Shannon Curry: Johnny Depp & Amber Heard Trial, Marriage, Dating & Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #366
- So contempt is criticism on steroids. This is what John Gottman
calls sulfuric acid for love. Nothing will erode a relationship
quicker than contempt. Contempt is when you are
looking at your partner from a superior position. So you are eye rolling, you are name calling, there's a mockery, mocking, even physical
mockery, imitating them, imitating their voice. Contempt is meant to
just take the legs out from your partner, make
them feel pathetic, ridiculous, and it can be abusive, but most people have engaged in contempt at some point in their relationship. Lower level would be
sort of the eye rolling, but that is the biggest
predictor of a split. - The following is a
conversation with Shannon Curry, a clinical and forensic psychologist who conducts research, therapy
and psychological evaluations pertaining to trauma,
violence and relationships. She received worldwide
attention in April of last year by giving a lengthy televised testimony on her psychological
evaluation of Amber Heard during the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial. I found her testimony to
be an eloquent description of complex psychological concepts and evaluations procedures. So I reached out for a chat. In person, she was brilliant, funny, thoughtful, and truly kind. I really, really enjoyed
this conversation. This is the "Lex Fridman Podcast." To support it, please
check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends,
here's Shannon Curry. Charles Bukowski said that
love is a fog that burns away with the first daylight of reality. I love that quote. Do you think romantic love
fades away in this way? - Bukowski.
- Does it have to fade? - The truth is that you
have all of these chemicals pumping through your body. You're essentially high on heroin in the beginning of a romance, and you're going to have
these rose-colored glasses on. Everything your partner does is magical. But really it's the novelty. It's just like going on a
vacation. You're fully present. You're just attuned to the
magic of another human being, moment to moment. And then on top of that, you have, you're just flooded with dopamine. So you're high on drugs. And
we can't go on like that. You will die if you are using
these kinds of chemicals all the time, all day long. So eventually our bodies are
sort of made to dial it down. We've made it. I mean, we
are evolutionary beings. We are doing the same thing
we did 200,000 years ago to find a mate, procreate, spend
enough time with each other that we have sex a whole bunch
of times and make babies. Now we've changed the rules of the game. We're living, you know, almost till we're 100
years old, in some cases, we're making these marriage commitments that last half a century, and we're expecting it to
be all because of love. And we're signing these
contracts based on how we feel when we're high on these drugs. So the reality is we know based on the... And I'm also talking about certain western civilizations
here, because as you know, there are arranged marriages. And a lot of times, those marriages, if we're looking at longevity, are actually way more satisfied than people who are marrying for love, which logically makes sense. If you're making a
decision based on a feeling that is basically based on endorphins and dopamine and oxytocin, I wouldn't sign a contract
just because of a feeling, necessarily, you know, for 50 years. Whereas an arranged marriage, if you have your elders
kind of deciding for you that this partner has a bunch of traits that you're going to appreciate
more and more over time, I think there's some wisdom there. - So you don't think that
feeling could be a foundation for a 50-year relationship? - Well, I don't think
that specific feeling you're having based on drugs
is going to be the same feeling you have 20, 30, 40 years down the line. If you're gonna wake up
and turn to your partner when you're 70 and think, oh
my God, I'm so glad you're hot. You are so hot. Then
sure, marry for hotness. But if you've been
through life a little bit, and I think most people who
are on a second marriage know, shit happens in life, it is hard. You're gonna have, you know,
maybe a kid with special needs or your dad gets dementia or
you get diagnosed with cancer. Who are you gonna wanna come home to? Who is going to hold you when
you are sobbing on the floor and tell you, "We're gonna
get through it together"? Who's gonna know the names of
your kid's special ed teacher and the process for getting a 504 plan? Or is it gonna be you on your own? I think those things matter. - But doesn't that hotness, don't those drugs kind of solidify into a deeper appreciation
of the other person into something you could call beauty? - Yes, they can.
- But isn't that the same? Isn't that the same thing? When you notice the beauty
of another human being, aren't you high on drugs still? You're making it sound like there's like a brief rockstar period of going on heroin and then it's over. But like, can't you be on
heroin your whole life, or like- - I have some good news.
