June 23, 2025 • 39 mins
Hour 1- Dr. Wendy is talking Mental Health and the Bombing in Iran, the Materialist Movie, What colleges should be teaching about relationships and she is offering her Wendy wisdom with her drive by makeshift relationship advice. It's all on KFIAM-640!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty. You have
Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show. You know, I love to talk about the
science of love. Not a lot of love in the air,
bombs in the air. Instead, we're going to talk about
(00:23):
how what's going on internationally and on our news channels
it might be impacting our mental health. Also, should universities
be teaching students how to love the science of love?
And later in the show, my take on the new
romantic comedy. The material lists some things they got really
(00:45):
right and a few things they didn't get wrong but
they forgot. I want to welcome Sam. It's good to
see you, Samseyah. I'm usually having rat Wohl there. Yeah, no,
I took over. I'm here. Hi, fabulous, Hi, and you
have someone working with you. Hi, Nikki, she's not on
my good How are you, Nicky. Nice to meet you,
to see you look good. Thank you well, thank you.
(01:07):
That really means a lot of a woman of a
certain age. Heather Brooker. Always good to see you, my dear. Hi,
you too happy to be here. You've had a busy
couple of days, I'm sure, and you know there's going
to be a moment. I swear, No, I don't swear
it's not really going to happen. But I said to myself,
you know, I prepared all this wonderful content to talk
(01:28):
about on my show, and I bet you I'm going
to say, hey, we have to go to the newsroom
with Heather Brooker because something's happening.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I would not be surprised.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
But let's knock on wood just in case. Let's knock
on wood. Because I'm a nice, easy Sunday evening, right,
and plenty of my listeners want to hear more about
the science of love. Let us just as a side note,
I want to hear more about what you think about
the materialist. Yes, I'm very excited for that. I went
with a group of girlfriends because I had to. So
what happened is I got called from all these reporters
like on Newsweek and Yahoo and whatever to comment on it,
(01:58):
and I hadn't seen it. So I his friand like
watching trailers and reading synopsis and trying to give them
some smart sounding things, and then I went to see
it and I was like, Oh, there's so much more
I could be saying. I'll be saying it a little while.
But first we do have to talk about our mental
health after the bombing in Iran. First of all, I
(02:18):
have a feeling that I like to call not like
to call I have to call cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance.
I have a great deal of empathy and compassion. And
while I am very patriotic, I am an American in
some ways as an immigrant, I feel like I'm more
American than Americans because I actually had to stand up
I think George Bush was in charge then, and to
(02:38):
swear to you know, raise take up arms for my country.
There were words I had to say that you know,
many Americans are just born you have to but they
don't never have to actually take an oath, and I
had to take an oath as to become a patriotic American.
I'm also a Canadian, so therefore I have great empathy
(03:01):
and compassion for what's been going on in the last
six months or so in Canada. And I also have many,
many friends who are Persian and In fact, just last
week I spoke at the Persian or the Iranian Jewish
Iranian Association. Blah blah blah blah. There are a lot
of words, but it's a beautiful ballroom, and I met
(03:22):
some fabulous women and so many k if I listeners.
They came up to me and said, oh my god,
I love your show. It was really wonderful. My therapist
of twenty seven years on and off is Persian. When
I hear a Persian accent, because you know, therapy is
kind of like reparenting. It is like hearing my mother talk.
(03:43):
You know, I have this warm affinity and I asked her,
you know, does she have relatives over there? She worried,
and she said, everybody in my country is my brother
and sister. And that is how I feel about Canadians too,
and that is how I feel about Americans. So this
is why I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance, and that is the
ability to hold opposing feelings at the same time in
(04:06):
your head. You see, many people feel like they can't
stand the feeling of being on the fence and not knowing,
so they grab one feeling and hold it tight and
literally reject the other. Feeling when it's okay to feel
it all. And even when war isn't in our backyard,
(04:27):
it can certainly be alive in our minds. It can
quietly impact our mental health. So when the news broke
last night about the bombing in Iran, many Americans and
definitely including me, turned to our phones. We were scrolling, refreshing,
we were doomed, scrolling. Even this morning, I was up
(04:48):
there going. I kept saying, Julio, my husband. He's on
with Farreed Zakaria and CBS. Margaret Brenner, by the way,
she's so official. I love her. I love her. She
had Marco Rubio, and he was trying to not answer
our questions, and I kept saying, go to Fox, see
what they're saying, see what they're saying. I want to
see it. I need to see every side of a
question and a situation. I really think of myself as
(05:12):
you know, I hate saying right or left or centralist,
none of that. I think of myself as a curious
mind who wants as many different facts and opinions as
I can get a hold of. So anyway, there was
a lot of scrolling, refreshing, doom scrolling, turning, on TV's
turning channels, et cetera. According to the American Psychological Association,
about seventy percent of US adults report that news in
(05:35):
general causes them significant stress. In the case of war,
even far away wars, that stress can manifest in very
real ways. It can impact your sleep, It can increase
your anxiety, your irritability. If you are susceptible depression, it
can bring on feelings of depression. For people who have
had past trauma, this can reactivate post traumatic stress symptoms.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
The word for it is vicarious trauma.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
It's where you feel traumatized, but not by the direct experience,
but by witnessing or hearing the suffering of others. And
I'm telling you, with this twenty four hour media coverage
and all the social media clips and all people arguing
back and forth with their opinions, it's no wonder that
our nervous systems cannot find peace today. Before I came
(06:29):
to work, I was feeling tired because I took a
killer studio MDR class. If you have never taken Studio MDR.
They don't pay me to say anything. I'm just saying
it's the best workout on the planet. But you're exhausted afterwards.
I laid down, and my heart rate in a laying
down position. I don't know if you know, the average
heart rate of a human at rash should be between
sixty and seventy beats a minute. I'm in pretty good shape.
(06:50):
I wake up in the morning, minds around fifty five.
I like that. I laid down and it was seventy
eight seventy eight, so I took a whole bunch of
deep breaths. I got it down to sixty eight. The
funny little aside, I was watching my Apple Watch. It
was taking my heart. Right as I was doing my
deep breathing, I thought about Julio, and I thought about
how much I love him, and it's shot back up again.
(07:14):
Not because he brings me stress, but I think love
does make your heart go bit or bad or even
five years later. Anyway. We need to do this for
our mental health. We need to limit our exposure. We
need to turn off all those AutoPlay videos as much
as possible. I mentioned earlier as I was briefly on
the Chris Merrill Show, we have to learn to name
(07:35):
our feelings. When you can give your feelings a name,
it takes away the power. And also instead of saying
I am mad, say I'm feeling mad. Big difference. One
is your whole identity and the other is huh, that's
a feeling, it's a messenger. Wonder what I should do
with that? Right? How can I not turn that into
(07:56):
negative behavior? Hey, there are things you can do that
are good that will relieve your stress. Donate to humanitarian organizations,
Write to your elected officials if you have an opinion,
attend a piece for vigil, do something that helps other people.
And like I did today, use some grounding practices deep breathing, nature, walks, prayer,
(08:21):
hugging your loved ones, hugging your pets. Right, so, even
though the bombs are falling thousands of miles away, I
know those shockwaves can ripple through all of our minds.
I want you to be gentle with yourself this week
and everyone in your family. Forgive people stress. Response isn't weakness, Okay,
(08:43):
it's really a sign of empathy. When we come back,
we're going to have one of my mentors and role models,
doctor Kevin Vulcan from California State University, Channel Islands. He's
got some things to say about how war. He actually
teaches a course on Nazi psychology, but how war actually
(09:06):
helps leaders gain more love and more power. Let's talk
about this phenomenon and a few other things before we
come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh
Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty. You've got Doctor
Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show.
