Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast - Dostoyevsky - Crime and Punishment

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

In this episode, we will be discussing some of the themes within Fyodor Dostoevsky's legendary text, Crime and Punishment. It deals with the suffocating guilt and uneasy journey towards redemption of impoverished ex-student, Raskolnikov, who commits a horrific murder of a pawnbroker and tries to justify it, unsuccessfully, with noble purposes. Not only is the novel a stellar thriller, its themes deal with the eternal struggle between good and evil that encapsulates the human condition. By listening to this episode, you can earn 1.25 Psychiatry CME Credits. Link to blog. Link to YouTube video.

Hello and welcome to the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy podcast. I'm here to talk about getting rid of burnout, increasing job satisfaction, and feeling like an expert in what you do. One thing that created a lot of burnout and angst for me was trying to get continued medical education right at the last minute. So why not join the CME membership and do CMEE while listening to this podcast? Go to Psychiatrypodcast.com, sign up, sign in, take the test, and the certification is email to you in seconds. All right, welcome back to the podcast. I'm going to introduce this episode. In this episode, I will be going through Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Fyushche is one of my favorite authors, and this is an author that really came before and

influenced important people, such as Nietzsche, Freud, and a multiplicity of other psychological thought. His book is deeply psychological, philosophical. it's provoking its darkness and light. Freud stated at one point, Dostoevsky cannot be understood without psychoanalysis, i.e. he isn't in need of it because he illustrates it in himself in every character and every sentence. That was in a letter to Stefan Zewig. Another psychologist Loisberger said about Dostoevsky. What is most characteristic in Dostoevsky is the presence of multiple points of view. He is never, as an author, completely identified with one character.

That was a quote from his book, Dostoevsky, the author as a psychoanalyst. Dostoevzi's writings are rich in psychology, but also philosophy. He is an author that if you don't understand him, many of the future writings of famous people don't have context. And in that way, I think it's important to look at his writings seriously. Andrei Zadashki recorded in Soviet civilization

what really occurred when a utopian project was manifest and what happens when the political right and wrong is more important than the ethical. He was commenting specifically on Dostoevsky's and his prediction of what happens when the ethical is put underneath

or is less important than political right and wrong. James Goodwin documents how under Stalin there were official attempts to destroy Dostoevsky's name, reputation, because of his critique on socialism. It was through the gulog narratives, which reintroduced motifs of oppression, morality that many people became aware of Dolsiewski because authors like Shultzhenitsyn wrote about Dostoevsi's own comments about what it was like to be a part of a political prisoner. Dostoevsky also influenced Frederick Nietzsche, who wrote a book, thus spoke

Zoroastra, which he talks about the Superman or the Ubermich, and this proclamation that Nietzsche had famously that God is dead, and therefore the Superman has to find a path out of a non-sort of Jdeo-Christian biblical morality worldview. Later, Hitler twisted some of Nietzsche's ideas, and there were other people who, like Alfred, Broomer, who was a professor at the time, who sort of used Nietzschean ideas to support Nazi ideology. And it was a twist of Nietzsche's ideas because, you know, they basically twisted his attack on spirituality and morality to a racist, nationalistic agenda. So I'm bringing all this up because there's a context in which you read crime and punishment

and this famous text, and then how it is utilized in other authors to sometimes correctly or incorrectly document what is going on on a larger stage. Another thing I wanted to highlight, which is probably more clinically relevant, is our approach to spirituality, I think needs to be supportive of the, patients idiosyncratic sets of meanings and goals and strengths. And in a further episode, I'll be talking with Dr. Parggement, who is a person who has written books on spirituality and psychotherapy. And he takes a viewpoint that, you know, if we miss in our patients' spirituality and the importance

of it for them, we may miss our patients. And I have found that at times coming to people's spirituality, it can be humbling because I don't know, you know, all the details that they know. But at the same time, I can explore it with curiosity and find what is meaningful that pulls them through the darker spaces. So as you listen to this episode as well, I would challenge you to think through,

even if, you know, Dostoevsky's kind of spirituality, or Ress Konikoff, the main character in crime and punishment, spirituality, and his journey in that is different than your own. Consider how you might address people's spirituality with curiosity and with supporting of their strengths. So with that, I will start the episode. Thank you. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I am joined with three residents from an Orlando psychiatrist.

program where there are third and fourth year psychiatry residents. I will let them introduce themselves so you can hear their names. Today we are talking about crime and punishment. This is the third book in our book review series going through some of the classics that influenced psychological thought that were sort of groundbreaking. This is a book by Fyodor Dostoevsky. And yeah, let's introduce ourselves. Why do you start? Sirna? Hi, everyone. My name is Serena. Maman Weber and I am a fourth-year psychiatry resident. And yeah, I'm excited to be here. Nice. Back from the Britney Spears episode as well, Serena Weber. My name is George Yenna Caccos. I'm actually in Chicago right now. I just started my child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship. Shout out to my fellows out there. One of my fellows

is actually a fan of the podcast. That's awesome. Yeah. Just randomly or because you converted it? You know, I'm going to Orlando to, you know, record this podcast and she's like, get out of here. I listen to that. Yeah, so, no. That's awesome. You could say your name. Oh, hey, Racio. All right. Yes, hello.

My name is Al-Warkarz-Berry, first time being on the podcast. I'm a PGI-3, psych resident and the only PGI-3 here, so hopefully I'm representing us well. Nice. It's good to see people in person since most of my life is on Zoom. Yeah, so I think we'll start out just giving this. There's going to be tons of spoiler. I mean, this is a book that you can't spoil, I don't think. by knowing the plot line. I think actually the plot line is pretty basic and it's pretty simple,

and you're not going to ruin the book by hearing this episode. So if you haven't read the book and you want to read the book, you could listen to this. And still, the book would be just absolutely mind-blowing deep psychological nuance. Like even within little paragraphs, it's just like, my mind is like, wow, he just puts so much human psychology into that little paragraph. And that's really was my passion for Dostoevsky. I actually took a bunch of Russian literature classes at UC Berkeley when I was there, and I took a class just on him, Dostoevsky, and we went through all of his classics and his life. And so at one point, I was going to not go into medical school and I was going to do film and try to portray some of the content of like the brothers