- Microdosing. - I have some good news. That was something, I think one of the reasons I
got into studying relationships was because I wanted that, right? So I'm a scientist, but I also love art and I love writing and I love literature. I wanted to know that
true love could be real, but as a scientist, I am cynical. I just need some data. And so I practice a type of therapy called the Gottman Method. And I love that because it tends to be, well, it is one of the most
evidence-based therapies we have based on John and Julie Gottman, two psychologists who have
been researching relationships for now about 50 years. And this therapy happens
to be for couples. They found that you absolutely
can make longevity work in a relationship. You can build. You are not just settling
for companionship, but you can have passion and intimacy and growing love and appreciation. But there is a blueprint, a set of skills that we were never given, we're not taught it in school. We changed the rules of the game and we haven't learned the rules yet. - And the Gottman Method
for couples therapy kind of gives you a few guidelines, the rules for longevity in a relationship. - Yeah, they did a beautiful
job at taking these findings they had through, you
know, decades of research, quantifying it and then codifying
it into a therapy method. It's really skills-based. I tell couples when they're
starting out with me that they're essentially
gonna be starting a class. - So what's the 5 to 1 golden rule? What I read is there's the
kind of balance you can achieve of how many interactions
you have in a relationship that are positive versus negative. And I think that's what the 5 to 1 means. But basically, there should
be kind of an empirical, like if you just look back over a month, how many of the
interactions were positive, how many were negative.
- Or the day. Look at the day, right? So the idea of this ratio,
well, it's not an idea, it was a finding, it is a research finding that the Gottman's got after
looking at thousands of couples and codifying these interactions
that they were observing. Couples that tend to be
satisfied in their relationships, that are happier, they have
better health, et cetera, they are having approximately
five positive interactions to each negative. And I wanna be clear about
what I'm defining as positive and negative here. So this doesn't necessarily
mean that you're, these don't need to be big,
sweeping, romantic gestures, buying flowers, having sex. These are things like paying attention to what we call your partner's bids. We make these bids for affection, for connection all the
time in our relationships, not just with our partners,
but with our friends, our coworkers. And we may not even know
what our style of bid is, but if you see them on a sheet, you can pretty quickly identify them. Bids could be wanting to show your partner or tell your partner something and have them be proud of you. It could be wanting to go buy
groceries with your partner, doing things together. "Hey, you wanna come with me?" It could be telling a joke
and hoping that your wife looks up from her email on the
computer and acknowledges it. If she laughs, then you've got a positive. But if I don't even look up,
that's a negative, right? So it's not necessarily
that I'm calling my husband an asshole, it's just am
I connecting with him? Am I meeting those bids for
connection and vice versa? - Do those also give you a
guide of how you should behave? - Well, I think what's really important is actually asking your
partner or paying attention to what your partner's bids are. Because what matters to Ty, my husband, may not matter to you. For instance, I mean, Ty's bar is so low with me. I thank God for him. - [Lex] In terms, what defines
a positive interaction? - Right, like he just wants me to ask him if he wants a water when I
get up to get myself one. Just be a basic, decent,
considerate person is all he asks of me. Whereas mine might be sort of
like, stay up later with me, watch a show, go to bed
at the same time as me or know about the people in
my life, that sort of a thing. - I should highlight this and I hope, hopefully it's okay that you
were running a little bit late and you sent me this text,
which people do really rarely, and there's a subtle act of
kindness within that text. So the text you sent was
that I just decreased the amount of stress in your
life or something like this by saying it's cool. But that means that you were, you're signaling that you were stressed because you care enough
to be there on time. And that was like, that
made me feel really special. I was like, "Oh," you know, people don't often-
- You're a brilliant guy. - People don't always do that because that puts you also,
that makes you vulnerable. - Vulnerable.
