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10% Happier with Dan Harris
If It’s Hysterical, It’s Historical: The Liberating Power of Understanding Your Past | Dr. Orna Guralnik
01:11:27
On psychoanalysis, which we haven’t talked about much on this show. is a psychoanalyst and writer. Her writing centers on the intersection of psychoanalysis, dissociation, and cultural studies. She has completed the filming of several...
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- [00:00]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Foreign.
- [00:04]
Dan Harris
This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello my fellow suffering beings. How we doing? A lot of people come into therapy with all sorts of resistance. Isn't this just self indulgent? Don't other people have it way worse than I do? Are you going to ask me about my mom? What does she have to do with anything? Why are we dredging all that stuff up? I'm not a therapist personally, but in my understanding, the reason therapists go deep on our past is that if we don't understand our stories, they own us. For reasons that remain opaque to us, we can react disproportionately to seemingly innocuous triggers. The an expression I love that really captures it. If it's hysterical, it's historical. Today I'm talking about all this with Dr. Orna Galnik, who you may know from her Showtime docu series Couples Therapy, where she works with real couples on camera. It's quite extraordinary and very, very popular. Off camera, Orna does way more than couples therapy. She's got a bunch of impressive academic credits. She serves on the faculty of NYU Postdoc, National Institute for the Psychotherapies, the Stephen Mitchell center, and the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Studies in Gender and Sexuality. She also co founded the center for the Study of Dissociation and Depersonalization at the Mount Sinai Medical School. Sounds like a super fun place. But kidding aside, for the purposes of this episode, here is the most salient detail from her resume. Dr. Goralnick practices a kind of intensive therapy called psychoanalysis, which you may have heard about, but not here on this show, because we've never really covered psychoanalysis. I will let her describe it, but as I understand it, the basic gist is this. You meet with your therapist often several times a week and take a deep dive into your past so that you can navigate more successfully in the present. I might be mangling this slightly, so again I will let Orna define it more accurately. In this conversation we talk about some practical takeaways from the world of psychoanalysis that we can all use in our daily lives, whether we we're seeing a therapist several times a week or not. Those include the relationship between happiness and the truth, how to cultivate love from within practices to support you in being more open minded, to avoid what Orna calls a splitting mindset, transgenerational history, and how it impacts our personal lives and our relationships. In other words, how the ghosts of your ancestors operate in your mind. Now, one single and very powerful question to ask yourself when you get annoyed and and the overlap between Buddhism and psychoanalysis. Before we get started, I just want to let you know about something very cool that we're going to be doing in the second half of May. We are going to be doing a live meditation miniseries each weekday from Monday, May 19 to Friday, May 23 at 4pm Eastern. I will be leading a short guided meditation and then I'll be taking your questions. The whole miniseries is going to center around a set of practices that I often refer to as the Buddhist antidote to anxiety. And I'm not making this up. One of the key practices that I'll be teaching is loving kindness meditation, which the story goes was invented by the Buddha to help his monks who were dealing with a lot of fear. And loving kindness is part of a family of four related practices known as the Brahma Viharas or the Divine Abodes. I will admit when I first encountered these practices which are designed around cultivating loving kindness, compassion, something called sympathetic joy, and also equanimity. When I first ran into these practices, I was, as you might imagine, a little reflexively judgmental and dismissive. But I have really come to embrace these practices in a huge way over time, and they've had a massive impact on my life. And by the way, they've now been studied quite extensively in the labs and have been shown particularly loving kindness practice to have physiological, psychological and even behavioral benefits. Anyway, this is all happening over@danharris.com Like I said, Monday through Friday this the week of May 19th. Like any good drug dealer, the first dose will be free. So Monday's session will be open to everybody. And then for the rest of the week you have to be a paid subscriber. So head on over to danharris.com and check it out. We'll get started with Dr. Orna Goralnik right after this. You may have heard me talk about masa chips before. I legit love these chips. They're some of the crispiest chips I've ever had. Great, great way to eat guacamole, which is a family favor around these parts. We're always in this house looking for healthy snacks, but many healthy snacks are not really that healthy. They're just quote unquote healthy. They've got all these seed oils and ultra processed ingredients. But masa chips are different. They're made with just three simple ingredients, organic corn, salt and beef tallow. They're crafted the way chips are meant to be. No seed oils, no fillers, just real food that tastes incredible and I can vouch for that. If you care about taking care of your mind, you need to care about your food. So try Masa chips today and taste the difference. Go to masachips.com happier and use code happier for 25% off your first order. As the founder of a pretty new small business, I can tell you that one of the biggest and most urgent issues is hiring. You want to hire the right person and you want to do it quickly. Just by way of an example, our most recent hire is the mighty Abby Smith, who's my executive assistant and also plays many key roles throughout the team. And she was very much the right person and immediately improved my life and the lives of everybody around me by way more than 10%. So if hiring is an issue for you, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites. Indeed's Sponsored Jobs help you stand out and hire fast. With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster and it makes a huge difference. According to INDEED data, Sponsored Jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non Sponsored jobs. I will say as as happy as I and the rest of the team are with the aforementioned Abby Smith, the whole process might have been a lot quicker if we were using indeed. So lesson learned. Plus, with Indeed Sponsored Jobs, there are no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts, and you only pay for results. How fast is Indeed in the minute? I've been talking to you about this. 23 hires were made on Indeed according to Indeed data. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a sign of $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@ Indeed.com happier just go to Indeed.com happier right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That actually really helps. Indeed.com happier terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Orna Goralnik welcome to the show.
- [07:35]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Thank you. Dan Harris thank you for inviting me.
- [07:39]
Dan Harris
It's a pleasure. So I thought I would start with psychoanalysis because this is a bit of malpractice on my part because I don't actually think after eight years and 700 episodes we've really ever talked about what psychoanalysis is. Let's just start with what is it and how's it different from the therapy that many of us have, are already doing or may have already experienced?
- [08:03]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Sure, psychoanalysis is a Very serious project that aims to help patients, people, but the world at large understand unconscious forces that operate on us. Psychoanalysis, as far as a therapeutic process, is a process in which patients come in and spend a long time with their therapist. Multiple times a week. I sometimes see people three, four times a week, sometimes they lie on the couch and the treatment usually goes on for quite a while because we try to really go deep and really understand why things are happening in people's lives that they are not aware of. We use the process of the therapy as one of the labs that we look into. So the relationship with the analyst is very important in psychoanalysis. And we use it to kind of. It's sort of another realm of experience that helps us understand what goes on with the patient. We talk a lot about history, about early history, sometimes about even transgenerational history. In more contemporary types of psychoanalysis, we also talk about the. The wider context, like sociopolitical factors and how they infiltrate the unconscious. So it's a serious endeavor.
- [09:33]
Dan Harris
Why would someone opt for two, three times a week psychoanalysis over garden varieties? Talk to a therapist once every week or every other week.
