Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast - Shrink Next Door: A Psychiatrist's Analysis

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

Listening to The Shrink Next Door elicited a range of emotions in me, including angst, sadness, intrigue, and heartache. For those unfamiliar with the story, it revolves around a psychiatrist named Ike who isolates his patient, Marty, from his family, takes over his business, lives in his house, charges him over a million dollars, and makes him undertake various projects for him. We will discuss the podcast's characters as if they are fictional. The podcast, akin to House of Cards for the psychotherapy world, reveals the manipulation and betrayal that can occur behind the scenes. Just as House of Cards exposed viewers to the Machiavellian tactics in politics, The Shrink Next Door disrupts the sacred space of the therapy office. This week, I am joined by Dr. Eric Bender, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, to discuss, The Shrink Next Door. Dr. Bender practices in San Francisco, has been featured multiple times on GQ's online show The Breakdown, Wired magazine's Tech Help, and on YouTube.

Welcome to the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Podcast. I am going to be doing a long-form discussion with Dr. Eric Bender. He is a child psychiatrist, a forensic psychiatrist, a psychiatrist in mostly psychotherapy practice in San Francisco. He also has been highlighted in multiple, widely, probably one of the most widely viewed psychiatrists. He does like GQ videos breaking down different movies and stuff and that are super entertaining. So you will get to meet him. We'll be talking about the shrink next door. We will be talking about a lot of different depictions of psychiatrists and therapists in media. We'll be talking about dynamics of abuse, cults, grooming. So I hope that this is of help to you as you dive into, you know, what is good psychotherapy?

What is psychotherapy without boundaries? Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here and excited to talk about some media and mental health depictions. Yeah. And so I think we should, if you haven't heard the shrink next door, you don't have to watch either. Now it's on, there's a TV series called The Shring Next Door. there's also a pretty popular podcast on this topic. Essentially, it's a psychiatrist relationship

with a patient where there's some huge boundary violations. But we're going to start off with some disclaimers because we do not know this psychiatrist. We do not know the people. And so unlike, you know, journalists, we behave a little bit differently. Do you want to talk about that at all? Absolutely. So I think it's important right away to acknowledge the Goldwater rule and give a little background on that. So in 1964, there was a magazine called Fact Magazine, and at the time, they surveyed 12,356 psychiatrists around the country and asked whether those psychiatrists thought the candidate Barry Goldwater was mentally stable enough to hold office. And around 2400 people responded, and half of those said, this guy is not stable. He's not able to be

holding an elected office. In fact, someone said, He shows schizophrenic signs the same way Stalin and other dictators did. Of course, these psychiatrists had never met Barry Goldwater, let alone evaluated him, nor did they have permission really to talk about him. Barry Goldwater sued Fact Magazine, won a $75,000 suit. And in fact, some say this was the downfall of Fact Magazine. But more importantly, in 1973, the American Psychiatric Association came out with their Goldwater rule, which says it's unethical to talk.

about people who you have not evaluated and who have not given you permission to do so. Now, in recent years, with some of the political climate here, that's also come up more frequently as people have been asked. Mental health professionals have been asked about certain political candidates. But again, we have the Goldwater Rule. So here, it's clear that we've not met these people. We're talking about the characters, their portrayals, not making any comments on their diagnosis in particular, and talking about psychiatric matters. Yeah, and I'm also sensitive to, like, the families as well, because I feel like, you know, you could be listening to this and this could be your dad. And, you know, me as a mental health professional, my empathy is like, well, that may be really hard to listen to us, be critical about some person who, for us, is a kind of a more fictional person because he's been presented in, you know, a more sort of journalistic interview style, you know, and then the TV series is a much more sort of.

sort of like veering from the normal story, like we're gonna add some stuff, we're gonna take away some stuff. So, you know, it's like I'm empathic for the person who may listen, but I think there's some topics in this story, specifically talking about how psychiatrists and therapists are portrayed in media, which I really wanted to highlight,

and I know that's like a passion of yours. Absolutely, I mean, this started for me back to 2009 when colleagues and I presented at Comic-Con, San Diego Comic Con International, where we gave a lecture on Arkham Asylum, which is the fictional forensic institute in the Batman universe. And at first, we were thinking, let's present on something because it's really important to talk about how mental health is depicted in media. Let's start with comic books. We didn't know what to expect. When we showed up for our lecture, the lines were down the hallway. And at one point, at one place where we presented, the escalator was stopped,

and people were actually on the escalator lining up. So there's been a great response. People really want to hear what real mental health issues are, what's okay, what's not okay, what's depicted. And I really appreciate your sensitivity to the families and the people involved. Okay. And I want to sort of expound upon that because over dinner I was like kind of pushing you like, hey, where do you see yourself going? And what I finally got to was what you really care about is how good mental health and specifically in therapy you're connecting with clients. and there's that deep, meaningful connection and you're passionate about that,

but you're really passionate about bringing that portrayal eventually to maybe a TV show or a movie. That's like something you really see yourself doing. I would love to do that to be able to bring people a great, accurate, and entertaining portrayal of mental health so that they're not scared of their own emotions and so that they're willing to talk to people about this. It's no secret that movies, TV shows,

media influence us. I mean, look at, go back to Jaws in 1975, how many times were people actually hunting sharks after that movie or go back to Karate Kid in the 1980s, how popular did Karate become after that? So it's not a secret that the way we see something depicted on film impacts us. If we look at the depiction of a therapist and the therapist is not helping a patient, but is serving himself or herself, or if we look at depictions of mental health and see people who are violence, we're going to assume certain things. And that's really damaging to people both with mental health issues and people who are seeking help. So I would love to get to a point where I can help people not be afraid of having emotions and sharing them with other people. Yeah, I'm thinking

of a recent TV show that came out where, like, the very first scene is the therapist is having like a couple girlfriends over and then he has a conversation with the neighbor. Like, when are you going to, the neighbor's like, when are you going to stop this? And then he comes in hung over to like a therapy appointment and then he's giving this awful like just like oh cringe advice and I'm just like oh god is this you know what I'm talking about I know exactly what you're talking about I know the show and actually I'm comfortable talking about those shows because they're fictional they're not real life characters so I have no problem diagnosing Darth Vader with a borderline personality disorder traits okay that's fictional but when we're talking about somebody real like

we are at the shrink next door again I think that's a great opportunity to talk about general issues and challenges, but I don't want to talk about the actual diagnoses of these individuals. But yes, I think you're referring to shrinking on Apple TV. Yep. And yes, a lot of people have asked me, what do you think of this? What do you think is? I think it's great that there's a show about mental health, where it shows that providers have their own world, have their own things going on, their own challenges, their own mental

health issues. But I don't like are the exaggerations of, would you ever bring a patient home and say, hey, why don't you stay in my guest house? Or would you ever go ahead and do some of the things that are clearly boundary violations in that show? Okay, what are clear boundary violations go? Okay, bringing a patient home, having the patient stay with you.

