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What does it mean to be called crazy in a crazy world?

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Listen to Madness Radio, voices and visions from outside mental health.

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[Music]

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Welcome to Madness Radio, this is your host Will Hall.

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And I'm really excited to be joined by my co-host Nikki Glasser,

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Nikki, welcome to Madness Radio.

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Thank you Will, glad to be here.

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I really appreciate your work as show co-producer and co-host.

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Do you want to introduce our guest today, Michael Montgomery?

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Yeah, absolutely. He has a talk on a YouTube called Tales of Treatment,

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Hope Without Borders, and I watched it recently.

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I just was so deeply moved by what he had to say, and I'm really excited

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that we have Michael from the show today.

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And I want to hear more.

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Michael Montgomery is an existential psychoanalyst working in a clinic specializing in psychosis

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in complex trauma.

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He works in the tradition of Ardilang using non-pathologizing approach.

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Welcome to Madness Radio, Michael Montgomery.

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Thank you so much, Nikki, for that introduction.

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And it's very exciting to be here, absolute pleasure to spend some time with you and Will.

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Yeah, Michael was my great honor to meet you at the recent Ardilang symposium at Esteline

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last year. And we were all really, really struck by, you're not an ordinary,

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standard mainstream professional. And I think that is really going to inspire our listeners

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to meet you and hear about how your work is different. And maybe we should just get started.

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How did you get interested in being a psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, working in mental health?

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Did you start out more mainstream and then move to a different perspective? How did that happen for you?

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It was a parallel journey, if you like. I love my first sort of career and

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business. I, and I worked my way up with more or less new qualifications.

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I left school at 16. I had an undiagnosed dyslexia. And then I felt the need to sort of find answers

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about the meaning of life. And that really came about because I grew up in Northern Ireland

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during the armed conflict. So if she like, I was met with the existential realities of death and

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impermanence and sought the answers to that. And the kind of a very long story short, I ended up

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going and living in a Buddhist retreat center for several years. For people who don't know about

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Northern Ireland and the war and conflict there, tell us a little bit about that and how that kind

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of brought you to the thinking that led to going into a Buddhist retreat training.

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Well, I mean, I've a memory of being seven years old and thinking, what is the point?

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Because I was sort of surrounded by daily shootings and bombings. And I thought, I'm just going to

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grow old and kind of die myself. You know, a standard therapist, my trying to pathologize that kid,

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but I think that kid was very much aware of their existence. And the reason I know it was 1977

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and I was seven years of age was because it was the year that Star Wars came out. My world turned

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from black and white to sort of color, imagination spiked, but also it communicated the hero's journey

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being called to adventure. And there was something in that for me. So fast forward, you know,

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working through all the different sort of traditions to try and find some sort of knowledge that

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would make sense of this. I ended up in Buddhism because it seemed to be the most spiritually vibrant

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practice that I could come across. There seemed to be real things happening in real wisdom.

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So I did the classic going forth and went and lived and studied and practiced meditation very

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intensely. But at the end of that journey, I kind of got the answers that I was looking for in terms

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of meaning. And I wanted to dedicate myself to others to sort of making a difference in the world.

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You got the answers to what is the meaning of life? Can you please share what were the answers that

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you got in terms of meaning? I was going to take years of meditation, we just have to find it.

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Well, I think the cutting through of the suffering that I guess I was witnessing experience

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and was understanding the nature of mind. There's not much more to say, or rather, I can't say

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if I thought, but I would say there's very much tradition, particularly in Tibetan Buddhism,

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and in Zog Chan, Mahamudra in particular, of an exploration of the nature of mind. And then

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the answers kind of come from that. And so it inspired you to help others. Is that what got you

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interested in working in the mental health field? So there's a parallel story. So the mental health

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field had always been deeply interested in it because I had a friend. So I was at a party.

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I'm from the original reiv generation clubbing. And so I was at a party and it was about three in the

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morning. And there's quite unusual character who's a lot older. And he told me his story. And it was

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basically about geometry and Zeus. And by the 45 degree angle, it was measured wrong. And just all

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this fantastic stories. You know, it was so beautiful. And this was like for a few hours.

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And at the end of this sort of encounter, he told me that he had been incarcerated against as well

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for three months. And that was kind of shocking for me because I didn't really know much about this

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world. And then he told me something that really changed kind of the course of my life. He had been in

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a psychiatric institute. Yeah. He went in a psychiatric institute. And he told me that in the three

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months, he was in there. Nobody had asked him his story. And I just couldn't believe it because I

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saw this beautiful being as a storyteller as a Shanaki is called in Ireland. And I couldn't

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understand why that was the result of the world that he inhabited. It just seemed so draconian and

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so dehumanizing. And that sent me on a path to understand two things. One, the mind and

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how his experience was so incredibly different to mine. And also, I mean, what was going on with

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the care system? So even when I was in business, I started volunteering and I was doing

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organization called Praxis that did mentoring. Or you just went and met someone and took them out

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for a meal or you took them shopping or you just spent time in them and it was people who had spent

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time in hospital. So it was like a partnering up. And so he didn't need to have any formal training.

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It was just being with people. Beautiful. From there, I just sort of kept going. So after I came out

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of the Buddhist retreat center, I went to university for the first time or college. He liked to call it.

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And I did social work. I was in community mental health. I was just completely shocked with how

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people were being treated. It was just the most brutal and negating sort of shocking experience.

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And often, this was in London, often people from disadvantaged areas, minority,

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living in that's the right word. It was then, you know, communities, people who were just trying to

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get by and didn't quite fit in and were being medicated beyond reason. There were things that

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community treatment orders where if they didn't take the medication, often by depot injection,

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they would have to go back in the hospital and it just seemed totally on Salas Factory.

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And I wanted to do more and I wanted to do more. And I thought the best way to do that was to

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keep training clinically. But my partner, we got married and very quickly moved to Asia.

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So I ended up living in Asia, UK, Germany, Chicago. So I had a lot of experience in different cultures

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and really observing presentations without that Western overlay. So a much more phenomenal logical

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experience of distress and suffering. Yeah, it's interesting because you started out kind of from

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the outside and then made your way in. You were studying mine, but you had this strong encounter

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with the guy with the geometry at the rave. And then you were doing just really, it sounds like

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peer support, the mentoring that you were doing. And you sort of learned common sense ways to connect.

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And then that was contrasted by when you got exposed to the community mental health system. And so

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you didn't start out already believing in the mental health system. You really had an outside

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perspective. It sounds like I didn't see I didn't experience people has been different from me.

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So I couldn't understand why they were treated so badly. I mean, it was even called peer support

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then. It was just get people out and spend time with them. And that was seen as very therapeutic.

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I mean, I spent a year, probably a year and a half with a guy and I didn't ever ask him what was

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their diagnosis or I just tried to meet what he needed from me, which was driving and taking

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in places. And this was called mentoring. This is the volunteering that you did. The organization

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was called Praxis. So I think it came out of Queen's University in Belfast where they worked out that

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this sort of support was really, really beneficial for people who had come out of

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hospital. I mean, we're going back about 25 years. So yeah, I think that the prayers I used in

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Estonia was virginized. So yeah, absolutely common out of with no sort of preconception. But I

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felt I was quite street wise and quite assertive. So my experience on the words and the word

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lines, you know, when I first was in that environment, I observed how everyone but the psychiatrist

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would be excluded through language. So they had their own lingo and their jargon. So I went home and

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I purchased the Oxford Dictionary of Psychiatry and I read it over a weekend and I went in on the

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next wardrun. And I remember two weeks from that point, I was the first to be called on the

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wardrun, even before the other psychiatrist, because I was able to match my knowledge with their

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lingo. So I was no longer excluded. That was the other thing that was really shocking. So I believe

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it's similar here, but what used to happen was the patient would have to come into these rooms.

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And in the room, you would have maybe 15 or 20 people. So you'd have like a handful of

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psychiatrists, you'd have training, occupational therapists, social workers, you know, interns.

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And they had sort of shuffle in. And then they were like, ask these really invasive questions.

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And that was the first sort of point where I thought I'm going to definitely do something here.

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And I really took a stand. So there were things that I was observing, like someone would be

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asked questions and they would be deemed incoherent. And I immediately was able to say, the person

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is hilarious, intelligent and own point. There are one question behind because they're so heavily

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medicated. So they're not really less than they're less than for pathology, not less than for the human.

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So if I answered you one question or one answer behind your question, you know, I might have

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synced. So it all signed incoherent, but it was anything but. And also, you know, people,

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they would be upset the way they were treated. So then they would respond. And then they,

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oh, this patient's aggressive. Yeah, it's the one black man in a room with 15 white people who are

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making decisions about his liberty. Of course, he's going to be upset. I don't know how much good

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that did. But my favorite one that I did was I got so fed up with this dehumanization. I knew one

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of the women on the ward was a beautiful singer. So I got a copy of her CD, which was a demo CD.

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And I went into the ward, and I said, listen, I want you to indulge me. And I put a sort of beatbox

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in the middle of the floor. And I put on her demo and it was the look of love. She said, it was like

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angelic this voice. And everyone's looking at me. And I said, this is the person that you're going

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to see next. And you know, she sort of shuffled in totally medicated. And I don't know whether it

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did any good or not, but it made me communicate, you know, needs to be humanity here. You need to see

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this as a person and not just somebody to be labeled and diagnosed. So it was a very hands-on experience.

