ACT - Tony Overbay

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People often stay in relationships with narcissistic or emotionally immature partners in hopes that it will be better in the long run for the kids. Unfortunately, staying can often send the exact opposite message. Tony reads another poem from his private women's Facebook group and a letter from the son of a narcissistic father. He then shares Karyl McBride's article "How Narcissistic Parenting Can Affect Children" https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-legacy-of-distorted-love/201802/how-narcissistic-parenting-can-affect-children Karyl is the author of the book "Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers" https://amzn.to/40P1ZdT

Find all the latest links to podcasts, courses, Tony's newsletter, and more at https://linktr.ee/virtualcouch

And follow Tony on the Virtual Couch YouTube channel for a sneak preview of his upcoming podcast "Murder on the Couch," where True Crime meets therapy, co-hosted with his daughter Sydney. You can watch a pre-release clip here https://youtu.be/-RkRq8SrQy0

Subscribe to Tony's latest podcast, "Waking Up to Narcissism Q&A - Premium Podcast," on the Apple Podcast App.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/waking-up-to-narcissism-q-a/id1667287384

Narcissistic Mothers Transcript

Hey everybody. Welcome to episode 68 of Waking Up to Narcissism. I am your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, host of the Virtual Couch podcast and one that I would be just so grateful that you, if you will go check that out, is the Waking Up to Narcissism premium question and answer podcast. So the links for all of the above will be in the show notes. Just look for a, it's a link tree slash Virtual Couch. And then that has links to everything, including marriage course, marriage workshop, Instagram accounts and TikTok and all those sorts of things. But let's get to today's topic. I want to start with another poem that comes from my women's private Facebook group.

I wish I was a poet. I wish I was creative and thought in the ways that the people that are sharing their talents around this difficult topic of narcissism and emotional immaturity. So I'm going to start with a poem and then, boy, today, we're going to talk about the effects of narcissism and extreme emotional immaturity on children and someone in the group, they had a teenage son write a letter to their dad and they said that they were okay if we just kept the name out of it, anonymous, and shared that on the podcast and it's powerful. And then I found a really good article by someone that has done some amazing work with narcissism and emotional immaturity. Carol McBride. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist and she's the author of a book called “Will I ever be good enough? Healing the daughters of narcissistic mothers”. And I'll have the link to that in the show notes as well. If you just read the reviews alone, it just speaks to people that weren't even aware of the effect of having a narcissistic parent and specifically in our system, mother had on their life. So let's get to the show. Let me start with this poem from one of the women in the group and she titled it, “Let me go”.

“Let me go, release me. Let me be on my way. And no, there's not one bit of me that would willingly stay. You revealed to me a part of you I've not seen before, and I'll never forget. It was cold contemptuous, a looming shadow of terrifying threat. You acted fast at the start, setting me up for this gradual fall. Conditioning my mind. So I couldn't think clearly at all. Confusion and self doubt became the biggest parts of me. You took my freedom, stripped away my self esteem. It was inevitable. Impossible to see. You know, I'd never hit you is what you would always say is that reassuring. I wondered in a hazy fog of dismay. Silently. I thought if you did, at least I would understand this underlying feeling that somehow I was under your command. You worked relentlessly. I was questioning myself every single day. Pieces of me were being chipped at gradually floating away. I started not to recognize the person I saw in the mirror. The truth is I was too trusting, too naive even to consider. Why would a person want to do this to another human? Dismantled their brain. Keep them prisoner in a state of delusion. Surely only a person who's hurting to the very depth of their core. As you like to remind me often to fix me, the body keeps the score. But the pieces of me, I thought had gone, were waiting for me somewhere else.

I was forming another version of me with a stronger sense of self. I could see glimmers of her and momentary flashes. It took some time, but she started to emerge rising from the ashes. I'm not asking you to let me go. I'm telling you I'm on my way. And whilst I'm edit, you'll never have another opportunity to make me obey. I'm sorry, you have so much pain that you chose to act as you do. But for me, I'll no longer take part in your play.”

The taming of the Shrew. I think we can just let that one sit there on its own, but it just speaks so beautifully to just the awakening of, that it's okay to have your own thoughts and opinions and to recognize how unhealthy that control and manipulation is in a relationship. And, I will beat this drum every chance I get that that is not part of a healthy human relationship. You're allowed to have your own thoughts and opinions. And if you are continually trying to figure out how to negotiate the complicated nature of trying to communicate with someone else at the risk of who you are and your own self-development, then, welcome, welcome to the podcast. And in this, getting your, in essence, your PhD and personality disorders and extreme emotional immaturity. And it can be difficult and the process can be lengthy. But there is hope there, there is absolute hope. Let me jump right to this letter. I'm going to read this letter from a son, a teenage son that again, was given full permission to share on the podcast and share with my women's group in emotionally immature relationships or narcissistic relationships. And then we're going to talk about narcissism and the effect on kids. The person in the group said that her son who is 18 sent this to her to get her thoughts on it. And she said she bawled. She went downstairs. She bawled some more while hugging him and telling him how sorry she was, that he had to deal with this.

She said that she was racked with guilt, that she didn't know how bad it was. And then she said, I asked if I could share this with a group. And he agreed as long as it was anonymous. And then I had asked permission to share on the podcast as well. But I believe the comment that I made to her even in the group was I'm so sorry that she feels the way that she did. But she truly did not know what she did not know. And I believe was 100% trying her best because this whole process of awakening to this, it can be really difficult because none of us want to think that we ever put our kids in a position where they weren't allowed to grow and thrive and emotionally mature because the people that are waking up to this and themselves have to come to this realization of what that's been like for them to even start to understand what that's been like for their kids. And this is where I just, I implore you to give yourself grace beyond anything else, because if you are listening to this, if you're starting to do your homework, if you're starting to recognize and learn the things you didn't know that you didn't know, then you are changing the dynamic and the pattern in your family, there's no doubt about that. And your kids will appreciate that. And it may take a while and some will be like this letter that I'm going to read. And they're gonna, they're gonna really understand that boy you weren't aware of what you weren't aware of just as they weren't as well. And so the fact that you are starting to open up to this will give them a voice because you're going to be a safer place for them to be able to share and express their feelings and emotions.

So here's the letter. And the son said for dad, been working on this, let me know what you think. And then it had the crying face emojis. I mean, you can tell that, that he's saying, okay. You know, here we go. We'll see how this, how this goes. So the letter that he wrote, the teenage son said, “I hate you. I think you should know that. I've thought about you a lot recently, actually, and I realized something. I have no happy memories with you. Everyone I have, there's a sense of fear or guilt or anger or something along those lines that pops up. I avoid you now, because anytime I speak to you, there's an inescapable feeling of rage that boils up.” So if I just pause, I wasn't going to commentate on the letter itself, but even this teenage boy and boys that, that most teenage boys, like to watch cartoons, eat cereal, play video games and compartmentalize. So the fact that his own body keeps the score is pretty phenomenal. That even when he's in the same room, he has that inescapable feeling of rage that boils up. So back to the letter. Like I said, “there's no happy memories. You know what I do remember? I remember you telling me not to wear my favorite color to school because it was a girly color.” And he said, “literally it was red. I remember you commanding me from the couch to refill your whiskey glass. I remember you driving 80 to 90 miles an hour on gravel roads at night drunk with me and others in the car as you swerved all over, not being scared for myself and the others safety. I remember you blocking the doors out of the house, stealing my keys. So I couldn't get away from you. I remember walking miles down a driveway in boots with no socks to get away from you so [the mom] could drive over an hour to come and get me. I remember you threw me around into the walls of the house. I remember you throwing me into the bathtub when I was younger because I accidentally woke others up before school. I remember the sound of you screaming in my face and I could smell your nasty breath from it. I remember the emotional manipulation that you put me through. You made me feel guilty for seeing who you are. And as I got older and I learned more, you got angrier. I remember you playing with my emotions to make me compete in sports year after year, when it was clear that I didn't enjoy those particular sports and the list goes on and on. Some thinking about all these things. And I realized that you never saw me as a human being and you still don't. You have no sense of respect or love for me, I'm nothing more than an extension of yourself and your eyes. You made me do the things that you wanted me to do my whole life with no regard for what I wanted. I realized that what you wanted so badly for me to be with something that you were. I realized that you wanted so badly for me to be something because you're nothing, you're a liar, a manipulator and an abuser, nothing more. You wanted to parade me and my siblings around like prize possessions to make up for the fact that you've done nothing inherently good your whole life. You want to throw it in mom's face, you've got more money than her, and you can afford to buy all these things, but you still don't manage to pay your child support on time because you don't give a crap about us. Which sucks because your money is the only thing you're good for. I've also realized through all of this that you don't love me. And that the only reason you say it so much is to make up for the fact that you don't and to try to convince yourself that you do. You're a pathetic father, a sad man, any decent man is supposed to protect his children and loved ones, not be the person that endangers and hurts them. I'm done talking to you even after all these years, you're still putting on an act for everybody else. You still want to portray yourself as the almighty loving father and take credit for everything you didn't do. And then deny the blame for everything you did. Do I see your whole act of getting quotes, changing? Out in public, but you're still the same miserable, horrible person when it really comes down to it. And when you're behind closed doors, don't respond to this. Don't try talking to me. I'm done with it. Just sit this, read it and sit in it.”

So you can feel that emotion. And I'm trusting that if you are already here and listening to this podcast, that there isn't judgment at all on that letter, that there's empathy, compassion. You can feel the strength and the, just the anger and the power and the just trying to see someone take control of their life. And at 18 to have to have this kind of awareness over some human being, you know, you hear that concept of an old soul and sometimes it sounds like it's pretty cool. Like this 16 year old is going to fire up a bass guitar and play jazz, like that's your old soul, but really an old soul is somebody that has not been able to really find their sense of self as a kid. And they've been having to figure out how to survive and how to cope and how to not get in trouble and how to protect siblings sometimes. And how to just say, man, there's nothing I can do right now. I gotta get out. Instead of just being a kid and being a teenager and just caring about school and relationships and movies and all the things that a teenager is missing out on because they have to grow up and they have to protect and they have to learn to read the room and manage others expectations. So I'm just, I'm grateful that he took the time to write this, that he shared it with his mom, that his mom shared it with the group. And so I often find myself getting asked questions about children and co-parenting with a narcissist and staying in the relationship. So that at least they have a mom or a dad, whoever is the more emotionally immature.

And I try to, I feel like, tiptoe around this because I don't know what divorce is like. Because I am, I'm still married. My parents didn't divorce. And but I work in this world of divorce and it's easy for me to say that in these emotionally immature relationships, that when somebody gets out of that emotionally immature relationship and finds themselves, that they also become a completely different person and the way that they show up with their kids. And when a kid gets their own sense of self through external validation. That then when they, that you can really reverse the tide of who that kid is or what it feels like to be them. If you become this, not just a safe place where they can then dump and share emotions about the more emotionally immature parent. But where you can actually start to build that secure attachment with them so they can go out and explore and be, and do and know that they have a safe place to come back to. And that your interaction with them isn't constantly talking about, hey, watch out or things, you, you know, make sure you don't do this, or I understand, I understand how frustrated he is, but if it's more about, hey, how was your day? And what was that like? And how's your job going? And what do you want to be when you grow up? And what's that relationship like? And what do you like about this boy or this girl? And I mean, that's the way you build a real relationship. Not trying to continually figure out, okay, how do we all manage this? How do we see how we approach mom or how we approach dad, whoever the more emotionally immature person is.

So on that note, I want to get into an article that I really do appreciate. And the article is from Psychology Today and it's titled “How Narcissistic Parenting Can Affect Children.” And this is from Carol McBride. She's got a PhD in clinical psychology. And then she again is the author of this book that is highly recommended. The book is called, “Will I ever be good enough? Healing the daughters of narcissistic mothers.” She's also a licensed marriage and family therapist. And she has 30 traits of how narcissistic parenting affects children. So I'm going to read just a couple of paragraphs that she has as part of this article. And then I'm going to go through that list. And I'm sure that I'll comment on some of those, if not all of those how. How narcissistic parenting affects the children. She says, why does it matter if a parent is a narcissist, how does that hurt a child? She said, you might be asking this question. If you're a person that is currently co-parenting with a narcissistic ex, someone raised by a narcissistic parent or one who is in a relationship currently with a narcissist, or if you're a divorce professional working on a case that involves a narcissistic parent.

And I'll put that out there right now. I now understand a lot of therapists listen to Waking Up to Narcissism. I'm grateful for that. I am so grateful for the ones that reach out and want to be a part of the women's group or one that would love to talk about this. A group of therapists so that we can start to really address this population. But I also have a thread in the group this talking about experiences in therapy that have been detrimental because if someone, if you are going to a professional who is not familiar with emotional immaturity or narcissistic personality disorder or traits or tendencies, then it can actually be, I feel pretty detrimental because you're often being told that you're just buying into the hype of narcissism and the, what will, what are you doing and what can you do? And just stand up to him or her, just tell them. And all of those things are things that can actually end up making things worse because you're engaging. You're letting the person see, you're letting the narcissist see your buttons to push and they will do so. Carol says, given my research and clinical experience, I want to provide some education and awareness about how this disorder hurts children. She said first, let me explain it. Narcissistic personality disorder is misunderstood when applied to someone who is just boastful, arrogant and all about themselves.

