You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

Swell AI Transcript: 162. DrConte.mp3
Dr. Christian Conte:
You have a phrase like toxic masculinity. One thing I teach people is accurate language. So instead of using extreme words, let's be accurate. Extreme words lead to extreme emotions. Balanced, accurate words lead to balanced emotions. Take a word like toxic masculinity. And it implies that men are toxic. And people say, no, it doesn't. It means like the aggression is toxic. Well, then say toxic aggression. Aggression can be toxic for sure. That makes sense. I get that. But to imply that men are toxic just for being men. or for having assertiveness, or for having strength, or self-control. Self-control means me controlling myself, not allowing you or the outside world to control me. I think that's the essence of what we do as a human being.

SPEAKER_01: You must be some kind of therapist.

Stephanie Winn: My guest today is Dr. Christian Conte. He is a mental health specialist, an author of 12 books, and creator of Yield Theory, an approach to communication and emotional management focused on reducing defensiveness. He has worked with a range of people from inmates in solitary confinement to elite athletes, military, and first responders. Dr. Conte, welcome. It's great to have you here today.

Dr. Christian Conte: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Stephanie Winn: My friend Jake Wiskirchen has spoken very highly of you. He seems to really adore you as one of his mentors. So for longtime listeners of the pod who have heard Jake here before, this is someone he looks up to tremendously.

Dr. Christian Conte: Jake is amazing. He's a wonderful human being.

Stephanie Winn: So I think a few of the things I want to get into with you today. One would be yield theory. You know, I haven't read your books. I'm going into a lot of my interviews these days blind and unprepared, but I do know that it's about prioritizing reducing defensiveness in how we choose to communicate. So I want to share your insights with my audience because a lot of my audience is concerned parents of troubled adolescents and young adults, and this is one of the major themes that comes up for us all the time, is really having lowering defenses being sort of the north star that guides your action. So I think you have a lot of value to share around that. And then I'm also thinking maybe we'll get into some men's issues. You've worked with a very masculine population. You work on things like anger management. So what is therapy getting wrong about men? How can therapy be more male-friendly? Sound good?

Dr. Christian Conte: That's awesome. Sounds great.

Stephanie Winn: OK. Well, to start us off, can you explain yield theory?

Dr. Christian Conte: Sure. So yield theory essentially is an approach to communication that entails meeting people where they are, getting around their fight or flight response, and speaking in ways that can be heard regardless of the intensity of the emotions present. So when you talk about the population, you work with a lot, and the listeners as parents, as parents, we want so badly to speak to our children. We want our messages. We don't just talk to talk. We speak because we want to be heard. But how do we get around that defensiveness of our children, especially whenever it's coming from parents? We don't want to listen. And so how do we get around that? Well, that's what yield theory is all about. How do we get around that fight or flight response and actually communicate so that we can be heard?

Stephanie Winn: Did this evolve out of your clinical work?

Dr. Christian Conte: It did. It did. Essentially, the initial metaphor for it was this. It was back in 1998. I came out of a meditation, and I had this just vision of if a car was going down the wrong way. And let's say you wanted to help that car go a different direction. It's going the wrong way. And you could hit it head on. Bam, you could smash into it. And sure, you'd stop it from going the wrong direction, but one or both of you is likely to get hurt. But what if, what if you could meet that car where it is, maybe on a, like at a merge point, like a yield side, and join with the car, and now you're riding alongside it for a while. Now this is just a thought experiment, but imagine that as you're both going in the same direction, that person says, hey, jump in my car, we'll save some gas. So now, it's hypothetical, you gotta suspend reality here. So you're in their car now, you're looking out the same windshield, you're seeing out of the same windshield they're seeing out of. And then over time, maybe they trust you and they say, OK, it's your turn to drive and you can drive and then you can start to steer them down a different path. So that was the initial thought. And then I was doing work, going into people's homes. I was doing the type of therapy would go into homes, should work with families, literally meeting people where they were. And I was working with a lot of adolescents who were highly resistant. I mean, you know, I had experiences where I'd walk in and the young person would scream, F you, and run out the door. And that's what I started with. But I found a way to connect with people. and I recognize the value of getting behind people's eyes. So yield theory is ultimately, if you think about that beautiful statement, if you walk a mile in someone's shoes, I love that, but we take it a step further in yield theory and we say, imagine if you lived every day as that other person, had that person's cognitive capabilities, their affective range, if you had their life experiences, how can you say that you would have done anything differently from what they've done? And it's easy for our egos to say, well, I wouldn't have done it this way, or I had it tough, and I didn't do that. But that was with your cognitive abilities, with your life experiences. So when you suspend that and meet people where they are and truly try to see life behind their eyes, and it's really trying to see it. Because the two central aspects to yield theory are humility and curiosity. So ego wants to have all the answers, I know, I know, but humility says, I don't know, I'm still learning. Like, teach me, teach me about, well, we'll get into it later, but teach me about your side of the box. And then curiosity, it's not just saying, I don't know what's going on inside your mind, it's saying, I wanna know, teach me, I want to learn. So that's kind of a, I don't know, just maybe a Neil theory in a nutshell.

Stephanie Winn: I think a lot of people these days are afraid of the elements of validation, mirroring, and empathy that you just described, because there is such an epidemic in our culture of egocentronic mental illness, of people over-identifying with really dysfunctional patterns of thinking and behavior, and then that sparks a sort of counter-response in people who don't want to enable, don't want to validate, they don't wanna give an inch, right? They just wanna correct the other person, they wanna disagree. And I see this show up so much in the parent-child relational conflict when I'm working with parents on empathy and mirroring and things like that, right? Because there is that sweet spot where you do have to meet someone where they're at. I talk about it as don't burst their bubble, try to understand the bubble, almost as if you're working with someone who's, um have who's actively dreaming and I don't know if you've ever been with someone who's uh talks in their sleep yeah but you know or like working with someone who's actively hallucinating you know you're not just gonna say no that isn't happening right you have to find that sweet spot but people are afraid of enabling

Dr. Christian Conte: You hit the nail on the head. That is so true. It's what happened. So I was trained in the 1990s. And in the 90s, we were taught, we're not going to buy into someone's delusion. In other words, just because the person is, so I work in prisons and I do some intense work. And I remember one time I was working with a woman who was in solitary confinement and she was seeing 27 people in her cell. So the officers, other people were like, oh, this is ridiculous. Oh, she's faking or whatever, this and that. And I went up to her and I said, I can't imagine what must be going on right now for you. Like, I can't imagine what it would be like to be in there and see 27 people. I want to be honest with you and tell you I don't see anyone else, but I can't imagine if that's your experience. And the balance is, can I lead with compassion but still keep firm boundaries? And you hit the nail on the head because Jung called it a fancy term, enantiodromia. We go from one extreme to the other. So people think, well, if I'm going to be kind, that must mean I'm giving in. But I have found the opposite. In yield theory, we set incredibly firm boundaries, but from a place of firm boundaries, I can be as kind as possible. It doesn't mean because you're believing and I have to believe what you believe, but I also don't have to mock it or laugh at it. I can say, yeah, I appreciate that's your side of the box and that's what you see, but I don't share that perspective. I don't see that.

Stephanie Winn: And I was laughing when you were describing the traffic analogy because in my work, I also get these sort of bizarre visuals. You know, like, I'll find myself I just some metaphors I've used in the past week, I would say, you know, normally I go around turning over stones, but I feel like with with this situation, we're turning over dry little pebbles in the desert, or walking on a tightrope, or I found someone talking about sparking a fire from kindling with just a little bit of glowing coal on it. These sort of visceral images come to mind that describe situations, and maybe this is a male brain versus female brain. I don't tend to think in terms of driving, though, like in cars or machines. I mean, in the analogy you gave, I'm thinking there's a lot that could go wrong if there's any oncoming traffic. And so with regard, I'm glad you said that you do set boundaries in your work because that's the thing people are looking for when they don't want to give validation, right? They're looking to differentiate themselves. So do you ever run into difficulties in coaching people through this or run into maybe places where people get confused on how you can sort of simultaneously walk alongside someone, go in the same direction as them, like you're saying, walk in their shoes or drive in their car or whatever, but also maintaining that sense of self of, no, I'm joining you because I want to understand it from your perspective. That doesn't mean I think your perspective is necessarily the right one. You know, that can be a tricky place.

