September 24, 2024 • 73 mins
In this captivating episode, Tom Paris, a retired psychotherapist, dives into the fascinating world of psychoanalysis and the power of dreams in unlocking the unconscious mind. With a rich background in somatic psychotherapy and a deep understanding of Dr. Bernard Bail's work, Tom shares insights on how early childhood imprints shape our behavior, relationships, and emotional well-being. The conversation also explores the complexities of creativity, the role of the saboteur in therapy, and how confronting one's unconscious fears can lead to profound personal growth. Whether you're curious about dream analysis or personal development, this episode offers a deep and reflective look into the human psyche.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Hello.
My name is Cynthia Marks.
I head up the HolisticPsychoanalysis Foundation
established by my late husband, Dr.
Bernard Bail.
Welcome to the and Now Love podcast.
Dr. Thomas Paris is with us today.
He is a retired psychotherapist.
(00:24):
He was in private practicefor 30 years in the Los Angeles area.
He trained with Dr.
Bail for many years, and he has an ongoinginterest in his work and theories.
Welcome and thank you for wanting to sharewhat you know with us.
Thanks, Cynthia. It's good to be here.
Happy that you made it in.
(00:45):
I'm really excited to be here. Yes.
So the more I get to know you, the moreI get to know.
Bernard,you've told me so many things about him
that I didn't even know,so it's been really fun.
I think people have bitsand pieces of him, and.
Yeah, it must be interesting for youto hear all these different
(01:05):
various aspects of his life.
Yeah, I continueto have these fun little surprises,
so I have a list of questions herewhich I may follow.
I may go off track, but.
Okay, I'll start at the beginningand we'll see how it goes.
Dr. Weil was, of course, a psychoanalyst.
From a doctor's point of view, yours.
(01:26):
What is the differencebetween analysis and therapy?
It depends a lot, actually, on
what analysis you're
talking about, because there are variousversions of analytic work and different
analytic theories, and some peoplepractice differently than others.
And of course, there's many,many kinds of therapy and psychotherapy.
(01:50):
Having said, that, analysis
often involvestrying to explore a patient's unconscious.
Now, some more modern versions of analysis
don't necessarily pay much attentionto the unconscious these days,
but originally it had to dowith exploring the unconscious.
(02:12):
Fairer therapy can be anything from short
term intervention to longer work.
It may be with adult children.
It could be cognitive behavioral therapy.
I mean, there's that for us laypeople.
I'm not an expertin cognitive behavioral therapy,
but like its name, it tends to focus
(02:33):
on using your conscious mindto change behavior
by looking at what messagesyou tell yourself and getting you
to change your thoughts in orderto change your feelings and behavior.
I see.
So I don't like this thing that I dowhen I do it.
I have that feeling thatI don't like this thing that I do.
(02:55):
How am I going to adjust myselfso I don't get to that place?
Yeah, I think that's it.
They want to help you figure outwhy you're doing it in a cognitive way.
Sort of intellectually,and then help you have strategies to stop.
Cognitive strategy. Yes.
So what is the difference between Dr.
Bails theory and cognitive behaviortheories?
(03:19):
Dr. Bails work was very much involved
with exploring the unconscious,
what's going on in a patient'sunconscious that they are unaware of.
So and you know that it
has a lot to do with exploring your past,and it has to do with,
as you've been learning aboutand talking about on these podcasts.
(03:43):
The what? Dr.
Bail called the imprintand the way that he worked with
the imprint was through a patient's dream.
And then the interpretationand the understanding of that dream.
And it took him years to come to thisas an approach.
My understanding is he came to it
(04:06):
later in his life,although he lived to a hundred.
That's much later.
But I believe that he was in his earlysixties,
late fifties, early sixtieswhen he began to put this together.
And again, my understanding is that itcame his discovery
(04:27):
really came through his workwith his patients.
He already knew from his owntraining as a psychoanalyst
and his own his own analysis.
He came to value the dreamvery, very, very much.
So I think the dream was alwaysa part of his work.
What the understanding of whatthat dream meant,
(04:50):
I think, changed for him quite radically.
He did speak about some ofhis own therapy early on as
being
really fabulous but being intellectual.
These great conversations back and forth.
But he noticed that he wasn't
changing or growing or feeling different.
(05:11):
And he sort of talked about thatas the stimulus to kind of break away
from all that and say,I, I've got nothing.
I'm going to start for nothingfrom nothing and see where it takes me.
And that's a huge piece of workto just just to attempt to that,
to try to empty oneself, to try
(05:31):
after years of medical school,years of psychiatric training, years,
then another set of yearsof psychoanalytic training
and building a practiceand working in a particular modality,
and then to try to let all of thatgo and open yourself up.
It was is quite a task. Yeah.
(05:53):
And it was quite trying.
According to him,it was a difficult, difficult time.
I can imagine that it wasit would take well, like everyone's
analysis, I think it takes courage,it takes perseverance.
So I think he had to have those qualities
in spades to do that.
(06:15):
Right.
I think some of us just like to say
maybe I'm not perfect,maybe I'm not always happy, but I'm good.
I don't need this.
Just get on.
Yeah, I'm just going to live my life,which is great.
I mean, people can do that, too.
So you came to Dr.
Bail after working with Dr.
Cher and.
And she practiced using his theoriesand his dream work.
(06:37):
Right.
And you came to her because you hadyou read her book or you.
I saw her book at a psychoanalytic
conference or a psychotherapy conference.
And I just read the flap.
And I was really fascinatedwith the approach
(06:58):
she was describing, which was Dr.
Bails approach and the analyticunderstanding, using dreams
as a way to understandsomeone's unconscious.
I had
very much earlier in my lifeas a young man had been in
(07:18):
and young in analysisfor a number of years.
And could you give us just a little tip ofthe iceberg about what Jung in analysis?
Carl Jungwas one of the original disciples
of Freud, and very early on
broke off with Freudas a number of people did,
(07:41):
who didn't necessarily want to follow
Freud's point of view
of looking at the edifice complexas some of those disciples
were quite famous and great intellects
themselves as young was Jung became
he still did analytic workand he used the dream.
(08:04):
But Jung felt that the dream was primarily
made up of symbols that were universal.
And so if you can understandthe symbology in the dream,
that's how you will unlock its meaning.
So that's where that was.
But I had alwaysappreciated the dream as as a
(08:29):
an area that was mysterious.
And yet it felt had always felt to meto be quite important.
So when I saw Doctor shares a bookthat described Dr.
Bail's work,that really rang a bell for me.
So I got in touch with Dr.
Sharon and started seeing her
(08:52):
congruent with my work.
With her was my growing
interest in psychoanalysis.
So I began to get some training with that.
I learned more about Dr. Bail.
I went to seminars,
I went to some psychoanalytic conferenceswhere he would present.
(09:14):
And so that was the dreamwas really my entrance to his work.
And during that course of time, wereyou studying or were you already a doctor?
No, I was already in private practice.
I had probably been practicing for
ten or 12 years.
I was doing a different kind of work.
(09:35):
I had come out of a kind of workcalled somatic
psychology or somatic psychotherapy.
And describe that.
Sheer somatic.
There's again, there's
you know, hundreds of kinds
of somatic psychotherapiesthat are going around
not only the US, but around the world,many, many people
(09:59):
have taken bits and pieces of thatand developed their own kind of work.
Is it also
frequently gaining in popularity?
I've heard of it a lot more than I hadin the past, but maybe my ears are open.
I don't know what its current statusis, to be honest, but
during the eighties and the nineties,in the early 2000s, for sure
(10:23):
there was a lot of both professionalinterest and interest I think.
And in the general public in that approachat sort of its essence.
Somatic psychology
wants to include the body
so that you're not just dealingwith a patient
(10:45):
in their intellect,
but you're looking at the you'reincluding the body
in your observation of the person,
their eyemovements, their facial movements,
their facial expressions, their posture,how they're holding their hands.
If you begin to talk about somebody'smother and
(11:06):
and the patient goes like this,you go, that's it.
Let's see.
So it's informationon a physiological level that you include
understanding of the patientand what's going on.
And there's lots of other kinds.
And there's people who dophysical exercises
(11:29):
that have sort of combined yogawith other modalities.
So it's a quite varied field as.
A way to get to the issues, then.
As a way to try to get to the issues.
Yes, Correct.
So then is this therapya little awkward now?
Because so many doctorsare having their meetings
(11:49):
with patients across a Zoom platform?
I, I,I think it would have to be, you know,
people many times now are only doingwork on Zoom or or on the telephone.
I personally would find that.
I mean, I've been on Zoom meetingsand there's an odd quality to them.
(12:12):
Yes, there is.
It's you're looking at the person.
So you have that visual stimulusthat you don't have on the phone,
but there's the quality of the contact.
It's not like sitting with someone.
You know, there's definitely a separation.
Whereas on the phone you're listening.
Part of the therapist is really,really heightened.
(12:35):
So you may pay much more attentionto the patient's voice
and what that's expressingand how it changes moment to moment
or in in a sentence or how it changes
as the as the subjectof what you're talking about, changes.
You know, again, if you begin to talkabout someone's mother and then they start
(12:59):
almost you can see or feel thembecoming sad again, it's information.
So the therapy just onceall the information that we can
that we can gather.
Even thosewho don't really consider themselves
somatic therapists, you almost can't helpbut use it as a tool.
I think if you're paying attention,you'll see things,
(13:22):
you know,you'll you'll see things happening.
The union way of looking at dreams then
means that
what I'm dreaming about,I'm dreaming about a house,
a house is always a house,whether I'm Cynthia or Janine.
I mean, I was a patient in that work.
(13:44):
And so I have read some of young
but again, I'm not a union analyst,but often a house
might be interpreted as the self,
which is not a leap to me.
You know,I can stand in for the you're essential.
So. So Jung didn't come with a book ofsymbols saying this is well.
(14:06):
More or less. Yeah.
If you study that work, you know,if there's a fish
that can have a particular meaning.
So numbers would have meanings.
There were symbols that Jung foundthat seemed to be universal
across cultures and across time.
And so that's important to think about.
(14:28):
And it is and it doesmake some some sense that a house would
represent, you.
The place where you reside. Yes. Yeah.
Whether that's physically,literally or psychically.
Yeah. Yeah.
In Dr.
Bail's work, though, that symbology
was more individual based,
(14:49):
he would look to his patient
to share what they thought
their dream was aboutand what those things meant.
Like I was in this house,but it wasn't my house.
That's an unfamiliar house.
Well, now there's a house.
But what does that mean?
And maybe it is completely individualized.
(15:12):
Yes. Dr.
Bail's view,I believe, of the of these kinds
of symbols in a dream or the unconscioushas a great amount of plasticity.
It can use anything at any time
in any way it chooses to.
So you always want to havean open mind as the analyst.
(15:37):
You want to look at What does
this House mean for this patient
today or last night or in their
in the context of their life,what's going on?
Because the House might bemaybe it's a haunted house,
You know, maybe their childhood
(15:59):
home was not a good place.
Maybe it was a place of violenceand terror and not a good place.
So it might not represent the self.
So you have to
it's a piece of workfor the analysts to keep an open mind,
(16:19):
especially as you goalong with the patient.
Some themes may reemerge over time.
That's why the analystand when you work in the way that Dr.
Bail developed, you want your informationto come from the patient.
You try not to put what you thinkis going on onto the patient.
(16:40):
You gather when you listen to the dream
and you ask questions that may elicit
feelings and thoughts from the patient.
Then you begin to gather informationabout what this dream,
what the patient is thinking,what's occurring to the patient
(17:01):
about this dream, not just whatI think I may have a hit, but I have to
I have to be matureenough in my own mind to put this.
I have to hold it over hereand keep gathering this information.
And at some point in the hour,you try to put them together in
(17:21):
and solve the mystery
and the patient will tell youif you're right or not.
I think so, yeah.
So that, though, foris that the case for any therapist across
types of therapythat you as the therapist,
have to hold over herewhat it is you think is going on?
(17:42):
Well, hopefully.
It would seemlike that would be one of the tenants.
Yes, it it is one of the tenants.
And I said hopefully half jokingly.
But but also, you know, seriously,because it's a
it again, is a piece of workfor the analyst to put aside
(18:03):
in a significant waytheir own feelings and impulses
and their thoughtsand keep listening to the patient.
So every therapist and analyst
is trained in a particular way.
