February 15, 2026 · 6:05 pm

Run in the corridor

“When do we live, that’s what I wanna know”. A rather pretentious line, I’ve thought, delivered by protagonist Mick Travis in Lindsay Anderson’s surrealist film, If, from 1968. A bell rings out, signaling a call to assembly. Mick and his mates must stand to attention, looking glum yet dreamy as they ponder escapes from an oppressive boarding school that offers religious fervor, military training, instruction in increasingly irrelevant Latin, plus—more secretively, homoerotic sadism, all wrapped in Bach chorals and platitudes about England’s present and past greatness. Clearly, Anderson, the director, had gone to schools like this unnamed fixture ensconced somewhere within a bucolic Gloucestershire countryside. Many of the boys he depicts, ranging in age from about ten to eighteen, all cut from upper class cloth, will proceed to universities like Oxford and Cambridge, and will ultimately land in the gentries of medicine, the law, or politics. Otherwise, they will be groomed for the military, destined to be officers ordering lesser privileged or innately ill-equipped men to suffer. That’s why I thought Mick a lucky and therefore self-pitying boy: he’ll be alright one way or another, I figured.

The school is a training ground for either side of an equation. It will separate the perpetrators and the victims, with the latter faction earmarked for a passive existence, such as the lives we once associated with accountants, insurance agents, or the back corridors of civil service. They will be studious but not ambitious, because public school will have (literally) beaten it out of them. One imagines a character like Jute, a roughly ten-year old newcomer to the school who looks nonplussed throughout the story, living a depressive, deadened life hereafter unless he is rescued from this hell and guided elsewhere. In the opening scenes, the viewer is introduced to him as though he will be the protagonist: the obvious underdog who will at some point rise up and discover himself. However, the film more or less abandons him midway, casting him as a minor figure in the revolutionary scene that will climax the action. A touch of reality, perhaps, for only Mick Travis, played by the already mischievous and sinister Malcolm McDowell in his introductory role, has the charisma and strength to lead an uprising. And this rebellion shouldn’t be so difficult in one sense, as the adults in charge are a curiously diffident group comprised of stuffy preachers, idiosyncratic professors with perverse leanings, plus a complacent headmaster who seems to think he has his finger on the pulse of youth, but instead seems hopelessly deluded and lost in his own dream of glorious England.

McDowell’s Mick is the figure that will burst the bubble of this hoary establishment, though he won’t be alone in his fight. His tight and loyal posse features a small cross-section of 1968’s idea of the disenfranchised: a fellow individualist/intellectual who shies away from militarism, a closet homosexual plus his beauteous underclassman and lover; on the periphery are the likeable runt, Jute, and then finally, and anomalously, a surly if lovely girl who will shoot the obtuse headmaster in the forehead in the last scene, thus representing militant feminism. What this drama lacks are the kind of figures we might expect to feature in a film about revolution: a rugged, working-class hero. Or if it were being made today: a person of color character, representing what would be better represented in general today. But this film is not futuristic, so even though it plays with reality as much as it does, injecting events that may be happening or not due to the boys’ fantasies, the inclusion of characters from the other side of tracks or overseas would have stretched historical credibility. That said, surrealist elements invoke foreignness: in his private study, Mick admiringly pins images of guerrilla warriors, or a then-fashionable poster of Che Guevara, to a wall, and repeatedly listens to a recording entitled “Missa Luba”, which features sacred chanting of an African tribe. However, as viewers, we are mostly exposed to conflicts between the relatively privileged, featuring their strange hierarchies: so-called whips, for example, who are peers to the fellow students to whom they exact punishments and cruelties, yet when they’re in class or in the pews of the school cathedral together, their after-hours authority dissolves into invisibility.

Then there are rules and norms that make little sense to conventional observation. An officious upperclassman yells, “run in the corridor”, to stir a manic response amongst his younger charges, who then run amok within the hallways, beating or scratching at one another, discharging an ever-rumbling angst. Run, not walk? Meanwhile, the youngest, or newest pupils on the totem pole are dubbed “scum”, suggesting the boys grant status, ala Lord of the Flies. “You’re a scum, aren’t you?” says an irritable whip. “I don’t know”, Jute replies. He doesn’t know who he is, what he is, and he is as yet unoffended, for as a Lacanian might observe, language here is a trauma that a child must assimilate as it invades us. Soon, as adults appear from behind closed doors, ready to sermonize and deliver pedantic edicts, the boys still themselves, become frozen in mind and body. “Stop talking!” the whips continually berate, to consolidate order, for they are not just ill-tempered scolds working for the man, they are the de facto governors in this realm. Stop thinking, we might infer is the meta message here. Just keep running, moving from one action to another without reflection, without consideration of either history or a future. Is it any wonder that one character, a stoical, decent, outlier-like teacher played by the eccentric Graham Crowden, pauses to critique the impact this dire education is having upon youth? “If you insist on staring at me like a row of Christmas puddings”, he moans at them, half-sympathetically, for he knows that the crusty institution that employs him is killing souls.

It’s well over fifty years since If first came out and became a cult hit from then onwards. The romanticized rebellion, replete will darling acts and phrases, blended with xylophonic musical pastiches, seduced my late adolescent mind and stirred a dream of roaming insurrection once. But it is a dream that embarrasses as much if not more than it does inspire. The problems of privileged youth in leafy rural England of yesteryear yield as much envy as they do sympathy, so the end result is something of a neutralized halting—a sense that as a viewer you are taking a pleasant hallucinogenic drug, not prepping for a cause. If you are middle or upper class and herald from a westernized society wherein food is plentiful, infrastructures are sound, atrocities are something heard about but not directly witnessed or felt personally, its message is for a siloed constituency recalling a cultural artifact–something of a wet dream. Still, the film is far from a shallow entertainment. Among its indelibly-expressed lessons is the idea that authoritarianism is not simply an external force to be defeated. It’s an internalized phenomenon that manifests in peer systems, and lives on intergenerationally. That’s the horror of these boys’ prison—there despite the wealth that affords it and the lack of apparent existential threat. If reflects one version of youth rebellion, one that is solipsistic, grounded in material comfort even as it battles false austerity, and reeks of the primitive. Above all, it depicts a world in which choice is limited but still so much vaster that what might have been put on celluloid.

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January 21, 2026 · 8:19 pm

Absolutely Nothing

Hello next-level America. Happy New Year. Have I come to the right place? It’s high upon a hill, this party destination, at the end of a sinewy road that snakes unnecessarily to the topmost view in the city. I guess someone has to be there, I muse. I’m early, unfashionably first to arrive. That’s good in one sense, as I’ll catch a few moments of one-on-one time with the amiable host. His name’s Ed, which doesn’t feel like it fits his stately abode. He’ll be pleased to see me, says I’m one of his favorite people, after all. He wants to gather me amongst his new yet disparate clique, showing us off to one another, pulling us from our separate tracks and reflecting the magnetic pull of his life, which full of…something. Ushered along a high foyer, I glance at the artwork that adorns his home, some of which is his work. The area is lavish, colorful, psychedelic in flavor, and it draws the visitor to a center that offers luxury and warmth to counter a sparse, vaguely industrial feel. Within minutes, other guests arrive and before long, talk of art, dance, sculpture, and music fills the air. Smiles abound beneath twinkling eyes, winning laughter, and garrulous demeanors. Most of these people: they know one another, see other at work, or else in work-peripheral endeavors. They’re on committees together, share lawyers, doctors, and financial advisors. They invest in projects, patronize the local arts council. A woman Ed wants me to meet is from Russia and will blow my mind, he says.

