Spotlight on Psychotherapy Beyond Traditional Boundaries with Al Galves: Finding the Underlying Causes of Mental Distress. (S6, E6)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi guys and welcome.
This is Jen Gaeta Sicilianoartist, memoir writer, bipolar
psychiatric survivor and yourhost of Not as Crazy as you
Think podcast, the place thatoffers an alternative
perspective on mental illness,highlighting creativity,
non-conventional healing andbreaking on through to the other
side.
If you are ready for a newnarrative on the mental realm

(00:21):
that celebrates crazy and coolwithout penalty, then Not as
Crazy as you Think is for you.
Hello, this is Jen GataSiciliano, your host of Not as
Crazy as you Think podcast.
I am really thrilled to have awonderful guest with us today.
His name is Al Galves and hereceived his PhD in clinical

(00:44):
psychology from the UnionInstitute in 1997, becoming a
licensed psychologist inColorado in 2001 and in New
Mexico in 2015.
With 27 years of experience, heis now based in Las Cruces, new
Mexico, and he is providingpsychotherapy to children,

(01:04):
adolescents, adults, couples andgroups in mental health clinics
, community health clinics andpublic schools.
He was also a patient as wellas a therapist.
He first went into therapy atthe age of 25 in the throes of
severe depression.
Since then, he has been gracedwith the help of 10 different
therapists and has learnedvaluable lessons from a personal

(01:25):
growth program and numeroustraining programs.
He is also the author ofHarness your Dark Side Mastering
Jealousy, rage, frustration andOther Negative Emotions, which
can be purchased on Amazon orBarnes Noble and his book
provides the keys to living wellby teaching us how to be aware
of all the emotions that we areexperiencing, the good and the

(01:52):
bad, and using them to expressourselves.
Thank you so much for coming onthe show and sharing your
insight.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
You're welcome, Jen.
It's good to be here.
It really is, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Well, let me first start with my joy in finding
your angle and how you approachmental illness and mental health
, and basically the idea is thatmental health is attainable for
anyone.
And that's kind of where I'mcoming from, because there has
been this long, lastingnarrative in our culture that

(02:20):
has told people who suffer frommental distress that these
things are a result of a brokenbrain, it's in their biology bad
genetics, a brain disorderissue, a chemical imbalance.
I know that these are not only,you know, not supported by
evidence, but also, as you havesaid, it's disempowering and

(02:43):
harmful to people.
Can you elaborate on that?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, I'd like to do that.
Yeah, see, when you believethat.
Okay, so the symptoms of mentalillness are states of being,
right, we're feeling a certainway.
The symptoms of mental illnessare moods, states of being, how
we're feeling, thoughts,emotions, uh, perceptions,
intentions, behavior, reactionsto emotions.

(03:08):
Right, that's what the symptomsare.
So, so this is our life, thisis we're living our life.
You know, we're using ourthoughts and our emotions and
and we're feeling how we'refeeling, etc.
Etc.
Well, when you think that that,that those things are caused by
brain disorders or genetics orbiochemical problems, you

(03:32):
believe you don't have controlover those things.
Because we don't have control Imean, I don't have much control
over my brain function or mybiochemistry or my genetics,
chemistry or my genetics, and soyou're really believing that
you are at the mercy of forcesyou don't have control over that
.
You don't have control over thethings you use to live your
life, the faculties, yourthoughts, your emotions, your

(03:55):
intentions, your perceptions,your behavior.
Well, that's very disempoweringand cynical.
I mean, really I don't havecontrol over the things I use,
the faculties, I use, the skillsthat I use to live my life.
So I'm not sure if peoplerealize that when you believe in

(04:15):
that medical model, you'reactually believing that that you
don't have control over all ofthese things that you use to
live your life.
Yeah, so yeah, I think that's abig problem.
Because it's a problem?
Because two reasons One ispeople then don't they're not
likely to take responsibilityand to take the task on.

(04:38):
Take the work let's do the workand learning how to use their
thoughts and their emotions andtheir perceptions and their
intentions and their behavior tolive the way they want to live.
They're less likely to takethat on, you know, and say I'm
going to do it Right.
And the other thing is they'remore likely to look for
treatment, to look for help inthe form of medication, and the

(05:01):
problem with that is that if youlook at the benefit risk ratio
of psychotherapy treatment withpsychotherapy and the
benefit-risk ratio of treatmentwith medication, I mean it seems
to me like the benefit-riskratio of treatment with
psychotherapy is so much betterthat it's hard to believe that
anybody would opt for treatmentwith medication.
And let me just say a littlemore about that.

(05:23):
So let's say, with medication,okay.
So what are the benefits?
Well, you might feel better,you know.
It might make you feel better.
It might help you to be not soagitated or not have racing
thoughts.
It might calm you down some, itmight pick you up a little bit.
So, you know, there's somebenefits there.

(05:45):
Although, jen, if your life isnot going well, if your life is
really not going well and youhave deep, deep concerns about
your life, I don't think it's agood idea to feel good.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Right, right.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
I mean, you're a la-la land.
If your life is not going well,you know, I want you to feel
badly, I want you to feelhorrible, I want you to be
depressed so you can dosomething about it and say, oh,
my life is not.
I don't like what's going on inmy life, right?

Speaker 1 (06:16):
See, this is like one of the main things that is
pushed upon a lot of people whostart taking these medications
is this idea that we don'treally have, I guess, free will
like, as you're saying, oragency over our own mind, over
our own thoughts and feelings.

(06:36):
And it seems to me thatsomewhere along the line
psychotherapy started notgetting a lot of respect.
So I know, in the dsm-3, whenthey tried to push more the
biomedical model over, say,forms of like psychotherapy for
assistance, it seemed to be likethe thing to kind of put

(07:00):
psychiatry a little bit moreinto like the field of, I guess,
a little bit more structuraland materialist science rather
than, you know, a little heady,a little out in the realm of the
mind.
Now, what is the differencebetween these two ideas?
Like this idea that you knowthe thoughts and the feelings

(07:23):
come from this area of the mind,you know that's kind of like a
little philosophically differentthan that of the brain, which
is just this physical entitythat we have no control over.
I mean, these are two verydifferent ways of looking at why
these things occur and then howto treat them.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, absolutely, Absolutely.
Well, okay, so we'll talk aboutthe difference between the mind
and the brain.
Well, let me go, we'll do that.
But let me go back to this ideaof what's the benefit risk.
So you might feel better takingmedicine, right, Using medicine
, but I mean, they're prettyserious side effects.

(08:02):
I mean, with antidepressantsyou're going to lose some sexual
function.
Your sexual function is goingto be impaired.
You could get thrown into mania.
You, if you try to withdraw,you're going to have a hard time
and you and you and you, youremotions get numbed, your
emotions get, get damped downand you don't process your

(08:26):
emotions.
Well, that's a pretty bigproblem, because we use our
emotions to live our lives.
I mean, our emotions tell uswhat's important to us, what we
like, what we don't like, whatwe want to avoid, what we want.
We learn that from our emotions, what we care about.
So there are some really badside effects to medication.
Now, in the case ofantipsychotics, and more people

(08:48):
are taking those now, you'retalking about big problems.
Now you're talking abouttardive dyskinesia, which is
Parkinson's disease.
You're talking about brainshrinkage, cognitive impairment,
increased risk of diabetes andearly death.
People who use antipsychoticsdie 25 years earlier than people
who don't.
So, wow.

(09:09):
So the benefit-risk ratio notthat good, not tremendous
benefits and a lot of risk.
Now, with psychotherapy, what'sthe benefit of psychotherapy?
Oh my God, in goodpsychotherapy that works.
You, you learn about yourself.
You get to begin learning aboutyourself.
You begin to develop a goodrelationship with yourself,

(09:31):
understand why you do what youdo and why you don't do what you
don't do, and what's drivingyour behavior.
And you and you and you and youlearn to use your thoughts and
your emotions and yourintentions and your perceptions
and your behavior.
You learn to use thosefaculties to live more the way
you want to live.
And you learn how to connectwith other people without giving

(09:53):
up too much of yourself.
And you learn how to managestress.
And you learn how to youdevelop some compassion for
yourself.
Because, guess what, you didn'tchoose your early life.
You didn't choose your earlylife.
You didn't choose your parents.
You didn't choose your earlylife and your early life has a
tremendous impact on your laterlife.
So you get all these benefitsfrom psychotherapy, yeah, that

(10:14):
you can use for the rest of yourlife.
Yes, you use these.
You're going to use theseskills and knowledge you get
from psychotherapy to live yourlife for the rest of your life.
So pretty big benefits.
Well, there's some risks, youknow.
You might hear some things youdon't want to hear.
You might get sent down thewrong path, you might feel bad,

(10:35):
you might go through some trauma, you know.
So there are some risks, butthey're not.
I don't think they'retremendous.
The risks aren't that big inpsychotherapy.
So, anyway, that's one of theproblems with believing in the
biopsychiatry that I'll take themedication Because you lose an
opportunity to really learn somethings about yourself and learn
how to manage yourself.