Okay. Not only those things, but then really inserting yourself into other people's lives and going to see them in places you wouldn't usually do. This is not okay. Now, I'm all for what serves the patient, well. I think if you're guided by what is going to help your patient, that can certainly help, and that's really a way to go. I remember years ago, I had a number of supervisors, as you probably do,

too. You want to get input on how to best help people. And I was discussing a case with a supervisor where I said, the patient said this, and then I said that. And the supervisor said to me, you have a really chummy relationship with this patient. And I felt awful. I thought, What did I do wrong? I'm doing something terribly wrong. And then I went to my own therapist and I was bringing this up. And he said, you know what?

I know the thought process that that person is trying to impart on you. If the patient needs that relationship to be that way, that might be okay. Yeah. Yeah, I would say like a lot more friendly dynamics are like patients I have that maybe have schizophrenia or maybe are, you know, have some,

like a mental delay or like autism. It can take on a different flavor, you know. See, I agree with you that you kind of have to gauge the individual what they need. But I think in the shrink next door, the things that came out to me were abusive dynamics. And so I'd like to talk about like abusive dynamics that can arise in any institution. And I think it's very important to say like, this doesn't just happen in psychiatry or psychotherapy. This can literally happen and does happen.

And we've seen it happen, like from everywhere from Hollywood to churches to any institution, right? And so I know you've actually studied cults. So tell me a little bit about what are some of the abusive dynamics that happen. Yeah. What's interesting in cults is that there are a number of steps that happen to isolate someone so that for that individual, the cult becomes the most important thing. So typically with a cult leader, what they'll do is they'll sense as a vulnerability in a person. And they'll recognize that that person needs something emotionally, and they'll play on that.

They'll let them know in some way, hey, I can serve this need. I can fill this void. I can be the one to protect you. I can be the one to look after you. I can be the one who sees that you're important where no one else does. So there's this vulnerability that the individual has. Next, there is this way of isolating that person from other people in their lives. So suddenly, when you cut someone off from everyone else that might say, what are you doing?

Why are you joining this way of thinking or this person? Why are you following this leader? Those people aren't there anymore. They're gone. So the cult leader or the figurehead has isolated this person, brought them in, inculcated them, and suddenly convinced them that this way of thinking is the right way. Then the next step, too, is to give them some assignments, make them feel important in this world that this person has created for the individual. So then they see that they have some value in this world. And after having cut everyone else out of their lives,

that co-leader or that figure has essentially made this person question, can they really live outside of this bubble that this person is created for them? It becomes scary and dangerous, and it doesn't happen. So often that's how somebody sees. stays in a cult because it's too scary to leave. They lose their own individuality, their own way of saying or thinking their own things and becomes really hard to extricate oneself. Yeah, I think there's a couple, a couple themes in there that I want to highlight. One is isolating the person from people that will question what is going on. it's like do we as providers see that our goal is to engender compassion and forgiveness

and understanding to the people around or do we try to see everyone that they're interacting with as bad we're all good and kind of create that divide over time and I think that it can be, there's like a gray area where like some patients have had abusive parents, right? But it's like, I think it's different with, in this story specifically, and once again, it's the story we're looking at. Because every main character that would have influence is like exiled. Right. And the psychiatrist is playing a role in that, writing the letters. basically talking to potential girlfriends, you know?

And that's where it's like, okay, like literally, the relationship with the patient is serving the psychiatrist, not the psychiatrist serving the patient. I absolutely agree. I mean, again, looking at the portrayal in the Apple TV series, we look at the characters, not the real-life people, the characters, the psychiatrist has done a good job of isolating everyone out of the character Marty's life, sister, potential girlfriends, everyone's gone.

There's no one there to say to Marty, what is going on here? What's happening? And in fact, when the one character does, the other patient of the psychiatrist says to Marty, you're really in deep here, he can't even hear that. He actually ends up leaving that patient at a gas station and runs away back to the bus where he had orchestrated this breakdown to give a chance to lead this person away. So someone who's questioned this psychiatrist can't even get through to him. Right.

So at that point, the psychiatrist is controlling this person to the degree, to the degree, that when the psychiatrist says, hey, I want you to take this person to a gas station, it was also a patient of the psychiatrist because this patient had turned on the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist realized it, I want you to leave them there.

he does it. He does. Because the relationship with the psychiatrist could be threatened if he didn't follow through with the orders. And so it's really like brainwashing. It's like mind control. It's like, you know,

and it's really gripping. It is very gripping television. I think your point about what is best for the patient, what is this doing to serve the patient, if you ask that question and there's nothing there to serve the patient, there's a big problem. In our field, we really do try to help patients. You had a question about, do we portray certain people as good? We portray certain people as bad.

What I try to do is see where the patient is and understand what was their experience with their parents who might have betrayed them in some way or hurt them in some way. Where are they with understanding the emotions that are around that? bringing those emotions up or helping them find words so that they can talk about it. And then eventually explaining with them when they're at the point where they're ready to do it, you can have the coexistence of different emotions. You might really hate this about your parents, but can you also love certain parts of your parents? Can there be a coexistence?

You asked about forgiveness. Is the forgiveness to letting go of that anger? Is the forgiveness something else to the patient? but finding out again what this means to the patient, not what it means to me as the psychiatrist because the patient might have a very different idea than what I have. So I want to understand that and bring that out.

Yeah, absolutely. Have you seen the first season of cover story? I have not. I have not. Tell me about it, please. Oh, my gosh. So it is this series. Season one was specifically about boundary violations

that happen to a female client. who wants to become like a psychedelic therapist, right? So she finds this like underground mentor, you know? And he basically is like, it sounds like in the episode, he is grooming her to see him as God, to see him as, and to have sex with them, right? So he is like physically touching her. He is like orchestrating this.

and the boundaries are even grayer when there's like psychedelics and ketamine involved because at that point, or MDMA, because at that point it's like, what is real or what am I feeling in this experience because I'm using this substance, right? Yeah. And so I think we're on,

I think we're on the precipice of a good time to have this discussion. I think that's true. It's funny. I, about a year ago, did a video on Star Wars and talked about how the emperor ends up showing some grooming behavior with Anakin. And the way that grooming behavior starts sometimes in the sexual realm is somewhat inappropriate touching.

And eventually it comes to something that may be more graphic or more explicit. There is a grooming process, but it's to the point where that touching is not seen as inappropriate by the person who is the victim. Here, yeah, there's a growing process that sounds like in this cover story, too. And when you add in the psychedelics, when you add in something else, it becomes just opaque, not even just gray, it's opaque. Yeah. So it turns out that this like, here's the male therapist who's being mentored. Or is a female therapist being mentored by a male therapist. The male therapist is being mentored by a female therapist who has, herself been sexually, it sounds like, groomed by another male therapist.

