You and Me and Mr. Self-Esteem

Summary

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Radiolab: "You and Me and Mr. Self-Esteem"

Date: January 23, 2026
Hosts: Lulu Miller & Latif Nasser
Produced by: WNYC Studios

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Overview

This episode of Radiolab embarks on a deep, dynamic investigation into the origins, rise, and complicated fallout of the self-esteem movement in America. Producers Matt Kilty and Heather Radke trace how the concept went from a niche idea to a public policy crusade—thanks in large part to one fascinating, troubled, and determined state legislator: John Vasconcellos. Along the way, the episode explores why self-esteem became an American obsession, the surprising psychological roots of its rise, and the hard truths about its effectiveness and legacy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Universal Struggle for Self-Esteem

• Personal Reflection as Prelude:
  The episode begins with Matt and Heather talking candidly about their own struggles with self-worth as creative professionals.

  • "I feel bad about myself... I'm a creative person in a profession where there's lots of ways that you can, if you're so inclined, find to feel bad…" — Matt Kilty [00:59]

• The Ubiquity of 'Self-Esteem' in Culture:
  They observe how the pursuit of self-esteem has become everywhere—social media, reality TV, therapy, and entire industries.

  • "There are whole industries based on this question." — Latif Nasser [02:24]

Who Was John Vasconcellos?

• Early Life & Influences:
  John grows up in a strict Catholic family in San Jose, drilled with messages of original sin and self-loathing.

  • "He was raised... never to think well of himself." — Will Storr [05:44]
  • Telling story: John runs for 8th-grade class president but is too humble to vote for himself—he loses by one vote, his own. [06:13]

• Academic & Political Success, but Inner Turmoil:
  John achieves at the highest levels (multiple valedictorian, law school, rising political star), yet suffers a massive nervous breakdown after winning office.

  • "I found myself and my identity and my life coming utterly apart." — John Vasconcellos (as cited by Will Storr) [07:50]

The Encounter Group & Human Potential Movements

• Therapy & Esalen Institute:
  Catapulted by a therapeutic awakening in the 1960s, John gravitates toward Esalen, a mecca for encounter groups and the human potential movement.

  • "What is this self that's not... when I was taking out the garbage, was I not my true self?" — Latif Nasser [10:57]

• From Freud to Carl Rogers:
  Psychology moves from Freud's pessimism ("ordinary unhappiness") to Carl Rogers’ radical idea that people are fundamentally good and suffer from not being their "real selves."

  • "People are messy, they're impulsive. But fundamentally, people are good." — Heather Radke [12:38]
  • "The reason people suffer... is because people would say, 'I'm not really me.'" — John Vasconcellos [12:47]

• Encounter Groups: Radical Authenticity:
  Encounter groups encourage direct, emotional expression—sometimes including cathartic acts like punching pillows or standing naked before strangers—to access 'true self.'

  • "The whole point... was to create an atmosphere of radical authenticity." — Will Storr [16:32]

John Vasconcellos’ Transformation

• From Buttoned-Up Politician to Expressive Crusader:
  After his encounters at Esalen, John changes dramatically—dress, manner, openness.

  • "He could be brash, blustery, angry, but also very... expressive." — Heather Radke [19:53]
  • "People used to say he looked like an unmade bed." — Mitch Saunders [19:42]

• A New Political Philosophy:
  John brings his faith in personal growth and inherent goodness into state politics. He insists public policy is rooted in our beliefs about human nature.

  • "The politics we do is who we are..." — John Vasconcellos [24:42]

• Radical Idea:
  Self-esteem, John becomes convinced, is the lever for reducing society’s ills—crime, drug use, teen pregnancy.

The Self-Esteem Movement and Its Cultural Explosion

• From Concept to Crusade:
  In the 1980s, John (now a powerful legislator) establishes the Task Force to Promote Self Esteem in California—facing first ridicule, then nationwide acclaim.

  • "It was in almost every newspaper. Everybody read it." — Matt Kilty on Doonesbury’s satire of the Task Force [35:14]
  • Initially mocked as California quirkiness (“another California joke to tell at cocktail parties...” — Will Storr, quoting Pittsburgh Post Dispatch [36:09]), the movement suddenly turns into a phenomenon. 50,000 copies of the task force report are distributed; John appears on Oprah, is dubbed 'The Johnny Appleseed of Self Esteem' [37:33], and 'self-esteem' workbooks flood schools.

• In Schools:
  The 1990s see a tidal wave of self-esteem curricula—workbooks, affirmation posters, “star attraction” bulletin boards, sparkle statements, and even dolphin puppets teaching self-love.

  • "We had to go around in a circle and everybody had to say something good about themselves." — Will Storr [47:50]
  • "[The curriculum is] thousands of schools, 100 workbooks." — Heather Radke [48:09]

The Lie at the Heart of the Movement

• Shaky Science Revealed:
  Researchers warn early on (and in confidential tapes) that the data supporting self-esteem as a "social vaccine" are at best correlational, not causal—a nuance John chooses to disregard.

  • "You’ve got to be careful about correlation and causation... you’ve got to avoid the sin of overselling." — Berkeley researcher (via Will Storr) [50:41]
  • "And yet that’s exactly what they did." — Heather Radke [50:53]

• The Collapse:
  By the early 2000s, sweeping meta-analyses show self-esteem doesn’t prevent crime, substance abuse, or school failure.

  • "It turned out a lot of what had been claimed... was just really not true... whether you had high or low self esteem, it wasn't causing these problems." — Matt Kilty [53:10]

• The Downside:
  High self-esteem is linked to happiness and positive self-regard, but it can also foster complacency, resistance to feedback, and even aggression.

  • "High self esteem people... think they're smarter, more successful, better liked... in spite of the fact they're not really any different." — Jennifer Crocker [54:14]
  • "Self-esteem is the worst sickness known to humankind. Because when you succeed, you're great; but when you fail, you're shit." — Quoted by Jennifer Crocker [57:20]

The Aftermath and Legacy

• Falling Out of Fashion:
  By the mid-2000s, self-esteem becomes a punchline—“participation trophies,” “everyone’s a winner”—and John is left fighting an increasingly lonely battle.

  • "It feels delusional to read that." — Heather Radke, on John’s insistence he had succeeded [59:00]

• Personal Toll:
  John, despite his public commitment to self-worth, struggled deeply with his own—never able to fully escape inner doubt or build lasting, intimate relationships.

  • "I think his own self-esteem and the fragility of it was... one of his struggles for his entire life." — Mitch Saunders [60:48]
  • "Every time~ he'd see his mom, she'd treat him the same way as when he was 5." — Mitch Saunders [60:57]
  • "He never developed an intimate one to one relationship... he'd long for intimacy, closeness... the best he could get were these one night stands." — Mitch Saunders [62:30]

• John’s Passing:
  In 2014, John dies of cancer—surrounded by friends, finally able to be seen and held, even naked, without shame.

  • "He wanted to go out finally, everybody seeing and holding and blessing him naked." — Mitch Saunders [66:01]

The Modern Classroom and Moving Forward

• From 'Self' to 'Other':
  Schools today have moved from “self-esteem” to “SEL” (Social Emotional Learning), focusing on understanding and managing feelings, fairness, kindness, and being an "upstander"—valuing the social, not just the individual.

  • "Whereas John was focused on the self... what's happening now is focused on the other." — Heather Radke [70:15]

• What Truly Builds Self-Worth?
  Jennifer Crocker shares: pursuing self-esteem directly is less effective than responsiveness to others' needs—supporting them creates a “virtuous cycle” that ultimately builds genuine, resilient self-worth.

  • "A much better or more helpful question is: how do I want to be right now? How might I support other people?" — Jennifer Crocker [71:41]
  • "The way to boost your self-esteem... is to focus on the well-being of other people..." — Jennifer Crocker [73:00]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the American Search for Self-Esteem:
  "I think the question of 'how might I feel better about myself' is pretty normal. Like kind of about as normal as it could be." — Matt Kilty [02:12]

• On Encounter Groups:
  "It's wild! The group leader will get some of these people to punch pillows, to let out these primal screams..." — Matt Kilty [15:57]

• On the Core Flaw of the Movement:
  "If I have earned high self-esteem today by having some success in my life, then have I earned low self-esteem tomorrow, if I have a failure?" — Jennifer Crocker [56:55]

• On the Shift in Schools:
  "I feel like this is a continuation. Whereas John was focused on the self... what's happening now is focused on the other." — Heather Radke [70:15]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Self-esteem’s origins & introduction: [02:00–04:50]
• John Vasconcellos’ upbringing & struggles: [05:00–08:40]
• Esalen, therapy, and human potential movement: [09:00–19:30]
• Vasconcellos’ transformation & political crusade: [19:40–33:27]
• Birth & blossoming of the self-esteem movement: [33:32–41:19]
• Self-esteem in the classroom: [42:04–48:09]
• Scientific challenge & the “lie” at the center: [49:05–53:34]
• Modern classroom & SEL: [68:18–70:54]
• Jennifer Crocker on real sources of self-worth: [71:33–74:00]
• John’s last days & reflections: [62:23–66:57]

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Tone & Language

The episode blends Radiolab’s trademark playfulness (“sparkle statements!” “Duso the dolphin!”), moments of humor, deeply personal anecdotes, and philosophical inquiry with poignant, sometimes bittersweet emotional candor. Heather and Matt’s on-air banter mirrors the episode’s broader themes about validation, need, and conflicting desires for both authenticity and social connection.

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For Listeners New & Old

This episode provides rich history, human drama, skeptical inquiry, and a reckoning with a core American hope (and illusion?): that loving yourself is the answer to everything. It ultimately suggests that real self-worth may be found less in gazing inward, and more in connecting outward—with empathy, responsiveness, and community.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Latif Nasser]

Oh, wait, you're listening.

[Matt Kilty]

Okay.

[Heather Radke]

All right.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay.

[Heather Radke]

All right.

[Matt Kilty]

You're listening to Radio Lab.

[Michael Pettit]

Radio Lab from wny.

[Matt Kilty]

See?

[Latif Nasser]

Yep.

[Matt Kilty]

Hello, can you hear me?

[Heather Radke]

Yeah, yeah, we hear you. We're just ignoring you.

[Matt Kilty]

Okay, that's fine.

[Latif Nasser]

You are not. I was waiting until it was recording. Hey, I'm Latif Nasser, this is Radiolab. And today.

[Matt Kilty]

Do you know what this is about at all, Latif?

[Latif Nasser]

Only vaguely. Only two words. A story from a pair of friends, producer Matt Kilty and contributing editor Heather Radke.

[Heather Radke]

You want to say them?

[Latif Nasser]

Self esteem.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah. Or maybe this is actually really, in fact a story about Heather's need for constant validation and praise.

[Matt Kilty]

Dang, man, coming in hot.

[Heather Radke]

What is the most sort of like honest explanation of how this came about? You were feeling bad, I think.

[Matt Kilty]

Okay. The most honest answer sometimes probably like more than I like, to an embarrassing degree. I feel bad about myself. And I am a creative person in a profession where there's lots of ways that you can, if you're so inclined, you can find to feel bad about yourselves. There's always a list you're not on, always a sales number you didn't reach, always a pitch that didn't get accepted.

