lewepstein

[lewepstein]

Reflections on the Axis of Evil

 I wonder how many reading this post remember the show, “Superman” that was on afternoon television in the 1950s. Its opening featured the actor and star George Reeves magically suspended in mid-air and giving the illusion of flight with wind blowing onto his hair from what probably was an unseen fan. The exciting backdrop to this visual was an impassioned announcer touting Superman’s powers but always ending with his mission statement -  “fighting for truth, justice and the American way.” 

In some of these half hour episodes and in the Marvel Comics editions that I often bought there was also Superman’s nemesis, Lex Luthor, a supervillain along with his son Bizarro who embodied the qualities of evil. And of course, as children we were always on the edge of our seats, rooting for Superman in his battle to overtake these sinister madmen who even seemed weird to us in their ruthless pursuit of wealth and power.  

This moment in American history feels a lot like what was being portrayed in the show Superman and the comic books that we purchased - except that the good guys and bad guys seemed to have changed places.  It’s as if we have entered into another dimension, the upside down world of Lex Luthor and Bizarro in which the villains are now running the show.  More than simply a political shift or even a regime change, it feels like the moral universe has shifted under Trump II.  Or maybe it’s simply being turned on its head. 

This rapid erosion of core values, or what seems like a relentless assault on them is coming at warp speed. And given the pace of Trump's executive orders, Blitzkrieg may  be the appropriate term.  Without a serious counterforce at this time  we may be entering a new period of American moral history.  One might describe this period as “The  Era of Trump’s Alternative Morality”  or “ MAGA Era Ethics” or “The Trump/Musk/Vance Regime Code of Behavior.”   Regardless of what we call it, the attacks on norms and values makes me feel as if I had fallen into a Rip Van Winkle type of slumber and woken up in a different America, one with a dark force at the top.  

 The Axis of Evil as I see it are Trump, Musk and Vance in their respective roles as “The Belligerent Monarchical Mouthpiece,” “The Billionaire Wrecking Ball” and “The Autocratic Ideologue.”  Together and collectively they have provided us with an Orwellian turnabout. Most significantly, The Ministry of Justice has just been turned into the Ministry of Vengeance directed against so-called “enemies of the state.”  By their speech and their deeds Trump, Musk and Vance are vying to produce more than just political theater. They are pursuing  a shift in our foundational beliefs about right and wrong,  good and evil.  Here’s what this shift sounds like to me, if it were to be laid out in plain speech:   

“You know all those things that you once thought were virtues and moral truths?...well they no longer apply or even exist.  And those things that you once believed were evils?... They’re now accepted norms. Everything you once called, “fair play,” along with the importance of accepting the loss of an election graciously is now out the window. Telling the truth no longer matters when you’re pursuing wealth or power and you are no longer expected to respect differences of opinion since all dissenters are by definition vermin and your enemies. Therefore, it’s fair game to go after them.  Demonizing, marginalizing and attacking ethnic minorities and other vulnerable groups is now also an accepted practice. Women’s reproductive rights?... Aren’t women supposed to be child bearers, anyway? Bullying others? OK if you can get away with it. Conflicts of interest, corruption and accepting graft while in office?  Why not if you have the power?  Being loyal to long term friends and allies?  No longer important!  Respecting the sovereignty of other nations?  Nah, grab whatever you can!  And note: any belief that the rules and laws should apply equally or apply at all to those in power is archaic.  

 Most importantly, what was once looked upon as the “Golden Rule” - The very Christian and universal, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is in the process of being dismantled. And whoever and whatever institutions and agencies once embodied the grace of  mercy and kindness toward those who are suffering around the world have just been erased.  “Me first and to hell with you” has become the ethos of the land.  Placing self- interest before values or convictions has become the name of the game.

But isn’t the term “Axis of Evil” too damning an expression to apply to Trump, Musk and Vance?  Isn’t politics by its very nature dirty?  And, like war, isn’t it a venue in which hardball is the name of the game with egotism and the projection of power an asset on the national and world stage?  Also, couldn’t qualities like empathy and mercy be construed as weakness and seen as liabilities for leaders?   I would counter that some of the most successful politicians were able to embrace both strength and mercy.  Lincoln ended the Civil War with a plea for mercy toward the defeated American South and called upon, “Our better angels” rather than  crushing the seditionists. Nelson Mandela created “Truth and Reconciliation” councils to repair the painful rifts and the desire for vengeance following the fall of the apartheid regime.  A leader’s visible display of mercy and search for common ground over division provides a model for how we treat others while still honoring our convictions.  

The descriptive phrase, “Axis of Evil” was first used by President George W. Bush to describe three Totalitarian regimes in the 1990s: Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini and North Korea under Kim Jung Un. The Axis powers during World War II were the Fascist regimes of Imperial Japan, Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Third Reich. On February 25th of this year the Trump administration sided with Russia and North Korea and against our ally Ukraine in a United Nations vote that was meant to condemn Putin’s invasion and the destruction of Ukraine that began three years ago. Trump instead blamed Ukraine for the invasion and called Volodymir Zelensky a “dictator.”  Are we witnessing our country’s  participation in the formation of a new axis of evil in which it sides with world dictators against our democratic allies in Europe?  Isn’t Trump’s expressed admiration for so-called “strongmen” and dictators and his disdain for our Democratic allies in Europe a clear indication of his preference?

As a therapist who works with couples and families I pay close attention to both “form” and “content.”  Content has to do with specific problems or conflicts that clients present. “Form” is the manner in which they present which may include everything from tone of voice to how close partners sit to each other in my office.  Both are important and both inform my treatment.  In looking at politics and politicians we need to also examine both form and content.  On the surface, “cutting waste” and reviewing the way governmental  agencies perform should be an ongoing process. If we only listened to the content of what was being presented to us by the Trump administration it would sound reasonable and fair. What we have been witnessing instead, the form that this process has taken under Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,”  has involved the  slashing of international programs that are currently providing aid to children being treated for Malaria, and AIDS patients in Africa who will die without the medicines that have been abruptly defunded and pulled from their shelves. The list of humanitarian  efforts that have been halted and the clinical trials for new medicines that have been placed in limbo goes on and on. Close to 5,000 workers who were providing this type of aid to others were given fifteen minutes notice to collect their things and leave their jobs.  

The evil that I see in the Trump/Musk/Vance axis exists in both its authoritarian ends and the casual cruelty with which it implements its policies.  Musk’s team at DOGE are like a gang of marauding thugs meant to instill fear. The image of himself that he produced standing with a chainsaw is quite fitting. Another of Trump’s cabinet appointments stated that he would like to induce trauma as he makes cuts to the bureaucracy.  Meanness is also displayed toward those who have less power and are seeking aid. The treatment of Vlodymyr Zelensky by Trump and Vance during a televised oval office meeting was designed to be humiliating. Taking a hero to his country and an ally and demeaning him in a televised forum was a disgrace. Sometimes apparently the form is the content. Cruelty and disempowerment is the point. 

On Tuesday, January 21st 2025 at 11AM Marian Budde, Episcopal minister was presiding at the National Cathedral Prayer Service as part of the inauguration of President Donald Trump.  She implored him to show mercy for immigrants and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Trump would later refer to her as a “nasty” woman.  Why was this woman who was only asking for kindness toward others being vilified? And where was the empathy for her and the vulnerable people she was advocating for?  As this Trump/Musk/Vance axis of evil continues to attack the norms that hold our society together and upend the values that many of us still subscribe to I am sure that a resistance will start to build.  I look forward to a time, hopefully before the forces of reaction consolidate their power, when the American people come to their senses and reject the moral bankruptcy of the current regime. I know that there will be no Superman to come to our rescue but maybe our future leaders will embody the qualities of truth and justice so that that will truly become the American way.

[lewepstein]

The State of Our Minds

or How to Survive Another Trump Presidency

I’m writing this post from what feels like the eye of a political hurricane, the period of relative calm between the November  presidential election and the January 20th inauguration of Donald Trump. I was touring Australia and New Zealand during the build-up to the November election when the bad news hit.  As much as I thought I was emotionally prepared to accept a Trump victory - some positive assessments about Harris’s chances of winning by pollsters in late October had raised what turned out to be false hopes - I realized that I was actually in shock and painfully deflated by the new political realities we were about to face.  I felt lucky to be buffered by the magnificent countryside that I was enveloped in on the other side of the world and the connection forged in my marriage that allowed us to process the immediate sense of loss.  It highlighted the ways that being in nature and nurturing our relationships can sustain us through political winters and offer us broader perspectives on the political dramas that will continue to swirl about us.

One immediate post-election realization I had was something akin to aversion: to the podcasts, the opinion columns and the cable news channels, most notably MSNBC, all of which I had been glued to before November 5th.  It wasn’t that they were doing anything wrong or different than what they had been doing before the election.  And maybe that was the point. They were just doing their jobs, pivoting from predicting the dangers of a Trump presidency to reporting on it.  The chances of a liberal Harris/Waltz ticket winning had been overblown, but the pundits weren’t to blame.  And yet the sting of defeat was intense and the exhaustion and deflation felt by just about everyone I spoke  with was palpable.  Kubler Ross’s 1969 Classic, “On Death and Dying” comes to mind in which the phases of shock and denial are followed by anger and despair and eventually by acceptance. But, unlike death which involves the absolute loss of someone in our orbit, Harris’s and the Democratic Party’s electoral defeat may also be a prelude to other losses - rights and freedoms that will predictably be attacked and diminished during a second Trump term. 

How can I describe what many of us are experiencing at this time?  In what ways is it different from other times?  And how does it go beyond what normally happens when “our side” loses an election and we face the administrative power and policies of the opposing party, one with whom we fundamentally disagree?  I believe the answer to these questions has to do with coming to terms with a truly dismal and dangerous state of affairs but on more than an intellectual level.  Something more foundational seems to have changed in American politics and many of us  may be struggling with emotional responses that are visceral and intense.  

 It is impossible to be told  that, “our democracy is on the line,” and that “Trump is a fascist,” as stated by several of his closest, past advisors, without becoming unsettled. We also cannot hear Trump say that he will, “Be a dictator on day one,” and  unleash a reign of terror against his perceived enemies without it setting off alarm bells for any of us who believe in democracy. How can those who see themselves as progressives be cognizant that a majority of our fellow Americans pulled the lever for a man of Trump’s character without feeling a sense of disillusionment and even betrayal?  

 I have found it helpful to examine the more personal meaning of this loss before contemplating how to contend with it during the next four years.  Having been a 1960s activist it is hard to fathom a world that is not moving forward in ways that I had always imagined it would.  For Baby Boomers like myself, progress was a given and backsliding, an outlier.  Roe versus Wade and The 1965 Voting Rights Act were laws I thought were enshrined. And yet, they’ve  been overturned.  A significant portion of the working class has shifted to the political right - the same working class that I had once thought would live out its legacy and become the vanguard of a progressive revolution. The number of countries around the world in which autocrats have seized power has grown exponentially.  Even the advanced democracies of Europe with decades of successful social democracy have fallen prey to the rise of fascist political parties and populist leaders who all embrace the scapegoating of immigrants, one dominant religion, illiberal policies toward women, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and most notably, autocratic, strongman rule.  This is not the world I thought my children and grandchildren would inherit.  Examining the larger meaning of this seachange in politics within the context of our personal histories and our current life phase may provide insight and understanding regarding the emotional responses we are having.

The question of how to survive another Trump presidency becomes an emotional challenge even for those of us who are not in his immediate line of fire.  Immigrants,trans people, women seeking reproductive care along with politicians and journalists who have opposed Trump will predictably be targeted during this administration.  Corporate leaders who are willing to kiss Trump’s ring and forces on the far right have already ascended to positions of policy making and power. For those of us who subscribe to a more liberal world view, our task has more to do with decisions around how much we choose to expose ourselves to the harsh glare of what is about to unfold.  We need to consider whether or not to participate in activities that could be deemed “political."  What those activities might be may be something else to ponder.  

The following are  some things we may want to consider as we face the next four years. What I am recommending is neither over-exposing ourselves to the inevitably upsetting news we will be hearing nor totally tuning it out and disengaging from the outside world.  

 Finger pointing and blame may be our first impulse in the aftermath of an electoral defeat of the magnitude we have  just experienced.  But it is a futile effort designed to deflect from the enormity of the loss we have experienced.  Moving beyond blame may be a personal challenge for each of us in the charged and polarized political environment in which we live.  But the guidelines for overcoming blame are no different for political discourse than they are for the couples whom I counsel.  Casting blame is almost always what I call a stuck position in which differences aren’t being honored and personal responsibility is being overlooked.

It is understandable to want to avoid witnessing the upsetting things that will inevitably come to pass during a second Trump presidency.. But even if we attempt to block the entire rollout of the new administration by neither viewing a newscast nor looking at a newspaper, it may not be possible to stop Trump’s words and actions from seeping into our consciousness and our lives.  Unless we shelter in place and stuff cotton into our ears we will necessarily overhear the conversations of others and pick up the vibes from the world around us.

  It may be wise to follow the path of moderation: detach from an obsessive focus on politics while viewing just enough news and analysis to not be blindsided by some of the policy rollout or events that we had not anticipated. Being prepared is being self protective  in the best way.  It means striking a balance between realistic assessments of  what a second Trump administration might look like without becoming obsessed with predictions about worst case scenarios and catastrophes that have not yet occurred. 

Being judicious about what we consume in the area of political journalism is important.  I’ve become very selective regarding my media menu. I no longer read my on-line newspaper during breakfast or in the evening before bedtime and I have stopped watching cable news channels that are designed to inflame. I’ve also discovered that news analysis podcasts can be less activating than headlines and news stories because they are once removed from events and easier to reflect on.   What I am finding is that I am less activated emotionally  when I am attempting to understand a phenomenon than when I am demonizing an individual or group of people or casting blame.

