The Taproot Podcast - 😱Suffering Without Screaming: Healing The Modern Soul Part 3

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

Healing the Modern Soul is a series about how clinical psychology will haave to change and confront its past if it is to remain relevant in the future. Part 1    Part 2    Part 3     Part 4 ��    Healing the Modern Soul Appendix    The Role of Psychotherapy as a Third Space and Meaning-Making System   Psychotherapy can be seen as a third space that exists outside of the dogmas of both science and religion, serving as a bridge between our medical and spiritual needs. In this space, therapists and clients engage in a process of meaning-making that allows the inner world and understanding of the self to better reflect the reality of the outer world.   This process of meaning-making occurs through both conscious thought, which is aware of time and language, and implicit memory, which is only aware of our somatic and deep emotional cues that can only partially be known by the conscious mind. In this way, psychotherapy itself can be considered a kind of simulacra, a symbol that does not point to an original source of meaning, but rather serves as a guide to help individuals navigate their own unique experiences and challenges.   #PsychotherapyFuture #MentalHealthRevolution #ThirdSpacePsychology #IntegrativePsychotherapy #ScienceAndSpirituality #MeaningMakingProcess #ImplicitMemoryHealing #ConsciousAndUnconscious #SelfDiscoveryJourney #PsychotherapyEvolution #HealingTrauma #HumanExperienceInsights #CompassionatePsychotherapy #HolisticMentalHealth #TransformativePsychology Suffering Without Screaming In the first part of this series, we explored the concept of the modern world as a simulacrum, a copy without an original, and how this phenomenon is related to the increasing emphasis on hyper-rationality and objectivity in our culture. We also discussed how the work of philosophers and psychologists, as observed by Friedrich Nietzsche, can reveal their own fears and insecurities through their insistence on perfect logic and objectivity. In the second part of the series we discussed the need for a coherent sense of self in new therapy models and a dialectical relationship between the self and the world. William Gibson,  Memory Palace When we were only several hundred-thousand years old, we built stone circles, water clocks. Later, someone forged an iron spring. Set clockwork running. Imagined grid-lines on a globe. Cathedrals are like machines to finding the soul; bells of clock towers stitch the sleeper’s dreams together. You see; so we’ve always been on our way to this new place—that is no place, really—but it is real. It’s our nature to represent: we’re the animal that represents, the sole and only maker of maps. And if our weakness has been to confuse the bright and bloody colors of our calendars with the true weather of days, and the parchment’s territory of our maps with the land spread out before us—never mind. We have always been on our way to this new place—that is no place, really—but it is real. The Simulacra Effect and the Disconnect from Felt Experience The simulacra effect, as described by Jean Baudrillard, is a result of our culture's increasing emphasis on hyper-rationality and objectivity. As we prioritize logical and rational thinking over subjective experiences and emotions, we create a world that feels hyper-real, yet simultaneously disconnected from our authentic selves. Nietzsche recognized this phenomenon in the work of philosophers and psychologists who claimed to have discovered objective truths through pure logic and reason. He argued that the more these thinkers insisted on their own rationality and objectivity, the more they revealed their own madness and disconnection from reality. In today's world, we find ourselves in a similar situation. On the surface, everything appears normal and rational, but there is an underlying sense of wrongness or disconnection that we struggle to articulate. This is because our culture has taught us to prioritize objective, rational thinking over our subjective, felt experiences. As individuals and as a society, we must reconnect with our felt experiences to recognize and address the insanity that surrounds us. This requires us to embrace our emotions, intuitions, and subjective perceptions, even when they seem to contradict the dominant narrative of rationality and objectivity. Psychotherapy, as a discipline, must play a crucial role in helping individuals engage with their felt experiences, even if it means navigating the complex and often paradoxical relationship between the rational and the subjective. By doing so, therapy can help individuals develop a more authentic sense of self and a deeper understanding of their place in the world. The Dangers of Denying the Self in Psychotherapy Models In the second part of this series, we explored how different models of psychotherapy reveal their own assumptions and biases about the nature of the self and the goals of therapy. By examining these models through the lens of Nietzsche's critique, we can identify potentially dangerous or dehumanizing approaches to treatment. One particularly concerning example is Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), a common approach to treating autism spectrum disorders. In the ABA model, the self is reduced to a collection of observable behaviors, with little or no consideration for the individual's inner world, emotions, or subjective experiences. This approach is deeply problematic, as it essentially denies the existence of a soul or psyche in individuals with autism or other neurodivergent conditions. By focusing solely on external behaviors and reinforcing "desirable" actions through rewards and punishments, ABA fails to recognize the inherent humanity and agency of the individuals it seeks to treat. In contrast, a truly effective and ethical model of psychotherapy must acknowledge and support the development of a coherent sense of self, while also recognizing the existence of other selves in the world. Therapy should be a dialectical process, helping individuals navigate the complex relationship between their inner world and the external reality they inhabit. This is particularly important for individuals who may not fit neatly into the objective, outcome-oriented modes of expression and socialization that dominate our culture. Rather than discounting or suppressing their unique perspectives and experiences, therapy should encourage and support the development of their authentic selves. The Case of the Autistic Child and Neuromodulation To illustrate the importance of a holistic and integrative approach to psychotherapy, let us consider the case of an autistic child who experiences sensory overwhelm and distress when exposed to cold temperatures. In a traditional ABA approach, the focus would be on modifying the child's behavior through rewards and punishments, with the goal of reducing the outward expression of distress. However, this approach fails to address the underlying neural and sensory processing issues that contribute to the child's experience of overwhelm. By contrast, a neuromodulation approach, such as that described in the case study involving QEEG brain mapping, seeks to identify and target the specific areas of neural dysfunction that are contributing to the child's distress. In this case, the QEEG brain map revealed a disconnect between the thalamus, which processes sensory information, and the long-term memory regions of the brain. By using neuromodulation techniques to bridge this gap and facilitate communication between these areas, the therapists were able to help the child process and integrate their sensory experiences more effectively, leading to a reduction in distress and an increased ability to tolerate cold temperatures. This case study highlights the importance of looking beyond surface-level behaviors and considering the complex interplay of neurological, sensory, and emotional factors that shape an individual's experience of the world. By addressing these underlying issues, rather than simply trying to suppress or modify outward expressions of distress, psychotherapy can help individuals to develop a greater sense of self-regulation, resilience, and overall well-being. The Role of Implicit Memory in Shaping Our Sense of Self To effectively address the complexities of the modern soul, psychotherapy must also grapple with the role of implicit memory in shaping our sense of self and our relationship to the world. Implicit memory, also known as the unconscious or subcortical brain processes, encompasses the vast array of experiences, emotions, and assumptions that operate beneath the level of conscious awareness. These implicit memories can have a profound impact on our behavior, relationships, and overall well-being, often in ways that we struggle to understand or articulate. They may manifest as trauma responses, maladaptive patterns of thinking and behavior, or a pervasive sense of disconnection from ourselves and others. Effective psychotherapy must find ways to access and work with these implicit memories, helping individuals to process and integrate their experiences in a way that promotes healing and growth. Different Types of Memory and Therapeutic Approaches One key insight in understanding the role of implicit memory in psychotherapy is recognizing that there are different types of memory, each requiring distinct therapeutic approaches to effectively treat the associated trauma or dysfunction. Relational memory: This type of memory encompasses our assumptions about communication, identity, and how we want to be perceived by others. Individuals with attachment disorders or relational trauma may have impaired functional memory, leading to maladaptive patterns in their interactions with others. Therapies that focus on building secure attachments, such as emotionally focused therapy (EFT) or interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), can be particularly effective in addressing relational memory issues. Visual-spatial memory: This type of memory is associated with flashbacks and vivid re-experiencing of traumatic events. While relatively rare, visual-spatial memory trauma can be highly distressing and debilitating. Treatments like eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and prolonged exposure therapy (PE) have been shown to be effective in processing and integrating these traumatic memories. Kinesthetic memory: This type of memory is stored in the body and is related to how we budget energy and respond to stress. Somatic therapies, such as sensorimotor psychotherapy and somatic experiencing, can help individuals reconnect with their bodily sensations and develop greater self-regulation and resilience in the face of stress and trauma. Cognitive-emotional memory: This type of memory is associated with self-referential processes, such as problem-solving, obsessing, and rumination. Cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT) and mindfulness-based approaches can be effective in addressing maladaptive thought patterns and promoting more flexible and adaptive ways of relating to one's internal experience. By understanding the different types of memory involved in trauma and psychological distress, therapists can develop more targeted and effective interventions that address the specific needs of each individual client. The Complexity of the Unconscious and the Limitations of Language While different psychotherapeutic approaches have their own conceptions of the unconscious, it is important to recognize that implicit memory cannot be perfectly mapped or