- And that- - I actually thought that after I sent it. But I feel that most of the
day, any interaction like, oh God, I just exposed myself. But absolutely, I was excited to be here and I didn't want you to
think that I didn't care. I think being a therapist
has shown me that it really, it's so lucky to be in that
position because you meet people that you would've thought
are cooler than you or smarter than you, or just
somehow impervious to life. And you realize that we
are all in it together. We all want to be cared about and liked. We all wanna be liked as a baseline. Some people will say they don't care, but everybody does, it's human. And I have gotten much
better being a therapist, much more comfortable showing caring, showing love and genuineness
and vulnerability than I think I ever
would've been otherwise. - And that kind of
vulnerability is what's required to do a positive interaction
in a relationship. - I think so. And people have different
levels of comfort, right? But as long as it's
working for both partners. And typically, you have to communicate to figure out what makes your
partner feel cared about. However you might be
working, for instance, with an older couple, and I have a couple that's perfectly happy and they sort of have a
system, it works for them. If there's some sort of a rupture, if they get in to some
sort of a disagreement, they don't talk it out. She might go to the store, run an errand, do a little shopping. He'll work in the wood shop
and then they'll come back and there is a repair attempt, though. But it's maybe she'll say, "Hey, do you wanna have
dinner or come, you know, I made your favorite dinner." Or he'll say, "Hey, I
recorded your favorite show, you wanna watch it tonight." So they don't need to process it. But there is an understanding between them that we're still in this together, we care about each other and
there's a repair attempt. Most people need to be
able to process it verbally and talk about what happened. - Oh, interesting.
- But not all. - So for most people, if there's a conflict you
should talk about and resolve it and repair it versus like
just put it behind you. - I don't wanna say should. I guess it depends on the couple. Everybody processes emotions differently. Everybody handles emotional
expression differently. I mean, I have couples
where I have one person in the partnership who has
autism and the other doesn't. And so they're obviously
going to have different ways of communicating or
processing what happened. We all have different perspectives. It really depends on what makes a person feel like it's been repaired? What makes a person feel understood? Does that need to be verbal? Or in the case of that older couple I have where they know they
understand one another because there's a gentleness
toward one another after. - What are some common
ways relationships fail that you've observed in all
the therapy you've done? - Oh, well the Gottman's identified what they call the four
horsemen, the apocalypse, so- - Okay, what are the four horsemen? - I mean, I could just keep it simple and go off their research. So those are four different behaviors that they identify in couples or that you can identify in couples that are really highly
predictive of a divorce. Some more than others, but I'll start with the lower ones. So one thing that we, and by the way, actually, we all do these things, these that would be in that 5 to 1 ratio, you'd wanna stay away from some of these, these are the ones. So as they pile up, now that
ratio's gonna get imbalanced and then you are headed for a split. - Yeah.
- Okay? So the first is criticism. So criticism is when we have a complaint. Complaints are normal, but instead of owning our own
problems, our own feelings, we assume that our perspective is the only valid, accurate perspective. And so we take it upon ourselves to tell our partner what
is wrong with them, okay? So there's essentially no real belief that they might have a
valid perspective too. So this could look like
you never help me out with the house. Or even, you're so lazy,
like can't I just get you for five seconds to help with the kids? Or something like that. And then what happens is horseman
number two, defensiveness. So not everybody is defensive just because they were criticized. Some people just are more prone to defensiveness than others. None of us really like
admitting our faults. So it's pretty natural. But defensiveness is
essentially making excuses or worse, turning it
around on your partner, not accepting any responsibility and definitely not validating
what they're feeling. Now if you get criticized enough or if you get really flooded, the flooding is what happens
when our heart rate goes up kind of around 100 beats per minute, our frontal lobe shuts down. That's our thoughtful
brain, our logical brain, and our reptilian kind of hind
brain takes over our thinking and we just go into fight
or flight, in a way. We just wanna annihilate our partner instead of say anything
that would be helpful to the relationship. So if you're getting flooded,
you could do a couple things. You could get super critical,
you could get contemptuous, which I'll talk about in a
second, it's the last horseman. Or you do the third horseman,
which is stonewalling. And in their research, the Gottman's found that men are actually
more likely to stonewall. I also am someone who
stonewalls, (laughing) but it's where you just sort of disconnect from the conversation. You shut down, you turn away, you can physically even turn
away, kind of arms crossed, but you're just, you're shut off. And stonewalling happens
usually because you get flooded. You feel like you can't win, you don't know what to do to
make the situation better. It feels pretty hopeless and
talking feels unproductive. So you can see how in a typical
heterosexual relationship, the gender dynamic, we
know that women tend to use criticism more often
because they're the ones that typically raise issues verbally. And then if men are
feeling more criticized, that they tend to stonewall. And it becomes this vicious
cycle of then more criticism, but the criticism is really
just a plea to be loved and get your partner
to show you they care. And then the man tends to feel like he can't do anything right,
this isn't even productive. If I say anything, I'm
just gonna make it worse. And they don't have any real, you haven't given them a
specific need, a solution, something they can do to shine
for you, so they turn away. - And where does the contempt come in? - All right, so contempt
is criticism on steroids. This is what John Gottman
calls sulfuric acid for love. Nothing will erode a relationship
quicker than contempt. Contempt is when you are
looking at your partner from a superior position. So you are eye rolling, you are name calling, there's a mockery, mocking, even physical
mockery, imitating them, imitating their voice. Contempt is meant to just take the legs out from your partner, make them feel pathetic, ridiculous. And it can be abusive, but most people have engaged in contempt at some point in their relationship. Lower level would be
sort of the eye rolling. But that is the biggest
predictor of a split. - If you allow yourself to think, yeah, that mockery or contempt
just a little bit, it's like this weird slippery slope. - Sure is.