So it's like not only is this, it's like a tree of dysfunction, right? Where it's not only like this guy lone with this issue, right? It's like it seems like it's more like the secret aspect of this whole tree of darkness, you know? It's like. And that happens just as a side that does happen where you, you see that transgenerational abuse continue to happen. The way you might in families here, you see it. It sounds like, again, I haven't seen cover story,

but it sounds like there's a generation of psychiatrist to another psychiatrist to another psychiatrist of this happening. And that's an interesting aspect of this show that would have been very different. Let's say they had shown in the show the psychiatrist Dr. Hirschkhov with another therapist. It would have been interesting to ask

about the transgenerational trauma that he might have been. experienced with his father, the way it's depicted in the show, his father being a Holocaust survivor and not able to connect. There's something that would have been just an interesting conversation there, too. Yeah. So it's like there may be other deeper aspects that informed him, but it seems like at some point you know what you're doing. You're doing it on multiple people. That's the other thing about this potential story. It's like you have more multiple people saying, no, this person made me break up with my mom for years, made me break up

with my parents for years. This person, you know, was potentially doing this to hundreds of people, right? Where, like, the boundary violations were not something of an accident, right? And I think that's where it's, like, you know, how much planning and how much, like, conscious knowledge versus like acting. Like I've treated psychiatrists who have had sexual boundaries with patients and it's almost always unconsciously driven initially.

Where it's like they end up in this relationship with this person and it's like they're having sex with them and they don't even realize like how it got there. And it's like a single event. So it's not like, you know, it's like different when someone's had like sex with maybe 10 or 15 patients.

It's like, okay, at some point you're like, that's not an unconscious event. But the specific person I'm thinking of, and I'm trying to change some details here, female client, and it was something that she was not going into the relationship wanting. It came out of a deep, profound need inside of her, and she acted upon it, and then it's like she sought out help.

Right. And that's a very different story than this story. it sounds like it I think at some point something becomes not just a one-off thing it becomes a pattern then you want to look coerced at it a little bit differently

but I always tell my residents the things that will get you in trouble in psychiatry sleeping with a client business relationship like if you want to avoid two things the rest of your career those two things I always put it a little bit differently to people when I advise them

I say don't sleep with your parents and don't be weird. And weird encompasses a lot of things, which includes having a business relationship or just being strange. There are times when people ask you a question, and I think the old school analytic idea

is be a blank slate, don't answer. Where are you going on vacation? I'm going to see family. Like, it just, it doesn't always come across as normal or nice and might even damage the relationship. So I think sometimes you can offer something like, oh, you know, I'm going to go to the East Coast

or I'm going to go to the West Coast or something like that. I think that's fine. Okay. The problem I find is with boundary violations, you don't want it to be about you. You want it to be about the patient. So the reason these rules are in place

is so the patient doesn't take on our own worries, our own issues, so that they don't take care of us and that they're not taking advantage of. It's a really good point. It's like at some point in this story, it became more and more about the psychiatrist and less than less about the patient.

And it was about the psychiatrist's need, for grandiosity or respect or, you know, people looking up to him and less and less about, like, what the patient actually needs to move forward in life. Yes, absolutely. And I'm, yeah, I'm very cognizant of, I've seen a lot of these, like, dynamics, especially with like the old, old generation, new generation,

where like the old generation was not, you know, most of them were spanked, most of them were like, like very rarely did they have empathy training or like EQ training like this new generation coming up. And so the new generation coming up just doesn't, sometimes they have issues connecting with their parents. Do you see this? I do. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist, I do see that often. And one of the main things I deal with parents is really trying to help them parent the child they have, not the one they want. your child might not be an athlete.

Your child might not be a musician. Your child is your child. So what are they into? What are they interested in? Be curious about that. Understand that. And if you're not connecting, what is it?

Is it your own stuff, just like we're talking about? Is it more about you than the child? That's not okay. Don't fill up that space. Let there be space for the child. Same thing we're talking about here. Let there be space for your patient.

It's not about you. I would say with the caveat, like, it's okay to put them into something once, you know, let them try different things. Yeah, let them try things you enjoy. Like, just don't hold back from things like, oh, you enjoyed these things when you grew up. I put them in that, but then see how they respond. Yeah, I completely agree. I think it's a parent's job to introduce your child to these things and then let them pick, let them have their say. And also it would give them a way to think about the situation differently. Yeah. I, I, I, don't want you to start pushing your parent away just because, you know? Yeah. When that happens, and I know we've talked about this in therapy, you can always explore anything. I think exploring that topic with the adolescent can work, too, which is, I wonder if you're seeing me in a certain light that you feel you couldn't see your parent.

And maybe you can look at this differently. And bringing up some of these things can really be good fodder for not only conversation, but helping them see their parents differently and understanding their relationship differently, the same way you work with the parents to help them see the relationship differently. There's a scene when we talk about media depictions. There's a scene in the Gabriel Byrne in treatment series on HBO years ago where he sees a teenager and he's talking to the teenager and at one point the parent is in the room and the teenager says, he understands me, meaning the therapist, he understands me, you don't.

And I think that's an example of what I believe you're referring to, is you don't want to make it so you're idolized and the parent is not. But if that happens, there can be a moment like this, as depicted in the show, where you can have a conversation with both the parent and the child. What is it that I understand that your parent doesn't? Do you hear what your child is saying that they don't understand, they don't feel understood by you? Why is that?

What can we do to fix this? So I think if you get to that moment where you're idealized, And the parents not. It's certainly not the end of something, but the beginning of another conversation. Right. Yeah, I think there's a growing hesitancy in myself to be idealized. It's like we were talking about this.

And I think like there's older psychiatrists who trained us, right, who always kind of like had a lot more hesitancy to be idealized. or like, it's like, Dr. Tar was, like, almost just some grief with overly positive transfer and sometimes, like, oh, there's like, it's kind of an oral hunger that may be underneath things, right? And I don't know if I fully realized it right early on in my practice, but it's like, yeah, there's a pain there. There's like, yeah, if there's such a strong yearning for attunement, there's usually some pain there. And it could be a mismatch of personality. like with their parent, you know, like maybe like very different personality types or very different. Yeah, there could be a lot of things that kind of create that separation.

I think so, but I think there are a couple points on this. When you're idealized, I think it's important also to introduce that concept to the patient in some way, in a gentle way, to say something like, you know, it seems like you feel almost like I'm not going to let you down or I'm not. going to make you upset and then saying to them, I'm absolutely going to make you upset. I recently had a patient very angry with me, and I was talking to my own therapist, and he said, you're supposed to get to that point.