caramazoff and stuff. So here we are. And in psychiatry, it's awesome because you get to sort of integrate all of this good stuff. Like all of this comes up in encounters with people in sort of how you relate, how you read people, how you understand human nature, are you psychologically minded. And Dostovsky is like the sort of the warp speed teleport to someone who's maybe psychologically naive in college to like really understand. the unconscious and like depravity. Some of it's pretty dark. So Serena, take us away with some of the plot line and then we'll just kind of go from there. Okay. Yeah. So crime and punishment was first published in 1866 by Dosayevsky, a Russian author. And it kind of focuses on the psychological

analysis or deconstructing of this young man, a student, Raskolnikov, who, had this theory that he was like this extraordinary person, able to transgress human and moral laws and even commit murder. So then he marries, he murders the money lender Elena and he uses some utilitarian ideas to justify it. But anyways, he does a crime and then finds himself just like racked with so much anxiety and guilt related to what he has done. And then at first it's like not guilt about so much as the actual murder, but then also bothered by, like, potentially he's not this special person. But he gets, he's just suffering through the whole thing, right? And he's becoming kind of crazy and further removed from others in his life. And so the punishment is,

it kind of seems like it's the suffering he's going through as opposed to the actual punishment. He gets at the very end of the book in Siberia. So it's kind of just a book about like the psychology of guilt and, and suffering. undesired torment. Yeah. Right. It's hard to read through this book and to not, not to feel as torment. There's, um, he, he, he almost has like delirium at times.

He has punishing dreams. He physiologically reacts to this act in a way that he didn't think he was going to. You know, so it's kind of like Dosa's, he has this idea of, um, that actually you may have, you may be more familiar with it from Nietzsche's writings because Nietzsche wrote after Dostoevsky and was informed by him. But there's kind of this idea of the Superman who can sort of like Napoleon transgress morality, create their own morality and not have any psychological sort of ramifications in a negative sense. So he's, it's like there's that idea. of that of that person is in raskanekov's mind and then the novel is kind of like a look at like

is that the case how does that play out so it's it's really profound i never made the connection i guess yeah nietzsche like the ubermensch the idea of nihilism and things like that yeah actually um hitler built a museum to nietzsche not that some people say hitler twisted nietzsche thoughts. But Hitler also spoke in a lot of these terms of like the Superman, the person who is far above the other person, you know, and it kind of came out of this nihilism of, okay, God is dead. So Nietzsche had this, but you know, famous, but God is dead. And therefore, you know, what is right and wrong? So there's this idea of like this superhuman can decide and sort of choose So that's that's Resconikov.

That's coming way before all, you know, Nietzsche and all of all of the stuff that played out in the decades, you know, after. There's something significant, also specific to the Russian experience. You know, nihilism actually came about in Russia in the 19th century. It came about in the situation of abject poverty, continued serfdom up until, you know, that was reformed by Zazaar Alexander I first. But even then, it still was a continuation of abject poverty, minimal literacy. and so forth. And it was a society unlike any other country in Europe. And so Nielandism comes about as this antagonism towards all these institutions that had kind of reinforced this hierarchy. And the part that is most interesting is that, you know,

Dostoevsky, you know, in the text displays Russia, you know, the kind of abject poverty that most of the human, most of the civilians, you know, suffer through, you know, it's suffocating. It's hellish in its descriptions. But within that, Dostoevsky puts those circumstances in that brings about nihilism. But as Dosteases, he's kind of like, you know, he is attempting to say that, you know, at the end of the day here, nihilism is actually not the way to go and that there are actually greater, more virtuous sort of paths to go down. And he kind of used the resin of Oz, you know, kind of a failure, you know,

kind of this attempt to be this ubermitch, but at the end of the day here, he actually isn't. And it clearly indicates the failure of his ideology. Yeah. So I think, I think it's really important to kind of go back into Doste F's history a little bit. So one of his first books was poor folks, which was actually like there was a literary critic of the day who read it and he finished it and he, you know, knocked on Doste Fsi's door in like the middle of the night when he had finished it because he wanted to meet this person that wrote that wrote it. He felt like it was so powerful. And then so I'm reading some of Raskonnikov's psychology as like early.

Lee Dostoevsky, okay? Kind of this, a little bit narcissistic, a little bit full of himself, because supposedly D'Ostoyevsky was like almost intolerable for the years to come after that, because he saw, he saw himself so highly, his abilities, his writing. He wrote the double after, which was actually very deeply psychological. It's about like, I'm not going to do it, but. You said the devil or the double? The double. The double. Yeah. And that was, a disappointment. But poor folk was to the literate critics of the day, who were highly against the poverty that was just, you know, imagine 90% slavery. Like, that is crazy. Like, I think the U.S. at the time was like 10%, 90% slavery. So, and 90% illiteracy, because they wouldn't let

them read, you know, there was no formal education. So that is, that, that was some, something that D'Osefzi then joined these groups where they would read this literature that kind of discussed this, discussed a lot of these ideas of like, no, we need to move out of this. We need to move out of this. And it was from there that he got caught and put in a jail, which was like a maximum security jail, awful jail. Like, not a jail like we have. We have rights today.

Like, you know, like this was like really bad. And some of his writing where he talks about just how evil. you know, the people who were torturing them and lashing them were and how they enjoyed it or how sometimes you could pay them off to not lash you as hard, but the first lashing, the first lashing was always as hard as they could, just to make you remember that they could do this continually, right? So just kind of like this, just a horrible situation. And then from there, he was brought before a firing squad.

and he thought he was really going to die, like 100%. And right at the last minute, a letter comes from the czar. It was kind of, it turned out it was all kind of an act. But his life was spared. And in The Idiot, he actually writes about what that was like and how just this kind of existential bliss that followed. And in it he says, like, what if I didn't have to die? If life was returned to me, what an eternity it would be, and it would be all mine.

I would turn every minute into an age. Nothing would be wasted. Every minute would be accounted for. Nothing would be frittered away. So it's this kind of existential theme that we see in a lot of his writings where he just wants to, it's like the highest of highs and the lowest of lows are kind of, in juxtaposition. So from there, he went to just an absolutely cold, dreary place for, I think it was about

four years or so. He was in, um, Siberia, Siberia camp. And he was around, um, criminals. He was around poor people. So it's like, here's a guy from the middle class who, like, imagine someone who goes to Yale and then they're writing about poverty, but they've never really experienced poverty, right? I can imagine that. You can?

Yeah, I can. Did you go? No, no, I just. And so he's thrown into it, right? And so Rez Konnakov, as we, towards the end, he kind of suffers the same fate of going away to Serbia to basically for years and years. and has what I would consider a similar transformation that DOSAFC also had. So we won't get into all the details of that yet, but that's kind of the big picture. What do you say?