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You said a phenomenological view. How does that fit in? Because it sounds abstract, but it's actually

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essentially a kind of a common sense paying attention to what people are noticing and experiencing.

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Yeah. So my own journey would have been what's wrong with the person. And then that move to when I

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started to understand trauma, what has happened to this person, to the phenomenological approach, which

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was, what is this like for you? What is this experience? You know, so if someone was talking about

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things that I perhaps didn't understand rather than question that against my own view of the world,

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I want to know what it's like for them to have that experience. So I think, you know, there's a long

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history of philosophy about phenomenology. I wish there was an easier word, and a shorter word,

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but basically it means to tune into someone's lived experience and to move as much of your experience

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and presuppositions out of the way so you can really see and understand what is happening.

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I just want to chime in because I already feel emotional from what you're saying. And I just

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want to point out that what you're saying and what you're seeing in the system is it's so special to

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hear somebody who hasn't been incarcerated themselves or oppressed by the system to see what is

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really going on there. And this is why I hear talk on YouTube like you move me so much. And also,

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you know, you just come from a really caring heartfelt place on top of it. So I see it now,

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I see what's going on there now, believe me. But back then, I didn't, you know, and I grew up in

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an abusive home. And so when they told me this is just how it is and this is how I thought, okay,

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but really it was just reenacting a lot of really harsh, unloving, uncarrying behavior that I was

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already ailing from, you know what I mean? Suffering from having grown up so it was like kind of a

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retraumatization. So my question for you is like it just amazes me and it's so beautiful that you

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see it like how how is that? I don't know if there's an answer to that. Maybe it says rhetorical,

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but you see so clearly the humanity of people, but it also like how other people are not seeing

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people's humanity like they're missing the whole person. And so it's just really special. I don't

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know if you that's a question that can be answered or maybe the answer or the question is, do you see

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other people working in your type of capacity as a helper therapist, doctor, nurse? Who are seeing it?

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So it's really really good questions. I think it seemed really obvious to me that

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injecting people with medication that they don't want to take can't be good, it must be frightening.

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You know, surely it's obvious that when someone is in a state of distress, what they need is

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CFD, right? Being dragged around and forced around and made the doose, that is not my idea of how

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to treat somebody. To me, it seemed very obvious. It wasn't obvious to anyone else because I went

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through this period of absolute despair. Like this me, am I actually, is this me? Am I losing it here?

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This one is happening or am I completely wrong? And that's where already lying, Kim.

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That's when I picked up already lying and it was like, oh my goodness, he gave me the support

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to understand that no, it wasn't just me. The first thing was that I saw and I believed that

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absolutely obvious. These are not the side effects of these medications. These are the effects

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of the medication. So I was seeing people put on weight and record time. So they went into hospital

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with one problem and then they came out with a whole range of other problems and you know, I saw

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people disfigured. That would be the best way to describe it, you know, from the impact on the medication.

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And then what I experienced was a justification for this from psychiatry that just was really weak.

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You know, it's oh, the person isn't exercising or this sort of that. And jump on around a little bit,

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you know, in Malaysia, I had more of an opportunity to help people come off medication. And I witnessed

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the impact of polypharmacy and I witnessed the impact when people came out, when it was appropriate

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to do so, right? You were practicing as a therapist in Malaysia. Yeah, I was sort of in a community

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setting. So I kind of watched the effects of the medication go away, the negative effects,

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psychiatrist called side effects. So I was getting sort of hands-on experience in observation.

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But in London, it was just obvious. But here's the problem, Nege. And I hope this doesn't upset you.

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I see a lot of very, very kind people working in mental health, but are still not thinking.

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They've completely sort of drank the kool-aid in terms of psychiatry, the medical model,

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because that's the way they were trained. And there is no critical capacity. So I remember being in

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a large clinical meeting in America. And I said, can I just ask the, first of all, the psychiatrists

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weren't coming to the meeting. And I said, why the psychiatrist's not coming to the meeting. And often

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they're not psychiatrists anymore than their nurses. So I said, surely the job of this clinic is to

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ensure that if people are on medication that we work towards getting them to the minimum

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amount or the zero amount, when I said that out loud, I felt like at a 10-foil hot on my head,

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that's how I had a step. So I think people can be kind and not thinking critically. I think people

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can be kind and not think that actually advocating for a review of medication, especially polyformacy,

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is an ethical thing to do. So I think it's a complex situation. And I think a lot of it's to do with

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training and what people are told. So that was where I already gave me the support,

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gave me the language. Yeah, I think this is a crucial question. I mean, you said, drink the kool-aid,

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and that's how they're trained. And I think in some ways, there's a real dark shadow to what it

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is to be human, that we are able to just ignore what's obvious in front of our very eyes,

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because we're caught up in some kind of institution of authority teaching us that what we see with

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our eyes isn't actually what we see. I mean, do you think that that's fundamentally what is

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happening, that it's an authority kind of almost like cult indoctrination? In Malaysia, I had an

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aha moment and the aha moment was this isn't as dark as I thought, this is just about money.

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So I watched how the big farmer capitalized the channels of information on the ground. And

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high, for example, it was targeting children, be morbid, schizophrenia, it was pushing the medication,

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it they were advising one organization to put the medication in the clients' food,

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like their knowledge. When I questioned one of the managers around us, they said, this is what this

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pharmaceutical company's told us to do. So I had this aha moment, which it was actually it's a new

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market. So if you swap out humanity, if this was just biagraph, for instance, right, you want to

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monopolize a market before your competition, you want to grow it. So if you step back like that,

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if you look at the opioid crisis and the documentaries, you know, you got seals people driving

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the growth, they are brainwashed to believe that they are doing good, they are reducing pain,

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they are curing, you know, so I think it was less dark and more connected to money and profit.

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I think in America in the UK, the area that I got very interested in was the McDonald'sization

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of society. So this comes from the work of George Ritzer, a sociologist and mentor of my

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Donna Dostin and also my work and it was basically the idea that the approach of the fast food industry

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is ubiquitous in society. So predictability, control, measureability. And if you look at a computer

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system, what needs input, the clinicians look at the human in a way that can be input into a computer.

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That's not the way it was meant to be, but if you think about it, that's what ultimately happens.

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There becomes a tech box mentality. You know, what if there isn't a tech box for what is going on?

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So I thought Ritzer's work was really, really useful because there's a lot of irrational consequences

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of McDonald'sization. So it might seem very efficient and very good, but it's de-skilling, it's dehumanizing.

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So part of it is just this kind of let's do what we're told by the people above us,

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but part of it is the infiltration of this economic logic, the fast food product consumerism,

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which is all about speed and uniformity. And I mean, the DSM is basically like labeling so that when

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people come down the assembly line, you can just slap a label on them like they're a product and

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then funnel them into whatever different shoot for the different kinds of technology services that

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you're going to deploy on them. So it has that element of like habit and efficiency and productivity

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logic that's throughout capitalist society in general. So it's perfect for McDonald'sization

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with the DSM for all the reasons that you just said, but what it does offer is

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certain day. People are drawn for easy quick answers, right? So it offers a level of certain day

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for people. I think the DSM, a diagnosis in general would be much more focused in the UK than

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America. It's much broader. How do you mean it's different in the UK? I think it takes a lot more work

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and focus to get a diagnosis because the seriousness of the diagnosis is huge and also you don't have

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the insurance system. So it'll be a national health service whereas here you can't see someone without

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a diagnosis. So most clinicians, if they're unsure and they're good, they'll just put something like

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general anxiety, they'll have a catch all. Yeah, adjustment disorder, yeah. Adjustment disorder,

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and also you could easily change a diagnosis here whereas in the UK, it's like fixed for life.

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Such was the power of psychiatry. It fitted into this a class system often the doctors were

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or middle class educated. So there was a sort of social hierarchy to psychiatry. I don't experience that

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in the same way in America. Interesting. I mean, we had a revolution against monarchy and you guys

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didn't quite have that. So that might be some of the difference. Also, what you said about control

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because I think that what happens with madness, it's like an encounter, an existential encounter

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with the absolute limit of what it seems to be human like dying. It's like a death encounter.

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Madness is the great huge fear and it's completely out of control and completely unreachable from

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a certain perspective. And so from that out of control, overwhelmed, unreachable position,

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someone feels absolutely out of control and they're desperate to know what to say, to know what to do,

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to know how to help, to do the right thing. And then that's when the conformity comes in. Okay,

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here this is this person in the community, no one knows what to do with them. It's hard to communicate

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with them. They seem like they're in danger, but we're not even sure. Everyone is afraid.

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Things are out of control. And then here comes psychiatry steps into that kind of existential need.

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And then falsely covers it over with this ideology and this belief system that's based on control

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and suppression and domination and authoritarianism. Yeah, and I think just the whole medical model

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is problematic. You know, a broken arm is not the same as a broken spirit, but the psychiatrist will

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try and treat it in the same way. I have found people to be very kind and very knowledgeable,

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but completely wedded to medication. You know, what horror have I made? The quickest way to get on

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more medication in America is to ask to come off your medication. Right. Right. I mean,

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well, what is that? What is that? You know, if I experience this where I've gone on leave, I've been

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helping somebody to taper off medication and I've gone on leave and I've come back and

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and they've been given a couple of new medications and they're bouncing off the walls.