- [09:44]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
First of all, there's plenty of good things you can do in once a week therapy. There are all kinds of therapies out there and they're good for many things. I mean, if you have like a spider phobia or a particular kind of pernicious thought that keeps going in your mind, you can get some cognitive, behavioral help. There are many ways to help all sorts of things that trouble people. Psychoanalysis really aims to go deeper and change deeper patterns in the psyche. You know, the same way that advice is sometimes feels kind of good in the moment, but it's not really useful because things go on and you have your patterns and you keep going back to your old patterns and you can say to yourself whatever you want. Consciously, the old patterns will take hold of you again and again and again. You need to find a process to kind of delve deeper into these older patterns or like these deeper patterns and tackle them from that place. If you want a deeper dive into yourself and more change, you have to invest the time and effort into it. Aside from all of that, it's really interesting. It's just really interesting. Like, what goes on in our mind, like, under the surface, it's the same question of, like, why is it a deeper experience to read a full novel as opposed to like a blog post? It's just more interesting.
- [11:12]
Dan Harris
So it's not the case that psychoanalysis is only indicated for People who are deeply troubled. Maybe some of those people would fit the bill for psychoanalysis, but it's really for anybody who's deeply curious.
- [11:27]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yes, that's one way to say it. In more traditional psychoanalysis, people used to say that you need a certain level of what we call ego strength to go through analysis. Nowadays, we've expanded the way we do psychoanalysis, and we include people that suffer from, let's say, more troubling conditions. But it used to be that you needed to be sophisticated well enough put together to endure the turbulence of psychoanalysis, because it's an intense process. But nowadays we've changed the technique. We do things differently. So it could be for anyone who's curious, anyone who's willing, anyone who has the time and means.
- [12:08]
Dan Harris
Just going back to what you said before about how, you know, if you really want to understand why you're suffering now, you. You need to dive into all of the causes and conditions in your subconscious. You also mentioned the transgenerational subconscious, which I want to come back to. So are you saying that if. That if we're not doing psychoanalysis, we're really missing out on something that can provide us a more full level of happiness?
- [12:38]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
I agree with most of what you said, and I know we're on a 10% happier podcast. I am not sure happiness is the exact thing I'm talking about, although hopefully it's woven in there. But I would say we're missing out on knowing more about truth, about the reality of who we are, knowing more about what's in front of us. Psychoanalysis helps you see reality in a. In a much richer way. It's not always a happier picture, but it's a fuller, richer, more honest picture, sometimes happier.
- [13:15]
Dan Harris
Yeah. Since you brought it up, I'll take the bait. My view of happiness is not jumping up in the air joy. It's a holistic, capacious understanding of a life well lived.
- [13:29]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah. Can I ask you questions?
- [13:32]
Dan Harris
Of course.
- [13:33]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
What is the relationship between happiness and truth?
- [13:37]
Dan Harris
I think there's a deep relationship between happiness and truth. And, you know, I come out of the Buddhist tradition, so in Buddhism, there's this massive emphasis on mortality, finitude. You're gonna die, and that's an uncomfortable truth. But liberation lies in the direction of embracing what ultimately will destroy you.
- [13:58]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
From the little I know of Buddhism, and I've studied some and I meditate myself, so I think there are a lot of commonalities between psychoanalysis and the practice of Buddhism and the kind of search for getting beyond the noise level of Things and kind of soaking into like the, the deeper layer.
- [14:19]
Dan Harris
Yes. That was immediately what came to mind for me when you were talking about. You didn't use the term causes and conditions. That's a very Buddhist term. Understanding all of the. What has led us to this moment, what's informing both our conscious mind and our subconscious mind. That is a, at least to the extent that, to which I understand Buddhism. That is a very Buddhist approach. Although in Buddhism we don't tend to focus too much on the details of our childhood, but it is about understanding what leads to what. And that's what karma is, you know, cause and effect.
- [14:56]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, yeah. And then I know that in certain types of Buddhism there's plenty of attention to like the past, even like reincarnation and like big pasts.
- [15:08]
Dan Harris
Yes.
- [15:08]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
So there is, there is some idea that there is things that are driving us from behind. There's wind from behind.
- [15:14]
Dan Harris
Absolutely. I kind of think of it as like everybody's got this vapor trail behind them, you know, like this incalculable gumbo of causes and conditions that have produced our mind state and behavior right now.
- [15:31]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, yeah. And isn't it fascinating? And I think in a, in a moment like this, when we're like, in this very, very particular moment in history, it feels very useful to like be able to have tools to try to look at reality.
- [15:53]
Dan Harris
Say more about that.
- [15:55]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Well, we're in a, in a moment in history, I mean both in this country but elsewhere in the world. There's like a crisis, compounding crisis and all sorts of. It's a very violent time. Violent in many ways, literally. Violent on the lives of people, violent on our minds, violent between us. It's a time of great chaos and distortion, noise, misunderstanding and I think having certain tools to try to sift through signal and noise and find a way both internally but also in viewing reality is incredibly helpful. And I assume you feel similarly about liking meditation practice.
- [16:46]
Dan Harris
I do. And many other practices. I kind of, to the extent that anybody knows who the hell I am, I think I would be pegged as the meditation guy. But over the course of this part of my career, post writing about meditation and getting some attention for it, I've really broadened out to all the modalities that can help one do life better. So I'm not a meditation fundamentalist by any stretch.
- [17:11]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Can you say more like about the different, what you're calling modalities?
- [17:16]
Dan Harris
Yeah, I think there's like a pantheon of no brainers, evidence based levers one can pull to improve the quality of One's mind and life. So sleep, exercise, eating well, with the caveat that you don't want to be, too. And I would put this caveat, this asterisk, next to exercise, too. You don't want to fall into the orthorexia trap, the unhealthy obsession with being healthy. Nature, beauty generally, medication if you need it, meditation, meaningful work. And then, probably most importantly, from my understanding of the data, is the quality of your relationships. And under that, there's a whole set of skills, too, from communication skills to how you talk to yourself and how that redounds to how you're talking to other people. And I just see this as just a big menu of skills that you can train to be better at life. Does that rhyme with how you see the world?
- [18:13]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
It. To some degree does. I have, like two sort of general thoughts in response to that, in addition to. First of all, yes, yes to all of that. As a psychoanalyst, because of my training and because of what I'm interested in, I always feel like there's all the stuff we know with a capital K, or the things we think we know and the practices we think will lead us to the good thing. And then there's always this kind of unconscious thing that's bubbling underneath that knowing too well how to live is going to block us from that in a certain way, that you have to keep a certain ear and attention to all the unpredictable and all the stuff that, you know, you sleep well, you eat well, you this, that and the other. And then you're like, still rattled, or your mind goes somewhere else, or all sorts of surprising things happen, or the world just comes at you in a way that is. I've done all these things and look, it's still like we're in a mess. I have one ear towards the messy, unpredictable part that always emanates from within us and from outside of us on one hand, and I'm. Maybe it's not a different thought. I'm always a little suspicious of knowing too well how to do things. I'm always worried that we're, I don't know, in the claws of the next big thing, you know, whether it's the new pharma that's out there, the new app that's out there, the new AI technology that's out there to optimize us. So I have kind of a built in yes and yes and yes.
