October 17, 2023 • 63 mins
Tyson meets with Karen Weisbard to discuss the concept of the social unconscious, the law of interrelatedness, and a different approach to crossing the increasingly vitriolic political lines drawn in American society.
Karen is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalysts. She has been practicing as both for over 20 years.
Karen can be found at her website https://karenweisbard.com/ .
Further Learning:
https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Doer-Done-Jessica-Benjamin/dp/1138218421
https://www.amazon.com/Social-Unconscious-Selected-International-Analysis/dp/1843100886
© Relational Psych 2023
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tyson Conner (00:11):
Do you want to learn about psychological growth
without sorting through thejargon? You're in the right
place. This is the RelationalPsych Podcast. I'm your host
licensed therapist Tyson Connor.
On this show, we learn about theprocesses and theories behind
personal growth and experience alittle bit of it ourselves. This
is season two, where we'll focuson the practice of relational
psychotherapy, and exploreconcepts and theories that
(00:32):
consider psychology from arelational lens. And please keep
in mind that this podcast doesnot constitute therapeutic
advice, but we might help youfind some.
And today, my guest is KarenWeisbard. Karen is a clinical
psychologist and apsychoanalyst, and has been
(00:53):
working as both for 20 years.
Karen, welcome to the podcast.
Karen Weisbard (00:58):
Thanks, Tyson.
I'm happy to be here.
Tyson Conner (01:00):
And today, we will be answering the question, why
is the social unconsciousimportant and particularly
important for psychoanalysis? Sothis is a big one, Karen. This
is a big one, and you picked it!So why don't we start with how
did you get interested in this?
What brought you to thisconcept?
Karen Weisbard (01:22):
Yeah, thanks.
Well, a number of things bothculturally and also personally.
So culturally, I think thepolitical climate that we were
in around the time of theelections - Obama, Trump - sort
of created this awareness thateverything wasn't quite fine in
(01:47):
the world. And then, in fact,there was a lot of things that
were sort of seemingly not fine.
And then leading up to, youknow, all the things that we
know about happening - the meto movement, Black Lives Matter,
(02:10):
COVID - I think was aparticularly nodal kind of
turning point where it exposed alot of inequities in the world
and in our culture about who canhave and who cannot have, who's
safe, who's not safe. Nevermindthe political climate around it,
just the whole sense of who isat risk. And we were all at
(02:37):
risk, but it's sort of exposedthat some people were at way
more risk than others. And Ithink that at that point, I felt
undone a bit. And, you know, allour worlds returned, rather
upside down. But it just sort ofbecame harder and harder to feel
(02:59):
like it was somehow... that allthese factors that were
happening in the world were notimpacting individuals, and then
this sort of recognition ofmaybe all of this had been going
on for much longer than we couldhave been aware.
Tyson Conner (03:17):
So over the past, gosh, what are we saying now,
like, from 2016 ish, onwards,because I remember in 2015, in
the lead up to the, to the 2016,election, there was a lot of --
there was a sort of -- that wasthe first surge of the Black
Lives Matter movement. And thenit really came back in force a
few years later. From what Irecall, that was my exposure to
(03:40):
it, I saw like a little -- therewas a blip of it there a moment
where it was very present, andcame back again. And between
that and these other movementswe're talking about, what I'm
hearing you describe is thissort of like, okay, there's an
awareness that there's somethinghappening on a societal level,
on a cultural level, that isabsolutely having a direct
(04:00):
impact on on people's minds andhow they function and how they
work. And it sounds like thiscategory of this social
unconscious. It was - yourinterest in it began as your
attempt to try to make sense ofthat, using the tools that
psychoanalysis brings.
Unknown (04:16):
Yes, absolutely. And trying to sort of think a lot
about like the people that werecoming into our offices, who we
were all in the same soup, kindof together. And so that changed
a lot of how I, you know, wouldtypically practice because I
would think it's the personcoming in with their questions
(04:39):
and their concerns. But now wewere all there with the same
questions and the same concerns,especially during COVID. So it
sort of felt like, what stancedo we take as therapists, what
stance do we take regardingwhat's happening in the world? I
think many of us, you know,we're inundated with people's
need for mental health treatmentand feeling incredibly
(05:02):
overwhelmed, and of course, thehospitals were overwhelmed, like
there was just this sense of somuch suffering, and so much
need, and how were we going tomeet the need, and we can't just
meet the need on an individualbasis, because there's too many
people in need. So we're gonnahave to think differently, I
think about the suffering that'shappening in people's lives. And
(05:28):
how are we going to sort ofaddress that suffering out side,
perhaps, of just the limits ofwhat we can do in an individual
session. And so I sort of thinkabout also what's happening in
my work individually is alsostarting to sort of create this
social awareness that there arefactors impacting how people are
(05:48):
in their families, how peopleare in their relationships, that
are sort of bigger than them ina way, which I think takes the
load off individuals to sort offeel like it's up to me to just
figure this all out. Because Ifeel like this is all very,
rather interconnected. And Ithink that gives a little bit
(06:11):
more breath and a little bitmore room and maybe a little bit
more opportunity for people tostart to think differently, and
maybe even then act differentlytoward other human beings and in
their communities.
Tyson Conner (06:23):
Right. One of the critiques of psychoanalysis that
I often hear - even from withinpsychoanalysis -I mostly hear
this from, from from people whoare, who are wrestling, I don't
like this bit, is something ofhow how atomized they feel, they
can feel like -- and by atomizedListener, I mean, like, totally
(06:46):
individual and disconnected fromall the other parts of their
life, that people often feelthat they are being blamed for
their suffering, because everyconversation about their
suffering comes back to howthey're responding to it. And
part of what I'm hearing youdescribe is that this category
of the social unconscious is oneway to kind of shift our minds
(07:09):
so that we're not approachingevery mental health system,
symptom, or pathology, orwhatever, purely from the
perspective of okay, what'swrong with this one person's
mind and unconscious? And howcan we fix them? That sounds
like a project, but a good oneand important one, and
(07:30):
impossible one, which all theimportant ones are?
Karen Weisbard (07:32):
Well, it's incredibly relieving, I think,
for people to realize that thatbelief that it must be me, it's
my problem, I must try to fix itmyself, it's up to the
individual, is a socialconstruction, right? One that's
very powerful in our Westernsociety is that - it's a very
(07:54):
individualistic society. And soyour successes and your failures
are thought of and seen as justyou. And that's a fiction, in
fact, and that's what the socialunconscious in the sort of
awareness of that's an ideologythat we have all succumbed to,
and that is regularlyperpetuated. And how can we as
(08:18):
individuals start to subvert, Iguess you could say that
ideology?
Tyson Conner (08:27):
Yeah. So let's, let's define our terms, like
when we say the socialunconscious, you know, the
listeners, hopefully, willmostly be familiar with ideas of
the unconscious, you can listento our episode on psychoanalytic
and psychodynamic therapy formore in depth. As a quick
refresher, there's an awful lotof stuff that happens in a
person's mind at any given timein a given moment. I love the
(08:50):
analogy of breath, where most ofthe time we're breathing, we're
not thinking about it. Now thatI've mentioned it, you are, so
well, you know, hopefully,that's helpful to you right now.
And turning our attention to ourbreath can be really helpful in
doing things and in doingextraordinary things, and then
doing helpful things. Whetherwe're doing yoga and trying to
(09:11):
breathe into a stretch, orplaying a musical instrument or
swimming, being able to draw ourattention to a usually
unconscious process gives usmore agency and helps us make
good use of the resources wehave. And in the world of
psychoanalysis, very broadlyspeaking, we believe that
there's a lot happening that'snot conscious inside of a person
(09:34):
beyond the physical, justworkings beyond plumbing. And
that bringing those things intoawareness can be really
effective and helpful. So howdoes that concept map on to
something that's bigger than anindividual mind?
Karen Weisbard (09:56):
It's kind of the same idea. And so this is not my
idea, I want to give creditwhere credit is due. So Lynn
Layton sort of coined the termthe normative unconscious. And
she sort of takes that fromErich Fromm, who, one of the,
you know, originators ofpsychoanalysis, interpersonal
(10:19):
psychoanalysis, did come up withthe idea of the social
unconscious. So maybe I can justread a definition because it's
not my term. And that'll helphopefully situate the listener
and also give them some accessto resources.
Tyson Conner (10:35):
Absolutely.
Karen Weisbard (10:36):
So the social unconscious is sort of
unconscious forces on ouridentity, and it exerts a
pressure to internalize culturalnorms, and ideologies. And those
cultural forces sort of takeover our unconscious processes
(10:59):
in this form of what we can andcannot know. So maybe I just
pause there to digest that, andsee if that can be translated
into real words or something alittle more relatable.
Tyson Conner (11:16):
Yeah, I mean, so I'm thinking about a lot of
things, I feel like sometimes,you know, most of our listeners
would be from a Western culturalcontext. And sometimes it's
easier to see these sorts ofthings when it's in a context
that you're not, that's notbaked into you, for instance. So
it's making me think of, um, Ispent some time in Southeast
(11:37):
Asia. And while I was there,there was this orphanage that I
visited, that it was part of alike Western community had sort
of built the money for thisthing, and they would come out
and they would build things andtry to help out and build these
relationships. And one of thethings that they did when they
(11:58):
designed this orphanage was theyhad sort of an outdoor toilet
setup, you sort of had to walkthrough the building. And then
outside there was where thetoilets were. And what they
found was that children who werefar too old to be wetting the
bed, and having accidents in thenight were pretty regularly. And
(12:20):
the people running thisorphanage were from the US, and
they didn't really understandwhat was going on. And what they
found out was that a lot ofthese kids had grown up
initially, in their first fewyears of life had been out in,
like in rural areas, and livingin the jungle and living in the
mountains. And they were toldthat outside at night is when
(12:41):
all of the spirits came out, andthe dangerous spirits came out,
and you don't go out at night,otherwise, they're gonna get
you. And to a certain degree,that, to my mind, that sounds
like a really useful strategy tointernalize. Because if you're
out in the woods at night, andyou're a little kid, like, yeah
there's a bunch of things thatcan go wrong. And some of those
(13:02):
things could be predators, andsome of those things could be
getting lost. And, you know,it's a long list. And so they,
these kids, were just notleaving the house, even to go to
the bathroom. Because they'd sointernalized this idea of like,
No, don't go out there, it'sdark, something's gonna get me.
(13:25):
And coming from a sort ofmodernist rationalist sort of
physical determinist, we don'tbelieve in the spirits kind of
mindset that a lot of ourlisteners will have. We can look
at that from the outside andsay, like, Okay, this example
isn't perfect, because thisisn't an unconscious belief.
It's not an unconscious thing.
It's something that you couldask the kids about, and they
(13:46):
could tell you. So maybe Ishould give up on the analogy.
But that's what's coming to mymind.
Karen Weisbard (13:56):
Well, I don't think you should give up on the
analogy, because I imagine whatcould happen and that I think
this does happen is that thenthe problem is located in the
children. Like they're havingproblem with bedwetting, right?
Versus no, this is not a problemwith bedwetting, this is a
cultural phenomenon. And if wecould understand what's
happening, then we're not goingto pathologize the children. And
(14:18):
maybe we could sort ofstructurally change the
situation. And I think that'salso part of what happens for
people, individuals that comeinto our offices or that are
listening to the podcasts havethat sense of it must be me, I
must be doing something wrong.
And without attention to theforces that maybe are exerted on
(14:41):
us, all of us to sort of say,well, that's how we actually
have been enculturated tobelieve - it's our problem. It's
our solution. And it denies thelevel of interconnectedness that
you know, it's the Winnicottthing, there is no baby without
(15:02):
a mother. But there is also thisbigger sense of there is no me
without you. And both you and meare very much influenced by what
else is happening out there inthe world.