And so youthe therapist, is going to bring
something of their trainingand their background, of course, to to the
(18:28):
to the consulting room and how they managethat is very important.
And I guess that would lead patients
to go to one therapist or another,depending on
where they were thinkingthat they were best suited.
I mean, if you feel that at home
in the good sense.
Right.
Of home, you will probably stay there.
(18:50):
If you you know, if a patienthas the experience that the therapist
is continually putting something on themor has an agenda
in some way that isn't clearly stated.
Yeah.
And that can tend to drive a patient awaybecause they won't feel listened to.
(19:10):
They won't really feel seen. Sure.
So Dr.
Bail's work of late, we're doing our bestto put it back in the forefront.
I know for a period of timehis work was really well known
and there were lots of peopletrying to learn about his theory
as doctors, other therapists. Is.
(19:32):
Is that right?
That's my understanding, yes.
And I know that a lot of what he did
was considered very controversial.
And he always made his point known.
He didn't step back from what he believedto be the absolute truth
in terms of people being able
(19:53):
to take care of themselvesand become their best self.
I'm disheartened that he wasn't ableto make a whole lot of progress
with thatin his community, amongst his peers.
Do you
think there'smore of an opening to this work now?
I hope so.
I think that there is, because the fielditself is more I believe, is more open.
(20:18):
When Dr.
Bail first was trainedand first was in his practice,
it pretty much was truethat there was Freudian analysis
and the couple small offshootsthat grew in the late forties
and early fifties, but they were reallyvery, really, very new.
I believe that, you know,one of the things that Dr.
(20:41):
Bails said is that truth is love.
When you are able to say the truth,
that should be in a loving wayand to further love.
He was a man who
who stood for the truthin many ways emotionally
and intellectually and professionally.
(21:04):
And I think that that alienated him
from a lot of peoplein that community of of analysts.
I think so, too, Yes.
But he was all about the truth.
So if you broke away, you know,if it was the late fifties, early sixties,
and you wanted to break awayfrom the Freudian the Freudian paradigm,
(21:29):
you know, you were
going to alienatea lot of your colleagues, people
that you went to schoolwith and people that you trained with.
And those people might not send
you referralsbecause you were going in a different path
that they didn't know or didn't agree with
or may have been hotly contested.
(21:50):
And what does that mean for the waythey've been treating their patients
all this time?
Does that come into question?
Well, it would mean that that wasit would tend to be narrow
and, you know, be in kind of a box.
Yeah.
As opposed to what you were saying earlierwhere Dr.
Bail tried to open himselfin order to go down a different path.
(22:12):
That was not a Freudiantheoretical framework.
He had to open himself to something elseto see if there was something else there.
And he often said that he wanted othertherapists, particularly young therapists,
to have that opportunity to think outsideof the Freudian paradigm, to be able to
(22:34):
maybe not even follow in his footsteps,
but to explore something else. Yes.
And I don't know if there's a lotof room for that quite yet.
There tend to be schools of thought
and theory, theoretical schools,
and theythey tend to stay with their kind.
(22:58):
And there'sthere isn't often a lot of crossover.
And that's not new in many disciplines.
So either this way or you're either inor you're out.
Yeah.
So for you, if you don't mind,you can tell me if you do
during the course of this workeither with Dr.
Sherry. Dr.
Bail, was there a point where you said,yeah, I get this?
(23:23):
I see.
I've read about it.
I'm here because I'm intrigued,but I really feel this working for me.
And then what did that mean for you?
Did your did your life change?
Did your relationships change?
Did your therapy change? Yes. Still,
for example, was there something that you
(23:45):
some way you grew upor something that you wished you'd done
that you didn't, but now you're like,wait a minute, I am entitled to all this.
I think you're asking me about my growthpersonally and my growth professionally.
And so that happened overa period of time,
as opposed to the Zen moment where
(24:08):
everything in the universe changes.
It's usually an accumulation
of understandingsthat begin to show up in your life,
and in particular wayslike your life works better.
It things could be small things.
Things get cleanedup, things are a little easier.
(24:30):
You don't have the same roadblocksyou don't get.
Perhaps you don't get sick as oftenor you don't get as many colds.
For me, music when I was very young
was something that really
captured me, made me feel very alive.
But I.
(24:52):
I didn't get too farwith that in my adolescence.
But through my work with Dr.
Cher,which is how I came to understand Dr.
Bails work both intellectually and
from an experiential point of view.
I was able to go back and get a guitar
(25:15):
and start taking lessons and bumpinto all the struggles
that I had left behindwhen I didn't follow through on that.
So it wasn't just that,
now I'm I'm fine, I'm perfect.
I've done this work and I goget the guitar and now I play like this.
(25:36):
I had to go get it and then bump intowhat was
what was it that I had been struggling,
what kept me away from,from being able to enjoy it
and to get somewhereand to do something with it.
So again, that's a piece of work.
And so that happened over time.
And I play guitar and I play harmonicaand I have a band, as you know.
(25:59):
A really fabulous band,all super talented.
And so I it, it means a lot to me.
It gives a lot to me.
And I can be on stageand give that to other people.
And it's, it's just a great thrill.
It's funny because
I've had people,
(26:20):
guys like my age come up to me
in between sets or after a gig and say,
Dude, you're living my dream.
Like, Yeah, I'm living mine.
Yeah.
So that's so fabulous.
Yeah, yeah. It's a gift.
They could be living their dream too.
(26:41):
You know,if you get if you get help and support
and you listen to what your dream
is telling you about yourself
and you have ahopefully you have a skilled person
to work that through with,then you can make progress.
(27:03):
So I was intrigued when you said that
you worked through some
well, you discovered that, yes,you're going to pick up the guitar
and you're going to play andthat was comfortable and you hadn't done
that sort of to your dismay,I suppose, as a younger person.
But that that didn't mean,
(27:23):
like you said, you just picked it upand played and everything was perfect.
There were still
issues to overcome, whatever they were.
Did you through the therapy
then gather some strength to
deal with those issues?
Well, by bringing in a dream
(27:44):
to my analysis over time,my dreams told me
and my analyst who helpedgive me an accurate
interpretation of those dreams,
I began to understandhow I was in my own way.
It also becomes clearwhat you need to do about it.
(28:06):
That's not easy.
Or I would have done it when I was 12.
It's very it was for me,that was the hard work.
Everyone has their own hard work to do.
So yes, I think that answers.
It does. Yeah.
And because I'm going to forget you
get to a placewhere the interpretation is accurate,
(28:29):
and that's kind of this group effortbetween you and your therapist.
How do you know that?
How does it how does how do you say howdo you get to that place where that's it?
I mean,
I know it's not just a sudden spark,
but I mean, as I've said before,I wasn't analyzed.
But in talking about some of my dreams
(28:51):
with Bernard,we would talk and talk and talk.
And finally I would go,
I feel something here
that I I've been thinkingthis was yellow all this time.
And look, it's blue.
You answered your own question, but I'll.
Answer it to.
Use it what you did.
So again, if we bring a little bitof tracking the body,
(29:15):
if you don't mind, and listening,what you did was,
as you would describe a moment ago,when you had an understanding
of your dream that was accurate,The reason you knew it was accurate,
you went,
so there was an opening, a softening.
(29:35):
Something happened inside of you.
There was a knowing.
And you were quite clear. Yes.
yeah.
And that I remember thinking
that is just shockingly wonderful.
And that, that thing
(29:58):
that was so much only about feeling,
but it was a recognizable thing
to use as a path forward and,
you know, created a zone where it's like,I want more of this.
Yeah, that's right.
Because it's ait's a it's a deeply good feeling.
(30:21):
Even a small one like you were enacting.
It doesn't have to be.
That was the biggest insightyou've ever had in your life.
And it's it's a small
not even a hand necessarily, but
you know, it's likeit's a little bit for me, it was like a
it was often the feel like a correct
(30:43):
understanding of the dream was a feeling.
It was like I was going like thisand now I was back on track
and like, you're like.
And so if you see someone
and work on your dreamsa couple of times a week,
you know, once a
week can be a long time in between.
(31:03):
If a person is struggling in their life,
you have six days and 23 hours
where you're not getting this particularkind of help and understanding.
So you go off againand then you come back and you
in through your unconscious,the production of the dream.
(31:25):
And then under standing of that dream,
you get back on trackand you get back on track.
And over time you're like,This feels terrible.
I want to get back on trackbecause this is me.
Yeah, I know, this is me.
This is more me than this is.
And that feels all put togetherlike the parts and pieces have all landed.
(31:47):
Where they should be.Yeah, we always have work to do.
But you feel like you've got a basethat it's like this, not like this.
And yeah, you're not whiteknuckling anymore.
Yeah. Yeah.
You have a place to start from and, and
you've done something.
I think just by virtue of investigatingyour dreams and being open to the idea
(32:10):
of the unconscious, which is a huge,
vast thing, is
can be kind of ominous.
It's could be scary.
It's like I don't want
I don't think I want to go there,but to go
there and even have a little hintlike that.
Yeah, it's not so, you know, it's blue.
Just it's just to have that
is so eye opening.
(32:31):
You just got to keep going.
Well, that those experiences,
even though they happen one at a time,they build on each other
and they help, you know.
Okay, yeah, this is scary.
It's hard.
I don't feel like going to therapyin a day.
I'll just call it I'll call in sick now.
(32:51):
But as you get those sort of correcting
to get back on track, itsort of builds on itself.
It builds strength,it builds reassurance inside of yourself
so that you can begin to go,you know, even though it's hard,
I don't know where it's goingor this unconscious thing,
what the heck's that all about?
(33:12):
But if you keep having
an experience of coming to yourself
that tends to keep you going,
you're like, okay, I'm going to go back.
Because even on the daysyou don't want to go, if you have
something of that experience, youthat helps.
And eventually, you know, I'm going to goeven though I don't want to go.
(33:35):
Sometimes.
You might also find out the daysyou don't want to go.
There'ssomething really important going on
that's just kind of hard to look at.
So you become suspicious
of your own, the part of yourself.
Maybe the saboteur that Dr.
Bail talked about.
I know it's come up here with other talksthat you've done.
(33:58):
It has been very a little bit about whatthat is.
Just to refresh us laypeople.
The saboteur is a part of usthat wants to maintain the status quo,
that wants to maintain this statusquo over here.
That's a little bit off trackbecause that's how it's always been.
That's what the truth is. Why know that?
(34:19):
Because it's what I've felt and believedfor 50 years of my life.
That's what.
So that must be true.
And this is part of your unconscious?
Yes, it's it's yes, it is.
You don't know reallythat it's a part of you
that's keeping you from health.
And that saboteur could be sortof screwing with your dreams.
(34:44):
And you are thinking, okay,
this must mean this.
And that's
what the saboteur wants you to think,so that you can keep the status quo.
But really, this maybe means this.
Yes, it's that where you needan analyst with experience
who's been in their own analysis,who knows
(35:08):
the interpretation of dreams
because they've had their owndreams, interpret.
You can't you can't do this workwithout as a therapist, without having.
No. Yeah. No, you can't.
So when someone feels likeI don't feel like going to therapy today
and, you know, over time, you,you become aware,
(35:29):
you know, if you have the experience,
I don't want to go and you doand something important happens.
It helps you gothe next time you feel that like, Wait,
I am not going to pay attention to that,or even if I don't want to go,
I know it's going to be in my bestlong term interest to go.
But yes, we can say that.
(35:51):
That's the saboteursaying is don't go today.
What one time, Don't worry about it.
Save some money and, you know.
Watch that movie.
Go get some coffee. And you're. Right.
I think the other thing that happens isthere are moments
where you don't remember your dreams,maybe for a few days.
And I know for me that's frustrating.
(36:13):
Or it used to be frustrating.
Like, I want to write this down.
I want to figure out what's going on.
And it's like, why can't I dream?
And then I got to the place whereI'm like, this kind of cool something.
Something big is going to come.
Well, you
know, for the for the therapistor the analyst,
if your patient doesn't dream, you may go,
(36:36):
let's say
this particular patientnormally comes in with a dream.
Could be elaborate.
It could be small, could be one thing,one piece of something.
But they normally bring something in.
If suddenly they don't.
The analyst is like,okay, let's we want to know.
The analyst wants to knowwhat this is about.
(36:58):
Why is this
perhaps their previous
interpretation of the dreamwasn't correct.