           She doesn’t. Or her body does, for she has piercing green eyes within a scalene face, ala Taylor Swift. She’s half amazon, half-muse, undecided as to what works best. A gothic necklace around her sturdy branch draws my eye but it’s nothing compared to what’s happening below. No, not the middle. Past the midsection, which is mostly obscured by furs, she wears a mini-skirt from which two muscular legs stretch out, poised for a stomping. These trunks could jackhammer the earth beneath us all if she wanted and she wears the knowledge of this with a serene yet arrogant look. As for her mind, it doesn’t so much blow as whisper with expectation. What she does is speak in a quiet voice as the sound of chatter amid clinking glasses gets steadily louder. She speaks haltingly of finding “free” space in her art, which has something to do with churches and rockets, is spiritual in nature yet possessing of a wild, nihilistic fervor. Gingerly now, she laughs as she offers a leading query, wanting my thoughts on the nature of the wild in the modern…what was it? An exuberant shout of another partygoer has drowned out the question so I lean in, perhaps appearing to steer a kiss at her before turning my ear and appealing for repetition. This conversation, plus the effort it’s taking to make it happen, much less divine understanding of my fellow guest, is yielding a great strain in me. This will be a long night, I surmise, now aiming a look past the woman’s shoulder to a collection of guests forming in pockets. Everyone here is situated in a social bath that has enveloped them with ease and it will carry them through the night, and time will seem to pass unnoticed. Indeed, they will pass the night unnoticed, because that’s what it’s like when you’re fitting in nicely and feeling good. You’re invisible.

           “Are you hungry?” I ask the woman before me. She still wears an expectant expression, as I’m yet to supply sustenance of another kind—to be interesting or juxtaposing in return. Her face twitches in confusion as if to suggest that food and drink, the impressive refreshments that our host has laid out, is nothing compared the quest for free space in the realm of art, or something like that. I politely recede, gesturing to my nearly empty glass, suggesting a refill is necessary. She nods, lets me go with faint hurt, but appearing more sympathetic, because intoxication is closer to the spirit of artistic bliss, or at least the more apt physical regression for this end of year context. Next, I am circling a teak-topped island that houses the array of delicacies, appetizers, aperitifs, bottles of sprinkling soda water and sundry delicious edibles. A plate of salmon pieces upon toothpicks entices me to the other side of the island so I inch along its perimeter, meeting flickering looks from other guests. Here, people assess within a nanosecond whether you’re recognizable, whether you’re worth talking to, and if you’re not, there’s a thin smile, an obligatory nod, or possibly a blank gaze on offer as you nudge by them.

           By the time I’ve reached the salmon, I stake out a spot that might suit me for the remainder of the evening. A foot of space either side of the plate is mine, so anyone encroaching will have to reach past me, or request entry into the zone. Then, as a bonus, I notice the champagne and wine bottles are flanking the fish section, so I can load up for another round of snack and drink, keeping my mouth occupied without having to speak. The only problem is the conspicuous gap all around me, like a moat of air, or “free” space, perhaps, as that woman might have put it. Now she’s in the distance, speaking much louder than she did with me, calling out in barking Russian a bray of greetings towards a new pocket of guests. Soon, this art gallery cum luxury home will be overrun with rich, interesting, attractive and sociable people who are all in their element, it seems—all feeling quite at home, or else comfortably or confidently stepping out of their homes to take in this celebration, this gathering of pleasure and hope that’s happening while society is collapsing. Yeah, that’s where my mind went. Will it sink, this fixture of glass and steel, artwork and luxury furnishings, under the weight of the oblivious rich and go tumbling down the hill on which it lives. Then, will it plunge into the tented development down at sea level and crush the poor that sleep there?

           I have nothing to say except that, I want to say. Only I won’t. I’ll keep that thought, like I’ll keep myself, to myself. At best, I remain in my lonely spot, clearly separated from any clique, an apparent runt in the social order: an outcast, someone who’s not reading the room, but stands there as if he is doing just that. As the minutes pass, I field the odd cold look from a disapproving guest. I’m not following the rules here. I should at least position myself in reasonable earshot of conversation and contribute a thought or two, or at least an indulgent chuckle at a guest’s half-drowned out witticism. A couple of feet, possibly a bit more, is surely the limit of distance before a separatist attitude becomes apparent. My unpartnered, refreshment-chomping presence will soon be getting on nerves, embarrassing the collective, compelling the host to step forward to make a polite inquiry: can I get you anything? I’d love to introduce you around some more. That would be the call, the right move on Ed’s part but for the fact that I seem fixed in my spot around the kitchen island, not budging from my seized property and hogging the wine, champagne and salmon, if not quite the cheese, which is on the other side of the island, out of reach. Oh well, you can’t have everything, I want to say to people who might disagree and think that some people can have nearly everything—if they try, if they really try. Meanwhile, as my cheeks fill with more food, my smile widens and now my own eyes are twinkling, for I am like a pig in shit, grinning as a greedy interloper, not interested in art, or culture. Only consumption, plus a little politics, I suppose.

           Finally, Ed approaches with a nervous laugh, like he’s about to intervene. But a pocket of silence seems to fall about us as it seems the party is backgrounded. The sound of chatter and movement seems to dissolve into a soft white noise as Ed locks eyes with me. A sympathetic chuckle prefaces his pally, “what’s up” overture. “Not much”, I say dully, as if determined to not try. “Absolutely nothing”, I then add, feeling spontaneously provocative. Enjoying yourself? I want to ask, with layered meaning. How did he get this life? That might have been my follow-up. Ed nods in a fashion that heralds a validating gesture. He knows exactly what I’m talking about. He gets where I’m coming from, etc. Suddenly, it occurs to me that where he’s from is pally and down to earth, not perched on a hillside looming over the world. As I find the question that fits the moment, I note that I’m adopting a touch of the southern drawl that matches Ed’s background—Tennessee. “What are yawl talking about tonight?” I ask. And this is where he seems to relate. “Nothing”, he says, still nodding, but adding a knowing, bond-seeking laugh. “Absolutely nothing”.

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December 14, 2025 · 10:05 pm

Goodbye Columbus

You saved your panic for the last act, didn’t you? Roth, I’m talking to you. You had Neil, your stand-in, your man—your young Jewish protagonist—clutching for answers, calling on Brenda, the girlfriend from the other side of the tracks, to come clean and admit to all that would fit his projections: he’s unwanted, an outsider who never really had a chance. It’s unfair what just happened, by the way—that thought that just disappeared due to an errant stroke of a finger. What happened? Words just left, retrievable only by the technically adept. Anyway, it’s like what happened to Neil. His confidence: it just left him in the end. His sense of assurance, of being loved and having a future of his choosing, because that’s what was owed to him, had just vanished.

           Brenda wouldn’t cop to it, of course, the ulterior motive he assigned to her. She was in denial, like she had been from the outset, playing it cool, pretending to not remember Neil when he first called, full of chutzpah—there, that’s the word that got away. She sorta came clean in the first few passages, saying she liked him, wanted to sleep with him, steal away from under the noses of affluent parents, find herself in Short Hills, New Jersey, not Connecticut, where school and high society beckoned. In the middle act, they slip and slide, playing at love, making love, discreetly and with reticent suggestion, fifties style. Neil was pre-sexual revolution, all from the boys’ side of things: do it for me, he said, regarding the diaphragm that became the point of contention, the fly in the ointment for a silent class war. It would increase his pleasure, was his argument to her. Would it? They’d know it already, the kids today. Nothing new anymore about carnal knowledge, the defeat of sexual guilt. But this was a post-war, fifties neurosis being navigated, with sex as the battleground. Naivete aside, you’re made to wonder as a sympathetic reader where the story was headed had it not been for the sexual mishap. What’s the future of a young aspirant couple heading into the sixties, scratching at their pants, but with much to look forward to, it seemed.

