Embracing Your Many Sides for Growth & Productivity

I think one thing that we see a lot is, let's say, when we're doing something like getting a massage, right. That there a lot of times people have trouble enjoying it because they feel as though they should be doing something more productive. And then when they're doing something productive, they wish they were getting massage. And it becomes very hard to really enjoy anything. And I think that's the challenge with finding a balance. Hello, I'm Dr. Farrah White.

And I'm Dr. Grant Brenner.

We're psychiatrists and therapists in private practice in New York. We started this podcast in 2019 to draw attention to a phenomenon called the doorknob comment. Doorknob comments are important things. We all say from time to time, just as we're leaving the office, sometimes literally hand on the doorknob.

Doorknob comments happen not only during therapy, but also in everyday life. The point is that sometimes we aren't sure how to express the deeply meaningful things we're feeling, thinking, and experiencing. Maybe we're afraid to bring certain things out into the open or are on the fence about wanting to discuss them. Sometimes we know we've got something we're unsure about sharing and are keeping it to ourselves. And sometimes we surprise ourselves by what comes out. Good morning. I'm Grant. I'm here with Farah. Today we're going to talk about how hard it is sometimes to look for help and to get help, even when we know we want help. Even sometimes when we know what kind of help we need. And we're going to talk about it from the point of view of having different selves, different self states, different versions of ourselves that may sometimes not be acting together effectively.

We sort of got onto this topic because just lately it's come up in a number of ways, this question of why is it so hard to do things that we know are right for us? Why is it so hard to ask for help when we need it? Why is it. Why do you think, you know, people are. Have trouble doing the things that make them feel good and. And continue doing things that make them feel bad? I mean, there is a lot of psychoanalytic theory behind this, but I think, Grant, you've been sort of exploring this other area, which will be really cool to talk about today.

Yeah, and I would even say it's not necessarily about feeling good. Actually doing things that make people feel good is often problematic because let's take procrastination, for example. There's some really interesting research where they looked at brain activity and they found that there was reduced brain activity in the frontal cortex when people procrastinate because they weren't regulating emotions. Well, what does that mean? It means that when they had to sit down and do something unpleasant, they had trouble saying no to something more pleasant, like watching a TV show or even doing something that they need to do, like cleaning up the apartment, which is still less distressing than the task that they wanted to do or felt they should do. And so feeling good is often problematic. I would reframe the question as doing, you know, what is best for a person or more functional than dysfunctional or making more constructive and adaptive choices. You know, basically having more wins.

Right. What I meant was feeling leads people to feel good about oneself. Right. Not like the pleasure in the moment. But how do we see ourselves in this world?

Well, that's the rub, because, you know, you can feel good that you pampered yourself because you've been meaning to get your hair done or get a manicure or get a massage or, you know, go shopping. And then when you do that, another part of you, so to speak, can feel bad for not, you know, working on your taxes. So I just don't think. I think that whole construct of what makes me feel good and bad is part of the problematic thinking because it is more complicated.

Yeah. And I think one thing that we see a lot is, let's say when we're doing something like getting a massage, right? That. Let's say that also there a lot of times people have trouble enjoying it because they feel as though they should be doing something more productive. And then when they're doing something productive, they wish they were getting a massage. And it becomes very hard to really enjoy anything. And I think that's the challenge with finding a balance.