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And I don't see, I honestly don't see the people doing that as trying to control. I see them as

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doing what they think is the right thing or they are afraid of losing control of being able to help

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that feeling of helplessness or doing the right thing or yeah, well, how do you help someone in

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15 minutes? It was not the average time that a prescriber will see something. I mean,

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I've worked in clinics where one year of therapy was a hello. It was an introduction.

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I have a question. Do you ever think that the system is more sick than the people seeking health?

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Yeah, I mean, of course, I mean, where's the love? I think that there's a conflict of interest,

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isn't there? That's a huge problem. In aspects of the prison system, in aspects of medicine,

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it's a conflict of interest in terms of why things are happening. What is who profits?

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In a way, I've always thought that the psychologists kind of have a real potential edge because

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they're not getting sort of the cool brainwashing of the medical system as much. They're doing more like

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going inside people and what's going on inside people. Not that everybody gets there, but

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I think they're just generally more hopeful as professionals, as seeing what's true, you know.

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So, Michael, you said that encountering the work of RD Lang really made a huge difference

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because you felt that your observation of what felt obvious was now confirmed by reading Lang.

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So, tell us a little bit about Lang and your bio. We learned that you're an existential psychoanalyst.

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So, how does that fit together with your Buddhism? I don't tend to think of existentialism

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and Buddhism as related, but I guess they are. Yeah, I mean, the existential psychoanalyst,

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it sounds very grand, but I'll be probably, you know, full disclosure. I'll do whatever I need to do

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to help somebody. So, I like that title. I've earned that title for many, many years, but I do work

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integratively. So, it's not about my theory or way of working, it's about what the person needs.

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But yeah, I mean, very much in the tradition of RD Lang, I think he drew from the rich philosophy

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of continental existentialism. So, a bunch of men and women who were really affected by the

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trauma of the second world war and this is the more contemporary existentialists. I'm working for

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some sort of answer in that meaninglessness, that carnage. So, you sort, you're a hightaker,

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Simone, Bhuvar, Kamu, who isn't normally thought of an existentialist, but I think for me,

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I really must include him. And Lang was also a psychiatrist and trained the Tava stock,

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sure that in common, and he studied psychoanalysis. And I think he was quite disillusioned with aspects

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of psychoanalysis. Existentialism gave him more answers about the sort of existential lived experience

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of someone beyond some limiting frame. So, there's a close connection between existentialism and

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phenomenology, but tell us what is existentialism for people who aren't following that? In five words

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or less, please. What does it mean to be? What does it mean to actually exist? I think it's a bit of a

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catch-all to our existentialism to mean, I think it covers phenomenology. Lang would have been a social

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phenomenologist in the sense that he very much took into account the lived experience of the individual,

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but also had them in context. So, it was very aware of the, if you want to use the word oppression,

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and the limitations that society can place on a person. So, not just the individual, it's the individual

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in context. And I think he was fascinated by key themes of dread, brokenheartedness, and fear.

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Things that are much more human than perhaps the utiple complex or things that are a little bit

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still have value, but maybe less accessible to the person on the street. So, I think he was very much

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hands-on, very much empathetic, didn't use the distance of a clinician or the professional distance.

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He would get on the floor with his patients. And I think that's a really important metaphor.

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There's inequality to that. There's actually both beings who are going to die. You have that in common.

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We're both looking into the existential givens. You just may be a little bit more distressed than I am

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right now. Yeah, we're all motivated by the need for recognition and to be listened to and seen.

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We all struggle with connection and loneliness and isolation. And the thing I keep coming back to when

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I think of existentialism is the idea of choice that there's everybody always has some capacity to make

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some kind of choice. We may not be able to control our circumstances. We certainly can be an

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overwhelming circumstances that are oppressive and a lot of our choices have been taken away.

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But we still fundamentally have the choice of what kind of meaning that we bring to our experience.

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And I'm always looking for both in myself but also people that I'm working with or I want to

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listen to and understand like where do their choices make sense. If you look at the person's

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situation, if you really understand what the person is going through, yeah, the desire to die

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makes sense based in their lived reality, their phenomenological world. Are they refusal

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to take medications or they're not wanting to talk or they're talking all the time or they're

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living in some kind of very strange difficulty to connect with dream like fantasy like world. And

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what is it in there that actually makes sense if you get inside of it and how are the choices that

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they're making? How do those make sense? And then once you kind of can really relate to that,

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then you can start to understand, okay, this is the why the person is making this choice.

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Are there other choices that the person might make? Even if it's the choice to stop thinking of

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yourself as a schizophrenic and start thinking yourself as a shaman or the choice to just say there's

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nothing wrong with me or the choice to say I'm going to continue to not want to take my medications

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until someone listens to me and having that validated and having that honored and respected.

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There's a book, Victor Frankel's book, man search for meaning, he's existentialist and I think

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there's a lot of criticism of him. There's some questions or controversy about the book, but I

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think it's remarkable that he writes his story from being in the most disempowering circumstance

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of all like being confined in a prison in a camp and yet still he was able to somehow find ways to

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create meaning and through exercising that power of choice. And then when I go further into that,

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I think about well that's really where drugging is so diabolical. That's where drugging and forced

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medication really starts to get into, in my view, evil because you're infiltrating chemically

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someone's mind and you're interfering with their capacity to have choice. I know that some people

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do feel that okay, the drugs help me to have choice or they help calm me down or they help tame

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my extremes or my wildness. So I'm recognized in the diversity there, but there's something about

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the way in which psychiatry's authoritarianism and domination and control is especially extreme

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because the way it infiltrates the mind and wants to take away even that last bit of freedom that

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someone might have if they're confined on the outside, at least on the inside, they have some

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freedom. You just covered about a hundred years of philosophy there. Yeah, I mean, wow, you covered

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so much. I think I focus more and more and more on agency. So the sense that so many people have lost

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their sense of agency. So actually they perhaps don't realize the choices that they have.

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And there's something incredibly liberating when you can impar some one to find those choices

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again, but your point, yeah, I mean, I didn't know there was controversy about Viktor Frankl. I mean,

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you know, I've watched people's lives completely turn around because they've been waiting for someone

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to give them the meaning and when they've been introduced to this idea of well, actually you can

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create your meaning and purpose yourself. I've watched them being literally liberated nearly in that

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moment. But it's powerful because often people like you don't want their agency because if you take

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full agency, then you're responsible. So there's a sort of tension in this area.

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Responsibility, that's a controversial topic. Yeah, it's a big area. And then when you get into

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coercion, that is, I cannot think of anything worse than someone invading your mind,

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chemically against your will. And we know, well, I will, I know that the world that already lying was

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trying to draw attention to back in the 50s and 60s, it hasn't gone away. It is very, very prevalent

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in hospitals and prisons. So it goes on, sadly. Yeah, yeah, that question of responsibility because

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choice agency, it can be so twisted that you have responsibility now becomes, it's your fault,

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becomes a blame, the victim. You're choosing this yourself. It's your fault that you're in this

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circumstance. Take some responsibility is often an accusation that gets thrown at people and

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it can be just another version of neglect or blaming the person or leaving the oppressor,

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leaving the oppressive system off the hook by saying, oh, you should just take responsibility.

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You can't take responsibility when what do you expect? I don't think that's actually what

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existentialism is doing. On the other side of it, yeah, if you want to make change, you do have to

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at some point accept the responsibility that goes along with having that agency and having those

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choices and deal with consequences of the choices that you make. I think it's very nuanced.

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I think you're very on point to draw us to those areas, but I think existentialism is much more

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nuanced. I think for me, a choice can only be really weird when you're really aware of what your

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choices are. For me, if someone chooses to do what someone else might feel is self abuse,

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if they do it with awareness, then that's a conscious choice they have got agency.

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If they're doing it because they're acting out on their trauma and they just want to

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numb out their emotions and sort of kill off these overwhelming feelings, I think that's quite

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different. I think it's not to help create a clearing for people to see that they often have a

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little bit more choice in agency than they might initially think. Whether they decide to take that

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or not, that's up to them. I've never experienced anyone kicking back when someone is gently supported

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to find the clearing where they can see what choices are actually available to them and what

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choices they're avoiding. Really nuanced area, and this is working with people who have been

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significantly abused, particularly in childhood. You're into the area of acceptance,

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and people often get acceptance very much confused with forgiveness. This is a totally different

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area. You do not have to forgive an abuser to accept, and people might be going, "What do you mean

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except? Well, you can't undo. A child cannot undo what has been done. They can't be given back

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what was taken. All they can do is respond to what has happened." And often if people have lost

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their sense of agency, they might be consumed by anger or rage or just an inability to find the

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clearing. When they find their clearing, then they can see that there is an opportunity to go deeper

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into that and actually begin to grieve and mourn what was taken. And then after that, be able to move on.