So all these traits are annoying and not fun to be around. Narcissism is a deeper, more destructive disorder that has devastating effects on the people in relationships with the individual. It's a difficult disorder to treat. And some do believe it's untreatable. And she said the cornerstones of the disorder or lack of empathy. And the inability to tune into the emotional world of others. And I am hearing, I don't want to be dramatic, but on a fairly regular basis, that from those who don't understand what narcissism really is or emotional immaturity, is that just the fact of the, that the word is being used, causes a visceral reaction and people tune out. And I've also been told pretty regularly that the shifting I have been intentional on shifting the word narcissism to emotional immaturity and that, yeah, that's a lot more palatable. And then we can all take a look at the areas where we are emotionally immature. And then the key difference is the, are the people that are willing to then sit with the discomfort of the things that they are facing. And that, that is uncomfortable for them as a human being or as an adult. And then are they willing to self confront and do something? So then when somebody will inevitably, maybe even right now, the kind person is saying, okay, I got it. Tony finally gets it. He's telling me I'm the narcissist. You are not. If you are listening to this because you are trying to do something, you are trying, you’re obviously uncomfortable and you're out there seeking help, even though you're just, you're uncomfortable.

So that is, this on this road of empathy. And so you are literally tuning into the emotional world of others because you're worried about how you're responding to your maybe narcissistic spouse in this. What we now know is a reactive issue, a reactive abuse issue, or you're worried about, am I doing damage to my kids? So you've already broken the rules of being a narcissist. That you are not lacking empathy. You're maybe overly empathetic because you are just, what is wrong with me? I gotta figure this out. And then you absolutely are able to tune into the emotional world of others, maybe even your tuning fork is on high alert that if you've ever used a tuning fork, which I haven't, that might've made no sense. If we go back to Carol's list, she has a list of how narcissistic parenting affects children. The child won't feel heard or seen. The child's feelings and reality will not be acknowledged. And I just did an episode a week or so ago talking about the emotional abandonment that is there in our childhood, that then we bring into our adulthood that we don't even recognize is not normal. And that is if you are trying to manage your relationship with your parent as a child, then there is a high, I mean, I'm going to say it's pretty much a given. That you, your emotions are not being acknowledged and you are not being asked to be taken on your train of thought about how you're feeling or what you're thinking about a situation. It's, if you are trying to express emotion, you're probably getting a lot of either just indifference, a flat affect or a, not right now, or will you need to get over it, or how do you think that makes me feel, or you got the version of emotional immaturity or narcissism where a parent then says, no, I get it.

Let me tell you stories of my high school days and how I overcame it. And so the fact that if you look at how great I am, and then if you aren't doing the same, then it shows that you are not as good as I am. And then if you don't listen to me, then I can say, well, I told you. And then if you try to do what I'm asking you to, because it won't feel authentic to you, then I get to say, you're not even doing it. So it's a no, it's a no win situation. When you're trying to even express yourself as a kid, to an emotionally immature/narcissistic parent, the child will be treated like an accessory to the parent rather than a person. The chat will be more valued for what they do, usually for the parent then for who they are as a person. And I think that the letter that this teenager wrote that I read earlier. It starts to feel like that quite a bit. You're valued for what you do. You're only as good as what you do for others. I mean, that is a way you truly lose your sense of self. And that's where the pathologically kind people that find themselves in again, what Rosenberg so well says, the human magnet syndrome is that you are in this place of self-love deficit. So you feel like you are only as good as what you do. And so what do you do you continue to try to do for others to try to, to get them to love you? And that, that is working absolutely counter to the fact that you are of worth and lovable as a human being.

And so if you are trying to get people to recognize or acknowledge you or love you, then that is you're not in a healthy relationship. The child will not learn to identify or trust their own feelings and will grow up with crippling self doubt. Here's what, this is what I tried to identify last week is that if you're not allowed to explore your feelings and emotions, if you're continually told that they're wrong or not now, or just get over it or don't worry about it. Then you are continually given this message that your feelings, you don't even understand them. They're wrong. And look at how that makes me feel. So now all of a sudden, I can't trust my own gut. I can't think on my own. And what am I doing now? I'm now actually going to start going to this person to ask for their advice or their opinion or what they think I should do. And they don't have my best, they don't have what's good for me in mind. It's oh, well, what can I do? How can I manipulate this at the moment?

And that's that form of, of really, it's a form of betrayal trauma, where you're starting to go to this person. If you're a kid to your parent, or if you're a husband or wife to your more emotionally narcissistic spouse, and you're saying, hey, here's my heart. And, I need some help in managing emotions because we are inherently designed to deal with emotion in concert with another human being. It's part of our attachment. But then that other human being is taking advantage of that opportunity and manipulating it for their own gain. The child will be taught that how they look is more important than how they feel, because when there is a real lack of knowing or understanding your kid, and if they are only as good as the things they do or how they make you feel as an emotionally immature parent, then they need to look the part they need to look the part of, if you look a certain way, then that makes me look better as a parent. The child will be fearful of being real and will instead be taught. That image is more important than authenticity. And this is part of that, when I talk about abandonment and attachment issues that we bring into our relationships is that I'm so afraid that if I am being real. That then I may lose this other person. Now if a kid grows up with a secure attachment to their parent, and if they know that it is absolutely okay to be them, whatever that looks like, whatever they like to do. And again, I feel like this is where the emotionally immature person's listening to this, which I'm sure they haven't, they wouldn't have made it 24 minutes in at this point.

But it's like, oh, okay. So if they just want to go shoot heroin between their toes all day, then I got to support that. If you're at that point right now, you've already been looking to pick apart this entire podcast. So there's not much that I can do to convince you. But if they want to go be a, I don't know if they want to go be an explorer and then a pirate and then an astronaut, and then they want to become a surgeon and then they want to raise bunnies and then they want to, I want to go on that journey with them the whole way because if any of that becomes a, I don't think that would be good for you, champ. Why am I saying that? Because I have no idea what it feels like to be them. So don't be the person that gets in the way of the hopes and dreams of your spouse or your kid. Because the reality is that doesn't mean that they're going to all of a sudden, want to be a pirate, astronaut who raises bunnies. The thing is that, if they feel like, oh, it's okay for me to say that I want to do that. Actually, I don't know if I really even want to. But if I'm continually told no, there aren't even pirates anymore, whatever that looks like. Well then what, what do I feel like? Okay. I feel kind of dumb. And I don't know if I'm going to keep bringing my hopes and dreams to you as my parents. Because you're shooting those down. And what is, I had someone in my office recently and all the person said was they wanted to look at going to a particular grad school and the parent immediately said, that's too difficult. And I just thought, wow, that was within seconds of this person sharing something that no doubt they've been thinking about for quite some time. And then they were met with their parent who doesn't even really know. Hey take me on your train of thought. Tell me more about that. And I just said, no, you wouldn't be able to do that.

And in essence, implying that, hey, that's really difficult. I don't think you can do difficult things and you're not very smart. So then this person just said, okay, I guess I will not open up about anything again. The child will be taught to keep secrets, to protect the parent and the family boy triangulation. Hey, don't tell your mom, don't tell your dad. That is not a healthy way to live because then the child is now again, you know, feeling like anything they say, boy, am I split? Am I going to get anybody in trouble? Is this, wait, is dad gonna get mad at me because I said something to mom or vice versa. And the child will not be encouraged to develop their own sense of self. It goes right back to that secure attachment. They're trying to figure out what they can do to then, please me. I was going to say I'm going to be dramatic and throw out a very controversial thing and it's not that, but I was with one of my adults, two of my daughters over the weekend and we'd gone to help paint my daughter Mackie’s new salon. So as a matter of fact, plug two, if you are, if you live in the Provo/Orem area of Utah, then look up at beauty by Mackie on Instagram. And she's an amazing cosmetologist. But I had some of my nieces and nephews there while we were doing this and it was late at night and it's just so fun to talk to the kids these days and listen to how old I sound. But when we were talking, they were saying, you know, a couple of them are graduating college and they're not 100% sure what they want to do. And they were almost expressing that, like I know, I should know. And I said, oh, you know, if I can just speak from some experience as a human being and throw the therapist card in there as well.

I feel like it's very rare that somebody at the age of 22 says, I think I know what I want to do for the next 50 years of my life. I've made this choice over the last two or three as an emotionally immature individual. But in reality if you are just on the path of just trying to learn and do and be that then you're going to develop your sense of self. Now, the controversial point I made was that I just threw out that I've worked with enough people that are people like lawyers and doctors and some of those professions that you've had to spend a tremendous amount of schooling on. And just, I'm just talking about anecdotal evidence that I have as a therapist for the first 15, 16, 17 years. And talking with some of those professionals and then I'm getting them in their mid thirties to early forties and their midlife crisis phase. And that's because when we sometimes dig back and go deep, they want it to be the let's just take a doctor for example. As long as they can remember, but when you go back and look at why. That it was because whenever they said, I want to be a doctor, you watched the parents beam because boy, talk about external validation. And then whenever you talk to your friends and if your friends saying, I don't even know what I want to do. And if you say I want to be a doctor, then all of a sudden, everybody kind of lights up and like, oh, that's cool. And then if you're a kid. Oh, you're gonna be so rich and you're gonna get to do all these cool things. So then the person got the validation and then that might've carried them all the way, even through medical school for some, it hasn't for some, they get two or three years in and then at that point, they're in a crippling amount of debt and they feel stuck. They really do.

Or others, I remember talking to a podiatrist a long time ago. And he was talking about we're looking at scheduling and he said, I can't come in on, it was like Tuesdays or Thursdays because those were surgery days. And I said, oh my gosh, what is that like? I mean, that's just gotta be crazy. And then he just said you know, he's like after about the 2000 at the time that I released the plantar fascia, he just said, yeah, not so crazy. They all kind of look the same. And I just thought, oh, to that person that was thinking, this'll be amazing. They just have foot lined up after foot lined up and slice cut into that release of a plaintiff. Release the fascist to get rid of the plantar fasciitis. And so he said, I don't mind surgery. It's still a little bit cooler than just the office days, but the only point that I'm making is that boy, when you know, or you think, you know, that young, a lot of times that's because of that, I believe that external validation from parents. So the child won't be encouraged to develop their own sense of self. They may want to then say the things that will get them, if they are just truly being an extension of their emotionally immature/narcissistic parent.

Then, if they say I'm going to be whatever and the parent goes, yeah, that's, that's my boy. Then they're going to be driven more to do that. Even if that isn't something they feel passionate about. The child will feel emotionally empty and not nurtured. The child will learn not to trust others because boy, if you've grown up in an emotionally immature household, there are going to be times where you have said something and you felt like that was in confidence, but then your narcissistic parent has then told somebody else that is that when it happens so often. And it's because that narcissistic parent in that moment is getting the validation off of you giving them a secret, promise you won't say anything, mom. And it's like, hey, you bet champ. And then as soon as I, mom's talking to her sister, well, no, I just told her because she lives in a different state. Or then telling a neighbor like, no, I told them, but they don't, I mean, they don't run in the same circles as you do. So it's like, oh, I'll absolutely keep your promise. I mean, until I don't, that's basically the creed of the narcissist in a sense. The child will learn. And that's not trusting. The child will feel used and manipulated. And I feel like that's where you start. Getting the vibes of highly sensitive people or the body keeps the score. The child will be there for the parent rather than the other way around as it should be. And that's what starts to create that anxious attachment vibe is that when the child needs the parent from an emotional standpoint, and the parent is, it's not a good time, which I, and I know we're all human, but I want to say which should not be the answer because if you're the parent, then I would love for you to model the fact that, hey for you, now is a good time because this now isn't about me. It's about the tiny human being that I've helped create.

In that scenario then you're going to be there for your kid because if it's the other way around, that's where you start seeing this anxious attachment show up in adult relationships where you've said all I ever wanted to do was feel heard and understood. And then when the spouse finally says, okay, I hear you. And I want to understand you. It can feel emotionally overwhelming and engulfing, and it really can. The child's emotional development will be stunted. The child will feel criticized and judged rather than accepted and loved. And that's again where we have this vibe where we say, hey, champ, you can come and talk to me about anything. And then you come and say, I think I want to quit school. Or I think I want to join the army or I think I want to, and if the parent is saying, okay. That's just ridiculous. Why do you know how much time and effort I put into your schooling or if I really didn't teach you well enough to want to continue to be an attorney like me. And so when you're putting that vibe out again, it is all about you, not your kid. And so in that scenario, then the kid's going to feel criticized and judged. The child will grow frustrated, trying to seek love approval and intention and attention to no avail. Which will often then lead them to looking for external sources to provide them with the love approval and attention.

And I'll just talk about, I was speaking at a conference not long ago. And somebody asks a question about, all the kids, everybody's smoking pot these days was the way that the question was put. And I just said, here's the challenge. And, and I'm with them, I'm with them on that. I feel like I still grew up in a time where, you know, that was the stoner. And I don't know what it's like to be a kid that is in their early twenties that has in essence grown up within most of the states, it's legal. So that's a whole different ball game. But I mentioned that I often talk with kids when they were feeling judged by their peers and especially if you're, I work in an area where there are a lot of people that are part of a religious community. And so then if that religious community says, hey, we're all together, we're all a community. But now within that community, let me do some judging. You drink energy drinks or your shorts are too short. Are you swear yeah, we're all the same. Except for now. I'm going to judge you about those things. And I said but pot, that world has no respect for the people that they're, we don't care what you're wearing or what you're saying or what you're doing because we all have this, this shared sense of purpose, which is, it's sad in that regard. But so in that scenario, though, if they're going to find love, approval and attention and not, if that is not provided in the home. Then they will seek that elsewhere. The child will grow up, not feeling good enough. The child won't have a healthy role model for emotional connection which then starts leading into the, when I say we don't have the tools from the factory to be able to communicate in a healthy way or to hold boundaries. Because, I feel like, I want to say, just remember that if you have grown up with a secure attachment as a child, and now you're a teenager and you know that you're okay because your parent has never continued to, I mean, they haven't hammered you with, I can't believe you said that, right?

