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Dr. Doug Lisle wraps up the three-part series on Sherlock Holmes and the Secret of Life by explaining why almost no one has ever filmed a real, unscripted therapy session, why he chose to tell this book as a dialogue between Holmes and Dilbert Peabody rather than a standard chapter-by-chapter self-help format, and why he's…
Dr. Doug Lisle continues the story of Sherlock Holmes and the Secret of Life in part two of this three-part series. He breaks down the book's central claim: that every feeling and action, from depression to love, is the product of instinct, and walks through why decades of clinical psychology, from Freud's psychodynamic theory to…
Dr. Doug Lisle announces his new book, Sherlock Holmes and the Secret of Life, more than a decade in the making. In the first of a three-part series, Dr. Lisle traces the book's twisting 12-year path: the early collaboration with Jen Howk (a former guest) and why she ultimately left to write her own book,…
A listener has spent a year chasing a high-profile CEO who disappears for weeks, resurfaces warmly, and never quite commits. She knows the math doesn't add up, so why can't she walk away? Dr. Doug Lisle breaks down the evolutionary psychology behind why women will take a small percentage of a high-value man's time and…
She grew up in a family of surgeons, a Google computer scientist, and a NASA astrophysicist, and she became a flight attendant who wanted to be a housewife. Now her genius-level family calls her the failure. Dr. Doug Lisle breaks down why esteem, not intelligence, is the real currency of human life, why some families…
What do you say when a friend or family member recommends horse-assisted coaching, family constellations therapy, or the latest protein fix for your problems? Evolutionary psychologist Dr. Doug Lisle explains why arguing back is like trying to pee up Niagara Falls, and what to do instead. Dr. Lisle breaks down the hidden motivations behind unsolicited…
A listener who knows evolutionary psychology well asks Dr. Doug Lisle a painful question. If men seem satisfied once they have food and sex, and never care about her inner life, is she fighting a losing battle against biology? His answer flips it. The problem was never the men. It was who she kept choosing.…
Why do some people freeze when they try to speak up in a group, while others jump in without a second thought? Dr. Doug Lisle says it is not shyness or a confidence problem you can train away. It is your nervous system running a cost benefit analysis on where you sit in a dominance…
A listener noticed their kid gets dissatisfied after too much screen time and asked Dr. Lisle a deeper question: when your mood feels off, is it always worth analyzing, or are some bad moods just random? Dr. Lisle's answer is blunt. Moods are never random. Every one is your brain running a cost-benefit calculus on…
Most people assume mate value is a fixed, rankable number and that attraction follows logically from it. Dr. Lisle says that is the wrong model entirely. Mate value has deep objectivity across a population, but your personal experience of any given partner is completely subjective - and those two truths are not in conflict. The…