Dr. Christian Conte: It's incredibly tricky. So I have videos on YouTube, and I remember one of my videos on 10 ways to discipline your children. I talk about, you know, you will hear comments, and you'll hear people in the comments, and it's over a million views, so you get lots of different comments. People will say, oh, so you're just going to give kids whatever they want. And it's so funny that the moment you talk about having compassion, that the belief is that they're going to go to that extreme and just give them whatever they want. It is OK to say, listen, first of all, discipline is absolutely necessary. Discipline and violence got all tangled together, and they don't need to be tangled together. You can have incredible discipline without violence whatsoever. So, for example, my four C's of parenting are choices, consequences, consistency, and compassion. So, you know, we give children choices, we acknowledge them, because the reality is they have choices in every given moment. And when you highlight them, you're actually helping them with their efficacy and figuring out, you know, if I make this choice and I don't like the consequence, okay, then I learned from it. And consequences, obviously, you've gotta help deliver consequences if there aren't natural ones. And then consistency, we gotta follow through. We have to follow through with what we say. I always say we start off with this much credibility with our children, and every time we say we're gonna do something and we don't, we take away our own credibility. And that's the bad news. The good news is we can build it back up quickly. As you know, it doesn't take long. Just continue to be consistent and you'll build it back up. And then finally, compassion. Our job as parents is to teach our children. Our children come into this world, they don't have the answers. They come in as a blank slate and it's our job to teach them. And so to have compassion, like one thing I have is an infinite amount of patience for our daughter because she deserves it. She deserves all the patience in the world for helping me, to let me help her guide her through life.

Stephanie Winn: I'm thinking about my stepson who's been the harder kid for me, the one who put up the most resistance. And I knew why he was putting up resistance because it's actually a healthy instinct in a child to resist the influence of a non-parental figure trying to come into your life, right? And there was some confounding variables we won't get into, but I think after a couple years of really just showing up Grappling with him and like I'm gonna be here. I'm gonna be here for the rest of your childhood So you get to decide what kind of relationship we're gonna have We finally rounded a corner where it's it's more rewarding than draining and it's such a delight. But I think I can see all the struggles he put in my path and how if I didn't have all the tools that I have from the perspective of being a therapist, how much I would have gotten tripped up, right? It's so easy to lose compassion for kids even though they are the most deserving because we have things that we need to take care of and we're trying to protect them and we're trying to help them and they don't understand it.

Dr. Christian Conte: Well, look, I think that What happens with so much in parenting is, so I didn't even start off with my tagline. I have this tagline I've spent 27 years, my whole career doing, and that is after working with thousands of people from all over the world in solitary confinement, the depths of some of the toughest prisons in the world, some of the best athletes in the world, celebrities on TV, at the end of the day, the world boils down to two kinds of people. That's it, just two kinds of people. So you have people who have issues, you know those people.

Stephanie Winn: And then you have those of us without an issue.

Dr. Christian Conte: Well, and then you have dead people. So my tagline is people with issues and dead people. So we all have issues. Like we all have issues. We all have issues. And the reality is that. One of the issues, one of the biggest issues we run into is ego. And so ego is a big issue. And the same way that there are two types of people, I say there are two worlds that we live in. And this is something, honestly, that if I could reach into people's hearts who are listening and have you feel this concept, this is what I would have people feel. So the one world is what I call the cartoon world. And this is our world of shoulds. People should think, feel, believe, and behave the way I think they should. And then there's the real world, how people actually think, feel, believe, and behave. So I've spent the better part of over a quarter of a century teaching people how to align their expectations with reality. And the more prepared we are for reality, the better we're going to operate in it. But what happens is we get caught up in a cartoon world. And listen, I didn't come up with the world of shoulds. Karen Hoare and I wrote in the neurosis and human growth in the early fifties, she called it the tyranny of the should. Later on in the fifties, Albert Ellis said, don't should all over yourself. So I just call it the cartoon world because it's fictitious. It's not reality. But here's what happens with parents to our children. Well, you shouldn't have said that. You shouldn't do that. I shouldn't have to repeat myself. You should be acting the way I think you should versus how they're actually acting, what they did say, what they did do. And we get caught up in a lot of angst because we try to force the world into our cartoon world. But the unfortunate reality is that's not the world's issue. That's our own issue.

Stephanie Winn: You know what I like about your use of cartoon to describe that? What is a cartoon? It's a two-dimensional caricature. It's lacking perspective, right? We get caught up in that stuff when we don't have very robust theory of mind.

Dr. Christian Conte: That's a great way to say it. I never heard anybody say it that way. Thank you, I like that a lot. That's exactly it though. That's really, really a profound way to say it.

Stephanie Winn: So the kind of things you're saying right now, is this a part of your anger management work? Because I can imagine if you've, you know, given that anger management is part of what you do, that you've worked with criminals and people in high stress situations, that their expectations of others, as you just described, could really get them into a lot of trouble.

Dr. Christian Conte: It is, I mean, it's at the heart of yield theory is this concept of the cartoon world, real world for sure, but especially when it comes to anger. As a matter of fact, our daughter is studying physics. She has a fellowship right now. She's studying distant galaxies. She's just a brilliant young person, super kind. I could talk about her all day, but I always say when it comes to math, she can handle that. I don't know that I can figure out the math of this, but if I, was able to make a math problem out of this. Here's what I would say. The degree to which you expect that something should fit your cartoon world divided by the degree which it actually is not in the real world will equal how angry you actually get. So if I think there really should be no traffic today when I drive and everybody should get out of my way, and I get there and it's a big traffic jam, well, I'm gonna be really, really angry. But if I say, you know, I'd like there to be less traffic, but it's not the end of the world, if there is, well, I'm not gonna be as angry whenever I encounter traffic. And that is the reality for everything. And yes, you are right. I definitely specialize in working with people convicted of violent crimes. And I've dealt with some of the most dangerous individuals in the country. But this has to do with everyone. You, me, all of us. Every time that the world doesn't line up with our cartoon world, however angry we get is how much we're trying to fit it into our car. But I'm logical. I'm rational. So my cartoon world should be correct. Has nothing to do with logic and ration. Has to do with whether it's actually happening or not.

Stephanie Winn: Well, and I think the hard pill to swallow is that other people's worldviews also seem logically consistent to them, too. They don't seem logically consistent to you, but they do to them. And that we're not as rational. as we think, right? I mean, I've worked with highly intellectual people. I'm remembering a conversation where, you know, someone was talking about their deeply cherished beliefs that they were very certain were just the objective truth. And I was trying to get this parent to see how, you know, your child also has the same type of rigidity about a belief system that you and I agree is untrue. But do you see the parallel here? Do you see that there's a rigidity and a, you know, very intellectual defense structure here? And eventually we got to kind of the heart of the why, like what's the emotion driving why these beliefs are so important to you? Can you let the other person see more of that? But I think when we like to see ourselves as rational actors, those are the two blind spots, right? It's that other people also see themselves as rational actors and that we're all choosing our beliefs based on what suits our emotions and our worldview, right?

Dr. Christian Conte: So much so, it's actually neuroscience. So Robert Burton wrote in his book on being certain, he studied the brain, brain scans, 35 years. And what he saw was that the part of the brain that lights up when people are certain is the same part of the brain that lights up when we're emotional. So whereas we would love to say, no, I'm certain this is logic, it has no emotion. You're actually being emotional. That's just neuroscience. It doesn't matter what you think or how strongly you're attached to your belief. No, my beliefs are for sure. The more attached you are to what you believe, again, the angrier you get when anyone tries to refute that. But the reality is, if, and ask anybody on the world, I speak all over, I always ask people, how many of you believe you still have more to learn? You know, 100% of the hands go up all the time. People love to put lip service to that. But I always say, if you really believe you have more to learn, then why is it the moment someone disagrees with you that you get defensive? If you really believe you have more to learn, then why not the moment someone disagrees with you seek to see what, maybe they're seeing something that you're not seeing. Maybe there's a point to learn here. But the answer is because we don't really believe we have more to learn unless you really challenge that ego. We think, no, I don't have more to learn. I don't know. I've been humbled so many times that I definitely I have a statement in my new book, Strong Mind, Strong Man. I have a statement that says it's it's better to be humble than to be humbled. So I think I've been humbled enough that I would not lead with certainty. It'd be very difficult for me to lead with certainty.

Stephanie Winn: I'm remembering just how over the years as a therapist, one of the things I noticed is how common it is for almost anyone to have a strong desire for someone else to change their mind about something. Um, you know, if only he or she could see or understand this or that, you know, and, and then I would, I would sort of compare and contrast my mind, like the frequency with which someone is showing up in my office saying, if only I could get this other person to understand the truth, the way I understand it, compared to The frequency at which people themselves had those humbling moments of realizing that something they considered a deeply held belief, something they believed to be absolutely true, might not be true. Those moments are few and far between. If we're fortunate, if we live a good life, we get several of those per lifetime. I don't know, maybe more for some of the most open-minded and humble people in the world. But I can think back. I mean, maybe this is just a testament to my ego, but I could think back on very particular moments in time where I actually changed my mind about something in a profound way. And so then I would kind of notice, I was like, wow, this is interesting. So many people You know, having this fantasy that it's really it should be so obvious to this other person to just change their mind about something yet with the same logic apply to them. Do they do they think it's that easy to change their own mind?