[Latif Nasser]

Right. And Matt is here acting like you're an alien from another planet or something.

[Matt Kilty]

Yeah, total.

[Heather Radke]

A few days ago, Heather asked me if I was proud that she jumped in Lake Michigan when it was cold.

[Matt Kilty]

And he was like, nope, not proud, not interested.

[Heather Radke]

It was jumping into a Lake Michigan.

[Latif Nasser]

Wait, Matt, but you, you don't. Do you feel immune to all of these problems?

[Heather Radke]

I maybe like to kind of sit in my self loathing a little bit more.

[Latif Nasser]

I've been a party to that in the past at one time or another. Yeah, I've witnessed that.

[Heather Radke]

I think it's like the seeking out of a sort of affirmation and compliment feels like a means to maybe feeling good. And I don't necessarily in the kind of project of the sort of goal of trying to feel good, but I.

[Matt Kilty]

Mean, I don't think it's like that weird that I want to feel better about myself. No, like, I think the question of like, how might I feel better about myself is pretty normal. Like kind of about as normal as it could be.

[Latif Nasser]

It's like there are whole industries based on this question.

[Matt Kilty]

Yeah, it's like everywhere, like you see it everywhere. Like it's on reality tv, it's on Instagram, you know, it's like everything about Instagram is like how Instagram is giving us low self esteem.

[Latif Nasser]

Like, but like, what are. Why are. What?

[Heather Radke]

This.

[Latif Nasser]

This just. Matt, Heather therapy hour. What is there a story here?

[Matt Kilty]

What's going on?

[Heather Radke]

It's a little bit of that throughout. No, no, no, no, we do. Okay. No, we have a story that Heather and I spent a long time working on.

[Matt Kilty]

Years.

[Heather Radke]

Years working on.

[Latif Nasser]

Wow.

[Heather Radke]

But it's about. It's about the fact that this idea, this thing that Heather's talking about, this. This pursuit of feeling good about yourself. How sort of weirdly. It's not that old of an idea.

[Matt Kilty]

Yeah, it's not that old. It's kind of all based on a lie.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay.

[Heather Radke]

And how so much of this you can kind of really trace back to this one guy.

[Matt Kilty]

How do you say his last name?

[Will Storr]

I think it's Vasconcellos. That's how I've always said it.

[Matt Kilty]

Vasconcellos. I mean, I think John Vasconcellos or maybe Vasconcelos.

[Heather Radke]

You call him Vasco in the book, right?

[Matt Kilty]

Yeah, everyone calls him Vasco. I just feel like.

[Will Storr]

Interesting. This is a weird thing. Robert Pattinson, the Hollywood actor.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah.

[Will Storr]

The film rights. Did I tell you about this?

[Heather Radke]

No, I didn't tell people this.

[Will Storr]

Yeah, he bought the film rights because he wanted to make the film of Vasco. And I had a three hour meeting with him about it. And he was like, who do you think should play Vasco? And I said, I think it should be the guy that Magnum PI and.

[Heather Radke]

He was like, Tom Selleck. What?

[Will Storr]

Tom Selleck? Yeah, it was like I said the wrong thing. I thought they'd be good, but like.

[Heather Radke]

I can see it. Yeah, I can. Actually.

[Matt Kilty]

It's the mustache.

[Will Storr]

It's the mustache and the big, like, bear like thing.

[John Vasconcellos]

Okay.

[Matt Kilty]

So John actually died back in 2014. And so we ended up talking to the author, Will Storr.

[Heather Radke]

So Will wrote a book about the self, like how we think of ourselves called Selfie. Selfie.

[Latif Nasser]

All right. Like it.

[Heather Radke]

Which has a whole chapter on John.

[Matt Kilty]

And then we also spoke to.

[Mitch Saunders]

Yeah, well, I've got all kinds of curiosities and questions.

[Michael Pettit]

So.

[Heather Radke]

Mitch Saunders, one of John's closest friends.

[Mitch Saunders]

But I think those will emerge as we get going.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Matt Kilty]

And before we get started, I guess I just want to say in reporting the story, I've always kind of thought of John as like an Icarus figure. He's a kind of modern day Icarus, where he wanted so much to feel good. He wanted everyone in the whole world to feel good. But he did fly maybe a little too close to the sun.

[Heather Radke]

So what drew you To John, initially.

[Will Storr]

What I thought was so interesting about John in his early life was that he was born into a very strict Catholic family.

[Mitch Saunders]

Oh yeah. A big, big influence was the Catholicism that he grew up in.

[Heather Radke]

So if we back up a little bit. John was born in 1932 in San Jose, the oldest of three kids.

[Mitch Saunders]

His father was superintendent of schools in the East Bay.

[Heather Radke]

His mom mostly stayed at home.

[Matt Kilty]

She could be pretty stern.

[Mitch Saunders]

She'd give my wife a hard time about the meal we had prepared, you know.

[Matt Kilty]

And John as a kid, he was.

[Heather Radke]

Clearly very bright, never really got in.

[Matt Kilty]

Trouble and was also a very strict Catholic, a good Catholic boy. And the kind of good Catholic, that.

[Will Storr]

Kind of fetishized self loathing.

[Matt Kilty]

Because this was a sort of Catholicism that was heavy on.

[Latif Nasser]

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, original sin and death through sin.

[Matt Kilty]

The idea that we're all born sinners.

[Latif Nasser]

And in this way death came to.

[John Vasconcellos]

All people because all sin.

[Will Storr]

He was raised, behold, never to think well of himself.

[Latif Nasser]

I was brought forth in iniquity to.

[Will Storr]

Never think about me. The I.

[Latif Nasser]

And in sin did my mother conceived.

[Heather Radke]

Me to not show pride, to not.

[Mitch Saunders]

Show anger, that you are a horrible person if you touch yourself, if you engage with anybody else in any kind of sex whatsoever outside of marriage. It was this upbringing of being told so many times in so many ways that you're less than not good enough, fundamentally flawed.

[Will Storr]

He used to tell a story. Who knows whether it's true because it's such a great story where he ran for class president in the eighth grade and he lost by one vote.

[Matt Kilty]

And do you know whose vote it was?

[Latif Nasser]

His own.

[Matt Kilty]

His own vote.

[Will Storr]

That one vote was his.

[Heather Radke]

He voted for the other person.

[Will Storr]

He was so self hating that he could bring himself to vote for himself.

[Heather Radke]

God, the poor guy.

[Latif Nasser]

But he believed in himself enough to run, but not enough to. What a puzzle there.

[Matt Kilty]

Yeah, he's a tangled web.

[Will Storr]

When I was looking through his personal archives, I found a letter from an early girlfriend that actually said to him, the thing I love most about you, John, is your absolute humility.

[Mitch Saunders]

But you know, this was one of the things that animated him was his own lack of confidence in himself.

[Heather Radke]

He would later become class president, attended.

[Matt Kilty]

This fancy private school in the bay.

[Mitch Saunders]

He was valedictorian.

[Heather Radke]

He got into Yale and Harvard, but.

[Matt Kilty]

He chose to stay in California, Santa.

[Mitch Saunders]

Clara University, went on to Santa Clara law, was valedictorian everywhere he went.

[Heather Radke]

Graduates top of his law class, becomes.

[Will Storr]

This quite successful young man working at.

[Heather Radke]

This law firm in the bay.

[Matt Kilty]

Tall Broad shouldered, clean cut, black suit.

[Will Storr]

Black tie, neat hair.

[John Vasconcellos]

And in 1962, he needs no introduction to any California.

[Heather Radke]

He decides to join the reelection campaign of Governor, Democratic Governor Pat Brown.

[Matt Kilty]

And he would say this later in an interview that it was like this moment on this campaign where politics became, quote, etched in his heart.

[Heather Radke]

And so in 1966, at the age of 34, he runs for a seat in the California State House.

[Matt Kilty]

On November 8, 1966, he wins.

[Will Storr]

And then, well, he has this spectacular nervous breakdown.

[Heather Radke]

He completely collapses.

[Will Storr]

The way he describes it, he says, I found myself and my identity and my life coming utterly apart.

[Latif Nasser]

Was there something that precipitated this or what? Like what?

[Matt Kilty]

Well, at the time, no one knew what precipitated it.

[Heather Radke]

Like, he never talked publicly about the details of what happened. But the way that Mitch would describe it to us was it was kind of as if Jon had felt like he'd been handed a script his whole life. Like a script from his family, from his church, from society, of like, this is how you're supposed to dress. This is how you're supposed to behave. And he was suddenly kind of coming up against the idea that maybe he didn't want to live by that script.

[Mitch Saunders]

And it left him feeling like he had no place to go.

[Matt Kilty]

And after that, John realizes, he says in his book, that he has to find some help. And so he finds this Catholic priest who's also a therapist, who starts to ask him questions like, tell me how.

[Mitch Saunders]

You see the world. What matters to you? When that happened? How did you experience that? What's the feeling for you? I'll bet you that was the first time he'd ever had that kind of encounter.

[Matt Kilty]

The first time someone's relating to him.

[Mitch Saunders]

With genuine inquiry about who he really is.

[Matt Kilty]

It was these therapy sessions with this Catholic priest that would kind of crack John open and send him down a new path that would eventually lead him to this place called Esalen, the Esalen Institute.

[Latif Nasser]

I feel like this is a famous.

[Heather Radke]

It is, yeah, yeah.

[Will Storr]

I mean, if you're a fan of Mad Men, that's where Donald Draper ends up at the end of Mad Men.

[Heather Radke]

Oh, that's where he is.

[Latif Nasser]

Aha.

[Will Storr]

That's where the future was born, really. Esalen.

[Matt Kilty]

So the Esalen Institute is this place.

[Mitch Saunders]

In Big Sur in California with unbelievable natural beauty.

[Matt Kilty]

Mitch, like John, spent a lot of time there.

[Heather Radke]

And if you could just imagine, like this big mid century house on a cliff overlooking the ocean. That's Hesselin.

[Mitch Saunders]

And there are these amazing hot mineral baths right on the edge of these.

[Heather Radke]

Cliffs, there were these baths, so you had to get in naked.

[Mitch Saunders]

Jon said the first time he discovered that we're supposed to go into the tubs with no clothes on, he actually turned around and left.

[Heather Radke]

He just has so much sort of shame around his body, discomfort around it. Yeah, but Mitch says, like, this was the point of this place of Esalen.

[Mitch Saunders]

It was a place where you could go to climb out of the. What I think, John, and certainly, I believe was a dark pit of misguided beliefs. You know, there's something. You're fundamentally flawed at birth. There's something wrong with you.

[Heather Radke]

The promise of Esalen is that it was a place to help you finally kind of realize your true self. And that in doing so, you could find liberation, freedom, maybe even deep happiness.

[Matt Kilty]

What a promise.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, when you say it like that. I don't know if I want to meet my true self.

[John Vasconcellos]

I have.

[Matt Kilty]

Whenever people say that, the find my true self thing, there's a way that it's just sort of confounding. Cause it's like, well, what are you talking about? Like, my.

[Heather Radke]

How am I not myself?

[Matt Kilty]

What is this self? That's not.

[Latif Nasser]

When I was taking out the garbage, was I not my true self?