Right. If you're going to do something that's so called more indulgent, people often feel guilty about it if they're not doing something else. And then while that's happening, they're having intrusive thoughts, they're feeling guilty, they're feeling ashamed, or maybe they can tune it out, but then maybe it kind of comes up somewhere else, like they feel bad afterward. So one of my questions is, is it useful to think of ourselves as being a collection of different personality states? You know, like the me that is a parent and the me that is a doctor and the me that has a personal life and my own pursuits. And I think a lot of times people have trouble dealing with that inner conflict or self contradiction. And we generally want to think of ourselves as being consistent and unitary, like just one of me. And in a sense that's definitely true. We, you know, whoever you are, like you're inside one physical body. But the thing is that body can really only do one thing at a time. And one of the questions that comes up with more, I guess, pronounced situations is if someone has dissociative identity disorder, that used to be called multiple personality disorder, that there would be some kind of vying for control of what the body will do and sometimes characteristically, loss of memory or amnesia for certain activities. So someone who might, for example, think that they shouldn't spend money on clothing, might find a closet full of expensive clothing and not know how it got there. And then they would look at their credit card record and see that they spent it. And maybe they wouldn't believe it. It's tricky. But aside from that more clinically severe condition, there's a case to be made that we all have different parts and that they're not always aligned. And to your point, the executive function kind of model would say, well, do the more unpleasant things first so that you can freely enjoy the other things later without calling yourself lazy or some other judgment.

I think that works for some people and I do think there's research to back back up. Oh, well, how do we have the most productive days? My belief is that people function differently. Some people might be super productive in the morning and some people might feel more productive in the afternoon or evening. And that we can't necessarily impose on each person, like, oh, this is the way to have maximum productivity and maximum life enjoyment and the best relationships, but that we can pay attention, I think, a little bit to what feels, you know, what, what evolves organically in terms of a balance and what are the days that feel good versus otherwise?

Well, how do you think about yourself? Like, you know, I could ask this question of anyone, like, what model is a person using for how they think about how their personality is structured?

I don't know if it's because of, you know, this group that I do, this developmental group, but I do try to look at myself over time and rather than be self critical, which I was very self critical for a long time, I think about, am I, did I make any progress this year? Those are the types of things that I have started to do because otherwise it just becomes demoralizing.

So how does a person think about themselves? Do they think like, I'm just this one person who should not have any self contradictions, or do people start with an assumption that they're made of different parts or facets and may have conflicts and competing desires. Is it useful to think about oneself that way? Because so much of our psychology is designed to some extent to deceive ourselves into thinking we're more consistent than we are. And so people have a confirmation bias. They think, well this is who I am and that that's a useful deceit. Like oh, I'm, I'm a hard working good person. So I look for things that confirm that. And maybe I ignore the other things or if I'm insecure and self critical, maybe I tend to focus on the negatives and again I have like an inaccurate model of who I am. One of the things you mentioned is important, like when do I do my best work, for what kind of work, I should manage my calendar so that those are the times of day that I do those things. And if I expect myself to do something at nine at night and I kind of quote unquote know that I'm not going to do it, you know, what's going on there? Why, why would you do that to yourself if you want help with something? Why would you set yourself up to fail if you know what you need?

Well, I think there are a few theories of that, of why. And I think there's one analytic theory that you had mentioned and you can probably explain it better than I can of this internal saboteur.

Well, people talk about self sabotage. You know, I think that idea came from the. The work is a Scottish analyst named Fairbairn. He talked about the central ego having parts that are split off from it. And the eternal saboteur would be paired with another part. I'd have to go look at know his work again. But I think the internal saboteur was paired with the exciting object and it was tied back to development and how the family was. And there's an idea from object relation psychoanalysis that you internalize your early developmental environment. So that's part of the map that says all these different people are kind of part of my personality. And if they don't get along then I'm going to have trouble with my own self relationships and ability to have good teamwork. Right? In the corporate world they talk about like rowing in the same direction. You can ask yourself, are all the different capacities that I have, are they rowing in the same direction? Are they well organized to accomplish my goals so I can feel good, right?

But I think that if we say, well, it's a given that there's a part of you that wants to get ahead at work and then there's a part of you that is sabotaging that effort. And maybe it's because you're conflicted or ambivalent about what more responsibility would mean. Maybe a part of you wants to be the boss, but a part of you really enjoys like being one of the people. I think really sort of being able to interrogate that either in therapy or just with oneself is how people sort of move forward and progress.

