Got Therapy?: - What Self-Esteem Actually Is (It's Not Feeling Good)Ep80

What is self-esteem, really? In this episode of Got Therapy?, Dr. Michael Baltimore and Dr. Dan Rose reconsider self-esteem through a psychodynamic lens — not as a high score you defend, but as the acceptance of a complex, often conflicted self.

The conversation moves through not-me states (the parts of ourselves we'd rather not own, from Sullivan and Bromberg), self-compassion, and why a rigid, always-positive self becomes brittle. Dan walks through normative narcissism after Kohut — why everyone feels a flash of "I don't measure up" driving past the neighbor's new car — the spectrum from healthy-level to disordered narcissism, and how mirroring and validation open the door to real change. Along the way: microtrauma and social comparison, holding a relationship with someone whose views you can't stand, and Fromm's question of having vs. being — the thread they carry into next week's "Cultivate Life."

Got Therapy? makes complex psychological concepts accessible and practically applicable. New episodes weekly.

00:00  Cold open (4th of July)

02:00  Self-esteem as accepting your complexity

03:30  Not-me states — Sullivan, Bromberg, and George Costanza

07:00  Self-compassion and giving yourself a break

09:00  Rigidity vs. flexibility — the stick that bends

10:00  Normative narcissism, Kohut, and the Porsche 911

15:00  Microtrauma and social comparison

18:00  Ethical codes and holding your neighbor

24:00  Ideology, the real, and conflict "all the way down"

27:00  Narcissism on a spectrum; the "phallic" type

30:00  Mirroring and validation in therapy

41:00  Countertransference and owning what's in you

45:00  Self-esteem, validation, and the classroom

49:00  Internalizing the therapeutic moment

51:00  Having vs. being — Fromm, and "cultivate life"

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Guy Therapy. I'm Michael Baltimore. I'm here with my good friend and therapist extraordinaire Dan Rose. Dan, what's going on? What's up today? It's Saturday. It's the 4th of July.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

It is, it is. I think we're gonna celebrate by uh my my wife wants to go see a movie. Okay. And I think she wants to go see Supergirl. But the conflict is, is that um um it uh it didn't get the greatest reviews. So Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

There were some cr criticals.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

So you know I'm not sure if that but right now that's on the schedule, and uh we're gonna have hamburgers. First of all, we're gonna go to the movie for a moment and have hamburgers.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

No, you're not. Um you're not gonna have hamburgers. Well, you're gonna have some uh black bean burgers. Okay, now we're getting we're getting to it. It's gonna whole week. Thank you. I thought we had slipped.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

I thought you may have it might have been a black bean burgers, mowing. Those are good, by the way. Got some watermelons, we've got some um oat milk ice cream. Oh, this is fantastic. Yes, it's gonna be good. I don't know about oat milk. Oat and you know what? All I gotta say is also thank goodness fentanyl is vegan. I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Oh yeah, I love that. You better say you're kidding. With all this going on, I can't afford fentanyl.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

It's too expensive. That's the only drug. I can't afford to be a drug user. Let's be honest. I can't afford an addiction.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

I can't afford to do this addiction stuff is getting high priced. I gotta I can't afford a vice. What's just under the the addiction vice? Maybe you could do something that's less expensive. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Actually, well, I my only thing I can afford is being annoying. That part.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Oh, uh well, we got you got that one down pretty good. All right. There we are. That's all I can do. No, I mean I love it, man. Well, I hope your self-esteem is holding up. That's all three at different times, because I think that might be the topic of the state. That's one of the topics.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

We were going to merge some things, but that was one of them, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

That was merging all day.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

The uh the idea. What was it about? Because it the the um Oh b uh Heidegger, Heidegger and um the or Fromm's concept of uh two ways to live.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yes, a two ways to live. Yeah, he talked about the difference, and uh we need to get into that a little bit more. It's good, it's good. You want to start there? What do you think about it?

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Well, no, no, I I think they're both connected. Here's the thing, because we we live in a culture where there's lots of talk of self-esteem. And and this isn't as a I mean, uh being a Gen Xer, there was a moment when um um um our generation was referred to as narcissistic, and there's this rise of narcissism and and um all these um uh awarding people trophies for participation and all this sort of stuff. That was sort of the tail end of Generation X. Yeah, we're still there. Maybe I don't know. It's causing all these problems, and um, so self-esteem uh is taking a knock, and I think the uh the article was sort of saying that the we may want to rethink this with a certain level of complexity. So, how do you feel good about yourself? Because I think that's that's the that's the conflict, right? And if we look at this through a psychodynamic lens, because a psychodynamic construct around self-esteem is what they talk about. It is self-acceptance, it is an acceptance of your complexity, and it's often a conflicted complexity. There are facets to you that on occasion align like a kaleidoscope, but sometimes they clash. And there are all sorts of things that we call not me states, right? Okay, not me states, it goes back to Harry Stack Sullivan, I believe, but Bromberg is the one who brought it to my attention. Philip Bromberg, I think he passed away a little while ago. Wonderful clinician. Um got it. It is this notion that there are things that we feel that we don't want to own, right? Okay, yeah. So if you're in a uh um, you know, there's um there's a scene in Seinfeld. If you ever watch that show, The Seinfeld?