Oftentimes, if the interpretation
or understanding of the dreamisn't accurate, you won't dream
until that piece of work is done correctly
(37:20):
and then the patient opens up again.
So then is that an opportunityfor you as a therapist to kind of go
back to that dream and and talk about itsome more?
Absolutely.
You might go back and and and look at that
dream again or talk about itor check in with the patient.
Maybe the patient was taking care of you.
(37:42):
I see this happens
wherethe patient will take care of the analyst.
So but again,if the patient isn't dreaming it,
these they're sort of built in guardrails.
The analyst being openenough to think, well, maybe this
my interpretationthe other day was incorrect.
(38:03):
Maybe there's something going on.
Like you alluded to that kind of big
and the patient doesn't want to in a insome way doesn't want to remember
because it may be somethingthat's hard to look at.
You know, in the same vein,I think you were
almost asking this question also, which is
(38:26):
people often believe they need
to bring in this long story.
This happened in here.
And then I was driving a carand then I was the ocean.
And then.
you have to be entertained. Right?
Right. You have to produce.
It might be just something like,
well, all I remember is
(38:48):
something about the color gray.
That's enough.
You can makeyou can do a piece of work with that.
So the other sort of built in guardrailis that
some people will remember
what they're able to rememberat that given time.
(39:10):
And that's okay.
That's fine.
You go you go with that.
Yeah.
And you could have an entire 50 minutes
around that because the color grayleads you to something.
To something. To something. Sure.
What comes to mind was, well, my dad,
it was his favorite color.
(39:31):
yeah. Right.
That there's probably a piece of workthere.
Yeah.
and the other aspect is that Dr.
Baily didn't want you didn't wantthe patient to write down their dreams.
because we all tend to edit.
If you have a pretty hard dreamand you're doing something or involved
(39:52):
with something that's unseemly, really,or that you don't think
makes you look good,
the tendency is to
you'll leave it outor you'll make it slightly better.
Or so we don't want to edit
the dream with our conscious mind.
(40:14):
And writing is very much a conscious.
It's a little bitof a complicated activity,
thinking about something and getting outout onto the pencil and the paper.
There's a tremendous amount of editingthat goes on.
Anybody who writes will tell youthat you write something.
Now you scratch out, now that's better.
(40:36):
And people write and rewriteand rewrite and rewrite.
If we can get an unedited version
of the dream,what the patient is able to remember
on this particular Tuesday,
that's much more authentic.
Let's say unadulterated.
(40:56):
But there's still the potentialthat that could be edited.
Like I'm telling you, my dream.
And there's this partthat's super embarrassing.
Yes, I'm going to leave that out,but you'll probably.
Over time, I think that'll get worked out.
Yeah.
And sometimes the the opposite happens,which is as you're working with a dream,
a piece of the dream will be rememberedby the patient also like, yeah.
(41:21):
And then this happened and I forgot that
because it's all getting stimulated again
and, and hopefully being understood.
And so understandingis really important when,
when a person feels understood,they open up.
Yeah, I guess
the more
(41:42):
you test those waters as a patient,
like I'm going to sharethis bit makes me uncomfortable.
But they seethat you're still sitting there.
If you're if it's still if somethingyou're uncomfortable with is met
with understanding and
a and a feeling of not judgment
(42:02):
and a feeling of empathyand understanding.
And the goal is one, really,
to help you grow as a person over time,you're
you're going to take that inand you begin to trust that more and more.
And so it's self fulfillingand the process.
(42:24):
That's really preciousbecause I think that's,
you know, that's hard for usto come by in our day to day.
It is.
What do you thinkare the greatest things to come from
understanding dreams,unlocking your unconscious
and understanding or honoring
(42:44):
this ideaof the mother's imprint rather than
when I say honoring it,
making yourself okaywith having an imprint.
What's what's what's a great thing about
doing that?
(43:04):
Well,the greatest thing is that you get over
time to come home.
That feeling that we were speakingabout coming back to yourself,
only a deep a true,
authentic self,
which gives one the feeling of,yeah, that's, that's me.
(43:28):
And that's a good feeling.
So the imprint is a little bitthe opposite of that.
The imprint keeps you
in bondage.
Now, one of the things that makesthat better is understanding your dreams,
because that over time that will undothose bonds that are trapping you.
(43:52):
And the other is the understanding
that, you know what
we all have an imprint.
You can't get here without one.
Some are better than others.
Some people are more damaged.
We all know that.
But everybody has a mother.
Every mother has an unconscious.
(44:14):
And so we all come intothis world with some work.
Everybody has an imprint.
And that also helps
patients with this idea,which is, you know, people think that Dr.
Bail was blaming the mother.
It's not blaming the mother
(44:34):
because there's no one really to blame.
I mean, children can be real victims,
especially in familieswhere there's abuse of some kind.
But all of us,as we at some point in adulthood
were more responsible for our own growth.
(44:55):
And in that way, there's you
if you begin to understand your mother
if you begin to understandyour own imprint from your mother,
you're going to bump into the factthat your mom had an imprint because.
You're going to say, well,where did her imprint come from?
Well, that came from maternal grandma.
(45:18):
Well, where did she get her?
And so we can start going back.
And it's a little bit endless.
It is.
And at some point you're like,well, who's to blame?
Right?
You know,great, great, great, great, great grandma.
No. And we do have to include fathersin this.
Absolutely.
Because I think fathers, you know,hopefully more now in these last couple
(45:41):
generationsare much more involved in pregnancy
and in early child care.
I think the more a father doesthat, the better it is for children.
You know, obviously, again,taking away addictions
and physical abuseand very harmful things.
But I think if a child has two lovingparents, that's great.
(46:05):
Good, great.
Not everybody has that.
And healthy kids can come outof any kind of family structure.
Doesn't have to be two parentsif you have that.
And then great.
You know, because we know that the fetusat a certain point can hear,
hear, hear.
(46:26):
The mother and the father can hear them.
Yeah. So talk to your baby.
Talk to the baby inside there.
Talk to the fetus.
And that relationship between that couple,
the way the father treats reacts tothe mother is also delivered to the baby.
Absolutely.
I think the baby gets everything in thatenvironment and it's getting the mothers,
(46:52):
not only the mother's unconscious,
but it's getting the mother'songoing daily experience
through her emotional life
and through her biochemistryThat goes right to the fetus.
Yeah.
It seems so simple to understand, and yet.
It's hard to do.
(47:14):
It is.
Because, you know, mom and dadand everybody have to live a life
and they got to get food on the tableand they have to go to the grocery store
and they have to deal with their parentsor their neighbors or their siblings.
And, you know, life is complicated.
And in that process, too,I think most of us
(47:35):
also feel like we have to doall of those things perfectly
and that we don't have issuesand that it's not okay to have issues
and therefore it'snot okay to have an imprint.
And if we can get to a place whereas humans, as individuals, we can say,
Hey, I have issues and I'mno less of a person and I'm working
(47:55):
through these thingsand I'm trying to get to
who I really am to best self,
but I'm going to make mistakesand I'm not here to be perfect.
That's a
tough road to be perfectbecause none of us are.
It's an impossible taskthat that tends to never let up.
You know,where it's people who wears people out.
(48:18):
But if a mom, a pregnantmom can say to the baby, you know,
I'm feeling so disappointed in myselfbecause I didn't do this right.
But I know I'm trying to be perfectand this doesn't have to do with you.
Just even saying those words,
I think is a is a good step.
(48:39):
I think some talking to your baby,if you're sad,
tell your developing baby in uterothat you're sad
and it's not because of the babythat's lovely.
And and that baby then also I think
because we were talking about a baby
that can read your facial expressionwhen we were talking with Dr.
(49:00):
Kross andand learn to know when you're happy or sad
and know that a smile means happyand a frown doesn't in utero,
then it would be the same thingwith a voice that baby could hear
sort of the rumble in
your sadness or,you know, this little squeaky ness
and your laugh andand begin to take on those things.
(49:24):
In thein the developing fetus will experience
the mother's emotions,like I said a moment ago.
So if mom is sad the whole biochemistrygoing on in mom that comes with sadness
or depression isis experienced by the baby,
as is the happiness, the smile.
The baby also gets the smile.
(49:46):
And so it's interesting that the
when a baby, a newborn is breastfeeding so
the baby can focus, the newborn infant
can focus at about 12 inches
after three days, which is really fast.
That's about the distance, the mother'seyes and the breastfeeding baby.
(50:10):
That's exactly what Dr. Krauss said.
It's true.
In another part of
my professional life,I studied early infant development.
And and and that's also why Dr.
Bail's work appealed to me,because I had already been
very interested in fetal development
(50:33):
and early infant development,because it's so such an important time.
But isn't that amazing that nature,
You know, you're brand newand you're growing
and nature's giving youa little bit more scope at a time
and to settle in, this is allyou got to do right here, just right.
Here.
That's why it's really important for a momwho's breastfeeding to look at that baby
(50:56):
and not be on her phone, for instance,
or whatever, or on the other phoneor watching TV and, you know,
pay attention and look at the babyand in a loving way and get
then everybody gets that oxytocin
and all those those those good things.
And I think that nature,like you were saying,
(51:18):
it did that as a survival make.
It helped.
That helps human infants survive.
They can't do anything.
They can't stand,they can't talk, they can't run.
They can.
We're really helpless.
We're still relying on mom.
And so if you make contact with mom
(51:39):
and mom makes contact with youand mom makes a bond with you
through visual contactand the feelings that come with that,
she's going to take care of you.
So nature provided us a way to survivebecause that's the job, number one.
Yeah. Yeah.
(52:00):
So that's a little piece of physiologythat helped our survival.
I think.
It's interesting.
And again, I still think it'shard to grasp, even though I get it, that
for example, as a pregnant mom,something happens.
You feel fear.
I don't know.
Maybe you're almost running into the carin front of you and your heart starts
to beat. Yeah.
And your blood starts to move faster.
(52:21):
Well, that's happening to the baby. Yes.
I mean, that's just clear.
Why is then it's so hardfor us to understand
that everything we're doingis happening to the baby.
Well, people still have an old,
you know, pediatricians know this stuff.
Someone people who study early infantdevelopment know these things.
(52:42):
But I think in general, most new parents
and most people think, the babydoesn't know anything.
It's not really feeling stuff.
You have you poke with a pen,it'll have a reaction to physical pain.
But, you know, it's it's
it's not really thinking, it'snot really feeling.
(53:03):
It can't talk.
So nothing is going on.
Yeah.
So you can yell and screamwith your neighbor and it doesn't matter.
And the,
and the thing that you hear is people say,well the baby I'll never remember
or the baby experiences that
and it's unconscious remembers.
And that experiencemay come up in the dream if a dream is
(53:25):
correctly understood, if it if let's saythat experience is a part of the imprint,
if it was something of the imprintbeing acted out, it'll show up.
Because our unconscious storesall of that stuff.
Is that right?It does, yes. It's all in there.
And I think also, you know, in some way,we're asking a lot of new parents
(53:47):
who are under tremendous pressureto start taking care of this baby
as a fetus, yet,you know, wait till after the birth.
You have to start now.
Talk to it and take care of it.
Assume that it's not intellectually
understanding everything,but experiencing everything.
(54:09):
And, you know, dads used to think, well,
when when or she can walk and talk
and then I can throw a ball,then yeah, call me.
Yeah.
There's so much going on thoughin the life of that pregnant person
that keeps you awayfrom doing what you're suggesting.
(54:29):
You just the fear alone of I'mbringing this human into the world.
What if I don't do it right? I don't.
I've never done this before,or I've done it four times before,
and I got all those other kidsto take care of.
I mean, there's so much pressure.
It's a lot of pressure.
I mean, I can only imaginewhat that pressure is like and that sense
(54:49):
of responsibilitythat comes with that of being the nest
and carrying the, you know, having a humanbeing live inside of you.
It's prettyI I've never been able to get over that.
It's quite the miracle.
That's the way we come into the world.
We grow inside of another personfor nine months.
(55:12):
How can that personnot be an influence on you?
To me, the imprint to memade sense immediately because of that,
Because I already knew somethingabout fetal development and infants.
And so I'm like, Well,of course you live in that nest.
It's going to influence you.
But this idea I find so often rejected.
(55:34):
You know, I think, again, it it requires
it means there's going to beanother level of responsibility.
And some people don't want that,especially if they have busy, hectic lives
or if they're strugglingwith their own life.