- [20:05]
Dan Harris
But I'm four square in your camp. I think on both of those. You know, in the first one, you don't want to get overly sort of programmatic about this. Oh, well. So X podcaster is saying I should do y thing first thing in the morning, and that's going to fix everything. No, that would be to ignore all of the causes and conditions we were discussing earlier that contribute to what's happening on our conscious level and probably more importantly, perhaps from your point of view, the subconscious level. So, yes, and the second, which is, I think, deeply related, this idea that if you know what to do, quote, unquote, it's like in some way kind of blinding you, and there's a kind of dogmatism that can set in. And, you know, within Buddhism itself, you know, there's kind of an elasticity. And again, I don't want to overly emphasize Buddhism. I'm taken by it, but I'm not. Again, it's not an evangelistic tradition in Zen Buddhism, this idea of don't know mind, beginner's mind. And the Buddha talked a lot about how he was an analyst, not a dogmatist. So. And he specifically said. Which makes him quite unique among quote, unquote, religious figures. I think we can debate whether he was a religious figure, but he specifically said, don't take anything I say at face value. Come see for yourself. Check it out in the laboratory of your own mind. And so it works well for me as a journalist and as a skeptic who's always, as you are, alert to, what am I missing? It kind of. It encapsulates that uncertainty.
- [21:29]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, I relate to that a lot. Yeah.
- [21:32]
Dan Harris
Just to go back to something you were saying earlier about psychoanalysis being really helpful in times like these, you said something about tools to help us deal with it. So I'd be curious, like, very specifically, what do you mean by the tools? Is it simply having spent the time to go sift through in a very systematic way in the proper, supportive environment, your past, so that you're not reacting based on subconscious triggers to the complications of the world. Is that what you're referring to?
- [22:06]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
It's many things. I mean, yes, it's partially that I'm hesitating a little bit because I don't know how political we want to get.
- [22:15]
Dan Harris
Do you? Do be as comfortable as you want. There are no guardrails here.
- [22:17]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Okay. So, for example, let's say someone comes in and they're, as all of my patients are, utterly rattled by what's going on in the world, in our country and beyond. There are many ways that thinking psychoanalytically helps. First of all, me be in a state of mind. Where I can be helpful to other people. But also the tools that the analytic work gives people include things like seeing your mind getting, let's say, fearful or angry or full of revenge fantasies. Watching your mind do that. And you watch your mind, and you can understand what. Where it's coming from in yourself, whether it's coming from. Let's say you had a tyrant of a parent and your entire life is devoted to, like, freeing yourself from that kind of childhood. And then you suddenly have this administration and you feel like you're being bullied all over again. Being able to kind of understand your own reactions, both through your personal history and being able to see what's going in front of you, what's happening in front of you, and how it's trigger. So being able to have the tools to, in a way, modulate, understand your own reactivity. Not for you to dumb it down and, like, become passive, but to understand what's going on, not fall under the spell of what's going on. Keep a clear mind so you know what to do with yourself, with your children. And then what are you going to do about the world rather than become just overwhelmed and, like, pass it on to the next person you see on the subway. It's having a mind and then being able to see kind of large group processes from a psychoanalytic perspective is very helpful. We're all driven by all sorts of unconscious forces and more and less primitive forces that you have a choice between. There are certain ways that I see what's happening. Right. I've written about it in the Times that there's a way in which we're kind of tempted to fall into what, in psychoanalytic jargon, we call a splitting state of mind, where it's all, like, good and bad. We're almost, like, drawn into this comics world in which there are evils and good people. And it's a very primitive way of thinking that we all have that in us. I mean, from a very young age. And psychoanalysis gives you kind of tools to understand that as a developmental phase that you retreat into when you're feeling threatened, and then to imagine what it means to work your way out of that and to be able to invite yourself to not be stuck in that because it's such a toxic mind space. Am I making sense?
- [25:21]
Dan Harris
You are. I'm particularly interested in this splitting state of mind. And. And I'm trying to formulate a question and make sure it's clear and not annoying. And if it is, that's fine. Okay. I appreciate you Creating a supportive environment. In that regard, I'll use my tools. One of the things that I try to do on this show is because we've had an enormous amount of luck at getting people who are leaders in, in their field, and sometimes they're coming in talking about a quite a complex field that requires some mastery, like psychoanalysis. Most listeners are not in psychoanalysis. Most listeners haven't done a lot of internal family systems either. Most listeners haven't done somatic experiencing or, or haven't gone on a ten day silent meditation retreat. So I am always trying to extract doable little practices that a listener, even if they are not deep in whatever tradition we're discussing, can apply in their own lives. And so I'm wondering whether there's some bootleg version of what you would talk about with your patients when it comes to splitting that anybody listening to this show could apply to their own lives, given the current political context.
- [26:44]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, I've actually been trying to do that. I appreciate you asking it in this way. I've really been trying specifically to focus on this concept of splitting and trying to translate it into a language that is not jargony and that can be useful to people because I think, especially during this time in history, it's maybe the most useful concept that psychoanalysis has to offer right now. Splitting is a state of mind. It's a state of mind that we all are familiar with. We may forget that we're familiar with it, we may think that we're better than that. But we all know what splitting feels like, first of all, because we all went through the phase of splitting as infants and as young children, where we want to preserve some good feeling about ourselves or about the people we're close to. And then we assign all the bad stuff to outside of ourselves. So we think of ourselves as only good, as having benevolent, generous qualities. And all the greed and meanness and envy of the world is outside of us. Think of sibling relationships. All the bad is on the the brother or the sister, and I'm the good one, always as young people. And it's a way to try to build a sense of goodness in oneself, to feel coherent, to maintain bonds with people. And as we become more sophisticated and mature, and let's say, if we have, like a good enough environment to support us, we become able to tolerate more complexity, more contradiction, more nuance, both in ourselves and in the people around us. So when you become more mature, you can understand that the same mother that feeds you and dresses you and keeps you alive and warm is also the mother that was late to school and didn't have time for you that day and was mean to you one morning. And it's the same person, and those qualities are all in her or your best friend that suddenly did something like, really nasty. And it's actually the same person. And you can have, like, complex feelings about them. And you know what? You're also both decent and a shit sometimes. So that way of, like, integrating, like, a more nuanced and complex version of yourself and of reality, it's not good branding, but we call it in psychoanalysis. That's the depressive position where you come down from, like, the comic world of, like, good and evil, and you're into this, like, depressing reality of, yeah, both and good and bad, and things are more complicated than you think. But being in that quote, unquote depressive position is actually a very powerful place because you can forgive. You can see reality more clearly. You can forgive others, you can forgive yourself. You have more compassion. You see things as they are rather than from a defensive posture. So that's my little summary of splitting and the way things are in our political system. And especially coming from, like, the ultra. Right. It's all about splitting. Every sentence is all to induce splitting. It's kind of amazing.
