← The Nerve with Maureen Callahan
The Nerve with Maureen Callahan
Looming Suspicions in Guthrie Search, the DARK Psychology of the Reiner Case, & Origins of Parricide
01:11:45
Maureen Callahan is joined by Professor Sam Vaknin for a disturbing, deep dive into parricide and the psychological forces that can turn children against their parents. Together they examine how rebellion and resentment can quietly build inside families, how negative identity formation in adolescence and the pressure to uphold a perfect family image can lead children to erase themselves, how entitlement, personality disorders, money, and power factor into these dynamics, and how these patterns connect to the murders of Rob and Michele Reiner. Professor Vaknin also explains why estrangement and “no contact” have become culturally normalized, why parents increasingly find themselves presumed guilty by default, and how perpetrators of parricide often enter a dissociative blackout. Maureen then turns to Troublemaker mail on Peter Attia’s vile messages to Jeffrey Epstein and why viewers say CBS should cut ties with him, Deepak Chopra's alarming connection and disturbing correspondence w...
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- [00:45]
Maureen Callahan
Hello and welcome to your Tuesday edition of the Nerve. I am your host Maureen Callahan and today a Nerve favorite, a real provocateur. Profess. Professor Sam Voxnin is with us now. We spoke to him earlier in January, but we decided to hold this interview. There was a Nick Reiner arraignment date that got pushed back and so we thought this might do better there. But then the Savannah Guthrie case exploded. And as we know, based on Ashley Banfield's impeccable reporting and she's been on the nerve to discuss it, law enforcement has been looking at Savannah Guthrie's brother in law and potentially sister as prime suspects in the disappearance of their mother, 84 year old Nancy Guthrie. If this turns out to be the case, we are looking at yet another very high profile case of intimate family violence. You know, it was what made the O.J. case so shocking. It seems as though it's like a complete rarity, like an outlier of a crime. And as we began speaking with Sam, you know, I preface this with him by talking about how it's always been a motif in literature, in drama. I mean, you go back to the ancient Greeks, you know, the second characters who show up in the Old Testament, Cain and Abel. So it's been with us, it seems, since the birth of humanity. So Sam is joining us to talk about this and again, you think a conversation with Sam is going to go one way and he brings you along to the most fascinating back roads, intellectually, philosophically, spiritually, morally. So we think you're going to really enjoy this conversation as much as we did. It's a conversation you really won't hear anywhere else but on the Nerve. And then after that we are going to do some troublemaker feedback just to lighten things up a bit Here we go. Are you looking for a healthier snack that also tastes great? Then give Masa a try. Masa chips are made with just three real ingredients. Organic corn, sea salt, and 100% grass fed beef tallow. No seed oils, no fillers, and no mystery chemicals. Unlike regular chips, Masa will leave you feeling satisfied and energized, not bloated or sluggish. And because they're much more filling, you won't find yourself mindlessly snacking and still feeling hungry afterward. Personally, my favorite flavor is the original, but I also really love the lime and the white. The blue, the cabo and the churro are also delicious. If you're ready to give Masa a try, go to masachips.com maureen and use code MAUREEN for 25% off your first order. Or simply click the link in the video description or scan the QR code to claim this delicious offer. And if you prefer shopping in person, Masa is now available nationwide at your local sprouts supermarket. So stop by and pick up a couple of bags before they're gone. Bigger story in Hollywood and the entertainment media right now than the shocking double homicide of Rob and Michelle Reiner, allegedly at the hands of their son, 32 year old Nick Reiner. But as we learn more, and we will continue to learn more, the question will inevitably become just how shocking was it really? Or were the family dynamics such that a tragedy like this seemed inevitable? We at the Nerve are here to have the conversations that no one else is having. And this story opens up a dark but fascinating topic, one as old as mankind itself. The phenomenon of parricide, that being the murder of one or both parents by their own child. And who better to help us understand this darkest of human aberrations but the one and only Professor Sam Voxnin joining us now. Sam, welcome back to the Nerve.
- [05:38]
Professor Sam Voxnin
It's great to open the year with you, but I'm not sure what you've just said, whether I should take it as a compliment or a major insult.
- [05:47]
Maureen Callahan
Oh, you know, it's so funny. We were talking to Nancy Grace not, not long ago and she said the same thing I said, who better to talk about the, the nuances of this trial with? And she was like, are you saying I have a dark heart? No such thing. No such thing. But Sam, you know, I've been thinking about this since, since the story broke. And, you know, I think back to the very first family of the Bible of the Old Testament, Cain and Abel, the first siblings. And it's fratricide. So it's not parricide, but it's related. The killing of Abel by Cain. Why is this such a narrative strain? I mean, you go back to the ancient myths of Oedipus, who killed his father, married his mother. It is throughout at least three Shakespeare works. Hamlet, Macbeth, Titus Andronicus. What is it in. In the darker heart of humanity that can give us any insight into this phenomenon?
- [06:56]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Killing our family members is normal. It is not killing them that is abnormal. In the same.
- [07:04]
Maureen Callahan
And you were worried. I thought you had a dark heart.
- [07:08]
Professor Sam Voxnin
As dark as they come. I think what I'm trying to say is that when we look at the animal kingdom, killing your parents is the only way to move ahead. It's the only way to climb the social ladder. Social upward mobility depends on killing your parents.
- [07:27]
Maureen Callahan
You know, in what species is this most?
- [07:29]
Professor Sam Voxnin
All in all, really. Especially, especially the more advanced the species is. For example, primates and apes, great apes and so on and so forth. Chimpanzees and. But also among lions and tigers. In most of the genera of the animal kingdom, tarry seed is very common, especially patriceed. Especially killing the father.
- [07:57]
Maureen Callahan
And what is that about?
- [07:59]
Professor Sam Voxnin
It's about making place for the new generation. It's about removing obstacles, as I said, to upward mobility. It's about establishing hierarchy. It's about gaining the favors of the female species of the. The female of the species. Gaining access, actually. And so it's normal. The normal thing in the animal kingdom is to kill your parents. It is only with the advent, with the advent of civilization that we have created restraints and constraints and inhibitions and laws and regulations and you know, self control and self discipline. Morris. And ethics and norms and the Bible and you name it. It's. This is a veneer. This is a very thin veneer. It's about what, 5,000 years old maybe. And so if you look at it from a statistical point of view, our behavior as a species where we refrain from killing our parents is a very, very late addition to the. To evolution and highly highly aberrant or highly abnormal in the big picture of things.