We will predictably witness rights being trampled upon, and norms being violated in this second Trump presidency.  Accepting our own moral outrage can co-exist with not demonizing others.  Maybe we will find it in ourselves to turn our outrage into energy and take up the cause of opposing what feels most evil to us in our own small ways. But if we venture into the heat of battle we must remember to keep our hearts at peace. 

[lewepstein]

How Not To Be Silenced

There has  been a great deal of political intimidation going on in the U.S. at this time.  It takes many forms. My last post, “The Cult of the Bully,” outlined what I see as a Republican Party with Donald Trump at its helm and MAGA forces on the ground using force, coercion, and threatening language to suppress progressive voter turnout and  garner power by instilling fear in those who oppose him.  I see the danger of ceding our individual rights and freedoms - especially that of self-expression- to the bully cult.  I’ve also been considering the role of professionals and others when it comes to weighing in on societal trends and political issues. 

The larger context for this discussion is the climate of fear emanating from Trump’s “big lie” about a “stolen” 2020 election and the attack that he instigated on the capitol on January 6th, 2021.  By inspiring his MAGA minions to go after poll workers and harass the officials and families of those who have been involved in his legal prosecutions, it is difficult to deny that many of Trump’s statements  have intimidation and incitement to violence at its core.  Even those with a casual relationship to politics have probably heard his dog whistles to, “You Second Amendment folks,” encouraging gun owners to use their power to threaten his opposition.  And then there was his statement,  “Stand back and stand by,” to the proto-fascist Proud Boys, an aside made while he was prepping his shock troops for an attempted coup.  He has expressed support for policemen roughing up suspects who have been picked up but not yet indicted for any crime, speech that encourages police abuse and misconduct.  And, at his political rallies he has stated that he will pay the legal expenses of attendees who assault those who disagree with him.  

 In the Access Hollywood Tape he openly admitted to sexually assaulting women and touted this as a privilege of rich and powerful men.  There are also Trump’s ubiquitous warnings of vengeance against those who dare to cross him and his defense of those who ransacked the capitol on January 6th.  He has stated that he intends to be a “dictator on day one,” if he were to be elected and that he would also pardon the insurrectionists, sending a message to his followers that political violence, when it is committed in support of him, is not only acceptable but encouraged.  

It was interesting to me, against this backdrop of so much autocratic, violent Trumpian rhetoric, to receive an email from someone who had read my post on political bullying, and questioned the use of my platform to express what seemed to him to be a political bias.  I welcome any and all feedback on my posts and the point that he was making initially gave me pause.  It is true that my primary role as a therapist is to act in the best interest of my clients and to help them to achieve their therapeutic goals.  Remaining neutral on politics would seem to make sense in order to better establish a therapeutic alliance with clients who may hold different opinions.  Should that also apply to my blog site, a public forum that goes to friends, family members and is open to clients, potential clients and anyone else on the internet who happens to log in?  

 As I’ve reflected on all of this I’ve arrived at the following: When I am confronted by what I would describe as the “margins” and extremes of ideology and political behavior, my speech and my  role as a professional become less clear. This is no ordinary election in which a liberal Democrat like Obama is running against a principled Republican like John McCain.  Questions about values and what may turn into competing values can arise.   How to act as both a professional and a responsible citizen may involve choices that are less prescribed, more nuanced and certainly less clear.  

 Extremism on the right at this time has heightened my awareness of the intersection of what has often been thought of as the “personal” and that which is usually seen as “political.”  But the extreme speech of Donald Trump and his expressed, autocratic policies if elected are only “political issues” for those who are more privileged.  They are experienced quite personally and often as survival issues by trans people in America today, immigrants from Latin America and “others,” who in the Trump/Vance playbook are not seen as part of “our” blood and soil.     

As far as my “political bias,” the reality for me as a therapist is that not only would an extreme MAGA conservative not want to work with me but the collision of our core values would probably not allow us to establish a working alliance in the first place. And, it would seem  unfair if I weren’t open about our political and moral differences, clashing realities that would probably become apparent early in our attempts to work together.

Another area for me to reckon with in this era of Trump is that his racist, misogynist, illegal, immoral, bullying and unethical behaviors as a presidential candidate and as the leader of The Republican Party are in violation of the professional code of ethics that I am sworn to uphold.  As a licensed, clinical social worker it would not feel or be right for me to not call out vile speech and behavior on whatever format is available. Trump’s toxic behaviors are not immune from criticism just because they are occurring in what is abstractly called the realm of “politics,” 

The historical rise of autocrats has almost always occurred against the backdrop of a larger population along with a portion of the political and educated classes underestimating the dangers of what would occur when and if that individual and his party came to power.  Alluding again to the Third Reich, it is not insignificant to note that the intellectual class acceded to Hitler’s racial theories.  But isn’t that also true in America today as professionals and intellectuals continue to subscribe to Trump’s lies and will join roughly fifty per cent of the nation in a very close election that should be a resounding rejection of everything he and his party stands for?  To not use every venue to proclaim how great that threat is and to not support its alternative would seem to be participating in its ascension to power.  This is no ordinary time and it calls on us all - professionals included - to take extraordinary measures to preserve our democracy and move forward.  

If I can paraphrase the words of Dylan Thomas:

Do not go softly into that authoritarian night

Rage, rage against the rising of the Right.    

[lewepstein]

The Cult of the Bully

I have been watching in rapt amazement as events unfold in the  changing world of American politics.  In a few short weeks, one presidential candidate came close to being assassinated and the other withdrew from the race, ceding his candidacy to his vice president.  The first, chose an unlikely running mate while the new candidate solidified her nomination before what was predicted to be a chaotic, open convention. 

The pundits, pollsters, and political analysts will of course take these events and draw inferences, explain the underlying implications and  cautiously predict how this will all turn out.  Academic studies will be cited explaining how the connections and contradictions within and between populism, liberalism, protectionism, elitism, authoritarianism, democracy and whatever it is we call freedom will determine the outcome of this election.  

But underneath this fog of ideas and explanations are forces and energies that are harder to pin down but perhaps more basic to whatever it is that makes us human.  The notion of feeling safe and  protected is a core part of our human identity. I discussed this at length in another post about the polyvagal system.  The way that we are wired is such velcro for that which is fear-based that it is impossible to draw all of the connections and circuitous routes between our nervous systems and our political choices and preferences.   

One dominant archetype during the rise of international right-wing populism and the era of Trump that we have been witnessing is that of the bully - the elevation of bullying others and an identification with the bully as a protector, a strong man and even a savior - if you are members of the dominant majority and not one of the disenfranchised  “others.” 

Many of us can recall bullying from our childhoods, sometimes the bigger kid who took our bike, blocked our path, and seemed to exert some strange power over at least some other kids who probably felt it was safer being on the side of the bully.  But note also how the following definition of bullying so fits with the ethos and actions of Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party:

Bullying:  “The use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate.  One essential prerequisite is the perception of an imbalance of physical power which distinguishes bullying from conflict.  Seeking to harm, intimidate or coerce someone perceived as vulnerable”  

It is not insignificant that many school districts have programs to deal with bullying and there are rules they are obligated to enforce.  In fact, schools are in violation of Civil Rights Law of 1964 Title IV and  Title VI when and if they do not address incidents of bullying.  

One essential characteristic of bullies is that they do not believe that they have to play by the rules.  The notion of flipping a coin and saying,  “heads I win, tails you lose,” - the core of election denialism and  the Republican Party’s “Big Lie” about the “stolen” 2020 election and any future election is simply Bullying 101.  

The ways that nations seem to fall under the domination of bullies and turn them into deities is a question that seems to defy rational explanation.  But it is certainly not a new phenomenon. The fact that eighty years ago, Germany, arguably the most culturally and technologically advanced nation in Europe fell under the spell of Adolf Hitler and the NAZI party - another bully cult with genocide as its core principle - is a reality that we continue to reckon with.

Like Donald Trump, Hitler stirred up his base with themes of  “national humiliation” and grievance to go after the “vermin” who opposed him, setting up death camps for his scapegoats and his enemies.  Other more contemporary “strongman” regimes like Victor Orban’s Hungarian “experiment,” is the model for many in the Republican Party. It is a regime in which he bullied the democratic institutions like a free press, independent judiciary and legislature and bent them to his will.  

Getting back to America, we know that we are a nation in trouble when we elevate a bully to the highest position of power and can predict that roughly half of our citizens will vote for him in this election, as they have in the past two.  A society that shamelessly promotes the types of character flaws that Trump’s minions and The Republican Party tolerate cannot look their children in the eye and expect them to build the type of character that:

                                   Speaks the truth

                                   Respects differences

                                   Does not demean or bully others

                                   Plays by the rules

                                   Knows how to lose gracefully

I truly hope that the “spell” of Trump and the dark energy of his bully cult is, if not broken, then diminished by the rising energy and spirit of a united Democratic Party, imperfect though it is, but led by a nominee with solid values and respect for the rights and freedoms of others.   

[lewepstein]

The Great Values Divide

I was prepared to write a second post about so-called         “strongman” regimes when I was struck by what I see as a  values crisis in American society.  It feels to me that a profound shift has occurred in parts of our country that is influencing the political choices that people are making at this time.  

It is also true for me that the word “values” has taken on new meaning in recent years. It is now central to the therapy that I practice, something that I see as the core of our identity and all meaningful change.  My definition of values has been informed by Russ Harris a leader in the field of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and is something that I have incorporated into the therapy that I now practice:

 “Values are words that describe how we want to behave in this moment and on an ongoing basis…values are your heart’s deepest desires for how you want to behave - how you want to treat yourself, others, and the world around you.” (ACT Made Simple)

 If we were to look at some of the currents and rifts in our nation as merely “political differences” we may be missing the larger picture. To me, the divide that I have been reflecting on has to do with core values - the values that underpin our beliefs and the moral compass by which we live our lives and navigate the world.  When I speak about a values divide I am referring specifically to the gap between my own and my circle of family and friend’s moral worldview and those who are supporters of Donald Trump - both the MAGA Republicans and even the less committed who will still decide to vote for him in the 2024 presidential election. It remains shocking to me that the MAGA movement’s precepts and actions are so counter to our country’s foundational  beliefs about right and wrong, good and evil and how the categories of people who we refer to as “others” should be treated.  The fact that there are those still willing to go along and even embrace what we have all witnessed but are obviously interpreting differently, remains to me a moral stain on our society.  The notion that those who stand on my side of the divide may feel “burned out” or have become inured to what they have been witnessing is unsettling to me.

There have been a number of political rationales put forth about why roughly half of the electorate in this country is sticking with Donald Trump and are poised to vote for him this November, willing to make him our president for a second time.  One of the more prominent theories has to do with the marginalization of the small town and rural, white working class in the United States.  The theory holds that those who have lost jobs, power and status resent the more affluent, liberal, cosmopolitan elites who they believe look down on them. 

This group may rightfully feel abandoned by the Democratic Party which has done little to empower working people in this country during the last half century and who they may see as representing the mostly urban underclass of disenfranchised people of color.  But these are two groups that politicians have opportunistically played against each other since the Civil War.  A divisive tribalism has emerged along with a knee-jerk response of being against anything the other side is for, but it is Trump’s willingness to exploit and demonize “the other side” with hate filled messages  - that of being “your retribution,” that continues to polarize.  This has ignited and fueled an underlying current of white grievance.   By turning his vitriolic rhetoric against the mostly disenfranchised “others”  which includes immigrants, Muslims, urban Blacks, Mexicans, and Trans people, Trump has activated the kind of nativism that can divide the nation and mobilize his base.  

 Accepting that this theory has validity, the kind of venom that Trump has been spewing since his first campaign for the presidential nomination in 2015 is also highly personalized and particularly cruel. And this is where values again need to be reckoned with: Isn’t it a values issue that Trump’s cruelty has almost never been called out by members of his own party or its supporters, a party that includes not only rural whites but also women, educated professionals and people involved in both small and large businesses?  This is where what we often think of as a “political issue” is also what I see as a clash of values.  If we return to Russ Harris’s definition of values, let’s examine values as “how you want to treat yourself, others and the world around you,” as it applies to the behavior of Trump and his enablers:.  

I was recently reading a letter from Congresswoman Debbie Dingell on the editorial page of the New York Times in which she was relating what Trump had said about her husband John who had recently died.  Congresswoman Dingell had a decades long, deep and loving relationship with her husband who she said she misses every day.  But when she voted to impeach Trump, he turned on her and launched into a brutal emotional attack saying among other things that John Dingell was “looking up at her” -implying that he was now in hell.

MY QUESTIONS:   WHY IS THIS ACCEPTABLE? 

                                WHY IS THIS BEING TOLERATED?

                                WHY AREN'T STATEMENTS LIKE THIS DISQUALIFYING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?

It is important to note that this is just one example of Trump’s hate speech.  In September of 2020 he referred to John McCain, a former prisoner of war, maverick politician, Republican presidential nominee and to many an American hero, as a “loser.”  He’s done this repeatedly to respected members of the military and by deciding not to visit the military cemetery in Normandy - to Trump another group of “losers” who died in battle, Isn’t this kind of speech just another example of his unbridled cruelty and a disgraceful attack on others - something that Americans who have solid values should totally reject?  Isn’t being cruel but given a pass as a politician a practice that needs to be scrapped? What is even more outrageous and frightening about this is that the spewer of these vile statements is not only tolerated but is currently the leader of the Republican Party - someone who will receive somewhere in the range of seventy million votes if he is again nominated to be its presidential candidate, which is almost certain to occur.  

So, how does the Republican Party - the party that until recently cast itself as “THE FAMILY VALUES PARTY” stand up for its values?  It has continued to offer unwavering support for a leader who has….

..stated that he grabs women’s crotches just because he can get away with it (Access Hollywood Tape, 10/20/21) 

 ..been convicted of rape (Jean Carroll, May 2023)

.. been accused of sexual assault by 12 women.