- [30:18]
Dan Harris
I would argue that the social media algorithms which reward outrage produce splitting in a quite bipartisan fashion.
- [30:27]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Totally, totally. They produce splitting, both in the outrage language, but also just by the mere fact that it's about the clickbait. So you're economically. You're encouraged to split. You're encouraged to just keep go down a deeper and deeper rabbit hole, which is like the extreme version of splitting. It's economically just better for whatever the app we're using and whoever's selling whatever they're selling.
- [30:58]
Dan Harris
There's a lot of money to be made by inducing splitting.
- [31:02]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yes, it all comes down to, like, capitalism.
- [31:06]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Dr. Orna Goralnik talks about Buddhism and psychoanalysis and how to cultivate love from within. I have a strangely busy travel schedule coming up in the next couple of months. But the thing that I'm really looking forward to, the bright spot on my calendar is in a few weeks, I'm going to Montauk, which is one of my favorite places in the world. It's on the eastern tip of Long Island. It's primarily known as a summer spot, but it's actually beautiful year round. I'm going to Montauk with 1, 2, 3, 4, at least four families that are close friends of ours. They all have children who get along really well with my child and we'll all be staying not at hotels but in houses. I love being in a big house with lots of other people. It is so much more personal and intimate than staying in a hotel with other families. With many of these families we gone to places like Florida and gotten Airbnbs together. Being able to stay together in a beautiful place is so much fun and again, so much more intimate. And here's the cool thing. If you're going to be traveling soon, you might actually be sitting on an Airbnb gold mine. You might be able to put your own residence up on Airbnb so you can actually earn money while you're taking a vacation. I'm a huge fan of Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com host this show is sponsored by Liquid IV. I'm a big worker outer and so hydration is very important to me. It should be very important to all of us. Really good for your gut health, really good for your mental health, really good for your energy levels. And when I'm hydrating I really like to use Liquid iv. The product combines allulose and amino acids which can lead to more efficient absorption, helping your body retain more essential electrolytes for longer lasting hydration. Liquid IV's formula, which is powered by Live Hydra Science, is sugar free, delicious and it's clinically studied to maintain hydration better than water for up to four hours. You can visit liquidiv.com and live more with efficient hydration featuring the new Raspberry Lemonade hydration multiplier. Get 20% off your first order with code Happier at checkout. I can tell you having used this product, it's super easy. You can slide one in your pocket as you're on your way to a workout and then when you're done you can just rip it open and dump it into your water bottle and it makes the water taste fantastic. I tend to like their flavors on the lemony spectrum and then of course you feel great. Especially after all hard workout. I really do love to work out and I love to hydrate post with liquid IV. Break the mold and own your ritual. Just one stick and 16 ounces of water hydrates better than water alone. Three times the electrolytes of the leading sports drink. Eight essential vitamins and nutrients always non GMO, vegan, gluten free, dairy free and soy free. Give yourself the power of extraordinary hydration from Liquid IV. Get 20% off your first order order of Liquid IV. When you go to LiquidIV.com and use code HAPPIER at checkout, that's 20 off your first order with code HAPPIER@LIQUID I.com. a couple of little practical phrases popped into my mind as I was listening to you speak. I want to run them by you just by way of context. I'm. I'll state my priors out loud here. I'm deeply influenced by. There's a meditation teacher named Joseph Goldstein, who, he'll be 81 soon. Sort of eminent eminence Greez Dharma guy who I have become friends with, and he's been my teacher for about 15 years, and I really love him. And one of his teaching methods is to have these pithy little phrases that if you hear them enough, will start emerging in your mind when you need them. And he did not come up with this. I mean, it's a venerable Buddhist tradition and a spiritual, contemplative, philosophical way of helping people put these concepts to use in, in their own lives. And so two little phrases. Neither of these come from Joseph, but they do come from Buddhism. Might help turn down the volume on splitting. One is just like me. So when you look at people on the quote, unquote, other side, well, just like me, they want to be happy just like me. They're doing what they think is right. Very few people wake up in the morning hoping to be the bad guy. They think they're the good guy. And again, this should not lead to passivity. It's just a way to get you out of, into the depressive state so you can make a more nuanced diagnosis and then plan of action. And then the second little phrase that I like, and this comes from Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Zen master, is am I sure? Like, I'm reading. I'm reading the, the paper today and it's making. Or my. My algorithm is making ex political figure look like a complete asshole. But am I sure? Maybe there's a case for tariffs. I don't know. Check it out.
- [36:15]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, I deeply resonate with both of these. Just like me. And am I sure? It's interesting. I have a lot of arguments with my closest people. I have like a group, like a writing group, that we think together and argue about all of this a lot. And the people in my group that object to this just like me position are threatened by it implying non action. When I tried to write about splitting for the times, like the most intense pushback, it was like one of the pieces that I wrote that was a kind of a benign piece. And I had such intense pushback with the same complaint that I'm not seeing like the moral and ethical flaws of the administration. And how can I even think to ask or to say to myself, just like me? And I understand the critique of this, but I do find when I listen to people, it's, you know, when I work with couples, for example, I listen to each side of the conflict. And when I listen closely to each person in my couples practice, if I really listen carefully, I get where they're coming from. Even if they're talking about doing things that are to their partner seem absolutely hurtful and outrageous, I get where they're coming from and then I listen to their partner. And similarly, I get where they're coming from. And I can imagine myself most of the time, I can imagine myself into the shoes of that person. It doesn't mean that's where we end. I mean, there's gotta be some, you gotta then apply some sort of. Like whether it's ethical standards or mutual negotiation, something needs to happen then. But I think that the Just like me is incredibly important, an incredibly powerful listening tool. I'm in close contact with this lovely Palestinian woman and you know, I'm part Israeli and she's a serious activist and we've engaged in many, many, many hours of conversation over zoom. And sometimes in person, sometimes she comes to New York and we meet in person, trying to listen to each other on this like Palestinian, Israeli nightmare conflict. And we say things that are very hard to bear to each other, but we try to enter this state of like imagining ourselves into the shoes of the other with the history that each of us brings our history again, transgenerational history, what we even call history, the differences in what we understand is history, what's relevant, what's not relevant. And then we create this kind of dmz, this kind of demilitarized zone between us, and then we go back to arguing about the actual issues on the ground, but constantly going back to this dmz, to this place where we can find commonalities or find a way to imagine ourselves into the experience of the other. It's very helpful.
- [39:31]
Dan Harris
Yes. And I get why people fear that it's going to lead to non action or passivity. But I think ideally it leads to wise action because hatred and rage don't tend to lead to the best decisions. And even if you set that aside, they're pretty unpleasant, toxic states of mind for you to live with. Better to tune into compassion, in my view. And that doesn't mean for forgiving, lessing the behavior of the other person. There's a great story from Sharon Salzberg, the another eminent Buddhist teacher who was over in India back in the 60s and 70s, learning about the dharma from older teachers and said to one of the teachers, well, what am I supposed to do if somebody tries to mug me? And the teacher said, you compassion. Hit them with your umbrella.