- [09:07]
Maureen Callahan
So Sam, what's the evolutionary adaptation that caused mankind to shun parricide to. If you're saying this is actually in our nature, what is the evolutionary benefit of not killing the father or the mother?
- [09:25]
Professor Sam Voxnin
It takes a long time to raise a human child. And if parents know that they are about to be assassinated once the job is over, then they will simply not engage in it. From the point of view of the species, it behooves us to not get Rid of our parents, at least not violently. And, well, you know, there are other ways. And the reason is we want to motivate them to parent. We want to motivate them to act as parents. Now, the human cub, the human baby requires an inordinate amount of time, according to some scholars. 31 years, maybe 25 years, according to Twenger and Campbell, and at the very least, 18 years, according to most legal systems. So it takes decades to raise the human baby and bring it to the level of an adult in some cases. In majority of cases, this fails. But okay, so it requires a lot of investment. Now, how would we motivate people to invest in raising up children? We would guarantee them that they will stay alive having done so. This is not the case with chimpanzees, with horses, with zebras, with elephants. I mean, they emerge, they are born, and within days they are self sufficient. Really, there's no need for parenting.
- [10:48]
Maureen Callahan
We think of elephants as a very sort of peaceful species. It's a matriarchal species. We see them in herds. We see these animals grieve when a child dies or when one of the tribe dies. We've seen it with great apes. We've seen them lined up looking at the body of another ape with shock and despair on their faces. So this all really runs counter to sort of the messaging we get that a parricide is an event that is so rare as to be truly shocking. You know, there was a period of history, I forget, maybe it was the Middle Ages. I do forget where it. Parricide was considered the absolute worst crime one could commit.
- [11:48]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Roman. Roman Republic.
- [11:50]
Maureen Callahan
Thank you.
- [11:51]
Professor Sam Voxnin
In the Roman Republic, parricide was the only offense punishable by death. Really, the only capital offense was parasite, not even murder. So this was during the Roman Empire. And take, for example, the stories of the Green brothers from Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel are twice abandoned by their mother and rescued by the father. They actually gravitate towards the father's cabin. That's how they come across the. The witch and her sweet gingerbread home and what have you. And so the Grimm brothers captured this, this dilemma of this conflict, incipient conflict between children and their parents. The Grimm brothers did not illustrate the family as this ideal environment or idyllic environment, but they actually depicted the family as a kind of a fight fight club or an arena where children contest the parents. Parents abandon children to die. Witches intervene in some ways, and then the children kill the witch. The witch is also a maternal figure. If you Have a close look at it because she offers shelter and she offers food and so on. Then the father is remote and you have to work very hard to get to the father. Although the father is a protector figure, there's a duck, a talking duck that helps them to get along, get there. In short, the family is a nightmare. In the stories of the Green Brothers, the family is a nightmare and a veritable nightmare. And of course you mentioned the Oedipus complex, the Electra complex, the adjacent complex.
- [13:47]
Maureen Callahan
I mean, what's the latter that you just referenced?
- [13:50]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Some of these, some of these complexes are less known. So some of them involve sibling rivalry, some of them involve sibling collusion against parents and so on. There's a panoply of complexes in psychoanalytic literature which describe the inevitable violence between family members. Violence, lethal violence. And so I think, I think we, we tend to ignore the reality of this at our peril. You see, relationships between family members, especially parents and children, are by far the most intense. Not only are they most intense, but there is a relation. The relationship is reminiscent of creator creation interactions. The parents are creators, you know. Yes, in the same way we rebel against God, like Nietzsche said, God is dead. The same way we rebel against God, we rebel against these divine infallible figures of our early childhood. We want them dead because the alternative is to never become. If you put the parents together, that's who you are. Essentially, big parts of you are nothing but the internalization and interjection of your parents. Your parents are a huge part of you. If you are emotionally regulated and stable and boundaried and mature and everything, then you can cope with it somehow. You learn to identify the parts of you that are not exactly you, that are your parents. And you learn to put a firewall between these parts and the rest of you. But what if you are dysregulated? What if your internal defenses are weak? What if you're mentally ill? What if you are, you know, then you need to get rid of these parts. These parts become overweening, domineering, tyrannical, and you need to get rid of these parts. And sometimes the only way to get rid of them is to physically kill your parents. On very rare occasions, well, not so rare actually. About 2 to 4% of, of crimes committed involve family members.
- [16:12]
Maureen Callahan
This is interesting because there's two things you're hitting on that I wanted to talk to you about. One, you said it's a killing of the creators. And to me this is one of the most self destructive acts one could commit. You are killing the people who literally created you. And it seems like a murder of one's own soul to commit such a crime. And I also wonder if there is any data on such intra family violence when it comes to adult children or adolescent children who. Who are living with the parents. It seems that that close. Close proximity or living in the house beyond an age that seems emotionally healthy is potentially a contributing factor.
- [17:07]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Paris Seed is intimately linked to adolescence and the fact that in adolescence there is a phenomenon known as identity diffusion. Yes, identity is not settled yet. There's a lot of experimentation, a lot of angst about who I am and what's the meaning of my life and where am I going and so on. A lot of anxiety and depression in this period of life and a lot.
- [17:35]
Maureen Callahan
Of individuating from the parents rebellion.