Dr. Christian Conte: Yeah, I mean, I think that's it. I think people love to say that they don't like hypocrisy, they don't like hypocrites. But if you don't like hypocrites, and that means you're willing to challenge, and you say you're open-minded, you're open to learning, you're willing to learn, then you have to be ready in any moment. It doesn't mean that you can't have a belief. So from my perspective, I would consider myself a Zen Buddhist, and we practice non-attachment. In fact, non-attachment is an integral part of yield theory. It's one of the seven fundamental components. And to practice non-attachment doesn't mean that you can't have beliefs. You can believe something. I'm just really open that if in the next second you say something that shows me that belief is inaccurate, I'm willing to say, okay, I'm not that belief. So the way we do it, we do a lot of visuals, we do a lot of metaphors and visuals in yield theory, but let's say if I take my thoughts and I put them in this book, and I'm attached to these thoughts, and you start to disagree with them, and I say, how dare you disagree? These are my thoughts, don't you know who I am? But if I really believe I have more to learn, so I take these thoughts, I set them down over here. And if you disagree with those thoughts, I say, OK, you disagree with my thoughts. You're not disagreeing with the essence of who I am. And I'm going to tie this all in the yield theory and what we really do, because there is a key for parents out there saying, OK, how does this relate to me talking to my child? And I'm going to bring it to you in a second. But if I if I can be open and not attached It doesn't mean I don't have these thoughts, it just means I'm open to learning in every moment. And I think it's a pretty wonderful way to live. I think it's difficult for many people to get to the spot where it can be muscle memory, but I've watched it happen. We've trained a lot of people in yield theory, and you get to the point where you can learn how to be non-attached, and you'll find you're not losing who you are. Who you are is beyond any of your attachments anyway.

Stephanie Winn: So in terms of things parents can do, one thing I'm picking up on is modeling, right, that through modeling intellectual humility and non-attachment to our ideas or, you know, a separation between our beliefs and our identity, Modeling is certainly one thing that is likely to go over pretty well with most people because either they realize you're setting a good example or they don't notice it at all, but you're not trying to force them into anything. Because part of what you're describing is emotional maturity, right? So for people who are worried about those who are emotionally immature and who frankly have many years to go probably, you know, because they're young, right? And parents are worried about people in their teens and 20s. You can't just explain these things to them, right? So besides modeling intellectual humility, what can parents do to help reduce the defenses of young people who are very attached to their ideas?

Dr. Christian Conte: Yeah, that's such a great question. So I want to highlight first that comment about modeling, because you're right. It's absolutely it. Matter of fact, I have a book for parents, and the title is Zen Parent, Zen Child. And it encapsulates what the whole book is about. If you want your children to be calm and have self-control, you've gotta be calm and have self-control. You can't sit there and smoke a pack of cigarettes and say, ah, don't smoke, it's not good for you, because they're learning far more. And again, ego likes to swoop in and go, I know, I know, they're learning more by what they watch. That's great, but are you actually living it? It's one thing to say it, it's another thing to actually live it. So what is the secret? How do we get around the defense mechanisms? How do we get around ego? Well, listen, I know in this world it's easy to be skeptical. It's easy to be skeptical of others, especially if we disagree with them. Oh my goodness, is it easy to be skeptical of people you don't like or you disagree with? But can you be skeptical of yourself? Well, my whole theory is about leading by example, so I certainly had to practice what I preach. And I asked myself, a while back, what is it that I do? Like, what do I actually do? I stand at a cell door and talk to somebody? I sit in a comfortable Zen setting in my office and talk to someone? Like, what do I do? And I realized that the secret to getting around people's defensiveness, the secret to getting around that fight or flight response is three things. Listen, validate, explore options. That's it, three things. Listen, validate, explore options. Now, I was speaking about 10, 12 years ago at this big mental health convention. There were 500 people there. And this woman came up to me at the break, and she was super condescending, which is always fun. And she came up to me, and she said, that's it? That's your big theory? Three things? I said, yes, ma'am. But if you think about it, all Bruce Lee ever did was move, block, and hit. He did pretty well for himself. It's not just saying the words, listen, validate, explore options. It's how we listen. It's how we validate. It's how we explore options that makes all the difference in the world. And our ego likes to rush in and say, all right, I did listen. We don't listen until we think, we check some bureaucratic box and say, I listened, I validated. You validate until the person feels validated. And when you want to be heard, these are the three things you do. If you want to be heard, listen. Because if you don't listen, you're not meeting the people where they are. I'll tell you a little metaphor, because again, we tie all these metaphors in. But if I were to give you Yiltir in a nutshell, there was a man who was charged with leading a group of people up a mountain. So he took off full speed, gets to the top of the mountain. He looks around, nobody's with him. They're all at the bottom of the mountain. So he starts screaming, you should be up here with me. I had it tough. I started down there. And he's going on all his logic and reason, but the truth is they can't even see him, let alone hear him. So he becomes known as the fool on the mountain. And if he really wants to lead those people, he only has one option. He has to have the discipline to leave where he is and go meet them where they are. And that might sound like some far off tale in a distant time long ago. Actually, I wrote it, but I make it sound like it's from far off time. But the reality is, it's every time you and me, every time we talk at somebody without meeting them where they are, every parent who talks at your child without meeting your child where he or she is in that moment, we're no different than the fool on the mountain.

Stephanie Winn: Timing there. I think it's easy to forget how in the moment adolescents are. So example of a situation that came up recently to illustrate your point. I had worked with a mom on basically a script for how to address a particular issue with her daughter. And I might have maybe not done enough work around the timing of this script. Because then she came back the following week and explained how she approached her daughter right when the daughter was feeling proud, relieved, and accomplished. And I was thinking, oh, oops, you approached her in a moment that she was feeling good, and then you made mention of the fact that she's ever felt anything other than good. And to an adolescent, Right. When they are feeling good, the last thing you want to do is remind them that they have ever felt anything other than good.

null: Right.

Stephanie Winn: Because they're just so in the moment. Right. And their ego is so fragile. It's developing. So all those moments of feeling good about themselves, they just kind of have to cling to tightly, right? Right. Yeah. Meeting someone where they're at is – it sounds like this really abstract concept, but we're talking literally about the moment. What is their mental state right now?

Dr. Christian Conte: The moment. So think about this. The way I teach this concept is if a bear walked in the room right now, our fight or flight response would go off. Just immediately, our amygdala, send a message, adrenal glands, boom, cortisol, adrenaline, I'm either gonna fight this bear, freeze, or flee. And in the same way, this is crazy, this is neuroscience in 2025. In the same way that that bear triggers that fight or flight response, the same part of your brain is instinctively triggered if someone threatens your ego. Let me tell you why you're wrong. let me tell you why your beliefs are wrong about politics or religion or anything else and boom all of a sudden they're ready to be defensive so telling a teenager why you're wrong when they feeling good and feeling right like boom defensiveness so how do we get around that first again you're meeting them where they are in this moment like for example Think about how many arguments you've been in because you or a loved one was hungry. Have you ever been in an argument because you're hungry and you're like, ah.

Stephanie Winn: I plead the fifth.

Dr. Christian Conte: So you know this experience. Your face tells you, you know this experience. And what happens is, it's great. It's just straight neuroscience. When you're hungry, the part of your brain that's activated is the hypothalamus, which you look at a brain and you go, that's seated in the middle of the limbic system. So it makes a lot of sense why, when you're hungry, you feel agitated and irritable. And so what happens? So here is something different about yield theory from, say, cognitive behavioral therapy. I love CBT. I was trained in it. I anchor so much work in it. But one of the areas where it's different with yield theories is in CBT, they say your thoughts determine your emotions. In yield theory, we say your thoughts impact your emotions for sure, but your mind always wants to match your body. So think about this. If your body's agitated and irritable, your mind races to make up a story to make sense out of it. You combine that with the cartoon world and you go, you should have turned into that restaurant back there. And I'm mad right now because of you. And really you're just hungry. And your mind wants to make up a story to make sense out of why you feel the way you do. And I remember working with a parent one time and her son was six and she said, I said, I really think it's important to see if he's hungry during this time. She said, I checked that before. You've checked it before. That's something you need to check several times every single day. It's the same.

Stephanie Winn: Oh yeah, there was one time he wasn't hungry.