- [40:22]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Okay, well, my association to that, I mean, not funny at all, is there used to be this. It's probably still true. In Israel there used to be this saying in Hebrew it's yorim' bochim. It's in English, it's shooting and crying. Israelis used to have this idea of themselves as compassionate while they're killing, crying while they're killing. I mean, of course, I think that fantasy is long gone.
- [40:53]
Dan Harris
Another expression that's coming up. This is a bit more on the understanding where everybody's coming from. It's not a direct response, but it picks up on the theme that we've been exploring of can you understand where people you disagree with are coming from and still take effective action in the world? There's a expression I heard from a Cuban friend, I might mangle this, but it's Kataloka konsutama, which is every crazy person has their story and we all have our story, which is, which goes right to the heart of psychoanalysis, which is, do you even understand your own?
- [41:29]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, the person in, in my group, my. My friend Jade, who mostly pushes back on me very hard on this just like me attitude. She says that it's a stance of privilege, that to try to free your mind from, like you're saying, from states of hatred. You can do that when you're comfortable enough, but when you're really under the boot of whatever, whatever the situation is, it's not about freeing your mind. You can only hate and rage and be violent because otherwise nothing will change. There's always this debate among activists of like non violence violence and when violence. Not a simple question. No, not to mention that there's so much violence that is done in the name of the good.
- [42:26]
Dan Harris
Yeah, I, I'm not here to dismiss. I mean, I genuinely do not dismiss Jade's argument. I think there's something to it. And I also don't want to hold myself up as an expert here because there's a lot of learning. I'm sure I still have to do. I guess I think about it less from a macro perspective and more on a micro perspective. Like what do you listener or you orna or what do I, Dan, want to be? My mind state as I move through this world, whether I have privilege or not. We all have various forms of privilege, and we're all marginalized in one way or another. Some of us. Myself, I have. I have more than my fair share forms of privilege, so I'm aware of that, or at least I try to be. But what do I want my mind state to be? What do I want the quality of my life to be? And how effective do I want to be? And I just think the data show that you're less likely to be happy and healthy and also simultaneously less likely to be successful in an abiding way at whatever your goals are. If your fuel is hatred, resentment, spite, anger, and all those things are natural. They are going to come up. They come up in my mind even with all the privilege I have. But, like, what do you want to be tapping into as the cleanest burning fuel going forward? And it just seems to me that all the data point toward the cliches of love and compassion. And it's annoying to hear. And I kind of think it's true.
- [43:55]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
I do, too. At the end of the day, I totally do. And I do think that love is a much more powerful force than hate. That's why I do what I do. Yeah. And I do think that's something that has to be cultivated internally. You can't expect it from the world. It's a practice.
- [44:19]
Dan Harris
Yes.
- [44:20]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
It's an action.
- [44:22]
Dan Harris
I want to ask you in one second, how can we cultivate that internally? But let me just say to Jade, whose argument I take very seriously, my understanding of love and compassion does not rule out smacking somebody with your umbrella. You can do pretty much all the same things you would do in a state of anger and rage. With a mindset of compassion, you can take many of the same actions. It just. There's a tweak, a change in the internal posture that makes you more effective over the long term. That's my understanding, with all of my flaws and caveats and privileges and all that.
- [44:59]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, maybe. Maybe the. The nuance there. I'm just thinking about it now, but maybe the nuance is the difference between a state of love and compassion and a state of comfortability. I think being comfortable as a goal induces, like, passivity and compliance and going along with the idea that love is the most powerful force, like being in a state of compassion and love is. It's hard. It's not. I mean, sometimes it's wonderful, sometimes it's a transcendent. Experience. But sometimes it is hard. When I'm talking with Christine, this Palestinian colleague of mine, and she challenges me to remain connected to her and to remain empathic to her experience and really widen my scope to understand the plight of somebody else and somebody that I might be implicated in harming. It's hard. It's ultimately awesome. Awesome in the sense of awesomeness. But I ultimately would much rather spend my life in that state than in the state of knowing and hating. And I'm clear what's good, what's bad and.
- [46:20]
Dan Harris
Yes. Yeah, yeah. And I think maybe one thing you're pointing at, I think is when you start using words like love and compassion, it's easy to for that, to induce a splitting mindset for people because they're thinking of a cartoonish version of love and compassion as opposed to what it actually is, which is like changing your father's diaper even though he was mean to you when you were a kid. It's being in the room and non reactive while your child is throwing a horrifying tantrum. It's sitting with your friend who's on the other side of a geopolitical fissure. It's much grittier than hello Kitty.
- [47:00]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah. It's not rom com.
- [47:02]
Dan Harris
No.
- [47:03]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah.
- [47:03]
Dan Harris
So you said something before about love is something you cultivate internally. Do you have any thoughts on like how one does that?
- [47:12]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, I have many thoughts. I mean, it's sort of a large part of what I do in my practice. But there are many ways to think and talk about it. I mean, one is I'm going to distinguish between like doing it in the presence of another person or other people or an outside entity and with oneself. But really it's the same thing. You were talking earlier about like a certain kind of stance that one can take. You can adopt a stance of deep curiosity for the story or the plight or the experience of the person you're with. You have to kind of observe your mind. We all are very quick to rush to judgments, to comparisons, to kind of making things kind of clear to ourselves. Oh, this is good, this is bad, this is better, this is I'm better, he's better. And to kind of constantly try to let go of that impulse to differentiate and, and instead listen with that kind of beginner's mind or you know, like Keats negative capability and try to immerse yourself in the experience of another for something new to come at you, for the world to bring you new things, not what you know already and kind of assuming, trusting that that will Elicit in you all sorts of feelings, good feelings, like curiosity, like empathy, like understanding this very delightful experience of learning something new. How fun is that? It's a state of mind. And you can have that state of mind that's, in a way, in psychoanalysis. That's the state of mind you try to cultivate in analytic practice, which is that a person. I mean, it's a classic idea of someone lying on the couch and free associating. It doesn't exactly happen like that all the time. But the idea is you're letting your mind, your psyche kind of roam and you're listening not because you know about yourself, oh, I'm that kind of person. I'm that kind of person. But you're actually listening to new things that are going to emerge. And you try not to judge, not to foreclose, but listen, listen, listen with a stance of openness and curiosity. I think that's kind of the fastest route to a state of benevolence and love.
- [49:43]
Dan Harris
You're reminding me of an excellent essay. Are you familiar with Maria Popova?
- [49:48]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, yeah, I get her mailings. Yeah. So good.
- [49:52]
Dan Harris
Yeah, so I get her mailings, too. And she's been on this show up for the listeners. I'll drop a link in the show notes to my conversation with Maria, who I think is extraordinary human being. She.