I don't, you know what, that, how that impacts me, if you just be able to say and feel and be, and now you go on a date and somebody says, oh, I don't think you should do that in college. Then your radar is going to be off the charts. You're gonna think, okay. I wasn't asking you for your opinion on what I should do with my career. But if you've been judged and manipulated and not heard or seen. And so you've tried to recognize, man, how do I show up? So I don't get this person mad. And then you say, you know, I want to be a, I don't know, computer programmer. And then that person, the person that you're sitting across the table from who you don't even really know. And they say, oh boy I've heard that those computer programmers now work long hours or are they sleeping all the time? Or, you know, you have to drink four liters of Mountain Dew every day. And they rot their teeth. I don't know, whatever it would be. But then if you as a person, then go, yeah, maybe I don't want to be one. And maybe I don't want to be a computer programmer. That's insane. I want the person who wants to be the computer program or showing up on a date. And if they've grown up and their parent has said, what do you want to do? And they've already explored pirates, they've already looked at astronauts, but they kind of found a sense of purpose with computer programming.

So then the parent may not know anything about computer programming, but that doesn't mean that then, oh, you think you're better than me or smarter than me, but it's a holy cow. This is incredible that they're already finding and enjoying something. Let me get them all the computer stuff they need. And let me now ask them questions like, hey, what are you working on? And what does that like in, How hard is that and what do you love about it? Imagine being that parent. Now that computer programmer goes out into the dating world. And if anybody says, I don't think you should do that. They're saying, I don't understand why you're telling me what you think I should do. I mean, we're just here trying to order appetizers at this point and get to know each other, not tell each other what to do. Which I think that's the big key there. Which then leads into, she says the child will not learn appropriate boundaries for relationships. The child won't learn healthy self care, but instead will be at risk of becoming codependent. Taking care of others to the exclusion of taking care of self, not wanting to rock the boat. But not wanting to then question my sense of self, because that's what it's been like to be me growing up in a home where the parent was even letting you know that they did things better than you. When they were your age, the child will have difficulty with the necessary individuation from the parent when he or she grows older.

I was talking with somebody recently and we were talking about the enmeshment that they felt as they, after they got married, where their parents still felt, they wanted to say, I don't know, you don't seem like yourself. And this person was saying, I actually feel better than I've felt before with this connection, with my new spouse. But the narcissistic parent, they were not in essence saying, okay, we have done all we can do. And we have created a secure attachment with our, with this person. And now we hand them into the world of marital relationships. This individuated person and they are now going to go now, go, go and couple and thrive and start to form a secure attachment with your spouse. And then you guys will live happily forever and we're over here. And if you need us, let's go on vacation together. No, it's hey, let's talk every, you know, a couple of times a week and let me just make it all about myself. And let me start to tell you that you don't seem like yourself. When in reality, that means that you don't understand who I am. The child will get a mix of mixed and crazy making messages of do well. Make me proud as an extension of the parent, but don't do too well and don't outshine me because then you're going to think that you're better than me.

I hope my kids turn out better than me, please. That would be a wonderful thing. Because, you know, we want to, I hope we want to advance those generations and every generation gets better. That would be a wonderful thing. I don't need to say, I always have felt like I was better than all of my kids. That's crazy. If the child out shines the parent, then they may experience jealousy from the parent. The child is not taught to give credit to self when deserved. Yeah, one of the things that drives me crazy is this concept around it's so bad to be proud of yourself, pride is bad. No, there's a healthy ego and healthy ego changes the world. Healthy ego is based on real life experience. If you can help somebody find the real sense of self and security, and then they start to go and do and achieve and explore, they change the world. But if that person is always worried about, I don't want to make anybody mad. And yeah, maybe I don't want to do that then, they're taught to burn all these emotional calories. Just trying to figure out how to manage emotion, relationships around them and trying to figure out is it okay to be me? I waited, I don't even know who I am versus the person that has been given the secure attachment. And again, they are going out and doing, and being, and finding and discovering and loving and connecting.

Because that will, without that the child, again, if they haven't been taught to give credit where their own credit is due or self deserved, ultimately they'll start to suffer from a level of post traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, in adulthood. The child will grow up believing that he or she is unworthy and unlovable, because if my parent can't love me, then who will be that one that resonates. If you create that secure attachment and that love with your kid. And they know that they are worthy of love, then they don't, are they going to be less likely to find themselves in relationships where they're trying to prove their worth or their love, they just get to be and do. The child will often become either a high achiever or a self sabotage or are both high achievers, because I'll be darned if I'm going to, that's the only way I got my validation. So I got to go above and beyond and I got to go overboard. And then I have to even puff myself up because I want to make sure that everybody knows that I'm good. Look you'll love me now, if I'm really special, right. And this one's hard that the last one that she talks about as a child will need trauma, recovery and want to reparent themselves in adulthood. Carol then concludes her article by saying, being raised by a narcissistic parent is emotionally and psychologically abusive. And it causes debilitating long lasting effects on children. It's often missed by professionals because the narcissist or emotionally immature person can be charming in their presentation. Displaying an image of how they wish to be seen.

Now behind closed doors, the children feel the suffocation of self and struggle with loneliness and pain. The narcissist is not accountable for their own mistakes or behaviors. So the child believes that they are to blame. That they've flunked childhood. Sad, but I appreciate the way she says that, she said having worked as a mental health provider with thousands of children, as well as the adult children of narcissistic parents. She said, I see the above symptoms over and over again. And, boy, amen to that. I agree. And this is what I love that she said, because it's, I think this says this so well, the lifestyles differ and the stories differ, but they all have the same emotional banners and it's quite a list and it takes serious recovery work to get better and feel better. So she said, if you are the other parent or part of the extended family and are trying to ward off the effects of a narcissistic parent, then you'll have to double do it. You'll have to do double duty as the responsible one. And the best approach is to parent with empathy, the antithesis of narcissism. If you are a divorced professional working with a case that involves, help the kids. By first really understanding the dynamics of the disorder, don't minimize it. Make sure the children are in therapy and learning assertiveness skills to use with the parent who does not emotionally tune into them. Put the kids first.

And I feel like in the work that I do, it really is approached by the pathologically kind person with empathy. The, and to the system narcissism. And help that person realize that they need to understand the dynamics of the disorder. Even if it's just along the lines of emotional immaturity, don't minimize it. And, and then if I'm talking to them, hopefully they are in therapy. And they're learning these skills. Now, the place where I feel a little bit different is that learning those assertiveness skills can be okay. But sometimes that's going to be just from a place of, I need to practice being heard and seen, even if I recognize that it's not going to be the case, but it's going to start to help define what it feels like to be you.

So this one resonated. If you, if you feel like this would help anyone in their situation, feel free to forward it. If you have additional questions for me, reach out at contact@tonyoverbay.com or get ahold of me through Instagram at, I think Tony Overbay underscore LMFT or TikToK, if that continues to be a thing, the therapy account just cracks me up because it's, so it's so funny to watch, uh, just little random, uh, uh, videos that can be a minute, two minutes, go from just a few thousand views to all of a sudden you just watch one, just kind of take off for no reason. And then you refresh every hour and it's another. I don't know, 20, 30,000 views. And it's just interesting to see what people connect with, most of the stuff does have to do with traits and tendencies around narcissism or emotional immaturity. So it's just fascinating. Okay. Have an amazing week. And I will see you next time on Waking Up to Narcissism.

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Exercise, meditation, prayer, and eating good food all sound like wonderful, emotional-baseline-raising activities. But depending on how you're doing them, they could also be a way to eliminate unwanted thoughts and feelings. Tony looks at "creative helplessness" and "emotional control strategies" and how they play into our search for happiness. Tony references Russ Harris' book ACT Made Simple https://amzn.to/3l3NeDJ

Subscribe to Tony's latest podcast, "Waking Up to Narcissism Q&A - Premium Podcast," on the Apple Podcast App. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/waking-up-to-narcissism-q-a/id1667287384

Transcript

Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 359 of the Virtual Couch. I am your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified mindful habit coach, writer, speaker, husband, father of four, and creator of The Path Back, which is an online pornography recovery program that is helping people turn away from turning to pornography as an unhealthy coping mechanism.

And a funny thing on the topic of pornography, which seems like a bit of an oxymoron, I received some texts a couple from people that are very close to me, who asked me about a post on my social media this week, that there was a mention of cornography that is as in corn, C O R N, or people talking about their corn addiction. Now, this is not a situation where people are literally addicted to the delicious yellow, I don't even know if it's a vegetable or a fruit, but it turns into popcorn, which is one of my favorite things in the entire world. I guess technically I could fall into a bit of a corn addiction if that is the case, but we're not talking about that type of corn.

Apparently, if you use the word porn or pornography on certain social media platforms, then that will be the end of you. Your account will be banned and you will be sent to outer darkness for time and all eternity. So in order to get around that and to try to help people, because I really feel like we need to be having better discussions around the challenges of people that are turning to pornography as an unhealthy coping mechanism, you have to refer to it as corn, corn addiction, and the coauthor of my book, He's a Porn Addict, Now what? An Expert and a Former Addict to Answer Your Questions, Joshua Shea, has a pretty big following, especially on Tik Tok. And he is known as that corn coach or the corn recovery coach. So I am meeting the social media platforms where they are at. And we're just going to embrace it. And I am going to help people turn away from unhealthy coping mechanisms, especially turning to corn or cornography to try to get that dopamine bump and have them tune out from feeling less connected in their relationships with their spouses or in their parenting, their faith, their health or their career. There's your gee whiz file tip for the day that you are going to hear me talk more about people and their addictions to corn. And, again, it is not the fruit and or vegetable.

But let's get to today's topic. I want to talk about happiness. And before I do that, let me just encourage you to go sign up for my newsletter. Go to tonyoverbay.com. And we will not inundate you with spam. As a matter of fact we will most likely, still continue to not send out the newsletter on a regular basis, but I'm working with my friends at the Yeah Yeah agency to get a template together and to just get that word out more on a regular basis, because there are so many exciting things that are coming. The Murder On The Couch podcast with my daughter, Sydney. I don't think I've ever put so much into the backend of putting something out in a better way. And I can't wait to release that. And there's a clip that's on my YouTube channel and I'll put the link in the show notes that is just a couple of minutes and it gives you a little bit of a preview of Sydney and my back and forth in this podcast. And I'm excited about this. We have a lot of episodes that have been recorded. And it's probably not exactly what you are anticipating. There's some true crime meets therapy. There's a, I feel like there's all these other things as well. A father, daughter relationship. And we'll get to more of that down the road, but I would encourage you to be on the lookout for Murder On The Couch and then sign up and subscribe and follow, however you follow all of your podcasts.

So back to this concept of happiness today, I want to look more into the book ACT Made Simple by my favorite acceptance and commitment therapy author, Russ Harris. We're going to dig into ACT Made Simple. And before I even get to ACT Made Simple, we're going to talk about a concept today in ACT that sounds negative, but it's called creative hopelessness. And I really feel like by the end of today's episode, you're going to have a better idea of why it can be difficult to feel happy. And what real happiness consists of. And then a way to start to achieve more of a legitimate, real internal feeling of happiness. And based on a, probably a different definition of happiness then you may be used to, but first let's go to story time. And this is from the book, The Confidence Gap. And this is from Russ Harris. “Why is it so difficult to be happy?” And actually this might be from his book, The Happiness Trap, one of one or two, one of those books that I recommend them both. Russ said, “The modern human mind's ability to analyze and plan, create and communicate was not initially a feel-good device so that we could tell jokes, write poems or say, I love you.”

And this is where I often like to think of the concept of a court jester that you had to bring someone in and basically tell them, hey, be funny, make us laugh. And if they were not funny, the court jester could be killed. But that was not the design of the human brain, that it wasn't this feel good device. It was more of a don't get killed device. So Russ said our minds grew up in a way to help us survive in a world that was fraught with danger. So early on your goal was to eat and drink and find shelter and have more kids and protect your family so that you could survive. So truly it was more of this don't get killed device, but he said that the better we became at anticipating and avoiding danger, the longer we lived and the more kids we had. So each generation of the human mind became increasingly skilled at predicting and avoiding danger.

So now our minds are constantly on the lookout. They are assessing and judging everything that we encounter. Is it good or bad? Is it safe or dangerous? Is it harmful or helpful? But now it's not as much about animals or packs of thieves, but it's about losing a job or being rejected or getting a speeding ticket or embarrassing ourselves in public. Or getting a terminal disease and a million other common worries. So as a result, he says that we spend a lot of our time worrying about things that more often than not, will not ever happen. And on that note before I get back to Russ's “Why it can be so difficult to be happy”, that worry, I think also is tied into just this desire we have for certainty.

I was talking with my wife about this last night and it can just be really a cause of such stress and anxiety for, I think a lot of us when we just want to know. I mean, it can be everything from, we want to know what our kids are going to do when they grow up. And we want to know what retirement is going to look like. We want to know who's going to win the super bowl in a couple of weeks. And we just have this desire to know, and we crave certainty. And if you really break it down, that desire to know is there to try and calm our anxiety that our brain feels like if I can just know, then I will be able to feel better. And I'll just be that, I'll be able to be more in the moment, be more present, but in reality, we have to be more present to be okay with the idea that we don't know, because we don't know who's going to win the super bowl. We don't know what retirement is going to look like. We can have a good idea. But one of the most certain things in life is that uncertainty. And in the book On Being Certain, which I just, I feel like is one of those books that I think really helped me reframe a lot of the things that I think, and the way that I act. It. Basically posits this idea that certainty is, in my words, “adorable” that our brain craves this certainty and that our brain is even trying to trick us into thinking, no, you can find it if you ruminate and you worry and you think, and you overthink. You'll find that certainty that you're looking for. So just, just keep at it. But then that is exactly what can keep us stuck. And I often say that it's that concept of, we want certainty and our brain will even say, okay, what's two plus two? Well, it's four. And that I'm pretty certain of. That is very certain.