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I think it's important to say, I think of real quality therapy as art, very, very far removed

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from a medical model. It's a collaboration, it's a creation. So some of these terms and these

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existential terms can sign quite simple, but actually getting into that with someone very, very

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detailed, very, very nuanced needs, hurdles of compassion and patience. And I use the term clearing,

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you know, helping someone find that clearing. When it comes to abuse, you know, that is a

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sense of consuming area. But I see people when they do find agency, things really can change.

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The abuse stops because the abuse doesn't stop after the actual physical abuse stops. It can

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go on and on and on and on in someone's life. So I think there's great value in the existential

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approach around agency and obviously supported by psychoanalytic thinking as well.

383
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One thing I'm interested to hear more about is I know you're a really big proponent of

384
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:16,240
open-heartedness. And it's like the opposite of scientific kind of code. So what does that mean to you

385
00:42:16,240 --> 00:42:22,480
and how do you practice that? So there's something about an encounter. You know, if you take a work of

386
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:27,600
art, right? You go to the museum or the art gallery and you look at it at work of art, there's

387
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:34,080
something about this distance that you get to that painting, right? If you get too close, you kind of

388
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:38,960
like fetishize. If you get too far away, it sort of gets too distant and too obscure. There's

389
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:45,360
just sort of a sweet spot of that encounter with that work of art. And I think that open-heartedness

390
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:54,560
allows for an encounter, a meeting you could think of the patient as a work of art, right? If you put

391
00:42:54,560 --> 00:43:04,320
labels and models and lingo and jargon, suddenly the open-heartedness begins to close and a

392
00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:12,720
distance comes between you and that other person. So I think, you know, lying talked about open-heartedness

393
00:43:12,720 --> 00:43:19,520
to try and give words to how he encountered someone who had in those days labeled as I know it's

394
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:26,480
schizophrenic. For example, you know, immediately that label can shut down people's open-heartedness.

395
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:34,080
And I make the distinction between open-heartedness and open-mindedness. Right? Open-mindedness is

396
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:43,040
pretty good, but open-heartedness denotes an empathy and a connection. And also it denotes that I am

397
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:51,520
not afraid to encounter you. I am not afraid to look into the abyss with you. It is convenient to

398
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:58,960
have labels and jargon and the more things that you put in front of someone the further away that you

399
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:03,760
get and the further away you get, the further away you get from people's suffering. And that is

400
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:09,840
convenient. So I think one of the areas, this is a bit technical that I see, it's very much missed in

401
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:18,480
therapy, is the fear of mourning, the fear of grieving. I often see therapists making, in fact,

402
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:25,680
I've researched on this, I see therapists who desire to make someone comfortable. Right? So they

403
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:31,520
jump over the grieving of what is lost and what was taken and they move into the move on.

404
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:37,600
It almost comes in with some of the trauma approaches where people are trying to be grounded and

405
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:43,840
regulated and to not get overwhelmed. And which sound good until you realize that maybe that gets

406
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:49,600
in the way of grieving and the way in which there is a kind of an uncontrollable just being hit by

407
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:55,920
this giant wave of emotion that's part of what the grieving process I think always involves.

408
00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:04,800
The model I would use is safety, seeking safety first. So instead of going into someone's past and

409
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:11,840
history, I would want to help someone develop coping mechanisms to get day to day and week to week.

410
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:19,440
And what happens is they learn how to cope, how to regulate it, how to be grounded. And only then would

411
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:26,480
I move into the area of grieving. So it's sometimes people can go into it too quickly. But

412
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:34,640
really you're asking someone to have an encounter with deep grief, loss and often depression, suicide

413
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:40,240
like the Asian, you know, why not? Because you're asking someone to lean into the pain that perhaps

414
00:45:40,240 --> 00:45:46,480
that they have avoided. So you can see the human tendency to fast forward that, to try and fix

415
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:52,320
someone and to try and make someone feel better. So I think that also gets tied up into the system,

416
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:58,400
you know, people are looking for quick fixes, they're looking for the symptoms to be eradicated

417
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:03,920
quickly and to move on. Get back to work, get back to their roles, get back to taking care of the kids,

418
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:09,840
back to school. I think the stage is really missed. And you know, I experienced that in my own

419
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:18,480
journey, part of the reason why I also wanted to train in Western approaches was I didn't believe

420
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:25,280
that Buddhism was often the right starting place for the average Western person. And this can be

421
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:32,320
sort of supported by Sharon Salzburg in the early 90s asked at the Dalai Lama what his views were

422
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:38,720
on self-hatred. And there was a bit of a cuffle and people were wondering is this a translation issue.

423
00:46:38,720 --> 00:46:46,080
He didn't understand the concept because it was a much more Western idea. The teachers, the

424
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:51,040
patent teachers, protectors learned that actually there's a lot more work to be done with a Western

425
00:46:51,040 --> 00:47:00,320
student to get them to a baseline. So the baseline would be feeling good enough for no reason.

426
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:08,480
If you get to that point, you're still fierce with the existentials of loss, death, age,

427
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:15,280
right, but you can fierce it with a good enough sense of self. A lot of people don't have a good

428
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:20,400
enough sense of self. They're going to very fragmented, traumatized, split off sense of self.

429
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:25,760
So you've also studied open dialogue. And I want to ask you a little bit about what your experience is

430
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:31,440
with that because I think open dialogue kind of arrived in the United States with a lot of optimism

431
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:36,240
and hope. And I think there's tremendous amounts of optimism and hope that open dialogue

432
00:47:36,240 --> 00:47:42,480
deserves, but the actual implementation of it can sometimes get lost or confused or

433
00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:48,960
thwarted by the institutional context that it's in without deeper, broader change. What are your

434
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:52,880
thoughts about how open dialogue fits into this and what's been your experience with it?

435
00:47:52,880 --> 00:48:01,600
Yeah. So I was initially very excited. I felt great synergy with my own work, much less pathological

436
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:07,520
approach, and also setting on certain day, not knowing, not implementing that, knowing onto someone

437
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:14,160
else. I have a few concerns. One is the sort of the training and the expense of the training and

438
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:20,800
the length of the training and the dominance of the training in certain orders. The other concern I

439
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:26,640
had was it's as good as the people in the network. So I've had horrendous experiences where

440
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:33,200
prescriber has been in the network and said horrendous things to a family. I've challenged what was

441
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:42,000
said. I've challenged the senior management in that area and find that nothing changed. So I had to

442
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:48,000
remove myself from the network because I didn't want to collude with high personal streeters.

443
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:51,600
And these are all people that are using the open dialogue approach.

444
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:58,720
Called call the open dialogue. Yeah. Yeah. So you know, this idea of fidelity, you know, how close

445
00:48:58,720 --> 00:49:05,680
is it to the original principles. I also have a concern that families, I did a lot of family work.

446
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:12,400
So I did like a hybrid of open dialogue. And a lot of families come along having read statistics in

447
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:19,440
Finland, oh yeah, 79% of people, you know, don't need medication and cover. So they've got a non-realistic

448
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:24,400
expectation. And you know, it's not like for like Finland had a sort of societal response.

449
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:31,280
It was nested in a community that could support. It's also a very different context for

450
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:36,400
beginning therapy because in Finland, there's no system and then there's open dialogue. The open

451
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:41,680
dialogue is the system in Western Finland and in Western Lapland where it's so everyone is using

452
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:46,720
that framework. Whereas in the US and other places, families or individuals have often been in

453
00:49:46,720 --> 00:49:52,480
the system for a long time. They've been disappointed. They've been harmed. They've been socialized into

454
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:58,080
that. There's been all this damage that's been done. And then they hear about this vision or this

455
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:03,680
idea of open dialogue when they get this idea. And then it's the idea that they're pursuing. And then

456
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:09,040
they land with practitioners or an agency or something that's using an open dialogue. So it's a

457
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:15,440
completely different scenario for how people are actually getting into the open dialogue setting.

458
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:21,760
And then people, participants in open dialogue meetings have like studied open dialogue or read

459
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:27,600
about it. So they're not just arriving as family members kind of naturally. They're sort of thinking

460
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:32,960
about how do we do open dialogue? Because in Western Finland, I mean, because I trained in open

461
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:38,880
dialogue, the patients, the clients, no one was trying to do open dialogue because it was this

462
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:44,160
thing. It was just these are services. And this is how we do things. And it's just a natural

463
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:49,440
conversation that emerges out of it. So it's a very different context, I think. And there isn't

464
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:55,680
enough studying and reflection about that. And what do you do about that? And maybe the a lot of the

465
00:50:55,680 --> 00:51:01,280
promise I think of open dialogue is the early treatment, the fact that you're responding to

466
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:06,960
what we would call first episode or first break. And you're dealing with the distress and the family.

467
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:12,400
You know, as it first emerges because the culture there is that people when they have problems

468
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:17,360
psychological problems, they contact Carapute's hospital and there's a relationship there. And there's

469
00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:23,760
a this kind of an early response. Whereas in the US, it's neglect neglect neglect people go into

470
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:28,640
the system. Things get worse. They have these horrible experiences. And then they're searching for

471
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:33,760
something they exhaust the system. And then they hear about open dialogue. And now they show up

472
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:38,560
at the door of an open dialogue trained clinician. So it's a very different context.