..used campaign funds to illegally funnel hush money to cover  up an adulterous affair with a porn star.

..been willing to separate immigrant children from their parents at the border as a deterrence policy, (Yes, we all know that there is a crisis of immigration at the U.S. southern border but if we have values, humanitarian rules need still apply)

..been convicted of fraud by the state of New York in his business dealings and penalized in the amount of 354 million dollars  (February 16th)

..been impeached for trying to extort political favors from an American ally, Volodmyr Zelensky in exchange for much needed arms against an American enemy, Vladimir Putin  who Trump has expressed admiration for.

.. been indicted for asking Georgia’s attorney general Brad Raffensberger to find him 11,800 votes in an election that he lost by that margin and for participating in a racketeering conspiracy to overturn the election.

 ..been fact checked to have lied approximately 30,000 times while in office, including the “big lie” that he won the 2023 presidential election which was disproven in 62 lawsuits each showing that the election was fair. 

..been impeached for instigating and inciting insurrection against the United States based on his “big lie” with full knowledge that he lost the election and resulting in the deaths of four Capital police officers and significant injuries and trauma to others.

None of this is new information and no one - not even those who.are getting their news from Fox or some other conservative outlet can honestly say that they know nothing about Trump’s voluminous lies, violent statements, hate-filled rhetoric and demonizing of others.  Barack Obama was soundly criticized by Republicans for not wearing an American flag pin on his suit, Hillary Clinton investigated for having sensitive information on her private email server. Why is Trump getting a pass from this same constituency? Why does a politician who has been so transparently self-serving in so many of his actions still have any currency?

From a values perspective it is breathtaking that Americans continue to support and may re-elect a convicted rapist, admitted assaulter of women, convicted fraudster, political extortionist, pathological liar and insurrectionist.  Add to this, his cruel personal attacks, his admiration for dictators - known murderers of dissenters such as Putin’s murder of Alexei Navalny -  and his promise if elected to abandon our NATO allies and use “his” Justice department to exact revenge on his perceived “enemies,”  can any American still say that Trump is someone who embodies their personal values? 

I guess that it is possible for some who identify as Republicans to say that they agree with Trump’s “policies.”  But what are his policies?  The Republican Party did not even produce a party platform during the 2020 election leaving “policy making” open to Trump’s whims.  Party members and supporters actually do know where Trump  stands regarding race, rule of law and democracy, but to say that one likes his “policies” is deceptive -like saying that you are voting for Mussolini because of his transportation policy. If you are voting for Mussolini, an avowed fascist then transportation policy is not really what your vote is about. 

The most glaring contradictions and the most stunning hypocrisy around Trump and the issue of values is embodied in his support among  some of the largest and most influential Christian sects.  The Pentecostal-Charismatic movement is an ally of Trump’s  and an influencer that has clear ambitions for gaining  political power. But how does anyone calling himself or herself  a “Christian” square their support for Trump from a values perspective?  How much do you need to contort yourself to offer him your unwavering support and never call him out about his expressed hatred and immorality?  Even as Trump has been willing to appoint conservative Supreme Court justices, why wouldn’t that just be seen as transactional rather than resulting in your church deifying Trump as “the second coming?”  Wouldn’t it rather be a deal made with the devil that warrants shame?  And where do Jesus’s core tenets of, Do unto others.. love thy neighbor…welcome the stranger…and practice forgiveness fit into the kind of Trump worship that many Christians churches are involved in?

It is fair to ask me the question,” What are your values?”  since I have taken such a deep dive into what I see as the values divide in America, today.  In the area of, “how I want to treat others, myself and the world around me,” there are signs that I saw on the windows and gardens in Berkeley, California, that are a pretty good representation of where I stand.  The message on these signs stands at the intersection of morality and politics, something to strive to uphold in a world where so many people’s “shadow side”  seems to have overtaken their values: 

         IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE

         BLACK LIVES MATTER

         LOVE IS LOVE

         WOMEN’S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS

         SCIENCE IS REAL

         NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL

         WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

         KINDNESS IS EVERYTHING

I’m pretty sure that a large portion of people in the United States - many who will  be voting for Donald Trump in 2024 would detest this sign and would prefer instead to “own the Libs” or “make a liberal cry.”  But isn’t that just another machismo example of the values divide that I have been speaking about - one in which there actually is no moral equivalency between the different sides? And to the argument, “ Aren’t there some positive values  to be found in Donald Trump and his most ardent supporters?” I would have to say, there may be some positive side to eating arsenic but to date it has only been found to be a poison. This may just be the kind of  divide in which one side - the side that is continuing to support  Donald Trump - has truly gone off the rails.

[lewepstein]

Why Political Strongmen?...Why Now?

It’s hard to look around, read an article or watch the news and not be struck by what is going on politically in the United States and in many countries around the world today.  So much of what is disturbing to me has to do with so-called “strongman” regimes, autocrats who were once elected and have since consolidated their power by weakening the institutions that might have once held them in check.  As I’ve watched this process unfold, a number of questions come to mind.  One is, “Why is this happening?  The second is, “Why is it happening now?  From an historical perspective it would be helpful to know when and under what conditions this has occurred before.  As a therapist, I would like to better understand the psychological underpinnings of this global trend and examine the ways that fear and the search for safety may contribute to a rise in authoritarianism. 

If this were just an American phenomenon we could examine Donald Trump’s continued popularity and front-runner status in the Republican Party and try to analyze the currents in our society that have contributed to his rise to prominence and power.  But Vladmir Putin has also consolidated dictatorial power with early popular support along with Xi Jinping in China, Victor Orban in Hungary, Recep Erdogan in Turkey and Narendra Modi, in India. The people of Brazil, defying that trend, voted out Jair Bolsinaro, a Trump clone, and voted in a left-leaning progressive and former president, Lula DeSilva. But recent elections in Italy, Argentina and even Holland have empowered illiberal parties and right wing leaders, each of them fiercely nationalistic, conservative regarding women’s and LGBTQ rights, favoring one dominant religion and hostile toward immigration and those who are ethnically different from the majority population.  When the political right makes gains over the years even in traditionally liberal bastions such as Israel, England, Germany, France and Scandinavia, it raises questions for me about what is going on in the “global mind.”

Even as I refer to “the political right,” I realize that it cannot be reduced to one monolithic world-wide movement.  In the United States during the Reagan era, Republican Party constituents  were mainly social conservatives, anti-communists (later “War on Terror” hawks) and free marketeers.  What is different today is that many former conservatives seem ready to use the state to advance a radical agenda and are willing to concentrate enormous power in a strongman like Donald Trump. 

But why? Why are people who not that long ago sanctified individual freedom, were in favor of “small government” and supported a muscular foreign policy designed to challenge international violators of human rights now lining up behind a “strongman?”   Why is the Republican Party unwilling to fully support a war of liberation against a dictatorial Putin and instead deify a demagogue who has professed an admiration for dictators, made it clear that if elected again he would use the levers of government to reduce press freedom and other forms of dissent and openly stated that he would use “his” Justice Department to exact revenge on those who refuse to do his bidding?  Why have there been similar shifts in ideology and popular sentiment in other countries? 

If the proposition that fear and the manipulation of people’s fears play a role in “strongmen” coming to power, then destabilizing global trends may also be important to consider in trying to understand why this is occurring now.  During the past twenty five years and more the world has experienced greater than ever displacement of people from the global south to the global north. Much of this mass migration is happening as a result of the climate crisis along with political and economic instability in countries in Africa, Latin America and in Syria. The September 11th attacks on the United States along with Jihadi terrorism in Europe, India and in majority Muslim countries has been the backdrop for right wing political parties to rail against the new immigrants while millions of desperate refugees try to find safe havens in Europe and the United States.  This is not to say that the political Left has never used fear to manipulate public opinion or tried to impose its thinking on others through control. It is more that the contemporary move toward more autocratic, strongman regimes at this time is comprised of almost exclusively nationalistic and even Neo-fascist rhetoric.

 The broad, destabilizing trends that I have been describing along with the ways that the news about them is being disseminated may be impacting our core psychology.  The twenty four hour news cycle can magnify and intensify whatever is going on in what Marshall McLuhan has called our “global village,” and the dissemination of mis-information and inflammatory rhetoric on social media has served as an organizing platform and recruitment tool for violence in ways that were not possible before.  In short, it may be our easy access to information that  is contributing to our fears and to varying degrees, making us feel unsafe. I also propose that this is occurring in ways that did not happen as much when what was once packaged as “the news” came to us in a few major newspapers and on three or four  T.V channels with news “anchors” who, for better and for worse, we came to know and trust.   

  I not only believe that a proliferation of information and mis-information can make us feel less safe, it also lays bare how vulnerable our nervous systems are to signals that indicate danger.  Although most of us like to think of ourselves as the masters of our fates - and in some ways I believe we are - our search for safety may be the underlying factor governing many of our choices.  The “fight or flight” response is now commonly understood to be part of our hard wiring, but recent studies having to do with the autonomic nervous system and more specifically the vagal nerve have increased our understanding of just how tied we are to underlying responses that are part of our biology: The Following quotes are from “Our Polyvagal World” by Steven Porges, a long time researcher on how our nervous system processes and produces feelings of safety and fear:  

“ …the search for safety can be viewed as the primary organizing principle behind human evolution and human society. The need for safety is so central to our survival that virtually everything we are drawn to or enjoy is, in some way, a reflection of this need.” 

We have to remember that this is still a theory, but the more I learn about our automatic and often subliminal reactions to what we experience as either threatening or safe, the more I can understand how easily we can be manipulated by political actors with malevolent intent.  This theory also poses the following idea:  

 “the more threatened our nervous system feels, the more primitive the response.  As we get more defensive and fearful, the higher thinking that is unique to humans is bypassed in favor of reactionary gut instincts.”  

So how might this theory at least partially explain the rise of autocracy in the world today?  

“For an authoritarian or would-be strongman, convincing a large number of people that they are under threat is basically required to maintain power.  We see this when political actors don’t just civilly disagree with their opponents or with entire groups of people but cast them as outsiders and subhuman bogeymen. If your constituents are made to fear that somebody or some group is an existential threat to their way of life or might replace them then these constituents may let you get away with nearly anything.  It becomes “us versus them.”  It is through this playbook that tyranny, extreme nationalism and political violence thrive.”  

If this scenario is beginning to sound familiar it is probably because it has both historical implications and present day manifestations.  When a politician like Donald Trump takes the stage, feelings of  danger, anger and outrage are what he evokes in his base.  The feared others - “Mexican rapists," and immigrants from "shit-hole countries," are merely props designed to unsettle the nervous systems of his followers which he can then refocus as hatred toward the “enemies” whom “only he can protect you from.”

Each would-be “strongman” has his own list of enemies, usually disempowered groups or “outsiders” whom he characterizes as victimizers and as a threat to the nation.  

For Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party in the 1930s the targeted  groups were Jews, the Romani people - once known as “Gypsies,” homosexuals, people with disabilities, socialists  and trade unionists.

For Donald Trump the feared and hated others are Muslims, immigrants from Third World countries who are “poisoning our bloodstream,” Trans people, Mexicans, journalists who criticize him, Black people in cities who vote against him and those who oppose him on the political left who he refers to as “vermin.”  

The underlying fear factor played upon by Donald Trump seems to have to do with being “replaced” in some way:  Whites by a soon to be majority non-white population that would comprise a  multi-racial democracy;  rural, working class whites by metropolitan elites who they feel marginalized by;  Christians who have been told and believe that their dominance in American society is somehow under threat. Republican politicians by a Trump supported primary challenger.  Proud Boys and other proto-fascist groups by Trans People who they see as posing a threat to binary gender norms and of course American Nazis who have openly chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” in marches in Charlottesville, Wisconsin and more recently Florida.

To Trump, himself,  the so-called “Deep State” poses a threat because it encompasses a separation of powers by government agencies and branches of government not under his direct control. 

Looking back over a broader sweep of history, the periods when “strongman '' and repressive, monarchical  regimes became the norm were never eras of expansiveness such as the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and during my lifetime the 1960s. when a burst of creativity and a new consciousness briefly became a youth revolt against an old and more repressive order.  Autocratic reigns of terror have always included attacks on science, reason and openness, a dominant theme of The Dark Ages, and in more recent history, the 1930s when international fascism, strongman rule and mass extermination of the feared and hated others became a central organizing principle for dictators in Spain, Germany, Italy and Japan.

If we humans are hardwired to process fear and search for safety in ways that at times makes us vulnerable to the irrational appeals of demagogues and would-be dictators, is there still hope for a brighter future?   Are there ways that we can avoid the consequences of our deep, biologically rooted fears that have contributed to the creation of fascist and totalitarian regimes?  In Part II of “Why Political Strongmen” Why Now? I will examine the ways that this trend has been challenged before, explore  alternative political responses and discuss ways to manage our own fear-based responses to this disturbing world trend.

[lewepstein]

The Prize Divides Them

Zhuang Zhou an early Chinese philosopher and sage had this to say about competition:

“When the archer shoots for nothing he has all of his powers.

When he competes for a brass buckle he is already nervous.      

When he shoots for a prize of gold he sees double.                         

His skills haven’t changed but the prize divides him.”

I’ve been reflecting recently about competition and prizes - especially after watching or rather re-watching the television series, “Friday Night Lights.”  Set in Dillon, a fictional town in Texas in the early 2000s, it depicts the ways in which the town’s identity or what begins to feel like its very being is tied to the success or failure of its high school football team. 

Starting out as Buzz Bissinger’s non-fiction account of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers from Odessa, Texas, “Friday Night Lights,”  was made into a movie with Billy Bob Thornton as the team’s head coach in 2004. Two years later it was adapted as a television series on NBC starring Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton as coach Eric Taylor and his wife Tami.  It’s an older series that many have already seen but the life lessons that it offers and its critique of competition may be timeless. The fact that it is based on a football season in an actual town makes its narrative that much more compelling. 