They're, you know, usually occupiedwith themselves.
Yeah, there's.
No I have to take now I have totake care of and that's someone else.
(55:57):
Right. Right.
And I mean, we almost all of ussign up for it on some level.
Yeah.
And then you're in too deep.
The you, you want it to happen typically
or for those that do want it to happen,
it doesn't then come unburdened.
You know, it's you know, as you go along,it's all these things that you see
(56:19):
that you're responsible for in additionto what you're already responsible for.
Yeah, it's a lot. It is.
But in the same way as we were talkingabout therapy and and analysis.
And when you have an understandingand you have this good feeling,
you get that also with your kids
and you get it backand that helps keep you going.
(56:39):
You that sometimes it's goodnot to write down dreams.
And now in this podcastwe often suggest that
you might write down your dreambefore you forget it.
We're also in a placewhere we're talking with people
who don't have accessto therapy potentially.
What do you think about Lay people
(57:00):
perhaps writing down their dreamsand kind of going back and reading them
and maybe accumulating themand finding patterns?
I guessbasically I'm getting to two things.
Is it totally detrimentalto write down your dreams?
And can people who don't have accessto therapy become curious
enough to where they can startto help themselves a little bit?
(57:22):
Well, it isn't like a rule that you you'regoing to get your hands full
if you
if you break if you come in with a dreamthat you wrote down.
But for the reasons that I statedin general, the way I was trained with Dr.
Bails work is you want theyou want a patient to begin
to remember their dreams.
(57:42):
And really, I can tell people say, well,I don't remember my dreams.
What it is, is it's a habit.
So if you can remember the color grayand then a few dreams
later, you'll remember a gray picture.
And then that it was in the living room.
And so when you when you begin to make
(58:04):
remembering your dreams a habityou remember,
you tend to remember them again,whether it's long or short.
Now, if you're not in an ongoing
analysiswhere you're working with the dreams once
or twice a week or whateverit may be, then writing it
down is a way for you to keep track overtime of your dreams.
(58:26):
I think that's that's a good thing.
And reviewing them can be really helpful.
And you may see patterns and things emerge
that that you wouldn't ordinarily.
And so that's differentthan when you're in an ongoing
therapeutic situation where you're workingwith dreams in an ongoing way.
But I think and you I think we cantrain ourselves to remember our dreams.
(58:50):
Yeah. It's again,like I said, it's a it's just a habit.
Yeah.And it's one that everybody can learn.
Yeah, but if you want to
have an ongoing record of that,
perhaps what I would dois try to remember my dream.
Think about the dream that you rememberor the portions of it you remember.
If you feel done with that,then go write it down.
(59:15):
Yeah.
I mean, again,that's not like some hard and fast rule.
And that's what occurs to me so.
Well over the course of time.
I haven't in a while I wrote down
so many dreams, and every once moreI go back and look at them
and I see how they changed and morphedinto this, to this, to this, to this.
(59:36):
And I can put it togetherwith how I see how I think I've changed
and how it's amazingto see that kind of correlation.
You're to go back to Young for a minuteand your rug here.
He would say that, you know,each dream is like one little piece
of this complicated pattern of this rug.
(01:00:00):
And so when you can look at themover time,
you'll see more of the big picture,I think is what you're describing.
Yeah, but if I if let's sayI was going into therapy and somebody
said, this is just this little piece,I'd be like, Jeez, I got a long way to go.
Yeah.
So I have this big questionabout creativity.
(01:00:21):
I'm going to narrow it down.
But I think a lot of ushave some ability to that
that we're creative on some level music,art, cooking, whatever it may be singing.
But I think a lot of us aren'table to have a safe place to express that,
like it's stifled,whether it comes from society or family,
(01:00:43):
our parents or And I feel like humanity's
truly missing out because so many of us
have closed ourselves down to that.
What do you think about that?
I think everybodyhas some measure of creativity.
I think it doesn't get supportedvery much as you're
I think is part of what you're alluding toin culture.
(01:01:06):
I mean, in our public schools these days,
there aren't any artclasses in public school.
Yeah, it was one of the first things ago.
Art and music.
we're going to make the day shorter.
So they go
and often then families,there may be a prejudice
(01:01:27):
because it may bethat parents don't see an artistic life
or a creative lifeas being a viable way to make a living.
And depending on the discipline,it certainly can be hard.
And often there's peoplevery at the top of music or art
that make a lot of moneyand everybody else is broke.
(01:01:49):
So it isn't thatsome of those things aren't true.
But in general, I think parents get scared
that their kids are going to goon this path of being the starving artist
and they wantthey don't want that for them. Yes.
So they tend to lookat the economic picture
rather than what's going on in this kid.
(01:02:12):
A lot of kids like mein terms of art and drawing.
I think I stopped around the fourth gradein fifth grade and I just thought,
well, I'm not good.
I can't do that.
My brother was a really good artist.
He's a painter.
And I thought, Well, he's the one.
And everybody in my family thought,Tony is the way He's got all the talent.
He's the artist.Tom will do something else.
(01:02:35):
So I'm like, Well,they know what they're talking about.
But again, it's, you know, you'reyou want to set your kids up for survival.
So you get a job where you get a paycheck
that's not going to work sowell if you're an artist in their mind.
Yeah. I mean, painting still life is not.
Most parents don't consider that as a no,as a way to make a living. No.
(01:02:56):
And it kind of isn't. But. Well,it can be.
It can be really tough.
But every timea kid has an interest in art, which almost
every young childdoes, doesn't mean they're going to go on
and want to be an artist or a painter.
But I would say you encourage and support
(01:03:18):
creativitywherever you see it in your kid's lives.
Just let it play out andyou don't have to be so worried about it.
Let it play out.
It seems almost to me like thatcreative comes from so deep
within usthat it's it's us being able to express
a little bit of our true self.
(01:03:40):
And even if we have this fabulous
job at the bank,I feel like it's a healthy thing
for us to find an outlet to,in addition to the bank,
find something that you can dothat is creative.
Like it's maybe it's just methat thinks it's that it's just seems
like another tool that you can useto discover who you really are
(01:04:03):
is to find that zonewhere you can just express yourself.
That's absolutely true.
And that's something when you havea creative outlet, it's something.
So if you're at abank, there's not a whole lot
of personal expression that is is
(01:04:25):
that environment is not conducive to thatper say, that's okay.
That what that is,when you have a creative outlet,
something is coming directly from you.
If you paint you like, that's my painting,that's
that creative placeor your expression of it
isn't something anyone can take away.
(01:04:47):
It's a beautiful thing.
And nobody else can do itquite that same. Way.
That's right, Yeah.
So what about this idea.
That's worth nurturing?
yeah. Supporting it is. You want that.
You want that to grow.
You don't want to squash that.
As soon as it comes up, you want to let itgrow and see where it goes.
(01:05:07):
And that expression of our true self,if it comes through this
creativity, is such a great thingto share with other people
and could perhaps even lead them to thinkabout their creative outlet because.
We're all similar in many, many ways.
And so your unique expressionin some creative outlet
(01:05:31):
is going to have somethingof your own humanity in it,
and other people are going to say,You know, I that's how I thought,
what a great way to say that, or whata great way
to express those feelings about loss.
All those poems that you've readwhere you're like, my gosh,
I cannot believe that you put everythingI'm feeling into those words.
(01:05:53):
Yeah, on that page you.
Helped me because like,I couldn't quite say that.
Yeah, I think as far as we know, human
beings have been doing painting and caves,
you know, whether it's the hunt,
you with the buffaloor or even just the hand.
I love the hands in the caves, etc..
(01:06:14):
That was a personal expression, you know,that was only that one person's hand.
And there was storytelling and things
like that and acting out and dramatizing.
And those are humanand deeply human activities.
So this idea of
getting to your true self
(01:06:34):
and like I said, I had this feeling of,
that feeling,
that experienceof getting into your unconscious.
Is there something spiritual about that?
I think the work is I experienced it.
We're working with Dr.
Bails
(01:06:54):
theoriesand his way of understand the dream.
I think it openswhen you get connected to yourself.
When that happens, we don't close off,we open up.
You have to open up for that to comethrough your connection to yourself.
You have to be open to thatand bumping into the scary things
(01:07:17):
and the things that go bump in the night.
You have to work through those.
And so I think if you connect to yourselfthat deep self,
that does connect you to humanity,
because we're all we're the same species
and we all have similar struggles
and we're all in spite of peoplehaving lots of theories, we're
(01:07:38):
all trying to figure out what the hell'sgoing on here, what does this all mean?
So we're all
involved in similar struggles over time.
I learned.
So there was one moment where I felt like,
this work is really spiritual work.
This is spiritual workbecause I'm cleaning stuff out.
(01:08:00):
As I do that I feel better.
As I feel better, I'm more open
and as I'm more open, I feel more empathicand more connected to the world
and the people around me,and even people who are not around me.
So to me that is very spiritual.
And that that you justdescribed is spiritual.
And I think that that happensalmost unknowingly.
(01:08:23):
I mean, you can one day at one daysit down and, go, yeah, I see that
the way I approach the world,
the rest of humanity is differentthan it used to be.
But I think it just comes from you.
Then naturally, once you've discovered
who you really are, because you can't helpbut be your true self without truth.
I think you know, another way to say itis that if you've
(01:08:46):
if you've workedto diminish the internal saboteur,
you become more empathic with yourself.
Yeah.
You don't want to beat yourself upanymore, right?
That's hard work. It is.
And once you feel good,you don't want to feel bad anymore.
So it also opens you up to other people'sstruggles, which is a way to say
(01:09:09):
you're more empathic,you're more empathic with yourself,
and you're more empathicwith other people's pain.
Because again, our pains are all pretty,they're pretty similar.
And if you no longer need to beat yourselfup, you don't really need to beat up
anybody else. No.
You don't want to. Yeah, you don't.
Because you know what that feels likebecause you've
probably had a lifetime of it. Yes.
(01:09:32):
So you said me the other day
that the dream may bethe purest expression of the unconscious.
You've probably explained that
in this conversation,but is there a simple explanation?
Well, I just think that we're not.
The dream happens when we sleepduring REM sleep, when we're not awake.
(01:09:53):
We're not occupied with other things.
We're not thinking about other things.
We're not distracted by outsidestimulation.
Yeah So we're not responding to
both visual stimulation,
auditory physical stimulation
and that sort of quietnessallows that part of the mind
(01:10:18):
to come forward and give you
here's here's something to think about.
Everything else is pretty still here.
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah.
It's sort of like if someone says,you know, I want to think about
such and such, I'm going to go for a walk.
It's a way of having a quiet time,
(01:10:38):
and sleep is pretty much a quiet time.
Everything of the consciousmind is quieted,
so we're not getting that stimulation and.
And once people discover their unconscious
is there's so much hard stuffto contend with.
(01:10:59):
Is it pretty easy for peopleto get rid of the idea of thinking that
they're being punished?
Let's say you've got to faceall this bad stuff about yourself
and your parents and your ancestors,and think of it as a gift.
I mean, some people may come in with that.
I think most peoplehave to do a little some
some amount of workto begin to to value the dream.
(01:11:24):
You know, you may come in. dream work.
That sounds interesting,but you don't really know
what's coming down the road, which is,you know, you're going to bump into
the very things that your mind is been.
You've spent a lifetimesort of holding off, holding at bay.
So usually I think it happens over timeas you get to have those moments of,
(01:11:49):
you know, you begin to say,
my unconscious is not telling mehow bad I am in the dream.
Like, I have to work on this.And now I to work on that.
And it's helping you on the road
to develop and grow as an adult,
whatever age you may, you may be.
Dr. Bail Use that legal analogy analogy.
(01:12:12):
Once he said the case is never closed.
That's true.
It's now. Closed.
So you can see that as, you know, an ever
oppressive thingor you can see as unlimited growth.
We have infinite growth in front of us.
And there's always something to learn,something to know.
(01:12:36):
And if this makes me feel this good,why wouldn't I want to continue?
Yeah, because it can only get better.
What a concept. Yeah.
Well, thank you for being here.
I am so happy to talk with you.
And I'm glad we've had many opportunitiesto speak about this.
And in addition to having you hereand learning so much from you
(01:12:57):
and having ourour audience learn so much from you,
I've learned so much about Bernhard,and I know through you things I did.
I'm really.
I'm touched. Yeah. Thank you.
I appreciate the invitation.
it's great.