           It all blows up like a sudden cold war crisis. Neil’s panic seems to have him looking backward to a fear that has sat dormant thus far, squeezed into the subtext of an otherwise bland coming of age tale. What happened? Did something disappear, like words from a screen in our digitally cloudy age? No, a discovery of a physical object was the problem: discovery of the diaphragm by a priggish parent whose attachment to decorum and probity is at once ignited, only that’s not the true crisis from Neil’s point of view. What’s on his mind is what’s on Roth’s mind having been in psychoanalysis and then decided to make the Freudian arts a motif in his stories. So, with that in mind, Neil has it out with Brenda about the diaphragm, about why she let it be found by her snooping, we-thought-we-raised-you-better mother. Why didn’t she take it to school, avoid the problem of it being found, Neil asks. A mother going through a daughter’s belongings: that’s to be expected, he chastises, perhaps thinking of Jewish mothers in general and his own burning sexual guilt. Brenda has an explanation, an excuse for her laxity, only Neil is having none of it. His sense of persecution is piqued, and is foregrounded as they fight, which leads to a deadened climax—their break-up. Now the chutzpah with which he once approached Brenda and later called upon her, feeling brazen and hopeful, is gone, displaced by a paranoia that was previously absented, but ever floating in the literary unconscious. Don’t you know? He says as she bristles at his insinuation that she’d deliberated this discovery. No, she insists. Now she’s estranged from her parents, having disgraced them with her sexual impropriety. Why would she do that on purpose?

           But what Neil experiences, what he feels and what he calls upon the reader to acknowledge if she won’t, is his rejection, as if this were all pre-ordained. Yes, she liked you. She wanted you. She might even have fought someone over you in the unseen, unwritten scenes of a middle act. But in the end, she can’t have you and you can’t have her, not even in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, plus being equal. And worst of all, you can’t even get it straight, as in the truth, if there are blind spots. That this was her plan all along—a dalliance, but not a life due to her myopic self, which is foreshadowed in their first meeting—is his and our putative takeaway. She didn’t remember him, she first claimed, being demure and foreshadowing their unhappy end. She asked him to hold her glasses at the pool. She didn’t see him. Goodbye Brenda, and middle America. Goodbye Columbus is the name of the story.

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November 16, 2025 · 5:09 pm

What’s wrong with my approach?

He sat down before his laptop, extending a finger to the screen like he was adjusting controls, a pilot making final preparations ahead of the flight. He adjusted his seat, making it higher, or at least higher such that he could aim his gaze downwardly at me. A requirement, I figured. “Good morning,” he said chirpily. I returned a tense greeting, feeling a bit like I did the last time I was in a dentist chair. Where are those torturous needles, I wondered? I always imagine that when I go there, my hygienist will start off lightly, performing a gentle prodding here and there with puffy, soft fingers. The only pressure I’d feel would be in my gums as they harden, showing off their sturdy endurance. Hmm…looks good, you’re doing well, I expect to hear.

“So, what’s your problem with my approach?”, my colleague asked. My colleague? Are we intertwined, at odds, collaborative in any way. I don’t know else to call him. My interlocutor seemed best in the moment.

“Right, straight in, I see”. With the needles, I added inwardly. “Well, let’s see. Where to begin”. He chuckled, thinking this a friendly exercise. He opened his mouth, readying a statement. I think the question was a ruse. He didn’t really want me to start. He wanted to appear inviting, but actually spear in with his driving oratory, his oral assault. I opened up, bore my gums, my weakened incisors, and intoned, “I basically think that mental health treatment is a morally neutral exercise, as psychoanalysis prescribes, or has prescribed. And…”

“I guess that’s where we disagree”, he interrupted. He was still smiling. This was still a friendly exercise, though I knew what was coming next. “I mean, I understand that old school approach, taking a neutral position, but I think that has falsely justified a lot of neglect, especially of victims, over time”.

There were already balls in the air, forcing choices upon what to juggle. Old school? I mused. A pejorative term, I think, signifying a kind of philistine ageism: what’s old is out, or should be. What’s new is necessarily that and ought to be ushered in asap.

“We might, though you’ve stepped in before I’ve even named the alternative to neutrality. Should I yield and just…let you?”

“No, go ahead”

“By the way, are we recording?”

“Yes”. He was now terse: impatient to move on, or offended that I’d questioned his piloting skills.

“I think your approach is essentially moralistic. Dominantly so, actually. And I know what you might say, what you have said: that psychotherapy, or analysis, is an ethical framework. It is set up as an ethical entity, representing, if you will, moral values. However, it isn’t meant to be moralistic, I and many others think. It’s—”

“But what’s moralistic in my approach? I mean, I tell people it’s their choice, their decisions on what approach to take. I’m not forcing anything on anyone”

“For the moment, that’s besides the point I’m not yet making, because this part of the discussion isn’t about authority, as you’re suggesting. By moralistic, I mean offering the patient an idea, a lesson essentially, that is intended to leverage a change by appealing to their moral reasoning”

“Right”. More impatience, inflected with wary distrust.

I continued: “You, say such and such a behavior is wrong. You say it hurts others. You add that it hurts others in ways they haven’t noticed, either they didn’t know or didn’t want to know, and that distinction gets short shrift because the nature of their resistance is to be dismissed—”

“They’re narcissistic”

“—by assessment/partially diagnostic labels that are a shorthand for an explanation of why someone is acting in a certain way”

“Hold on, you don’t think that problem behaviors, the ones we typically speak of, are a result of narcissism?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m saying that labels like that are not motivational. If a person is stirred to an action that’s adaptive or not, they don’t go ‘well, I’m narcissistic’ as their half-conscious understanding of their desire in any given moment”

“Wouldn’t you agree that they’re not thinking of other people, specifically their loved ones, in such a moment?”

“We don’t know that, and I think you’re assuming that if they did think of loved ones, it would deter problem behaviors because that’s what thinking of loved ones does”

“Not necessarily. I know that people have mixed feelings towards loved ones, that they feel ambivalent. I get that”

“Well, I don’t hear that represented in your approach. As far as I can tell, it’s all about drawing attention to the negative effects of problem behavior with the expectation that your listener will then feel inspired to stop doing the problem behavior, thus healing can proceed. It’s like one of those TV ads that show half-starved, shivering animals laying in a shelter, looking miserable. You’re meant to feel sorry, get off your ass and either adopt one or make a donation. The ads not saying, what are your mixed feelings towards the neglected that might lead you to NOT act”

“Well, sure, you want people to act appropriately. What’s wrong with taking steps to elicit appropriate guilt?”

I stuttered, half-incredulously. Where to begin. “See, there’s the crux of your method: appropriate guilt. You think because you’ve called it that, and because your patient will consciously agree, as in agreeably if dolefully nod their head, that they will change their ways. What’s wrong with that? We don’t need therapists or analysts to play that role, is what’s wrong with that? That’s what preachers and social justice warriors are for, to persuade rather than explore thoughts, seeking to understand conflicting thoughts and feelings, not to vanquish them. You’re a mental health professional, and now I’ll be directive if not directly moralistic: it shouldn’t be that difficult to persuade you that persuasion as a tactic is at best limited as an intervention; at worst, it’s counter-effective. People resist being told what to do or manipulated in how to feel”

“That’s not what I do”

“I think it is what you do”

“It’s not. How can I persuade you?”