To describe high school football games in Dillon as paramount in importance would be an understatement.  It is more the town’s Friday night religious ritual with an uncertain outcome - an outcome that everyone in this small Texas community is emotionally attached to.  The prize that Dillon is obsessed with is the state high school football championship but there is obviously something much deeper at stake.  Local businesses boost the team and seem to rely on its status as a selling point while politicians boast about it on the campaign trail, as if the team’s success was a product of their support.  The better rationale for the need to win at any cost has to do with the composition of the Dillon Panthers. It is a team of mostly working class boys and their families who see football stardom as the route to college scholarships, upward mobility and a shot at the pros.

The burden that this team carries is that it is never supposed to lose. And If towns were evaluated based on their tragic flaws, Dillon’s would be its inability to accept loss, or more specifically lost football games.  Aversion to losing is at the root of the town’s suffering and permeates the relationships of its citizens.  When the team wins a game the town is euphoric but following a Friday night loss  - the inevitable losses that  occur in even the greatest teams for a host of reasons - gloom descends upon Dillon.   

 The sour mood of the town is then amplified by a local radio station that becomes a  backdrop to the series piping out an endless stream of speculation and critique.  Some of it is just Saturday morning quarterbacking but it is hard to tune it out if you live in Dillon.  And since just about everyone in town is obsessed with winning and allergic to loss, head coach Taylor is bombarded with his neighbors' strategies on who to play and what formations to employ whether he is shopping on main street, eating at a local restaurant or attending a community event. 

The collective depression of people in Dillon following a loss can turn into sullen anger  that might be directed at a player who might have fumbled during a game, or more predictably against Coach Taylor.  On Saturday morning he and his family may awaken to garbage strewn on their lawn or a “For Sale” sign posted prominently in their front yard  indicating that the coach has failed the town and deserves to be exiled….. or at least publicly humiliated.  Of course, if the play or pass that lost the game, often by inches, had been successfully completed and the Panthers had been victorious, Coach Taylor would instead be the town hero.  When he eventually loses to a powerhouse team by two points in the season’s championship game the town board votes him out and offers his position to another coach. 

The inability to accept and metabolize loss can be found everywhere in Dillon.  The Panther’s rallying cry is “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!” and there is a prayer session before each game beseeching the Lord to carry their team to victory.  The prayer may at first seem like a righteous, Christian and even humble request until one considers that the truly Christian thing to do would be to pray for the other team’s  success and safety, too.  Aren’t they also deserving of the same divine oversight that the Dillon Panthers are requesting for themselves?  

If the pressure to win at any cost forms the central theme of “Friday Night Lights,” the plot also unfolds around a terrible injury that may have been averted if the underlying code of machismo and shame attached to loss had not been there in the first place.  In episode one of the first season, star quarterback Jason Street attempts a play that he was not properly trained to perform.  In fact, most quarterbacks are not well schooled in how to tackle and Street’s attempt to bring down a sprinting ball handler from the opposing team leaves him wheelchair bound for life. Street’s tackle may have prevented a touchdown, but whether it would have been acceptable in this culture for him to have not taken the risk of making this dangerous play in the interest of his own health and safety is a question worth pondering. 

The culture of  extreme competition that pushes Jason Street to make a dangerous tackle is the same ethos that encourages Smash Williams, a talented and charismatic Panther running-back to take performance enhancing steroids, endangering his own health, the team’s eligibility to compete and the coach’s career. But If winning is your only option and physical and other limitations are never to be accepted then the ends will often justify the means and integrity may fall by the wayside. 

Anyone watching Friday Night Lights would find it hard not to make the connection between the practice sessions of Dillon’s high school football players and the basic training of military recruits.  Drill sergeants and team coaches emphasize discipline but the quality of the measures employed matter.  The value of more punitive discipline and whether or not it serves any purpose to have a player run up and down the stadium steps in uniform on a searing Texas afternoon is a question worth considering.  

 Coach Taylor demands loyalty and discipline from his team but he also exhibits sound judgment and keen insight around how to approach his players.  The things that he communicates and the actions that he takes are generally straightforward and encourage personal growth.  On the other hand, the dangers of barking orders at young men and demanding that they follow them can have a dark side.  When a much harsher and more punitive coach briefly replaces Taylor, we can see shadows of the rigid types of training and autocratic discipline embodied in military missions gone awry.  It is not hard to see how the ethic of just following orders can end in tragedy.

The saving grace of the town of Dillon and this series has to do with the relationships between its many characters, a multitude of  enduring  bonds that the audience is drawn into.  In these complex relationships, team members are at times called upon to transcend  the race and class differences that divide them.  And on occasion parents and other adults - mainly Coach Taylor and his wife Tami - are able to see beyond their short-term needs and desires and act with wisdom and integrity.  

 My take-away from this series is that the prize, whatever that trophy may be, need not divide people as much as it does.  And the obvious lesson that this town needs to learn is that there can be pride in making a valiant effort - that you can lose and still maintain your esteem and your dignity.  Losing with honor - or even forfeiting a game when there are too many injured players  is not a cause for shame.  It should also be understood that the best strategies along with the most inspirational locker room chat by a coach rarely overcomes another team’s assets which may include an ace quarterback, highly skilled runners and powerful offensive and defensive lines.  The opposing team may simply be better than yours and the shot that you get at winning against them in the future may involve a lot of hard work.  

To mitigate the toxicity embedded in the culture of cutthroat competition the citizens of Dillon would need to begin seeing the potential and power in their relationships. The challenges that it needs to keep grappling with have a lot to do with loyalty and cooperation  with each other.  Teamwork and collective effort needs to be emphasized over the false idol of individual stardom. The myth that has been put forth to kids about sports icons like Peyton Manning or Michael Jordan is: “you too can achieve stardom if you want it badly enough”- or maybe if you’re fierce enough in your competitive strivings.  It’s a message that doesn’t have much to offer the majority of poor and working class kids who will never get a shot at the big leagues. They would probably benefit a great deal more by internalizing the value of solidarity.   

At one point in this series the Black players on the Panthers unite to make a point about a coach who made a statement that had racist undertones.  There is power embodied in this type of collective action that can be applied to a shared business venture, the unity of workers demanding rights and the camaraderie of being a part of a community project or organization.  Rather than trying to garner esteem and pride by pursuing and identifying with an elusive prize, the town of Dillon and its citizens might fare better if they truly cherished their connections with one another.  By valuing these bonds over having to win at any cost they would probably all benefit from feeling less burdened.  And perhaps, with this new type of acceptance they could better embrace both triumphs and losses with clear eyes, open hearts and a deep sense of grace.     

[lewepstein]

When Truth Really Mattered

There were many things wrong with my 1950’s childhood but a lack of clarity around what was true and what was false wasn’t one of them.  There were also easily identifiable emotional problems in my family but I can say with certainty that there was never a moral problem.  Throughout my elementary school years followed by my tumultuous adolescence the core values of honesty and integrity remained intact.  And that extended to the families of my friends and the community in which we lived.  It’s not that my friends and I never lied, but we always knew when we had strayed. There were boundaries that kept our impulses in check and there was a moral baseline that my friends and I had internalized.  Our relationship to truth was an integral part of how we understood what was fair and unfair, right and wrong,  just and unjust.

The childhood that I have just described may no longer be available to  segments of the American population and the consensus that we once shared as a society about what are facts and what constitutes the truth no longer seems to be holding.  For children, and especially adolescents, trying to decipher what is real and true in the historical and political sphere has become that much harder.  Unfortunately, there are children growing up in this country who are being fed an alternative reality by the adults in their lives and at the top of the list of falsehoods is that the current president of the United States is actually not the president and that the 2020 election was stolen. The flipping of reality involved in perpetrating this lie involves more than just political differences.               

What we are currently living through are not just weird political times. The deeper  problem may be that what was once shocking - that a pathological liar was elevated to the highest political office in the land in 2016 and that he was supported and voted for by nearly half of the American electorate in two national elections - begins to feel normal.  The fact that he is currently polling way ahead of any of his rivals in a third contest is also shocking and terrifying.  Whatever tribal and political loyalties along with legitimate grievances may have contributed to the massive support for Donald Trump - and I believe that some of the issues are complex - my take-away is that we as a country are in a moral crisis.                                                                  

But, getting back to children, if middle school is where students  begin to learn how to think critically - to pick apart what is true and what is false - what is fact and what is opinion - then how do we teach those skills in what has become to many a “post-truth” society?  How do we even maintain a consensus about what is reality when there are people who seem to be “post-truthers?”  An early “post-truther” was  Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s national campaign manager and counselor, who went on Face the Nation in the aftermath of the 2016 election and spoke about something she called “alternative facts.”  As we all know, that was just the beginning of reality being turned upside down and inside out.  Donald Trump, during his tenure as president of the United States has been reported to have told over thirty thousand lies.  If we include his “big lie” - that he won the last election when he actually lost, then how do we, the adults in our nation, tell the collective members of our society that we call our children that we value truth, honesty and integrity?  

 Another important question is: where is the moral center out of which children examine history and understand current events?  Even more importantly, how do educators and parents present the civics and the ethics of how we treat others - how to avoid name-calling and demeaning others, how to act with compassion and how to accept losing competitions with grace?  And what about promoting  the core value that effort and strength of character is as important as winning - that the ends don’t always justify the means?  How does our society continue to instill in this generation of young people the inner compass that will influence the many choices they will have to make if the president of the United States is not held to standards of honesty or decency by politicians in his own political party? 

 A “post-truth” society is also a society without shame and Donald Trump and his enablers have promoted shamelessness.  It is a healthy sense of shame that serves as a boundary against our worst impulses but this political  era seems to have weakened those guardrails.  I heard one Trump supporter being interviewed, a mother who told a reporter, “What do I care what Trump says?  I’ve elected him as a politician not as my minister.”  But when it comes to the contradictory messages that our children are taking in, when does the bough break?  When do the lies become so ubiquitous and toxic that they weaken the fabric of our society and create the conditions where truth - and by extension- standards of right and wrong - no longer matter?

Where truth really doesn’t matter is in authoritarian regimes.  Control and power are the central tenets of its leaders and reality is manipulated to suit its autocratic ends.  The novel, 1984,  which described  a futuristic, totalitarian society was written by George Orwell in 1961.  The main character, Winston Smith, worked for “The Ministry of Truth” and his job was to rewrite history, producing new “truths” - which were whatever the current situation called for.  But isn’t that exactly what Donald Trump and his enabler’s do - bend truth to meet the needs of the current situation? 

 History is rife with colonial, military and fascist regimes that have outlawed a free press, suppressed dissent and permitted only one point of view - that of the “great leader.”  Putin’s Russia and Kim Jung Un’s North Korea are current examples of the boot of repression stamping on a human face.  But these are also the leaders that Trump has publicly admired and has made clear he would like to emulate.  And this is the  deal with the devil that a majority of the Republican Party - both its elected officials and its constituents have been willing to make in the face of Donald Trump’s open embrace of big lies and dictators around the world.  

There is currently a struggle in this country and in other parts of the world around “truth” - who gets to determine what  is true and how it  gets disseminated.  It is a new battle in an old war.  What’s different about this current struggle  is that it’s now being waged in the United States, a country that seemed to universally pride itself, until quite recently, on being the world’s longest standing democracy.  There are political forces - now mostly Democrats - who are representing truth and justice and holding those who have used deception to hold onto power to account. There are also courts  that will be using facts and evidence to arrive at decisions prescribed by our nation’s laws.

 Children are in the middle of the struggle for how reality will be represented.  There are  libraries around the country where a group that calls itself, “Moms for Liberty '' - has been successful in banning books with LBGTQ themes.  They have done this in the name of protecting children but banning books can also make the access to some truths inaccessible.  A similar battle is  playing out in the curriculum changes being imposed by Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida schools around the teaching of slavery - some would contend the whitewashing of the teaching of slavery in the United States and other aspects of Black history. 

At the epicenter of the struggle around truth  is whether the most powerful person in the country - the president of the United States - gets to use lies and deception to break laws that would allow him to steal an election to stay in power after he has lost.  At stake is nothing less than our legacy as citizens and as the parents of children and grandparents of the generations to come.  What hangs in the balance is whether facts, truths, science and reason will triumph or will future generations end up with a reality constrained by the book banners and whitewashers, whispering about a past society that they heard about in which freedom of expression reigned and truth really mattered. 

[lewepstein]

Learning to Pivot

I first learned how to pivot as a teenager while playing basketball. Sometimes, when in possession of the ball I would keep one foot on a fixed spot while twisting my body and shifting the position of my arms.   I would usually follow with either a pass to a teammate or a jump shot toward the hoop.  I didn’t know at the time that the art of pivoting would also become a part of my personal growth and a tool that I would offer others as a therapist.  But, I have come to believe that the flexibility involved in consciously and sometimes rapidly changing one’s position can be as important in life as it is in sports. 

So, what is a life pivot and why do I see cultivating this skill as central to emotional growth?  The answer to these questions have much to do with how I see my role as a therapist and my own evolution as an agent of change. The conventional wisdom has it that change is a process  taking place over time - that our patterns of behavior and the thoughts and emotions from which they arise are ingrained and deeply embedded in our culture, our families and our own neural circuits. There is certainly a lot of evidence to support this premise.  On the other hand, I have seen clients and others make dramatic changes in pursuit of something that really mattered to them or to avoid losing something or someone that they cherished.  