And so that feeling of certainty is there in our brain somewhere. So I feel like the more that we are seeking certainty, then the more maddening it can become because our brain says no, you know what? It feels like, old man, keep ruminating, keep worrying. And you'll find that two plus two aha moment. Trust me. So we keep worrying and wondering and ruminating. But again, we spend a lot of this time worrying about things that more often than not, will not happen. So then Russ says that we also have this inherent need to belong to a group. And early on, if your clan booted you out, how long would it be before you were devoured by wolves? And he says sometimes, literally. So, how does the mind protect you from getting booted out? Well, by comparing you to other members of the clan. Am I fitting in? Or am I doing the right thing? Am I contributing enough? Am I as good as others? Am I doing anything that might get me rejected? So he says, does that sound familiar? Because our modern day minds are continually warning us of rejection and comparing ourselves to the rest of society. So no wonder we spend so much energy worrying about whether or not people will like us.

And even as little as a couple of decades ago, we only had to worry about the people in our church or in our neighborhood or in our school or in our work. But now all we have to do is pick up our phone or glance at a computer screen. And we can find a whole host of people who appear to be smarter, richer, slimmer, more famous, more powerful than we are. I can't even tell you, I feel like even more so over the last two or three years I've always had people come into the office and say that they see people on social media and everybody seems so happy and successful. And that's where as a therapist and when I get to work with so many of these people, and I will say, we all have our problems, without going into detail or breaking confidentiality. And it's interesting because I feel like that has amped up a little bit more in the last year or two of people putting on some very, very big “look at us”. We are doing everything and it's amazing and wonderful. We have no problems or no fears or no worries or no doubts. To the problem where then others are seeing those people put themselves out there as perfect. And then starting to feel again, like what is wrong with me? So I think that's exactly what Russ Harris is talking about. Because if I go back to this, he says that “When we compare ourselves to others, then we can feel inferior or disappointed or sad and depressed.” And then he said, “And to make it even worse,” and this is the part that I felt like it resonated with me in particular, “our minds are so sophisticated that we can even conjure up a fantasy image of the person that we believe we would like to be. So we can even compare ourselves to a version of ourselves that we assume would be much happier. And that just sounds exhausting. So, what he's saying in that scenario is I can even create this version of me that has these rock hard, six pack abs probably full hair transplants, no wrinkles, and then just able to quote the works of Shakespeare, as well as the works of ACT founder, Stephen Hayes, and then make sense of all of it. So why am I not that guy? What is wrong with me? I must, I must strive for that. Perfection. And so that is part of why it can be so difficult to be happy. So again, the brain is a don't get killed device.

And I will take every chance I can to then go from there and to the book Buddha Brain, where the author Rick Hanson says, “but here's the problem there too, that your brain preferentially scans for, registers, stores, recalls, and reacts to unpleasant experiences more than anything else,” he says, “the brain is like Velcro for the negative experiences and Teflon for the positive ones.” So consequently, even when positive experiences outnumber the negative ones, the pile of these negative implicit memories grows faster. So then this background feeling of what it feels like to be you can start to become undeservedly glum and pessimistic. So we seek this certainty. Our brain is this don't get killed device. Not a, I am falling in love and everything in the world is wonderful and amazing device. And so the acceptance of that is where we can start to grow. And now let's jump into this. What Russ Harris calls in the book ACT Made Simple, “the emotional control agenda”. So if we just, again, start out with, I just want to be happy. In the book ACT Made Simple, and I'm on chapter eight, he says, “Have you ever had a client who just wanted to be happy? And that is all that he or she wanted from therapy?” And he says, “Of course you have. And I'm sure you remember well, how challenging that is, or that was luckily from now on,” he says, “you will have something to help you with these clients. Creative hopelessness.”

And he says, “Please don't let the name put you off.” So creative hopelessness in a nutshell, in plain language, he says that creative hopelessness is a process where one becomes aware that trying hard to avoid or get rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings tends to make life worse than better. So this is that concept where, when we are burning all these emotional calories seeking certainty, or trying to make sense of things that don't make sense or trying to prepare for a future version of events that more than likely will not happen, that is what can just start to feel like what is wrong with me, or I just don't feel happy. So that leads to this sense of hopelessness and the agenda of avoiding one's difficult thoughts and feelings. And out of that feeling of hopelessness can emerge a creative attitude toward finding new and different ways to deal with them. So if we look at hopelessness as where we find ourselves, when we're trying to control or avoid or get rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings that can feel hopeless. We need to start to add a dose of creativity in there because now that I accept the fact that it feels that things can feel pretty hopeless. Well now, what am I going to do about that? So hopelessness, here we emerge a creative attitude toward finding a new and different way of dealing with this situation that we find ourselves in.

So Russ says, “The aim then is to increase the client's awareness of the emotional control agenda and the costs of the successive experiential avoidance,” which again, is doing anything other than the things that you feel would be good for you to do. And then to consciously start to recognize and acknowledge that clinging tightly to this agenda of control. This emotional control agenda is unworkable. So what do we have to do? We have to confront this agenda that you have, that you can control all of your thoughts and feelings and emotions. So while we look at what the client has done to avoid or get rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings as a therapist, we start to help somebody examine how they work in the short-term and the long-term. So sometimes avoiding something works in the short term because it alleviates the feelings of uncomfortableness or anxiety, but then how's that working in the long haul? If you can avoid something in the very moment, then what do we typically do? Well, we'll do it later. We'll put it off until tomorrow. And if we hit the mid part of a day, then we'll do it tomorrow. And if we hit Wednesday or Thursday, we'll do it on Monday. And if we hit the 16th of the month, we'll do it next month. And when July hits, we'll do it next year. So when we know or suspect that a client, you know, as a therapist is excessively experientially avoidant and doing everything other than the things that they are claiming that they want to do, you recognize that they are so attached to this agenda of emotional control. They're saying, well, I need to feel good. I need to feel good before I can do these things that are important. Or I need to get rid of these unwanted thoughts and feelings, and then I can do it. But in reality, we have to do to actually start to feel good. Or we have to do, to bring along these unwanted thoughts and feelings. And show them actually, who is boss.

So this creative hopelessness, it's part of the ACT model that we bring. If we know for a fact, or we feel pretty sure that a client is really cleaning tightly to an agenda of emotional control, that I have to control how I feel I have to get rid of these unwanted, unpleasant and difficult thoughts or feelings or emotions or memories. And I have to replace these things with good, pleasant, desirable ones. Here is one of those problems that I really do have with the mental health field in general. And I was one of these therapists for years, that just said, okay, but what is going right for you? Or, you know, that thought leads to an emotion and that emotion leads to a behavior. So just change the thought, like you just need to be happy or if somebody doesn't call you back, instead of being frustrated or angry, just think, oh, maybe they dropped their phone in the lake. Maybe that's it. And so that would lead to an emotion of, oh, okay maybe I'm not so bad in the behavior. I can go about my day.

But then the person might leave the office and think, wait. I just paid for that guy to tell me that maybe my friend dropped their phone in a lake when in reality, I think that my friend just doesn't really care for me. So in other words, we can try to just say, okay, don't think that, or we can try to say, well, maybe it's not as bad as I think it is. And at that point, maybe I'm wrong and maybe everybody does love me and they just all forgot about me and that's completely okay. But in reality, we're still trying to control. We have this agenda of emotional control that I have to control how I feel. I have to get rid of the unwanted or unpleasant or difficult thoughts or feelings or emotions. And I just have to replace them with good and pleasant and desirable ones. So Russ says we've all got this agenda to some extent. It's normal. And we even talk about when you really dig deep and to act as much as I like to talk about this concept of experiential avoidance, and that's doing anything other than the things that I feel like I want to do or must do. That in reality, a little bit of experiential avoidance and moderation doesn't ruin our entire lives or our days.

But when a client is clinging desperately to this agenda of trying to have this emotional control, well, then at that point, then the experiential avoidance is high. And at that point it really does become very problematic. And again just by way of making sure that I realize I assumed that everybody has listened to everything and they know exactly what experiential avoidance is in the world of acceptance and commitment therapy this is a really powerful concept. So experiential avoidance and I'll stay in this text of ACT Made Simple. So Russ Harris says, “Let's look at another core process that gets people hooked on their thoughts and their feelings, it's experiential avoidance, and this term refers to our desire to avoid or get rid of any of these unwanted experiences and then anything that we do to try to make that happen.” Now these experiences in ACT, we call them private experiences and a private experience means any experience that you have that nobody else knows about unless you tell them. So that's your thoughts, your feelings, your memories, your images, your emotions, your urges, your impulses, your desires, your sensations.

So all humans are experientially avoidant to some degree. And why shouldn't they be? And there's an ACT metaphor that explains this I think in a little bit more detail, it's called the problem solving machine. So as a therapist, I would say if we had to pick one ability of the human mind that has enabled us to be so successful as a species, it would probably have to be problem solving, which basically boils down to this. A problem is something unwanted. And a solution means we avoid it or get rid of it. Now in the physical world, problem solving works really well. If you have a wolf outside of your door, you get rid of it, either with rocks or you throw spears at it. Or you shoot it, or if there's snow or rain or hail, when you can't get rid of those things, but you can avoid them, hiding in a cave or building a shelter or wearing protective clothing. So a dry arid ground, you can get rid of it by irrigation and fertilization, or you can avoid it by moving to a better location.

So the human mind is a problem solving machine and it's really good at its job. And given that problem solving works so well in the material world, then it's only natural that our mind tries to do the same with our inner world. So this world of thoughts and feelings, memories, and sensations and urges. But unfortunately when we try to avoid or get rid of unwanted thoughts or feelings, it doesn't work. And if it does, we end up creating a lot of new problems that can make life even harder. So experiential avoidance then actually increases our suffering. So he says we'll return to this problem solving machine metaphor later, but for now, consider how experiential avoidance increases suffering. Addiction provides one of the most obvious examples. So many addictions begin as an attempt to avoid or get rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings. Such as boredom or loneliness or anxiety, guilt, anger, sadness. So in the short run, gambling, drugs, alcohol, sex, cigarettes, will often help people to avoid or get rid of these feelings temporarily.

But over time, a huge amount of pain and suffering results. So the more time and energy that we spend trying to avoid or get rid of unwanted private experiences, the things that are happening internally to you, your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, your beliefs, all of these things. The more we're likely to suffer psychologically in the long run and, and things like anxiety disorders. He says provide another good example. It's not the presence of anxiety that creates an anxiety disorder. Because after all anxiety is a normal human emotion that we all experienced. Anxiety can be there as a warning. It truly can. But at the core of any anxiety disorder lies this excessive experiential avoidance. Of trying to avoid or run away from these feelings, thoughts, uncomfortable feelings that are happening inside of us. So Russ Harris says a life dominated by trying hard to avoid or get rid of anxiety, that actually then increases your anxiety. So he says, for example, suppose I feel anxious in social situations. So in order to avoid those feelings of anxiety, I stopped socializing. But my anxiety gets deeper and more acute. And now I have a social phobia. There's an obvious short-term benefit of avoiding social situations. They get to avoid anxious thoughts and feelings, but the long-term cost is huge. You become isolated. Your life quote gets smaller. And then people find themselves stuck in this vicious cycle. And he says, alternatively, I might try to reduce my anxiety in social situations by playing the role of a good listener.

So I become very empathetic and caring toward others. And I discover a lot of information about the thoughts and feelings and desires of other people. The other people I'm talking to, but I reveal very little or nothing of myself. Again, this helps in the short term to reduce my fear of being judged or rejected. But in the long term, it means that my relationships lack intimacy or openness or authenticity. Now Russ goes on to say, he says, suppose I take Valium or some other mood altering substance to reduce my anxiety. Again. The short term benefit is obvious, less anxiety. But the long term costs of relying on he quotes “benzodiazepines or antidepressants or marijuana or alcohol” to reduce our anxiety, could include A, a psychological dependence on the substance, or B, even a physical addiction, C, physical and emotional side effects, and D, financial costs. And failure to learn more effective responses to anxiety and which therefore maintains or can even exacerbate the issue. So he says that another way that I might respond to social anxiety would be to grit my teeth and socialize, despite my anxiety, that is to tolerate the feelings, even though I'm distressed by them.

So from an ACT perspective, and this is what I love. I love this about ACT. That sounds like that exposure. I just need to get in there and do it. But from an ACT perspective, this too would be experiential avoidance. Why? Because although I am not avoiding the situation, I am definitely struggling with my feelings and desperately hoping that they'll go away. So this is tolerance, not acceptance. And there's a big difference between tolerance and acceptance. He says, “Would you want people you love to tolerate you while you're present, hoping you'll soon go away and frequently checking to see if you've left yet? Or would you prefer them to completely and totally accept you as you are with all of your flaws and foibles and be willing to have you around for as long as you choose to stay?”

So, Russ Harris says the cost of tolerating social anxiety, that is gritting my teeth and putting up with it, is that it takes a huge amount of effort and energy, which makes it hard to fully engage in any social interaction. So as a consequence, you start to miss out on much of the pleasure and fulfillment that accompany socializing of just being in the moment, being present, observing, noticing, being open, vulnerable, funny, charismatic, connecting. This in turn then will increase your anxiety about future social events. Because you're already predicting that I won't enjoy this or it'll feel awful or it's too much effort. He says, “Sadly, the more importance that we place on avoiding anxiety, the more we deeply have anxiety and we develop anxiety about our anxiety.” And it becomes this vicious cycle and it's at the center of any anxiety disorder. Because he says after all, what is it? The core of a panic attack, if not anxiety, about anxiety. So again, attempts to avoid unwanted thoughts and feelings. I can actually increase them. There's the paradox.

