember if I got this from other people.
I typically don't hear people talking this way. But I
expand the definition of triangulation for this reason into two

(15:38):
different categories, functional and dysfunctional, because when I was learning
about triangulation in my early career, I kept running into
this question that you had, and I wondered about, well,
isn't therapy triangulation? When I have an individual client sit
on my couch and complain about their husband, aren't I
being triangulated somehow? So it is all triangulation a problem,

(16:04):
And to some extent, the original Murray Bowen perspective was
essentially that because he came from a very enmeshed family
that bitched about each other all the time, there's a
lot of complaining and a lot of people talking shit
behind other people's backs, and he didn't like that. He

(16:26):
you know, I think correctly. I did. There's a whole
paper where he wrote anonymously at first and then later
claimed ownership of this very famous seminal article about him
going down a process of detriangulating and becoming more differentiated
in his family of origin. And a big part of
it was for him to deny the opportunity for triangulation.

(16:47):
Someone would come to him complaining about another family member
and he would go directly to that other family member
and just repeat everything that the other person said. And
this was and is more complicated than that, but at
the very least this stopped people triangulating him, right. So
he had a particular point of view, which was I
think a little radical at first, which was you should

(17:10):
never talk about someone else if they're not in the room,
that kind of thing. It's a simple way of putting it.
But ever since then, contemporary Boeenian people will have a
more nuanced point of view, of course, but I found
that the language just wasn't very helpful. Even the word

(17:31):
differentiation isn't a very good word for it, because it
emphasizes the difference and the pushing someone away from you, right,
gaining some independence, right, that's what he needed because that's
what he was suffering from in his family of origin
was a lack of differentiation. But in contemporary circles, differentiation

(17:56):
is also the ability to get close to people, and
Bowen talked about this as well as just copy. But anyway,
so I like to whenever I'm talking about triangulation, one
of the first assessment angles to take is is it
functional or dysfunctional? I define dysfunctional as that which is
the definition of triangulation. It's not mine, but it's I'm

(18:19):
labeling it dysfunctional in that it's triangulation that results in
perpetuation or increasing the tension, the anxiety as as Bowen
called it. So for you, Jamie, you have tension between
you and a family member, So you and this family
member are in conflict, have tension, resentment, anger, hurt, feelings,

(18:45):
that sort of thing right, and their tension there. So
you are naturally going to want to talk with your
partner about this because it's part of you know, that's
that's what support is, right, And the question is is
that triangulation process with your partner functional or dysfunctional? And

(19:06):
you laid it out really well that you answered all
the questions because you listen to the deep dive. Right.
So one of the things that you say here is
that it's not ruining his relationship with the family member.
That is one of the markers, right, because that would
just be moving the tension from one relationship to another.

(19:28):
So if you had tension with this family member and
then by you venting to your partner, that all the things,
and then you're now relieved because you have vented. Well,
if it's a fused or undifferentiated system with undifferentiated relatively
undifferentiated individuals, then your partner would take on the tension

(19:52):
and would have a really intense conflict with this other
family member. Now that isn't always a bad thing, right,
Like if my wife were to have someone that was
extremely harmful to her, hurtful to her or abusive or something,
and that she vented to me about it, and then
I all absorb some of that tension and now I

(20:12):
hate that person too. It's not necessarily dysfunctional. Right. Kind
of depends on the situation. But a classic example is
that you vent to your partner and then the next
time you're at a family gathering, your partner is stand
office or even openly conflictual with the person and then
you go home, and now now you are the person
that your family member and your partner are venting to

(20:35):
and the cycle just goes on and on. The original
tension or the inherent or the ongoing tension in the
system is not being resolved. It's just being transmuted between
different relationships. So that's Mary Bowen's genius observation that Okay, fine,

(20:55):
you've resolved this one conflict, but the conflict has shifted
somewhere else and it'll come back around to you as
a thing. So you're smart and wise to assess for
that and mentioning your email, it's like, well, my partner
doesn't hate this family member, so this isn't moving the
tension around the system. The other thing that you address

(21:16):
in your email is that you say he's okay. I
asked him, are you okay with me venting? And he's okay.
So I'm not like coercing him or bothering him or
something like that. So there's that. You also mention that
it's been very helpful to talk it out because you're
processing your feelings about your family. Now. I don't know
how that exactly is helping precisely, but it sounds to