No, I jumped the gun when I said to my mouth. Yes. Oh, go ahead. We can jump the gun. We can jump around. I was like, you know, there's something to be said. This is in, you know, 19th century onwards, it's an age of young men angry who want to change the world. and you can see, you know,

Resnacombe being, you know, emblematic of that kind of archetype that was common throughout. And, you know, Dostakse, him, you know, he himself being someone of that nature as well and kind of slowly, but surely, you know, transforming and recognize, you know, the road to hell being paid with good intentions. And Rosnokov is one for whom

to justify at the end of the day, all of his very selfish, vile acts with this some sort of nobility behind it in the other day here. Yeah. I think that like the the dialectic, right, that is kind of like embedded into Raskolnikov's character. And Sarieney, we talked about this a little earlier, right, in Russian Raskolmeans schism or split, right? And so these two ideas, right, Raskolnikov is he's attractive, but he dresses like a pauper, right?

He's empathetic, but he ends up murdering two women. You know, so within him, it's this really, the light and the dark are really, you know, struggling. Yeah, and fighting. And I think it is kind of almost like a discussion of what wins out in the end. And I think, I mean, Dostoevsky makes it clear. But in his mind, what he believes is the case. Even as you described, like the text has even written in a dualistic kind of way. It's six chapters, you know, with the first half being concerning the crime in and of itself.

But which you really don't know the nature of which until about like solid 50 to 60 pages in the current translation that we're going through. And the tail end of it, you know, the latter half is about the punishment. And obviously, as Seria describes, you know, that punishment is that torment, that internal turmoil, the attempt to justify that behavior, even though when going to the descriptions of the act and of itself, how vile and how poorly, like, handle it was and everything. There's nothing great about in any case. But he tries to dilute himself throughout and then tries to, you know, compensate for it by seemingly being charitable, things that effect. And what you're describing there is it is the inner mind of this character. is exposed in a way that a lot of literature I don't see. It's like you get that sort of those unconscious drivers,

but it's often expressed in the book as if this is known, you know, like Raskolnikov sees this happening. And it kind of paints a picture of, you know, imagine a young Dostoevsky who knows too much, right, who notices too much, who sees the little subtle glances. and reads into every little interpersonal exchange, you know, the little micro-express expression of contempt that you just flashed at me. You know, like, what does that mean?

You know, it's like, I'm now I'm tortured by it, right? So it's also a look into the depths of his mind. He wrote this in, I think, a one-month period. He was asked to write this book, and he had two years to write it. And if he didn't write it, then this kind of... kind of evil character, publisher, person who bought up his debt and was funding him would own all rights to all future books. So the pressure was on to write this book in two years. The guy shuts down his office on the last day so that Doswifty can't deliver the book to him because

he wants to own all of Dosafsi's books for the rest of his life, right? And then, right, there's that jealousy, that strife, right? That, like, vindictiveness. So what does he do? He goes to the police station and he has the officially sign that this was done on the state and he ends up winning that court case. But even like imagine the feverishness, right? There's like a feverishness of the characters. There's this, um, he hints at delirium, which I'm like, I can't believe he understood delirium. Right? There's, there's, um, or TB, he talks about TB in the brain and how that psychologically is manifested in one of the characters towards the end and how she kind of like is, is acting. very irrationally.

No, Serena, we were talking about this. Am I taking your... No, no, no. No, we were talking about... You're talking about Katerina Ivanovich? Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I just how...

I guess that whole family, and that... It's just, it's very sad. It's like, it's kind of that, you know, they represent the, like, terrible poverty and what goes with it. And then she, especially having come from, like, some kind of privileged background

and then how she ends up. And just the whole thing. you know. Yeah, but I just think about the TV. I don't think about that. She's a physical representation of like the nastiness of Russelmnikov's kind of justifications. You know, there's this woman who, you know, takes pride in aristocratic, you know, sensibilities, or at least her being originating of her from an aristocratic family. And you see at the end of the day that pride, she dies in the middle of the street, you know, coughing

and has a convulsion. And when a priest is brought to her, she says, I don't need a priest, God will, you know, knows what I have suffered. There's nothing, I need to say anything more and things of that effect. And so this is somebody for whom has a kind of disgusting pridefulness, but it's just very clearly represented while Rosinda Kahaz, kind of a little bit still struggling with his. So if you're like, that doesn't sound like she is disgusting pride. Like, what are you talking about?

So her, is it her daughter or stepdaughter? Stepdaughter. Stepdaughter. Stapda. Yeah. Is prostituted to basically fund her husband's alcoholism. And they're just intermittent lavish tend to, It's like, that to me is like, it's hard to read. Like, I think I had to put the book down because it's like,

torturesome to think of someone sort of, it's like addiction hurts people, but rarely do you see it, like, hurt the family so viscerally, you know, where it's like, oh, man. And she's like, the way the describe her is so innocent, and she ends up being Res. Connikov's kind of like, redemptive savior, right? His angel.

Yeah. And even in spite of she herself has suffered more than Resniko has, let's be frank here. And she still has this kind of, as you described, this continued innocence, this kind of faith and selflessness. And truly sees the good in others and things of that effect here. It's like she's not been broken down by a world that has continuously beaten her down and her family down.

And so henceforth why, you know, how much of a powerful character she is and why she's seemingly the only one that actually truly chases Resinacov for the better. And you can also see how the society treated women in this book horribly. Horribly. There was no redemption. If you made one mistake, like your reputation was murdered for the rest of your life. Does he seems especially sensitive, I think, to the plight of women. And, you know, he was so disgusted by, I'm going to mess up his name. Spidrigailov.

Yes, he was so disgusted by him in, like, his engagement to a 15-year-old. He, like, stopped that man who's going after that girl. And then there's, like, both Sonia and Dunya, I think, are both seen as, like, I don't know, like, just strong and admirable characters. And I just, I feel like there's something about, like, the young woman that he really, I don't know, feels. for and I actually read that. Can we talk about that like the standoff between Svidrigailov and Dunya? I was like on the edge. Oh my gosh.

Me too. I like, page, page, page. I was like, can you imagine like reading this like back when this book was written and like, I mean, we have like TV and all this kind of stuff now? But like they must have been just eating it up. I mean, it was excellent. So prior to that standoff, you get kind of a glimpse into his character when he

he's talking to resconikov and it's just like he blatantly admits to like destroying people's lives like women women's lives right he killed his wife maybe yeah um she haunted him as a as a sort of a person that would meet him in his dreams torment him and this was a guy who was obsessed with res conocoquef's sister. And so the whole book he's plotting and he finally gets that piece of information where he's like, I'm going to use this piece of information. He overhears Rez Konakoff talking to Sonia about and confessing to Sonia that he murdered the ladies. And so he takes this and he's going to use this information to basically blackmail Res Konakoff's sister to get her to transgress her moral code. and to enter into some sort of relationship with him.

