June 22, 2025 • 9 mins
Dr. Kevin Volkan is a psychologist, writer, and educator with over thirty years of clinical, corporate, and academic experience. He currently serves as Professor of Psychology at CI and was one of the founding faculty of the university. He is covering war solving economic crises, chosen trauma's and chosen glories, and Iran and mental health. Take a listen.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You've got doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. 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,
(00:20):
doctor Kevin, how.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Are you, Hi, Wendy, how are you doing good?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Can you explain that.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
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 you 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
(01:05):
be helpful.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And what are the things that have been going on.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
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 whether
we shouldn't have, or was this the right time to
do it, or should we have waited and tried diplomacy.
Those are all real world concerns. But from the point
(01:32):
of view of psychology, you know, we have a lot
of things that we call in psychology 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 allows us
do you humanize the other, to make the other group somehow,
(01:55):
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 how you know, to pull back those projections.
(02:15):
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. Well knew that.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I want to interrupt you to help to give people
like a 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,
(02:55):
somebody you completely hate. It might be a coworker, a friend,
a family member, but somebody, 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 2 (03:13):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a good exercise. Yeah. And and
and in union psychology they 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. And I think one thing
for diplomats is to not think of things rationally. If
(03:34):
we do this, they'll do this, but also to own
their 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
(03:54):
else is spoken at my wish would be they would
have somebody who had some psychological training in the room
with them to help with this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah, and you say they should become aware of their
own shadow.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
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 2 (04:18):
So, yes, yes, there aren't.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Many empathetic leaders, even though their job is to protect us.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
It's interesting, huh.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
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 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 chose glory
(04:49):
is where you have some kind of national thing. We
did this great thing, and a good example would be
landing on the moon something like that. You know, we
did this great things in nation. We all rally around that,
and then the other thing would be some kind of
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, especially narcisistic leaders,
(05:11):
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 what a grain of salt.
But one way you could look at the Iranian thing is,
you know, I'm I'm running the United States, I'm the president.
You know, my my polls are not doing very well.
I'm done some deeply unpopular policies with regard to immigration,
(05:34):
and you know, you know, disappearing people, et cetera, et cetera.
Who aren't you know, legal 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.
But then my guess is what will happen? And then,
just speculating again, Iran does some kind of retaliation, Americans
(05:56):
are killed, and now the leader uses that to rally
people around and 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 chosen traumas are more powerful
than the chosen glories.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Oh yeah, they got nine to eleven. How it brought
us all together over this trauma?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Right, we didn't choose it?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, yep. It rallies people together. And then guess what
everybody forgets about the immigration policies and the other things
that are deeply that 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,
(06:44):
deeply unpopular you know, times when the population isn't like them,
or the economies going to add they go out and
start a war and it's you know, it 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 you know, you've got a crisis,
so you go out to start a war, and that
seems to take care of it. The problem that we have,
(07:06):
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 war. 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,
(07:26):
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 you know,
you can you can trace back bad things in the
world usually where the British were around. You can trace
a lot of this 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
entrenched things. You know, you have lots of you know,
(07:47):
religion is involved with it. You know, a lot of
these are existential questions for the Israelis, existential question you know,
their own existence and their right to exist and have
their own homeland and these kind of things. Then you
have you know, light life likewise Palestinians and other people,
and so I think you know, Americans. We don't understand
the psychology of what's going on in the Middle East
(08:09):
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 (08:18):
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 2 (08:37):
My bias is that I think leaders we use 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 begin
project onto them. I think if you talk about just
religious people in general, like just regular people, civilians living
(08:59):
in whatever, 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. And
(09:20):
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, you read Islam, you know it's.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
All about love and family and.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Caring about love and family.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yes, yes, doctor Kevin Bill 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.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Thank you very much for being with us.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Thank you, Wendy. Always good to talk to you.
You've got doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. 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,
(00:20):
doctor Kevin, how.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Are you, Hi, Wendy, how are you doing good?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Can you explain that.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
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 you 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
(01:05):
be helpful.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And what are the things that have been going on.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
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 whether
we shouldn't have, or was this the right time to
do it, or should we have waited and tried diplomacy.
Those are all real world concerns. But from the point
(01:32):
of view of psychology, you know, we have a lot
of things that we call in psychology 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 allows us
do you humanize the other, to make the other group somehow,
(01:55):
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 how you know, to pull back those projections.
(02:15):
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. Well knew that.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I want to interrupt you to help to give people
like a 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,
(02:55):
somebody you completely hate. It might be a coworker, a friend,
a family member, but somebody, 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 2 (03:13):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a good exercise. Yeah. And and
and in union psychology they 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. And I think one thing
for diplomats is to not think of things rationally. If
(03:34):
we do this, they'll do this, but also to own
their 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
(03:54):
else is spoken at my wish would be they would
have somebody who had some psychological training in the room
with them to help with this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah, and you say they should become aware of their
own shadow.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
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 2 (04:18):
So, yes, yes, there aren't.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Many empathetic leaders, even though their job is to protect us.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
It's interesting, huh.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
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 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 chose glory
(04:49):
is where you have some kind of national thing. We
did this great thing, and a good example would be
landing on the moon something like that. You know, we
did this great things in nation. We all rally around that,
and then the other thing would be some kind of
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, especially narcisistic leaders,
(05:11):
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 what a grain of salt.
But one way you could look at the Iranian thing is,
you know, I'm I'm running the United States, I'm the president.
You know, my my polls are not doing very well.
I'm done some deeply unpopular policies with regard to immigration,
(05:34):
and you know, you know, disappearing people, et cetera, et cetera.
Who aren't you know, legal 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.
But then my guess is what will happen? And then,
just speculating again, Iran does some kind of retaliation, Americans
(05:56):
are killed, and now the leader uses that to rally
people around and 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 chosen traumas are more powerful
than the chosen glories.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Oh yeah, they got nine to eleven. How it brought
us all together over this trauma?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Right, we didn't choose it?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, yep. It rallies people together. And then guess what
everybody forgets about the immigration policies and the other things
that are deeply that 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,
(06:44):
deeply unpopular you know, times when the population isn't like them,
or the economies going to add they go out and
start a war and it's you know, it 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 you know, you've got a crisis,
so you go out to start a war, and that
seems to take care of it. The problem that we have,
(07:06):
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 war. 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,
(07:26):
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 you know,
you can you can trace back bad things in the
world usually where the British were around. You can trace
a lot of this 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
entrenched things. You know, you have lots of you know,
(07:47):
religion is involved with it. You know, a lot of
these are existential questions for the Israelis, existential question you know,
their own existence and their right to exist and have
their own homeland and these kind of things. Then you
have you know, light life likewise Palestinians and other people,
and so I think you know, Americans. We don't understand
the psychology of what's going on in the Middle East
(08:09):
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 (08:18):
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 2 (08:37):
My bias is that I think leaders we use 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 begin
project onto them. I think if you talk about just
religious people in general, like just regular people, civilians living
(08:59):
in whatever, 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. And
(09:20):
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, you read Islam, you know it's.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
All about love and family and.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Caring about love and family.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yes, yes, doctor Kevin Bill 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.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Thank you very much for being with us.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Thank you, Wendy. Always good to talk to you.
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