Dr. Christian Conte: Yeah, she's like, oh no, I checked that before. No, no, every single day, multiple times a day, you're checking because that hunger is overtaking. He's not ready to learn a lesson. Like most people who study counseling know Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You know, well, if you're on an island, you study it usually on an island. On an island, what do I need? Well, if you don't have food or you're worried about safety, you can't sit down and do long mathematics because you're worried about food or safety. But the truth is that even in a healthy, high functioning family, if your child's really hungry and their brain is thinking about hunger, it doesn't matter if you have this profound insight to offer, give them a sandwich first, then be ready to offer that insight. And so you hit the nail on the head with the word you use, timing. It really is timing.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, I think this is part of how issues compound exponentially in families where there are some neurodivergent traits. Because a lot of the people who come to me for guidance, they're kids of mild autism traits. They're in the spectrum, right? Big spectrum. A lot of people at the lighter end of the spectrum, you question, is autism really the term that we're looking for here? In any case, one thing we do know about people on the spectrum is there are some differences in terms of processing speed of signals from the body, right? So, you know, emotion regulation is not that different from physiological regulation, right? We learn to receive and interpret cues from our body about how we're feeling, and then what does that tell us we need to do to address the feeling? So I end up in these situations where kids aren't eating all day, right? Because they're not noticing their hunger signals. Unfortunately, it's up to the other people in their environment to notice how those people behave when they have low blood sugar or something like that.

Dr. Christian Conte: Right. You're so right. And so I'm guessing you work with a lot of parents who feel at times, which is natural for their ego to kick in and be like, I shouldn't have to keep doing this. I shouldn't have to keep reminding this. But unfortunately, if you do, you do. That's the reality.

Stephanie Winn: Well, and sometimes, unfortunately, you're there because you did something to create this situation. With autism, for example, with kids with behavioral issues, let's put it this way. Kids with behavioral issues, their parents have to make a lot of sacrifices to get through the day. So I would say, especially on the more extreme end, when you have serious impairment, there are just only so many power struggles you can afford to have in a single day. And then multiply that over years where you learn to pick your battles. And then you end up with these really dysfunctional, very enabled, entitled teenagers, and adjusting the boundaries from there is hard. So I don't mean to sound like I don't have compassion for these families, because I do. It's hard.

Dr. Christian Conte: Oh, it's incredibly. Yeah, it's incredibly. And to be in the spot where someone is, again, that's why I always say put myself behind someone's eyes. It's easier to say from training and a background and experience, oh, this would be really helpful to do. It's difficult if you hadn't had that stuff. And it's difficult, but it's possible. And I think that's the part that I've always, I've been doing therapy for 27 years. I say it's possible because the one thing I believe in is the human potential. I believe in people's ability to potentially make that change. I'm not saying it's easy, not even a little bit. And again, when people move from one extreme to the other, the moment you say something's possible, if their brain is struggling, they say, so you're saying everything's easy. Nope, I'm not saying that. We live in a world, especially in the last few years, where people tend to really take a thought to the other extreme and run with it. So we'll get a lot of, so you're saying. No, I'm not saying that. That's why being able to discern is one of the greatest skills you can teach children. Learn to discern. If I say I am, for example, writing a book to help men, that doesn't mean I'm against women. It doesn't mean if it's for this, it's against somebody else. That's someone else's issue, not the issue.

Stephanie Winn: Let's talk about men. What does therapy get wrong about men?

Dr. Christian Conte: Well, I think that a lot of men believe that if they go to counseling, they're going to have to lie down on a couch and cry and be super vulnerable. And so what I do with guys a lot is I love asking. I mean, again, decades I've been doing this. I'll ask guys at the end of a session, is this what you thought it was going to be? And they're like, not even a little bit. In fact, a lot of times people say, I'm glad I talked to you because I wasn't going to go talk to a counselor. It's like, what do you think I am? Or what, what do you think I do? Because it's, it's okay to admit that you're hurt. It's okay for men to say, I think when guys think if I'm hurt, like man, that relationship, she broke up with me, she cheated on me, that hurt. And they think that that somehow makes them weak. And I think society will reinforce that in certain ways, that if you are hurt, you're weak or less than. And that's not the reality. What I tell a lot of men, some of our strongest men in the military, some of the toughest men, they see trauma and trauma impacts the brain. And so I tell guys all the time, listen, when I was young, my dad used to tell me, if a bully's picking on you, punch him in the nose. Listen, I'm a generation X kid, so I grew up fighting. Stuff doesn't offend me. But I'm not saying to go out and punch people in the nose. I'm just telling you this is what I grew up with. And so my dad would say, punch him in the nose, because he can't lift weights with his nose. Well, let me just tell you what I take from that now. What I tell a lot of guys in the military is this, you think if you have PTSD, that makes you less than or weak. But the truth is, no matter how strong you are, no matter how tough you are physically, we all have a three-pound brain. That's it, a three-pound brain. I don't care how strong you are, you have a three-pound brain. And when trauma impacts you, it impacts you. And it can shape the way your neurons fire. It can literally shape your neural pathways. So I think what people get wrong for men about therapy is thinking that for a lot of guys, that they have to go in all or nothing. They have to go in and bear it all. But a lot of guys, I learn to tell them things like the cartoon world, real world. And they're like, this is unbelievable. This is something I needed to do. I do this technique with a lot of guys. Let's say that I say to this kombucha tea, if I say to this kombucha tea, I say, hey, you suck. You're the worst tea ever. And he's like, oh, man. And I'm like, I'm just playing. You're like the best tea ever. They say, who's in control of the tea? And you say, well, I'm in control, right? And you think that's so ridiculous. This guy's doing a puppet technique. But think about this, how many times has your day been going one way and someone came along and said or did something, threw your day off? And in that moment, that person made you their puppet. So I work with guys all the time about you're giving away your power. You're letting people make you their puppet. You're giving people your energy that you don't even like or respect. And so what I think men are drawn to, especially that's why I put this in this new book, is about how to control your inner world. Because in the history of humanity, this is so powerful, in the history of humanity, every being's ever lived, you are the only person with unrestricted, unfiltered access to your mind. And if your mind is a place of peace, great, keep doing what you're doing. But if your mind is a place of angst, anger, turmoil, well, you're the only one who can change it.

Stephanie Winn: You used the word control, and I think control, that's a bad rep in therapy. Like the idea that we should control. Yeah, it feels very masculine coded in a way that's been kind of demonized.

Dr. Christian Conte: Yeah, this is another reason why I wrote this book during this time. There's a lot of stuff about men that gets demonized. So you have a phrase like toxic masculinity. So one thing I teach people is accurate language. We do this all the time. If you know cognitive behavioral therapy, you know the dangers of extreme language. You never listen to me. Well, For that to be accurate, that means I never heard a single word you ever said. So instead of using extreme words, let's be accurate. Extreme words lead to extreme emotions. If I say no one ever listens to me, that means in the history of my entire life, over 8 billion people on the planet, not a single person has ever listened to me. That's not reality. So if I'm more accurate, if I use accurate language, so-and-so didn't hear me the way I wanted them to hear me today. That might be a little bit more accurate. So extreme words lead to extreme emotions. Accurate words lead to balanced emotions. But you take a word like toxic masculinity, and it implies that men are toxic. And people say, no it doesn't, it means like the aggression is toxic. Well then say toxic aggression, why toxic masculinity? Like aggression can be toxic for sure, that makes sense, I get that. But to imply that men are toxic just for being men, or for having assertiveness, or for having strength, or self-control. The word control, again, if it gets lumped in and changed and morphed and someone attaches their own things to it, runs with it, I can't do anything about that. But reality is self-control means me controlling myself, not allowing you or the outside world to control me. I think that's the essence of what we do as a human being.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, so how are men doing? Like, I think you have a perspective as a very masculine therapist who specializes in men's issues. Like, how are men really doing? Because I'm a little worried. Many of you listening to this show are concerned about an adolescent or young adult you care about who's caught up in the gender insanity and therefore at risk of medical self-destruction. I developed ROGD Repair as a resource for parents just like you. It's a self-paced online course and community that will teach you the psychology concept and communication tools the families I've consulted with have found most helpful in understanding and getting through to their children, even when they're adults. Visit ROGDRepair.com to learn more about the program and use promo code SUMTHERAPIST2025 at checkout to take 50% off your first month. That's ROGDRepair.com.