(09:27):
As we continue to talk a little bit about our
mental health in the face of the bombing in Iran,
I wanted to invite on the show someone who I
consider to be a mentor and someone who I really respect.
You've heard him before, psychology professor doctor Kevin Vulcan from
California State University, Channel Islands. Hi, doctor Kevin, how are.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
You, Hi, Wendy, how are you doing good?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I know you teach some things about leaders, the psychology
of leaders and how followers follow them. We were talking earlier,
and you have a particular take on what's going on
and how it can actually help the leaders of both countries.
Can you explain that.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Well? I think you know, from a psychology point of view,
you know there's certain psychological patterns that tend to play
out over and over and over again anytime we have
conflicts like this, and these things have been going on
for a long time, especially with Iran and the United
States and Iran and Israel, and I think knowing those
and being aware of those can be something that can
(10:30):
be helpful.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And what are the things that have been going.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
On, Well, there's a lot of you know, again, there's
a lot of external things in the world, actual real
life things that are out in the real world that
are you know, important concerns and things people should be
thinking about. And people have varying opinions on those kinds
of things. You know, whether we should have bombed Iran
or that we shouldn't have, or was this the right
time to do it, or should we have waited and
(10:53):
tried diplomacy. Those are all real world concerns. But from
the point of view of psychology, you know, we have
a lot of things that we call and say ecology projection,
where we take all the things that we don't like
about ourselves and we project them onto the other guy
or the other group, and the other group does the
same thing to us simultaneously, and then we have ourselves
mutually projecting these negative things on each other, and that
(11:15):
allows us to you humanize the other, to make the
other group somehow, you know, a target for violence, those
kind of things. And I think, you know, given the
history of Iran and America, there's a lot of that
going on. There's certainly a lot of that going on
with Israel and Iran and other places as well. And
I think one thing to be on the outlook for,
looking out for is the idea of, you know, how,
(11:37):
you know, to pull back those projections. Can we look
at the situation going on without projecting our bad stuff,
things that we don't like about ourselves on to the
other person. And this is the job that I think diplomats,
you know, have to take on. And this is very
hard because the diplomats act from a kind of rational
actor model. You know.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I want to interrupt you to help, but to give
people like firm example, you're talking about projection, and I'm
hearing the theory of Carl Jung's shadow. When I was
an undergrad in psychology, our teacher had a really great
little exercise. So I'm going to teach you about Carl
Jung's shadow today and what I want you to do
is take out a piece of paper, and I want
you to write the name of somebody who you absolutely despise,
(12:19):
somebody you completely hate. It might be a coworker, a friend,
a family member, but somebody you hate. And then I
want you to list all the things you hate about them.
And then once we've done that, she said, now I'd
like you to erase the name at the top of
the page and write your own name in, because that's
your shadow.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a good exercise.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
And in union psychology to call it a shadow in,
you know, in other psychology you might call it a projection,
or it could be a negative projection. Can also be
a positive projection too, right, But then you get these
kind of dynamics going on. I think one thing for
diplomats is to not think of things rationally. If we
do this, they'll do this, but also to own their
(13:01):
own projection, to own their own shadow, you know, and
then go into the then go into the negotiation. That's
very difficult to do. And this is where I think
psychologists have a role to play in international relations and negotiations.
I wish when they got together with the Iranians, and
the Israelis and the Americans and then whoever else is
spoken at. My wish would be they would have somebody
(13:22):
who had some psychological training in the room with them
to help with this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, and you say they should become aware of their
own shadow. But the truth is, if you have what
it takes to become a national leader, you probably don't
have a lot of insight because it is the narcissism
and the alligator skin that helps you get there. Right.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
So, yes, yes, there aren't.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Many empathetic leaders, even though their job is to protect us.
It's interesting, huh.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, some narcissists, not all, but some narcissists, you know,
they they are very good at projecting their negative stuff
on other people. And then what they do is they
can they can rally the people around this stuff. And
you know, in in in the book that I just
wrote on human aggression, war and genocide, you know, we
talk about two things chosen glories and chosen traumas and
(14:12):
show glories where you have some kind of national thing,
we did this great thing. You know, a good example
would be landing on the moon something like that. You know,
we did just great things in nation. We all rally
around that, and then the other thing would be some
kind of trauma that's happened. You know, we got bombed
or you know, a good example in America's nine to eleven,
you know, and we all rallied around that, and it
brought us all together. And a lot of times, leaders,
(14:34):
especially in arcisistic leaders will will will use these things
to rally people now, especially when they're having a little
bit of trouble. So one way you could look at
and maybe I'm you know, I'm speculating here to tell
you with a grain of salt. But one way you
could look at the Uranian thing is, you know, I'm
I'm running the United States, I'm the president. You know,
my polls are not doing very well. I'm done some
(14:54):
deeply unpopular policies with regard to immigration, and you know,
you know, disappear ring people et cetera, et cetera, who
aren't illegal immigrants, all this kind of stuff going on.
And you know, but if I start a war with Iran,
now I've done this great thing. We've had this great
military victory, and this is a chosen glory, right, we
can all rally around the chosen glory. Then my guess
(15:15):
is what will happen and then just speculating again, Iran
does some kind of retaliation. Americans are killed, and now
the leader uses that to rally people around the chosen trauma.
And I think, unfortunately that is something that I would
guess there's a very big possibility of that happening. And
you'll see if that does happen, that it will be
an attempt to rally everybody around the chosen trauma. The
(15:38):
chosen traumas are more powerful than the chosen glories.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Oh yeah, I think of nine to eleven. Now, it
brought us all together over this trauma, right, we didn't
choose it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
And yeah, yep, and it rallies people together. And then
guess what everybody forgets about the immigration policies and the
other things that are deeply popular, you know, with the
American public right now. And you know, that's one way
you can look at this, and you know, you know,
if you look back in history, you know, starting wars
has been a way that you know, presidents and other
leaders have used to deal with these kinds of you know,
(16:08):
deeply unpopular you know, times when the population isn't like them,
or the economy's gone bad go out and start a war,
and it's you know, you can ramp up production, you
can help the economy, you know. So you know, if
you're a little paranoid like I can be some time,
you start thinking about these kind of things, you know,
this is a you know, you've got a crisis, say
you go out and start a war, and that seems
to take care of it. The problem that we have,
(16:30):
we saw this with the Bush administration in the Iraq War,
is that it doesn't work very well in the Middle East.
These strategies have not worked very well in the Middle East,
and people who have gotten involved in wars I think
I think a lot of the conflicts are are very historical.
They they they they They've been around for a long time,
(16:50):
you know, I mean, you know, back to Biblical times
if you want to go back to that far, but
certainly back to when the British were involved. And yeah,
you can you can trace back bad things in the
world role usually where the British were around. You can
chase a lot of stuff in the Middle East back
to the British and you know, it's been going on
for a long time, and you know, these are deeply
intrinsed things. You know, you have lots of you know,
(17:11):
religion is involved with it. You know, the a lot
of these are existential questions for the Israelis, existential question
you know, of their own existence and their right to
exist and have their own homeland and these kinds of things.
Then you have you know light likewise, you know Palestinians
and other people, and so I think, you know, Americans,
we don't understand the psychology of what's going on in
(17:32):
the Middle East very well. And I think we get
into these things thinking, you know, like an American, like
irrational American, and then we realize there's a lot of
stuff below the surface that we haven't dealt with.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
In fact, we have a very short period of time left,
doctor Vulcan. But I do want to ask you this,
what role does religiosity pay in play in aggression? You know,
it's one thing if you're fighting over land or fighting
over resources like oil, But when someone has a religious conviction,
how does that change the game.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
My bias is that I think leaders will used religion
to rally people around and to use it as a
kind of a point of identity that we identify as
a certain religion. Therefore, if somebody says something against our religion,
we need to go out and get them. We again
project onto them. I think if you talk about just
religious people in general, like just regular people, civilians living
(18:23):
in whatever country, everybody just you know, it's kind of
like the same. Everybody wants, you know, the best for
their family. They want to raise their family, want to
be comfortable, they want to be able to have a
spiritual dimension of their life. So I separate that kind
of religion from the religion that the leaders use to
rally people to get them their negative projections onto other people.