described using language alone. The unconscious is a vast and complex realm that operates beneath the level of conscious awareness, and our attempts to understand and articulate its workings will always be limited by the constraints of language and cognition. In many ways, the relationship between the conscious mind and the unconscious can be likened to that between a democratic government and its constituents. Just as a democracy relies on elected representatives to make decisions on behalf of the larger population, our conscious mind relies on simplified models and representations of the unconscious to guide our thoughts and behaviors. Similarly, the unconscious can be compared to a graphics processing unit (GPU) in a computer, which is optimized for handling complex and repetitive tasks, such as rendering images or processing large datasets. In contrast, the conscious mind is more like a central processing unit (CPU), which is better suited for handling novel and sequential tasks that require flexibility and adaptability. While the CPU (conscious mind) may be the "decision-maker," it relies heavily on the GPU (unconscious) to provide the raw data and processing power needed to navigate the complexities of the world around us. Attempting to understand the unconscious solely through the lens of conscious, language-based reasoning would be like trying to understand the inner workings of a GPU using only the tools and concepts of CPU programming. The Influence of Silicon Valley and Corporate Interests on Mental Health This brings us to the problematic assumptions underlying certain models of psychotherapy, which are deeply embedded in the broader cultural and economic forces that shape our understanding of mental health and well-being. In particular, the influence of Silicon Valley and corporate interests on the field of psychology has led to a growing emphasis on treating individuals as programmable entities, much like computers or robots. This perspective is rooted in the belief that with enough data and processing power, human behavior can be predicted, controlled, and optimized. We see this belief reflected in the development of large language models (LLMs) and other AI technologies, which are often presented as capable of replicating or even surpassing human intelligence and creativity. However, this view fundamentally misunderstands the nature of human consciousness and agency, reducing the complexity of the human mind to a set of algorithms and data points. The notion that robots can be made into people through advances in AI and computing power is deeply misguided, as it fails to recognize the fundamental differences between human consciousness and machine learning. At the same time, the idea that people can be reduced to robots through behavioral conditioning and programming is equally dangerous, as it denies the inherent humanity and agency of individuals. These assumptions are not only flawed but also deeply dehumanizing, as they prioritize measurable outcomes and "optimal" functioning over the rich and complex inner lives of individuals. By treating people as objects to be fixed or optimized, rather than as meaning-making beings with unique subjective experiences, we risk perpetuating a culture of alienation, disconnection, and suffering. The Danger of Prioritizing Suffering Over Healing The case of the autistic child also raises important questions about the goals and priorities of psychotherapy in the modern world. In a culture that prioritizes hyper-rationality, objectivity, and measurable outcomes, there is a risk of reducing the complexity of human experience to a set of behaviors to be modified or eliminated. This approach can lead to a dangerous prioritization of suffering over healing, where the goal of therapy becomes to help individuals endure their distress without expressing it, rather than to address the underlying causes of their suffering and promote genuine growth and transformation. The idea that therapy should aim to help people "suffer without screaming" is a deeply troubling direction for the profession to take. It reflects a dehumanizing view of individuals as objects to be fixed or controlled, rather than as complex, meaning-making beings with inherent worth and dignity. Instead, psychotherapy should strive to create a safe and supportive space for individuals to explore their experiences, to develop a greater understanding of themselves and their place in the world, and to cultivate the skills and resources needed to navigate life's challenges with resilience, authenticity, and grace. This requires a willingness to sit with the full spectrum of human experience, including the painful, messy, and often paradoxical aspects of the self and the world. It also requires a recognition of the inherent value and wisdom of each individual's unique perspective and life journey, and a commitment to honoring and supporting their growth and development in a way that is grounded in their own values, needs, and aspirations. Screaming without Suffering The simulacra effect, as described by Baudrillard and anticipated by Nietzsche, is a direct consequence of our culture's increasing emphasis on hyper-rationality, objectivity, and the denial of subjective experience. As psychotherapists and as a society, we must resist the temptation to reduce the complexity of the human mind to a set of behaviors or data points, and instead embrace the inherent messiness and uncertainty of the human condition. By reconnecting with our felt experiences, acknowledging the existence of the self and other selves in the world, and challenging the dominant paradigms of mental health treatment, we can begin to navigate the complexities of the modern soul and find a sense of authenticity and meaning in an increasingly disconnected world. This requires a willingness to engage with the paradoxes and contradictions that arise when we attempt to bridge the gap between the rational and the subjective, the individual and the collective, the inner world and the external reality. It is a difficult and ongoing process, but one that is essential if we are to create a more humane and fulfilling vision of mental health and well-being in the 21st century. As we have explored throughout this series, the role of psychotherapy in navigating the modern soul is both complex and essential. By embracing a holistic and integrative approach that recognizes the full complexity of the human experience, therapists can help individuals to develop a more authentic and meaningful sense of self, one that is grounded in their own unique values, experiences, and relationships. This process of self-discovery and healing is not always comfortable or easy, but it is necessary if we are to resist the dehumanizing forces of hyper-rationality, objectivity, and corporate interest that threaten to reduce the richness and diversity of human experience to a set of measurable outcomes and data points. Ultimately, the goal of psychotherapy in the modern world should be to help individuals to connect with their own inner wisdom and resilience, to find meaning and purpose in their lives, and to contribute to the creation of a more compassionate and authentic society. By working together to navigate the complexities of the modern soul, we can begin to heal the wounds of disconnection and alienation, and to create a world that truly honors the full spectrum of human experience. In the end, it is our capacity for love, empathy, and genuine human connection that will guide us through the challenges of the modern world. While pain and suffering may be inevitable, it is our ability to love and be loved that gives our lives meaning and purpose. As we strive to navigate the complexities of the modern soul, let us remember that we have the power to choose love over fear, connection over isolation, and authenticity over simulacra. For in doing so, we not only heal ourselves but also contribute to the healing of the world around us.  "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom" -Viktor E. Frankl   References and Further Reading: Baudrillard, J. (1981). Simulacra and simulation. University of Michigan Press. Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. Routledge. Deleuze, G. (1968). Difference and repetition. Columbia University Press. Gibson, W. (1984). Neuromancer. Ace Books. Freud, S. (1923). The ego and the id. W.W. Norton & Company. Jung, C. G. (1933). Modern man in search of a soul. Routledge. Nietzsche, F. (1882). The gay science. Vintage. Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W.W. Norton & Company. Schore, A. N. (2019). The development of the unconscious mind. W.W. Norton & Company. Siegel, D. J. (2010). The mindful therapist: A clinician's guide to mindsight and neural integration. W.W. Norton & Company. van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking. Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. Basic Books. Žižek, S. (1989). The sublime object of ideology. Verso. Baudrillard, J. (1994). The illusion of the end. Stanford University Press. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1980). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press. Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage Books. Lacan, J. (1966). Écrits. W.W. Norton & Company. Lyotard, J.-F. (1979). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. University of Minnesota Press. Saussure, F. (1916). Course in general linguistics. Columbia University Press. Derrida, J. (1967). Of grammatology. Johns Hopkins University Press. Nietzsche, F. (1887). On the genealogy of morality. Hackett Publishing Company. Heidegger, M. (1927). Being and time. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. Sartre, J.-P. (1943). Being and nothingness. Washington Square Press. Camus, A. (1942). The stranger. Vintage International.26. Dostoevsky, F. (1866). Crime and punishment. Penguin Classics. Kafka, F. (1915). The metamorphosis. Classix Press. Borges, J. L. (1944). Ficciones. Grove Press. Calvino, I. (1972). Invisible cities. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Eco, U. (1980). The name of the rose. Harcourt. Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. Putnam. Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions. Oxford University Press. LeDoux, J. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. Simon & Schuster. Solms, M., & Turnbull, O. (2002). The brain and the inner world: An introduction to the neuroscience of subjective experience. Other Press. Fonagy, P., Gergely, G., Jurist, E. L., & Target, M. (2002). Affect regulation, mentalization, and the development of the self. Other Press. Stern, D. N. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant: A view from psychoanalysis and developmental psychology. Basic Books. Tronick, E. (2007). The neurobehavioral and social-emotional development of infants and children. W.W. Norton & Company. Beebe, B., & Lachmann, F. M. (2014). The origins of attachment: Infant research and adult treatment. Routledge. Schore, J. R., & Schore, A. N. (2008). Modern attachment theory: The central role of affect regulation in development and treatment. Clinical Social Work Journal, 36(1), 9-20. Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the body: A sensorimotor approach to psychotherapy. W.W. Norton & Company.   Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.com/ Podcast Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.podbean.com/ Podcast Feed: https://feed.podbean.com/GetTherapyBirmingham/feed.xml Taproot Therapy Collective 2025 Shady Crest Drive | Hoover, Alabama 35216 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Email: [e-mail]  