I paused. “Do you do case conferences with your colleagues, your team, as you put it?”

“Of course, we meet regularly, discuss cases, prepare a plan of action, discussion interventions”

“Do you each read transcripts from sessions, verbatim or near-verbatim notes, or make recordings, as we’re doing?”

“No”, he said tiredly.

“Then how do you really know how each of you is responding to patients’ process? How do you know how you’re persuading patients to experience appropriate guilt, as you put, or else being interested in their ambivalent feelings. And how, if you don’t hear instances of patient responses to your statements, how do you know if they’re really thinking about what you’re saying versus merely complying with your pronouncements? And why, for example, if they glean from the outset that you think they should feel guilty about their actions, would they even tell you about their mixed thoughts and feelings”

“Wait, aren’t you presuming that people will only share their feelings if they expect validation? I’d suggest that when people come to me, they already feel some guilt. I’ve not imposed that upon them, as you’re implying. They expect to hear push back. Secretly, I think—here’s an in-depth interpretation for you—they’ve longed for someone to take a hold of them and tell them what to do, persuade them that what they’re doing is against their values”

“That’s the authority piece, and you may have a point that people are looking for a version of parenting via the therapeutic relationship”

“Well then?”

Now I chuckled. “Interesting. You say that as if you think the matter resolved”

“Well, you seem like you’re affirming that a parent-like, values-validating approach is indicated, which would be healing. What’s next?”

“Indeed”

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October 3, 2025 · 5:01 pm

The Right to Cry Thunderbone

X: Can you believe what happened to Eddie J?

Y: Of course I can, nothing surprises anymore

X: Yeah, but I mean, it was way uncool after his dog died

Y: that doesn’t make him a good person

X: still, it’s about respect

Y: respect for who, Eddie J?

X: For the fact that he’s going through something…I mean, be human is all I’m saying

Y: It’s not all you’re saying. From your post it sounded like you thought people should be fired or even arrested for calling him out

X: Well, yeah. It’s totally inappropriate, don’t you think? It’s not the right time.

Y: Problem is, doesn’t that cut both ways? People who were fans of his had no problem singing his praises, saying what a great guy he is

X: What’s wrong with that?

Y: nothing, except it’s one-sided to say only speak positively, leaving out what’s critical or even insulting, just because it’s “not the right time”. When does it become the right time to accurately speak to a deceased person’s reputation across divides? People have a right to give an opinion

X: So do I and I say IT’S BULLSHIT

Y: actually, you’re shouting that, plus wanting people to be fired or arrested, which is more than giving an opinion

X: It’s my opinion that they should be arrested

Y: Okay, you have a right to say that

X: Well then…

Y: Well what?

X: Then they should be fired and arrested

Y: (laughing) no, there’s a difference between saying that and having the power to put it into effect

X: we can if enough people say so. That’s democracy, the social contract

Y: not really, it’s a matter of law whether someone gets arrested, at least

X: laws are democratic because we vote for people who make the laws

Y: right but we have certain inalienable rights that supersede the kind of legislation you’re talking about—one of them is free speech. People can say what they like about Eddie J as long as it’s not slander, as in factually incorrect, versus an opinion, like calling someone a jerk

X: or calling for violence

Y: nobody called for violence against Eddie J or his dog

X: they did, they used words that led to violence. It was…whaddya call it?

Y: a dog whistle?

X: no, smart ass. It was hate speech

Y: that’s not calling for violence. You’re allowed to hate, otherwise calling me a smart ass would be grounds for you being fired or arrested

X: that’s not what I mean. It was way worse than that, come on. I’m talking about words, certain words, equaling hatred, and therefore violence. Words are violence

Y: last week it was silence equals violence. Make up your mind

X: sometimes silence is violence if you’re not speaking up when you should

Y: should I lose my job or get arrested if I don’t say anything about issues you think are important?

X: No, I’m not saying that

Y: silence is violence, you said, so why wouldn’t it be punished

X: not in that way, I just mean you should be criticized

Y: or yelled at

X: I’M NOT YELLING

Y: I think your voice is hurting my foot

X: whatever, now you’re blaming me, playing the victim. There’s way too much blaming and fingerpointing going on right now. I blame the left for that.

Y: You see me as on the left?

X: No, you’re in the middle, but that’s bad too. Anyway, I’m outa here, not talking to you

Y: Or “liking” my posts anymore, none of which are political

X: That’s right. Maybe you should be fired, or arrested if you think it’s okay to mock someone whose dog just died just because you don’t like them for dissing on your favorite band, whatever they’re called

Y: Thunderbone. Greatest band ever! It should be so declared by the highest authorities, like chatgbt. To suggest anything else is false news, disinformation, or misinformation, whatever the difference between those things is. And it’s the only issue that really matters. It should be illegal to diss on TB, or even fail to invoke their name, like you just did: punishable by job loss, incarceration, public stoning, banishment to a leper colony…like a red state

X: Ugh, I knew it. You said red state, you hater! You’re on the left. Bye

Y: It was a joke. What, are you banning me?

X: yes, and your stupid blog

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September 14, 2025 · 5:58 am

Two attorneys chat about a child abuse law

Imagine a lead-up to the case of Harris, as in Kamala, representing the state of California, v. Mathews, Alvarez, and Owen: a case at least five years in the making; a case delayed multiple times because witnesses weren’t available at short notice, because one of the attorneys for either side became ill; because the judge in the case decided to go on vacation–who knows? And if you weren’t there for the projected week-long trial that became a day-and-a-half trial and ended abruptly, you won’t recognize so readily the elements outlined in this speculative dialogue. You might not know that a ten year old law that mandated changes to child abuse reporting law based on now 45 year old legislation had gotten bounced around between courts since 2019–officially remanded by the California Supreme court in 2020 with the decree that the state must demonstrate, via a trial, that the 2015 amendment to the 1980 Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act (CANRA) advances the cause of that earlier legislation. So, conjure two principals from the state attorney general’s office (I’ll call them A and B), chatting on the eve of the trial with one of them fretting yet plotting over what may happen:

A: So, a person does something that harms children, indirectly. They look at child porn. I know. I’m supposed to call it CSAM, child sexual abuse material. Whatever. But it does harm them directly, someone says–one of our witnesses: “It’s not a victimless crime”

B: Well, it isn’t

A: Question is, is that relevant? I can hear the other side, possibly the judge: “Oh, well then we must identify, locate, and then protect the victimized child, following those questions that appear on suspected child abuse report forms. And if this change to the law will achieve that, then okay”. Well, the thing is it won’t as far as we know, but it will stop the subject of the report from continuing the behavior.

B: And presumably deter however many others there are doing this behavior

A: No, that’s been increasing in a big way actually, not decreasing–what both our side and theirs call an “explosion” of CSAM on the internet.

B: So why’s that happening, the explosion?

A: It’s the technology…ya know, the growth of the internet, the sophisticated ways in which images can be stored and hidden

B: The internet? Not people’s desire to do the behavior, look at child porn?

A: Yes, but the technology has made it easier to find the images; meanwhile, the number of images are incredible so it’s hard to track them all. People who weren’t previously inclined to do this kind of thing can now. Or, the same number of people are doing it, roughly, but are able to do it more, gather ever more images, because of the technology. We’re not sure.

B: You mean despite us having this now ten year old reporting law to deter people. So, why have the law?