For example, research shows that suppression of unwanted thoughts leads to the rebound effect, meaning that it will increase the unwanted thoughts, both in intensity and frequency of the unwanted thoughts. Other studies show that training to suppress a mood will actually intensify it in a self amplifying loop. So there's a large and growing body of research that shows a higher experiential avoidance is associated with anxiety disorders. But again, that doesn't mean you can just jump in there and just exposure therapy yourself into happiness. Because is that tolerance or are you truly learning to accept and be in the moment? So talking about this growing body of research, showing that higher experiential avoidance is associated with anxiety disorders, excessive worrying, depression, poor work performance, higher levels of substance abuse, lower quality of life, high risk of acting out sexually can lead to concepts like borderline personality disorder, or a greater severity of post-traumatic stress disorder. Long-term disability, higher degrees of overall psychopathology. So it's hardly surprising that he says that then a core component of most ACT protocols involves getting a client in touch with the costs and futility of experiential avoidance. I mean, this is often an essential first step to pave the way. For a radically different agenda, experiential acceptance.

But, of course, you know, that is going to take work. And I'm not trying to say that just because you're aware, hear what I'm saying, that is going to be easy because it's going to be a little bit of a long road ahead. But then what's the key? It is learning how to figure out what matters to us. Here comes those values. And then throw in a nice dose of mindfulness and learning how to pause and slow down your heart rate and get out of your fight or flight of your brain, your amygdala. And learning how to be in the moment and live by things that are of value and importance. But that doesn't mean that your anxiety goes away. As a matter of fact, it'll probably still be there. But you'll learn more of a concept around acceptance. And not that you have to then have this avoidance.

So back to this concept of creative hopelessness. So now we can maybe understand a little bit more where creative hopelessness gets its name. Because what we aim to do is to create a sense of hopelessness in the agenda of controlling your feelings. So it's not about hopelessness in your future or yourself or in your life. It's hopelessness and the agenda of controlling your feelings. Therefore let's get creative. So we aim to undermine this agenda so we can open our clients as therapists up to a whole new one and agenda of acceptance. And a lot of the ACT textbooks often refer to this new agenda as willingness. So once we identify the hopelessness of trying to control, let's get creative and let's start to lean into willingness. That is the willingness to have your difficult thoughts and feelings. As opposed to fighting with them or avoiding them. So creative hopelessness is rarely a one-off intervention. Russ Harris says, “It's usually something you need to revisit session after session as a therapist. But usually each time you revisit it, it gets a little quicker and a little easier to do.” And so, it's interesting and I love before he goes deeper into the concepts around creative hopelessness. He says, okay, we need to get clear on a couple of concepts. So one is the emotional control strategies.

So emotional control strategies or anything that we do primarily to try and get rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings or overt or covert behavior that's predominantly motivated by experiential avoidance. So these emotional control strategies can include everything from exercise, guilty, prayer, meditation, alcohol, heroin, suicide attempts. And he makes a note that if exercise or prayer or meditation are predominantly motivated by values, then we would not call those emotional control strategies. So, I have a value of fitness. That's a core value of mine. So exercise is a vehicle. So I moved that into, okay. That is living my value based life. If I am turning more to exercise instead of ruminating, worrying, beating myself up about things. So you really call things emotional control strategies, only if the main intention of those activities is to avoid or get rid of unwanted feelings. And creative hopelessness work will ask a client to look openly and non-judgmentally at all the emotional control strategies that they're using, but we don't judge those as good or bad or right. Or wrong or positive or negative.

Because we really want to just see if those strategies are working or not in terms of creating a better life. And this is where I love the fact that at the core of ACT is you. You are you, you are the only version of you and we can take in data from the peanut gallery or those that we really do appreciate and care about, and we do want to know what other people think it's just kind of in our nature. But ultimately you're the only one who knows how you feel. So I may ask others for their opinion or what do you think I should do or do you think this is good? But at the end of the day, this is where ultimately you and I love that you can look at a concept like exercise. And is that an emotional control strategy or is that a value? And that is completely up to you. And when I talk about value based living, I give this pretty dramatic example of a value of honesty, that if you grew up in a home. And that home, there was no honesty. Then you may have a value of almost, I want to say brutal honesty. But then your brain is going to say, okay, well, yeah, but you might hurt somebody's feelings. And in the world of ACT, well, I'm not even arguing that, that's not, we're not arguing the truthfulness of that statement. It may very well be true and probably is true, but is that a workable thought toward my value based goal of honesty?

But if you grew up in a home where there was an insane amount of brutal honesty, then maybe you have more of a value of compassion. So then your brain is going to “yeah, but” you and say, well, yeah, but you may not be honest. And at that point, then if you are the only version of you and you know what that means for you, then I'm not even arguing if that's a true or false statement. It's true. I'm not going to be completely honest at times because I have this value of compassion. So I love that we can even carry that over into these emotional control strategies that something like exercise. Is it a value or is it an attempt to control or move away from our run from your emotions? He talks about targeting all emotional control strategies. So, in a word, you know, Russ says, do we target all emotional control strategies? And he says in a word, no, with a whole bunch of O's. Because he says, “Recall that the whole ACT model rests on the concept of things being workable, workability.”

So is this behavior working to help you build a rich and meaningful life? So if your emotional control strategies are working to enrich and enhance your life, then keep doing them by all means. Keep doing the exercise away. If you have a value of knowledge, then Google everything. But if you do not have a value of knowledge, then Googling things can be a form of experiential avoidance. He said, “However, the reality is that most human beings overly rely on emotional control strategies. And when we use them excessively rigidly or inappropriately, our quality of life will suffer.” And he says, take eating chocolate for an example. He said, when we mindfully eat a piece of good quality chocolate appreciating and savoring it, we feel good. Assuming that we like chocolate. So if we use this as an emotional control strategy, flexibly and moderately, it enriches our life. It is workable, but if we do it excessively, then it might start to have a cost of health, such as weight gain. Plus if we are in intense, emotional pain and we eat chocolate to try and distract ourselves from it, then it's unlikely to work. And I love that he then goes back to this example of exercise, and for example he says, when we exercise, we often feel better. At least afterward. He says, if not at the time.

And exercise also improves our quality of life. Therefore, if we exercise as an emotional control strategy and we do so flexibly and moderately, then that's generally workable and good. But if it becomes excessive, like the client with anorexia spends three hours a day in the gym to keep their body in a state of wasted thinness, then even something as positive as exercise will have its costs. And in addition, he says, ACT postulates that even life enhancing activities such as exercise or meditation or healthy eating will be more satisfying and rewarding when they're motivated by values such as self care. Rather than being motivated by experiential avoidance or trying to escape these unwanted feelings. And I will say openly and honestly that the reason, I so appreciate talking about ACT and exercise in this framework, as a former ultra marathon runner and running a dozen races of a hundred miles or more and six times around a track for 24 hours and doing up to 125 miles. And I don't know, a hundred, 150 marathons and ultra marathons, that I know that there was a period of my life and it was when I was doing a career that I really didn't care for in the computer industry that I didn't even know how much that I didn't enjoy that. Because I didn't even know how much I would enjoy doing something that I find value in of therapy, writing, podcasting, or helping people. I now understand that that was why I turned to ultra marathon running. In that scenario, then my exercise was a form of experiential avoidance, trying to escape feelings. And then there is nothing quite like the pain of mile 80 at two in the morning of a race when you even question your own sanity of why on earth am I doing this?

And heading down a little hill, the feeling in your quads or a calf. So just the, I can't even describe what that feels like, but boy, I'll tell you what I'm not thinking about in that moment, going back to work on Monday. So I know that that exercise in those moments truly was a form of experiential avoidance. He also gives the example. He said, for example, have you ever eaten yummy food primarily to push away feelings such as boredom or stress or anxiety? And a few weeks ago, I did an episode, I think I called it “The Psychology of the Churro”, and I really had that feeling in Disneyland recently. It was fascinating that if I was bored, I could go get a churro and it would be amazing and it would push away those unwanted feelings of boredom and it was a satisfying experience when I can slow myself down. But then at that point, when that was my third or fourth chiro after eating also the beignets and also eating whatever huge lunch that I had, not so satisfying. So he says, contrast that with occasions when your eating was motivated by value is around savoring and appreciating your food or connecting and sharing with loved ones. And which one was more rewarding, you know, was it inhaling a churro? Or was it sitting and enjoying an experience and savoring a meal with loved ones?

Similarly, he said, if you do charity work motivated by values, around sharing and caring and giving and helping you'll likely find that far more rewarding than if you're mainly motivated by trying to avoid feelings of guilt or worthlessness. So if you are giving to the homeless man on the corner, because you feel guilty, that's going to be a completely different experience than if you are giving to that person, because you have a value of charity. So then as therapists, we try to help clients take action guided by your values, rather than by experiential avoidance. Rather than trying to just avoid these feelings or thoughts. So we want to get clients consciously moving toward what is meaningful rather than simply running from what is unwanted. So he said to really hammer this point home, suppose you exercise primarily motivated by values, such as self care. Or you pray motivated by values around connecting with God. He said we wouldn't class those as emotional control strategies because your primary aim isn't to control how you feel. But we would classify them as emotional control strategies. If your main purpose in doing them is to get rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings. You know, I work a lot in religious contexts with the concepts around scrupulosity which is this OCD of religious thought. So if you go back to the way that Russ just pointed that out, if we pray and we do spiritual things, because we have a value around our spirituality or connection with God, then that's a completely different experience of prayer or confession. As a purpose of doing that to get rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings of guilt or shame.

So then back to this creative hopelessness as an intervention based on workability. We're going to ask a client to take a good, long, honest, and mindful look at all of your emotional control strategies and see what they cost you. I would love for you to connect with the reality that our emotional control strategies often work in the short run to make somebody feel better, but they don't work in the long run to make your life rich, full and meaningful. So I said at the beginning that I wanted to challenge the definition of happiness and this by no shock comes from another Russ Harris book called The Happiness Trap. And there are two definitions that he mentions. And the happiness trap of happiness. And I feel like these are again some of those times where I don't want to just say that the light bulb came on the concept around why I just love acceptance and commitment therapy so much, but there are two very, very different ideas of happiness in the world. So Russ says, “What exactly is happiness? We all want it. We all crave it. We all strive for it. Even the Dalai Lama has said the very purpose of life is to seek happiness. But what exactly is it?” He said the word happiness has two very different meanings. The common meaning of the word is feeling good. In other words, feeling a sense of pleasure or gladness or gratification. We all enjoy these feelings. So it is no surprise that we chase these feelings. However, like all human emotions, feelings of happiness don't last. No matter how hard we try to hold onto them. They slip away every time as we'll see a life spent in pursuit of those good feelings is in the long-term, deeply unsatisfying.

In fact, the harder we chase after pleasurable feelings, the more we are likely to suffer from anxiety and depression. This is that concept of where “I'll be happy when”. I'll be happy when I get a hundred grand, I'll be happy when I get a nice car, I'll be happy when I graduate college, I'll be happy when I have a family. And while those things may bring this pleasurable feeling, but then like all good feelings in the long term, they go away. And so then we're chasing the next good feeling. The next good feeling. So he says the other far less common meaning of happiness is living a rich, full and meaningful life. So when we take action on the things that truly matter deep in our hearts, we move in directions that we consider valuable and worthy. And we clarify what we stand for in life and we act accordingly. Then our lives will become rich and powerful and meaningful, and we experience a powerful sense of vitality.

And he says this isn't some fleeting feeling. It's a profound sense of a life well lived and all those such a life will undoubtedly still give us many pleasurable feelings. It'll also give us uncomfortable ones, such as sadness and fear and anger. Because again, like we've talked about today, the goal is not to avoid those and not to try to run away from those. Because he says, this is only to be expected. If we live a full life, we will feel the full range of human emotion. So this is that part where I just feel like I want to shout from the rooftops. I want to testify. I want to sing the praises of just finding the real version of you, what it means to be you, your values. What you are all about, what you like, what you don't like. And the more you can learn to find that what really makes you tick and understand that is still going to come with all the highs and lows and ups and downs in life. But as you start to take action on the things that matter and really lean into your values and then acknowledge the fact that if I am experientially avoiding things just to avoid pain or discomfort, then I'm going to continually live in this world of fear and avoidance. But when I learn what really matters to me and I start to lean into what it feels like to be me, is to take action on the things that matter, the anxiety or the fear isn't going to completely disappear. But you're going to start to create a whole new relationship with it. And it is just going to become another thought or another feeling. And there it is. And I have lots of thoughts and I have lots of feelings. But I'm starting to do, I'm starting to do things that really make a difference for me, or matter for me.

And that will allow me to be more present in my life. And that is back to this definition that is feeling this full range of human emotion. But it's also going to just give us this profound sense of a life well lived, and I cannot say enough that that is something that we don't know what that is like until we do. And so it is worth it to take the effort and work to get to that point and really find this just true happiness in life, because I know that life can be challenging and difficult to say the least, so that's why I desperately want to talk about ACT every chance I get, because I want each and every one of you to have this profound sense of a life well lived because it does make everything just more worth living.

Taking us out per usual, the wonderful, the talented Aurora Florence, and it's more than ever, I feel like the song “It's Wonderful” is needed when we talk about things, the way that we talked about them today, because when you start to figure out what it feels like to be you, then in fact life really can be wonderful. All right, we'll see you next week on the Virtual Couch.