- [17:38]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Yes, there is what we call negative identity formation where you define yourself in contradistinction in opposition to the parental figure. You say I am never going to be like my mother or I am going to be someone who is the opposite of my father or whatever. None of this works by the way. So there is a lot of inherent tension that is innate, that takes place in the adolescent's mind. That is very often not evident and not observable. Be that as it may, the statistics are very clear. The vast majority of parasites are committed by minors who live with their parents. Really, we're talking well over 90%. Teenage boys are the most likely to commit parasite. Teenage girls are far less likely. The victims are usually parents who are somewhat strict or rigid or pillars of the community or perfectionists, have high expectations, impose their wishes, fantasies and demands on the child. Where the interaction is pretty unidirectional. The parent dictates, the child obeys. And so I don't want to go into the family dynamics of the Rhinos, but I would not be shocked or surprised if we were to find out that the father and possibly also the mother were a lot less amicable and chubby than they appear to be and a lot more strict and rigid and demanding. Then you know, this is very common in these. And so it's a. It's a parasit, is an act of rebellion. When we interview these killers, they say I wanted to be different. I wanted to have a different life. There's a lot of envy, a lot of rage feeling or feeling of extreme inadequacy which is fostered by the parents. The inadequacy is fostered. So there is a process known as internalization. Internalized bed object. The parents broadcast to the child you're a failure. Ah, you're inadequate, you're imperfect. You should be fixed. You know you're broken, you should be fixed, and so on and so forth. And the child internalizes this external view and render is render. This view is or his or her own. So the child kind of appropriates the parental point of view and we call it an internalized bed object. This used to be called the primitive superego, by the way. And so the child is full of rage, full of anger and resentment and envies the parental figures because they're perceived throughout life to be perfect, adequate, accomplished. And this leads to this combination, this unholy combination between rage and envy and an attempt to break out and create a different life. Fear, a sense of being controlled from the outside, an external locus of control. An interpretation of the parental behavior is abuse, which is not counterfactual. It's quite true. It is abusive.
- [21:02]
Maureen Callahan
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- [23:19]
Maureen Callahan
So to. Not. Not to. We're not talking specifically about the Reiners here whatsoever, but what did strike me about that, that crime and the scene itself was the. The savagery. It was a butcher. A butchering really. They were. They were stabbed multiple times, both slit across the throats, which to me was a metaphor for shutting them up. I don't want to hear anything anymore. It seemed as though this was a 32 year old man living at home who had been somewhat infantilized, you know, brought along as a third wheel to a Hollywood party full of very successful, accomplished, famous people. And you talk about the difference because, you know, the reputation that the Reiners do have in Hollywood is of very convivial, you know, pillars of the community, all of that. I would imagine in cases of parricide. Again, I'm not talking about this one specifically. That dynamic you just described where the outward facing reputation is one of near perfection. What is going on inside the house is perceived as the child radically different to the point where no one would ever believe what that child has to say.
- [24:31]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Yeah, this is a name, we call it pseudo hostile and pseudo mutual families. Families which are internally hostile where the dynamics internally involve antagonism and conflict and competition and envy and rage. But outwardly the families present mutuality, a united front of cohesion and love and compassion and empathy and affection and you know, so this contrast and this, this is known as pseudo mutual, pseudo hostile family. But I think I don't want to sleep the viewers, at least not on your show, you know.
- [25:14]
Maureen Callahan
Of course not.
- [25:15]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Yeah. Right. So I want to make clear that I'm describing one type of killer, one type of parasite. Parasite, Parasite. And there's another type.
- [25:29]
Maureen Callahan
Yes.
- [25:29]
Professor Sam Voxnin
So the type that I've described is the most common. These are people. These are teenagers without a criminal record. The highly pro social. They are loners, but they are people pleasers. They are Very mellow and obscurous and obasant and, and so on and so forth. They may abuse substances, but they do it in order to escape reality, which they find intolerable and unbearable. Deep inside, they're good people, truly good people. And they reach a point of a breaking point because they're weak, constitutionally weak. They reach a breaking point and they kill the parents.
- [26:10]
Maureen Callahan
Sam, what you just said, though, I need you to go a little deeper on that because I think people are going to have a very hard time squaring that. You just said they are fundamentally good people.
- [26:19]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Yes, well, that's, that's one group.
- [26:21]
Maureen Callahan
But, but let's, let's get, let's unpack that just a little, little bit. Please explain how someone could be described as a fundamentally good person who kills their parents.
- [26:34]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Even good people commit crimes and even good people do evil deeds. Everyone is a breaking point. Circumstances, the environment, interactions with other people, expectations, social pressure, cult pressures, Cultural. Cultural context. We, we all have a boiling point. We all have a breaking point. We, we, we. We like to believe that it's not true. Like, if I were to ask you tell me, I would never kill another person. I would never murder someone. I'm sorry, that would be counterfactual. That would be, that would be. That's untrue. So what is happening with his children? These are children. These are teenagers. What's happening with them? They experience the parental environment, as I said, intolerable, unbearable, overbearing, abusive, domineering, threatening. They need to escape. But because they lack resources, they lack. They were withal. They are not efficacious. They don't know how to accomplish things. They are highly dependent on other people for the regulation of their sense of self worth. They derive their identity from other people. They have what I call a hive mind because they are so broken and so damaged to start with. The only method of escape they can conceive of is to get rid of these gods who are tormenting them. So there is a discrepancy between the interpretation of the situation, the interpretation of the environment, of the interpersonal relationships, and what's really happening. These people, these teenagers, are immured and immersed in fantasy. The fantasy is very dark and very nightmarish and they believe the only way to wake up is to kill the. The people who they identify as the sources of the fantasy, the sources of a nightmare.
- [28:45]
Maureen Callahan
I'm sorry, is there any data on what a parricidal offender thinks is going to happen once they actually do murder the parents? You know, you're talking about this fantasy that they will be free when the truth is they're going to spend the rest of their lives either in a mental institution or behind bars. So what. What is going on in the mind at that moment?
- [29:12]
Professor Sam Voxnin
We actually do have studies, quite a few. And they show pretty conclusively that they believe that they will have a different life. Now, as far as. As you and I go, prison or mental asylum is a bad alternative. They would beg to disagree, really. They would consider any change preferable to the status quo. So they, The. The rage and the anger are dysregulating in the sense that they remove inhibitions and they cause these teenagers to simply lash out, lose control of themselves, which they. It's. It's very lowered as it is. And they form an identity, a new identity by getting rid of the parents. It's a. It's a kind of externalized, ritualized identity formation. You mentioned the multiple stabs and so on, so forth. It's a ritual. It's the equivalent. It's a rite of passage. It's the equivalent of a religious right. It's.