[Heather Radke]

Yeah, well, don't worry. We got to the bottom of it.

[Matt Kilty]

Indeed we did.

[Michael Pettit]

So. Yeah, so. No, this is.

[Matt Kilty]

So we ended up talking to this.

[Michael Pettit]

Guy Michael, Michael Pettit, professor at York University in Toronto, where he stud.

[Matt Kilty]

Studies the history of psychology.

[Michael Pettit]

So.

[Heather Radke]

And Michael told us that what was going on at esalen in the 60s is that it was sort of representative of this huge shift that was happening in psychology.

[Matt Kilty]

Because up until this point, a lot of what psychology was came from Sigmund Freud. Freud.

[Will Storr]

And Freud, similar to the Catholics, really.

[Michael Pettit]

Famously, had a very pessimistic view of.

[Mitch Saunders]

Human nature, which is the subterranean horrors of the subconscious.

[John Vasconcellos]

We are primal, inherited, ugly, full of.

[Mitch Saunders]

Horrible, dark secrets, pestering impulses and compulsions.

[Will Storr]

That we are covering up from ourselves.

[Heather Radke]

And that even if you go and seek treatment, you seek help through therapy.

[Michael Pettit]

You will still be left with everyday.

[Matt Kilty]

Unhappiness, what he called ordinary unhappiness.

[Heather Radke]

Ooh, I like that. I like Freud.

[Matt Kilty]

Yeah, of course you do.

[Heather Radke]

Oh, shut up, Heather.

[Latif Nasser]

But, okay, so basically, Freud is like, yeah, we're all suffering here. This is what we're doing together.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah. And the best we could hope for is contentment, maybe.

[Matt Kilty]

But, you know, a little bit after Freud and a little bit before Esalen.

[Heather Radke]

This is around, like, the 40s and.

[Matt Kilty]

The 50s, there come these new psychologists.

[Michael Pettit]

Who think we can be happy, who.

[Matt Kilty]

Think we can be free from our suffering.

[Heather Radke]

And one of those psychologists was this.

[Will Storr]

Guy, basically the anti. Freud.

[Matt Kilty]

Now, Dr. Rogers, something of yourself.

[Heather Radke]

Carl Rogers.

[John Vasconcellos]

I'm Carl Rogers.

[Will Storr]

He's the second most influential psychotherapist ever, after Sigmund Freud.

[Heather Radke]

And Rogers believe that?

[Mitch Saunders]

Sure.

[John Vasconcellos]

Course, we're all of us a little bit crazy, including me.

[Heather Radke]

People are messy, they're impulsive. But fundamentally, people are good.

[Will Storr]

And the reason that people suffer, the reason that they feel pain and anxiety.

[John Vasconcellos]

I found the same yearning theme emerging time after time after time is because person would be saying, I'm not really me.

[Heather Radke]

People aren't being themselves.

[Michael Pettit]

Your true authentic self.

[Matt Kilty]

Instead, people were suffering because they were trying to be.

[John Vasconcellos]

Here's a rather typical statement who they.

[Matt Kilty]

Thought they were supposed to be from a young woman.

[John Vasconcellos]

She says, I think that I began to lose me when I was in high school.

[Matt Kilty]

There's the young woman who's always trying to please everybody, trying to make people.

[John Vasconcellos]

Feel at ease around me or to make things go along smoothly.

[Heather Radke]

Or the young man, why am I afraid of her? Who tries to never disappoint his mom.

[John Vasconcellos]

This is silly, I know it, but I can't seem to fight it.

[Matt Kilty]

Or the guy.

[John Vasconcellos]

I think that I've always loved people.

[Matt Kilty]

Who always buries his emotions, but I've.

[John Vasconcellos]

Never dared put it into words.

[Heather Radke]

Rogers said when he got down to it, patient after patient would tell him.

[John Vasconcellos]

I feel like I've been just playing a sort of false role.

[Heather Radke]

And that is what causes our suffering.

[John Vasconcellos]

This picture you present to the outside world our pain.

[Matt Kilty]

You can see how this was John. Yeah, Suit and tie, Normie haircut, kind of playing the role of the good Catholic boy.

[Heather Radke]

And so for people like John, Rogers had developed this way out to leave.

[John Vasconcellos]

Behind this false role, this type of therapy, and get closer to being one's real self.

[Heather Radke]

That would become this huge part of Esalen.

[Michael Pettit]

And that was the encounter group.

[Heather Radke]

So could you just walk me through, like, what was an encounter group at Esalen?

[Will Storr]

Yeah.

[Michael Pettit]

So encounter groups. It would be kind of this break from the everyday.

[Heather Radke]

You would go to Esalen, you would.

[Michael Pettit]

Be with a group of strangers, maybe.

[Heather Radke]

Five people, maybe 15 people who don't know you, who have no expectations of you, so that you can maybe be.

[Michael Pettit]

As vulnerable as one can be.

[John Vasconcellos]

The primary ideas in an encounter group are the things I mentioned this morning.

[Matt Kilty]

So John went to a bunch of these.

[Will Storr]

I think he went to eight encounter groups at Essalen.

[Matt Kilty]

And how it worked was be open.

[John Vasconcellos]

And honest and to Talk about your feelings.

[Matt Kilty]

This group of strangers would come together.

[Will Storr]

For hours and hours, sometimes days and days and days on end.

[Heather Radke]

There would be a group leader, a.

[Will Storr]

Therapist or kind of a charismatic leader to guide everybody.

[Matt Kilty]

And what you're hearing now is a document that was filmed in 1972. It was a week long encounter group at Esalen.

[Heather Radke]

And how it starts is the group.

[John Vasconcellos]

Leader, things like, I can't do something.

[Heather Radke]

Lays out these kind of ground rules.

[John Vasconcellos]

It's usually just a way of not taking responsibility. You try to say, I won't do.

[Matt Kilty]

It, rather than I can't. Also, don't ask questions.

[Heather Radke]

Instead, be direct, be honest.

[John Vasconcellos]

And one other thing is that the.

[Matt Kilty]

Most important thing you can do here.

[John Vasconcellos]

I think is the thing you're most afraid of. That's the thing that will help you to grow most.

[Matt Kilty]

And so these 10 strangers are sitting in a room at Esalen, in a circle on this carpeted floor.

[Heather Radke]

And they just sit there in silence.

[Matt Kilty]

Glancing at each other. If we're not supposed to ask questions, I'm not sure what to say.

[Heather Radke]

And then things shift.

[John Vasconcellos]

Hit this as hard as you can and keep going and scream at each other.

[Matt Kilty]

And it is wild.

[Heather Radke]

Like, the group leader will get some of these people to punch pillows, to.

[Matt Kilty]

Let out these primal screams.

[Heather Radke]

If they see conflict, they'll be like, hey, how about the two of you wrestle each other?

[Matt Kilty]

They'll also do these exercises. Something bothers me about you to try to get these people if you're afraid.

[John Vasconcellos]

To be real with feeling like, I.

[Matt Kilty]

Get the idea that how much of you to tell each other?

[John Vasconcellos]

I get bored when you talk to.

[Matt Kilty]

Me how they really feel about each other. Yeah, there's just no question I'm fucked up how they feel about themselves.

[John Vasconcellos]

I'm jealous of them.

[Heather Radke]

As Will puts it. The whole point of all of this.

[Will Storr]

Was to create an atmosphere of radical authenticity. And actually what we need to do is sort of dig down deep into the core of who we are.

[Matt Kilty]

And this is the whole idea behind Roger's philosophy.

[John Vasconcellos]

I hope you can appreciate the fact.

[Matt Kilty]

That if you can feel accepted, that.

[John Vasconcellos]

I feel an acceptance of you as.

[Matt Kilty]

You are for who you really are, flaws and all. We're born absolutely right, perfect, divine. Then you can find a way.

[John Vasconcellos]

I pound on a pillow and I.

[Matt Kilty]

Get it straightened up a little bit. And I found out that what I always thought was true is true. I am good to begin to love yourself. I'm not really sure that I want.

[Jennifer Crocker]

To be married to the man I'm married to.

[Heather Radke]

For example, in the Doc, there's this woman, probably in her late 20s, long dark hair.

[Matt Kilty]

I allow myself to believe everything he tells me about me.

[Jennifer Crocker]

He says, you're too, you're too heavy, you need to lose weight.

[Matt Kilty]

And I buy that as being so.

[Heather Radke]

Who tells the group how she often feels fat, unattractive, I'm pretty.

[Matt Kilty]

That's very hard for me to say.

[Heather Radke]

And the group leader, the risk of this reputation.

[John Vasconcellos]

Would you take your clothes off?

[Matt Kilty]

Yeah.

[Heather Radke]

Asks if she would stand in front of the group naked. And so she does.

[John Vasconcellos]

Would you look at your body and.

[Heather Radke]

Feel it for a moment totally naked in front of these 10 strangers.

[John Vasconcellos]

Tell us how you feel about it.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Feels very soft.

[Matt Kilty]

I like the curves in my body. I don't feel embarrassed about standing here.

[Jennifer Crocker]

And I like that.

[Heather Radke]

And they have her look at herself in this mirror.

[Matt Kilty]

Take a look. What do you see? What about the.

[Heather Radke]

I like her.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Tell her I like you.

[Matt Kilty]

I love you.

[Heather Radke]

And what all was John learning about himself back then?

[Mitch Saunders]

Well, one of the things that, that first happened for him was he realized that there was all this deep seated rage, that he didn't like the way he was raised, that he felt it was, you know, that did him in, that he was dealt a bad deck of cards and he was raging about it.

[Heather Radke]

And Mitch said that John told him one of the first times he went to an encounter group.

[Mitch Saunders]

The leader just sat there cross legged for the longest time, didn't say anything. And apparently John's way of dealing with detention was to go over and sort of attack him, attack him.

[Matt Kilty]

Whoa.

[Mitch Saunders]

They ended up in a wrestling match or whatever. And you know, John felt fulfilled at the end of whatever that experience was.

[Heather Radke]

He began to realize that he was angry and that it was okay to feel angry.

[Matt Kilty]

Mitch says that a lot of what John was going through just kind of.

[Mitch Saunders]

Came down to just being seen, being heard, being held as he was, as he is.

[Heather Radke]

And what happened is John went from.

[Matt Kilty]

Buttoned up, black suit, black tie, neat.

[Heather Radke]

Hair kind of guy to someone entirely different. Or as Carl Rogers would probably say, he recovered someone who he already was wild and free.

[Will Storr]

Like he grew his hair, he'd have medallions. He had his shirt half unbuttoned with all his hair coming out of it.

[Mitch Saunders]

He was always rumpled. People used to say he looked like an unmade bed.

[Matt Kilty]

He drove around in this like mustard colored convertible with the top down.

[Will Storr]

Even when it was raining, he'd have the top down.

[Heather Radke]

He could be brash, blustery, angry, but also very.

[Mitch Saunders]

People in his office had these stacks of what we Called Vascograms.

[Heather Radke]

These little handwritten notes from John on, like a newspaper article he read.

[Mitch Saunders]

I'm just thinking about you.

[Heather Radke]

Here's something you might find interesting.

[Mitch Saunders]

Literally hundreds of people would get these Vascograms. My God, I got mountains and mountains of them.