Tyson Conner (15:16):
Yeah, there's two threads that I want to tease out
for the listener. The first iswhat you just made the reference
to Winnicott, which to me speaksto kind of some of the
relational term, which is a namethat we use in psychoanalysis to
talk about a shift from what'scalled a one person psychology,
where the client comes in andgets analyzed and is told this
(15:39):
is what's wrong with you know,you get fixed to a two person
psychology, which acknowledges,okay, there's multiple people in
the room, relationships matter,interaction patterns matter. I'm
hyper simplifying. But for thelistener, that's kind of the
shift that's happened in theworld of psychoanalysis over the
past, I don't know what 40 yearsish. And what I'm hearing,
(16:04):
you're suggesting, this is asort of a continuation of sort
of turning up that dial as itwere, to it's not a two person
psychology anymore.
Karen Weisbard (16:13):
It's more like not turning up the dial. It's
more like expanding theconcentric circles is how I
think about it. So if you havethe interapsychic, you know, the
individual. And then you havethe relational maybe be the
circle around that. Well, now,we're just increasing the
concentric circles and saying,all these things are influencing
the dyad. And then the dyad isalso influencing the
(16:35):
interapsychic and theindividual. But it's all a
concentric circle. And all theseforces are actually happening at
once, in all directions.
Tyson Conner (16:47):
And I imagine that keeping this in mind, requires
an awful lot --like people feelthis way about just the two
person shift like, oh, no, nowthe analyst has to keep so much
in their mind. And now you'resaying, yeah, and then some, and
I can hear those Oh noes in myhead. It makes me excited. But
(17:08):
also a little bit
Karen Weisbard (17:09):
It's daunting.
Tyson Conner (17:10):
Yeah, someone once told me the best things in life
are vaguely terrifying. And thisis absolutely that, as a
therapist, the other thread thatI want to pull out, because I
think it'll be helpful as we getinto this is our definition of
ideologies, because that word inparticular, most people
encounter in the context ofreally heated political
(17:32):
discourse, usually as anaccusation. People will accuse
one another of being ideologicalwhen they're trying to make a
point, or someone will say,yeah, that movie had had all
sorts of ideological like stuffin it as a way of saying
someone's trying to push acertain political idea. And I
think the way you're using it,and the way that I like to think
(17:53):
about it, or have heard itdescribed, is that an ideology
doesn't have any moralimplication, one way or another.
It's an unconscious, likeunderstanding of how the world
works, that we just see play outaround us and carry around with
us all the time.
Karen Weisbard (18:13):
Exactly. It's like the water, you know, and if
you think of fish in the wateror the air that we breathe, it's
just there. We tend not tonotice, like you were saying
breath earlier, the air or thepollutants in the air, you know,
for instance, but that's what wecould think of ideologies as
it's what's in the air, and it'swhat we absorb into our skin.
(18:36):
And it's what we absorb into ourbodies and our brains. And
that's what is the socialunconscious,
Tyson Conner (18:42):
Right. And so an awareness of one's ideologies,
whether they're ones that wechose, because we learned a
certain thing, and we're like,Yes, I choose to believe this
about the world, or just thingsthat we picked up
Karen Weisbard (18:55):
Mainly once we don't choose. We're just
swimming in the sea of it.
Tyson Conner (18:59):
Do people choose ideologies? Is that even a thing
you can do?
Karen Weisbard (19:01):
Well, I'm hoping that in this sort of push for us
to sort of become more aware ofthe social unconscious, that we
actually would get moreintentional about our
ideologies. And I don't meanlike political ideologies, but
maybe even in that sense of the,I sort of think of this and this
(19:23):
is also referencing otherpeople, Jessica Benjamin being
one of them. The law ofinterconnectedness, like that
ideology. Where we're allinterconnected. And not just
people, but obviously theenvironment and how we regard
(19:43):
our surround and how thesurround impacts us. And if we
can, I hope, create a kinder,gentler world would be one in
which we might really come tosort of have this sense of a law
of interconnectedness thatreally guides us in our very
(20:04):
being and in our very actions.
Tyson Conner (20:06):
So, again, the widening is happening in my
mind, because part of what I'mhearing is that what you're
suggesting is that an awarenessof the social unconscious
doesn't just help inform atherapist's way of thinking
about their clients experience,it actually suggests a way of
being in the world foreverybody, that requires us to
(20:27):
be far more - if not thoughtfulabout - aware of our impact on
not just other people, but thewater that we swim in, other
people and the environment andour pets, and basically anything
that exists that we make contactwith, that that impact stays
(20:48):
behind. And having this kind ofawareness doesn't let you get
away from that fact.
Karen Weisbard (20:55):
Yes, I believe that to be true.
Tyson Conner (20:58):
I'm just gonna breathe through that for a
second. Because I can feelmyself starting to transcend...
want to keep my feet on thefloor. Let's talk about this
idea of what we can and cannotknow. That feels important.
Karen Weisbard (21:13):
So the social unconscious, I would think of as
a regulatory agency, so tospeak. It sort of, again,
exerts its influence without usseeing it or knowing it. And it
kind of allows us to not know,certain things. And so the
(21:38):
things that like Lynn Laytontalks about and other people
that are writing in this area,the things that it allows us not
to know are a lot of the socialhierarchies that exist. So
genderism, sexism, racism,classism. And so we're sort of
(22:00):
on some level acculturated tonot think about these things, to
not know them. And to, you know,like in a therapy room, we
probably aren't asking ourclients to think about these
issues. But they are powerfulforces on what we can know and
(22:23):
not know, including, like, youknow, your gender, how we just
take it for granted. And lessand less these days, obviously,
because people are thinking moreout of binary terms. But these
are things that we have beentrained to not know and to not
think about, and to not askabout, and we just make
(22:45):
assumptions that our clients arewhite, that they're
heterosexual... you know, wejust sort of tend to sort of
start there. And sometimes wehave to, like, shake ourselves
to be like, Okay, that'ssomething I'm supposed to not
know, in a way that this iswhere my starting point always
(23:08):
is.
Tyson Conner (23:09):
Right? I'm thinking about this, I was
working with someone whorecently who was working through
their feelings about their ownaggression, right? Like classic
analytic stuff, right? Likegoing back to Freud. sex and
aggression. Heck, yeah, that'sour jam. And I was just being
like, great, I feel comfortablehere. This is my world. I'm
comfy. But this person... ittook me weeks, and I'm
(23:33):
embarrassed to even talk aboutit. But they are a black man.
He's a black man. And hisaggression has very different
real consequences in his worldthan mine does, as a white man,
right? Like, that is somethingthat I could approach it from
the realm of theory that I haveit says, This is how people
(23:55):
work. And this is what'shappening on the unconscious
level. And all these things thatI could get into and say, No,
this is how it is. But thereality is even throwing out the
like risk of death of like, ifpolice get called on him versus
me. His aggression in aworkplace, even just like
advocating for himself, will beexperienced fundamentally
(24:18):
differently than mine. And so hetreats it very differently
internally than I would. Andlike, I felt like a real dummy
for taking as long as I did tofigure it out. But I'm
wondering... this feels like oneof those things. The social
unconscious says, You don't haveto know about that. You don't
need to know about that fact,you don't get to.
Karen Weisbard (24:38):
Right and I would hope that you wouldn't
beat yourself up that it tookyou so to speak that long to get
because on some level, you gotsomething about this person's
experience that you needed toget and he needed you to get and
there's also going to be a limitto what you get, because you're
(24:58):
not going to get it.
Tyson Conner (25:02):
Yeah, I'm thinking about how so many of these
things that feel like they'repart of the social unconscious
tend to be things that havepretty intense cultural
conversations around, especiallyin the realm of politics, but
also just more generally onsocial media, just social
issues. That like, there's aheat around it, that I'm
(25:23):
thinking about, like, someonewho might be listening to this,
and we're bringing up issues ofrace and gender, and like,
hetero patriarchy. And thesesorts of categories who might
say like, Ah, I've heard allthat stuff. And, you know,
here's the statistics about howwomen really don't earn less
(25:44):
than men on the dollar. Andthere's a whole like energy
around saying, Actually, that'snot real. And I'm curious - it
feels like we could somehow makesense of that.
Karen Weisbard (25:59):
Yeah, I would hope that we wouldn't get into
sort of debates about what'sreal, or what's factual, as much
as I'm hoping to increase sortof our curiosity about, oh,
that's a very interesting stanceto be taking that that's not
real. So something is exertingan influence and something must
(26:22):
feel very threatening to sort ofdisavow something so strongly to
say, well, that's not true, orthat's not real. And that's what
I'm more interested in is what'sgoing on, because there's some
threat, I believe, to the self,to some position of identity or
(26:44):
some subjectivity position. Thatthat has to not be true. And so,
you know, listeners can't see,but there's like, my hands are
like, That can't be true. And soI'm pushing that away from me,
which for me is like, wow,there's some vulnerability here.
(27:05):
And the person that says thatcan't be true, right? I can't
know that. That is what I wantto get to, I want to get to the
vulnerability like what'shappening right now that that is
so threatening, that there'ssomething about the possibility
of something being true that isreally hard to digest or
(27:29):
tolerate. I mean, I feel like ifwe can get into people's
vulnerabilities and thedisruption, obviously, that this
way of thinking engenders andthen requires us to tolerate,
then we also have much morecompassion and less heat around
these issues. Because we'relike, oh, my god, we're also
(27:50):
vulnerable.
Tyson Conner (27:51):
Right. I'm reminded of when I was in
college, all of my friends werephilosophy majors, because I'm
drawn to arguments, I suppose. Idon't know why. And then when I
started grad school, and startedtraining, become a therapist, I
was in one of thoseconversations, those philosophy
conversations. And I pulled outthis like really basic therapy
(28:15):
skill, right? Where somebody wasmaking some point or other, and
I was in the position where Ineeded to respond. And what I
said - I kind of wanted to bedone and go do my homework - and
so what I said was, you know,I'm less interested in actually
answering that question and moreinterested in figuring out why
it's so important to you. Andthe person who I asked that
(28:35):
question to, it was like I'dthrown a wrench into the gears.
Like he was like, wait, no,that's not what we're doing.
Hang on, you're not playing thegame. And oh, you know, I was
just trying to get out of theconversation. And it worked. But
I feel like that exact thingjust happened just now. Right?
Where you are like, actually,like, that intensity of people's
response is something to becurious about. Not to see it as
(29:00):
like, Okay, I need to defeatthat way of thinking, but
rather, oh, gosh, why are ourways of thinking, so deadly
important to us? What aboutthis? What is this doing for me?
Why do I need this so badly? Andalso, why? Why does this other
person need it so badly, sobadly that people will go
(29:21):
through pretty incrediblelengths to try to refute an idea
that what I'm hearing you say ismaybe it's because something
about that idea you can't know.
Something in them says no, youcan't know that thing.
Karen Weisbard (29:37):
Right. And something about that idea is
also holding them together,structurally holding them
together. I must believe this. Ican't allow in anything that
would disrupt that because itactually would disrupt my whole
structure.
Tyson Conner (29:53):
Yeah. So you said that the social unconscious
especially has a lot of poweraround people's identities and
sense of self? Can you speakmore to that idea?