They're supposed to be mad at you, and that's actually a good thing. So I think getting to that point is really good. I also think that being idealized, it's a chance to converse with your adult patients even more about it, too, if you're being idealized there. like what is it that would happen if you saw me do something you didn't like what if you saw some sticker on my car you didn't like what if you saw this then what would happen so start to explore these emotions that they might be afraid of and then the last point on this too is maybe the patients need to idealize someone maybe they need someone in their life at that point and that's a whole other thing and i think that brings us back to the shrink next door did the character marty in the show need someone at the time to say i'm going to take care of you i'm going to not let

anyone taking advantage of you. I'm going to make sure everything's okay. And it seemed like he did in the wake of his parents' death. So he was looking for that. The psychiatrist was offering that. But again, there were ways the psychiatrist was offering it as depicted in the show that were not okay in real life. Yeah, it extended too far, right? In the, just come back to this cover story thing because I found it so interesting. At one point, this mail, this mail, therapist who was kind of grooming this female person, said something like, at some point, you will want to have sex with me. And he also said, I would like, at one point, you will, you will think that I am God. It's like, that's kind of like a leading, I don't know,

it's like, I've never heard that from Glenn Gabbard. Glenn Gabbard would never say to do that, right? Correct. I don't know Dr. Gabbard, but I'm pretty sure from everything I've read or heard from him, would say, no, that is not the way to do it. Yeah. It's like planting seeds. I mean, it's a bit of grooming behavior. And it's just, that's not okay. Right.

Yeah. And I think with, when you talked about Colts, it's like they know who to look for. Like I can, you know, I have kids and sometimes I see kids that are just like, they feel like emotionally hungry for me. And I'm like, oh, God, that kid is like so vulnerable. and it scares me, you know? And so it's like you have that adult maybe

that has that feeling. And then if they come across someone who's more psychopathic, narcissistic, has their own agenda, is willing to bend the rules and use someone, it's like that's a really bad combination. Yeah, it's funny. When somebody comes to me,

I often will say, why don't we talk or me just to make sure I'm a good fit, both in terms of what you're looking for and what I can provide, And sometimes somebody's looking for something and somebody's providing something where it's not a good fit,

even though it seems like it serves what the person's looking for and what you can offer. But this example with the strength next door, what one person might have looked for, what one person could offer was not good for either person. Although certainly it was better

for the psychiatrist character than it was from Marty. I think there's an aspect in the story of a loss of a sense of self-efficacy, free will, by progressively taking away choices. And also subtle, like, no, you're not, I don't think you can make this decision yourself.

You know, questioning the decision making. And I think in good therapy, like, that should increase. Like, their ability to be confident in making decisions, their ability to see themselves as, like, someone who could know what their emotions are, know what they believe. Like, I think that should go up. Absolutely.

It should go up. And the idea of the psychiatrist making decisions for the patient, it certainly doesn't serve a patient well. What I would sometimes do with people is if it's clear that they're asking me to decide for them, I'll either comment, it seems like you really want me to make this decision for you. And that might open a conversation where we end up with me saying,

I can make this decision for you. I'm not you. And plus, it's really important for us to figure out, why is it hard for you to do this? what are the things that you're facing? So I think we can have that kind of a conversation or you can say, I'm not telling you to do this.

Have you ever thought about this? And if you do, what comes up for you? So I think you can pose something like that in a way that probes where someone's mind is, not in a way to tell them what to do. In this depiction in television, we just keep seeing, yeah, the psychiatrist is making the decisions.

the patient has fear of making his own decision, and the comments from the psychiatrist reinforce that fear. Yeah, you can't do this. You're rich, you've been given everything. That's your problem. And it's just demeaning, and it keeps them trapped in this world that is one that doesn't serve them well.

Yeah. So I think good therapy leads to meaningful relationships with other people outside the therapy. office. And what I've seen with like long-term clients, clients I've seen for years, it's like their friendships outside grow faster, grow more meaningful, they pick healthier people, they pick less abusive people, they pick less narcissistic people, and they pick relationships where there's a good give and take, right? There's a win-win situation. Whereas like, you know, maybe in the past they picked relationships that were like a win-lose situation where they were always on the losing end.

Yes, and then I'll try to help people explore those relationships and what worked and what didn't for them. And I think also a comment I often make to people that can be helpful is to say, we meet for 50 minutes a week, maybe we meet twice a week, but most of therapy happens outside of this office where you take the things we talk about

and you see if you can recognize patterns, if you can see what serves you well, you can try something new, you can push yourself to do exactly what you're talking about, just expand their world, expand their relationships, grow their relationships with people, not make them shrink and turn inward the way we saw in this TV show.

Yeah. So good psychotherapy leads to close, meaningful relationships. I think it also leads to empowerment of doing, you know, being able to find what they decide, what they desire, how they want to live, and not the opposite, right? I agree how they want to live, not how someone wants them to live. There's that idea of therapeutic ambition,

and there's Freud's idea that we should beware of therapeutic ambition, where if you want something for the patient, often you want the treatment to go faster for the patient, slow down, what's really there? Is that about you? Is that better for the patient? So again, thinking continually,

what is best for this person, not what is best for you as the therapist. Yeah. I think coming to, helping clients have empathy not only for themselves, but also for other people. So I think being able to tolerate

more difficult people or tolerate people different than themselves, I think that should ideally increase as therapy goes on. I think recognizing, for instance, someone has a pattern of responding in a certain way,

why is it that this type of person keeps coming up as someone you have difficulty dealing with? What does this say? Let's see, is there a different way you could respond to that? What would be a way that might serve you better? What would be a way that feels good to you that might actually help you instead of put you in a position of wanting to do something

that might not serve you all in the long run? So absolutely, looking at all these things is important. And I didn't see a lot of that in the depiction of the therapy in the shrink next door. I also think in good therapy, there should be empathy. And I think in all these examples of dysfunctional therapy, it's like there's a lack of basic empathy. It's like, he'll say like, hey, I'm really interested in this girl.

It's like, is that girl a threat to me? If it's a threat to me, then I might not want you to be excited with you about this girl. Yeah. You know, and so it's like there's a constant sort of, empathy gap when it's not serving me as a therapist, right? Whereas as a therapist, it's like, I want the person to feel heard and understood on deep levels and get excited when they're excited,

you know, feel pain when they feel pain, right? Yeah. I think a lot of times we have this idea of empathy being, obviously understanding someone's experience, but we often think about it on the sad side or the depressive side, wow, it must be horrible that you went through this, that kind of empathy. But you can also empathize when someone's excited about something.

So to have a patient come in and say, I'm really excited about this girl I met. I'm really excited about this guy to be excited with them and to be happy with them. I think that is really important not to shut it all down because you feel threatened. Yeah. And I felt that at dinner with you, you know?

It's like whenever I tell people about the success of the podcast, I either get microexpressions of anger, which is often envy. or I get some like, wow, that's great, you know, like, fantastic. And I felt that from you. I feel that for you as well if you, like, are able to accomplish your mission in life of making, making one TV show with actually good therapy, you know?