A: Well, the idea was that having the law, plus the amendment, would help us capture child porn users, not just those who produce, sell, or distribute–that was what the law previously said. But capturing porn users was never the purpose of the law–protecting children is–so we have to spin it that way somehow

B: I see. The plaintiffs will argue that there are more commonplace and more effective ways to capture child porn users, like acting on tips from the public, or by going through google, for example

A: Yes, and states do get thousands of tips per year from the public about child porn users, countless more than we get from psychotherapists reporting on their patients. Not sure about compelling google to violate privacy of their users, getting them to report, and of course they’d have tons more money to fight us in court than three therapists from California plus a pro bono lawyer.

B: Okay, well if we do capture them, the child porn users–let’s say we get better at that, or that more therapists report their patients to us–then what? Remind me, are we talking misdemeanors or felonies?

A: Depends on how much child porn they’ve been viewing or downloading. If it’s not so bad we can send ’em back to therapy, only we–meaning the state–would be in charge of the therapy at that point. Basically, we’d presume they’d lie about their behavior so we’d regularly use polygraphs to verify their disclosures.

B: So what if they tell the truth about more use of child porn?

A: Well, then they’d be in violation, which would lead to a custodial sentence probably. Or, if they lie about child abuse and they fail a polygraph, then the same result would follow

B: And if they’re not continuing to use child porn and they pass a polygraph, then what do they talk about in therapy?

A: I don’t know. Whatever else they talk about in therapy. They get reminded to not use child porn, I guess. Our expert witnesses don’t say much about that.

B: And what about the plaintiff witnesses. What might they say?

A: Well, they’ve just got the one, this forensic psychologist who says, or relays studies that say that breaches of confidentiality are damaging therapy efforts, that child porn users aren’t that dangerous to children in a direct way, according to research. Much of that testimony will be redundant since their attorney can get most of that info out of our witnesses in cross examination. Then, their witness might talk about what else happens in therapy, or what motivates child porn users, like medicating anxiety states, sexual traumas–theirs, not those of the children in the…ya know.

B: What will you ask him in the cross examination?

A: Actually, our best chance is if he doesn’t show, so I have an idea. Remember, the Supreme Court back in 2020 put it on us, the state, to show that the 2015 amendment to CANRA protects children, otherwise the limiting of confidentiality rights may be deemed unconstitutional. So, we’re in trouble here: we can’t show that therapist reports are even happening on this matter, let alone that they’re leading to rescues. We got an expert witness who says that child porn use directly harms children so it shouldn’t matter that we can’t locate victims via therapist reports, but that argument’s about increasing arrests, convictions, and mandated treatment, which isn’t the point of the reporting law. So, we need a get out of jail card and I think it’s in this “no more delays” decree that the judge ordered last month. If we finish up Tuesday afternoon because we limit to a bare minimum our questions for our witnesses–which their side won’t expect–we’ll rest our case and the judge will turn to them. Their attorney says their witness is coming on Thursday, which means he’ll have to ask for a continuance, which the judge will deny. Then, we object that we’re denied a chance to cross examine, so the witness testimony should be struck from the record. And, because he’s their only witness, we’ll move to dismiss, saying they’re not presenting a case, even though they will have asked most of the questions at that point. So…why are you smiling?

B: It’s ingenious

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August 25, 2025 · 4:37 am

A psychoanalyst and sex addiction specialist spar

G: Hey there, welcome. This is Graeme Daniels, psychoanalyst and author. I am a co-author of Getting Real About Sex Addiction and more recently, the author of An Analyst in Training, and I am the winner of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Lee Jaffe prize for my paper, “Panal Treatment of an Alcoholic with Substitute Addictions”. I am here today with a guest, dr. Davide Sakmanov, host of the podcast, “the empathy coach”, plus the workbook, “do it the right way: a practical guide for behaving properly”. Davide Sakmanov, welcome to the show.

D: Thankyou for having me

G. So, Dr. Sakmanov—sorry, the doctor—is that a medical title?

D: No, it’s a sobriquet, as it were

G. A nickname? So, you’re Doctor Davide?

D: I prefer coach Davide. The doctor thing is more of a nom de guerre, if you will

G: Nom de guerre. So, this is war. And you’re not a doctor

D: Not as such

G: Or an academic?

D: Umm…define academic

G: a Ph.d, for example

D: No, not a Ph.d. Sorry, are we here to discuss my credentials?

G. Only if you don’t have any?

D: Alright, if it’s like that, then I’m an MSW, a CCPSC…

G: MSW—social work. CCPSC?

D: Certified Process Safety Professional

G. Is that a mental health credential?

D: It can be. Look, I thought we’re here to talk about my intervention model for the treatment of sex addicts and their impacted partners. You’ve written your big to-do paper on “substitute addictions” or whatever—good for you, and I read it in fact—but I’m here to talk about my model of care that emphasizes empathy. I call it the 2 Es idea—emphasis and empathy—that are the building blocks of a paradigm that has drawn countless listeners and followers…

G: Countless? I mean, if you’re referring to your podcast, it’s easy to track #s. It tells you how many people you have listening, so it’s only countless if you don’t know how to read numbers

D: Okay, thousands. Is that what you want to hear? I have thousands of listeners, and lots of readers

G: Lots?

D: Yes, lots. I’m popular. Very popular. You’re popular too, I’m sure, though I bet not AS popular as me

G: Okay, we’re popular. Maybe you’re more popular, let’s leave it at that, shall we? Let’s talk ideas

D: (relieved) Yes, thankyou. Gawd…

G: Okay, so in your model, the—lemme get this right, Recovery Empathy Couples Therapy Unified Mission– just thinking of what that spells, actually—you bring together couples who have been impacted by infidelity issues, sometimes other addiction issues (we’ll come back to what that means, maybe) to do interventions relating the traumatizing effects of cheating behavior, which includes use of online pornography, utilizing feedback from a treatment team of collaborating professionals. So, I’m curious in particular what that last part means, the “utilizing feedback” from a treatment team

D: Right, so as you probably know, old school therapy models, addiction models, recommend that the sexually misbehaving person, or perpetrator as we call him, does his personal therapy work privately while the woman does hers separately without any coordination that would make her feel safe. The thing is, as the partner, you have every right to know what he is doing and what his treatment plan consists of, and you get to weigh in as to what you believe will strengthen the relationship.

G: Well, there are a number of phrases there that bear exploration, but firstly, again, regarding “utilizing feedback” and say, the “right to know what he’s doing”: do you mean that impacted partners have a right to know, and therefore should know via feedback of a treating therapist, when a cheating behavior has occurred? Are you asking individual therapists to inform other therapists in a treatment team, and thereafter, their impacted partner clients, when a behavioral slip or relapse has occurred?

D: We can do it that way. I know of countless occasions when that has proven therapeutic both for the perpetrator of infidelity and the impacted partner. We know from our clinical experience that disclosing behavioral slips makes an impacted partner feel safer, plus it’s relieving for the other person to have that experience

G: Clinical experience. Not exactly proof, as you put it, but let’s say we agree that it can be therapeutic for an acting out person to reveal their secret behavior to a partner. But you’re suggesting, I think, that the disclosure would occur via an informant therapist, not the perpetrator, as you put it.

D. It doesn’t have to work like that. It would be best, I guess you’d say, if the perpetrator did the disclosing.

G: Under duress? Meaning, it would be “tell your partner or else we will”

D: See, I think you’re trying to make this something it’s not

G: I’m more than trying, I think I’ll succeed in making it sound like what it is. You’re saying that if a client in your program reveals to their individual therapist that they have slipped in their behavior—let’s say, looked at porn—then that individual therapist would communicate that information either directly to the impacted partner, or to that partner’s individual therapist, who would in turn relay that info to the impacted partner, yes?