Karen Weisbard (30:05):
Okay, so a good example of this is my subjective
self says, I'm a good person,right? I'm a good person, I care
about other people, I see myselfis open minded, kind, willing to
think about things. And thenlet's say something happens. And
(30:29):
I've been unkind, or I've hurtsomebody, or I have, like some
expressed a bias of some sort,that I didn't know I had. And so
then now, what do I do with myown sense of self? How do I not
(30:50):
fall into some shame and guilt?
or denial? Or how do I allowsome space that what defines me
as a good person isn't just thatI'm good? What also defines me
as a good person, is that Irecognize that I can harm
(31:10):
others, and that I have harmedothers. And that is a state of
like tolerance, and it sort ofexpands my sense of subjective
self. Because now I'm no longertied to just good/bad. But also
I'm, again, back to that law ofinterconnectedness, I'm
(31:35):
indirectly and directlyresponsible for how another
feels. And my sense of self canbecome more whole, I think, and
much more broader if I can sortof tolerate that that's a part
of my subjectivity. It's part ofwhat I would say is all our
(31:59):
subjectivities is, can wetolerate that sense of, we're
not just good/bad, we harmothers. And that's part of our
subjectivity.
Tyson Conner (32:16):
Yeah, I'm thinking about how I feel like, it's
interesting, a lot of theexamples that are coming to my
mind are about race. But this isabout a lot more than that.
Karen Weisbard (32:28):
More than that, in the sense of it's not just
about race, because it's -- Iwrite in a paper that I'm going
to be giving about an experienceof a comment being made to my
kid on the street, that was veryderogatory. And as we're walking
(32:54):
away, I say to my kid, was thatperson talking to you? And my
kid said, Yeah, that happens allthe time. Now, my kid is trans.
And so the responsibility isn'tjust that, okay, now this person
on the street harmed my kid, andI was enraged because it's my
(33:16):
kid. And I don't want my kid tobe harmed. But I could have also
just kept walking down thestreet and ignored that that
happened, and not stood with mykid to say, I just heard what
you just heard. And I'm going tosay to you that just happened.
And we can both know that thatjust happened. And I can sit
(33:39):
here in my rage and my pain andyour rage and your pain. And
we're in this one moment goingto be together. Right? And I
think we're regulated a lot tonot notice; like not notice
harm, not noticed that someonesays something to you on the
(34:02):
street, not notice if a parent,you know, says something mean to
their child, that we just youknow, we all have heard stories
of sitting at the dinner tableand no one's looking at each
other. Right? Becauseeverybody's wants to ignore what
just happened, dad just explodedor someone at Thanksgiving made
(34:24):
a racist comment and we're allgoing to just go on as if
nothing has just happened. Andthat then just shuts us all down
and then forces us in a way topretend/dissociate/not sit with
pain and not sit with sufferingand not sit with awkwardness and
(34:47):
not sit with acknowledgmentthat... we both just saw that
right? We both just heard that.
And we can both know that thatjust happened.
Tyson Conner (35:03):
Because knowing that that just happened means
being able to be with the pain.
And it's really hard to be withpain, people don't tend to like
that I don't like that. And itsounds to me like part of the
difficulty in what we're talkingabout is that like, to
acknowledge the reality of thesocial unconscious, is to
(35:26):
acknowledge how we are allinvolved in these things that
cause a lot of pain and cause alot of harm. And that that can't
be undone by being good. There'sa -- when when talking about
these categories of like, what'sa good person? What's a bad
person, right? We all want tobelieve that we are good people.
And oftentimes, as a therapist,when someone comes into your
(35:49):
office, and they don't believethey're a good person, that's a
problem. Right? That usuallycauses trouble for them. And
I've been thinking in thisconversation about superhero
media and children's media,because those are worlds that
I'm in and specifically aroundthe question of, of racism and
sexism, especially, right?
(36:11):
Because those are great littleshorthands to identify someone
who's a bad person in thosekinds of stories, or even
environmentalism, right? You'vegot Captain Planet versus the
polluters and it set up thislike, here's the bad guys doing
the bad thing. And then here'sus, the good people doing the
good thing. And we can't bedoing the bad thing too, because
(36:31):
we're good. When I first startedlearning about systemic racism,
I remember having a conversationwith my dad, where he was like,
No, you don't understand. I'mnot a racist. I know racists,
they go to Klan meetings, and Iwould never do such a thing. And
he's thinking about that - hidad, you're thinking about that
(36:53):
has evolved, since we had thatconversation. Don't worry about
it. I was like, 2008, you'recool - He listens to the show.
So I just want a little bit ofkindness. But to bring this
awareness of the socialunconscious into a healing
relationship, which is whatwe're talking about, like we're
(37:15):
not this idea, just morebroadly, as like a hey, think
about the world this way. We'retalking about people who want to
be healers, which mostpsychotherapists do.
Karen Weisbard (37:25):
And most people do. I think it's not just for us
as therapists, but it's for allof us to sort of feel like, Oh,
if we feel the pain of others,then we are healing, we
ourselves are healing. Becauseagain, back to that
interconnectedness, it's sort oflike, when you feel upset, you
(37:46):
could feel the cells of yourbody, I think starting to
change. I think you could feelyour capacity for empathy, to
start to grow. And I do believethat we all would want to be
healers in a way we all aresaddened by the state of the
world in whatever world we livein. We're saddened for X
(38:10):
reasons. You know, like, eventhe people in Florida are
saddened by the state of theworld. Because they want to
heal, you know, we all might notagree that this is the way to
heal, you know, so they couldimpose laws saying, Well, this
is how we're going to heal. Butif we can sort of be like, we
all want to eliminate suffering,we've had very different ideas
(38:33):
of how that might happen. And wecan't really eliminate
suffering. But we can try tosort of understand that we all I
think are trying to be healersin a way even though it looks on
the outside, like some peopleare full of hate. And they
probably themselves again, arepeople who have struggled, who
(38:58):
are struggling who have beentreated hatefully themselves. I
mean they're under the culturalforces of their own.
Tyson Conner (39:06):
Absolutely, I'm thinking about I recently heard
of someone who has some veryconservative family members who
were visiting around the sametime as some friends who are
gender non conforming, and therewas a conversation with these
conservative family membersabout like, please just respect
and use their pronouns. It'sjust a kind thing to do. And
there was a bit of a conflictaround that. But the friends
(39:28):
came and visited and the visitwas lovely. And after they left,
the thing that that reallyconservative family members said
was, we were surprised by howkind they were. They were just
so kind. And, you know, I havesome incredibly conservative
family members who based off oftheir social media coverage you
would think just like goingaround ready to beat up anyone
(39:49):
they come across to is evenvaguely different, who have
extended some of the most clearand direct material kindness to
me and my family of anyone I'mrelated to. And what I'm hearing
you speak to is that thesepositions that we come to, as a
way of like, making conscioussense of the socially
(40:12):
unconscious movements don'tactually reflect anything about
our desire to be human beingstogether. They say a lot about,
like, how we think we go aboutdoing that, perhaps, but also
that we're set up to come toreally bad conclusions about
each other. My assumption aboutthe conservative family members
(40:34):
would be that they don't wantanything to do with me in my
kind. And yet, they have lent mevehicles for months at a time,
right? Like there's somethinghuman here that we want to make
not human. And say, like,actually, no, we have the way to
do it. And related to thisquestion of healing, and being
(40:59):
in healing relationships, itsounds like accepting the
reality of a social unconscious,also requires accepting your own
ongoing participation in thoseharmful things. We all walk
around with biases, right? Mostpeople accept that. But it's
another thing to say - and weall walk around actively
(41:21):
participating in these patternsand systems that continue to
perpetuate harm against peoplethat we care about and want to
help heal.
Karen Weisbard (41:29):
Exactly.
Tyson Conner (41:33):
So how are you supposed to do any good?
Karen Weisbard (41:37):
Well, for me, this is so hopeful. I mean, I
believe psychoanalysis has thepower to change the world. And I
sort of feel like we can bringthese understandings into all
kinds of communal and communitysettings. There's lots of really
(42:00):
interesting projects that arehappening by psychoanalyst, and
that are sort ofpsychoanalytically informed that
are bringing people together tosort of listen, how do you
listen to one another? How doyou recognize another person?
How do you sort of talk aboutthese issues in ways that aren't
(42:20):
like politically heated debatesthat get to our vulnerabilities,
and soften us and I sort of feellike, as we become aware of how
adhering we are to certainsocial structures that we just
can't let go of, you know, andin psychoanalysis those
(42:41):
structures might be, you know,you have to see somebody three,
four times a week in order forit to be psychoanalysis sort of
like, well, why does it have tobe that like, why and why are we
fighting about that? And is thatpromoting the work? And is it
making it accessible to morepeople? Because that's a pretty
systemic requirement thatsomebody come that often and pay
(43:04):
that much money? You know, Imean, there's just a lot of
restrictions in that. And so wecan sort of start to say, well,
what are we holding on to here?
What's so important? And if weloosen some of this systemic
structure, are we thinking thatmakes it less valuable? Or
dilutes its importance? Theseare some of the things you hear
(43:25):
in the world of psychoanalysis,people get really concerned. Or
why are we talking about socialissues at all? But for me, it
just feels like, No, this islike the future like this is
gonna blow our minds like thisis gonna blow the whole thing
open. And then Gosh, what if allof this were just so much more
accessible?
Tyson Conner (43:49):
Yeah, good question. What if it were?
Karen Weisbard (43:53):
I feel like the world would be a better place. I
don't know.
Tyson Conner (43:56):
Yeah. I mean, in some ways, that's part of my
hope, with projects like this.
You know, books are great. Andvideos are great. And podcasts
are great, especially the freeones, because people can access
some of the ideas and hopefullyhave a little bit of some of the
experience. I think, as you weretalking now, I was realizing
(44:18):
that fear feeling that I washaving that said like how to do
any good. It's interestingthat'sthe language I chose
because I think that part ofwhat this category and this way
of thinking about people does isit requires that you let go of
being able to be all good as anindividual, or all bad. Like
(44:42):
accepting one's participationand say, climate catastrophe,
just by driving a car and owningan iPhone and which like some of
those things are kind ofunavoidable to persist in like
modern society, you need asmartphone, more people own
(45:04):
smartphones than homes, like,people got to get around, we
don't have systems to get aroundthat don't burn fossil fuels,
and there are bunches andbunches of other ways that we're
all constantly participating ina system that's literally
killing our capacity to live onthe planet. And that doesn't
make us all a little minions ofSatan walking around.
Karen Weisbard (45:27):
Or I think what people fear is also that that
will just make me feel sodepressed and hopeless, because
what can I really do? Or whatdifference does it make? I'm a
big proponent of yes, that feelsvery bad. And if we just stay
(45:48):
feeling bad and guilty, then wereally aren't allowing ourselves
access to other emotions that wecould have here, which might be
okay, so I could probably driveless like, maybe I could walk to
the store instead of drive tothe store, if I am in somewhat
(46:09):
of the vicinity of that, andwhat could that do for my body?
And what could that do for theclimate? And again, back to the
interconnectedness like... wehave to guard against that
falling into a depressionfalling into the hopelessness,
where it just seems like what'sthe point, it's all gonna go to
hell in a handbasket anyway?