(10:55):
Right.
So let's talk about thedifference between the mind and
the brain, and this gets reallykind of out there, jen.
You know the brain is an organ,right?
It's an organ in the body andwe know something about it and
neuroscientists are learningabout it.
You know neurons, billions ofneurons, trillions of

(11:19):
connections, synapses,neurotransmitters, chemistry, a
lot going on going on, right?
So the brain is this organ.
Now, the mind is a vastlypowerful faculty that we use to
do everything we do, right?
So we use our minds to live ourlives, not our brains, right?

(11:39):
To do everything we do tounderstand the world, to solve
problems, to make plans, to makedecisions, to build things, to
build everything we do tounderstand the world, to solve
problems, to make plans, to makedecisions, to build things, to
build everything we build, tointeract with other people, to
use our bodies in satisfyingways.
We use our mind to do that.
Now, here's the weird thing,jen.
In some ways it's weird.

(12:00):
The brain and the mind are notthe same thing, right?
No way, yeah.
And the neuroscientists whostudy the brain, they know brain
and the mind are not the samething, right?
No way, yeah.
And the neuroscientists whostudy the brain, they know
nothing about the mind, right,they know very little about it.
They don't know, for instance,what.
They don't know what's going onthe brain differently when,
let's say, I'm planning avacation.
What's going on in the brainwhen I'm planning a vacation?

(12:23):
They don't know, right, what'sgoing on in the brain when I'm
planning a vacation.
They don't know what's going onin the brain when I'm having
the insight that the reason Ineed a lot of approval from men
is because my father hurt me.
Right, right, those are twovery different things going on.
Neuroscientists have no ideawhat differently is going on in
the brain when I'm doing thosetwo different things.
Right, no idea, yeah, and a guynamed William Udall who was

(12:45):
actually a neuroscientist.
He wrote a book called Brainand Mind, a critique of
cognitive neuroscience, and inthat book he says you know,
neuroscientists think they havea theory about how the brain
creates the mind.
They're not even close to atheory.
They have no idea, right, theyhave no idea about how the brain

(13:07):
creates the mind or therelationship to the brain and
the mind.
So this is the problem Allthese neuroscientists are
studying the brain, but we don'tuse our brains to live our
lives.
We use our minds to live ourlives.
So let me give you anotherexample, just a little example.
We use our minds to live ourlives.
So let me give you anotherexample, just a little example.
Okay, so when I make a decision, I made a decision recently to

(13:30):
go to Los Angeles to watch mygrandson wrestle.
He's a high school wrestler.
Did my brain make that decision?
Did that piece of protoplasm inmy head here, that organ?
Did my brain make that decision?
No, my brain didn't make thatdecision, I made that decision.

(13:51):
Now, I don't know what I'msaying when I say I made that
decision.
That's the problem.
It's mysterious.
I made that, I made it.
My brain didn't make it, I madeit.
Don't make my brain makeanything, don't make any
decisions.
I make the decision.
Well, it's my mind, it's myemotions, it's all of me that's

(14:12):
making those decisions.
So just to go on with this.
So psychotherapy and of courseI have to say you know full
disclosure, I'm apsychotherapist, so I'm not
going to tell you psychotherapyis shit.
You know, full disclosure, I'ma psychotherapist, so I'm not
going to tell you psychotherapyis shit.
Right, but I've experienced,I've been a 19-20 therapist now
in my life and I'm in therapyeven now.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
So it just has terrific benefits if you work at
it and if you have a goodtherapist and you to, but, but,
but it's a slow process ofbecoming healthy.
Well, that's one of the issuestoo.
I think that, like so manypeople in our society are
interested in the quick fix sothat they could say, get back to
work or get back to their kids,or you know and I see it with a
lot of my friends who aredealing with things with their
kids, you know, and that'sthey're so overwhelmed with,

(15:07):
maybe, a problem that the kid ishaving that they see that as a
real viable option, like, oh, ok, this is going to solve this,
at least for now, and then latermaybe we could deal with, like,
getting off.
The problem is because theunderlying philosophy is that
there's something wrong with thekid's brain, right, there is no
getting off these medications,in their opinion, like, in other

(15:30):
words, there is no exit planwhen you get on them.
And that is one of, I feel, theworst like things that you
could do.
Because, as you know, withantipsychotics the medication
that I was on for so long, Istarted realizing, if I don't
get off this stuff, I'm gonnahave an early lay.
And to my let like, why would Iput myself in that situation.

(15:53):
Well, because I tried to get offthem before and there's all
these withdrawal symptoms thatoccur.
So there's no information outthere except from the people who
are, say, psychiatric survivors, who have managed over the
course of, say, 15 years, thelast 15 years to organize some
information on how to get offthese things safely.
So I mean, as a person in thefield coming across, you know

(16:17):
that there are a lot of stand-uppeople who are, you know,
trying to do the right thing,but they are psychiatrists and
they do believe in that model.
Like how do how does a persondeal with the options that are
offered to them when a fulldisclosure is not, given that
some of this stuff is is veryharmful and could potentially

(16:40):
lead to much worse symptomslater on, like like organ
failure.
For instance, a friend of minewhose father's been on these
terrible medications for so long, he's now suffering organ
failure from the medications.
So, you know, is this somethingthat more people should be
concerned with when they go totheir doctors and they ask for

(17:01):
help.
How does a, how do you, how dowe give a regular citizen
information that can help themdeal with their doctors?

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah, that's a big problem.
It's a big problem because youknow I'm pretty sure I don't
know this for for certain I'mpretty sure that when people go
to a psychiatrist, they neverget all the information they
should get before they decide totake one of these drugs,
because the psychiatrist is notgoing to give them all the
information about the negativeside effects, the harmful side

(17:35):
effects harmful.
They're also not going to betold about the options.
You could find a therapist towork with.
You could get into a supportgroup.
You could exercise.
You know you could.
I mean, one of the biggeststudies of depression found that
that the best treatment wasexercise, just exercise.

(18:00):
They're not told you knowthere's different things you can
do here.
You know that could help out.
So I don't know.
It's just a matter of peopletrying to get the best
information they can get aboutit.
Let me say one other thingabout you know.
The problem with understandingthe moods, the states of being,

(18:23):
the emotions, the thoughts, thebehavior associated with mental
illness understanding that as abrain disorder is is that you
lose the chance.
I always said you lose thechance to get to know yourself.
Yeah.
So if it's not a brain disorderor a biochemical problem or a
genetic problem, what is it?

(18:45):
What is going on.
You know why am I experiencingthese moods, this state of being
, these emotions, these thoughts, these behaviors?
Why?

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Well, I think the answer to that is the reason
you're experiencing them isyou're trying to live your life
the best you can and you'retrying to cope with your life
and and what you're, the wayyou're feeling or what you're
doing, is how you're doing yourbest to survive.
So the the symptoms of mentalillness are caused by your life

(19:21):
situation, your reaction.
It's caused by what it is noteven what it's caused by.
What mental illness is is howpeople are reacting to their
life situations and the concernsthey have about themselves and
their lives.
That's what it is.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Well, I like this take because a lot of the
struggle is that some I mean andI have to to, you know, ascribe
to this too, that there's somany social, political issues
right in the lives of so manypeople that cause all this
little t big t trauma.
You know, whatever it is, andbut the thing is, life is well,

(20:02):
this is what we.
We know it as there's somepeople who are, you know, lucky
to be in, say, the class theyhave, you know, with the amount
of money that they have, butthey're still not necessarily
happier than those who arepoorer.
Right, we know that, thatthere's evidence base for that.
So the thing is, what is itexactly?
I know that you mentioned, likethe stress response.
What is it exactly?
I know that you mentioned likethe stress response, which I

(20:24):
think is so interesting because,again, if we can kind of like
zoom in on, like this thing thatwe have control over, that's
like the essential element thatwe have control over.
I guess the response to, to waythings are unfolding in our
lives, like, can you speak tothat a little bit?

