Therapy Sesh: A Remix with Daniel Shaw, LCSW, Dr. Ramani, & Dr. Natalie Feinblatt

[00:00:00] This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical,

[00:00:04] or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official

[00:00:08] policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion group,

[00:00:12] club, organization, business, individual, anyone or anything.

[00:00:14] (television sound)

[00:00:24] - I'm Sarah Edmondson. - And I'm Anthony, air quotes Nippy, Ames.

[00:00:28] And this is A Little Bit Culty, a podcast about what happens when things that seem like

[00:00:34] a great thing at first go bad.

[00:00:35] Every week we chat with survivors, experts and whistleblowers for real cult stories told

[00:00:40] directly by the people who lived through them.

[00:00:42] Because we want you to learn a few things we've had to learn the hard way.

[00:00:46] Like, if you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty, you're already

[00:00:50] prime recruitment material.

[00:00:52] You might even already be in a cult.

[00:00:53] Oops, you better keep listening to find out.

[00:00:56] Welcome to season six of A Little Bit Culty.

[00:00:59] (theme music)

[00:01:17] Hey, Little Bit Culty listeners. We made you another bonus

[00:01:20] mixtape of some of our fave segments with none other than Dan Shaw, Dr. Amony and Dr.

[00:01:26] Natalie Feimblatt, a sort of chicken soup with a cult-y soul medley.

[00:01:30] - We've got Dan Shaw dropping knowledge on why traumatizing narcissists are so, well,

[00:01:35] traumatizing.

[00:01:36] - We've got Dr. Ramony on how to recover from narcissistic abuse.

[00:01:40] And we've got Dr. Natalie Feimblatt on trauma addiction and cult informed therapy.

[00:01:45] It's a supergroup.

[00:01:46] - We're going to start with the sweet, soulful and mega helpful Dan Shaw, who is one of

[00:01:50] the first people we connect with on our road out of Nexium.

[00:01:54] He's a licensed clinical social worker and a psycho analyst and private practices in

[00:01:58] New York City and in Niac, New York.

[00:02:00] And he's the author of several important resources on narcissism and cult recovery.

[00:02:04] - You can hear the full episode of Dan Shaw in our first season, the links in our show

[00:02:07] notes.

[00:02:08] And in that full episode, you can hear more about his story as a survivor from his own

[00:02:11] cult-y nightmare.

[00:02:12] - But don't go anywhere just yet. Let's get you started with this segment and be sure

[00:02:16] to stick around because we'll hear from Dr. Ramony and Dr. Feimblatt.

[00:02:19] - So put your feet up, put your listening ears on. This is going to be good, kids.

[00:02:23] There's Dan Shaw and you're listening to a little bit culting, the therapy sash remix.

[00:02:27] - Would you mind just defining that term gaslighting for anyone who doesn't know?

[00:02:45] - Well, you know, it comes from this great movie.

[00:02:49] I won't become film nerd right now, but it's called Gaslight.

[00:02:53] And it's the story of a woman with a lot of money who marries a guy who slowly, slowly,

[00:03:00] slowly drives her insane so that he can steal her money.

[00:03:05] And every time she tries to point out the things that he's doing, he totally denies

[00:03:10] it.

[00:03:11] And he just says, "Oh, my dear, you poor thing, you must rest," you know, so he drives her

[00:03:17] more and more crazy. And it's a fabulous movie. Everybody should see it. It's a Hollywood

[00:03:23] classic, but, you know, what we mean now by gaslighting is not necessarily that somebody

[00:03:30] deliberately wants to drive you crazy in order to exploit you, but gurus do need to drive

[00:03:38] followers insane in order to exploit them. They need to make followers feel dependent,

[00:03:44] ashamed, needy, scared. Every cult leader does this to every follower. You know, you might

[00:03:50] get elevated for a while, but then you're going to fall. So you're always being made

[00:03:56] to feel that everything is your fault. You know what gaslighting is? You heard the clip

[00:04:01] of Renee retelling Alison have a set of dots that was pure gaslighting.

[00:04:09] Just to add to it, my understanding is also that this man turned the oil down on the gas

[00:04:14] light, so it was too dark to read. And he pretended that he could read and she was like,

[00:04:18] "It's too dark for me to read." And he's like, "What are you talking about? It's totally

[00:04:21] fine."

[00:04:22] Exactly.

[00:04:23] So she thought she was crazy. Yeah. We should watch that movie, Nippy.

[00:04:25] I've seen it.

[00:04:26] Oh, well, he's ahead of the game, isn't he?

[00:04:28] Charles Boye, an neighbor director by George Pukar. Must see.

[00:04:31] And since we're on the definition section of our program, could you also define narcissist

[00:04:36] or narcissist?

[00:04:37] Well, I am defining traumatic narcissism as somewhat different from the psychology version

[00:04:45] of pathological narcissism.

[00:04:48] Okay.

[00:04:49] Pathological narcissism is something you talk about as like this person is a pathological

[00:04:54] narcissist. And it's like inside of them, they have these problems. But my whole takeaway

[00:05:00] from being in the cult and observing the guru. And then others, others in my personal life

[00:05:05] and others, my patients, once I became a clinician started telling me about.

[00:05:10] My feeling was that narcissism is a relational system. There has to be a predator narcissist

[00:05:18] and there has to be his mark, his target, right?

[00:05:23] So I'm going to tell you what I think a traumatizing narcissist is. I think that's a person who

[00:05:29] has a need to be perfect and always right, never wrong and has to get somebody else to

[00:05:38] submit to him or her and believe the same thing. He has to believe delusionally that

[00:05:45] he's perfect and right because otherwise he would die of shame. He's grown up in some

[00:05:50] way being humiliated, being shamed. Shame is unbearable for a narcissist. So the traumatizing

[00:05:58] narcissist figures out how to have no shame by having a delusion of omnipotence of being

[00:06:04] perfect, blameless, shameless, flawless, and has to have a follower who's going to hold

[00:06:11] all of that blame and shame and neediness and vulnerability for him. He's going to deny

[00:06:17] it in himself and he's going to make others be the ones to hold it. So I think you can

[00:06:23] recognize this in the way Keith behaved.

[00:06:25] 100% now, in retrospect.

[00:06:28] Yeah. And so the traumatizing narcissists, narcissists are people who like they're very

[00:06:35] grandiose, even though they're insecure or they're very insecure, even though they're

[00:06:40] actually more grandiose. And they sort of flip from one side to the other. But a traumatizing

[00:06:46] narcissist doesn't flip. He maintains dominance by his delusion of omnipotence and he needs

[00:06:53] them followers or significant others who submit and who are subjugated, who are under his control

[00:07:03] and who hold all of that shame and dependency that he disavows.

[00:07:09] It's kind of the ultimate parasite, ironically.

[00:07:12] Yes, it's also Dracula and it's also zombies. It's like you're dead and you have to eat

[00:07:18] live people's blood to be to stay, keep your status, right?

[00:07:24] Wow. And here he was teaching us that it was so terrible to be dependent.

[00:07:27] He's the most dependent of them all. The most dependent. Did everybody look at V week.

[00:07:35] What the fuck is V week? But I need, I need, I need, I need, I need that.

[00:07:42] So when we were in it, if anyone were to say that to me, I'm just putting myself back

[00:07:46] in the headspace of 10 years ago, I would have thought he doesn't need that. That's

[00:07:51] this followers just paying him tribute.

[00:07:54] Exactly.

[00:07:55] So, because he made, he was very strategic, I think, in making it look like none of it

[00:07:58] was his idea. I don't need this guys. If you want to have 10 day birthday celebration

[00:08:05] as a present and that's, I'm not your guru, he did this whole faux humble thing right

[00:08:10] now. It was also for me, V week was to me kind of a corporate retreat more than celebrating

[00:08:20] his birthday.

[00:08:21] But we did celebrate his birthday, like we all, every center put on presentations for

[00:08:25] him. I remember which we hated.

[00:08:27] It was like the gift of the Magi, you all had to come bearing frankincense and mer and

[00:08:33] lay it at his feet.

[00:08:34] Yes. And our presentations were never good enough, Dan. You know how many times I got

[00:08:38] in trouble for having subpar presentations?