(18:44):
And so that's how I'm seeing religion, how it plays
out as a form of getting people to put their
negative projections on another group. And I don't think that's
especially healthy, and I don't think that's especially what most
religions actually advocate. If you actually read Christianity, read Islam, it's.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
All about love and family and caring. Yes, doctor Kevin
will can thank you so much from psychology professor from
California State University, Channel Islands. We'll keep close to you
in the next few weeks as things transpire because you
always have so much insight. Thank you very much for
being with us.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Thank you, Wendy. Always good to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Coming up next, I'd like to turn things if we can,
to the science of love. I did go to see
the movie The Materialist this week. It's the latest romantic
comedy and I've got some things to say about it.
Let's talk about it when we come back.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
KFI AM six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
This is the.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I want to remind everybody. I'm
a psychology professor at cal State Channel Islands, and I
am obsessed with the science of love. I've written three
books on relationship. I'm actually deep into my fourth book
writing it right now. I wrote a dissertation on attachment theory,
and I am obsessed with the science of love. So
(20:11):
when a romantic comedy comes out and reporters are calling
me wanting me to comment on it, I have to
see it. You should see it too. It's cute, Okay,
It's called The Materialist and it's in theaters right now.
So the story is very simple. A New York City matchmaker,
she herself is kind of emotionally guarded. She's looking at
her clients as pieces of meat, in the sense of
(20:32):
she's looking at, you know, how tall they are, how
much money they make, how old they are, how she
can match them up, et cetera. But she meets a
billionaire who she calls a unicorn. He's so perfect and
he's totally into her. But then she meets her free
spirited ex an actor who's a waiter. The lead characters
(20:55):
are played by Dakota Johnson. That's Don Johnson's daughter. Do
you know that? Seans and Pedro Pascal. Let's hear a
little clip from the movie Sam. Clip from the movie
here it comes.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Are you single?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I'm a matchmaker, Give me a call if you want
to meet somebody. I deserve someone who fulfills all of
my criteria. Nothing over twenty PM. I don't want someone
who likes cats. I'm trying to settle my promise. You're
going to marry the love of your life. How many
marriages are you responsible for?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Now?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Lucy nine? If the girl asks for as all drink
waters fine with a salary over five hundred grand, always
miss you deliver? Okay, So basically this group gets together,
it becomes a love triangle, and the big question that
(21:53):
America is asking is should she take the billionaire with
all the money or should she take this ex boyfriend
apparently they've been together five years, who she has deep
feelings of love for, but he's still in an apartment
with two roommates and living like a grungey twenty something
in his thirties because he's still trying to make it
(22:15):
as an actor. So here's my take on the movie
and love in general. The movie did an excellent job
of describing the social pieces of love. You see, love
is partly biological, it's partly psychological, and it's partly social.
Social are the things that are in your dating app profile.
(22:39):
You know where you live, what your zip code is,
how you like to eat, are you vegan? Are you
a carnivore? What your politics are? Are you conservative or liberal?
How educated you are, where you went to school. This
is part of your social world. And this is not
the full picture of love. Now it can influence love,
of course it can. Certain traits are more attractive. When
(23:00):
men make more money, they tend to be more attractive
to women. Listen, if you're out there, ladies, and you
say you're not a gold digger. Let me ask you this.
Let's say you meet some identical twins. They're gorgeous guys.
One of them's a waiter and one's a billionaire. Who
are you gonna marry? I promise you it's going to
be the billionaire. Everybody, every woman is a gold digger
(23:22):
somewhere in there. All right, let's talk a little bit
about the biological piece. So here's this matchmaker in New York.
She's trying to fix up all these people, and she's
wondering why they don't connect because on paper it looks
so good. It's everything they wanted on their checklist, but
they don't have the chemistry. Because love is partly biological.
(23:43):
Love has to do with pheromones. How somebody smells. Think
about it, the best sex you ever had in your life,
Think back of they smell delicious, didn't they? They smelled
absolutely delicious because you had a different disparate immune system
in your ancestral past immune system, genes expressed themselves as
(24:06):
body odor, as pheromones, and you pick it up. And
so that means mother nature is saying, hey, if you
procreate with this person, you'll actually make really fit babies.
So pheromones are part of it, but there are other
things too. Let's talk about psychology. So in our early life,
(24:27):
we have certain kinds of developmental things that happened to
us that might be sexual triggers, triggers for arousal, you know.
I remember one time meeting a guy and as we're
walking home from our first date, he picked up my hand.
He looked at my nail polish and he said, I'm
so glad you don't have bright red nails, because that
(24:47):
would have been a deal breaker for me. And I'm thinking, really,
this guy's going to be this superficial that the color
of my nails are going to be the thing that
turns them off. Then later, once we got a little intimate,
I asked him about it again. He told me a
story that when he was in middle school, a teacher
was walking down the aisle, his middle school, female teacher,
and she stopped and planted her hand on his desk
(25:09):
to make a point. While she's talking to the rest
of the class, she spread her fingers out. She had
lovely light pink or a French manicure or something, and
he accidentally, because it's spontaneous, folks men cannot control their erection.
He got a spontaneous erection. He was mortified. He was
so embarrassed, and so he was trying to hide it
under the desk and he just stared at her fingernails, surprise, surprise,
(25:34):
for the rest of his life. He has a thing
for French manicures or light ballet pink nails. Right, this
would be an environmental trigger, So we have to think
about that part of psychology. We also have to think
about our attachment style. Our attachment style is partly genetic,
and it's partly what happens in the first three years
(25:56):
of life with those genes. So some people are more
angry in their relationships. They want to know, They want
to know where the person is. Why aren't they texting more?
Why aren't they calling more? They had a lot of
abandonment anxiety. Other people are more emotionally avoidant. They can
obtain sex, but emotional intimacy is very difficult for them.
(26:16):
And then there are people like my wonderful husband Julio,
who has a secure attachment style. They can give and
receive love comfortably. They have enough stealth, esteem and backbone
to say when they're wrong. They know how to resolve conflict.
I can say that I used to have an anxious,
ambivalent attachment style, but after years and years of therapy
(26:39):
and probably attaching so securely with my children, I change
my attachment style and you can too. And so now
I really believe one of the reasons why I met
the love of my life later in life was because
I developed a secure attachment. So the movie was great,
but it missed some beats. It was one note just
(27:00):
talked about the social parts of love. Speaking of love
and the things that I just talked to you about.
Do you think love should be a course that you
should take in university and that it should be compulsory. Well,
some universities are actually doing this. Let's talk about it
when we come back. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show and k I Am six forty live everywhere
(27:22):
on the iHeartRadio app. I Am six forty. You have
Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show. I'd like to welcome my TikTok audience. If
you want to come in the studio and see what
we're doing here, just log onto TikTok my handle is
at Dr Wendy Walsh. In a few minutes, I'm going
to be taking your calls, your relationship questions. The number
(27:44):
is one eight hundred five two zero one five three four.
That's one eight hundred five two zero one five three four.
If you're new to my show, remember I'm not a therapist.