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, let me.
Let me speak to that becauseI'm glad you asked that.
So okay, so here's what ittakes for people, most people,
what it takes for most people tobe happy or to feel good about
their lives or to be mentallyhealthy.
Here's what it is and I'm goingto give you a little bit of
evidence here.
Somebody asked Sigmund Freudud,you know the famous psychiatrist

(21:06):
.
Actually he was a neurologist,you know, he was in a right, he
was, he was a doctor.
Yeah, somebody asked him whenhe was older.
He said so, dr freud, what'sthe key to mental health?
And he said the key to mentalhealth is the capacity to love,
the capacity to work and thecapacity to enjoy life.
Yeah, that's, the key to mentalhealth is the capacity to love,
the capacity to work and thecapacity to enjoy life.

(21:27):
That's the key to mental health.
Now there's a guy named MatthewFox who is a priest or a cleric,
and he said I don't like theword work, I'm going to change
it to express oneself.
So he would say the key tomental health is the capacity to
love, to be connected to otherpeople and satisfying ways, all
kinds of love.
Uh, the key, uh the, thecapacity to express yourself, to

(21:52):
use your abilities andsatisfying ways and the capacity
to enjoy life right now.
So, um, the positivepsychologists you know they're a
bunch of psychologists who workon happiness.
Yeah, what makes people happy,positive psychologists?
So here's what they say is thekey to happiness?

(22:15):
First, using the best part ofyourself in the interest of
something bigger than yourself.
Using the best part of yourselfin the interest of something
bigger than yourself.
Second, positive relationships.
Third, achievement, competenceand mastery.
So, very similar to what Freudsaid.
So, basically, what it comesdown to is, for most people and

(22:36):
this is not for everybody, butmost people in order to feel
good about their lives, in orderto be happy, in order to be
mentally healthy, they have tobe connected to other people in
satisfying ways.
All kinds of love, yeah, sexuallove, romantic love, family love
, collegial love, friendshiplove all kinds of love right
connected and they have to beusing their abilities in

(22:59):
satisfying ways their ability touse their mind, use their
bodies, uh, create, uh, solveproblems, discover things.
They have to be, they have tobe expressing themselves using
their abilities singing, dancing, sports, all of that and they
have to feel like they'recapable and they're able to do

(23:20):
what they want to do.
So here's the deal.
Deal, jen when people, whenthat's not working right, yeah,
when people become, oh shit, youknow, I don't have good
connections.
I don't.
I don't have another person I'mconnected to very well, I'm not
connected to other people.
I don't have a loverelationship.

(23:41):
I don't have many friends.
I feel isolated, I'm alone.
I have a love relationship.
I don't have many friends.
I feel isolated, I'm alone.
I'm not using my abilities, I'mkind of dead stuck.
Somehow or other, they're goingto get upset.
If they're healthy, they'regoing to get very upset.
And if they begin to believethey'll never be able to do that
, they begin to lose hope.
They begin to say, oh my God,I'll never be able to live the

(24:05):
way I want to live.
They're going to get verydepressed, yes, very depressed,
and actually that's a good thing, because it'll stop them from
doing what they're doing andforce them to go inside and take
a look at their life.
Yeah, okay, so I'll give yousome examples of how this works.
So why did I get so depressedwhen I was 25 years old?

(24:26):
And I was severely depressed,really bad shape, and if you
looked at my life objectively,jen, I had a great life.
Yeah, I've been married for ayear to the woman I'm still
married to.
I had a great job.
I was training Peace Corpsvolunteers.
I was living in the rainforestin Puerto Rico.
I was earning good money goodmoney.
I had no expenses.

(24:48):
I'm getting free food, freerent.
I'm working with interestingpeople, exciting people Great
life, right, yeah, I'm sick, I'mdone.
I'm done.
I can't even I can't much ofthe day, I'm blank.
Wow, I am lost, I am gone.
What was going on?
Yeah, well, here's what Ifigured out after I recovered

(25:11):
Sort of I was trending.
I was spending a tremendousamount of my energy hiding the
truth from myself and hiding itfrom other people.
The truth was that I actuallywas very scared.
I didn't think I was smartenough, good looking enough,
personable enough, humorousenough, wise enough to do any

(25:32):
kind of any of the work I wantedto do.
I hadn't satisfied my wifesexually.
I wasn't satisfying my wifesexually.
I didn't think I would be ableto.
I wanted to kill my father.
That that wasn't all right, youknow.
And I was hiding all this frommyself and from other people,
using a lot of energy, yeah, andso it brought me down.

(25:52):
Yeah, that's what happened.
So what happens to people whosay they have attention deficit
disorder?
Right, attention deficit,hyperactive disorder?
What's going on?
Here's what's going on they'rebeing forced to do something
they don't want to do.
Right, right, right, yeah.
Or they have a big problem,there's a big problem in their
life that they're not dealingwith.

(26:13):
They're not dealing with it.
And when you have a big problemin your life, you're not
dealing with it, you're notgoing to be able to focus on
anything yeah until you dealwith it, right, right, so, right
.
So you know people diagnosedwith ADHD and they say, well,
it's a brain disorder, it'sneurodevelopmental.
It's really not true, becausethey can focus on things they

(26:35):
want to focus on, right.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
Hyper focus.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Oh, yes, so the kids that are not paying attention in
school.
Watch them play a video gameRight.
They'll be able to focus on avideo game.
Yes, or you watch them play avideo game right, they'll be
able to focus on a video game,yes, or you watch them play
sports, and they'll play sport,right, okay.
So here's another example.
Just one other example bipolardisorder, right?
A lot of people gettingdiagnosed with bipolar disorder

(26:59):
now, yes, and illegitimately.
This shouldn't be, because inthe DSM, in order to be
diagnosed with bipolar disorder,you have to have had a manic
episode, and lots of people whoare diagnosed with bipolar
disorder have never had a manicepisode, right?
So what's going on?
Here's a manic episode.
A manic episode is one week ofelevated mood, grandiosity I can

(27:24):
do anything, maybe irritability, press to speech, talking a lot
, very distractible, racingthoughts, sleeping two, three
hours a night, very involved ingoal-oriented activities, doing
very dangerous things, havingsex with people you don't know,

(27:45):
buying things you don't need,entering into business
agreements that are not good,getting into fights with people
you don't know.
This is a manic episode, right?
What's going on, right?
Well, here's some idea.
You know it's different foreverybody, but just some ideas.
One of the things that's goingon is this person has somehow or

(28:07):
other gotten the message theyhave to be successful, they have
to be very, very successful,exalted, big time, they have to
be great, and they can't be, andso they have the illusion of
being all powerful andsuccessful.
I can do anything I want to do.
I can do this, I can do this, Ican do that.
Right, that's one of the thingsthat's going on.

(28:31):
The other thing that's going onis this person is tired of
having to make the everydaydecisions that we have to make.
What am I going to do with mymoney, you know?
Am I going to go to the Bahamasor am I going to put it in a
savings account for my kidscollege?
What am I going to do with mytime?
What am I going to do?
You know, am I going to, uh, amI going to go to the bar and or

(28:55):
go with my friends, or am Igoing to go, uh, help people in
the soup kitchen, or study, orwe have to make these decisions
every day.
They're difficult.
It's not that easy to make thesedecisions yeah, no, it isn't
and you know, every time wedecided the one thing, we
decided not to do 50 things,many of which might be very
productive and enjoyable, youknow.

(29:17):
So life is difficult this way.
We can only do one thing at atime anyway.
Yeah, in a manic episode youdon't have to do that, right in
a manic episode.
You can do anything.
You can do everything.
Yes, you don't have to do that,you see.
So I'm just making the pointthat all of these things we call
mental illnesses are how peopleare living their life best they

(29:38):
can.
It's all emotional distress,life crises, difficult dilemmas,
spiritual emergencies, allkinds of overwhelming fear.
It's all about your life, folks.
Let me tell you what we callmental illness.
It's all about your life.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
Exactly, it's the human experience.
And I appreciate what you'resaying about the bipolar
disorder too, because that waswhat I was labeled with and
there were points at which Iwould return to this state.
Ok, but to stay the way youdescribed, it was really a
beautiful way to put it intothis story.