- [50:00]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
She's wonderful. Yeah.
- [50:02]
Dan Harris
And she was writing this essay and she was quoting another extraordinary human being who's also been on the show a couple times, George Saunders, the novelist whose big theme is empathy, really. Maria talked about how, you know, nothing, not one single thing, hurts us more than our certainties. And it's just like this moat between us and the world. It's this kind of psychological armoring that deadens our lived experience. And. And then she quotes a lot from George Saunders, talking about how reading, especially if you read the right authors, can put you in a state of mind where you, first of all, you're empathizing with characters whose POV might be different from yours, and then it's inducing. I believe the words George uses are a holy befuddlement, a constant state of reconsideration. In fact, George describes some Russians work as reconsideration machines that may seem like, oh, is that related to love? Well, it is related to love in that what is love if not openness and a desire to understand? And if you can train yourself in that, that's the grittier, deeper version of love you and I are talking about, as opposed to its rom com rendering.
- [51:17]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
I, by the way, just listened. Two nights ago I just listened. David Sedaris reads George Saunders short story so good. The letter. It came out in the New Yorker. It's great. It captures that. It's very important for this moment.
- [51:41]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Orna talks about some practices to help you stay more open, transgenerational history and how it impacts your life and your relationships. I try to get some advice from Orna, even though she's against advice constitutionally, which you'll hear her explain, and she'll give us one single question that you can ask yourself when you get annoyed. I always love it when a company that my family and I are already supporting decides to become a supporter of this show. We have been owners of a Defender for many, many years. I think four or five years. It's the car my wife drives. It makes me very comfortable knowing that she and our son are moving around in a sturdy, reliable vehicle like the Defender. And it looks really, really cool. It's just a great looking car. It really suits my wife better than it does me, given that she's just cooler than I am. And one of the things that the folks who make the Defender want you to know is that it's really about the spirit of adventure and healthy risk taking. There's a meetup of people who are in this category. It's called Destination Defender. It's an incredible weekend festival in Port Jervis, New York and it was created for people who embrace the impossible and includes a lot of outdoor activities, live music, chef tastings, and more. It sounds really fun. Join the adventure at Destination Defenders Defender May 16th through 18th to learn more, please visit DestinationDefenderUSA.com as the founder of a pretty new small business, I can tell you that one of the biggest and most urgent issues is hiring. You want to hire the right person and you want to do it quickly. Just by way of an example, our most recent hire is the mighty Abby Smith, who's my executive assistant and also plays many key roles throughout the team. And she was very much the right person and immediately improved my life and the lives of everybody around me by way more than 10%. So if hiring is an issue for you, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job Posts seen on other job sites. Indeed's Sponsored Jobs help you stand out and hire fast. With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster and it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. I will say as as happy as I and the rest of the team are with the aforementioned Abby Smith, the whole process might have been a lot quicker if we were using Indeed. So lesson learned. Plus, with Indeed sponsored jobs, there are no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts, and you only pay for results. How fast is Indeed in the minute? I've been talking to you about this. 23 hires were made on Indeed according to Indeed data. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listen, listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@inneed.com happier. Just go to indeed.com happier right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That actually really helps. Indeed.com happier terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. So this openness, this reconsidering, what habits of mind can we develop, especially for those of us who are not in psychoanalysis? What practices that can we bring into our own life that might make this a state we can inhabit more frequently?
- [55:32]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
That's a great question. It's funny, the first thing that came to my mind was fact checking. And I don't really only mean it like literally, but I mean it in. You know, you were saying earlier, am I sure? Notice when we're always grabbing onto things to have some sense of certainty, but you can notice that it's happening and we need it. I mean, especially, I mean, the world is so chaotic and scary and we're so vulnerable to it. So we need to grab onto things. But we can also just ask oneself, like, why am I feeling so certain right now? Or am I feeling what am I feeling right now? Is there a certainty that is seeping in here to make me feel safer in this moment? Okay, maybe I need that right now. But can I be honest with myself? Am I gonna feel this way tomorrow? I have been watching my mind super carefully. When I listen or watch the news, when I read the news. Those are moments for me. Super important right now to watch my mind. When am I grabbing onto something because I'm anxious? Because I'm something? And what's happening to my mind? Am I being twisted into a state of like, rage, vengeance? Is this evoking understanding and curiosity in me? What is this doing to my mind? This thing I'm reading, I sometimes think.
- [57:04]
Dan Harris
About, and I've tried to craft like a social post about this, but I haven't been able to come up with a way to say it that doesn't get me canceled. But picking up on your fact checking notion, it's like, don't be manipulated by the algorithm. As we discussed earlier, there are people who have a lot to gain by inducing outrage and splitting in you. That doesn't mean if you read the front page of your favorite paper, it's wrong per se, and that they're the bad guys, per se, or they may not even know they're doing it. So, like, let's not split again. But just check, you know, it's just check. Like, okay, okay, certainty has arisen. Or actually one little. Back to Joseph Goldstein. One of his little phrases is, certainty is not an indicator of truth. Maybe the arising of certainty in the mind can be a kind of alarm bell. All right, what's going on here?
- [57:58]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, I have been recommending it to my students a lot to consume multiple news outlets and not from the same side. The other day, I. Geez, I listened to Joe Rogan, believe me, not because I want to take in anything he has to say, but I want to know how different entities, different groups, different collectives are shaping reality. So I will know what's happening to my way of shaping reality. You know, so I'm not too certain. Not because I want to take in that version of reality, but I want a check on my sense of certainty, you know, and similarly, I try to read like international news. I read Al Jazeera, even though it sometimes drives me insane. But it's really good for the mind to not be manipulated, not be drawn into a state that ultimately prevents you from being wise.
- [58:58]
Dan Harris
I really, I resonate with that a lot, deeply and part it may be my training as a journalist, but I have this nagging question in the back of my mind all the time, which is, what is the other side of this argument, for example, with all the Trump stuff? Speaking of one's priors, I was raised in the People's Republic of Massachusetts by like ultra liberal, over educated physicians and, you know, went into the news media, which is dominated by liberals in my whole world is, you know, I'm in a bubble. I'm in New York and. And so I'm constantly, like listening to Ben Shapiro, or not constantly, but occasionally trying to listen to people I know I'm going to disagree with. Because sometimes you know what I realize? Oh, I'm not seeing this correctly. And that's really painful. This morning I was listening to the Commentary magazine podcast where I try to check in with those guys occasionally. And, you know, they were just much more sanguine. About Trump stuff that is putting the left on red alert. And they're not pro Trump per se, but it's just very interesting to. And I don't. I'm not saying one side's right or anything like that. I'm just saying this is useful befuddlement, I think.
- [60:06]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, yeah, you called it. Holy befuddlement. That was so good.