D: Under the terms of an honesty agreement that we have our clients sign, then yes, that’s how that might play out. I don’t see a problem with that

G: The terms of an agreement? Is there an understood window of opportunity in which the acting out person must disclose to a partner?

D: We like 48 hours. We think that’s enough

G: Between disclosure to a therapist and thereafter to a partner, or between the onset of the behavior and disclosure to a partner?

D: Okay, well I guess the former in practical terms since the disclosure to us is when we’d remind the client of the honesty agreement

G: (upon pause) Do you find that they need reminding? Presumably, they are aware of this agreement all along, or certainly upon agreeing to it. You’d think it would influence whether they choose to share with a therapist an instance of cheating behavior, as your program defines that. Don’t you think that sets up a dynamic that contaminates the authenticity of disclosure? Why would your clients share their secrets with you if you’re going to either inform, in effect, their partners, or else guilt them into doing that?

D: I think you’re getting into the weeds here. Our method has helped untold number of couples heal after years, even decades of deceit and disloyalty

G: Which you seem to think you can dissolve with an honesty agreement and a “come to Jesus” moment in your office. I think you’d consider this matter “the weeds” because your training around confidentiality issues has been remedial

D: Remedial? Lemme tell you something, our program has gotten more positive feedback from all corners of this industry than your outdated psychoanalytic whatever…ever will

G: Again, I’m sure you’re a big hit on tik-tok

D: See, now you’re being a snob. Our program employs the golden seal of approval from leaders in the field of sex addiction: renowned experts in a condition that afflicts millions of men across the world

G: They’re experts in a condition not recognized by the AMA or APA, by the way.

D: It is recognized, meaning sexual compulsivity is recognized, by the WHO

G: Yeah, only as recently as 2017, and with a caveat within its criterion language that warns against diagnosis for moralistic reasons. You don’t merit diagnosis of sexual compulsivity disorder just because you “violated your own values”, like masturbating when you think it’s a religious sin, or because objectifying women via porn violates a feminist affectation. Also, why are men the only focus of your program? The pronouns you use imply that the perpetrators of this sexual abuse, as you think of it, are dominantly if not exclusively male

D: Not exclusively, but most are male. I think it’s harder for women, they have to face the stigma relating to their sexuality, so for them sex addiction or infidelity treatment is really shaming

G: which would be moot if the “right to know” or the “trauma” of their impacted partners were being privileged, as it is in your model. So, why wouldn’t male impacted partners be calling you in #s asking for you put their wives and girlfriends under privacy-violating cross-examination, to “hold their feet to the fire” with honesty agreements, full disclosures, polygraphs?

D: Like I said, I think it’s more complicated

G: Meaning you don’t know why you don’t attract male impacted partners

D: I think maybe they don’t want to appear weak so they don’t…who knows?

G: Sure, who knows? Women don’t want to be shamed for their sexual desires. Men don’t want to appear as victims, would rather act out and feel guilty—actually, that is something I think is true—but maybe these are side issues, “weeds” that are unworthy of attention, as far as you are concerned. Back to the main point: you think the impacted partner, likely female, has a “right to know” what the perpetrator is doing in his behavior. They have a right to know whether that perpetrator’s individual therapy is facilitating expression of appropriate guilt and awareness of the full impact of the perpetrator’s behavior upon their partner’s emotional, physical, and spiritual health

D: Absolutely!

G: And those perpetrators will gladly disclosure those slips and relapses, past and recent past, moved by your coaching about how their partners deserve to know the truth! They will be galvanized by learning the extent of their impact upon their loved ones—they will learn how they have induced hyper-arousal, high anxiety, self-blaming, in an innocent partner—and in developing this awareness, they will not only significantly reduce if not entirely halt their harmful sexual activity, they will take empathy to another level, privileging a definition of empathy as meaning the validation of an impacted partner’s feelings and perceptions, whether they are distorted or not: the “perpetrator” will eliminate argument from their repertoire of conversation; validation of their partner’s feelings and perceptions will become a near reflex. They will surrender their will to the power of God as they understand it. They will extinguish negative feelings that are denied but acted upon, and love…will prevail

D: I know you’re being sarcastic, but yes…all of that

G: Well, I doubt you understand all of that. And given your stance, plus—I will concede, that of many professional counselors, licensed and not—an astute consumer of psychotherapy might wonder why a mental health professional versus a clergyman is even necessary when it comes to infidelity treatment. A priest, or anyone for that matter, can say that an intimate partner has “a right to know” truths. Anyone can point out the common sense that secretive behaviors violate consciously made agreements about sexual exclusivity. What difference does it make that an “expert” can recite the criterion of PTSD syndrome. You want details? Vivid anecdotes to relate to? Go to CODA meetings. They existed long before you came up with what you think is your original “empathy” model.

D: Hold on. What is it you think I don’t understand?

G: Firstly, I don’t think you understand what I meant by “feelings that are denied but acted upon” because your model ignores unconscious process. I think you think that individuals can be coached to access their loving feelings, put aside what is implicit in acting out—angry feelings, underlying rage—and skip to guilt as a therapeutic tool that will heal. You think that perpetrators are NOT aware of the impacts of their behavior, hence needing education. They ARE aware to the extent that they attempted, at least, to keep their behaviors secret. To complicate matters, they are paradoxically in denial of impacts so as to protect themselves from feelings of guilt, which in turn stem from uncomfortable hostile feelings towards loved ones. It is therefore the INHIBITION of these thoughts, the failure to access AMBIVALENCE, that is THE PROBLEM. Your model, plus—I guess I’ll say, “countless” like it—emphasizes reactive love response designed to vanquish ambivalence. You think your clients or coachees can’t tolerate ambivalence, likely because you can’t tolerate ambivalence, so you preach “get over yourself” rhetoric

D: That’s not true. We talk about ambivalence. We understand ambivalence. We educate that ambivalence is normal

G: Yeah, educate, right. So, in this model of “She has a right to know” regarding slips, plus “what’s happening in the treatment”, that latter ambiguity implies that disclosure beyond the matter of perpetrating behaviors are subject to being relayed to the partner. Regarding empathy, if your client discloses a slip in empathy—let’s say, “I hated her guts yesterday”—that should be shared with the partner, or is there an agreed upon or tacit agreement that such thoughts would not be shared, and what would be the reason for not sharing? The client’s right to private thought? A fear that such thoughts would be traumatizing for the impacted partner, triggering a reactive outrage?

D: Probably more the latter. I see what you’re saying, there’s room for counselor discretion. I wouldn’t share that thought you mentioned. I think that would be re-traumatizing for the impacted partner, and plus I’d think that a defensive thought on the part of the guy

G: Probably true, though your thought about the impacted partner suggests an illustration of my earlier point: you think the impacted partner would not be able to tolerate the hostile feelings of her partner

D: She’d think he shouldn’t have those feelings, sure…

G: And you’d agree with her…

D: (Pause) yeah, I think so. Because I’d think he was being defensive. You said “probably” so maybe you disagree

G: I said probably because I wouldn’t foreclose the possibility that his anger may be legitimate, and that what’s defensive is the addictive acting out as a displacement, plus the inhibition of what may be a rightful protest

D: What rightful protest, hating his wife’s guts? How is that in any way healing?