473
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:45,120
I think you make a really, really good point about, you know, the families have read up about it.

474
00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:49,760
You know, so actually it nearly interrupts what could be done. But the other thing I was sort of

475
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:57,600
a bit shocked concerned with is what higher other people practice. Is to me open dialogue is the way

476
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:04,080
I would communicate with somebody ordinarily. You know, so it's the way I would think about someone.

477
00:52:04,080 --> 00:52:08,240
I don't know. I don't know if the answer. So I'm going to remain open and I'm going to remain

478
00:52:08,240 --> 00:52:14,960
curious. What I would say is I sort of pivoted away from it in terms of fidelity. And I did a lot

479
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:20,640
more work in the family with someone who often as you say they've been through the traumatized by

480
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:25,920
the system actually traumatized by the system. Yeah. Which is happening way less in the open dialogue

481
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:33,280
context in Western Finland. I saw incredible moments of healing in working with families. And I saw

482
00:52:33,280 --> 00:52:38,640
because one of the concerns that I was I kind of had to move away from sort of job protection

483
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:44,880
and stuff because I just saw abuse everywhere. So one of the concerns I had with the open dialogue

484
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:49,840
was what if the abusers part of the network. Just very common. So I struggled with that. But the

485
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:57,520
families that I've worked with I have seen healing. And I've seen healing when the trauma in the system

486
00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:03,920
is addressed. Even just recognize even just naming it and saying yes, this was abusive. What happened

487
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:09,440
to you in the system can be very relieving. Absolutely. So I was with the family and worked for a long,

488
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:14,560
long time. Yeah, I won't give you too much detail, but I'll just say that the work that we did,

489
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:20,960
we made the connections with their trauma and their current behavior. And making those links,

490
00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:26,640
the behavior changed. But there was a moment when the father turned dry and said it was the biggest

491
00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:35,200
regret of my life bringing you to a doctor. Yeah. Yeah. And I started talking about it without getting

492
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:41,680
emotional. Yeah. There's so many families like this. I have so many people come to me. The parents

493
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:46,960
have been, they've turned around because they saw they trusted the system. They trusted the doctors

494
00:53:46,960 --> 00:53:52,880
over and over and over again. And now they have to wake up to what did I do to my son, what did I do

495
00:53:52,880 --> 00:54:01,520
to my daughter? The moment he said that the sun changed, it was like he was witnessed. It was like

496
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:08,080
the universe just shifted and the sun never looked back. It was like a moment. It was that recognition.

497
00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:16,000
But it was the anxiety and the fear of being reinstitutedized. That was causing most of the problems.

498
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:20,320
So when that was brought in, because we think about it, it's not something you really want to talk about.

499
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:25,600
People don't usually want to talk about what they're really afraid of. Right? Yeah. They're really

500
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:31,440
afraid. Yeah. Fear is avoidance for sure. So holding, holding that space. So having all the

501
00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:36,880
knowledge of the traumatization and the system, so coming with that and then being able to give

502
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:43,200
words to that really, really powerful, which is really hard to do if you're embedded in the system

503
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:49,440
that's doing the abuse, or you have some kind of like semi implementation of open dialogue where

504
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:54,240
well, you know, we have the insurance companies, we have the doctors, we have the hospital system,

505
00:54:54,240 --> 00:54:58,560
and then there's this unwillingness to validate the abuse and to protect the person,

506
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:03,040
like so many families, there does have to be that agreement. We're not going to hospitalize you,

507
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:08,720
or there does have to be the agreement that look, the father is in the room, the father is part of

508
00:55:08,720 --> 00:55:14,640
the network, but no, the father is emotionally abusive here. The father is, or it could be the mother

509
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:20,080
or it could be a sibling. And I think that's a real misunderstanding about open dialogue that it's

510
00:55:20,080 --> 00:55:26,160
intending for the network to come together or intending for the family to meet together. I mean,

511
00:55:26,160 --> 00:55:31,840
yes, that can be very fruitful and that can be very useful because people are the relationships,

512
00:55:31,840 --> 00:55:38,320
but sometimes you don't want to be in the room with the abuser. Sometimes the safety is not there.

513
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:43,440
And I think that the person who's facilitating or the therapist has to have the flexibility

514
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:49,120
to create arrangements of meeting individually with someone, meeting separately with the parents,

515
00:55:49,120 --> 00:55:54,240
having another facilitator, another therapist that's working with other people in the family,

516
00:55:54,240 --> 00:56:00,960
because if you're not paying attention to those basic issues of mistreatment, power, abuse,

517
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:06,880
the harm that can be happening and that can be ongoing, if you're not paying attention to that,

518
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:12,560
then yeah, you just become another part of the system enforcing the normalcy of violence.

519
00:56:12,560 --> 00:56:17,520
And I think it's a tremendous danger with open dialogue. I think when I was studying it,

520
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:24,000
we did address it, but I can see how the implementation of it, people can just drift back into a lot of

521
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:30,960
old assumptions or not have the skill or the clarity to kind of bring safety in. I mean,

522
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:36,880
I've been in sessions where I will just stop the session where I will ask one member of the meeting

523
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:43,040
to leave or I'll meet separately with someone because what's happening in the session is just reinforcing.

524
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:48,560
Is either harming somebody or just reinforcing something that's going on in terms of a power

525
00:56:48,560 --> 00:56:55,280
and balance or some kind of abuse? Yeah, I mean, sometimes the abuser is the prescriber.

526
00:56:55,280 --> 00:57:03,440
Absolutely. I have been asked to run head up open dialogue service and I said I couldn't do it

527
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:09,360
because I didn't feel confident that I could collaborate with prescribers. I didn't feel there was

528
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:14,320
any available who had the mindset that would really offer something that was different.

529
00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:21,760
And I think that's the danger. People can talk the lingo of open dialogue, but they all the same

530
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:29,920
things that they've always done. I didn't set with me. I feel the best work I do is avoiding the

531
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:37,840
prescriber and then advocating hard, particularly on the olive ones. Yeah, yeah. If the prescriber is still

532
00:57:37,840 --> 00:57:44,720
using the same domineering, I know it's best kind of fear-based threatening and has that power of

533
00:57:44,720 --> 00:57:49,680
forcing someone to the hospital. It doesn't matter how much open dialogue jargon there is. It just

534
00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:56,880
becomes the latest fad for the psychiatrist, the prescriber to feel good and sophisticated about

535
00:57:56,880 --> 00:58:02,160
what they're doing because they're often they really do want to see themselves as helpers, as

536
00:58:02,160 --> 00:58:07,760
saviors, as protectors. And so they are going to grab a hold of something like open dialogue and say,

537
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:13,920
yeah, this is I'm part of this too. I'm open dialogue as well, even when they're not actually being

538
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:20,560
self-reflective and then being able to challenge them and say, no, we don't want you here or go away.

539
00:58:20,560 --> 00:58:23,360
How do you do that when they have the power, when they have the prescription

540
00:58:23,360 --> 00:58:29,360
pad, when they have the power to lock somebody up, when you need them to get the dosages that you want.

541
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:34,160
And also when they have so much influence towards other family members and the decisions that are

542
00:58:34,160 --> 00:58:39,200
being made. And the psychiatrist, the prescriber really becomes sort of the master of fear

543
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:44,320
in the context. Everyone's afraid, everyone feels guilty. And here's this authority figure

544
00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:49,840
that's seen as unafraid. Oh, I know what to do. Here's what you have to do. The confidence,

545
00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:55,600
the domination can play into, well, this is a solution to our fear because we can just trust

546
00:58:55,600 --> 00:58:59,680
the psychiatrist in that plays out, I think, in open dialogue context as well.

547
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:04,240
Yeah, I think you put that beautifully. And you know, earlier on, you made the point that for some

548
00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:11,120
people's medication can be helpful, right? You have that openness, right? I didn't find it work

549
00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:17,120
the other way. Right, right. You know, we're prescribers open to the fact that sometimes it doesn't

550
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:25,360
exactly. And sometimes it would be preferable not to medicate, right? So I didn't feel it was

551
00:59:25,360 --> 00:59:30,640
reciprocated. Unless you have that starting point. And there are people, I know that some of the people

552
00:59:30,640 --> 00:59:36,640
who do the training of partnerships with psychiatrists who really are signed up to it, right? But I

553
00:59:36,640 --> 00:59:41,360
personally just couldn't find one. Yeah, they are out there. I think there's a lot of good open

554
00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:47,360
dialogue work happening, but you make a really good point. And also the idea of what's helpful

555
00:59:47,360 --> 00:59:52,000
is important to think about because taking a medication might be helpful if it means your mom and

556
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:56,800
dad aren't going to kick you out of the house. You have nowhere else to go. So I think being very

557
00:59:56,800 --> 01:00:02,640
pragmatic. But when I work with families, I always am thinking about is the most vulnerable person

558
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:10,000
alone or not? Do they have the advocate on their side? Do they have someone who's with them 100%

559
01:00:10,000 --> 01:00:16,000
and I think it's a mistake to sacrifice that in the name of facilitating the whole family? Because

560
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:21,280
if you're facilitating the whole family and one person has no voice, has no power, their

561
01:00:21,280 --> 01:00:27,360
endanger going to the hospital, their being chemically restrained, their risk of further violence,

562
01:00:27,360 --> 01:00:33,520
their life is really on the line, then you're not on a level playing field. That person needs their

563
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:40,400
voice supported first. And then maybe you can bring in these other relationships. But unless you

564
01:00:40,400 --> 01:00:46,640
have the skill and the awareness to actually support that one person who's vulnerable, then the

565
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:52,240
power imbalance is just going to recreate all the different abuses of the system. Absolutely. I think

566
01:00:52,240 --> 01:00:59,040
you nailed it. You're working within the system. I'm just curious how that works for you. Like,

567
01:00:59,040 --> 01:01:04,320
are you really drawn to work in those environments or do you feel like you can make a really big

568
01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:11,920
difference there or you find places that you feel are a good fit for you? Yes. So what interests

569
01:01:11,920 --> 01:01:18,000
me is offering the highest level of care to the people who are less likely to receive it.