- [60:09]
Dan Harris
That. That's from George. One, one last thing to say. I don't. I want. I don't want to take up too much air time here, but there is a difference between when you self gaslight in this way, you can change your opinions, but it's not supposed to be about changing your values. So, like, I can listen to people I disagree with, but it doesn't make me pro cruelty.
- [60:33]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, very important. That's one of the things that worries me so much about this rhetoric of splitting that it. It's like a spell that can make people forget the ethic of protecting the vulnerable. I mean, you know, a kind of thing that we're most of us kind of took for granted, like, that's not in question, but there are kind of spell states that can lead you to forget that, dissociate from that very basic value. We're living in dangerous times. Dangerous to the mind.
- [61:11]
Dan Harris
Yes. Yes. There are a couple things I want to touch on before I let you go. You did make a reference to transgenerational history, and I would love to hear a little bit more about what you mean by that.
- [61:24]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah. Transgenerational history is obviously a giant topic that can pertain to one's very personal history. Say there was. I'm just making stuff up. Let's say there was a suicide in the family two generations ago that no one talked about. But it haunts the family in a certain way. Like there's a certain energy around the secret, and it is transmitted through the way people raise their children. A certain kind of quiet around certain things or certain habits that conceal truths. Those can get passed down across the generations and implant certain anxieties or patterns of thinking in each of us. And you don't know. You have to. I mean, if you spend time in analysis or if it doesn't have to be an analysis, you can spend time, like, really collecting your history and asking and getting interested. And suddenly you realize, oh, my God, there's this thing that happened like, two generations before I was born that is shaping who I am. That can be profound to discover and release one from a certain kind of haunting or grip. And similarly, it doesn't only pertain to, like, personal history. There are big histories that are passed down to all of us. For me, for example, it had a lot to do with, like, the history of, like, the relationship of Israelis to the Holocaust and how it shaped our understanding of what it means to be Israeli and how it blinded a certain kind of Israeli way of narrating history to the plight of the Palestinians. It's big. Like the transgenerational stuff that's passed down to us. It can be huge. I mean, here it can be whether it's the history of slavery, the history of how this country was built on the destruction of Native Americans, and ways in which these histories are buried but continued to haunt the culture in ways that are systemic and unspeakable. So it's interesting and powerful stuff.
- [63:47]
Dan Harris
Yes. I'm going to try to build a conversational bridge here. I'm going to invoke again my. The permission you gave me earlier to be annoying. This has implications, understanding your transgenerational history on a micro scale, like in terms of your own lineage, and also on a macro scale in terms of the broad sweep of history. It has implications for your intimate relationships. Which brings me to something I want to make sure I ask you about before I go, which is your TV show. So do you think I'm right about this? That, like, we have these. Personally, for me, I have two little inner characters in my dramatis Persona internally. Like, one, I've called RJ after my grandfather Robert Johnson, who was this kind of mean, stern guy who. He's sort of my. A personification of my inner critic and my outer irritation. Another, my great grandfather, who I never met, who was a hustler, Jewish guy, came here from the pale of settlement in the Ukraine in early early 1900s and like, became a criminal and ultimately took his own life because he had gotten indicted by the FBI and the family found him in the kitchen, he had put his head in the oven. And. And so like, I have this a very like, fear based, ambitious side of me that if I don't see it, I can get carried away by it. And these two characters can fuck up my marriage if I'm not aware of them and willing to call them out and bring them into the room and work with them. And so I'm just curious, does any of that ring true to you? And do you see that among your patients on television or behind the scenes?
- [65:36]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah, first of all, totally rings true and kind of beautiful the way you're describing these characters. It's sort of like a Novel. But, yes, it's very true in the show. The time I spent with couples in the show was a maximum, except one couple that we kept for longer. It was a maximum of 20 weeks. So it's not. I mean, it's a decent amount of time to do therapy, but it's not enough time to really, really sink into transgenerational stuff. But there was one. One couple in which. It's interesting, they were each of a different. They came from very different families and very different class systems. She kept feeling deeply insecure in the sense of constantly worrying that they're about to get into trouble, that things are not going to be okay, that they're going to get divorced, that just things anxious, things are going to be bad. And he was, like, on a much firmer footing. And eventually we did get into some of the family histories, transgenerational histories. And she talked about how she came from kind of deep poverty. And every generation prior to her, the men were alcoholics. That left the wives, left the family, like, dysfunctional, deeply dysfunctional. That was, like, every generation that preceded her. And she was like, I cannot imagine a situation in which that's not gonna happen here. And he was like, I don't know. I come from, like, a very steady family. This is our life together now. I want you to join my history, jump out of your movie and come into my movie and expect this future. So it's very interesting when couples really have the time and space to get into their. Like, who are the RJs that they're holding inside them and who's talking to who between them? Like, the couple can be talking between them, but it could be Grandpa talking to Grandma through them.
- [67:51]
Dan Harris
Yes. I sometimes think about, like, interpersonal communication as this miracle, but also, like, mostly it's a disaster, and it's like, Persona talking to projection, you know, like, in that. In that scenario, like, nothing can happen. You know, it's. It's so hard.
- [68:13]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah. I think it's one of the reasons I see a lot of patients now going into psychedelics. You know, it's like, the trend. I think that's one of the reasons that people are going to psychedelics. They're trying to kind of find a quick way to shed all of that and have at least a few hours where they're like, it's a little bit less Persona to projection. It's quick fixes. They don't really work.
- [68:36]
Dan Harris
Okay, back to my being potentially annoying here, but. And I know you're, as you said before, a little skeptical of advice Given that a strategy can land in the mind of somebody who hasn't reconciled with their. With their history and their predilections. And so the strategy doesn't mean anything. But. But given that you've done no small amount of couples counseling, couples therapy, and that's the name of the TV show, are there strategies that you could recommend with all the caveats that, you know, everybody's mind and life are complex, and it's not. There's no silver bullet, no quick fix. But are there strategies that you can recommend that might put us in the direction of healthier interpersonal relationships?
- [69:23]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
You know, it depends on the day and who I saw yesterday. My answer will depend on what. What just happened. There's so many different ways to answer that question, but maybe to build on what we've been saying in this profound conversation. If you're in a couple and you're in trouble, usually there's a kind of a story each person tells themselves about their partner, and they usually get pretty dogged about their story with a lot of certainty. They know. They know their partner. They know what's wrong with their partner. If you can come at yourself with a certain kind of practice of, let's say, using what we've said so far, like less certainty and more curiosity. So first of all, kind of try to wipe the slate and listen to your partner afresh. What are they actually saying? What really matters to them and really make a distinction between what am I convinced of and I'm trying to find in what they're saying just to reassure myself that I know what's going on, versus what are they saying? Am I listening anew? Am I listening with a fresh mind to actually try to hear them, which is hard. It's hard to actually hear another person. We're working through so many Personas, projections, certainties, like to actually try to clear the field a little bit and hear them anew and what matters to them in that moment. That kind of experience can go a very long way to get people out of a troubled space. And then there's another question you can ask yourself, which is, if I'm so troubled about something outside of myself, how can I take it back into myself? Well, why is this bothering me so much? Okay, it's out there, but what's it to me? Why am I so out of my mind? Because I don't know. They left the dishwasher not turned on.