That would be great. There are some out there. I mean, to be clear, there are some depictions out there. I think the classic example is the Sopranos and Dr. Melfi, and there's some really good scenes there. It shows her struggle, too, with dealing with someone who she really has idea what he does and she wonders, can I help this guy? But she sits with him. She deals with those things. And it's not about her. It's about him. So I think that's a really good depiction.

There are some elements of other things. Like I said, with shrinking, just the fact that you see therapists are not supermen, superwomen. They have their own lives going on, their own struggles. I think that's good. But again, there are too many outside the boundary kind of things there. Goodwill hunting. It's one of my favorite. Sure. I'm laughing because I think there are, again, some really good things. But in that first meeting between Will and Dr. McGuire, the way he responds to Will when he brings up his wife is so aggressive in some ways that I wonder, I'm like, would a real therapy continue from that? Oh, what do you mean?

I think if I recall, it's been a long time since I've seen the movie. Okay. When he's commenting about, he will, as a smart character, starts to say to the Robin Williams character, Dr. McGuire, ah, he picks up on the fact that his wife is important to him, but is somehow not there. He digs at him. And if I'm not mistaken, I think Robin Williams puts his hands even on Will to stop him from making it. Yeah, chokes him. Yeah.

Hey, stop doing that. So again, like, if that happens. I forgot about that. Thank you for remembering that moment. Yeah, that was not what therapy should ever be. Exactly. If your therapist chokes you, that's probably not going to worry out.

Yeah, probably not the right fit. So I think, but again, there was a really good relationship. And I think what it depicted is that someone can trust someone that much. Well, I think what, okay, so I, my sense on that, that the initial encounters is here's, here's the guy who had, Matt Damon who had just run through a bunch of therapists, right? And he was so smart and so, like, he was not getting a real person. And when he found the real person, he would just walk all over him, right?

And so here's a guy who kind of has, there's a real emotional experience between them, which is like, hey, I'm a real person, and you can really offend me. And here's why. It's like, I don't know. I just love the movie. It's a great movie. And also, I do think you're right, though, the realness of that relationship,

the fact that he could see, this guy's not perfect, he's not trying to be. He's not going to be the one to tell me he knows the right way. I think that does do something. Often with adolescence, when I see them in the beginning

in the relationship, they need to know I'm human. They need to know I'm not here to just tell them, this is the right way to live your life. I think if that's not there, it's not going to be genuine. There are trite psychotherapy things

that you may have taught in your psychotherapy school to say, right? And especially when I'm treating, I treat a lot of mental health professionals at this point in my career. It's like, if I say things that are generic and fluff, it just is like, dude, be a real person with me. You know, and so for me, it's like, I have to say things that are new to me, almost. You know, it's like, I'm not expecting to say this, but it's for the person. Like, I, I'm trying to, like, resonate with the person and what they're going with, going through. You know, and I'm trying to show them like, hey, I'm a real person who really gets evoked by you, too. Right?

So I'm not just like a passive listener to your story. Like, your story really affects me. Yeah. And I have to let it affect me or the work isn't going to be good. It's not going to be real. I completely agree. And I think that's very important to establish. beginning and one of the biggest lessons I learned in practicing at first I tried to listen to all

those rules we learned in training and not do this and not respond this way and not let them see this and not let them see that and it was really hard to do and I remember talking to my therapist at the time then he said you know what try to put more of you in your therapy not to be the dominant force in the therapy but try to actually be more me with patients and after that it just it was so much better for the patients and for me I think people felt like they could have that real relationship. I'm glad we're talking about this because I feel like we were talking before about like, oh, you have to be there for the patient.

And now we're saying, no, you have to bring some of yourself. And I think you have to have both and you have to continue to come back to what is in the best interest of the patient. Like, is this, is your line of questioning, is what you're bringing today, is it for the patient or is it for you? Absolutely. And I think we're, we're saying it. We're not perfect. Sometimes we're going to say something where we realize that's not

okay. I mean, a number of months ago, I made a comment when someone was sharing something with me, and I thought, that was not the right thing to say. That was really something that I shouldn't have said. And that's okay to make that mistake, because I recognized, too, it was a mistake. It was not something that was good. And if I can recognize that and even address it with the patient, that's great. But if you keep doing that and doing it for yourself, as we see in the, this show, that is not okay. That is not good therapy. Yeah, it's, there's, there's a, there's like this line of like, do you have awareness? And the other thing we were talking about earlier was like, how important doing your own work is how many years have you been in therapy? On and off 25.

Say that proudly, man. Say that's quarter century. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, became a good therapist. I do think it's very important to be in therapy if you're a therapist or to have at least spent some extensive time in therapy. Understand where your issues are and what your patient's issues are and when maybe what your challenges are intersect in a way that's not good or that could really help someone. I think if you've had an experience that can make you identify and connect with a person,

that's invaluable to that person. But if you have had experiences that make you want to run for the hills, you're not going to serve that patient very well. So really recognizing where you are, what your challenges are can really help people. Yep. And I'll reiterate what you said earlier. Like sometimes all weeks later think about a patient, think about what I could have said differently. Be like, oh, even now I'm like thinking about this one patient. I'm like, oh, gosh, I should have maybe given them a little bit less advice or like cage the advice a little bit differently.

or maybe not giving advice at all and just listen to them and like empathize with them and have them talk talk more you know and and I think there's a reality of like as clinicians we're trying our best we're in process we are real humans that are imperfect and yeah if a patient gets angry at me which isn't all the time once in a while I get excited for them because usually it's a patient that hasn't been able to get angry in the past and be okay. It is. Or as I'll harken back to your episode with Dr. Shedler, or is it a moment where you say, what just happened here?

That seems like you expressed something to me. Is this the first time this has happened? Is this something that happens between us? Or does this happen with a lot of people and how do people react? So you can use those moments. But you need to have a genuine environment, again, that is for the patient, that allows that stuff to happen. In the show, we didn't see that.

In a lot of these shows, we see psychiatrists or therapists. They're usually portrayed as either really out there and weird or evil, in fact. The cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a movie from the 1920s that was a silent movie in German, was actually about a psychiatrist doing his evil bidding through patients. So there's all kinds of these depictions that exist. Oh, it's a great fear. I mean, think about that there's a religious organization called the Church of Something, which they believe that psychiatrists are, you know, the evil force of the universe.