SPEAKER_00 4:11

I've seen it a few times.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Yeah. Where George um is at a birthday party with a bunch of kids, and suddenly somebody pulls the fire alarm, or maybe something go causes the fire alarm to go off.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

That's a great scene, by the way. Everyone has seen that, I think. I mean, almost everyone knows this scene, but go ahead. Pushes the kids out of the way to get away, right? Right. Oh, pushes grandma on a stroller, knocks her down. What in the world? Okay. And there's no there's no smell, it's just somebody said the word. That's what he did. He took off.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

So he knocks. So the rest of the episode is him sort of struggling with um the not me state of his own is if his his the shame around what happened, right? This is not the person that I want to present to the world, this is not who I am, and yet it is who he is, or a part of who he is. Right. Right? And so we would say that if he were a a a patient, we would want him to find a way to own and maybe listen to this part of himself, right? Right. Instead of so our not me states often signal places of growth, places that may require some level of integration and acceptance, or outside of integration, just some compassion for the fact that there is a part of you that would react in the way George did. And I suspect there are a lot of folks who might do just what George did.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yeah, I would hope not, but I kind of think there might be pushing little old ladies out of the way to get out of the fire. And I don't know. I would hope not, but it makes for a good comedy. And then, of course, the second scene somewhere in that, I think it was might have been that same episode. There's uh somebody had the garbage can is full in the kitchen, and somebody sets their eclair, uh, a bite out of the eclair, but they didn't finish, they set it on the top of the garbage, and of course, George came in and looked at that perfectly good. Uh may or may not had a bite out of it. I don't know. But he looked at it, and just as he decided no one's looking, he picks it up and he starts to eat, and then of course, the mother-in-law, the dating, the girl he said he all come in at the same time when he's standing over the garbage. So that revealed a little bit more about him. He's got a lot to reveal everything.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

So th those are those are not me states, right? Yeah. Those are so and and and if you're ever in an argument, if if you become uh if you get into relationships by its very nature, it generates not me states. There are things that you will say in an argument that you say, I would never have thought I would say this. Right. If you have kids, you will find yourself saying and doing things that you would suspect that I would never have done that.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Like I said, I I imitated my father in a couple of ways I talked to my boys. Yeah, that's right. That wasn't me. That was right. So that those are right.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

And they jet that they talk about how this carefully cultivated sense of of this smooth running sense of self is easily disrupted, and in its disruption, it often represents things that we may need to own, or if nothing else, it need make it it would point us toward the possibility of working toward flexibility and something they also talk in the about in the article, self-compassion.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yeah, I think that's where you were you were headed to this idea of self-compassion. We give it compassion for others and difficulties and those kind of things, and maybe we don't do it enough and kind of direct it back on us a little bit and give ourselves a break. I mean, hey, life is difficult sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

So Well, it's funny you say that because on the way up here I was listening to the new Neurosis album.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Oh. Or psychiatrist now making uh music. What is going on?

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Neurosis is a metal band. They they've been around for a while, so they're you know, and and this is a latest album, and and they begin the album by saying that we've forgotten how to live together. Right?

SPEAKER_00 7:57

This is that is absolutely true. And so what often But I mean it looks like that. Now we've got to be careful on this, but I mean, I don't know. We don't want to label the whole group and generalize everything, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:10

If if if there's something about our current division, uh political divisions, for instance, right? There could be something about how um if we practice self-compassion and we can own our own complexity, it may make it a little easier for easier for us to lean into our neighbors and find a way to create a tape space at the table for them as well. But first, you have to create a space of the table inside of you. So all these different parts of you can have a place to sit. Once you've done that, then it becomes much more possible to be able to recognize the complexity in others, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:45

I I think so. And this sounds like a like a deck sort of a heavy psychological kind of movement or something we have to do, but I think we do this every day, or basically you say, Oh boy, I screwed that up. I didn't mean to do this or that. And you know, give yourself some critical feedback a little bit. And not so hard, but you know, not pounding it, but it's like I could have done that better. Or next time I'll do this better. Those kind of things happen a lot throughout.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

And that is empowering, right? That gives yourself the possibility of learning from what happens, to be able to um to uh if your goal is simply to hold a rigid sense of self which is gonna be highly positive, I always have to win, I always have to have these things, then you are setting yourself up for brittleness, right? You're setting yourself for something that's going to crack and break.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Right. The expectation for yourself is way too high. You're not gonna reach that and you're gonna have trouble.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

It is and you know that there's there's um even a parallel in the story of the uh good Samaritan, right? The story that uh that Jesus told. And that, you know, part of what makes that story he's telling powerful is the Samaritan was um an enemy of Jewish people. He was talking to a a Jewish audience in the time, and it's a little like saying the good Nazi. And he tells a story about all these supposedly good people, rabbis and all these sort of that walk by and don't deal with this person, but the Nazi walks by, notices, takes care of him, right? Yeah, and so the point of of of that was for one thing to shock his audience into thinking about what love and what the dictum love is the law really means, right? It it it it function on several levels. And if you can see the potential good or the complexity at least in your enemy, then it is possible for you to also see it within yourself, and maybe that is some sort of uh fix for some divisiveness. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

