Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
So much of what happens inside of us is just automatic. And a lot of that can be defined by negative things.
Chapter 2: How can we assess mental health like physical health?
Dr. Paul Conte.
Chapter 3: What role does the unconscious mind play in our identity?
Medical doctor and psychiatrist. Expert in treating trauma. How much identity really formed before we even have conscious memory of it?
If there are very significant experiences that are traumatic in those really young years, it can start to shape the lay of the land. We carry that lesson with us.
Chapter 4: How does compassionate curiosity help in self-understanding?
My brother died by suicide many, many years ago. I was young. I had very naive views of the world. Life is a lot harder than I had imagined it would be. Hold on one second. The boundaries of how I can even think about it are kind of set inside of me. We have a couple of isolated facts, and then we create a story.
Chapter 5: What are the generative and assertive drives in our lives?
Once the person attaches to that story, the story moves forward with them. And now we start making a myth. I'm almost in a straitjacket because I can't move out of this place where I find myself inside. I haven't had eight different bad relationships. I've had the same relationship eight times over. Your mind doesn't want you to be unhappy.
It's your mind, it's your friend, but it's easy for it to get confused. There's this thing that you can do even of stopping and saying.
Dr. Paul Conti, first off, happy birthday. I heard it's your birthday today. Yes, it is.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Chapter 6: How does shame influence our feelings and lessons?
Yeah, I think your work is so important and needed now more than ever. I think when we assess the physical health of one's body, it's much more easy to observe. You know, someone has a broken arm, they're in shape, you can measure their heart rate. When it comes to our mental health, often it's way more ethereal, more subtle to assess and assert the status of one's mental health.
And so I'm just curious to start off, how do you think about What is the effective way to assess one's current state of mental health?
Yeah, yeah. I don't think it has to be more difficult to do it with mental health than it is for physical health because we have a way of understanding our physical health. Like we all know that we have a heart and lungs and muscles and joints and, you know, we understand that there are these components of physical health and we can look at them and
And we can either look to see where a problem is, if something isn't going the way we want it to, or how we can build strong physical health. And I think we can do the same for mental health. It doesn't have to be so confusing or ethereal. I think that we can understand that we all have a brain and the brain has a mind and the mind has similarities across human beings, just as our bodies do.
So by understanding that there's a structure of self that each of us has, and there's a function of self that each of us has, We can do the same thing, an analogy, to what we do for physical health, for mental health, and it doesn't have to be less accessible to us than understanding our physical health and building good physical health is.
Paying attention to your work over the past few years, it seems like there's this progression, at least with your new book, and...
the work of understanding, looking through the rear view and through reflection, what were the formative experiences that shaped our psyche, the unconscious, the subconscious, and then what can we focus on now that has this generative drive that's like what's going right and to examine that as well.
And so to start a bit more with the part of the iceberg that's under the water, so to speak, when we think of the self and we think of the psyche, we're often speaking about the personhood, the personality we're looking at life through as if it's a lens.
And oftentimes, societally widespread, we don't really give time and weight to examine the experiences that shape that person that now we just assume is who we are and is our identity in which we engage with all life and relationships.
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Chapter 7: What are the limits of diagnosis-driven psychiatry?
How do you articulate the differences between the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious mind?
Yeah. Really, the differentiation we make is unconscious versus conscious. Subconscious gets used sometimes, but it's basically under the water, the part of the iceberg that's under the water, which is unconscious, and the part that's above the water, which is the conscious mind. And so, so much more is underwater. And that's the unconscious part that sets the boundaries for us.
So, for example, if I'm saying negative things to myself all the time... I'm changing the lay of the land inside where if, for example, a new opportunity comes my way, the ranges of responses that I may have to that is already kind of set. And I'm more likely to look at that in a negative way or to look at it in an avoidant way or in a fatalistic way, oh, it won't work out for me, right?
The boundaries of how I can even think about it are kind of set inside of me through the unconscious mind, which is why it is so important to understand ourselves and to realize that, for example, what we're saying to ourselves, what we're telling ourselves about ourselves Thank you so much for having me. If an opportunity comes my way, the range of possible responses is shifted inside of me.
So the unconscious mind kind of sets the lay of the land inside of us because so many things have to happen so quickly for our conscious mind to then navigate on top of that.
I think this has been getting increasing attention over the past five, ten years because people you know, Jung is quoted, I believe, if until you make the unconscious conscious, it'll rule your life and you'll call it fate. Right. And it can be a painful realization to see the trajectory that our life was set out for before we were even able to consciously make that decision.
Now, when we're speaking about the unconscious and sort of the internal motives that are beneath our conscious level of awareness of having the ability to really articulate why we do what we do, we just feel this pull towards different things. How much of that is shaped
before we even have conscious memory of it, you know, before the age of seven, how much in your experience has identity really formed in that early childhood state?
I mean, a lot gets laid down then, but it's not deterministic. Meaning if there are very significant experiences, say that are traumatic in those really young years, it can start to shape the lay of the land. So in a way that maybe a person is more defensive and avoidant, for example.
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Chapter 8: How can we identify and change our defense mechanisms?
But this idea that we can bring this compassionate curiosity to ourselves, just like we would in a good-spirited way to someone else, and then we can understand. We don't have to be afraid anymore. of what we're going to find. You know, we're not going to look inside and find something awful that tells me I can never have the things that I want.
It's the fear of that that makes us look away and that sometimes creates self-fulfilling prophecies. You know, if there are negative patterns going on in me over and over again and I don't look at them, it's likely that they'll continue to go on. Then I say more negative things to myself and then I get more down on myself and I feel more hopeless about myself.
And then at the end of the day, nothing has changed, but I could have changed it all along if I'd been empowered to look at myself and to sort of bring that courage and that compassion and that ingenuity. Like all of us can think about ourselves and say, how do I bring change?
Because I want the things that I want and I can guide myself in a way that maybe I wasn't even aware of before if I was just kind of hiding away from myself.
Would you say that's the core mission of your work is just like that belief that change is possible? How would you articulate your mission these days?
I've sort of always thought about this when I sort of say it more now, you know, I work with a group of really good people at Pacific Premier Group in Portland, Oregon, and we all work together and we send people out and people come into us. And I'm often thinking like, what is it that we're doing? And it's kind of solidified inside of me that we're in the business of empowerment and
And, and knowledge brings empowerment. So that's mostly what we're doing is we're, we're, we're being collaborative with someone of, hey, let's sit and think together, right? In a way that brings our curiosity to bear so that we can help you understand more about yourself and use that understanding to say, okay, what is it that I want? What do I want to change? What am I striving for?
And how do I get myself there? And it's that empowerment that brings along with it agency. Agency is the exercise of empowerment. So if I might say shift from a place of feeling behind the eight ball and feeling down and feeling on the back foot and I shift to a place where I think, no, I can bring understanding to bear. In fact, I am understanding things and bringing change now.
So I know that I can do more of that now. Now we're on the front foot and it's that empowerment inside that lets us exercise agency and say, no, if I've been going two steps to the left, now I understand and I'm changing it and I'm going to go two steps to the right now. And once we do that, now we start the ball rolling in the right direction.
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