(21:42):
me like it is in the functional side, because maybe
it's giving you perspective, maybe just by venting your more
free to explore options avenues to take with the family member.
Maybe it's drying boundary. Maybe it's being nicer in your
mind you're biased about the family member, or maybe going

(22:02):
to the family member and having a conversation about it,
that kind of thing. So, but at the very least,
if it's not causing you know, like, let's say that
you know in this triangulation between your family member and
your partner that the tension between you and the family
member never really gets that much better. Well as long

(22:25):
as well, let me think about this, because under the definition,
it would be a dysfunctional triangulation. But I don't. I
think it kind of depends. Maybe this is why you're
asking the question. Well, I guess so if I were
in your shoes, this is what I'd be thinking. I'd
be thinking, what's the overall picture here and what do

(22:49):
I want. Differentiation has to do with what we call
goal directed behavior, which is not only to think on
the meta level of like what's my goal here? Not
only that, but also to take out action in that direction.
So if you have a goal, you know, so you
have to define what the goal is. Is the goal
to make the relationship better with the family member or
is your goal to just be happy overall in life,

(23:12):
whether that has to do whether that involves this family
member or not. You know, so there's that, or is
the goal to I don't know, just make life as
easy as possible. You know, it's very different and maybe
have all these goals, But how is the differentiation level

(23:33):
in the family and the system and also within you,
within your relationship with your partner, within your You know,
differentiation exists on the systemic level and on the individual
level anyway, So how is the differentiation level involved in
managing you reaching your goal? So, if you have a
goal of surviving family get togethers and you don't really

(23:55):
care about resolving any issues with the family member, then
different will play a role and that will tell you
whether or not the triangulation work is functioning or not.
So if your goal is to survive and you don't
have any aspirations of improving your relationship with this family member,
then your description of the triangulation with your partner is

(24:16):
functional because it is giving you that ability to meet
that goal, which is to survive right now. If the
goal is to improve the relationship with your family member,
then you would have to evaluate that over time, because
there's a possibility that by you venting to your partner
that you have this temporary relief and he's so relieving

(24:42):
to you that you and you are too afraid of
facing the relationship with your family member given your differentiation
level or the general lack of differentiation in the family,
results in you never actually doing anything to improve the
relationship with your family member. Then one could argue that

(25:04):
your triangulation with your partner is a part of the
overall dysfunctional pattern because he could be triangulated in a
different way, or you could involve him in a different
way like he could instead of being a very good
listener and very supportive, he could say something like, well
have you ever thought about actually talking with this person

(25:27):
about it? Or well, you know, I think you kind
of contributed to that one, and maybe it's partly your
fault that that conflict happened, helping it giving you an
opportunity to see, oh, maybe there's an avenue there so
that I can go down, either individually or with that
family member to actually improve the relationship, So case by

(25:49):
case basis, all right, another break, all right, back from
the break. So the way I ended that last email segment,
you know, I was just thinking. As soon as I
clicked pause on the recording, I had this whole kind

(26:11):
of paragraph of thought that went through my mind, which
was I initially wondered if the way that I signed
off before the break, if I sounded dismissive or exasperated
or annoyed or something. And then that blossomed into the
rest of the paragraph, which was that I've had two
moments lately in which people watching me on YouTube will

(26:35):
tell me that I seem exasperated or not that word
has been used, but other words have been used. And
this is pretty you know, small, but I want to
just get out ahead of it. But before that, maybe
I should just define it. So there were two moments
in the past few months where people were consuming my

(27:00):
content and they told me that it seemed like I
didn't really want to be doing the content, if that
makes sense, And I just want to say that I
am sufficiently healthy and slightly unhealthily narcissistic to the point
where I don't do anything I don't want to do.