[00:08:40] Of course.

[00:08:41] Like we made films, we did dances, we did group choreography with like 60 people. Was

[00:08:47] never good enough.

[00:08:48] Look, he didn't want to have V week, that was everybody else's idea. The same way he

[00:08:53] didn't want to have dust that was everybody else's idea.

[00:08:57] Same bullshit.

[00:08:59] Since we're on a little comparison here, I was just curious, since most of our listeners

[00:09:05] have been following the next-game story.

[00:09:07] So in working with me as my counselor during this time, I mean, I remember so many good

[00:09:13] nuggets that I got from working with you, but I was just curious what you saw without

[00:09:19] breaking client confidentiality with other people.

[00:09:21] But I felt like as you talked to more of us, you started to see certain patterns in relation

[00:09:26] to your own experience.

[00:09:27] I was wondering if you could share some of those things that you saw as a consistency

[00:09:31] in the type of abuse that we endured at all different levels. Like I've said, in many

[00:09:35] other interviews, like what I experienced was very different than people who lived there

[00:09:39] or who were with Keith in a closer capacity or even sexually.

[00:09:42] What did you see as a consistent pattern?

[00:09:45] Well, if you saw Robert De Niro portray Bernie Madoff, Bernie Madoff just died in jail.

[00:09:52] It's an excellent film. The actual reporter who interviewed Madoff extensively was in

[00:09:58] that movie. And the last soon is her talking to him in jail. And she says something about

[00:10:05] him being a psychopath and De Niro's last line is something like, wait a minute, you

[00:10:09] don't really think I'm a psychopath, do you? And that's the end of that movie. Well, these

[00:10:14] people are malignant narcissists is the way that I would put it. And malignant narcissist

[00:10:21] is the term Eric From came up with when he studied Hitler and he studied other dictators

[00:10:27] and people like this, they're like the traumatizing narcissists, but they go big, they go national.

[00:10:34] But what's really motivating them more than anything else, they're never going to acknowledge

[00:10:41] any shame whatsoever about anything.

[00:10:44] They have to believe there's nothing they can do or say that anyone that can ever cause

[00:10:51] them to feel ashamed. And then people go wild for that. Wow. You mean, we could just be

[00:10:57] ourselves and not be ashamed and just say, say what we want, we're angry the way we want

[00:11:02] being and just be rude and cruel and mean because that's righteous. It's like cruelty

[00:11:09] becomes righteousness. Shame in a normal human being, which by the way is in every human

[00:11:15] being. It's there for a reason. We have to learn. We have to develop a moral compass

[00:11:21] about what's right and wrong. And without shame, we don't really learn that. Shame becomes

[00:11:27] an incentive in order not to be ashamed. We're incentivized to do good. But these guys in

[00:11:33] order not to feel ashamed are incentivized to be delusional and megal of the life.

[00:11:39] We tell our stories.

[00:12:09] We change the world. A little bit culties proud to support the hashtag I got out project,

[00:12:15] which empowers survivors of cultic abuse to share their stories online as a catalyst

[00:12:19] for education, prevention, and healing. Learn more about the hashtag I got out movement

[00:12:24] and find resources at I got out dot org.

[00:12:33] Quick follow up to the role of shame and how it relates particularly to narcissistic leaders

[00:12:38] who Sarah and I are watching Yellowstone and there's a scene in it where the sisters talking

[00:12:43] to the brother about the best politicians are good politicians or narcissists. The best

[00:12:48] ones are psychopaths. Yeah, one of those. One of the and I immediately accessed this

[00:12:54] book I read about Stalin probably about 10, 11 years ago. It was called Stalin's Follies

[00:12:59] and the body count on Stalin is still being tallied by the Russians. They don't really

[00:13:05] know and the reason Hitler's so well documented is because it's all on film and it was documented.

[00:13:09] There was a poll in Russia. I remember reading like in 1990 1991 and 51 to 52 percent of

[00:13:18] the population considered Stalin a national hero.

[00:13:20] It was mind boggling to me when I read that and this pertains to the shame of that thing

[00:13:25] is they don't seem to ever feel the shame or there seems to be a lack of acknowledgement

[00:13:31] of it and I wanted you to comment on that because I just think it's, I wonder like if

[00:13:36] someone who's sitting in the jail cell right now feels that, acknowledges it or how does

[00:13:40] that work? What's the mechanism? And I asked a similar question in our last one and the

[00:13:44] response was good because we don't really know because we don't have a lot of psychoanalysis

[00:13:48] on these people but you're best shot. You're best shot.

[00:13:51] Yeah. I think there are some people who may in fact have a genetic disposition towards

[00:13:58] sociopathy or psychopathic or you know that's probably true but I think for a lot of people

[00:14:06] they have to experience growing up intense chronic humiliation. Robert J. Lifton studied

[00:14:14] Shoko Asahara, the guru in Japan that had his you know very highly educated academics

[00:14:22] and scientists released nerve gas in the subway because they were going to purify the

[00:14:27] world to save it. When Shinricho grew up he was bullied and teased by his peers. He had

[00:14:36] a terrible vision problem and he felt ashamed of it. He later went bankrupt, selling fake

[00:14:43] Chinese herbs and ultimately he becomes this guru. I mean look at Hitler this totally

[00:14:51] never seen incapable of succeeding guy. These people find a way to completely banish shame

[00:15:01] from their psyche but it's denial, it's disavowal, it's dissociative, it's not normal.

[00:15:08] Yeah. So if I try to see this someone without shame looks free to someone who does have

[00:15:15] shame and if you don't see shame as a necessary requisite for you to have empathy, morality

[00:15:22] you're going to see that person is free and you're going to potentially see yourself as

[00:15:26] limited by your shame when it's actually an asset.

[00:15:28] That is so well put, that is right on. That's it. You nailed it. I don't know if we've talked

[00:15:35] about this anywhere else but this just reminded me of something that Keith actually talked

[00:15:39] about in forums a number of times. You've probably heard this already Dan that he taught

[00:15:43] us this psychological makeup of a sociopath. He called it a suppressive. Somebody who doesn't

[00:15:49] have morality because they see the world as a range of options and they'll do things

[00:15:54] that people with morality would never do like lie, steal and cheat. So that they have

[00:15:58] more options than a normal person therefore they appear to be even more with the word

[00:16:04] confident. Yeah more confident and free because they will do all these things that we would

[00:16:08] never consider cause we have morality and he said this example. Do you remember this

[00:16:12] about the robots? Yeah, yeah so he did check this out. And we thought he was just teaching

[00:16:16] us about what to look out for in the world. We didn't realize he was teaching us about

[00:16:19] him. They would masquerade as thought exercises. Yes he would do thought exercises with us

[00:16:24] a lot and the exercise was imagine being in prison. Yeah and you're in prison and to get

[00:16:30] out of the prison which he doesn't have to imagine anymore. Right. Ironically to get out

[00:16:35] of the prison you're going to have to kill the body that you know kill the bodyguards and

[00:16:40] imagine that as a person that that's really like to be free you're going to kill a human

[00:16:44] and that's hard right. So imagine now that you're in prison and the bodyguards are actually

[00:16:48] robots. Would you feel better about dismantling a robot to be free and then people go yeah

[00:16:53] of course like I just you know dismantle the robot and he's like well that's what it's

[00:16:56] like for a sociopath. Humans are just robots in the way you don't see them as humans that

[00:17:00] you'd have to hurt. It's just robots to get out of the way to achieve your goals. Wow.

[00:17:05] So that's him is blood curdling. But I know shivers and the joy that he probably got

[00:17:11] sitting up there on his stupid fucking throne. I say throne but you know it was a chair but

[00:17:17] was elevated and him telling us these stories and we're all like oh yes thank you Vanguard

[00:17:22] for educating us on the nature of sociopathy. Well he's like yeah that's what I'm doing

[00:17:27] to you right now it suckers. Yeah I mean about the most sadistic things he did was have

[00:17:32] people watch those films of beheadings you know he was just unbelievably sadistic and

[00:17:38] cruel and it was very largely aimed at women. You know in the name of creating a band of

[00:17:44] alpha men I mean he was creating you know army of betas for himself you know to go try

[00:17:52] to make him prosper and spread the words spread the gospel. It's so fortunate you guys

[00:17:59] stopped him you and the others you know we know who they are and and they are extraordinary

[00:18:04] all of you. But I was worried like hell for you Sarah and Nippy and for all the others

[00:18:10] Marc and Bonnie and everybody because nobody ever got out of a cult and did what you did.

