The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – It’s Not Your Fault: Structured Psychology is all about you: who you are and why you think, feel, and do the things you do by Rogers Follansbee PhD

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

It's Not Your Fault: Structured Psychology is all about you: who you are and why you think, feel, and do the things you do by Rogers Follansbee PhD

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Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we have an amazing man on the show. We're going to talk to him about do is about his insightful book that came out January 1st, 2025 called it's not your fault. Structured psychology is all about you, who you are and why you think, feel, and do the things you do. We've got Dr.

Rogers, Collins be on the show with us today. We're going to be talking about his deets, details, the things he's learned from his study and research. And he's here to tell you about them so you can improve the quality of your life. Maybe we'll get him to get some Collins and do some therapy online. No, I can't do that. I don't think it's legal. Anyway, he graduated from the universityidad de Navarra in Spain, Papelona by the way, for that matter, with a master's degree in psychology. In 1971,

acquires a master's degree in clinical psychology from the same place. From 1969 to 1974 during his postgraduate studies at the university, he instructed undergraduates in the history of psychology and psychodiagnostics. He also held graduate seminars where his emerging theory was introduced. In 1974, Rogers successfully defended his dissertation and graduated summa cum laude. Welcome to the show. How are you, Rogers? Roger Sussman Just fine, thank you. It's great to be here. Pete It's great to have you. Give us your dot coms, where can people find you on the interwebs? Roger Sussman I think the easiest thing is just to go to structuredpsychology.com. That's on the net that really exposes the entire theory little by little and is much easier to understand

than to just pick up the book alone. I'm also on Facebook and Instagram, either under my name or under the book's name, so, yeah. Pete So, give us a 30,000 overview of what's inside your book. Dr. Mark Snell Really, what we're doing in the book is introducing an entirely new way to understand the world around us. It's a new way to think. It's introducing a system or a process that one can use to see the world and see others

that form a part of that world in a completely new and different way. And this is the result of what I discovered back in the 1970s. That is to say that all living things are relationally living. We are all relational beings. So everyone and everything depends on everyone and everything else. The world around us is where we are inspired to be who we are, basically. The book, it's not your fault, which incidentally you can buy on Amazon. There are several books out there with the same title, unfortunately.

This we discovered up, we had no idea it was that way. But if you just put my name Rogers with an S, R-O-G-E-R-S, and then it's not your fault, my book will show up there. Yeah. And basically, what it is, is a roadmap that explains life's barriers, where they come from and how to deal with them. Ah, you mean there's some barriers in this life? Pete Slauson That's what they told me. I didn't know it was a rumor.

Pete Slauson I haven't seen any yet. 57 years. Actually, I think I have. I think I've been, all my broken bones are from it and beat ups and mental damage and emotional damage and everything else. I'm just, I've been put through a shredder in life, and it's most of my own doing for that matter. So I can only blame myself. And life is hard. It's not the easiest sort of run through, as it were. Now, why did you choose the title? What does it mean it's not your fault? Can I just go around and blame everybody and not take self accountability? Or what does it mean? No, it's not blaming others. It's understanding that we have a very limited

amount of control over the way we think and feel and behave. There is a structure that is forming a part of who we are. Each living thing shares in that same structure. When we feel as though we question our behavior, or we question the way we think or we feel, and in some ways, we feel responsible for all of that. And what we're trying to say with the book is that it is the way we are all structured that is really to blame, if you wish, for the way we think and feel and ultimately behave. It is not something that we decide on our own to do. It's already pre-decided for us according to who we are. Pete You know, I think people say that, you know, when kids are born, I used to think,

and I didn't have kids, so that kind of made a difference. But I used to think that when kids are born, it was really, they were kind of an blank slate and it was really the job, whatever happened with the parents and their environment that shaped them. But then, you know, I started learning that, especially with like dogs, and I hear this with kids that, you know, they kind of come into the world with their own sort of personalities and different issues and I don't know about issues, but different personalities sort of thing. They're not all an empty blank slate. How does this happen where the, you

know, we come to this world already kind of built this way or a set up for these issues? Give me a more in depth on that. You're correct in assuming that it isn't just a clean slate that, this is an old 1930s idea, Bertrand Russell and so forth, came forth with this idea of the clean slate and that is the environment that then builds us into the people that each one of us is. That has been found to be totally baseless. What is not baseless is the fact that we are born with a whole set of baggage. And that baggage is genetic. We are loaded down with genetic baggage at birth. So there's almost

a pre-programming of who we are by every single gene that we've inherited and that come from far, far away or very, very close. It just depends on how the dice fall. We are not a clean slate. We already have a built-in personality which will flower in one way or the other according to the environment we're in. And this is all preset just at conception. Really?