And that's the standoff. There's a revulsion, though, that, like, you feel when you hear more and more about this character as the book goes on. Yeah. Tell me, tell me, like, tell me about your disgust. Oh. You're reading my... My girl experience.

I don't know if he's disgust or anger. It was pretty close. Well, no, I think I was actually kind of... I don't know. I, that his whole, the whole thing was very interesting to me because he basically like, it's like blackmail and then he's basically telling her that he's going to like rape her. And then, and then I actually thought, I really believed when he said, get out, I thought he was going to kill himself right there. It talks about him approaching the window. So then I was like, oh, wait, did I, you know,

read something wrong? And yeah, I was actually, I was, I don't know, I, at the same time, I didn't think someone like him, because he's gone through his life treating people so badly, Like, why would this rejection then lead to... It's his fantasy is destroyed. You know, he has a... He has his self, his confidence, pride destroyed in that instance. You know, I think it was a little bit of his redemption at the same time because of how he treats a couple people subsequently before he dies.

He was pledging to be married to this 15-year-old. He gives a lot of his money to her. He gives money to... Sonia so that Sonia can take care of Resconikov when Raskotov turns himself in. And then he's in this like just, the way they describe hotels is just like so revolsey. He's like in this like horrible hotel room having a multitude of dreams which are tormenting him. I thought the Kinta Inn was bad, but my God.

Yeah. What? No, I'm just kidding. I was like, I thought the Kinta Inn was bad. Oh, God. I've been one of those. They're not good. Just bad as a 19th century rush.

I don't know so. Yeah. And there's, yeah, I don't even want to talk about that one dream. Yeah, that was very disturbing. Yeah. I'll let you read that on your own. Anyways, there's this, there's kind of like in him this malicious sort of just grossness. Plus, towards the end there, he's like, there's a little bit of redemption before he commits suicide.

And even how he commits suicide, he decides to commit suicide in front of a police officer so that everyone knows he wasn't killed. So I guess like going back to Serena's point, like these two women, like Dunya and Sonia in their own ways, allow for some sort of redemption for these two characters. And that kind of, the typist, or the, I don't know, typist, the person who is helping Dostoevsky write this down in a month was this young 20-year-old who he wasn't married to yet. Okay. And he ends up proposing to her. by saying like I'm thinking about writing something else. It's going to have an older man who has been in jail and has a really rough life and is complicated.

And he's he's in love with a 20 year old. What do you think? And she says yes. And that was like her accepting the proposal. So for better words. Well, I wasn't talking about you. Was that? No, just Dostoevsky's like, well, that wasn't about you.

He's like this other 20 year old. He works at the bar. Dustinowski's like, yeah, I'm built different. though. But she was kind of the glue that held him together. So I'm wondering if while he's writing, while he's literally writing this, she's there with him helping him get this down. And so does that also influence how his writing is? I also read actually that when he was, so his father's physician and, but that whole line, paternal line was all like priests. But anyways, when he distinctly remembers when he was a kid, his father was called to help us.

a five-year-old or a very, very young girl who was raped. And he distinctly remembers that. And it was very upsetting for him and something that he remembered forever. So I thought, you know, that probably also influenced with the two scenes of like old men with, like, children, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And I think he, he paints it in such a way that shows the revolveulsive nature of it. You know, it's like there were some books that came out, like,

that were kind of questioned by the church at the time, you know, like, oh, is this, is this an acceptable book? It's like, well, does it paint the picture of reality accurately, right? The human nature, that was like probably a more important question. Even though there's some content that's like very depraved or just very hard to read, it's like it paints a picture of some of the things that he knew about from, living in this time. Yeah.

And I mean, Svidrigailov was wealthy, right? When his wife died, he got all of her money. And I think through that, he was able to kind of like pay off people, right? He was able to do all of these depraved awful things. And because he came from wealth, I mean, and you juxtapose that with the world that Resconikov comes from, which is abject poverty. And like, no one gets a break. No one can get a break in that world.

And Svidrigailov just kind of skates, you know, on top of it. Yeah. And manipulates and lies and cons and, you know, is sort of like a modern sociopath of sorts, you know? For sure. Okay. Let's talk about some of the themes that came up. One theme was like this idea of going above the moral law. And, you know, is there actual evil? What do you think? A difficult question.

Yeah. One could say that, you know, what constitutes evil is the big question, you know? Is evil as you describe a violation of what's perceived as law in a context and at a time? It's law something just innate. I mean, is evil just innate? It's in the human heart. It's something that everyone will grapple with, and that's just the nature of the human experience. It's a really difficult, you know, thing to define.

There certainly is evil, but what's the cause of it and how does what? one somewhat mitigate its worst effects. That's a difficult question altogether. What do you think, Trina? Oh. I was actually just thinking, you know, this book, it talks all about, you know, the transgression and going across these lines and just that superhuman idea.

Yeah. I'm just focusing all these, like, facts I read that I find interesting, like crime, their translation in Russian, the word has the roots of like crossing boundaries, like transgression, more like that. And then that seems to be the theme, right? Like at what point are we crossing lines? And is it just, like, laws that people just decide on? Or is there like a greater determined, you know, you don't cross this line because of God or the universe? I think Dostoevsky for sure believes that there is evil. I mean, in the text, you for sure, or as you, you know, so you describes it, you know,

Resnikov's actions are wicked. That's unequivocal. I think there's a shift in, I think there might have been somewhat of a shift in Dostoevsky, like as he goes into prison himself, as he experiences life, how much did that inform or change his prior ideas? You know, I think that there were very popular ideas of nihilism, of utopia,

nihilism coming out of sort of this abandonment of, of Christian principles, more and more people in Europe and Russia were like sort of leaving the hierarchy, which there was a lot of corruption in the hierarchy. And so there were often good reasons for people to leave. But there is this kind of nihilism of like, well, what do we base our moral code on? What do we base right and wrong on?

