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The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast
Welcome to "The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast," the podcast where insightful conversations unfold, and the depth of the human mind is explored. In each episode, I sit down with a diverse range of individuals—thinkers, innovators, and captivating personalities—who share their unique insights and experiences. Together, we embark on a journey of discovery, unraveling the complexities of the human psyche and uncovering the untold truths that influence our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast
Tigran Vartanyan | Masculinity, Men's Mental Health, Gender Norms | The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast #37
What if the societal norms that define masculinity are more of a hindrance than a help? Tigran Vartanyan, a licensed marriage and family therapist, joins us to tackle this very question, offering a treasure trove of insights into the unique challenges men face today. From grappling with depression and anxiety to navigating the often rigid expectations of traditional gender roles, Tigran's multicultural perspective sheds light on the evolving landscape of men's mental health. Our conversation doesn't stop there; we journey through a myriad of related topics, including the impact of political and cultural shifts, the changing dynamics of relationships, and even the role of fathers in child development.
In a world where vulnerability is often seen as a weakness, we explore how men can find a healthy balance between societal expectations and personal well-being. The dialogue takes us through the cultural complexities faced by men who defy traditional stereotypes, emphasizing the importance of empathy and open communication in relationships. Tigran helps us unpack the societal pressures that lead men to suppress their emotions, often to the detriment of their mental health, while also addressing how education and inclusivity play pivotal roles in reshaping perceptions of masculinity.
Listeners are invited to question long-standing beliefs and institutions, as we touch on themes such as gender identity in children, addiction, and the delicate dance between faith and doubt. With each topic, Tigran highlights the power of therapy and the courage it takes to express gratitude and vulnerability. This episode is a call to rethink traditional norms and embrace a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be a man in today's world. Join us for an enlightening session that promises not just to inform but also to transform perspectives on masculinity and mental health.
Fixing means make him, or make him or her to change his behavior, so it stops being a problem for me.
Speaker 2:When a 17-year-old is given so much freedom, he's not going to know what to do with that freedom. You cannot give a mediocre class from Arkansas $360 million. He's not going to know how to manage that money.
Speaker 1:The woman who chooses the typical, you know, macho man who, let's say that is great provider and all of that things, will still complain that this man is not available.
Speaker 2:Where can men go to speak freely like that? I don't feel well. I have anxiety. Today I'm sad. You know I've been feeling depressed. There's not enough places like that for men to go, whether it's your wife, whether it's your friends, because you have this image that you need to keep.
Speaker 1:You see relationships of people like they are 50, 60 year old changing absolutely, like it's 180 degrees shift. They connect more, they talk more. The woman feels safer now with a man who is not emotionally absent.
Speaker 2:I've had patients who said this to me I'm weak, I don't have the strength to kill myself, so I'm just going to let my eating disorder kill me. And they have succeeded.
Speaker 1:I have heard both things Boys don't cry and this thing of a woman shouldn't complain. That's also something. Now, why are we so obsessed with shutting down somebody's emotions?
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, thank you for joining me today. Today's episode was the longest episode we've had on the Edith Oliverdian podcast three hours and 17 minutes and a conversation could have gone on if I didn't stop it. I'm talking about a licensed marriage and family therapist my first male therapist on the show, digran Vartanian. Digran is such an important asset to the community of all Armenian Americans and or any culture in general that wants to learn. He's fascinating, incredibly well-seasoned and such a knowledgeable individual. I loved our conversation today.
Speaker 2:We dived into men's mental health, a topic that I've been meaning to have with you guys for such a long time, and I genuinely wanted to do it with someone that works with men. So we talked about men depression, intimacy with men that works with men. So we talked about men depression, intimacy with men, men's mental health in general, anxieties and anger. We dived into a lot of political topics. We kind of like drove away from men's mental health, dived into politics. We dived into school system inclusivity which is happening in the world today, transgenderism. We talked about philosophy. We talked about psychology. It was such an amazing conversation and I know that from this conversation you guys are going to pick up so much information. So definitely watch the podcast.
Speaker 2:Definitely reach out to Tigran if you need any therapy services, because he's amazing, has his own private practice in Pasadena, and what's fascinating about him is that he speaks multiple language, including Spanish. And something really interesting about him is that he received his education in Argentina, which is incredibly extensive and very detailed. So he's been in school his whole life and he's just such a fascinating individual to have a conversation with. Honestly, he was just flowing so freely and I think you guys are really going to be surprised and really elevated with this podcast. So stay tuned. You're going to be hooked to the TV for sure, because Stigran has some amazing points and there was a little bit of debate with him and I about Christianity, about church, about the transgenderism movement. We did debate each other respectfully, but it was actually a really fun debate which I think you guys will look forward to. Thank you for joining me, make sure to subscribe and follow, and I appreciate you guys. Hi, tigran, it's so nice to have you on my show today.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's an honor. I adore your work and your purpose and I really appreciate you being here today.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Today I was actually really looking forward to speaking to a licensed clinician, a therapist, about men's mental health. I've covered so many episodes about mothers and marriage and I haven't really covered men yet, and their well-being. In your practice. What is your perspective about the mental health challenges of men? Are there Because they're very silent about it.
Speaker 1:Yes, they are Right. Like any other person, any other gender.
Speaker 2:I love how you have to say every other person.
Speaker 1:Well, because it's been a topic that has been neglected for the lack of a better word, right, and perhaps it is related to the history behind psychology. You know it started Freud with, like her, his hysterics, right that all women, but he had some male clients too, I would say. Now I would see cross cultures, armenian cultures, latino cultures right, there is still a taboo about it. Like, being in therapy is a vulnerable process. It's a process where you talk about the most intimate things that perhaps you haven't talked to anybody else in your life your partner, your wife, your whoever. That is right. Yes, so you're opening up and talking about feelings, doubts, hesitations that you have in your life, regrets, right, questions, and I don't think that we culturally accept that men can have those questions.
Speaker 1:Men can think, worry, fear stuff right, because those are not traits that are associated to manhood. So I see that a lot it's changing. I know a lot of good therapists who are promoting and advocating for men's mental health, which is amazing, but I do see that there is a lot of still challenges related to the context. I see men and the families like you're not crazy, why are you going to this therapist? It's just taking your money right and it's so hard to explain Like I'm hurting. I need this place for me and that's not always received in the best way.
Speaker 2:I can see that have been portrayed to be the primary breadwinner, the winners of the family, the rooster of the family, and I want to know what has changed, because there's a slight shift in men nowadays and you're right, they are feeling a little bit more vulnerable. Why is it that the vulnerability is coming out now, versus years and years before? I mean, I don't think that our grandfathers had it any easier than we do. I think that, if anything, their lives were much harder, but they weren't breakable.
Speaker 1:What do you think is happening there? And we are paying the price, right.
Speaker 2:As the next generation.
Speaker 1:As the next generation.
Speaker 2:How do you think we're paying the price? Right as the next generation, as the next generation, how do you think we're paying the price?
Speaker 1:We all grew up with this. You know father figure, grandparents, strong working 12-hour shifts, you know, and not complaining, but perhaps drinking too much, Perhaps being a little bit aggressive towards the wife, Kids too. Kids too, perhaps, being a little, bit aggressive towards the wife, perhaps kids too, perhaps being, you know, too much outside of home, not wanting to, perhaps not. You know we called it respect, but there was genuine fear of oh daddy's home, he's tired, let's keep his, you know, down.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't think they weren't suffering. I think there wasn't space for them to express any of that. What has changed? I think we have seen that. First of all, I mean great for the guy who can be the sole breadwinner of a house. Successful, right, Right. Most of the cases, that's impossible in here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, right like almost around, almost around the world.
Speaker 1:I would say true, true so that has changed and also it has changed that, um, there is a need for the partner to, for to to connect emotionally. You mean the man in the relationship both right, like I see this, a lot men coming because the wife is complaining, right, uh, I don't know what's going on. I'm fine, I'm doing the things that I have done all my life. Like I work so hard, I bring the money and she keeps complaining. What's going on?
Speaker 1:oh, very objectified, right very I say, well, okay, so what do you think is going on right? Like, what is the problem? If you are doing everything that you should be doing, why isn't this person you know feeling connected to you? Or what do you think? Are you happy in your relationship? Are you satisfied with your life? Well, no, I'm tired, I'm exhausted and I feel like I'm being judged constantly.
Speaker 2:Nagged right as they say yeah, my wife nags me.
Speaker 1:Right and okay. So you have a need there that doesn't respond to your role as a provider. You need support. You need your wife to acknowledge your hard work. You need your wife to see that what you're doing is out of love, not out of something else, right?
Speaker 2:Like an obligation or something Right.
Speaker 1:And so this could be like one specific example. It's so unique case by case, right, but I think overall, what's happening is that the culture has changed. Everything has evolved. Women crave more intimacy from their men. Men are acknowledging that.
Speaker 1:They crave that too yes and now they can voice it. The problem also comes up when you see this kind of like very traditional gender roles in a relationship and then they come to therapy, or he comes to therapy. He said, said well, now I'm changing, I'm more open, I'm connecting, and she cannot take it, so I don't understand. It's always a lose-lose situation.
Speaker 2:She cannot take it because she doesn't feel as strong like the man's strong anymore. Because sometimes women, I feel like, can view vulnerability as a weakness in men. Yeah, I mean, she grew up with a dad that was not like that more. Because sometimes women, I feel like vulnerability as weakness in men.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, she grew up with a dad that was not like that, a grandparent that an uncle, a big, you know older brother, yeah, and this man is saying something about his emotions, um, which is considered like a feminine thing, right? Oh, you know today's world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right like why? Why is that? I mean, I don't want to get too much into that conversation which is a big thing, the cultural aspect, the systemic aspect, but, like the immediate experience is, I'm working so hard in therapy, healing my trauma, to kind of please my wife and to connect her in the level that she wants me, and now she's complaining about that, right, and the reality is that most of the time these relationships have been going for years and years and years and it has been the wife nagging the husband for not being emotionally intelligent, yeah, and now he's changing. But the entire relationship has to shift to accept this new kind of man, right, but I think once they can process that, you see relationships of people like they are 50, 60 year old changing absolutely, like it's 180 degrees shift. They connect more, they talk more, they support each other more. Suddenly.
Speaker 2:And the woman feels safer now with a man who is not emotionally absent? I was just going to ask you this question because we're two therapists having this conversation, which is quite interesting to me. When there is this shift in the man let's just say it's a macho man in a relationship that decides to be emotionally connected, goes through therapy, learns emotional intelligence to a certain extent and is now emotionally available, what are the qualities that he's going to provide in the relationship from this emotional intelligence versus the absence Versus the absence.
Speaker 1:Well, what happens when a woman because men and women, we are equally products of the same system, right? So if you're going to say that the man was a product of a machista society, like a patriarchal society, then women are too right. It's not about the sex. We are all in different ways shaped and, let's call it, oppressed or whatever, by the same system. So if the woman wants to connect emotionally, usually right, in these traditional families we are talking like Armenian families, middle Eastern families, right, latino families sometimes many times their go-to person is not their partner. Their go-to person is mom, their, their, their partner. Their go-to person is mom, sister, friends. Why? Because they talk to their husband and that is like I don't have time for this, or, right, like what, what do you want me to do with this?
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't know how to empathize with you oh, that's a big word, yeah because I can well, maybe they can the pain, but I would say like there are equal responsibilities there where the emotional unavailability of the man makes a woman choose other resources and that splits the relationship.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree with you on that piece.
Speaker 1:Right and they become more distant, more strangers.
Speaker 2:They do. Advice from other people can definitely, you know, tarnish the relationship, because not everyone's advice works for your relationship.
Speaker 1:Not even advice, just listening to each other.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Right.
Speaker 1:That's a big piece.
Speaker 2:It is so when men are more emotionally available. Yes, I do, emotionally available. Yes, I do see a big shift in the next, the two generations, our generation and the next generation. Vulnerability is not as respected. Women want the more macho man, but now the macho men are complaining that. No, we want to be more vulnerable because our mental health matters too.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think some women want the macho.
Speaker 2:Not all. We're not generalizing, yeah.
Speaker 1:Some women want that. Perhaps again, because they are also a byproduct of certain values, certain things right, and to be clear, when I'm talking about these cultural things, ideological, you know I think there's like a misunderstanding of we can totally understand that and free ourselves or whatever. This is what our unconscious is. A woman and I have met this kind of people in my life a very dear friend of mine, she's a feminist activist, she, you know, she's very, very smart, very bright person and yet for some reason she chooses very oppressive partners constantly. Cognitively, she knows it's a problem.
Speaker 1:But, unconsciously, unconsciously, she keeps choosing for that right. But going back to your question of what happens if the man is becoming more vulnerable and the woman don't like that, Because there's a different level of vulnerability, Digran.
Speaker 2:You know, I feel like it's different because it's so easy not for every man, Again, we're not generalizing, right but when people tend to be a little bit more vulnerable, they can fall into that victim chair really quickly from the vulnerability I feel like. And so I feel like there has to be like a good balance because essentially, to like being conservative, but I'm also very mindful Like I feel like, yeah, women's friendship is so important because it's very health-based. Right Like we need women. When they talk to each other, they talk to each other face-to-face, eye-to-eye contact. Some men can communicate with each other just with a beer bottle and just looking elsewhere. Right Like, women's friendships are more health. I feel like it's more for health purposes. Men can be just like conversational, but vulnerability, I feel like can I don't know, this is just my personal perspective Vulnerability can sometimes tarnish a man's manhood in a way.
Speaker 2:If it's not into a more like victim state versus, because it can take away a lot of the true nature of a man. What you are okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're using strong words.
Speaker 2:Uh, true, nature of a man yeah um because the nature of a man, from my perspective, is to be that provider right so what do you do with these men who are artists?
Speaker 1:photographs those are providers what if they don't make money?
Speaker 2:I mean, does a provider have to be like objectified, like financial?
Speaker 1:only can it be if he doesn't provide money with the safety yeah so if you have like a short small guy who is not strong, I have met plenty of partners as I yeah right, so what happens?
Speaker 2:I mean, you're in a short small guy who is not strong.
Speaker 1:I have met plenty of partners as I. Yeah Right, so what happens? I mean, you're getting to something really good, which is we have fixed ideas of what a man is.
Speaker 2:You think so?
Speaker 1:Of course. But you're telling me a man, you know I don't want to kind of like, I'm not going to even name him, no no, no, no, no, no, no, no please. No, but you know, in social media you have this kind of like very stereotypical man. What is an alpha man? I'm not going to name him.
Speaker 2:I can tell you don't like him.
Speaker 1:That's why no, because it's harmful. See, I have nothing personal against him. Jordan Peterson, any of these people, right, and it's not like I am more leftist, or it's not about that. It's about discourses have impact. They shape our identity. So if you have a discourse where whatever doesn't fit the role of a powerful man financially, physically, you know whatever that is, but emotionally, emotionally is not something that we qualify as a powerful man, you know. Being emotionally there for a person for some reason, you mean vulnerable, Not vulnerable.
Speaker 2:Emotionally there for a person.
Speaker 1:Emotionally supporting a person right.
Speaker 1:What we are doing is, well, what happens with all these men who don't fit that narrative? Then there is that sensation of emasculation. Right Now I am feeling weak because I don't fit the narrative of the provider man who makes money, and I mean, let's agree that we see that a lot, especially in our culture A man who makes money is considered much more of a man than a man who is not financially so successful Not for everybody, but there is a thing about money and power, right. In the same way, I think that these discourses can leave out a lot of the men that don't fully fit this narrative. These discourses can be replicated by their moms, their partners, their sisters, their friends. So what you see is people, men, constantly trying to fit an image.
Speaker 2:What image do you think that is?
Speaker 1:The image of the macho men, perhaps the image of the financially successful men, the image of the strong men who can. If somebody messes with my girlfriend, you know I'm going to and to me that's childish.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's not, that's not see. I think that also to add to what you're saying. I know that we're on something really important here. It's going to be a philosophical conversation. Um, you're, I have to agree with you in a sense that in there's so much changing that the, the perception of men, is classified very differently now, like a certain height, a certain look, a certain car, maybe Um and um, the man being sensitive is not really accepted. So what I'm talking about is there, there. There are men out there that are not your six foot guy, they're maybe your five foot four, and they are mechanics. They come home with dirty, oily fingers but they're real men. So it's not really image base, it's really what you carry with you, what you put out there.
