14 Concepts To Understand Psychoanalysis - Dr Jonathan Shedler 

Hello you beauties. Access all episodes 10 hours earlier than RU-vid by Subscribing on Spotify - spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - apple.co/2MNqIgw. Here’s the timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:48 The Need for Psychoanalytic Psychology 06:11 What is Moral Masochism? 15:32 Developing a False Self 21:16 The Relationship Pattern of Transference 27:49 How Projective Identification & Splitting Works 46:11 Everyone Engages in Repetition & Enactment 50:50 Using Reaction Formation as a Defence 54:22 The Sub-conscious Act of Displacement 1:00:46 One Thing Dr Shedler Wished People Knew 1:03:21 How to Choose the Right Therapist 1:166:01 Where to Find Dr Shedler

Please have more psychodynamic therapists! Like Nancy McWilliams. She's also very clear when presenting something as difficult as psychoanalysis.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy saved my life, the mental health system is sorely lacking in depth due to the biomedical model and thus how it can respond to the *individual*. Ive been an inpatient, an outpatient, had a billion diagnoses... Psychotherapy was the only outlet that allowed me the space to actually explore myself and experiences without a framework someone else had set. It was freeing. I found myself piece by piece.

Most important takeaways: 1 The speaker is a psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of California San Francisco who practices psychoanalytic psychology, which focuses on exploring and understanding unconscious mental life. 2 There has been a trend in the field of psychotherapy towards increasingly brief, superficial, and cheap interventions that focus on managing symptoms and dealing with surface-level thoughts and behaviors, rather than the underlying psychology that gives rise to them. 3 Psychoanalytic psychology emphasizes the importance of understanding and exploring the unknown parts of ourselves in order to break patterns and gain freedom to do things differently. 4 Psychoanalytic therapy involves a collaborative relationship between the therapist and the patient, in which the therapist helps the patient to understand their own unconscious thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. 5 Some key concepts in psychoanalysis include the unconscious mind, repression, defense mechanisms, transference, and the Oedipus complex. 6 Psychoanalytic therapy can be beneficial for a range of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, and relationship problems. 7 Some criticisms of psychoanalysis include the lack of empirical support and the subjectivity of the therapeutic process. 8 The speaker advocates for a more balanced approach to psychology that incorporates both the scientific and the humanistic aspects of the field.

Chris, this was an eye opening guest. You do a good job of letting the guest speak, while also putting in your own points.

Chris! I must say: You are serving humanity now way more better than you could as a model.

Psychologist in training here. Couldn't jump on this quick enough. Thank you for consistent quality guests Chris 👏

This is awesome. I've been following Shedler for several months now on Twitter and he's becoming my most trusted "voice" on psychology and therapy.

One of the best modern psychologist and therapist out there! Took me back to my uni years with concepts that are often disregarded and fought by organizations and medical facilities who push for short term superficial interventions that often see patients stagnate or improve short term (and in most instances, regress, eventually get worse and loses hope in therapy) Another episode tackling other complementary concepts is a must! Great job Chris and Johnathan

We are too distracted understand the world around us while not having scratched the surface on ourselves.❤

Hello, Chris. Thanks so much for all your fascinating podcasts. Thank you, Jonathan, for your excellent discussion of psychotherapy. I believe when we get to know ourselves and learn to accept ourselves better, our quality of relationships improve. Integration of mind, body and soul is an exciting adventure. I will have a better day knowing there are kind, professional helpers. Peace and prosperity to you both. Diane Dean

Wonderful interview about the usefulness of perennial psychodynamic/psychoanalytic concepts presented by a master clinician. Thank you!

This is precisely the conversation I needed to hear today. Had me taking notes. Thank you, Dr. Shedler, and thank you Chris!

As a person who has had a difficult past, I feel like I've cycled through some of these strategies. I think I've had a paranoid phase and a people pleasing phase but I've mostly been in an avoidant phase for over a decade.