- [30:18]
Maureen Callahan
That is fascinating.
- [30:20]
Professor Sam Voxnin
It's a liminal. Liminal transition between one life and another. Now, we have in many religions ceremonies that involve bloodletting.
- [30:30]
Maureen Callahan
I was just going to say bloodletting.
- [30:33]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Yeah, many. We have many ceremonies that involve bloodletting or other usage. Usages and mortifications. Yes. Blood is a cleanser. Blood is a cathartic thing. So by multiply stabbing your parents and by shedding visible blood ostentatiously all over the place and so on, you are engaging in an act of unadulteration, in an act of purification and cleansing. And you will emerge from this firestorm a new person, a newly created entity and so on. And it doesn't really matter. The physical environment doesn't really matter because as I've just indicated, these people live inside their heads, not outside. They're totally internalized. They're immured. I use the word immured. Not even immersed within the fantasy. They're buried in the fantasy. They're unable to exit. But this is one class of parricidal killers.
- [31:38]
Maureen Callahan
Well, you know, you say it's, It's. It's mostly adolescent men, but it also makes me think of a case that shocked America. And we talk about it to this day. Lizzie Borden with the axiom, the bloodletting, the ritualistic rebirth, as it were, demonic though it may be. Yes, yes.
- [31:58]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Lizzie Borden belongs to the second group, the second group, which are the minority. These are People who are interested in money. The greedy, avaricious.
- [32:10]
Maureen Callahan
The Menendez brothers, perhaps. Sorry, the Menendez brothers, perhaps the Menendez brothers Blackwell.
- [32:16]
Professor Sam Voxnin
In the United Kingdom, Lizzie Borden was interested in money to this very day. Scholars believe that she killed her parents because they refuse her. She asked for some things and they refused to, to get these things really to give her the money. So there's money entitlement. The money is intimately connected with a sense of entitlement. I deserve the best, I deserve the most, I deserve it now. There's no ability to postpone gratification. And if I don't get it, the people who are frustrating me need to be removed. So there is frustration, aggression. It was first described by Dollard in 1939. There is an immediate transition from frustration to aggression because of the entitlement, the narcissistic entitlement. These people are narcissists basically, yes. And they want money. And they have alloplastic defenses in the sense that they blame others, they blame their parents, they blame other people for their own misbehavior and misconduct. So they would say I killed them. But they, they had it coming, they deserved it. They constantly frustrated me and abused me. They didn't recognize my talents and, and they didn't recognize my need for the money. I needed the money to become someone. So they have this grandiose, inflated, fantastic self concept which gives rise to entitlement, which translates immediately usually to material benefits, including money. And then they kill in order to obtain the money which they think they, they deserve. And so the parents are cast in the role of thieves. The parents are the criminals because this money belongs to the killer, not to the parents. And so you, you have this in, in similar situations where, no, there's no parasite. But for example, when, when custody is contested or guardianship is contested and the child says this money is mine, my parents are in control of the money. But that's unjust, that's a crime. This money belongs to me, you know, and so you. So this is a kind of sublimated, refined parasite, the parents reputation. Astonished.
- [34:37]
Maureen Callahan
Yes. I was going to ask you about other forms of parricide that are not literal murder. The ways in which the children just completely obliterate the parents. You know, we were talking about this not too long ago and I think it's not unrelated. This trend of going quote unquote, no contact, I have excised you from my life is a form of spiritual emotional murder.
- [35:02]
Professor Sam Voxnin
There are many ways to kill your parents.
- [35:03]
Maureen Callahan
Yeah, yes.
- [35:04]
Professor Sam Voxnin
The stupid way is to Kill them. I mean, physically. But there are many other ways to kill them. Parents describe excruciating pain when, for example, they are abandoned and rejected by their children, ignored by their children. There is reputational assassination, a reputational cost involved in raising children who later become your enemies. So there are many ways to kill the parent. And in today's world, there is no presumption of innocence when it comes to parents. Parents are automatically and immediately guilty until proven otherwise rare.
- [35:41]
Maureen Callahan
I blame Oprah.
- [35:43]
Professor Sam Voxnin
I blame Freud.
- [35:45]
Maureen Callahan
I think we can meet in the middle. I get you there. I do.
- [35:48]
Professor Sam Voxnin
I think it's a bit older than Oprah, and so I blame Oprah for.
- [35:53]
Maureen Callahan
The mainstreaming of it. You know, more people, sadly, in today's world are familiar with the teachings of Oprah rather than the writings and works of Sigmund Freud.
- [36:01]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Right.
- [36:02]
Maureen Callahan
But I. I absolutely agree with you. Go on.
- [36:05]
Professor Sam Voxnin
By the way, in the United Kingdom, we're talking the second class of killers. The first class of killers, as I said, are. Are people who are. Whose fantasy has taken over. They have a fantasy life which has taken over reality. And in this fantasy life, they are imprisoned and incarcerated and confined by monsters. This monster. Monsters never let them become. Never let them be happy. Never let them realize and actualize themselves. So they have to kill these monsters. That's one group. The second group simply want money. They simply want the money because they feel they're entitled to it. They have grandiose conceptions and so on and so forth. And these people are mentally ill. They usually have personality disorders and they abuse substances. Now, shockingly, a court in the United Kingdom ruled that a personality disorder is a mitigating circumstance. There's a guy called Blackwell. He killed both his parents cruelly, as is the case usually. And the judge said, well, he's mentally ill. He has narcissistic personality disorder.
- [37:13]
Maureen Callahan
So that's the concern. That's vis a vis the Reiner case right now, that. That the. The mental illness aspect will overshadow everything.
- [37:23]
Professor Sam Voxnin
The McNaughton rules. Guilty by insanity and not guilty by virtue of INSANITY, as the McNaughton rules are very clear. Can you tell the difference between right and wrong? All these people can tell the difference between right and wrong. They just don't care.
- [37:40]
Maureen Callahan
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
- [37:42]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Is there an. There is an impulse you couldn't control? That's extremely rare in parasite. It's usually not impulsive. Actually, the perpetrator has been thinking about it for. For years, sometimes imagining it, relishing it, you know, experiencing it vicariously via his his or her imagination probably coddling the.
