André Duqum

I'm just curious how you personally think about, because you really support people in

improving the story of self, how much do you also examine seeing through the story of self entirely?

Meaning, we can see this body, it's physical in nature, of course the mind is much more subtle.

bit more ethereal.

And any thought we have, idea, story of ourself, it exists in a certain sense, but in a fundamental sense, we can't say that it's permanent and exists because it's always susceptible to change.

And I think that's what Buddhism and a lot of these contemplative traditions help us see is the impermanent nature of all of these stories and fundamental identities that we think are real, but in essence are sort of empty.

Right.

So how do you think about improving the story of our life versus seeing through the story as a permanent structure entirely?

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.