Everyone loves a good interrogation. You know, it reminded me of some kind of spy movie. It doesn't sound that pleasant to interrogate oneself, but I hear that term used a lot. I know what you mean. Sort of self appraisal. And one of the common factors in psychotherapy is self reflection and self knowledge. So, you know, I might ask how well do you know your own landscape or have you mapped out all the different sides of yourself, the different parts. And how do you think about different self versions of oneself or parts of oneself? You know, there's a less psychologized way which is like, well, my professional identity, my family identity, you know, different parts of personal identity and my relationship and obligations to myself. And what I find is a lot of people have serious hang ups, usually with a lot of moral judgment about taking care of themselves. They've either been raised to think that they should be self sacrificing, it's virtuous, or that taking care of oneself is indulgent or selfish, or that if they don't do work, they're lazy. And so I'm curious what you think about that. So someone could be a parent, they could be a doctor. As a doctor, they could be like the person who does the clinical work, but they could also be the person who has to do the stuff they don't like, maybe like the paperwork and the, you know, redoing bank accounts when there's some kind of fraudulent activity, you know, like, you know, and if they have something like also maybe adhd, then it's also going to be harder to do some tasks than others or other forms of learning differences. Like they might have different difficulty with reading comprehension, you know, so how do you self appraise, you know, and how do you develop a sort of a coherent like and, and comprehensive image of oneself from which to make good decisions.

Yeah, I think that sort of self appraisal can come a lot from within information about, you know, what feels authentic and what feels good and what aligns with who we want to be. But I also think outside feedback in this case can be really valuable that a trusted friend saying in a non Disparaging way. Hey, I really love meeting with you, but when you're 20 minutes late every time we have coffee, it makes it hard to plan.

I find that never works. It almost never works because that kind of information is, you know, straightforward. It seems obvious. If it works, then, you know, there's a process of elimination. Right. If it worked, that's great. Then that person is able to take that in and make changes. But if they have some kind of significant internal problem in their relationship among the different parts of themselves, that won't work.

Maybe not. But if they are someone who truly, let's say, cares about others. Right. And I can think, I can use myself as an example. I never mean to disrespect anybody's time.

Not consciously.

Not consciously.

That would be the psychoanalytic kind of. I wonder if there might be something else going on.

Right? Maybe. Maybe there's something else going on. But this has been like a crack.

What might the something else be? Right.

Yeah, this has been ongoing for me and it is important information. Time management is always going to be a struggle for me, but I can try harder if I know that it really hurts someone because that's never what I would intend.

Yeah, I mean, I see this in a lot of relationships and I've. I've written some relationship books which if. If we're seeing the video clip or featured behind us that are based on co. Written on the model of having different self states. So the person says, hey, it's really important to me. I know you're a caring person. I've been praying for you to be on time. And you're like, oh, no, I'm a good person. It's really not intentional. I'll try harder. But the thing is, like I said, I've seen this with a lot of different people. I don't want to use you as an example here. A lot of times they don't change their behavior. They try harder, but they don't use a calendar, or they can't use a calendar, or they try to use a calendar, but they forget. And then you start to wonder if there might be something that is not as much in their awareness. So that kind of quippy remark, like not consciously so this idea of an internal saboteur, I don't really like the sound of it because it suggests sabotage, which, which is a bad thing. There's no good way to sabotage something. But there may be behaviors that are interfering and there may be underlying attitudes or there may be developmental experiences. Maybe there's a version of Me that doesn't want to be good all the time. And maybe that idea, hey, I'm a good person. My intentions are really great. Maybe that's an example of self deception. Say, oh, I'm a good person. But maybe it would be more accurate to say, well, maybe. Maybe I have good parts and not so good parts. And maybe I'm actually resentful that I always have to cater to other people's needs, but that's my brand. Like, I'm someone who just bends over backward for everyone. I'm a compulsive caregiver, and it's because of my parents and blah, blah, blah. But how to. How do people change? You know, one way is to become aware of the different sides of themselves and start to have a real dialogue rather than just having it be played out, like, interpersonalized with other people. You know, in the psychoanalytic model, it's like, I'm good. The other person sees me as bad because I'm late.

But that's inevitable.

And that's not me. It's not who I am. It's like, well, let's look at the data, though.