They protest at the American Psychiatric Association meetings every year. They usually do if it's the same hypothetical church we're speaking of. And this hypothetical church, you know, when they start with these things that you put your hands on and they give you like some sort of biofeedback thing, I think it starts as like a nice behavioral deconditioning. And then they do some value, they do some good, and then they slowly find out. things about your life that they can use against you and they find out slowly or then they insert some aspects of their narrative about aliens and stuff and then they get you to do a behavioral experience to decondition you so that you're no longer aroused to this new belief and then they

give you another new belief and then they give you another new belief so i think again looking at is this something that's helping me is it building up parts of my life parts that i want to build or is this building up something for someone else that they want for me. I think that's really important in therapy. It's really important in your own life to look at things like that. Right. And I think it's good therapy leads to your life. Hopefully, you know, you find more passion, more, you know.

It's like when does therapy end? And I know we both have had patients that we've seen for the long term. And it's like, does therapy end with a negation of, symptoms? It's a great question, and I've actually been asking myself this recently, because I have patients I've seen for years, and then every week therapy didn't make sense, so we go to every other week, and then every month, and then it's, you know, at what point do you end the relationship? But again, is the person getting something out of this that makes them feel like they're building something, but that you can objectively look at and say, yes, they're still building something.

If not, then really who's it for at this point? You're just filling a block in your schedule, or what is it that you're actually doing this for? Yeah. When we think about depth therapy, we can only take someone as far as we ourselves have gone, right? And as they progress in their life, like I've had a number of patients who get, you know,

go, you know, make a lot more money or blah, blah, blah. It's like, how is that? happening. It's like their interpersonal world is developed, right? And now they're connecting with more people. They're able to manage affects in more difficult situations. They're put in leadership positions. They're more creative. Like, that's the ideal, right? If that's happening and it continues to happen and it continues to expand, it's like, I want to be a part of that as long as I can. And to get back to some of the media depictions, I think some media depictions do a good job of showing that. that the work can expand someone's life.

They don't get everything right in the depiction of therapy, but recently the Never Have I Ever series by Mindy Kaling on Netflix, there was a teenager going through high school, and after her father has suddenly died at one of her concerts and how she reacted to it. There was actually what seemed like a conversion disorder where that teenager couldn't walk for some time, and then she was seeing her father,

and she saw a child or adolescent therapist for a while. But the way they showed that, she would break in or kind of bust into the therapist's office just at any point when the therapist was meeting lunch or the therapist might even hug the patient and tell her things. You know, that part isn't quite right. But the idea that you can get support from someone in an understanding and that someone can challenge you in a way that's not threatening, that I really liked. So again, there are good depictions that show the things we're talking about.

maybe something's off, but it does show the importance. And just to stress, why I'm saying this is important, somebody's probably out there listening saying, why you need to be such a watchdog on this? I gave a lecture with colleagues at San Diego Comic-Con years ago, and we were talking about mental health depictions. And at the very end of the lecture, when we had questions and answers,

someone got up and said, when am I going to see a depiction of someone with a mental illness that is not going to make me feel like I'm going to turn into a villain? And it's really important when you realize people want to see something they can identify with on screen. And when they see someone who's mentally ill and violent or they see a therapist who's taking advantage of people, that impacts them. They're not going to want to go to therapy. They're not going to want to go seek help because they're going to feel stigmatized if they have an issue. 100%.

100%. It's like I've looked at studies that look at therapist effect. most therapists have reasonable outcomes, right? In these studies of like 100 therapists, there are one or two that the patients get worse, right? So there are situations where you may be in a situation that's not helpful for you. How do you know that's happening?

Yeah. What advice would you give to someone who's now pondering if they're in one of those situations? Well, what I do when people even call me or contact me and ask me to meet with them is I'll tell them up front, look, finding a therapist, sometimes a lot of like dating, it has to be the right fit. You have to feel comfortable. You have to feel like you can talk to somebody and it's feel like that person understands. That might not be me, in which case, I'll give you some names of people that might be able to be a better fit.

But letting people know, the first person you see doesn't necessarily mean this is how therapy goes, this is the right way to do it. Try out a few. See how it is. If you have that, chance if your insurance covers it or if you're financially able to go see people or maybe check and see if someone will charge you for the first session if you want to find out if they'd be a good fit go and do that and I would say what happens when you disagree with the therapist right how does the therapist respond if the therapist responds with anger and demeans you or shames you or brings up something from your past that's shaming or vulnerable that you shared like those would be big red flags for me. Yeah. In an ideal situation, the therapist would ponder for a second, like,

oh, what is my role in this? Or like, maybe I did say something wrong, you know? Or like, maybe this is actually good that you're able to express yourself more clearly here, you know? And, you know, it's interesting because I think in dating, I don't like comparing, like, the therapy relationship to dating. I wouldn't say that personally because it's like, it's like, I wouldn't say that. I don't put, just to be clear, I don't put myself in that role. I say when you're searching for a therapist,

it's similar to when you are dating, searching for a partner in that way, but I get what you're saying. Interestingly, when we Google your name, it comes up with Eric Bender, wife. Which is like, people have found you online, and they're trying to see, like, is this guy single? Maybe, maybe I should stop making the dating reference to therapy then.

But I think that search comes. That first GQ video I did came out in February 2021. It was just talking about depictions of mental health in media and in film and television, mostly film. And there were about 9 million views, which to me said people are eager to hear what is real, what is true. And maybe this all means I should stop talking about therapy in the same context as dating.

No, no, no. I think that it really does. I think that it really does need to be someone you feel can be real with you. Well, what I was also thinking was there is something of a personality fit. Like, there are some types of personalities I do well with, high openness. I tend to, like, most of my patients long term that do all with me are like super high openness, like big five, some big five personality type. Like Myers-Brigg, you know, like I used, I had a psychiatrist colleague who like would

pick therapist for patients based on Myers-Brick. With the idea that if like your therapist is an intuitive N-F, right, and you are an NF, you probably will meld a little bit better together. Whereas if you're an ST, you may benefit more from someone who's an ST, like a CBT person. So I don't, I, there's no studies that show that that's the case. That was that one person's opinion. But my point is there may be a personality fit that's the most beneficial for you.

And I think that's what I'm, I should use as a much better way to articulate finding the right person as it needs to be a good personality fit and an openness and a realness. And sometimes, just like in relationships, I'm cursing myself here, going back to relationships and dating here,

but sometimes in relationships, I see this with people, you're in a bad relationship, it's serving some need that doesn't serve you well, and serving some need for the other person doesn't serve them well either, but you're stuck. You can have something like that in therapy, where there's something that's not quite right,

but you're stuck, and here we come back to the shrink next door. Was there some need Marty had and some need that this character had, this narcissistically depicted psychiatrist? I was also thinking of in-treatment, and I'll tell you what bristled me about watching the treatment. The recent series or the one from years ago? Like season one, HBO. first of all, very interesting to watch.