(30:14):
That is valid.
I mean, like I can literallysay, every time I experienced
one of those states that I hadto, like you know, be
hospitalized for and all thisnonsense, I was in some kind of
turmoil of feeling eitheroverwhelmed or too much or not
being respected, so that I feltI had to, you know, create like

(30:35):
a larger idea of myself or allof these things that are just
part of how we interact with ourworlds, you know, and, as a
creative person, a lot ofcreative people in the arts have
that label, you know.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, yeah, I like that phrase.
How do we interact with theworld?
It's about how we'reinteracting with the world, with
other people, and how we feelabout it.
Yeah, you know, if I begin tofeel that my life is not going
to go well, I'm not going to beable to do these things I want
to do.
My God, if you don't getmentally ill, there's something

(31:11):
wrong with you, right?
If you don't get mentally ill,there's something wrong with you
Right.
Which is, by the way, I have totell you that, one of the things
I do as a therapist.
Almost in 100% of the cases,people come in and tell me about
what's happened in your life.
If you weren't feeling badlyabout this, there'd be something
wrong with you right rightyou'd be in la la land yes you

(31:44):
know, yes, so so let's see if wecan understand what this
symptom is telling you aboutyourself and your life
absolutely you know, let's nottry to get rid of it right,
because this is how you live inyour life

Speaker 1 (31:57):
yeah, right well, one of the things I think that we
got away from in the the area oflike who are the experts?
Okay, like what you're saying,you're so compassionate.
A lot of people have gone awayfrom religious um communities.
You know they're less involvedwith that.
That used to be a hugeinfluence in so many people's

(32:17):
worlds that they could just likego to their community and maybe
talk to their priest or so thissense of like just holding
space for someone is soimportant because so many people
don't have that.
So if you start with like such alack in that area, that's
already a state of you know,like grasping right.

(32:38):
People are desperate.
So you know, if we just startedthere now, what happens a lot
of times when a professionalmental health professional
believes in this biomedicalmodel, say, they can look at the
person complaining with likethis clinical gaze and they
don't really feel as though theythey should talk to the person

(33:00):
and kind of nurture thoseemotions around the experience.
They're just really like thinkthe way I see it is they're
checking off things in the dsmlike what medication am I going
to give this person?
right and I'm just going tovisit this for a moment because
this is where we kind of cameacross each other was at the
ISPS conference, that there'sthis place now that's holding

(33:24):
this conference in a lot ofareas of the nation and abroad,
where there's lived experiencepeople coming together saying
I'm not so happy with the way Iwas treated.
This might be a better way tolook at it, alongside these
mental health professionals whoare so open-minded and willing
to see these things through anew light.
So in your experience withpeople who have come to you, say

(33:49):
, with like stories of psychosisor I don't know if you've had
that much experience with a lotof people who have psychotic
issues but even if they'veexpressed some symptoms, say in
bipolar disorder or somethinglike that, how do you honor that

(34:09):
state of mind withoutnecessarily putting it in the
box of pathology, you know?
where it's just like a throwaway.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, that's tricky.
It's tricky, Absolutely,absolutely.
And I'm glad you brought up,you know, isps, the
International Society forPsychological and Social
Approaches to Psychosis.
So we're talking aboutpsychosis now we're talking
about the most serious mentalillness.
We're talking about people whohear voices or who have visions,

(34:43):
see things other people don'tsee or believe things that no
one else would believe.
You know that are totally outof the range of consensual
reality.
You know, believe that someonethat the CIA has implanted a
device in them that's readingtheir thoughts?
Or I've had a patient whobelieves that her whole life has
been controlled by the answersshe gave to questionnaires she

(35:05):
took in middle school.
Or I have a patient whobelieves she's being stalked by
the man she had a loverelationship with for 10 years,
being stalked by him and his newgirlfriend, with, for 10 years
being stalked by him and his newgirlfriend.
Or people who well hearingvoices.
You know serious illnesses,serious symptoms.
So how do we understand those ifwe don't understand them as a

(35:28):
brain disease?
Or well, we understand them ashow a person is surviving, how a
person who's been hurt verybadly, as how a person is
surviving, how a person who'sbeen hurt very badly.
So the research tells us thatthe great majority of people who
experience psychosisschizophrenia, the most common
psychotic the great majority ofthem have been hurt very badly.

(35:48):
They've been put down,dishonored, discounted, made to
feel inadequate, rejected, insome cases abused sexually,
emotionally, verbally,physically.
They've been hurt adversechildhood experiences.
So when they fall into thisstate of being we call

(36:13):
schizophrenia, essentiallythat's how they're surviving the
idea of living in the world asit is, with people, with human
beings who have been toxic, whohave hurt them no way.
They're not doing that, and soa part of them now it's not
their rational part.
It's not their rational part,it's a part that's much deeper

(36:34):
than that and actually healthier.
A part of them actually finds abetter way to survive.
And there was a greatpsychologist named John Weir
Perry who spent a lot of timewith people who were diagnosed
with schizophrenia.
He wanted to understand what'sgoing on with these people.
You know, if it's not a braindisorder, if I don't want to see

(36:56):
it as a brain disorder, how doI understand it?
Yeah, and what he came tounderstand is that when people
have suffered these hurts andthis rejection, that the way he
would put it a change isinitiated.
That's the way he says it, achange is initiated.
The psychic energy of theperson attaches to a more

(37:18):
powerful but imaginary part ofthe person.
Wow, some part of the personthat's more powerful, maybe the
part that we would say is like aking or a warrior or a magician
.
Yes, so they can move forward,so they can survive in this
toxic world.
So that's what's going on withthe person.

(37:39):
Yeah, so when I am working witha person like that, um, I don't
, you know, I I sort of try togo with them, yeah, if they tell
me.
Well, if they tell me thatthey're a cia agent, that the
cia, the CIA, has put a devicein them to monitor their

(38:00):
thoughts, I ask them well, whyare they monitoring your
thoughts?
Because I'm important.
I'm involved in a battlebetween good and evil and
between communism and democracy,so I'm important.
That's why they're oh okay.
Well, how's the battle going?
Yeah, you know you may get themtalking about it.
Yes, you know, so that theythey feel like they're being

(38:24):
affirmed, they're beingsupported, so they can go
through this experience.
Now it gets hard, for you know atherapist.
Uh, because I'll just tell you,I have a patient who I told him
, who believes that she's beingstalked by her, her former lover

(38:45):
and his girlfriend, his newgirlfriend.
Now, she's been believing thisfor nine years.
Wow, she doesn't want to leavethe house because every time she
leaves the house, they come inand steal stuff, break stuff.
When she goes out and drives,they have people who follow her.
They're on her roof every night.
She doesn't sleep, she hearsthem.
They've, they've gotten intoher computer, into her phones,

(39:07):
they've broken.
She believes this and she, shecreates the evidence, you know.
So how long do you go along withit?
Because you know you want tosay you want her to somehow move
forward in her life, not be sohurt by all this.
So it's kind of tricky and youknow I try to encourage her to

(39:30):
try and move forward in yourlife.
She has grandchildren, she hasa daughter.
You know work with with themand you know she's an artist,
but still she's troubled by allthis and so it's very tricky.
So but let me tell you oneother thing, because this is
really significant.
Jen, and you may know this backin 1971 okay, you witness this

(39:50):
50 years ago, okay, there was apsychiatrist named Lauren Mosier
.
Yes.
Who was?
He was the head of theschizophrenia research project
of the National Institute ofMental Health.
Ok, and he, he saw what wasgoing on with psychiatry going
towards the medical model to amaterialistic science, and he

(40:12):
said I'm going to try somethingout here.
I'm going to just create a homethem into that residence and
provide them with safety,support and affirmation as they
go through the experience.
Now was that the Soteria house?
Exactly the Soteria house, theSoteria project, s-o-t-e-r-a-a.
And we're going to help them.
We're not going to stop theprocess because we understand

(41:02):
that they're in some kind of asurvival.
They're moving towards survival, healing and recovery.
So we're going to help them gothrough it.
Yes, right, and once theystabilize, which typically
happened in six to eight weeks,we're going to help them go out
into the community and encouragethem.
Get out in the community, gotake a class, get a job, support
an employment volunteer, go totherapy, go to support group,
recreation, art, et cetera, etcetera.