[00:18:18] Everybody who got out of a cult is more like me. Spend a year trying to pretend like it

[00:18:23] didn't happen before you start to realize what the fuck happened to me. You know you

[00:18:29] guys went like boom. Well it's interesting Dan that's the why I asked you the disenfranchised

[00:18:37] question. For me I had been disenfranchised for a while I felt like the reason I was there

[00:18:43] and I think in Yani Yalich's book it's called Moral Injury the mission it wasn't happening

[00:18:48] we were throwing rocks at tank and it just felt it wasn't happening and I didn't see

[00:18:52] it happening. But I also felt like the hooks were in me is like okay it's going to be

[00:18:57] hard to do what we're doing it's not going to be easy and it takes a certain amount of

[00:19:02] effort for you to achieve any goal no matter what you're going to do no matter what I was

[00:19:07] going to do in my life it was going to be difficult and I understood that and trying to be successful

[00:19:11] anything but then I just kind of felt like there are so many things I was disenfranchised

[00:19:15] with. So the pivot when the actual violent thing was obvious to me was easy. And while

[00:19:23] you know I do appreciate you saying you know we did the right thing we were dragged into

[00:19:28] this. I'm not saying I would have walked away from my wife being branded that just wasn't

[00:19:32] going to happen. I just didn't know my recourse just yet. But because Claire Bronfman got

[00:19:37] on a plane and tried to get my wife arrested we were forced to go do certain things. So

[00:19:43] the narrative that we destroyed this community and that was our objective it wasn't until

[00:19:47] we were dragged into a fight and then when you go into a fight you can't hit half-heartedly.

[00:19:52] Now. You can't go in and slap you got to go in and you got to throw your punches hard

[00:19:56] as you can. And for whatever reason we had a lot of things line up for us where power

[00:20:01] is to be in the universe and you know murky was in retrograde with everyone to say. You

[00:20:07] know it lined up where our punches landed and it turned out it was a paper tiger because

[00:20:12] you know it was a house of cards that we ended up punching. So yeah through hard punches

[00:20:16] but we didn't know we were exposing. So yes I appreciate you saying those things but we

[00:20:22] were dragged into it. We were scared. But we also chose to fight. I've said this to Sarah

[00:20:27] many times. There was no way he was going to get away with doing that to my wife. When

[00:20:31] you spend any time in a cult at all day in day out hour after hour day after day all

[00:20:39] you're fucking doing is submitting, submitting, submitting, submitting. And if you get out

[00:20:46] and you don't find a part of you that can fight whether it's to bring your cult down

[00:20:52] or not because most people don't succeed when they try to do that. Your rare exception

[00:20:58] and a good and a great model. But even if you don't fight to bring your cult down you

[00:21:04] got to be fighting to take back your life. You don't have a fight in you about that.

[00:21:11] You're just going to go find another cult. You got to fight to take back your life when

[00:21:15] you leave your cult. But it does take a lot of work. And I remember you asking me that

[00:21:19] one of my first sessions you were like, do you want to maybe heal first before you become

[00:21:23] an activist? And I was like, I think I got to become an activist. I mean by activists

[00:21:30] I mean I'm actively taking it down and bringing people out and trying to educate people.

[00:21:36] as to what's really happened and everything.

[00:21:38] - It was either crush or being crushed, so you had to fight.

[00:21:42] - So, what challenges do people have leaving a narcissist,

[00:21:47] leader in spite of all the evidence that may be pointing

[00:21:54] to the fact that they're a narcissist leader

[00:21:55] and they're being abused?

[00:21:56] - Like what keeps them in, you mean?

[00:21:58] - Yeah.

[00:21:58] - Well, both questions are, they're two sides

[00:22:02] of the same question, what keeps you in,

[00:22:04] what's hard when you leave?

[00:22:06] You develop an attachment bond to the narcissist,

[00:22:10] you're seduced, you see a part of them

[00:22:13] that looks like it has the most love anybody ever had

[00:22:17] and they're gonna give it to you,

[00:22:19] especially if you're in a vulnerable place in your life.

[00:22:22] As many people are, when they get involved in these things,

[00:22:25] most people I would say are in some kind of vulnerable place

[00:22:29] in their life as I was at the end of my 20s.

[00:22:32] So you see somebody who looks like they have the most love

[00:22:36] of any human being you've ever met

[00:22:38] and they're gonna give it to you,

[00:22:40] you form some kind of a bond that's like the bond

[00:22:44] of an infant to a parent to a mother.

[00:22:48] This person has the love that I need in order for me

[00:22:53] to become who I wanna be is how it feels.

[00:22:55] Once you've started on that path,

[00:22:58] as we all know about the frog and the water

[00:23:01] that slowly heats up to a boil,

[00:23:04] if they start being cruel and abusive,

[00:23:06] you tell yourself that it's part of the love

[00:23:08] and you keep expanding the definition

[00:23:12] of what their love is until their love means

[00:23:15] I think they want you to get branded

[00:23:17] or their love means that they want you

[00:23:20] to go after one of their enemies

[00:23:22] and throw acid in their face.

[00:23:24] I mean, people in cults are violated.

[00:23:28] What a cult leader does is they teach us

[00:23:31] to let them violate our boundaries

[00:23:34] and then they teach us to violate other people's boundaries

[00:23:38] on their behalf.

[00:23:39] - So how does defending or expanding

[00:23:44] their definition of love lend to them

[00:23:48] expanding their own delusion?

[00:23:49] - Right, right.

[00:23:51] Well, the more people are submitting to them,

[00:23:54] the more it's clear to them that,

[00:23:56] oh, I really am God.

[00:23:58] I was saying I was, I thought I was,

[00:24:00] but look, here's the thousand people.

[00:24:03] Every woman is willing to have sex with me

[00:24:05] and every man would let me beat him up

[00:24:08] if I wanted to.

[00:24:10] Great, I must be God.

[00:24:12] That's the way Rajganesh was, you know.

[00:24:14] - Right, with his royal voices.

[00:24:16] - Yeah, right.

[00:24:17] And I'm trying to get too wide so hard to leave.

[00:24:20] But when you do leave,

[00:24:21] it's usually because you've been tortured

[00:24:24] to a point where you finally can't take anymore.

[00:24:26] Then what's hard,

[00:24:28] this shameless asshole cult leader is still shameless,

[00:24:32] but now you are totally ashamed of yourself.

[00:24:37] Now you've left and now you have to face a world

[00:24:40] where everybody says, what the fuck is wrong with you?

[00:24:44] Why did you stay and why didn't you leave?

[00:24:46] And, you know, everybody is looking at you

[00:24:50] like you're a three-headed freak

[00:24:52] because you are so stupid that you were in that cult.

[00:24:55] So you now are stuck with all the shame

[00:24:58] that this asshole refuses to experience.

[00:25:02] And that's what happened for me.

[00:25:03] I said, you know what, that's bullshit.

[00:25:06] I had to fight because I was 42 and I was penniless

[00:25:10] and I wanted to have a life.

[00:25:12] And so I fought like hell to get the money from people

[00:25:17] to help me get my degree and get my training

[00:25:21] and to start a family and I just fought and fought and fought.

[00:25:24] After a while, I can honestly say

[00:25:26] that I don't have to fight so hard anymore.

[00:25:29] It took a long time though.

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[00:25:49] (upbeat music)

[00:25:52] This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

[00:25:56] As you can probably imagine, being in a cult for over a decade

[00:25:59] took a toll on some of my relationships

[00:26:01] with my closest friends and family.

[00:26:03] And something that has helped me

[00:26:04] mend those relationships has been working

[00:26:06] on my most complicated relationship of all time,

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[00:26:59] Hey everybody, Sarah here.

[00:27:01] You do not want to experience me when I'm hangry.

[00:27:05] You know, hanger, the thing when you've gone past hunger

[00:27:08] to something bordering on rage.

[00:27:09] Hey, you know, it happens.