G: Why do we have to rush to healing? Since neither of us is a doctor, can’t we look to understand the thought, which may only be an impulse, before we seek to eradicate it? So, forget informing the wife for the moment. If we did that, we’d likely get into managing or soothing her feelings, which I think interferes with the process of understanding, taking focus away from his internal problem. Besides, why not consider that the expression, “I hate her guts” is a reaction to a series of repressed thoughts, the content of which is obscured by what’s disturbing in the intense expression

D: Okay, I can see that, sort of…and I can see why we don’t have to share with an impacted partner, or encourage sharing with an impacted partner, every time this guy has an undesirable thought…

G: Right, so…

D: At the same time, I’d be concerned that by inviting more details about this rightful protest that is speculative, we’d be indulging a defensive pattern, which would take us in the wrong direction

G: That presumes a bi-linear process, plus the bias that all negative thoughts are a “slippery slope” that must be avoided. But lemme give an example: a man and his wife are in household garden together, having what at first seems like a benign disagreement about an arrangement of flowers. At first, the problem is that he had gone ahead with the flower arrangement without consulting with her. As they talk about it, the conflict escalates. He says, “what’s the problem?”. She says, “it looks fucking stupid!” and further starts cussing him out, after which he complains that she’s always abusing him or talking down to him. That scene ends with her storming off, shouting “I want a divorce” over her shoulder. Backstory is layered, the presenting problem at least 2-fold: 3 years ago, he was caught cheating on her, getting caught on film with another woman at a party—pictures and video posted online—then they went into couples counseling. He stopped the affair, acknowledged the pain he caused and listened to a lot of podcasts on that subject, has passed 3 polygraphs since, and generally lives in the proverbial doghouse. After a year of little more than mea culpas he says he started bringing up in couples therapy how she mistreats him…as in the flower arrangement instance. She admits she can cross a line and be harsh sometimes but says it’s because she’s still angry and traumatized about the betrayal of their marriage through his infidelities

D: (pause) So, what’s the issue? Doesn’t that make sense? She’s been traumatized by his betrayal, now she’s sensitive to his not talking about things with her, so she gets upset because, as you might think as an analyst, the flower thing is a substitute for the affair-seeking plus keeping it secret and ignoring her. The task is for him to acknowledge the links there, show that he understands why she’s upset, and apologize for the fact that he doesn’t share his thoughts with her while he goes about doing whatever he wants to do…

G: I agree with what you’re saying to an extent: I’ve no problem with acknowledgements, the apologies, especially for not sharing his thoughts, and I appreciate your “it actually isn’t what it is” attitude towards the seeming source of conflict, the flower arrangement. However, your position still presumes a unilateral disorder, likely grounded in, as you might put it, “old school” addiction narratives: that person has THE problem, etc. Anyway, the thing is this: he says the abusive language got worse after discovery of his affair-seeking, but the condescending attitude, her talking down to him, is long-standing, is almost as old as the relationship itself so it predates the betrayal, and to compound the problem with irony, when he brings this up either with her or with therapists—and they had at least one episode prior his acting out pattern, he claims—both his wife and therapists dismissed the subject

D: Well, I’m not sure I buy that, especially if they were in therapy before the sex addiction or just cheating behavior started. As for now, I generally think it’s a problem to muddy the waters of treatment, focusing on matters that could be just a way to excuse the acting out behavior

G: But that in itself strikes me as a splitting response—that is, a black and white way of looking at the problem. You deny the possible or maybe likely complexity of the problem because it takes focus away from a singularly defined task, and also because that background complexity appears to justify acts of escapism. No one is saying that. That’s rather what you are inferring from the speculation of an old relational dynamic for which both parties bear responsibility, even if those responsibilities are rendered asymmetrical by the betrayal of infidelity. In my “clinical experience”, a variety of problems get shelved and obscured by the specter of sexual betrayal: betrayals relating to substance use, money, parenting choices, to name some issues. Only the specter of violence supersedes sexual betrayal as a source of clinical attention. Indeed, this may be the principal reason why cheating or sexual betrayals perpetrated by women are marginalized in most models pertaining to these problems. What’s the priority? The safety of a partner discovered in her cheating behavior by an angry, or otherwise abusive male. I have no evidence of this bias per se, but maybe you can tell me: if you had a female client who had cheated on her male partner, would you insist on that honesty agreement and pressured disclosure if she said she was afraid of his temper?

D: (wearily pausing) I don’t know. Maybe you’re right in one sense about this being complicated, and maybe that’s because there isn’t a moral equivalence about these kinds of situations.

G: Wait, what do you mean by that, moral equivalence?

D: Well, basically that women have more cause to be afraid of men’s anger than the reverse

G: So, what are you saying? Does that set up a double standard with respect to honesty agreements? Do you employ “man up and get honest” interventions with male acting out partners, but then refrain from coercive rhetoric with the fewer female subjects you treat?

D: I don’t think of it as a double standard. Again, I think this is a moral equivalence issue

G: How about we call it rationalized asymmetry. There. I’ve coined a new piece of therapeutic jargon

D: Yeah, I don’t know. Like I said, I just think we’re getting into the weeds here on some of these issues. People come to me, they come to you, wanting help, practical help mostly, with what to do when they’ve done something, maybe a lot of something, that they feel bad about and they want to make a repair, express their love despite whatever other feelings they have, move on and be happy. That’s what it all about, I think, and all I can say is that I think my empathy model has helped a lot of people to find spiritual wellness, forgiveness, peace, and overall happiness. Exactly how many people, I don’t know…just…

G: Countless people. Yes, I know. Well, thank you for coming on the show, Mr. or Doctor Sakmanov

D: How about coach Dave?

G: Sure, anyway this has been an episode of Getting Real About…well, I’d say psychoanalysis, or formerly sex addiction—not sure what to call this at the moment. It isn’t quite what it is, maybe. Thanks for listening

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July 22, 2025 · 6:41 pm

Tools

I read your email earlier today and it’s been on my mind most of the afternoon–in between sessions, at least. I took some notes, wanted to retain elements as I wrote back: there was an incoming text. You immediately confessed. I was struck by what was tacit: the other woman, you’ve been caught, etc. Then the quick fallout. You leave the house. A custodial split is arranged. NO talking–par for the course, it seems. The next bit tells me where you’re at in my podcast series: you’ve thought about the Madonna/Whore split. Your wife’s the Madonna, the total saint. But you’re sexually incompatible, meaning you’re not asexual. 

Who knows what your rep is with her. Hypersexual? The dichotomizing would fit with how far apart you seem from each other. So, the psychological splitting became tangible. She wanted a divorce. You wanted to reconcile, but perhaps you didn’t know how to start the conversation. Actually, I find that most (usually men) in your situation know how to start the conversation: apologies, promises, reassurances, etc. It’s what comes next that’s the problem. It’s good that you don’t blame your wife for your acting out with a consensual partner. What’s not good is that you and your wife never resolved your differences about love and sex. For that you’re both to blame. 

That doesn’t mean the fuller conversation’s easy. It’s hard for a myriad of reasons, some of which implicate parenting rationales. Example: “Let’s not fight in front of the kids. It’ll be traumatic for them”. Great. I guess that means they’ll learn how to resolve conflict via peers, the internet, or some other magical influence. Actually, it means they’ll learn to say “I’m done with…” when they have interpersonal problems of their own, accept forgiveness when they don’t agree they’ve done anything to merit forgiveness, or offer forgiveness under similarly false pretenses; outsource their needs for love and sex, possibly abuse drugs, largely because dealing with difficult people is…well, too hard, it seems.

The sociocultural context you indicate does matter, as many of my podcast commentaries argue. I imagine you may have felt inhibited from raising the issue of sexual incompatibility, afraid you’d be rebuked for having excessive or perverse sexual needs; for objectifying women, or oppressing them with sexual entitlement; for “having only one thing on your mind”. There’s little to suggest that men in our progressively-minded society will feel in any way affirmed for feeling unwanted by their female partners. The concept of Narcissism, weaponized as it is in pop psychology circles (it’s amazing how many therapists actually know very little about theories of Narcissism), is employed to critique masculine ego and tame men’s desire. 