I I I wonder, I mean, I the first thought as you were talking, it was like uh the narcissist, for example, we use that term overly now so much. Now everybody gets to point at a narcissist and we've defined it and talked about it and all of those kinds of things, but they don't have that. That's not a mechanism, is it something blocking for that? I can't make a mistake, I can never be wrong.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Well, you know, if if you take a sort of a cohotion view of what narcissism is, it is an attempt to maintain a sense of self, and so the people around you become part objects, they are part objects in a play to make you feel okay, right? And so there are levels of narcissism. So someone who's much more neurotic or healthy-level narcissist finds a way to get other people to like them by doing things that are good. Politicians. Um, Bill Clinton may be an example of a positive form of narcissism in a way, because you know, he has apparently when he walks into a room and memorizes everybody's name, um, goes out of his way to be able to create the space, and on on one level, it makes people feel so a positive level narcissist should make you feel good. Now, what Coet would say, and I think it's really important, all of us have a self-state that we're struggle to maintain. So there is a there is a normative level of narcissism that all of us throughout the course of the day, at every moment, unless we're in um you know, in a state where uh um uh any impingements uh rock that sense of self, and you've got to find some way to generate some equilibrium. So, you know, and folks, as you get lower into the organization, uh lower level uh individuals, folks who have personality disorders, for instance, right, they're have to work much harder to generate a sense of self, right? Like they can, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Well, they and they they really have to dismiss the other person or downgrade them or uh, you know, uh avoid it or get angry or whatever they do at that point with a personality disorder, because they cannot imagine someone else being having a better idea or something to that effect.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

And notice because that it somebody dovetails the second article because what may happen though is that if they walk into a room and someone has a better idea, there are a number of things that happen consciously and consciously. It isn't just that the other person has a bad better idea, but the fact that they have a better idea means that I really, really suck. Right?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yes, it's back on them because that's the focus, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Well, and because it's you know, and what Coat would say is all of us remember that famous quote we've I've talked about before, Oscar Wilde, that whenever a a friend succeeds, a small part of you dies. Yes and what but what Coat would say and Wilde would say is that unconsciously we all feel the same thing the narcissist feels. Oh, right? Okay. You drive by and somebody's got a brand new Porsche 9-11.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Dang.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

You drive by and for a brief moment you're like, ah, I really horribly suck. And I don't have one of those. And um, when that happens, if you are healthy enough, you have the capacity to defend or process that in a healthy fashion.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Well, it's a lot of personal struggles you're revealing here to us, and I I would think that I didn't know it at the beginning, but these two articles are really about you for some reason. How did that happen? There they always are. That would be it. This 9-11 keeps coming up in the conversation. But I actually think they addressed that in one of the articles. We'll have to go back and they may.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

But if you go back to like you drive by, you see the guy with the branding Porsche 911 in his front yard, right? So you see it. And unconsciously, or for a brief moment, you can feel a number of things that's someone who's narcissistic. But if you're healthy enough, it doesn't generate too much of a disequilibrium. It goes, ooh, a little, right? It doesn't cause it to go wrong, right, yeah. But if it does just a little, then you can, you know, you could generate reaction formation. Well, you know, I'll get one better than that one of these days.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Yeah, I or a big sigh, you know. Oh boy. Okay, there we are. Something like that.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

I mean, I probably the healthiest response would be to own it and say, Yeah, man, I I guess, you know, that I it that does make me feel a little sad, I guess, or a little whatever. But you know, I I got all of other I got other things to be grateful for. You know, maybe someday I might be able to do that and you move on, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Okay, well, no, here's the thing. I don't I don't know if all of us move on. Um, I think we just subdue it a little bit. We put a wet a blanket over it to kind of tamp it down. Um and again, we're talking about your your need for that uh expensive sports car. And and um, but I I think that what you described was a process that happens all the time. I mean, oh look at that, look at this. I don't have that I don't have this.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

And if you're constantly comparing yourself with the social media makes it happen a thousand times a day. I can't I'll be I'll make I don't know I have to get on Facebook, but I always want to make sure that I don't miss anybody's birthdays. And so I'll click on it and make sure he's birthdays. And oftentimes, like I'll be sitting in my living room and I'll and I before I put it up Facebook, I'm like listening to like, you know, like whoops, I'm listening to um uh something on the, you know, some cool tune on my stereo, and I got my cats and my wife next to me, and we're all hanging up. This is cool, man. This is a good life. Then I'll go on Facebook and there's you know my friend who's uh sitting in France, or he's he's he's eating a croissant in France. Or he's like, you know, climbing the Alps. And I see that, and I'm like, for people like, man, everything I'm a loser.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

I'm a total loser.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Everything sucks, man. This is horrible.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

And so that's okay. Yeah, that uh that one hits, but there there are all of these micro kind of things that are happening.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

And think of the most one of the most micro ones, and they're they but there's even a term called micro trauma, is like let's say you you walk into your office and you say hello to somebody and they don't say anything, or they go, yeah, hello. And then you walk by, right? And so that got that gets you. You just got hit. Yes, you didn't know it. But and so again, if if you're you know, if if you uh and depending, if you're high up enough in terms of your organization and you're constituted, the environment is good to you, you got a good night's sleep, whatever the case may be, you may find a way to be able to navigate that with minimal disruption. But if you're much lower, you know, then you may say, um, you know, let's say you have a psychopathic uh personality organization, then you say, um, okay, and then um on your lunch break, you go home and you shoot their dog.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

I mean, yeah, that's not that's not no didn't get much control on whatever. But doesn't it doesn't it mean that you have to have some sort of abilities built in to get to that? Like the the the ability to just slow down and reflect and think about it in the moment and and some critical kind of thinking to say, yeah, this is going too far, or this is a limit, or you know, sort of give yourself some information uh and reasoning that is, I don't know, appropriate uh to to the to the level of whatever that is. I want to say threat, but it's not. It's just like okay, this is a normal part of life. We're making comparisons um and maybe I don't have all that, but I'm okay in some ways, or giving some sort of advice back to yourself. I think that was where we're going.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