Speaker 1:But it would be my error of asking this man, right, how do you feel when, everywhere you sit on a table, you are a very you know, honest, worker, honest guy, you're doing your best to provide for your family, you're doing your best to, you know, have a healthy life, and you're on a table and there is somebody who is fortunate enough to be financially much more successful than you and you feel yourself like you are invisible, like you feel yourself smaller, you feel yourself like weak, less of a man, right, not necessarily because the rich guy is humiliating you or anything like that yeah, maybe a little bit of jealousy here and there, perhaps.
Speaker 2:Comparison For sure. Why not, that's healthy.
Speaker 1:It is a thing. Yeah, I mean, we all compare ourselves to others, but these are the moments where somebody's manhood can be at play.
Speaker 2:Like in danger.
Speaker 1:I would say it's very yeah, I mean we could use that word. I think it's very back to Freud's like phallocentric kind of idea, right, what determines what is a man? I mean it will be more masculinity and femininity. But, like, without getting into that, there are certain things, certain categories that a man has to kind of show certain performance, certain thing for him to feel like OK, you know, I'm a good man.
Speaker 1:It's an interesting question because what we are talking about here it's kind of like that conflict that has been there for years and years and years. Right, the woman who chooses the typical, like men, you know, macho men who, let's say that is great provider, and all of of those things, will still complain that this man is not available, right, but it's hard to say. It's so case by case I'm talking, and I'm thinking about specific examples. On the other hand, you have women who have a man who is vulnerable, and not because you're vulnerable, you're not going to be successful financially, right, but you're vulnerable, you're a working class man and you have women that truly appreciate and connect with this man and not for a second they doubt that this is not a real man.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Right. But we feel kind of threatened when cultural values change, because we are very attached to our ideas of what a man is, what a woman is, what they should do, what they shouldn't do. Those things are so rigid in our mind that anything outside of that we want to attack and destroy and criticize.
Speaker 2:Because I feel like it's worked. Like, look earlier when we were talking about, like our grandparents and our dads and yeah, I have to agree with you that they worked a lot and maybe they were absent fathers and yeah, maybe they beat our moms and beat us too, which happened to a lot of families, indo-european or not like we got a beating, but that's something that the next generation has to take away with right Like something to learn from that and then just find that balance. You can be a very vulnerable man.
Speaker 1:But my question is how far can that vulnerability go? You feel like they are victimizing themselves now more like men.
Speaker 2:Yes, 100% Because and I'm not just for the side of women, I'm on the side of men and women coming together and forming a healthy family and being happy. But from people that I've seen I'm 40 years old from people that I've worked with friendship that I've had. Men tend to be incredibly weak nowadays and that's classified as vulnerability is something different.
Speaker 1:I don't even use that word, that much I mean I would use it today. No vulnerability. Yeah, like Because there is an idea that I use openness.
Speaker 2:right, because when you, we can use that Okay.
Speaker 1:Right, because when you use vulnerability, it means that it's attached to weakness. It's attached to something bad is going to happen to you.
Speaker 2:Somebody can understand like that, I see what you're saying, okay.
Speaker 1:But I mean, you get the point. The idea of vulnerability implies that now you can get hurt more easily, and I don't know why would that happen?
Speaker 2:Are you the vulnerable type of a man? Are you open in your relationship? Yeah, I'm pretty open, are you? Comfortable with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I have my blind spots right, but sure I try to be. When you are in a relationship and your partner is not open to talk, to discuss things, you see something right? You see, okay, his eyes look different today. His tone of voice is a little bit different. He seems more silent. He seems, you know something is off and he's not telling you what's going on. Why? Because he's a man you know and he's not telling you what's going on. Why? Because he's a man you know and he doesn't have to be vulnerable. You kind of are in this like void of thousands of millions of questions that can cross your mind. He's thinking about somebody else. He's worried about money. He's worried about his health. He's about you know. Or he's worried about money. He's worried about his health, he's about you know. Or he's angry at me, or like he doesn't love me anymore, or he's unhappy, you don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You don't know, and I think that the idea of being open and talking about emotions shouldn't be equal to being weaker, because one thing that we all can perhaps agree in the field of mental health is that we see a symptom, a sign of something is wrong, right. Nowadays, I know that psychology is very obsessed with symptoms and getting rid of symptoms right, so they shut it down Medication, whatever it is, you know 100% yeah, but the symptom has been, and always has been, a sign that something else is going on right.
Speaker 1:You have a fever. We have to figure out. Is it COVID? Is it the flu? Is it just sun? What's going?
Speaker 2:on. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:If I get rid of your fever. How do I know that I have fixed the problem right, fixed the problem? So my point is usually symptoms have been a product of repressed emotions, things that we haven't been able to talk about, things that we have talked but nobody heard. You know emotions that we experienced. And again, armenian culture. You know the adults are talking. The little guy comes in and wants to say, says a joke or something, and they just shame him in front of everybody.
Speaker 2:You know grownups are talking. I hate it when people do, it's horrible. Yeah, those things I don't like.
Speaker 1:Or don't cry, don't cry, men don't cry yeah.
Speaker 2:Things like that.
Speaker 1:I've heard both things.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Boys don't cry, and also in the Latino culture. Like I generalize Latino culture, it's very different from country to country, but like this thing of a woman shouldn't complain that but like this thing of a woman shouldn't complain.
Speaker 1:That's also something right Now. Why are we so obsessed with shutting down somebody's emotions? Yeah, why are we so obsessed? It's a good question, right, see it.
Speaker 1:Um, again, I'm not generalizing, but there are some voices, especially in the conservative kind of like side, where you feel like, oh, we want freedom. At the same time, we want freedom for certain discourses. Certain discourses shouldn't have a place and to a certain point I agree with that like we should have freedom of speech, but some speeches shouldn't have freedom. If you want to keep the freedom of speech, so I can't have freedom of speech. If, but some speeches shouldn't have freedom. If we want to keep the freedom of speech, so I can't have freedom of speech. If I have a neo-Nazi speech, right, yeah, because that speech goes against. You know, we cannot have freedom for everybody, that's just it. You know, you have to decide as a society that there are certain things that are too threatening to what you're trying to build. A neo-Nazi discourse. Now, if you censor that, I mean, you would say, oh, you are censoring. You are, you know, but we should have freedom of speech, should we? I mean, isn't that very dangerous right?
Speaker 1:So, going back to my point, when we are in a relationship and we are trying to shut down the other person, usually it's because that represents a certain threat to us. Now is it about the other person? I don't know. But if I'm experiencing too many emotions to the other side and I haven't addressed all my emotional baggage myself, I'm going to be really struggling to contain the other person. So what I'm going to do is shut them down. Or if I have parents right that have, perhaps they have abused their kids and nowadays they realize that that was wrong. It was accepted back in the days, but it was wrong. And now what's happening is the kid is saying you know what happened back then? It really messed me up, and I'm doing all this therapy because I'm still trying to heal that. And the mom or the dad is like oh, I don't want to hear that, just don't talk to me about that, right, like why is that?
Speaker 2:because it's creating so much emotions inside of them that they cannot handle emotions and also judgment. Like what parent doesn't feel criticized? And I've seen this happen but what parent wants to have their child say you know, when the soviet times were happening and I would come home and I would get a two on my math test, you'd beat the living lucas out of me. You know that parent feels like they're a bad parent. Yes, it's very ego driven that they feel very ego. I mean, I think that it hits the ego in a different way for sure, yeah, and and many of the parents during those years.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say they were narcissists, but they really did have a lot of narcissistic tendencies. For sure, I think the Because all the trauma, you know, yeah, we have a lot of trauma. We do as a culture.
Speaker 1:As a culture. But I think there is like the piece of motherhood was so important and the idea of being a good mom it's so important for some mothers that that criticism can hurt a lot.
Speaker 1:But also, I think this is a thing that continues to happen when the parent is searching for the answers of how to be a good parent, in their ideology, in their faith, in their, you know they are doing it with the best of the intentions. They're trying to get the information and create, you know, raise a good child and create, you know, raise a good child. But usually what happens is that they are so preoccupied with those things that they disconnect from the needs of the child. So what I did as a parent was because everybody was saying that that's the right thing to do, okay, and the kid is saying, well, but I didn't. I needed something else from you, right? So this is something that continues to happen. You know and you see the consequences. I worked with, like kids whose parents are so religious that the kid is saying I'm suicidal, I don't want to live anymore, I'm going to kill myself. And the answer is go read the Bible for two hours. Yeah Right, nothing against the Bible.
Speaker 2:But I've heard that too.
Speaker 1:Your kid is telling you something. I'm hearing. You know a little girl who is saying that same thing I'm depressed, I want to kill myself, I don't want to wake up in the morning. Okay, this mom asked well, why is that? Because I feel like I don't belong. And the answer is you don't need to belong, nobody needs to belong. But the child is saying I need to belong, I'm desiring this, you know, kind of like these connections and completely neglected. Why? Because, in the mom's mind, her being a good student, being respectful, all of that mattered much more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, their image and in that sense I do agree. There is some kind of like narcissistic thing there, because they are more worried about if the neighbor sees what she's going to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all about the reputation. What would they say if you go to therapy? I mean, I was finishing my practicum hours for a professor of mine and I literally had a woman who was petrified to come just so that people wouldn't see her with her child and recognize her and that they wouldn't talk about their family, like it was just so heartbreaking. They're not, it's like, free. It's not free. Like you want to give your child optimal health but you can't do that because constantly in your mind is your image and your reputation. What if somebody sees me? What are they going to think?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and that creates a disconnection not only from your child, but also from yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this is kind of like in parallel to our conversation about men. If the man is so worried about satisfying that image, how can he actually be connected to his own sense of manhood or, you know, just, person, right, self? And I do think that there is, the more rigid these ideas are, the more hurting, right, like, the more pain people go through, and there are many people who live with with certain. I mean, you cannot universalize this, this for everyone, right? Because I think what's happening now with psychology, it's every truth has to be for everyone. You know, and you see that with I'm going to get a lot of pushback in this, but, uh, attachment theory. We have these trending theories, right, right, attachment, and they claim universal truth.
Speaker 1:And the problem is that different cultures, different backgrounds, different life stories and you miss the uniqueness of each case in particular. So none of what I'm saying applies to absolutely everyone, right? Because I think that we are at risk of, as professionals, shut down people's thoughts and give them the answers that we read in a book about them, the same thing that parents do with their kids, right? And the same thing that happens with ideology. You know, a leftist ideology reads certain things from certain people and, oh, this is the right thing for my kid and a conservative, or you know, that's the same thing. What's missing here is the singularity of the subject itself person, right. So we get alienated to this knowledge out there.
Speaker 2:So what you're saying is forget what the knowledge is out there. Focus on the individual, like what are their needs.
Speaker 1:Yes, and the problem that comes with that not a problem, but a challenge that comes with that is that again, I need certain level of healing and tolerance and acceptance of myself to be able to connect in that level with my kid. If every time I misbehave when I was a kid I misbehaved and I was punished very harshly Seeing my kid misbehave can be very triggering. Seeing my kid misbehave can be very triggering. So, although I swear for my life, I'm not going to be like my dad. Now I'm acting exactly like him because I'm going right. So I need to do some healing.
Speaker 2:Oh boy, do I relate to that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, are those things conscious Right? Not really right? Conscious, no, I think.
Speaker 2:On the contrary, it's unconscious, it's learned behavior like mirror neurons. You know Monkey, see monkey do. You might even not know it, but you adapt to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you repeat it. Now, what's the reason behind it? Different theories, different explanations. The one that I really dislike and I think is damaging is the genetic factor. Right, it's not about genetics, it's about what you are saying. This is the environment that you grew up in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah. Environment is very crucial for sure. What do you think about this opinion? I've heard from many platforms that dads are so important in the child's life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess a big misconception about psychoanalysis is that psychoanalysis blames the mother right. And I'm saying it's a misconception because psychoanalysis was evolved, is continuous to evolve, so much right. And if you go to the French psychoanalysis, if you go to Lacan right, we, like he has a whole concept, the name of the father right. It's symbolic. I don't want to get too much into the theory, but well, basically, he's not talking about biological mom and dad.
Speaker 1:he's talking about functions, right, but it's so crucial, the function of the father in that, in that triad Now, the father could be dead for what it matters, right, but is he included in the discourse of the mom? Right, something has to get in the way of the child and the mom. The mom needs to desire something else beyond the child. There has to be absence and presence. And this is what we see that some other psychodynamic theorists take and they, kind of like, created something new out of it, which is if the distance is too much, it's a problem, if the distance is not too much, it's a problem. You know, they're anxiously attached, disorganized, attachment avoidant. You know all of these things right. So I think the role of the father is essential and that's why, also, I don't agree much with our traditional idea of gender roles, because a father who is working full time, who gets home tired and who gets home frustrated because you know Of a long day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how present, even if he really wants to. How present is he going to be for his?
Speaker 2:child. Yeah, of course that's a reasonable expectation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So let's be logical about it, even though he should, but there is obviously a level of tolerance there.
Speaker 1:We have limited resources. We have limited yeah. Yeah, we are tired, we are exhausted, we are preoccupied with stuff, and this is important because this has been happening for generations and we see the consequences. I have a support group for men. Right, these are all different men from different backgrounds, different ages, different life stories, but you can still see these are adult, grown-up people how deep the wounds are.
Speaker 2:From their absent fathers.
Speaker 1:From either their yeah, that's a big, big piece.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the absent father, physically, emotionally, whatever that is, you can have a father that's home physically, but they can also be very absent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can have a father who is drinking vodka and passed out all day long.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:Do I have a father? Well, psychoanalysis would say, if you have, then it's a very, in that sense, a weak one, right Like it doesn't satisfy, it doesn't fulfill the symbolic function of what a father should be.
Speaker 2:What is your perspective of a symbolic functioning father?
Speaker 1:in a home. If you're talking about a theory, we are talking about law rules right, law and rules. Yeah, we are not talking about authoritarian, because I had a lot of pushback on this, like, oh you're, you know, I'm saying like some dictatorial authoritarian parent that can come into play sometimes I mean that's necessary at times with a good balance, I think. Well then, that wouldn't be authoritarian right, the authoritarian thing. It's really bad. It's really bad because you are imposing stuff Damaging children, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and the problem with it is that there is no, it's not really a rule or a law, it's a demand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, you have no other choice. There's no freedom in that.
Speaker 1:Because I'm telling you, because I'm the adult, I'm more powerful. Because I said so, yeah, yeah, we grew up with that right Like why? Yeah, Because I said so.
Speaker 2:But why yeah right?
Speaker 1:But if there is a conversation of like this is why, right, that changes everything and we help kids take accountability and they're like you know. They may understand or they may not. In the same way, the parent has to tolerate the frustration of the kid is going to fight against that because they don't want to do it. Right, but your job as a parent is to tolerate that.
Speaker 2:I think that when a child proceeds to fight you on situations like that, then there's a tarnish in the leadership skills that you have as a parent.
Speaker 1:What do you mean I?
Speaker 2:think that if you are a good leader because when you're a parent you are a leader in a sense, like you're- leading. So if you are in that role of leadership, if you're doing your job as a parent properly, your child should easily follow your leadership versus argue it, because essentially my idea is connecting before correcting. If you've never had a relationship with your child, you can't lead him.
Speaker 1:Right, who are you?
Speaker 2:Who are you? Why should I listen to you? Oh, the eyes are going to roll whether I'm a boy or a girl. So when parents have this disconnection with their kids when they're 13, 14, I always go back to how was your relationship? Because if you're in this fight with your kid, this, this battle of leadership, then you fail.
Speaker 1:Yeah and it depends how bad it is right, yeah, and sometimes it can get pretty nasty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it can be really nasty, and you're right. Um, sometimes I see that, um, parents have completely neglected their roles as parents, um, and then the kid is 13, 14, found a group of belonging that is not the best, right, and now they are misbehaving, right, which for me, there is no, no such thing as misbehaving. They are behaving, they are saying something through their behavior. Uh, we as a society, punish it, right, um, and now the parent is like my child is a problem, fix him right.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know, lucky me, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fix this shit, don't you want to fix the parent first?
Speaker 1:uh, I don't think fix, yeah, yeah, you know when, when, when we talk about fixing, I always think about how, how in the US they talk about, like you know, your pet's castration. They call it like fix your dog. What does that mean? What does that mean really? Right, like, cut it so they don't misbehave, right, cut it so they are more regulated, they are not so active. And this is what actually, funny enough, it means in psychology today. In psychology today you know the website, psychology today right, it's, fixing means make him, or make him or her to change his behavior so it stops being a problem for me yeah, if it's the society, yeah, just like ADHD meds Doesn't bother me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now, the thing that I was going to say about this kind of like dynamics is that the other extreme it's really bad too, when we are trying to be friends with our kids too. When we are trying to be friends with our kids and that rebellion, whatever you want to call it right, Rolling the eyes, arguing, it's equally healthy and it's equally important.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:And if you don't tolerate that and you react in a very you know disproportionate way, or you back up and say well, you know, do whatever you want, I don't want to bother you. I'm sorry that you're feeling like that. You are absent. In one way, you turn this authoritarian monster which is again back to my point of the symbolic role of a parent right.