It was great for meto be able to talk about his work.
So is there something elseyou'd like to say that we haven't covered?
(01:13:19):
I think you did a good job.
You did a good job.
We did a good job. Thank you. Joining us.
We look forward to seeing you
next time and check in with any questionsor comments because we're here.
See you later.
Hello.
My name is Cynthia Marks.
I head up the HolisticPsychoanalysis Foundation
established by my late husband, Dr.
Bernard Bail.
Welcome to the and Now Love podcast.
Dr. Thomas Paris is with us today.
He is a retired psychotherapist.
(00:24):
He was in private practicefor 30 years in the Los Angeles area.
He trained with Dr.
Bail for many years, and he has an ongoinginterest in his work and theories.
Welcome and thank you for wanting to sharewhat you know with us.
Thanks, Cynthia. It's good to be here.
Happy that you made it in.
(00:45):
I'm really excited to be here. Yes.
So the more I get to know you, the moreI get to know.
Bernard,you've told me so many things about him
that I didn't even know,so it's been really fun.
I think people have bitsand pieces of him, and.
Yeah, it must be interesting for youto hear all these different
(01:05):
various aspects of his life.
Yeah, I continueto have these fun little surprises,
so I have a list of questions herewhich I may follow.
I may go off track, but.
Okay, I'll start at the beginningand we'll see how it goes.
Dr. Weil was, of course, a psychoanalyst.
From a doctor's point of view, yours.
(01:26):
What is the differencebetween analysis and therapy?
It depends a lot, actually, on
what analysis you're
talking about, because there are variousversions of analytic work and different
analytic theories, and some peoplepractice differently than others.
And of course, there's many,many kinds of therapy and psychotherapy.
(01:50):
Having said, that, analysis
often involvestrying to explore a patient's unconscious.
Now, some more modern versions of analysis
don't necessarily pay much attentionto the unconscious these days,
but originally it had to dowith exploring the unconscious.
(02:12):
Fairer therapy can be anything from short
term intervention to longer work.
It may be with adult children.
It could be cognitive behavioral therapy.
I mean, there's that for us laypeople.
I'm not an expertin cognitive behavioral therapy,
but like its name, it tends to focus
(02:33):
on using your conscious mindto change behavior
by looking at what messagesyou tell yourself and getting you
to change your thoughts in orderto change your feelings and behavior.
I see.
So I don't like this thing that I dowhen I do it.
I have that feeling thatI don't like this thing that I do.
(02:55):
How am I going to adjust myselfso I don't get to that place?
Yeah, I think that's it.
They want to help you figure outwhy you're doing it in a cognitive way.
Sort of intellectually,and then help you have strategies to stop.
Cognitive strategy. Yes.
So what is the difference between Dr.
Bails theory and cognitive behaviortheories?
(03:19):
Dr. Bails work was very much involved
with exploring the unconscious,
what's going on in a patient'sunconscious that they are unaware of.
So and you know that it
has a lot to do with exploring your past,and it has to do with,
as you've been learning aboutand talking about on these podcasts.
(03:43):
The what? Dr.
Bail called the imprintand the way that he worked with
the imprint was through a patient's dream.
And then the interpretationand the understanding of that dream.
And it took him years to come to thisas an approach.
My understanding is he came to it
(04:06):
later in his life,although he lived to a hundred.
That's much later.
But I believe that he was in his earlysixties,
late fifties, early sixtieswhen he began to put this together.
And again, my understanding is that itcame his discovery
(04:27):
really came through his workwith his patients.
He already knew from his owntraining as a psychoanalyst
and his own his own analysis.
He came to value the dreamvery, very, very much.
So I think the dream was alwaysa part of his work.
What the understanding of whatthat dream meant,
(04:50):
I think, changed for him quite radically.
He did speak about some ofhis own therapy early on as
being
really fabulous but being intellectual.
These great conversations back and forth.
But he noticed that he wasn't
changing or growing or feeling different.
(05:11):
And he sort of talked about thatas the stimulus to kind of break away
from all that and say,I, I've got nothing.
I'm going to start for nothingfrom nothing and see where it takes me.
And that's a huge piece of workto just just to attempt to that,
to try to empty oneself, to try
(05:31):
after years of medical school,years of psychiatric training, years,
then another set of yearsof psychoanalytic training
and building a practiceand working in a particular modality,
and then to try to let all of thatgo and open yourself up.
It was is quite a task. Yeah.
(05:53):
And it was quite trying.
According to him,it was a difficult, difficult time.
I can imagine that it wasit would take well, like everyone's
analysis, I think it takes courage,it takes perseverance.
So I think he had to have those qualities
in spades to do that.
(06:15):
Right.
I think some of us just like to say
maybe I'm not perfect,maybe I'm not always happy, but I'm good.
I don't need this.
Just get on.
Yeah, I'm just going to live my life,which is great.
I mean, people can do that, too.
So you came to Dr.
Bail after working with Dr.
Cher and.
And she practiced using his theoriesand his dream work.
(06:37):
Right.
And you came to her because you hadyou read her book or you.
I saw her book at a psychoanalytic
conference or a psychotherapy conference.
And I just read the flap.
And I was really fascinatedwith the approach
(06:58):
she was describing, which was Dr.
Bails approach and the analyticunderstanding, using dreams
as a way to understandsomeone's unconscious.
I had
very much earlier in my lifeas a young man had been in
(07:18):
and young in analysisfor a number of years.
And could you give us just a little tip ofthe iceberg about what Jung in analysis?
Carl Jungwas one of the original disciples
of Freud, and very early on
broke off with Freudas a number of people did,
(07:41):
who didn't necessarily want to follow
Freud's point of view
of looking at the edifice complexas some of those disciples
were quite famous and great intellects
themselves as young was Jung became
he still did analytic workand he used the dream.
(08:04):
But Jung felt that the dream was primarily
made up of symbols that were universal.
And so if you can understandthe symbology in the dream,
that's how you will unlock its meaning.
So that's where that was.
But I had alwaysappreciated the dream as as a
(08:29):
an area that was mysterious.
And yet it felt had always felt to meto be quite important.
So when I saw Doctor shares a bookthat described Dr.
Bail's work,that really rang a bell for me.
So I got in touch with Dr.
Sharon and started seeing her
(08:52):
congruent with my work.
With her was my growing
interest in psychoanalysis.
So I began to get some training with that.
I learned more about Dr. Bail.
I went to seminars,
I went to some psychoanalytic conferenceswhere he would present.
(09:14):
And so that was the dreamwas really my entrance to his work.
And during that course of time, wereyou studying or were you already a doctor?
No, I was already in private practice.
I had probably been practicing for
ten or 12 years.
I was doing a different kind of work.
(09:35):
I had come out of a kind of workcalled somatic
psychology or somatic psychotherapy.
And describe that.
Sheer somatic.
There's again, there's
you know, hundreds of kinds
of somatic psychotherapiesthat are going around
not only the US, but around the world,many, many people
(09:59):
have taken bits and pieces of thatand developed their own kind of work.
Is it also
frequently gaining in popularity?
I've heard of it a lot more than I hadin the past, but maybe my ears are open.
I don't know what its current statusis, to be honest, but
during the eighties and the nineties,in the early 2000s, for sure
(10:23):
there was a lot of both professionalinterest and interest I think.
And in the general public in that approachat sort of its essence.
Somatic psychology
wants to include the body
so that you're not just dealingwith a patient
(10:45):
in their intellect,
but you're looking at the you'reincluding the body
in your observation of the person,
their eyemovements, their facial movements,
their facial expressions, their posture,how they're holding their hands.
If you begin to talk about somebody'smother and
(11:06):
and the patient goes like this,you go, that's it.
Let's see.
So it's informationon a physiological level that you include
understanding of the patientand what's going on.
And there's lots of other kinds.
And there's people who dophysical exercises
(11:29):
that have sort of combined yogawith other modalities.
So it's a quite varied field as.
A way to get to the issues, then.
As a way to try to get to the issues.
Yes, Correct.
So then is this therapya little awkward now?
Because so many doctorsare having their meetings
(11:49):
with patients across a Zoom platform?
I, I,I think it would have to be, you know,
people many times now are only doingwork on Zoom or or on the telephone.
I personally would find that.
I mean, I've been on Zoom meetingsand there's an odd quality to them.
(12:12):
Yes, there is.
It's you're looking at the person.
So you have that visual stimulusthat you don't have on the phone,
but there's the quality of the contact.
It's not like sitting with someone.
You know, there's definitely a separation.
Whereas on the phone you're listening.
Part of the therapist is really,really heightened.
(12:35):
So you may pay much more attentionto the patient's voice
and what that's expressingand how it changes moment to moment
or in in a sentence or how it changes
as the as the subjectof what you're talking about, changes.
You know, again, if you begin to talkabout someone's mother and then they start
(12:59):
almost you can see or feel thembecoming sad again, it's information.
So the therapy just onceall the information that we can
that we can gather.
Even thosewho don't really consider themselves
somatic therapists, you almost can't helpbut use it as a tool.
I think if you're paying attention,you'll see things,
(13:22):
you know,you'll you'll see things happening.
The union way of looking at dreams then
means that
what I'm dreaming about,I'm dreaming about a house,
a house is always a house,whether I'm Cynthia or Janine.
I mean, I was a patient in that work.
(13:44):
And so I have read some of young
but again, I'm not a union analyst,but often a house
might be interpreted as the self,
which is not a leap to me.
You know,I can stand in for the you're essential.
So. So Jung didn't come with a book ofsymbols saying this is well.
(14:06):
More or less. Yeah.
If you study that work, you know,if there's a fish
that can have a particular meaning.
So numbers would have meanings.
There were symbols that Jung foundthat seemed to be universal
across cultures and across time.
And so that's important to think about.
(14:28):
And it is and it doesmake some some sense that a house would
represent, you.
The place where you reside. Yes. Yeah.
Whether that's physically,literally or psychically.
Yeah. Yeah.
In Dr.
Bail's work, though, that symbology
was more individual based,
(14:49):
he would look to his patient
to share what they thought
their dream was aboutand what those things meant.
Like I was in this house,but it wasn't my house.
That's an unfamiliar house.
Well, now there's a house.
But what does that mean?
And maybe it is completely individualized.
(15:12):
Yes. Dr.
Bail's view,I believe, of the of these kinds
of symbols in a dream or the unconscioushas a great amount of plasticity.
It can use anything at any time
in any way it chooses to.
So you always want to havean open mind as the analyst.
(15:37):
You want to look at What does
this House mean for this patient
today or last night or in their
in the context of their life,what's going on?
Because the House might bemaybe it's a haunted house,
You know, maybe their childhood
(15:59):
home was not a good place.
Maybe it was a place of violenceand terror and not a good place.
So it might not represent the self.
So you have to
it's a piece of workfor the analysts to keep an open mind,
(16:19):
especially as you goalong with the patient.
Some themes may reemerge over time.
That's why the analystand when you work in the way that Dr.
Bail developed, you want your informationto come from the patient.
You try not to put what you thinkis going on onto the patient.
(16:40):
You gather when you listen to the dream
and you ask questions that may elicit
feelings and thoughts from the patient.
Then you begin to gather informationabout what this dream,
what the patient is thinking,what's occurring to the patient
(17:01):
about this dream, not just whatI think I may have a hit, but I have to
I have to be matureenough in my own mind to put this.
I have to hold it over hereand keep gathering this information.
And at some point in the hour,you try to put them together in
(17:21):
and solve the mystery
and the patient will tell youif you're right or not.
I think so, yeah.
So that, though, foris that the case for any therapist across
types of therapythat you as the therapist,
have to hold over herewhat it is you think is going on?
(17:42):
Well, hopefully.
It would seemlike that would be one of the tenants.
Yes, it it is one of the tenants.
And I said hopefully half jokingly.
But but also, you know, seriously,because it's a
it again, is a piece of workfor the analyst to put aside
(18:03):
in a significant waytheir own feelings and impulses
and their thoughtsand keep listening to the patient.
So every therapist and analyst
is trained in a particular way.
And so youthe therapist, is going to bring
something of their trainingand their background, of course, to to the
(18:28):
to the consulting room and how they managethat is very important.
And I guess that would lead patients
to go to one therapist or another,depending on
where they were thinkingthat they were best suited.
I mean, if you feel that at home
in the good sense.
Right.
Of home, you will probably stay there.