I'm a psychology professor. But i have a lifetime of
wisdom to share with you, and I've written three books
on relationships and wrote a dissertation on attachment theory. All right, First,
(28:08):
I want to talk about should colleges and universities be
teaching the science of love as a prerequisite? I mean,
would you take a college course that was designed to
help you recognize the red flags and love's race course? Well, actually,
one major university just launch a comprehensive course like this
(28:29):
for gen z to help them navigate intimacy, from DMS
on social media to working the dating apps. I think
we actually need this more than we have ever needed
something like this. I mean, think about it. You're nineteen
years old, twenty, you're away at college. I teach developmental psychology.
(28:53):
It is a time that Eric Erickson, the famous developmental psychologist,
called time of intimacy versus isolation. Friendships are so important
to mental health and building healthy, secure romantic relationships are
so important, but it's just so difficult in today's times. Well,
(29:17):
the latest university to create a course is actually in
India and Delhi University. Starting next year, they're going to
offer in their psychology department a course called Negotiating Intimate Relationships.
I love the word negotiating because I think it's all
about negotiation. They're going to help people recognize the red
flags of toxic love, which is great. They're going to include,
(29:41):
you know, real stuff like Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love,
John Bowlby's attachment theory of love. They're going to get
into the dynamics of intimate partner violence. So I think
it is a great thing that these kinds of courses
are being offered for good reason. I want you to
(30:01):
think about the numbers. According to the Centers for Disease Control,
one in three women and one in four men will
experience some form of physical violence from their intimate partner
in their lifespan. It's amazing, right, more than half of
all female homicide victims are killed by the person they
(30:24):
love and of course, America has one of the highest
divorce rates in the world, and preventing divorce is often well.
I think it's mostly about relationship skills, but it's also
about learning how to choose the right partner. So what
Delhi University is doing is not completely unique. Here in
(30:46):
Los Angeles, UCLA offers a class called the Science of
Love in its Psychology department, and they get into attachment
and attraction and how to form a healthy relationship. That
it's all about the early stages, right. I remember years
ago I was actually in a business meeting with some
business lawyers and I was putting together a business plan
(31:09):
and I said, well, it doesn't matter because we're not
actually making any money yet. And this lawyer said, all
the biggest mistakes happen at the very beginning of the partnership.
You know that applies to romantic love too, if you
set up a system from the very beginning, and then
it's very difficult to change the system later. I should
(31:32):
tell you that NYU, New York University, and Cornell University
have also had seminars on dating and digital relationships in
their sociology and psychology department. Stanford even had a course
called love as a force for social justice. I love
that one, connecting interpersonal love with community healing. But these
(31:54):
really are exceptions, and I really think that more and
more universities should be teaching this practical thing. You know,
we criticize high schools for teaching kids math like algebra
and calculus, but never how to balance a checkbook, or
how to make an annual budget, or some basic rules
of finance personal finance. Right, we don't teach personal finance.
(32:15):
And yet in psychology we're teaching all these grand theories
about how to be a great therapist, but not like
real practical news you can use. I should say I'm
a little different because no matter what I'm teaching, I
throw in elements of the science of love, whether it's
evolutionary psychology or in developmental psychology, I do get into
Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love, et cetera. So if
(32:38):
you take my courses, I definitely talk a lot about it.
So if you can't take a course like this, what
can you do to educate yourself on the science of
love or what kinds of skills can you acquire so
that you can have a healthier love life? Well? I've
said this over and over. Everybody should know their romantic
(33:01):
attachment style. Okay, you can go online. You can take
a test. My favorite if you google the words Chris
Frehley fr l e Y. He's one of the world's
most renowned researchers in attachment and it's continuing to collect data.
You google the words Chris Frehley attachment test and you
will come up with a very reliable attachment test that
you can take. You can take, you can learn and
(33:25):
understand how important boundaries are. I want to say this
about boundaries. Boundaries are not about putting up a wall
and saying, like an ultimatum, if you don't do this,
I'm gonna do that. Boundaries are just a little fence
around yourself and if they get crossed, you say no,
(33:46):
I'm sorry, that gate is closed. This is not okay.
So you need and every boundary does need a consequence.
You can't say, don't talk to me in that tone
of voice. That's not a boundary. A boundary is I'm sorry.
That tone of voice doesn't feel helpful to me. So
(34:07):
if you continue that, I'm going to have to leave
the room. And then you do a consequence and you
actually have to leave. Right, that's a boundary. Learning about
boundaries and how to set them. Also watching for red flags,
very like my whole brand, social media, my podcast, my
radio show. Really, I'm talking about red flags all the time.
(34:31):
Sometimes when people express jealousy early in a relationship, the
other person interprets it as love and caring. Well, they
must they're really into me because they're so jealous, right, No, no, no,
This can be a real indicator that this person might
be controlling, manipulative, and maybe even violent in the future. Right,
I mean a little bit of jealousy. Like my sweet
(34:55):
Julio when we've start first started dating, I told him
too much about I mean too much for a male
sexual psychology to hear too early on. I told him
too much about my past, and so he would always
use the term I have historical jealousy with you. I
have historical sexual jealousy with you, right, And it was
sort of a joke and it's cute, but that's different
(35:17):
from him going where are you going? Who are you with?
I don't like that, right, Although I have to tell
you this funny story I actually made who I didn't
make him. You can't make anybody feel something, but I
was aware that he was going to experience feeling of jealousy.
So because we've been together five years, I milked it
just a little bit. We were out at a wine
(35:38):
bar and there was a dude over there who kind
of waved at me, and he said, who's that? And
I said, oh, this is this guy. He always talks
to me when you're not here. And he goes really
and then I said, in fact, I'm going to go
say hello. I wasn't really going to say hello. I
was going to walk past this guy to this other
woman and say hello to her. But I I tricked him.
(36:00):
His face looked startled, and I got up and walked
past like, of course, ignored the dude. I didn't stop
and flirt with him, but it was just my little
And then I came back and I gave hul you
a big kiss. I go scared you, didn't I. It's
also important if we're talking about learning the science of love,
(36:22):
to understand rejection. Every human on the planet experience his
rejection at some point in their love life. Everybody, right,
rejection is not rejection of you. It's just a redirection.
I always say, you are not bad. It was just
(36:44):
a bad match. Right, you are good for somebody. I
promise you you are right. Sometimes rejection is protection. Right,
if you meet somebody and they're looking for a short
term relationship and you're looking for a long term relationship,
and they have the kindness and the insight to realize
(37:07):
they would hurt you if they hung around, this is
good news that they rejected you. You know, I have
a friend actually who met a guy. They dated for
I don't know, I think like six or eight months,
and then you know, he almost goes. I mean it
was sort of light dating whatever, but he kind of
he waned her off pretty fast. He was gone. So
(37:28):
like a year later, they run into each other at
the grocery store and he's now flirting with her, wants
to get together, and she her boundaries are up like this,
because you know, I gave you six months of my
life and now a year later, here you are. Whatever.
He said, just have one drink with me. I just
want to talk to you. So she consented, and he said, listen,
I had just moved to town from across the country.
(37:51):
I didn't know anybody. I had just gone through a divorce.
I met you, and I said to myself. This is
serious girlfriend material, this is somebody to spend a life with.
But I knew I was ready. I knew I was already.
I needed to sew my wild oats a bit in
this town. And he said, if you will give me
(38:12):
a chance, I will tell you I'm ready. Now. Well
loved his insight. Anyway, they've been married twelve years, so
all good.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
So when I was in college, I took economics, I
took journalism. I major in journalism. I took a film
studies class. But nobody ever offered me the science of love.
This is something I learned myself, and I should say
I am working on a new book and hopefully you
all will buy and it will explain all the science
(38:42):
of love. All right, when we come back, I am
going to be taking your relationship calls. The number. Write
it down one eight hundred five two zero one five
three four. That's one eight hundred five to zero one KFI.