Speaker 1:You are not the law, you are just somebody who is just arbitrary. And just because you are stronger, you are imposing yourself and on the other side you disappear. And I had this client, 18-year-old, who told me her mom would hang out with her a lot. They would even go to nightclubs.
Speaker 1:this is Argentina, so this was back in Argentina this was back in Argentina and she said I didn't get a friend out of her and I lost my mom. Right, yes, it seemed super cool for her friends from outside, but she lost somebody who she could fight against, as any teenager needs.
Speaker 2:Right Like a need yeah.
Speaker 1:I need to know what the law is, so then I can break it Right. If I don't know what the rules are, how could I rebel?
Speaker 2:right. If I don't know what the rules are, how could I rebel? So what you're saying as a psychotherapist is that that law and that rule needs to be set by the father of the home.
Speaker 1:I say that that's kind of like the symbolic function. Now, that can be set by the mom too, or by an uncle, by whoever it is, but that's one of the things, right. The other thing is that if there is not somebody, something even right we are not talking about a person per se that takes away, creates a little bit of distance between mom and the child. This relationship becomes very problematic Because all the desire of mom is perhaps to create the perfect child.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:Because there is no desire elsewhere.
Speaker 2:Which needs to be the father, the healthy relationship.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, it's psychoanalysis, so it's very kind of stereotypical, but we could think about anything a profession, their own health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, career something, yeah friends, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:There has to be an absence presence dynamic there, because if not, what's happening and you see that a lot too is this child doesn't have the opportunity to be a subject. They become an object of the mother, the missing puzzle piece for the mother to be the perfect.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and this destroys mothers because it really does mess with their mental health.
Speaker 1:It really suppresses any subjectivity for the child.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. They don't see themselves as a separate human being.
Speaker 2:No, no, they become the pleaser of mom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but even it's deeper than that, because you sometimes, in extreme cases, you hear them talk and it seems like they have a walkie-talkie and mom is talking through them. They don't have a voice, right, they don't have a voice, they don't have an opinion, they don't have an opinion, they don't have. It's mom that talks through them. And this is a big, big problem, right, because that's kind of like almost structural then type of construction, right, like it's a psychic structure that it's already built different. So it's really hard to to deal with that.
Speaker 2:Going back to our men topic, I and this is kind of off topic, but it's a podcast, we can do that I was watching a documentary on Netflix and it was about the notorious pedophiles of California and they interviewed one of them.
Speaker 2:I forgot his name. I'll try to remember and I'll link it because I know people are going to ask for the documentary. But they were asking this monster how he chose his victims, and particularly children. He loved to molest children, and so they were asking him these questions and he said I would drive up to schools for several weeks, I would sit in my car and I would just watch kids, and the way I chose my victims were I observed the fathers of these children, and if the father was not a threat I would not go after the kid, but if the father was a threat, I would not even think once to get near that kid. So this monster chose the kids who had the weaker dads or the absent dads, and so that's why I always ask the question of how important a father's role is. And so if a man needs to have that look, that tough, look, that intimidating look, then do it, because this is what protects children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's a very singular case, right, yeah, well, yeah, but it's still like in many cases, I mean like look at to anybody you talk to, like the image of a man Like that I don't mean by look high to nothing like that but like the way that a man carries himself is so essential, because that really that really opens doors for either people to take advantage or not. It's just such a big role that a man has.
Speaker 1:Then we are in a very messed up society. We are, we are, though. That's the whole idea.
Speaker 2:We are, because it throws all the psychology out the door.
Speaker 1:But to generalize this, I find it a little bit dangerous and I will tell you why. What dangerous To take an example like this, and it makes complete sense, right? Like, of course, like the guy, he's a pedophile, but he's not an idiot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know he's not going to risk it with a guy who is going to kick his ass right. That's very simple.
Speaker 2:Pretty much short and simple.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, I mean, why would he? Why would he? But there are many more deeper questions to ask there. But without getting into that, when we start to talk about looks and how that can affect the behavior of some other person, because there was many, many cases of women being raped after they would go to a nightclub and they would take a cab or something you know public transportation it was basically in their way home five, six, it was in.
Speaker 1:Argentina, but it happens here too. This study in particular was from. It wasn't a study, it was what was happening, actually, but the study was about. There was a lot of discourses about, well, if they dress like that, if they're kind of drunk, if they're this, if they're that, then of course something is going to happen to them, right. So it was almost like an obvious thing. If they are wearing a short dress, if they are using high heels, if they are kind of drunk, of course men are going to want to rape them. This was what was being circulated. Of course the woman was becoming the problem again, right, like it was, because the way they dressed that the man allowed himself to rape her.
Speaker 2:You don't think that's the case.
Speaker 1:Well, this is the study that actually showed that women who were dressed professionally, with their hair done and more conservatively were more prone to be attacked. Really Right. Conservatively, were more prone to be attacked by yeah, really right, because it wasn't about the sexual, the sexuality in the sense of, like we understand, like sexualized body.
Speaker 2:It was about power domination, right, it was about that so the more conservative, the more you show that you're in power and domination.
Speaker 1:So so the more kind of like exciting for the guy or for the rapist to dominate this person, right. The worst thing that could happen for a rapist is for a woman to want it. This is the study, right. I'm not claiming any expertise in this, no, no, no, this was what the conversation was how we can fall into these assumptions that a woman dressing provocative or sensual right is going to attract.
Speaker 2:Is asking for it.
Speaker 1:Is asking for, it right, and the study was like well, no, not really.
Speaker 2:So the one that's not the rapist is finding it more exciting because it's not a want.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:That is so interesting.
Speaker 1:There's more of imposing their will over the other right uh, and this was happening in argentina, yeah yeah, so.
Speaker 1:So that's why I was saying and none of again, none of this is universal law yeah, of course there are cases and cases, but I'm saying like there are some sick people out there that are going to hurt others. We can get into the mental health conversation and see why did they end up this way. You can get into the kind of like my personal life. I'm worried about my sister, my wife, my family, my kids. So I have certain emotions and certain reaction to this. Or we can go the low and what we should be doing. It's a very complex conversation, but what is it's kind of hard to do is kind of to generalize this guy that you were mentioning and say like this is the thing, because this is going to sound kind of dumb, and say like this is the thing, because this is going to sound kind of dumb, but what if some other guy feels more challenging and more exciting to do it?
Speaker 2:To have, like a thing, a dad.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, that could be too.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That could be too.
Speaker 1:That could be too. It's very hard to predict. And again, this is kind of like back to my point of we are a very obsessive society and we try to get answers for everything.
Speaker 2:And we just don't understand that.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of situations that are very case by case.
Speaker 2:Well, we're not going to because everyone's so different.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's you, just, you know. I mean, like, look at it this way what is what does make a healthy man? Ok, right, that's a good question.
Speaker 1:What does make what is a healthy man? Okay, right, that's a good question.
Speaker 2:What does make? What does a healthy man look like?
Speaker 1:What does make a healthy person, human, woman, sure, right? It's a very tough question to answer.
Speaker 2:Why do you think it's tough to answer?
Speaker 1:Because it has so many components right. There is no one way in which you could qualify a healthy man like each person. Most of the population is pretty healthy right here, everywhere. Most people are not. There is high percentages of mental health issues I agree with that, but most of the people are doing pretty okay, right. Otherwise, it would be like in a you know this would be catastrophic.
Speaker 1:And yet they are all so different from each other. They all have lives that are so different, right, and, I think, my respect to each of these men's path towards healing and towards conducting a healthy life. For me it's very important, right, because even I was thinking about these discourses out there about the biology of it, right, like the man and the woman's different right, and how that is tied to personality traits and I hear this a lot from Jordan Peterson, right?
Speaker 2:I know you're not a fan.
Speaker 1:I'm not a fan. I am a really big fan of Slavoj Žižek.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:Right, I am not a fan of Jordan Peterson just because his claims pretend to be supported by data that doesn't exist. So his whole claim of agreeableness or agreeability.
Speaker 2:Be a less agreeable person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, women are less agreeable, are more agreeable than men, right, agreeable. Are more agreeable than men, right? What he doesn't say when he talks about this is that, yes, like the score in agreeable agreeability for, for, for women is higher than men, but on average there are more men who are more agreeable than women and in average women are less agreeable than men. There is a peak. If you see the graph in the research, there's a peak higher for women in their level of agreeability, but the graph for men it's wider right.
Speaker 1:So there's many more men who are more agreeable than women. So this kind of like discourses that he just preaches and this kind of like normative of uh, then from there you move to what things are manly to do, what things are, more you know, womanly, or those are the things that that hurt hurt. Who hurt men hurt woman. Why do? Who Hurt men hurt women.
Speaker 2:Why do you think that hurts men and women?
Speaker 1:Because you are creating very rigid stereotypes of what millions, of millions of different people, different men from different cultures should all behave like, no matter what their life story is, no matter what their social economical situation is, no matter if they are gay or straight, no matter anything.
Speaker 2:It's very controlled. Yeah, I mean, but don't you think that people need guidance?
Speaker 1:How is that guiding?
Speaker 2:Well, let's talk about this. So let's bring kids up, okay, maybe like teenagers, 20s whatever so when people don't have a set of laws, regulations, they tend to have no sense of direction. And what happens if you give people too much freedom? Okay, let's just say there are no rules and regulations for any age. How is that person going to find their way?
Speaker 1:That would be horrible.
Speaker 2:Right. So there has to be. I understand when sometimes it could be a little bit extreme, like some certain psychologists, what they talk about. Like Jordan Peterson, he can get a little extreme right.
Speaker 1:Well, my point is that he claims some scientific universal truth as a thinker, as a human being, and not that I matter, right, but okay.
Speaker 2:You matter.
Speaker 1:Well, but you know, compared to somebody as famous as him, he's not going to sit on the bed with me.
Speaker 2:How do you know what this real is going to be?
Speaker 1:Maybe it'll get like 5.5 million, Maybe right, that would be great, then you will be the next.
Speaker 1:But we have to think about what are the implications of the discourse that he's creating, and for me, nothing good really comes from that. That's my problem. Now, if the data shows what year, what data, like this research that I'm saying it was the young, who was that? There were three guys, young, um, who was that? There were three guys? I can remember the young, uh, and, and and he, they, they review like a bunch of researches about these claims that that that about personality traits and men and women, right, the overlap, the overlap is so big. It's so big that there is no point really in getting into this. Um, men are born to be fighters and leaders and whatever, and women are born to, uh, agree and nurture, and it's just not true why not?
Speaker 1:because the claim is that that's genetic. The claim is that that's genetic. The claim is that that's biological.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're born into our roles, right? That's not true.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's true. I think you can see how it has changed. You can see how, when it's needed, that discourse shifts a little bit to accommodate, right, it's needed that discourse shifts a little bit to accommodate, right. Yeah, I mean our physical, biological differences, totally agree. Yeah, of course we are two different, Even looking from a psychoanalytic perspective. Femininity and masculinity are completely different things, not compatible, you know anything like that. Very, very different things. But to call the roles that society has deemed normal for men and women as a biological fact is just not true. This is my problem with these discourses that try to universalize. This is my problem with these discourses that try to universalize and what that creates is damage for those who don't fit that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:What kind of damage? Well, yeah, suicidality.
Speaker 1:Emasculation. Well, suicidality is a big thing. I think it was like 70% of suicides were men. Right, it's very concerning Now, emasculation if we are thinking about um, manhood, um, and as something that should tolerate whatever and should. You know, this man should perform and should be a man, no matter what these. This is where the discourse is like boys, don't cry, come from right. You shouldn't be complaining, you shouldn't be too vulnerable, you shouldn't be I don't know, talking about emotions with your. I have seen men having a hard time being affectionate with their daughter. They feel troubled with that idea. Right, why? The best things that I see is when fathers dress like princesses and they dance with their kids or whatever right, I've seen those, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, it's amazing. The problem is that somebody would say that's not a man.
Speaker 2:But that's so different. I feel like those things are so different. You know, like a father at home dressing like a princess to play tea party with his daughter. I think it's so beautiful, it's vulnerable and I think it's accepted. It's beautiful, but anything beyond that I don't know.
Speaker 1:What would be beyond that?
Speaker 2:To dress like that outside. Well, I have seen that and to be claiming that as you're a woman At a school presentation, right, yeah, I've seen those. Right, so this daughter I I mean like adapting that as your new lifestyle is a little well yeah, I'm guessing that these parents are not pretending to be disney princesses right yeah, but but for me.
Speaker 1:I can see how strong the connection between that father and this daughter can be, because this dad didn't worry about what are others going to think, what I should do as a father. And I'm not saying that this father even like thought about this. Perhaps he just did, like you know, instinctively, but he talked the language of his daughter, right? Her daughter imagined that his dad is a princess. That was like okay, let's be a prince. That's a true man to me, yeah, and it's amazing it is amazing, it is beautiful.
Speaker 2:and when I say, uh, dads are important, I mean like and, and you know, the patriarchal man is important, not because I want them to be or have this idea of you know, beat your wife, beat your kids, no. But you know not the dads from like the 1930s, 40s that don't kiss you and say I love you, beat you, but the dads that are speaking the child's language and they love their child and they play with their child but those are not patriarchal dads.
Speaker 1:Which ones those dads that they're mentioning?
Speaker 2:there, there could be. You don't think so. There could be like a very strong man, but also at home is very, very like sensitive and is comfortable to be dressed in tutus with his daughter.
Speaker 1:I mean my idea of, like the typical patriarchal, you know, macho guy.
Speaker 2:That's our dads.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, my dad is an artist, so I grew up in a family that, yes, he was like that pretty much. You know USSR education, you know, and that systemic authoritarian dictatorship has implication in micro, you know.
Speaker 1:ussr education, you know, and that's um systemic, uh, authoritarian dictatorship has implication in micro, you know, in a micro level too but, I would see, you know, my uncles, my, you know, um again these things of like, uh, I'm the man of the house, right? Yeah, and I hear this a lot, like in my times we would never talk back to our parents.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. Why was that so great? What are we proud of? Maybe you should have without being punished for it, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think that that's respect, I think that's fear. I think anything out of anything that you fear, like most people, would think that that's respecting your parent. But essentially you're going to grow up and be 30. Are you still going to respect your parents to that level of?
Speaker 1:you know, you know I'm talking about like kids, right, and I'm sure, like this is completely anecdotal I haven't done the research, to be honest. But, um, you see, how kids who you know perhaps women more, it's more clear for to see it in women who grew up in families where the dad was, you know, very kind of, uh, harsh and authoritarian and even abusive, they kind of like, build a similar relationship with their partner. Yeah, right, so is that really good thing? You know? Do, do these parents want their kids to find somebody like that, right? Um, and I know our culture is very special in many ways, but, um, you create a, an idea, like a matrix of what a man is right. You create an idea of what love looks like and it's really hard to change that right.
Speaker 1:If love means, um, love means distance, rejection. Love means, uh, punishment. Love means not speaking my mind. Uh, you know, love means that I have to neglect myself to constantly satisfy that person, then most probably anything outside of that. I'm not going to know what to do with it. You know, this is what is familiar, this is what I'm used to, this is, and there's an entire system that applauds me for that right. So why wouldn't I choose that? Am I happy really in that relationship? Most probably not, but why not? Right? And can I voice my pain? Now, and that's the biggest challenge for men and women too, like, for the first time, you know people in their 50s, 60s getting into therapy saying I can't believe. I'm just starting to talk about this. You know, I've never allowed myself to even have doubts about this. I think that's great progress.
Speaker 1:Now, the piece about the victimization that you were saying, I think you're really, really into something very important, and I wouldn't exclusively talk about men, about that. I would say it's we are creating a narcissistic society, we are encouraging that, and you know it's what do? We hear a lot and there's no judgment for me, like, like on what each person decides to do in their relationship or not. But what I see is a lot of discourses out there of this is what a healthy relationship is. That's why I feel so hesitant to say what is a healthy relationship, what is a healthy man right? Because I feel like I don't have that power, I don't have that knowledge to determine that.