Hey guys, this is Joel with the Taproot Therapy Collective podcast, and this is part three of making meaning in the modern world, or fixing the modern soul, a series on what psychology is going to have to address if it's going to change to keep pace with the world and its problems that are new. Some of them are old or have a symbolic root that is older, but some of them are entirely modern. And one of the things that we talked about in the first episode was that the world was feeling like this kind of simulacra or copy without an original, which is a paradox. That you're looking around and you're saying everything feels like it doesn't work or like it's breaking or that these things don't really point back to the symbols that they used to point back to or or serve the purpose that they used to you know things like government

that it doesn't even feel like you know people are even trying to lie well or things like social media and our socialization that we're doing socialization but we're because that's been you know changed through digital digital technology through that being curated through an algorithm it feels hyper real but it also feels not real you know and because we're so obsessed with objectivity with logic and reason um we're looking around and objectively there's nothing wrong with the world. Yet I feel crazy in a subjective way, in a subjective space. So it must just be me. And I was saying, I think everyone feels like that. At least I do.

And all of the people that I talk to all day long and the therapists that I talk to about the people they talk to all day long, we feel alone with this and we're not alone with it. So what do we do with it? How does, how does psychology start to address that, you know, feeling? And I had talked about how in the first episode, you know, Friedrich Nietzsche saw the work of philosophers that claimed to be hyperlogical and rational and had just pulled out some point of objective truth from the universe through just reason and science and empiricism, he saw that they were sort of telling on themselves, that they were insane, that they were

they were clinging to this hyper logical rational worldview in a way that you know people like Descartes did then and a lot of people you know maybe like Jordan Peterson do now where they pretend these incredibly subjective beliefs are just purely logical, scientific endeavors that, you know, just given to them by the objective truth and nature of the universe in a way that really, if you listen to them, they're kind of telling on themselves. And I was arguing, you know, that what we could do, what you can do when you're looking at psychology and the different schools of psychology, I would say that really most of my lifetime therapy has gone in a pretty bad direction. Now clinical psychology is going in some interesting ones and academic psychology is still clinging to some pretty bad ones. I would like them to be more on the same page than they are, but it's not up to me.

But really, you can do the same thing with models of therapy, because to me, what a model of therapy has to do is it has to define a sense of self. Like, who do you think we are? What are we? You know, one of the things that made Freud so revolutionary, I think one of the only things that has endured from Freud, mostly, is that the self is not one thing. It's not the center of our logical, our ego, or our whatever. It is these dynamic forces that sort of disagree and buff it up against each other. I think that conception is good. And I think losing that conception to move something towards something like cognitive behavioral therapy, or especially something like behavioral only, or, you know, ABA therapy is incredibly dangerous. And the reason for that is that therapy to me is a conversation between the self and the world.

It is a way that you see how this person conceives of themselves in an inward way and conceives of the world, you know, largely, sometimes unconsciously through implicit memory in this outward way. And you're helping that process work again. Maybe my expectations for how the world is supposed to enable me are wrong. Maybe my expectations for what I'm supposed to be are impossible. These are the conversations it has to have. And where you need to start is, what is the concept of self that that model of therapy has. And the reason that I say that something like behaviorism is so crazy is that its concept of the self is nothing. You know, you can critique the Jungians and say, well, if you're saying that to know the self is to know God and all this

mystical language and that the self is uniquely used to the divine and we have to understand that the unconscious is really a reflection of our spiritual desires even if we're secular materialists we still have to engage with those you know uh projections of spirituality in order to understand something maybe you think that's too out there and woo woo um but i would hope that we would all be equally terrified of a model that says the self is not real it's not there. You are only other people's external impression of you gleaned from your behavior. And you are only the things that have happened to you and the reinforcements and conditioning that you get positively and negatively for us to reinforce your behavior. But we don't really care who you are, right? And this is so scary to me because something like ABA, you know, applied behavior analysis is used to treat children with autism largely, right? And,

you know, I get that autism is going to be hard and that's not my area of expertise. I see a lot of adults on the spectrum, but I don't really work with children, you know, is I get that that's going to be hard because you can't communicate with the child in a way that psychotherapy wants us to communicate with or any kind of therapy or education through talking. So behaviorism, I don't think is the answer to that question. I mean, the models of therapy that say that the self is just a collection of behavior, that you're all just people's external idea of you. And so let's throw the internal world away entirely, because we don't really care who you are. I mean, you're saying that because this person is neurodivergent, they don't have a soul, essentially. And that's, that's horrifying.

Or if they do, you know, have a psyche or soul or whatever, that's just irrelevant to the model of psychology that we're using to change their behavior. That's really a bad road. And I extrapolated that in the second part to say that we can use these same assumptions in psychotherapy to look at really broader assumptions in our world that are very bad and also equally horrifying. For example, coming back to something like ABA and behavioral therapy like shouldn't

all the models of therapy teach people that they are a self and that other people are selves in this world too that we have to interact with not just be conditioned to act like they know that but to actually understand that i'm a person and another person is a person it's not if i want to take your candy if i want to hit you it isn't that i'm gonna have someone another person is a person. If I want to take your candy, if I want to hit you, it isn't that I'm going to have someone flash a red card at me and then when they flash the red card at me, I'm going to have my candy taken away and I'm going to be put in the time corner or whatever the punishment is.

And so I just need to learn to not take your candy or hit you. It's that I need to learn that you are a person and that I am a person. And then when I hit you and take away your candy, you have an inward experience that I have to learn to reckon with, right? I have to learn to understand. If you're taking the self out of therapy and the way that behavioral therapy does, I don't know that you can call it psychology at that point i think it's a very reductivist form of anthropology i'll come back to children that are autistic or neurodivergent you know but you know we have a world that i get is geared towards outcomes and objective oriented models of expression and socialization that has been commercialized and transactionalized and production.