Which you can hear lots ofpeople feel that way and fall
(46:32):
into that place, and it's workto not do that, you know, it's
work to find a different side ofthe seesaw or to sort of step on
a different pedal at the momentto sort of be like, okay, yeah,
that's all true. It's not as ifthat's not true. And yet, how do
we resist that becoming, again,our whole identity,
Tyson Conner (46:59):
Right, if all that we can do is see the ways we're
participating in harm, then wecut ourselves off from the ways
that we're also participating inhealing. There's this idea from
group theories of like acybernetic system, and
cybernetic is a word that theListener will probably recognize
from like Sci Fi stuff - is thisdata like Star Trek? But as it
(47:22):
was explained to me, theoriginal idea of a cybernetic
system was a system where if youmake a change in one part of the
system, then the whole systemchanges in response. And it's
not like, you know, taking aboard out of a wall. It's like
taking a piece out of a bicycle,for a bicycle to work well, all
(47:46):
the pieces are in place. And ifyou've ever worked on a bicycle,
you know, if you make changes tothe length of the handlebars,
then that changes how you ridethe bike. I also heard recently
someone say that when thinkingabout, like, human behavior, it
makes a lot more sense to thinkof each person as a node in a
(48:06):
network, as opposed to thinkingof each person as an individual
making rational choices thatoptimize their best good.
Karen Weisbard (48:13):
And so that's back to the law of
interconnectedness. Right? Wetend to think of ourselves as
these isolated individuals, orthe mind is this isolated
entity. And I think there's alot more hope and value and
science that supports in fact,that is a fiction. That's not
(48:36):
true. That's not how we are.
There's great books right nowbeing written about the
communication between trees andforest, about the whole
interconnectedness of theunderstory, and how trees are a
community of family. And, youknow, that's the world we live
in, like, we're allinterconnected, so if we can
sort of hold that, the potentialfor healing and harm, but also
(49:02):
more wholeness is there.
Tyson Conner (49:09):
Yeah. And what I'm hearing you say is that to get
there, there's -- I'm sort ofcondensing a lot of our
conversation down to like a few,like, now I'm all on this chew
on this, like ideas. One ofwhich is, why is it so important
to believe that, that thing thatyou have the big reaction to,
why is it so important tobelieve that? Get contact with
(49:33):
your vulnerability around it,and then opening up awareness
within yourself to the ways thatthe systems around you are
impacting the way that you thinkand exist in the world and
holding that, in a way? I think- you haven't used this language
(49:54):
but - it sounds like thatrequires a little bit of grief.
Room to grieve the harm. Andalso open yourself up to all of
the ways that you are that...
that influences both ways. Thesocial unconscious, as I'm
hearing you describe it, itisn't just a thing that we're
all stuck in, and it's our doom.
(50:19):
It's something that we canchoose to interact within, kind
of like going back to thatbreath analogy, like knowing
that we can think about ourbreathing means that we can play
the flute. I'm thinking about, Idon't know if I said it on this
podcast before. But I think alot about Max Faber, the
sociologist who wrote theProtestant Work Ethic and the
(50:40):
Spirit of Capitalism, he talkedabout the concept of the iron
cage, the idea being that youhave this community that will
have a shared value, somethingimportant that they care about.
And then they'll build systemsaround that value. And in that
book, he traces starting withsort of Puritans and their value
(51:03):
of doing hard work as a show ofpiety towards God. And then the
systems that get built up aroundthat hard work, eventually
evolving into, I think hestopped his analysis somewhere
around Benjamin Franklin, butlike systems of loaning and
receiving debt, and working withcapital and maximizing wealth,
(51:24):
and he's kind of traced thisprocess. And he called this the
iron cage, where you buildsystems around a value, and then
you build systems around thatsystem. And then eventually, the
system becomes the value initself. And you're left with
these systems that are vast andcomplex, completely divorced
from any human value. And he wasa bit of a pessimist as a lot of
(51:47):
those early sociologists were,and he thought like, and then
you're stuck. It's the iron caseyou're stuck forever. But
something that I'm noticing inconversations like this one, and
in other spaces, is thatactually, like human beings, I
think, are driven more by ourshared values, sometimes than
our shared systems. Maybe notalways, but often enough, that I
(52:10):
think there is a drive to returnto those values, whether they're
values of connection or equalityor care, compassion, healing,
whatever it is. What I'm hearingyou say, is like becoming aware
of the iron cage, and the waysthat maybe you're still stuck in
it to a certain degree?
Karen Weisbard (52:29):
Well, back to maybe that the systems also are
regulating our values. And sowithout being aware of the
cultural systems that regulateour value, for instance, of
care. And then we think, Oh,well care is associated with
women, let's say or care isassociated with the home, so
(52:52):
that it's hard to embrace maybethat sense of a value of care
when we also have all thesecultural forces that are naming
that as something that belongsto a certain segment of people,
or a certain gender. Just it'ssort of back again, to like, how
(53:16):
do we expand the concentriccircle out to be like, Oh,
eating, a notion that we thinkof as value, not value laden,
such as care, or kindness might,in fact, be value laden and
highly regulated by systems thatsay, this is where you get to do
this, or this is where you getto do that, or you better not do
(53:37):
it there. And so it's sort ofthis back and forth, looking at
the concentric circles, how farout does that go? And then how
is that exerting its influence?
Back on the individual that theyagain, back to they can't even
know, right? That something thatseems so innocuous is so
prohibited,
Tyson Conner (54:00):
Right? Yeah, Hoo, boy, that idea is just opening
up lots of thoughts, just eveneven in how we write laws about
mental health care, and like howthose impact things and like,
the fact that we live in a statewhere children over the age of
(54:21):
13, are like, fully in charge oftheir own mental health care
decisions, and how that reflectsback to the value of children
being able to have their ownprivacy and agency as they enter
adolescence. But the problemsthat that causes for children
who aren't able to make thosedecisions for themselves, and
the fact that we live in a statethat has, you know, a rule that
(54:44):
any mental health facility foranyone else for the are under
the age of 18 cannot have lockeddoors, and how that's also a
value based on maybe we don'timprison children for being
sick, and how that means thatmany children have to go out of
state to get the care that theyneed. That, like, the systems
and the systems that I'mspeaking to are like laws that
(55:05):
you can look up online. Butthere's so many other systems
that are much more subtle andmuch more invisible than that,
and how they impact how we evenmake sense of what does it mean
to be kind to someone? Andthat's a big topic to think
about. So, listener, have funwith that. So we should probably
(55:29):
wrap up. Thank you for yourtime. On our way out, as we wrap
up, is there anything that wedidn't get to that you wanted to
make sure to include in ourconversation?
Karen Weisbard (55:42):
I guess the only other thing that I would want to
include is that when we talkedearlier about, like our
identity, or a sense ofsubjectivity, I think we all
know we are not comprised ofjust one thing. And that we have
many positions we occupy in ourlives. You know, I'm a
psychologist, I'm an analyst,I'm a mother, I'm a daughter,
(56:05):
you know, all of those thingsaffect how I see myself, how I
conduct myself in the world. AndI think it's just so helpful for
listeners to sort of be like,you're not just one thing. Your
identity and your subjectiveself is composed of so many,
sometimes competing, forces thatif we can try to have
(56:30):
compassion, for we're sort ofwrestling with a lot, even
though we're an individual, butwe're wrestling with a lot, as
is every single person aroundus. And it's not also clear cut.
And so when you feel confused,or when you feel like, why am I
feeling this way? Or, you know,it's probably for lots of really
(56:53):
good reasons.
Tyson Conner (56:56):
Yeah, that makes me think about our - we did an
episode on multiplicity of selfand multiple self states and all
that all those ideas, and thenalso, in conjunction with a
social unconscious concept. Andthese identity self categories
that we have, that we didn'teven know we were picking up
that were may be given to us,that we might start to wrestle
(57:18):
with just how, like, it's alwayshelpful to have a community to
work so that within to haveothers with you, and that
struggle. And I imagined forthis in particular, like for the
social unconscious stuff for ourawareness of our social
location, how helpful it can be,not just to accept oh, gosh, I'm
(57:41):
wrestling with a lot right here.
Oh, man. So are we all right? Ifyou're a man wrestling with your
own masculinity and taking itrealizing messages you've taken
in and but when you're allowedto be kind and when you're not,
maybe there are some other menwho also feel that way and might
be open to being vulnerableabout that. Similar ideas around
other identity markers. That wepick up in relationship, maybe
(58:06):
it's something that we canwrestle with and engage with
together in relationship.
Karen Weisbard (58:12):
Yes.
Tyson Conner (58:14):
That is hopeful.
That's nice. Lovely. Well,Karen, thank you. Thank you so
much for coming on the show. Isthere anywhere that you'd like
to be found, and the Listener,if they're interested in this,
we will have references to thefolks that you cited in the show
notes. If you have any specificbooks you want to call out? Or
(58:36):
if someone's like, wow, thatKaren lady, she's pretty cool.
Where can I hear more what shehas to say?
Karen Weisbard (58:41):
Well, I have a website, which is
www.KarenWeisbard.com. Some ofmy writings are accessible on
the website. I would like to puta plug in that, you know, this
(59:02):
is the work I love to do. I loveto teach, I love to help people
sort of become more aware oftheir practices and what they're
doing. But also, I would like tosort of move psychoanalysis and
psychoanalytic ideas intocommunity settings. So if any of
your listeners have or work incommunities, or agencies or
places where you're like, Ithink this would be a great
(59:24):
conversation to have in mycommunity, I would love the
opportunity to sort of be partof those kinds of conversations
too.
Tyson Conner (59:33):
Absolutely, so what definition of community?
Karen Weisbard (59:37):
Could be in your church, it could be in your
synagogue, in your workplace, itcould be at your school. I mean,
I just think there are so manysettings. It could be community
mental health. Where people wantto talk about this stuff. We're
all like trying to figure itout. You know, and I just think
that there's a lot of spacesthat could be created for people
(59:59):
to come together and hear aboutthese ideas and also start to
think about them in terms oftheir own individual and group
and family and communal spaces.
Tyson Conner (01:00:12):
Yeah. Thinking about vulnerability, I'm
thinking about Bob. Bob Bergmanhas said - Listener, he's an
analyst in Seattle - has saidthat the scariest thing that a
human being can do -- this verydefinitive statement, but it's
meant to be provocative. Thescariest thing for a human being
isn't death or death of a lovedone. It's going up to someone
and saying, why don't you and Igo do this and such together?
(01:00:34):
And having the other person say,No, I don't think we will. So
like, I'm aware that even inyour invitation, you're inviting
people into vulnerability.
You're saying like, hey, I wantto do this with you. Reach out
to me and ask, and like, oh,man, you're inviting
vulnerability from the word go.
This is work that requires suchbravery. But that is a soft
(01:00:57):
bravery. Which is giving me allthe willies, I like it.
Karen Weisbard (01:01:04):
So that's what I would like to say, like, please
reach out and not just to belike a client, but like, reach
out if you feel like thisconversation could be in your
community too.
Tyson Conner (01:01:15):
Absolutely. Well, links to all of your information
will be in the show notes, aswell as the books that you
recommend and your website. Andyeah, thank you again, this has
been delightful.
Karen Weisbard (01:01:27):
Thank you.
Tyson Conner (01:01:31):
Special thanks to Dr. Karen Weisbard, Karen can be
found at her website,KarenWeisbard.com. link in the
show notes. Also in the shownotes for this episode, you'll
find links to a few bookswritten by some of the theorists
that Karen cited in today'sepisode. The topic that we
discussed is broad and comes upand touches on a lot of areas of
(01:01:54):
psychoanalytic theory andthought, but I thought that
these three books would be agood place to start for anyone
who's interested in diving alittle bit deeper into this
complex, deeply interconnectedcategory. The relational psych
Podcast is a production ofrelational psych, a mental
(01:02:15):
health clinic providing depthoriented psychotherapy and
psychological testing in personin Seattle and virtually
throughout Washington state. Ifyou're interested in
psychotherapy or psychologicaltesting for yourself or a family
member, links to our contactinformation are in the show
notes. If you are apsychotherapist and would like
to be a guest on the show or alistener with a suggestion for
someone you'd like us tointerview, You can contact me at
(01:02:37):
podcast@relationalpsych.group.