[00:27:11] And some of my busiest days with the boys,

[00:27:13] the pod and the bajillion errands.

[00:27:14] My three square meals don't always keep the hanger at bay

[00:27:18] and when hangers strikes, so does the sweet tooth.

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[00:27:21] but I know that doesn't lead anywhere good for me.

[00:27:24] So that's why I always keep some chomps meat sticks

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[00:27:29] Yes, in my purse.

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[00:28:34] Enjoy and happy snacking.

[00:28:37] (upbeat music)

[00:28:39] - Okay.

[00:28:43] So you were just listening to a segment

[00:28:45] from our episode with Dan Shaw,

[00:28:47] an expert on cult recovery and cult informed therapy.

[00:28:50] Be sure to check out that whole episode

[00:28:52] if you wanna learn more about his story

[00:28:53] and shout out to you, Dan, if you hear this,

[00:28:55] 'cause we love you.

[00:28:56] - But next up, we're gonna get into the weeds

[00:28:58] with Dr. Romany, who is a licensed clinical psychologist

[00:29:01] and the author of two books on the subject.

[00:29:03] Should I stay or should I go?

[00:29:05] Surviving a relationship with a narcissist

[00:29:07] and don't you know who I am?

[00:29:09] How to stay sane in an era of narcissism,

[00:29:11] entitlement, and incivility?

[00:29:13] She's got a kick-ass podcast too,

[00:29:15] called Navigating Narcissism with Dr. Romany.

[00:29:17] Listen to our full conversation with her, if you like.

[00:29:19] That links in the show notes.

[00:29:21] - Definitely one of our favorite episodes of all time.

[00:29:23] And in this clip, we jump right into it.

[00:29:25] Are narcissists born that way?

[00:29:26] What even are they?

[00:29:28] Is there such a thing as a NARC-repellent lotion?

[00:29:30] Just kidding, we didn't ask that.

[00:29:32] Keep listening.

[00:29:33] Here's a snippet of our chat

[00:29:34] with a great and greatly helpful Dr. Romany.

[00:29:36] Thanks for listening to this

[00:29:37] a little bit called the therapy session remix.

[00:29:40] We needed this.

[00:29:41] - So we realize that you've done so many interviews

[00:29:47] and you have a huge body of incredibly helpful work out there,

[00:29:52] which we're going to be giving to our listeners

[00:29:54] as homework, they do like the homework.

[00:29:55] But since our podcast is a little bit called to you,

[00:29:58] we're going to try to take your expertise

[00:30:00] and apply it more to this field

[00:30:02] that the podcast covers.

[00:30:03] Before we do that, we wondered if we could just start

[00:30:05] with like a baseline

[00:30:06] so that our listeners understand this word, narcissism

[00:30:10] in context to the cult space

[00:30:12] and how maybe sort of breaking down

[00:30:14] like how that word is bit overused, misunderstood,

[00:30:16] giving us a little bit of like foundation.

[00:30:17] - It's been thrown out a lot

[00:30:19] in the last five to six years for reasons

[00:30:22] I think we all can speculate.

[00:30:23] - Right, it really is.

[00:30:24] It is a very overused, very misunderstood,

[00:30:27] but also a really important word.

[00:30:30] I think that in the anger that people have of it being

[00:30:33] overused and misunderstood,

[00:30:35] people are forgetting the potency of the word

[00:30:37] and it is a word that gives us a lot of information.

[00:30:39] If you're getting the right information.

[00:30:41] So narcissism is a personality style, right?

[00:30:43] It's not a disorder, it's a personality style

[00:30:46] and it is characterized by certain consistent patterns

[00:30:50] in a person such as having really inconsistent empathy.

[00:30:53] And I'm going to talk about this idea

[00:30:54] of it being inconsistent empathy.

[00:30:56] Usually we just say it's a lack of empathy.

[00:30:57] It's a little bit more nuanced than that.

[00:30:59] So inconsistent empathy, entitlement, grandiosity,

[00:31:02] validation and admiration seeking, arrogance,

[00:31:06] a need for control, a real hypersensitivity

[00:31:09] to any kind of feedback or criticism, envy of others

[00:31:13] or they assume that other people envy them,

[00:31:16] a real incapacity for deep relationships or true intimacy

[00:31:20] and a very externalized model of going through the world.

[00:31:23] So in essence, they set their goals on the basis

[00:31:26] of what they think the world wants them to do.

[00:31:28] Their identity is very much shaped

[00:31:30] by how the world views them

[00:31:32] instead of having a strong internal sense of self.

[00:31:34] But at the bottom line, people with narcissistic personalities

[00:31:37] are actually deeply insecure and have deep seated feelings

[00:31:40] of inadequacy.

[00:31:42] So all of those things I'm talking about,

[00:31:43] the grandiosity, the arrogance, the entitlement.

[00:31:46] It's almost like a suit of armor

[00:31:47] that protects this really vulnerable internal piece of them

[00:31:51] that they are not even in touch with

[00:31:53] but if anyone criticizes them,

[00:31:55] it's almost like that wound comes up and they lash out.

[00:31:57] And the reason I say inconsistent empathy

[00:32:00] is that some people will say, "You know, I met someone

[00:32:03] but times they seem really empathic."

[00:32:05] Empathy for a narcissistic person is very transactional

[00:32:08] and it can be very performative.

[00:32:10] They use it to get what they need.

[00:32:12] So if you and the narcissists have really aligned needs,

[00:32:16] wants or desires at the same time,

[00:32:18] you might actually feel like

[00:32:19] this is the most empathic person I've ever met.

[00:32:22] What will happen is that once that need has been served

[00:32:24] or they no longer are aligned with you,

[00:32:26] they will seem like the most cold, aloof,

[00:32:28] rejecting or even contemptuous person.

[00:32:30] That confusion is often what keeps people in the game.

[00:32:34] So what happens is they're saying,

[00:32:36] "Oh, I wanna go back to empathic day."

[00:32:38] And so they bring it upon themselves.

[00:32:39] Like, how can I please them?

[00:32:40] How can I win them over?

[00:32:42] How can I get them over back

[00:32:43] to that beautiful empathy they seem to have?

[00:32:45] What they don't understand is that narcissistic people

[00:32:48] know that empathy is a thing.

[00:32:50] They also know how to use it

[00:32:51] but it's not genuine empathy.

[00:32:53] Again, it's very performative.

[00:32:54] So all those things in secure, arrogance,

[00:32:58] all those things, and I'll speak for me

[00:32:59] but I imagine a lot of people have felt like

[00:33:02] that in their lives, right?

[00:33:04] What would you say?

[00:33:05] It doesn't mean just 'cause you're arrogant,

[00:33:06] you're entitled, it's a thing

[00:33:08] and you can outgrow those things.

[00:33:09] When does it become a narcissistic thing

[00:33:12] and not just a growing pain, so to speak?

[00:33:15] - Right, so that takes us almost to like,

[00:33:18] well, how does personality develop, right?

[00:33:20] Personality is part of how the central nervous system

[00:33:22] develops and the central nervous system

[00:33:24] is sort of not really done

[00:33:26] and I almost viewed as a jello mold.

[00:33:28] I'm like, you know, if you open a jello mold too quick

[00:33:30] it's just gonna slide on the table.

[00:33:33] You really have to wait until a person's around

[00:33:35] somewhere between 25 and 30 to say this brain is cooked

[00:33:38] and almost a little older for men than women

[00:33:41] but then you can pop the jello mold and you got the shape.

[00:33:44] So that's how personality works

[00:33:46] and that's why adolescence is so tricky.

[00:33:48] Some people will say every adolescent is narcissistic

[00:33:51] and I'm like, yeah, kind of

[00:33:52] because that's the nature of that stage of development.

[00:33:55] Adolescents are trying to separate,

[00:33:57] they're trying to become their own people.

[00:33:59] In many ways they're almost trying to say,

[00:34:01] all you folks are trying to control me, namely parents,

[00:34:04] get away from me, I'm gonna do my own thing.

[00:34:06] And so it's, I always liken to them to having clothes

[00:34:08] that are just too big for them

[00:34:09] and they're trying to fit into them.

[00:34:11] So there's lots of emotion, lots of raging,

[00:34:13] lots of figuring it out.