And so when you say, you know, people who don't have the ability to engage with those modes of self objectively are just going to have the nature of self discounted entirely, I think that speaks to a lot of bigger issues with our world. And when you look at something like how Silicon Valley is right now, and I'm not a Luddite. I built computers for a living before I did this. I use large language models to program large chunks of our website. I use them to collate data. I use them to clean up spreadsheets. I use them so I can write an article in bullet points or turn a transcript from a podcast into an article and then clean it up. I think that they have a place. But the fundamental assumptions underneath Silicon Valley right now is that if you get enough processing power, if you get enough comp time, you can turn a computer

into a person. And the only way that you get there, you know, this whole industry, our society is telling on itself in a way that we need to hear. The way that you get there is that you think that people can be turned into robots also. And that is very scary to me. So that's a summary of the stuff that we did in part one and two. And a lot of the questions, you know, that we've already got are things like, you know, how do I pick a therapist? You know, how do I, I would say put this profession on trial, right? Like, I'm sure there's a brain spotting therapist out there that's bad. I'm sure there's somebody who does a model of therapy that I like that isn't doing it well you know I've met some Jungian analysts that I think are pretty not right even though I like Jung I don't know that

that's the best model of therapy for everybody but I would say you need to put these people on trial and say how do you conceive of the self do you think I have a soul what is the goal of therapy you know if I have something that I don't want to know that it's going to blow my life up to find out, but that's true, are you going to pull a punch? Are you going to help me figure that out? Those are things that you are able to ask a therapist. Those are things that you should be able to get an answer for before you pay a lot of money and spend a lot of time and potentially, you know, have someone do something that is damaging. Whereas just because it's not you, it doesn't make room for you. So my answer to how to pick a therapist, I think, is to look for people who engage with these things in their profile,

in their writing. Are they a curious person? Are they doing a different kind of therapy now than they did a year ago? Because they're continuing to learn something, not to take continuing education, but to actually continue to educate themselves because they want to, you know, the same way that you would pick a friend. You're not going to be friends with your therapist. You shouldn't find one that you want to be friends with. But we do read people in a way that we do. We want to spend time with this person that when we go into a doctor's office or it's a medical service, I think a lot of times we act like, oh, I don't have the credentials. I don't have the ability. You absolutely do. Bring your humanity into therapy

and expect the therapist to bring their humanity into it as well. So, you know, implicit memory, I think we talked a little bit about how the history of self is, you know, I, I think, you know, the, the problem with this relationship between the self and the world is that we aren't logical, objective creatures as much as we pretend to be. We sort of, when we stop dreaming, we sort of go insane. When we, when we stop being able to be metaphorical, to have symbol, to have spirituality, to have purpose, it doesn't matter if we have enough to eat, you know, that there's a whole lot of, you know, yes, behavioral psychology experiments that go back a really long time, like the cloth monkey experiment and things like that, that tell us that we have a part of the

brain that we have to feed, and it doesn't need, we don't feed it with food. And so the problem, we've talked about this relationship between self and world, but the issue is Freud called it the subconscious. Jung called it the unconscious. Newer research now calls it implicit memory. Some people say primary, secondary, and tertiary cognitive processes. But we are waking up to this idea that waltzed out of Vienna a very long time ago, that we actually aren't really in control of everything about ourselves and the way that we think we are. At least our egos not. That there are a million things happening in our brainstem all of the time.

And these things happening in the brainstem are so incredibly fast. You know, a lot of them are traumatic responses that are maladaptive, but we built them through intuition. That base of our brain is actually intuitive. When you clear the trauma, you're able to tell the difference between your trauma and your intuition. And that part of the brain, that subcortical brain, is teaching you how to access memory and act on that memory emotionally and somatically, physically, and then make these implicit assumptions that color your cognition. And so therapy has to address that. But a lot of people don't think that that's real. And then also, to go into those places is very vulnerable. And it creates a sense of shame, because shame comes from this place where my relationship to the world was wrong, myself was wrong. You know, that's essentially what

shame is saying. And that could be that an unrealistic expectation of I'm not allowed to fail. And you're reminding me of a time that I failed. And yet my worldview, my external view is that I'm not allowed to do this. Only other people do this. And so when my self knows that it failed, it doesn't fit into this conception of the world, and now there is shame. And yet, when you go back into a trauma response, there's lots of different kinds of memory. It may not be a conscious, you know, understanding like that. It may be an overwhelming somatic piece where your whole body thinks that it's dying. And even though the my intellect doesn't, the client is suffering in that moment if I push them back into that place where their implicit memory assumptions that are

being relived are, I cannot live through this, I need to die. You know, they may not think that consciously, but their whole body is hot. My chest feels like a black hole. It's cold. It's sucking. You know, those things are overwhelming, those trauma responses. And so the thing that psychology is rapidly trying to do is figure out how to change implicit memory. You know, academics are not quite on this yet because they're having a hard time

as a mainstream of the profession. Some journals are better than others, but they're having a hard time even admitting that this somatic integrative medicine using the body and getting into implicit memory is the point of therapy. But what they're all trying to figure out now is how do we get in and change implicit memory

and therapy quickly. And it's this kind of this idea like if you like sound design of signal to noise ratio if i amplify this signal so that my voice is louder because i didn't record it enough yes the signal gets louder but what also gets louder the noise all of the background element that's roaring and the ceiling fan and the little pops and clicks and the feedback hum because my wire didn't have you know the nugget on it to stop that from happening the the magnet that filters out you know interference or something so it's the signal to noise ratio is if we if we go into and make the the trauma response if we go into this place where we're saying let's go further into implicit memory let's go to moments where yourself didn't overlap with what your self-image is where you know that you remember a time of being what you didn't

want to be where you don't feel like you can live through then that makes the trauma response louder too so how do we get more signal and less noise? It's an old problem in electronics. It's an old problem in therapy. And we are in this place where sometimes through neurology we understand more than we ever have about how to do that. could be applied to something like autism in a way that, you know, ABA or behavioral and cognitive therapy for somebody who has a hard time maybe articulating their emotional experience or speaking could still be incredibly beneficial to rewiring implicit memory. QEEG brain mapping, that you can go in and make an entire map of the brain. You ping every single place how fast the brain can talk to itself in those places,

which gives you a whole history of cognition, because the more that you use a connection between two parts, the faster that connection gets. So if the signal is trying to go really slowly, you know, from one of the connections, then we know that that is not a place that is used much, that this is a deficit in connection, that we can go in and stem it, we can run neuromodulation through it, and force the brain to use that pathway until it gets better at it. And then behavior will get better. Dysregulation will get better. Sensory overwhelm from autism will get better. I mean, a whole lot of children have gone through just ours, you know, peak neuroscience downstairs, like their lab. And they, you know, one kid flooded when he was around cold he had sensory

overwhelm and his body could not remember you know what cold felt like intellectually his intellectual memory remembered it so he's kind of afraid of ice afraid of winter because you know if he went into um the the cold uh he remembered that his body felt something completely new that it didn't understand, and he melted down and his parents couldn't go anywhere. And Jay and Gianna, when they're doing the brain map, you know, one of the case studies that they had, I don't know if it was one that they had done a long time ago, or one of the ones that Jay was just using to teach the brain mappers, but they saw that the thalamus was sending sensory information that long-term memory wasn't getting. There was a signal gap. And so they took that signal and they stemmed it into the thalamus, what the thalamus was saying, essentially. They bridged it so that it could talk to long-term memory and send that

information around the signal gap. And then the kid was able to go outside and hold ice and, you know, be cold with limited distress. If you're using behaviorism, you're just trying to make someone like that not suffer. And I'm not just trying to talk about autism. I'm trying to talk about this as an extreme case where someone may have, be, has trouble communicating at all. Everyone deserves a conception of self that is sane and fair and human in therapy. And so that was, that's one way where in a behavioral therapy, you're going to make this person not scream even though they are suffering. You know, with this neuromodulation, which luckily worked in this case,

this person is able to not suffer. And screaming without or suffering without screaming is such a sad goal for therapy to have. And it's why a lot of these directions that the industry pushes us in, I think, are bad. Another option is the stellate ganglion block. You know, why don't we look at some of these pathways as a way to rewire implicit memory? The stellate ganglion block, we have an episode interviewing one of the surgeons from Annapolis that does this procedure, but you can get it in here in Birmingham. A lot of our patients have. They go in between the C6 and the C7 vertebrae. It takes about five minutes and they

inject into one of the nerves that holds a, you know, chronic, a feed back and potentially a feed forward loop. And the way that we feel chronic pain, the way we feel anxiety, and they inject it with anesthesia, it forgets all of them. And it has to relearn it. And the effect on the patients who have done both, they've told me it's very much like brain spotting, but it happens all at once. You know, that's another option. Also, micronutrition, you know, you have neurons in your gut, and we don't sell the product yet. We have an interview with them. Our goal is to sell them through our website in a couple years, but you can buy them right now. Is to use, actually, we don't get a, we may by the time you hear this, if you listen to it in a year or something,

but we don't get like a kickback or anything right now. I'd like to eventually, but the code that they gave us to order just our clinic to order is taproot. Um, I think it's all caps. If you, you go to Hardy and use taproot on the thing I'm talking about, I think you get, you know, 15% off or something, but, um, micronutrition, there's an enormous amount of research where these new things are coming and very few of them have been commercialized yet. I'm positioning us to know a lot about it and be able to engage with those things as they hit the market. But right now, a lot of that research has not been commercialized. But what has been is pretty amazing.