The Relational Psych Podcast ishosted and produced by me Tyson
Connor. Sam Claney is ourexecutive producer with
technical support by Ally Rayeand the team at VirtualAlly.
Carly Claney is our CEO. Ourmusic is by Ben Lewis. We love
you buddy.
Do you want to learn about psychological growth
without sorting through thejargon? You're in the right
place. This is the RelationalPsych Podcast. I'm your host
licensed therapist Tyson Connor.
On this show, we learn about theprocesses and theories behind
personal growth and experience alittle bit of it ourselves. This
is season two, where we'll focuson the practice of relational
psychotherapy, and exploreconcepts and theories that
(00:32):
consider psychology from arelational lens. And please keep
in mind that this podcast doesnot constitute therapeutic
advice, but we might help youfind some.
And today, my guest is KarenWeisbard. Karen is a clinical
psychologist and apsychoanalyst, and has been
(00:53):
working as both for 20 years.
Karen, welcome to the podcast.
Karen Weisbard (00:58):
Thanks, Tyson.
I'm happy to be here.
Tyson Conner (01:00):
And today, we will be answering the question, why
is the social unconsciousimportant and particularly
important for psychoanalysis? Sothis is a big one, Karen. This
is a big one, and you picked it!So why don't we start with how
did you get interested in this?
What brought you to thisconcept?
Karen Weisbard (01:22):
Yeah, thanks.
Well, a number of things bothculturally and also personally.
So culturally, I think thepolitical climate that we were
in around the time of theelections - Obama, Trump - sort
of created this awareness thateverything wasn't quite fine in
(01:47):
the world. And then, in fact,there was a lot of things that
were sort of seemingly not fine.
And then leading up to, youknow, all the things that we
know about happening - the meto movement, Black Lives Matter,
(02:10):
COVID - I think was aparticularly nodal kind of
turning point where it exposed alot of inequities in the world
and in our culture about who canhave and who cannot have, who's
safe, who's not safe. Nevermindthe political climate around it,
just the whole sense of who isat risk. And we were all at
(02:37):
risk, but it's sort of exposedthat some people were at way
more risk than others. And Ithink that at that point, I felt
undone a bit. And, you know, allour worlds returned, rather
upside down. But it just sort ofbecame harder and harder to feel
(02:59):
like it was somehow... that allthese factors that were
happening in the world were notimpacting individuals, and then
this sort of recognition ofmaybe all of this had been going
on for much longer than we couldhave been aware.
Tyson Conner (03:17):
So over the past, gosh, what are we saying now,
like, from 2016 ish, onwards,because I remember in 2015, in
the lead up to the, to the 2016,election, there was a lot of --
there was a sort of -- that wasthe first surge of the Black
Lives Matter movement. And thenit really came back in force a
few years later. From what Irecall, that was my exposure to
(03:40):
it, I saw like a little -- therewas a blip of it there a moment
where it was very present, andcame back again. And between
that and these other movementswe're talking about, what I'm
hearing you describe is thissort of like, okay, there's an
awareness that there's somethinghappening on a societal level,
on a cultural level, that isabsolutely having a direct
(04:00):
impact on on people's minds andhow they function and how they
work. And it sounds like thiscategory of this social
unconscious. It was - yourinterest in it began as your
attempt to try to make sense ofthat, using the tools that
psychoanalysis brings.
Unknown (04:16):
Yes, absolutely. And trying to sort of think a lot
about like the people that werecoming into our offices, who we
were all in the same soup, kindof together. And so that changed
a lot of how I, you know, wouldtypically practice because I
would think it's the personcoming in with their questions
(04:39):
and their concerns. But now wewere all there with the same
questions and the same concerns,especially during COVID. So it
sort of felt like, what stancedo we take as therapists, what
stance do we take regardingwhat's happening in the world? I
think many of us, you know,we're inundated with people's
need for mental health treatmentand feeling incredibly
(05:02):
overwhelmed, and of course, thehospitals were overwhelmed, like
there was just this sense of somuch suffering, and so much
need, and how were we going tomeet the need, and we can't just
meet the need on an individualbasis, because there's too many
people in need. So we're gonnahave to think differently, I
think about the suffering that'shappening in people's lives. And
(05:28):
how are we going to sort ofaddress that suffering out side,
perhaps, of just the limits ofwhat we can do in an individual
session. And so I sort of thinkabout also what's happening in
my work individually is alsostarting to sort of create this
social awareness that there arefactors impacting how people are
(05:48):
in their families, how peopleare in their relationships, that
are sort of bigger than them ina way, which I think takes the
load off individuals to sort offeel like it's up to me to just
figure this all out. Because Ifeel like this is all very,
rather interconnected. And Ithink that gives a little bit
(06:11):
more breath and a little bitmore room and maybe a little bit
more opportunity for people tostart to think differently, and
maybe even then act differentlytoward other human beings and in
their communities.
Tyson Conner (06:23):
Right. One of the critiques of psychoanalysis that
I often hear - even from withinpsychoanalysis -I mostly hear
this from, from from people whoare, who are wrestling, I don't
like this bit, is something ofhow how atomized they feel, they
can feel like -- and by atomizedListener, I mean, like, totally
(06:46):
individual and disconnected fromall the other parts of their
life, that people often feelthat they are being blamed for
their suffering, because everyconversation about their
suffering comes back to howthey're responding to it. And
part of what I'm hearing youdescribe is that this category
of the social unconscious is oneway to kind of shift our minds
(07:09):
so that we're not approachingevery mental health system,
symptom, or pathology, orwhatever, purely from the
perspective of okay, what'swrong with this one person's
mind and unconscious? And howcan we fix them? That sounds
like a project, but a good oneand important one, and
(07:30):
impossible one, which all theimportant ones are?
Karen Weisbard (07:32):
Well, it's incredibly relieving, I think,
for people to realize that thatbelief that it must be me, it's
my problem, I must try to fix itmyself, it's up to the
individual, is a socialconstruction, right? One that's
very powerful in our Westernsociety is that - it's a very
(07:54):
individualistic society. And soyour successes and your failures
are thought of and seen as justyou. And that's a fiction, in
fact, and that's what the socialunconscious in the sort of
awareness of that's an ideologythat we have all succumbed to,
and that is regularlyperpetuated. And how can we as
(08:18):
individuals start to subvert, Iguess you could say that
ideology?
Tyson Conner (08:27):
Yeah. So let's, let's define our terms, like
when we say the socialunconscious, you know, the
listeners, hopefully, willmostly be familiar with ideas of
the unconscious, you can listento our episode on psychoanalytic
and psychodynamic therapy formore in depth. As a quick
refresher, there's an awful lotof stuff that happens in a
person's mind at any given timein a given moment. I love the
(08:50):
analogy of breath, where most ofthe time we're breathing, we're
not thinking about it. Now thatI've mentioned it, you are, so
well, you know, hopefully,that's helpful to you right now.
And turning our attention to ourbreath can be really helpful in
doing things and in doingextraordinary things, and then
doing helpful things. Whetherwe're doing yoga and trying to
(09:11):
breathe into a stretch, orplaying a musical instrument or
swimming, being able to draw ourattention to a usually
unconscious process gives usmore agency and helps us make
good use of the resources wehave. And in the world of
psychoanalysis, very broadlyspeaking, we believe that
there's a lot happening that'snot conscious inside of a person
(09:34):
beyond the physical, justworkings beyond plumbing. And
that bringing those things intoawareness can be really
effective and helpful. So howdoes that concept map on to
something that's bigger than anindividual mind?
Karen Weisbard (09:56):
It's kind of the same idea. And so this is not my
idea, I want to give creditwhere credit is due. So Lynn
Layton sort of coined the termthe normative unconscious. And
she sort of takes that fromErich Fromm, who, one of the,
you know, originators ofpsychoanalysis, interpersonal
(10:19):
psychoanalysis, did come up withthe idea of the social
unconscious. So maybe I can justread a definition because it's
not my term. And that'll helphopefully situate the listener
and also give them some accessto resources.
Tyson Conner (10:35):
Absolutely.
Karen Weisbard (10:36):
So the social unconscious is sort of
unconscious forces on ouridentity, and it exerts a
pressure to internalize culturalnorms, and ideologies. And those
cultural forces sort of takeover our unconscious processes
(10:59):
in this form of what we can andcannot know. So maybe I just
pause there to digest that, andsee if that can be translated
into real words or something alittle more relatable.
Tyson Conner (11:16):
Yeah, I mean, so I'm thinking about a lot of
things, I feel like sometimes,you know, most of our listeners
would be from a Western culturalcontext. And sometimes it's
easier to see these sorts ofthings when it's in a context
that you're not, that's notbaked into you, for instance. So
it's making me think of, um, Ispent some time in Southeast
(11:37):
Asia. And while I was there,there was this orphanage that I
visited, that it was part of alike Western community had sort
of built the money for thisthing, and they would come out
and they would build things andtry to help out and build these
relationships. And one of thethings that they did when they
(11:58):
designed this orphanage was theyhad sort of an outdoor toilet
setup, you sort of had to walkthrough the building. And then
outside there was where thetoilets were. And what they
found was that children who werefar too old to be wetting the
bed, and having accidents in thenight were pretty regularly. And
(12:20):
the people running thisorphanage were from the US, and
they didn't really understandwhat was going on. And what they
found out was that a lot ofthese kids had grown up
initially, in their first fewyears of life had been out in,
like in rural areas, and livingin the jungle and living in the
mountains. And they were toldthat outside at night is when
(12:41):
all of the spirits came out, andthe dangerous spirits came out,
and you don't go out at night,otherwise, they're gonna get
you. And to a certain degree,that, to my mind, that sounds
like a really useful strategy tointernalize. Because if you're
out in the woods at night, andyou're a little kid, like, yeah
there's a bunch of things thatcan go wrong. And some of those
(13:02):
things could be predators, andsome of those things could be
getting lost. And, you know,it's a long list. And so they,
these kids, were just notleaving the house, even to go to
the bathroom. Because they'd sointernalized this idea of like,
No, don't go out there, it'sdark, something's gonna get me.
(13:25):
And coming from a sort ofmodernist rationalist sort of
physical determinist, we don'tbelieve in the spirits kind of
mindset that a lot of ourlisteners will have. We can look
at that from the outside andsay, like, Okay, this example
isn't perfect, because thisisn't an unconscious belief.
It's not an unconscious thing.
It's something that you couldask the kids about, and they
(13:46):
could tell you. So maybe Ishould give up on the analogy.
But that's what's coming to mymind.
Karen Weisbard (13:56):
Well, I don't think you should give up on the
analogy, because I imagine whatcould happen and that I think
this does happen is that thenthe problem is located in the
children. Like they're havingproblem with bedwetting, right?
Versus no, this is not a problemwith bedwetting, this is a
cultural phenomenon. And if wecould understand what's
happening, then we're not goingto pathologize the children. And
(14:18):
maybe we could sort ofstructurally change the
situation. And I think that'salso part of what happens for
people, individuals that comeinto our offices or that are
listening to the podcasts havethat sense of it must be me, I
must be doing something wrong.
And without attention to theforces that maybe are exerted on
(14:41):
us, all of us to sort of say,well, that's how we actually
have been enculturated tobelieve - it's our problem. It's
our solution. And it denies thelevel of interconnectedness that
you know, it's the Winnicottthing, there is no baby without
(15:02):
a mother. But there is also thisbigger sense of there is no me
without you. And both you and meare very much influenced by what
else is happening out there inthe world.