Dr. Christian Conte: Yeah, not too well. I'd say not too well at all right now. Um, I was running a group in a County jail, um, maybe less than six months ago. And you cannot make this up. There was a man in the group saying, um, I feel like, um, man, like we're not even really allowed to be heard. I feel like this is what he was saying. There was a, a woman who was a higher ranking official that happened to be stepping into the group for a few moments. I thought she was going to sit on the whole group. She cuts him off and she goes, oh, no, you don't. That's a, don't start playing victim. I was like, he's literally saying that men don't feel heard and can't say their opinion. And he, she shut, he shut down quickly. I thought she was joking. I promise you. I thought she was joking. So I chuckled. I was like, that's a, and she was like, no, he's not going to go on that tirade play victim. Maybe he played victim in the past. In that moment, he was expressing a thought about men not being able to express themselves and literally got shut down. So instead of staying to process, she was like, well, I gotta go anyway. It takes off and leaves the group. So I looked at the guys afterward and we left. I was like, I don't even know if that was intentional. I don't know if that was designed to help you grow. Let's just pretend it was. What could we learn from this? But for men to be talking about wanting to express themselves and get shut down, that doesn't mean, and again, discernment. Saying, I don't feel like, that guy saying, I don't feel like men always get a chance to be heard, wasn't saying, I'm innocent of everything I've ever done. That's not reality. So again, the skill of discernment helps someone be able to differentiate between what he was saying and what maybe someone thought he was saying. I don't think men are doing well. I think men don't believe that there's a space for them to express themselves. I think I'll give you an example. Many men will say, I ask young men, hey, are you meeting somebody? How are you doing? Because I think it's kind of neat. When I was young, I had to have the courage to go up to my wife. I'm thankful I did because we've been married for 25 years this year. But back in my day, we had to go up to, back in my day, I'm 90, but we had to go up and actually talk to somebody and have the courage to say hello. Young men and young ladies nowadays, they do so much on the phone or whatever. But I asked this guy, he said, no, you can't even look at a girl in the gym. If you look at a girl in the gym, she's automatically accuses you of this, this, and that. And so they feel berated. So they shut down and they go like, well, I can't, I'm not going to go up and say something. Cause if I say heaven help, I say, you know, you look nice. You're working hard because now I'm looked at as I'm demonized. And so I think there's a big barrier that a lot of men, are just shutting down. They're shutting down because if they talk about something, their problems aren't as bad as someone else's problems. That's the narrative they get. So they just go inward. And look, suicide is high. Addiction is high. People struggle. I have pretty profound groups that we do, and a lot of them I'll do because I do a lot of work in the prison system, but I say that because people's projections are, oh, these are just a bunch of tough guys that don't care about anything. No, these are tough individuals, but for the grace of God go I. They've been through tough paths to get there. Again, no excuses, because here's what happens when you go into a prison. I'm glad you asked that. I see. I appreciate the, I can hear myself being excited about speaking about it. So thank you for the opportunity to talk about it. But people say, when you go into prison, you're either going to go in and be a hug, a thug, which means, oh, everything's fine. You shouldn't be in here. It's not right. Or you're going to be lock them up, throw away. So people don't know what to do with me when I get there, because I have all this compassion, but I'm all about consequences. Some people need to stay in solitary confinement the rest of their lives. That's a fact. On the outside, if you've never been in a prison, you get to make up whatever make-believe thought you want and say, oh, that's cruel and unusual. Yeah, but I know people who raped and tortured every cellmate they ever had. So who are you putting them with next? So we have these extremes. You're either hug-a-thug or this. No, that's not reality. Reality is there's a balance. We can honor. and go in depth and understand what's going on with men, but at the same time, still set firm boundaries and still say there are natural consequences. People ask me sometimes, why do I go on to death row and spend time with people when, what hope is there? Well, first of all, what I say to a lot of life, in Pennsylvania, we call them lifers. If you're an inmate and you're in prison for life, that's the term, lifer. So why do I spend time with lifers? Well, these guys have a lot of energy for the rest of the prison. And so what they do and how they carry themselves, how they move, how they set the tone for the culture reverberates to the younger men. And so many people go into prison, learn how to be a better criminal and just leave. And so I've had some really profound groups with lifers. Matter of fact, one time, I'll stop after this, but I just gotta tell you this. One time we went in, Secretary John Wetzel, he was the head of the prison system in Pennsylvania for like the longest running secretary, something like 10 years. And Ray Lewis, he's an NFL first ballot Hall of Fame football player. He and I had a podcast together. We did a hundred episodes called Tackling Life. And Secretary Wetzel let us go into the prison and do it in a maximum security prison. So we have a podcast live from there. And it was a great episode. But I think what the audience and what people wrote to us for years and talked about was how they couldn't believe how the men sounded, what they were really like. And I said, because you have projections of what you think men are. You have projections that you build up in your mind. But when you actually talk to people, you see that we are all human, we all have issues. And again, that doesn't shortchange anything, and some people need to be behind bars, and that's a fact, but that doesn't mean we can't still go inward and learn about men. Sorry, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Stephanie Winn: No, just on a lighter note, I mean, you saw me chuckling when you were talking about the gym, and I was wondering if you know Joey Swole.

Dr. Christian Conte: No.

Stephanie Winn: He makes these videos. He calls him, I think his social media sub tag or whatever is like CEO of Gym Positivity.

Dr. Christian Conte: And- Yes, I know it is.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, yeah. So Joey Swole, he finds all these videos where women film themselves in the gym to catch some guy on the sidelines ostensibly looking at them inappropriately. So they can be like, look at this guy being a creep while I'm working out. And he does a great job of calling these people out. Like, other people at the gym are not accessories for your social media content for you to rake them over the coals and make them look like creeps just because they're wondering why you're filming.

Dr. Christian Conte: Yes, I do know him. He's great. Yeah, he's great. I've watched several of his videos.

Stephanie Winn: With these lifers though, I mean, working in the prison system with all that compassion, I imagine you've probably had some tough lessons about the types of criminals that learn to exploit compassion versus the ones who are actually there for help.

Dr. Christian Conte: Oh, so much. So one of the things that I teach, I train officers. So I train officers. And one of the first things I teach them is how to avoid being manipulated. And the two types of officers that are the most easily manipulated, the first have really low self-esteem. So they're looking for their self-worth from someone else. And so people who study human behavior all day long, if you're incarcerated, you have all day long just to watch behavior. And there are young people studying psychology who will never be as effective as people who just watch behavior all day long. And they understand how to manipulate people. So that's the first type. If you have low self-esteem, so I always tell officers, you've got to get your worth inward. You cannot be looking for it outside because it will be quick. And the second are those who are really attached to what they believe. It's a piece of cake. The more attached you are to what you believe, all I have to do is be like, man, you're right about all that stuff. That other group, that other people, oh, they're so dumb. I can't believe them. And all of a sudden you go, yeah, you know, I am kind of right about that. Yeah, I am right. My side of the whole aisle is correct about everything. Yeah, this guy's not that bad. And subconsciously, they start to really get you. And again, the more attached you are, believing you're right and you need to be right, that's the easy way to manipulate somebody. And that's the tough pill for a lot of people to swallow, because sometimes guys are the real, they act tough. And there's a difference between being tough and acting tough. But the guys who act tough will be like, yeah, I'm not going to do this or that. But then they can't let go what they believe. So they don't know what to do. See, to be humble takes strength. It takes strength to say, you know what, I do believe in something strongly, but I'm genuinely open. I might not have the answers or my perspective can be challenged. That's a big difference.

Stephanie Winn: That point you just made about how our attachment to our beliefs makes us easily to manipulate, I call that in my course, gameable heuristics. Because if you so obviously subscribe to a belief system where you're like, everyone who votes for this candidate, or everyone who is pro or anti this issue, or everyone who claims to profess allegiance to whatever doctrine is on the right side of history, and everyone opposite is on the wrong side, then you've just made it so obvious how to get on your good side, right? Like, all someone has to do is wear the right color, you know? All they have to do is signal to your tribal brain, oh, I'm part of your tribe. Yes, I believe the same things that you decide all the good people believe, and then you're in. And then they're not They're not vigilant. They're not perceptive. You've let them in. It's a Trojan horse.

Dr. Christian Conte: And you want to hear something really that could be a gut punch for a lot of listeners is I've worked with politicians who not only know that about their people, but will play that up. And around their circle, they'll be open about it. And the people listening right now think, yeah, that's probably the other side. And unfortunately, I've worked with people on both sides of the aisle that have done that. And it's just, when you have experience and you're on the inside and you see things, it's a different world. But yeah, I've watched people be really attached to somebody and really buy into what they're saying, having no idea that that person literally laughed at the constituents and go, this piece of it, you know, I got them. They're like the easy ones. And it's unfortunate, but it's reality. Again, the more attached people are to needing to be right and having their perspective be the definitive one, the easier they are to manipulate. I'm so glad you're teaching that and sharing that with people. Because again, it comes back to, so what can we do? We've got to be humble. We have to reckon. I had a martial arts teacher when I was young. As a teenager, and I remember every time that I thought I got good, he would have me stand up in front of the class and do some kick that I would inevitably fall on the ground. And he would laugh. And at the time, what he was doing was literally knocking my ego down. And I needed it. I needed it terribly then. But I learned at some point then early on, don't walk in and act like you're more than what you are, because there's always room to learn. There's always going to be somebody who could give you insight.