The following vignette highlights  a moment in time when life is calling on someone to pivot.  Partners in a marriage are having a familiar conflict and if we look deeply, beyond the dynamics of the situation we can imagine what thoughts and feelings may be keeping the relationship and particularly one partner stuck.  We can examine how his thoughts and feelings are moving him away from what is most important to him.  And we can consider what qualities he would have to mobilize that would allow him to pivot toward what matters:

It was that point in their argument when Andrew would usually stomp out of the room.  He did not like where things were going.  His partner Jeff was pointing out things about his behavior that he knew were his issues, things that he was being called upon to admit to and do some work on.  They were also things that he was tired of hearing about.  Jeff was saying for the umpteenth time that Andrew was  too “wishy-washy” with the kids…that he was setting him up to be the bad guy and that he needed Andrew to be more assertive with them.  It was during these moments that Andrew would find himself focusing on Jeff’s tone of voice.  But he knew from experience and from the counseling sessions that they had been attending for the past six months that this wasn’t just about Jeff’s tone.  He was aware that it was the content of what Jeff was saying that he had trouble taking in and it was hard for him to tolerate criticism, even when they both knew Jeff was right. It felt to Andrew that there were emotional forces within himself - something that he generally referred to as his “pride,” that made it hard for him to admit when he was wrong and to commit to the changes that Jeff was asking for.  He was aware that it would be best for their relationship, helpful for their kids and good for himself to be open to this. He could  also see that he had been losing Jeff in some way that he could not put into words and he knew their relationship and the family that they had created together was what he truly valued. 

Andrew is being confronted by two internal forces, universal forces that are within each of us:  The desire to change and the resistance to change.  But, if he is to live a vital and fulfilling life it will be based on his ability to act in ways that are congruent with his values.  The consequences of his not being able to do that in a sustained way could result in the loss of his marriage and his family. 

What qualities and skills would Andrew need to bring to his marriage to move the needle in the direction of positive change?   

The first is acceptance. Acceptance includes the quality of being honest with ourselves about the pain that we’re sometimes feeling in a relationship.  For Andrew, it would mean articulating his resistance to criticism instead of withdrawing and covering it up. 

The practice of defusion is also important. Defusion involves noticing our thoughts rather than buying into them as if they were facts. This skill can help us to move forward in our relationships.  For Andrew, observing what he is  calling his “pride” and being more curious about the thoughts and feelings that comprise this part of his self image might help him to better deconstruct whatever pride is to him and move on.

The underlying and overriding quality that Andrew would need to bring to his relationship is psychological flexibility.  It would allow him to stay focused on sustaining intimacy with Jeff even when he is feeling angry or hurt. It is what allows us all to tolerate the stresses that occur in any intimate relationship.

It is our flexibility that needs to be applied to all of our relationships to keep them vital and alive. Flexibility involves the cultivation of  willingness, the willingness to remain ever present and open to what is being called for in the moment. This is ultimately what allows us to pivot toward what matters. 

[lewepstein]

Becoming “Unstuck”

So many human  problems have to do with what we can call “stuckness.”  The “stuckness” may have to do with  being in a relationship in which the same negative scenes - arguments or distance - seem to happen again and again with little or no forward movement. Or, it can have to do with wanting to be in a relationship but repeating self-defeating patterns.  It can also have to do with needing to end a relationship while feeling stuck in a kind of inertia. Often, it has  to do with anxiety or a low mood that gets in the way of life with the end result of missing out or even avoiding things that might be fulfilling.

Past trauma that seems to pull people out of the present can bring  back painful events from the past.  And this can bring on  self-defeating thoughts that lead people into “dark alleys” and “rabbit holes” that can cast shadows over dreams and aspirations.

Stuckness doesn’t even have to be that complicated. It can also be about an educational, career or creative goal that keeps getting placed on hold or a  desire to be healthier - to maintain a lifestyle that includes the diet and exercise routines that you know you need to commit to but don’t seem able to maintain.

After more than forty years of doing psychotherapy I have arrived at what I see to be the most effective way to deal with the kinds of “stuckness”  that many of us experience in one form or another.  It is a short-term therapy that I am calling, ”Focus on Change.”  Focus on Change draws from the clarifying values and self-observation skills of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy  and it includes work with a part of ourselves that we all seem to carry:  The “Inner Critic'' or “Dictator Within.”  Focus on Change also emphasizes intention as a key part of any meditation that we practice - a kind of “applied mindfulness” that is so important in honoring our commitments and doing what matters.  And, in this type of work, skills are developed with the spirit of compassion and without self-blame.

In five sessions that includes “homework” and a lot of self-reflection the ‘take-aways and tools one comes away with should include the following:

An understanding of the ways that you become “stuck.”

A revitalized mission statement that reflects your deepest values.

The creation of specific commitments and goals and a method to sustain them.

The acquisition of specific psychological “tools” to measure 

 whether you are moving towards or away from your values and  goals

Techniques to help you accept difficult feelings and sensations.

A practical approach for reframing and defusing negative thoughts.

Methods to help you be a better witness to the things you are doing, feeling and thinking throughout the day.  

The skills that are developed in Focus on Change have been proven in a number of studies to improve the quality of life of participants and have helped them to achieve their stated goals.  The underlying ethos of this approach to change has to do with living a valued and vital life.

I invite those interested in this approach to visit my website:

lewepstein.com or contact me for a free consultation: 973-378-3466

[lewepstein]

Fearful, Part 2

In my last post I mentioned the ways that fear can become a dangerous force in both our personal lives and the world of politics.  I wrote how fear can be misunderstood and the ways that it can mask abuse and undermine our desires for closeness and intimacy.  I also tried to illustrate how it can be manipulated by politicians and political parties, allowing autocrats to seize power.  In this post I would like to explore the ways that we can adapt as we experience fear and be more flexible in the ways that we accept and metabolize it.  I tie our hopes for a brighter future to a more mindful relationship with our visceral experience of fear and with the thoughts that often accompany it.  I see the following core question as central to what we are collectively facing around fear:  Will we be able to embrace our fears while simultaneously living according to our values and honoring our commitments?

On an individual level when we experience any of the many sensations associated with fear from butterflies in our stomachs to panic attacks, the practice of accepting anxious feelings and not trying to think our way out of them is the key to their passing through us and not overwhelming us.  If we learn to tolerate the discomfort of the many levels of anxiety in the interest of our emotional growth we develop what is called “distress tolerance” and resilience.  Practicing acceptance of these uncomfortable feelings and sensations also limits our tendency to act out and project our fears onto others.  Consciously raising our “willingness dial” to meet our level of fear or anxiety that we are currently experiencing is important for our emotional and physical well being.  It challenges the myth that we can ever avoid feelings of fear without also constricting our broader experience of life.

Accepting our fears and any other so-called “negative” emotions that arise within is also a path towards self-compassion. The practice of unconditional acceptance - the acceptance of everything that we think and feel ends the war that we sometimes experience within ourselves. It helps us to defuse from self judgment - and this is where the work becomes more social and political.  Unconditional self acceptance in turn, encourages us to experience greater compassion towards others. The day to day work that I am describing leads towards unconditional self acceptance, unconditional  acceptance of others and the unconditional acceptance of life as it is. This does not mean that we stop striving to improve or that we no longer take meaningful positions.

The word “mindfulness” has become part of the zeitgeist but it is much more than a cultural cliche when we are talking about fear.  In dealing with fearful thoughts whether they have to do with past traumatic memories or frightening stories that we tell ourselves about what might occur in the future, mindful self-awareness is a key to personal happiness and compassion towards others.  The idea that we don’t have to do anything with a fearful thought - neither deny it, nor dispute it, nor alter it can be quite liberating.  Being able to identify a thought as simply a thought and not taking it as a literal truth is also a pathway to freedom.  Remembering that it is not how we think and feel but rather how we relate to what we think and feel is the core of mindfulness. It is important to tune into the observing self when so-called, automatic, fearful thoughts occur and to remain aware that these representations are merely events in the mind.  This on-going practice is central to achieving both emotional equanimity and higher levels of personal and social consciousness.  

Our long term work having to do with fear is connected to our larger adult narratives and the way that we live our lives.  There is no way of proving this conclusively but I have found that the more clearly people define who they are and where they stand on critical issues and areas of their lives - especially in their key relationships - the lower  their levels of chronic anxiety.  Being more of a self and bringing conviction and integrity to life situations will often, at first, raise anxiety before lowering it over time.  Knowing what you value -identifying  the domains in life that truly matter to you - possibly areas like health and wellness, self improvement, intimacy, community involvement, money management and finances, family relationships, recreation, politics, creativity and spirituality, among others, is a good starting point.  Then, notice how you move toward or away from your stated values, commitments and goals throughout your days, weeks, months and years.  These “choice-points'' - the moments that you are able to observe and not get hooked by your thoughts and fears - while continuing to move forward toward your stated goals is what I call “applied mindfulness.”  What I am describing  is a very personal process but its potential connection to other areas of life is expansive.

I see the work that I am describing as having both personal and political implications.  The qualities of acceptance, willingness, mindfulness and values clarification are incompatible with authoritarianism and  fear-based manipulations by bad political actors.  They have something to do with everyday courage. They promote intellectual curiosity, a general openness to the new, and emotional flexibility as an ever present potential. And they allow us to observe the underlying fears that we may harbor about immigrants and “others” while we compassionately evaluate their plight.  These are also the qualities that have in recent history inspired women in the U.S. who had no prior relationship with politics to run for political office in response to the abominations of the Trump regime and they are qualities that have encouraged climate activists to take on the most powerful and entrenched corporations in history to try to head off planetary destruction.  They all had to embrace their fears while they moved relentlessly toward cherished goals.  In that process they are living valued and vital lives. This is the emotional blueprint for future generations - the capacity to face fear with discernment while moving toward commitments and values.  If we look upon evolution as the continuing growth of human consciousness - the application of mindfulness to the social and political world - then the potential for change in what has been called the “global mind” can mitigate the worst effects of our fears and open the gates of hope.

[lewepstein]

Fearful: Part 1

“Fearful,”  a simple  adjective meaning, “full of fear,”  evokes in me the image of a child in need of soothing.  At its core fear is a biologically based mind/body experience, a universal human emotion.  It can be a useful signal that calls on us to be vigilant and prepares us to take action.  But In its extremes fear can overwhelm us and of all the many psychiatric disorders, fear-based ones are the most prevalent.  How we manage and handle our individual fears will influence the quality of our lives. How we collectively deal with fear may determine the fate of our planet. The unfortunate results of people being filled with fear when those fears are misunderstood, misinterpreted, misdirected or manipulated can be catastrophic.  

Biologists have shown that we are hardwired to be fearful and that our fight, flight and freeze responses are things we share with other life forms. Our brains and bodies also contain structures like the amygdala that store upsetting events for the purpose of survival.  One resulting problem is that the levels of cortisol and other chemicals that become activated by our nervous systems are better suited for combat than they are for sitting behind desks operating computers.  This survival instinct may also explain what has been called our “negativity bias” - the tendency we have to pass over the good things that occur while easily accessing and focusing on the bad.  Fear can also become “frozen” within our brains and nervous systems, which may explain why we modern humans often carry the effects of trauma throughout our entire lives.  

We are also subject to a more nebulous sense of dread called “anxiety” - a vague but often intense uneasiness without an   identifiable, external danger.  Anxiety can take different forms in different people and our physical constitutions may predispose some more than others to its higher levels.  If we additionally burden our highly reactive nervous systems with a very rapid pace of change, the daily input from social media and the twenty four hour news cycle, it is understandable that we sometimes get hijacked by our fears.  Our sense of danger may even be greater than it has been for earlier generations even though we face fewer daily threats to our survival.  

Understanding the biological basis of our fears and the technologies that exacerbate our anxieties may be useful but it is the fallout from our fears that makes us such a dangerous species.  Both our exaggerated and unrealistic worries about things that could hurt us - but often don’t -  and our attempts to gain control over the inherent uncertainties of life can do great harm to ourselves and others.  There are many parts of the world in which fears about starvation and survival are very real.  But in much of the rest of the world survival fears are being projected onto more benign situations.  From the couples I work with who are arguing with each other during therapy sessions to the political polarizations in society that undercut practical solutions and often lead to violence, the common underlying emotional denominator is fear.  Psychological anxieties having to do with feeling abandoned, annihilated, diminished, disrespected or dismissed form the core of our aggressive behaviors towards others.  Fears around loss of power, prestige and status allow us to be manipulated by political parties and demagogues who present us with a zero sum game - an us versus them paradigm that keeps us divided and fighting with each other.  

The most emotionally abusive husbands and fathers that I have worked with were extremely fearful men beneath their facade of anger.  Attempts to control partners and children were driven by deep, underlying fears about their own adequacy along with feelings of being out of control themselves  Likewise, in the social and political arena an example of fear leading to hatred and violence is the “Great Replacement Theory,” in its various guises.  In this worldview of white nationalists, a plot exists by those in power to encourage non-white “others” to take over white, Christain nations.  This phenomenon in which fear can morph into rage and hatred forms the core of what we call “paranoia,” the irrational projection of inner fears onto the external world.  This is the dominant theme of Dylann Roof’s white nationalist manifesto which led him to massacre nine people in a bible study group at the African Episcopal Church in South Carolina in 2015: extreme fears about being under attack, in this case by dark-skinned people and a “plot” to disempower white people becoming the impetus for his own murderous attack on others.

Dylann Roof’s paranoid assault along with The El Paso massacre in 2018 may seem like the extreme behavior of fanatics but the coded and overt messages of Donald Trump and a portion of the Republican Party today are fear- based with similar tropes.  Roof’s screed is not that far removed from lies about “stolen” elections, “Mexican rapists and murderers at our borders” and “pedophile” Democrats who are about to take away your guns and are conspiring to “groom” your children to be gay.  In the case of Donald Trump and a segment  of the Republican Party, fear has become the great motivator in rallying the masses to their side.  