Well, it might be part of who I am or part of who I am in that moment. Or the alternative would be, right, that people who stick so tightly to a schedule, they're uptight.

Well, yeah, they don't know how to enjoy themselves. They're too rigid, they're ruining everyone's fun. They're bad.

I don't think they're necessarily bad, but I do.

They are bad.

That's not how, oh, I would be able to live. I'm not able to live. Like, oh, the clock strikes and it's, oh, we have to end now. And maybe that means that I'm not going to be successful in some areas of life, but do I accept the trade off? Right.

It depends who you hang out with too, as well as kind of what you want to do with them. But one of the questions that comes up is, like, whether each person's internal landscape, you know, their character structure, all these different parts, you know, how they get along with the other person's parts. It's very different to think about just like person A and person B. But if person A has some ambivalence or conflict about being available, and person B is a little bit more like, oh, I totally get it. Like, if you're off, that's fine. I wouldn't want to, you know, impose on your downtime. However, if we've scheduled, like, a meeting, something like, I Don't know. Let me just come up with a random example, like a podcast. And we've agreed to record on such and such a day at such and such a time. What gets in the way of sticking the landing? Right. Is it ADHD or is it, is it ambivalence about the task? You know, like, part of me agreed to do it. So. And people do this all the time. The this that people do all the time, myself included, is they make a deal with themselves. The me of today makes a commitment that the me of next week needs to keep, but the me of next week never agreed to that. And so there's a form of internal coercion. And then the me of next week has a lot of conflict. Well, I want to be good and keep my obligations, but I actually didn't want to do this. And so if the person had interrogated themselves, they might have said, you know, I really wish I could, you know, schedule this meeting with you next week. However, looking at my calendar, I don't want to commit to that. Let's, let's meet in two weeks when I have more time or, you know, I really appreciate you thinking of me right now. I just am over committed and I would love to work with you on this, but it wouldn't be, you know, I wouldn't feel comfortable committing myself to it versus committing to you, which those are two sides of the same coin. Maybe committing to someone else and committing to oneself. But my top line is kind of like when you agree to do something, you're making a deal with yourself to do it.

Yeah. And I think most people would want to stick to those commitments. Though I do think that there are various things that get in the way. And sometimes maybe it's ambivalence, sometimes maybe it's a legitimate health or other reasons, but I guess when do we sort of hold our own feet to the fire?

Well, that sounds painful, but yeah. You know, there's a moral aspect here, right? If someone is lazy or if they're inconsiderate, or if they're irresponsible, or if they're unreliable, all of those things are tagged with moral emotions. The moral emotions are like shame, embarrassment, pride. Right? If you're good, you're proud, Right. You did what your parents wanted you to do. If you're oppositional, you take pride in being bad and going against authority, blah, blah, blah. But regardless, there's a moral dimension, right? Someone's angry, but they also feel wronged. When someone commits to something and they don't do it and they might expect the other person to make better decisions. And so I think there are two classes of things like this in a broad sense. There's things that could have been anticipated, and there are things that can't be anticipated. If you get the flu, I mean, no one should really blame someone for getting the flu. Usually now if, like, all the time, they don't wash their hands and they're around sick kids and it's preventable. When you look at moral decision making, one of the things that people do is they make an assessment, whether it's conscious or unconscious, as to whether it could have been prevented. And if it was preventable, then there's more likely to be blame. Right. And so is that a fact?

Has that been.

There's research on this. Yeah. That's what people do, like, in a court of law. Like, they look at guilt and punishment, and if someone should have known and could have prevented something, then the punishment is greater and the likelihood of being found guilty is higher, for obvious reasons. Right. You expect a physician to make good medical decisions, but you would not hold your massage therapist to the same standard, necessarily. Or your buddy. Right? Yeah, but that is a big deal. So, like, if someone misses an appointment because they just can't keep track of their schedule and, you know, it's been going on for a long time, and you're not sure why they haven't definitively done something about it versus, you know, if they had to pick up their kid from school because, you know, he got into an accident or something. You know, it's going to be a totally different experience for the two people together. But it still goes back to this kind of sense of, do I feel good or bad? You know, in this kind of splitting way, like in psychoanalysis, things are either all good or all bad. What was. What was it you talked about when we were discussing this beforehand? Not the idealized and the devalued self.