[00:34:14] That's adolescence.

[00:34:15] So I've told many parents, I'll say, listen.

[00:34:17] Narcissism is a story that can only be told backwards

[00:34:20] but not forward.

[00:34:21] So if you have a 17 year old, 18, 19 year old kid

[00:34:26] who was acting like an entitled, arrogant,

[00:34:28] oppositional unempathic jerk to you, I'm sorry,

[00:34:32] and I'm, I really am.

[00:34:33] And then call me in seven years and let's see where it is.

[00:34:36] Because in many cases that kid is gonna grow up

[00:34:39] to the demands of the world.

[00:34:40] They're gonna have to learn how to behave in a workplace.

[00:34:42] Empathy is gonna kick in

[00:34:43] and now that they feel more sort of in their own skin,

[00:34:46] the parents will start seeing that empathy

[00:34:48] come back all of that.

[00:34:49] Now, the problem is for the parents who say,

[00:34:51] okay, my 30 year old is still the same entitled,

[00:34:55] unempathic, arrogant jerk that they were in their teens

[00:34:59] and that's when I say you might have a problem

[00:35:01] because now it seems that they didn't,

[00:35:02] so in other words, you can tell the story backwards.

[00:35:04] They were like that, then they're like that now

[00:35:06] but so many people at 17 will grow out of it.

[00:35:08] So there is that, there's definitely that piece of it.

[00:35:11] Then some people say like, what about the show boat?

[00:35:13] Or like the person who's got the big ideas

[00:35:15] and they come in and they hold the stage

[00:35:17] but then off stage, I'll ask them what's their behavior like.

[00:35:21] This is a person who might really be able to hold the room

[00:35:23] but then when you talk to them on their own

[00:35:25] and they're very sweet, they're very kind,

[00:35:27] they're very solicitous and self-aware and self-reflective

[00:35:30] like they're not narcissistic.

[00:35:31] They're able to put a grandiose show on a stage

[00:35:34] but they're also very aware of other people,

[00:35:36] not a narcissist but that person who's up there on that stage

[00:35:39] prancing about as an arrogant grandiose performer

[00:35:42] and it's a jerk off stage narcissist.

[00:35:44] Okay.

[00:35:45] It's the consistency,

[00:35:47] it's the stability, it's the pervasiveness

[00:35:49] that it cuts across multiple relationships.

[00:35:52] We're looking for like a pattern,

[00:35:54] not for somebody who behaves badly on one afternoon

[00:35:57] that they got fired.

[00:35:58] This is not a one off.

[00:35:59] This is a life off, it's happening all the time.

[00:36:02] Got it.

[00:36:02] Well, just looking at the patterns of narcissism

[00:36:05] within the cult world

[00:36:07] and what we're seeing right now with series

[00:36:08] like the Tinder swindler or inventing Anna,

[00:36:10] where does it cross over from narcissism to narcissistic

[00:36:13] sociopath and what are the tendencies to look out for?

[00:36:16] How do you distinguish those things?

[00:36:18] So when we start using terms, so for example,

[00:36:20] you're bringing up two examples,

[00:36:21] Tinder swindler, inventing Anna,

[00:36:23] of people who were, you know,

[00:36:25] in essence, grifters,

[00:36:26] they were probably more in the sociopathic,

[00:36:29] maybe even marginally psychopathic

[00:36:31] but more sociopathic realm.

[00:36:33] When we start bringing in other terminology

[00:36:35] like sociopathy and psychopathy,

[00:36:37] we have to view narcissism as being on a continuum,

[00:36:39] on a spectrum, right?

[00:36:40] So at the low end of narcissism,

[00:36:42] where it's light, narcissism, light as it were,

[00:36:45] you're talking about people who are sort of superficial,

[00:36:48] adolescent, emotionally stunted.

[00:36:51] At the age of 50, they still seem to concern themselves

[00:36:53] with the things like,

[00:36:54] "We're going to a cake party."

[00:36:55] I'm like, "Oh my God, you're 55, like what is happening?"

[00:36:59] Right?

[00:37:00] But they're annoying, they're ridiculous.

[00:37:02] There's no depth to the relationship,

[00:37:04] but they're not psychologically harmful.

[00:37:06] At the far end of the spectrum though,

[00:37:08] now you're leaning into malignant narcissism.

[00:37:11] And malignant narcissism is really where we see

[00:37:13] not only all the top notes of narcissism,

[00:37:16] but some of the stuff we see in psychopathy,

[00:37:18] the hostility, the callousness, the exploitativeness,

[00:37:22] the willingness to take advantage of people.

[00:37:24] And we also see some sadism mixed into there.

[00:37:27] We see some paranoia and we see Machiavellianism.

[00:37:30] So now it starts getting scary.

[00:37:33] Then the train goes into the more scary stations

[00:37:36] like sociopathy and psychopathy.

[00:37:38] Psychopathy is the most terrifying of all

[00:37:41] because now we're no longer talking about insecurity.

[00:37:45] These are people whose nervous systems

[00:37:46] are very, very different.

[00:37:48] They do not get that sympathetic nervous system activation

[00:37:51] that we all get when we do something wrong.

[00:37:54] Like we feel uncomfortable.

[00:37:55] If we do a bad thing, we're like,

[00:37:57] "Well this does not feel good, we'll feel sick, we can't sleep."

[00:37:59] Psychopath can do, I don't know,

[00:38:02] can rob a bank at breakfast

[00:38:04] and be having lunch with their mom

[00:38:05] and not even think about that sequence.

[00:38:08] Like they're not bothered by doing bad things.

[00:38:10] Narcissists are bothered by doing bad things.

[00:38:12] They don't wanna get caught,

[00:38:13] they don't wanna get publicly found out.

[00:38:15] They actually do value how the world sees them.

[00:38:18] The psychopath, it's a little less important to them.

[00:38:21] Sociopaths are a different animal.

[00:38:23] Sociopathic people are people who are,

[00:38:26] they're much more dysregulated than the psychopaths.

[00:38:29] So they're like the narcissist.

[00:38:30] They get angry very easily.

[00:38:31] They're your bar brawlers.

[00:38:32] They get really upset.

[00:38:34] They can be very manipulative.

[00:38:35] They'll take advantage of people,

[00:38:37] but they're not the cool operators

[00:38:39] like the psychopathic folks.

[00:38:40] Sociopathies are actually not a term we use

[00:38:43] in the mental health world.

[00:38:44] It's more of almost sociological,

[00:38:46] criminological kind of term.

[00:38:48] And so it's not as well defined in our world,

[00:38:51] but that malignant narcissism.

[00:38:53] And if you look at Froam's work,

[00:38:55] Froam has actually written about cult leaders,

[00:38:57] and he specifically said,

[00:38:59] cult leaders are malignant narcissists.

[00:39:00] And I agree with that,

[00:39:01] I think 100% of cult leaders are malignant narcissists

[00:39:05] without exception.

[00:39:06] I've never seen one story of one.

[00:39:08] By definition, a cult is a controlling space

[00:39:11] that is exploitative.

[00:39:12] That's the malignant narcissist space.

[00:39:14] - So you have these terms for these people.

[00:39:16] And, you know, I'm curious where the empathy

[00:39:19] and conscience comes in,

[00:39:21] because a lot of them are very high performers

[00:39:24] in certain domains.

[00:39:25] And I think in some of your talks,

[00:39:26] you mentioned how they get a hall pass because of that.

[00:39:29] I'll use examples like Steve Jobs.

[00:39:31] I know he could be very temperamental

[00:39:33] to Michael Jordan, who is when it all costs.

[00:39:36] And they seem to have a capacity to,

[00:39:38] and I certainly wouldn't necessarily throw them

[00:39:40] in those categories,

[00:39:41] but they seem to have a capacity.

[00:39:42] Even when I was playing sports,

[00:39:44] I could put my empathy on the back burner to perform, right?

[00:39:46] When the game was over,

[00:39:47] there's a way you can be,

[00:39:49] and there's a civility to society that we all re-enter.

[00:39:52] And maybe some of them do, some don't.

[00:39:53] I'm curious as to when, you know,

[00:39:56] how do you make those distinctions?