Call me with your relationship questions. I'm happy to weigh
in with my life wisdom, my knowledge of the science
of love. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on
(39:04):
KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty. You have
Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show. You know, I love to talk about the
science of love. Not a lot of love in the air,
bombs in the air. Instead, we're going to talk about
(00:23):
how what's going on internationally and on our news channels
it might be impacting our mental health. Also, should universities
be teaching students how to love the science of love?
And later in the show, my take on the new
romantic comedy. The material lists some things they got really
(00:45):
right and a few things they didn't get wrong but
they forgot. I want to welcome Sam. It's good to
see you, Samseyah. I'm usually having rat Wohl there. Yeah, no,
I took over. I'm here. Hi, fabulous, Hi, and you
have someone working with you. Hi, Nikki, she's not on
my good How are you, Nicky. Nice to meet you,
to see you look good. Thank you well, thank you.
(01:07):
That really means a lot of a woman of a
certain age. Heather Brooker. Always good to see you, my dear. Hi,
you too happy to be here. You've had a busy
couple of days, I'm sure, and you know there's going
to be a moment. I swear, No, I don't swear
it's not really going to happen. But I said to myself,
you know, I prepared all this wonderful content to talk
(01:28):
about on my show, and I bet you I'm going
to say, hey, we have to go to the newsroom
with Heather Brooker because something's happening.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I would not be surprised.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
But let's knock on wood just in case. Let's knock
on wood. Because I'm a nice, easy Sunday evening, right,
and plenty of my listeners want to hear more about
the science of love. Let us just as a side note,
I want to hear more about what you think about
the materialist. Yes, I'm very excited for that. I went
with a group of girlfriends because I had to. So
what happened is I got called from all these reporters
like on Newsweek and Yahoo and whatever to comment on it,
(01:58):
and I hadn't seen it. So I his friand like
watching trailers and reading synopsis and trying to give them
some smart sounding things, and then I went to see
it and I was like, Oh, there's so much more
I could be saying. I'll be saying it a little while.
But first we do have to talk about our mental
health after the bombing in Iran. First of all, I
(02:18):
have a feeling that I like to call not like
to call I have to call cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance.
I have a great deal of empathy and compassion. And
while I am very patriotic, I am an American in
some ways as an immigrant, I feel like I'm more
American than Americans because I actually had to stand up
I think George Bush was in charge then, and to
(02:38):
swear to you know, raise take up arms for my country.
There were words I had to say that you know,
many Americans are just born you have to but they
don't never have to actually take an oath, and I
had to take an oath as to become a patriotic American.
I'm also a Canadian, so therefore I have great empathy
(03:01):
and compassion for what's been going on in the last
six months or so in Canada. And I also have many,
many friends who are Persian and In fact, just last
week I spoke at the Persian or the Iranian Jewish
Iranian Association. Blah blah blah blah. There are a lot
of words, but it's a beautiful ballroom, and I met
(03:22):
some fabulous women and so many k if I listeners.
They came up to me and said, oh my god,
I love your show. It was really wonderful. My therapist
of twenty seven years on and off is Persian. When
I hear a Persian accent, because you know, therapy is
kind of like reparenting. It is like hearing my mother talk.
(03:43):
You know, I have this warm affinity and I asked her,
you know, does she have relatives over there? She worried,
and she said, everybody in my country is my brother
and sister. And that is how I feel about Canadians too,
and that is how I feel about Americans. So this
is why I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance, and that is the
ability to hold opposing feelings at the same time in
(04:06):
your head. You see, many people feel like they can't
stand the feeling of being on the fence and not knowing,
so they grab one feeling and hold it tight and
literally reject the other. Feeling when it's okay to feel
it all. And even when war isn't in our backyard,
(04:27):
it can certainly be alive in our minds. It can
quietly impact our mental health. So when the news broke
last night about the bombing in Iran, many Americans and
definitely including me, turned to our phones. We were scrolling, refreshing,
we were doomed, scrolling. Even this morning, I was up
(04:48):
there going. I kept saying, Julio, my husband. He's on
with Farreed Zakaria and CBS. Margaret Brenner, by the way,
she's so official. I love her. I love her. She
had Marco Rubio, and he was trying to not answer
our questions, and I kept saying, go to Fox, see
what they're saying, see what they're saying. I want to
see it. I need to see every side of a
question and a situation. I really think of myself as
(05:12):
you know, I hate saying right or left or centralist,
none of that. I think of myself as a curious
mind who wants as many different facts and opinions as
I can get a hold of. So anyway, there was
a lot of scrolling, refreshing, doom scrolling, turning, on TV's
turning channels, et cetera. According to the American Psychological Association,
about seventy percent of US adults report that news in
(05:35):
general causes them significant stress. In the case of war,
even far away wars, that stress can manifest in very
real ways. It can impact your sleep, It can increase
your anxiety, your irritability. If you are susceptible depression, it
can bring on feelings of depression. For people who have
had past trauma, this can reactivate post traumatic stress symptoms.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
The word for it is vicarious trauma.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
It's where you feel traumatized, but not by the direct experience,
but by witnessing or hearing the suffering of others. And
I'm telling you, with this twenty four hour media coverage
and all the social media clips and all people arguing
back and forth with their opinions, it's no wonder that
our nervous systems cannot find peace today. Before I came
(06:29):
to work, I was feeling tired because I took a
killer studio MDR class. If you have never taken Studio MDR.
They don't pay me to say anything. I'm just saying
it's the best workout on the planet. But you're exhausted afterwards.
I laid down, and my heart rate in a laying
down position. I don't know if you know, the average
heart rate of a human at rash should be between
sixty and seventy beats a minute. I'm in pretty good shape.
(06:50):
I wake up in the morning, minds around fifty five.
I like that. I laid down and it was seventy
eight seventy eight, so I took a whole bunch of
deep breaths. I got it down to sixty eight. The
funny little aside, I was watching my Apple Watch. It
was taking my heart. Right as I was doing my
deep breathing, I thought about Julio, and I thought about
how much I love him, and it's shot back up again.
(07:14):
Not because he brings me stress, but I think love
does make your heart go bit or bad or even
five years later. Anyway. We need to do this for
our mental health. We need to limit our exposure. We
need to turn off all those AutoPlay videos as much
as possible. I mentioned earlier as I was briefly on
the Chris Merrill Show, we have to learn to name
(07:35):
our feelings. When you can give your feelings a name,
it takes away the power. And also instead of saying
I am mad, say I'm feeling mad. Big difference. One
is your whole identity and the other is huh, that's
a feeling, it's a messenger. Wonder what I should do
with that? Right? How can I not turn that into
(07:56):
negative behavior? Hey, there are things you can do that
are good that will relieve your stress. Donate to humanitarian organizations,
Write to your elected officials if you have an opinion,
attend a piece for vigil, do something that helps other people.
And like I did today, use some grounding practices deep breathing, nature, walks, prayer,
(08:21):
hugging your loved ones, hugging your pets. Right, so, even
though the bombs are falling thousands of miles away, I
know those shockwaves can ripple through all of our minds.
I want you to be gentle with yourself this week
and everyone in your family. Forgive people stress. Response isn't weakness, Okay,
(08:43):
it's really a sign of empathy. When we come back,
we're going to have one of my mentors and role models,
doctor Kevin Vulcan from California State University, Channel Islands. He's
got some things to say about how war. He actually
teaches a course on Nazi psychology, but how war actually
(09:06):
helps leaders gain more love and more power. Let's talk
about this phenomenon and a few other things before we
come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh
Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty. You've got Doctor
Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show.
(09:27):
As we continue to talk a little bit about our
mental health in the face of the bombing in Iran,
I wanted to invite on the show someone who I
consider to be a mentor and someone who I really respect.