Speaker 1:But we see discourses about a loving relationship or a healthy relationship is a relationship that satisfy your needs, okay, and if it doesn't, then it's toxic. Then you should leave that person, then you should find somebody else, or perhaps you should sick, then you should leave that person, then you should find somebody else, or perhaps you should you know whatever engage in some open relationship so you can have your needs needs, you know your needs met somewhere else. Great If it works for you. Great, I would say. Most of the time, what they don't talk about is that, unless it's an extreme situation, well, first of all, your needs are going to remain unsatisfied, no matter if you are, wherever you are right.
Speaker 2:No matter who you're with yeah, no matter who you're with when you go.
Speaker 1:Because nobody is that missing puzzle piece that you feel like you're going to Exactly that's portrayed out there.
Speaker 2:Right Find the one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what is called like the your soulmate right, um, and then the problem with that is, you're also creating somebody who thinks that whatever they feel and whatever they experience is the only thing that matters. Right say that again so you're creating a society where each individual thinks that whatever they feel, they perceive, is the only thing that matters very I very very, very I.
Speaker 1:That's the narcissistic society that you're I don't think so yeah, no, I agree with you and you know, even talk about narcissism, like why are narcissists depicted as somebody who wants to be successful, manipulative, whatever? Because those are the values that the society appreciates, where what is valued is caring about the other, about being generous, about being honest, about if we are truly creating a society where we are not idealizing these guys in the internet that are just showing their expensive cars and mistreating others. I'm wondering if the idea of success changes. Would a narcissist still pursue that? Right, because what a narcissist does is pursue an image, an image that they think that it's loved and admired by society, also very demonized. Know the narcissist? Because nobody talks about when a narcissist, a narcissistic person, then has these episodes of depression are really bad, of course. Right, because there's a lot of trauma behind that. Yeah, because they don't love themselves. No, they love the image and they try to be the image, right, yeah, so what I see a lot in the men that I to is talking about relationships is that we are living, they are experiencing that thing.
Speaker 1:My partner is asking me for stuff and I'm working really, really hard to give everything she wants or he wants, and I always fall short and I always feel like a failure. Right, and one would say well, what are you doing in that relationship? Right, but this dynamic works for both of them, right? Because as long as the partner can criticize them, this is working. Is it a happy, healthy relationship? No, but it's working. And as long as they can have something to work on to improve their relationship, that's working too. Something to work on to improve their relationship, that's working too. The moment you assume that the happiness of that person is not your job, that you can support, you can be there, but it's not your job to make anybody happy, then things change. But most of the time, if the relationship is not treated, this ends up in rapture. Right, and this is something that I learned from my own analysis.
Speaker 1:My psychoanalyst, you know, said something among the lines of the most difficult thing to do for you and I think it's for everyone, but he was talking to me, um is to accept that, no matter what you do, you cannot keep your parents fully happy. You're always going to be a little bit disappointing, right, and and that was something to grieve for me, right, like that was something to let go, but also, incredibly freeing it. It wasn't because I was powerless, but it was an impossible task that I had in front of me, right? So, okay, I had to study a career to make them happy. I'm studying the career.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's getting too late to get married? Okay, now I have to focus on marriage, right, oh, but we don't like this woman. You'd be like this woman. Okay, now I have to focus on this one. Oh, but your career? Like this woman. You be like this woman. Okay, now I have to focus on this one. Oh, but your career? Okay, now this, right, but somebody else studied a different career and they're making much more money, right, and now you're never home, and so the demands never end. And what our responsibility is? Well, sorry, I need to live my life.
Speaker 2:But how long did it take you to? Or any person right Sometimes?
Speaker 1:they never get to that point. Sometimes you never get to that point, yeah, and you try to satisfy, then your parents are not there anymore. And now you keep doing the same with your partner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's transferred on to your children and so on. Yeah, it's so damaging it really is your children, and so on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so damaging it's it, it really is. And and the fact that that we talk so much about the men's performance, because we rarely talk about the woman's performance. You know, beyond, if you're talking about the traditional kind of like patriarchal discourses cook clean, you know, take care of the kids Right, as if that's what a woman is, you know, um, and when we're talking about men, we are talking about performance, uh, performance at work, sexually, you know, protecting. So if performance, if you're performing the best you can and you still cannot make your partner happy, that can be incredibly emasculating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I was reading, I would say maybe about two years ago there was an article that was done on men in performance, performance, and it was quite interesting. In the article stated that men, because they don't have a space to communicate like a man, cannot go to his friend and say, hey, you know, george, I feel sad. Today I'm not feeling well. I got into a fight with you know, donna, because then George is going to you know, look at you like what's going on here? Man Like going to you know, look at you, like what's going on here? Man Like click, he's going to hang up on you.
Speaker 2:So the safest space for a man to communicate is through sex intimacy. And it was quite interesting because I'm like you know that makes sense to me because there's not enough space. I mean, where do men, where can men go to speak freely like that? I don't feel well, I have anxiety. Today I'm sad, I've been feeling depressed. There's not enough places like that for men to go, whether it's your wife, whether it's your friends, because you have this image that you need to keep, that you need to keep. So the only place that men can be vulnerable let's just use that word, vulnerable to that state is the bedroom, because performance is also a way of communicating, it's a language. So this is why a lot of men were classified as sex addicts.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's interesting. Yeah, sex is very. I think sex and intimacy are very, very symbolic of what's going on elsewhere, right Right, it's a way of expressing yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And the interesting thing is, I rarely see a relationship that is falling apart and the sex is great, and I also rarely see a relationship that is amazing and sex is failing. Now it can happen, right, yeah, but usually there is such level of well, we are literally most of the time naked in front of each other, right, mm-hmm?
Speaker 1:symbolically naked too yeah and what happens when um you get criticized in bed oh wow, yeah right, what happens when? Because, again going to my point, like you know, like I would say there's no sexual relationship. But uh, the whole point is we are not compatible, right, women's sexuality and men's sexuality are very, very different and certainly women from men are kind of more basic, right. But, like, generally speaking, generally speaking, it's really hard to read any book that would give you the tools to satisfy any woman.
Speaker 2:A sense of direction. Yeah, why do you think that there's such pressure on men? I feel like, when you know, speaking clinically, when men are performing well, they're criticized and they're labeled as sex addicts, and when they're not, they're labeled, as you know, absent. There's always this pressure on men in the performance area. Is this unhealthy for men like?
Speaker 1:yes, of course and and I I mean I'm I'm hesitant to say that performance like good performance, whatever that means, you know, in each case is very different yeah, for every relationship it's different yeah and you know I I worked with some couples were coming.
Speaker 1:I was in the psychosomatic unit in in buenos aires, right, so there were some people were dealing with um issues related to intimacy and sex. So we're always thinking about, like these standards out there. You have to last 15 minutes or more for a woman to get to orgasm, right, and all of these things I'm like. Well, I saw people where a woman got to the orgasm in two minutes. For her, those extra 13 minutes, it's just….
Speaker 2:Gnarly and torture, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, Like just like let's put Netflix and watch something. Right, we have done. We have done. We have accomplished our mission. You know, we can say we are a healthy couple because we have sex three times a week. Right, and let's move on with our life.
Speaker 2:Is that the healthy limit you think clinically?
Speaker 1:No, that's bullshit, but like….
Speaker 2:It's different for every couple.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's very different Stages in life, levels of stress that we are experiencing. It's really context right, Like I was working with a family where they were living seven people in a one bedroom apartment.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness yeah.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine any kind of intimacy in that context? Really really hard.
Speaker 2:Very hard, yeah, and I can imagine the stress on the relationship too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the piece about the performance is very important because it's not something that the couple talks about. It's something that is assumed that the men should know.
Speaker 2:Well, dico, I'm sorry to cut you off, but men are very loud about that. I mean like sex, are they. Very, I mean.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what they say about being loud, right? If you're being too loud about something, it's because you don't want to be talking about something else, right?
Speaker 2:so. I would say it's just portrayed very out loud.
Speaker 1:I think that's kind of like a fantasy that I have heard out there, like men gather and talk about sex and porn and all of these things. I have never experienced that with my friends, perhaps. I have like you know very. Maybe you have really professional friends, maybe I'm very lucky with my friends, not even in loud in that sense.
Speaker 2:But how often do you hear you know younger, you know ladies in their 20s, men in their 20s. You know you're talking. I mean the dating scene is horrible right now for anyone that's single. It's. You know you're talking. I mean, the dating scene is horrible right now for anyone that's single. It's really, really bad. And so when you talk to females I mean I've had a few, uh, coaching clients that I've met they're like you know the men, all they want is sex. You go out with them. The second day they're already making moves and I've caught it's not just one case, there's like hundreds I'm talking about. Okay, so the site I think that's that's what I'm saying like it's portrayed so loud that when you're trying to look at other factors of men, the only thing that you can think about is oh, are they going to want this? Is this the only thing that's in their mind?
Speaker 1:yeah well, and that's disheartening because that's what they're putting out there I mean we are falling again into a generalization, but because I have received the same.
Speaker 2:About women.
Speaker 1:I have received the same about women saying, like you know, they are taking it too slow. That too, yeah, and what I'm hearing in both cases is they are both trying to follow certain universal standard that they have in their mind of how it should be, and it's very unfortunate because then you have women who force themselves to have sex in the first date, when even they didn't feel comfortable.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And you also have men who perhaps are also not comfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But they have to be a man, so that's what a man does in their mind, right? And sometimes both of them just want to have sex and that's it, and that's fine, right, that's fine. I mean, if they are, are two adults, consenting adults?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they want to hang out and have sex. They have fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good for them, you know. But I would say that kind of sex and the sexual relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a little bit different, yeah.
Speaker 2:You guys are very different. Yeah, there is like that emotional connection that that's what people should strive for For sure. I mean emotional connection, that that's what people should strive for for sure. I mean I'm a little judgmental when it comes to things like that because it's it's safer and healthier versus going out there and spreading your wings everywhere.
Speaker 1:You know it's not a really healthy your wings, yeah, your wings you know, it's just healthier I. I mean, I would assume that, yeah, it kind of reduces certain risks. But overall, the whole thing about the sexual relationship that I do care about is that it has also turned into some kind of indication of how healthy or not your relationships, based on some absurd standards out there Right, the frequency, how long you last, how many positions, and this and that Right yeah.
Speaker 1:And some relationships now feel guilty because they just don't want to have sex. Right and it's fine.
Speaker 2:Or they don't want to do those things, you know.
Speaker 1:Right and the performance piece for the men. I think usually, and perhaps when we are teenagers, we will talk about these things, but as we grow up, I think that men are more and more reserved. I think that women are more vocal about how they feel in their sexual experience and men are more reserved because most of the time and this is a big damage that I see in like newer generations of social media access to pornography right. So so damaging what about dating sites?
Speaker 2:Don't you think they're damaging?
Speaker 1:I don't like them because just the gist of it, like you are kind of like going through a catalog of something.
Speaker 2:It's horrible. What about the other piece?
Speaker 1:What other piece?
Speaker 2:Well, when did you get married? What year?
Speaker 1:I'm not married. I'm engaged.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're engaged. Sorry, but when you met your fiancé was it on a dating site.
Speaker 1:No, no, okay, it was through a friend.
Speaker 2:Exactly. It was through friends. So imagine the level of work you had to do to pursue her. You had to think about what to say. You had to build the courage to say it. You had to take her out. You had to make conversation. Nowadays everything is done digitally, so men don't have that level of courage to really go up to a girl anymore and ask them on a date Would you like to have coffee with me? Would you like to have dinner with me? Everything is swipe left or swipe right. What is that going to do to a man?
Speaker 2:Since we're talking about men.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying it doesn't happen with women. It's exactly the same for women but for men. I think that the anxiety about the actual because there is excitement and they want to meet in person, of course and I think that this consistent narrative of like men just want to party, it's kind of crap. Like I see the men that I work with and they really want a good relationship, right, Like most of the men that I've met. They want that, they crave for that emotional connection.
Speaker 2:I think so too yeah.
Speaker 1:What I see happening, not only in sexual relationships, but like romantic relationships, but also like in friendships, in-person contact perhaps the pandemic had something to do with it too has become highly anxiety provoking.
Speaker 2:For men going pursuing women.
Speaker 1:For men pursuing women, for sure, but for people in general too. Just like, think about teenagers making friends. The level of isolation that kids have now in their 50s, 60s. You know teenagers right, even young adults. They feel inadequate, they feel like this social anxiety. They are worried about what to say. They are worried. We were lucky enough to not grow up in that context and I would say it's a very la thing too, because I have, like people that I work that are, you know, from new york or from these big cities and the level of conversation is different. You just interact with them. You take the public transportation so you maybe see the same people every day, so you talk. It's much more. Let's call it like natural. It flows differently. Now here in LA it's like oh no, he called me right, why are you calling me? Just text me, okay, unless I'm busy. You know I hate when I'm busy and they call me for sure, but I'm not terrified of a call. Yeah, you don't just ignore because'm not terrified of a call.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't just ignore it because you don't want to talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and it has become a joke. Yeah, but you know like the pizza delivery comes and people are hiding, right, because it's not even funny.
Speaker 2:That's factual, though. Yeah, you don't want to open the door to the Uber driver or the Amazon. I mean, before it was just greeting, now that's not even so, it's it's.
Speaker 1:it's that same concept for dating sites like men don't have that driving force anymore to pursue, and I think that's hurting a lot and and I think the problem with that and I see both sides again, I'm saying both sides because I do work with a lot of men, but I also work with a lot of women, right, and the discourses are interestingly very, very similar. The narrative of their stories, they are very, very similar. I think that one of the most painful things is let's say that okay, if you didn't match, you didn't match, it's fine. You go by your day and you keep scrolling until you match right.
Speaker 1:I think, as problematic as that is, it's kind of like a necessary tool for LA, because that's kind of like the culture that we are living in now. But when they start to talk and you don't have the same level of accountability because you haven't met the person, and then one day you decide that you don't want to respond, Not for a second, you stop to think I'm going to hurt this person's feelings. Right, and this happens equally for men and women. But I have seen we're talking about men. I have seen a lot of men get hurt Like I thought we were connecting. You know we were talking, so like've seen a lot of men get hurt like I thought we were connecting. You know we were talking, so like it was going so well and she just like ghosted me oh yeah that's horrible, you know.
Speaker 1:And and if there's a conversation like hey, you know, I think this is not going anywhere, you know, we should talk to our people. Transparency a level of transparency so you can have some level of closure. It hurts your ego, ego whatever you move on.
Speaker 2:That's that empathy though that's the scary thing.
Speaker 1:Well, how much empathy you can create if you are scrolling you know again I'm going to sound super judgmental with this, but there is a difference. There is a difference when the person that you are talking to has a my clients that I started to work during the pandemic. They see me in person for the first time and most of the time they say, oh, you have like a body below your.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a joke of course, yeah, but that's what they saw, of course.
Speaker 1:And something changes in the relationship from their own. Yeah, it's a joke, of course. Yeah, but that's what they saw, of course. And something changes in the relationship from their own? Yeah, it does. Even if I see them just one time, the level of connection absolutely changes. Oh, yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 2:I agree with you.
Speaker 1:So when I did this men's support group, something that every man was excited about is that it was going to be in person. They crave for that place, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They can be vulnerable with other men, they can witness each other's stories. Older men can give some advice to younger men. You know some can relate to similar situations, similar experiences. What is very different from individual therapy is that you have other people kind of like listening to you, you know, and that has some power in it. You know, as a therapist I cannot say say, well, good job on that, you know you should. That's not my job, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to inflate anybody's ego. I'm not going to give advice. But others can say, wow, like you did this, that's amazing and that can be you. You see them like they lighten up, they, of course they change. So the fact that I can meet with different men from different cultures all together in the same place and we can discuss such intimate things like relationships, sex addictions, whatever they need, that, yeah, absolutely. And none of them feels like less of a man.
Speaker 2:No, that's what I'm saying to you. It doesn't have to be.
Speaker 2:As long as you don't fall into that victim and then take that with you everywhere. You have every right to feel. Just do what you need to do as a man, as a human being. Be the provider for the family, work, be there for your wife, be sad, feel those things, but just don't let that take over you, because I've seen this more than like four cases I can't work because of this, I'm not good enough. It's like no, like you can't fall into that state like work on yourself. You have a family to take care of. Now you know, and your children are dependent on you yes, they are, your is also, so you have a responsibility, just like women, we can have postpartum depression, but we get healed and we move on.
Speaker 1:We struggle. Do they receive help?