(41:25):
So this is a research project ofthe National Institute of
Mental Health, right?
So they did a good study.
They randomly assigned peopleto Soteria House or to the
hospital and two years aftertreatment they went and checked
to see how people were doing.
Well, what they found was thatthe people treated at Soteria

(41:45):
were doing significantly betterin terms of social functioning
who they were living with, whothey were interacting with,
employment, working symptoms,less symptoms and
re-hospitalizations, less tripsto the hospital.
Those people treated in Soteriwere doing better in terms of
those symptoms than the peopletreated at the hospital.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
Now, why did they get shut the whole thing down?

Speaker 2 (42:11):
Ah, they shut it down .
They fired Lauren Moser.
They shut it down becausepsychiatry was going towards the
medical model.
They were going towardmaterialistic science.
They weren't interested in thatkind of stuff.
So instead of replicating it,instead of trying it again in
different ways maybe more bedsor different people they shut it

(42:33):
down.
They fired Lauren Mosier Right.
Different people, or they shutit down, they fired Lauren
Mosier Right.
And so there have been Soteriahouses in the world since then,
but not very many.
There's one in Bern,switzerland.
It's been there since 1978.
There was one in Anchorage,alaska, from 2009 to 2015.
There is one today in theUnited States, in Burlington,

(42:55):
vermont.
It's been operating for nineyears, very successfully
operating for nine years inBurlington, vermont, you know,
and there are four in Jerusalemnow.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, but check it out, jen, there's only one in
the United.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
States.
I know it's absurd and Medicaidwon't pay for it.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
Medicaid won't pay for that.
They'll absurd and Medicaidwon't pay for it.
Medicaid won't pay for that.
They'll pay for drugs.
They'll pay for medication.
They'll pay for thepsychiatrist.
They won't pay for the SoteriaHouse, which has proven to be
the best way you can help peoplewith schizophrenia.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
See, this is the thing that has stressed me out
for probably my whole time I'vebeen in the system, and it's
that they I almost feel likethey've hijacked the word
science because it's not otherthings have evidence behind them
and if you look at the evidence, like Robert Whitaker is great,

(43:53):
you know, greatly organized inso many of his books.
All of this evidence of howthese drugs, on a long-term
scale, are harmful to so manypeople and so many of us
survivors have been speakingabout this now for years and yet
what I still see and hear isthat, okay, well, the experts

(44:18):
say or, the science says or, andthose, these alternative
approaches are not included inthe science that's discussed.
So this sense of there's onlyone way to look at it and it's
through the materialistic lens.
And if it doesn't fit, thenwe're just going to like, not
even explore that.
I don't think that they have inmind an overall like view of

(44:43):
well, let's get the, let's getthe people.
Well, again, like there's asense that they're just kind of
taking care of these people andputting them on you know,
something that can remove themfrom society rather than
reintegrate.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, absolutely, because that drug that they give
you.
You know how the drug works.
Basically, the antipsychotics,in other words, zyprexa,
raspiradol, geodon, abilify allof those drugs, all the
antipsychotics.
What they do is reduce dopaminein the brain, right?

(45:19):
Well, guess what?
Dopamine is a neurotransmitterassociated with liveliness,
vitality, creativity reward.
So what they are is extremesedatives, tranquilizers that
take the vitality out of people.
They basically take thevitality out of people, right?
They basically take thevitality out of people, make it
hard for people to use theirminds, use their emotions,

(45:41):
experience their emotions, andso that's why they're so hurtful
and why people don't want tostay on them, right?
So, I mean, I told you aboutSoteria House, right?
Let me tell you about anotheralternative, right?
Just to give you some ideaabout there's another
alternative.
It's called open dialogue yes,in finland.

(46:02):
Right, it started in finlanddeveloped in finland, in
northern finland, by apsychiatrist named hako sekula,
now in open dialogue.
What happens is, um, the firstsign of psychosis.
You know hearing voicesbelieving, you know that I'm God
or I'm Jesus, believing thatI'm Jesus and I'm going to save

(46:23):
the world.
The first sign of that kind ofstuff they call the hospital.
The hospital sends one or twopeople out within 24 hours.
If it's a crisis to 48 hours.
They send, send two people,like they meet with the person
who's suffering the psychoticexperiences, and they ask them
okay, we're going to have abunch of meetings, we're going

(46:44):
to have a, a bunch of meetingshere.
Who do you want there?
And they ask for who do youwant to come to that meeting?
Anybody that cares about you,that you're comfortable with.
And so they, they, they havethese meetings and they'll have
a you know, like a meeting everyday, or every other day, every
third day, for a couple of weeksor three weeks.
In other words, an intensiveseries of meetings where you

(47:07):
know the person's parents,siblings, coaches, spouses,
significant others, friends.
They get together in a meetingand the professionals open
things up.
They talk.
They talk about what's going on, what's happened.
There's a tolerance forambiguity.

(47:27):
There's a tolerance foruncertainty.
Everyone gets to speak.
They don't close it down, theyopen it up and they do it and
they and all treatment decisionsare made in the presence of
everybody.
Drugs are not used as theprimary modality treatment right
yeah they have an 80 percentfull recovery rate.

(47:48):
Oh my, 80 percent full recoveryfrom first episode psychosis,
compared with less than 20% inthis country, maybe less than
15%.
So that's another.
And now people are learningabout open dialogue in this
country it's beginning to happen.
People are getting trained.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
I know that there's open dialogue chapters, like in
the UK, and is there any goingon in America?

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Well, there's some training going on.
There's a woman named MaryOlson and there's been training
at Emory University.
Actually, at Harvard there wassome training going on Nice, at
MIT rather I think MIT, mitthere was training going on.
There's training going on otherplaces and you know, I do an

(48:37):
open dialogue thing with uh,with a, a therapist in in new
york.
We we actually have opendialogue meetings with a, a man
in el paso, and his, his mother,his godmother, friends of his
and uh, you know you have themeeting that's great.
So again, it's the idea we'vebeen talking about.
We see schizophrenia as how aperson is dealing with their

(49:02):
life.
It's strange, it's bizarre,it's scary.
It's not dangerous.
By the way, although peoplebelieve that people you know who
experience schizophrenia aremore dangerous, they aren't.
The research says that unlessthey use illegal drugs, they're
not more dangerous.
They aren't.
The research says that unlessthey use illegal drugs, they're
not more dangerous.
Yeah yeah, and also, you knowpeople believe they don't know

(49:22):
what's good for them.
You know they're not competent,it's just not true.
They know exactly what's goodfor them, right?
Well, I can tell you.
Here's an interesting thing.
So I treated a woman for fiveyears when I was working in
Colorado, who was diagnosed withschizophrenia, absolutely

(49:42):
Illusions.
I don't know about hearingvoices, but she believed that
she was an Indian princess andanyway, when she was talking to
a policeman or applying forwelfare, she was totally
grounded and lucid, totally.
My name is such and such is mysocial security number.

(50:05):
Here's my.
You know I live here.
In other words, she could beright and that's true.
That's true of, uh, of thepeople that I treat.
I treat a man, uh, who if youmet him, you have no idea he
ever was psychotic.

(50:26):
He's totally rational, grounded, good looking, smart, terrific
guy.
Well, since I've been workingwith him, he's been in three
psychotic experiences where hewas hearing voices, believed he
was being surveilled in mysession he'd go huh, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah.

(50:46):
He went through three episodeslike that, yeah yeah because he
was scared.
Various reasons for being scaredyeah uh, but if you, you meet
him, you have no idea.
Yeah, so people have this ideaalso that you know people never
recover from schizophrenia.
Right, I can give you 10 peoplewho have been totally diagnosed

(51:10):
, totally diagnosed withschizophrenia, medicated,
hospitalized against their will,who are totally fully recovered
.
Yeah, very, very productive.
Right, right.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Right.
I mean, then this has to be see, this is what I've been waiting
for, right, all of these years.
When is that whole narrativegoing to be rewritten?
And it doesn't seem to be therewriting of the field.
It's not going to be done by,say, the psychiatrist.