There is another fear that has emerged around our growing evidence- based understanding of gender: our new knowledge that it is not something that we choose but rather something that chooses us.  Old assumptions and norms are being challenged by truth and lived experience - the fact that people don’t necessarily fit neatly into pre-packaged, binary sexual identities challenges the myths of both organized religion and patriarchal culture.  Because of the ways these fears are being instigated and manipulated, books that include references to gayness are being banned in libraries across the United States and school board members who profess openness in this area have come under attack.  

If we connect some of these dots to the world of national and international politics, the alliances between Vladmir Putin of Russia, Victor Orban of Hungary, Carlos Bolsonaro of Brazil, Marie Le Pen in France and other autocratic regimes and far right parties throughout the world, each one of them promotes fear in the form of extreme nationalism, nativism, mistrust of the feared and hated “others” - mostly immigrants - and a call to “family values,” code for diminishing the human rights won by women and the LGBTQ community.  These autocrats always promise to protect us from external “dangers” but history teaches us that they will use false threats to gain power for their own purposes.   Paradoxically, they are the figures to fear.

On the political left, extreme “wokeness” and the so-called “cancel culture” - intolerance towards those who do not embrace one’s views fully enough tends to produce a fear-based counter-response in those who could be potential allies.  Demanding this kind of “purity” can create its own reign of terror, something that occurred during the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s when the Red Guards persecuted the less “woke” professional and middle classes under the banner of promoting Mao’s revolution.    

                                                   -

The central dilemma that we face around fear is that it is both necessary and dangerous.  Fear is a realistic response to a relationship in which someone is being mistreated.  It can mobilize an individual to take action - to leave a toxic or abusive situation. Fear also tends to narrow our focus.  It can make us myopic and reactive at precisely those times that we would benefit from examining a number of alternatives.  In both our personal lives and in our political choices fear can cause us to lose sight of the big picture.  Instead of encouraging nuanced thinking it can produce responses that short circuit our capacity to act wisely and in line with our deeper values.

In the social/political world It makes sense to be fearful about environmental destruction. The consequences of inaction have become existential threats to the world community.  The international attacks on liberal democracy are also to be feared.  They could leave us living in societies with less freedom of expression and an abridged version of the rights that we now take for granted.  How to act judiciously in the face of fear - what actions to take and which ones to avoid - becomes a challenge that each generation is confronted with in some form.

There are no simple answers to the problems that arise from our being a fear-filled species.  People’s day to day lives include understandable, practical concerns and fears about work, finances, health and the multiple needs of family members.  When involving ourselves in national election campaigns or in local politics we are often acting  in what we feel to be our  individual and family’s best interests - to protect what is ours against whatever forces out there seem to be at odds with our safety and well being.  One could also argue that not everyone has the luxury of looking at the “big picture.” - this being one of the rallying points of right wing populism with its attack on the “elites.”  But, fear-based anger that is directed against others without a deeper understanding or analysis is actually a missile directed against ourselves. This type of knee-jerk, short-sighted  politics is in fact unsustainable and is what will end up compromising our freedoms and destroying our planet.  

In Fearful - Part 2, I will examine the specific ways that our relationship with fear needs to change in order to create sustainable personal relationships and political environments - how we and generations to come are being called upon to act in the face of fear to meet the unique personal and political challenges of this era.

[lewepstein]

If Saul Calls

I know as a therapist that I should at least heed the advice I give to others. And that brings me to one of my regular aphorisms:  “ Try to leave your work at the office so that you can be truly present for those  you love.”  I realize that In this era of cyber-sessions my advice to myself should probably be modified to include: “After Zoom sessions with clients, zoom back into my own life”…. or, at least refresh my screen.  What I often end up doing is turning to yet another screen -  my 55 inch Smart TV  - to watch one of a number of cable TV series that my wife and I have become engrossed in over the years and for an hour or so, we will agonize, analyze and occasionally rejoice over the plight of characters with whom we have become vicariously involved…. which brings me to Saul….  

Saul Goodman (played by Bob Odenkirk)  is the lead character in “Better Call Saul,'' the highly acclaimed Golden Globe winning TV series produced and directed by Vince Gilligan that had its final episode on August 14th. Better Call Saul is also the prequel to Gilligan’s other Mega-hit, “Breaking Bad” in which Saul was a minor character in the transformational journey of Walter White (Bryan Cranston) from high school chemistry teacher to drug kingpin.  Both series were so popular that they have become cultural reference points, reviewed and analyzed in newspaper columns and podcasts.  

In Better Call Saul, Jimmy McGill aka Saul Goodman is the ex-con man turned criminal defense attorney whose nefarious exploits continually challenge the viewer to consider whether or not - or maybe if and when  - the ends might actually justify the means. The twists and turns of Saul’s life may at first come across as slapstick comedy with a dangerous edge  - the adventures of a man who continually pushes the envelope of what we know to be moral and legal.  But from my work and training as a therapist it is hard to watch this emotionally charged lead character and not psychoanalyze him:  If I had to give Saul a psychiatric diagnosis what might it be?  And if Saul just happened to leave a message, requesting a session, would there be a way to engage him in treatment?  

As someone who got to know this character over six seasons -I first “met” him in 2015 - it probably isn’t fair for me to speculate about what an initial meeting with him would be like.  My imaginary first session would not be a cold call from a client I know nothing about.  And from the many episodes I have already viewed - both episodes in this series and the frantic episodes in Saul's life that I have  witnessed, I already hold what should be considered a biased view about who Saul is.  And I also have knowledge on how this series ends. The fact is, I’ve “known” Saul for many years and there is no way for me to not know what I have already taken in. And If he showed up at my office or appeared on my screen for a first session, he would not have the opportunity to present himself to me as most clients initially do - exclusively through their own eyes and self perceptions - to a new person in their lives who holds open a blank slate.  

One thing that stands out most prominently in my mind, having seen Saul in action, is his impatience and impulsivity.  He embodies a hyperkinetic energy and is always embroiled in one kind of turmoil or another. Of course, his willingness to involve himself with others who also live on the edge draw him continually into new hair-raising episodes creating an on-going spiral of intensity.  Saul may be hyperactive but he has no attention deficits.  He is really able to focus sharply on things and he can come up with the most complex schemes. And this may be his particular brilliance - to think outside of the conventional box.  But he is also portrayed as someone who often looks like he is about to throw a tantrum.  And he can turn rogue in a mili-second -  whenever his fragile ego is wounded or his desire to make a buck overrides any ethical concerns we might have once thought he had.  

Saul also has a history as a con-man - “Slipping Jimmy”,  someone who made his living by cheating and charming others, teaming up with fellow con-artists to create elaborate scams. By some measures Jimmy fits the profile of the self-entitled sociopath: scheming, charming and manipulative.   But as we get to know him better we can see that he isn’t so easily pigeonholed.  He can also be a loyal, highly motivated fighter for the underdog who you’d want on your team -  if you could tolerate his insistence that things have to be done his way.   And, just when it appears that Saul has crossed one too many lines, he reveals a more nuanced, vulnerable side to himself, another element that makes Saul the complicated character that he turns out to be and one who would present unique challenges for any therapist he happened to call.  

Some other complexities of Saul’s personality have to do with his inhabiting several different worlds, something that my clients and I also do as we switch roles between home and work.  But, for Saul, those diverse worlds include his connections to the underworld and to the street with its pushers, hucksters and thieves - a network of people who may have a day job but are willing to cut corners to make a few extra bucks on the side.  Another alternate universe that Saul is both drawn to and eventually inhabits is the network of drug lords and their cartels.  As a beginning lawyer who was willing to represent one crime boss, he is eventually “bought” and ends up doing the bidding of that cartel.  The 86 prison years that he is eventually ordered to serve has a lot to do with his connection to the illegal drug trade.    

The question of which side of the law Saul is on becomes even hazier as we witness the elite law firm that his brother founded acting selfishly in its own interest as it steamrolls over many of the “little people '' who get in its way.  We can infer from Saul’s actions that he doesn’t see his brother’s company as any different from the conmen he conspires with on the street or the cartel soldiers that he becomes involved with along the way.  And maybe this is the way that Saul  rationalizes his implicit cynicism and  lawlessness - the notion that  everyone has a hustle.  We know that the big law firms and other corporations have a lot of power - and they will use that power to increase their wealth at the expense of others. But does this validate Saul’s underlying belief that, “You have to con the system to get it to work for the “little guy?”...and of course… to make some money for yourself in the process?  

When we ask the question, does Saul fit the profile of what was once termed a “sociopath” but is now tagged an “Antisocial Personality Disorder” in the manual of psychiatric disorders, the answer would probably be yes.  We could check every box:

Failure to conform to social norms

Deceitful or conning others for profit or pleasure

Impulsive and failing to plan ahead                                                           

 Irritable and aggressive                                                                 

Having reckless disregard for the safety of self and others                    

 Having a lack of remorse or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated or stolen from others.

But along with Saul’s obvious superego lacunae - a psychoanalytic  term for the “holes'' someone has in his conscience, there’s another side to him that has always tugged at me.  There are times that he can be caring and kind.  Along with the demons that point him to the dark side, there may be some angels sitting on his other shoulder.  Saul once went way beyond the call of duty to protect a “little guy” - someone he knew on the streets - from going to prison.  And he was far more caring and empathic than the major law firm that his brother and another partner headed when representing the vulnerable and aging clients in a nursing home case. The question of how Saul’s empathy for others and especially society’s underdogs, weighs against his seeming lack of a moral center continues to be asked throughout this series.  In the haze of this ongoing ambiguity psychological conclusions are hard to draw.  

To add to all of this legal and moral ambiguity, Saul also inhabits the world of his family, narrowly composed of an older brother, Charles Mcgill (Michael McKean) who he both idolizes and envies - someone whose approval he craves but who looks down on Saul as an embarrassment and an outcast who needs to be kept at a distance.  But Saul is also the sibling whose help he depends on as he struggles with a strange type of agoraphobia in which light and electricity have become highly allergenic agents.  And in this stark and painful family dynamic we are left with an important question: How large a role does Charles’ betrayal of Saul, in Saul’s attempt to become a partner in this prestigious law firm play in his going rogue?  Or, is Charles’ assessment right? -  that Saul is at core a low-life who will never change - Slipping Jimmy, the scammer whose dye was cast earlier in life?  

And then there is Kim (Rhea Seehorn,) his partner in crime and his eventual wife, another brilliant legal mind but one who also partakes and revels in Saul’s elaborate schemes.  In sharing his contempt for the rich and arrogant she is willing to go as far out on a limb as he does.  But she also has the ability to morally reel herself in before reaching the abyss.  She turns out to be the only one who has any influence or moral authority in Saul’s life which becomes apparent at the very end of the series.  It is Kim who suggests in Season Four that Saul see a therapist but she proves unsuccessful in her attempt and   never presses him again.  But what if Kim had prevailed?  What if she had insisted that Saul seek help and he had been willing to give therapy a try… maybe, initially just to please her?  What if  Saul actually called?  And what if I was the therapist who received this call? …..

So let’s pretend that my phone rings and I happen to pick up:

Saul: Hi…. I’m Saul…

Me:  Hi Saul, This is Lew Epstein.

Saul:  I’m not really sure why I’m calling…. My girlfriend gave me your number.

Me:  Did she say why?

Saul:  Is everything I say confidential?

Me:  It is. Unless you tell me something that makes me feel that you’re a danger to yourself or others.

Saul:  First off, I’m a lawyer and I have clients….and they have confidentiality with me so I guess I have confidentiality with you, right?  

Me:  If you’re my client you would have therapist-client confidentiality. That also extends to the confidentiality you have with your clients if you share information about them with me.  And you wouldn’t need  to identify them to me if you chose not to……but you called because your girlfriend thought you should speak to someone, didn’t you?

Saul:  She did….

Me:  So why don’t you consider coming in for a session to take a look at why your girlfriend thinks you should seek help.  

Saul:  Okay, but what if she thinks I have a problem and I don’t?

Me:  If one partner in a relationship believes there’s a problem then usually something is wrong  but at base you’re right Saul, you’ve got to believe there’s something worth talking about for therapy to be helpful.  I can also see both of you together…(Saul cuts me off)

Saul:  I don’t want to come in together…. So what time do you have available?  It would just be me.

Oy!!  I’m about to set up an appointment with what I have jokingly called a “wife mandated referral” - a guy whose only reason for calling is because his partner wants him to speak to someone.  He doesn’t even seem to know why she wants him to come.  And he clearly doesn’t want a couple’s session.  On top of that he’s a lawyer whose primary concern seems to be confidentiality rather than whatever else is going wrong in his life.

So is there a window of possibility that Saul can be engaged in treatment?  Even from this first conversation he comes across like a man who values action over calm reflection and therapy may just not be his thing.  And if he’s the type of guy who tends to act out (which I already know he is)  to avoid reflecting on his emotions and relationships, then my asking him to examine his behaviors may feel like I’m tampering with his very being. Then again, I’ve worked with other men who would have rather been anywhere else in the world than in my office examining their feelings and behaviors..  So, what made them stay?  What got them to work on themselves?  Leverage!... Their wives or girlfriends were fed up with them and insisted they come to therapy.  Or else!!  Even macho guys who didn’t seem to give a shit about anything - or at least maintained that facade - sometimes felt compelled to work on themselves when the alternative was losing their wives and families.  With the prospect of divorce hanging over them, these men had to at least listen to what their partners were asking for.  But I have no idea if any of this is true about Saul and his girlfriend.  I don’t know if she has any leverage. And I might never get to meet her.  So what happens if Saul makes it to our initial session?  Knowing what I  know about him already, he’s not going to want to plumb the depth of his soul.  For a guy like Saul problems are always solved by taking action - creating another scheme - not by exploring the meaning of his actions or examining the psychological implications of what he’s done.  So, Is there a “hook,” something that draws Saul into therapy?  Or, is this just not going to work?

Let’s pretend that Saul does show up:

Saul takes a chair in my office, looking very uncomfortable:

Saul:  I don’t know why I’m here.