Hardy Pharmaceuticals, their research studies helping children with autism, helping children with ADHD are pretty amazing. You know, Hardy Pharmaceuticals, their research studies, helping children with autism, helping children with ADHD are pretty amazing. I went off my antidepressant when I was talking to Corey and Jared on the podcast episode, and they said a lot of people go off their antidepressant when they take Hardy. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't tell people to go off their meds. And then they sent me some of the product and I was taking it. And I realized I just forgot to take my antidepressant because I didn't feel bad and I wasn't withdrawing from it at lunchtime. So I didn't remember. And, um, you know, I, and I'm, you know, an old guy, like, uh, with children, these micronutrients have been able to change ADHD, ASD type behavior,

because a lot of times, even if you're taking, you know, something that is going to, you know, ramp up a high beta to make you focus or something that is going to, um, you know, reuptake a neurotransmitter, if you don't have the precursors to make the neurotransmitter, it's just not there. If you have gut inflammation all the time, you can be on a whole hell of a lot of, um, antidepressants or stimulants or whatever. And like, unless you're eating the benzo that minute, it's just not going to move the needle on your mood that much. Like that's, you know, get off the treadmill if you want to slow down, you know, stop trying to hold on to the emergency brake. So these are things that are part of therapy. I would, I don't have any direct experience with

this in children. But a lot of people with ASD who go to an intuitive myofascial release therapist, you know, we have an ROI. We work with a lot of people who do myofascial release, but they also do, you know, more intuitive body work as physical therapists, and we'll have an ROI to talk to them. They'll have an ROI to talk to us from the patient, a release of information, and we collaborate on trying to work with a repressed memory that maybe the body remembers, but the person doesn't remember because they were drugged. They were unconscious. Children don't make memories the same. So when I'm saying that there are other ways to get at the soul, to get into the human, these are evidence-based, not woo-woo.

I'm not talking about shamanism and ketamine and psilocybin and a lot of the other stuff that we talk about. These are hardcore evidence-based ways to do that that are easy and available in here that you probably have never heard of because our culture doesn't value that kind of thinking. It's easier for us to just turn the symptom off by giving the child a huge dose of an ADHD drug and teaching them to shut up and be quiet.

And so those are examples of what I mean when I say that therapy has to change. Things like brain spotting are amazing. When I opened, I was the second person in the state to do brain spotting that I could find. I've never found anyone before that. Everyone thought it was kind of weird. Now you're almost kind of behind the times if you don't have that. It's growing a whole lot faster than EMDR is.

And it's growing a whole lot faster than EMDR is because it works a lot better. It goes deeper. It goes a lot faster in less time. Something like emotional transformation therapy. Now that's the new weird thing that just taproot therapy does that no one else does. And people think it's weird, but the, some of the people who either said something to me, you know, nicely, uh, to my face about brain spotting being pseudoscience or something kind of bad about me behind my back. I know who you are. I've looked you up. You have the brain spotting

training. Now it's on your little psychology today. This stuff is coming. You know, I know I was weird when I did brain spotting. Now I'm doing ETT. It's, you know, mixed with brain spotting. We also have a couple of different integrative procedures at Taproot. If you know me in person and have talked to me, you know what they are. We've probably talked about them. If not, you know, I don't know. Just wait. There'll be stuff that comes out. But there's a whole lot of other things when you start integrating this stuff.

And I had said in the second part of this episode or this series that the demand for specialization, that a consumption-oriented, profit-seeking medical system is going to be interested in, they detract from the ability to do integrative work, which psychology is inherently an integrative discipline. You can't take anthropology out of it. You can't take, I don't even think you can take spirituality out of it, you know, and that can be a secular spirituality. You can't take anthropology and mythology and the body out of it, you know, and that can be a secular spirituality. You can't take anthropology and mythology and the body out of it in a way that we've tried to. And that is a dead end. It is wrong. If you continue to drive the car against that wall, you're just going to hurt people.

You're not going to go anywhere. And I hope we don't do that for much longer. So when we come back to implicit memory and how to change that i think the biggest thing is that the least amount of shame that you can have the better because shame will never help you change but everyone's inner critic feels like because most people who have allowed inner critic had some kind of neglect or abuse you know they either were abused and told these things directly, or they were neglected and they told themselves this stuff in their own head. You know, if we feel shamed, if we make ourselves feel bad, if we punish ourselves, that will change our behavior.

That is the enemy of change. Shame is the opposite. And something like cognitive behavioral therapy is a lot more likely to leave you feeling ashamed than another kind, especially just pure behaviorism. So, you know, when you come back and you think about like those stages of grief, those ideas that we deny, and then we get angry and we whatever, they're really like stages of change, because what they are, are there ways that we just accept something? You know, myself going back to therapy, being this relationship between self and the world, um, myself says, I don't want to accept this. I will make it not real by being so angry that my emotion will be magic and it will bring him back to life. You know, he's still dead.

Well, I'm just going to go on about my life. I'm going to deny it. I'm going to pretend that it didn't happen. And my denial will manifest some external reality. Doesn't matter. He's still dead. These things are how the ego resists change. And we have to come to some better understanding of what implicit memory is

if we're going to have better models of therapy. You if you look at aa groups aa is very interesting to me because it's it's it is it's not a religion in a bad way but it does function like a religion you know socially anthropologically and that you have a lot of people that are saying the same words but they don't always mean the same thing you know um are, and if you look at the AA groups that really work, the people that are trying to make themselves feel bad and make you feel bad, um, because they think that that's productive. Those are the ones that are kind of toxic. Like they don't go somewhere. They don't lead people somewhere. Good. If you look at the ones that really go and inspire and all those people go out and they start their own. And, you know, those are the ones where they're maybe using the same language, but it's about how you

have to accept this stuff. It's not that you need to feel bad, you know? What is the Jung quote about, you know, the trauma or the, you know, biological imperatives that you have that you're not managing? They're not your fault, but they're still your responsibility. You know, you have to be accountable for your, your lack of progress in changing them, but you don't need to feel ashamed that you are imperfect and have failed. And that is a hard circle to square. And so that's why I think the brain-based medicine, because I love existential therapy. If I'd never discovered brain spotting, I'd be talking about Yalom and Jung and all this stuff forever. The reason that I, you know, take digressions to talk about brain spotting and ETT and this other stuff is because they do the same thing that reams and reams of really good therapy do. You know, I used to do

the hypnotic experiencing and the person would be in the trance state and you're like, what's on the other side of the wall? And they're like, nothing, nothing. And then you see something click and then they're like, I'm a little girl and there's another little girl on the other side of the wall and she's crying and I can hear it. And you know, sometimes I understand the metaphor and sometimes I don't, but the point is that the patient understands it. Brain spotting makes that same change where your body has a somatic release and re-experiencing it completes this emotional arc and then all of a sudden your dreams are weird and you have this period of renewed creativity of renewed empathy of renewed insight you you have motivation and then you come

back and you feel great but then you also the anxiety comes back because you're wondering if the change is permanent and we're on to the next cycle. You know, that happens in normal therapy, but these, these tricks, they speed it up, you know, vagus nerve stimulators, most of what's out there I wouldn't buy right now, but that technology is going somewhere. And you look at the way that you could retrain somebody with autism instead of just positively or negatively reinforcing them, that you could actually regulate them, you know, teach them to regulate themselves with this electronic aid so we have all of these new ways of getting into implicit memory which to me is kind of what all the therapy modalities that are worth anything have been describing but they disagree over the semantics of the language of how they conceptualize the unconscious because well, one, it's a place that in the brain that is beneath language and time.