Love all your episodes but particularly the psychologist guests. Psychodynamic/analytic therapy is widely misunderstood and often maligned by people who don't understand it. Would love to see more guests who practice it, particularly Jungian Depth Psych.

This episode helped me so much!

amazing content

Dr Jonathan's voice is so calming. I loved this episode. Thank you so much! ❤

I can't stress enough the choice to leave toxic situations. I was that person. At about 16 I would look at people who wanted plush blankets and cozy extras as weak. Bc I had endured the intense discomfort so much it was apart of me and it was so hard. But I didn't know there was another way. All I knew was pain and discomfort BUT I got out of that situation from my parents and surrounded myself with positive mental health videos. 4 years later im finding the comfort I should've had in my childhood. Its bringing me to my true self. *currently wearing soft cozy slippers 🙂*

Very grateful to have found your channel Chris. Great job!

Another amazing conversation!!!!!! Wow!

I am really thankful that this channel exist

This really shows how screwed we are. When one side is legitimately at fault, there is no way to stop without the other side (which may have reciprocated in kind to a degree) admitting fault that isn't due. So we are left with one side that is full crazy and another that knows they aren't but can't step away without conceding. The feedback loop requires domination. We are all humped.

another great episode CW and crew

This episode is so brilliant. I recognize some of these patterns in people around me and in myself, too. I didnt know hot to explain them but now I do. Another great Discovery, Chris.

Another gem!

Thank you for tackling this Chris, and wonderful guest to give voice to on your platform. Personally, I connected with the observation that Clinical Psychology is alarmingly shallow now - at least the NHS version that I know best. It's understandable to some degree given resource constraints, the shift in medicine to Scientism at the cost of the 'art' aspect etc. And CBT (with aligned approaches) does work very well for some psychopathologies. However, for the large group of people with adverse early life sequelae and maladaptive personality structures, it can be somewhat dehumanising - worse than ineffective. I doubt this is soluble, but kudos for recognising the issue as real. Merci beaucoup Monsieur!

Free will... not the will to do something random, but rather the will to do what is actually good for us.

This is brilliant! Thank you 😊 I learned a lot! I’m done with toxic people.

Chris, I dig the fact that you found some one just doing their thing that you found cool.

Amen to that. I'm currently over halfway through my Psychology degree at university. In my opinion, Dr.Shedler is spot on when he says that psychological courses are shallow. All of the courses I have taken so far seem very superficial, especially regarding psychotherapy. Furthermore, these courses often fail to address the existence of the psyche. They focus on cognition and biological or physical factors, such as brain, without really delving into the concept of the mind itself. This form of teaching only addresses a faction of the psyche nothing to do with the unconscious. It seems to be targeting your attitude what you think you think and what you think you feel towards a person, object, or situation. I am guessing the reason is because it is to challenging to study the mind everyone is different regard. If that is the case, does that mean the mind doesn't exist in scientific terms?

Fascinating interview, this guest did an excellent job of explaining the concepts in simple, approachable terms, his students are very lucky. I worry that many people’s experience of psychology, even those who study and practice in the field, is much less oriented to human relationships, and less helpful for that, e.g. there are many universities where the psychoanalytic approaches are derided as kooky nonsense by experts who “know” that depression is just an imbalance of chemicals in the brain, and derive their insights and treatment methods from experiments with rats (which might be a good starting point, sure, but probably don’t reflect the depth and nuance of human psychology).

I missed this one when it came out. Awesome guest, awesome host , well curated

Thank you Dr Jonathan. Great work Chris.

great guest! very helpful very insightful episode

I watch a lot of your videos and this one was one of my favorites. Well done :)

I learned a lot here and completely agree about people thinking very surface level about things like anxiety and depression. You can treat symptoms but you also should try to treat the cause

I say this with the greatest respect because this was such a great episode and he is brilliant, but I bet Dr. Shedler could do a fantastic Winnie-the-Pooh impression 😁

These are such important topics to discuss because a lot of these issues we are seeing in real time and unfortunately it's seems like there's a market for these types of behaviors to be expressed and rewarded.