- And the opposite is true, where I just look at a person and think, wow, isn't that the most
like wonderful creature I've ever seen in my life? Like, just think that. And you notice the little
details about who they are and so I just observe them the
way you observe like a weird, like peacock at a zoo
or something like that. - [Shannon] Intention
is powerful, isn't it? - Yeah, and it changes. You start to notice beautiful things and then let the things that annoy you- - Yes.
- Like just- - You're exactly right. You're touching on-
- dissipate. - some really important things. So in relationships, we actually know that
wearing rose-colored glasses is important, it's healthy, we need it. And it's a choice you're making, right? So there is a saying that getting married is just choosing one
person's fault over another. And the reality is that
we may become infatuated with somebody else. As human beings, love is an emotion, attraction is an emotion. And as you go through life, even if you're in a
committed relationship, you might see beauty in another. And that person who is novel
might seem attractive to you. But if you can remember that
they too have a set of problems that you would be marrying, it really helps you to see the
beauty in your partner again and recognize all of their
incredible strengths. And all the ways we meld with the person become our own family, almost become, I mean, our lives intertwine
and we grow those oak trees. - So to you, by the way, it is a line I read somewhere that when you're wearing
rose-colored glasses, all the red flags looks just like flags. (Shannon laughing) I think is a good-
- I love that. - It's a good line.
- I love that. - So you think that
humans are fundamentally, all of us are fundamentally
flawed or have flaws, they're unique flaws. And that basically
relationships is just the way to figure out how the
two can fit together. - Right. And we're different. So no matter what, we're
going to have differences. We are raised differently
than our partner. We have different stories,
different experiences that shaped our value systems, especially when it comes to
the big ones like parenting, love, money, these principles
that are based in our history, we're gonna have differences. So is this a set of differences
you can accept from somebody and work with? Do the benefits and do their strengths, do they make it worth it or is it, are they deal breaker differences? - Tricky question.
- Sure. - But in the couples you've worked with, is there like the feminine
and the masculine, is there different dynamics
that come into play, like dominance, submissive? Is it like a dance where it just changes from minute to minute? Is there dynamics that you observe that both limit and enable
successful relationships? - Yes, so there are, if we're talking about masculine/feminine, then how also we could get into, are we talking about actual
gender, identified gender, or are we just talking about these traits? Because like I said, I stonewall, which is typically in couples, something that is more
associated with straight men. But that's my style of coping
when I get overwhelmed. That is not tied to any sort of success or non success of a relationship. But what we do know is that gay couples, so lesbians and gay men tend
to be gentler with one another when they are having conflict discussions. So that's actually been
identified in the research and it's something I've witnessed
and it's just fascinating. So with my straight couples, I'll be going through one of these, if we're processing the
conflict that occurred, I'll be going through the sheet. And it's very, very structured because you don't want
couples doing more damage when they're there with you. You want them practicing
skills that protect them from criticism, that
protect them from contempt. And when I'm working
with a straight couple, I am like a referee, or sometimes I'll relate it
to being like a ski coach and keeping people on a bunny hill. And you tell them, you let
them make like two turns and then you stop them
and you meet up again because you don't want them to veer off. With straight couples, you are doing very short
turns before you need to kind of intervene and re-scaffold. I had a lesbian couple recently and they were so lovely with each other. They skipped like seven steps
to the advanced final portion where they were already
coming up with solutions and suggesting things
that they might be able to do differently next time to make it better for their partner. They were asking each other questions about how their partner
felt, with no agenda, no attempt to sort of be like, "Well do you think you're
feeling that way because," which straight couples do all the time. You just see this humility
and openness. It's lovely. - Yeah, it's lovely. But I wonder if maybe watching
too many Hollywood films, if some of the drama, some of the tension is required for a
passionate lifelong romance. - No, it's not. And that's great news. So we actually know
that the closer you feel to your partner. So if, I mean, you've
talked a lot about beauty and you can ignite that
beauty, that interest, right? So when you're falling in love, it's usually that a person
is sort of a mystery to you and you're uncovering these layers that you find really appealing. - Mm-hmm.