(27:22):
So if I'm doing it, I want to do it,
and I love making content, so if I'm ever and
then so that prompted me to have a conversation with
my wife because you know, she watches all the videos.
She doesn't listen to any of the audio podcasts, by
the way, but she does watch a lot of all
the videos. And I asked her, you know, do I

(27:45):
ever seem like I'm exasperated? And she's pretty honest with me,
and she said, no, you know, and this isn't the
first time that I've heard people thinking that I'm feeling
or thinking things that I'm not in this direction, you know,
like it's been a long time since I've had someone
say this to me, something like this to me. But

(28:06):
I'm trying to remember. Maybe it was as a professor
that I would hear a student say something like, yeah,
I when I first had you as a professor, I
thought you were really annoyed with me or something. I
was really scared of you, And then over time I realized, oh, no,
you're just You're a really warm person. That wasn't very often,

(28:27):
but it happened enough, And sometimes I think it was
just the fact that I was a professor because there
would be times when I would be doing everything in
my power to make a student feel comfortable and they
would just still be intimidated by me because I held
the mantle of professor and they were transferring, you know,
which is fine that you know, we all do that.

(28:47):
But but I do think that, you know, if I
think about the opposite, right, people who are really jubilant
and non irritatable, I'm definitely not that right. So I
think that there's a possibility which would mortify me that

(29:11):
if anyone ever thought that of you listening, that at
any point when I'm making content, that I am exasperated
or that I don't want to be making the content,
because that as a listener, if I was a listener,
it would bum me out. It would concern me, it
would bother me. I'd be like, well, why are you
making content if you don't want to do it? Like,

(29:33):
just don't do it, pal, And I just want to
get out ahead that say no, believe me. There are
times when I will be doing something podcast related or
YouTube channel related and I don't want to do it,
and I and I do not do it. I don't
even start the process because I'm that selfish. If you

(29:53):
want or that self esteemed or that aware of what
I want, or that's tight or that boundary whatever whatever
pro connie you want to put to it, because there
are pros and cons to it. So I, I, uh,
you know, be assured that I'm into it now. I

(30:14):
think the pro to me being how I am in
this way is that I'm not afraid to exhibit my
irritability or my annoyance with something, or my anger. You know,
there's different approaches to making content, but some people don't
do that. I find a lot of content providers don't

(30:35):
do that kind of thing. They might say that they're angry,
but they don't exhibit anger. And that's fine, and I,
you know, I appreciate that style and a lot of
content providers. But but I I don't how do I
get I guess I would say that I just made
a decision a number of years ago that the then

(30:59):
diagram of like what I want to do with what
I think the audience would like to see or hear
the you know, the overlapping regions of the Venn diagram
involves me being somewhat that way at times, if that
makes sense anyway, Let's read another email all right. This
next email is from listener Cat. She writes in and says, Hi,

(31:20):
Kirk and the Love is Blind Season seven, number fifty
eight video, you talked about Nick perhaps, so I think
it's Nick d Nick dorka, Nick dork Kirk talked Turk Kirk,
turk cocked. Kirk talked about Nick perhaps having a detached
sense of self due to his past aspirational pro athlete training,

(31:43):
just chiming in, Yeah, so if you're not aware, there
was this one individual cast member on Love Is Blind
who seemed to exhibit and I think he even talked
about it, that he would detach from his sense of
self and a hard time knowing what he wanted and
how he felt and his needs. And in the show,

(32:04):
the way it looked was he was being walked on
by you know, I don't use the word abusive lightly,
but by a partner that was being abusive or very
very hurtful and callous towards him. And I wondered about
how that personality trait developed, or the lack of a

(32:29):
personality trait developing, of being a connection with yourself and
just noticing when you're being mistreated. I wondered if his
sports training was involved in that because he was a
punter in the NFL at one time, or he was
trying to be a punter in the NFL, I think anyway,
And you know, in today's sports, you have to do

(32:52):
it twenty four to seven. Typically, it's not like the
old days in the you know, like in the seventies,
I remember there was this running back for the Seattle
Seahawks that I really liked. I can't remember his name,
it had I think his number was thirty three, But anyway,
he was an NFL running back, which is one of

(33:14):
the most important positions on the field, particularly in the seventies.
This there's a lot more run oriented and from my memory,
he was planning on playing the NFL after college for
a few years and then he was going to pursue
his dream of becoming a medical physician and he was

(33:36):
going to go back to med school and that's what
he did. And today now that happens occasionally, right if
you have some second string cornerback or something, sometimes that happens.
But typically these are individuals that especially running backs and
that sort of thing, who have been dedicating their entire
life to it ever since they were like five years old.