570
01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:24,080
I am in a clinic where an often people might get an intern. They're immediately surprised to get

571
01:01:24,080 --> 01:01:30,720
someone with three masters in a PhD. They intuitively know this is someone who is chosen to spend the

572
01:01:30,720 --> 01:01:37,200
time with them and not in a more lucrative private practice. For example, you have three masters in a

573
01:01:37,200 --> 01:01:43,920
PhD. My goodness. First of all, I didn't go to college until I was 34 and I always thought I was stupid

574
01:01:43,920 --> 01:01:48,880
because of the slacks yet. But it was because I kept moving. I mean, that's a whole other conversation.

575
01:01:48,880 --> 01:01:55,200
But I licensing is so prohibitive. I had two masters on a PhD and I still had to do another

576
01:01:55,200 --> 01:02:02,160
clinical masters to get licensed in Massachusetts. It's just such bureaucracy. Yeah. Yeah. Then the

577
01:02:02,160 --> 01:02:08,480
student loan situation basically enslaves you to working for the system to just pay off the debts

578
01:02:08,480 --> 01:02:13,440
because you're under that financial pressure. But I was lucky because I, my name was quite

579
01:02:13,440 --> 01:02:20,480
spread out because I moved. So, you know, some in Malaysia, Western, some in London. But I feel that

580
01:02:20,480 --> 01:02:26,160
it was a calling for me at its pinfall, you know, to read and around, you know, the things that you've

581
01:02:26,160 --> 01:02:30,960
said and some of the things that Nikki said to me before we came on, you know, it's pinfall for me

582
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:37,200
to think of people having bad experience in therapy. But I know what happens and it's very, very,

583
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:44,320
variable. I have spent the better part of my life studying, learning, being in therapy. I eat,

584
01:02:44,320 --> 01:02:51,200
breathe, sleep it. It's like absolutely dedicated to it. And when I see people who feel that

585
01:02:51,200 --> 01:02:56,400
down by therapist, it makes me very sad and very angry. But it is very, very variable. I think the

586
01:02:56,400 --> 01:03:02,480
difference in America compared to the UK, you had therapy as a standalone qualification. So,

587
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:06,400
people might have done a five year training. And within that five year training, they would have

588
01:03:06,400 --> 01:03:11,040
been in therapy themselves for the duration. So that doesn't guarantee a good therapist, but

589
01:03:11,040 --> 01:03:16,800
it guarantees someone's been working on their stuff and been challenged and they're nearly like

590
01:03:16,800 --> 01:03:23,360
molded, you know, you don't start that journey unless you're really serious. Well, sometimes I

591
01:03:23,360 --> 01:03:28,160
think there are licensing tracks for counselors and therapists, psychotherapists that don't need

592
01:03:28,160 --> 01:03:34,720
you to get any of your own personal therapy in the US context. Majority, I think even somebody

593
01:03:34,720 --> 01:03:40,400
told me some of the licenses that did have it have taken it away. So I sometimes worry about

594
01:03:40,400 --> 01:03:44,960
psychologist more because they seem even more distanced because they're talking like they have

595
01:03:44,960 --> 01:03:49,520
the knowledge, but actually often haven't had any personal experience of the therapy themselves.

596
01:03:50,240 --> 01:03:56,640
So I think good supervision. I mean, I've been at this for decades. I'm in supervision for three

597
01:03:56,640 --> 01:04:01,280
hours a week. I've got a supervisor in Canada, I've got one in the East Coast and then I've got one

598
01:04:01,280 --> 01:04:05,920
in the clinic. That's not because I don't know what I'm doing. That's because I, you can never

599
01:04:05,920 --> 01:04:13,200
finish the learning, right? Because people are endlessly beautiful and complex and I'll still be

600
01:04:13,200 --> 01:04:20,080
studying this art, I think, on my deathbed. What about psychedelics, Michael? Is that an area

601
01:04:20,080 --> 01:04:26,960
that you're interested in? And are you using them? Well, I've been very interested in speed at which

602
01:04:26,960 --> 01:04:32,720
it is kind of advancing in terms of therapeutic interest. There's obviously a connection with

603
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:40,000
Audi Lying. He's very much man of the 60s and he very much did experiment with LSD and was very

604
01:04:40,000 --> 01:04:47,840
connected to the players in America at the time, Timothy Leary and Ramdas and Esselen. I don't feel

605
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:54,480
comfortable working with a clinician who's working with people in extreme states. He hasn't experienced

606
01:04:54,480 --> 01:05:00,480
an altered state themselves. So I would absolutely advocate it for someone. I remember being on an

607
01:05:00,480 --> 01:05:05,280
early intervention team in London and people were making pronouncements over what was or what wasn't

608
01:05:05,280 --> 01:05:10,880
the hallucination. And I asked, "Have any of you ever tried a psychedelic?" None of them had.

609
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:18,400
And I said, "Well, what gives you the license to talk about hallucinations?" And that. The other thing I

610
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:25,760
like about clinicians and psychedelics, not that I'm advocating for it, but one of the advantages is

611
01:05:25,760 --> 01:05:33,520
if someone takes ALSD, they're stuck in that trip. So the clinician gets an experience of maybe

612
01:05:33,520 --> 01:05:39,440
states that they're not comfortable with, but they have to stay with. And I think that gives a

613
01:05:39,440 --> 01:05:47,280
flavor of what it can be like for some people to be working with quite extreme states and kind of

614
01:05:47,280 --> 01:05:53,920
been locked into it. So I think Leary's idea that it does give people a flavor of an altered state

615
01:05:53,920 --> 01:06:00,480
that can eventually be useful clinically. Yeah, I think that's very interesting. The idea that

616
01:06:00,480 --> 01:06:07,200
psychedelics or experiencing any altered state could be useful for helpers for clinicians. And

617
01:06:07,200 --> 01:06:11,440
definitely it's just a common sense obvious thing. How do you sit with someone and talk about their

618
01:06:11,440 --> 01:06:16,000
experience when it's completely foreign to you? I mean, obviously, if you have something that you

619
01:06:16,000 --> 01:06:21,600
can connect it to with your own experience, ideally, we would have more people helping each other

620
01:06:21,600 --> 01:06:27,840
who themselves been through so-called psychosis or so-called mental breakdowns. But I think that

621
01:06:27,840 --> 01:06:33,120
different altered states, maybe psychedelics could potentially create that empathy, especially

622
01:06:33,120 --> 01:06:39,920
having bad trips, because then people can maybe appreciate just the importance of a kind of spacious

623
01:06:39,920 --> 01:06:48,160
calm being with non-intrusive, non-judgmental. People can appreciate how sensitive you can be to the

624
01:06:48,160 --> 01:06:53,680
fears of people around you and the reactions to people around you. So I don't think there's a lot of

625
01:06:53,680 --> 01:07:00,240
push right now for that kind of use of psychedelics like training the clinicians. It's a very focused

626
01:07:00,240 --> 01:07:04,400
around psychedelics as mental health treatments, which I've written about before and I think there's

627
01:07:04,400 --> 01:07:09,920
a huge huge problems with that. But one of the things that's interesting about laying and

628
01:07:09,920 --> 01:07:16,560
Kingsley Hall and the work that was done at Sotiria House and Diabesis House was that

629
01:07:16,560 --> 01:07:23,920
the qualities of sitting with someone going through a psychotic state so-called being with that

630
01:07:23,920 --> 01:07:28,320
altered state are the same qualities and skills of sitting with someone in a bad

631
01:07:28,320 --> 01:07:33,760
acid trip or a bad psychedelic trip. And even the work that's done in festivals now, if you read

632
01:07:33,760 --> 01:07:39,840
the manuals, are you experience the different trip-sitting approaches that are in festivals when people

633
01:07:39,840 --> 01:07:44,640
have a bad drug experience? You think, wow, these are good guidelines for someone who's having

634
01:07:44,640 --> 01:07:51,520
an extreme state or having a manic crisis or whatever might get diagnosed as psychosis. So I think

635
01:07:51,520 --> 01:07:56,320
that the introduction of maybe familiarity with those states or relating to those states can be

636
01:07:56,320 --> 01:08:02,880
very positive for helpers. I think so. Lying when asked about what was required in terms of training,

637
01:08:02,880 --> 01:08:10,320
preparation, he said to experience LSD and to read all of Freud. So when it comes to the

638
01:08:10,320 --> 01:08:15,360
juries, I'd for me, I would need it to know a lot more and a lot more research in terms of the benefit

639
01:08:15,360 --> 01:08:23,120
for the individual and I get really irritated when someone tells one story of one person's experience

640
01:08:23,120 --> 01:08:28,000
and then that's meant to be, you know, but what really interests me at the minute is ketamine

641
01:08:28,000 --> 01:08:36,480
and this whole idea of neuroplasticity. I think that is a fascinating area. But again, when the venture

642
01:08:36,480 --> 01:08:42,160
capital people are falling over themselves to get into it, then you sort of go hang on a second,

643
01:08:42,160 --> 01:08:48,000
is this just going to be more medication? But I have been very impressed. I know that you've had

644
01:08:48,000 --> 01:08:52,560
some bad experiences. Well, but you know, I've been very impressed with some of the people I've met

645
01:08:52,560 --> 01:08:59,840
in the ketamine world. I thought they were really, really ethical and professional and knowledgeable.