- [38:05]
Maureen Callahan
Fantasy because that the anticipation is probably as. As fun, if not more so than the actual doing. And I, I don't mean that in a flip way, but I will not be surprised at all to learn that in this case, that was an extremely sick house. That this, this, this was a, A problem that was known within the, within the walls and, and the intimate family, you know, external family members and friends, the satellites around it, and that this probably was something that he had been fantasizing about. You know, maybe we'll find his journals, maybe we'll find drawings. I don't know. We see it often with, you know, it's. It's another topic. But school shooters, same thing. They fantasize in writings and drawings about it.
- [38:47]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Exactly. Yes. It's. It's not premeditated. It's not like you say, on Thursday I'm going to kill my parents at 10:30 because I have an appointment at 12. But it's not this kind of premeditated, but it's definitely relished, anticipated, reimagined and reimagined. There is a. We call it vividness. There is kind of living and reliving the experience long before it had occurred. So I want to go back to the Grimm Brothers story.
- [39:18]
Maureen Callahan
Yeah.
- [39:19]
Professor Sam Voxnin
The mother's role is. Is to be. Is to be present for the child, to take care of the child's needs, shelter, food and so on. And the father's role is to protect. Yet in the green, in Hensel and Gretel, the story, they both fail. The mother abandons the children twice, by the way, not once. And the father is not there. He lives far away in a cabin which is inaccessible. They have to ride right the back of a duck to get there. And it's a talking duck. Don't ask. Horror. So what this story is telling us actually, is that the expectations of the children are crucial when it comes to parasite. I insist that, that the children in the story commit. Do commit parasite. They committed by. They committed by proxy. They killed the witch. But if you look at the witch, at the role of the witch in the story, she is a mother. She gives them shelter, she gives them food, she gives them a bed to sleep in. She is totally maternal. And then they kill her. And so I think it's like killing the parents by proxy, vicariously. And so. And why do they kill? Why is this parasidal instinct or drive in the story? Because the parents have failed them. The children perceive the parents as having failed them, having frustrated them. And disappointed them having not fulfilled the classical parental roles. This is the case with all parasidal killers. They perceive the parents as having failed them in some way. The psychopathic ones or the narcissistic ones, they say, the parents failed me. They didn't give me enough money. And the. The less pernicious ones, the less insidious ones, less evil ones, they say the parents have failed me because they wouldn't let me become. They wouldn't let me be me. They did not really love me. They loved maybe what I represented, or they loved what I could have become, or they love what I should have become, but they never loved me. Now back to the Reiners. The father didn't have to actually do anything. It's sufficient that he was successful and accomplished. That in itself is a trigger.
- [41:51]
Maureen Callahan
That in itself, I think, is an act of aggression, perceived aggression.
- [41:56]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Yes. His very presence is a constant reminder of failure and inadequacy. His very success, his very accomplishments, the very fact that they had a circle of friends, while evidently, Carl Reiner didn't. So and so the child, it grades. It's constantly grades. It's a process of friction. It's incremental, it's invisible. And yet the child is being corroded and eroded to the point that all the defenses crumble, all the inhibitions fall away. And the child honestly and truly believes that the only way to survive is to get rid of the parental figures. They have become what we call in psychology, persecutory objects. They have become the enemy. And if, if parents don't know how to manage these situations, I'm. I don't think par. I mean, parasite is not that common, but the equivalent of parasite would be the disappearance of the child from your life. The. The vanishing of the child. The child will vanish simply one way or another.
- [43:08]
Maureen Callahan
Sam, unfortunately, I mean, I could talk to you about this for hours and hours, and I'm sure we'll revisit it as this, as this story unfolds. But to that point, are there, you know, you say so much of this is invisible, is unobservable, undetectable. Are there any signs, is there any data that tells us what parents can look out for that might clue them in to this kind of burgeoning rage within a child?
- [43:37]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Substance abuse. Substance abuse is. Is a great sign, experimentation with identities, which is out of the normal. I'm not necessarily talking about gender, dysphoria and transgender and so on, but I.
- [43:55]
Maureen Callahan
Was going to ask.
- [43:56]
Professor Sam Voxnin
When the child experiments with identities on a constant basis, this is a process known as moratorium. So it expands on a constant basis and seems to be unable to settle on a single identity. When the child rejects not the parental behavior, but the parents themselves. When the child defines itself negative identity, defines itself in contradiction to the parents as mutually exclusive entities, have nothing to do with the parents refuses. When the child becomes aggressive and violent out of context and begins to develop hyper vigilance, begins to interpret innocuous acts and innocuous, innocuous utterances and words as insults or slights or threats or attacks. So there's a lot of this when the child becomes entitled and makes unreasonable demands on the resources of the parent. Could be money, could be time, could be energy, could be, you know, drive me to school every morning, otherwise I won't go to school. Entitlement is a major, major warning. Warning sign. Interest in weapons, guns and and so on definitely is a warning sign. And. But I think if you really are looking for something that is unequivocal, unambiguous and happens all the time, it's this discrepancy that I mentioned between the facade that the family puts outside, outwardly public facing and what's really happening. The parents know this. They know that it's a facade. They know it's fake. The parents are aware that the image of the family, the. This curation, you know, curation of the.
- [45:43]
Maureen Callahan
Image of the family now so prevalent with social media.
- [45:46]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Yes, they know it's not true. Falsity, the major sign in my view is falsity. When it's false, when it's fake, when it's pretend, when internally there's conflict and antagonism and resentment and frustration and hatred and aggression and fighting and. And then when you go out, when the family goes out, it's all wine and roses. It's all wonderful and there's a lot of love and compassion and empathy. Even the Reiners, and I'm not trying to say that I know anything about them beyond what's what I've read, but even the rhinos have presented what we call a pseudo mutual facade. Like, look how much I love my son despite all his brokenness and his horrible, inexcusable behavior. Look how much I'm giving him. Look how much I'm investing in him. Look how much. Look, look. It's about the look. It's about attracting attention. It's about managing impressions. It's all artificial. It's all about appearances, not about substance.