So it doesn't really, you can't say, Hey, when I went there, there was a room with red wallpaper. It more is like a set of symbols or experiential techniques or you know, ego dissolving mindfulness practices. There's some way of entering implicit memory to encode it and decode it. I mean, a lot of newer research is coming, um, out around something called memory reconsolidation theory. You know, that a lot of the things that we would call trauma are actually, you know, fragments and implicit memory deciding to handle the same situation or stimuli like two or three different

ways at once and when it's trying to do that it's uh you know pulling itself and pulling you you know in these two or three different directions and that the the memory is not just like hanging out in the brain all the time on a record or a hard drive It's more like a zip file or a filing cabinet. And that like, you have to go get the memory out and unzip it or take the file out of the cabinet and then spread all this stuff on the table. And then you can play with it for a little bit. And the problem with that going back to signal to noise ratio is like, it sucks because you have to sit in a traumatized memory in some way. And so the techniques are designed for the patient to be in less distress, you know, all therapy techniques, you know, when they're working are designed for

the patient to be in less distress than they are when they're just acutely re-experiencing the trauma so that they can go back into it, but rewire it a little bit. So we've modified that memory somewhat. And then when we put it back and recompress it into the zip file or put the file back in the cabinet, we've cleaned it up some, you know, and we've made those things agree. So, I mean, the first reason that the unconscious, the language about the unconscious, implicit memory, the tertiary memory, whatever you want to call it, the brainstem is that, um, that we disagree on it is that it doesn't really fit into cognition. It's this thing that's underneath language, you know, if you, um, but, therapists have different things that they're good at. And a theory that I have had for a really long time, one of the reasons why I'm so integrative is that different therapists and different kinds of therapy are actually messing with different types of memory.

There's not one kind of memory. It's not just like, okay, here's a bunch of blue files or here's a bunch of CDRs that I burned and I'm going to keep them in the back of my brain. I'm dating myself. If you don't know what a CDR is, um, you're younger than me. Um, so like, it isn't that what it is, is like these overlapping networks of like relational memory, you know, and we can start to see these things like relational memory is, you know, how I want to be perceived, how I'm perceived these assumptions that I make about communication, identity, senses of self, you know, somebody with an attachment disorder is going to have very impaired, you know, functional memory. There's also like visual spatial memory, which if you're having a flashback, you know, to when your buddy

got, you know, killed in Vietnam or something, like, and you're seeing it, you know, that is this visual spatial memory, which is really one of the more rare types of PTSD. And we associate it, I think, more with PTSD because of movies, basically, it's a visual medium, and we see that people have flashbacks. There's also like kinesthetic memory, how my body is supposed to be budgeting energy at any time. And I mean, like, I don't want this to turn into a science lesson. And some of this is highly speculative based on science, but like, so for example, like most of the newer research on how brains work regarding trauma and memory is not around like structure. And we're going to move away from that conception. Like, it's not just going to be like, okay, this is the part of the

brain that memorizes trauma. You know, those things that you had to learn about, like, well, here's the thalamus and that's the alarm bell of the brain and the amygdala releases the cortisol. Like, you know, that works to a point, but it's like not really working to teach us any more information. Like a lot of the better research now is around something called ERPs or event related potentials. And that's a replicable thing where you can figure out how networks in the brain talk by getting someone to wear a QEG, like a quantified EEG cap and looking at how brain function changes when you do a task that is replicatable, right? So like if I, there's, there's hundreds of these, but like if I say, okay, Hey, I want you to look at this apple while you're in a QEG cap. And I'm like, I want you to memorize what this apple looks like. It's red.

And think about it. And you look at the apple and you think about it. And then I take it away. And I say, okay, just keep thinking about that apple. What I'm doing is I'm making you keep that in your visual working memory. And when you are concentrating on something, whether it's there or it's not, that is in your visual working memory, there is a network that activates in the brain. So this is one event related potential, right? And it's called the sustained posterior contralateral negativity. That's just, you know, one of hundreds that we

know. So when you watch something like Elon Musk do, youink and Elon Musk says, you know, we just got this guy to move the mouse around on the keyboard or move the mouse around on the screen, even though he's paralyzed and doesn't have access to his hands or can't move them or something like that. What they're doing is they're getting him, they're putting the cap on him and they're saying, hey, think go right, think go right, think go right. Okay, now think go left, think go left, think go left. Okay, every time we told you to think about the mouse going right, let's look at the consistent signal in all of this data. And now we're going to program this cap that every single time it sees that signal, it'll discard the other ones. But when it sees this consistent signal that we have, you know, associated with you thinking go left, we're going to make the mouse go left. Like that's how Neuralink works. That's how those things work. You know, if we wanted to do that by hand, we could do that at Taproot. Like we could put the QEG cap on you and do that. I'm not going to do that. Don't, don't ask me, but it's, it's not

terribly hard. Like this stuff is available and i think um that a lot of the qeg research that i've seen what it's doing is validating this assumption that i've always had that different kinds of therapy are treating trauma and different kinds of memory which brings me to like a bigger problem with implicit memory and that is the idea of trauma like one of the idea reasons that the idea of trauma is so confusing is because like we don't know what it is. There's like the Instagram definition of like trauma is anything that happens to me when I'm emotionally immature. And everyone that I've ever dated is a toxic, compulsive narcissist.

And everything that I have is a trauma response. And like whatever, it's this language has entered the mainstream culture. It's very overapplied. And then there are other people that say, well, PTSD, you know, is this set of these circumstances. Now there's other people who don't meet those circumstances, those exact criteria for PTSD. Like for example, in the definition of PTSD, they say re-experiencing. Okay.

What does that mean? Like, does that mean that I have a visual flashback? Does that mean that my, what if my mood is always like at a hundred million degrees, you know, Celsius, because I, my body is physically re-experiencing it, but I don't know that, you know, re-experiencing what kind of memory, where, how, right. And that's why there's these kind of like, um, I don't know, like kitchen table degree, you know, terms that crop up is because the DSM has moved so far away from what a lot of therapists like need, how they need to conceptualize things with their model that you'll see things like complex PTSD, that it isn't, you know, an acute

re-experiencing, but these things are invading like all aspects of your life. And you didn't have enough of a break from the trauma. Again, there's not a definition for CPTSD because it's not a diagnosis in the DSM. It's people trying to develop a language that is more useful than the language that is in the DSM. So like, you know, there's also kinesthetic memory, you know, the way that your body holds the trauma. There are, there is an increasing amount of evidence that when you are thinking to yourself, like when you were problem solving, when you were praying, when you were obsessing, when you were having like a very cognitive self-referential process, that there's some ERPs that go along with that. It would explain a lot of things that I see clinically. And so again, like I'm not just

spitballing here. Like I do read a whole lot of research for somebody that dislikes the current state of academia. I do use it for what it's useful for. And I'm not like out in the woods making stuff up entirely. But again, like you kind of have to read through it. And when I read through it based on my clinical experience, this is what I see. Trauma needs to be thought about like it is different types of impairment and different types of memory. There may be somebody who's flashing back to an event and you make that go away with EMDR. EMDR works pretty well for, you know, flashback re-experiencing. But then, um, relationally they were abused by a parent. They were in a controlling relationship. They never learned that they could have agency. So they go through this pattern that is, you know, maybe looks like a personality disorder or a

reactive attachment style. That is every time I'm in a relationship, I'm trying to figure out what to do with you and how to get power over you. And I think it's a game and you're just hanging out, but I keep trying to like, Oh no, no, I don't want any authority. And then resenting you because you didn't do the thing that I wanted to do right. Cause I gave up all my authority to you and I'm just totally toxic and a mess. Well, that is trauma too, right? It just isn't this visual flashback re-experiencing. It is a relational memory, you know, how I want to be perceived, how you perceive me. So that's always kind of how I've worked is like, what's going on and what spheres is this person traumatized in? And then how do I move towards them? And when I talk to people about it, they seem to like that. And I think it's a conception that at least I haven't heard, um, of before, but I can't really unsee it. And you, you have to,

it's so hard to think about this concept because people are like, well, you can't prove that or whatever. And like, yeah, you're right. Like I can't even put it into language, let alone a number to research it in the way that you want, but that doesn't make mean that it isn't real i mean we talked about conceptions of self um and greeks trying to tell the difference between movement thought and life you know basically um they go back a long ways you know there's a really good argument that you could make that plato is like the first depth psychologist when he's talking about the tripartite nature of the soul and how we have these conflicting drives within us that want to fight. Because he's saying, wait a minute, this feels good and also that feels good. But normally men choose, you know, an honor over pleasure, even though pleasure is good.