Tyson Conner (15:16):
Yeah, there's two threads that I want to tease out
for the listener. The first iswhat you just made the reference
to Winnicott, which to me speaksto kind of some of the
relational term, which is a namethat we use in psychoanalysis to
talk about a shift from what'scalled a one person psychology,
where the client comes in andgets analyzed and is told this
(15:39):
is what's wrong with you know,you get fixed to a two person
psychology, which acknowledges,okay, there's multiple people in
the room, relationships matter,interaction patterns matter. I'm
hyper simplifying. But for thelistener, that's kind of the
shift that's happened in theworld of psychoanalysis over the
past, I don't know what 40 yearsish. And what I'm hearing,
(16:04):
you're suggesting, this is asort of a continuation of sort
of turning up that dial as itwere, to it's not a two person
psychology anymore.
Karen Weisbard (16:13):
It's more like not turning up the dial. It's
more like expanding theconcentric circles is how I
think about it. So if you havethe interapsychic, you know, the
individual. And then you havethe relational maybe be the
circle around that. Well, now,we're just increasing the
concentric circles and saying,all these things are influencing
the dyad. And then the dyad isalso influencing the
(16:35):
interapsychic and theindividual. But it's all a
concentric circle. And all theseforces are actually happening at
once, in all directions.
Tyson Conner (16:47):
And I imagine that keeping this in mind, requires
an awful lot --like people feelthis way about just the two
person shift like, oh, no, nowthe analyst has to keep so much
in their mind. And now you'resaying, yeah, and then some, and
I can hear those Oh noes in myhead. It makes me excited. But
(17:08):
also a little bit
Karen Weisbard (17:09):
It's daunting.
Tyson Conner (17:10):
Yeah, someone once told me the best things in life
are vaguely terrifying. And thisis absolutely that, as a
therapist, the other thread thatI want to pull out, because I
think it'll be helpful as we getinto this is our definition of
ideologies, because that word inparticular, most people
encounter in the context ofreally heated political
(17:32):
discourse, usually as anaccusation. People will accuse
one another of being ideologicalwhen they're trying to make a
point, or someone will say,yeah, that movie had had all
sorts of ideological like stuffin it as a way of saying
someone's trying to push acertain political idea. And I
think the way you're using it,and the way that I like to think
(17:53):
about it, or have heard itdescribed, is that an ideology
doesn't have any moralimplication, one way or another.
It's an unconscious, likeunderstanding of how the world
works, that we just see play outaround us and carry around with
us all the time.
Karen Weisbard (18:13):
Exactly. It's like the water, you know, and if
you think of fish in the wateror the air that we breathe, it's
just there. We tend not tonotice, like you were saying
breath earlier, the air or thepollutants in the air, you know,
for instance, but that's what wecould think of ideologies as
it's what's in the air, and it'swhat we absorb into our skin.
(18:36):
And it's what we absorb into ourbodies and our brains. And
that's what is the socialunconscious,
Tyson Conner (18:42):
Right. And so an awareness of one's ideologies,
whether they're ones that wechose, because we learned a
certain thing, and we're like,Yes, I choose to believe this
about the world, or just thingsthat we picked up
Karen Weisbard (18:55):
Mainly once we don't choose. We're just
swimming in the sea of it.
Tyson Conner (18:59):
Do people choose ideologies? Is that even a thing
you can do?
Karen Weisbard (19:01):
Well, I'm hoping that in this sort of push for us
to sort of become more aware ofthe social unconscious, that we
actually would get moreintentional about our
ideologies. And I don't meanlike political ideologies, but
maybe even in that sense of the,I sort of think of this and this
(19:23):
is also referencing otherpeople, Jessica Benjamin being
one of them. The law ofinterconnectedness, like that
ideology. Where we're allinterconnected. And not just
people, but obviously theenvironment and how we regard
(19:43):
our surround and how thesurround impacts us. And if we
can, I hope, create a kinder,gentler world would be one in
which we might really come tosort of have this sense of a law
of interconnectedness thatreally guides us in our very
(20:04):
being and in our very actions.
Tyson Conner (20:06):
So, again, the widening is happening in my
mind, because part of what I'mhearing is that what you're
suggesting is that an awarenessof the social unconscious
doesn't just help inform atherapist's way of thinking
about their clients experience,it actually suggests a way of
being in the world foreverybody, that requires us to
(20:27):
be far more - if not thoughtfulabout - aware of our impact on
not just other people, but thewater that we swim in, other
people and the environment andour pets, and basically anything
that exists that we make contactwith, that that impact stays
(20:48):
behind. And having this kind ofawareness doesn't let you get
away from that fact.
Karen Weisbard (20:55):
Yes, I believe that to be true.
Tyson Conner (20:58):
I'm just gonna breathe through that for a
second. Because I can feelmyself starting to transcend...
want to keep my feet on thefloor. Let's talk about this
idea of what we can and cannotknow. That feels important.
Karen Weisbard (21:13):
So the social unconscious, I would think of as
a regulatory agency, so tospeak. It sort of, again,
exerts its influence without usseeing it or knowing it. And it
kind of allows us to not know,certain things. And so the
(21:38):
things that like Lynn Laytontalks about and other people
that are writing in this area,the things that it allows us not
to know are a lot of the socialhierarchies that exist. So
genderism, sexism, racism,classism. And so we're sort of
(22:00):
on some level acculturated tonot think about these things, to
not know them. And to, you know,like in a therapy room, we
probably aren't asking ourclients to think about these
issues. But they are powerfulforces on what we can know and
(22:23):
not know, including, like, youknow, your gender, how we just
take it for granted. And lessand less these days, obviously,
because people are thinking moreout of binary terms. But these
are things that we have beentrained to not know and to not
think about, and to not askabout, and we just make
(22:45):
assumptions that our clients arewhite, that they're
heterosexual... you know, wejust sort of tend to sort of
start there. And sometimes wehave to, like, shake ourselves
to be like, Okay, that'ssomething I'm supposed to not
know, in a way that this iswhere my starting point always
(23:08):
is.
Tyson Conner (23:09):
Right? I'm thinking about this, I was
working with someone whorecently who was working through
their feelings about their ownaggression, right? Like classic
analytic stuff, right? Likegoing back to Freud. sex and
aggression. Heck, yeah, that'sour jam. And I was just being
like, great, I feel comfortablehere. This is my world. I'm
comfy. But this person... ittook me weeks, and I'm
(23:33):
embarrassed to even talk aboutit. But they are a black man.
He's a black man. And hisaggression has very different
real consequences in his worldthan mine does, as a white man,
right? Like, that is somethingthat I could approach it from
the realm of theory that I haveit says, This is how people
(23:55):
work. And this is what'shappening on the unconscious
level. And all these things thatI could get into and say, No,
this is how it is. But thereality is even throwing out the
like risk of death of like, ifpolice get called on him versus
me. His aggression in aworkplace, even just like
advocating for himself, will beexperienced fundamentally
(24:18):
differently than mine. And so hetreats it very differently
internally than I would. Andlike, I felt like a real dummy
for taking as long as I did tofigure it out. But I'm
wondering... this feels like oneof those things. The social
unconscious says, You don't haveto know about that. You don't
need to know about that fact,you don't get to.
Karen Weisbard (24:38):
Right and I would hope that you wouldn't
beat yourself up that it tookyou so to speak that long to get
because on some level, you gotsomething about this person's
experience that you needed toget and he needed you to get and
there's also going to be a limitto what you get, because you're
(24:58):
not going to get it.
Tyson Conner (25:02):
Yeah, I'm thinking about how so many of these
things that feel like they'repart of the social unconscious
tend to be things that havepretty intense cultural
conversations around, especiallyin the realm of politics, but
also just more generally onsocial media, just social
issues. That like, there's aheat around it, that I'm
(25:23):
thinking about, like, someonewho might be listening to this,
and we're bringing up issues ofrace and gender, and like,
hetero patriarchy. And thesesorts of categories who might
say like, Ah, I've heard allthat stuff. And, you know,
here's the statistics about howwomen really don't earn less
(25:44):
than men on the dollar. Andthere's a whole like energy
around saying, Actually, that'snot real. And I'm curious - it
feels like we could somehow makesense of that.
Karen Weisbard (25:59):
Yeah, I would hope that we wouldn't get into
sort of debates about what'sreal, or what's factual, as much
as I'm hoping to increase sortof our curiosity about, oh,
that's a very interesting stanceto be taking that that's not
real. So something is exertingan influence and something must
(26:22):
feel very threatening to sort ofdisavow something so strongly to
say, well, that's not true, orthat's not real. And that's what
I'm more interested in is what'sgoing on, because there's some
threat, I believe, to the self,to some position of identity or
(26:44):
some subjectivity position. Thatthat has to not be true. And so,
you know, listeners can't see,but there's like, my hands are
like, That can't be true. And soI'm pushing that away from me,
which for me is like, wow,there's some vulnerability here.
(27:05):
And the person that says thatcan't be true, right? I can't
know that. That is what I wantto get to, I want to get to the
vulnerability like what'shappening right now that that is
so threatening, that there'ssomething about the possibility
of something being true that isreally hard to digest or
(27:29):
tolerate. I mean, I feel like ifwe can get into people's
vulnerabilities and thedisruption, obviously, that this
way of thinking engenders andthen requires us to tolerate,
then we also have much morecompassion and less heat around
these issues. Because we'relike, oh, my god, we're also
(27:50):
vulnerable.
Tyson Conner (27:51):
Right. I'm reminded of when I was in
college, all of my friends werephilosophy majors, because I'm
drawn to arguments, I suppose. Idon't know why. And then when I
started grad school, and startedtraining, become a therapist, I
was in one of thoseconversations, those philosophy
conversations. And I pulled outthis like really basic therapy
(28:15):
skill, right? Where somebody wasmaking some point or other, and
I was in the position where Ineeded to respond. And what I
said - I kind of wanted to bedone and go do my homework - and
so what I said was, you know,I'm less interested in actually
answering that question and moreinterested in figuring out why
it's so important to you. Andthe person who I asked that
(28:35):
question to, it was like I'dthrown a wrench into the gears.
Like he was like, wait, no,that's not what we're doing.
Hang on, you're not playing thegame. And oh, you know, I was
just trying to get out of theconversation. And it worked. But
I feel like that exact thingjust happened just now. Right?
Where you are like, actually,like, that intensity of people's
response is something to becurious about. Not to see it as
(29:00):
like, Okay, I need to defeatthat way of thinking, but
rather, oh, gosh, why are ourways of thinking, so deadly
important to us? What aboutthis? What is this doing for me?
Why do I need this so badly? Andalso, why? Why does this other
person need it so badly, sobadly that people will go
(29:21):
through pretty incrediblelengths to try to refute an idea
that what I'm hearing you say ismaybe it's because something
about that idea you can't know.
Something in them says no, youcan't know that thing.
Karen Weisbard (29:37):
Right. And something about that idea is
also holding them together,structurally holding them
together. I must believe this. Ican't allow in anything that
would disrupt that because itactually would disrupt my whole
structure.
Tyson Conner (29:53):
Yeah. So you said that the social unconscious
especially has a lot of poweraround people's identities and
sense of self? Can you speakmore to that idea?