[00:39:57] And what kind of freedom do they have

[00:40:00] without their empathy that seems to serve humanity sometimes?

[00:40:03] Like, you know, if these people

[00:40:04] are contributing to humanity,

[00:40:06] like how do you reconcile those differences?

[00:40:08] Does that make sense?

[00:40:09] We're not when I'm asking?

[00:40:10] - I got to make sense, absolutely make sense.

[00:40:12] Empathy makes us very inefficient.

[00:40:15] That's a bottom line.

[00:40:16] It is like the drag coefficient on our souls.

[00:40:19] - That's a paralysis sometimes

[00:40:21] 'cause you have to work it out.

[00:40:22] - I wouldn't even say it's a paralysis as much

[00:40:23] as if I'm going about my day

[00:40:25] and I see someone, a colleague of mine is sad or upset.

[00:40:29] And I'm like, hey, let's go get a cup of coffee.

[00:40:31] Let's talk it out.

[00:40:32] And they're starting to tell me about,

[00:40:33] oh, they're having marital problems.

[00:40:35] And I'm there for them and I'm helping them.

[00:40:36] I might've just lost an hour if I worked in.

[00:40:38] Now I gotta stay an hour later, I'm inefficient.

[00:40:41] Or if I say, oh, maybe I should let

[00:40:43] that person get the promotion.

[00:40:45] They've been here longer.

[00:40:47] They're just as good at me as a position.

[00:40:49] Now I haven't thrown them under the bus

[00:40:50] because I had the inside track and could've gotten it.

[00:40:53] But I recognize they're older,

[00:40:54] they're more experienced.

[00:40:55] In fact, their family could use the money.

[00:40:56] I just lost efficiency.

[00:40:58] The more empathy you have,

[00:40:59] the less efficient you are in the most beautiful way.

[00:41:02] By the way, what I'm saying?

[00:41:04] But in a winner take all capitalistic,

[00:41:07] whoever has the most toys wins society,

[00:41:10] that the people who don't have empathy

[00:41:12] and are willing to climb over whoever they need to climb to

[00:41:16] are going to be your billionaires, your innovators.

[00:41:18] They're not stopping to change your baby's diaper, right?

[00:41:21] They are all in on their success.

[00:41:24] And you're absolutely right.

[00:41:25] Then we look at them.

[00:41:26] They're the visionaries, they've changed the world.

[00:41:29] I get all of that.

[00:41:30] And I'll even tip my hat and say what you did

[00:41:33] did change the world.

[00:41:34] Then what I say to the world is don't marry these people.

[00:41:37] Don't get close to these people.

[00:41:38] - They're not father of the year.

[00:41:41] - They're not father of the year,

[00:41:42] they're not person of the year.

[00:41:43] So our problem is we're conflating too much.

[00:41:46] Like, separate it out.

[00:41:48] Just because a person is a great basketball player

[00:41:51] doesn't mean they're a great person.

[00:41:53] Just because somebody who has taken it,

[00:41:55] made a technological advance, has changed the world,

[00:41:58] doesn't mean they're a good person.

[00:42:00] I can't tell you how many people I have worked with

[00:42:03] who have said they endure terrible narcissistic relationships.

[00:42:08] And when I ask like, what drew you to this person

[00:42:10] and sort of what keeps you in the game?

[00:42:12] Well, they're so smart.

[00:42:13] And I'm like, when did smart become a virtue?

[00:42:16] Smart is smart.

[00:42:17] You know, I mean, that's great.

[00:42:18] You're smart, wonderful.

[00:42:19] That doesn't mean you're capable of deep emotion

[00:42:22] or empathy or intimacy.

[00:42:24] And that's our problem.

[00:42:26] We're putting very successful people up on pedestals

[00:42:29] and we're viewing them as holistically good people.

[00:42:31] No, they're good at one thing.

[00:42:33] We can acknowledge that.

[00:42:35] But we've got to stop viewing success

[00:42:37] as being necessarily good because what that means

[00:42:40] is people want to get close to successful people

[00:42:42] saying, well, this is going to be a great relationship.

[00:42:44] And more often than I say, no, it's not.

[00:42:46] That's such a great piece of advice.

[00:42:48] I really also appreciated the advice

[00:42:49] I heard you share with somebody about parenting

[00:42:51] and how teaching empathy is sort of the anecdote to this

[00:42:54] and raising our kids with that trait.

[00:42:58] Can you give us our audience a couple of tangible nuggets

[00:43:01] on what that actually looks like with young children?

[00:43:03] Because I've got mirroring is one of the things.

[00:43:05] Is there-- or maybe you could elaborate on that.

[00:43:06] So the younger the child, we do it in different ways.

[00:43:09] There is no higher task than teaching a child empathy.

[00:43:13] why that. And alongside empathy is self-soothing. The child learning to regulate themselves, recognizing

[00:43:19] you got to wait and learn, wait in line, you got to wait your turn. Sometimes you lose,

[00:43:24] and you're going to have to manage the emotion around that. So, and I think those two things

[00:43:29] are very related, but very in an infant, empathy is achieved by staring at their face. And that's

[00:43:34] if you look at the angle at which a child is fed, you put on the breath, it's a perfect

[00:43:38] angle for them to make eye contact with a mother. So, the mom may not want to be checking

[00:43:43] at her phone while she's feeding her child, like face to face. That's how it's been done

[00:43:46] since time immemorial. Even physical touch, skin to skin. All of that solely starts building

[00:43:52] up empathy, doing mirrored games. You you play with their expressions, they make an expression,

[00:43:56] you copy their expression. That's baby. But as they come up, it's you as soon as they

[00:44:01] start having language, you start working with them on feeling. How do you feel? You teach

[00:44:05] them that feelings have names. You never shame their feelings. It can be built into play.

[00:44:11] You can read any children's book. And someone, a bear or a cat or a bird has a feeling. How

[00:44:17] do you think the bear felt? Like you think, how do you think the bear felt when Goldilocks

[00:44:21] was sleeping in his bed? I felt like that kind of felt like breaking and uttering. But

[00:44:26] they might say, I was happy Goldilocks was sleeping in my bed. You can take any children's

[00:44:31] story. And at the end of the book, that's actually where the magic happens. How do you

[00:44:35] think she felt? How do you think he felt? How do you think they felt? And you're now

[00:44:39] teaching your child to name emotions, not just in themselves, but in others, you can

[00:44:44] do this in TV shows. Like, I think that media can really be used as a jumping off place.

[00:44:49] You want to have your child spend time with other children so they can learn about taking

[00:44:53] turns like, Oh, we've baked, we would bake their cupcake. How, how should we split this

[00:44:56] up? So they went like, Oh, let's cut it in half. Oh, sure. Let's get a knife and cut

[00:45:00] it in half. So you're doing that now, as your child comes into, and I have to say all

[00:45:05] of what I'm suggesting is easy to do through primary school, like, God, love the little

[00:45:11] ones. But once they hit middle school, their brains are developing in a different direction.

[00:45:17] They're more focused on their peers than their parents. They think adults are full of crap.

[00:45:21] And so empathy starts taking on a different tenor. What's interesting is puberty age

[00:45:25] adolescent kids have a lot of empathy for their peers. They have none for their parents.

[00:45:30] And so the parents get confused and say, my kid has no empathy. And I'll say, can you

[00:45:34] tell me what your kids like with their peers? And they're great with their peers. My good.

[00:45:38] They empathy a sound. They're trying to get rid of you. They're trying to make you so

[00:45:41] awful that when they have to leave, they're not panic stricken. It's actually a phenomenon

[00:45:45] called shitting the nest. And so they make a mess and then they're like, Oh, this place

[00:45:50] stocks. I'm out here. And that's how they let go. And I think for a lot of parents, we

[00:45:54] struggle. I have adolescent kids. We struggle with her feelings. And I have to remember that

[00:45:59] what they're doing is they're making it easier to leave. And my job as a parent is to make

[00:46:04] it easier for them. So they're not looking backwards and saying, Mom, and I'm saying,

[00:46:09] I'm always here. You know, just differences. Now you're carrying me inside your heart.

[00:46:13] And I'm just I'm gonna be at you. That's coming soon.