And and that yeah, the goal would be is that um if you do that enough, then it becomes reflex, reflexive. So it doesn't require because that does require effort and energy. It's also possible that you could have a a framework that you operate under, right? That you could uh um this is where some religious structure or um um cultural things that could come to your rescue because you could say to yourself, wait a minute, my role is to you know make sure that the people around me feel some level of happiness and fulfillment, and you see the guy with a 9-11 and you say, you know what, I hope he really enjoys it. I'll stop by and say, Hey man, congrats on the new car.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah, the way to go, man. Yeah, it's wonderful, man. I've heard the phrase someone said, and I think I've used it too, is I'm proud for you. It's not like like a parent or or a relative when you say, I'm proud of you, but I'm proud that for you that that happened.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

And notice how to be able to say that, and you know, if you want to be sort of cynically Freudian, you could say that that could be a form of reaction formation, and it's a a nice way to hide your wish to, you know, set their car on fire. Um, but it um even that is still uh a a healthy and flexible way to be able to live with someone who has, you know, but we could we could ratchet that up and make it more difficult. What if your next door next door neighbor um uh instead of another they you somebody you you just happen to run into them and they start telling you about how much you know they um they hate Norwegians and then how a degenerate race the Norwegians are. And this is your neighbor you've lived night next to for a long time, and you know that he's gonna be a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

By the way, he has not watched any World Cup soccer because those are great. They were great fans and teens, by the way, but we love them. But anyway, go ahead. I don't know, good example though. All right, go ahead. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

I just watched the uh I just read the Norwegian crowd the nor uh listen to the Norwegian death metal. So that that's all I know about Norwegian.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Well they're they're right now uh they are making everyone get on board with the uh Norwegian rowing. You see people lined up in the streets, sitting down the streets, and they've got these rowing things going on, so it's it's a big hit in the in the country. They're they're they're big that that's good. They've taken over, so to speak. But anyway, sorry. That took us off task.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

If you suddenly felt that, I mean, that's not necessarily a narcissistic disturbance, but suddenly your neighbor says something that you really, really disagree with and it makes you really upset.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

So how do you how do you hold on to your neighbor in a way that and you may decide I I can't have someone like that in my life, I don't like racists, whatever the case may be. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, or you may need to say, wait a minute, because of my own complexity, I need to give them some slack for their own complexity as well. And I might be able to say, Hey man, I hate that you ate the Norwegians, but that makes me sad. Can we change the subject? You say something like that, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Well, hold hold on right there. All right, all right, all right. So I love that response, but that is is a very therapeutic, aware, conscious, on target response. And I'm not sure people are doing that, particularly in this political climate here in 2026. We're they're calling each other idiots. You gotta you're an idiot. I mean uh you know, you're idiot. So that's what's happening. So we do need this particular episode. We need to replay this for a lot of people because I and this and the second thought I have about it is that when you hit that, if you haven't already had this experience before, you you don't have a repertoire of of responses to do that. So I think I think it's practice. You must have had that uh oh I hate this group. Well wait, I don't hate that group. Well you know and so you have to reconcile something in that in that process.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Well we can sometimes outsource that if that we if we have a um a rule an ethical mandate that we've invested in and so I I was sort of using the uh broadly Christian Judeo Christian idea that you know love is a law you're supposed to love your neighbor right um and if that is a a an ethical code that you're invested in it does the heavy lifting sometimes right you can say well I'm feeling this but I need to remember to love. Right. And so there's some rules there's I need to find a way to continue to hold my neighbor even though they are discomforting to me. Right. And there is a way so sometimes that can do the work too. And the same with holding up and generating narcissistic balance self-compassion around that too to be able to say you know um um if you hold to the ethical idea that uh that there are always parts of us that are going to be problematic and that being a human being means that you feel a lot of things that there are not me states inherent to being a human being and the only way not to feel these things would be to stay in the house and never leave.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

I mean if you if you if you have some eye that that also does some of the heavy lifting and say ah there we go that's uh right you know well I think yeah here we are and hey the the human race it's not an easy thing to find your pathway um but I think again I'll come back I don't mean to make this in about uh Trump in a political spectrum but you know you have neighbors that live next door to you right and they're not anywhere near on your political uh level uh same same ideas uh around politics and it almost sets it up so politics has been imposed on us through this to make that even a more difficult task than what you were just saying.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Well I mean because you know that there's um what was a quote by uh Christopher Hitchens that um um we need ideal ideologies or else the uh the a nation would be what do you say without ideologies the people in a nation would be d or or how do you say we need ideological delusion or else we go insane. And so I think that's the I think that was a quote something like that. That's pretty close yeah. And um so this idea that you know we we this is sort of a Lacanian Jizakian construct too that we're always embedded within these horizons that that we and we're not aware of them. There are these ideological constructs that are necessary for us to move about in the world and they benefit us in some ways because they generate tribalism they help us to they direct us towards certain goals they make sense of our inner world and all that sort of stuff right but they also limit us because we clash against people who have very different ideologies. Most ideological constructs require somebody to be outside of it so you can you know that's the person not to be so they're often you know uh uh constituted by an outlier so all these things are there and there's no way to completely avoid them I think that's where if you're in somewhere in your neighborhood maybe your next door neighbor but there's bound to be several people that have completely different views to yours that are you're gonna find abhorrent in some form of fashion right you know that um I mean that's just um you you may find that your partner um you try to avoid thinking about some of the ways that you disagree with them until they suddenly say something and you're like ah right there's there's that but it goes all the way down then you're George at the birthday party and you know you'd lock an old lady down because you think there's a fire and then you realize wait a minute the neighbor is me right it's right it's it's conflict all the way down it's not just my neighbor it's not just my partner it's me it's just everywhere. Okay I'm uh and if you're gonna be G Jack about this I'm getting a little tired but go ahead or I'm getting because Z Jack takes this Hygelian turn and says that there's conflict at the very heart of matter itself and that part of the way that time and things proceed is because there is that the real there is an there is a kernel in the real at the qu in if in everything.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