Okay, I watched it as a resident. It felt like work in some ways. It felt like work. It was laborious. I couldn't make it through, I think, season two or three. Like, I just couldn't. But in season one, the thing that jumped out to me was compared to what I was experiencing in my own therapy and compared to what I was hearing from Dr. Tar, my main mentor at the time,

this guy was very like in your face insight and kind of like these like zinger i got you moments right and low on the empathy supportive scale so you're watching this show and you're like wait a minute like what kind of therapy is he doing here like did he come up with his own therapy on his his self like did you just create this out of his thin hat and i remember thinking to myself okay when i work on a certainness with patients. Usually the person they're first being assertive to is me. Yeah. Which,

which, like, it's like rehearsing lines is not usually how assertiveness, real assertiveness. It's like you have to find something underneath. Like, why, why did that anger or that desire for boundaries get shut down? Yeah.

And usually it's because of fear and it's because of shame. And so then what, you're doing in therapy is you're lowering the fear and shame until you can get to that. Yes. It's just from personal experience, too, seeing someone have to end a treatment in order for them to actually take that next step, it does happen, and it's important. So seeing something like that and working towards that as opposed to maybe a Zinger Insight line, yeah.

It takes time. It does take time. And sometimes there are Zinger Insight lines. I've had a patient say to me once, whoa, I see you save that one for a little while and brought it out at the right moment. But I think there are times when that happens. But if you think about it, these shows, these TV series, these films, they're trying to show therapy in a way that's also entertaining. And sometimes therapy is slow. It's like a zero zero baseball game sometimes. It just takes some time to actually get to something that looks like action. But all of those

moments build up to something. They are important. But if you show that on television, people are not going to want to see that. They're not going to want to see there and see the length of time that therapy takes. But it's important. It's got to take that time. And I think about some of the residents when we're watching, we watch videos of people doing therapy. And for me, it's like thrilling. And some people who don't know what they're watching, it's so boring. Yeah. And that's why I have to go back to my baseball reference because the zero zero baseball game is actually really exciting there's a lot going on there but when you try to show therapy on tv if you saw that it took 12 weeks to get to a point where you

could bring in an insight that really helps the patient a tv audience isn't necessarily going to hang in that long so i understand why some of these depictions are not always good in some ways but i think there's a way to be accurate and a way to be entertaining at the same time Yeah. I think it's going to be quite the challenge for you to do this well. I'm up for it. I'm up for it. And there are reasons why. And I do think there are some other good depictions, too. I really liked, I don't know if you watched the patient with Steve Correll recently. It's worth checking out. I do recommend it. I really liked the way Steve Correll's character as a psychiatrist to handle a patient that was really struggling. and I think that was done very well because you understood how the therapist was thinking, okay, this is what I needed to do for the patient, but in this particular series, there were moments where the therapist absolutely had to think about himself. And so you saw how even in these

horrible moments, again, it's a fictionalized show, where the therapist really needed to think about himself, he was still balancing it with, all right, how do I help this person too? And that is a struggle I think therapists go with. Like sometimes you want to say to your patient, you know, I know you're looking for this and I have a name of somebody who can help. That's not going to help anybody, really. It's just not sure you could give them the name of somebody who could maybe do landscaping work or something like that, but you wouldn't because then there's so much meaning in that. What does that mean? Is this somebody, if I don't go with, you're going to be mad at me? What happens? I think there's so many hidden things. And the patient does a good job of

showing how the psychiatrist thinks and why he makes certain decisions. So I really like that one. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. I also think in this show there was just kind of a lot of boundary violations. You know, Ike would insist that Marty give him a present for his birthday. Ike told Marty to invite the neighbors to dinner.

Party saying Ike was a very important psychiatrist. Like, when you invite your neighbors, invite them as I'm a very important psychiatrist. Yeah. I mean, imagine that in real life. Just for a second, stop and think, would you ever send a patient out

with an invitation to a party where you describe yourself in this way? There's so many things that are ridiculous about that. And the way it was portrayed, it really showed how this character was willing to do anything for this person. Yeah. And I think that

it could be, you know, it could be something that you won't know what it's like until you have a patient that's willing to do those things. Yeah. Right? Because like once you have patients that would do anything, it's like, okay, you have some power there as a psychiatrist. What do you do with that? Yeah, even before you and I spoke about this episode a few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a physician who's in therapy yourself twice a week and is open with me about that. she said, do you realize that therapists have a lot of power? And I asked her to say more.

And she's like, you could tell somebody something that they really take to heart. You really have to be careful. And I was saying, yeah, I recognize that. It's really important. Yeah. No, it's, yeah, I think there's a, there's like a sacredness almost with like, sacredness, not in like a religious sense, but sacredness is in like, it's a very special honored place and it needs to be guarded, right? And it needs to be something that we look at

with a sense of weightiness. And my concern on that one Apple TV show, whatever recently that came out, it's like the flippancy, right, of the therapist just really irked me. It's just very unlikable from the start. I think so. I think he, had so many needs and that's really there's a difference between being human and needful we all have needs but being needy like that is more of a negative thing and that's really what you saw in that show um i i think that you mentioned you mentioned a minute ago you really don't know what this can be like until you have a patient who's willing to do anything that's a chance to actually bring up something really important to the patient and say i get the sense sometimes when we talk you have a

to do anything here for me or you're very eager to please me, it seems. Can we talk about that a little bit? And where does that come from? How was that adaptive growing up? Right? How did it, how did it keep you safe? How, you know, being attached to a to a person kept you safe, right? Early on and maybe to violate some of your own things that you would care about, right? And so that's where the anger is subverted there, the anger has been suppressed. And so it's almost like I would prefer at times them to be angry at me than to be like the other, right? It's like, and that's where the assertiveness, I think, can be taught. But it's all, it's all with like, gosh, I'm just constantly thinking about my patients. Like, how can I continue to help them? Like, can I, like, how can I help? And some

people, I feel powerless. And then it's like that powerlessness. that could be the countertransference experience to their powerlessness. And so it's like, okay, if they're feeling powerless and I'm feeling their powerlessness, how do I give them a sense of power, control? In a framed relationship, we are in a relationship with frames and boundaries, right? Yeah. And I like that you brought that term up, the frame, because I often say to myself, and this is from a supervisor I had for years, you'd say to me,

are you breaking the frame? If so, why are you doing it? Ask yourself, why are you doing this? And where is it coming from? What's the need is it serving? So I think that's really important to ask and to realize, yeah, there's a frame that exists for a reason. It might be, my experience tells me this,

you can tell me if you have a different experience, it might be that the frame is a little bit different for somebody else. Back to my example of, do you have a different kind of a relationship with somebody else, but is it still within the very important frame of you're not going to cross these boundaries.

Yeah, I think the frame, is it for you or is it for the patient? It's for both. Yeah, absolutely. It's for both. And I would say if it's a patient who would desire a boundaryless frame, the frame is actually going to protect them. And I think the, okay, so frame is like, yeah, you know, the visits are this long. It starts at this time, it ends at this time.