But you used a different sort of, like, aspirational and. I don't know what the. What I said.

Let's see. What did Farah say? Let me just check the text message thread.

All right.

Which is a form of extended cognition, meaning we can remember things. Aspirational and devalued self.

Yeah, yeah.

Idealized and devalued. I mean, I think aspirational and idealized are related, but different. And then there's like, the actual self, which is what people often don't really think about, because it can have. It's more of a mixed bag right there. It can have uncomfortable and comfortable parts in the psychoanalytic tradition in which I was trained or raised. This psychiatrist, Harry Stack Sullivan, was one of the founders, and people quote him over and over again because it makes a lot of sense. He talks about good me, bad me, and not me. But there's also, like, actual me.

But I think tracking the actual me is a challenge. It sort of brings up that if we see that as a composite of all the different selves, then there are going to be things that we don't want to accept about ourselves and things that we do, and we may be blind to certain realities.

So if we're going to use the term actual self, which is kind of a nice term, I'm okay with it.

I like it.

You know, the lived self, right? The behaved self. Like what you know, and what gets in the way of fully knowing oneself? It seems to me, in a simplistic way, there's emotional obstacles and then there's cognitive or intellectual obstacles, conceptual obstacles. But I think if you have a good conceptual framework, the emotional obstacles become clearer. You know, let's say someone comes up with a worksheet. It could be a worksheet that's out of the box, or you could work with a coach or a therapist and make your own kind of map. And it just covers everything that a human being could possibly experience behaviorally and internally, whatever it is. It's not that many things, but, you know, it could sound overwhelming, but it's not. There's probably, I don't know, six to 12 basic things, different versions of myself or different functional areas, right? And then, you know, you fill in the boxes for each of those areas, and then you integrate it together. You get like a snapshot, right? You know, 30,000ft, bird's eye view. And, you know, that's me. Like, I pride myself on being very, very caring. And it's not infrequent for me to have people be upset at me because I forget stuff. And, you know, and I can compensate for that by being super nice and caring in other ways. And on some kind of secret, mischievous level, I kind of know I get away with it.

No, I don't think so.

Not you. Not you. But I'm just saying, like, a lot of people are like, well, I know I'm difficult in some ways, but I'm also very useful and caring. So people often have a not fully verbalized or articulated understanding of themselves, and you can pull it out. So what I mean is, if you have this kind of cognitive map on a pragmatic level, then you could look at each of those areas and you could say, well, how do I feel about each of those areas? And you say feel really good about being caring when it comes to scheduling things and being reliable with showing up on time. You know, I have really complicated feelings about it. And then you can have an emotion map for each of those self states.

Yeah, yeah, you could. But you could only do that if you can accept certain truths. Right.

Well, that's the emotional part, Right. What makes it hard for certain truths to be accepted?

And I think that for some people, you know, it is linked to a more maybe overarching or existential idea that, well, there's such limited time and not wanting to believe that there is wanting to believe we can do more with our days. We actually can.

Well, where would that come from? Because that would be a serious miscalculation. Right. And it would be a serious misconception to continue to harbor for many, many years in the face of evidence to the contrary. Right. Like so you in putting it. We spoke with Carl Friston a few podcast episodes ago about active inference from that point of view. It's like, well, I have a model, right, about what I can do, and I keep getting evidence that is contrary to my model that I can do more than I think I can do. How come I'm not updating my model with this information?

I think it could be a number of reasons, but I do think that model. And we can talk about sort of what is transmitted to people.

What do you mean by transmitted?

They grow up. Like if you.

Like when someone sneezes.

Parents. If you had parents who never said no.

Oh, like how people were raised and social learning.

And then you grew up with this belief that you should be able to really do everything because you had parents who could do everything. But you have some limitation that they don't have.