- [46:53]
Maureen Callahan
Agreed. You know, I think about this with the. There's a lot of talk about the film that Rob made with Nick and it was called Being Charlie. And I believe it was co written by Nick and it was meant to try to usher Nick into Rob's world of successful filmmaking, successful artistic endeavor. But it was also about Nick's brokenness, Nick's addictions, Nick's inability to get his together. And then the two of them go on this media tour in which we see openly hostile emotions and statements and expressions coming from Nick and you know, it's sort of treated like how could this ingrate, you know, be such a brat? And it's kind of like, well if you, if you were the broken one and your Oscar nominated father was making a movie about how up you are, you might have some rage to. And I'm not blaming the victim in any way. I'm just saying this is a very, very nuanced situation. It's not the binary black and white that we're getting from the media.
- [47:56]
Professor Sam Voxnin
No, it's not. And when you have the situation of a saint. A saint, A saintly father figure is a saint. I mean to have suffered, to have suffered Nick, to have suffered his son for so long, that requires nothing short of sainthood. So he is a saint and his son is the heretic. His son is the. It's a religious morality play. All good, all bad. Yes, it's a religious morality play where Rob is in the role of the all good parent and, and his son is in the role of the all bad, ungrateful, vicious, aggressive son. The thing is that throughout all this there's still hope. Hope raises its ugly head if you wish. And what I mean to say is the child still hopes. The child still hopes. The children still hope that they can gratify the parent. The child still hopes that he can somehow meet the parents expectations. The child wants to fit in the parent's world. The child wants to emulate and imitate the parent. The child wants to become the parent. This is a process known as modeling. In parasite, modeling gets out of control. Whereas in normal healthy families, if you ever come across let me know there is. The modeling involves the emulation and imitation and adoption of highly functional behaviors of the parent. In this kind of families, modeling involve the internalization of the duplicity. The. The modeling involves. I'm going to deny myself in order to make my father happy. I'm going to not be. If there is a perception by the child that the expectation of the parent is for the child to not be. That the child is some kind of disappointment, some kind of a, of a, an experiment gone awry some kind of a bankruptcy, a lost endeavor, an enterprise, you know. So the child says, the only way I can gratify my parent, the only way I can meet my parents approval is by not being. And the child is hell bent on denying itself, repressing itself, reshaping itself. Child becomes a shape shifting thing. And in adolescence this is exceedingly dangerous because anyhow there is identity diffusion at the moment of parasite. At the very second that the child engages in the act, there is dissociation. The person is no longer, there is absolutely not there. The something automatic takes over. A kind of animalistic survival instinct, a wish to get rid of this nagging, intrusive, overbearing, obfuscating and, and, and, and suffocating presence which the parents have become. And the child is unable to face what he or she is doing. Usually it's a he. And then the child dissociates completely. We know this from studies, we've spoken to these children afterwards, these killers. And they describe moments of oblivion, lost time. And then they wake up kind of.
- [51:26]
Maureen Callahan
Do they remember most of them committing the crime or is it a blackout state?
- [51:30]
Professor Sam Voxnin
It's a kind of blackout state. At least what's, that's what the majority of them claim. And we do know from similar situations, not involving parasite, but we know from traumatic situations that dissociation is very common. But I think the dissociation in this case is extremely likely because the child learns to adopt dissociation as a survival mechanism, as a coping strategy. The father broadcasts to the child, as you are, you are not good enough as you are, you're a failure as you are, you're inadequate as you are, you're ruining my life. That's a message. And so the child says, okay dad, I'm gonna suspend myself, I'm gonna kill myself, I'm going to not be and I'm going to become anything you want me to be, except myself. And so the child is a lot, huge experience with dissociation, huge. Dissociation has become the main tool actually. And of course one way to accomplish dissociation is substance abuse. When you drink, you drink to excess, you dissociate. It's called blackout or brown out. I mean brownout is previous stage. When you, when you do drugs, in some types of drugs there is dissociation. So this is artificially induced dissociation. But the child also does it habitually. Internally generated from the inside, association becomes a defense. And then when the moment comes to get rid of the parents who are the source of the dissociation, that would be the ultimate and last dissociation, the last frontier beyond which the child, family believes that they're finally going to become. And that is why all of them say, I thought I would have a different life.
- [53:19]
Maureen Callahan
Wow. Wow.
- [53:20]
Professor Sam Voxnin
I thought I would be different. I mean literally all of them say this.
- [53:24]
Maureen Callahan
It's unbelievable. You know, again, we're not, we're in no way saying that, that the Reiners are to blame for, for what happened to them. We are simply discussing with deep thought and nuance the, the dynamics that can lead to, you know, again, I think the Roman Republic made parricide, the crime worse than all others. I mean including infanticide probably because it is such an, such a dark beating, persistent part of what it is to be human, this urge, you know, and.
- [53:57]
Professor Sam Voxnin
I, I really was crime because you are killing yourself. When you kill your parents, you're killing yourself.
- [54:05]
Maureen Callahan
Yeah, I had the same thought about that.
- [54:08]
Professor Sam Voxnin
They constitute a huge part of who you are. So huge that, you know, there's no way of avoiding this truth that you're actually committing suicide.
- [54:15]
Maureen Callahan
You are, you are. And when you were talking about, you know, the, the, the adolescent quote unquote, killing themselves in order to mold themselves to the, the parental desire, that too is a form of suicide. You know, there, there are all these acts of violence that take place that are not physical. Well, before the parasite.
- [54:36]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Yeah. And, but I think we owe it to the viewers to emphasize again, there's a group of killers or cold blooded psychiatric psychopathic narcissists. They don't, they haven't gone through any of the dynamics that I've described. They are not good people. They are not people pleasers by any extension of the word of the phrase. They are entitled, they are cruel, they are sadistic. They are, they. I'm not talking about these people. This, and there is, this group does exist. And yes, they kill for money. Basically. That's the overriding motive. They kill, they want to, they want to abscond with the, with the parents resources. They regard the parents as obstacles. And these are the kind of people who would kill other people, not only the parents. Yes, there is no. In this group of, in this second group of killers, there is no particular attachment to the parent. The parent doesn't, doesn't represent any special relationship. There's no bonding, there's no love, there's no, they are just there and then they're not there. You know, it happens and they, these kind of people would trample on anyone who would stand in their way to goals. End of story.