While I liked the explanation of new concepts, think more could have been done in terms of asking questions to this man. More into differences of psychology methods, deeper into psychoanalysis. Huge fan of podcast, but just some feedback

I have a friend that is suffering from Moral Masochism.. Great guy, but he truly feels he should be more successful than others because he 'puts himself through so much'. I have tried to help him overcome this and he is just not receptive.

WOW! I really saw myself in a lot of this discussion.

This was well insightful. Thanks 🎉

Amazing work

This is from the description. Thank you Chris! 00:00​ Introduction 00:48​ The Need for Psychoanalytic Psychology 06:11​ What is Moral Masochism? 15:32​ Developing a False Self 21:16​ The Relationship Pattern of Transference 27:49​ How Projective Identification & Splitting Works 46:11​ Everyone Engages in Repetition & Enactment 50:50​ Using Reaction Formation as a Defence 54:22​ The Sub-conscious Act of Displacement 1:00:46​ One Thing Dr Shedler Wished People Knew 1:03:21​ How to Choose the Right Therapist 1:16:01 Where to Find Dr Shedler

Very late news. Superficial work laced with meds is an understatement. The way your needed visits depend on your insurance is heartbreaking. The missing diagnosis for the women with autism and their families is shameful!

Never watched Love Island … but I bet it wasn't as interesting and helpful as watching this. Salutio Mr Williamson :)

Here is a crack in the door. Where did that 1hr 17 go? Brilliant 👍. And a cool fresh 🍺for the Algorithm

can you use the self-fulfilling-prophecy by expecting good things/intentions from people and .. then receiving them?

If you are interested in understanding your programming, I would recommend trying IFS (Internal Family Systems). I've had depression for over 20 years and the only thing that has helped resolve this has been IFS. Would love to see Chris interview Richard Schwartz.

Maybe the therapist sucks or has issues being expressed at the patient. The working presumption that all therapists, or even most, are quality is exploiting patients.

How do we get people who need this info to consume it? I love this and want to share it. Why do others take it offensive when sharing this?

Wow wow wow 😢. The other was sulking and pouting. I had already begun to notice the pattern. I said something. They bit my head off. Then I sliced them like a muffin. It didn’t end well, but now I know it’s projected material onto me. Even Ram Dass wanted to get away from projections. While he was on this planet 🌎

Every human has all his life to find out who he is , that what life is for .

Anyone have the link to the twitter thread that they are referencing?

Sometimes people ARE evil. It's not your unconscious projecting unresolved issues onto your relationships. There are objective ways to determine this. Like, oh I don't know, people who mutilate children or people determined to expose children to sexual situations. No need to to check your subconscious.

What I would do to get supervision/therapy from this guy

Great episode, so many insights and stuff to meditate on in this single hour of conversation. I love that you keep having such good and interesting guests on, but I find it sad that some of these episodes do not reach a wider audience as they have tremendous potential to help people, meaningwhile, people like Jocko Willink who simply strikes me as an unintelligent person who has zero valuable insights rake in millions of views. Seriously, I don't get how he gets invited on such high-profile podcasts while my brain just tunes out whenever I hear him speak because he's obviously not educated and he has nothing of substance to bring to a conversation, he's basically your uncle who's succeeded in life and who's not an asshole but that doesn't make him an expert in anything. Anyway, I really like that you keep these high-quality guests coming even if they do not rake in hundreds of thousands of views as my favourite episodes were all of that kind (with the few exceptions of people like Huberman and Peterson, but I was already very familiar with their ideas before listening to the episodes). Keep it up!

Last timestamp has a typo.