Karen Weisbard (30:05):
Okay, so a good example of this is my subjective
self says, I'm a good person,right? I'm a good person, I care
about other people, I see myselfis open minded, kind, willing to
think about things. And thenlet's say something happens. And
(30:29):
I've been unkind, or I've hurtsomebody, or I have, like some
expressed a bias of some sort,that I didn't know I had. And so
then now, what do I do with myown sense of self? How do I not
(30:50):
fall into some shame and guilt?
or denial? Or how do I allowsome space that what defines me
as a good person isn't just thatI'm good? What also defines me
as a good person, is that Irecognize that I can harm
(31:10):
others, and that I have harmedothers. And that is a state of
like tolerance, and it sort ofexpands my sense of subjective
self. Because now I'm no longertied to just good/bad. But also
I'm, again, back to that law ofinterconnectedness, I'm
(31:35):
indirectly and directlyresponsible for how another
feels. And my sense of self canbecome more whole, I think, and
much more broader if I can sortof tolerate that that's a part
of my subjectivity. It's part ofwhat I would say is all our
(31:59):
subjectivities is, can wetolerate that sense of, we're
not just good/bad, we harmothers. And that's part of our
subjectivity.
Tyson Conner (32:16):
Yeah, I'm thinking about how I feel like, it's
interesting, a lot of theexamples that are coming to my
mind are about race. But this isabout a lot more than that.
Karen Weisbard (32:28):
More than that, in the sense of it's not just
about race, because it's -- Iwrite in a paper that I'm going
to be giving about an experienceof a comment being made to my
kid on the street, that was veryderogatory. And as we're walking
(32:54):
away, I say to my kid, was thatperson talking to you? And my
kid said, Yeah, that happens allthe time. Now, my kid is trans.
And so the responsibility isn'tjust that, okay, now this person
on the street harmed my kid, andI was enraged because it's my
(33:16):
kid. And I don't want my kid tobe harmed. But I could have also
just kept walking down thestreet and ignored that that
happened, and not stood with mykid to say, I just heard what
you just heard. And I'm going tosay to you that just happened.
And we can both know that thatjust happened. And I can sit
(33:39):
here in my rage and my pain andyour rage and your pain. And
we're in this one moment goingto be together. Right? And I
think we're regulated a lot tonot notice; like not notice
harm, not noticed that someonesays something to you on the
(34:02):
street, not notice if a parent,you know, says something mean to
their child, that we just youknow, we all have heard stories
of sitting at the dinner tableand no one's looking at each
other. Right? Becauseeverybody's wants to ignore what
just happened, dad just explodedor someone at Thanksgiving made
(34:24):
a racist comment and we're allgoing to just go on as if
nothing has just happened. Andthat then just shuts us all down
and then forces us in a way topretend/dissociate/not sit with
pain and not sit with sufferingand not sit with awkwardness and
(34:47):
not sit with acknowledgmentthat... we both just saw that
right? We both just heard that.
And we can both know that thatjust happened.
Tyson Conner (35:03):
Because knowing that that just happened means
being able to be with the pain.
And it's really hard to be withpain, people don't tend to like
that I don't like that. And itsounds to me like part of the
difficulty in what we're talkingabout is that like, to
acknowledge the reality of thesocial unconscious, is to
(35:26):
acknowledge how we are allinvolved in these things that
cause a lot of pain and cause alot of harm. And that that can't
be undone by being good. There'sa -- when when talking about
these categories of like, what'sa good person? What's a bad
person, right? We all want tobelieve that we are good people.
And oftentimes, as a therapist,when someone comes into your
(35:49):
office, and they don't believethey're a good person, that's a
problem. Right? That usuallycauses trouble for them. And
I've been thinking in thisconversation about superhero
media and children's media,because those are worlds that
I'm in and specifically aroundthe question of, of racism and
sexism, especially, right?
(36:11):
Because those are great littleshorthands to identify someone
who's a bad person in thosekinds of stories, or even
environmentalism, right? You'vegot Captain Planet versus the
polluters and it set up thislike, here's the bad guys doing
the bad thing. And then here'sus, the good people doing the
good thing. And we can't bedoing the bad thing too, because
(36:31):
we're good. When I first startedlearning about systemic racism,
I remember having a conversationwith my dad, where he was like,
No, you don't understand. I'mnot a racist. I know racists,
they go to Klan meetings, and Iwould never do such a thing. And
he's thinking about that - hidad, you're thinking about that
(36:53):
has evolved, since we had thatconversation. Don't worry about
it. I was like, 2008, you'recool - He listens to the show.
So I just want a little bit ofkindness. But to bring this
awareness of the socialunconscious into a healing
relationship, which is whatwe're talking about, like we're
(37:15):
not this idea, just morebroadly, as like a hey, think
about the world this way. We'retalking about people who want to
be healers, which mostpsychotherapists do.
Karen Weisbard (37:25):
And most people do. I think it's not just for us
as therapists, but it's for allof us to sort of feel like, Oh,
if we feel the pain of others,then we are healing, we
ourselves are healing. Becauseagain, back to that
interconnectedness, it's sort oflike, when you feel upset, you
(37:46):
could feel the cells of yourbody, I think starting to
change. I think you could feelyour capacity for empathy, to
start to grow. And I do believethat we all would want to be
healers in a way we all aresaddened by the state of the
world in whatever world we livein. We're saddened for X
(38:10):
reasons. You know, like, eventhe people in Florida are
saddened by the state of theworld. Because they want to
heal, you know, we all might notagree that this is the way to
heal, you know, so they couldimpose laws saying, Well, this
is how we're going to heal. Butif we can sort of be like, we
all want to eliminate suffering,we've had very different ideas
(38:33):
of how that might happen. And wecan't really eliminate
suffering. But we can try tosort of understand that we all I
think are trying to be healersin a way even though it looks on
the outside, like some peopleare full of hate. And they
probably themselves again, arepeople who have struggled, who
(38:58):
are struggling who have beentreated hatefully themselves. I
mean they're under the culturalforces of their own.
Tyson Conner (39:06):
Absolutely, I'm thinking about I recently heard
of someone who has some veryconservative family members who
were visiting around the sametime as some friends who are
gender non conforming, and therewas a conversation with these
conservative family membersabout like, please just respect
and use their pronouns. It'sjust a kind thing to do. And
there was a bit of a conflictaround that. But the friends
(39:28):
came and visited and the visitwas lovely. And after they left,
the thing that that reallyconservative family members said
was, we were surprised by howkind they were. They were just
so kind. And, you know, I havesome incredibly conservative
family members who based off oftheir social media coverage you
would think just like goingaround ready to beat up anyone
(39:49):
they come across to is evenvaguely different, who have
extended some of the most clearand direct material kindness to
me and my family of anyone I'mrelated to. And what I'm hearing
you speak to is that thesepositions that we come to, as a
way of like, making conscioussense of the socially
(40:12):
unconscious movements don'tactually reflect anything about
our desire to be human beingstogether. They say a lot about,
like, how we think we go aboutdoing that, perhaps, but also
that we're set up to come toreally bad conclusions about
each other. My assumption aboutthe conservative family members
(40:34):
would be that they don't wantanything to do with me in my
kind. And yet, they have lent mevehicles for months at a time,
right? Like there's somethinghuman here that we want to make
not human. And say, like,actually, no, we have the way to
do it. And related to thisquestion of healing, and being
(40:59):
in healing relationships, itsounds like accepting the
reality of a social unconscious,also requires accepting your own
ongoing participation in thoseharmful things. We all walk
around with biases, right? Mostpeople accept that. But it's
another thing to say - and weall walk around actively
(41:21):
participating in these patternsand systems that continue to
perpetuate harm against peoplethat we care about and want to
help heal.
Karen Weisbard (41:29):
Exactly.
Tyson Conner (41:33):
So how are you supposed to do any good?
Karen Weisbard (41:37):
Well, for me, this is so hopeful. I mean, I
believe psychoanalysis has thepower to change the world. And I
sort of feel like we can bringthese understandings into all
kinds of communal and communitysettings. There's lots of really
(42:00):
interesting projects that arehappening by psychoanalyst, and
that are sort ofpsychoanalytically informed that
are bringing people together tosort of listen, how do you
listen to one another? How doyou recognize another person?
How do you sort of talk aboutthese issues in ways that aren't
(42:20):
like politically heated debatesthat get to our vulnerabilities,
and soften us and I sort of feellike, as we become aware of how
adhering we are to certainsocial structures that we just
can't let go of, you know, andin psychoanalysis those
(42:41):
structures might be, you know,you have to see somebody three,
four times a week in order forit to be psychoanalysis sort of
like, well, why does it have tobe that like, why and why are we
fighting about that? And is thatpromoting the work? And is it
making it accessible to morepeople? Because that's a pretty
systemic requirement thatsomebody come that often and pay
(43:04):
that much money? You know, Imean, there's just a lot of
restrictions in that. And so wecan sort of start to say, well,
what are we holding on to here?
What's so important? And if weloosen some of this systemic
structure, are we thinking thatmakes it less valuable? Or
dilutes its importance? Theseare some of the things you hear
(43:25):
in the world of psychoanalysis,people get really concerned. Or
why are we talking about socialissues at all? But for me, it
just feels like, No, this islike the future like this is
gonna blow our minds like thisis gonna blow the whole thing
open. And then Gosh, what if allof this were just so much more
accessible?
Tyson Conner (43:49):
Yeah, good question. What if it were?
Karen Weisbard (43:53):
I feel like the world would be a better place. I
don't know.
Tyson Conner (43:56):
Yeah. I mean, in some ways, that's part of my
hope, with projects like this.
You know, books are great. Andvideos are great. And podcasts
are great, especially the freeones, because people can access
some of the ideas and hopefullyhave a little bit of some of the
experience. I think, as you weretalking now, I was realizing
(44:18):
that fear feeling that I washaving that said like how to do
any good. It's interestingthat'sthe language I chose
because I think that part ofwhat this category and this way
of thinking about people does isit requires that you let go of
being able to be all good as anindividual, or all bad. Like
(44:42):
accepting one's participationand say, climate catastrophe,
just by driving a car and owningan iPhone and which like some of
those things are kind ofunavoidable to persist in like
modern society, you need asmartphone, more people own
(45:04):
smartphones than homes, like,people got to get around, we
don't have systems to get aroundthat don't burn fossil fuels,
and there are bunches andbunches of other ways that we're
all constantly participating ina system that's literally
killing our capacity to live onthe planet. And that doesn't
make us all a little minions ofSatan walking around.
Karen Weisbard (45:27):
Or I think what people fear is also that that
will just make me feel sodepressed and hopeless, because
what can I really do? Or whatdifference does it make? I'm a
big proponent of yes, that feelsvery bad. And if we just stay
(45:48):
feeling bad and guilty, then wereally aren't allowing ourselves
access to other emotions that wecould have here, which might be
okay, so I could probably driveless like, maybe I could walk to
the store instead of drive tothe store, if I am in somewhat
(46:09):
of the vicinity of that, andwhat could that do for my body?
And what could that do for theclimate? And again, back to the
interconnectedness like... wehave to guard against that
falling into a depressionfalling into the hopelessness,
where it just seems like what'sthe point, it's all gonna go to
hell in a handbasket anyway?
Which you can hear lots ofpeople feel that way and fall
(46:32):
into that place, and it's workto not do that, you know, it's
work to find a different side ofthe seesaw or to sort of step on
a different pedal at the momentto sort of be like, okay, yeah,
that's all true. It's not as ifthat's not true. And yet, how do
we resist that becoming, again,our whole identity,
Tyson Conner (46:59):
Right, if all that we can do is see the ways we're
participating in harm, then wecut ourselves off from the ways
that we're also participating inhealing. There's this idea from
group theories of like acybernetic system, and
cybernetic is a word that theListener will probably recognize
from like Sci Fi stuff - is thisdata like Star Trek? But as it
(47:22):
was explained to me, theoriginal idea of a cybernetic
system was a system where if youmake a change in one part of the
system, then the whole systemchanges in response. And it's
not like, you know, taking aboard out of a wall. It's like
taking a piece out of a bicycle,for a bicycle to work well, all
(47:46):
the pieces are in place. And ifyou've ever worked on a bicycle,
you know, if you make changes tothe length of the handlebars,
then that changes how you ridethe bike. I also heard recently
someone say that when thinkingabout, like, human behavior, it
makes a lot more sense to thinkof each person as a node in a
(48:06):
network, as opposed to thinkingof each person as an individual
making rational choices thatoptimize their best good.