So there's always conflict matter itself there's always this tension there's always this nothing is ever truly whole and if it were the world would stop right right and and it's always moving everything is moving we have to keep up with it and all right so let me jump back just a minute because we talked of I I brought up the narcissistic personality idea and that that person may or may not understand about others or uh not care that kind of thing. We know the symptoms I guess we could list them but the idea is that uh or the question is does a true narcissist in the clinical sense um have self-esteem and what does that look like for the narcissistic personality disorder the self-esteem it looks like it's in the first glance is it's at a hundred you know it's all it's at the top and a little below any of that negotiation understanding other people being concerned connecting that kind of thing am I too far off on that question not an answer well to think about that conceptually is you know you take a stick and the stick that bends is much more useful than the one that breaks right yeah and so there is a inflexible brittleness to someone who has a narcissistic character structure right because you know to maintain that to keep it from breaking requires them to to co-opt the people around them in such a way to keep their it to preserve their sense of self.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

And that's why like for most folks or any personality disorder um no one is a narcissist when they're out by themselves in the middle of a field right okay uh you know in a alone in a forest borderlines don't exist.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Although I'm the best person that ever stood in this best field on this best planet.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

So I don't know but the goal would be that you know I I mean it's possible particularly with a borderline personality disorder there are lots of things that could be uh dysregulating if you're alone in a forest and didn't mean to so I guess that could be the thing. But most of what generates the symptoms require social interaction or some sort of context. Now it's possible that you could internalize that social interaction and carry it around with you in your head too but by and large the it requires some levels of impingement. So narcissistic folks aren't consistently there. It's just that they often find themselves there, right? Right. Like if you have a friend who is tends toward nar um um uh tends to be highly narcissistic you can probably hang out with them and 70 80% of the time you may not see that side of them. They may be completely content they're you're you everything's cool and then you may suddenly be surprised when they start telling you about you know how much smarter they are than everybody and how much money they have and all that sort of stuff and then you begin to go wait a minute what's and then if you if that ever happens what you could do is you could oh you could try to do a little detective work. What was the impingement that caused that? Because there's often something in context. It could have been and you know and if if if in for a lot of folks who struggle with this on some level they're aware of what's happening. They're aware of what's going on inside of them and how they're losing the individual in front of them and which then may just speed the process up but there is and that's why for especially from self-psychology which is a a subset of psychoanalytic thought um for the self-psychologist validation and mirroring is really important.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

So if someone suddenly said something highly narcissistic like you know um I have I've got more I own I've got more money than anybody in this town and then the reflection would be something like wow it sounds like it makes you feel really good about yourself knowing that you've been able to work hard and get a good thing to happen. And so what happens is and if that if that lands suddenly the narcissism starts to lower and it's possible within the course of an hour or a couple of hours or a couple of years that you could get to a place where they could begin to say you know um I know I have all these good stuff but still I often feel horrible right and suddenly you've been able to develop some insight because you you function as initially as a therapeutic part object. You will be a mirror that reflects back um something that will constitute them and then therapy can begin in some way that otherwise couldn't.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Right right yeah that that that uh that that makes that makes sense I I think there's so much deflection and just repel anything that comes close to the real if you will for the for the narcissist and um I think it this seems to me to be almost an immediate defensive posture when there's some critical or perceived critical um thing that happens to the person and they immediately have a response that is not what you just talked about about perceiving and taking it in and getting to that point. So this this is a very important uh piece of the conversation because I think this is what we're dealing with on a national level and a lot of people are interested in this kind of thing that of how do you respond to the narcissist and what can you do? You don't want to become the therapist that requires a lot of a lot of work. Somebody's got to get paid too I know you're gonna say that but uh I gotta get paid I gotta get paid but but I mean that that sounds like a full-time job if you're engaging in a narcissist is built up this defense mechanism and this wall to say if you say anything about me that is not uh proved by my uh thought process you're off the grid you're getting pushed out I don't want to hear from you anymore but it's uh you're a you're a sure uh some kind of journalist taunt is what I don't know I was where I was going with that but I was gonna actually use some things we've heard on the news but I won't do it.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