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Dr. Michael Twohig joins Tony to talk about his early involvement in the then “new kid on the psychology block,” acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Dr. Twohig shares his initial hesitation in embracing ACT and what eventually led him to pursue his Ph.D. in clinical psychology by working with Dr. Stephen Hayes, the founder of ACT. He discusses the differences in using ACT to treat OCD vs. the traditional CBT-based model, and they talk about using metaphor in ACT. Tony shares his experience of how learning ACT changed his therapy practice and his general outlook on life. They discuss the differences between using diffusion in ACT to make room for thoughts and feelings vs. responding to the body’s cues concerning treating trauma.

They talk about Dr. Twohig’s new online course on ACT and OCD https://praxiscet.com/virtualcouch and the challenges of marketing an online course. Finally, Tony challenges Dr. Twohig to a “try not to laugh” challenge.

Dr. Michael Twohig is a licensed psychologist, a professor at Utah State University, and one of the world’s most published scholars of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Dr. Twohig’s research focuses on using ACT across various clinical presentations emphasizing OCD and related disorders. He has published five books and more than 200 scholarly works and is the former President of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science, the organization most associated with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy https://contextualscience.org/

You can find out more about Dr. Twohig via his Utah State University page https://cehs.usu.edu/scce/clinicians/twohig-michael or his private practice website https://junipermh.com/team/michael-twohig/

If you are interested in being coached in Tony's upcoming "Magnetic Marriage Podcast," please email him for more information. You will receive free marriage coaching and remain anonymous when the episode airs.

Transcript

Mike Twohig pt 1

Tony: Okay, I will start with the former, I mean, you were so kind to say, call me Mike, but, Dr. Michael Twohig, welcome to the Virtual Couch.

Mike: Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me.

Tony: Yeah. I have you on this pantheon of my big gets, so I don't know if you ever get that vibe or, I mean, I don't know.

How do you feel about that knowing that you are one of these world renowned active researchers?

Mike: I don't feel that way in the slightest. So it's, yeah, let me think. Do I ever bump into that? I don't know. I feel like sometimes grad students applying here give me that feeling because they're all excited.

But no, really in my real life I don't really bump into that. And then one of the things about being a faculty member is your life really is kind of between your office and your lab. So that's all you really bump into. So whenever someone's like, oh, I like your work. That is kind of cool because you know, you don't really get to bump into that very often.

Tony: Okay, well, I sing your praises often, and so I'm going to try to be very calm and very collected throughout this interview. So what I'm really curious about, and this one is going to be personal, I just want to know, and then hopefully listeners will enjoy it as well.

I learned CBT out of grad school and I did CBT for a few years and then when I learned act, it really was like the sky's parted and the heavens shown down. And then it's changed my life, my practice, and then most of my podcast is all talking about act.

And then I'm curious, what has your experience been with it? I mean, you studied under Steven Hayes and so I would love to just hear your story about that.

Mike: Yeah, thanks for asking that question because it’s, you know, I feel like I was really lucky, because I didn't plan this, it just, right. Like sometimes things just happen.

So I'll tell you the story. I hope the listeners aren't bored because it's kind of fun. I'm working at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee with a guy named Doug Woods, who's the best. And we're treating people with Trichotillomania and I remember saying to Doug, you know, I was getting a master's in behavior analysis and I said, Doug, we're doing a good job teaching people how to stop pulling their hair, but they have all this emotion and urges and like there's all this internal stuff and behavior therapy's not like we don't really have a strategy for it.

And he said, you should learn act. And it was interesting because this is like 1999. And I really liked Steve Hayes at the time because he wrote a lot of good behavior analysis theory on language and cognition and how private events work. So I knew of him as kind of like a researcher of behavior analysis. So the two of us in 1999 flew out to Reno and did an ACT workshop and back then they were like 24 hour workshops. Right. It was just ridiculously long and not many people. So we went and I remember being at it and not really enjoying it per se, because it was a little too much.

Because I was a behavior analyst and this [ACT] is like watching your emotions and sitting there and seeing your thoughts floating by. It was out of the world that I lived in. But when I was finished with the workshop, an interesting thing I took away is you can have whatever thoughts or feelings you have, and that's just fine.

And that was what 24 hours taught me. We came back and we integrated act and behavior therapy for the treatment of Trichotillomania. And it clicked really well. And I remember at one point, it clicked well for the clients, I remember at one point Doug Wood says, Mike, you don't know what a good idea this is.

And he's right because I was like 23 at the time. Right? Like, I didn't know that this was a pretty wise career move. So the next step would be, I applied to grad schools and I'm not that great a student. But when I applied to work with Steve, I had done an ACT project in 2001, not many people had done an ACT project. So that's how I got into grad school. And those years from 2002 to 2006 at UNR were super fun years because Steve had just stopped being department head so he had more time. And that's when ACT was in Time Magazine.

Yeah. And also if you look at like, when the study started coming out, that's when everything was happening. And it was super fun. I just felt like the whole time in the lab was really inspired. You know, we thought we were changing the world.

I never felt like I was at work ever. And then that was my world, behavior therapy and act and I guess it's always stayed that way. Yeah, it's kind of a weird thing because the only therapy I knew how to do was act. So most people I bump into learn traditional CBT then act.

So I had to learn how to do traditional cbt.

Tony: Okay. Which is funny because, I don't want to talk much at all in this episode, but I really would love, can I lay out what I say about my aha moment of CBT versus act? And I honestly, Mike, I want, I kind of want you to poke holes in it because now I realize I have confabulated this narrative where now I think I've got everything figured out, which obviously means I don't.

So I was a CBT therapist. I was an intern working for my church non-profit. And I had a guy that came in and he was, he had lost like half of his weight and he had social anxiety and I was trying to do the CBT skills of, okay, he walks into a room and everybody turns and looks at him and, and then he feels shame and he leaves and so in the old CBT world those are, that's automatic negative thoughts. That's stinking thinking. And so what are other reasons why they might be looking at you? They might think you look great. They might just turn when a door opens and you know, he would leave and say, yeah, right.

And then he would come back and then he would say, it did not work. You know, and again, start doing the, all right, what's wrong with me? This sounds like a good tool. And then we would come up with other things or other reasons. And I literally then went to an ACT workshop and for me, oh, and I say this often, he's the only version of him that's ever walked the face of the earth with his nature, nurture, birth order, dna, abandonment, rejection, all that.

And so that's how he feels. So I love what you're saying. Right. So then, of course he's going to think everybody's looking at him because he walked around as a 400 pound 12 year old where everybody did look at him. So if he didn't think that it would kind of be crazy, you know? So I started off by, okay, acceptance, that's how you feel.

And then we got into the values, and he had a value of connection and social connection. And so then whether they're looking at him or not, doesn't matter. It's not a productive thought, and he can bring that along with him. And so it was like a game changer. But then I realize now all of a sudden I go black and white, and now I think CBT is horrible and it's almost doing damage.

And because, you know, it says you're starting with your negative thoughts now just change them, you know, just to be happy. And then when I feel like, here's the part I make up, so this is where I want you to poke holes, please. So then the third part is and then if I say to somebody, Hey, how's that working for you, champ?

Then they say, okay, well I already started with broken thoughts and automatic negative thoughts. I can't just change them magically, but that must be my problem. So then I feel like they say, no, it's doing pretty good. And then they leave and just feel like I need to figure this out. And then they leave therapy and then I feel like then they look for the next self-help book or whatever.

And so I felt like ACT was so, I think I've almost demonized CBT, but then I know what act is, what do we call it the next, CBT? So please tell me I'm wrong. So can you explain that and then, and either validate the heck out of me or tell me I'm wrong.

Mike: I think you're on a great track because, you said, here's the part that I'd like you to, double check. The, how is that working for you. And that question, like when you said it, the light bulb, you know, that went off for me is what does that mean to him? When you say, how is that working for you and what do you mean?

When you say, how is that working for you. Because yeah, clients will usually go, how is that working? Am I feeling better? I'm doing air quotes. And an act therapist would say, how is that working for you? Meaning like, how is this working in your life? Are you going in the directions you want to go?

Tony: Yeah. And that's what I feel like was so good. I like your question because if I was saying, how was that working for you? And meanwhile I'm handed a population, and this is funny because I didn't even remember that it was you that I read an article about that helped me here too.

But I was working with people that were struggling with turning to pornography as an unhealthy coping mechanism. And the training I was getting at that time was a lot of, you know, seeing him, do some pushups, behavioral, and then I felt like, ooh, that one's not quite working. And then I think I read something that you did there about, was it mindfulness?

Yeah. And that was, that was also a game changer. And so then it was getting people to start to just take action on things that matter. And right now we're going to not worry about the unhealthy coping mechanism. You know, nothing's wrong with you, you're human. And the more they started doing things of value, then the more they started to feel better and the less they turned to unhealthy coping mechanisms.

And so then, yeah. So I think my, well, how's that working for you? I think, right. I then had, I think the part with trying to identify people's values was a real challenge, you know?

Mike: Yeah. I think the shift right there, you can say to a client or the two of you, you know, I don't know if this is a listener.

Actually, I told you, two of my friends said something about being mentioned on your podcast, and one is not a therapist and one is a therapist. So, okay. I'll say it for both people or both styles of people that we can work on altering how we feel, or we can work on altering how we live and we're whole human beings and whether you alter either one, it's going to affect all sorts of stuff. So if you change the way you live, you'll change the way you feel. If you could change the way you feel, you'll probably change the way you live. But from the kind of an act or behavior therapy model, we're going to lean on changing the way you live to affect, you know, without the goal of affecting how you feel but it will. So like this client, when he said it's not working. My question would be, well which one are we going to focus on? Are we going to focus on what you feel internally or how you're living? And I say this to clients a lot, that a lot of the things I really care about and a lot of things I work hard on don't feel good. You know, like parenting a team doesn't feel fun. But it's meaningful, it's important, but it's not like, ooh, you know, that was great. Or even the same thing like writing a paper, it's not the same as snowboarding, so like the feeling and the importance of it.

So yeah, it's orienting the client and you to what's meaningful.

Tony: Well, and what I like about that so much, Mike, is sometimes I think in my head that if a client almost “breaks act” where I think, oh, that was well played. Where if maybe they don't hold a value of, I don’t know, if they almost hold a value of, I know there isn't necessarily in the values list codependency, but I'll get people to say no, my core value is helping everybody else and putting myself second and, and I want to say, but no, that, that one's not cool. But then you know it’s what it feels like to be them. And so I like what you're saying to yeah, that change in behavior, or living by one's, yeah, because I feel like, I don't want to sound arrogant, but I feel like, okay, that is where that person's at right now.

But if I go back to that, how's it working for you? Then sometimes I feel like, oh, okay, they're trying to just adapt or cope with this thing that they don't enjoy.

Mike: Yeah, and I'll often, like that question, I'll be more precise. I'll say, how's that working to change these thoughts about your self image?

Or I'll say, how's that working to be part of the group?

Tony: Hey. Okay. So speaking of that too, and I know that this is going to feel like five minutes to me of talking with you. I really like the work you've done with ACT and ocd.

I had read Brain Lock I think when I was doing OCD work initially, and I feel now like maybe because I love act so much that I've almost had my own emotion and maturity, black and white, that oh that was bad, and this is good. But how does ACT and OCD stand out from traditional cognitive behavioral therapy?

Mike: So, and this fits with the conversation we were just having. Kind of the easiest way I've found to describe this is like, no matter your theoretical orientation for treating an anxiety disorder or OCD, I like to break it down to what is the outcome you're looking for. Like, how do you and your client agree things are better? What's the process of change? What is it you're trying to instill in the person that would help them be able to do these things? And then what are the techniques you use to instill that process of change? So in ACT, I think the main outcome that we're shooting for is that a person can live sort of a successful and meaningful life.

And I think for those who know ocd, what's missing from that, is any statement about what's happening internally. So I don't need the power or the frequency or the words in the obsession to be different. I just need the person to be able to effectively live when they show up. And then the process of change is psychological flexibility, which is being able to see thoughts as thoughts, emotions as emotions, sensations as sensations.

Allow them to be there and still move in the directions you want in life. Right. So again, nothing needs to change. We just need to not be overpowered by it. And then the techniques we use, what I tell my practicum students is, you know, we teach people how to be psychologically flexible until they kind of get it. And then we start practicing. And those can look like exposure exercises, but as you can imagine, the style is different. We're not watching intensity of internal experience. We're not watching habituation. It's more like, let's practice having what you have, and then we have our own style for doing exposure exercises.

Tony: And can you talk a little bit more about that too? Because I feel like the exposure for the sake of exposure to reduce anxiety and I, boy, I'm wanting to be so emotionally vulnerable here today as I realize, and maybe it's just I have created a narrative in my head of I've had clients that haven't had good experiences with just, okay, let's sit on a dirty floor because you don't like germs, you know?

Right. So can you explain the difference there in act?

Mike: Okay, there's a couple things. Why don't we start with, when I think about doing an exposure, I would like the exposure to have some tied values. And either that's, that's obvious. For someone with social phobia, we might go talk to people or send a message to someone we haven't, or practice giving a phone call to someone they like, like you can make it values based.

Sometimes it's harder, but then even in that moment, we're going to help the client see how it could be value based. So if we're dealing with a germ phobia or ocd, we might go manipulate a garbage can or go to a bathroom, and then, let's practice having this stuff so that when the real game shows up, you're good at it.

And I'll use a sports analogy of we're just practicing being good at having what you have. And I'll remind the person a lot like when's the situation when this might happen, when you're going to go on a date or go out to dinner or something, and these things are going to show up. I think what stands out to those who maybe do exposure work is I have never had a moment where I would go above and beyond or do those sort of extreme exposures, because I kind of struggle to figure out where those tie to values.

Our outcomes are just fine, but I don't have to lick a gas pump or, you know, like rub my food on the toilet. And I did that work, you know, because I worked in an OCD clinic at the University of British Columbia.