And so there's characters throughout it that are kind of like playing around with different ideas morality, like what constitute marriage, like how should marriages be done? How should this sort of utopia be manifest? There's this book that came out before that was called What is to be done? And it was a book that talked a lot about this utopia and talked a lot about like this idea of you know, you could you could create an environment that would allow everyone to be good and everyone to love each other. Yeah, what do you thinking? No? I will say one thing. I'll preface it by saying, you know, the utopian socialism that

Dostoeu Kis used to adhere to was not the kind that, you know, later Russian society would adopt when it adopted Marxism. So it was a, it was not an atheistic sort of class struggle based sort of utopian, sort of socialism was this kind of, as described, broad general sort of sensibility that like, hey, there are things that we can improve upon society and perhaps are things that can make things more equitable. But ultimately, to get there, it has kind of the same ideas, right? Like, the amount of people who had to be murdered to adopt such a society and so that's kind of a utilitarian, like... Sure. The utopian socialist in itself of Dosioski, it wasn't atheistic, though. It did believe that there was some way of... You can somehow convince

it to be accepted, for which were, I think... clearly you see once he's captured and taken prison, that's not going to be the case. And then you see the ascension of like ideologies as described like nihilism in the Russian contexts that come about that have a lot more of a hostile view in terms of bringing about social change. And their whole, you know, framework is also entirely different. It's no longer based upon some sort of, you know, higher sensibility that provides purpose. It's this belief that what is best in the material realm and what is best to make things as a many people as possible live a, I guess, good life, whatever that means.

I think some material context would mean, like, you know, able to feed themselves and things of that, in fact, and have housing and things like that. So that's what became adopted after the fact, which had, which was more in that vein, as you describe, a lot more hostile and believed, like in violence and things of that effect here. I mean, Zah Alexander II, who was somebody who, as he described earlier, was reformed, he got rid of the surf system. Now, granted, it wasn't still that much of a big change. in terms of like, you know, the hierarchy within Russia,

but at least it got rid of that formally in law. He was assassinated, but what seems, I mean, what the Russian government accused those of being were nihilists is what, at least the accusation was. And so you had a lot of targeting of these sort of forces. And so it viewed itself in politics. It's, I mean, it played the dirty game as any other ideology at the time. Yeah, I think talking about,

so there's this theme of the, Like, is there a moral code? Is there a moral law? And I think that his argument is really more of an existential argument of, like, look what happens when this person thinks there is no moral code. The torment is not because there's a law to not murder, but because the murder itself changes him, right? The punishment is his inner guilt much more than Siberia. Right, because he doesn't get caught until the apple. I mean, he doesn't get punished, really, right, by the...

by the state until the epilogue. And then even that, he's like, oh, this isn't so bad, right? Like, he's like, this is not much worse than my life was already. As far as the things he had, he was already used to eating or, you know, having very poor lifestyle. But it was actually like a relief from the torture and the guilt that he had. Right. Yeah.

The other component being is that, like, when we discuss moral law here, I mean, Sonia, you know, who later on becomes, you know, the redemptive figure for Resnick Reznikov, she engages, you know, in quote-unquote violations of moral law. She's a prostitute. But, like, obviously, she's not an evil character because of that or anything. That effect, you know, as described. It's the wickedness, the act of murder and of itself. Not that, you know. That bothers me that he, that he saw himself as outside society or, like, or immoral like her. And I'm thinking, she's a good person. You know what I mean? It's like, but he, like, thinks like, oh, you know, this prostitute.

She's on this, like, low level, you know, and she's like so, so pure and so compassion and so selfless, but he sees her as like so low, you know. So, you know, we read this through our own lens, but I'm thinking through the lens of also the people I'm trying to, right? I think of the empathically through the lens of the people who were in that day with contempt towards prostitutes. Especially that probably the literate class. The literate class probably had some level of contempt towards prostitutes. It's like so New Testament, right? Like the, right? Yeah.

Like Mary Magdalene. Who among you like is without sin? He can cast the first stone, right? They were going to stone the prostitute in the streets. And, uh. Dersiaz, he's like, she's the good one. Yeah. get up and sin no more.

Or like, yeah, so you have this kind of spirituality that ends up in sort of the rigidity, the lack of kindness and compassion. And often that's kind of the experience of people with religion, right? And so what you're describing is a story about Jesus, where it was very counter to the narrative of like, you know, we have, we stone adulterers. we adulterers you know and instead he Jesus it's like a classic line he who he is without sin throw the first stone and everyone just kind of walks away the the other sort of spiritual story that they talk about is the story of Lazarus which is a story where Jesus is out of town Lazarus dies

and then when he gets back into town Mary meets him on the road and she says, if only you were there, he wouldn't have died, and she's crying, and Jesus wept. That's the shortest verse of the Bible. And then Jesus goes, and he raises him from the dead. And there's a very specific reason why this story is the one story that's told. Did you guys catch that? Yeah, to be reborn anew. So who reads the story to him? It is Sonia reads it to Resnikov. And Resniko actually requests it specifically to be right, if I'm not mistaken. And even though Resnickov is a figure. I mean, he's somebody for whom doesn't seem to really have a belief per se. In the text, he's clearly critical or at least sort of apathetic about it, if not so. He seems to have, even towards the end, even in the, you know, it's like the very last couple lines he picks up a Bible, right, for the first time. That's in the epilogue, too. But before, he has like this kind of revulsion towards anything like that, right?

but he has her read this earlier in the book and there's this um this parallel of there's going to be a period of death and then rebirth and then at the end of the book they talk about like and you know he would have things that would come in the future that would be heavy things that he would have to deal with but this kind of like this through the death there comes life she gives him a cross too it's a necklace oh i mean it's straight it's like passion of the christ right like he's literally bearing across and walking down the road. Yes. You know, so.

It's good. I didn't catch that one. Oh. Okay. Yeah. So anything else on that theme that's coming to your guys' mind? Concerning evil or concerning evil or concerning sort of this idea that he has, that there's this like kind of transformation.

And I would, I would add that this is, I think this similar type of transformation. that the real person Dorsi FC had when he went away to Siberia. He became religious quite a bit after the fact. I think he wasn't, it wasn't very real to him. And in one letter, he writes, and this is kind of like, it might be a new thought to many of you, this sort of idea of existential Christianity, where he says in a letter, like, even if I found out

that if someone could like prove to me that Jesus didn't exist, and he wasn't a real person and he didn't die and, you know, raised again. I would still continue to believe because it's so beautiful. Oh, were you going to bring that up? No, no, no. Serena and I watched Woody Allen movie, like, based off of crime and punishment last night. And there was a line. Crimes and misdemeanors.

Yeah, where I think the main character's father, rabbi or something, says something like, what does he say? You have the quote. Yeah. Let me see. if I have it because it was literally, he says, and if your faith is wrong. And so this is like all Jewish people. And there's like a rabbi.