(33:57):
And by the time they're done with the NFL, they
have no idea what they're going to do, which has
its own issues with it. But anyway, so I was
wondering if Nick, because you know, we had learned that
he was a successful potential professional athlete. If you know
that contribute, Kat says, I would love to hear more

(34:19):
about this. I was training as a professional flutist with
aspirations of playing in an orchestra. I completely residence. Chime
me in here. Yeah, that's another area that is extremely competitive,
is you know, orchestra musicianship. I learned that kind of

(34:39):
the hard way because when I was in my bachelor's
degree at University of Washington, I really wanted to enter
the music department, and so a lot of my classes
that I could choose my electives, I always took these
music classes theory, but I also took composition and there

(35:01):
would be like five students around a piano and we'd
be writing songs, and the kinds of things I would
hear from the other students because they were all music
majors and I was this outsider, the kinds of things
I would hear from them, I just like, oh my god,
that this sounds horrible, the way they're treated, the competition,
the the scrutiny. It just it didn't. It didn't seem

(35:24):
fun at all, which is why I liked music. But
and so I imagine that rising the rate now if you
want to become a professional flutislike in an orchestra for
a musical or something. I think there's a different kind
of thing. It's it can it can still be very
competitive and can be nasty. In fact, there was a

(35:45):
I think there was a this American Life episode about this,
some sort of podcast episode if I remember right. The
thing that everyone knows if you're in an ongoing orchestra
is that everyone hates each other or something. Was that
anyway going up? And this also can be very difficult
job because you're literally playing the same five parts day

(36:10):
in and day out, and it becomes extremely annoying. Anyway
going on. I completely resonate with this topic, and since
quitting the flute, I have been trying to regain my
old passions that I had put aside. I was forced
to give up many hobbies, relationships, and experiences during my
developmental years. I would be greatly interested to hear more

(36:32):
about this as I know it's a very prevalent issue
for ex musicians like myself and of femail. Yeah, and
this is a broader time. I sort of I've talked
about this before, like psychology of sports injury or something.
I'd a student that I think I was talking with
about it. It's been a number of years, but yeah,

(36:53):
it's getting worse in our society. I have noticed it
getting extremely worse. There was a time, you know, when
I was growing up, the competition was there, and there
were some people like I had a friend, by Vietnamese
friend who would have fit in very well in today's world.
He would have been normal, but he was abnormal to

(37:15):
us in the late eighties, and that he and his
family were solely focused on making sure that he got
into a prestigious Ivy League university. He ended up going
to Brown, I believe, I'm pretty sure, and everything was
sacrificed for it. He couldn't hang out with friends. He

(37:35):
was a friend of ours, a good friend of ours,
but he could only be friends with us at school
in between classes. He never hung out with us after
school the one time, and me and my friends got together,
you know, five times a week, and he never was
able to go out with us because his parents, and
to some extent he kind of agreed with it that

(37:56):
the you know, high school is not for having friends,
it's for becoming valid Victorian, valid Decoran, which is what
he became and all that stuff. But anyway, so there's more, way, way,
way more of that today. And is it inherently harmful. No.

(38:16):
Can you raise a kid well that has balance, Yeah,
but when it comes to the academic achievements or sports achievements,
or musical achievement, dance achievement, these things can easily spin
out of gymnastics becoming an Olympic you know, hopeful. These

(38:39):
kinds of things are I worry about almost every whenever
I watch the Olympics with young people like in gymnastics,
or I hear about a kid that is getting straight
a's and you know he graduated high school early. I'm
never happy, I don't know, automatically right, just hearing the story,

(39:02):
because you know, maybe they do have balance and they
have just been able to strike that balance, but I'm
almost always bummed out by it. And I'm imagining just
the sacrifices that you're talking about and the kinds of
things that are extremely important to happiness and well being

(39:23):
and having the well rounded psychology so that you can
meet your needs. And a lot of these pursuits require
the individual, remember these are children, to actively deny their needs.
This is something that's really well understood in the gymnastics community,

(39:44):
right because and this was all illuminated by the scandal
that we, you know, talked about with Larry Nassar, and
you know, we did a deep dive on that. And
you have these kids that are striving to become a
gymnast and if you ask them, do you want to