[Heather Radke]

He was big. He was expressive.

[Will Storr]

Everything in his being was suddenly liberated. He felt free for the first time in his life.

[Mitch Saunders]

And there are some crazy people who. When they discover something that has a lot of power and meaning and makes a real difference in one's life, their first and almost natural instinct is to find some way to share it.

[Heather Radke]

But before we get to that, we'll actually have to leave it here because Heather.

[Matt Kilty]

I have to go to therapy.

[Heather Radke]

Is off to therapy where maybe she'll punch some pillows or have some kind.

[Latif Nasser]

Of breakthrough, you know?

[Matt Kilty]

Yeah, maybe I'll have some breakthroughs. Yeah.

[Heather Radke]

I'm sure it's gonna be life changing.

[Matt Kilty]

I've only been telling you to go for the.

[Will Storr]

That's fine.

[Heather Radke]

Okay, well, when we come back, I will still have not gone and we'll pick back up with the story.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, great.

[Matt Kilty]

Straight to the.

[Latif Nasser]

But then. But there are mysteries that are not to do with murder.

[Heather Radke]

Okay, I'm done. I'm done with this.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay.

[Matt Kilty]

You're the one who was eating a Cliff bar the whole time. We just had to talk about something.

[Heather Radke]

No, you don't. I can take bites in between this. I did it yesterday.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, Both of you.

[Heather Radke]

Okay.

[Latif Nasser]

Lythif, Radiolab back with Heather and Matt.

[Matt Kilty]

Matt's in a spicy mood.

[Michael Pettit]

Where were we?

[Heather Radke]

Blow my lid today.

[Latif Nasser]

Whoa.

[Heather Radke]

Embracing my true self.

[Matt Kilty]

You know what? I actually hear you saying, Love me. Love me.

[Heather Radke]

Okay, so we left off.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Heather Radke]

John goes through this complete transformation through therapy, through Esalen, through reading books about psychology and.

[Latif Nasser]

Is he still an elected official?

[Heather Radke]

He is.

[Mitch Saunders]

He used to say I was the most therapized politician to ever live. And he's probably right. You know, he probably was the most therapized politician ever.

[Heather Radke]

And Mitch said it was actually back in 1978 when he first encountered John.

[Mitch Saunders]

At a conference in Santa Barbara.

[Heather Radke]

He was the keynote speaker.

[Mitch Saunders]

This disheveled keynote speaker who got up to speak. John Vasconcellas. He was wearing a sport coat, shirt and tie, but obviously underneath the white shirt was some really funky T shirt that had some strange design on it.

[John Vasconcellos]

Thanks. Is this broadcasting? Okay, you'll hear me. Okay, thank you.

[Heather Radke]

This obviously is John.

[John Vasconcellos]

First, I want to welcome you. I'm the legislator for this district in the California legislature. I want to Say welcome to California. And second, I want to acknowledge the significance of our being here and the.

[Mitch Saunders]

Stuff that was coming out of his mouth.

[John Vasconcellos]

Hopefully our being here is meant to be and we carry away with it some sense of meaning that serves to limit our lives.

[Mitch Saunders]

And that of those around us really surprised me.

[John Vasconcellos]

The most we could see ever do really is tell each other who we are. And let me tell you who I am.

[Matt Kilty]

In his speeches, John would talk about.

[John Vasconcellos]

Growing up Catholic, very steeped in the traditional I'm a sinner Catholic tradition, and was raised or lowered, really more lowered than raised.

[Matt Kilty]

He would talk about therapy Esalen for.

[John Vasconcellos]

Encounter groups to figure out my feelings.

[Matt Kilty]

As a man about Esalen, about Carl.

[John Vasconcellos]

Rogers odyssey for my own self discovery as a person.

[Mitch Saunders]

I'd never heard a politician talk that way.

[Matt Kilty]

And eventually Mitch actually got to meet.

[Mitch Saunders]

John in his funky little condo in Santa Clara. And I don't remember exactly what we talked about, but towards the end of that conversation, I asked him, I said, would you be willing to be my mentor? I've just not had exposure to anybody as wonderfully strange as you. He agreed. And that became the beginning of quite a partnership over, you know, that was. That must have been 82, I guess, and you know, from then to the time he died in 2014.

[Heather Radke]

And I guess what exactly was it about what he was saying that made you kind of like want him to be a mentor?

[Mitch Saunders]

It was his way of articulating the through line from psychology and how we are formed as human beings, you know, through family, religious and, you know, all the various influences that come. Come in to influence who we are and how that plays out in the world. And then the thing that really intrigued me was how he was applying that or extending his philosophy to the world of politics. Because for him, everything began. All policy, if you really unpack it, is based on some really fundamental assumptions.

[John Vasconcellos]

The politics we do is who we are. That my values and my vision, my sense of myself informs what I do socially and relationally, institutionally and publicly. And that really is at the heart of the struggle in the nation, in the state. Now it's not just about money or privilege or power. It's about those. But it's about visions of human nature.

[Mitch Saunders]

And John's message was this. The title of his talk at that time was A Liberating Vision.

[John Vasconcellos]

Our visions of human nature inform our parenting, our politics, our pedagogy, our intimacy, our dying, and all the rest of it.

[Mitch Saunders]

If we think about human nature differently, if we dare to imagine that old.

[John Vasconcellos]

Cynical, traditional people are basically evil and ugly and dangerous.

[Mitch Saunders]

We people creatures aren't ruined by original.

[John Vasconcellos]

Sin and need to be contained that repressed and ashamed and guilt ridden and locked away.

[Mitch Saunders]

Then we would approach policy, you know, really important social institutions and how they're run very differently.

[John Vasconcellos]

That's one view of human nature for John. If we are to have a people first culture and if we are to ask people to grow, we need to.

[Mitch Saunders]

Orient all our policies, all our efforts.

[John Vasconcellos]

It must have at their very heart as its very foundation with the beginning.

[Mitch Saunders]

View that humans are at the root.

[John Vasconcellos]

That positive, good, hopeful, healthful, growthful visit of human nature and potential. Assume that within us is that spark of life and hope and health and wholeness that ought to be nurtured.

[Mitch Saunders]

He really embraced Carl Rogers view of humans being like plants, that given the right conditions they'll almost always orient to the sun. That humans will, you know, if they're not screwed up, will orient to what's positive for them and those around them, them.

[Matt Kilty]

But the problem here is he's espousing.

[Mitch Saunders]

This liberating vision for everybody.

[Matt Kilty]

Like what does any of this actually mean in terms of public policy?

[Latif Nasser]

It's like Harry Fairy, pie in the sky kind of thing. What does this use to anybody?

[Heather Radke]

He doesn't have anything that he can actually put all of that in that might actually affect policy until something shows up. Can you guess what that might be, Latif?

[Matt Kilty]

Two little words with a little hyphen.

[Latif Nasser]

Self esteem.

[Heather Radke]

There it is. Because it was in the 1980s when self esteem emerges. This phrase, this idea, self esteem, a.

[Michael Pettit]

Person'S perception of their own worth starts.

[Heather Radke]

Becoming a part of the public consciousness.

[Michael Pettit]

Absolutely.

[Heather Radke]

And I think I want to just kind of talk a little bit about where that phrase comes from.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Heather Radke]

Because it becomes so important.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, I do question where that came from. Where did that phrase come from?

[Heather Radke]

So Michael Pettit, our history professor, explained that in psychology, self esteem goes back.

[Michael Pettit]

To 1890 with a book called the Principles of Psychology, which basically says that.

[Matt Kilty]

Self esteem is this thing, this self worth that you have based on the things that you do, the things that you care about doing.

[Heather Radke]

For example, a famous psychologist back then.

[Michael Pettit]

Wrote, I don't think I'm the best boxer in the world. So if someone's a better boxer than me, eh, no biggie.

[Matt Kilty]

But instead of boxing, let's say this.

[Michael Pettit]

Other person is a better, more famous, higher achieving psychologist. That does hurt my self worth. That does hurt my self image.

[Heather Radke]

And the way that Michael explained it was this was at a time in psychology where the self was not a unified thing. It was just kind of like parts. You had different parts, different aspects of a self, and then you had these different things where you might find worth or value in.

[Latif Nasser]

It's like you almost stake your territory where your identity and value lie. And it's like. And other places it's like you've ceded that territory, like it's okay, it's fine.

[Matt Kilty]

But then in the 30s and the 40s, the very idea of the self changes.

[Michael Pettit]

Exactly.

[Heather Radke]

Psychologists come up with this idea of a personality which is your unified whole self.

[Matt Kilty]

And so self esteem becomes a more.

[Michael Pettit]

Global, basic attribute of the person.

[Matt Kilty]

It's no longer how you feel about these individual things you're good at.

[Heather Radke]

Now it's just about how you feel about you.

[Michael Pettit]

That one either had high self esteem or low self esteem.

[Matt Kilty]

So for psychologists, it starts to become this really important measure of a person's entire well being, like their whole mental health.

[Heather Radke]

And one of the things that we found fascinating was that in the pivotal 1954 Brown v. Board segregation case, one of the crucial arguments made by the opponents of segregation was the dolls.

[Latif Nasser]

Yes, Famous study. Yeah.

[Michael Pettit]

On how black children prefer a white doll over a black doll. And this shows how they've internalized society's negative attitudes towards themselves.

[Heather Radke]

The theory being that they'd sort of been given low self esteem by society. So I think, and Michael says, it's also right around here that you get.

[Michael Pettit]

Maslow and his famous hierarchy.

[Latif Nasser]

Hierarchy.

[Heather Radke]

Hierarchy of needs. You got it.

[Michael Pettit]

Although whether it's actually a hierarchy or not is a bit of a controversy.

[Heather Radke]

I always see it as a pyramid.

[Michael Pettit]

It's a pyramid. But Maslow himself never drew it as a pyramid. That comes from a management textbook a couple of decades later that tried to popularize him.

[Matt Kilty]

But anyway, so Maslow's whole thing is that you have all these different needs and they all need to be fulfilled in order to become the best version of yourself.

[Heather Radke]

Needs like food, water, sleep, security, stability.

[Matt Kilty]

Friendship, intimacy, and a positive self esteem.

[Michael Pettit]

A feeling of self worth.

[Heather Radke]

And so through the 70s, that positive.

[John Vasconcellos]

Hopeful, healthful, growthful visit of human nature and potential.

[Heather Radke]

While John is giving these speeches, self esteem is becoming a bigger part of psychology.

[Matt Kilty]

And it was in the early 80s that these two things, self esteem and John Vasconcellos, start to circle each other and become this much bigger thing.

[Heather Radke]

Because what was going on in the.

[Matt Kilty]

80S was we're coming off the bloodiest year in the history of New York.

[Heather Radke]

This panic.

[Jennifer Crocker]

The statistics this year are really grim.

[Heather Radke]

About rising violence and crime Dramatic evidence.

[John Vasconcellos]

Tonight that crack use is spreading wider.

[Heather Radke]

There was the crack epidemic.

[Matt Kilty]

Look at a very serious matter, the incidents of teenage pregnancy, teen pregnancy.

[John Vasconcellos]

Prisons are bulging. 90,000 Californians are in prison and the crime rate's still going up.