Speaker 2:Yeah, receive the help, absolutely Ask for that and I'm very, very grateful, and I'm seeing a lot of men that are asking for help. Definitely, I think I'm very proud of our culture for that. Yeah, we've come a long way and it's not easy.
Speaker 1:And that's why this course is like we were talking about Jordan Peterson. I feel like they are kind of like pulling us back again to that place of as a man. You are a naturally born leader, right? What? What you know? What are you talking about? I'm working at this supermarket 12 hours a day to try to pay my rent. What does that even mean? Or like you are in a relationship and your wife is making more money than you, what does that mean, right?
Speaker 1:And these are the kind of like, the rigid things that I feel like when we are talking about this man who actually asked for help, you're saying, yeah, you don't need to feel bad for it, you don't need to feel weak for it, but that's you, that's me, right, that's some people. When you open social media and I'm naming social media a lot today because I feel like it's damaging, it's very hurtful, hurting people you don't see that, you see? You see, like the opposite. I mean you have the pants, man, like just deal with it, right? You? You see that a lot, you do you do.
Speaker 2:There's definitely pressure to be the best, to be the hustler, the alpha whatever. The alpha. But. But I do understand where you're coming from and I am agreeing with you on a certain extent. Okay, let's just say those things aren't present, and then what?
Speaker 1:What things? The social media and all that.
Speaker 2:Let's say you don't have to be the alpha male, you don't have to hustle, you don't have to be that breadwinner, that patriarchal dad. Let's throw those out for a minute. What else is left for men?
Speaker 1:Everything, like what? Absolutely everything.
Speaker 2:Like what. Like be a caring, loving husband for your wife, you don't think those things can be present in a hustling man well, but they're not talked about.
Speaker 1:They are, I mean, they can absolutely be present, but they are not talked about so your whole thing is just talk about it well bring it up. If you're gonna make priority, let's be like very kind of. I'm gonna be very absurd here, but what we like, that here okay bring it. What defines an alpha man is not how caring and loving is with his wife said. Who said the guys who talk about alpha man?
Speaker 2:alpha man is like you have to have six packs expensive cars I've heard alpha men say that I care more about my family than myself is.
Speaker 1:Is that a good thing?
Speaker 2:I mean, we are talking about care yeah but it's kind of like that self-sacrificing crap.
Speaker 1:I mean, you need to take care of yourself to be able to take care of your family, that's just it. The moment that you lost yourself into some kind of idea of as a man. I have to work 15 hours a day and give them everything that they ask me, otherwise I'm failing. Well, I do think that's sustainable. You know, how long can you do that for?
Speaker 2:not to that level right but let's just say, let's bring up andrew tatum okay I know you can't stand him, let's just talk about it's fine, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, he's a great topic, he's a good conversation and somebody to have a debate about, but so he is very macho and he talks about I don't believe in depression. How many times have you heard him say that? A lot. I think people who are depressed are weak. I don't believe in depression. You know, I've heard him say this in multiple reels, multiple podcasts, and so I personally don't believe in that.
Speaker 2:I think that depression definitely does exist and it is present in a lot of males. And I've also heard him say that he cares about his partner a lot, he cares about his children tremendously, he cares about his brother, his mother, and he works very hard to provide, but he never said anything about oh my God, I'm neglecting myself, so-and-so. All I care about is my abs, but that's portrayed differently now. See, that's him as being a misogynistic alpha male that's pretending to care, whatever, whatever. I think that when we remove those things like be a hustler, be that type of man for your, what else is left for the man? I can think there's love and that care, okay, but what else?
Speaker 1:What else?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean again, it's just love and care.
Speaker 1:No Well, is that not a lot Like how many of us would have dreamed. How many of my clients I can think, how many of Armenians or Latinos would have wished for a loving and caring father?
Speaker 2:I would have loved for a loving, caring father who works and who is driven, and a hustler.
Speaker 1:Why would they stop working?
Speaker 2:But I'm saying like if we take out this strong hustling type of men, that men that we're talking about, that's hurting today's society.
Speaker 1:I don't think our society now, in our system, can afford not hustling, because we would be all like you know.
Speaker 2:but that's what they're talking about that, this jordan peterson and all the other. You know psychologists there. That's what they're motivating like okay, you can be a loving person, be a loving, but that's not enough I think you have such a gracious uh reading of them.
Speaker 1:I I don't hear that a lot from tell me what you hear I hear from them. Thank you for calling me gracious. Yeah, no, you have a very gracious take on reading of them, Because what I hear a lot is fundamentally a very let's go back to what we are made biologically to do and what the Bible says we should do.
Speaker 1:And for some reason, comparing us to some Neanderthals that lived. You know it's completely absurd. Like we have nothing to. You know what are we talking about? Like there's, women need protection. Every woman, every woman wants protection. What if not? Every woman? Every woman wants protection. Yeah, what if Not every?
Speaker 2:woman, and these are studies about this.
Speaker 1:How women choose their object of love changes depending Level of education, age, financial situation, if they have been married or not before, if they have kids or not, before right, cultural aspect. So I actually remember this reading because it was a course about evolutionary psychology. So it was all about how we have been biologically programmed to choose our partner, and every single study was debunking that. There is not a piece of biological, you know, ancestral kind of thing that a woman sees a man and is like, oh, he's going to protect me from the wild animals that are going to attack me, so I'm going to choose him or I'm going to keep the fire alive when he's going hunting.
Speaker 1:We are cultural beings, we are symbolic beings. The biological peace exists always, but over that we have built so much more that talk about those things like they are determining what a man or what a woman should do. It just doesn't make sense. That's why people like what's his name? Matt Walsh, or at least like these guys, right, they bring up questions that in the face value they seem so like obvious, like common sense Like what is a woman?
Speaker 2:What is a woman right?
Speaker 1:The problem is not the question. The question is great. The problem is that he never read anything about the thousands of philosophical and psychological explanations of the differences between the sexes. Beyond his ignorance, the problem is also that he's not trying to just ask a genuine question. He's trying to push a certain way of seeing things which has worked for us.
Speaker 2:you don't think how things which has worked for us. You don't think how well it has worked very well, I mean look at the society now okay, so this is the society that we have yeah, right now it's a shit show okay, when wasn't a shit show? Uh, okay, so let's go back. So you know how we were talking about like our dads and you said you know, back then dads coped with like too much work and drinking. Yeah, these things are still present, but to this level.
Speaker 1:You have certain lightness to talk about how abusive and alcoholic and our, our grand. How old were your grandparents when they passed?
Speaker 2:How old were they? Yeah, 80.
Speaker 1:How old?
Speaker 2:were your grandparents when they passed. How old were they? Yeah, 80. One of them was 84, 70-something recently, 91, and then 80-something yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, they're late 80s and 90s. That's a pretty long life for what the average of Armenians of that generation lives.
Speaker 2:You think so? Yeah, I think they live pretty much longer than what we have my grandparents died in their my well, one younger, but that was 69 from the like tragic heart attack no, no, he would like he was a chain smoker, like of course.
Speaker 1:You know what do you expect?
Speaker 2:right, but um because they had a life like difficult life. Is that what you mean by what you expect?
Speaker 1:Why do you think that these things that we are talking about, that are so against traditional you know normatives?
Speaker 2:Because people want the freedom to live how they want. Okay they want. Okay, because those ideologies, that pressure that that mentality doesn't really work for them anymore, when in reality things weren't as bad before as they are now. Yes, we had communism, yes, we had a little bit more control, but and we we had like normalized child abuse but we do now as well. We have more suicidality than we did because people are confused about where they are, who they are.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's too much freedom. I think I agree with that. It's not about freedom, but it's about questions.
Speaker 2:It's about rules, regulations, values and morals. You don't think?
Speaker 1:What rules and regulations?
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:That's where it's all different right Depending on culture, religious belief, ideology. Those are different rules and regulations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for every culture it's different. But, okay, let's put all cultures together. Now I feel like the mental health rate is greater than before.
Speaker 1:The issues Well, because the research is also greater. Well, because the research is also greater. Until a couple of decades ago, there was absolutely no research in the meaningful way of what we are dealing with.
Speaker 2:I mean okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, I can say I'll agree with you.
Speaker 2:Can't argue with logic, but yeah, I mean Research wasn't there, but we heard.
Speaker 1:Your parent. Tell your dad why don't you go to a psychologist? I'm not crazy. I will tell my mom I'm a psychologist.
Speaker 2:I told my dad that. You know what his answer was I've. I've learned to cope with it. Okay, I I've learned to manage myself and and heal and cope with it. I don't know. I feel. Yes, there are some men in in older generation smoking, heart attacks, cancers but my whole thing is what those therapists and psychologists are preaching is something was working before. Sure, that is not now, and I think when people are given, when, when a 17-year-old is given so much freedom, he's not going to know what to do with that freedom. Children or just people in general, when they're given too much freedom, it's like giving an 18-year-old $2 million People who have won the lottery. What's the history behind that? I mean, look at all the documentaries. They've all failed, because you cannot give a mediocre class from Arkansas $360 million. He's not going to know how to manage that money.
Speaker 1:So the problem is not only freedom but with that freedom certain abandonment of the person. Right, you can always give freedoms to somebody but not take away your guidance from him right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like your support, because I do agree. I'm not saying like everything is great now, by no means. But you asked me about men's mental health and what I see is the consequences of very problematic parenting styles. Right, so we are not just a generation of crazy people who one day decided to be free. We are people who just felt like the institutions are not relatable anymore. Does that make sense? Like it's not like we have lost our faith. It's that it's really hard to relate to church anymore. Like it's not that we don't believe in good relationships, but perhaps the idea that if you get married and you decide to get divorced, that's a big sin and you're going to go to hell is not relatable anymore.
Speaker 2:Why do you think that is?
Speaker 1:Because we have capacity to think and evolve as a society.
Speaker 2:That's the issue.
Speaker 1:Why is it the issue?
Speaker 2:Well before it were. As I said, you know things of that sort. Those are called values, morals, regulations, right Like following….
Speaker 1:Sorry, I want to interrupt you for a second. No, no, no, please, would you say it worked.
Speaker 2:How large are divorce rates right now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like 50% or something. How large are divorce rates right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like 50% or something it's pretty big compared to what it was maybe 20, 30 years ago.
Speaker 1:And again because before if you got divorced. I mean, I know women in Armenia were beaten up because they chose to divorce.
Speaker 2:But Tigran women are beaten up, even now, that's besides the point True, and it's being reported more.
Speaker 1:Yes, there are laws against it.
Speaker 2:But the belief system was stronger. Having the belief, you can be Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No, you're getting to a great point and this is very, very important to me, and this is why I have, like, fundamental differences in what I think mental health should be about. Sure, and what it is becoming right and what it is Is the fact that answers are so good to have. We can have answers from the church, from school, from the freaking DSM right.
Speaker 1:We can have answers from our doctor, we can have a diagnosis right. So what answers do? Is they stop any possibility of questioning anything? How many times you may have heard it was such a relief to get the diagnosis of ADHD. It was such a relief of getting that right. Now I know that you know I can look for, I can ask for help. Or now I know what's going on when you think about how we have built our value system or these institutions. These are not institutions that promote questioning.
Speaker 2:What institution are we talking about?
Speaker 1:Well, we're talking about churches, authoritarian governments, right, Like well, in the communist government, there's no religion necessarily, but there is some kind of like very rigid….
Speaker 2:Something to follow right.
Speaker 1:I mean not only to follow but to not question, because I can follow my dad right, but I also can have my differences and we can debate about it, right, and I can choose to take some things and leave some things, and that's a good guidance, that's a good kind of let's call it leadership, whatever right, but if I have no opportunity to ask myself questions, it's such a peaceful thing, it's such a peaceful mindset because I don't have to think what's right, what's wrong. It's in this book. I don't have to think what do I want in my life, because somebody has determined already what a woman should want or what a man should want. I don't have.
Speaker 1:So when we talk about diagnosis tool, I'm sorry, it's not like you know, i'm'm distracted. It's my adhd, right, okay, why, why? Why is so almost pleasant that you have that kind of like the joker card, right? Like, why is, why do you? Why is it so pleasant to have answers for everything? It saves us from the anxiety of not knowing. I embrace, I like the fact that and I think, in fact, that any therapeutic process should encompass this moment where we disrupt, we deconstruct any kind of truth that a person could have about themselves, which creates a lot of. That's the place where the client is saying, well, I was doing better. Now this is like making me feel worse is the moment where you're starting to unveil these layers of narrative stories, labels.
Speaker 2:Let's get down to the point. Is God real? Is that what you're getting at Like Christianity? Is God real?
Speaker 1:Is that what you're getting at? Like Christianity, it's real in the sense of it has real implications in society.
Speaker 2:So you're not a believer.
Speaker 1:Again, I'm a believer in the fact that, as long as you believe, that has real implications. And it's such a huge kind of like concept that even if I say, well, I don't believe in God, that's not going to save me from well, now I'm opposing to God, right, Like it's such a I do believe in certain kind of like idea.
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful conversation, yeah. People don't have this type of conversation anymore.
Speaker 1:No, no, and respectfully, obviously, you know, I don't think people don't have this type of conversations anymore.
Speaker 2:No, and we can, and respectfully, obviously, you know it's important.
Speaker 1:I believe in god in the sense, not in a christian sense necessarily, or not in the sense of like this guy with the beard up there looking you know looks like zeus yeah, let's see who made a sin today so I can like punish him, right like that. That sounds like more like a nosy neighbor than a God, but I do feel like there is some kind of like call it like spirituality energy, something that will remain forever, you know, untouchable.
Speaker 2:But what happens if you didn't have that? How would you be.
Speaker 1:I don't think there's anybody who doesn't have that. I think we all have.
Speaker 2:A belief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even the people who say Atheists, particularly they don't have a belief.
Speaker 2:They do have. You think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, atheists are more believers in God than believers themselves. You think so Because their whole identity is like well, I don't believe in God. Agnostics, I mean call it whatever you want. You can reduce a human being to just electrical connections and neural. Electrical connections and neural, but whenever you are, whenever you are truly talking to a person, whenever you are truly connected with your feelings, whenever you are truly able to a pet, a dog, a baby, nature, whatever you want, you see that there is something that goes beyond that. If it's real or not, or if there is a scientific explanation or not, doesn't even matter, like there is something else and, um, I think it's those who are very, very kind of like, obsessively in denial of anything spiritual, or those who are the non-believers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's more than non-believer. It's kind of like I believe in not believing, right, like it's kind of like fully that that's my identity. I feel like it's more about them appeasing their mind of having questions that are going to remain unanswered. In the same way that I feel like Christians and I'm talking about Christians because we are Armenians of having questions that are going to remain unanswered. In the same way that I feel like Christians and I'm talking about Christians because we are Armenians are obsessed with the idea of having a God that is going to give me answers for everything. Right, same other religions. But I think that believing in God should also mean that you believe in that God gives you capacity to think, rethink and question.
Speaker 2:That's what you just said right there. Yeah, god gave you the capacity, so that's what I'm talking about. It goes back to that same thing that you were saying earlier, that why should we have somebody tell us how to live, how to be. My thing to that is my argument to what you're saying is that people, I don't care what age you are when you are born, you're born with a blank script, white piece of paper that has nothing on that. And when you don't have nothing on that paper, you, how are you going to live?
Speaker 2:in a sense of control.
Speaker 1:You cannot manage yourself of course, baby psyches hasn't developed baby psyches, but humans too so.
Speaker 2:So we need a sense of direction. I'm not saying fully control a person to that level of like communism. There's no way, you know. But, people need that direction. As you just said beautifully, god gave you a mind, so you already know that there's a hierarchy up there. That's giving you a sense of direction.
Speaker 1:I'm saying if you believe in God, if you believe in God, you should also believe that God gave you the capacity to question things.
Speaker 2:But he's the one who gave you that capacity. If you believe in God, you should also believe that God gives you the capacity to question things, but he's the one who gave you that capacity.
Speaker 1:If you believe in him, right, if you believe in him. Now I don't have answers. I mean, if I had the answers I would be the most famous person in the world, but I don't have the answers for it. I know that for me I just don't feel it Like I can connect to that idea of of God. But I do believe in the idea of like some common energy and life.
Speaker 2:You know like something, something beyond material. I do.
Speaker 1:And the what you were saying, the blank slave, when, when you were having your baby right, the first baby, let's say, or the second doesn't matter, you chose a name before they got here.
Speaker 2:Yes, we did.
Speaker 1:You imagine all these things that this baby is going to do, the languages that they're going to speak, how they're going to treat their brother or their sister. So they are not born into a blank slave, they are born into Into a sense of direction already. Yes, Without that it would be. I don't know what would happen, right, but we are all born into the symbolic, the language, the other, as Lacan would say. Right, we are born into that.