So maybe somehow honor scratches another itch for pleasure. You know, like he's trying to figure out why people um do what they do uh so um one way to think about it is that like when you have a democracy right like uh i said when not we do when you have a democracy like you have to elect representatives because if somebody was like holding you down to watch c-SPAN all day to fight to fight and like vote and care about every single issue, the amount of information like you would need would be so insane that no one could do it. And so what do you do? Like you elect representatives and then we make a body of those representatives and then those representatives, they have the

same problem. So they represent, they elect somebody to be the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I mean, they make, and that's kind of what your brain is doing. It can't tell you to think within your ego structure and your prefrontal cortex about every single, about breathing, you know, that's an unconscious process. Like, but breathing is something that you have to do. And you're sort of always doing it the same way and adjusting it maybe based on how much oxygen you're using or how fast your muscles are going through enzyme reactions. So that's pretty easy to set on autopilot. But when you're dealing with an animal that can learn more about in its environment than it knows, right? Like humans can. Like their brainstem is learning things from when you were six years old and you don't know what they are and they could be people aren't safe or this kind of conversation doesn't end well or like never take responsibility in this situation in this context.

Unconsciously, you think that you're just going through the day and you have a reason for what you do and you do, but you don't know what that reason is. And that's why the unconscious is inherently irrational. Like it doesn't fit within reason because it's acting on information that is like maybe genetic, you know, maybe learned. And maybe some like other weirder mixture, like epigenetically inherited from mom based on things going on in the womb that are getting you ready for the world you're coming into. There's just all of this stuff that's going on. And it would be like drinking from the fire hose to try and think about all of that. You know, a graphics card is like another comparison. If you build computers, you know, the processor is able to make decisions about any kind of information. So it's like a great general tool for number crunching. But if you're playing a video game, or you're building an app, or you're doing some kind of information. So it's like a great general tool for number crunching. But if you're playing a video game or you're building an app

or you're doing some kind of like data crunching thing, it's gonna offload everything to the graphics processor, like the GPU, because the graphics card is very good at doing a very similar kind of math problem hundreds of times. The CPU is very good at doing a random, completely new and inventive kind of math problem quickly the gpu is kind of doing things that are like one number different a million times really fast and so the base of

your brain is kind of like the graphics card um and i think that's like why freudian language is like so weird and why even though because we haven't embraced this new understanding the the language of freud stuck around in like politics and english and like as a lens to look at like history and things way longer than it ever should have but and but to me like that's where freud is entirely wrong but i understand why his language appeals to people is because when freud is saying hey like you have an unconscious and that unconscious is something that is at odds with what you want to do. It comes from nature. It comes from the animal within you

that wants to just have sex and fight and like is thinking about having sex with your family or all the things that Freud said, this drive for competition and dominance. He's thinking about it like something, the unconscious, like something that is logical. It just disagrees with your logical function. He's thinking about it like something that is self-motivated, that wants something, that wants to go somewhere. That like is this other being riding around in your head and trying to defeat you by shutting down things in your body and like pulling strings to get what it wants. Like it's this hitchhiker that is trying to hijack your brain. And like that doesn't work because the unconscious isn't that it's implicit reactions that yeah they do show up as symbol and like sometimes these things do have like almost a metaphorical or

allegorical component because like the voice of my abusive culture gets internalized as this thing that is dark and scary and it talks to me like this and I hear its voice and like yeah I mean those things happen but Freud was conceiving of it like there was this other logical being that was motivated towards an end that wanted all of these things that civilization and Victorian society didn't allow so because it was repressed it was like fighting back and to conceive of the unconscious in this way just makes it like another brain, another ego, another prefrontal cortex in a way that it just fundamentally is not. It's multiple assumptions that were useful to you throughout your life that you learned

because you thought you needed to survive that are so much information. And we need to develop not only a coherent language for self, but a coherent language for something like trauma and to understand the unconscious because that's what therapy is doing. Whether it's a stellate ganglion block, whether it's a ketamine drip, whether it's, you know, shamanic psilocybin, brain spotting, EMDR, long-term psychoanalysis where you get comfortable with another person. All of these things are breaking you into parts until you can feel these drives and

understand them. And you don't need to understand them intellectually. That's why psychoanalysis like hits a wall at a certain point. You can't. You have to experience them. And I think modern therapy is getting like much better at doing that. And I also think that my idea about there being different types of memory that need different types of therapy to unlearn the pathological reactions

that they learned, like isn't that original? Because all of the therapists that I've ever heard going back to the 70s, they seem to already be doing that logic in their head. They're just not thinking in the language that I'm thinking in. Pupillometry is an incredibly useful tool for this, and that's why you're going to see that explode. Looking at what the pupil is telling you that the brainstem is doing. We've used that in advertising for years to show somebody a shot of food porn for a McDonald's commercial or a movie trailer and then see what their eye was doing

to see their emotional engagement. Because the pupil was more accurate at reporting what somebody would buy than they would, than they were at a debriefing or a cue card at the end of the thing, because your brain knows what it wants, you know? And, um, now you're starting to see like studies where they use, uh, you know, looking at the pupil to try and predict suicidality and things like that. And it makes sense because your pupil is dilating, you know, looking at the pupil to try and predict suicidality and things like that. And it makes sense because your pupil is dilating, you know, sometimes based on light, but also based on emotion in a way that you're not aware of and you can't control. So it's this,

and there will be more, but like QEG, pupilometry, posture analysis, very intuitive people who can read muscle tension in physical therapy. Like those are all ways of knowing what the brainstem is doing before the person can. And so I think this two of those big points that we have to figure out if we're going to have like a consistent relevant therapy are how, what do we think the role of self is? Like what are our values as a society? And if it's ABA and CBTbt like i'm out okay i'm gonna go make way more money doing something else if we can have a sane conversation about how

modern society can conceive of the self as like'm talking about because they're not directly provable and they never will be is leaving us completely effing blind to how psychology works and what we need to do if we're going to fix trauma in our culture. But I also am not saying, like I think, like I said in the beginning, like I think that what that's doing is leaving us suffering without being able to scream. And if that's the goal of therapy, to help people not scream while they are suffering, again, I'm out. Okay? Like you want to take insurance, you want to take healthcare in that direction, I'm gone. But if you want to have the same conversation, like, I'm not saying that therapy needs to be spiritual, that we have to be woo-woo, that we have to, you know, go into this

place that is irrational. Because I think that a completely objective empiricism, you know, like, is setting you up for a psychology that doesn't work. But a complete, you know, spirituality, empty language, you know, going to people just because they're a hypnotic charismatic leader who can kind of live in the spiritual space and adopt like a a hypnotic felt sense of communication that's ripe for abuse and incredibly scary too what i'm saying is that you have to be able to understand the objective and the subjective as a therapist in order to research these things and like, and, and innovate. And that, you know, the Tuskegee experiments are just as bad as the Heaven's Gate cult. You know, like one is science and one is just complete hijacked, you know, mentally ill mysticism,

but neither one of them is good. Both of them are evil. You know, it, being able to sort through subjectivity and objectivity and when they're useful, I think is a huge goal to help people not be abused and to not fall prey to bad systems and also to understand themselves. And it's something that our culture is really bad at. Like we're trying to be hyper objective at the expense of our feelings and our intuitions, but those feelings and intuitions are driving us insane because we're trying to be so hyper-objective. And we have to kind of restore order to this. I think that when you look at how people want to retreat

into like a subjective mystical realm and pretend that that can change objective reality, that's a problem, right? Like if you you have cancer you should go to the doctor i'm glad if you have a faith you can rely on i'm glad if you have spiritual practices that you do but you need some science there also and it is kind of delusional to pretend that and i know that things happen but to pretend that you know with certainty that this magic is going to make you better. You don't know. And sitting with the uncertain is one of the big tasks of adult life that we kind of talk around where the therapist says, oh yeah, yeah, I know that. And then you watch where they're

avoiding that anxiety themselves. Like in the same way, like science doesn't explain all of this. Tons of psychoeducation and behavioral programming, you know, leave you totally empty and still traumatized and with no sense of self and no idea who you are. You know, if there, and there are people who come to therapy that want that. Probably not people who listen to this podcast, but there are people who come in and they're like telling me, no, I want to come to you for like a year. And when I come in, I need you to do this thing where you just tell me that I did a good job on these things and a bad job on those things. And that makes me feel good and maybe give me a worksheet and I'll write it down and I'll come back. We'll do it again.