You've heard him before, psychology professor doctor Kevin Vulcan from
California State University, Channel Islands. Hi, doctor Kevin, how are.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
You, Hi, Wendy, how are you doing good?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I know you teach some things about leaders, the psychology
of leaders and how followers follow them. We were talking earlier,
and you have a particular take on what's going on
and how it can actually help the leaders of both countries.
Can you explain that.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Well? I think you know, from a psychology point of view,
you know there's certain psychological patterns that tend to play
out over and over and over again anytime we have
conflicts like this, and these things have been going on
for a long time, especially with Iran and the United
States and Iran and Israel, and I think knowing those
and being aware of those can be something that can
(10:30):
be helpful.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And what are the things that have been going.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
On, Well, there's a lot of you know, again, there's
a lot of external things in the world, actual real
life things that are out in the real world that
are you know, important concerns and things people should be
thinking about. And people have varying opinions on those kinds
of things. You know, whether we should have bombed Iran
or that we shouldn't have, or was this the right
time to do it, or should we have waited and
(10:53):
tried diplomacy. Those are all real world concerns. But from
the point of view of psychology, you know, we have
a lot of things that we call and say ecology projection,
where we take all the things that we don't like
about ourselves and we project them onto the other guy
or the other group, and the other group does the
same thing to us simultaneously, and then we have ourselves
mutually projecting these negative things on each other, and that
(11:15):
allows us to you humanize the other, to make the
other group somehow, you know, a target for violence, those
kind of things. And I think, you know, given the
history of Iran and America, there's a lot of that
going on. There's certainly a lot of that going on
with Israel and Iran and other places as well. And
I think one thing to be on the outlook for,
looking out for is the idea of, you know, how,
(11:37):
you know, to pull back those projections. Can we look
at the situation going on without projecting our bad stuff,
things that we don't like about ourselves on to the
other person. And this is the job that I think diplomats,
you know, have to take on. And this is very
hard because the diplomats act from a kind of rational
actor model. You know.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I want to interrupt you to help, but to give
people like firm example, you're talking about projection, and I'm
hearing the theory of Carl Jung's shadow. When I was
an undergrad in psychology, our teacher had a really great
little exercise. So I'm going to teach you about Carl
Jung's shadow today and what I want you to do
is take out a piece of paper, and I want
you to write the name of somebody who you absolutely despise,
(12:19):
somebody you completely hate. It might be a coworker, a friend,
a family member, but somebody you hate. And then I
want you to list all the things you hate about them.
And then once we've done that, she said, now I'd
like you to erase the name at the top of
the page and write your own name in, because that's
your shadow.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a good exercise.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
And in union psychology to call it a shadow in,
you know, in other psychology you might call it a projection,
or it could be a negative projection. Can also be
a positive projection too, right, But then you get these
kind of dynamics going on. I think one thing for
diplomats is to not think of things rationally. If we
do this, they'll do this, but also to own their
(13:01):
own projection, to own their own shadow, you know, and
then go into the then go into the negotiation. That's
very difficult to do. And this is where I think
psychologists have a role to play in international relations and negotiations.
I wish when they got together with the Iranians, and
the Israelis and the Americans and then whoever else is
spoken at. My wish would be they would have somebody
(13:22):
who had some psychological training in the room with them
to help with this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, and you say they should become aware of their
own shadow. But the truth is, if you have what
it takes to become a national leader, you probably don't
have a lot of insight because it is the narcissism
and the alligator skin that helps you get there. Right.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
So, yes, yes, there aren't.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Many empathetic leaders, even though their job is to protect us.
It's interesting, huh.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, some narcissists, not all, but some narcissists, you know,
they they are very good at projecting their negative stuff
on other people. And then what they do is they
can they can rally the people around this stuff. And
you know, in in in the book that I just
wrote on human aggression, war and genocide, you know, we
talk about two things chosen glories and chosen traumas and
(14:12):
show glories where you have some kind of national thing,
we did this great thing. You know, a good example
would be landing on the moon something like that. You know,
we did just great things in nation. We all rally
around that, and then the other thing would be some
kind of trauma that's happened. You know, we got bombed
or you know, a good example in America's nine to eleven,
you know, and we all rallied around that, and it
brought us all together. And a lot of times, leaders,
(14:34):
especially in arcisistic leaders will will will use these things
to rally people now, especially when they're having a little
bit of trouble. So one way you could look at
and maybe I'm you know, I'm speculating here to tell
you with a grain of salt. But one way you
could look at the Uranian thing is, you know, I'm
I'm running the United States, I'm the president. You know,
my polls are not doing very well. I'm done some
(14:54):
deeply unpopular policies with regard to immigration, and you know,
you know, disappear ring people et cetera, et cetera, who
aren't illegal immigrants, all this kind of stuff going on.
And you know, but if I start a war with Iran,
now I've done this great thing. We've had this great
military victory, and this is a chosen glory, right, we
can all rally around the chosen glory. Then my guess
(15:15):
is what will happen and then just speculating again, Iran
does some kind of retaliation. Americans are killed, and now
the leader uses that to rally people around the chosen trauma.
And I think, unfortunately that is something that I would
guess there's a very big possibility of that happening. And
you'll see if that does happen, that it will be
an attempt to rally everybody around the chosen trauma. The
(15:38):
chosen traumas are more powerful than the chosen glories.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Oh yeah, I think of nine to eleven. Now, it
brought us all together over this trauma, right, we didn't
choose it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
And yeah, yep, and it rallies people together. And then
guess what everybody forgets about the immigration policies and the
other things that are deeply popular, you know, with the
American public right now. And you know, that's one way
you can look at this, and you know, you know,
if you look back in history, you know, starting wars
has been a way that you know, presidents and other
leaders have used to deal with these kinds of you know,
(16:08):
deeply unpopular you know, times when the population isn't like them,
or the economy's gone bad go out and start a war,
and it's you know, you can ramp up production, you
can help the economy, you know. So you know, if
you're a little paranoid like I can be some time,
you start thinking about these kind of things, you know,
this is a you know, you've got a crisis, say
you go out and start a war, and that seems
to take care of it. The problem that we have,
(16:30):
we saw this with the Bush administration in the Iraq War,
is that it doesn't work very well in the Middle East.
These strategies have not worked very well in the Middle East,
and people who have gotten involved in wars I think
I think a lot of the conflicts are are very historical.
They they they they They've been around for a long time,
(16:50):
you know, I mean, you know, back to Biblical times
if you want to go back to that far, but
certainly back to when the British were involved. And yeah,
you can you can trace back bad things in the
world role usually where the British were around. You can
chase a lot of stuff in the Middle East back
to the British and you know, it's been going on
for a long time, and you know, these are deeply
intrinsed things. You know, you have lots of you know,
(17:11):
religion is involved with it. You know, the a lot
of these are existential questions for the Israelis, existential question
you know, of their own existence and their right to
exist and have their own homeland and these kinds of things.
Then you have you know light likewise, you know Palestinians
and other people, and so I think, you know, Americans,
we don't understand the psychology of what's going on in
(17:32):
the Middle East very well. And I think we get
into these things thinking, you know, like an American, like
irrational American, and then we realize there's a lot of
stuff below the surface that we haven't dealt with.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
In fact, we have a very short period of time left,
doctor Vulcan. But I do want to ask you this,
what role does religiosity pay in play in aggression? You know,
it's one thing if you're fighting over land or fighting
over resources like oil, But when someone has a religious conviction,
how does that change the game.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
My bias is that I think leaders will used religion
to rally people around and to use it as a
kind of a point of identity that we identify as
a certain religion. Therefore, if somebody says something against our religion,
we need to go out and get them. We again
project onto them. I think if you talk about just
religious people in general, like just regular people, civilians living
(18:23):
in whatever country, everybody just you know, it's kind of
like the same. Everybody wants, you know, the best for
their family. They want to raise their family, want to
be comfortable, they want to be able to have a
spiritual dimension of their life. So I separate that kind
of religion from the religion that the leaders use to
rally people to get them their negative projections onto other people.