You ask a compelling question about how betrayed partners might reconcile. Where is the gray, you ask, in between profuse mea culpas and frozen impasses? These are the toughest of your questions. I don’t have a simple answer. I’ve worked with some betrayed (female) partners who come to recognize that the Narcissism in their marriages was shared–meaning, they’ve fell in love with and admired the strength in their male partners, their “winning” qualities. This is an important sociocultural point because pop psychologists who lament that men “don’t get in touch with their feelings (they mean vulnerability)” tend to overlook how traditional and even feminist women collude with that phenomenon via their attractions to stoical, ambitious, not observably vulnerable men. Reconciliation? Consciousness is where it starts, I’d say. After the apologies and assurances have been made, and each party has taken its share of “time-outs”, or employed other “tools” of how to manage feelings, then the task is to STOP managing feelings and instead really get into those thoughts and feelings like you’ve never done before. Question is, how bad is everyone willing to feel to get to the truth?

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June 24, 2025 · 1:41 am

You want honesty?

“I don’t feel like I can be honest”

The lament of the…well, of many people, but here, today, in this context, I’ll stick to an old chestnut–the compulsive person–and let the reader extrapolate what they will. What can’t they be honest about? their problem behaviors: drugs, sex, violence. If you have forbidden or just difficult thoughts are you meant to share them? Is there really a gap between thought and behavior? Think quickly, your compulsive self doesn’t think (think?) so. Meanwhile, doesn’t a complaint about honesty imply a willingness to listen to thoughts that acting out behaviors displace?

For those confused by that question, I shall retrace my steps and describe the concept of “acting out” as first explained by Freud (1914). Action replaces thought, feeling, and memory. Compulsive behaviors, for example, are substitutive: they displace energy from one objectionable idea to another, and the latter idea, though objectionable, is actually a lesser idea. That’s right, says the average dissenter, straining to understand this cant yet suspicious of its source…sounds NPR-like, or something. Yes, annihilating another or others in the plural may yield a sting of guilt, but it’s preferable to the sting of victimization, which is belittling, annihilating and, for the sake of posterity…so ultimately shaming. Make me great, as in big, again, not small. The small do not win, H.G. Wells be damned*.

An illustration, perhaps. A person has a complaint about an intimate partner–said partner has become less attractive physically. She’s a women whose hips have expanded. He’s a man sporting a “dad-bod”. Or, either has become difficult in some personal habit and is obstinate in the face of protest. “That’s your problem”, they dismiss, not perceiving the cliff of calamity that can greet such carelessness. The person who “acts out” with porn, drink, an affair, the reckless spending of money, is typically seeking an escape from such impasses. Not so fast, argue those cathected to the narratives of compulsivity. They aver that addicts will do what they do when they want to no matter what stressors or stimulants exist, therefore dog-whistling deflections are contra-indicated, if you please. Sorry, allow me a moment to slap my hand that taps on a keyboard, chastise the mind that thinks what it thinks. See, a question remains, slipping past the modern repressive: do the rules du jour mean that the “obstinate” partner is at fault for the mooted acting out that may or may not follow–ya know, that spending, hoarding, drinking, to infidelity and therefore betrayal hierarchy?

No, and the reader, if you haven’t already opened a new tab and becoming ensconced in a video instead, may notice that I will dodge dichotomies as if they are intellectual potholes. What I am saying is that conflict avoidance is the meta-essence of escapism, and that “acting out” and so-called betrayed partners share a responsibility–that’s right, share–for the relational phenomenon of checking out. Regarding those complaints about your physicality, your lessened drive, your attribution of “this is all you want” to your plaintive other, your wearying politics, or your fixed notions of what constitutes romance and “genuine love”–all the things about which you are politer, more open-minded during the the courting stage of a relationship. So, do you really want to talk about all that stuff, and potentially revise your views. Yes? No? What do you want?

** a reference to The War of the Worlds wherein the tiny, heroic virus does what humanity can’t: defeat the alien

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June 1, 2025 · 6:29 am

Adam is in charge

Infidelity treatment relies upon assumptions of asymmetry: you have perpetrator/victim, or wrongdoer/victim, or “survivor”—or the more right and the more wrong. This is why couples therapy, with its hoary repertoire of agreements, homework assignments, “boundaries”, is rife with tacit messages that obviate egalitarianism. The perpetrator owes the victim, not the reverse, so agreements are not symmetrical. Communication? That means inform the victim of what you’re doing and when. The victim or betrayed or impacted partner (whatever?) doesn’t have to inform the acting out partner (perpetrator of infidelity) of their whereabouts or activities.

This arrangement is based on a premise that often collapses in long-term or analytic psychotherapy, which is often why couples might prefer short-term therapy programs. To put is simply, its narratives are simpler.

Sexual betrayal is the most important traumatic betrayal in an adult intimate relationship, second only to violence. Betrayals relating to money or other material matters (i.e: hoarding behaviors) do not cross as high a threshold of moral abhorrence. Likewise, disputes about how or under what circumstances parents discipline children, or political divisions, simply do not register as high on the scale of marital or couples crises. Monogamy is our ego-syntonic signifier of specialness, a vestige of healthy narcissism that a crossection of traditional and progressive society clings to. It’s the bar we’re not meant to cross, the rule we’re not meant to break, and the lies that conceal this violation only compound the problem. Therefore, the perpetrator has no refuge in protesting the rule he implicitly agreed to upon signing up for the game. The eternal bind: if I said I wanted to____, you’d just say no…

The person who utters this line can usually locate its pedigree. They can recall the antecedent messages from childhood, in aggregate if not from specific instances. They learned early to “compartmentalize”: to postpone pleasure but also truth, and therefore plan the escape routes, the opportunities for play, keeping their artifices and desires secret so as not to intrude upon another desire: to not do harm; to stay in relationship with authority, or civil society. See, truth does harm. Desire is harmful, so we—the Superego—forbids. That’s religion, which feels autocratic and thus objectionable to some. It is necessary and benevolent, say its advocates. Regardless, all agree that the containment of desires call for compromises, agreements with varying degrees of importance attached. Some will call these agreements covenants.

Sexual exclusivity, fidelity in body if not mind, is a compromise traditionally agree upon. Secrecy, as in the segregation from awareness, is another idea of compromise, promulgated with less ceremony perhaps, but with more or less equal force. We’d extend this ethic to all matters between people, but on the matter of sex we are more sensitive. So, the sexual wrongdoer is a deviant, a transgressor, and under the protective canopy of sex addiction or infidelity treatment, they are neither rebels nor underdogs. Indeed, they are privileged abusers. And this is why treatment models aim primarily at men. As social underdogs whose sexuality has already been stigmatized by traditional society, women fit progressive society’s paradigm of whom we advocate for, so we’d need to alter the narrative and vocabulary when they present with the more euphemistically termed problem sexual behavior. Consult CHATgbt on trending jargon: “perpetrator” would not make the cut. Exit narcissism also. Enter PTSD or maybe internalized misogyny. Invoke tales of contracting STDs via similarly promiscuous men, unwanted pregnancies for which abortion options are unavailable; suffered violence at the hands of cuckolded men. Recall that in our moral schema, only violence trumps sexual betrayal in the scale of wrongdoing, so break out the apologist arguments, tilt that narrative into sympathy. Or, push it one step further with circular reasoning, unfalsifiable statements: Adam is in charge. 

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