(51:43):
However, I will say that thereare holistic psychiatrists that
see like biology, biologicalissues, underlying you know,
problems that could lead tothings that look like symptoms
of mental illness, like, say,you know, if you have too much
sugar in your system, or youknow you are dealing with

(52:06):
inflammatory issues, like itcould be like a thyroid issue,
or that could look like anexpression of something that
others have termed as mentalillness.
So, in other words, they'rewilling to like guide the person
back to a healthier lifestyle.
I mean, I think this is, likeyou know, the way to change
things.
However, they are dealing witha lot of pushback by their own

(52:30):
field.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because and
I think I think it's going tochange I'm glad you brought that
up and I think it's going tochange.
It may take some time becauseyoung psychiatric residents, a
lot of them, are interested insome other approach.
Yes, because you know, justtaking symptoms and prescribing
is not very interesting.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Right.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
But working with a person, a human being, with
their story and what's happenedto them, is pretty interesting,
pretty interesting.
So so let me I'm glad youbrought this up Because, let me
say this you know, I'm sure thatwhen people are in different
mental states or emotionalstates or states of being, their
physiology is different, right?
I mean, I, I'm certainly notsurprised.
Surprised if, for instance,when I was depressed, if you had

(53:19):
taken a look at my brain, itmight have been different from
the way it is when I'm notdepressed, or my biochemistry
may have been different, maybemore cortisol in my system.
So there is this and there isevidence, you know, that people
with certain diagnoses havecertain different physiology
characteristics.
So, for instance, I guessthere's a lot of evidence that

(53:41):
people diagnosed withschizophrenia have large
ventricles in the brain.
But that's just a correlation,right.
All they have is an association.
They don't know what's causingwhat, right?
They don't know what's causingwhat right?
They have no evidence aboutwhether it's the schizophrenia
that's causing the largeventricles in the brain or it's
the large ventricles in thebrain that's causing the

(54:03):
schizophrenia.
Right now, the neuroscientistssince they're doctors and
they're big into materialisticscience they assume that it must
be the large ventricles, itmust be the physiology that's
causing the psychology.
But actually there's aprinciple in science called

(54:26):
parsimony and it's this when youhave a finding, you have an
association between two thingslike, let's say, schizophrenia
and large ventricles in thebrain.
When you have a finding and youdon't know what the cause of
relationship is, and you have noway of finding out what you do,
is you look at other mind-bodydynamics that we do know about
to get some idea?
Well, if you do that, you'regoing to look at, let's say,

(54:48):
three things.
You're going to look at thestress response, okay, so the
stress response is a profoundphysiological dynamic.
I mean your endocrine systemsecretes norepinephrine,
noradrenaline.
Your blood flows to theextremities.
I mean it stops flowing to theextremities.
Your blood has more oxygen init.
The blood goes to the heart,the brain and the muscles, not

(55:10):
to the digestive organs.
This is a whole body.
Physiology, yeah, but itdoesn't just happen.
It doesn't happen.
It happens because the personhas perceived a threat.
Something psychological isgoing on.
Yes, there's a threat and it'sa serious threat.

(55:30):
So it's the psychology thatcauses the physiology.
Yeah, I mean the same is trueof blushing right blushing.
All of a sudden the blood goesto the extremities.
Well, why did it happen?
It happened because the persongot embarrassed.
Right, something happenedpsychologically.
Yes, the same thing is true ofany voluntary movement.

(55:54):
You know, I'm going to move myhand at the count of three.
Okay, one, two, three.
Right, one, two, three.
Now, how did I do that?
Right, there's a guy named SirJohn Eccles who wrote a whole
book about that.
We don't know how that happens.

(56:14):
Happens because what's going onis a mental event Me saying
three, me saying three, triggersthat.
How did that happen?
There's no, something went onbetween my mind and this arm
here.
He thought it was some kind ofquantum dynamic, but nobody
knows.
But again, that's a case wherethe psychology, a mental event,

(56:39):
preceded the physiological event.
When you decide to do anythinglet's say you're playing a sport
you know, I don't know ifyou're playing sports, but I
play tennis.
Let's say I go decide to serveright so I do this.
Well, the reason I do it isbecause I decided I'm going to
do it Right.
So it's the psychology.

(57:01):
It's more likely that thepsychology causes the physiology
.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Right right.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
Than the other way around right, Of course.
But that's mysterious.
There's something mysteriousabout that.
Yes, kind of hard to wrap yourarms around that Right Right.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Well, I mean, do you think that?
You know?
Philosophically it comes downto a little bit of the problem,
the hard problem, I guess, ofconsciousness.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, you knowit's like they're trying to find
a physical location for it andthey're not giving up that story
because then it would likeundermine the entire framework

(57:40):
of materialism.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Right, right, right, this is a hard problem, right?
There's a psychologist, aphilosopher named Schumacher, ei
Schumacher, and he wrote a bookcalled A Guide for the
Perplexed the name of A Guidefor the Perplexed, the name of A
Guide for the Perplexed, hesaid.
Here's one of the things hesaid look, with materialistic
science, you can understand thebrain with materialistic science

(58:04):
.
But you can't understand life,you can't understand
consciousness and you can'tunderstand self-awareness.
You can't understand that withmaterialistic science, you just
can't understand self-awareness.
Yeah, you can't understand thatwith materialistic science,
right, you just can't.
And so if you study the brainto try and understand mental
illness, you're in trouble.
Yeah.

(58:25):
Because mental illness doesn'thave to do with the brain.
Yeah.
It has to do with the mind orwith the emotions or with it.
And so well, this is a bigproblem, you know.
Now the scientists would say,oh well, you can't study the
mind, you know, because youcan't see it, or see it in a

(58:46):
microscope, or measure it on aweight or see it on a brain scan
.
No, but you can.
We could study it using what'scalled phenomenology, which is
the study of experience.
Phenomenology is the study ofhuman experience.
Yeah, and we could study themind using phenomenology, so we

(59:07):
could put people throughdifferent experiences using
their mind, right, which reallyis what psychotherapy is.
Yeah, what I'm doing as atherapist is helping people have
experiences in the room herewith me, having experiences
using their mind, their emotions, feeling their emotions, using
their minds, thinking about whatthey want, their intentions yes

(59:30):
, understanding their behavior,actually behaving.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
So, yeah, we could study the mind, but the national
institute of mental healthdoesn't do it right, but but you
, you see, that book just cameout from the director of the
national institute of mentalhealth, uh tom incel.
That talked about healing andthe the.
The book is called healing andit talks about that.

(59:57):
They were looking in the wrongspot.
That he doesn't think isgenetics and they put millions
of dollars into this billions,billions.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Yeah, but he's.
But he still thinks they'regonna look for it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
Yeah, even though he said it's not right he hasn't
given it up, hasn't fully givenit up.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Hasn't fully given up .
It's not helping people, butwe're not giving up, we're still
.
Look, I just did a study of theNIMH with a bunch of other
people and they spent $2.3billion a year and 75% of it is
spent on studying the brain andgenetics, 5% on psychotherapy.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
It's just so strange to me when they even the field
of genetics generally.
Like if you look at what theythink is actually linking to
genetics, it's such a smallpercentage so for them to just
go in that area it just feelslike it's so random.
It's almost like it's an areato spend money and do research

(01:00:58):
so that people could have jobs,but they're never going to find
any answers.
You know that are going to helppeople you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Yeah, right.
And also, you know, wheneverthey find some association
between genes and some diagnosis, there are always hundreds of
genes involved in that rightright, hundreds of genes, so are
you going to pick out one?
What are you going to do withthat right?
What are you going to do withthat information?
Uh, uh, you know, I don't knowthat we don't have answers, but

(01:01:29):
they're still looking for it and, uh, it's a big problem, it's a
big problem and it's veryperplexing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
You know we're talking a lot about mental
illness and what it is, but youhave had so much experience with
your practice of dealing withpeople getting better, so, and
you've also written a book thatdeals with, like, dark side
issues, right, things that wedon't want to admit, that we

(01:01:58):
need to deal with and try tolike, like, come to terms with.
And yet, if we incorporate itsomehow and learn how to use
these things in a healthy way,like they can lead to much more
stable mental health health.

(01:02:19):
So how you know, like, say, foranger, for instance, is one of
the biggies, right, because thatcan lead to violence and it
could lead to, you know,problems in relationships and
loss of income and all sorts ofthings if it gets out of hand.
But you're, one of your mainthings is that you feel that it
really needs to be expressed ina healthy way and then perhaps
it could be like channeled.