And we have to deal with it. So that, yeah, this has been proven to be the way it is. Wow. So how does it pass down? Is it generational like trauma? They talk about generational trauma and how trauma can be passed down. What is it that passes that through? I mean, how do you know what you're going to get or do you know what you're going to get or how you're going to turn out? And is, you know, I've heard Sam Harris write about something called free will. I don't know if you've studied that, but other people talk about it. Kind of the concept of free will is that we don't really have free will. We don't really make our own choices so much because subconsciously we just be who we are and we're going to keep operating within that

frame and keep making the decisions we'll always make. You know, you see people that do that every year. They say, I'm going to have new resolutions and you know, the resolutions are all wiped out a week. Is that, is that part of this where it, you, you know, you don't have the free will cause it's, you don't have a choice maybe. Well, it isn't that you don't have a choice. You have choices. You have to weigh them according to your, your ability and your experience. But in the same way that we are not born as a clean slate, everything that we do,

everything we choose, everything that we decide, every goal that we pursue is determined by something. There is always something that is introduced into our relational lives, that gives us a clue as to what we should choose. So it's the old story about the mule that has a pile of food directly in front of him, and he can't decide which side of the food to pick first. And so he dies of hunger. That's nonsense, of course. He's hungry enough, he'll just pick up the food and eat it. And we're not in that sense, that is strange from Mr. Donkey. That is to say, we have a whole set of needs and wants that are well determined and that will drive us to make one decision or another. So that I would say I would agree with those who say-

A free will? Yeah, free will is just a lot of nonsense. Isn't that it? So those, so now is it different for different people or is everyone getting the same sort of, you know, when they're born in this world, they get the same sort of issues or is it different for other people from people to people or is it from family to family? It's each single individual that is born on this planet is born differently. A sister will inherit certain genes, a brother will inherit others, and both sister and brother will be exposed to different environments. And it's the environment that is our, if you

wish, our real psychological of other half. So just as a genetic being, we are nothing. We have to relate to the outside world to become who we are. And that is always different. You can be, you and I can be standing in the same place looking at the same thing and we will have totally different feelings and ideas and assumptions about what we're looking at because of who we are genetically. So this is pretty interesting. So is there any way I can overcome this programming? Is therapy help or, or, you know, what is, what is, what is helpful,

I guess. What is helpful is understanding. Okay. You can't change who you are, but you can change what you understand about who you are. And that's, that's the key. The key to this, to, to our, to having successful, happy lives is centered on understanding how we are structured and how we face the world around us, those around us, the ones we love, the ones that get in our way when we need or want a certain thing. Each one of us who are going to see that world out there in very different ways, we can change the way we behave, we can change the way we see others. We can change the way we understand the world around us. There are all kinds of things we can do to change the way we deal with the world around us. What we can change is who we are. That's

never going away. That's great because I suck at being who I am. So it's always going to suck, right? That's an opinion, but that's what... I'm the one living in it. It seems like it's turning that way out some days. I think that happens to everybody. You're not alone. You're not alone.

Okay. All right. I had to figure out how to save my broken ass and evidently I was born into it. Do, now you talk about how our relationships shape us as well. I imagine those are parents and, you know, people that, significant others, people that we interact with maybe at work. I've certainly wanted to punch a few faces at work. That shaped me. Tell us about that. Pete Slauson For example, you just gave a perfect example. You've wanted to punch out somebody that

you had at work. I'm sure that… Pete O''m metaphorically. Yeah, of course, of course. But that is what we should understand. That is what this book is all about is understanding why we feel that way sometimes. Why it is when it work or when we're home or when we're out on an excursion somewhere with someone, something angers us. What are we reacting to? Why, why is this happening?

Lack of coffee. Lack of coffee. That's usually what it is for me. Yeah. That might be one of the solutions. I don't know about having another extra cup of coffee. We'll solve the problem. Usually helps immensely.

No one bothers me before coffee. There's even a sign on my expressa machine. Don't know, talkie, no coffee. Don't just, you leave me for alone for about two hours in the morning until I've soaked up some coffee. Sure. That makes sense. 20 cups or something like that. That's a lot of coffee. That's just for the morning. Oh my God. Are you a coffee drinker all day long? I am all day long, but I don't drink 20 cups a day. Just maybe, I don't know,

15. No, I'm just kidding. Maybe. I mean, seriously, it might be like six days, but they're little shots. They're like that big. So that'll keep you going. Two at a time, three at a time. Yeah. What you're doing there of course is artificially tweaking who you are and that, you know, with drugs, and I guess you could call coffee a drug, we can modify our behavior in any number of ways because we're changing the way we feel about the world around us. But if we just leave ourselves to our own

devices, then that is who we are dealing with the world that we're confronted with and what I call the environment. So how do I, how do we like, okay, so all this stuff, how do I, how do I improve it? Is there a way for me to go, Hey man, I don't want to be whatever I was born with and maybe how my parents shaped me. Is there any way to beat the system? Or, you know, I feel like I'm rigged into prison. Then I, you know, I, I'm stuck because, you know, I was born this way and, and how do I get out of it? Or is there a way to get out?