Chris, I was happy to see you giving psychoanalysis some attention on your channel. And while Dr. Shedler doubtless knows his stuff, he is misrepresenting or giving short shrift to most of Freud’s ideas here. Moral masochism is only one of Freud’s three species (four if you include sadism, which Freud doesn’t talk about much since it’s just a form of masochism in his mind anyway). The “Three Essays,” “The Economic Problem of Masochism,” and “A Child is Being Beaten” are where to look if you want Freud on masochism. Transference is another phenomenon Dr. Shedler doesn’t quite explain fully. As far as I know, the transference happens during analysis-the analysand transfers the libido from one object (perverse, neurotic) to another (the analyst). Freud’s disciple, Ferenczi, speculated that the Oedipus complex lay at the center of any transference, and Freud adopted that speculation. Freud being Freud, we never get a definitive transference, but as far as I know he never talked about it functioning outside the analysis proper. All this was a major problem for Freud et al since the transference couldn’t be the goal of analysis, but it was hard to see anything past it. The transference was both the means and the end of therapy. You can read about that in “Analysis Terminable and Interminable.”

I need more of this. I'm scared to find a psychologist at this time because of all the left wing stuff that's taken over the profession. Last thing I want is to put my trust in a doctor who's going to lead me astray into a homosexual or trans identity.

Omnipotent Control. Didn't know there was a name for it. Like when someone exercise control over you in the worst possible way. Using every channel available to show you that they own you. 100s of times an hour, 24 hours a day, forever. It's when someone wants you to feel their presence all the time. They never ever, ever let you feel relaxed. Doesn't matter if you try to spend time with your wife or children. Not on your honeymoon, not when your children are being born, not when you go to work, not when you sleep, think, eat or shit. It's not just about having control, but letting you know that they have it. They want to show you that they can do anything they want to you and nobody will stop them. What happens to someone who is abused by someone with this mental disorder? They become angry. A lazy psychologist might think there is something wrong with the victim, like splitting. The best explanation for what happens in some parts of the culture war is that people - including you - only listen to one side. And they have no way of knowing what happens on the other side. And they don't want to know. As someone who has gone through many different phases in life, I am aware that people are not 100% good or evil. That's why I always judge people by how they behave. 100% of the time. If someone were to exercise Omnipotent Control over me, like say trying to control what I think, what I do, how I behave etc 24 hours a day for years and years, I would judge them by that, not assuming they're evil. Another concept I had never heard of is Moral Masochism. I recognize the behavior, and like Jonathan said, there's a little of all these behaviors in all of us. But I don't think I know anyone that choses to suffer, although I know they exist. Most people just want their troubles to go away. And not everyone feels morally superior either.

Depression is de-pressing feelings - leading to a repressed person

Thanks for putting this up. I’m a UK based psychotherapist. I enjoyed a sort of overview format. I do have a broader question, which I assume is a cultural issue. I listen to stuff from psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychologists and so on and have done for years. What I find is there is nearly always a beginning where the person will say how other people haven’t trained at the right place or don’t know something or have misunderstood. I always have a fantasy of getting everyone together to see if what they actually mean is that they don’t like how others see the world? Does that make sense?

You know

15:26 you’re only supposed to confess your real sins (not crimes 🤨) , and not make up stuff. A skilled confessor or spiritual director will help you distinguish between real and imagined guilt

While psychoanalysis can be a great tool, I warn against Freud and his teachings. It's great to dive into yourself, but never forget you are not Freud himself, and that most of his developments ended up covering his own history and psyche. Walk prudent when entering psychoanalysis; you'll know when you'll enter, but won't know when you'll get out. Don't forget Jung who decided to distance himself from Freud.

Moral masochism basically she hulk

26:00 🤔 paranoid personality

What I think is missed here is how in the therapy relationship, it all comes down to the therapist's interpretation of what the person is doing. There can be a lot of danger there. I don't think therapy is such an innocuous thing, like we're led to believe. All of the defenses mentioned here, while very useful concepts, can't be objectively tested for. It comes down to the subjective interpretation of the therapist. Oh yea, and that therapist has a lot of power over us.

Be immediately skeptical when someone starts jabbering on about free will and does zoom Calls in front of a bookshelf.