[Matt Kilty]

And for John, in California, we keep.

[John Vasconcellos]

Escalating the drug war.

[Matt Kilty]

These became the issues of the day.

[Heather Radke]

And what happened was in the course.

[John Vasconcellos]

Of about a five week period, some kind of things came together.

[Heather Radke]

John said one day he was reading.

[John Vasconcellos]

An article, an article that said education kids who drop out of school or don't make it, a lack of self esteem.

[Heather Radke]

That self esteem was connected to how well kids do in school.

[John Vasconcellos]

Then I read folks who get addicted to drugs probably are lacking enough sense of self and reach for something to get high on or get the pain dulled on or get down on softy might be a way to prevent drug abuse.

[Matt Kilty]

That maybe self esteem was a key component in why people were using drugs.

[John Vasconcellos]

Then a guy came to San Jose, did a speech on teen pregnancy.

[Heather Radke]

He was this popular psychologist, sex educator.

[John Vasconcellos]

And I heard him say teen pregnancy is probably a lack, result of a lack of self esteem.

[Matt Kilty]

That kids were maybe having sex at an early age so that they could feel better about themselves.

[John Vasconcellos]

So those three, education, drugs, teen pregnancy, the pattern just kind of loomed up.

[Mitch Saunders]

And he latches onto self esteem as a focal point.

[John Vasconcellos]

I thought we ought to look at.

[Heather Radke]

This because what all of this was telling John, what self esteem was telling.

[Mitch Saunders]

John was that at the root of most of our social ills were people who didn't believe in their fundamental value. So by 1984 he was the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

[Matt Kilty]

John controlled the budget of California, the.

[Mitch Saunders]

Fifth or sixth biggest economy in the world.

[Matt Kilty]

And he goes to the governor of California and he says, look, I need to spend money on a task force, a task force to promote self esteem.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah.

[Matt Kilty]

So what was the initial reaction to this idea?

[Will Storr]

The initial reaction was massive skepticism to this idea.

[Matt Kilty]

So writer Will Storr explained that the.

[Will Storr]

Governor at the time, he was a no nonsense Republican. He had a reputation of being very hard nosed.

[John Vasconcellos]

Well, why spend taxpayers money? I said, well, look at it this way. If we can save three folks from going to prison for life or 10 folks from dropping out of school or seven drug addicts, that cost a treatment will save taxpayers billions of dollars.

[Matt Kilty]

Like possibly this is a really cheap.

[Will Storr]

Way to make society better in all kinds of ways.

[Matt Kilty]

Certainly a cheaper way than like raising the minimum wage or something, you know.

[Latif Nasser]

Right, right, right, right.

[Heather Radke]

But the other thing he tells the governor is that this will also promote personal and social responsibility.

[Latif Nasser]

Ah, so this is the like kind of 80s part that's coming in.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah, but the way he thinks about it, he talks about this a lot in speeches, is like, if you pay a lot of money for something you value something, you tend to take care of it, you know? And so he's just applying this basic logic of like, if you value yourself, you'll take care of yourself. And that it actually might lead to all these societal changes because of it.

[Latif Nasser]

That makes sense. That makes sense.

[Heather Radke]

And so in 1987, the governor says.

[John Vasconcellos]

Okay, and Don creates the Self Esteem Task Force.

[Matt Kilty]

The Task Force to promote self esteem.

[Heather Radke]

You knew John before you were invited in?

[John Vasconcellos]

No, I hadn't known him.

[Matt Kilty]

This is Emmett Miller, former member of the task force.

[John Vasconcellos]

I'm not sure how he discovered me, except I was widely known locally for having invented the concept of mind body medicine and holistic treatment of my patients.

[Heather Radke]

And there were people like Emmett, the.

[John Vasconcellos]

Godmother of family therapy, chicken noodle soup.

[Heather Radke]

For the soul guy.

[Will Storr]

Remember that guy?

[Latif Nasser]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

[Matt Kilty]

Some other people from Esalen, but also others.

[John Vasconcellos]

Black, brown, white, straight, gay, Asian cops, therapists, business persons, teachers. This is not a small thing. This is tape number one in the proposal meeting. That's just not a small thing at all.

[Heather Radke]

So 1987, this big group of people.

[John Vasconcellos]

Would get together, big round table kind.

[Heather Radke]

Of setting, like a library or something.

[Mitch Saunders]

And resources to draw from.

[John Vasconcellos]

The group would find therapists, psychologists.

[Heather Radke]

They'd read anything they had published, interview them about their therapy practices, to put.

[John Vasconcellos]

Together the principles of what we might call healthy self esteem.

[Mitch Saunders]

The interview is being recorded at Berkeley, California.

[Matt Kilty]

They even hired researchers at Berkeley to.

[John Vasconcellos]

Devise studies looking at self esteem in six major areas of social crime and violence.

[Heather Radke]

Alcohol and drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, child.

[Matt Kilty]

Abuse, welfare dependency, educational failure or success.

[Heather Radke]

To try to answer this question. Does having high self esteem actually lead.

[John Vasconcellos]

People to being a better citizen, being more successful?

[Matt Kilty]

Now, while that's going on, do you know about Doonesbury, Latif?

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, yeah, yeah.

[Will Storr]

It's hard to understand today how influential.

[Matt Kilty]

This comic strip was.

[Heather Radke]

It's huge.

[Will Storr]

The power that these Doonesbury strips can have.

[Matt Kilty]

It was in almost every newspaper. Everybody read it.

[Latif Nasser]

Is that Gary Trudeau?

[Heather Radke]

Is that his name?

[Matt Kilty]

It's Gary Trudeau.

[John Vasconcellos]

Well, Gary Trudeau with his very clever doonesbury cartoon.

[Matt Kilty]

In 1987, he found out about the.

[John Vasconcellos]

Task force and decided to make jokes about it.

[Will Storr]

He created a new character, Barbara Bupsy Ann Bubstein, who was an LA actress and spiritual medium who had been invited onto the task force on the basis of her 20 years of feeling good about myself and out of body experiences.

[Matt Kilty]

And it's just like joke after joke about this task force and it's woo woo nonsense.

[Heather Radke]

And this goes on a two week.

[Will Storr]

Run, day after day, just making fun of the self esteem task force.

[John Vasconcellos]

Two weeks of satire with me. You know, this California goofy legislator with this California goofy idea, spending goofy money.

[Will Storr]

And the whole nation absolute ridicule is what happens.

[John Vasconcellos]

Laughed.

[Will Storr]

So there's a quote from the Pittsburgh Post Dispatch who said california is the state that produced Jerry Brown, the people's temple sister, boom boom, whatever that is, drive in churches, Charles Manson, the Esalen Institute, and now a governmental task force to promote self esteem. Now there's one more California joke to tell at cocktail parties around the nation.

[John Vasconcellos]

And John roundly scorned by the press. Editorial writers always need someone to pick upon to make themselves feel esteemed.

[Heather Radke]

He was hurt, he was angry.

[Matt Kilty]

But the thing is that Doonesbury strip about the task force, when he did.

[John Vasconcellos]

That, everybody else paid attention.

[Matt Kilty]

It's how everyone found out about it.

[Will Storr]

That is what made it famous.

[John Vasconcellos]

We spent three years at it. And at the end of the three years, 1990, the results were that when we compared, people who live their lives with real self esteem did so much better.

[Heather Radke]

People with high self esteem did better in school. They were less welfare dependent, they were less prone to crime and violence, substance abuse.

[Matt Kilty]

So they put together this report, really.

[Will Storr]

Fat report, that yes, self esteem does indeed cause all these amazing effects. They publish it and there's a complete 180.

[Heather Radke]

Next, our call in guest is John Basconcellas.

[Matt Kilty]

All of a sudden, John Basconcellas.

[Will Storr]

Nobody's laughing.

[Matt Kilty]

People want self esteem.

[John Vasconcellos]

Time magazine, Newsweek, BBC London, Economist talk show in Australia, national CBS Morning out of New York.

[Heather Radke]

One day John's given speeches nicknamed the.

[John Vasconcellos]

Johnny Appleseed of self esteem.

[Heather Radke]

The Johnny Appleseed of self esteem all across the country. Please welcome the distinguished Mr. John Bath.

[Matt Kilty]

California John Vasconcellas, he's on Oprah.

[John Vasconcellos]

Has turned self esteem into a virtual crusade.

[Matt Kilty]

Telling the nation self esteem is a social vaccine, that we have a cure for all that's wrong in society.

[Heather Radke]

Yes.

[Matt Kilty]

Assemblyman, I really feel that you are onto something here.

[John Vasconcellos]

Beautiful.

[Matt Kilty]

And it's wonderful. And I want to say this about John Vasconcella.

[John Vasconcellos]

It's a wonderful thing that you're doing.

[Matt Kilty]

I'm thrilled that we've got a man like that.

[Will Storr]

The Philadelphia Inquirer said it looks Like John Fastenrose may have had the last laugh. Time magazine, the sneers are turning to cheers.

[John Vasconcellos]

Really like what you're doing. I think you're right on base.

[Matt Kilty]

I'm so excited. And this pretty long, very dry task force report.

[John Vasconcellos]

This report has sold 50,000 copies.

[Matt Kilty]

Everyone.

[John Vasconcellos]

It's all over the state, is over.

[Matt Kilty]

The nation, all over the world psyched about self esteem.

[Latif Nasser]

Did anything change in the interim, like in those three years that would make them more receptive to the idea?

[Matt Kilty]

I mean, I guess I feel that.

[Will Storr]

It was just one of those ideas that the culture was ready for.

[Matt Kilty]

I think there's a couple ways to understand it.

[Will Storr]

For me, the economy actually plays a big part in all this.

[Matt Kilty]

Will says that in the 80s across the west you see anti union politics, increasing privatization, the end of social safety nets and like calls for personal responsibility.

[Will Storr]

And that had a sort of a huge impact on who we were and how we understood the world as a people. I mean, the best way to sum it up is if you think about who we were in 1965 versus 1985. We went from hippies, collectivist sort of screw the man anti materialistic people to Greed is good and material Girl and Whitney Houston singing the Greatest love of all is yourself.

[Matt Kilty]

And also right around the same time you have the self help movement See.

[John Vasconcellos]

You at the top is the program.

[Matt Kilty]

That gives a checkup from the neck up which is becoming eliminate stakes thinking, thinking and avoid hardening of the attitudes this huge industry.

[Mitch Saunders]

So what do you really want? Better relationships, financial independence.

[Will Storr]

So these ideas were already kind of out there in the culture. And I think if you'd have tried to launch the self esteem movement in 1975, it wouldn't have got anywhere. But by the mid-80s, this idea of I'm amazing is the answer to all my problems. I just feel like the culture was ready for it.

[Heather Radke]

And also I think it's worth realizing.

[John Vasconcellos]

How many of us have been in counseling and therapy. I read somewhere 16 million Americans have.

[Heather Radke]

Been in therapy that therapy was also becoming this huge thing. And there's this book from the 80s that basically says that now the modern equivalent to salvation to heaven was mental health.

[John Vasconcellos]

We've all been in counseling and knowing more about our own identity and sense of self and desire to be authentic and open and whole. At that kind of convergent point in time, our task force came on the scene.