(18:44):
And so that's how I'm seeing religion, how it plays
out as a form of getting people to put their
negative projections on another group. And I don't think that's
especially healthy, and I don't think that's especially what most
religions actually advocate. If you actually read Christianity, read Islam, it's.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
All about love and family and caring. Yes, doctor Kevin
will can thank you so much from psychology professor from
California State University, Channel Islands. We'll keep close to you
in the next few weeks as things transpire because you
always have so much insight. Thank you very much for
being with us.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Thank you, Wendy. Always good to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Coming up next, I'd like to turn things if we can,
to the science of love. I did go to see
the movie The Materialist this week. It's the latest romantic
comedy and I've got some things to say about it.
Let's talk about it when we come back.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
KFI AM six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
This is the.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I want to remind everybody. I'm
a psychology professor at cal State Channel Islands, and I
am obsessed with the science of love. I've written three
books on relationship. I'm actually deep into my fourth book
writing it right now. I wrote a dissertation on attachment theory,
and I am obsessed with the science of love. So
(20:11):
when a romantic comedy comes out and reporters are calling
me wanting me to comment on it, I have to
see it. You should see it too. It's cute, Okay,
It's called The Materialist and it's in theaters right now.
So the story is very simple. A New York City matchmaker,
she herself is kind of emotionally guarded. She's looking at
her clients as pieces of meat, in the sense of
(20:32):
she's looking at, you know, how tall they are, how
much money they make, how old they are, how she
can match them up, et cetera. But she meets a
billionaire who she calls a unicorn. He's so perfect and
he's totally into her. But then she meets her free
spirited ex an actor who's a waiter. The lead characters
(20:55):
are played by Dakota Johnson. That's Don Johnson's daughter. Do
you know that? Seans and Pedro Pascal. Let's hear a
little clip from the movie Sam. Clip from the movie
here it comes.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Are you single?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I'm a matchmaker, Give me a call if you want
to meet somebody. I deserve someone who fulfills all of
my criteria. Nothing over twenty PM. I don't want someone
who likes cats. I'm trying to settle my promise. You're
going to marry the love of your life. How many
marriages are you responsible for?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Now?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Lucy nine? If the girl asks for as all drink
waters fine with a salary over five hundred grand, always
miss you deliver? Okay, So basically this group gets together,
it becomes a love triangle, and the big question that
(21:53):
America is asking is should she take the billionaire with
all the money or should she take this ex boyfriend
apparently they've been together five years, who she has deep
feelings of love for, but he's still in an apartment
with two roommates and living like a grungey twenty something
in his thirties because he's still trying to make it
(22:15):
as an actor. So here's my take on the movie
and love in general. The movie did an excellent job
of describing the social pieces of love. You see, love
is partly biological, it's partly psychological, and it's partly social.
Social are the things that are in your dating app profile.
(22:39):
You know where you live, what your zip code is,
how you like to eat, are you vegan? Are you
a carnivore? What your politics are? Are you conservative or liberal?
How educated you are, where you went to school. This
is part of your social world. And this is not
the full picture of love. Now it can influence love,
of course it can. Certain traits are more attractive. When
(23:00):
men make more money, they tend to be more attractive
to women. Listen, if you're out there, ladies, and you
say you're not a gold digger. Let me ask you this.
Let's say you meet some identical twins. They're gorgeous guys.
One of them's a waiter and one's a billionaire. Who
are you gonna marry? I promise you it's going to
be the billionaire. Everybody, every woman is a gold digger
(23:22):
somewhere in there. All right, let's talk a little bit
about the biological piece. So here's this matchmaker in New York.
She's trying to fix up all these people, and she's
wondering why they don't connect because on paper it looks
so good. It's everything they wanted on their checklist, but
they don't have the chemistry. Because love is partly biological.
(23:43):
Love has to do with pheromones. How somebody smells. Think
about it, the best sex you ever had in your life,
Think back of they smell delicious, didn't they? They smelled
absolutely delicious because you had a different disparate immune system
in your ancestral past immune system, genes expressed themselves as
(24:06):
body odor, as pheromones, and you pick it up. And
so that means mother nature is saying, hey, if you
procreate with this person, you'll actually make really fit babies.
So pheromones are part of it, but there are other
things too. Let's talk about psychology. So in our early life,
(24:27):
we have certain kinds of developmental things that happened to
us that might be sexual triggers, triggers for arousal, you know.
I remember one time meeting a guy and as we're
walking home from our first date, he picked up my hand.
He looked at my nail polish and he said, I'm
so glad you don't have bright red nails, because that
(24:47):
would have been a deal breaker for me. And I'm thinking, really,
this guy's going to be this superficial that the color
of my nails are going to be the thing that
turns them off. Then later, once we got a little intimate,
I asked him about it again. He told me a
story that when he was in middle school, a teacher
was walking down the aisle, his middle school, female teacher,
and she stopped and planted her hand on his desk
(25:09):
to make a point. While she's talking to the rest
of the class, she spread her fingers out. She had
lovely light pink or a French manicure or something, and
he accidentally, because it's spontaneous, folks men cannot control their erection.
He got a spontaneous erection. He was mortified. He was
so embarrassed, and so he was trying to hide it
under the desk and he just stared at her fingernails, surprise, surprise,
(25:34):
for the rest of his life. He has a thing
for French manicures or light ballet pink nails. Right, this
would be an environmental trigger, So we have to think
about that part of psychology. We also have to think
about our attachment style. Our attachment style is partly genetic,
and it's partly what happens in the first three years
(25:56):
of life with those genes. So some people are more
angry in their relationships. They want to know, They want
to know where the person is. Why aren't they texting more?
Why aren't they calling more? They had a lot of
abandonment anxiety. Other people are more emotionally avoidant. They can
obtain sex, but emotional intimacy is very difficult for them.
(26:16):
And then there are people like my wonderful husband Julio,
who has a secure attachment style. They can give and
receive love comfortably. They have enough stealth, esteem and backbone
to say when they're wrong. They know how to resolve conflict.
I can say that I used to have an anxious,
ambivalent attachment style, but after years and years of therapy
(26:39):
and probably attaching so securely with my children, I change
my attachment style and you can too. And so now
I really believe one of the reasons why I met
the love of my life later in life was because
I developed a secure attachment. So the movie was great,
but it missed some beats. It was one note just
(27:00):
talked about the social parts of love. Speaking of love
and the things that I just talked to you about.
Do you think love should be a course that you
should take in university and that it should be compulsory. Well,
some universities are actually doing this. Let's talk about it
when we come back. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show and k I Am six forty live everywhere
(27:22):
on the iHeartRadio app. I Am six forty. You have
Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show. I'd like to welcome my TikTok audience. If
you want to come in the studio and see what
we're doing here, just log onto TikTok my handle is
at Dr Wendy Walsh. In a few minutes, I'm going
to be taking your calls, your relationship questions. The number
(27:44):
is one eight hundred five two zero one five three four.
That's one eight hundred five two zero one five three four.
If you're new to my show, remember I'm not a therapist.
I'm a psychology professor. But i have a lifetime of
wisdom to share with you, and I've written three books
on relationships and wrote a dissertation on attachment theory. All right, First,
(28:08):
I want to talk about should colleges and universities be
teaching the science of love as a prerequisite? I mean,
would you take a college course that was designed to
help you recognize the red flags and love's race course? Well, actually,
one major university just launch a comprehensive course like this
(28:29):
for gen z to help them navigate intimacy, from DMS
on social media to working the dating apps. I think
we actually need this more than we have ever needed
something like this. I mean, think about it. You're nineteen
years old, twenty, you're away at college. I teach developmental psychology.