Me:  That’s OK Saul, not everyone initially knows why they’re here...  But that doesn’t mean you’re not going to come away with something that you may find valuable…or at least helpful.

Saul:  I don’t even know where to begin.

Me:  That’s also quite normal.  Like most people you’re probably not used to pouring your heart out to someone you’ve just met.  But with  your clients aren’t you also listening to people who have a problem - people who are asking for some kind of help?

Saul:  But with them it’s very clear.  I’m being hired to represent them and get them out of a jam.

Me: That’s sort of what I do, too.  I try to help people when they’re in a jam. I give advice and sometimes offer them another way to look at things.  

Saul:  I don’t know what those things would be for me.  It’s always clear with my clients.  Most of them are in deep shit.  They really need help.

Me:  I get the feeling that you’re the type of lawyer who really feels for your clients.  You know what it’s like to be in a jam.

Saul:  I do. I represent some people who almost never get good representation.  

Me:  I appreciate your values, Saul. You want to help people who never seem to get a break.  And I bet your empathy for those “little guys” who get crushed by the system comes from things you’ve  experienced in your own life.

Saul:  Yeah.  Well I have hit some hard times…in the past.  But now I’m OK.  I’ve got a private practice going.  I’ve got a girlfriend.

Me:  That’s right.  She’s the one who looked me up and wanted you to come.  By the way, what’s her name?

Saul: Is it OK if I don’t say what her name is?

Me: Sure. You don’t have to. And I’m sure you have what you believe is a good reason not to share information with me.  I think what I’m   getting from you is that you’re living with some burdens and feel a need for secrecy.  That must be hard.

Saul:  Yeah, well you get used to it.

Me:  Are you able to share stuff with your girlfriend?

Saul:  Yeah. She and I are like this. (Indicates closeness with his hands)

Me:  Then you’ve gotta have some idea why she sent you here.

Saul:  She worries….Sometimes…about me.

Me:  Do you know what worries her about you?

Saul:  (Long pause, stares off, then stares down)

Me:  Should I take your silence to mean that whatever she’s worried about you’re not ready to get into right now?

Saul:  You should.  I did say, ‘I don’t know why I’m here.’

Me:  You did say that.  On the other hand, I still feel that you carry a lot inside and that you might benefit if you could unload some of it…if you were listened to and could trust the person who was listening - someone who didn’t have a motive or an angle.  

Saul:  It sounds like you’re recommending yourself.

Me:  I might be.  But I couldn’t be sure without your input.

Saul:  OK. I’ll think about it.

Me:  It looks like you’re getting ready to leave, but we still have some time.  I never asked you anything about your family.  Do you have any brothers or sisters?

Saul:  I have an older brother who died.  He might have once mattered to me but he’s been dead to me for a while.  Not worth even talking about any more.

So, here are some potential therapeutic hooks:  

My turning Saul’s identification with the downtrodden into a value in his career and his life.      

Asking Saul how he may have developed his sense of empathy and inviting him to connect with his own history.

Presenting his secrecy as a burden that he might release himself from if he could open up to me.

Inviting him to speak about his girlfriend’s worries about him as a way of examining his feelings for and caring about her.

Introducing the possibility of speaking about his family even though Saul doesn’t want to go there.      

Whether Saul will actually return for a second session and engage with me as a therapist seems doubtful.  He gives new meanings to the word “guarded.”  And the odds of him wanting to flee when painful areas of his life like his relationship with his brother arise are pretty great.  Challenges to his unethical and illegal behaviors - if he were even willing to talk about them - would predictably be met with resistance and If he actually began to share some of his extra-legal exploits with me, would I be placed in a compromised position?  Would I be able to continue working with him  if he wasn’t willing to give those behaviors up?  Would therapy with Saul even get that far?  But, something about being listened to by someone who has no angle could be very appealing to someone who only thinks of the world in terms of motives. Then again, a therapist often  gets only one session in which to offer a few take-aways to a client who never returns.  Other times, an initial session blossoms into a long and trusting relationship.  Which of those things would happen if Saul called?  I really don’t know.

[lewepstein]

The Blame That We Carry

Ten years ago I wrote a post titled, “Moving Beyond Blame,”  a brief guide for couples on how to avoid getting stuck in endless cycles of accusation and reproach.  In it I offered some suggestions on how to argue constructively, much of that having to do with taking responsibility for how we feel.  The post also examined ways that blame is built  into our language and explained how figures of speech like: “You made me feel bad.. or angry… or anxious… or sad,” rarely challenge us to look within and examine our habitual responses.   Statements like these also encourage us to reflexively project blame onto others.  

In my subsequent work with clients and in the course of my own life  the issue of blame hasn’t faded away or become less relevant.  If anything, it has become more central to the way I look at the change process.  I would go so far as to say that understanding a person’s relationship to blame can reveal much about where they may be stuck in life and something about their broader capacity for fulfillment and happiness.

If you would like to take a closer look at your own relationship to blame you may first want to examine the circumstances under which blame arises in your life. I have found it helpful to separate blame into different categories: parent blame, partner blame, universal blame and self-blame.  

Parent blame is the most prevalent form of blame that I have encountered as a therapist. Some of it comes from the culture at large which has promoted the notion that families and parents can be  “toxic.”  Without a deeper exploration of  the roots of the “toxicity,” parent blame can become a default position in life and a way to avoid personal responsibility.  Sometimes parent blame may be explicit, as with clients I’ve worked with who will readily share how a parent has done them in. The childhood trauma being described may be very real but it is a person’s attachment to a storyline as an explanation for later problems or failures that can become a barrier to moving forward.  One of the antidotes to this type of static narrative can be a willingness to do actual research on one’s family of origin.  Interviewing and reconnecting with family members can provide a window into the complexity of causation.  What we may learn is that the emotional and behavior patterns that we have felt personally subjected to have a long and complicated history.  My own research into the causes and consequences of male anger and violence in my extended family gave me a deeper understanding of my own relationship with anger.  It provided me with insights into the early trauma that I experienced and liberated me from some of the burdens that come with holding on to  blame.  It also made me more aware of the ways in which I was blamed as a child so that I would be less likely to pass that along to my own children. The type of research into one’s own family that I am describing can be highly charged and quite emotional but it often produces a degree of understanding that promotes healing and subsumes blame. For a more in depth explanation of the type of family of origin work that may be helpful in overcoming parent blame, my 2008 book, “More Coaching for Fatherhood,” may be a good resource.

Partner blame often includes emotional patterns that we have witnessed or internalized from our families of origin in a revised form.  Although there is truth to the notion that what our partners say or do evokes responses within us, our partners aren’t the cause of our responses. Rather than blame our partners and say things like “You made me angry,” a more accurate statement might be, when you said that or on the occasion of your saying that, “I made myself angry.”  The expression, “You pushed my buttons,” is also infused with blame - whose buttons are they?  Yours, of course.   Our capacity to move from projecting blame onto our partner to noticing how we  participate in and contribute to the tensions and negative patterns in our committed relationships is a marker of growth.  And, taking responsibility for the way we respond to our partners doesn’t mean that we have given up our right to take meaningful positions in our relationships.  We just need to request change without adding blame.

What I’m calling “universal blame” is something that we may all carry in some form.  It is the amorphous sense of blame that includes  disappointment with and anger at God in any form that may take, fate, or the universe.  Anyone who carries some kind of faith is in danger of having it shattered when something in life goes terribly awry. I witnessed that when I worked in a pediatric wing of a hospital in which a number of children were suffering from leukemia.  Some fairly religious parents renounced their belief in God at that time, saying that they could no longer abide a supreme being who would allow their innocent child to die.  Their overwhelming grief needed some avenue of relief and, perhaps, blaming God or the universe made “emotional sense” at the time.

The fourth category of blame - self blame, has significant implications for emotional health.  Work in this area has much to do with being more nuanced and becoming more aware of the differences between taking personal responsibility versus coming down hard on one’s self.  Being less hard on oneself is for many a measure of maturity   For some of us the word “blame,” has a punitive connotation with echoes from childhood.  There is also inherent perfectionism in some people’s  self-blaming and their vocabulary often includes expressions like, “should have,” “ought to have,” and “must.”  These implicit and internalized self judgments can even create a predisposition for depression.  On the other hand, a greater awareness of one’s language - using words like, “hope to,” “would like,” “desire,” and “aspire to,” can help one shift from self blame to living what I would call a more preferential life.  

In examining blame in its broadest sense one overriding characteristic seems to be its connection to an earlier phase of life in which simple, concrete answers seem to make sense.  Blame looked at from this perspective can be seen as a carryover from childhood that no longer applies to a more complex adult world.  I see the antidote experience to blame as mindful awareness in which we observe our responses while trying not to get “hooked” on seeing our thoughts as facts. This includes noting that our thoughts having to do with blame are not necessarily  true.  If we can embrace the notion that the ways that we perceive and appraise ourselves and the world are choices that we make, then we free ourselves from our fixed definitions of who we are.  From this vantage point the blame we carry can be viewed as an unnecessary burden that we may wish to let go of - a  means to lightening our journey through life.  

[lewepstein]

Living With Uncertainty

There are questions that we feel we must have answers to now.  They involve things so important to us that it seems we cannot be left in suspense.  When we’re awaiting the results of medical tests, a few days can feel like an eternity. The weeks and sometimes months it can take a court to rule in a child custody case or other matter can be a wrenching experience for all those involved.  Not knowing when an insurance claim will be settled can make us feel that our lives are on hold until a decision comes down.  And, our work lives can be unsettled  by a company merger or a job outsourced - things not in   our control that can leave us uncertain about our finances and our futures.  Even our friendships and intimate relationships involve periods of uncertainty - times when we are unsure about how others see us and the things we may have said or done.  

Beyond our personal woes there are the “big picture” questions for which we also want answers.  These have to do with events occurring in the world that are largely out of our control but will likely impact our lives over time along with the people we love.  The following are some of my current “big picture” questions:  Will Joe Biden and the Democrats have enough success in the coming three years to avert another Trump presidency?  Will my children and grandchildren still be living in a democracy in the decades to come?  Will changes be made  to slow the pace of global warming and will those changes be sufficient to prevent more environmental disasters like the wildfires and drought that have already hit very close to my home in California?  

As I write this post and at this very moment uncertainty reigns in Ukraine as Russian missiles strike civilian targets.  The question of who will live and who will die is left very much to chance.  And while Ukrainians are worrying about whether or not their families will survive Putin’s onslaught, the rest of us are also left wondering if this war will  expand to include other nations or escalate into a nuclear conflict.  Part of me tries to imagine how all of this will unfold, while another part of me - probably the more mature part -  knows that I will have to live with all of the uncertainties that politics and life entail.

The challenges of living with uncertainty are nothing new and we know that our ancestors were also at the mercy of droughts, floods and plagues which often came without  warning and posed immediate threats to their survival.  Without the science and technology that buffer some of us in today’s world, it is no wonder that our forebears tried to manage life’s unknowns by making sacrifices to the gods of  land, wind and sea.  With the advent of monotheism and more organized religions, the belief in a power greater than ourselves that brings order to the universe continues to offer solace in the face of what can also be interpreted as the cruel indifference of nature.  

If life is a path with so many unanswered questions and unanticipated twists and turns are there ways to effectively cope with our uncertainty?  The following are a few that I have found helpful:  

First, we need to accept that uncertainty is a part of life and that some of the fears that it generates is not an aberration. Recent brain research also indicates that we may be wired to have a “negativity bias,” something that enhanced the survival of early humans.   If we are willing to accept the sensations associated with our fears without “add-ons'' - those thoughts and stories that we tell ourselves, then our waves of anxiety will usually pass.  It is easy to project our worst fears on those things that we don’t have answers to.

The following are some types of “automatic thinking” that are often triggered by uncertainty.

Catastrophizing: Believing that what will happen will be awful or unbearable.

“What if” thinking:  Asking a series of questions about “what if” something happens and never being satisfied with any of the answers.

“Fortune telling:” Predicting the future in a negative light - that things will get worse or that there is danger ahead.

Simply noticing these types of thoughts as they pass our minds  without buying into them and without having to do anything about them is a cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness approach to coping with uncertainty.

Some additional cognitive tools for dealing with uncertainty involve posing questions to ourselves that challenge our habitual responses:

Is my uncertainty turning a possible, future danger into an imminent threat?

Can I be uncertain and still be OK?

Can I experience uncertainty and still be safe?

Do I need to be certain in order to be safe?

Can change occur that is undesirable and would I still be able to cope with it?

Can I bypass my usual responses to uncertainty like “Uh-Oh!!” or “something is terribly wrong” and replace them with something more nuanced and moderate?

Accruing wisdom around uncertainty has much to do with letting go of the grandiosity that makes us think that we can actually predict outcomes.  We actually don’t know whether what is transpiring now will have a  “good outcome” or a “bad outcome.” but we all like to play fortune-teller.  Adopting the position that “you never know” has proven to be the wiser stance.  Research has shown that we humans are actually not very good predictors of outcomes -  a  large percentage of our long range predictions do not turn out the way we imagined. And, since one door of life always seems to open as another closes, who can truly say how any one event or decision will impact life in the future?

The existentialist philosophers and psychologists believe uncertainty is part of the human condition -  that we’re all in the same boat and that the  choices that we make are what give meaning to life.  Buddhism also posits a universe that is impermanent and in flux with uncertainty and groundlessness at its core.  So how then are we supposed to find peace and meaning on such shaky ground?  

Buddhism suggests that we cultivate the qualities of compassion and courage - the capacity to rest in uncertainty and remain open to whatever is unfolding now.  The roots of our suffering can be found in  our resistance to uncertainty, the only reality that we have.  Happiness in this system would never be tied to any person or thing because that kind of attachment would not be able to tolerate uncertainty and change.  