(01:02:39):
So like what are some of thesedark areas?
You know of our, of everyone's,personalities?
That if we learn to harnesstheir I guess what they're
trying to tell us and how tosteer, re-steer our lives, you
know we could bounce back andcreate more health in that way.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let me go into some of that, right?
Well, the first one you bringup.
Basically, one of the ways wecan be healthy is to use all of
our emotions and all of them,especially the negative ones, to
learn how to use them.
So let's take anger.
Anger is a terrific emotion,right, it's wonderful.
I mean it tells us what wedon't like, what's in our way,

(01:03:24):
what we want to get rid of,what's what is threatening us,
what can hurt us.
I mean it's really good to knowthat.
Yeah, right, and thank god, weget it, we get you know things
are in our way or things arethreatening.
We get angry, say wait a second.
Now, anger is terrific.
It gives us energy andsharpness to deal with it, yeah,

(01:03:44):
right.
But it can also lead us to dohorrible things like kill people
, like hurt people, like.
So, again, as you said, we haveto learn how to use anger in
effective ways.
So, and it may, you know,you've heard the when you get
angry, when you feel that rushof anger, you know, take 10
seconds.

(01:04:05):
Yeah, take 10 seconds.
Or five seconds, just take fiveseconds, just stop Pause, don't
do anything, yeah.
So a good example actually isyou know, compare oj simpson
with martin luther king.
They're both angry, right?
Oj's angry at his wife, hisformer wife, because she rubbed

(01:04:26):
his nose in it and she, uh, shedisses him and yeah, yeah.
So he kills her, he kills herand her boyfriend, right, no
doubt he did it yeah, yeah.
And ruins his life, ruins a lifethat was the envy of every man
in the world.
Sure, I mean, you couldn't havea better life than OJ had,
right?
He has fame, glory, money,women Anything you want.

(01:04:52):
Yeah, ruins his life.
And you have Martin Luther King, extremely angry about how
black people, how AfricanAmericans, are being treated in
the South, really being lynched,killed, dissed, disregarded,

(01:05:14):
put down.
He's angry about it.
He takes that anger and buildsa movement, a nonviolent
movement that really makes adifference, right?
So this is an example, butlet's take some other ones.
Anxiety, you know there's allthis talk about, oh, anxiety,
what a problem.
No, no, no, anxiety is awonderful thing.
Anxiety happens because youcare about something.
The only reason anybody getsanxious is because they care

(01:05:35):
about something that they careabout and they want something to
happen, or they want somethingnot to happen, uh, and so they
become anxious.
Yeah, you know a good thing,right?
Uh, because anxiety gives themenergy and sharpness to do it,
to do what they have to do.
So you get a philosopher likeSoren Kierkegaard, who said he

(01:06:01):
who learns to ready no anxietyhas learned the most important
thing the most important thing.
The problem is we don't wantanxiety to get too much or too
little.
If you have no anxiety, you'redead, yeah Well you're not not
doing it, you don't care aboutanything right, you have no
anxiety.
So, uh, jealousy.

(01:06:21):
Jealousy is really helpfulbecause it tells me what I want.
Yeah, oh, that's what I want.
Yeah, oh, oh good now I knownow I know what I want.
Uh, guilt guilt is terrific.
I mean, if we didn't have guilt, people would keep on hurting
other people.
Yeah, the reason we have guiltis we've done something wrong.

(01:06:41):
We feel badly about it andmaybe we won't do it anymore or
we'll make amends.
You know, right, fear Fear isvery helpful, right, keeps us
from getting into situationsthat are dangerous.
But fear is tricky because wecan also use it to stop
ourselves from doing what wewant to do.

(01:07:02):
We're not careful anyway.
So one thing is use all theemotions uh, they're all useful.
Just experience them, see, getthe message and then do
something with them.
Yeah, okay, because they'retelling us something important.
Um, the stress response.
The stress response is terrific, right, stress is wonderful.

(01:07:26):
The stress response happens whensomething's threatening us or
something's going to be hard todo.
Yeah, and it gives us theenergy and the sharpness to do
it right.
So, so it's really good if weuse it, yeah, but if we don't
use it, then it gets to be aproblem.
If we're in a bad marriage andwe're not doing anything about

(01:07:46):
it.
If we're in a horrible job andwe're not doing anything about
it, if our kids are in trouble,getting into trouble, not doing
well, sick, if we're financiallyhaving problems, if we're under
stress for a long amount oftime, we are going to get sick.
We're going to get very sick.
It's very dangerous.

(01:08:06):
And so what we need to do whenwe're in a bad situation like
that, we need to find a way touse the energy and the stress.
Get some exercise, buildsomething, journal, go to
therapy, yell and scream Someway of using the energy, because
the energy will hurt us if wedon't use it.

(01:08:28):
It's how we manage stress.
It's important.
So here's another area.
You know and this is this isreally kind of hard um, there's
a part of ourselves we don'tknow.
Much of our behavior is drivenby forces we're not aware of
right below the level ofconsciousness, we have these

(01:08:50):
assumptions, uh, beliefs,thoughts, habits that we're not
aware of, and that is scary.
I mean, that's one of thehardest things about being alive
.
So I can tell you, I can giveyou some examples of things I've
done in my life that have hurtme.
And I say, well, why did I dothat?

(01:09:12):
Right?
Yeah, well, I had to ask myselfthe question.
I say, well, how did youcontribute to doing that?
I got fired, for instance, onetime from a job that I worked
for, tried to get that job for acouple of years.
How did I contribute?
Well, I had a chance to make agood speech and I made a
horrible one.
And now, why might I havewanted to do that?

(01:09:34):
That's the question.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
That is an interesting question.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
Why might?
Is it possible?
I wanted to do that.
I wanted to get fired.
Well, it's possible because Iwas working for a consulting
firm that I thought was in someways doing the horrible things
that consulting firms do, whichis convince people that I'm
smarter than you are and thatyou don't know what you're doing

(01:09:59):
and I'm going to tell you whatto do.
But it's sort of like they tellabout.
The consultant is a guy who youask a guy for his time.
You ask the consultant whattime it is.
He takes your watch off, heborrows your watch, he looks, he
tells you what the time is.
The time is such and such.
He gives you, gives you yourwatch back.
Anyway, I had some doubts about, but also I knew if I gave a

(01:10:22):
good speech there'd be a lot ofpressure on me in that
organization yeah there'll be alot of pressure to perform, and
I didn't want that pressure onme, right?
so there's some for some reason.
Is it possible that some reasonsome deep down led me to do
that?
So how do we get in touch withthe unconscious?
Well, one thing when somethinghappens we wish didn't happen,

(01:10:48):
something that hurts us, butthat we did, right, yeah, we ask
ourselves those questions.
How do I contribute to this?
Why might I have wanted this tohappen?
What does this tell me aboutwhat's going on underneath?
Maybe, maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
And the other way is to learn from our dreams to
successfully, you know, get offthe medication and work through
all of my, I guess, symbols inthe hearing of the voices and
all that right, and it was justdream therapy approach was
really amazing because it reallyreduces things to archetypes

(01:11:33):
and symbols that we have learnedabout in literature and in
movies and all of these thingsour whole lives, and yet they're
within us.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
it's right we can learn so much about ourselves
absolutely, because the you knowthe dream is your mind at work.
Your mind is working when it'snot under your control yeah so,
so you can.
So what you can learn from thedream is stuff that's going on,
you're creating.
Your mind is creating theseimages in the dream.

(01:12:06):
You can look at that dream andlearn some things about yourself
you weren't aware of.
Yes, right, and they can bevery helpful.
So, and mistakes?
So that's another thing.
Here's the fourth thing.
I think that we can do that canbe helpful is that we all have

(01:12:26):
parts of ourselves that we don'tlike and we wish weren't there.
You can call it the shadow,whatever you want to call it.
Shadow, whatever you want tocall it.
We all have these parts ofourselves that, oh, my God, you
know, I wish I weren't that way,or I wish I didn't do that, or

(01:12:49):
wish.
It's really helpful to becomefriendly with those parts and to
realize that they're there fora reason and we can learn from
them and in some ways, they canactually they can in some ways,
be helpful.
Yeah, uh, so those parts ofourselves, then.
Another thing we can do to tobe healthier is learn how to get

(01:13:09):
along with other people withoutgiving up too much of ourselves
, and that's a tricky businessthere's certain things you can
do.
You know, 30 years ago there wasall kinds of assertiveness
training, teaching people how tobe assertive and how to how to
ask what they want and bring upissues when they had issues.