[00:46:17] Yeah, it is. When I, my child moving out, I've got child graduating high school. So my

[00:46:22] child's moving out. And I'm telling you, I see like a six month old infant. And I'm thinking,

[00:46:27] well, no, she's not. And that's the piece I carry. And so, but all of that is part of

[00:46:32] the empathy that we have for our children. And we teach it over and over again. What

[00:46:37] we cannot do is tell our children, Hey, you're more special than all the other kids to help

[00:46:41] with them. Go ahead and take three pieces of pizza. And sadly, some parents do that.

[00:46:47] And so I know it seems so logical, but actually a lot of parents don't practice it. And narcissistic

[00:46:52] parents least of all, because they have absolutely no blueprint or template for what empathy

[00:46:56] we should look like in themselves or even in their children.

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[00:49:53] Welcome back, everyone. That was Dr. Romney putting narcissist on blast. I love that chat

[00:50:02] with her. I was also on her podcast. I'll put that link in the show notes, too. There was

[00:50:07] a two-parter. That was one of the most meaningful and therapeutic interviews I ever did. Also

[00:50:11] breaking news, we are going to have Dr. Romney back on a little bit culty to talk about her

[00:50:16] new book in 2024. It's great to have their credible credentialed professionals out there

[00:50:21] that are doing this work. We're always careful and clear about saying a little bit culty

[00:50:25] is not your doctor. We're not therapists. We're not experts. But we for sure will always

[00:50:30] encourage you to talk to the real friggin' deal and process any of these things. But

[00:50:34] it's not always easy to find the right clinician in any situation, but maybe even more so if

[00:50:40] you've been through culty shit. If you're someone who's gone through something culty,

[00:50:43] navigating the world of finding credentialed support can be re-traumatizing, for sure,

[00:50:47] because not every licensed professional knows what they're looking at with this stuff. Well,

[00:50:51] not yet, anyway. This last segment is from our chat with Dr. Natalie Feimblatt. Dr. Feimblatt

[00:50:57] is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in Los Angeles, California who specializes

[00:51:02] in the treatment of addiction and trauma. And one of her trauma subspecialties is working

[00:51:07] with ex-cult members. In season four of a little bit culty, she talked with us about

[00:51:11] what it takes to help ex-cult members make the transition to their former true pre-cult

[00:51:16] identities and what helps when it comes to standing strong in the face of exit fallout.

[00:51:20] It was a really practical solution-oriented episode of Dr. Natalie Feimblatt. Listen to

[00:51:24] the entire thing if you want the full scoop, but here's a chunk that we found extra illuminating.

[00:51:29] Last but not least in our therapy session remix lineup, here's a little bit of our little

[00:51:33] bit culty chat with Dr. Natalie Feimblatt. So many people reach out to us, can you recommend

[00:51:42] therapists or psychologists who have a cult background? And that's something that we certainly

[00:51:47] at least recommend. At least, you know, people are reaching out if you can find that. Yeah.

[00:51:51] Or someone who's at least trauma-informed, but you have both your trauma-informed and

[00:51:56] you have a cult education. Yes, I am. So I'm happy to be here and I'm always happy to

[00:52:01] talk about it. So my father worked in the film industry for his entire career and he

[00:52:06] does like picture cars. So he worked on the Tom Cruise movie Days of Thunder.

[00:52:11] Cool trickle. Yes. Cool trickle.

[00:52:13] That was right. Yeah. And I was about 10 at the time, which when I went back and did

[00:52:17] the math on that I was like, geez Louise, I've been interested in this since I was 10.

[00:52:21] All the grownups were talking about how Tom Cruise was a Scientologist and I was like,

[00:52:24] what's that? And no one could answer my question, which seemed really weird. You know.

[00:52:30] Yeah. In spite of my last name, I was raised Catholic and like, somebody asks you, what

[00:52:35] is the Catholic church? You can kind of give them a rundown of it or what is being Jewish

[00:52:39] involved. People can give you a rundown of that. But nobody could tell me what Scientology

[00:52:44] was or what these people did. And it just stuck in my head, I was like, well, that's

[00:52:48] weird. Why do all of these people know about this? But nobody actually knows what it is.

[00:52:52] So, fast forward maybe seven or eight years and the internet becomes a thing. Right? And

[00:52:58] so, curious me one day, I was just like, oh, it wasn't Google back then, there wasn't

[00:53:03] a Google. Maybe it was Yahoo or Alta Vista or something.

[00:53:07] Jeeves.

[00:53:08] Ask jeeves.

[00:53:09] What is Scientology? And that got me into the burgeoning world online of former Scientologists

[00:53:17] who were connecting with each other and kind of starting to expose the truth about this

[00:53:23] organization. And it just fascinated me. So, I just spent hours and hours reading everything

[00:53:29] I could online looking at some books that were in existence at that point. And then that

[00:53:34] kind of led me to the broader just cult discussion and reading and listening and watching. And

[00:53:40] so, from high school to dissertation, I was just somebody who was really, really interested

[00:53:47] in cults and not just from a true crime angle, but it also really interested me the ways

[00:53:55] in which cults impact people and how they try to heal after being in an organization

[00:54:01] like a cult. And so, when it came time to write my dissertation, anybody who's done one

[00:54:07] probably goes through a similar process where you're supposed to pick a bunch of topics

[00:54:10] and then narrow it down, narrow it down, narrow it down. And that was one of my many

[00:54:14] topics. And it got narrowed down and narrowed down. And eventually that was the winner.

[00:54:17] What was the title? Oh my gosh, what was the title? Sorry. No, it's okay. It's been

[00:54:22] a while. Yeah, it's number one, it's been a while. And number two, I think anybody who's

[00:54:25] written a dissertation will tell you that no matter how much you love the topic, by the

[00:54:30] time you're done with your dissertation, you want nothing to do with it. You're just

[00:54:34] dull. I feel that way about my, my essays and universities. So, I can't even imagine.

[00:54:38] There you go. So, it was something like the effectiveness of psychotherapy with former

[00:54:42] cult members, a literature review, something along those lines, which pretty much describes

[00:54:48] what it was. And so, yeah, that's where things got started for me going from just like interested

[00:54:53] person to professional and academic work in this area.

[00:54:58] Most people when they hear about a cult, it's the salacious stuff that lures them in. It

[00:55:02] was more curious for you. Oh, yeah. Would you say that it allowed you more room for the

[00:55:06] human aspect of it as opposed to what most people are interested in, they watch it. They

[00:55:10] really would just want to prove that it couldn't happen to them.

[00:55:12] Right. Yeah. No, I do think that kind of opened me up to the human aspect of it. I just happened

[00:55:18] to hit, I think, the right place at the right time in terms of getting on that part of the

[00:55:22] internet at the time that all of these former Scientologists were kind of finding each other,

[00:55:28] creating community, you know, in open forums for anyone to see, which is what I was looking

[00:55:34] at. And so that really gave me, it wasn't just the books or the documentaries or whatever.

[00:55:40] It was like real people telling their real stories about how they were going through

[00:55:46] what I know now is like PTSD and the effects, of course, of control really being able to

[00:55:52] see on an individual level what this had done to people and how they were trying to heal

[00:55:58] from it. You have a specialty in addiction and trauma?

[00:56:00] Correct. Those are my two big areas. The longer I do this work, the more I go, the

[00:56:04] more kind of parallels I see between addiction recovery and cult recovery. They're not the

[00:56:09] same obviously. But one of the things is that you can't really make somebody see the light

[00:56:17] before they're ready. You can't really make somebody want to change before they're ready,

[00:56:22] which can be really challenging for loved ones and family members.

[00:56:27] And they may never. Yeah, exactly. That's a real possibility.

[00:56:30] Yeah, in both, both Addictions and cults, some people don't get there. So that's the

[00:56:34] one of the big similarities I've seen in that kind of work.

[00:56:37] How do you think trauma and addiction are related?

[00:56:40] Oh boy. On a Venn diagram.