We could we could be seeing this unfold right in front of you right well it's interesting because and we could you know uh we we could use Trump an example we we I don't know everybody we beat this guy to death he still but you know there are folks who talk about very positive interactions with him and they'll say you know they'll talk about how you know he's a down to earth guy it's just you know he he knows he knows us he needs to yeah he's not a no he does well I think in some of those inner let's assume that he does he would have if he does have a narcissistic disorder he'd be what we call in the old school uh uh diagnostic diagnostic psychoanalytic diagnostic structure is a phallic narcissist and a phallic narcissist is someone they puffer fish so when there there's an impingement or when there's a a uh when their self-esteem takes a hit they expand right yes and so you know puffer fish I think you've used that analogy they expand right and the you know the the less health you have the more you expand right got it and so probably if if that's his organization at the world stage he has far more impingements than he's ever had in his life right because he's I think so and it just seems like in the in the last little bit there's been more and more little pinholes uh in that uh not only I mean he's he's got the impingement of his own body as he gets older he's he's you're not as fast you're not as smart you don't move as quick all these things begin to so they're you know beg your pardon but go ahead I mean it's uh not for me but uh for me not for you everybody else so you want to take that into consideration right that there is and if you want to think about like you know what yeah so what does he do with that too is my uh my question my follow-up question I didn't mean to interrupt yeah yeah well uh actually what we do with it because he's the president because right we have to wait ultimately it's more our it comes toward us all right I guess more our problem than it is his. Our problem. Perfect. But I mean again to to lean into Trump in a positive way most folks who attempt to take the the the center stage have to have some element of narcissism right there has to be a you know there there is something about um uh we could contrast him with Bill Clinton because Clinton also like you know at least had he had a affair in the White House. Sure. Um he may have had others as well. No telling um and you you want to ask yourself he's obviously a very smart guy why would that happen? Why? I mean I mean it's like you you you you see that unfold and you can say wait a minute you you were a very bright guy yeah and this is not your first you should have known better basically I mean that's what I was told you should have known better.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

What are you to do with it?

SPEAKER_02 35:38

But but notice the interaction because um and I I'm I don't know for sure but this this would unfold with a lot of middle aged men um and probably possibly women too but particularly middle aged men they're much more apt to um to uh uh to have an affair because being middle aged is in and of itself a narcissistic injury and to have someone much younger than you who's attractive who suddenly notices you you know uh there's famous line by Coet that we begin is the twinkle in our mother's eye and so to suddenly have someone who is attractive and to see the twinkle in their eye it suddenly generates a uh uh first off it it constitutes you in a way that you want to preserve right I want I want more of this I want to hold on to this right the things that you yeah and as a result you set and it doesn't excuse you know because what he did was um uh there was such a radical power difference there that what he did was was clearly wrong I mean there's no you know it's not and people jumped on Lewinsky she certainly was an adult after how old was she she was still really really young and it isn't it doesn't mean that there couldn't be some responsibility to her but hers is minuscule in the face of the fact that this is the leader of the free world the most power differential is the thing yeah you know so it's like you know and that's why like if you work with adolescents if you work with adolescents I've worked with you know um uh uh girls and I've I've had this happen with some of the um uh uh gay adolescents uh men boys that I've worked with there can suddenly come into the room uh a flirtation a sense of like there is a um that you can you can feel the the twinkle in the eye and the goal is to understand that for what it is and it is it is an admiration a quest for connection and the goal is to navigate navigate that in such a way is that you can be loving and connected to the person across from you so that they can be lifted up instead of uh become a vessel for your narcissistic needs right so there's there's something critical in these moments that could happen that could be very powerfully healthy and often the powerfully healthy change has the danger of becoming something bad too so there are those moments there's the potential right there's something that could happen and if you can stay connected to your own to your own uh um uh mandate maybe right um I I gave a talk um not long ago um um about um I it was about uh Epicureanism and and ethics and all that sort of stuff and I asked a question to the folks in the audience and I said something like you know like um uh could you ever see yourself becoming sexually attracted to a patient? And there was a significant number of people in the room who said never and that was really disturbing.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Because I always think when those moments come and somebody answers so quick so fast I mean that must be that must be the real and it isn't what's going on it doesn't mean that that's not possible.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

I just think that and I literally said this I said we've got to be careful because the problem with attractive people is that they're attractive. Uh oh yeah I mean that's not and attraction can cut uh in all sorts of ways the goal is you know how do you remain loving to yourself and the person in your care in moments of those intensities and those intensities may be necessary for therapeutic growth. I mean oftentimes like when I I I there have been several instances I can think with both again I'd mentioned boys and girls that I've worked with that but I don't do a lot of work with adolescents now but I did at the beginning. And those are the moments when suddenly there was a father hunger that came into the room and they suddenly had an adult male who seemed to generally find them interesting that seemed to genuinely like talking to them that wasn't critical of them that and so what came into the room was a hunger for connection and there's always a libidinal component to that. Yeah it doesn't it it's a component and you know Freud's notion of libidinal stuff is that it's it's the raw it's the raw energy for all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

You know it doesn't have to it could be it doesn't have to be sexual the kappa it can become that if that's the where you want to direct it. But the goal is that there was a moment of meeting and so there's a way to be able to reflect and say man you are cool this is you alive you got some sparkle and kick man this is this is right and if that happens then it's the possibility of empowerment instead of using someone right that it becomes you know that's that's that can become a powerful thing potentially.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Well I I like I like that the idea of kind of working and I think what happens is that we just have to gather some more information I think basically this is why we do this podcast so long we've done it for quite a long time but the before they were podcasts by the way it turns out um but we have to go back and dig in the archives oh man some of those you had to see them um but but it just seems like that we're trying to impart some information so you have a a thought process and then develop an ability maybe a skill to be able to deal with these things that go out of off off track for you as you meet pe people in your day-to-day life and also a little bit about mental health because we talked about disorders and personalities and things like that. So there's a lot going on we just have to fortify ourselves with some information somehow to be able to deal with awareness may be the first.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