646
01:08:59,840 --> 01:09:04,560
But again, it's as good as the person you meet. It's an interesting question because I don't think

647
01:09:04,560 --> 01:09:09,840
it can be argued that some people are benefiting. Even before we start talking about treatments

648
01:09:09,840 --> 01:09:16,720
in clinical settings, people are using ketamine or using LSD or using MDMA in the underground,

649
01:09:16,720 --> 01:09:24,160
not just for partying. That's a misunderstanding. That's a war on drugs stereotype that psychedelics

650
01:09:24,160 --> 01:09:29,920
in the underground is always just for getting high and partying. But for very serious spiritual and

651
01:09:29,920 --> 01:09:36,320
healing purposes, and so there's an undeniable, I think, history and reality that psychedelics

652
01:09:36,320 --> 01:09:41,600
can be very useful for people. But then the question to me is what are the risks when you put it in a

653
01:09:41,600 --> 01:09:47,520
medical context? What happens to the people who don't have a good experience with ketamine?

654
01:09:47,520 --> 01:09:52,800
And they maybe have a psychotic break and then maybe they're blamed just like someone has a manic

655
01:09:52,800 --> 01:09:59,600
episode as an adverse effect of an antidepressant. Then they're told they're bipolar. Someone goes

656
01:09:59,600 --> 01:10:05,440
into ketamine clinic. They have a psychotic episode and now they're said, "Oh, your bipolar has been

657
01:10:05,440 --> 01:10:10,880
uncovered." Or you had a preexisting condition of schizophrenia. And then we're just going to toss you

658
01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:18,000
into the hospital. And there's a way in which the kind of zealotry or the enthusiasm around psychedelics

659
01:10:18,000 --> 01:10:22,560
has prevented people from taking a step back and say, "Look, these aren't for everybody.

660
01:10:22,560 --> 01:10:27,840
They're real risks." And when people do have extreme anxiety reactions, because I've talked with

661
01:10:27,840 --> 01:10:32,880
a number of people. There was a big thread online recently about people's negative experiences with

662
01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:38,160
ketamine. When they do have big anxiety experiences, or they do have dissociative experiences, or

663
01:10:38,160 --> 01:10:43,680
their depression gets worse, they get turned away. There's no holding. There's no support for them,

664
01:10:43,680 --> 01:10:50,240
because they're not really on board with the program of the psychedelic as the solution. They become

665
01:10:50,240 --> 01:10:56,400
problems. They become burdens to the clinician. The clinician doesn't have any kind of infrastructure

666
01:10:56,400 --> 01:11:01,120
for supporting the person. They just sort of push them aside, which is kind of what psychiatry and

667
01:11:01,120 --> 01:11:06,960
psychotherapy have always done with the people that were the so-called problem cases or the difficult

668
01:11:06,960 --> 01:11:12,560
people who don't get better. I think there's a lot of difficulty in bringing psychedelics into a

669
01:11:12,560 --> 01:11:17,840
medical context. At the same time, I don't think they should just be commercialized. We should just be

670
01:11:17,840 --> 01:11:24,000
able to have the capitalist marketplace run amok on psychedelics. But we need some kind of middle

671
01:11:24,000 --> 01:11:29,440
ground where we're no longer going to be war on drugs towards people. Because relatively speaking

672
01:11:29,440 --> 01:11:35,600
ketamine compared to alcohol or compared to tobacco, people need to be able to have access to

673
01:11:35,600 --> 01:11:40,640
choosing what they want to choose in terms of changing their consciousness or using it in any other

674
01:11:40,640 --> 01:11:46,800
way. But I wouldn't endorse a full commercialization or a full medicalization. But we do need to

675
01:11:46,800 --> 01:11:52,480
step back from the war on drugs. But we need to do it in a way that's not going to just start romanticizing

676
01:11:52,480 --> 01:11:58,800
and promising miracle cures to people and downplaying the very serious risks that go along, not just

677
01:11:58,800 --> 01:12:06,160
from the drug itself, but from introducing a drug into that unbalanced power dynamic, which gives the

678
01:12:06,160 --> 01:12:12,000
potential for huge amount of influence. Because these are suggestibility drugs. They're influence

679
01:12:12,000 --> 01:12:18,080
drugs. They're vulnerability drugs. So that isn't being addressed right now. Plus a lot of the research

680
01:12:18,080 --> 01:12:23,520
that's giving a lot of miraculous kind of results, it's really skewed. The research is really designed

681
01:12:23,520 --> 01:12:29,200
and set up to have very much higher positive outcomes that I think we're going to actually see in

682
01:12:29,200 --> 01:12:34,560
the real world when things can become more available. I think there definitely is a romanticization

683
01:12:34,560 --> 01:12:41,760
under rush, which is troubling. I have the CM policy with all chemicals and I think the biggest

684
01:12:41,760 --> 01:12:47,360
problem is a lack of respect. I don't think we respect alcohol. I don't think we respect cannabis.

685
01:12:47,360 --> 01:12:54,080
I don't think we respect ketamine for the powerful potent substances that they are. I don't think

686
01:12:54,080 --> 01:13:01,680
psychiatrists respect the potency of the medication they prescribe. People can be prescribed a benzo

687
01:13:01,680 --> 01:13:09,120
like it's a tick-tax. These are serious potent drugs and they're not respected. I think if everyone

688
01:13:09,120 --> 01:13:14,480
respected drugs for the potency that they hold, a lot of the problems would definitely be reduced.

689
01:13:15,360 --> 01:13:22,160
I think some of the psychedelic experiences were conducted in a more ritualistic way and that

690
01:13:22,160 --> 01:13:30,480
had a lot more awareness and compassion and more sight than the McDonald's. I mean, it really is.

691
01:13:30,480 --> 01:13:38,880
McDonald's, you can go online and access ketamine. It's a happy mail. I think you make great points.

692
01:13:38,880 --> 01:13:42,960
I think there's some, it has to be some sort of middle grind and I don't think we've quite

693
01:13:42,960 --> 01:13:47,760
found it yet. The reason I find ketamine interesting is because it's obviously a lot shorter. You

694
01:13:47,760 --> 01:13:53,440
take a trip of acid, you can be locked in. It's not for the faint hearted. It can be extremely dangerous.

695
01:13:53,440 --> 01:13:59,040
ketamine has its risks but it's a much shorter. People can go into a trip 30 minutes on the ride again.

696
01:13:59,040 --> 01:14:05,200
It depends on the route of administration and then also the dosage. I see a lot of people abusing

697
01:14:05,200 --> 01:14:12,400
these drugs. I see people in the local area where I am abusing DMT. I know people who have had

698
01:14:12,400 --> 01:14:18,320
torturous experiences that have lasted an eternity. Yeah, well, this brings back to the whole question.

699
01:14:18,320 --> 01:14:24,240
Why are we providing individualized treatments when the whole society is really the problem? I mean,

700
01:14:24,240 --> 01:14:29,760
the problem for me with psychotherapy conversations is that it's all about like the individual. In fact,

701
01:14:29,760 --> 01:14:35,760
I think what's driving distress in society is the community breakdown. It's the way in which capitalism

702
01:14:35,760 --> 01:14:41,280
is kind of feeding and digesting and transforming everything. So we're just these isolated

703
01:14:41,280 --> 01:14:46,880
consumers. So I think that's a big part of the danger of psychedelics is that you just introduce

704
01:14:46,880 --> 01:14:53,440
psychedelics as another consumption item in an isolated virtual reality that we're moving towards.