Stephanie Winn: That thing you just described, knocking you down, I'm thinking how that's a component of fathering. And I'm remembering how this moment in grad school, not in grad school, no, my undergrad, sorry, because I studied environmental studies in undergrad, and then I went on to counseling psychology. And I was a fatherless girl, so I did not have a father figure. All of those needs you get from a father, unmet, classic issues, right? And I had this teacher, Steve Gleasman, for anyone who went to UC Santa Cruz's environmental studies program knows Gleasman, and he was teaching us ethnobotany. And we had this lab one day where I walked in and I did something really stupid. There were these jars of flowers around the room, not decorative or ornamental, but it was spring and we were actually learning to identify plant families by their flower structure. And I saw the one sitting on my desk and I just leaned forward and stuck my face in it. Well, guess what it was? It was stinging nettle. So I just stuck my face in a stinging nettle plant. And he didn't react. He wasn't nurturing. He wasn't kind. He just rolled with it. He said, Urtukese. Urts. Donut. And that is how I will never forget the family name for the stinging nettle family. It's Urticaceae and it hurts.

Dr. Christian Conte: Urticaceae and it hurts.

Stephanie Winn: And it was just like such like a dad joke, such like a fatherly way of like teasing. And, you know, this is just like one example of the types of thousands of experiences I missed out on as a result of being fatherless. And I'm wondering, too, if like this sort of poking and prodding, you know, so, for example, in our family, my youngest stepson likes to play ping pong and his dad said, I'm never going to let you win. When you beat me you will have genuinely beat me and this went on for like two years before the kid got good enough to beat his dad and now he's so proud because he can actually be his dad and You know I just see these examples of like the way that that sort of tough love and poking and prodding and teaching you as if you are stronger than you think you are is such an important part of how men show love in masculine ways. And I'm wondering, you know, back to the conversation about like, are men okay? And like, what is therapy not understanding about men? I'm wondering your thoughts on that.

Dr. Christian Conte: Yeah, first of all, I love that. And ping pong, that's how I taught my daughter as well. And she's phenomenal at ping pong. It's just a great, great sport, fun to play. And then when it comes back to men, so what I tell men is this. Listen, I've been teaching meditation for decades. But when I was, 20 years ago, walking into a prison and talking about meditation, I would have been like, I'm not saying anything about this. I'll do it myself, but I'm not going to talk about it. But now, in 2025, oh my goodness, like I literally do meditation with people in solitary confinement. Anybody who's been in maximum security prisons knows that's the loudest area of a facility usually. I work with elite athletes, Olympic professional athletes. We do meditation. Fighters, UFC fighters I work with, we do meditation. Here's the thing, as sure as pushups are a direct one-to-one correlation, you do pushups, you get stronger chest muscles. As sure as you do that, if you sit in stillness in meditation, your brain will operate more effectively. And I teach that kind of down-to-earth, hard-hitting neuroscience to say to men, this isn't about fancy fluff. If you hold stuff in, it's going to impact your health. Your blood pressure is going to get higher when you don't know how to deal with the stress that you're experiencing. If you act tough, all you're saying is, I'm going to shove this down and hurt myself later. It's going to impact my health. It's going to impact my family, my loved ones, my social connections. If you don't take care of yourself, it will impact others and the world around you. You know, my wife keeps saying, You know, I really like that you wrote this book because the world is better when men are better. The world is better when men are better. If men can understand how to control themselves. And again, not just to be some controlled puppet, but to control their emotions and understand what to do with them. Anger is not wrong or bad. Anger is an emotion. I think it's a teacher. So what is anger there to teach you? But the control part is to say, do I have the self-discipline to sit through an uncomfortable emotion and not react to it? And instead say, OK, what I tell guys is this. And men and women, no matter how intense your emotions ever get, I want every parent to hear this when they're in a tough moment. Every single emotional experience will have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It's inevitable, which means your emotions will come and go. Your actions, however, can't be undone. Your words can't be unsaid. So if you can teach your children how to sit in an uncomfortable emotion and say, you don't have to hurry up and fix this. Imagine what you're setting them up for for life. So our daughter meditated for over 10 years every day, never missed a day of meditation. We hadn't talked about this for a while. And she just brought it up the other day. That taught her how to be able to sit through something that was uncomfortable and say, and she's one of the most incredibly balanced human beings I've ever met. I'm in awe of her. not just because she's our daughter, she's a phenomenal person, but she's able to have this experience to say, you know what, I don't like this experience of this emotion I'm having right now, but I know it's temporary, it's going to pass. And so she can make choices in a more effective way because she understands every choice has a consequence, every choice. And this kind of comes to how you were talking about how men and fathers can frame this for their kids. It's okay to, for instance, when I was young, my mom didn't want me to, didn't know about what I was doing when I was boxing, but my dad was taking me there and watching it. Like he understood I had to get punched in the face to learn how to get punched in the face. It's not probably fun to watch your kid get hit, but guess what? I'm a learned defense where I'm going to keep getting hit. And so it was a great lesson for me to learn how to fight. And he would teach me, like he would teach me how to block and I'd have to stand there and watch it. But I'm so grateful I learned that, like I'm so grateful. So can your parents, I remember one time our daughter came home. It was in junior high. And she was upset because she hadn't done well on a quiz. And instead of me rushing in and going, it's OK. Don't worry about it. It was probably a bad teacher, probably bad quiz. Don't worry. No. I said, how does it feel? She says, I wasn't rescuing her. She said, I hate it. I said, how badly? She said, I really hate this feeling. I said, well, let's sit in it for a minute. And I just sat there with her. I said, if you really hate this feeling, you'll never not be prepared for a test again. And as I'm saying that, she was in junior high. Our daughter is on a paid fellowship for astrophysics right now. As a sophomore in college, she got a paid fellowship. Her research was ranked second in the university. And she's doing that right now, studying distant galaxies. How? Because she sat with that feeling, and we didn't run from it. It was uncomfortable. I could have easily swept her up in that moment, be like, oh, it's okay, don't be, no, let's sit with it, let's learn, you're not gonna die from it. It's an uncomfortable emotion. But you can learn from it.

Stephanie Winn: Natural consequences, people. You showed your daughter in that moment, first of all, that you weren't afraid of her feelings, right? So then she can internalize that so that she doesn't have to be afraid of her feelings, but she can pay attention to her feelings and get the lesson, and you helped her get the lesson successfully, and you framed it as a choice. You didn't say, see how bad you feel. You don't ever want to feel this bad. And no, you said, oh, that's how bad you feel. I guess I guess you're going to learn what you need to learn so that you don't put yourself in this situation again because it's your life. And she got the lesson. And I work with people with natural on natural consequences all the time. And usually, you know, when there are young adults with behavioral issues, you see this pattern of like thousands of micro iterations of parents rescuing your rescuing their kids from Natural consequences and you know the smallest that the example I like to give is if it's your kids job to do their own laundry You know and they haven't done it Sunday night and they don't have any clean clothes to wear to school the next day Are you gonna rush in and do their laundry or are you gonna let them feel? embarrassed at what they're wearing on Monday and learn you know feel that pain because the Thing a lot of parents don't get is that if you don't let them experience those consequences for themselves the consequences get bigger over time and right? And then you're still there to rescue them. So that was just such a great example of natural consequences. The other thing that you made me want to ask you about is what about parents who fear their child's emotional intensity, where the intensity of the expression of emotion on the child's part successfully, intentionally or not, becomes sort of weaponized, where it controls the tone of the house. In other words, the kid knows that amplifying distress in a certain way or to a certain degree will successfully mean that we don't deal with the things that we're supposed to deal with. What do you say to them?

Dr. Christian Conte: Yeah. Well, so I teach transactional analysis to parents. Is that something you're familiar with and teach people?

