love

In today’s show we have the following questions: 1. What are Dr. Lisle’s thoughts on group therapy? What is the purpose if there is one and how would he apply evolutionary principles and esteem dynamics to group therapy? 2. My MIL treats her 4 granddaughters quite differently.  I am a disagreeable person who really values fairness. It’s hard not to comment or approach her when she treats them so different. Let’s not even begin to get into how many more clothes and toys (resources overall) she gets for her daughter’s girls. Is there a way for her to look at my daughter differently and allocate resources fairly? 3. Recently you described the Enlightenment Trap, which interested me greatly and I wondered if you believed there was some degree to which meditation practice was a means of beating the genetic disposition for egoistic drives for status enhancement. Robert Wright certainly seems to think so. I recognise that there are apparently many examples of pseudo- meditators displaying their practice conspicuously as a status / virtue-signalling attempt, but do you believe there are some devotees who genuinely manage to reduce egoistic drives? 4. I am a professional woman in my middle years and want to be less critical of people and other things. 5. 

We go over the following questions: 1.  What is impostor syndrome? Can you change the perception of feeling like a fraud?  2. A dad’s son climbs on a roof to look at his neighbor’s nude sunbathing. Dad handles it, but mom is furious and thinks this is huge issue warranting psychiatric medications.   3.  A listener’s boyfriend ended up at a stripclub with coworkers.  He denies he got a lapdance even though everyone else got one.  Listener wants to know if she is the one insecure and if a more confident woman wouldn’t mind this happening.  And also if this is ‘normal behavior’ for men and so she should expect it from any future partners.  4. Does having more wealth increase the trait of openness? 5. What does the future hold for humans capable or not capable of thriving in the modern environment in the face of so many traps? 

The questions for tonight’s show are as follows: 1. I was wondering how Dr Lisle reconciled two seemingly opposing thoughts I’ve heard on separate episodes. 1. CBT is an effective therapy to mitigate cognitive distortions and 2. The human brain/nervous system does an immaculate job of evaluating its effectiveness and status within a group. If our brains do such an amazing job of evaluating feedback from the group, why are cognitive distortions so common? 2.I’ve often felt anger when someone seems to misunderstand something, perhaps honestly and perhaps disingenuously in something that is approaching an argument. The feeling often keeps me from explaining exactly what I mean because I expect that the exact points of the disagreement are disingenuous so it won’t matter and I will only regret justifying myself and “opening up”. You’ve often mentioned that that communication in relationships isn’t faulty the way most psychologist say, but you’ve also talked about getting crystal clear. So should I beat my genes and get crystal clear, or is the inference that it won’t change a thing correct?