Pete Slauson There isn't a way of not being who you are. Pete Larkin No. Pete Slauson You will be that way the rest of your life. Pete Larkin Damn it. Pete Slauson But, but there is a solution to all this. Pete Larkin Okay. rest of your life. But there is a solution to all this. And that's understanding, through understanding. Knowledge does amazing things for us, which is why I wrote this book. Because if you understand the way you're structured, you will understand the way everyone else

is structured too. And that will explain to you why all of a sudden, say, you feel like punching out at someone at work. What happened? Where do those feelings come from? Why is there some sort of a demand inside of you that says, boy, I would really like to punch this guy out? And knowing that, understanding what the process is that's involved in creating that anger gives you a solid place in the driver's seat. So once you know why this is happening, then you can deal with it. If you don't know what's happening, if you don't know what is motivating or causing the behavior that you're going through, then you can't. You have lost all control. But understanding how you're structured and the way the rest of the world is structured,

then you have the upper hand. Pete So, tell us about yourself. How did you grow up? How did you kind of learn about what got you into psychology, motivated to do that and everything else? Dr. C. I think, Chris, there's a rule of thumb we psychologists have, and that is that we know that everybody is a little bit off, but we're a little bit further off than everybody else. And that's what motivates all psychologists to become psychologists. The idea is to return a certain degree of control back to the psychologist who is suffering from whatever kind of neurosis they think they might be suffering from. And that's exactly what we're doing with the exposure of it's not your fault. We're bringing

back, we're giving back a certain degree of control to the reader. And understanding why they do the things that they do, then they are returned to the level of control that they need in life in general to get along with others and to get along with this life, which is very, very demanding. And I think just like everybody else that studies psychology, I was curious, why do I feel this way? What has prompted these dark feelings? Or what has made me so happy over here? Why is that?

Why isn't Jerry and Sally and everybody else happy too? What is this all about? And since I hate mysteries that aren't solved, I went in to solve the mystery and that's why I became a psychologist. Pete Slauson That's what brought you into the field. So, what prompted you to write this book? You've done lots of research, I guess, behind this and data and how does it fit in with the rest of psychology? Are the psychology fellows

all… I think this might be it. No, not at all. The reason why I felt that it was time to get the message out, I think is more of a question of age. This was developed back in, as I said, 1970. And I defended the thesis that this is basically my doctoral thesis back in 1974. But it was incomprehensible. Nobody really understood what the whole thing was about. So over the years, I've dedicated my life to testing in depth the theory itself and modifying it and restructuring it and simplifying, trying my best to simplify it, until I got to a point where I thought,

now it's ready to have some sort of public face to it. We should write something that people can access and finally understand, which I think is just a major finding. Unfortunately, it is not a major finding that most psychologists would immediately go along with. Their psychology and the psychology that I learned as a student of psychology is a standard classical mix of ideas and guesswork and as much inventing as one can do to arrive at some kind of a conclusion about the reasons why we behave the way we do. But none of them are scientific.

This is the first time that there's been a scientific basis to understanding our human behavior. Oh. So, it got to the point where I said, I have to get this out. It's too much fun. Pete Slauson So, lots of years of studying went into this and stuff. It's not your fault, but so, there's no one we can blame otherwise, right? You just go, that's the dice roll of genetics and birth.

Dr. Richard Larson That's everybody's sort of plight, if you wish. We're all in the same boat. We are structured identically, but each one of us has a completely different set of genes and we have a completely different set of environment. So that's what makes each one of us so different from the other. Pete Slauson And so, I suppose people can, I don't know, focus on self-accountability. They can focus on self-improvement. They can try and understand some of these motivations they might have internally and

stuff. Is that a good assessment or is there something different that needs to happen? I think there's something very different here because this is not a self-help book. Oh. No, believe it or not, we try to steer the reader away from thinking that they're latching on to something that is a sort of map that they can use to finally find the gold and riches of life and be happy forever. This is not the case.