(40:04):
be practicing seven days a week? They will say yes,
I love it, and they do. But you know, they're
they're kind of a product of their environment. Their parents
are oriented that way there, the child is in the
gymnastics world, which of course is very oriented that way.
And they as they're flipping about and often hurting themselves

(40:32):
not only just by landing wrong, but also just by
the over use of certain joints, they hit a crossroads
where some kids will say this is too much. I
don't like this this. You know, if I'm constantly in
pain and I'm constantly having to watch what I eat,
and I'm constantly practicing all the time. There are other

(40:55):
things in life, aren't there, and I just would rather
do something else. Well, those kids do drop out or
take another route. But the kids that stay in it,
that succeed are the ones that denied themselves. They said,
I have to deny that. You know, there's always some sacrifice, right,
no pain, no gain. But for the very successful ones,

(41:17):
and I imagine in the musical world it might be
similar to this, they reach that wine in the road
and for whatever reason internally and externally, they decide that
they are going to deny their needs. And the repetition
of that results in these symptoms that we see where
you have Larry Nasser, who for decades is sexually abusing

(41:40):
these children in the under the guise of providing medical treatment.
And so you have all these girls that are used
to denying their body. They're used to denying their own needs.
They're used to not asking for help, They're used to saying, well,
coach knows best. And then a predator can get in there.
And you have parents, parents that are used to watching

(42:01):
their kids suffer and it's all for the greater good
of being in the Olympics or something. And and you know,
you see these these sensational cases. But what it is
is just the tip of the iceberg of not necessarily
like a bunch of sexual abuse that's happening, although I
imagine it is. The iceberg that is under the surface

(42:21):
is just the massive amount of denial of these individuals'
needs and their personalities and the development that they're not
going through and the experiences that they need, you know.
So yeah, so much of development occurs between those experiences.
Like I remember when my little brother was trying to

(42:46):
decide where he was going to go to school, and
my parents were kind of concerned. There was this why
in the road where he wanted to go to a
college that was a couple hours away, and and it
was a state college actually a community college, so it
was totally affordable. But my parents were thinking, well, it

(43:08):
would be a lot cheaper if he just lived at
home and he went to college at the local community college,
Billguy Community College. And you know, my parents weren't fighting.
Everyone was just kind of like, oh, let's kind of
look at this. And my parents asked me for advice
because I had been through it five or seven years

(43:28):
earlier or something, that decision, and I said adamantly that
ninety nine percent of what I learned had to do
with me not living at home, had to do with
me having to figure out life and relationships and manage
all the things that you have to manage independently when

(43:50):
you don't live at home. It's interesting that my parents
had a different approach at that point because when I
was when I was at that crossroad, you know, about
to graduate from high school, I actually wanted to live
at home. I I because the university I was going

(44:11):
to was a half an hour away, the University of Washington.
So I was just like, we, why don't I just
live at home, you know, because my mom does my laundry,
she cooks for me, she cleans for me, and and
I have my room and I you know, everything's kind
of relaxed and comfortable and nameable. I know what. It's
not chaotic or unpredictable. And my mom and my sister

(44:33):
both said, no, no, no, you have to live on campus.
I'm laughing because it's just like I wonder which kid
they liked better, my little brother or me? They would
you know, I don't feel that way at all. I
felt eternally loved and still do. But I well, I

(44:55):
guess the difference, and I did I ask my parents
about that. I guess the simplest answer as well, My
little brother was the last kid, and after him was
an emptiness, so that maybe that was the anxiety, you know,
or they just changed their ideas of what was best
about coup or they saw the chaos that I got
into it in my bachelor's degree and said, maybe these

(45:18):
experiences that kids have when they move out of the
house and go to college, maybe that isn't like what's
best anyway. At any rate. Yeah, it's getting worse and worse,
and I am seeing yeah, because back when, in the
seventies and eighties, it was a it was a rare thing, right,
it was for those tiger moms so to speak, Tiger

(45:40):
parents like my Vietnamese friend's parents. You were lovely people,
but that you know, that was a very rare thing.
In fact, I well, I knew another guy, I mean,
Brian Yorky if you're familiar. He I don't think he
was getting pressure from his family though. He was just
a genius and just had really highest opirations for himself.