705
01:14:53,440 --> 01:14:58,880
And so you raise a really important point around the ritualistic aspect. I mean, a lot of the Iowaska

706
01:14:58,880 --> 01:15:02,960
experience that's appealing to people is that you're kind of joining a church and you're joining

707
01:15:02,960 --> 01:15:08,560
a community and you have the singing and you get gathered together and you do like a sleep over

708
01:15:08,560 --> 01:15:13,600
together and you develop this network of connections and you have this focus in your sharing stories

709
01:15:13,600 --> 01:15:18,480
and that's really the revitalization I'd love to see and I don't know if you've ever tried breath

710
01:15:18,480 --> 01:15:23,680
work, but I think it might be really interesting for you and for anybody. I have. You have. Okay,

711
01:15:23,680 --> 01:15:29,680
well, that's you did it at Estellan. I think you did actually. It was a life of firming,

712
01:15:29,680 --> 01:15:35,200
changing experience because I went in as a skeptic. This was your Estellan breath work that we did

713
01:15:35,200 --> 01:15:41,520
together. Yeah, to someone told me in the hot tub, I was like taking foreheads of Iowaska and I

714
01:15:41,520 --> 01:15:45,920
just laughed. I said, this is almost ridiculous thing and I went along. I didn't want to feel out of

715
01:15:45,920 --> 01:15:50,640
step with the rest of the participants. So I thought if I didn't go, they would have some sort of

716
01:15:50,640 --> 01:15:58,000
experience that I didn't and I went in and and I mean, it connected me with the holotropic,

717
01:15:58,000 --> 01:16:04,560
you know, and it connected me with a range of things that I would never have ordinarily considered.

718
01:16:04,560 --> 01:16:09,680
And I think it made me a better therapist from one breath work session. I could tell what happened

719
01:16:09,680 --> 01:16:14,560
to your kid. Please tell us what happened. Yeah, tell us what. Do you really want to tell you what I'm

720
01:16:14,560 --> 01:16:22,000
Yes. Yeah. So I had no idea really what to expect and I was with a friend who knew a little bit.

721
01:16:22,000 --> 01:16:28,320
So when the session started, I experienced them as being more concerned about themselves than me

722
01:16:28,320 --> 01:16:35,280
and manifested it and then put their hand on my shoulder. And as soon as the music started about five

723
01:16:35,280 --> 01:16:40,800
minutes in, I had this experience of been surrounded by re-end like in a circle. And when they put

724
01:16:40,800 --> 01:16:47,040
their hand on me, I had an experience of been pushed into the earth and experiencing the energy

725
01:16:47,040 --> 01:16:53,440
of the indigenous people. And I could just go on and on and on. But it didn't end there. It went on

726
01:16:53,440 --> 01:16:59,280
for months. It connected me with something that kind of was beyond words, but it really had a theme

727
01:16:59,280 --> 01:17:04,240
of tuning into something much more earth. And I know that you made comments about Estlund and

728
01:17:04,240 --> 01:17:10,240
you're very mindful of the secret space that we were on. But it was quite incredible. But I came

729
01:17:10,240 --> 01:17:15,920
away really connected with this idea of a healer and believe it or not, I'd never seen myself in that

730
01:17:15,920 --> 01:17:22,880
way. And when I arrived at Estlund, I felt a bit burnt out and I had this sense of a communication

731
01:17:22,880 --> 01:17:28,560
to say, no, you're being initiated and you need to go back out. It was very, very awful indeed.

732
01:17:28,560 --> 01:17:33,440
Beautiful. Yeah, remember I was assisting that breathwork session as I do that work at Estlund,

733
01:17:33,440 --> 01:17:38,320
I didn't have a chance to hear more about your experience. That's amazing. And it continued and you

734
01:17:38,320 --> 01:17:43,280
carried it with you after. Absolutely. And it prompted me to do a lot of reading and understanding

735
01:17:43,280 --> 01:17:48,880
about the experience. Part of the reason I brought it up is because the central aspect of breathwork

736
01:17:48,880 --> 01:17:55,280
sessions is the creation of that community space. And it's very ritualized and it uses music. And you

737
01:17:55,280 --> 01:18:00,480
can think, okay, this is kind of theatrical. It's kind of new agey. But experience it because it's

738
01:18:00,480 --> 01:18:06,000
powerful. It has roots in our psyche and the way that we come together and the way that we create

739
01:18:06,000 --> 01:18:12,160
vulnerability with each other. And that's suggestibility that happens just from breathing in this elevated

740
01:18:12,160 --> 01:18:18,880
way that creates a natural altered state. But it's very mild. It's very subtle. You're in control of

741
01:18:18,880 --> 01:18:25,840
it. But it's really, it shows that we often give drugs too much power that psychedelics are really

742
01:18:25,840 --> 01:18:32,720
just kind of tapping this suggestibility, this openness, this capacity that we have within ourselves

743
01:18:32,720 --> 01:18:37,280
that we kind of don't necessarily even need the substance to access if we have the right kind of

744
01:18:37,280 --> 01:18:43,120
community ritualized sort of placebo setting. And that's why I think it's really powerful for people

745
01:18:43,120 --> 01:18:48,000
who are interested in psychedelics to maybe try with someone that they trust try a breathwork

746
01:18:48,000 --> 01:18:52,720
session to get a taste of what that can possibly be because a lot of people are skeptical. Oh, how could

747
01:18:52,720 --> 01:18:59,680
it be as powerful? And then you have this incredible strong emotional shifting visionary experience

748
01:18:59,680 --> 01:19:05,120
just from breathing listening to music. I would never believe that they experienced it. But I want

749
01:19:05,120 --> 01:19:12,000
to say something that I think really important. I do value community. So I run a lot of groups

750
01:19:12,000 --> 01:19:18,560
where I create community and some of the groups follow themselves the trauma tribe. So it's

751
01:19:18,560 --> 01:19:26,720
reappropriating this idea of trauma as a positive. And there is immense healing in those spaces that come

752
01:19:26,720 --> 01:19:33,680
from community and also from laughter. I have groups where every single person has been horrifically

753
01:19:33,680 --> 01:19:39,760
sexually abused as a child. And there's laughter in those groups. And I think there's agency and

754
01:19:39,760 --> 01:19:47,200
freedom in that you can hold both you can hold the trauma, but you can hold that we are in community

755
01:19:47,200 --> 01:19:53,520
and we're encountering each other. So I absolutely agree. But I would say it is also possible to

756
01:19:53,520 --> 01:19:58,080
create deep and meaningful community within therapeutic spaces. If you know what you're doing.

757
01:19:58,880 --> 01:20:05,520
If you're open-hearted and you've a really good Irish sense of humor. We've got both present here

758
01:20:05,520 --> 01:20:11,200
in abundance. Michael, we're about out of time. Can you tell listeners how to get in touch with you?

759
01:20:11,200 --> 01:20:23,280
Sure. You can check out my website, which is mrmtherapy.com. Or you can email me on Michael at mrm.

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01:20:23,280 --> 01:20:30,240
That's Michael Robert. Right? mrmtherapy.com. Hey, great. Thank you very much.

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So yeah, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks a lot for joining Michael. Really appreciate

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having you on the show. Thank you so much. It's been a real honor and a privilege. I think we were only

763
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starting to get warmed up. Yeah, well, we want to we're going to have to have you back on the show.

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When my book comes out, I'll be back. What is your book going to be about? My book is my life's work.

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01:20:50,480 --> 01:20:57,200
And it is called psychophobia, which is Lang's term for people being afraid of going inside and

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expressing and feeling and experiencing and talking about and sharing. Is that what it means?

767
01:21:01,440 --> 01:21:10,320
Yeah, I see a major major problem in people being afraid of others' minds and also their own.

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And therefore they treat people differently. I'll tell you a quick story. For the finish, I remember

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in my early days, I was an eye patient clinician. It was my first day in this community setting.

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And I walked into the reception and I saw because I'm hyper-vigilant, right? That's a good thermoshipping.

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01:21:27,360 --> 01:21:32,960
I saw a couple of people sort of shoulders tighten up. And when I said I was a new clinician starting,

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01:21:32,960 --> 01:21:38,400
they relaxed. And I immediately thought that is how they respond to someone that I think is

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01:21:38,400 --> 01:21:43,920
gut mental health issues. Even the people who are meant to be in the caring are seeing that person

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01:21:43,920 --> 01:21:52,080
differently. So I see it as a huge problem. I see psychiatrists are psychophobic. They

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01:21:52,080 --> 01:21:58,480
medicate discomfort. They medicate suffering. They won't be with it. I also see people here also

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afraid of their own minds and a great fear for people who have had an interface with the system is

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going back there or slipping back there. And I think true agency is really knowing one's mind.

778
01:22:11,200 --> 01:22:17,440
So you're not afraid of it anymore. That's the whole area of psychophobic. I hope to really get

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into it. But I hope it's going to be a popular book that addresses some of this and sort of makes a

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difference for people who are traumatized by how they are treated by others.

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01:22:26,800 --> 01:22:31,040
Well, Michael Montgomery, thank you for joining us on Madness Radio.

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01:22:31,040 --> 01:22:36,640
Fantastic. Hope to see you again soon. And Nikki Glasser, thanks so much for joining and co-hosting

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01:22:36,640 --> 01:22:42,560
and co-producing the show today. Good to be here. You've been listening to an interview with

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Michael Montgomery. He is an existential psychoanalyst working in the clinic specializing in psychosis

785
01:22:50,480 --> 01:22:58,480
and complex trauma. He works in the tradition of RD-Lang using a non-pathologizing approach.

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That's all the time we have on Madness Radio. See you next time.

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[Music]

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What does it mean to be called crazy in a crazy world? Listen to Madness Radio. Voices and visions from

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outside mental health.

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