And he says, and if your faith is wrong, I mean, just what if? And he says, then I'll still have a better life than all those that doubt. And then someone says, do you mean that you prefer God to the truth? And the father responds, if necessary, I will always choose God over truth. And so when you said that, I was like, oh, they took that right from a letter from Disneyland. And I would add, like, I've known people who have, have read these books who are atheists and they don't come out like converted like they read in and

the people read into it their own sort of ideology especially like the brothers karamazoff which is is the pinnacle i would say of like his work in it he has different characters one is a very central character kind of like the id one is kind of that super ego you know very critical atheist rationalist um persona and then one is is kind of like this innocent sort of trying to figure it out type of person aliosha so dosi fci plays out these worldviews in like in a chessboard which is like it's just genius wasn't alyosha the priest no a alyosha was a spiritual person yeah the priest was someone else yeah Ivan was the

sort of the atheist and one of the classic sort of sub-books within the book is the Grand Inquisitor, which if you're going to pick up a little bit and want to get a taste of it, it's very hard to understand. But that's where I get my basic thing

of what a lot of patients are looking for when they come to a psychiatrist is miracle mystery and authority. And what we give them is what, so in this, in the grand, Grand Inquisitor, Jesus comes back to the Second Coming and is thrown in jail by the head priest. And the head priest says, Jesus, what you have to offer, we're no longer interested in.

You came to give people freedom. And what people really want is miracle, mystery, and authority. And we've been giving that to them. And it's kind of like the austerities of spirituality, but without like any sort of core. of like, you know, the things that we would say are like, you know, the things that would attract us to someone, right? Forgiveness, love, compassion, kindness, patience, you know, like these are the types of things we look for in good friends.

That's kind of secondary, right? To some of the sort of the austerity and the hierarchy and the rigidity. And so I think Dolcefsky is also critiquing that in a way and trying to, you know, trying to pull out, like, look, this is the part that brought me through my experience of kind of the hero's journey, you know, that's sort of like abyss. And I'm trying to give you a taste of that by showing you the depths of depravity and how this actually helped real people get through it. It's interesting because Dustin Ski comes from, I mean, he's fairly strong Russian Orthodox, you know, believer, which is an institution that does have quite a

bit of hierarchy. It has a lot of structure to it and everything to that effect here. But like, you know, he's not afraid to, you know, as you described, going on the depths of depravity and things to that effect. And he's not afraid to, you know, display the failure of those institutions that supposedly keep Russian society going, at least in his time frame. And so... It sounds like at one point, though, he was rejecting that, or at least that was maybe, is that not accurate that when he was young and joining these, like, it sounds like kind of an extremist group of sorts that, um, or, or what? He's a reformist for sure.

I think he was compassionate to the plight of the poor. Right. And I think he was also very into his own intellect and sort of egotistical. And then, but I think he was against the sort of 90% serfdom. Yeah, yeah. Wanting that to change. Sure. I don't know.

It seems like through the themes of transformation, it seems like he had some sort of transformation. He was someone who also struggled with seizures in a time that there was no seizure medications, so he would write about that quite often. He struggled with gambling later in life, and this poor young bride he had, knew that he was going to completely destroy all of their money. And I think he also spent all of her family's money as well, all of her brother's money, all of her brother's money or her mother's money or something like that. So it was a real gambling issue. It kind of reminds you almost of the character and the, I'm forgetting the drunkard's name.

Marmaladav. Something like that. If I can know where he spends all the family's money on alcohol as one is addiction, you know. Yeah. And it really destroys the, I mean, it does destroy the family. It does put them an object where they starve, you know, pretty much. And the family keeps apart. So you can see, as he described a lot of the parallels from the experience of Dostoevsky had in his own life.

and how he implanted him with the text. And so absolutely. Yeah, let's see. If there's any other themes that you guys think would be worth talking about. I mean, I guess we kind of touched on it, but I feel like redemption and maybe even like suffering as a means of redemption is incredibly Christian because God right through Jesus died and through his suffering and death resulted in the redemption of all humanity. and in this sense, I don't know, I feel like it is a very Christian idea, right, that the punishment that Raskolnikov is experiencing is his own suffering, but eventually leads to his ultimate redemption and, you know, freedom, I think, from everything that bound him previously. Even you can go through other experiences of suffering and other religious characters, such as Job, you know, the idea of how suffering leads, you know, to want to, you know, cleanses. You know, cleanses and it's humbling.

Yeah. And so is there a thing. seems like that and the Quran that have been meaningful here? Absolutely. So, the significance is that most of the religious figures that Judaism and Christianity also discuss are the same figures within the Islamic faith as well. The only difference I would say is that that would be of significance, theologically, is that Islam does not believe in the crucifixion of Jesus and the way it's described in the Bible.

And it's the belief in Islam is that Jesus had ascended to heaven and that He will return the day of judgment and the one for whom was sacrificed was an impot or just a replacement or something that's an effect and henceforth. So it even though that's a you can say like 99% of the story is the same, the virgin birth and all those things are the same. But he's not God. Yeah, but he's not, Jesus is not God, he's a prophet. But not only that, that's significance of the sacrifice, which is really, really significant to Christianity does not exist within there. Rather, it's more so in the prophet Muhammad's kind of suffering that becomes quite significant where a lot of his persecution and his difficulties when he had first started preaching

is something that's kind of probably more in line with Christianity's, you know, sort of understanding of the humbling nature of suffering. And so that's more discussed, I'd say, in the Islamic context, and I'd say the crucifixion, things like that. I think in a lot of training or in a lot of practice in psychiatry, I think a lot of clinicians suffer. I was just sitting with this therapist friend of mine, and I could feel his tension in his body. He had just had meetings for two weeks with this couple whose kid committed suicide. And he was so heavy-laden with this. Like, I could feel just this, like, his body was swollen. He literally, like, looked in inflamed, he said, you know, he had swollen up. His jaw was hurting. And so some of what we go

through being in this career that we've chosen, right, is to sit with people in the depths of their sort of just torment. I mean, it's hard not to be tormented at times. And, you know, it's kind of a it's like through that and working through that and not being jaded in the midst of that help getting good supervision or getting our own therapy. Because honestly, at times we need our own therapy, we can then come out the other side and be helpful to more people or, you know, help other people get through hard things. So hope that encourages you if you're listening to this.