(18:50):
If you you know, if a patienthas the experience that the therapist
is continually putting something on themor has an agenda
in some way that isn't clearly stated.
Yeah.
And that can tend to drive a patient awaybecause they won't feel listened to.
(19:10):
They won't really feel seen. Sure.
So Dr.
Bail's work of late, we're doing our bestto put it back in the forefront.
I know for a period of timehis work was really well known
and there were lots of peopletrying to learn about his theory
as doctors, other therapists. Is.
(19:32):
Is that right?
That's my understanding, yes.
And I know that a lot of what he did
was considered very controversial.
And he always made his point known.
He didn't step back from what he believedto be the absolute truth
in terms of people being able
(19:53):
to take care of themselvesand become their best self.
I'm disheartened that he wasn't ableto make a whole lot of progress
with thatin his community, amongst his peers.
Do you
think there'smore of an opening to this work now?
I hope so.
I think that there is, because the fielditself is more I believe, is more open.
(20:18):
When Dr.
Bail first was trainedand first was in his practice,
it pretty much was truethat there was Freudian analysis
and the couple small offshootsthat grew in the late forties
and early fifties, but they were reallyvery, really, very new.
I believe that, you know,one of the things that Dr.
(20:41):
Bails said is that truth is love.
When you are able to say the truth,
that should be in a loving wayand to further love.
He was a man who
who stood for the truthin many ways emotionally
and intellectually and professionally.
(21:04):
And I think that that alienated him
from a lot of peoplein that community of of analysts.
I think so, too, Yes.
But he was all about the truth.
So if you broke away, you know,if it was the late fifties, early sixties,
and you wanted to break awayfrom the Freudian the Freudian paradigm,
(21:29):
you know, you were
going to alienatea lot of your colleagues, people
that you went to schoolwith and people that you trained with.
And those people might not send
you referralsbecause you were going in a different path
that they didn't know or didn't agree with
or may have been hotly contested.
(21:50):
And what does that mean for the waythey've been treating their patients
all this time?
Does that come into question?
Well, it would mean that that wasit would tend to be narrow
and, you know, be in kind of a box.
Yeah.
As opposed to what you were saying earlierwhere Dr.
Bail tried to open himselfin order to go down a different path.
(22:12):
That was not a Freudiantheoretical framework.
He had to open himself to something elseto see if there was something else there.
And he often said that he wanted othertherapists, particularly young therapists,
to have that opportunity to think outsideof the Freudian paradigm, to be able to
(22:34):
maybe not even follow in his footsteps,
but to explore something else. Yes.
And I don't know if there's a lotof room for that quite yet.
There tend to be schools of thought
and theory, theoretical schools,
and theythey tend to stay with their kind.
(22:58):
And there'sthere isn't often a lot of crossover.
And that's not new in many disciplines.
So either this way or you're either inor you're out.
Yeah.
So for you, if you don't mind,you can tell me if you do
during the course of this workeither with Dr.
Sherry. Dr.
Bail, was there a point where you said,yeah, I get this?
(23:23):
I see.
I've read about it.
I'm here because I'm intrigued,but I really feel this working for me.
And then what did that mean for you?
Did your did your life change?
Did your relationships change?
Did your therapy change? Yes. Still,
for example, was there something that you
(23:45):
some way you grew upor something that you wished you'd done
that you didn't, but now you're like,wait a minute, I am entitled to all this.
I think you're asking me about my growthpersonally and my growth professionally.
And so that happened overa period of time,
as opposed to the Zen moment where
(24:08):
everything in the universe changes.
It's usually an accumulation
of understandingsthat begin to show up in your life,
and in particular wayslike your life works better.
It things could be small things.
Things get cleanedup, things are a little easier.
(24:30):
You don't have the same roadblocksyou don't get.
Perhaps you don't get sick as oftenor you don't get as many colds.
For me, music when I was very young
was something that really
captured me, made me feel very alive.
But I.
(24:52):
I didn't get too farwith that in my adolescence.
But through my work with Dr.
Cher,which is how I came to understand Dr.
Bails work both intellectually and
from an experiential point of view.
I was able to go back and get a guitar
(25:15):
and start taking lessons and bumpinto all the struggles
that I had left behindwhen I didn't follow through on that.
So it wasn't just that,
now I'm I'm fine, I'm perfect.
I've done this work and I goget the guitar and now I play like this.
(25:36):
I had to go get it and then bump intowhat was
what was it that I had been struggling,
what kept me away from,from being able to enjoy it
and to get somewhereand to do something with it.
So again, that's a piece of work.
And so that happened over time.
And I play guitar and I play harmonicaand I have a band, as you know.
(25:59):
A really fabulous band,all super talented.
And so I it, it means a lot to me.
It gives a lot to me.
And I can be on stageand give that to other people.
And it's, it's just a great thrill.
It's funny because
I've had people,
(26:20):
guys like my age come up to me
in between sets or after a gig and say,
Dude, you're living my dream.
Like, Yeah, I'm living mine.
Yeah.
So that's so fabulous.
Yeah, yeah. It's a gift.
They could be living their dream too.
(26:41):
You know,if you get if you get help and support
and you listen to what your dream
is telling you about yourself
and you have ahopefully you have a skilled person
to work that through with,then you can make progress.
(27:03):
So I was intrigued when you said that
you worked through some
well, you discovered that, yes,you're going to pick up the guitar
and you're going to play andthat was comfortable and you hadn't done
that sort of to your dismay,I suppose, as a younger person.
But that that didn't mean,
(27:23):
like you said, you just picked it upand played and everything was perfect.
There were still
issues to overcome, whatever they were.
Did you through the therapy
then gather some strength to
deal with those issues?
Well, by bringing in a dream
(27:44):
to my analysis over time,my dreams told me
and my analyst who helpedgive me an accurate
interpretation of those dreams,
I began to understandhow I was in my own way.
It also becomes clearwhat you need to do about it.
(28:06):
That's not easy.
Or I would have done it when I was 12.
It's very it was for me,that was the hard work.
Everyone has their own hard work to do.
So yes, I think that answers.
It does. Yeah.
And because I'm going to forget you
get to a placewhere the interpretation is accurate,
(28:29):
and that's kind of this group effortbetween you and your therapist.
How do you know that?
How does it how does how do you say howdo you get to that place where that's it?
I mean,
I know it's not just a sudden spark,
but I mean, as I've said before,I wasn't analyzed.
But in talking about some of my dreams
(28:51):
with Bernard,we would talk and talk and talk.
And finally I would go,
I feel something here
that I I've been thinkingthis was yellow all this time.
And look, it's blue.
You answered your own question, but I'll.
Answer it to.
Use it what you did.
So again, if we bring a little bitof tracking the body,
(29:15):
if you don't mind, and listening,what you did was,
as you would describe a moment ago,when you had an understanding
of your dream that was accurate,The reason you knew it was accurate,
you went,
so there was an opening, a softening.
(29:35):
Something happened inside of you.
There was a knowing.
And you were quite clear. Yes.
yeah.
And that I remember thinking
that is just shockingly wonderful.
And that, that thing
(29:58):
that was so much only about feeling,
but it was a recognizable thing
to use as a path forward and,
you know, created a zone where it's like,I want more of this.
Yeah, that's right.
Because it's ait's a it's a deeply good feeling.
(30:21):
Even a small one like you were enacting.
It doesn't have to be.
That was the biggest insightyou've ever had in your life.
And it's it's a small
not even a hand necessarily, but
you know, it's likeit's a little bit for me, it was like a
it was often the feel like a correct
(30:43):
understanding of the dream was a feeling.
It was like I was going like thisand now I was back on track
and like, you're like.
And so if you see someone
and work on your dreamsa couple of times a week,
you know, once a
week can be a long time in between.
(31:03):
If a person is struggling in their life,
you have six days and 23 hours
where you're not getting this particularkind of help and understanding.
So you go off againand then you come back and you
in through your unconscious,the production of the dream.
(31:25):
And then under standing of that dream,
you get back on trackand you get back on track.
And over time you're like,This feels terrible.
I want to get back on trackbecause this is me.
Yeah, I know, this is me.
This is more me than this is.
And that feels all put togetherlike the parts and pieces have all landed.
(31:47):
Where they should be.Yeah, we always have work to do.
But you feel like you've got a basethat it's like this, not like this.
And yeah, you're not whiteknuckling anymore.
Yeah. Yeah.
You have a place to start from and, and
you've done something.
I think just by virtue of investigatingyour dreams and being open to the idea
(32:10):
of the unconscious, which is a huge,
vast thing, is
can be kind of ominous.
It's could be scary.
It's like I don't want
I don't think I want to go there,but to go
there and even have a little hintlike that.
Yeah, it's not so, you know, it's blue.
Just it's just to have that
is so eye opening.
(32:31):
You just got to keep going.
Well, that those experiences,
even though they happen one at a time,they build on each other
and they help, you know.
Okay, yeah, this is scary.
It's hard.
I don't feel like going to therapyin a day.
I'll just call it I'll call in sick now.
(32:51):
But as you get those sort of correcting
to get back on track, itsort of builds on itself.
It builds strength,it builds reassurance inside of yourself
so that you can begin to go,you know, even though it's hard,
I don't know where it's goingor this unconscious thing,
what the heck's that all about?
(33:12):
But if you keep having
an experience of coming to yourself
that tends to keep you going,
you're like, okay, I'm going to go back.
Because even on the daysyou don't want to go, if you have
something of that experience, youthat helps.
And eventually, you know, I'm going to goeven though I don't want to go.
(33:35):
Sometimes.
You might also find out the daysyou don't want to go.
There'ssomething really important going on
that's just kind of hard to look at.
So you become suspicious
of your own, the part of yourself.
Maybe the saboteur that Dr.
Bail talked about.
I know it's come up here with other talksthat you've done.
(33:58):
It has been very a little bit about whatthat is.
Just to refresh us laypeople.
The saboteur is a part of usthat wants to maintain the status quo,
that wants to maintain this statusquo over here.
That's a little bit off trackbecause that's how it's always been.
That's what the truth is. Why know that?
(34:19):
Because it's what I've felt and believedfor 50 years of my life.
That's what.
So that must be true.
And this is part of your unconscious?
Yes, it's it's yes, it is.
You don't know reallythat it's a part of you
that's keeping you from health.
And that saboteur could be sortof screwing with your dreams.
(34:44):
And you are thinking, okay,
this must mean this.
And that's
what the saboteur wants you to think,so that you can keep the status quo.
But really, this maybe means this.
Yes, it's that where you needan analyst with experience
who's been in their own analysis,who knows
(35:08):
the interpretation of dreams
because they've had their owndreams, interpret.
You can't you can't do this workwithout as a therapist, without having.
No. Yeah. No, you can't.
So when someone feels likeI don't feel like going to therapy today
and, you know, over time, you,you become aware,
(35:29):
you know, if you have the experience,
I don't want to go and you doand something important happens.
It helps you gothe next time you feel that like, Wait,
I am not going to pay attention to that,or even if I don't want to go,
I know it's going to be in my bestlong term interest to go.
But yes, we can say that.
(35:51):
That's the saboteursaying is don't go today.
What one time, Don't worry about it.
Save some money and, you know.
Watch that movie.
Go get some coffee. And you're. Right.
I think the other thing that happens isthere are moments
where you don't remember your dreams,maybe for a few days.
And I know for me that's frustrating.
(36:13):
Or it used to be frustrating.
Like, I want to write this down.
I want to figure out what's going on.
And it's like, why can't I dream?
And then I got to the place whereI'm like, this kind of cool something.
Something big is going to come.
Well, you
know, for the for the therapistor the analyst,
if your patient doesn't dream, you may go,
(36:36):
let's say
this particular patientnormally comes in with a dream.
Could be elaborate.
It could be small, could be one thing,one piece of something.
But they normally bring something in.
If suddenly they don't.
The analyst is like,okay, let's we want to know.
The analyst wants to knowwhat this is about.
(36:58):
Why is this
perhaps their previous
interpretation of the dreamwasn't correct.
Oftentimes, if the interpretation
or understanding of the dreamisn't accurate, you won't dream
until that piece of work is done correctly
(37:20):
and then the patient opens up again.
So then is that an opportunityfor you as a therapist to kind of go
back to that dream and and talk about itsome more?
Absolutely.
You might go back and and and look at that
dream again or talk about itor check in with the patient.