And they think that I'm like doing therapy wrong because I'm not doing what their CBT therapist did. And like, that leaves you not knowing who you are. That leaves you with no sense of self. Like we, we need both. And with implicit memory, like you're pushing somebody,

the therapist needs to be able to see things that you're avoiding where you're avoiding uncertainty. Maybe you're a hundred percent sure of who you are and morals and values. And like, you think, you know, because you get in fights about politics and you'll never let somebody tell you that art and magic like aren't the point of life and what you how you want to express yourself. But over here, you're deeply afraid of looking at the things that you could change to feel better and to make yourself happy in a way that you don't think you deserve.

And the therapist has to see where you're not sitting with that uncertainty and push you into it. I don't care if it's like through analysis or brain spotting or whatever, but you need to be able to do that. And, and that is the thing that I see the industry sort of like crying out for, but also not saying. Um, so what I see as a better language is this idea of completing emotional arcs that what comes dysfunction you know when we say trauma i i don't like where like something like internal family systems makes me explain to a patient for 15 minutes the difference in a firefighter and a protector because most patients are like oh a protective part is a thing that flares up an implicit memory to make me not experience the thing that feels bad. And this one's very semantic and overwhelming. And this

one's very like logical and almost has a personality structure to it. Like they just, they can get that without me trying to make them be taught like the semantics of IFS. I don't dislike IFS, but what is more useful to me is to say that all trauma is these series of emotional arcs that we're failing to complete. And I'm either enmeshed with the emotional arc where it's like, I'm not, I'm not angry. I'm not angry. What are you talking about? I'm not angry. Stop, stop. Or, you know, I'm not sad. There's nothing wrong. You know, clearly I'm feeling that emotion, but I don't know that because I'm feeling it all the time because the, the arc went up and it didn't come down or I'm avoiding the arc entirely. I'm just totally avoidant. And I'm like, no, no, no. Like, you know, I did something bad once. So don't,

don't say that that the thing she did is bad. Like, I know it just hurt us and that she keeps doing it and she always will, but I don't want to be judged for the time that I did a bad thing. So like, just don't say that. I don't have the authority to know that that, like, I'm not able to just be like, I'm angry. You don't have the right to talk to me like that. Nobody's perfect, but I'm going to objectively label the thing that you just did, that you continue to do and don't see as a problem. That's an avoidance of an emotional arc. And what brain spotting, what SLT, if you've come to taproot, QEG, these things, like they're pulling you through an emotional arc that you are either stuck in and is going on in your body all the time, or that you're avoiding entirely. And I think

that language of being pulled through the emotional arc is what's useful for me. I hope that it's useful for you. You know, one thing, there's the, I think you say her name, Baba, but I'm not positive. So don't, don't come for me. But the, the book from the nineties, the location of culture, you know, she wrote about how there was like a third space and it's been used in a lot of ways that I don't know there. She, she wrote about this book, uh, this idea of third space there where there's this kind of metaphorical, um, space, sometimes a physical space where there's different like mushiness to culture and identity and ideas, and they can come together and develop new meanings. And that being this sort of cultural locus where we could say, okay, we have to wear the persona of,

you know, Christian or therapist or, you know, American or whatever all of our life. But when we go into these spaces, we can let that go down and we can all kind of merge together and we can learn from each other. Coming back to that quote that I read from the Michael Judge book in part one, this is very much about that kind of idea,

that there's a hybridness to this, that the third spade is a site where the cultural elements kind of merge and create new hybrid forms of identity. Also, there's a liminality to it, but it's an in-between. You're kind of not anywhere. You've left the spheres of life, the home, the person, the church, the work, you know, the responsibility, and you're just in a place that has no context, but that lets you observe indirectly, more abstractly, and think creatively about all the context from the spheres of your life that you have to go into. Also, there's an idea of negotiation and transformation.

That individuals go in and they negotiate and renegotiate their identity, either alone by looking at these spheres being outside of them or together communally. And then there's a transformation where interactions and exchanges occur. And all of a sudden norms, hierarchies and power structures that aren't needed can be discarded because we can get outside of them enough to not be controlled by them. And to me, if you want to look at what therapy should become, if it's not going to be taken over by the medical establishment, if it's going to be left in the realm of therapists. It needs to be something like that.

The model needs to be something like that. I'm going to read a poem by William Gibson, who's one of the cyberpunk authors. He's the guy that wrote Neuromancer, if you're familiar. This is called Memory Palace. When we were only several hundred thousand years old, we built stone circles, water clocks. Later, someone forged an iron spring, set clockwork running, imagined gridlines on a globe. Cathedrals are like machines defining the soul.

Bells of clock towers stitch the sleeper's dreams together. You see, so we've always been on our way to this new place That is no place really But it is real And it is our nature to represent We are the animal that represents The soul and only maker of maps And if our weakness has been to confuse the bright and bloody colors of our calendars With the true weather of days,

and the parchment's territory of our maps with the land spread out before us, never mind. We've always been on our way to this new place. That is no place, really. But it is real. That bright and bloody colors of our calendars with the true weather of days and the parchments territory of our maps with the actual land. We represent these things internally and we have to have science in order to represent them

objectively in this way, but it becomes pathological when we think that the map is the land or that we think that the calendar is the day. It isn't. There's an ineffable quality to all this stuff that if we forget, we can't do science anymore because science is intimately connected to the thing that it is describing. And part of science will always be the limitations of our description. So, you know, I think the process of meaning making that I'm talking about, that takes a kind of science and a kind of spirituality, but not either back into therapy. I mean, we need that because we have this post-spiritual but also post-secular culture. I think therapists can be agents of that to hold the space that is outside of culture, outside of time, that makes room for things that we need to reflect on.

And that is kind of the future, hope of what we do because i think that if we do that what we're going to do is be able to see this idea of ourselves from the past before we were corrupted with trauma with all of the damage that happened where we were young kids and we just remembered something not Not remembered it, we just knew it. And then that thing is taken away from us. And therapy can take you back to that place that you always knew was there, that you always knew was you, that you always knew was this perspective that only you could do, but that we forget because we associate with all of these other things and we blend into them and we lose the self. And if therapy is not taking you back in time, back to this thing that you can remember,

but you've forgotten, then you're not really dealing with a conception of self that I can get down with. And at the same time, it can help you figure out how you bring that into a world that is objective and material and kind of cruel and doesn't care about you in a material sense. How you can make the compromises to take that inner self and then bring it into expression through the limitations of things like time and finances and emotions and the culture that you're in and the other people who are around you. And that is a messy process that we need help with. And it is a process that I am starting to see, you know, come back to therapy. But this is my attempt to describe what it sounds like the people that I'm listening to

are saying that they want. And in that way, you know, psychotherapy itself is kind of a simulacra because it is, you know, leading you someplace that is no place really. It's trying to make a copy of something in the future, in the past that don't exist, you know, where our intuitive knowledge remained uncorrupted and unforgotten and it's pure and in totality. And there's also the self that we can bring into fulfillment. And I think that, you know, for humans there's two pretty big inevitabilities. And one of them is pain. We will hurt each other.

Whether or not we mean to. So much of our behavior goes into either trying to hurt people because we're hurt or not hurt anybody because we're hurt. You know, it's a pretty big motivator. And it's not one that is ever going to be eradicated or go away. And the other one is love, that we have this ability to, despite pain, connect and forgive and be. And the hurting is inevitable, but the loving is not.

And I hope that we remember how to love because we're not gonna forget how to hurt. Thanks for watching!