What we are giving them are the necessary tools for understanding. It's understanding that gives us back the control that we need over our lives and eliminates almost entirely the anxiety that so much that most of us deal with on a daily basis about the things that everyone else does, everyone else says and feels and what we feel and do as well. Pete Oh, as people come away from the book, let's expand on that a little bit more, because that's usually what I'll ask for. But let's expand on a little bit more. And how can they use the book the best? What's the best way for them to sit down

and utilize the book in a way that they can make changes to their life? Tom F. Laird I think the trick is given out at the very beginning of the book itself. And then we just develop the idea and that is that if we understand that we're relational beings, that is not just something we say. This is reality. That is to say, either we're relational or we're nothing at all. So that if we didn't have an environment, another something else with which we could relate, we couldn't stand with which we could relate, we couldn't stand 30 seconds being alive, we would not have life. Life is a relational fact, and that is the first thing that people that read the book

will understand or should understand. And right there is a secret that seems to reveal to everybody that has read the book already a good portion of the secret that's always baffled everybody. Why did I just do that? What scientific stature or background is there to explain why I did? And in the book, we do explain that in detail. Pete So, fun is fun. That's kind of interesting how the whole thing has taken and worked there. And anything more that you're working on, maybe consulting or seeing patients about this sort of thing, offering coaching or any sort of things that you're going to be offering in the future or another book?

There is a second book which will be coming along, which deals with real life examples that I think the one of the most fascinating parts of understanding structured psychology and the way that we're pieced together psychologically is that we are given a sort of a free ticket into a world that nobody has ever considered before. And it's understanding why what I'm watching over here happen is happening at all. We can understand what motivated this drama that we have in front of us or to the right. Everything that happens in our psychological lives and everything that happens in the psychological lives of others, we can explain and we can explain with no exception. And that's the fun part of

structural psychology and what has prompted the writing of the second book, which will probably be coming out sometime next year, where we take specific occurrences in life, everyday life, and explain them structurally. And it's a ton of fun. I think understanding structured psychology is already a ton of fun, to see how this happened. Why is this fellow so angry at Susan or Sally or Mike or Todd? What inspired this? Knowing what inspired that? It's just, it's very entertaining. Pete Slauson People are, humans are entertaining if you try not to cry over some of the little human behaviors we do. But yeah, we need to work to make the life a better place. I wish they'd teach some of this

stuff, like how to deal with psychology and stuff, how to maybe fix yourself in high school or, you know, elementary school. And, you know, in high school or, you know, elementary school and, you know, in high school you kind of need it because everyone's pretty mean. All school kids are mean. It's kind of a weird hazing process that we have in school. But, you know, who am I to fix it? It built my character. It's just interesting to understand why, for example, when you're a child and you're in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, why children are so mean. And of course, they are reacting to something else. They're not reacting to you, which you'll learn in the book. And that's why

they're just trying to get themselves centered back where they were before this whole first grade kindergarten nonsense began, and they were forced into certain kinds of behavior. So when you see children that are being kids, that are being mean and uncompromising and cruel to others, they're going through something. These kids are not just having a whiz out there. Their reacting to something that they're feeling. Pete Yeah. I know, you know, when I was in high school, we had two twins that were bullies

to me and my friend. And it ended up in quite the, it ended up in quite the taunt. And then finally, we all ended up in front of the principal. And it came out that their parents were really awful people and were beating them at home. At least their dad was probably an alcoholic or something to that degree. And the whole life was complete shit. And so they were, of course, like you said, acting out to us for what they were going through, which, you know, it's hard to forgive something like that, because I don't know, when you're on the receiving end of, you know, there's people who've been killed over this shit, you know, they're, they don't get to continue on through

your life because of someone else's brain damage. So yeah, it's kind of interesting how it goes. We'll look forward to seeing some of the new stuff in. Is there anything more we want to talk about and tease out to people before we go? I just think that if people can get a hold of the book and it's a quick read, it's a very small book, but it's packed with information that will bring that element of control back into the lives of the reader. And I think that that's something that we feel, all of us feel in one way or the other

at some time or another, that we've lost control over ourselves, that we've lost control over others, that we've lost control over what we understand as this life we're leading. And getting it back is very satisfying and it also gives us some tools to work with as we go through this life, which is not easy to understand why it is as difficult as it is and what we can do about it. Pete Slauson Pitch out your dot com so that people can find you on the interweb, where they can order the book and all that good stuff. Roger Pitch Okay, yes. You have structuredpsychology.com. Facebook and Instagram is where you can go.

Pete Slauson Thank you very much, Rogers, for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Very insightful stuff. And hopefully, we can help people, more people discover, you know, what they're doing wrong in life and, and maybe how to, you know, just be better people. Cause we definitely need better people around. I've seen the news and it's not looking good so far. Thank you very much for coming to the show, sir. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. And thanks for tuning in. Order the book where refined books are sold. It's not your fault. Structured psychology is all about you, who you are, why you think, feel and do the things you do.

I'm going to mail a copy to all my ex girlfriends. Her way. It's not my fault. Your fault. Anyway, one of those two, that joke failed. Anyway, I pick it up January 1st, 2025. Thanks for tuning in. Go to good reset com forces, Chris Foss, linked goodrese.com, Forchess, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Forchess, Chris Voss, Chris Voss, and Tik Tok. And all those crazy places. Be good, be sure, stay safe.

We'll see you next time. And that should have us out. Great show, man.