(01:13:30):
So but there are ways of doingthat that that are better than
others.
So, just as an example, youwant to, let's say that the
behavior of somebody is reallybothering you.
Let's say it's somebody youlive with or somebody you're
very close to.
There's a way of bringing thatup and basically it's this.
What you do is you say I'mnoticing.

(01:13:50):
You tell the person what younotice.
Let's say my wife, I had this inmind.
I'm noticing that whenever ourkids get good news, you give it
to them.
You know they're going to go tocamp, they just got, they just
got an A, they're going to go toa party.
You always give them the goodnews.
I'm noticing that and I have aproblem with it and I'm owning

(01:14:13):
the problem.
It's not your problem, it's myproblem.
But I really would like to talkabout it and do something about
it and I don't know what theanswer is.
I don't have the answer, thatkind of thing or it can be
little things, you know, yeah,yeah, but you do it that way.
I'm noticing I have the problem.
I'm owning the problem.
It's not you.
I'm owning the problem.

(01:14:33):
It's not you.
I'm not pointing the finger.
I'd like to talk to you aboutit.
You know so.
There are ways of addressingissues that enable you to
maintain a good relationshipwith people that you want to
have a good relationship with,but if those issues aren't
addressed, it'll just get worse.
Yeah, right, yeah.
So there's some techniquesthere.

(01:14:55):
There's the whole idea ofbalance.
You know, learning how to finda balance in your life.
Yes, we all live in thesepolarities.
You know we live in.
I mean, there's a part of methat wants to be the leader,
wants to be the great man, andthere is a part of me that just
wants to join in as a part ofthe team.

(01:15:15):
There's a part of me that wantsto join in as a part of the
team.
There's a part of me that thatthat wants to be independent.
Don't bother me, don't?
There's a part of me thatactually would like to be
dependent, maybe a little bit.
Help me.
There's all kinds of thesepolarities.
Uh, you know we need to findbalance.
Yes, find some balance, findthe middle ground.

(01:15:36):
I read a book.
There's a great book by a guynamed Tom Thomas Moore, thomas
Moore, called Care of the Soul.
Oh yes, it's a terrific book.
Yeah, and Thomas Moore, one ofthe things he was working with a
guy who came in with thisproblem.
He says you know, I like mymarriage, tom, I'm really happy

(01:16:00):
in my marriage, but you know, Ialso would love the adventure of
falling in love with otherwomen.
And you know the adventure,just the adventure of that kind
of adventure, and you know beingwith other women.
And so Thomas basically toldhim well, look, here's what I

(01:16:20):
suggest you do.
I suggest you use yourimagination to find a middle
ground, find some kind of middleground.
I don't know what it's going tobe and I think maybe the guy.
What he did was he entered infriendships with women, but not
sexual ones and not ones that,but just ones that were

(01:16:42):
enjoyable, where there wasbanter going on and fun.
He found a middle ground,another guy.
Well, you can find middlegrounds.
You know.
I can tell you an example of amiddle ground that I missed.
That was really too bad.
My mother lived out here in LasCruces with me and when she was

(01:17:06):
about 80 years old, 79 years old, she decided to build a house
where she and her husband, myfather, could live and my wife
and our kids could live, housewith two dwelling units.
Right, I told her well, okay,fine, I'll do that, but I'm not
promising, I'm going to stay inLas Cruces.
Well, sure enough.
About three years later, I leftfor a job in Syracuse, my

(01:17:29):
daughter left for college, myson left for the Navy.
My wife came and joined me.
All of a sudden, she's alone,she's alone.
Well, she's alone, she's alone.
Well, she was a pretty smart,intelligent, lively woman, but
she was alone, and you know thatwas not a good thing.
Now, guess what?
She had a lot of money.

(01:17:50):
I have four siblings.
She eventually had a stroke,like two years later, had a
stroke and died.
Sorry, I had five siblings,right, right, we had plenty of
money.
One of us could have been thereevery weekend yeah one of us
could have been with her everyweekend yeah, yeah no problem,

(01:18:11):
easy, we didn't do it.
Yeah, there's the middle ground.
She doesn't have to be alone.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
And we're off here we can find the middle ground
Right, right Middle ground.
We look for middle grounds, Ilove that you know.
I had to say, speaking with youtoday has just really kind of
reset a lot of my thinking, justbecause, don't know, it's just
so great to hear someone withsuch balance in the field coming

(01:18:44):
at mental health, mentalillness, with this very rich and
holistic understanding and, youknow, just with the
compassionate edge that you have.
I know that you've done so manyyears of research on these
issues because of the of thenature of what we talked about
and I just, I really truly thinkyou know you meeting with me

(01:19:06):
and and having you know a go atmy program, because it's, oh,
it's always great to hear fromyou know how can I say the
people who are legit in thefield that I criticize, because
I have benefited as well frompeople like yourself who have

(01:19:29):
you know taken, who know theflaws in the system, but who are
so willing to like still go atit and help people, so willing
to like still go at it and helppeople.
So I thank you for everythingthat you know you've you've done
and and have you know, uh,given in terms of your wisdom
and insight, and I and I, youknow, I want you to still keep
going.

(01:19:49):
Is there anything that well?
Two things.
Um, I would love for you togive you know to our listeners
any way for them to follow youor to look more into your work.
I will have your book as a linkon the show notes so that and
we'll have it that they couldget it right from Amazon on the

(01:20:10):
show notes.
But I'd like for you to shareyour website address and if
there's any social mediaplatforms that they could follow
you at okay, yeah, um, uh, well, my book.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
Unfortunately, my book is hard to buy because, for
some reason or other, if you goto amazon, it's like 40 a copy.
Is that a print or somethinglike that?
Let me tell you this anybodywho wants my book if you, if you
send me an email, I will sendyou.
But I've got a hundred copiesof my book here in my garage
perfect, I'll send you my book.
If you send me an email, I willsend you.
I've got 100 copies of my bookhere in my garage Perfect, I'll
send you my book.
I'll send it to you free, Idon't need money.

(01:20:42):
If you send me an email, I'llsend you my book.
My email is agalves.
It's all lowercase A-G, as inGeorge A-L-V, as in Victor E-S,
as in Sam 2003 at comcastnet.
My website is wwwalgalvescom.

(01:21:03):
It hasn't been kept up verywell, but I think there's some
useless stuff on it.
In terms of social media, Ihave a YouTube channel.
If you put Al Galves intoYouTube, have a YouTube channel.
If you put Al Galves intoYouTube, you may be able to find
my channel.
You may not be able to also,but I have a bunch of videos

(01:21:24):
there which which I think youknow could be useful, and, um, I
think that's about it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
Yeah, and your, and the website is very useful.

Speaker 2 (01:21:33):
Okay, yeah, I think the website has some good stuff
on it.
But, jen, thank you so much forhaving me.
I've got to tell you my evilsecret.
Everyone has an evil secret.
You have more than one evilsecret, right.
My evil secret is I love to bethe center of attention.
I love it.
I love people to be watching me.
That's great, I love it.

(01:21:54):
And it's ridiculous.
It's so egomaniacal and it's sostupid.

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
You know we need people like you because that's
the.
You're the storytellers, you'rethe people that bring the
information to the, to theothers who don't want to be the
center of attention.
So that's important.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
Now, my father used to say don't be a show off.
Well, that's what I am, so, uh,okay, so you gave me an
opportunity to honor my evilsecret, which I love OK it's
great.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
It's great and I thank you for doing that because
really it's it's been soinformative and, from such an
expert, I really am humbled.
Thank you so much for joiningthe show.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
Well, thank you for having me, Jen.
Really I'm so glad we met.
Keep going, Keep doing yourshow.
I'll keep on doing what I yourshow.
I'll keep on doing what I'mdoing.
We'll keep on doing our best tomake things better.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
Absolutely.
It's the only way to go.

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
Okay, take care.
Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
Thanks for listening to Not as Crazy as you Think and
don't forget to subscribe to myYouTube channel and remember
mental health is attainable foranyone, especially those labeled
with mental illness.
Until next time, peace out.

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