- There are continual layers that you can uncover with
your partner over time. I don't think we realize that. I think we get complacent
and we think we've had every conversation imaginable. What else are they
gonna do to surprise me? But we don't know the
questions to be asking. One of my favorite questions, I like turning these
conversations kind of into a quiz because I get bored easily. So rather than just asking
an open-ended question, there's a way you can do
this with your partner where it's sort of like the dating game. Like what is my as of yet fondest, but unrealized life dream? And see if your partner knows.
You might not even know. They might know you better
than you know yourself. That in and of itself
is a beautiful reminder of the relationship and how special it is. But then also when they say it or when you realize or
have to think critically, like what is my husband's
as of yet unrealized, but fondest life dream? And then you can talk about it. You just, I don't know, you just kind of transcend
into this new area and you feel tight again, you
feel like, you feel close. - Well you really talk to each other. Like I've recorded and
without intending to publish podcasts like this with
microphones, with friends, with people close to me. Because it is literally that,
you get to ask questions like as if it's an interview,
and we don't do that. - [Shannon] That's exactly it. The way you're talking with me. - Yeah.
- Sit down with your partner, have that conversation. - Like years later.
- Right. Show interest, actually be curious. See what they surprise you with. - And actually what you learn is you don't know the answers
to most of these questions. - [Shannon] 100%. Exactly. - Like what's your favorite
movie from the '80s? You might not know the answer to that. It's like those first date
questions or whatever. - Or what's your favorite
movie this year and why? - [Lex] And why. Yeah, it's fascinating. - Mm-hmm. It is. - It's hard to do that because I think that you'll
probably be offended at first how little the other person knows. So I think that you have
to work through that. - You know, I actually find
that there's this rekindling because partners are shocked
that their partner does know so much about them. Especially if they've
been feeling dissatisfied or disconnected, it's a reminder of all the
good that's still there. - I know we've said some of those things, but what's on the opposite side? What's the key to a
successful relationship? What are the things you
see time and time again that to you designate that
they're in a good path? - Yeah, there's a real
attunement honestly, it's sort of an us
against the world feeling. Neither partner's gonna talk
shit on them, the other. There's a loyalty. They handle each other in
the relationship with care. You can tell that they've
worked some things. To me, it usually indicates
that these are some people who have figured they've
had to work some things out. They know that this is delicate. They know, you know,
that you're on thin ice, you take a wrong step and you
can be back in a tough place in your relationship or
you treat it with care and it can be amazing. So they're careful with one another. They give each other compliments.
They are considerate. So you'll see, you know, he'll bring the car around
for her because it's raining, or she'll bring him home
some takeout, you know, she'll order for him
too at the restaurant. They keep each other
in each other's minds. - But that us against the world thing, that definitely is there. Like if you-
- 100%. You've seen that, right? - Yeah. You've seen it. And you've seen it like, I like it when couples have
been together for a long time and when one is talking,
the other one looks at them. If you don't do that,
that's not a bad sign. But it's a good sign when you do that. - Yes.
- And I think it's actually a really good exercise to do because I enjoy it when I see in others, it's a way to show that you
don't take them for granted and that you still find
them like this mysterious, wonderful creature to observe. Like, I think too often we
have that with our parents, we have that with people close to us. You think, yeah, I've heard
what they're about to say. I know you can complete their sentences. - [Shannon] Yeah, take them for granted. - And then if you just
look at them and say, "Wow, this is the most brilliant person I've ever seen in my life." I can't, you know, just
appreciate every word that comes out of them and
look at them in that way, you actually begin to believe it. - Yeah.
- And you actually begin to see the beauty of what they're saying. - You are exactly right. It's
a self-fulfilling prophecy. - And they-
- And it's caring. Yeah. - Yeah.