[Heather Radke]

It's like all of these things came together in this exact right moment for John to step onto the scene and just be like, hey, I have something powerful this social vaccine, self esteem, that could help all of us.

[Mitch Saunders]

But what does that look like when you translate that into real work in the world? Because he wasn't happy. He was never content with just shooting the shit, as he used to say, just talking. It had to result in something that made a difference.

[John Vasconcellos]

The challenge that you truly carry yourselves back into your schools.

[Matt Kilty]

So if you have low self image, you can do something to change it.

[John Vasconcellos]

As a beacon of self esteem.

[Matt Kilty]

She has high self esteem.

[Children in classroom]

Hi.

[John Vasconcellos]

What beacon of faith?

[Matt Kilty]

Self esteem. It's the way we feel about ourselves.

[Heather Radke]

This is a very special day here at Rainbow. When a person feels good about themselves.

[Will Storr]

Their self esteem is high.

[John Vasconcellos]

Every kid and everybody in your life, thank you very much.

[Mitch Saunders]

Let's do it.

[Latif Nasser]

That's coming up right after this short break. Okay, Latif, Radiolab back with Heather and Matt and self esteem.

[Heather Radke]

Okay, so John's got a social vaccine, right? Question, of course, is like, well, how do you inoculate society? Like, what do you, how do you actually, how do you do this?

[Matt Kilty]

Like, how do you teach people to feel good about themselves?

[Heather Radke]

And for John, for my Latin prep.

[John Vasconcellos]

School days, education comes to the Latin word educari.

[Heather Radke]

The answer was it doesn't mean to.

[John Vasconcellos]

Stuff in or sit still and shut up the schools. Education at UCARI means to draw out, to draw forth, to evoke, to call forth.

[Heather Radke]

You start with kids. And so in the late 80s, early 90s, there was this huge push to get self esteem into the classroom. And suddenly there were all these like workbooks, textbooks.

[Matt Kilty]

So like here's one called Esteem, a K through 8 self esteem curriculum, okay.

[Heather Radke]

Or the best self esteem activities for the elementary grades.

[Matt Kilty]

Building self esteem in the secondary school, teacher's manual and instructional materials.

[Heather Radke]

And how this worked was, let's say you got a class of kids, everybody.

[John Vasconcellos]

Good morning.

[Heather Radke]

Good morning.

[John Vasconcellos]

Good morning. Hello back there, everybody.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, bring it down.

[Heather Radke]

Could be whatever grade. And the teacher would have one of these workbooks which in it would contain these worksheets.

[John Vasconcellos]

Today we are going to do. Today we're gonna talk about yourself.

[Heather Radke]

And how a lot of these begin.

[Mitch Saunders]

Is imagine that you're looking in the.

[Heather Radke]

Mirror but trying to get the kids to answer this really basic question.

[Mitch Saunders]

What do you see?

[Matt Kilty]

Who am I?

[Children in classroom]

I look like brown hair, brown eyes, a whole nother year. I have long hair, blond hair, dark hair, I think I look beautiful, kind of long brown hair.

[Heather Radke]

Or there's prompts like three things I.

[Children in classroom]

Want to say about myself.

[Heather Radke]

What makes you different? Different from other people?

[Children in classroom]

My first thing I would tell A new friend.

[Heather Radke]

What makes you you?

[Children in classroom]

I love listening to music. I like chemistry.

[Matt Kilty]

Basically, who is this person that is the self. Okay, good.

[Heather Radke]

Can't have self esteem without a self.

[Mitch Saunders]

Now think of some of the things.

[John Vasconcellos]

That you like about yourself and that.

[Mitch Saunders]

You wouldn't want to change.

[Matt Kilty]

And then, of course, there's just a ton of stuff about.

[John Vasconcellos]

What are those things?

[Children in classroom]

Um, liking yourself, being confident in who I am. How am I style? Is that my hair is the right.

[Heather Radke]

Length or something like, now let's imagine.

[John Vasconcellos]

That every person at the school gets.

[Mitch Saunders]

A gold medal for something that they are really great at.

[Heather Radke]

Everybody gets a trophy.

[Mitch Saunders]

What would your gold medal be for?

[Children in classroom]

Reading, baseball, Screaming the loudest, or everybody get together?

[Matt Kilty]

There were things called sharing circles.

[Heather Radke]

Kind of like encounter groups, but for kids.

[Latif Nasser]

Oh, that's sweet. So they can all yell at each other.

[Heather Radke]

No, it'd be like, what makes you.

[Matt Kilty]

Really tell us about when you felt good?

[Heather Radke]

What's one of the best things that's ever happened to you?

[John Vasconcellos]

Okay, now everybody knows what a sparkle statement is, right?

[Latif Nasser]

Um, what are sparkle statements?

[Heather Radke]

So this comes from the book Esteem Builders. And they are a long list of statements you can make to a classmate.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Heather Radke]

So you're cool. I like knowing you. Let's play together.

[Matt Kilty]

Hope today is super for ya.

[Heather Radke]

You're my friend.

[Latif Nasser]

You're a good buddy, Matt. I'm gonna print this out and put it. Stick it next to your desk.

[Matt Kilty]

Yeah, I know somebody could use a few more sparkle statements in his life.

[Heather Radke]

Nah, maybe we should be a little bit less sp.

[Latif Nasser]

Would this have been like. Like, what class does this slot into?

[Heather Radke]

They work this sort of stuff into, like kind of your regular class.

[Latif Nasser]

Like homeroom kind of thing.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah. And it runs through. I mean, this is like programming that is available K through 12.

[Will Storr]

Yeah.

[Matt Kilty]

And I will say I had it every year I can remember.

[Latif Nasser]

What do you remember?

[Matt Kilty]

I mean, I remember. I remember Duso the dolphin.

[Latif Nasser]

Never heard of the dolphin.

[Matt Kilty]

Which is this dolphin puppet who taught us to feel good about ourselves using song nay. Okay, wait, I'm trying my. But I also did this call out on Instagram to see if anyone else remembered similar things. Yeah, well, so I guess. And my friend Leslie Jamison, who grew up in LA in the early 90s, we always called them put ups and put downs.

[Heather Radke]

That was like the name for, you.

[Matt Kilty]

Know, saying something nice to somebody or saying something mean. And she said that her teacher, this was like maybe third grade had this policy that if someone received a put down, the thing was that you had to like, go to this little patio, this back patio. And the person who gave you the put down had to give you five put ups.

[Latif Nasser]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Kilty]

To like counter the put down.

[Latif Nasser]

It's like doing push ups or pull ups.

[Mitch Saunders]

Yeah.

[Heather Radke]

Punishment through praise.

[Matt Kilty]

Hey. Oh, hey. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. I also heard from this woman, Peg, Peg Kiner from Chicago, who had this wild story, it was like 1995 is when I was in 8th grade about how there was this teacher who every morning after the pledge of allegiance and the announcements, she had a handwritten sheet of paper that had two stanzas of I have confidence from the sound of Music. And she had the bold gusto. I have confidence in sunshine. To make a whole 8th grade class sing these two stanzas.

[Jennifer Crocker]

I have confidence that spring will come again.

[Matt Kilty]

Besides which, you see, I have confidence in me. And sometimes twice. And she's like, that wasn't loud enough. One more time.

[Heather Radke]

It really. It's like the anthem, the self esteem anthem.

[Matt Kilty]

We had this thing called star attraction. Another friend of mine, Jane Marchant, she was a 90s kid in Northern California. And I still have this poster which is insanely large. It's this big poster with Jane's second grade picture right in the center. I have these like horrible bangs and all around the picture are these stars where her classmates have had written something. Jane is nice and fair. Jane is loving.

[Will Storr]

That's funny.

[Matt Kilty]

Jane is nice, funny, smart and good.

[Heather Radke]

So there you go. Trifecta.

[Matt Kilty]

We got take home slips of paper to write home and post. There was Amy Coogler in Wichita, Kansas.

[Heather Radke]

Other affirmations. Other affirmations to just post around your bedroom.

[Matt Kilty]

Yep, just post around my bedroom. I am a smart and kind student. I respect all. There's my friend Gina Pensiero.

[Heather Radke]

I grew up in Verona, New Jersey.

[Matt Kilty]

Who remember learning about I lack I, A L, A C. I am lovable and capable. I mean, even our writer will store.

[Will Storr]

I remember being at school, we had to go around in a circle and everybody had to say something good about themselves.

[Matt Kilty]

He got this stuff over in the.

[Heather Radke]

UK there's like an Education Week article from 1991 that lays out that at this point, already thousands of schools are starting to participate in the self esteem curriculum. There are over 100 workbooks to promote self esteem in the classroom.

[Will Storr]

So it just became embraced by the educational system in a major way.

[Matt Kilty]

Throughout the 90s, self esteem became the dominant language that people in the west were using to talk about themselves. They used self esteem to talk about their childhoods, their successes, their failures. Their ambitions, just how they thought about who they were.

[Heather Radke]

And for John, this is more than.

[John Vasconcellos]

Just a personal venture, an odyssey.

[Heather Radke]

This is like kind of everything he dreamed of.

[John Vasconcellos]

It's more than just something for the classroom. It seems to me that self esteem is the vision, the heart of a new culture, a new way of being, a new way of living, a new way of educating and politicking and living and working and all the rest. And may you have in your own lives ever more freedom to be esteeming, to be public, to be political, and to have good times for yourselves. Thank you.

[Will Storr]

Uh, but, but, but should I talk about the. The. The lie a bit?

[Heather Radke]

This. Yeah, this might have been. So this is the part in the story which we had.

[Latif Nasser]

We told you promised this was all a fraud. I'm waiting for the fraud.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah, the lie.

[Will Storr]

Okay.

[Matt Kilty]

So, yeah, this is like Will's whole thing is that one of the things he discovered when he was reporting his.

[Will Storr]

Book is that in the archives, I managed to find an audio cassette recording of the actual meeting where the Cal.

[Matt Kilty]

Berkeley researcher hired by the task force present. And he told the task force back in 1989 that, yes, they had found some compelling correlations between self esteem and education.

[Will Storr]

But in other areas, the correlations don't seem to be so great. And we're not quite sure why, and we're not sure when we have correlations, what the causes might be. Let's take, for example, one of the areas where the findings are a little bit loose, which has to do with self esteem and alcoholic abuse. By and large, there are positive correlations here, but what does that mean in terms of cause? Do these people go to drinking because of an earlier history of self doubt, self degradation, worthlessness, and so on, or is it the other way around? Does the involvement in alcohol for years or decades constitute the causal basis for the feelings of worthlessness that we discovered in people who have been involved in that? So he was basically saying to them, we have some, okay, correlational links. And of course, as we all know, correlation isn't causation. And he was saying, but other links are not at all correlational. And we do have correlation. You've got to ask that basic question, what is causing what? And he warns them later in the recording, you know, he says, you've got to be careful about correlation and causation. And he said, you've got to avoid the sin of overselling. He said, nobody can want to do that. You don't want to do that, and certainly we don't want to do that.

[Heather Radke]

And yet that's exactly what they did.

[Latif Nasser]

Literally what happened?