And it can work if the person can engage, it works very well, but they have to be able to engage. Right. So, yeah, I always said, and I'm not knocking that work's great work, right? If you have 10 people, two will do nothing, five will get better. And the other three, kind of putter along, it's like those five who can't do this, they can't get behind the exposure work.

Tony: Okay. You know, I give a story that I think, again, maybe I swing to the extremes, but I've often said, okay, if somebody just lets a spider crawl over you to reduce anxiety, that's ridiculous, it might cause you to disassociate. But if your grandpa leaves you a $2 million spider farm then maybe that might be, you know, a value of financial security for your children, then maybe I'm willing to sit with the spiders. I mean, so is it kind of, we need to find some value if we can?

Mike: I think a value gives meaning to the work. Going back to raising kids, I remember sitting and doing homework with my daughter just many years ago, and she's essentially crying and trying to get away from the table and like everything about it's terrible.

And then I'm being sweet and nice and as helpful as I can be because I can find a value in this that is meaningful to me to help this kid be a decent student so she can do the steps she needs to do and go on and do whatever she wants to do with her career. Like I could find a reason, but if I didn't like this kid or didn't care, some kid screaming at me, it would be hard to find motivation to stay there and be nice.

Tony: Yeah. That makes so much sense. And man, I just, I want to go on a tangent, but I'll get back to the ACT piece, but when you mention one of the things that also I feel like dramatically game changer for me were the concepts of, socially compliant goal and then experiential avoidance. And maybe can you, as an expert in this field kind of speak to how those show up?

Mike: Yeah. Rules, like when you said a socially compliant goal, rules are really interesting things. And this is a good point for a professional and non-professional that an interesting thing about humans is we decide the way the world works and then we follow that. And the truth is it's never fully accurate. Like it's always, it could be close to the way the world works or it could be totally far. But yeah, that's an interesting thing about human beings is that we'll make this rule about what we're supposed to do and then we'll just keep following it.

And lots of research has said it's really hard to help people do things differently. Like it's hard to create variability and behavior. If someone has a problem or like they have a way of living that's not really functional. Some of that is they've determined how it all works and they've been doing the exact same thing for 20, 30 years.

And part of the therapist's job is to create flexibility in different behavior patterns. And that is tricky. Now the experience of avoidance stuff is just that humans spend a lot of their time working to feel a certain way and I think that's in contrast with doing the things that are important to us.

So one of the lines I say is I think healthy, happy people are probably spending 80% of their day doing things that are important to them. I didn't say fun, I said important. And then people who are maybe less healthy are probably spending 80% of their day working hard to feel good.

And those are like the clients I see. If I say like, what was meaningful to you today? They don't have much. Their whole day was about dodging the anxiety and getting away from stuff that they're afraid of.

Tony: Yeah. I can launch into a whole thing there where I feel like with the amount of things that we can use for experiential avoidance. Phones, games, unlimited access to downloads of things. I do feel like that's so difficult for people that aren't aware of what is important to them and why I feel like that values work can even be more difficult and yet even more important. And I even, you know, I do a lot of couples therapy, Mike, and I find that I will not do the individual, I won't do the values exercise with the couple in there because boy, you watch even the way that, let's say a guy wants to express that he doesn't necessarily have a core value of honesty. Maybe more of compassion because he grew up in a home where there was brutal honesty and that was harmful. But then if his wife hears that that's not a value. So I feel like just that example, I feel like the dynamic of even trying to get to one's core values or what matters to them can be tricky because I think people are still worried that, I don’t know if you hear this often, but I know I shouldn't care. You know, or I know I'm supposed to care about, I don't know. Do you hear that in the work you do?

Mike: When I heard you talking about this, one of the things I was thinking about is with my clients, I worry less about having the right values just more like is your behavior about values? And then people get into like, well, I have so many things and I can't balance them all.

And to me that's more of that fusion and rule following that I'm supposed to do this right. And no, we're always wrong. You're always not living your values perfectly, but if you're at least living your values, that's pretty solid. And if you're too heavy in one area and too weak in another area, then you can work at it.

But I'll never, I'll never balance this out totally. It'll always be a little heavy on work. Yeah. It's just how it’s going to be.

Tony: Yeah. And I like what you're saying because I do find that if I'm kind of bringing somebody from a, they don't know what they don't know to now, they know but don't know how to, in essence. And I love that you bring that, cause I feel like, okay, we have to figure out your values. But then I find that then often, oh, I still need to work on my values, becomes a story their brain is fusing to. I went to a training with a lady about act and she said that at that point she tells a client, just walk outside and begin. I see an animal, I don't like animals. Okay. Well note that. I tried to talk to a stranger, which was fun. Maybe there's, you know, there's something there and I just love that concept.

Mike: Yeah. I think that's the rule stuff. If I'm going to do this, I need to do this right. Well, you'll never, you can't live right. It is going to be full of errors and mistakes and it's just like how it is being a person on the planet. I was giving a workshop and it's one of the moments it kind of stuck with me. This was a workshop just like a couple months ago, and I'm up there doing a role play and all my students are there and all these professionals are there and the role play is just like going really poorly and not really poorly, but you know, in the poorly category.

And it was in a weird way it was kind of nice. Because it was, that's how workshops will be, you'll be saying really fun, smart things at one point, and then you'll just be stinking and that's life. And I think in a way, it was like a good model for the group. Like yeah, well therapy will sometimes you'll like totally go into a dead end and you just have to walk back and go the other way.

Tony: Oh I love that. Okay. Over back to the OCD treatment plan, which I love, you've got a course and I want to promote that, in the notes as well. But, you do a lot of metaphors and I have to, again, it's so nice. I feel like you're now my therapist for this. I don't know why I felt this insecurity around dealing with all the metaphors in ACT at first because there's a part of me that felt like this person's paying me large amounts of money for me to tell stories. And now all of a sudden, once I embrace act metaphors, oh my gosh, they're so powerful. And so what has that been like for you? Do you like metaphors? How do you feel they fit in?

Mike: So what I think is okay, the idea of metaphors goes right back to our rule stuff. Like in act we like to teach experientially versus rules, because then people will originally follow what we said.

So we like to tell a story about it or use a personal example or use a client's life example and sometimes a metaphorical thing describes it better. Like just before I said, you know, I went the wrong way down the alley, and I had to realize, okay, wrong spot. And I had to back out that, that metaphors rich, because we've all felt that, you go down a trail and you're like, uh, this isn't right.

And then you have to like, literally, so there's knowledge that comes with our real life experience. So, I could say, your mind is picking on you like someone picked on you in grade school. It just has more meaning because people got picked on in grade school and they know what that was like and they can link the two.

And I think it's richer than me sort of lecturing on, you know, on what cognition is like. So I think that's the two parts. It's kind of rich and it's not so rule based, but you ask what it's like for me, I think at the beginning I had to use some from the book.

But then now it's just sort of my style and I've sort of also learned, I learned how to make metaphors that match the client's interests, but I've also learned how to use self-disclosure at that safe level. I've already talked about using my kids as examples and no one hears, oh my gosh, what a bad parent. You know? It's a metaphor that I think most people with kids can appreciate. And if you don't have kids, I think you can imagine.

Tony: Yeah, no, and it's funny, I don't think I've been doing this as long as you have, I'm at 17, 18 years. But I feel like even that concept of self-disclosure has been more embraced over the years that when I first started, that seemed like that was taboo, but I feel like it's more of that human experience. And I feel like act makes more room for that, I feel like, than my CBT days.

Mike: Well, yeah, it'd be weird to be like, oh my gosh, you have these negative thoughts about yourself. So strange.

Tony: Right, right. Hey, do you have a particular favorite of the metaphors though? I am curious, of course that's me wanting to say, because I do Mike.

Mike: What's funny, my students forever make fun of me that I lean towards sports ones. But that doesn't mean it's right. It's just like I can, I can find so many rich examples and actually we wrote a book and one of the editors was like, how about we take out just a handful of sports ones and we like mix in some other ideas. But with a client, I try to gauge what they're into. And then go that way.

Tony: I'm laughing because have you ever had those fail? I mean, because I don't know, in the past I felt like I would talk and maybe give one about gardening and halfway through I realize I have no idea what garden, you know, but maybe you plant something and I don't know. You know what I'm saying?

Mike: I do. I think there's a little skill in just assuming that things work under a natural order and this'll work. I like to have the client help me along. Your favorite, you said you had a favorite though.

Tony: You're very good, Mike. Because I was going to say, I love the one about you've fallen in a hole and you have a shovel. I love that one so much because I feel like I work with people that are determined to then, no, right. The shovel is an amazing tool by itself, and I am a hard worker. And so I love being able to say, and have clients say to me, and then I went and grabbed my shovel and I dug a little bit more. And then my favorite ever is the, and then somebody hands you the ladder and you try to deal with it. And so that one alone to me was the metaphor that then allowed me to embrace metaphors.

Tony: So do you maybe want to talk about your course a little bit. I mean, have you done courses? Have you done a lot of courses? Is that something you enjoy doing? Or what was that like?

Mike: Well, yeah, kind of a broader answer. . It's an interesting thing being a professor, because I really enjoy training my students how to do therapy and that includes act, but you know, professors, we're almost taught to not market.

So that's been like a weird thing because I feel like after all these years, I actually do know act pretty well and I kind of know how to teach people how to do it, but I have this like weird emotional reaction that happens when it's like, well, you know, come to my workshop or buy my book. And I've been able to let that go more and more in the sense that this work does good and people, like even if they're very good at therapy, we can get stagnant or stale and coming at things from another perspective can be really useful. ACT is getting big and people want to know, act is big, and people want to know how to do it. I'm really privileged to work at a university where they give me the time to sit and develop things. Like write a paper or writing a book. You know, like if you're a clinician, how do you find the time to write a book? And it's, it's really great that a university's like, that's why, that's what we want you to do. So something like this course, it took me a little bit to, it's an act for anxiety disorders and OCD.

It took me a little bit to sort of wrap my head around like, no, it's okay to create something that is going to get sold. And I think I had to find the value there, which is, I do think this works important and I've spent a lot of time understanding how to do this. And then I start feeling good about getting it out there. And it's a really high, high quality course. And that's another just, it's another great thing. I think it's worth what people have to put into it.

Tony: And why I'm so grateful for the way you just shared that, Mike, I have a lot of therapists that do listen and I feel like I have a fair amount of life coaches, and I feel like there's a battle between the therapist and life coach, and I talk about this from time to time.

The guy that helped me create my magnetic marriage course, which man, I'm right there with you. I feel like I have this stuff I want to share and I know it can help, right? But then I feel anxiety around promoting it. I feel like I'm being prideful and boastful. And so I will often set the frame up by saying I'm standing in my healthy ego, which nobody else knows what I mean by that, but it makes me feel better because you know, a healthy ego based on real experience and work and that sort of thing, but here's what I think is interesting and I want, I would love your opinion, so I bought courses by other research, Sue Johnson, and I bought Steven Hayes's course, and I've got your course. And then as I was creating a course, I was struggling with the guy that's helped me. He's a very successful life coach named Preston Pugmire, and he kept talking about selling the destination. And do you know this concept? Okay. It's this, I fought him for about a year on this and so, you know, he would say that, okay, if you look at a Delta Airlines commercial, they show the family in Hawaii, so they're selling the destination. This is what you want. But they offer a plane. And basically what he said is what I was saying, well, I've got these, what I call my four pillars of a connected conversation based off of emotionally focused therapy, and here's the nuts and bolts, and here's the emotional bid. And so I'm saying, hey, forget the destination. Let me show you how cool my plane is because I've got these really cool nuts and bolts. Right. And that's what I felt like and then I realized, and I love this, like the courses I've taken from somebody like Sue Johnson and I feel like, oh, as a clinician I'm buying the nuts and bolts.

I want to see how the rivets go into the seats and that sort of thing. And so I found that if I'm trying to get a client to get excited about a course like that, they sit through maybe one section of it and it's like, eh. Yeah. Right? And so it's like, I found, it's a weird balance to try to sell the destination and have this person that I trust help me create it say, nobody cares about your plane. And that's where I'm saying, okay, I need to stand out in my healthy ego as a clinician and say, I think it does matter, but I will try to work some of the destination in the coolest plane that you can get there, you know. So I love your honesty around that because I feel like a lot of the therapists I work with, the first course I ever put out was probably just showing how to make up a bolt, you know, that sort of thing.

Mike: Well that's a really nice point because it's real values consistent because it's like, I don't love writing every paper but while I'm writing them, I usually connect to like, well, this is really cool. I want people to read this. I want this to be out there. And same, I'm not trying to sell the course here, per se, but it's a neat sort of values analogy, that there's a lot, like, take trichotillomania and ocd, that the course is a non trick, but let's say you know, OCD and panic, if you knew how to treat those well, you will always be busy, you will always have a flow of people, which means there's that many people out there who are looking for therapists and my life, and I'm not knocking any therapists around me, my life is seeing people after they've seen other people. Because, and nothing against the person who worked with them before, sometimes clients need to be in a new spot, but hard panic cases, hard OCD cases, you probably do have to do the best of breed intervention, otherwise you're not going to get the movement. So yeah, that's a nice way of thinking about it. I'm not promising if you learn how to do act for anxiety disorders, you're going to win every time. But I do think this is where the data is today. Like this is well thought out, well researched, it's as good a bed as you can think of right now.