Obviously, we don't talk a ton about spirituality and a psychiatry and psychotherapy podcast yet many of our patients are deeply spiritual. So I think it's valuable to look at what is meaningful for them. there was a very good non-Christian writer who wrote about many of his spiritual experiences with patients that were deeply meaningful. I've heard him talk a number of times. I'm failing on his name. I think he's in Texas. But what he would talk about was that a lot of times spirituality was so powerfully meaningful for people that it carried them through horrible, horrible things. And so I actually look at spirituality and patients where it's a huge strength. and try to utilize that to help them through the torturous life events that they've been through.

I feel like that's why, you know, when you have like shamanism and stuff like that or medicines that aren't necessarily, they don't necessarily work, but it's like it's a super strong placebo effect because it's not just you're giving something, but it's like it has the power of their religion or spirit behind it. You know, I feel like that's an important thing to harness. We may look at their religion and say it doesn't work or it's all placebo. I mean, whatever they're given, like the physical thing they're told to drink and stuff, that drug itself may not have therapeutic properties, but in the context of, you know, the shamans doing the thing and they have, you know,

like that itself is so powerful. It's like a super placebo effect. I think what you're hinting at, I agree with. It's like there obviously is an aspect in ritual that in and of itself, is like very powerful. And in medicine, there's like a ritual. You go to this person with a white coat, you get a pill, you take the pill, right? When you enter into the doctor's office, you act differently. Your kids notice you act differently. They notice you act respectful. They notice you demand respect from them in a way that you don't do it with other people. Right? So from a very

young age, we're brought up in this sort of medical culture where there's a different way of interacting with these people who give these pills and we need to trust them. Or not, right? There's a group of people, obviously, who raise their kids to not trust the medical sphere at all, you know, and then hopefully we can learn how to be independent thinkers. So I guess are we going with the presumption that, you know, all people, like Lacan says, have to, like, want the big other. There has to be something overarching, you know, that has to provide some meaning, whether that be ideological, personal, spiritual or anything like. that. Well, as opposed to nothing matters. But even in that sense is that's not, I mean, in itself,

that's a framework and could that not be seen as a big other as well? It's kind of like, everyone worship something. Sure. What do you spend your time, your talent, your treasures on? You know, like what do you, what do you, what do you give your attention? What do you give your fear, right? Can kind of give you a glimpse of like what is your, what is your worship, right? We may be getting off topic a little bit with this kind of discussion, but yeah, I think people desire miracle mystery and authority, that's Joseph Cipsy said. And freedom is a lot harder of a road, right? And so what does that mean?

It's very complex. But there is this sort of freedom that D'Océeffsi talks about, that it's very different. And it's painfully, it's like, it's like a, it's like, be able to see reality in a sobering way and to choose to embrace it, irrespective of some of the darkest aspects of it. So I kind of got in the end. So D'Soucaf is almost kind of saying, you know, this is what happens to criminals, right? Or like, like, there's this like inner turmoil and guilt. But part of me wonders, you know, are there some people? people who don't really, and of course this is a very dramatized whole thing, like he's fainting,

he's delirious, but, you know, and for a lot of people that might get away with something, maybe they're tormented for a brief period of time, and then they're in the clear, you know, how much suffering, you know, does that really happen to everyone? Do they really, like, break down in their being in character and their life is, like, horrible? Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think. Yeah. I think that's a good question. I think that I knew an undercover, police, police guy worked like 20 years undercover. And he said every villain that he ever met had some thing that they used to check out of reality.

Alcohol, drugs. Cocaine, drugs, like a combination of drugs. Antissocial personality, right, almost always comes with an addiction. of something, right? A substance abuse. Pornography, gambling. So a lot of what he would do to sort of get in at deeper levels is to figure out the person's vice and then to get some sort of leverage that protected himself. So I think, like, are there people who can transgress and create their own sort of morality

without any sort of physiologic reaction to doing that, you know, where it's like you're tormented in some way that you would have to have something that could, like, numb it. It's a good question. You know, and maybe temporarily they'd have to, or a lot of criminals even get intoxicated to commit a crime because, you know, otherwise it's something's going to hold them back, perhaps. but, you know, if time goes on, they're kind of no longer have that anxiety of like, oh, my God, people are on, you know. I mean, and what if they just do a one-time crime?

You know, and their life is better. And again, I'm kind of referencing the crimes and misdemeanors movie that we, but I kind of feel like for a lot of people, if they do one crime. But what was his addiction? Did he have? So it was a one-time crime. It wasn't like he's a perpetual. No, no, I mean, the person who wrote the story. Oh.

we don't need to say his name honestly it was psychoanalysis was an addiction to him I think he went like often his whole life the other thing I don't know more salacious stuff is out there too

about some of his predilections you know so it's like did he have repetitive addictions I mean I don't know I just feel like just as he kind of just like wraps everything up in this like neat little bow at the end. And it's just not,

it's like very, it's like kind of cloying and just very, I don't know, just to get his idea. Like, I feel like he had an idea of like what he wanted to get across, like this almost like fetishization of suffering that I think is associated oftentimes with religion. And then that leads to redemption. And even in the character as Fidja Gailoff, who we believe is like a sociopath. I mean, he's been getting away with it for for years, for decades, you know. And then all of a sudden, you know, he has this like showdown with Dunia. he's like, man, I'm a terrible person. I'll never find happiness. I might as well shoot myself. But even before that, he's tormented by his ex-wife comes to him and his... Yeah, that's true. He's having nightmares. And so this is where, like, you know, I think a lot of these people end up on sleeping meds or

sleeping meds during the day. Like, you know, it's like there's some way that they're trying to exit out of reality that's often there. I think that's fair because I think these chronic criminals and And they don't have good lives, right? Like they don't, right? They have problems that in all parts of their lives. So, I mean, so for sure, that's not the way to be necessarily happy. But there's plenty of people who I feel like, I don't know.

I guess it's just the idea of, is this book like reality? Does everyone have to suffer like that if they're not even, if they're not caught by the law? We're not killing people. Like, I don't know, unless I'm looking around this room, like, no one here is a killer, right? But like, I mean, we, you know, quote unquote, we sin, right? in our daily lives. And I don't feel like it necessarily paralyzes us oftentimes to the point where we can work or function or find meaning or purpose in life or joy in life.

And I feel like Dostoevsky really like dramatizes that. I think if you go against your sort of code that you know that is true, it eats at you in some way. And some things eat small and some things eat big. Like, for example, I know some people who are. just chronically angry. You know, it's like, if you are chronically angry, like, go back to my forgiveness episode, there's like tons of way in which your body is going to feel that over time, right?