Could it be that those parents didn't really do everything, though?

Or it could be maybe they just had the appearance doing everything. But I actually think that that's one. And I don't want to veer too far off the course here, but I think that one thing that's happened as a result maybe of social media or just being more public with what we do and how we raise kids is presenting this idea that we have it all together or a real focus on how conscientious we are about each given role. And I think that that can sometimes be a little bit damaging.

You know, some of it is generational too. I grew up with this idea that when you get older and maybe it's still true. You realize who your parents really are and that they're actually human. And that parents may present a kind of idealized self. And maybe there's some thinking that that is good for the child as a parenting move to present an idealized self so the kid will have the most expectations of themselves. But maybe it also leads to perfectionism and being hypercritical when people fall short of their aspirational self to the extent that that aspirational self is modeled off of parents or teachers or, you know, TV shows.

Yeah. Or now, I think these parasocial relationships, like this influencer, like look at her after her pregnancy and you know.

You mean like, oh, like she's in shape and she's got a washboard stomach and how did a baby come out of her? And you know, she looks even better than she did. You know what is really going on? It reminds me of the wizard of Oz. Right? You've got this kind of like godlike figure who's fearsome and terrifying and no one feels like they can beat him. And then behind the screen is kind of a schlubby middle aged guy and he's got like an amplifier and some smoke and stuff. It's smoke and mirrors.

Right, right. But I think that in the wizard of Oz everybody sort of understood, oh, well, well, this is the Wizard. Right. The wizard is not like the mom friend next door. Whereas I think that part of what makes certain things take off today is their relatability and this feeling like, well, this person is just like me, but they have it a little more together. Right.

Or maybe the parents are competitive with the kids and they are in denial about that. You know, there's that partnership between parent and child, but if there's competition and envy and the parent is insecure and they're masking it behind sort of being perfect, then that can really do a number on the kid.

Yeah.

You know, I think about this self stuff a lot. I've co authored some books on it. The most recent one is called Making youg Crazy Work for you. From Trauma and Isolation to Self Acceptance and Love. And we really spell out this idea of viewing oneself as being made of different parts that in health and good development work well together. And it's predicated not only on self awareness and good internal communication, but also on self compassion and creating an environment which is not so much based on moral judgment and criticism, but creates more of what Michael Levin, the developmental biologist, calls cognitive glue. Like a positive but realistic sense of self within which some of those emotional problems we were talking about earlier are better managed so that there can be better internal communication and over time greater, you know, true cohesion. Not the illusion of a consistent sense of self, but actual consistency. How does one work with people to help them develop and overcome these internal conflicts? To develop a more accurate view of oneself, better regulation of emotions so that we can sort of design a better way of moving through life. And how do you think about yourself? I made this really long list of like different ways of thinking about the self. But.

But yeah, I think in terms of my work, right, it's very important for me to be able to accept certain things about myself so that I model that acceptance for other people. That it is okay that things are not going to go, you know, it's not all going to unravel if we stop beating ourselves up over mistakes that we make, have made. A lot of times people who are very tightly wound and uncomfortably anxious in their day to day life worry that if they let go a little bit then everything that they've worked for is just going to go to shit.

So you've been around a while in this field. What function do you think it seems to serve for people when they quote, unquote, beat themselves up?

That there's this fantasy that they're keeping themselves in line, keeping themselves honest, getting themselves to do their best work? This no pain, no gain idea. Right. But I think what I try to help people see is, is okay, there's no pain, no gain. There's also pain and no gain, which we have to watch out for. And that something like anxiety or you know, where people imagine, oh, this is what keeps me up at night. Finishing this deck is also working against them in other ways that maybe they don't see.

Some of that is how they want to appear to others and to themselves. I like to say no gain, no pain.

Well, we don't really know. I guess my point is that we have to break it down and really look at it and see what we say. A lot is like both sides of the coin, right?

Coins have edges too.

Yeah. And the edges.