[00:56:42] Well, no, I'm glad you said that because that's the thing I always say to people is

[00:56:46] that I started an addiction treatment and then it didn't take long for me to realize that

[00:56:53] you can't really specialize in addiction without specializing in trauma because the

[00:56:57] Venn diagrams almost completely overlap. Before I was in private practice, I worked

[00:57:03] in addiction treatment for many years, like detox, residential, intensive outpatient

[00:57:07] programs, all this. And if I look back and think, how many of the people that I worked

[00:57:12] with during that time genuinely had no trauma history whatsoever? We're talking hundreds,

[00:57:18] maybe thousands of people. I can count them on my fingers. And so addiction, in my opinion,

[00:57:24] a lot of the time is a way to self-medicate and cope with post-traumatic stress. And

[00:57:31] it's just in one way that people do that. And unfortunately, given the nature of substances

[00:57:35] in the human brain, that can then create an addiction on top of all the post-traumatic

[00:57:41] stress. And probably more trauma. Yeah, exactly because

[00:57:44] you get into all sorts of situations, if your addiction is bad enough, that create more

[00:57:48] trauma. Where does getting involved in a cultic

[00:57:51] group fit into that Venn diagram? That's a good question from your experience.

[00:57:56] Yeah. I have definitely worked with some folks over the years in addiction treatment who

[00:58:01] got involved in groups. I mean, you know, I talk about Scientology a lot, but Scientology

[00:58:06] has Narconon, which is their rehab front group. And I worked with a few clients over the years

[00:58:13] who had well-meaning, but uninformed, loved ones send them to a Narconon facility and

[00:58:19] that never went well. Oh, and there's also the whole troubled teen industry thing, where

[00:58:24] a lot of people get thrown into that again, and their family doesn't maybe do quite as

[00:58:29] much research to see that the place that they're sending them has maybe people online

[00:58:33] who are saying, "Don't send anybody here, it's abusive, it's culty."

[00:58:37] Right. And just a reminder, a listener is about Elizabeth Gilpin, who wrote a book

[00:58:40] called Stolen, whose parents, again, well-meaning, trying to help her deal with basically just

[00:58:46] being a teenager, but didn't have the tools and sent her to a group that used the methods

[00:58:51] of Synonon, which is now well-known. Cult in a lot of troubled teen industry use those

[00:58:56] same structures that are found in those substance abuse, original recovery centers.

[00:59:00] Is that right? Yeah, Synonon was definitely a thing here in L.A. I think it was like in

[00:59:04] the 70s, early 80s. That kind of got busted, but it fractured in a bunch of different directions

[00:59:10] and a bunch of people who had kind of been bigwigs there, went off to do their own thing,

[00:59:16] including founding these "therapeutic boarding schools" that just recycled a lot of this

[00:59:23] really abusive synonon treatment, again, quote unquote. It's not treatment, it's abuse,

[00:59:29] but yeah, unfortunately, in some of those places, they're still out there and operating.

[00:59:33] Have you heard of CRLA? Oh, yes. The one with Chris Bathham.

[00:59:38] Chris Bathham, yeah, that was a whole big thing.

[00:59:41] CRLA with CRLA. 80% natural ingredients take one a day.

[00:59:45] I think the doctorates you. We have an interview lined up with one of the survivors of that

[00:59:49] which is, yeah, super cultic, but it also bridges this sort of therapy, recovery, culty

[00:59:56] behavior, narcissistic leader group, which seems to be consistent.

[00:59:59] He's a great example of how there's a lot of corruption in addiction treatment, a lot

[01:00:04] of unethical stuff that goes on, like body-broke-ring and...

[01:00:08] What's body-broke-ring? Oh boy.

[01:00:10] So, yeah. That's got a lot of big questions today.

[01:00:15] So body-broke-ring is when treatment facilities will have a staff member whose job it is to

[01:00:23] essentially pay people to come to treatment in order to use their insurance benefits.

[01:00:29] Right.

[01:00:30] This will often involve paying for that person to relapse if they've been sober for a while,

[01:00:34] because insurance won't pay if you come in clean. This is a whole world, you guys.

[01:00:38] It's a major insurance fraud.

[01:00:40] Major insurance fraud and it's also incredibly dangerous for people who are struggling with

[01:00:45] their recovery because people who are kind of semi-in recovery get to know these body-brokers

[01:00:52] and they just hop from facility to facility getting paid to go from place to place to

[01:00:57] stay there for 30 days, leave relapse, go to another place.

[01:01:02] And obviously when you're dealing with a life or death illness like addiction, this kills

[01:01:08] people, right? They don't always make it to the next place.

[01:01:11] It has a built-in argument too because if you call someone on that, you're being insensitive

[01:01:16] to their addiction.

[01:01:17] Mm-hmm.

[01:01:18] Wow.

[01:01:19] It's protection. It's like instant gaslighting. Wow. I don't want to give anything away for

[01:01:22] the episode about CRLA, but I remember thinking, "Wait. Chris is taking this woman out for

[01:01:27] a drink? They're going out for a drink? I thought there was a man recovery."

[01:01:31] I have. Okay. But we'll save that for another episode.

[01:01:34] I noticed that once you bust one of these, there's a lot of spin-offs.

[01:01:38] Oh, yeah. There's always lots of spin-offs. I mean, there's so many spin-offs of Scientology.

[01:01:42] There's one called Avatar. There's another one I let you know. Landmark Forum has a little

[01:01:48] bit of Scientology in it. You know, people go to these groups, take certain things and

[01:01:52] then kind of build their own little thing around it. Or the group ends and it splinters

[01:01:56] and it goes off in a bunch of different directions.

[01:01:59] It's actually another episode I'm trying to work on is doing this whole tree of one was

[01:02:03] the first large group awareness training, right? And what I think was around life-spring

[01:02:08] and then, "Was it Warner-air hearts?

[01:02:10] Nintendo said Intology and made life-spring and then life-spring turned into asks, which

[01:02:15] turned into Landmark. Keith took from saying, "It's just a fricking hodgepodge of the same

[01:02:21] shit."

[01:02:22] With narcissists just stealing ideas and then going and making their own harmful thing.

[01:02:29] Yeah, and then charging a lot of money for it. Yeah, that too. Of course. Let's not

[01:02:33] forget about that.

[01:02:35] You like what you hear? Please do give us a rating, a review, and subscribe on iTunes

[01:02:39] or wherever you listen. Every little bit helps us get this cult awareness content out there.

[01:02:44] Smash that subscribe button. You know what to do.

[01:02:49] But stuff Dr. Natalie, fine, black, well, we hope that you've gotten some good nuggets

[01:02:53] from this remix medily of some of a little bit culties greatest therapy hits. And we've

[01:02:58] gotten some feedback recently that I say, " nugget too much." And now I just can't

[01:03:01] stop saying it. Sorry. So sorry, my little nuggets.

[01:03:04] It's a little provocative. We're always fans of counseling therapy and talking to someone

[01:03:08] with proper credentials about the gritty stuff of life. If you check out a little bit culty.com/resources,

[01:03:14] we've put info in there that can be helpful. If you or someone you know is going through

[01:03:18] culty shit, we've been there.

[01:03:20] Oh, yes, we have been there. Thanks for listening and see our show notes for links to all of

[01:03:24] the full episodes we've made with these three fantastic guests. And come back soon for all

[01:03:28] new episodes of a little bit culty. Coming your way, any second. Happy holidays, everyone.

[01:03:34] We love you.

[01:03:35] Bye for now.

[01:03:36] Bye for now.

[01:03:37] Thanks for listening, everyone. We're heading over to Patreon.com/a little bit culty now

[01:03:59] to discuss this episode. In the meantime, dear listener, please remember, this podcast

[01:04:04] is solely for general informational, educational and entertainment purposes. It's not intended

[01:04:10] as a substitute for real, medical, legal or therapeutic advice for cult recovery resources

[01:04:15] and to learn more about seeking safely in this culty world. Check out a little bit culty.com/cultyresources

[01:04:21] and don't miss Sarah's TED talk called "How Cult Literate Are You?" Great stuff.

[01:04:26] A little bit culty is a trace 120 production executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and

[01:04:30] Anthony Nippy Ames. In collaboration with producer Will Rutherford at Citizens of Sound and

[01:04:35] our co-creator and show chaplain/bodyguard Jess Temple-Tardy. Our show writer is Holly

[01:04:40] Zaedra and our theme song "Cultivated" is by John Bryant.

[01:04:42] [music]

[01:04:47] [ Silence ]