(28:53):
It is a time that Eric Erickson, the famous developmental psychologist,
called time of intimacy versus isolation. Friendships are so important
to mental health and building healthy, secure romantic relationships are
so important, but it's just so difficult in today's times. Well,
(29:17):
the latest university to create a course is actually in
India and Delhi University. Starting next year, they're going to
offer in their psychology department a course called Negotiating Intimate Relationships.
I love the word negotiating because I think it's all
about negotiation. They're going to help people recognize the red
flags of toxic love, which is great. They're going to include,
(29:41):
you know, real stuff like Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love,
John Bowlby's attachment theory of love. They're going to get
into the dynamics of intimate partner violence. So I think
it is a great thing that these kinds of courses
are being offered for good reason. I want you to
(30:01):
think about the numbers. According to the Centers for Disease Control,
one in three women and one in four men will
experience some form of physical violence from their intimate partner
in their lifespan. It's amazing, right, more than half of
all female homicide victims are killed by the person they
(30:24):
love and of course, America has one of the highest
divorce rates in the world, and preventing divorce is often well.
I think it's mostly about relationship skills, but it's also
about learning how to choose the right partner. So what
Delhi University is doing is not completely unique. Here in
(30:46):
Los Angeles, UCLA offers a class called the Science of
Love in its Psychology department, and they get into attachment
and attraction and how to form a healthy relationship. That
it's all about the early stages, right. I remember years
ago I was actually in a business meeting with some
business lawyers and I was putting together a business plan
(31:09):
and I said, well, it doesn't matter because we're not
actually making any money yet. And this lawyer said, all
the biggest mistakes happen at the very beginning of the partnership.
You know that applies to romantic love too, if you
set up a system from the very beginning, and then
it's very difficult to change the system later. I should
(31:32):
tell you that NYU, New York University, and Cornell University
have also had seminars on dating and digital relationships in
their sociology and psychology department. Stanford even had a course
called love as a force for social justice. I love
that one, connecting interpersonal love with community healing. But these
(31:54):
really are exceptions, and I really think that more and
more universities should be teaching this practical thing. You know,
we criticize high schools for teaching kids math like algebra
and calculus, but never how to balance a checkbook, or
how to make an annual budget, or some basic rules
of finance personal finance. Right, we don't teach personal finance.
(32:15):
And yet in psychology we're teaching all these grand theories
about how to be a great therapist, but not like
real practical news you can use. I should say I'm
a little different because no matter what I'm teaching, I
throw in elements of the science of love, whether it's
evolutionary psychology or in developmental psychology, I do get into
Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love, et cetera. So if
(32:38):
you take my courses, I definitely talk a lot about it.
So if you can't take a course like this, what
can you do to educate yourself on the science of
love or what kinds of skills can you acquire so
that you can have a healthier love life? Well? I've
said this over and over. Everybody should know their romantic
(33:01):
attachment style. Okay, you can go online. You can take
a test. My favorite if you google the words Chris
Frehley fr l e Y. He's one of the world's
most renowned researchers in attachment and it's continuing to collect data.
You google the words Chris Frehley attachment test and you
will come up with a very reliable attachment test that
you can take. You can take, you can learn and
(33:25):
understand how important boundaries are. I want to say this
about boundaries. Boundaries are not about putting up a wall
and saying, like an ultimatum, if you don't do this,
I'm gonna do that. Boundaries are just a little fence
around yourself and if they get crossed, you say no,
(33:46):
I'm sorry, that gate is closed. This is not okay.
So you need and every boundary does need a consequence.
You can't say, don't talk to me in that tone
of voice. That's not a boundary. A boundary is I'm sorry.
That tone of voice doesn't feel helpful to me. So
(34:07):
if you continue that, I'm going to have to leave
the room. And then you do a consequence and you
actually have to leave. Right, that's a boundary. Learning about
boundaries and how to set them. Also watching for red flags,
very like my whole brand, social media, my podcast, my
radio show. Really, I'm talking about red flags all the time.
(34:31):
Sometimes when people express jealousy early in a relationship, the
other person interprets it as love and caring. Well, they
must they're really into me because they're so jealous, right, No, no, no,
This can be a real indicator that this person might
be controlling, manipulative, and maybe even violent in the future. Right,
I mean a little bit of jealousy. Like my sweet
(34:55):
Julio when we've start first started dating, I told him
too much about I mean too much for a male
sexual psychology to hear too early on. I told him
too much about my past, and so he would always
use the term I have historical jealousy with you. I
have historical sexual jealousy with you, right, And it was
sort of a joke and it's cute, but that's different
(35:17):
from him going where are you going? Who are you with?
I don't like that, right, Although I have to tell
you this funny story I actually made who I didn't
make him. You can't make anybody feel something, but I
was aware that he was going to experience feeling of jealousy.
So because we've been together five years, I milked it
just a little bit. We were out at a wine
(35:38):
bar and there was a dude over there who kind
of waved at me, and he said, who's that? And
I said, oh, this is this guy. He always talks
to me when you're not here. And he goes really
and then I said, in fact, I'm going to go
say hello. I wasn't really going to say hello. I
was going to walk past this guy to this other
woman and say hello to her. But I I tricked him.
(36:00):
His face looked startled, and I got up and walked
past like, of course, ignored the dude. I didn't stop
and flirt with him, but it was just my little
And then I came back and I gave hul you
a big kiss. I go scared you, didn't I. It's
also important if we're talking about learning the science of love,
(36:22):
to understand rejection. Every human on the planet experience his
rejection at some point in their love life. Everybody, right,
rejection is not rejection of you. It's just a redirection.
I always say, you are not bad. It was just
(36:44):
a bad match. Right, you are good for somebody. I
promise you you are right. Sometimes rejection is protection. Right,
if you meet somebody and they're looking for a short
term relationship and you're looking for a long term relationship,
and they have the kindness and the insight to realize
(37:07):
they would hurt you if they hung around, this is
good news that they rejected you. You know, I have
a friend actually who met a guy. They dated for
I don't know, I think like six or eight months,
and then you know, he almost goes. I mean it
was sort of light dating whatever, but he kind of
he waned her off pretty fast. He was gone. So
(37:28):
like a year later, they run into each other at
the grocery store and he's now flirting with her, wants
to get together, and she her boundaries are up like this,
because you know, I gave you six months of my
life and now a year later, here you are. Whatever.
He said, just have one drink with me. I just
want to talk to you. So she consented, and he said, listen,
I had just moved to town from across the country.
(37:51):
I didn't know anybody. I had just gone through a divorce.
I met you, and I said to myself. This is
serious girlfriend material, this is somebody to spend a life with.
But I knew I was ready. I knew I was already.
I needed to sew my wild oats a bit in
this town. And he said, if you will give me
(38:12):
a chance, I will tell you I'm ready. Now. Well
loved his insight. Anyway, they've been married twelve years, so
all good.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
So when I was in college, I took economics, I
took journalism. I major in journalism. I took a film
studies class. But nobody ever offered me the science of love.
This is something I learned myself, and I should say
I am working on a new book and hopefully you
all will buy and it will explain all the science
(38:42):
of love. All right, when we come back, I am
going to be taking your relationship calls. The number. Write
it down one eight hundred five two zero one five
three four. That's one eight hundred five to zero one KFI.
Call me with your relationship questions. I'm happy to weigh
in with my life wisdom, my knowledge of the science
of love. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on
(39:04):
KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
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