So I think that there's different ways in which our body experiences stress. It's like, is it worth it? You know, like a guilt-free life is like so pleasant, you know? It's like trying to do the best you can for the most people possible. Gosh, I sound utilitarian in that mind. I have to ask, isn't there something to, isn't there some greater purpose one gains from a bit of struggle, a bit of suffering here? Even an instance in which where somebody suffers because something bad has happened to them, there are instances which we suffer for things that we love and to get better at and to prove upon here.

What I mean to say is that, I think going down the road to which were to minimize that, I mean, to minimize some would obviously be a good way of going about things. But at the end of the day here, there's something essential, I would have to say to struggle and suffering that can bring about a better person from it. It may be in the moment to be terrible and for a while, but something of benefit and value can come about from it. And I mean, referencing the meditations that we talked about last time, right? I mean, the Stoics believe, I mean, suffering is an inevitability of being alive, of being a human. And so we should be prepared for those moments when they come. But, I mean, we're all physicians in this room.

And our calling is to minimize suffering. like if we can. But here's an example. You have patients with PTSD and the therapies you have to go through them sometimes can be clearly extreme for them in the moment. By the end of the day, we recognize the fact that through that struggle, through that, through that can be gained a better understanding of what the nature of the trauma is and perhaps be able to move on.

But if you had the choice to go back to that moment of trauma and protect the individual from that moment, would you? Sure. Oh, yeah. One would absolutely. But the idea is also like, I mean, some suffering can be minimized, but other cannot be. I mean, death. I guess and those other factors

are something that we cannot mitigate. I mean, you can mitigate like, you know, the nature of like how death arises, but we cannot get rid of death at this point in time here. So we will have to face those difficulties at some point in time. And even the trauma, like, so you'd feel that way, but what if that person comes on the other side

of it, right? And then you might ask that same person, like, would you go back in time and like not ever experience that? And maybe they wouldn't because maybe they've now kind of because they're on the other side of it and because then it's then it's um built them and made them stronger but i guess that's that's a thing like if you ask a question to someone who's currently in it if there was a time machine something made up right then go back and and remove that trauma would you

um maybe they would say no because the life that they currently live is the life that they have well and also i think a lot of people do come out on the like they're they're grateful for it in the end but maybe not act when they're actively suffering so much but when they've grown from it, then it's like, well, I wouldn't be the same person. You know, it's like I wouldn't want to have been without it because, I mean, I'm so much better for it now. And I don't know. I guess suffering is just interesting in that there is such a thing as too much. But of course, there's also...

But is there any correlation between reducing suffering equals happiness? I mean, that's, I mean, I'd like to position us a little bit different in psychiatry or those who are more psychotherapy-minded. If someone comes in with the middle-life crisis, and the middle-life crisis is because they haven't, because maybe they've made choices which have led them to this middle-life crisis. And if you, the narcissism maybe has sort of grown over times. Their choices have become more and more aligned with only their own sort of pleasure and joy. And that has led to this, like, nihilism that has led to this depression. you know, to just give them a medication and reduce the suffering without actually looking at what's led to it and therefore what might actually be something that could lead to meaning in the future,

I think it's actually could be potentially harmful to the person or just extend the length of time before they actually have to come to this transformation, inter-transformation of sorts. So it's like don't waste a midlife crisis You know If someone's coming in and there's like There's this marriage that's incredibly dysfunctional And you try to throw some pills at their dysfunctional marriage It's not going to work well

But pills aren't the only thing in our arsenal right Sure So I mean you would use therapy to it ECT ECT But I think you go like But I think you're putting it in like In this really interesting

position where it's not solely like, okay, how do we treat this person? But the idea is like, okay, they're in this moment here going through this difficulty now. What kind of, what can we do to make this situation a transformative process? I think that, I think going, viewing things in that lens, and I think actually clarifies a lot of things here. And I think that's how we should be looking at it. I would agree with that. Rather than just like mitigating the suffering and that's all you do, it's you describe understanding what led to that point. And then seeing they are here at this moment in time, what can we do? Absolutely. To see some better insights and maybe perhaps even things like better of coping skills, things like that can be like, you know, educated upon and can make to some change.

Suffering is inevitable. How can we make the best up? How can you come out of this moment being better than like when you came in? No, that's that's something we would never directly say because a lot of empathy is necessary. You know, if we just say, all right, where's the silver lining? You know, it could seem very trite and distancing, right? And they're like, this is not helpful. To actually, like, jump in to experience that with them, just the difficulty and the pain is so important. Yeah. What are you thinking? Yeah, no. Yeah.

I agree. I mean, I think that's, again, in the world, Dostoev's obviously really, you know, religious, you know, sensibilities are throughout his tax, you know. A lot of suffering in that. and there's a reason for it. It's like we discussed here. You know, there's, you know, it's terrible in and of itself, but obviously there is something to it where perhaps not always, but gooder meanings and purpose can be found by traversing through it.

Yeah. And I think that one of the things that I appreciate about some of his text is he doesn't shy away from how like envy and pride and these, some of these more sort of base things that we try to push into our unconscious, drive the characters to do things. It's like if you don't even see it in your own life, then you may wake up decades later and it's like, oh, how did I arrive here?

And then you just, I guess I'm going to blame everyone else for me getting, you know, external locus of control. So I think he really kind of like brings it down to the individual and how does the individual need to transform or change and it's of course easier to look at other people and to think how does this other individual need to transform and change it's much harder to look at ourselves and i would say good therapy leads to that good spirituality leads to that where it's like it's leading to you not only seeing yourself more accurately but actually like moving through it right in a way that actually is like first

order change not just like putting a coping skill on top of it okay Well, I think we got to bring this to a close. I think it was a great discussion. If you enjoyed this episode, go get the book. I recommend a Norton critical edition. We will post a little write-up on our website regarding this episode, and I hope this was helpful for you. If you have any of your own thoughts after you read it,

feel free to shoot me an email. I'd love to hear from you. We'll leave it there. So thank you so much for listening all the way through. If this was helpful or if this sparked your curiosity, I'd highly recommend you pick up the book Crime and Punishment. And we have also summarized this document, this episode, our discussion, I spent some time looking at some further sources that I hinted at that we talked about and put them in there. So check out on Psychiatry Podcast, the blog, article that goes with this. It will be in the resource library and on the blog. And I hope this was helpful for you. If you have any thoughts on future books you would like me to cover, please shoot me on an email on the website, Psychiatry Podcast. It's easy to get hold of me. Take care.