- [55:52]
Maureen Callahan
Sam. Yeah. Yet again, a fascinating, fascinating conversation with references that spit from the Grimm brothers to the Roman Republic. You know, I, I, I just love every time you're with us and we look forward to having you back on very soon. Thanks for joining us today at the Nerve.
- [56:12]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Sam, see you again this year. Thank you.
- [56:15]
Maureen Callahan
Thank you.
- [56:15]
Professor Sam Voxnin
Bye bye.
- [56:16]
Maureen Callahan
Take care. Wow, what a conversation. So that is, that is the nerves beginning take on the Reiner trial. I guarantee you, you watch mainstream media coverage of this and you're gonna get one story, one version, one kind of emotional and what passes for intellectual take on this crime, which is Nick Reiner, psychopathic monster and Robin Michelle Reiner, total saints. And these things are way, way more nuanced. And it is healthy to have these kinds of conversations because these are the ones I think that our value adds to the culture in general and to our understanding of dynamics that are far too often just swept right under the rug. We will be back in a moment. Troublemakers. Next time you're in the kitchen, read the ingredients on your kid's cereal box. Red dyes, seed oils, synthetic pesticides, fake flavors. It's poison dressed up as breakfast. That's why you should switch to Lovebird cereal. The founder created it after his daughter was born, refusing to feed her the garbage that big food pushes. Just a handful of clean organic ingredients are listed right on the Lovebird front. No refined sugar, no lab made flavors and no tricks. My favorite is cacao made with pure buckwheat, cassava, coconut, raw cacao, honey, coconut sugar and sea salt. That's it. Grain free, gluten free, packed with prebiotic fiber for gut health and and third party tested, glyphosate free. Most cereals fail that test. I also really love their granola. I have it almost every morning with my Greek yogurt. It's so light, it's so tasty and the packaging is gorgeous. Plus, Lovebird is family owned and donates 20% of profits to childhood cancer research. Support them. Go to lovebirdfoods.com and try a box. You will taste the difference immediately. If you are ready to take your breakfast back, go to go to lovebirdfoods.com Maureen and use code Maureen for 25% off your first order. You can also find Lovebird cereals at Walmart, Whole Foods, Sprouts and other major retailers nationwide. Lovebirds Cereal. Join the real food revolution and take back our country's health from big food box by box.
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Maureen Callahan
We are back. And now the best part of any nerve your feedback. First of all, we got a I never saw this coming. I never saw this coming. We got a ton of feedback on the Peter Attia segment that we did on the Nerve last week. If you haven't watched it, go over to YouTube and watch it. And I've also heard from a few of you, I'm going to get to him. It's in the email as well. More than a few about another offender who will get to trust me, trust me. You know, we only have so much time in any given show. Dear Maureen, this is troublemaker Joan. What is stopping CBS from kicking Peter Attia, who was in the Epstein files, saying again, if you have small children around, drop this part of the show audio wise, right? Emailing Jeffrey Epstein saying that pussy is indeed low carb. This guy, by the way, who I couldn't believe I forgot about this, and I meant to say it in the last segment, was partying with Epstein while his baby son, his newborn son, was fighting for his life in the hospital. And the wife is saying, hey, will you come be by my bedside while our newborn son fights for his life. And Peter Attia is like, no, I'm hanging out with the most famous pedophile in the world. Just my supposition, just my opinion. So Maureen. Yes, Joan? What is stopping CBS from kicking Peter Attia to the curb? This is not even a close call. Couldn't agree with you more. As editor in chief of CBS News, Barry Barry Weiss has made one bad decision after another. She should follow Atia out the door. 1700 plus chummy frat boy emails with this decision. Disgusting. Convicted pedophile. Smug, casually dismissive and indefensible. ATI is sycophantic and infantile. Envy of Epstein's lifestyle is palpable throughout his seedy correspondence with him. Health and wellness correspondent? I think not. Hi, Maureen. Every time my 7 year old would walk into the living room and see you on the screen, she'd say you're watching the news again. What can I do? Tell her is Hollywood smut, not news. Troublemaker Veronica. We think it's both. We think it's both. Anyway, she, Veronica liked the Atiya coverage, but notice no coverage on the Deepak Chopra email. Trust me, we're gonna get there. Veronica says, I lived in New York City for a short stint. Interestingly, Chopra seems to be a spiritual guide, A spiritual guru rather to New York media people. Oprah brought him to us and trust me, woodchipper troublemaker Veronica. This is from troublemaker Heather. And we have full screen art of a screenshot to show you guys. Does Hoda ever stay at home with her kids? And this screenshot shows Hoda barely able to contain her glee now that she is back ensconced on the Today show set because her BFF Savannah, who was most recently seen being held captive by Hoda in the back of an suv. This is before this tragedy involving Savannah's mother. Savannah could barely hide her contempt. Now here's Hoda warming Savannah's chair. And we've got the useless DEI hire, Chanel with her hands in prayer like an emoji and her eyes close. Get the out of here. Okay, this troublemakers subject header, I put a spell on you, Jim Curtis. And this is incredible troublemaker art of Jennifer being hypnotized by her celebrity hypnotist boyfriend Jim Curtis, who most recently was on the Today show. And Jim is holding cash money in his right hand. He has a QR code affixed to his lapel, and he's slinging in his right hand a yo yo to hypnotize her, which I just think is brilliant. And then this troublemaker put on Jen's pillow a yellow butterfly. Because Jim has told all of us on the Today show that if we need to calm ourselves down, we just need to look for yellow butterflies. Dear Maureen and team Nerve, this is regarding the Nancy Guthrie investigation. And this is from troublemaker Aaron. She loved our take on the sheriff Barney Fife, who's loving this media coverage. Aaron says, my husband, a former police officer, keeps saying that there is something off about this case. And I agree. What is currently standing out to me is how awkward the brother has been in the ransom videos. That combined with the police saying they haven't ruled anyone out. Could it be him? I love your thoughts. I. I actually don't think the brother is involved at all. I think what we're going to learn is a couple of things. Now, there's a theory that perhaps the brother does suspect the sister and the brother in law. And again, not to get too ahead of the story, but other people are noticing this as well. So perhaps the brother already thinks that the sister and the