I try not to be late. I'm usually on time. Three minutes late, if that, you know, it's like I'm pretty good at being on time. I feel like internal medicine doctors. Or family doctors. I know there's some internal medicine family people listen to this. Sometimes some of them, the frame's not quite there, right?

And some psychiatrists as well. Okay, let's be honest. But I would say for therapy, usually starting on time, ending on time. Sometimes they go over a little bit. but I often need that time for the next person to kind of reboot my brain, you know. Yeah.

So that's part of the frame, pain, you know, the patient pays, right? We're meeting in a location. Therapy happens inside of the sessions, not outside of the sessions. You know, like Dr. Tar would always say he would shake a person's hand in the first visit. After that, we're never going to touch again.

Yeah. That's what he would say. That's what I do. Maybe at the very last visit, if it's like a grandma, give her a hug or a hug or something, you know, like, sometimes, you know, it's like, okay. But yeah, anything else to jump out to you is like the frame, like when you think of the frame? I mean, you captured so much there with those framing elements. I think that's quite right.

I do find I'm very protective of the patients I have because of that frame. So if, say, someone in the family asks me, someone in their family says, hey, can you see my other child? Can you see my husband? I will keep that frame really protected for the patient and say, I'm really honored you'd ask me to do that, but this really needs to be the space for your son. This really needs to be space for your wife.

This really needs to be the space for whomever. It needs to be theirs. That's the other pieces. It needs to be their space. And that's what we're talking about. Their space, not the space where you fill up the room. Yeah. It's like when you're seeing an industry,

individual, you're seeing an individual. When you see the couple, you see the couple. The couple becomes the patient. If you're a family therapist, the whole family. The whole family unit is the therapist. I think this is a really good way of doing it. Probably, you know, like if you're the only therapist in a small town, you know, it might be harder to keep that type of frame. Or like, if you're a psychiatrist who does med management and you like see all the kids for ADHD, you know, maybe it's a little bit different. But in general, yeah, I like that role. And also, it comes, too, with colleagues.

I'm so touched and honored that they would ask me to consider seeing a family member of theirs. But there's a frame there, too. I want to have this collegial professional relationship with you. I don't want to hear something I might hear on the side that I can't unhear. Right. So, you know, I'm trying to protect our relationship also.

So I think it's really important to recognize, going back to this word, that we have and the need to respect people and their space and their privacy. It's such an honor and such a privilege to sit with people in their most intimate moments, whether those are dark or whether those are exciting for them. I want that to be something that is seen as special. Yeah. Yeah. I've had people I know well. It's like, can you see my brother, sister, wife, you know, spouse? It's like, you know, and I'll say to them, like, look, Like if we're going to have a friendship, then I cannot see them.

You know? And a lot of them don't understand that, but then they don't understand, like, therapy and what can happen. You know, like, yeah, it's like if you have a close friend and you're seeing his wife, like, you hear about the friend in different ways. Yeah. That's not going to work. So that's why you don't see your close friend's wives. You don't see your close friend's wife, right? Yeah.

And if you see your close friend's kid, the same thing can happen. It's like, well, dad did this. and dad did that. And now when you're hanging out with the dad, these thoughts are in your head. It's like it's going to make it more difficult to be a friend. Yeah, absolutely.

And so, yeah, I like to give good referrals and I like to figure out people outside of their system. I totally agree. And then if the opposite happens where I know that I might run into a patient in a certain venue, I will say to them, hey, there is a chance.

We might run into each other. I know that this is where you do this or attend this or whatever. I'll, I'll, take your lead if you say hello, I'll say hello. If not, I won't. Again, put them in a position where you can respond to their need. I think that's important. 100%. Yeah, and it comes back to what is in the best interest of the patient long term and what is going to serve them well. And sometimes you learn these things through pain and sometimes you learn them from someone who's

done it for a long time. And if anyone young is listening to this and you're like, I don't think I'm going to do it that way, it's like, okay, ask some mentors why they do it that way. And you may hear the stories of pain when they like, you know, saw two people in the family and it didn't work out well. Yeah, I think so. And it's important for us to say, too, we're not perfect. A mentor of mine always says it's called a practice for a reason. Sometimes you do things. incorrectly and people go away, but sometimes you do things in the right way and people go away.

And to not be afraid of that is very important in order to be a good therapist. Yeah, okay. So in conclusion, wrapping this up, I think there is an importance to depicting therapy well in media.

More to the media matters. We discussed, there's an importance to boundaries and framing the therapy and keeping and sustaining those frames. There are reasons why we don't do that. And there are reasons why we don't break the frame. And if we are asking why we are,

making sure that the patient is the one whose needs you're serving, not your own. You do get something out of being in therapy as a therapist. Otherwise, we wouldn't do it. We get something from being with people. But again, the patient needs to get more, I think. The patient really needs to be the focus. So those are the things I'd wrap up with.

We can have much more conversation about how things are depicted in media and what would be, depictions that are really nuanced and those things, but I think we can save that for another time if you want. We touched on it a little bit today. Yeah, I think we could go so many different places from this, and I hope that this has been interesting to you.

I think there's a value in a bad story as well as a good story. Absolutely. But I think with the bad story, like with this, like, psychedelic person who used their powers against, you know, like, these might be good stories to tell at this point. Like, I've heard like, oh, why are you doing? telling these stories, like, you're going to ruin psychedelics for everyone else. It's like, no, I think we need to talk about, like, the problems that can arise before they arise so that we

as a culture, like, aren't going into this blind. Like, this is going to be awesome. Everything is awesome. You know, it's like, yeah, so I think if you had heard the shrink next door and then you had entered into something that felt abusive, I think that could be a really good sort of eye-opener. there was one person who gave feedback on one of the later episodes of the Strick Next Door and they said, I didn't realize how abusive it was

until I listened to the episode. And then my eyes were open like, oh, I'm not crazy. This wasn't helpful. Yeah. Yeah. And I think all these depictions, I want to be clear,

we still consume the media. We like the shows. It doesn't mean you don't necessarily like a show because of a depiction, but it's important to talk about because it helps people understand more and when you understand something, then you're on a different ground to move forward with your life in a different way. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Eric Bender, you're not on any social

media, but you can look up Eric Bender. Yes, a couple of ways. So if you go to YouTube and put in Eric Bender Psychiatrist GQ, you'll see the GQ videos or Eric Bender Psychiatrist YouTube channel. I have my own YouTube channel where I've done some work on different TV shows in the sense of looking at them and reviewing them. Awesome. And then my website is Dr. Ericbender.com. All spelled out, D-O-C-T-O-R, and then my name, Ericbender.com.

And feel free to reach out if you like. And hopefully we can talk again. Thanks so much for having me. This has been great. It's been good. Yeah. Do you have any conflicts of interest? Any...

No, I have no conflicts of interest. Awesome. Well, that's good to hear. Sounds great. Thanks for having me.