For those looking for a practical, workbook on dealing with anxiety associated with uncertainty I recommend: “The Monkey Mind Workout for Uncertainty” by Jennifer Shannon

For a more spiritual, philosophical approach to exploring uncertainty I suggest:  “Comfortable With Uncertainty” by Pema Chodron.    

[lewepstein]

Reflections on the Speed of Change

“This is not a dress rehearsal.”  It’s something my wife said to me a while ago when we were having a repeat performance of an argument that we had many times before. The statement also felt like a wake-up call affirming that we did not have all the time in the world to make changes to our relationship.  At seventy five I may be feeling this more acutely, but wherever we are in life, we don’t have forever to resolve our emotional issues - to overcome the barriers that stand in the way of creating the kinds of intimate relationships that many of us aspire to.  And, as I look beyond my own life and contemplate the bigger picture, I can see how the speed of change will determine the environment that my grandchildren inherit and probably the fate of American democracy.  The statement, “This is not a dress rehearsal,”  acknowledges the brevity of life but it also poses another question:  Do we need to examine our “speed of change''?   Rather than gaining insight into why we operate in the ways that we do, or focus narrowly on changing a few habitual behaviors, are there more fundamental life lessons that we need to master now in order to live a more fulfilling life?  

Conventional wisdom counsels moderation as do some ancient seers. I can still recall Aristotle’s teachings on “the golden mean” from my freshman Civilization course at Queens College.  Big and sudden personal change is usually not seen as enduring and the message, “Beware of operating in the extremes,” seems like the watchword for those of us aspiring to be mature adults.  The ideal of moderation is further reinforced by the most popular psychotherapeutic approach to personal change, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which broadly preaches the gospel of avoiding extremes in the ways that we use language and informs us that we all do well to be more nuanced in our thinking.  

Sigmund Freud and early psychoanalysis focused on what might be called grand insights.  But it was soon understood that earth shattering revelations or epiphanies that dramatically change lives are few and far between.  The field of psychotherapy has rightfully come to recognize that change is rarely linear or smoothe.  It can be a halting, incremental process replete with setbacks.  Individuals, families and couples come to therapy seeking help but often resist the interventions and recommendations offered by the professionals they have hired to facilitate change in the first place.  Our wish to change is counterbalanced by another universal force - our resistance to change.  The zeitgeist would also have us believe that insisting on transformational change or pressing ourselves and others to move forward with haste may be nothing more than a childish wish.  In the world of politics the notion of moderation along with the willingness to compromise is usually seen as the wiser choice, rather than tilting at windmills -  continuing to fight what may be a losing battle based on one’s principles.  And taking this a step further, one would have to wonder whether some of the societal messages we receive tend to equate wisdom with conservatism.

But taking a look at another aspect of the change process, might there be times and situations in which rapid change is not only sensible and desirable but imperative - periods when slower paced, moderate change can be hazardous to our health?  One obvious example would be a woman in a physically abusive relationship whose survival may depend on her quick exit from a dangerous household.  Another example in the political arena has to do with the climate crisis in which so-called “moderates” are slowing down the pace of change having to do with switching from fossil fuels to renewables.  In this scenario the health and survival of life on Earth will be impacted by the speed of change. The increasingly violent storms, flooding and fires that we are witnessing may turn out to be only the dress rehearsal for environmental catastrophes to come if the so-called moderates and their corporate donors have their way.  The consequences of allowing the short term personal gains of the privileged few to override the needs of the rest of humanity -  the majority of which are calling for fast and fundamental change - may be the highest stakes game in the history of our planet.      

In the area of personal relationships the stakes are also high but our day to day routines can obscure the need for deep and rapid change.  In my work with couples, the viability of a marriage can hinge on changing a number of behaviors by one or both partners.  Some examples of these changes are:  learning ways to turn towards each other literally and figuratively in moments throughout the day; learning to avoid global criticisms of each other that include the words “always” and “never;” learning to say things to each other that do not include sarcasm or contempt;  learning how to do “repair work” following conflicts; learning to overcome blame by staying mindfully focused on one’s own reactions and putting energy and time each day into cultivating fondness, admiration and deep friendship.  The behavioral changes that couples are being called upon to make are straightforward and yet their speed of change is often haltingly slow.  

Clients who come to see me are usually well educated. They almost always have the resources of money and leisure time with which to facilitate the process of change.  So why aren’t the things they say they want - the changes they have come to work on -  being made quickly and expeditiously?   I believe the missing piece has to do with a particular form of resistance:  an unwillingness to go outside of their zones of comfort  - to take a leap of faith into fundamental change.  People are more accustomed to battling with their symptoms than they are with committing to move forward in the areas of  life that they value. They are more focused on their pain than they are on their goals. The word “willingness” in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has to do with, “shifting your agenda from the content of your pain to the content of your life.” I see this shift in focus from symptoms and suffering to a more mindful commitment to move forward in valued directions as a key factor in accelerating the process of change. (If you are interested in examining  the concept of “willingness” in greater depth you can check out any of a  number of websites and workbooks on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT.)

I have also come to believe that the broader work of what we call “psychotherapy” is composed of life lessons that we are called upon to master.  This includes the recognition that our relationships are extremely time sensitive and cannot be placed on hold.  I also see the process of moving forward in therapy and life as less about the quagmires and quick sand of language and analysis - which has a way of trapping us in old patterns - and more about our commitment to make concrete behavioral changes that matter.   When it comes to marriages in trouble, there are behaviors that need to change but these behaviors are almost always  connected to larger life lessons that need to be learned and values that need to be identified.  Sometimes the underlying value and resulting commitment has to do with partners being more honest with one another since so many marital problems are crises of honesty in one form or another.  For other couples who find themselves stuck in hostile interchanges, the life lessons they need to learn may have to do with bringing kindness and compassion into their relationships.  Overcoming fears by drawing upon one’s courage and having the courage to bring up important issues that you know your partner does not want to discuss needs to also be connected to what one values. The willingness to commit to making fundamental change in the areas of life that we truly value is not a revolutionary idea.  We just need to occasionally remind ourselves that this is not a dress rehearsal and that the speed of change matters when we are choosing to live a valued life.

[lewepstein]

The Banality of Evil

“Evil” is an interesting word and not one that we usually associate with modern times.  To me, it harks back to The Dark Ages in Europe when Christ allegedly battled Satan for men’s souls and sinners were  condemned to spend eternity in a fiery hell.   For a therapist like myself, the word “evil” is also an outlier, with much of the field  grounded in the social sciences and more recently the physiology of the nervous system and the brain.  Psychotherapy’s foundational principles and methods have mostly to do with the use of inquiry and understanding in the service of change and there are probably few therapists who subscribe to the more fatalistic belief that there is inherent darkness lurking in the human heart.  And yet, the existence of what has begun to feel like an impulse or instinct to do evil becomes harder to deny as privileged individuals who live in a post-Enlightenment world, and are the beneficiaries of affluence, science and an almost unlimited access to knowledge continue to act in ways that are cruel and inhumane.  

This post, “The Banality of Evil,” is taken from the subtitle of a work by political theorist Hannah Arendt.  The full title of her book is “Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil,”  published in 1963.   It was written during the trial of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal and architect of what was called “The Final Solution,” - the extermination of over six million Jews in more than a thousand German concentration camps scattered throughout Europe between 1933 and 1945. ​​  What Arendt saw as “banal,” as she observed Eichmann during those hearings was how inarticulate, ordinary and even boring he was.  He would claim during the trial that he had no particular hatred for the Jewish people.  No malice at all.  He also stated that he bore no personal responsibility - just a man following orders and doing his job - a joiner all his life with a need to belong.  

My personal definition of evil includes a lot of what Hannah Arendt describes in her book.  It also relates to things that people may see as normal and reasonable -  the beliefs they hold, the leaders that they follow and the actions they take.  But when it comes to rooting out and understanding evil, there are two crucial questions that people need to ask themselves:  Are my actions doing harm to and disempowering others?  And, am I allowing others to disempower people with my knowledge of it?  Whether this kind of cruelty occurs in families in which one member imposes a brutal regime of control and terror on his partner or his children and sees it as justified and normal or, if it happens within a political system in which a leader and his followers dehumanize, abuse or willfully disempower another group of people - to me, the underlying ethos is the same.  

There are laws that Republican dominated legislatures in Texas, Georgia and 12 other states have recently passed or are currently enacting that are to me examples of the banality of evil.  On the surface, and to someone who knows little about the historical context, these laws may appear to be reasonable, common sense approaches to protecting the security and sanctity of elections in their states.  They have even been framed by Republican majority legislatures and their leaders as attempts to reassure citizens that voter fraud will not occur.  

What these laws are actually designed to do is suppress the votes of African Americans, Latinos and young people with laser-like precision.  The statutes disenfranchise these groups by restricting mail-in voting, purging voter rolls, diminishing the number of voting drop boxes in urban areas, and eliminating the amount of time and days that would allow members of these targeted groups to vote. Other parts of the hundreds of bills rushed through Republican majority legislatures are crafted to intimidate election workers by imposing tremendous penalties for any action that might violate these laws.  The laws also give partisan “poll watchers” the power to harass and further intimidate workers who are simply and honestly doing the job that they were hired to do.  These same state legislatures have further empowered themselves to challenge the results of elections and overturn them if they are unhappy with the results.

The Republican Party is doing what every kid who has played ball on a sandlot or in a schoolyard knows in his gut is wrong - changing the rules of the game to disempower the other team and give your own team an unfair advantage.  It violates the core values that we try to instill in our children around competition and fairness - but what is at stake for our society is much greater than which team wins a little league game.  It  has to do with the very survival of our democracy.  If winning at any cost becomes the way that we operate, and legislatures are willing to disempower another party or group of people and rig an election so that some people’s votes do not count - and they do this in order to maintain what they see as their own power, privileges and advantage - then we as a society have truly lost our soul.

What may be the most pernicious part of all of these Republican efforts is that in November’s presidential election there was no evidence of voter fraud or so little as to validate the integrity of the system as a whole.  This was upheld in court after court as Trump challenged the election results and appealed to Republican officials to “find him votes.”  He particularly cast doubt about the legitimacy of voting in cities with large Black populations in swing states - Atlanta, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Detroit - a part of his divisive strategy and his underlying message that Black votes do not really count.  It was his “Stop The Steal” campaign and his big lie that the election was stolen that sowed doubt, fueled the January 6th attack on the Capital and  gave Republican dominated legislatures the cover to push through their raft of voter suppression laws - all in the name of stopping voter fraud that did not exist in the first place.

On the surface this may seem like partisan politics as usual - one group merely seeking a competitive advantage but isn’t that what can make evil so banal?  This underlying issue that cuts so much deeper is that there is a demographic trend in the United States predicting that it will no longer be a majority white nation by 2045. The core of Trump’s “Make America Great Again'' movement that challenged Obama’s citizenship, vilified Muslims, labels Mexicans as “rapists and murders,” and calls African nations ``shithole countries,” is a a white Chritian nationalist  “us versus them” strategy designed to delegitimize and disempower non-whites while it plays into the fears of many white Americans that they are losing “their country” to the feared others.

This is the playbook of every dictator and authoritarian regime:  appeal to a majority group and manufacture a threat about a disempowered and disadvantaged minority - for Hitler it was Jews, Gypsies, Socialists and trade unionists for Trump and the Republican party it has been Mexicans, Blacks, Muslims, LBGTQ’s and refugees.  Repeat the lie often enough and you can create a fascist movement.   Then, barrage a population with so many vile acts that they become inured to what is going on and  begin to accept the caging of refugee children and the separation of parent and child asylum seekers at our borders. Once the envelope has been pushed that far, internment camps for the despised others might not be such a stretch.

For Black people in the United States the intersection of being in physical danger and being emotionally harmed by a white supremist narrative is nothing new.   History has proven that increases in voting rights have always been followed by periods of backlash and disempowerment:  Slavery is followed by emancipation and what is called Reconstruction which included the 15th Ammendemnt - the right of Black men to vote in elections.  But Reconstruction was soon abandoned along with the enforcement of the right to vote for the former slaves. This period ushered in a reign of terror and lynching that included voter intimidation and poll taxes in the Jim Crow South.  The Civil Rights movement, along with the The Voting Rights Act of 1965 attempted to redress some of these injustices only to be gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013 and again in a decision in June of this year.  

Republican state legislatures are currently scrambling to make sure that once again there will be infringements on the rights of Black Americans to vote.  The third of America that fiercely supports these laws and  policies has been around for a long time -  they include those who would choose a George Wallace or an authoritarian Donald Trump over living in a multiracial democracy.  The policies pushed by these demagogues have been called the “politics of hate” but they always involve the willful denial of rights along with a moral injury -an  assault on a person or group’s dignity, worth and esteem.

In the big picture of Trump and the Trumpification of the Republican Party and its base, it is a story about normalizing what is criminal,  cruel and crass - the willingness to lie, cheat, steal and demean others in order to achieve one’s ends.  The underlying message to people is, “look what I can do - I can hold another nation hostage to my selfish needs.  I can demean a reporter with a disability.  I can have affairs and pay women off so they won’t talk.  I can assault women sexually and get away with it.  I can call a Black congresswoman ‘low I.Q.’  I can lie every day when it suits my interests. I can use the bible as a prop. I can even shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and pay no price for my crime.  I can say and do all that we know to be wrong and get away with it”   What Trump has done is to activate and validate the basest parts of us and has left Americans with the cynical message that we are all chumps if we do not follow in his path.  

Psychiatrists have analyzed Trump’s behaviors and labeled him a “pathological narcissist.”  Others have said that he lacks a moral center and have called him a  “sociopath.”  He has also been described as a shallow, incurious and selfish man.  I see him as an evil man, one who has unleashed the dark side of our humanity and tried to turn it into the new normal.  This is truly the banality of evil and Trump’s evil legacy and there will need to be a deep reckoning before we absolve our nation of these sins.