Tony: See, and I love that because I feel like that is healthy ego and healthy ego comes from our actual lived experience. And I had a whole career in the computer industry where I didn't realize, and I didn't enjoy it. It was not value based. I lived for the weekend, but then by the weekend I was so bummed from the week that I kind of didn't care. And I would say, well, next weekend or next, you know, that whole thing. And so I do, I appreciate what you're saying because I feel like from a healthy ego, it's more of like what we feel like inside and I am offering this, so I love that you just shared that because I think that'll resonate with so many people that are listening. And maybe, because I have to bring my insecurities and anxiety and fear of invalidation along with me, maybe, you know, while I put those things out there. So, no, I love that. So would you rather work with OCD than any, any other thing, or is it just something that you have found yourself really good at?

Mike: Okay. Interesting question. I started out working with Trichotillomania.

Tony: Which by the way, you've mentioned that I know some of my clients aren't going to know, but, so talk about that.

Mike: Yeah. So, it's a disorder where people pull their hair out and, if you're like, why? I'd say it's really self soothing. We call it egosyntonic. That's a very enjoyable behavior for people. And almost all my clients would say, you know, I would happily pull my hair and then if the next day I came back and all the hair had grown back, I would never be coming in because I enjoy doing it. Okay, but obviously they end up with bald patches and or huge hair loss, it can get pretty extreme and then one of the things that happens is as you pull a lot, the area you pull from starts kind of getting infected and stuff. So then it's almost like you need to pull, because it's like a little infected. So you pull out the hairs that are infected and it feels better.

So you get yourself caught in this trap. Wow. So where this ties into OCD is that was like one of the areas I started and then when I got to UNR to work with Steve, it was like, well, what's, what's the next step? It would be OCD. Like trick and OCD are what we call OCD and related disorders. So then I did my first studies on ACT for OCD, and what's slightly different is clients with OCD come in and they say, I hate this. My life is terrible. Please, please help me stop. And people with trick are like, uh, I know I should stop, but I don't really want to. So there's something about OCD clients that they really want it gone. And that's kind of enjoyable to have clients who are just on the same page as you from day one. I will, and I don't mean this to like pick on the clients, it is a little funny story, but I did an OCD trial followed by a marijuana dependence trial. And I have to, I have to tell you the difference in sort of clients like being on time and not canceling appointments. You know, it's another thing. My clients with ocd, it's kind of easy work. They're on time, they are ready to work and certainly there's hard times, so it's just, the other thing, if I can just kinda keep blabbing, the idea of sticky thoughts is really fun to me.

So when someone has a really horrible thought and they just feel trapped, I find it really fun disentangling it and helping them find a way to not get pushed around by that thought. And I have a sort of a unique style to myself where that stuff doesn't bother me. So, you know, clients can describe all sorts of stuff, and I like am a hundred percent, that's just a thought. You know what? Whatever this thing is. And, that's been really fun. And learning that skill has generalized to other areas because like really sticky thoughts show up in other disorders.

Tony: So what's an example, by the way, of a sticky thought? Tell the listeners.

Mike: Oh. You know, I'll admit I even got caught in it, like, oh, do I wanna share one. So you're from Utah, so do you have some knowledge of the local religion?

Tony: Oh, absolutely, yes.

Mike: Okay. So, one of the most predominant things in the local religion to Utah is like the importance of family and taking care of your family. So OCD is always going to attack what you care about most. So parents having thoughts about harming their kids is, I don't know, half of what I see. And, they come in and they're like, this is the worst. Like you can't get any worse than picturing seriously harming your own children. I can just hear that and be like, that's an obsession. Let me work with you on what we should do with that. And they're like, but I'm a horrible person. Deep down, I'm a horrible human being who needs to get off this planet? And I'm like, no, you have an obsession. We got it. We'll figure this out. Like, it's okay. And, when I hear someone say their obsession, like just nothing. Like I don't have an emotional reaction because I know it's an obsession.

Tony: Don't you feel like one of the, I love that, because I do talk about, one of my first episodes five, six years ago was on intrusive thought syndrome and at that time, right, I said, we all have them, just because you have them doesn't mean anything, doesn’t mean you're going to do them. And then, thought suppression doesn't work.

And at that time, I actually was speaking to a lot of relief society organizations and I don't know why I found it hilarious, but when I would open it up, I would say, I would kind of share that just for fun and say, how many of you thought about your driving? And man, I could just mm, right over into a tree and you would see the people like yeah, but I've never told anybody. And, I would tell a story about sharing this with my family, and we had a little yorkie at the time, and I was sharing this with one of my daughters. She's like, you ever think about just that you could snap her leg? And I'm like, I have thought that.

And then all of a sudden she's like, okay. And then we go all in on it. And my wife wasn't aware. And so then one night at the dinner table, we're talking about using a watermelon, melon baller. And one of my kids saying, you ever thought about like, that could just be an eyeball, you know, and I could see that, you know?

And my wife, I think she was not up to speed on the conversations, but, so I really like what you're sharing because I feel like being able to express it and having somebody just say, oh yeah. Or I have, or tell me more. There's some pretty cool research, right, that shows that, oh, the scary thing in my head and that person didn't react. Maybe it isn't scary, do you find that's the case?

Mike: Well, I'll just give, this is a really interesting one. When I worked at the University of British Columbia, they were finishing an intrusive thoughts trial. So they were just treating it like sometimes what people call where you have the obsession and then the compulsion is something you do in your head. You say a prayer, you try to squish the thought, you picture something else. And, it was interesting because the control condition actually got a lot better. I don't know what they did with a controlled condition, but it wasn't supposed to be that useful.

And how we hypothesized it at the end was no one had ever said to these people like, this is just an obsession. This isn’t you. And like half of them walked in and they were just assuming this was a police sting. Like people who wanted to murder or kill or you know, whatever the horrible obsession was and they just assumed they'd walk in and the cops would be there and we were like, no, this is an OCD clinic. You have OCD, welcome to our world. And for a ton of people just hearing like there's a category of people who have really rough thoughts and the truth is the reason they have such rough thoughts is when they first had the initial ones, they tried so hard not to have them that it went out of control. Whereas if you would've been like, that's weird, then it probably wouldn't have grown into anything. But if you tried really hard to get rid of it, yeah, then it just kept growing.

Tony: Well, what I like about that too is one of the things that I, in your treatment program or for OCD, is you and I wrote down a note on this that I like. Can you maybe talk about 95% of life when you don't want it, you can get rid of it. And then that other five, that's, that's good stuff. So I don’t know, can you kinda explain that?

Mike: Yes. Like in our life, this is you know, second session of therapy. In our life, if we don't like something, we can change it. If you need a haircut, you can get a haircut. If your room's dirty, you can clean it, your clothes look grubby, you can purchase new ones. So then, you know, as you grow up in life, you have thoughts or feelings you don't like, why wouldn't you try to get rid of them? Like everything else in life, if you don't like it, you could get rid of it.

And a lot of times our families are going to say, yeah, that's how it works. But, like right now, if I said, you know, don't think of a pineapple or a pineapple painted blue that someone wrote “you stink” on it.

Tony: Done, done and done.

Mike: Right. It doesn't work that way. But if I said, you know, don't touch your keyboard, everyone can do that. That's the difference between behaviors we do with our hands and our feet and attempting to control internal stuff, internal stuff doesn't work that way. And frankly, it might work the opposite way. And then one of the jokes I say in therapy a lot is, this is the reason I have a job. Like, if it worked, you wouldn't need me. But it actually goes backwards, so that's probably why you need me.

Tony: Well and I find that a lot of things that I feel like in the world of mental health are counterintuitive, which is, I guess I would say that often too, that thank goodness, or I would be out of work but then I know that's humor and sometimes we have to use humor and people, if it's heavy for them, that might sound right. And then, and I feel like that's maybe part of their avoidance is, well I can't, this guy's being silly, or I can't, I can't look at it a different way or somebody, he doesn't understand what it's like. And I don't know, I feel like what do you do with those kinds of situations.

Mike: Yeah, you don't understand what it's like. I mean, I don't get that as much. I know people get it with other disorders, and I will say from an ACT perspective, if I keep talking about that I have disturbing thoughts, I have frustrated thoughts, I feel overwhelmed. I don't feel good enough like that’s just part of being a human being.

I feel like it's probably nice for a client to see that, you know, my therapist who seems to have it together also doesn't feel smart enough and feels overwhelmed and feels annoyed. And like if he has it, then it may not be so weird that I have it. And I'll definitely stress in my work, it's way more what you do with it than what you have.

Tony: I like that. Yeah. Well, it's funny, the insecurities even, we had a technical glitch there, and we went silent for a while and oh, I was all in my head about, man, this is my one chance and I thought we were vibing and now Mike's never going to come back in and you know, and that whole thing.

And it's funny the way we do that and then I just had to notice that was the thought. You know, that was something. So really quick as well I like that part about trying to control, so we don't do that. I do have one, I have a hypothetical, not even a hypothetical, so I would love your take just as I view you like this world renowned act researcher and knows act so well. And I tell you one thing that my latest kind of aha is I've got somebody, so if I have somebody that is, let's say they're in a job and they don't like their job and I've done, I've had enough of the experiences where I can then maybe have somebody that they feel like they really can't do anything about it, we can work their values into their current job, and then, you know, they might insert a value of humor or a value of connection, or they might go learn other values of curiosity. And I've had some success with that. But then I've also had, you know, I do a lot of work with trauma and I don't if you're familiar with the book The Body Keeps the Score and it's amazing. And so over time, because our emotions are traveling faster than our logical brain.

And you know, that visceral reaction as our brain says, is it safe? And if it's safe, then what do I do with it? And so when people have felt unsafe, that emotional reaction can intensify and they're all up in their amygdala and that sort of thing. So then I'll have people that will be in situations where, in a work situation where, okay, but my blood pressure is rising and I'm starting to have different ailments and then, and in the trauma world we say, okay, that's your body trying to tell you something and we need to listen to it, and maybe that's not the right opportunity for you. And I've been doing so much of the act work where, oh, that's just, you know, these are stories your body, your brain's telling you. And so invite them to come along with you and insert your values.

And so I don't know if you have any thoughts, and I know I'm just springing this on you right now, but it's interesting because act works so well, and now I've had a couple of people that are like, man, I'm still trying to be present. I'm noticing, I'm meditating, I'm working, you know, but I am still, I am still having this visceral gut reaction. And, and so I feel like there's an interesting, I'm not sure which one to rely on, you know?

Mike: Mm. Well, you tell me if I heard your question right. That if it's like the person's trying to be there for something but it's hard because their internal stuff is so loud.

Tony: Yeah, well said.

Mike: And what I'd probably say to that client is, you know, we may have spent 20, 30 years conditioning this to be at this volume. And now that we are not giving it the attention it needs, it's going to scream pretty loud. And I'd say, what do we want? Do we want it quiet or do we want to be in life? Because I'm going to be honest, it's not going to get quiet until you stop caring it's there.

So if you're always trying to check how loud it is, it's like it knows to put out some noise. So it's like you really just have to shift the game and then, and then we'll see what will happen. Yeah. And it's interesting, the description you gave, maybe we're about the same age. I'm starting to get more and more clients who are like, where do I want my life to go? My career isn't quite what I'm hoping it would be.

Tony: And then I love that because and then when I'm putting out there on my podcast that yeah, I switched after 10 years and now I love everything I do and it's value based and passionate.

And then I'll feel like people will then say, well, yeah, but that was easy. You know? No, it was incredibly uncomfortable. But, I find that then those yeah buts, that's why I call them, the yeah buts from act where, okay, I'm going to take action on this value and then sit back and I'll listen to all the yeah buts. Because it's scary and I think that just people hearing that that's part of the human experience is pretty cool. Hey Mike, I am just grateful for your time. I really am. Thank you. I am going to be very honest and say that I have done something exactly one other time with an interview a few days ago. And I love humor and I feel like that is something that maybe you can identify with as well. Okay. So this is either going to be something I will delete and never use again. I would love to see if you cannot laugh and I'm going to read a couple of my funniest two line jokes ever.

Mike: Okay. Oh, I'm gonna be terrible at it. We'll try.

Tony: Okay. Let me find one, let me get one here. I've got a couple of them that I think are just hilarious to me and let's alright, so, Dr. Michael Twohig, world renowned ACT researcher, try not to laugh. Just say no to drugs. Well, if I'm talking to my drugs, I probably already said yes.

Oh, that's good. Okay, next. I thought I could get you on that one. Don't laugh yet because this one, I’m Scrolling through them, here it comes. I feel bad for the homeless guy, but I really feel bad for the homeless guy's dog because he must be thinking, man, this is the longest walk ever.

Mike: Okay, you try. I have like two banked jokes.

Tony: Okay. Well this is my second experience and the first person texted me yesterday and said, oh, I want to do it to you now. So, alright, now, this is the first ever experience.

Mike: So there's two fish in a tank. One says, I'll drive you man the guns.

Tony: I don’t even know what that means.

Mike: In a tank.

Tony: Oh, that's even better. I just thought it was complete nonsense. Okay. All right. Okay.

Mike: How does it go? What did the fish say that swam into the concrete wall?

Tony: What?

Mike: Damn.

Tony: Okay. Okay. Maybe I need to rethink this. I thought I'd be able to do that. Okay. Well done. Those are good enough. So, alright, Mike, thank you so much for coming on and I hope that I can have you on again in the not too distant future. Sneak preview. I meant to even bring this up earlier, I work on some with scrupulosity, which I think is kind of a whole other realm and I would love your thoughts on that. Maybe as just a sneak preview.

Mike: Well yeah and being two Utah based guys, we just skipped right over the pornography stuff.

Tony: Yes.

Mike: Such an interesting,, yeah, I was like, oh, I want to tell you stories about that. Okay.

Tony: So maybe next time? Okay. Yeah, yeah, we'll do that. So, alright. What a pleasure. I really appreciate the time. This is everything I had hoped it would be and more, so I can't wait to talk to you again. Okay. Right. Thanks Mike.

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