Stephanie Winn: I think if you describe it, it sounds like a useful term, but…

Dr. Christian Conte: Eric Byrne had a theory called transactional analysis, where he broke up ego states into parent, adult, child. So it was actually taught in theories classes until about Gerald Corey's third edition. I only know this because I taught theories, so I know the details of them. And so the late 80s, they started to take it out of your theories textbooks. I still teach it because it's a really relevant theory. Essentially, it's this. So we all have three ego states. Parent, adult, and child. The parent part of us is broken up into two parts. The nurturing parent, the part of us that's loving and kind, and then the critical parent, the demanding, critical part of us. Then the child is broken up into two parts. You got the fun child, just wants to have fun, and then the hurt child, poor me, it's not fair, victim mentality. And then the adult is the rational part. Okay, so what happens is, The whole, it's such a cool theory. It's called transactional analysis. It's always used to tell students, break down the word. Transactional, trans as a cross, actions, behaviors, analysis. We're evaluating how these ego states crisscross. So if somebody is in a hurt child, poor me, what do they want from someone else? Well, they probably want the nurturing parent. But what do they get from the other person? The critical parent. It's not fair. You need to suck it up. You always do this, this, and boom, boom, boom, and it can get big. And so what happens is I teach these ego states because it's a game changer for people. Because once you understand that if a child's hurt, and she goes to play hurt child, and she can go hurt child, then you're either going to eventually, you wanna get her out of it, so you go, so nurturing, it's okay, you feel however you want, do whatever you want, no consequences, because I don't want you to be in that state anymore. But then she learns to keep playing a bigger and bigger hurt child. But if she could learn, listen, I appreciate you playing a hurt child, you're still not gonna get it. So if you choose to do that, that's fine, but this is the consequence. So what you do is this, I'll use this visual for you. If I take a rubber ball and I throw it off a wall, boom, it comes back to me. Boom. I could do this all day. Boom, boom. Well, that's like critical parent to critical parent. Well, you said this, but you said that. Well, what about this? What about that? What about two weeks ago? What about two years ago? You could do that all day. But if I take that same rubber ball and I throw it and there's a couch there, It sticks in the couch. If I wanna throw it again, I gotta walk all the way across the room, get it, walk all the way back, throw it again. Walk all the way, what's gonna happen? I'm gonna get tired. Okay, so I teach people to be the couch. Stay in the adult ego state. They throw the critical parent, the hurt child, they throw, but you don't throw back. They throw, you don't throw back. Eventually they lose steam and you actually bring out the adult out of the other person. Let me tell you, the first time when trainees or people in the conferences or trainings, the first time they see that it works, they're like, oh my gosh, this is a miracle. It's not a miracle. It's you're staying in the adult ego state. So what's the magical formula to stay in it? Validate look at the valid listen. I appreciate you're feeling sad right now. I get that you want to feel sorry for yourself That makes sense But just because you do doesn't mean I remember the whole beginning of this talk 27 people in the cell just because you feel Like it's the end of the world doesn't mean it is and I'm not gonna buy into it But I appreciate that you feel that way and I can be genuine and here's what happens I remember teaching this to our daughter when she was in junior high. Listen, this is hilarious. I pick her up from school at the end of the day. Hey, honey, did you think about that TA stuff I taught you, the transaction analysis? She said, oh yeah, I did. I said, did you happen to see it today? She said, I saw it today. I said, well, tell me about it. She said, well, at lunch, everybody was in their hurt child. They're all victim, one victim over the other. Well, you feel bad for me. And we amplify this victim mentality. If I'm a victim, you have to pay attention to me. You have to feel bad for me. I get attention. But that's not where people need to get their attention for being a victim. How about for being the person who's strong enough to get through? to survive that moment. So teaching people a methodology like this can really help parents see you don't have to run with your kids every time they're playing the victim or jumping into critical parent. We can sit with that tough emotion and not just bounce back and forth with these transactions. I gotta tell you that I do teach this on YouTube. One of my videos is called Understanding Relationships, and it makes a lot of sense with the visuals. So if anybody wants to check it out, it's called Understanding Relationships on YouTube. But the visuals do help it with, I draw circles on the boards and stuff like that. But does that make sense?

Stephanie Winn: Well, I'm going to get kind of meta and sidestep your question, because I'm just noticing something about your process where I think you and I are aligned, but I'm realizing not all therapists think this way. Because I think you like to teach people useful psychology. Like you find it therapeutic. You find it relevant to your work as a therapist to teach people psychology. And I, you know, not all therapists would agree. I'm just thinking about this. I got into a conflict with a colleague. I'm not going to say who, but a colleague asked to look at my course. And I said, yeah, of course, here's a code to check it out. And feel free to tell me what you think. This wasn't someone I asked, because I actually had people beta test my course. I had my target audience beta test my course. So this wasn't someone whose opinion I was really soliciting. I was just like, yeah, of course, check it out. Let me know what you think. Anyway, my colleague gets back to me telling me that she thinks my course is basically not a good idea because I'm teaching advanced psychology concepts to people who are not psychology professionals. And yeah, that was the end of our friendship.

Dr. Christian Conte: I was like- Keep that knowledge hidden. Keep that knowledge hidden to yourself.

Stephanie Winn: When I say feel free to let me know what you think, I mean constructive criticism, not telling me the very foundational principle is flawed. The interesting thing is everyone who actually does my course says it's really helpful, and they're not psychology professionals. They're people who I'm treating people as intelligent enough to learn some stuff from my field. You know, but I just like, I mean, her criticism was that it's like above people's heads or something like that.

Dr. Christian Conte: So I think that is purely a projection on her part. I think it comes from insecurity. If we can keep the field of psychology, this hidden, mysterious thing, then it makes us more valued and important. And I think that's BS. Like, I think that that knowledge is for everyone. I've spent my life devoting, making really esoteric subjects, super simple for people. Um, when I was young, I was pushed academically a lot and I will never forget. I was in high school. My dad had me read GWF Hagel and it's such complex stuff. I remember reading the first paragraph. It was so convoluted that I said to myself, I remember slamming a book down. I was like, when I get older, I will never make things as complicated for people. And I have, it was like core memory. Like I never, I spent my career taking subjects. Like I threw out the word earlier, enantiodromia. Sounds, if you're studying Jungian analysis and you want to be like, oh, I study analytical psychology. Great. You know what it means? It means to go from one extreme to another. En is with, antis opposite, dromedary is walking. It literally means you're walking in the opposite direction. there. Now everybody who has a secret to this fancy word just understands it. We don't need to make it mysterious. People make it mysterious when they want to put themselves here and other people there. This is for all of us, the knowledge. And so I definitely have spent my career trying to make things super simple for people. And I'll tell you, it's a funny story. So I was in a prison and I was teaching Murray Bowen's family therapy. And so I was talking about the process of differentiation. So just really quickly in case this is, if you're just listening to this, we all start out enmeshed with our family system. And it makes sense. Our mother tells us, hey, that banana's edible, that blanket's not edible. Okay, so we're enmeshed with them. Okay, that means if mommy says it, it's right. And then she tells you, well, believe this about the world. And you're like, OK, she was right about the banana and blanket thing, so I'm just going to believe it. So we're really enmeshed. In fact, if mommy's scared, we're scared. Eventually, we, at some point, want to break out and become our own person, or what's called differentiation, to become our own person. But along the way, many teenagers disengage, they go move away from home. They don't call their family, they disengage. But when they disengage, they convince themselves that they're this differentiated or they've become their own person. But the reality is that if you talk to them about their parents, they are emotionally reactive in two seconds, which means they are still as emotionally enmeshed as back then. So I was drawing this diagram and I had Venn diagram here, and then I take those circles and I split them apart for the differentiation. And then in the middle, I drew this disengagement. Well, I was teaching this in a group, a transitional housing unit. So these guys were convicted of different crimes, but they were all getting ready to go back into the world. Well, there was a unit manager there, and she said, I don't know why you're teaching this stuff to these guys. They don't understand it. Flash forward about an hour and a half into that class, and there was this big guy standed up and he was going, hey doc. you need to move this disengagement bubble needs to be over enmeshment. We need to keep it not out of the middle, it needs to be. And they're arguing over where to draw. And I was like, you know what, my man, you're right. And since then I actually changed the diagram for where I put it. And I'm thinking these guys are arguing about differentiation and disengagement and enmeshment, and they're understanding it. And it's not this esoteric subject for other people. It's a subject that can come alive for anyone, I believe. as a teacher. I was a tenured professor before I left that world. And I loved the teaching part. I didn't like the bureaucracy stuff, but I loved the teaching part. But my colleagues, so every year I taught masters and doctoral students, but once a year they put me in an undergraduate class. We try to recruit for our counseling program at the University of Nevada. So we'd have 200 kids in the class. I'd be running up and down the auditorium, standing on desks, doing all kinds of stuff. because the kids' attention span was not long. And my professors, especially the undergraduate professors, colleagues, they'd say, these kids' attention spans, they're terrible. I was like, yeah, but aren't we paid to teach those kids? We're not paid to teach the imaginary kids that have dialed-in attention spans. We're paid to teach these kids. And so my job is not to stand there and be the fool on the mountain and talk about how everybody should think, feel, believe, behave the way I do. It's to actually meet people where they are. And the same is true with this stuff. I love what you're doing with that course. Like you said, we just met on this podcast. I don't know your work, you don't know mine, but it sounds like it's phenomenal. If you're breaking down subjects and teaching them to people, great. Make them accessible to people.

Stephanie Winn: So I teach in my course differentiation and measurement boundaries and what this means if you're parenting an adolescent or young adult child. So as an example, I explain how we have boundaries and rules for different reasons. Some of them are about protecting ourselves. Some of them are about guiding our child in terms of what we think will be best for them in the long run. But if you have a rule, a given rule, boundary, or limitation that is because of you and your needs, you have to be very clear about that with an adolescent because their ego is fragile and they're going to hear everything as you telling them they're not capable or whatever. And if it's like, no, it's because I literally can't, you have to make that very clear because they will hear it as. I'm not capable, right? And because of that enmeshment, so I teach all this practical psychology stuff in my course. And yeah, it's just funny at that metal level that you and I both enjoy sort of treating people as if they're capable of learning these things. I mean, granted, I think, you know, those of us who are very intellectually driven, you know, maybe we sometimes err on the side of assuming people have the same intellectual interests or capacities. And sometimes we have to correct because people have different capacities or interests. But that being said, it's sort of like the zone of proximal development, right? When we're learning, when we're just above where we're capable of operating, that's where we get the most growth and fulfillment in life. So yeah, just because someone doesn't have a degree in psychology doesn't mean they're not I mean, and the thing is about psychology, especially this relationship stuff, it's terminology that describes things we all experience. So it's not like some esoteric field like underwater welding. Which is, by the way, a field that I just learned exists in the last week, right? It's not like knowledge that belongs to people who do much different things than we do. It's like knowledge that applies to our own experience. It's just fleshing out the terminology, right?