- [71:32]
Dan Harris
I love that. So a great question to ask yourself. In moments where you're worked up about something, it really could be Anything but specifically in your romantic relationship is like, why is this bugging me so much? Yeah, what's going on?
- [71:46]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
What's going on with me?
- [71:48]
Dan Harris
Yes.
- [71:49]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Like, forget, okay. They. She. He. Me. What's going on with me? What is my problem here and can I take care of myself?
- [71:59]
Dan Harris
This may be a therapeutic cliche, but I like it. And I'll say it out loud and see if you like it. If it's hysterical, it's historical.
- [72:09]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Oh, this is good. I never heard that one. That is good. Writing it down. I might have to use it in my book. It summarizes Freud's original work. You know, Freud, the majority of his early work was with hysterics, so called hysterics, which were women that presented with all sorts of, like, weird symptoms, like hysterical blindness. They couldn't see suddenly, even though there were no neurological reasons, or they were paralyzed in one arm in a way that doesn't conform to the neurological system. All sorts of, like, funky symptoms. What Freud and his colleague at the time, Breuer, what they did that was, like, so revolutionary is rather than treat these women with all sorts of, like, I don't know, cold baths and assuming that they're of what they called feeble minds, they sat down and asked them to talk to them. They listened to them and asked what happened? Like, tell me about what happened. When did this begin? What happened just before? And lo and behold, as they were listening to the patients, the symptoms kind of relieved themselves. They were cleared of symptoms. And at the time, it was, like, absolutely revolutionary. First of all, listening to a woman was revolutionary, but listening to patients, as opposed to, like, coming at them with some kind of authoritarian regime, was a revolution. And so if it's hysterical, it's historical that he believed that all hysterical symptoms are histories that have been repressed. So, for example, if there was a. This was like a funky, tiny little example of someone who had this, like, horrible cough and couldn't swallow, refused to swallow liquids. And then it turned out when Freud was asking her, when did it start? It turned out that she saw a dog drink water out of a cup, and it kind of disgusted her. And from that moment on, she refused to drink. But until she recollected that memory, she couldn't, like, get rid of that symptom. I mean, that's kind of a very simplistic example. But obviously there were, like, serious traumas that these women have repressed, like sexual coercion and sexual abuse that has been kind of repressed and showed up in symptoms. So, yeah, that sentence is a good summary of early Freudian analytic theory.
- [75:04]
Dan Harris
One of the. Maybe this is a good place to close it. One of the critiques that I've heard, to the extent that I know much about this, but one of the critiques I think I've heard about Freudian analysis or psychotherapy generally, is that it can bring you understanding without relief. I'm not sure I agree with that, because I think understanding is a form of relief. What's your take?
- [75:28]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
I think anything can be used. Any therapy can be used defensively. It can be used not to change. We don't like change. It's hard to change. And I think there is a way that you can use a psychoanalytic process in a way to just convince yourself of why you should stay the same.
- [75:50]
Dan Harris
I'm laughing because it sounds like something I would do. Probably have.
- [75:52]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
We all do that. We all do that. But, you know, in good analytic work, that will not go very far. You can do it for a while and then it's just not going to hold water. But that's a risk, and you have to have, like, a good analyst, and you have to. That will push you and not. Not let you just stay the same.
- [76:13]
Dan Harris
Right. So I've. I think I've heard people in the past say, okay, you know, I went and I talked about my childhood, and I get it, my dad was a dick or whatever, but what do I do about it? And I think what you're saying is, well, actually, if you go in with the intention of understanding understanding so that you can be liberated from it, meaning that you're not so owned by it, swamped by it all the time, it's not all coming back every time there's an external trigger. And you have a therapist who doesn't let you hide, or at least doesn't let you hide for too long, that therapy, that understanding can be a path toward genuine relief.
- [76:45]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Absolutely. There's no way that you won't change. If that happens, you won't change by way of, like, oh, now I have the three things. I know what to do. You're just going to change deeply. It's not a change. Like, next time someone reminds me of my father, I'm going to say this, that or the other. It's. You're just going to feel differently about everything. You change from within. So, yeah, you will change.
- [77:13]
Dan Harris
Well, There are roughly 75 things I could ask you about in addition to everything we've discussed, but we are pretty much running out of time. I did hear you make a reference to the fact that you're writing a book. So perhaps we could use that as an excuse to bring you back.
- [77:28]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Awesome. Awesome. I would love that. Yeah. Can I ask you. So from what we've talked, are you more interested in psychoanalysis?
- [77:38]
Dan Harris
For sure. I actually have a good friend who's quite a bit older than me who's a practicing. He practices psychoanalysis. He's an analyst. Yes. I'm not going to use his name just because he hasn't given me permission, but he's quite a respected local practitioner. I've asked him about a million times and he's, you know, elliptical in his answers, which is this strikes me as on brand, but I am, Yes, I am intrigued because I. My whole world now is mining my own stuff to come up with content that helps other people. So I am really interested in it. I bump up against the time thing, but yes, short answer. Yes.
- [78:18]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Good. Okay.
- [78:19]
Dan Harris
Before I let you go, can you just remind everybody of the name of the show that you're on and anything, any other resources or things you've written that you want my audience to know about in case they want to learn more about or from you?
- [78:33]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
So I'm Orena Goralnik. I'm a therapist on the documentary series Couples Therapy. It was on Showtime, but it's now Paramount. Plus I write for the publications like the New York Times or the the Washington Post. And I am writing a book, but it's going to take some time till it's out.
- [78:56]
Dan Harris
Do you have a website where all of this stuff is collected? Yeah.
- [78:59]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Yeah. Or nagaralnik.com Great.
- [79:01]
Dan Harris
I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Everybody, everybody, if you want to learn more from Orna in the meantime, such a pleasure. Thank you for making time to do this. I really enjoyed it.
- [79:10]
Dr. Orna Goralnik
Such a pleasure. Thank you, Dan. And thank you for a profound conversation. Really appreciate it.
- [79:19]
Dan Harris
Thanks again to Orna Goralnik. Great to talk to her. We mentioned during the course of this conversation some of my previous conversations with podcast guests Maria Popote and George Saunders, who's the one who talks about holy befuddlement. I will drop links to those episodes in the show notes and a reminder to go check out our live meditation miniseries that will be happening every afternoon from Monday, May 19 through Friday, May 23 at 4pm Eastern. You can get all the details over@danharris.com as mentioned earlier, this will be centered around the four related Buddhist practices known as the Brahma Viharas. I will guide some meditations and then take your questions. Come check it out. Danharris.com and if you can't afford a subscription, just let us know. We'll hook you up. Before I go, I just want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager, Marissa Schneider is our senior producer, DJ Cashmere is our executive producer, and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. Psst.
- [80:37]
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