Maybe the patient was taking care of you.
(37:42):
I see this happens
wherethe patient will take care of the analyst.
So but again,if the patient isn't dreaming it,
these they're sort of built in guardrails.
The analyst being openenough to think, well, maybe this
my interpretationthe other day was incorrect.
(38:03):
Maybe there's something going on.
Like you alluded to that kind of big
and the patient doesn't want to in a insome way doesn't want to remember
because it may be somethingthat's hard to look at.
You know, in the same vein,I think you were
almost asking this question also, which is
(38:26):
people often believe they need
to bring in this long story.
This happened in here.
And then I was driving a carand then I was the ocean.
And then.
you have to be entertained. Right?
Right. You have to produce.
It might be just something like,
well, all I remember is
(38:48):
something about the color gray.
That's enough.
You can makeyou can do a piece of work with that.
So the other sort of built in guardrailis that
some people will remember
what they're able to rememberat that given time.
(39:10):
And that's okay.
That's fine.
You go you go with that.
Yeah.
And you could have an entire 50 minutes
around that because the color grayleads you to something.
To something. To something. Sure.
What comes to mind was, well, my dad,
it was his favorite color.
(39:31):
yeah. Right.
That there's probably a piece of workthere.
Yeah.
and the other aspect is that Dr.
Baily didn't want you didn't wantthe patient to write down their dreams.
because we all tend to edit.
If you have a pretty hard dreamand you're doing something or involved
(39:52):
with something that's unseemly, really,or that you don't think
makes you look good,
the tendency is to
you'll leave it outor you'll make it slightly better.
Or so we don't want to edit
the dream with our conscious mind.
(40:14):
And writing is very much a conscious.
It's a little bitof a complicated activity,
thinking about something and getting outout onto the pencil and the paper.
There's a tremendous amount of editingthat goes on.
Anybody who writes will tell youthat you write something.
Now you scratch out, now that's better.
(40:36):
And people write and rewriteand rewrite and rewrite.
If we can get an unedited version
of the dream,what the patient is able to remember
on this particular Tuesday,
that's much more authentic.
Let's say unadulterated.
(40:56):
But there's still the potentialthat that could be edited.
Like I'm telling you, my dream.
And there's this partthat's super embarrassing.
Yes, I'm going to leave that out,but you'll probably.
Over time, I think that'll get worked out.
Yeah.
And sometimes the the opposite happens,which is as you're working with a dream,
a piece of the dream will be rememberedby the patient also like, yeah.
(41:21):
And then this happened and I forgot that
because it's all getting stimulated again
and, and hopefully being understood.
And so understandingis really important when,
when a person feels understood,they open up.
Yeah, I guess
the more
(41:42):
you test those waters as a patient,
like I'm going to sharethis bit makes me uncomfortable.
But they seethat you're still sitting there.
If you're if it's still if somethingyou're uncomfortable with is met
with understanding and
a and a feeling of not judgment
(42:02):
and a feeling of empathyand understanding.
And the goal is one, really,
to help you grow as a person over time,you're
you're going to take that inand you begin to trust that more and more.
And so it's self fulfillingand the process.
(42:24):
That's really preciousbecause I think that's,
you know, that's hard for usto come by in our day to day.
It is.
What do you thinkare the greatest things to come from
understanding dreams,unlocking your unconscious
and understanding or honoring
(42:44):
this ideaof the mother's imprint rather than
when I say honoring it,
making yourself okaywith having an imprint.
What's what's what's a great thing about
doing that?
(43:04):
Well,the greatest thing is that you get over
time to come home.
That feeling that we were speakingabout coming back to yourself,
only a deep a true,
authentic self,
which gives one the feeling of,yeah, that's, that's me.
(43:28):
And that's a good feeling.
So the imprint is a little bitthe opposite of that.
The imprint keeps you
in bondage.
Now, one of the things that makesthat better is understanding your dreams,
because that over time that will undothose bonds that are trapping you.
(43:52):
And the other is the understanding
that, you know what
we all have an imprint.
You can't get here without one.
Some are better than others.
Some people are more damaged.
We all know that.
But everybody has a mother.
Every mother has an unconscious.
(44:14):
And so we all come intothis world with some work.
Everybody has an imprint.
And that also helps
patients with this idea,which is, you know, people think that Dr.
Bail was blaming the mother.
It's not blaming the mother
(44:34):
because there's no one really to blame.
I mean, children can be real victims,
especially in familieswhere there's abuse of some kind.
But all of us,as we at some point in adulthood
were more responsible for our own growth.
(44:55):
And in that way, there's you
if you begin to understand your mother
if you begin to understandyour own imprint from your mother,
you're going to bump into the factthat your mom had an imprint because.
You're going to say, well,where did her imprint come from?
Well, that came from maternal grandma.
(45:18):
Well, where did she get her?
And so we can start going back.
And it's a little bit endless.
It is.
And at some point you're like,well, who's to blame?
Right?
You know,great, great, great, great, great grandma.
No. And we do have to include fathersin this.
Absolutely.
Because I think fathers, you know,hopefully more now in these last couple
(45:41):
generationsare much more involved in pregnancy
and in early child care.
I think the more a father doesthat, the better it is for children.
You know, obviously, again,taking away addictions
and physical abuseand very harmful things.
But I think if a child has two lovingparents, that's great.
(46:05):
Good, great.
Not everybody has that.
And healthy kids can come outof any kind of family structure.
Doesn't have to be two parentsif you have that.
And then great.
You know, because we know that the fetusat a certain point can hear,
hear, hear.
(46:26):
The mother and the father can hear them.
Yeah. So talk to your baby.
Talk to the baby inside there.
Talk to the fetus.
And that relationship between that couple,
the way the father treats reacts tothe mother is also delivered to the baby.
Absolutely.
I think the baby gets everything in thatenvironment and it's getting the mothers,
(46:52):
not only the mother's unconscious,
but it's getting the mother'songoing daily experience
through her emotional life
and through her biochemistryThat goes right to the fetus.
Yeah.
It seems so simple to understand, and yet.
It's hard to do.
(47:14):
It is.
Because, you know, mom and dadand everybody have to live a life
and they got to get food on the tableand they have to go to the grocery store
and they have to deal with their parentsor their neighbors or their siblings.
And, you know, life is complicated.
And in that process, too,I think most of us
(47:35):
also feel like we have to doall of those things perfectly
and that we don't have issuesand that it's not okay to have issues
and therefore it'snot okay to have an imprint.
And if we can get to a place whereas humans, as individuals, we can say,
Hey, I have issues and I'mno less of a person and I'm working
(47:55):
through these thingsand I'm trying to get to
who I really am to best self,
but I'm going to make mistakesand I'm not here to be perfect.
That's a
tough road to be perfectbecause none of us are.
It's an impossible taskthat that tends to never let up.
You know,where it's people who wears people out.
(48:18):
But if a mom, a pregnantmom can say to the baby, you know,
I'm feeling so disappointed in myselfbecause I didn't do this right.
But I know I'm trying to be perfectand this doesn't have to do with you.
Just even saying those words,
I think is a is a good step.
(48:39):
I think some talking to your baby,if you're sad,
tell your developing baby in uterothat you're sad
and it's not because of the babythat's lovely.
And and that baby then also I think
because we were talking about a baby
that can read your facial expressionwhen we were talking with Dr.
(49:00):
Kross andand learn to know when you're happy or sad
and know that a smile means happyand a frown doesn't in utero,
then it would be the same thingwith a voice that baby could hear
sort of the rumble in
your sadness or,you know, this little squeaky ness
and your laugh andand begin to take on those things.
(49:24):
In thein the developing fetus will experience
the mother's emotions,like I said a moment ago.
So if mom is sad the whole biochemistrygoing on in mom that comes with sadness
or depression isis experienced by the baby,
as is the happiness, the smile.
The baby also gets the smile.
(49:46):
And so it's interesting that the
when a baby, a newborn is breastfeeding so
the baby can focus, the newborn infant
can focus at about 12 inches
after three days, which is really fast.
That's about the distance, the mother'seyes and the breastfeeding baby.
(50:10):
That's exactly what Dr. Krauss said.
It's true.
In another part of
my professional life,I studied early infant development.
And and and that's also why Dr.
Bail's work appealed to me,because I had already been
very interested in fetal development
(50:33):
and early infant development,because it's so such an important time.
But isn't that amazing that nature,
You know, you're brand newand you're growing
and nature's giving youa little bit more scope at a time
and to settle in, this is allyou got to do right here, just right.
Here.
That's why it's really important for a momwho's breastfeeding to look at that baby
(50:56):
and not be on her phone, for instance,
or whatever, or on the other phoneor watching TV and, you know,
pay attention and look at the babyand in a loving way and get
then everybody gets that oxytocin
and all those those those good things.
And I think that nature,like you were saying,
(51:18):
it did that as a survival make.
It helped.
That helps human infants survive.
They can't do anything.
They can't stand,they can't talk, they can't run.
They can.
We're really helpless.
We're still relying on mom.
And so if you make contact with mom
(51:39):
and mom makes contact with youand mom makes a bond with you
through visual contactand the feelings that come with that,
she's going to take care of you.
So nature provided us a way to survivebecause that's the job, number one.
Yeah. Yeah.
(52:00):
So that's a little piece of physiologythat helped our survival.
I think.
It's interesting.
And again, I still think it'shard to grasp, even though I get it, that
for example, as a pregnant mom,something happens.
You feel fear.
I don't know.
Maybe you're almost running into the carin front of you and your heart starts
to beat. Yeah.
And your blood starts to move faster.
(52:21):
Well, that's happening to the baby. Yes.
I mean, that's just clear.
Why is then it's so hardfor us to understand
that everything we're doingis happening to the baby.
Well, people still have an old,
you know, pediatricians know this stuff.
Someone people who study early infantdevelopment know these things.
(52:42):
But I think in general, most new parents
and most people think, the babydoesn't know anything.
It's not really feeling stuff.
You have you poke with a pen,it'll have a reaction to physical pain.
But, you know, it's it's
it's not really thinking, it'snot really feeling.
(53:03):
It can't talk.
So nothing is going on.
Yeah.
So you can yell and screamwith your neighbor and it doesn't matter.
And the,
and the thing that you hear is people say,well the baby I'll never remember
or the baby experiences that
and it's unconscious remembers.
And that experiencemay come up in the dream if a dream is
(53:25):
correctly understood, if it if let's saythat experience is a part of the imprint,
if it was something of the imprintbeing acted out, it'll show up.
Because our unconscious storesall of that stuff.
Is that right?It does, yes. It's all in there.
And I think also, you know, in some way,we're asking a lot of new parents
(53:47):
who are under tremendous pressureto start taking care of this baby
as a fetus, yet,you know, wait till after the birth.
You have to start now.
Talk to it and take care of it.
Assume that it's not intellectually
understanding everything,but experiencing everything.
(54:09):
And, you know, dads used to think, well,
when when or she can walk and talk
and then I can throw a ball,then yeah, call me.
Yeah.
There's so much going on thoughin the life of that pregnant person
that keeps you awayfrom doing what you're suggesting.
(54:29):
You just the fear alone of I'mbringing this human into the world.
What if I don't do it right? I don't.
I've never done this before,or I've done it four times before,
and I got all those other kidsto take care of.
I mean, there's so much pressure.
It's a lot of pressure.
I mean, I can only imaginewhat that pressure is like and that sense
(54:49):
of responsibilitythat comes with that of being the nest
and carrying the, you know, having a humanbeing live inside of you.
It's prettyI I've never been able to get over that.
It's quite the miracle.
That's the way we come into the world.
We grow inside of another personfor nine months.
(55:12):
How can that personnot be an influence on you?
To me, the imprint to memade sense immediately because of that,
Because I already knew somethingabout fetal development and infants.
And so I'm like, Well,of course you live in that nest.
It's going to influence you.
But this idea I find so often rejected.
(55:34):
You know, I think, again, it it requires
it means there's going to beanother level of responsibility.
And some people don't want that,especially if they have busy, hectic lives
or if they're strugglingwith their own life.
They're, you know, usually occupiedwith themselves.
Yeah, there's.
No I have to take now I have totake care of and that's someone else.
(55:57):
Right. Right.
And I mean, we almost all of ussign up for it on some level.
Yeah.
And then you're in too deep.
The you, you want it to happen typically
or for those that do want it to happen,
it doesn't then come unburdened.