[Mitch Saunders]

Oh yeah, we had many, many conversations.

[Heather Radke]

And we talked to Mitch, John's friend.

[Mitch Saunders]

About all this arguments, if you will, like, what's the actual nature of the research that's gonna happen here?

[Heather Radke]

They'd argue about the research, how John.

[Mitch Saunders]

Interpreted it, and constantly challenged whatever he was looking at, you know, and how.

[Heather Radke]

Did he respond to that?

[Mitch Saunders]

He'd take it in.

[Heather Radke]

Would he get defensive or would he just kinda like nod along?

[Mitch Saunders]

He would just kinda nod along, just do his. He'd listen, take it in, but then go ahead and do whatever he wanted to do.

[Heather Radke]

Mitch said that with John, there are.

[Mitch Saunders]

Many things that you can't shake loose. And, you know, that was part of John's genius and shadow.

[Heather Radke]

And so through the 90s, when John was going around saying that self esteem was this social vaccine, he was doing it seemingly knowingly on the basis of nothing.

[Matt Kilty]

And so what would happen was that in the early 2000s, the very shaky foundation of the self esteem movement started to collapse.

[Jennifer Crocker]

You know, I was more or less oblivious to the self esteem movement.

[Heather Radke]

I mean, you're like, you weren't watching tv.

[Matt Kilty]

So one person that we talked to was this researcher named Jennifer Crocker.

[Jennifer Crocker]

But I knew that people worried about it. People would say, well, yeah, low self esteem really is a problem because you can't do anything about your situation until your self esteem is high. And I'm like, I don't think the data are consistent with that idea.

[Matt Kilty]

So Jennifer basically spent her entire academic.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Career, my first publication on self esteem, studying self esteem, probably 1983, around there.

[Heather Radke]

And Jennifer told us about how in 2003 there were these psychologists and a bunch of other researchers who pulled together.

[Jennifer Crocker]

A very long and I think really excellent overview of what is the value, what is the benefit of self esteem.

[Heather Radke]

They went through decades of whatever research was published, hundreds of studies, to look.

[Jennifer Crocker]

At what are the differences between high and low self esteem people. And what you see is that, you know, self esteem is correlated with grades.

[Heather Radke]

In school, it's correlated with how attractive people find you.

[Jennifer Crocker]

But these are tiny associations.

[Matt Kilty]

So basically it turned out a lot of what had been claimed in that task force report was just really not true. Like all the claims that they were making about self esteem being a social vaccine, that it was a cure for drug use, alcohol use, crime, violence, teen pregnancy, poor academic performance. This research showed that whether you had high or low self esteem, it wasn't causing these problems.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Right, right.

[Mitch Saunders]

Huh.

[Matt Kilty]

And so like, it's weird cause like.

[Latif Nasser]

Even though you're telling me the science of this and that it's like the, this, this huge study, like as I'm hearing this, I'm like, like the story logic of it holds so hard.

[Heather Radke]

It, it makes such intuitive sense.

[Latif Nasser]

It makes such intuitive sense that it's like, it's like, why wouldn't a kid be better if they, why wouldn't my relationships be better? Like I, I, it's so hard to like dislodge it even when you're literally telling me it's wrong.

[Heather Radke]

Okay, well, I can tell you one thing that the research showed about a meaningful difference between people with high self esteem and people with low self esteem.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Which is that high self esteem people think they're smarter, more successful, more attractive, better liked, more popular than low self esteem people think they are in spite of the fact that they're not really any different from low self esteem people in these objective ways.

[Heather Radke]

So basically for people with high self.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Esteem, life feels good to them.

[Heather Radke]

They're generally happier.

[Latif Nasser]

That seems good. That's like the biggest tuna of all of them. That's like the most important thing of everything.

[Heather Radke]

Well, okay, what Jennifer would say is.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Right, I think there's nothing wrong with being happy.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah, like, of course, sure, being happy, that's meaningful, right.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Our emotions are central to how we experience our lives. But that's not all there is to the story because there is a downside to high self esteem.

[Latif Nasser]

Which is what?

[Heather Radke]

Well, the research shows that people with really high self esteem tend to defend.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Their positive views of themselves.

[Heather Radke]

And so you see high self esteem.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Associated with things like defensiveness, aggression.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah, totally. They found that in education, sometimes self esteem programs produce actually like complacency, reduced effort, resistance to any sort of critical negative feedback. And then there's Jennifer's work.

[Jennifer Crocker]

For, I don't know, 10 or 15 years, I was really interested in what people base their self esteem on. And we found that pretty much everybody based their self esteem on something.

[Matt Kilty]

So Jennifer did this study at the University of Michigan with students who were.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Intending to apply to graduate school.

[Matt Kilty]

And what they found was that for the students who tied their self worth to high academic achievement, when they got rejected from a grad school, their self esteem obviously went down.

[Jennifer Crocker]

And it would, for some of the students, it would actually stay down for several days until something happened to kind of shake them out of that funk.

[Heather Radke]

And for many of these students, they were showing more signs of depression, whereas.

[Matt Kilty]

The kids who weren't tying their self esteem to that academic achievement then when they didn't get into the programs, they like could weather the storm.

[Jennifer Crocker]

And then the other thing that was really interesting to me is that the students whose self esteem was really based on their academic success, when we asked them, well, what would it mean for you or about you to get into graduate school, they would write things like, oh, it would prove once and for all that I am brilliant, I am great, that I am successful. It would prove something about me.

[Heather Radke]

And Jennifer. This kind of like shows you the fatal flaw of self esteem.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Yeah, it's just that if I have earned high self esteem today by having some success in my life, then have I earned low self esteem tomorrow? If I have a failure, like if.

[Heather Radke]

I don't succeed at something, does that actually mean that I am worthless? That I don't have value?

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Heather Radke]

And, and she told us there was this prominent psychologist in the 90s and 2000s who went so far as to.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Say self esteem is the worst sickness known to humankind. Because when you succeed you're great, but when you fail, you're shit.

[Heather Radke]

So in 2004 there's this big New York Times Sunday magazine piece called the Trouble with Self Esteem kind of Tearing Down John in the Task Force and the Promise and Dream of self. In 2005 there's an op ed piece in the LA Times basically doing the same thing. There's also this big Scientific American article called Exploding the Self Esteem Myth.

[Matt Kilty]

Yeah, this is like when self esteem becomes a joke.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah, like the sort of every kid gets a trophy, participation, medals.

[Latif Nasser]

Right.

[Matt Kilty]

This is when all of that starts to become like very prevalent in how we think about self esteem.

[Heather Radke]

And there's actually online, there's all these published emails that, that John and some of his friends in the movement were sending to one another in the wake of all of this.

[Matt Kilty]

It's kind of heartbreaking.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah, it's like John is sending these emails, they're written in all caps and he's saying there needs to be a point by point rebuttal of the Times piece and that they needed to fight back and quote, take on this enormous historic life saving task.

[Latif Nasser]

But that just makes John seem like he's really fighting alone on an island. Like he's like the Japanese soldier fighting on the island, like after the war is over kind of thing.

[Heather Radke]

I think that's fair. I mean he never really.

[Matt Kilty]

Never stopped fighting.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah, he never really stops fighting. I mean, there's a 2009 interview with San Jose Inside, which is, you know, his birthplace, San Jose.

[Latif Nasser]

Right.

[Heather Radke]

And in it he's Quoted as saying so now all over the world, the role of self esteem is widely recognized and valued. I think it's really proven to be all we thought it was and more. Which feels so like it feels delusional to read that.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, that does sound delusional.

[Heather Radke]

And I think Heather and I reporting this story and like learning more and more about Jon is the sort of like it almost. It feels sort of desperate in a way. And I think it's because for John, who grew up in this very strict Catholic family whose Catholicism felt like this enormous sort of weight, this constraint, this thing that made him feel fundamentally flawed and broken and bad, like to shed all of that through these ideas of self esteem was like so vital and important to his sense of self, to his sort of well being.

[Matt Kilty]

I mean, do you feel like you are his good friend? Do you feel like he, like, I don't know, like he was a person very committed to personal growth. Do you feel like he ended up being the man he wanted to be?

[Mitch Saunders]

I'd say yes and no. I think there was a lot that he was proud of and rightly so, and yet there was a lot they would have said is undone. And I'm pretty sure he was disappointed that he never realize some of the levels that I think he thought he was capable of. I mean he got to hang out with Bobby Kennedy, you know, I think he thought his life should be something like that. You know, that level of influence.

[Matt Kilty]

Do you think he had high self esteem?

[Mitch Saunders]

I think his own self esteem and the fragility of it was. That's one of his struggles for his entire life. He's got all this power, all this influence, all this accomplishment under twice valedictorian, just constantly amassing successes and yet there always being more to do than every time. He'd see his mom, she'd treat him the same way. I bet she did when he was 5.

[Heather Radke]

And he'd come crumbling down.

[Mitch Saunders]

No, but he'd just be annoyed and you know, frustrated. His most common trigger would be to get angry. Each of us get triggered in different ways and his would boy, he could erupt in no time.

[Matt Kilty]

How do you think he felt about how he was treating the people around him when he was angry like that?

[Mitch Saunders]

Oh, big blind spots.

[Matt Kilty]

Oh really?

[Mitch Saunders]

Yeah, yeah, he'd feel bad about it, especially if somebody would say something. He was very, very good at cleaning up his messes. But he could be very embarrassing. He'd go out to dinner and kind of post heart attack. He was very concerned about what he was eating and if somebody brought a dish that was full of cream or something like that, he'd rage at the waiter or waitress, you're trying to kill me or something. Just, you know, he'd lose it at times. And again, I think a lot of that was due to him being on this journey of trying to be his real self, but also being in the public eye all the time.

[Heather Radke]

And Mitch told us about how another thing that John really struggled with throughout his life was just with relationships.

[Mitch Saunders]

He never really. Don't even need to add the word really. He never developed an intimate one to one relationship that was just his. And every. So once in a while I'd get a call from him that he was just, you know, almost suicidal just because he longed for intimacy, closeness. And the best he could get were these one night stands.

[Matt Kilty]

That's so sad.

[Heather Radke]

And Mitch said there was this point in their friendship where Mitch told him.

[Mitch Saunders]

Like, look, how about you become a member of our family? And that was our contract.

[Matt Kilty]

Huh? What did that look like?

[Mitch Saunders]

Oh, you know, my kids grew up with Uncle John around all the time. We did a lot of things together, vacationed. He would be at our house, God, two, if not three weekends a month, especially when the session was out. But even when session was in, he'd prioritize spending time with our family. His experience of being loved and being close to people came from these extended family relations. There were three families that he would sort of cycle through, but he never had his own intimate one on one relationship. There were very few opportunities for him just to be seen and appreciated for just being alive, not being an instrument. When he got sick, he'd come stay with us. Towards the end of his life, he actually stayed in our spare bedroom for several weeks before I could, you know, before I found an appropriate place for him when he was really, really on the way out.

[Matt Kilty]

Mitch Sundays this was 2014 and it was when John was diagnosed with a really aggressive form of cancer and he.

[Mitch Saunders]

Wanted to be back home. So we got him back home, got him on hospice.

[Heather Radke]

And would you go over to his house to see him like often or.