One time I flipped a coin in the air and it landed on the floor and it landed on and stayed on its edge. It was the best moment of my life. Probably will never happen again.

What are the odds of that? Was it lodged between like two? I don't know.

No, no, no, it was legit, if that's what you're insinuating. It just landed on a flat surface and stayed on its edge. I mean, the Odds are not very, very high, but they're certainly not impossibly low. Yeah, but people forget that when they use that expression that coins are three dimensional.

Yeah.

If you flip a sphere in the air, what are the chances that it will land on the surface?

Yeah, 100. Right.

So one way I like to think about. There's a lot of different ways to think about self, and maybe we'll talk more about self in another podcast. But one thing I want to mention is the time scale. So there's like the me in the moment, there's the me over the next few hours, there's the me over the next days to weeks, there's the me over the next months to years. And then there's this kind of lifetime sense of me. And then there's all these different versions of myself that fit within much bigger time scales, like my family, how I represent my family, or my ancestors or my culture. And then there's a sense of one, one being part of, you know, the human species. And then there's all these imaginary selves, spiritual, mystical, psychological. But that time scale I find really useful for people to make sure that when they're trying to get their, the help they need, that they think about the help and what they need. Short, middle and long term. It's a very useful executive function perspective.

Short, middle and long term. Okay.

Yeah. And presumably some of your goals are long term, but the steps to get to those long term goals, number one, occur, you know, near term, and number two, require, you know, re. Appraisal periodically and adjustment possibly.

Right. So how do you work with people around that?

Well, I, I describe it.

Yeah.

And then, then you get into the details of their own particular existence as what are the obstacles to doing those things? Because sometimes there's impaired self care if they were, you know, if they were their parents, caregivers, or if they had trauma or adversity as a kid, if they have a negative sense of self, or if their relationship with themselves isn't very good, insecure rather than secure. Sometimes there's something neurocognitive like ADHD or a learning difficulty. Sometimes it's just a matter of not having developed the right routines and methods. You know, people will sometimes use in their workplace like a very clear and consistent rubric for planning things like a Gantt chart or a spreadsheet or a calendar, and they don't use it for their own needs. And so a lot of it is triage, you know, and a lot of times people just say, oh, I'm lazy. But that is almost always a smokescreen. And they may have been raised in a tradition that was very moral, like, if you don't do this, you're lazy. Right. You're good and you're bad. And so sometimes those developmental factors, which can be numerous, are often emotional obstacles as well as a conceptual obstacle how they think about themselves. So, you know, it is a kind of detailed work. Unfortunately, a lot of times it's not as simple as people would like, or at least the people who tend to come into more long term therapy. The simpler fixes didn't work.

Right. Right.

They weren't able to just use, you know, this plan that their executive coach worked with them on. How do you work with it? Not your specialty. You help people with more important problems.

I certainly let, I, I guess what I think for this type of thing is I try to let it come from the patient and I try to point out what I see and hear and patterns that are emerging and figure out if that sounds right. And then I would say it's much later where we're figuring out what to do with it. If that's. That's how it goes in therapy, which is more exploratory and we have more time. It's a little.

I work that way as well. But to your, to your point about being client driven, in a sense, I think that's. That could be another podcast is sort of when does a therapist take a more active role and offer more tools, and when do they work more of a sounding board and sort of gradually helping people put things together and, you know, when is it necessary and important to try to focus on some of those functional issues nearer term?

Right, right.

And a lot of it, as you're saying, is kind of stylistic.

Exactly. Exactly. Well, this was fun.

Did you have fun?

I did, I did. And anything else you want to say or.

Yeah. Thanks for listening. You can find us@doorknobcomments.com Listen to our other episodes. If you're feeling more cerebral, definitely check out the episode with Carl Friston as well as the episode with Mark Solmes, when they get into some of the details of neuroscience and the particulars of how to think through difficult problems, particularly in Carl's episode. And please feel free to reach out to us helloorknobcomments.com with any comments or suggestions. And if you liked the episode, please leave a positive review.

Okay, great. Thanks so much.

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