(46:02):
And he did. I think he went to Columbia, I'm
not sure whereas the ninety nine point nine nine percent
of the rest of us, including myself, who got straight
a's and was at the top of my class in
math and physics and that kind of stuff, and had
all the resources that I could go. In fact, I

(46:22):
would get pamphlets from schools trying to recruit me from
you know, Ivy League kind of schools, and I was
just like, why would I want to do that? Who
cares what school I go to? You know, education, knowledge
is knowledge. It's not like these Ivy League schools have
specific knowledge, right, it's just and plus the University of

(46:45):
Washington is a pretty good school. So anyway, now, God bless,
you know if you want to go to a nice school.
But now I will be hanging out with suburban you know,
the average suburban family in the Seattle area anyway, and
everyone is talking the way that my Vietnamese friend was

(47:08):
talking about, like even the kids. The kids will be
like fifteen and they're like, oh, okay, so here's my
top schools. And they're all like prestigious, expensive, out of
state schools, and you know, God bless if that's what
you want to do. But you know, the idea of
going to like the local state school like University of
Washington is abhorrent to a lot of these people. It's
just like, well, that's what basic people do. That's what

(47:31):
people do that aren't serious. That's what losers do. And
I'm generalizing, of course, but it is kind of that way.
And so I'm you know, I'm quite sure that in
the music arena and in the sports arena I see
those things getting worse and worse as well. You have

(47:51):
kids that will you know, when we were kids, and
guess is just gen X shaking fists it you know
today people. But but I think it's worth talking about that.
When we were kids and we played soccer, for example,
it was just for fun. Yeah, sure we wanted to
get better, we wanted to win, but we didn't live

(48:13):
and breathe it right. And everyone was like that, Like,
there wasn't a single kid or team in my town
that took it any more serious to the event. Everyone
took it the same level of seriousness, which was pretty minimal.
There was no off season training at all. We would
show up for the first day of practice and run

(48:35):
some drills and kind of muddle our way through a game,
and you know, it was a big deal there There
was ups and downs, and I have a lot of
memories from that, but but as soon as the season
was over, it was over. Now you have kids, they're
playing year round, they're on All Star team, they're traveling
all over the place. You know, again, God bless if

(48:56):
that's if that's what, But I question whether or not
that is what's best for these kids and their development,
because so much of what happens in development happens between
all those scheduled things. Happens when you just have free
time to hang out with your friends and watch YouTube,
or walk to the store, or you're on the phone

(49:20):
talking about your crush on David Bowie or something to
date myself. Those are them, and you don't plan those
and there's not an all star team of like gossipers
on the phone, but those are I mean, when I
think about the things that you know contributed to my
well being and my development as a human being, all

(49:41):
of it's all that stuff. None of it has to
do with academics. It has to do with sports, honestly,
but not not achievement in sport, but the experiences, you know,
the camaraderie, the love, the bond, the working hard, losing
you know, most of the teams I was on, we lost,
and so I had to learn how to lose, how

(50:04):
to lose gracefully. How does it lose and still try
the next week, you know, still try just as hard,
not give up, not give in to the cynicism of
this team. Sucks, that kind of thing. And so, yeah,
and if I was so if maybe some kids today
are extremely oriented towards one sport, and maybe they also

(50:28):
are learning a lot of those lessons, but I would
just hope that they would just have balance. You know.
Now there are plenty of kids that are all star
on a soccer team, and they have very rich social lives,
you know, maybe with their teammates. So I'm not you know,
there's really a case by case basis, but it really

(50:50):
the one area where I'm almost always bummed out is
when I hear about a kid at fourteen is already
thinking about IVY League school, or I hear about a
kid who's ten and is already making plans to become
like a professional athlete and they're doing that sport around

(51:13):
the clock. It's often what gives parents the most pride.
You know, my kid is going to an all star
national team of gymnasts or something, and whenever I hear that,
I always go, oh gosh, I hope that kid's okay.
And maybe the kid is okay. Maybe the kid is

(51:34):
more than okay. I don't know. All right, Well, that
does it for that episode. Everyone let me know what
you think in the comments, share your experience, email me,
and everyone out there, please, without any exasperation in my voice,
take care of yourself because you deserve it most wholeheartedly,

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