Speaker 2:We are born into what was already given to us.
Speaker 1:Now, with that we can do and undo certain things, but the reality is that there are kind of like two extremes here, which I feel like. That's why I'm so grateful about psychoanalysis, because you have the more like Cartesian thinkers, like we are, you know, I think. Therefore I am right.
Speaker 1:So I innately have a capacity of thinking, so I have a self, right. And then you have the most postmodern thinkers that are well, we are a byproduct of a society that we also are producing, right? Well, and then you know, how did that happen? In a way, right, how did we produce a society? How did we create a society? And if that's true, then why are individuals so different? So there is something about the uniqueness of each human being that is different.
Speaker 2:We think differently, of course, we process things differently Different biology, different perspectives is a piece of the subject that can never be fully possessed or dominated by whatever narrative right.
Speaker 1:There is something and you are saying, like, why are all these changes happening? Because, no matter how strong the institutions, there is a piece of the human being that goes beyond that right, that cannot be dominated and that builds a subject, a human being like a? Um, you know, it's not a byproduct of the society, but it's also not a biologically born, you know thing? Um, it's born a byproduct of the society, but it's also not a biologically born, you know thing.
Speaker 1:It's born through a language, you know, born into a language, into a symbolic, you know universe, and it does something with it, right, and that's kind of like, basically the expression of like I am, what I do with what happens to me or what is given to me. There is, there's that piece of singular thing that we have to kind of rescue constantly about the human.
Speaker 2:Why do you think that it's rescuing?
Speaker 1:because otherwise um we end up alienating into these absolute discourses right which is happening now uh, which which has always happened, like if you, if you think of more, so now I would agree in which way?
Speaker 2:I mean look at everything that's happening around you what is that? It's so terrifying uh, it's not terrifying, it's disturbing what, what exactly? The changes in human beings in general. I mean, you know belief systems, let's just go. There is decreasing substantially, divorce decreasing substantially. The behaviors in humans are changing and again I'll validate we're not generalizing but we are talking about society and human beings that there's more harm now than good.
Speaker 1:Well, we're just talking about men finally opening up to seek for help.
Speaker 1:That's a good thing yeah, we're talking about not condone, not condoning, um, child abuse. That's a good thing. You know we are talking about, uh, giving certain freedoms for people to think. You know, I know that you know my kids someday may choose to be religious or to not be religious, and that respect of whatever they're going to choose and they can give my opinion, of course, and I have influence on them, but that's a progress, that's respecting the capacity of each human being to think. It's very interesting because when I had a call from a very concerned mother because her daughter was identifying as a furry and she was like you know, a what A furry? Like an animal, animal, like a cat or something, right, um?
Speaker 1:my goodness yeah, that's uh, you know it's beyond my expertise, I don't. I don't understand much of it, but the the interesting piece about this was this kid really desperately needed to belong somewhere and she's she had expressed that right. And the mother said well, you know who wants to belong? Well, everybody wants to belong. The problem was that her solution was I'm going to impose my values and my belief and my identity on her, so she stops with all this crap. That doesn't make sense to me. So she took her to Armenian dances, to the church, religiously. Like reading this, one could say that's a good thing. It's a good thing if the kid is on board. You can push them a little bit, of course, you know, because you know as a parent you have to do a little bit of that of if you know what's good for them, you encourage them, you know.
Speaker 2:But If it's done tastefully, the kid wouldn't have to identify as a furry. But if the child is pushed and bullied into like I see it so many times like Christianity, religion is pushed on children in a very untasteful way. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the obsession with religion because I don't believe in obsessions. I don't like them, I think they're kind of cringey. But I am talking about having a proper, tasteful belief system and maybe, yes, taking your daughter to a dance tastefully, not forcefully.
Speaker 2:So, there's a way to parent, but we shouldn't not condition the child or have you know rules, regulations, morals, values implemented in a family, because that's going to hurt the child.
Speaker 1:If it's done right, like connecting, yeah all of those things, I would argue that there is no way of not doing that, like you want it or not yeah, you are kind of like giving them certain message I think you have to.
Speaker 2:Well, is there a way of not needed?
Speaker 1:like, if I don't give any message, am I not still giving them a message?
Speaker 2:do you know how many people are out there living like that and parenting like that? The lazy affairs.
Speaker 1:Okay, but to my point, that also means something when I'm not giving them a set of rules and values and norms to follow. Yeah Right, as you were saying.
Speaker 2:Traditional ways. Yeah, I love the traditional ways yeah, no, and that's fine.
Speaker 1:See, that's kind of like the the part that I don't have any problem with it. Um, still, there are some people who are not doing it the traditional way, but they still have amazing values and they care and it's like very healthy, um kind of like relationships and families. Yeah, but then there is what I guess you are talking about, which is the absolute. I'm gonna well, the child knows what the child knows, you know, like, and so I am hands off, like, let's do yeah, that freedom.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm talking about it's horrible because it's a fake freedom it's not real and it's destroying today's society with.
Speaker 2:That's why we have so many kids identifying it why it's in my reading.
Speaker 1:Why is that so problematic?
Speaker 2:what is the too much freedom?
Speaker 1:yes, because the parent is like I'm not going to guide them, I'm not going to tell them what to do. If they like something, they can do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think that's.
Speaker 1:Okay, the problem with that is that you are not saying anything, but perhaps you express certain disappointment with your face. Even so, you're not only taking them, taking away the possibility for them to kind of like find out what do I do to make you love me. You know, like kids want to you know, how happy they get when they do something.
Speaker 1:Oh, you did such a great job, that's everything to them, right? That's amazing. You are taking that away from them. So now they are hunting for something that they can do to impress you. But there is no rule, there is no guidance, right?
Speaker 2:What do you think will happen if a child doesn't have a parent to impress?
Speaker 1:And that's what I'm talking about. If the parent disappears.
Speaker 2:Isn't that dangerous also? It's dangerous also.
Speaker 1:I think they live in a that creates. In my understanding, that's one of the worst anxieties that any child could have.
Speaker 2:To impress their parent.
Speaker 1:To not know how.
Speaker 2:Yes to not know how. Yeah, Because I think to not know how comes from a rejective parent.
Speaker 1:No matter what I do is not good enough.
Speaker 2:Or to a parent that accepts everything in the same level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I got a C. Good, I got an A. Yes, you're in third place.
Speaker 2:I killed the dog, yes, so this goes back to exactly what I'm saying and it can come off wrong, but what I'm saying is our traditional ways have worked, but you can turn that around.
Speaker 2:You don't have to be that beating up dad and beating up mom dad. You can turn a twist to it, a little bit of modern, by maybe telling your kids that you love them, that you appreciate them and that you're proud of them. But something was working in the past and we can't say that traditional dads were all about beating you up and drinking.
Speaker 1:No, of course not, because those values were so beautiful.
Speaker 2:Christianity, the belief system, morals and values are who we are today because of that. Look at your successful therapist. In how many different countries.
Speaker 1:No, now, I'm just here.
Speaker 2:Now you're just here, but in Argentina too. You've worked, you've studied. That's beautiful. You're very intelligent, you've read, you're very intellectual, you're very well seasoned.
Speaker 1:I was very, very lucky, also because there was a system that allowed me to study for like. First of all.
Speaker 2:I grew up in a household where everything was about reading and explaining.
Speaker 1:So I started to read even before going to school, right, and I loved it and I still love reading. But in Argentina, I think, was the biggest shift and I'm so grateful for that country for everything, because they gave me the best education. I didn't have to pay for it.
Speaker 2:Yes, I was just going to say free.
Speaker 1:And it gave me just the opportunity to learn so much. Now, one of the things that it was so different was the culture of shock, right Like the moving from Armenia to Argentina.
Speaker 2:And then here.
Speaker 1:And then here. But here in Argentina it's like more similar Armenia to Argentina, it's like huge difference. And I remember how difficult was it for my parents to understand that I can have certain type of relationships with people. I can have friends who are not necessarily like same race, same language or sexual preference or you know all of these things. It took them a while to accept, and understandably so right, like they grew up in the USSR and understandably so right, like they grew up in the USSR.
Speaker 1:But the discourse was between Armenians and between, like the people that I, at least I met, was you should never date an Argentinian because they don't believe in the family. You should never let your kid, you know, not do certain things because that you should only go to an Armenian school. The fear of the difference, the fear of what is different, as always a bad thing, has chased us for a long time. We think that what we know is the good way is the safe way, because, yes, it's scary when it's something new, it's different it's scary.
Speaker 1:And I see it like Armenian couples who are struggling but they think that they are together because only Armenians believe in family values, right, so Americans don't, right, and we have made believe that that if it's not a Christian partner then it won't ever work, because if he's not Christian then he doesn't also believe in family values and raising our kids, you know. So there's always that piece of when we see something that is truly other to us, either we want to consume it into or we want to eliminate it. And the beauty of everything is when we can appreciate the otherness of the other same with two people right, when we can appreciate that women and men are so different and still build something from that difference you know what I think sometimes I feel like that's that fear that you're talking about, that parents uh you know portray on their kids like marry christian, marry armenian.
Speaker 2:I think subconsciously it has a lot to do with the intergenerational trauma, that it's not necessarily racism, because some people can classify that as armenians being racist, but it's more about we are fairly racist every call, every I don't care what you say, I don't care if you're black, I don't care if you're brown, if you're white. Everybody has racism in them, that's just.
Speaker 1:You might not have yeah, anybody admit it, but it's, it's a fact, unconsciously, unconsciously for sure.
Speaker 2:But, um, I think armenians have a subconscious fear of losing their culture and there is this fear behind that. So it comes off as don't marry this black person, don't marry this you know hispanic person. But behind that voice is man.
Speaker 1:Like you know, I don't, I don't want to I, I hear you and I think that you know the genocide obviously had a lot to do with it, right?
Speaker 2:if anything, I think it has everything to do with that, and the implications like immigration and all of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now to your point, and I I'm totally, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1:When we talk about respecting our culture and you know there is a lot of narrative about, like, cultural competence, then that was like a little bit too problematic and they change it to cultural sensitivity or cultural awareness.
Speaker 1:You know, in our field, right, like in mental health, usually we talk about diversity and all of these things, which is great, which is great, but there is like a lot of things that are lacking still in those conversations and there is some kind of like problem there where, just because I respect and I'm aware of our cultural values and differences, it shouldn't be a reason to not criticize it and try to improve it. And that's kind of like what I think I guess we are a little bit talking about, where we can take something that had good and bad in it, right, and try to learn from what we are seeing now, because it's not like this generation is a generation of stupid people who don't know anything of anything. We can learn from our kids, we can learn from teenagers, we can learn from younger generations implementing change and see if we can, because it's not.
Speaker 1:It shouldn't be even like. How can I put this? What is the option you can? I mean imposing? This has failed.
Speaker 2:Imposing Mary O'Kine, kind of Imposing the old ways right, imposing the old ways has failed.
Speaker 1:You think so. That ship, you can see it, hasn't it? It has failed. Churches are struggling to get people in, you know, because if it's not some specific day, most of the people prefer to, like, sit in their BMW and, you know, drive like crazy in England not to go to the church. Right, but the old-fashioned ways have failed.
Speaker 2:They're failing because our generation is accepting those new ways you and I are failing.
Speaker 1:But I'm happy about that, I'm not. I'm happy about that and I'm telling you.
Speaker 2:It's two different things, for sure.
Speaker 1:I grew up in Argentina and you grew up you know so it's. I understand that and I respect that. What I'm saying that I'm happy about is that this brings an opportunity for change and improvement.
Speaker 2:Change and improvement are different and I agree with you that maybe change and improvement needs to be implicated, but this is not change. This is completely something different. Not going to church because blaming the church for failing no, I'm failing because my parents went to church Sundays. I'm not going to church because my life is different, maybe my belief system is different. It's not the church failing I'm failing, so therefore my kids will be failing and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:Now, when you go to church, but I do go to church every sunday, just right, right, right and so you go to church every Sunday, just FYI, right, right, right, and so you go to church. Yes, I'm keeping that tradition, and because you have your faith in God. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And that's amazing, and for me there is a distinction between that and church per se yeah, you don't have to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. I agree to a certain degree, but when you go to.
Speaker 1:We're talking about the institution. Yeah, when I go there and the pastor you know whoever that is right starts to preach and whatever he's saying and I'm not judging if it's good or bad, I'm just saying whatever he's saying is so disconnected from the problems and the worries and the existential things that we are experiencing now.
Speaker 1:Then you start to fail as an institution and the worries and the existential things that we are experiencing now, then you start to fail as an institution, because the reason why we want to go to church is because we believe that we're going to find some kind of guidance, answers, comfort right, yeah.
Speaker 1:When that is lacking, it's not we that are failing, because we don't have the fault for our problems to be modern. We we live in a modern society and our problems are different from right century ago yeah so, but this is why you don't, if you're not connecting with a priest preaching.
Speaker 2:That's why you turn to the bible, that's why you turn to the words of god.
Speaker 1:And again, you know what I'm saying but again, for example, and we are only talking about the Christian faith, but the institution fails. So if I don't believe in this building with this priest, even if I believe in God, I feel like he's not even preaching the word of God, he's just preaching something else. Right? I have lost faith in this institution.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to lose my faith in institution because of he's preaching incorrectly.
Speaker 1:You may, okay, but then what are you believing in God? Okay, God, but we're talking about the church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So, yeah, you can have priests like that are preaching something that's not even in today's world. Like what is this priest talking about? Right At the end, they give a beautiful speech, they're talking about life and change and being good and you're just not really connecting. That doesn't mean that I'm going to lose the faith of my Christianity. 100% Right, the institution. I understand and I've had experiences with institutions that go a little bit beyond what my comfort is and I'm like no, but that will never make me change my faith and how I view God and Christianity.
Speaker 1:So this is your particular experience. We are talking about new generations that are a little bit different. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Today's generation just wants to see it. Show me god, I'll believe in god maybe yeah, but they're so great at believing witches, well you know, and witchcraft and all these other perhaps, but but I mean overall.
Speaker 1:You know, um, I see, for example, like in judaism, right, um, not, I again I'm not. I'm not gonna like generalize because it's so, for example, like in Judaism, right, again, I'm not going to generalize because it's so big, right, but I have seen rabbis talk in a way that you are like, oh wow, like this person is really down to earth, in touch with these people's needs, and you see then younger kids completely relating to this rabbi, right, and there are some priests who also do that, who are capable of doing that. But there is an overall thing, which is, I think, what you are talking about, which is institutions like religious institutions, schools, the police, the government have lost credibility.
Speaker 2:Some yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that can create a sense of chaos, because those are kind of like organizers of the society.
Speaker 2:right, they've lost credibility because of how we look, go back to saying the same thing, right, like our grandparents, church believers, you know, fond of church, like you have to go to church, but we are not continuing that generation, right, we're not continuing that because our belief system is different, our life is different, so we lose touch with that lifestyle. It's the same thing with cops Like their generation might be fond of cops, like police officers are great, you know, like priests are great, but we see them differently. So I think that we, our generation, we have such a big responsibility of how we're portraying society.
Speaker 1:But aren't they, don't they have?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have responsibility in it too.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, that's kind of like for me, you have to give institutions because they have more power than me, or you, right, and what are they doing with that power?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, certain institutions are abusing that power. But is that a reason to be where we are today.
Speaker 1:But I'm wondering about this, and this is a genuine question when do you think we are today?
Speaker 2:I don't think as a society, I think we're failing as a society. Society for sure. I don't care if you say we're talking about men's health or not. Everybody is struggling with something why is that?
Speaker 2:because we don't have foundation. I think that people have been left to live freely and people don't know what to do with that, and freedom can be so many things, but the foundation, the belief, the morals, the values it's decreasing from so many families and that's not okay, because this is why I go back to what was working in the past. But then certain people say, and like this conversation well, the past, you know, our dads were beating us up. There were alcoholics. We have more dads right now that are committing suicide us up, there were alcoholics. We have more dads right now that are committing suicide, cheating and alcoholics, drug addicts, than versus before. You can't say, before they didn't talk about it, okay, now they're talking about it, now they're very loud about it. It's not very, it's not healthier.
Speaker 2:I think that we need to be more awake, we need to be more conscious and we need to see what's going on in the world, not just be blind by. You know, men have feelings, women have feelings and we should. Yes, those things are important. Of course those things are important. But, okay, what are we doing about it? We're not doing anything about it. We're being victims about it. We're sharing, we're not moving forward, we're not healing from it and we're continuing to screw our kids up.