brother in law aren't comporting themselves in a way that tracks with what's going on or has seen. The. The police has been there as investigators have searched the garage, at least the garage, possibly the house, removed 15 bagged items of potential evidence. Investigators have been there with a case we talked about, like a physical case. We talked about this with Ashley Banfield and Phil Holloway last week. It's a. It's something called the Celebrate and it can retrieve deleted data from any number of electronic devices, phones, laptops, what have you. So maybe his antenna are up. I also think, and again, not to get ahead of this, two other things strike me. The sister, Annie, I think we're going to learn a lot about the finances of, of her and her husband. I don't think they're going to be in great shape. I think we're going to learn a lot about the family dynamics. I have a feeling that Savannah was the golden child. I have a feeling that maybe the other two had a more complicated relationship with their mother. And I also noticed you can't help but notice this. And I'm not saying anything. I'm just making an observation. Annie looks nothing like Savannah and her brother. Savannah and her brother do look alike. Annie looks nothing like them anyway. Oh, Troublemaker Aaron also says she once she's done listening to ask not, she's going to listen to the book I wrote about Israel Keys. Do it. Don't do it at night, though. Trust me, I've heard plenty of comments about that. Okay. This is from troublemaker Sarah. Your assessment of the sheriff's office in Tucson is right on this. This email grabbed me, grabbed me. A few years ago. Sarah writes, my husband's stepmother was found dead in her backyard in Tucson. This woman had been in a wheelchair for 25 years, had been taken to her lawyer by a caregiver to change her will to make said caregiver her executor and a beneficiary in the will and her medical poa power of attorney. The sheriff's office deter their determination. Their finding was that her husband's stepmother was found outside while watering her plants a wheelchair bound elderly woman. We let them know the circumstances of the will change etc and the fact that she was wheelchair bound. We also hired a private investigator that found that the caregiver had done this to another woman in a neighboring town. We tried and tried to get the authorities to investigate and we were told that none of our information warranted further investigation. Again, this is just this troublemaker self report. Needless to say, we are not surprised to see that the ineptitude continues with this case. We of course hope for a good outcome for the Guthrie family, but it will not come. This troublemaker writes from any efforts by the Pima County Sheriff's Department. Do they do recall elections in Pima County? I think they should consider it. Okay. This is troublemaker Elizabeth Hi Maureen. A troublemaker from the very first show I had to write you after your absolute takedown of our pathetic sheriff here in Pima County. When he ran for this elected office, he was even more insufferable. And now that he is clearly way out of his league, Sheriff Nanos has proven himself to be not only inept at best, but now perhaps a danger to solving this incredibly tragic case. Trust me, none of us in Tucson feel safe with him at the wheel. But this troublemaker is including a picture of her own troublemaker Nelly, a dog that they rescued off the streets of Guadalajara with her eight puppies. Life is good for her now. And hey, troublemaker, I think Nelly can protect you more than Sheriff Nanos ever could. Dear Maureen, never miss a show. Thanks, Troublemaker. Kaz almost got into an accident while listening to your recent nerve at night about Savannah Guthrie's mother. I watched the press conference on Thursday, February 5th, and you nailed it. I think we're all coming to the exact same conclusion. It's right in front of our eyes. We all hear the same thing. Barney Fife, which is our name for Sheriff Nanos, is unbelievable. I said from the outset that he chats too much and today he did just that. Better yet, I followed up over on CNN and they had an FBI profiler on and she specifically stated that these criminals watch press conferences. They do. And that they watch everything. They follow everything online. They do, they do, they do. I learned it while writing American predator. The sheriff's delivery was confusing on a few notes. And she went on to say that when there is not a clear delivery and intention, as we saw the FBI special agent give us FBI Special Agent Yankee. If I'm pronouncing it right, it's J A N K E. He gave a clear delivery, clear intention. The sheriff does not. I cannot believe that Savannah Guthrie's people have encircled the wagons and told this chump to go take a hike. Also, this troublemaker makes a very astute observation. It is not cynical to think this. It's not. This is actually what's going on. I can't help but think, this troublemaker writes. I believe during the May sweeps that the Today show, forever attempting to be relevant and impossible task, had each of their many hosts go back to their respective hometowns for homecoming segments. We're going to go over Savannahs because it's relevant to this case. I happen to get. And this is in no way, no way, no way to blame Savannah. But there is a salient observation here that we will also be discussing as this unfolds. This troublemaker, Kaz writes, I happened to catch Savannah's. She was in Tucson with her mom, letting the world know how her mom still lives there. Their favorite restaurant. They shot. Too much personal information, I thought at the time. Dead on. Our final troublemaker email giving it to Gayle King. They screenshot this and send it. Sent it to us. Excuse me. And we're throwing it up here for you to see Gayle King tears up over Savannah Guthrie's missing mother. Nancy. Hi, Maureen. I saw this and can't wait to hear your thoughts. I threw up. Love a troublemaker. Lucretia, mom of the ancient dog in pearls. Jackie. Oh, we know you, Lucretia. Oh, my God. And your dog, of course, with her pearls. Listen, if you're in the news business, as I say, the old saw is this is how cynical you have to be. If your mother tells you she loves you, get a second source. Gayle King has zero business on air crying and weeping about Savannah Guthrie's mother. She's making it all about herself, Gail. It's not about you. You know it's about you. Where the fuck is Stedman? That's it. That's it for our Tuesday edition of the Nerve. Come back and see us tomorrow for the Nerve at night. If you haven't already. Check out our substack@thenerveshow.com and be sure to subscribe. Plus nerve merch. Go grab something for yourself or pick something up for a fellow troublemaker@shop thenerve.com you can also listen to the Nerve every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9am Eastern on Megan's Podcast Playlist. You can find that over on Sirius XM channel 111, the Megan Kelly Channel. We will see you troublemakers back here tomorrow. Tomorrow at the Nerve, where you will never guess what we're about to say next.
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