André Duqum

It sounds like that.

Excitement for your work is probably born from your ability to actually get results.

You know, if you were just going into your office every day with the understanding that you're just diagnosing people, handing them pills and sending them out the door, it's like, how effective is that?

You know, up for debate.

But I'm just curious, what are your gripes with the traditional model of mental health assessment, diagnosing people?

through the DSM, and where does that fall short?

Hmm.

I think a big theme for why a lot of people start getting interested in this work and examining self is because the things we thought we wanted, we have either gone after or maybe even achieved and accomplished and found a fundamental sense of emptiness.

And it wasn't what we thought we were going to feel once we got there.

Certainly in the case with high achievers.

And you referred to this

examining like the things that we're striving for earlier.

And it seems like so much of what we want is being informed by unconscious drives that we're not fully aware of and privy to.

I think you gave an example of this patient, Ben, in your book.

And it's the case that so many of us, you know, face.

And I'm just curious how you examine and think about

what we want, what's worth wanting, and just the difference there between the genuine desires that have a generative component towards our life that are true to who we are and how we want to express ourself and connect with the world, and the ones that are sort of masquerading as noble virtues that are really being driven from a fear of being like your dad, for example.

Yeah.

Yeah, there is, in my conversation with Gabor Mate, I remember him mentioning the difference between like the feeling of being called towards something in life that has a sense of inspiration and like a lightness to it versus being driven by something.

It's like the shoulds within us.