Speaker 1:For me, there's a big, key kind of like point in this conversation, which is if we believe that we have achieved, as a society, the ultimate truth and the ultimate progress and all of these kind of like you know things that you know we are not racist anymore, we are inclusive and we are all kind of like we have improved all these things that were failing in the past. The problem is going to be that Failing in the past. I mean talking about, I think that's the issue today.
Speaker 2:in the past I mean talking about. I think that's the issue today.
Speaker 1:We are in a country that we it wouldn't be very wise to say that we haven't been racist Not we but they haven't been racist.
Speaker 2:Yes, that for sure until today. But the inclusivity?
Speaker 1:It hasn't been inclusive. I think Include who? Well we are talking about mental health and we know that until the 73, gay people were deemed like mentally ill, Although even like Freud in 1938 had that letter saying like you know, being homosexual is not a mental health disorder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so whatever it was the case, there was like, and my point is if we think that whatever we had in the past or whatever we have now should be the only truth, should be the only thing existing, because the other is bad or this is, we are kind of like doom, because ten years from now, all the people that think that we are super progressive and, you know, super liberal, whatever if my child or you know hears me talk today, god knows how many politically incorrect things have- I said right.
Speaker 1:God knows, because that is changing always. I don't think that's a bad thing. Think is that when it serves certain people who have been suffered because whatever the narrative has been in, you know, um has really damaged them, like you know, gay people not being able to get married, right, like, or, uh, we're talking about men's and men's mental health issues, right, whenever, whenever these are like true needs, right of people who haven't found a place to exist in the society, I think that's progress, I think that's inclusivity. Whenever I feel like it has become this almost like, uh, we don't even know what is that we are talking about and we don't. There is no consultation with experts. You know, I'm not claiming myself as an expert, but, like, if you are going to set a law, or you're going to change something in the educational system, or you're going to yeah, you're going to create this discourse based on the fact that you want to do good for society, there should be some experts backing you up.
Speaker 1:If not, then when we get engaged in these two extreme political ideologies not that they are extreme, because none of them is extreme, but they are extremely polarized and it's completely pointless Like you're either alienated to this ideology or alienated to this ideology. Meanwhile, the people who you should be advocating for keep being in between and suffering right Like. For me, that's kind of like the big problem. I don't think that we should just destroy institutions because they're old and patriarchal or whatever. I think we can revise them. I can.
Speaker 1:Revise them to what we can revise them and see if they need to adapt to the current needs of the society. I don't think that we should abolish schools, but we certainly have revised what's the role of a teacher in the classroom, right, and now it's good in some aspects, it's bad in some other aspects, but I was beaten in school, right, like that's not cool. Why was that something accepted as a norm back then? Right, well, we changed that. That's a good thing, that's a good change. Well, right, well, we changed that. That's a good thing, that's a good change.
Speaker 2:Well, I'd have to disagree with that. Do you think it's changed? So you were physically beaten, right? Yeah, but now I think that let's just not go far. Right, let's just talk about since you're going to be a future dad and I'm a mom right, let's not go too far. Let's talk about what's happening in today's society with all this inclusivity that we were talking about, right? So everybody wants to be included. Doesn't matter if you, you know, identify as a furry. Doesn't matter if you are a man, identify as a woman. You need to be inclusive. We all have to be inclusive, because those men that identify women, they deserve to go into the women's bathrooms, right? So that's, that's inclusivity, right? Like we have to love and accept everybody and include them.
Speaker 2:So okay, fine, let's say we teachers are not beating us up anymore, but they are accepting the delusions and the confusions of children who identify as furry. Isn't that that a beating?
Speaker 1:What a topic? So what? I think it's perhaps tied to what I was saying before.
Speaker 2:If you're comfortable talking about this of course. Yeah, no, sure, sure, but I know that you're licensed and I don't want you to feel safe and comfortable.
Speaker 1:No, no that's fine, and for me again, here is the part where the opinion of the experts should matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I feel like the ideological use of these very important things are kind of problematic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because those institutions sorry to cut you off, those institutions that you're talking about, are not very supportive, are being crucified for their….
Speaker 1:But you know, supportive of… this is the thing. The problem is not inclusion or not, because if we are talking about not including these people let's say transgender people right yeah, what do you do? You segregate them.
Speaker 2:No, you call them out and you heal them the way that they should be healed. It's a delusion. Okay, dig down, let's talk about this.
Speaker 1:How, how, how I want to, this is this is, this is my problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:When we talk about transgender people, there is so many different factors that can create the need for a person to change their gender identity. Now, I think the absurdity that perhaps we are getting into is, in one hand, when people say it's all biological. If your body says something, you are that. When it's not true, because it's not only about having a penis or not there is like hormone level, chromosomes and there is like a part of the brain. There is a lot of research about how you know some men.
Speaker 2:You know I'm not going to get into neuroscience because I don't know much, but so what you're saying is, if a man is born with a penis, he's not supposed to identify himself as a man. He can be different things.
Speaker 1:I'm saying that having a penis is not sufficient for you to identify as a man, because there are so many other things, even just biologically.
Speaker 2:Oh, so there's other factors.
Speaker 1:Right, and we are not including social parts. We are just saying, biologically, male genitalia is not enough to you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do you think is enough?
Speaker 1:So my point here is in one hand, we are saying that if you are born with a penis, then you are a man. No discussion about it, when across culture, historically, transgenderism existed, and always. And now is it gender dysphoria. Is it something that you can heal or is it something that it's a problem? Well, I know transgender people who are healthy people and they don't need really to heal anything, right?
Speaker 2:There are some very. I've met some very conservative transgender individuals.
Speaker 1:There are people they can have different mentalities, but they don't impose now my, my, my point, on the other hand, is like, then, that's what?
Speaker 1:that's one extreme, and our extreme is to say that the body has nothing to do. Right, and the whole discussion about gender is a spectrum. Right, there is like intersex, there is transgenderism and even like, biologically speaking too, like there are people who are hemophilic. Right, they have two organs, and it's not as simple, it's not as black or white and it's certainly not a binary. Now, I guess the problem that we are facing now is that you are taking something and this is kind of like I know that this is kind of the big reaction of the the you know, especially armenians, and then you know christians and, uh, conservatives is like and this is not a criticism, but like this is.
Speaker 1:What I observe is that, first of all, there is extreme exaggeration of the number of kids who are going through like gender transition, which is a very, very tiny little number.
Speaker 2:Really yeah. If that's so, then why are every school trying to implement the change?
Speaker 1:They're not trying to implement anything. You think, so I mean how are they going to try? Imagine this how would somebody convince you that you are a man?
Speaker 2:They're not trying to convince me. They're trying to convince my child.
Speaker 1:How would they do it?
Speaker 2:By implementing sexual classes and inappropriate books, which has been proven.
Speaker 1:Then that's a different conversation that you're saying, because my problem with going against they're trying to attack the no, this is Not. The what.
Speaker 2:Well, the child who's not formed yet.
Speaker 1:So you know, if that's, if that's what's really happening well, it is.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying. That's what's when you say that the the children is. It's exaggerated the amount. Every school I know in glendale, la, burbank, the districts are all trying to implement.
Speaker 1:They started to kind of like know, get into a panic mode because now there are millions of people receiving like hormonal treatment.
Speaker 2:They are.
Speaker 1:They're not. There's absolutely no data about kids especially.
Speaker 2:There are so many clinics that are doing this. There are Hormonal blockers.
Speaker 1:Do me a favor and like guess how many kids are doing the treatment with hormonal blockers in the us today I don't know the statistics, but I know that I've seen so many, so many documentaries on men that were given episode yeah, I saw them yeah, one story two stories, five stories there's more and I can, we can do a little research to present it. I, I would say this is the big problem, because people imagine that this is like millions of kids, hundreds and thousands of kids.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say millions, but I would say there's a good chunk of kids.
Speaker 1:No, in the US in the last years I think it's been less than 5,000 kids in the last couple of years. I'm not. I don't have the exact numbers.
Speaker 2:Let's just say 3 000.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's not a lot now, the problem with this is that none of these kids were pre-povers. There were uh, I don't know how many there were. There were, yeah, there were minors, but not that young. Anyhow, I'm not going to get into that much of this, but the main thing about this is the lack, how ideology can overtake a topic that is so important for the health of many people and turn it into something that ends up being damaging right, and turn it into something that ends up being damaging right. I think that the people who are against this like what is it called? What does he call it? Transgender ideology? I don't know what that is, but these are the same people who before opposed gay marriage. These are the same people who before opposed gay marriage. These are the same people who before opposed sexual education at school, even though all data showed that that reduced significantly the possibility of kids being groomed or abused by others. These are the people who are just trying to push everything back to some very, very old Christian traditional way of existing.
Speaker 1:Now is it good or you know who don't feel identified with none of these discourses, and when ideology is so strong and we are all like getting our flag, well, that's doomed to fail, because still there are many people who are not having their needs met. What needs the inclusion that we're talking about?
Speaker 2:So let's talk about this clinically right. So you're saying, I'm saying that it's damaging to validate and accept.
Speaker 1:I would say well, what an adult, a young teenager or a pre-power.
Speaker 2:Doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:No, for me it matters a lot.
Speaker 2:Okay, so this is the conversation. So for me it's like well, you know, you can be 20, you can identify. However, you can be 10 or you can be 45. 10 or you can be 45. My thing is, it's hurtful to them because as a therapist, right as somebody, you're not validating them, You're denying them. But what a lot of clinicians like yourself are saying is that you're damaging them by not accepting them for their feelings and their reality. When they're adults, right they are harmful when they're adults, don't you think no?
Speaker 1:We are talking about kids. This is perhaps my problem with the most like liberal kind of idea when they are kids, and this is based on my uh, theory of choice, which is like crisis, and I truly believe in that because I see that, um like, in the practical experience. You see that too, you as a mom. I'm sure you have seen that too. Uh well, I don't want to impose that. Maybe I've seen it too. Children's sexuality cannot be understood and judged as an adult sexuality.
Speaker 1:So when kids are exploring and playing with these toys or that toys, or wearing that dress, or this dress or this language, or they want to have long hair or short hair, or play with makeup or not. Leave them freaking alone. They are kids, they're exploring, they're playing and everything is valid, because they don't have such rigid understanding of masculinity and femininity as we adults have. They're exploring. Now, when you cut that exploration same thing with therapy, right when you cut the exploration to give them an answer oh, that means that you are cisgender, that means that you are transgender, that means that you are gay. That means that you are cisgender. That means that you are transgender. That means that you are gay. That means that you are lesbian. You are taking that power away from them. They should be, in my opinion, free to explore and play all the possibilities when they are kids. Usually, what happens is that during puberty or during adolescence, we have a more clear idea. Who do we like? Do we feel like a man?
Speaker 1:Do we don't feel like a man and I think that at that age, after you turn, you know you're a teenager. Let's say there might be certain cases, but overall you have a more clear understanding if this gender or this body feels right for you or not. Now there is one thing about this that I feel like is very important. Nobody is comfortable with their body, nobody. Sometimes, what I think this is purely me assuming stuff is that, again, this could be some ideology, giving you the answer for yourself. For example, have you seen yourself in a video and you're like, oh, this is what I look like. Or hear your voice? And you're like, oh, you know, it happens to me all the time. Like I, I see myself in a picture. I'm like, ah, you know, I'm getting bold and I'm getting old and what's I'm getting for the critique of yourself yeah, and and so what I'm seeing?
Speaker 1:it's not really how I feel. Right, there is a distinction between me and my body. Let's go a little bit more extreme yeah, there's a fundamental talking about like uh, we are talking about like body and our, our relationship to our body, body, which is not the same thing. Yeah, right, so let's go to eating disorders. They are seeing, you know, anorexia. Yeah anxiety-based disorders uh, because eating disorder is classified.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've worked in the reasons for three years actually okay, so you have seen a lot of cases right oh yeah, and you see you well, most of the time, women right, who are basically about to die because they haven't eaten anything and they are skinny. They are just skin and bones. They see in the mirror and what do they see? Fat, fat.
Speaker 2:Body dysmorphia.
Speaker 1:Right, right, that's kind of like a fundamental, kind of like thing that gives you the idea that there is nothing inherently owned about our body. We built our relationship with our body. Yes, right, so to say that if your body is this, you should feel like this. It's not it, you know, cancer or whatever, or some infection they have to go through like a process of like some amputation or castration, right, many of them, or most of them, they have like the phantom feelings of that, you know, the removed penis, right, with transgender people who have gone through the surgery, and I'm talking about, like, truly people who are healthy otherwise, mentally healthy, right?
Speaker 2:Mentally healthy that go through the surgery. Yes because so you think you're mentally healthy if you go and amputate yourself.
Speaker 1:I'm saying that there are transgender people who, beyond their gender identity, they're absolutely healthy, they are smart, they are of sound mind and they don't have any delusions about anything so them being male that want to be a woman is not a delusion to you no, and I'm telling you why.
Speaker 1:Please, because in the face value would say but you have a penis. When doctors actually examined these women, uh, these transgender people, what they found out is that there is actually a part of the brain that is bigger or smaller depending on what gender you are. And in transgender people, let's say I can't remember now, I think for men it was bigger and for women it was smaller, or something like that say I can't remember now, I think for men was bigger and for women was smaller, or something like that. A transgender person would actually have that size that corresponds to the opposite sex, right? So there is, in the same way that they have the biological organ, they also have a lot of biological other aspects in their body, that it's from the opposite sex.
Speaker 1:So it's not really a mental, imaginary delusional disorder.
Speaker 2:It's more clinical.
Speaker 1:It's…. Physiological it's physiological, Sometimes it's just hormones, but also that's kind of like debatable, I don't know what. I guess you are mentioning a little bit and what I guess you are mentioning a little bit and perhaps I'm running the risk of sounding kind of like you know, discriminatory here or whatever you see that there has been like a little bit of pushing of. If you are a little bit of like yeah, if you're like a little bit feminine, then you're probably transgender.
Speaker 2:Now you're being graceful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess I am, but I think that's not. You know, that's not. So, when you and I talk about.
Speaker 2:You know, when you ask me, what am I seeing? My image, my mind and my heart goes to that, Because that is in most of the society today. It's a huge battle between what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's evil, and that is destroying society today. So when we go back to old times, that's what I always go back to, like you know, something Clearly there was, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, we had two world wars?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but this is war too. What's the difference? I mean, we're not fighting with weapons, but we're fighting with our hearts.
Speaker 1:You know, it doesn't matter, there's war has always been.
Speaker 2:You know it's from the 1910s to the 1920s. It's always been present. But this is a different type of war. Now, this is you trying to include me in your mindset, you trying to push me. It's kind of like communism, marxism. It's communism in a way that's what I mean with ideology Make me believe in your system because that's going to make your life easier, but then I'm going to be miserable because that goes against my values and morals.
Speaker 1:And I think that that's the difference that I guess we kind of like we left it a little bit ago is do I need to eliminate your truth for my truth to exist?
Speaker 2:And vice versa. Right and vice versa, and there we are stuck as a society.
Speaker 1:But I think that that's the place where you see most of the reactivity, um, and I see, I think that that's the place where we as mental health professionals can actually especially researchers, right, can actually make a huge impact. You know, you don't need to um, you don't, and I and I and I get it. You know, like we study and we learn that we have to be like social justice warriors and all of that wonderful things. Nothing against that. But you, as a therapist, should be able to tolerate any kind of discourse, right, if I'm.
Speaker 1:I, during the during the time of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, right, I was working with a Turkish client, right, and I gave him all my contention and all my empathy and I've never once, like kind of felt not that I'm a superhuman, right, I acknowledge that that created some feelings for me and we actually talked about it. Right, I said like, hey, how does it feel to have an Armenian therapist? He's like well, I know that our countries and our cultures, but can you, as a therapist, tolerate a Trump supporter and tolerate a Kamala Harris supporter? Tolerate talking to a black person and the white person an Asian person? Can you tolerate that somebody is going to come and say something that you fundamentally are against right.
Speaker 2:As a person, as a human being.
Speaker 1:As a therapist, look, I feel like, yeah, well, I'm going to go for the human being piece when you're a human being.
Speaker 2:A therapist, look, and that's what I feel like, yeah, well, I'm gonna go for the human being piece. When you're a human being, I think lots of things. Many of these perceptions can be tolerated if yours is as well, yeah, uh. But as a clinician it's different, because now you are the provider and your job is to provide what's ever best for your client, and sometimes speaking the truth for your client is doing good for them, and I think many clinicians….