Dr. Christian Conte: Yes, I could not agree with you more. I think, of course, if you're driven toward intellectual subjects, you have to pay attention to if the other person wants it. But that's not what you're saying. Obviously, you have information that can help people. Why would we keep it as this mysterious information? Like, oh, I can't tell you about that. So I'll often phrase yield theory as psychoeducational. So for example, what I would do was, out West I had a center for people convicted of violent crimes. And in California, I don't know how it is now, but back in the day, this was a long time ago, but guys would get out of prison for, or they would either, they would be convicted of a violent crime. So they would go to prison or jail and they would get out. Then they were mandated the 52 weeks of anger management that they had to pay for out of pocket. So you can imagine how angry people were. 52 weeks. Now, my rule was you got three unexcused absences a year and our group started at five o'clock and seven o'clock. At 5.01, you were late. That counted as an unexcused absence. You only got three. On the fourth one, I'm calling your PO and you're going back to prison or jail. Now, I'm alive with you today, even though some people came a minute or two late on their fourth time. And the reason why is I was very clear with the rules. Like I never, it was never personal. You don't disrespect me. If you break a rule, you broke a rule. So there's a consequence, but that doesn't mean I take it personally. But more than that, we had guys graduate that group, get off of parole and voluntarily come back to the group. And people, judges, paroles, PO officers, they're like, we never saw anything like it. I was like, the door's open. My job is to teach. You come in and watch what we're doing. We're talking about life. And one of the things I did was, I would take a subject. And you know, as a busy person, if you're dealing with a lot of different things in a day, I might stay on topic for a day. So if I was teaching a concept, Like, let's say family therapy. If I was teaching, I ran a mental health center during the day, so I was dealing with undergraduate students who were doing in-home therapy, and I was doing supervision with them. Then I'd go to the graduate school, teach a graduate class, master's students or doctoral students. And then that night, I'm going and working with guys convicted of violent crimes. Some guys were doctors, but some guys were illiterate. And I had to take that same, I might stay on topic all day, because it was easier for me. But I just found different ways to teach it to all the different groups and said, this relates to everyone. This experience relates. What you're doing is helping people with stuff that will help them. That's a fact. And I think when people get turned off by that, Not only is that their own issue, it's pretentiousness, it's narcissism, self-centeredness. It is what it is. It's like, why would you teach this to us? I had a statistics professor. And I'll never forget this. I'm doing my doctoral research, and stats was never my strong area until I had this guy. And he broke it down so simply. And he's like, I mean, basically, think about this. Let's take a simple idea. If you're studying two groups, you do a t-test. If you're studying multiple groups, you do an ANOVA. I remember when he broke that down the first time, I said, why? That's so simple. He said, well, of course. I was like, why don't other professors make it easy? He said, because in statistics, we have a group of people who feel like they have to be really important if they make everything hard for other people to understand. He was like, I just don't believe that. And he influenced me. I said, you know what? You're right. Why would we make anything hard for people? So I'm backing you up with what you're doing. Thank you.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, I think that colleague was struggling with some some pretentiousness that take that person I have conflict with Yes, dr. Conti agrees with me a hundred percent Okay here I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a second and then we should probably wrap up but the problem with psychoeducation pop psychology being misused Right? Like when therapists, when we educate people, there are certain terms that make it into the lexicon and others that don't. Right? So like gaslighting has made it into the lexicon, you know? Egosyntonic mental illness, for very convenient reasons, is not a pop psychology concept because it would do a lot of damage to people who get that secondary gain, right? So I guess maybe I'm just gonna play that devil's advocate for a second there.

Dr. Christian Conte: Okay, so here's what happens. People misconstrue the terms and then they believe that that's what they're arguing. That's like me saying, I don't know, if you could tell me a group that you like, I don't care whatever kind of group. Well, give me a group you like. It could be anything. I don't care if it's a musical group, anything, just some group you like.

Stephanie Winn: Oh gosh, I'm blanking.

Dr. Christian Conte: Even a group, if you have, it could be a religion, it could be anything, whatever. Okay, how about you're on the blue team, okay? Okay, I'm on the blue team. You're on the blue team. So I say, well, I'm on the blue team too. And now I start espousing things that you despise. But I keep going, I'm on the blue team. And you're going, what are you talking about? We don't do that. I take it and I morph it. But just because I'm loud and I keep saying it over and over again, what do politicians do? They know that if you hear something five times, you are likely to believe it. It doesn't matter if it's true. So they use this. Matter of fact, That's so commonplace nowadays. People even know that they do that and they still do that. You just keep saying it over and over again. So that happens with terms. So yes, there are people who are not very well grounded. They don't know their subject well. One thing that I was really passionate about as a professor, if I was training counselors, is you have to learn the field well. Like I said, I have a lot, again, I have patience and compassion, but I have boundaries. And if you're gonna study and become a professional counselor, you need to be, what issue, which person are you gonna sit down with and be like, you know what? I didn't study your issue. I was busy that week. I went out with friends, so I didn't study. No, you better know all of it because you're dealing with life and death issues. But people take these concepts and they skew them. They turn them into something they're not. Or they try to weaponize it, like the concept of gaslighting. So now anybody acknowledging anything can be construed as that. And that's not what it is. So someone doing it wrong doesn't take away from the legitimacy of what truth is. Truth is still truth, no matter what people are doing out here on the front lines. My blue team metaphor sucked. I wasn't happy with that at all. But my point is, if you take something and you skew it, then you try to say that's all of it. It's not. But honestly, that's why transactional analysis wasn't taught in your graduate school. Because over time, it became popularized. There was a book called Games People Play. And I would have students read it because you go back and read it and it's like the 1950s lingo. And so the terms are really antiquated. And so like, I can't believe you. Listen, I can read something and just look for what I want to gain from it. That's what mental strength is. I'm not going to sit and look at all the things in the book I don't like or don't agree with. I'm just going to pick out what does work and how I can build on it. So my point is this if somebody doesn't agree with that cool, that's fine. I disagree I'm gonna keep breaking things down for people if you want to keep knowledge seeker or hidden to make yourself feel better Cool, if that makes you feel important great I'm gonna keep breaking things down for people because I don't think knowledge is for the select few.

Stephanie Winn: I think it's for everyone I'm just remembering a story And maybe I'll use this to sort of illustrate what you're talking about and then close. I did a yoga teacher training in my 20s, and that feels like forever ago. And I did not go on to become a yoga teacher, but I did learn a lot. And it also kind of ruined yoga for me, honestly, because then I would go to class and I would critique the instructor's style. Anyway, I had this teacher. I had two teachers. They were great, very knowledgeable. And one of my teachers, Birgitta, She said that when she was studying, her teacher said, you would be good at teaching beginners. And at first she took that as an insult until I believe he explained to her, no, you have to have mastery to be able to teach things to beginners because you have to know it from the inside out and be able to teach it from the ground up.

Dr. Christian Conte: That's it, that's a perfect story. If I was in the mic drops, I would say that's a great mic drop moment.

Stephanie Winn: All right, shout out to my old yoga teacher, Birgitta, from way back when. Anyway, Dr. Conte, it's been such a pleasure. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Dr. Christian Conte: I sincerely enjoyed our conversation. I feel like there's a lot more that we could talk about. We could go in a lot of different directions with that. I'm really grateful to meet you. I think that what you're doing is fantastic. I'm saying that sincerely. I love that you have a course that breaks things down for people, because that's how you're really helping a lot of people.

Stephanie Winn: Well, thank you so much. Maybe we'll talk again soon.

Dr. Christian Conte: Sounds good.

Stephanie Winn: Thank you for listening to You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist. If you enjoyed this episode, kindly take a moment to rate, review, share, or comment on it using your platform of choice. And of course, please remember, podcasts are not therapy, and I'm not your therapist. Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for this awesome theme song, Half Awake, and to Pods by Nick for production. For help navigating the impact of the gender craze on your family, be sure to check out my program for parents, ROGD Repair. Any resource you heard mentioned on this show, plus how to get in touch with me, can all be found in the notes and links below. Rain or shine, I hope you will step outside to breathe the air today. In the words of Max Ehrman, with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.