[Mitch Saunders]

Yeah, every day. I was, I was with him every day, basically.

[Heather Radke]

And what was that like just to be there every day with him?

[Mitch Saunders]

Well, I don't know if you've ever been with a person who's dying, but it's.

[Heather Radke]

I haven't. Not that intimately.

[Mitch Saunders]

Yeah. He spent most of the time just being there. They're sleeping, you know, not a lot of energy. The last few days of his life, the thing that we worked on together was he let me know that he was afraid. He'd given a lot of thought to the actual dying experience. And he was deathly afraid of dying by asphyxiation. When people take their last breaths, especially if they're conscious, it can be very hard to actually let go and not take another breath. He was terrified. So we'd practice. We'd take like five or 10 minutes of just him practicing how to let there be longer and longer periods before he would take an inhale and to have the sort of. To be, in his words, to stay in charge of his own reactions. So fear didn't take over.

[Matt Kilty]

And Mitch says it was in late May of 2014.

[Mitch Saunders]

There were a group of his closest friends who were present around. We all knew it was getting close to the time. And John, he insisted that he, this.

[Matt Kilty]

Is the guy who, in his 30s, when he went to Esalen, was terrified of being naked when everyone was going into those pools, turned around and left. Because he just felt so ashamed and humiliated about his body.

[Mitch Saunders]

He wanted to go out finally, everybody seeing and holding and blessing him naked. And so the morning he died, I was right there holding his hands, holding one hand, his friend, Dr. Also friend of mine, holding the other hand. And as he took his last breath, I, you know, reached down into his ear and said, you, you can do it. He took that last breath. And that was. That was.

[Matt Kilty]

That was May 24, 2014. And I. I have found myself thinking, just sort of thinking about what John did and what parts of it are still with us now.

[Michael Pettit]

I do think the self esteem movement has had a cultural effect.

[Matt Kilty]

Right again, Professor Michael Pettit.

[Michael Pettit]

I definitely think a kind of psychologized self talk is much more prevalent and available now than before. My employer sends emails all the time about my mental well being and offering, you know, here's a meditation class, you know, on campus, this type thing. So the language of mental health and mental wellness is even more prominent than ever before.

[Will Storr]

Yeah. And I think the deeper idea is that everything you're feeling is valid.

[Matt Kilty]

Author Will Storr I always sort of.

[Will Storr]

Think about this stuff, Carl Rogers and Vasco when I'm watching Real. Cause one of my guilty pleasures is reality television. And when you're watching reality tv, like when you're thinking of like a below deck or Big Brother and somebody behaves terribly, their excuse very often is, well, I'm just being myself. I'm just saying what I think. I'm just, you know, living my truth. Yeah, living my truth. And that's still very Powerful idea in our culture in the West.

[Matt Kilty]

But I think maybe the biggest, maybe even the most important legacy of John's work is actually, we're ready for that.

[Heather Radke]

Okay.

[Matt Kilty]

In the schools.

[Heather Radke]

All right.

[Matt Kilty]

Good morning, boys and girls. Good morning, miss.

[Heather Radke]

Finally, last year, Heather and I went to school in Queens. PS229. I feel like I should also say hello to see how psychology gets used in classrooms today.

[Matt Kilty]

And today, if self esteem is taught in classrooms at all, it's pretty tiny. And instead, are you ready to do some sel? Yes. What's in the classrooms across the country is this thing called sel. Social Emotional Learning. All right, boys and girls, today we're going to be doing a lesson called let's make it Fair. Does anyone know what the word fair means? We were in a class of first graders.

[Children in classroom]

To be nice.

[Matt Kilty]

Say it again.

[Children in classroom]

To be nice.

[Matt Kilty]

You want to be nice to people? Okay, good.

[Children in classroom]

What else to share?

[Matt Kilty]

You want to share with people? Absolutely, yes.

[Heather Radke]

And so when we were there with.

[Matt Kilty]

These first graders, so we're going to be looking at all different situations on fair and what it means to be fair.

[Heather Radke]

They were being asked to answer questions.

[Children in classroom]

Like, it is not fair because the other kid is not sharing with the.

[Heather Radke]

When do you feel like something isn't fair?

[Children in classroom]

I was like, can I have some tips? And then she was like, no. How does it feel being fair to other people?

[Heather Radke]

When someone's being fair is what.

[Matt Kilty]

Tell me about it is kind.

[Heather Radke]

How's it feel when someone's not being fair? How should we talk about these feelings?

[Children in classroom]

Or like, one time when I was.

[Matt Kilty]

At the mall, we also visited a classroom of fifth graders.

[Children in classroom]

I saw people, like, kicking a boy.

[Matt Kilty]

Who were doing a lesson on bullying.

[Heather Radke]

How do you recognize bullying? How do you call out bullying? What do you do when you. When you see bullying?

[Matt Kilty]

You know, there's this thing now they.

[Children in classroom]

Call, like, an upstander is someone who actually helps the situation.

[Matt Kilty]

Upstander.

[Latif Nasser]

Upstand. Oh, my gosh. That's like. They talk about that. I know.

[Matt Kilty]

They totally invented that since we were kids.

[Heather Radke]

But I think what this is is a continuation of what John was trying to do by pulling psychology into education.

[Latif Nasser]

It does feel like a continuation. Yeah.

[Heather Radke]

But whereas John was focused on the self, like self value, self worth, self esteem, what's happening now is focused on the other.

[Matt Kilty]

And now this is fair because everyone will be getting what they need.

[Heather Radke]

It's about understanding other people's needs.

[Children in classroom]

The things you need, the things you.

[Heather Radke]

Need, communicating your own needs.

[Matt Kilty]

What else could he say?

[Children in classroom]

Stop being mean.

[Heather Radke]

To him, it's about identifying emotions, communicating.

[Children in classroom]

Emotions, or just, or just walk away.

[Heather Radke]

It's group morning meetings. It's conflict resolution. It's learning how to make I statements like I feel blank.

[Matt Kilty]

It's also like, don't bully. What is fairness? Like, there's a kind of like we're in a community of people element of it.

[Latif Nasser]

I like that.

[Matt Kilty]

But so thank you. One of the kind of amazing things about this is how weirdly Jennifer.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Well, we should be careful about the kind of praise that we give the.

[Matt Kilty]

Researcher who spent her entire career looking at self esteem kind of wound up in the same place for herself as like the schools have.

[Latif Nasser]

What do you mean?

[Matt Kilty]

So then what is. I mean. Well, so I asked Jennifer, I was like, you know, being a kid in the 90s, I still have this question of like, but how do you feel good? It is good to feel good about yourself. How does one find self worth in a way that's healthy?

[Jennifer Crocker]

I think by not worrying about it.

[Heather Radke]

What does that look like?

[Jennifer Crocker]

So am I a person of worth and value? It's not a helpful question. It just doesn't do anything for you to ask that question or for other people. And a much better or more helpful question is how do I want to be right now? How might I support other people, for example? But really what contribution, what thing that's larger than me is important to me.

[Matt Kilty]

So she told us about one of the studies she did. It was looking at roommates, college roommates, two roommates who didn't know each other.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Before the start of their first year in college. And we asked each roommate a whole bunch of questions about their relationship over time and their self esteem. And what we found was that when roommates were responsive to the. So I'm gonna call them roommate A and roommate B because they're same sex. It gets confusing. So when roommate A is responsive to roommate B's needs, roommate B notices and is responsive in return.

[Matt Kilty]

And then roommate A is responsive again to roommate B. And then roommate B is responsive again to roommate A.

[Jennifer Crocker]

So you can get this virtuous cycle going on in relationships where when people are focused not on their own needs, but on being responsive to other people's needs, other people notice it, they appreciate it, their esteem for the other person goes up and that ends up having, it's not a huge impact, but nonetheless having a significant impact on the self esteem of the person who was responsive in the first place. So the way to boost your self esteem in a way that in my view is sustainable over time and Good for the world is to focus on the well being of other people or to organizations or institutions or things you really care about.

[Heather Radke]

It's so funny because I think like that's basically what John was after.

[Matt Kilty]

I know.

[Heather Radke]

Like if you could get people to understand they had self worth, self value, raise their self esteem, they would do all these things for each other.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Yeah. It's just that self esteem is the wrong place to focus on because you don't have to have high self esteem to make a difference.

[Heather Radke]

And with that, I feel that I have clearly been vindicated and validated.

[Matt Kilty]

No, you haven't, Matt.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah, the whole point is not to try and feel good about yourself.

[Matt Kilty]

That's not what she's saying.

[Heather Radke]

Yeah, she's talking about needs. Seeing needs, that's that other people's needs. Like, well, needing to be told that you did a great job jumping in a cold lake.

[Latif Nasser]

Wow, we're still here. So you both now have interpreted this Rorschach thing that she said as meaning that you're right and you've been right all along. And what was the point of any of this?

[Matt Kilty]

I mean, I'm. Jen's convinced me. I just feel like you're being incredibly. You're. You're being very resistant to just sort of a basic level of human kindness.

[Heather Radke]

Okay, fine. Then I will suggest that we end this episode on a positive note.

[Latif Nasser]

And what's the positive note?

[Heather Radke]

Great job, everybody.

[Latif Nasser]

This episode was reported by Heather Radke and Matt Kilty. It was produced by Matt Kilty with additional sound design by Jeremy Bloom and ed by Pat Walters. Original music by Ben Batchelder, voice acting by David Gable and Dan Fink and fact checking by Angeli Mercado. It was mixed by Jeremy Bloom. Special thanks to Charlotte Engrave, as well as the teachers and students at PS229 in Queens and our self esteem of the 90s kids.

[Children in classroom]

My name is Noah and I'm five. My name is Fievel and I'm from West Angeles, California. I'm teddy and I'm 10 years old.

[Matt Kilty]

Gus.

[Children in classroom]

I am 8 years old. My name is Arlo and I'm 6 years old. My name is Eleanor and I'm 6 years old. My name is Phil and I have. And I'm five years old. My name is Hawk. My age is five. My name is William and I am eight years old.

[Jennifer Crocker]

Is there anything else you'd get a.

[Heather Radke]

Gold medal for, Bud? Among your friends, among your classmates and stuff? What else?

[Children in classroom]

Hiding.

[Heather Radke]

Hiding?

[Jennifer Crocker]

Yeah.

[Children in classroom]

Yeah, I'm like a really good hider and hiding other things.

[Latif Nasser]

That's it from us. And listening and responding to listeners needs. We are gonna post another episode in this feed next week. Catch you then. Bye bye bye.

[Heather Radke]

Hi, I'm Alyssa Mahoney from Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania. Here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nassar. Soren Wheeler is our Executive editor. Sarah Sambach is our Executive Director. Our Managing Editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our Director of Sound Design. Our staff includes Jeremy Bloom, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nanasambandan, Matt Kiel T. Mona Macacre, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sara Khari, Rebecca Rand, Anisa Vitza, Ariane Wack, Molly Webster and Jessica Young. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, Angeli Mercado, and Sophie Sami. Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is.

[Matt Kilty]

Provided by the Simons foundation foundation and.

[Heather Radke]

The John Templeton Foundation.

[Matt Kilty]

Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by.

[Heather Radke]

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.