Speaker 1:I don't think the truth is yours to speak. That's my problem, right, and I get what you're saying and I totally agree with you. I hate and this is a strong word, but I really hate because it's truly damaging the therapists who are just like inflating the ego of the client. The client comes and says, like my partner was an asshole to me. There's not a small exploration of what oh, he's a piece of shit, right?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, those things are not. No, that's a little silly, no, that's very biased.
Speaker 1:Even like I think like this is happening, Well then that's very biased. But even like I think like this is happening, Well then that's probably true, right, yeah, yeah, I think that's a very naive and stupid way of like just making your client feel good about themselves. That's not going to go a long way.
Speaker 2:But that's the same thing though. Like, I feel like and we're going to go back to this transgenderism, transgenderism like they're. You know, when you have a couple that come, or a client comes and says my husband's this and this, and you immediately resort to saving your client's feelings of oh my god, what a jerk, what an asshole, as we were just talking about. I think that you're also imposing that on a client who is there is a.
Speaker 1:There's a, there's a. A fundamental difference. There is a fundamental difference. There is a difference, but also, there is like something to be said about what is that we are doing in the therapy room. Why is this transgender person seeking for therapy?
Speaker 2:You have to explore that right. You're not supposed to shut them down, but to validate certain type of delusion. Is denying them versus accepting them? For?
Speaker 1:who they are. Well, again, you are classifying it as a delusion, right, and I don't agree with that.
Speaker 2:You mean to tell me every single transgender has that piece of the brain. Transgender has that piece of the brain.
Speaker 1:I don't even that's just a small research. You know, I have met people who just like a lot of hormones. Sometimes it's, sometimes truly it's a cause of, you know, trauma.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and you want to help that person, right.
Speaker 1:But it's different, Like when I was. I remember cases of transgender people who got the surgery and had a really bad breakdown because they were kind of psychotic right, and then there are other people.
Speaker 2:Nobody talks about that.
Speaker 1:But that's a very, very small percentage.
Speaker 2:But nobody talks about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, but again.
Speaker 2:See, we're always going for the. It's a small percentage?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's important, because if we have 100 cases of hormonal blockers or you know surgeries and you have 99 that feel better after that and you have one that didn't, it's important to mention it and that's why it's important to have an expert to determine if this person is really going to handle that because your body is changing, it's a big deal. But to say like you shouldn't because the one person you know you are now damaging other 99 people who may benefit.
Speaker 1:And statistically it's that small. The percentage of people who regret it, it's very small.
Speaker 2:I would have to disagree Bites. Let me say this I think that it's also very important as a clinician to explore the transition, oh of course, but there are so many of them that don't do that Well that's my problem with psychology in.
Speaker 1:You know you can't do that in this era, like psychology is, um, I? It has become ideological, you know, and I I am open to talk about politics and it is a political act to do therapy, but it has become ideological because other we come from times to do like conversion therapy, which is an absolute crap, like you know, and people end up killing themselves because they somebody tried to say no, no, no, you're not gay, I'm going to turn you into a normal human being. To now, perhaps I believe that this is progress, this is healthy. So I'm going to.
Speaker 1:For example, if you're going to deconstruct and deconstruction is a big word, now everybody is using deconstruction If you're going to deconstruct a narrative that the person brings about, let's say, monogamic relationships, right, good, I agree, you have to deconstruct. You have to know why is a monogamic relationship so important for a person, if that's the problematic that they're bringing right. If, the same way, a transgender person comes and they want to talk about their job, I'm not going to talk about their transgender identity. They are worried about their job, of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Don't bring that up if it's not needed. That's not the point.
Speaker 1:And so the same way, like a person comes and is gay, for a while people assume that it's coming because he's gay and we need to talk about him being gay. No, he's a human being and he has, like, tons of other issues that he wants to talk about. Right, yeah. But so when we are deconstructing what has been normative for a while let's say dominant discourse right, has been normative for a while let's say dominant discourse, right. Like Gramsci or Foucault, you know these more postmodern thinkers would say well, there is this dominant discourse that is creating a problem. You know, it's a problem-saturated narrative in narrative therapy. So we're going to deconstruct that. Absolutely Great. You have to explore that.
Speaker 1:My problem with that is that now you are picking and choosing what you deconstruct or not. So the same person says I think I want to have an open relationship with my partner. Oh, okay, great. You know, why don't you deconstruct that? Why do you assume that that's not a dominant discourse? Right? Because your way of seeing it corresponds to certain ideology, which I may agree or not, it doesn't really matter, but your job is to. If you are a postmodern therapist, you know a narrative therapist. You have to deconstruct that too?
Speaker 2:Is that what you do in your?
Speaker 1:practice. No, I do more psychoanalysis in my practice. Yeah, you mentioned that Because for me, it really matters the connection, it really matters how the person relates to its context, how the person relates to its context. And if I, if I go the route of everything, is because of this kind of system or this kind of system.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm gonna assume that I already know the cause of everything and I'm gonna assume a bunch of stuff. If I don't take the context into consideration. I'm gonna fall into kind of like some cbt stuff that I don't really like, which is I'm going to fall into kind of like some CBT stuff that I don't really like which ends up being well, if you think different, you're going to act different.
Speaker 2:Right, you feel different and act different.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely so. For me, the context is important, the narrative is important, the story is important, and that shapes the unconscious of a person, and the unconscious drives the person.
Speaker 2:Meaning you go back to childhood as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, but opposed to what American psychoanalysis or psychodynamics do, I don't say like, well, let's talk about your mom, right? I usually talk about the present. Why? Because the unconscious is not some hidden, you know thing that we have to dig and find. The unconscious is very present.
Speaker 2:You think so?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just have to listen to it.
Speaker 2:And how do you get your client to listen to the unconscious?
Speaker 1:My job is to listen to it.
Speaker 2:Your job.
Speaker 1:I bring them the question. They use it. It's in the language all the time.
Speaker 2:True, the behaviors as well, of course, the behaviors as well. I in the language all the time. True the behaviors as well of course, the behaviors as well.
Speaker 1:I think that's more powerful, but I like more working with the language. And I will tell you why. Because, yes, even if I see a behavior, I don't want to assume that that behavior means something, because I have, you know, let's say they have an addiction.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What would you say an addiction is, because this is what we studied everywhere.
Speaker 2:Well, it's I mean, depending on what it is, but it's a way of coping Unhealthy coping mechanism. Unhealthy coping mechanism through something that has happened, or maybe it's not even happening. It could be a belief system, something that was told, that your subconscious mind picked up. Maybe it was a learned behavior. You know, addiction can be so many things. It's not only like a trauma response or coping Right, right Good.
Speaker 1:So I agree with you, and for me that's important Well if you treat only that.
Speaker 2:I think that that's a very short way of treating somebody who struggles with it.
Speaker 1:There is absolutely no way of treating addiction by just focusing on the addiction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, there's something. It's just like anger.
Speaker 1:Like anger right Now. My question is there's that compulsive character in these behaviors? There's, let's call it it. There's language in this behavior and we have to find it If I determine that this person has an unhealthy coping mechanism, like any other person addicted to anything else then what I'm going to do is give you homework to find a healthier coping mechanism.
Speaker 2:And assign you up in an AA program.
Speaker 1:Right, right and even worse. I'm going to give you some people are going to like this. I'm going to give you indications to start a different substance. Yeah, To deal your substance use Insane.
Speaker 2:So my point, like go become more religious Right, which falls them into the category of obsessive religious, you know, like seeking Because they find whatever answers they're looking for.
Speaker 1:What is the language behind this addiction? You usually find is there is a portion of that that corresponds to certain pleasure seeking, right Like there is okay that we get it. But interestingly, there's two more things that come up with that One is guilt and shame, of course. Right after that, of course, it could be like substance use, sex yeah, I mean it's stimuli use.
Speaker 2:I mean, why do people use stimuli to get rid of all that and to feel right, to feel not so shameful and guiltful right?
Speaker 1:and, paradoxically, that's what they end up feeling. Right, shame and guilt, right. And the other piece is there is a moment, what, what addiction comes, what kind of thing comes to your mind Gambling. Let's just say there is a point that you're enjoying it. There is a point where you're having a really, really bad time. You are not enjoying it anymore. You are losing the money for rent and your car payment. You are feeling like crap because you see yourself doing this and you keep going.
Speaker 2:Because there's that unrealistic hope.
Speaker 1:That's part of it. But for me, that hope is not only to winning. You know, there is something happening in that that is is pushing you beyond pleasure to um, to keep going when it's painful. For me, that excessive part is what I like to analyze more, because that's where the singularity of each person, each, you know, comes.
Speaker 2:Have you ever thought of addiction? Can also be subconsciously not wanting to live slow suicide like a death drive slow suicide like eating disorders. Sure, it's a very painful suicide, and I've I've had patients who said this to me I'm weak, I don't have the strength to kill myself, so I'm just just going to let my eating disorder kill me. And they have succeeded.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can see that happening very, very easily, because what you are basically doing is falling into some level of…. Self-disruption right yeah it's a cycle of, but interestingly, in the same way, I have seen people doing that to feel alive.
Speaker 2:To stay alive.
Speaker 1:Yeah. To feel alive, to feel alive and to stay alive, right. Wow, what you were saying before, like that desperate need to feel something.
Speaker 2:To feel alive, yeah.
Speaker 1:So this is. You know, we're just talking to people and we came up with so many different things that could happen when somebody is presenting a symptom like an addiction. How could you possibly talk about one universal truth and treat equally every single person who is dealing with addiction?
Speaker 2:You think they're treated equally?
Speaker 1:I think this is like what 12 Steps programs do.
Speaker 2:Are you a believer of those programs?
Speaker 1:I know people who have found help there and it helped and I have people who found it really damaging to them, hurtful. But I say that if there wasn't a need, those programs would.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, they do their thing. They have a community there, which is not a minor thing you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:Clinically speaking, I find it completely opposite to what I believe it is yeah. Right, but I cannot reject the experience of some clients who say it saved my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had clients who said that too. Yeah, In the private practice that I was working with there is a man who alcohol anonymous programs, you know saved his life is now a sponsor and has been sober for over 11 years it gives them some. It does meaning, it does and if that's going to help, let it be. And if, if, if a gambling addiction you from that, you turn into a shopaholic, you know, I'll take that versus sometimes it's about harm reduction it is harm yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that one of these things that we should be more mindful of is, in the same way that I don't like imposing my preconceived notions or, you know, books that I read and courses that I did on somebody, my idea of healing also should shape when each person's possibilities and needs Some people come from literally being about to hang themselves right, and this is more so for men. If I found, after some work, that this person found some motivation to do certain work during the day, if I found that he's able to connect with some other person that he, you know, he's been a couple of weeks that he hasn't, you know, thought about, thought about. I'm not wanting this person to be happy and excited about everything because probably the level of pain that he has experienced it's beyond my comprehension. Yeah Right, so I, my hopes for him are my hopes. I have to accept that that person is going to heal as much as they are able to heal.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I will do my best in, you know, be there and push them a little bit more, you know. But I think it's important to understand our limitations. We are therapists. We are not angels. We are not like saviors of anybody.
Speaker 2:Most of the people see us once a week, even though it might feel really good to you know, have that kind of validation as any human.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's scary.
Speaker 2:It is, and I think there's a lot of. And I was just at an event and a younger girl she's like you know, I see your Instagram, I saw your videos. What do you recommend? What schools do you recommend? And I said, well, why do you want to be a therapist? And she said because I love helping people. And I said some things. I kind of shook her up. I said well, what if there's somebody you can't help? What's going to happen to you?
Speaker 1:Because this field does come with failures too. You're not always going to be successful. My friends laugh at me all the time, but for me that's castration right. That's when you notice that you're not omnipotent.
Speaker 2:You're not. You know you're just a terrorist, yeah, and are not, you know, just a therapist? Yeah, and sometimes getting into this field can make you feel like that. It is very egocentric. I feel like some people are very ego-driven, like oh, I'm going to sit on that chair and you know, look all intelligent with my coffee and heal where it's like no, that's not how it works. I mean, I've lost clients when I was doing my practicum hours because I was doing it in a mental health hospital in reasons yeah, that happens.
Speaker 2:I've had a 70-something-year-old woman who was under literally 80 pounds that just had a heart attack in a group class. It was like 25 of us it was myself leading the group and 25 patients and she just had a heart attack and died. And so you see things like that, you know, and it's like when people say I want to help, I think it's your duty to be like, you know, you're not always going to save a person, even though that's what you want. It's inside your heart, but you have to be realistic about it.
Speaker 1:To your point. You know I had this conversation, I was in this conference recently. Um, and this uh lady she's a psychologist um asked me like oh, you know I, I read in your profile that you like psychoanalysis. I'm like, well, it's kind of like 99 of what I studied, right, so I do like psychoanalysis. She's like, you know, I don't know how you do and how do you work with trauma, with that? I'm like, well, like the rest of the world outside of LA, you know we don't need to do any specific technique. You know, although there are some good techniques, you can work absolutely work with trauma through the psychonazis. She's like yeah, but that's too long. You know, when a person comes in, you have to just, like, you know, give them some tools and then they're on the way. That's how I want to do things.
Speaker 2:It's not what works for everybody. It's not going to work.
Speaker 1:It doesn't work for anybody. Yeah, yeah, and she was just starting. She was just starting and I said well, good luck with that. Yeah, she's like. What do you mean? I said like, have you ever changed like that? Have you ever changed your mind like that?
Speaker 2:No, it's years and years. Even on yourself, it takes years and years. That's what I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. And how painful is to accept that.
Speaker 2:Nasty parts of yourself. Yeah, yeah, it is very difficult for anyone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I need to change my way of thinking. I don't like this. That means that I have been thinking, like you know, in this way for so many years.
Speaker 2:And learn that type of thinking from this way. Yeah, a lot of it is neuromurons too. We pick up. What advice do you give men? Since we were on the topic of mental health and men, yeah, what's like a good clinical advice before we end seek for help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, seek for help talk. Um, I would say that I never push anybody to talk. We just just because I don't know what their environment and maybe I'm pushing them to talk in the worst environment ever and you know that's not good but usually they have a sense how safe or how not safe is around them. So if, if there is something important is, talk wherever you are listened to.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, wherever somebody can hear you, then you can talk yeah, um, why? Because I think that, no matter how much we can make all these mental gymnastics of processing stuff inside us, there is something almost magical that happens when we share it and somebody says oh, I hear you, right, like that's simple. Yeah, and maybe not, maybe for sure. I don't have the wisdom to fix anybody's problem, but usually they have yes, and it's more of connecting to that right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Connecting to things that they already knew and it was really hard to accept that they knew that. Yeah, connecting to questions that they had, but it's very hard to ask themselves. Other than that, I don't feel adequate to advice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that was beautiful, Tigran. Thank you so much for today. I took so much of your time, but you're definitely a wonderful you're such a wonderful asset and I think that people definitely do need to know about you. You're very smart and you're so driven and definitely are going to make an amazing impact in any society you choose to work with, so that's a great compliment. Yes, I appreciate, because you know there's, first of all, there's not a lot of men in this field no let me go back.
Speaker 2:Armenian men in this field and when I was browsing I was like wow, like this is phenomenal. So I'm very happy to see that there's more and more.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:I hope so I hope so, because it's such a uh we need it noble uh, noble career. It's not even a job, it's a noble career to possess. It takes a long time. It takes years of education, and you and I know how hard that is. It took a while. For me too. It's hard, especially when you have kids and family and life struggles. So you're definitely appreciated and valued and. I thank you for being here today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Thank you. No, this was my pleasure, and you know truly, also to mention that, not to sound cheesy or anything but.
Speaker 2:I love how you have to say that, yeah, yeah, as a male, as a male, as a male, as a male, as a male, as a male, as a male, as a male.
Speaker 1:And then this is my Freudian. You know, Slip. It's not a slip, but there is cheesy but that's the issue that we're trying to fix right, yeah, this is my macho coming up and I don't want to be cheesy, but true, no, because you hear this and it sounds fake at times. Right, but how great and how amazing is to be able to be part of other's stories, right.
Speaker 2:Privilege it is.
Speaker 1:That's such a huge privilege and sometimes, especially when you're a little emotional, because sometimes you really feel how much you matter, right, like not you as a person, but that space that you create with the person, right, yeah, and I'm just super grateful to my clients, to my career, and for this too, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think it takes such a courageous man to express it does. Gratefulness is not expressed much, and it's something that really matters. I'm grateful for you, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for being here. Thank you so much. This was wonderful.