Karen Weisbard (48:13):
And so that's back to the law of
interconnectedness. Right? Wetend to think of ourselves as
these isolated individuals, orthe mind is this isolated
entity. And I think there's alot more hope and value and
science that supports in fact,that is a fiction. That's not
(48:36):
true. That's not how we are.
There's great books right nowbeing written about the
communication between trees andforest, about the whole
interconnectedness of theunderstory, and how trees are a
community of family. And, youknow, that's the world we live
in, like, we're allinterconnected, so if we can
sort of hold that, the potentialfor healing and harm, but also
(49:02):
more wholeness is there.
Tyson Conner (49:09):
Yeah. And what I'm hearing you say is that to get
there, there's -- I'm sort ofcondensing a lot of our
conversation down to like a few,like, now I'm all on this chew
on this, like ideas. One ofwhich is, why is it so important
to believe that, that thing thatyou have the big reaction to,
why is it so important tobelieve that? Get contact with
(49:33):
your vulnerability around it,and then opening up awareness
within yourself to the ways thatthe systems around you are
impacting the way that you thinkand exist in the world and
holding that, in a way? I think- you haven't used this language
(49:54):
but - it sounds like thatrequires a little bit of grief.
Room to grieve the harm. Andalso open yourself up to all of
the ways that you are that...
that influences both ways. Thesocial unconscious, as I'm
hearing you describe it, itisn't just a thing that we're
all stuck in, and it's our doom.
(50:19):
It's something that we canchoose to interact within, kind
of like going back to thatbreath analogy, like knowing
that we can think about ourbreathing means that we can play
the flute. I'm thinking about, Idon't know if I said it on this
podcast before. But I think alot about Max Faber, the
sociologist who wrote theProtestant Work Ethic and the
(50:40):
Spirit of Capitalism, he talkedabout the concept of the iron
cage, the idea being that youhave this community that will
have a shared value, somethingimportant that they care about.
And then they'll build systemsaround that value. And in that
book, he traces starting withsort of Puritans and their value
(51:03):
of doing hard work as a show ofpiety towards God. And then the
systems that get built up aroundthat hard work, eventually
evolving into, I think hestopped his analysis somewhere
around Benjamin Franklin, butlike systems of loaning and
receiving debt, and working withcapital and maximizing wealth,
(51:24):
and he's kind of traced thisprocess. And he called this the
iron cage, where you buildsystems around a value, and then
you build systems around thatsystem. And then eventually, the
system becomes the value initself. And you're left with
these systems that are vast andcomplex, completely divorced
from any human value. And he wasa bit of a pessimist as a lot of
(51:47):
those early sociologists were,and he thought like, and then
you're stuck. It's the iron caseyou're stuck forever. But
something that I'm noticing inconversations like this one, and
in other spaces, is thatactually, like human beings, I
think, are driven more by ourshared values, sometimes than
our shared systems. Maybe notalways, but often enough, that I
(52:10):
think there is a drive to returnto those values, whether they're
values of connection or equalityor care, compassion, healing,
whatever it is. What I'm hearingyou say, is like becoming aware
of the iron cage, and the waysthat maybe you're still stuck in
it to a certain degree?
Karen Weisbard (52:29):
Well, back to maybe that the systems also are
regulating our values. And sowithout being aware of the
cultural systems that regulateour value, for instance, of
care. And then we think, Oh,well care is associated with
women, let's say or care isassociated with the home, so
(52:52):
that it's hard to embrace maybethat sense of a value of care
when we also have all thesecultural forces that are naming
that as something that belongsto a certain segment of people,
or a certain gender. Just it'ssort of back again, to like, how
(53:16):
do we expand the concentriccircle out to be like, Oh,
eating, a notion that we thinkof as value, not value laden,
such as care, or kindness might,in fact, be value laden and
highly regulated by systems thatsay, this is where you get to do
this, or this is where you getto do that, or you better not do
(53:37):
it there. And so it's sort ofthis back and forth, looking at
the concentric circles, how farout does that go? And then how
is that exerting its influence?
Back on the individual that theyagain, back to they can't even
know, right? That something thatseems so innocuous is so
prohibited,
Tyson Conner (54:00):
Right? Yeah, Hoo, boy, that idea is just opening
up lots of thoughts, just eveneven in how we write laws about
mental health care, and like howthose impact things and like,
the fact that we live in a statewhere children over the age of
(54:21):
13, are like, fully in charge oftheir own mental health care
decisions, and how that reflectsback to the value of children
being able to have their ownprivacy and agency as they enter
adolescence. But the problemsthat that causes for children
who aren't able to make thosedecisions for themselves, and
the fact that we live in a statethat has, you know, a rule that
(54:44):
any mental health facility foranyone else for the are under
the age of 18 cannot have lockeddoors, and how that's also a
value based on maybe we don'timprison children for being
sick, and how that means thatmany children have to go out of
state to get the care that theyneed. That, like, the systems
and the systems that I'mspeaking to are like laws that
(55:05):
you can look up online. Butthere's so many other systems
that are much more subtle andmuch more invisible than that,
and how they impact how we evenmake sense of what does it mean
to be kind to someone? Andthat's a big topic to think
about. So, listener, have funwith that. So we should probably
(55:29):
wrap up. Thank you for yourtime. On our way out, as we wrap
up, is there anything that wedidn't get to that you wanted to
make sure to include in ourconversation?
Karen Weisbard (55:42):
I guess the only other thing that I would want to
include is that when we talkedearlier about, like our
identity, or a sense ofsubjectivity, I think we all
know we are not comprised ofjust one thing. And that we have
many positions we occupy in ourlives. You know, I'm a
psychologist, I'm an analyst,I'm a mother, I'm a daughter,
(56:05):
you know, all of those thingsaffect how I see myself, how I
conduct myself in the world. AndI think it's just so helpful for
listeners to sort of be like,you're not just one thing. Your
identity and your subjectiveself is composed of so many,
sometimes competing, forces thatif we can try to have
(56:30):
compassion, for we're sort ofwrestling with a lot, even
though we're an individual, butwe're wrestling with a lot, as
is every single person aroundus. And it's not also clear cut.
And so when you feel confused,or when you feel like, why am I
feeling this way? Or, you know,it's probably for lots of really
(56:53):
good reasons.
Tyson Conner (56:56):
Yeah, that makes me think about our - we did an
episode on multiplicity of selfand multiple self states and all
that all those ideas, and thenalso, in conjunction with a
social unconscious concept. Andthese identity self categories
that we have, that we didn'teven know we were picking up
that were may be given to us,that we might start to wrestle
(57:18):
with just how, like, it's alwayshelpful to have a community to
work so that within to haveothers with you, and that
struggle. And I imagined forthis in particular, like for the
social unconscious stuff for ourawareness of our social
location, how helpful it can be,not just to accept oh, gosh, I'm
(57:41):
wrestling with a lot right here.
Oh, man. So are we all right? Ifyou're a man wrestling with your
own masculinity and taking itrealizing messages you've taken
in and but when you're allowedto be kind and when you're not,
maybe there are some other menwho also feel that way and might
be open to being vulnerableabout that. Similar ideas around
other identity markers. That wepick up in relationship, maybe
(58:06):
it's something that we canwrestle with and engage with
together in relationship.
Karen Weisbard (58:12):
Yes.
Tyson Conner (58:14):
That is hopeful.
That's nice. Lovely. Well,Karen, thank you. Thank you so
much for coming on the show. Isthere anywhere that you'd like
to be found, and the Listener,if they're interested in this,
we will have references to thefolks that you cited in the show
notes. If you have any specificbooks you want to call out? Or
(58:36):
if someone's like, wow, thatKaren lady, she's pretty cool.
Where can I hear more what shehas to say?
Karen Weisbard (58:41):
Well, I have a website, which is
www.KarenWeisbard.com. Some ofmy writings are accessible on
the website. I would like to puta plug in that, you know, this
(59:02):
is the work I love to do. I loveto teach, I love to help people
sort of become more aware oftheir practices and what they're
doing. But also, I would like tosort of move psychoanalysis and
psychoanalytic ideas intocommunity settings. So if any of
your listeners have or work incommunities, or agencies or
places where you're like, Ithink this would be a great
(59:24):
conversation to have in mycommunity, I would love the
opportunity to sort of be partof those kinds of conversations
too.
Tyson Conner (59:33):
Absolutely, so what definition of community?
Karen Weisbard (59:37):
Could be in your church, it could be in your
synagogue, in your workplace, itcould be at your school. I mean,
I just think there are so manysettings. It could be community
mental health. Where people wantto talk about this stuff. We're
all like trying to figure itout. You know, and I just think
that there's a lot of spacesthat could be created for people
(59:59):
to come together and hear aboutthese ideas and also start to
think about them in terms oftheir own individual and group
and family and communal spaces.
Tyson Conner (01:00:12):
Yeah. Thinking about vulnerability, I'm
thinking about Bob. Bob Bergmanhas said - Listener, he's an
analyst in Seattle - has saidthat the scariest thing that a
human being can do -- this verydefinitive statement, but it's
meant to be provocative. Thescariest thing for a human being
isn't death or death of a lovedone. It's going up to someone
and saying, why don't you and Igo do this and such together?
(01:00:34):
And having the other person say,No, I don't think we will. So
like, I'm aware that even inyour invitation, you're inviting
people into vulnerability.
You're saying like, hey, I wantto do this with you. Reach out
to me and ask, and like, oh,man, you're inviting
vulnerability from the word go.
This is work that requires suchbravery. But that is a soft
(01:00:57):
bravery. Which is giving me allthe willies, I like it.
Karen Weisbard (01:01:04):
So that's what I would like to say, like, please
reach out and not just to belike a client, but like, reach
out if you feel like thisconversation could be in your
community too.
Tyson Conner (01:01:15):
Absolutely. Well, links to all of your information
will be in the show notes, aswell as the books that you
recommend and your website. Andyeah, thank you again, this has
been delightful.
Karen Weisbard (01:01:27):
Thank you.
Tyson Conner (01:01:31):
Special thanks to Dr. Karen Weisbard, Karen can be
found at her website,KarenWeisbard.com. link in the
show notes. Also in the shownotes for this episode, you'll
find links to a few bookswritten by some of the theorists
that Karen cited in today'sepisode. The topic that we
discussed is broad and comes upand touches on a lot of areas of
(01:01:54):
psychoanalytic theory andthought, but I thought that
these three books would be agood place to start for anyone
who's interested in diving alittle bit deeper into this
complex, deeply interconnectedcategory. The relational psych
Podcast is a production ofrelational psych, a mental
(01:02:15):
health clinic providing depthoriented psychotherapy and
psychological testing in personin Seattle and virtually
throughout Washington state. Ifyou're interested in
psychotherapy or psychologicaltesting for yourself or a family
member, links to our contactinformation are in the show
notes. If you are apsychotherapist and would like
to be a guest on the show or alistener with a suggestion for
someone you'd like us tointerview, You can contact me at
(01:02:37):
podcast@relationalpsych.group.
The Relational Psych Podcast ishosted and produced by me Tyson
Connor. Sam Claney is ourexecutive producer with
technical support by Ally Rayeand the team at VirtualAlly.
Carly Claney is our CEO. Ourmusic is by Ben Lewis. We love
you buddy.
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