And this may connect with sort of you know this notion of self-compassion and self-acceptance and this was sort of central to what Freud kept saying is the idea that nobody if if we have this continuum of of of sickness and health nobody's really healthy or if you are that's contingent. If you had a really good night's sleep and you're having a great day it's much easier to fall in this on this end of the spectrum. But you're not you know you're just a a bad day or two away from being on the other side of this right so you want to you want to be able to put this I don't know why they hit home but anyway yeah go ahead. And so before to say is anybody who thinks they're healthy is in trouble right like I'm healthy over oh no you're not like those are the people you got to work for what we worry about. So and you let that's often a narcissistic move to say well I'm healthy. I have these things. Yeah so part of what could happen and and this could be tough to do because you know I I've been doing this for a while but occasionally I'll somebody will come on about I'll start working with somebody and they'll bring an issue or an event in their life that'll make me want to do a spit take like man I can't believe they did that you know like if you had George Costans that he was telling you about pushing the old lady down to go out of fire. And so there's a party you want to go want you know you you kind of want to spit them out like oh I mean this this guy's a nid this guy's horrible but if you listen to the ghost of Freud whispered in your hearing and say you're right now this is called countertrans and there's something about their them that you don't want to own in you right and and I think that's where there's the possibility to say okay welcome to the human race there's nothing that I'm and this if you think of the most extreme and right now the probably the most extreme is something up like a pedophilic act like you you say I would never do that to a kid and and I and not that that's that and I don't mean that we're I do believe it takes a number of things in someone's life developmental uh experiences genetics to be able to generate those actions. But if you don't believe that if you weren't in such a space that you couldn't exploit someone that was weaker than you that's the part that you've got to own. Yeah. That if if the stars line up you could commit some pretty lousy things. And it doesn't mean you know so when we look at someone who goes they'll I I I was hanging out with my son, we were looking at reels, and there was like people going on about, you know, like, you know, we should death penalty for pedophiles and all that sort of stuff. And you know, and my first thought is is that, you know, inherent in the pedophilic act, there are a number of things, but it is an exploitation of and the derailment and the the damage to someone in this case a child um at the service of probably a narcissistic imbalance, right? That it is ultimately a way for the individual to turn they're supposed to see the child as a whole object and instead they see that child as a part object and it becomes something for them to exploit so they can feel okay about themselves. And at its core all of us can exploit someone so that we can feel uh better about ourselves if we're not careful, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:53

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

Yeah levels you can make that human and say okay I'm not saying that all of us are capable of that act but we are capable that of of of what's at the center of it right okay that can happen.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Yeah wow well a little scary there um because I you know bad days accumulate I guess in some things and maybe maybe something might trip that gets you in a place where you don't want not that extreme though all right but um just kind of day to day. So the the we started out by talking about self-esteem and I I'm not really sure what that is. I've heard it since I don't know the 80s 70s even maybe I don't know. It's been around quite a quite a while and it's it's uh you know started a movement to a certain extent that self-esteem we've got to take these students in our classroom and we gotta help them with self-esteem and it seems like that kind of went off the rails too uh in that that movement of uh everyone gets self high self-esteem here we go at its root would be the same sort of validation that Coe would talk about so if you know there's something about if and if you you use school as an example if if someone's trying to learn math and they feel like they're not good at math or they feel like they're not smart then they already have a sort of imbalance that will keep them to be opening to learning in that experience right I mean that's that's that's there.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

So part of what the validation would be how do we get someone to feel better about themselves in such a way is that they can they can initiate and attempt a task and you know so the validation could be something affect that you know hey the fact that you showed up today I know this class isn't easy for you and it's kind of scary but man look at this you showed up you this is cool yeah you took you made you made an effort and that's one of the most important things you can do is I I I can I know I've had patients tell me this that sometimes the C they got in a class is the best grade they've ever received because even though the class was kicking their butt they still managed to pull something out of it and they could say I'm never going to be a mathematician right this is never anything and I don't want to take this class again but I worked hard and that's the sort of validation you receive right to say look you didn't make an A but of all the people in this room you had the most to lose it was the hardest for you and you stuck with it and you got to the other side you truly earned that this is like it it it is a C that's true but what you've earned here is my respect.

SPEAKER_00 47:33

I hope you can also respect yourself that when you know uh uh that you you showed up and you made this happen right that would be wonderful that's the sort of validation to say look man you know man I I I'd I'd like to get some of that right now if I could I don't know what I've done to deserve it. Well um yeah but I don't want to say but but there it is um maybe you need to do that to yourself and that's what we were talking about just a few minutes ago that that kind of thinking that uh almost the kind of uh I don't want to say praise but you know positive regard and all those kind of things needs to come back home just a little bit when you trip, make a mistake, do something that you didn't want to do, find yourself in those situations and then you realize yeah I I'm not I'm I made a mistake but I'm I'm not terrible at everything. Or you know kind of some kind of information that that helps you kind of carry on and put this thing in a perspective that is not devastating. I'm always this way all or shoulds kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 48:40