You know, it's you know, as you go along,it's all these things that you see
(56:19):
that you're responsible for in additionto what you're already responsible for.
Yeah, it's a lot. It is.
But in the same way as we were talkingabout therapy and and analysis.
And when you have an understandingand you have this good feeling,
you get that also with your kids
and you get it backand that helps keep you going.
(56:39):
You that sometimes it's goodnot to write down dreams.
And now in this podcastwe often suggest that
you might write down your dreambefore you forget it.
We're also in a placewhere we're talking with people
who don't have accessto therapy potentially.
What do you think about Lay people
(57:00):
perhaps writing down their dreamsand kind of going back and reading them
and maybe accumulating themand finding patterns?
I guessbasically I'm getting to two things.
Is it totally detrimentalto write down your dreams?
And can people who don't have accessto therapy become curious
enough to where they can startto help themselves a little bit?
(57:22):
Well, it isn't like a rule that you you'regoing to get your hands full
if you
if you break if you come in with a dreamthat you wrote down.
But for the reasons that I statedin general, the way I was trained with Dr.
Bails work is you want theyou want a patient to begin
to remember their dreams.
(57:42):
And really, I can tell people say, well,I don't remember my dreams.
What it is, is it's a habit.
So if you can remember the color grayand then a few dreams
later, you'll remember a gray picture.
And then that it was in the living room.
And so when you when you begin to make
(58:04):
remembering your dreams a habityou remember,
you tend to remember them again,whether it's long or short.
Now, if you're not in an ongoing
analysiswhere you're working with the dreams once
or twice a week or whateverit may be, then writing it
down is a way for you to keep track overtime of your dreams.
(58:26):
I think that's that's a good thing.
And reviewing them can be really helpful.
And you may see patterns and things emerge
that that you wouldn't ordinarily.
And so that's differentthan when you're in an ongoing
therapeutic situation where you're workingwith dreams in an ongoing way.
But I think and you I think we cantrain ourselves to remember our dreams.
(58:50):
Yeah. It's again,like I said, it's a it's just a habit.
Yeah.And it's one that everybody can learn.
Yeah, but if you want to
have an ongoing record of that,
perhaps what I would dois try to remember my dream.
Think about the dream that you rememberor the portions of it you remember.
If you feel done with that,then go write it down.
(59:15):
Yeah.
I mean, again,that's not like some hard and fast rule.
And that's what occurs to me so.
Well over the course of time.
I haven't in a while I wrote down
so many dreams, and every once moreI go back and look at them
and I see how they changed and morphedinto this, to this, to this, to this.
(59:36):
And I can put it togetherwith how I see how I think I've changed
and how it's amazingto see that kind of correlation.
You're to go back to Young for a minuteand your rug here.
He would say that, you know,each dream is like one little piece
of this complicated pattern of this rug.
(01:00:00):
And so when you can look at themover time,
you'll see more of the big picture,I think is what you're describing.
Yeah, but if I if let's sayI was going into therapy and somebody
said, this is just this little piece,I'd be like, Jeez, I got a long way to go.
Yeah.
So I have this big questionabout creativity.
(01:00:21):
I'm going to narrow it down.
But I think a lot of ushave some ability to that
that we're creative on some level music,art, cooking, whatever it may be singing.
But I think a lot of us aren'table to have a safe place to express that,
like it's stifled,whether it comes from society or family,
(01:00:43):
our parents or And I feel like humanity's
truly missing out because so many of us
have closed ourselves down to that.
What do you think about that?
I think everybodyhas some measure of creativity.
I think it doesn't get supportedvery much as you're
I think is part of what you're alluding toin culture.
(01:01:06):
I mean, in our public schools these days,
there aren't any artclasses in public school.
Yeah, it was one of the first things ago.
Art and music.
we're going to make the day shorter.
So they go
and often then families,there may be a prejudice
(01:01:27):
because it may bethat parents don't see an artistic life
or a creative lifeas being a viable way to make a living.
And depending on the discipline,it certainly can be hard.
And often there's peoplevery at the top of music or art
that make a lot of moneyand everybody else is broke.
(01:01:49):
So it isn't thatsome of those things aren't true.
But in general, I think parents get scared
that their kids are going to goon this path of being the starving artist
and they wantthey don't want that for them. Yes.
So they tend to lookat the economic picture
rather than what's going on in this kid.
(01:02:12):
A lot of kids like mein terms of art and drawing.
I think I stopped around the fourth gradein fifth grade and I just thought,
well, I'm not good.
I can't do that.
My brother was a really good artist.
He's a painter.
And I thought, Well, he's the one.
And everybody in my family thought,Tony is the way He's got all the talent.
He's the artist.Tom will do something else.
(01:02:35):
So I'm like, Well,they know what they're talking about.
But again, it's, you know, you'reyou want to set your kids up for survival.
So you get a job where you get a paycheck
that's not going to work sowell if you're an artist in their mind.
Yeah. I mean, painting still life is not.
Most parents don't consider that as a no,as a way to make a living. No.
(01:02:56):
And it kind of isn't. But. Well,it can be.
It can be really tough.
But every timea kid has an interest in art, which almost
every young childdoes, doesn't mean they're going to go on
and want to be an artist or a painter.
But I would say you encourage and support
(01:03:18):
creativitywherever you see it in your kid's lives.
Just let it play out andyou don't have to be so worried about it.
Let it play out.
It seems almost to me like thatcreative comes from so deep
within usthat it's it's us being able to express
a little bit of our true self.
(01:03:40):
And even if we have this fabulous
job at the bank,I feel like it's a healthy thing
for us to find an outlet to,in addition to the bank,
find something that you can dothat is creative.
Like it's maybe it's just methat thinks it's that it's just seems
like another tool that you can useto discover who you really are
(01:04:03):
is to find that zonewhere you can just express yourself.
That's absolutely true.
And that's something when you havea creative outlet, it's something.
So if you're at abank, there's not a whole lot
of personal expression that is is
(01:04:25):
that environment is not conducive to thatper say, that's okay.
That what that is,when you have a creative outlet,
something is coming directly from you.
If you paint you like, that's my painting,that's
that creative placeor your expression of it
isn't something anyone can take away.
(01:04:47):
It's a beautiful thing.
And nobody else can do itquite that same. Way.
That's right, Yeah.
So what about this idea.
That's worth nurturing?
yeah. Supporting it is. You want that.
You want that to grow.
You don't want to squash that.
As soon as it comes up, you want to let itgrow and see where it goes.
(01:05:07):
And that expression of our true self,if it comes through this
creativity, is such a great thingto share with other people
and could perhaps even lead them to thinkabout their creative outlet because.
We're all similar in many, many ways.
And so your unique expressionin some creative outlet
(01:05:31):
is going to have somethingof your own humanity in it,
and other people are going to say,You know, I that's how I thought,
what a great way to say that, or whata great way
to express those feelings about loss.
All those poems that you've readwhere you're like, my gosh,
I cannot believe that you put everythingI'm feeling into those words.
(01:05:53):
Yeah, on that page you.
Helped me because like,I couldn't quite say that.
Yeah, I think as far as we know, human
beings have been doing painting and caves,
you know, whether it's the hunt,
you with the buffaloor or even just the hand.
I love the hands in the caves, etc..
(01:06:14):
That was a personal expression, you know,that was only that one person's hand.
And there was storytelling and things
like that and acting out and dramatizing.
And those are humanand deeply human activities.
So this idea of
getting to your true self
(01:06:34):
and like I said, I had this feeling of,
that feeling,
that experienceof getting into your unconscious.
Is there something spiritual about that?
I think the work is I experienced it.
We're working with Dr.
Bails
(01:06:54):
theoriesand his way of understand the dream.
I think it openswhen you get connected to yourself.
When that happens, we don't close off,we open up.
You have to open up for that to comethrough your connection to yourself.
You have to be open to thatand bumping into the scary things
(01:07:17):
and the things that go bump in the night.
You have to work through those.
And so I think if you connect to yourselfthat deep self,
that does connect you to humanity,
because we're all we're the same species
and we all have similar struggles
and we're all in spite of peoplehaving lots of theories, we're
(01:07:38):
all trying to figure out what the hell'sgoing on here, what does this all mean?
So we're all
involved in similar struggles over time.
I learned.
So there was one moment where I felt like,
this work is really spiritual work.
This is spiritual workbecause I'm cleaning stuff out.
(01:08:00):
As I do that I feel better.
As I feel better, I'm more open
and as I'm more open, I feel more empathicand more connected to the world
and the people around me,and even people who are not around me.
So to me that is very spiritual.
And that that you justdescribed is spiritual.
And I think that that happensalmost unknowingly.
(01:08:23):
I mean, you can one day at one daysit down and, go, yeah, I see that
the way I approach the world,
the rest of humanity is differentthan it used to be.
But I think it just comes from you.
Then naturally, once you've discovered
who you really are, because you can't helpbut be your true self without truth.
I think you know, another way to say itis that if you've
(01:08:46):
if you've workedto diminish the internal saboteur,
you become more empathic with yourself.
Yeah.
You don't want to beat yourself upanymore, right?
That's hard work. It is.
And once you feel good,you don't want to feel bad anymore.
So it also opens you up to other people'sstruggles, which is a way to say
(01:09:09):
you're more empathic,you're more empathic with yourself,
and you're more empathicwith other people's pain.
Because again, our pains are all pretty,they're pretty similar.
And if you no longer need to beat yourselfup, you don't really need to beat up
anybody else. No.
You don't want to. Yeah, you don't.
Because you know what that feels likebecause you've
probably had a lifetime of it. Yes.
(01:09:32):
So you said me the other day
that the dream may bethe purest expression of the unconscious.
You've probably explained that
in this conversation,but is there a simple explanation?
Well, I just think that we're not.
The dream happens when we sleepduring REM sleep, when we're not awake.
(01:09:53):
We're not occupied with other things.
We're not thinking about other things.
We're not distracted by outsidestimulation.
Yeah So we're not responding to
both visual stimulation,
auditory physical stimulation
and that sort of quietnessallows that part of the mind
(01:10:18):
to come forward and give you
here's here's something to think about.
Everything else is pretty still here.
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah.
It's sort of like if someone says,you know, I want to think about
such and such, I'm going to go for a walk.
It's a way of having a quiet time,
(01:10:38):
and sleep is pretty much a quiet time.
Everything of the consciousmind is quieted,
so we're not getting that stimulation and.
And once people discover their unconscious
is there's so much hard stuffto contend with.
(01:10:59):
Is it pretty easy for peopleto get rid of the idea of thinking that
they're being punished?
Let's say you've got to faceall this bad stuff about yourself
and your parents and your ancestors,and think of it as a gift.
I mean, some people may come in with that.
I think most peoplehave to do a little some
some amount of workto begin to to value the dream.
(01:11:24):
You know, you may come in. dream work.
That sounds interesting,but you don't really know
what's coming down the road, which is,you know, you're going to bump into
the very things that your mind is been.
You've spent a lifetimesort of holding off, holding at bay.
So usually I think it happens over timeas you get to have those moments of,
(01:11:49):
you know, you begin to say,
my unconscious is not telling mehow bad I am in the dream.
Like, I have to work on this.And now I to work on that.
And it's helping you on the road
to develop and grow as an adult,
whatever age you may, you may be.
Dr. Bail Use that legal analogy analogy.
(01:12:12):
Once he said the case is never closed.
That's true.
It's now. Closed.
So you can see that as, you know, an ever
oppressive thingor you can see as unlimited growth.
We have infinite growth in front of us.
And there's always something to learn,something to know.
(01:12:36):
And if this makes me feel this good,why wouldn't I want to continue?
Yeah, because it can only get better.
What a concept. Yeah.
Well, thank you for being here.
I am so happy to talk with you.
And I'm glad we've had many opportunitiesto speak about this.
And in addition to having you hereand learning so much from you
(01:12:57):
and having ourour audience learn so much from you,
I've learned so much about Bernhard,and I know through you things I did.
I'm really.
I'm touched. Yeah. Thank you.
I appreciate the invitation.
it's great.
It was great for meto be able to talk about his work.
So is there something elseyou'd like to say that we haven't covered?
(01:13:19):
I think you did a good job.
You did a good job.
We did a good job. Thank you. Joining us.
We look forward to seeing you
next time and check in with any questionsor comments because we're here.
See you later.
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