I love you Chris. However until you feature WHITNEY WEBB ( ONE NATION UNDER BLACKMAIIL) we are being failed & you’re NOT in the conversation…. Much love, love, love. Xx

I find the most intelligent people have the least amount of books in their camera shot... and vice versa.

Paraphrasing… Chris- Why should I care about Dicks? Dr. Shedler- Not caring distorts our perception of the world and other people. It’s a costly defence.

He seems to say a lot without really saying anything. Maybe I’m just not intelligent enough to understand what he is saying…

TLDR: The superficiality of therapy is a characteristic of the practitioner and not the therapeutic modality. There is substantial overlap in the characteristics of an effective therapeutic relationships that is independent of specific modality. While he highlights important patterns of behavior to identify and address as a therapist, Dr. Shedler appears to demonstrate his own defensive reactions (e.g., inferiority complex) to other modalities of therapy. The superficiality of therapy is related to the quality of practitioner and not the modality. Furthermore, in the execution of therapy high quality providers display substantial overlap in treatment characteristics and behaviors, regardless of underlying therapeutic theory. The main differences between modalities is philosophies regarding development of specific disorders and which mechanical components of the practice of therapy are considered beneficial and effective; these ideas are often academically interesting, but not always clinically relevant. The truth is different individuals respond to different things at different times in their lives. Some may respond immediately to brief, education and tool focused interventions (such as those with a more "engineering" mindset); others playing out relational and behavioral enactments in more corrective patterns (such as those with recursive negative behavior and attachment patterns); other still to correcting negative thought patterns (e.g., individuals with punitive unrealistic personal expectations); while some need to step back from their rushing thoughts and better engage and act with present life (such as people who are always fighting within their heads and missing out on the immediate moments); and some simply need to repeated face their fears and learn that they are currently safe (particularly effective for phobias and trauma experiences). A high quality therapist will tailor the treatment to the individual within the moment that you are seeing them or will refer to another provider that can provide the treatment that they need. This treatment can be brief or prolonged, depending on the complexity and response of the client. IMO, flexibility is fundamental for therapeutic efficacy. Psychodynamic/psychoanalytic therapy can be useful for address issues related to attachment, family of origin, and even complex negative personality patterns (i.e., personality disorders)... but so can other modalities. Furthermore, not every issue/disorder a person faces can be traced to early childhood experiences (which I assume the exploration of is what constitutes depth). Once again the superficiality of the treatment is a product of the practitioner and not the modality. A good practitioner will explore early childhood experiences on intake and if clinically relevant to treatment, regardless of modality.

It's a fallacy to pose the "unconscious" as basically that undiscovered aspect/side of the self, or as the self to be discovered, as only something to be brought into the "therapy" situation. In fact the word "unconscious" occurs only 4 times in this presentation of over 10,000 words; and each time only in passing. I disagree with "evidence-based" psychoanalysis! In fact the cry that psychoanalysis is being watered down, "stolen" and used for social control, etc., began by Freud when he still alive: "Freud's reaction was premonitory: "Fundamentally, the whole idea is very repellent to me, typically American. One can be sure that, when such a 'source book' exists, no American will ever touch the original writings. But perhaps he will not do so anyhow, and will go on getting his information from the muddy popular sources." From this point on, we are confronted with a very peculiar cultural phenomenon. Psychology, under which psychoanalysis is classified, has to be comprehensible to the man in the street. If a layman reads a book about chemistry, electronics or whatever, and doesn't understand one bit of it, he considers this to be normal. But if the book is about psychology, then everybody thinks it's a downright scandal." (Source: Does the Woman Exist, by Paul Verhaeghe, page 72.) Nevertheless, I respect Dr. Shedley's message very much.

To clarify. moral masochism in p.a. terms equates to sense of individual specialness, which also enhances self worth and well-being (ironically). Iden with arch of the martyr. Thanks, clin psych. practitioner

this was helpful :)

Fantastic insights and one of your best podcasts imo.