Well and may that this maybe this is a place we could we could sort of end. I uh I think I'm gonna be trapped in Supergirl here in about an hour. But uh maybe here's uh or maybe maybe it won't be um here's something to think about because what you said is kind of what happens in therapy because when someone generates a capacity for self-reflection they've internalized the therapist in the therapeutic moment and they carry it with them. And so they have the capacity for self-compassion self-validation right so that actually that that is uh I'm gonna sneeze right here it didn't I don't know all right we'll cut the camera no one got to see that sneeze ladies and gentlemen that's how we do it here in the studio with our large production crew wait a minute we don't have a crew it's just me all right here we go here we are all right but here's the thing about this is where the practice comes in this is where therapy happens your capacity to create a space to to begin to um notice your not me states notice the things that you're ashamed of to be able to hold them in your head long enough maybe to share them with someone else because Beyond's famous quote takes two people to think a dangerous thought and the dangerous thought is I could push an old lady out of the way when someone yells fire I could I'm capable yeah you could do that that is so shameful when you've put it into words it's possible in a strange sort of paradox by the mere act of owning it that it may not happen again right because it is often because if you think about the example of George what if he had a phobic response and he talked to his therapist and he said look you know I had an uncle that got burned up in a fire he didn't die but I remember seeing the scars on his face fire I just feel get so afraid and I just just run. I thought that's always the case may be right and say well okay well let's work on this and you could get really behavioral say well let's you know let's practice in here let's talk about what's it like what do you feel when you think of it when you when you we talk about fires yeah I'm really feeling it well let's practice some breathing man there are lots of ways in some you know direct and indirect exposure to get someone to own it so the mere owning that finding out why you would act in such a way in an event like that may give the pack capacity for you to grow right so that could happen and the self-compassion would be to I to say look I am capable of shameful things because I'm a human being I can do things that I don't want to do that not me states are what all of us have.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

Well that now that that type of comparison I I dig that that's cool because it's like wait this a this is a whole big universe out here it's a planet full of people and where do I fit into all of this and there's some um things might I might do better things I might do worse and let's put this in perspective again because I think that's kind of the thing. Let me get back to as we wrap up just the just the thing about possessions because there's something in the first article I think it was the first article that was was talking about you not um that sometimes people define themselves as by the possessions that they own so to speak. I mean that sounds extreme but yeah kind of you kind of do in the if you own a 911 you you think about how uh you know I'm bringing this uh directly back to you by the way so that you can answer for your uh situation there's something powerful in in in that article because and maybe it's something we could really lean into maybe next time because well let's do it because the crux of that is we've talked a lot in here about what happiness is what contentment would be and so from truly wants to put a that there's a way to be alive that doesn't involve um um uh chasing ownership right he uses an example of buying a uh a motorbike yeah this is this this actually uh article is written for you and uh they should have put the wheel they push put the Porsche 911 on there but they didn't they did use a motorbike hopefully they thought you would get this if they put it he said motorbike and I bet I bet this was like something really expensive.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

He says motorbike but it's probably like you know motorbike I think of a scooter no no no no we're talking about the big what what is this here but uh it and it it really in some ways and maybe maybe this is something we can we can sort of make this transition and that um and we could really spend some time on it because um if you buying the motorbike is an act of uh an attempt at narcissistic equilibrium right right if you bought the bike because that is you wanted to be the sort of person that owned that kind of thing it's only temporary you know but if there is a way to buy the bike and say I want to have experiences with this thing right that would be different. Yeah right sounds better there is a way to live with this now knowing that you know there's still because and because I actually I mean I I I did buy a Porsche I didn't have 911 but I did buy one a long time ago 20 years ago I'm telling you this article was all about you I remember you know that what he's saying is exactly true. You know like suddenly it's not I mean my conscious reason for purchasing it was you know just the idea of I wanted to go really fast. That's what I'm gonna buy it. It wasn't like you know I didn't care straightforward I can I get that I get that man this thing this and it you know it looked uh it looked cool it it was a giant toy but if toys can give us experiences right but they're lousy things to to prop us up because they just don't work that well for that sort of thing. But maybe let let's because let's dive into this things yeah let's dive into this next time because the From thing really opens up a real sort of existential thing. And maybe we can you know remember our that famous line from uh Winnicott uh Lord let me be alive when I die yep there's something about cultivating life that all of us might need to think about because there are lots of ways in which we become zombified by not cultivating this sense of becoming and he uses from I think he mentions Heidegger in there as well but maybe but it may just be from and from someone that people talk about a lot but for a while there he was a wildly popular author The Art of Love and um um uh the anatomy of human destructiveness uh I think he is to be or not to be is what where he's taking that from right but in those books it's been a while since I've read them and I'm sure they have some an anachronistic elements to them but they were really they were really good books. He was sort of a psychoanalytic existentialist I so I dig that guy.

SPEAKER_00 55:29

Yeah I I I like it too and I like the use of your term cultivate life and and that may be the title of the next episode and and maybe we kind of get it get at that because wow what a great experience but uh you got to have some tools to navigate and get through this and and smile and make a joke every once in a while and enjoy life and uh we want more of that so cultivate life uh don't hold on to those possessions as the pinnacle of who you are you know unless it's in 9-11 unless it's a 9-11 and then use it for uh experiences go experience the world through the 9-11 windshield okay I'm not sure how to say all that but yeah I think I made my point. All right this is what we do and we're gonna cultivate another episode next time thanks for joining us Michael Baltimore Dan Rose got therapy. See you next time