- It's very caring. So that's, I mean that's, I think the beauty of what the
Gottman research showed us, taught us, provided us is
that we can do these things that become cyclic and just
keep growing this relationship, making it stronger, more
powerful, more loving. You would never want to cut it down. - Well you were talking about the sheet for conflict processing.
- Mm-hmm. - What are we talking about? So like a couple will come and say like there was this conflict
and you put it on the table and then what does it mean to process it? - Well, so in that
Gottman Method of therapy, there are all these different, I mean 100s of different interventions. And based on what the
issue is in that session, you can decide the most
appropriate intervention. And so this is a specific intervention for if it is a conflict that occurred, and there are different
types of conflicts. So this would be more like an incident. It's not a perpetual recurring problem, which has actually a
different intervention where you kind of look at the underlying belief systems, values. And the goal is not to solve that problem. The goal in that situation
is to actually just get a better understanding of each other and your positions and just, you stop seeing your
partner as the adversary and you start seeing them
as a person who makes sense. But if there's been a specific event, a specific fight that's
just sort of situational, but it's left bad blood, things were said, or you didn't feel understood, this intervention I was talking about is one that you would go
through a series of steps where first you identify the
emotions that you were feeling, then you describe play by play your movie, your perspective. If your partner were
looking through your eyes, this is what they heard, saw,
thought, then they saw this, then they heard this. So you're not saying, "Yeah, then you came in and were
yelling and acting crazy." You're saying, "So then I saw you come in, I heard you say, and I thought
to myself, well, great, now everything's ruined," right? So you're showing them your movie, then they have to
summarize the movie for you and then vice versa. And then there's this step
where each person validates some part that they can understand. Based on what you saw, heard, I can actually understand how you felt one of those feelings that you said. And then my favorite part is
you rewind sort of the movie from that day back through into childhood and you land on a time, a memory when you felt a similar set of feelings. And this is like the
most beautiful part ever. Because let's say the feeling
was I felt misunderstood, I felt misjudged, un-cared about, unloved, like you didn't even like me. And I'll say, "When did you feel that way? You know, land on a time." And they're like, "My
whole childhood, you know, my parents were, my mom
was always accusing me of doing things I wasn't doing. And it would set me up and
my dad would come home, he'd hear about it, he
would just believe her." And then you have like a partner
climbing up on the couch, like to give their partner a hug while they're sharing the
story, it's beautiful. And it changes the way you
interact in future disagreements. - [Lex] So you have those moments. - Yeah, you can't unlearn, now you know this about your partner, you know what they're sensitive to. - Yeah, and again, you
kind of see the beauty and the flaws then.
- Right. - And you, (chuckling) - [Shannon] It all makes sense, right? - Yeah. It all kind of makes sense. - Yeah, so you maybe were in
this dumpster dive in your head of how your partner sucks and all the things that
are wrong with them and it's so hopeless. And then you get this light
shining through and you realize, oh my God, of course they
would be sensitive to that. And suddenly it's not about all the ways your partner is wrong and
proving that they're wrong. It's just how can I in
the future make sure they do not feel this again? I would never want this person I love to misunderstand me and feel so unloved. - The early days of that, what do you think about the whole dating, modern dating process? How do you find a partner that you can stay with
for the rest of your life? - So we are absolutely doing it wrong, but there is a way you can do it. And I am such a fan of this
psychologist Ty Tashiro. I adore him. He's brilliant, he's lovely. He's also very humble. Just a wonderful salt-of-the-earth guy. I'm gonna tell you a very true story here. - Uh-huh. - Okay?
- Let's go. - I was in a bad relationship and I was at a psychology conference with my partner at the time. We were both at this conference and we were sitting in a lecture
hall there for Ty Tashiro to do his talk that day
on his phenomenal research on relationship satisfaction and dating. And I was sitting next to him
and we had been, you know, it was just always unpleasant on trips. There were always fights. And we're sitting there and
Ty Tashiro starts talking about his research and how he
found that most people are, you know, signing this agreement, getting married and doing it
based on the love endorphins. And really only about 35%
of anybody who's married is actually happy. And he said, "So then, you know- - That's a pretty low number.
- Exactly. But here's what I love about Ty Tashiro is he didn't stop there. He wanted to know what
those people who were happy had in common. And then same thing with
the people who were unhappy, he found a couple fascinating patterns. So the couples who were happy
tended to rate their partners higher in three different traits. And I love talking about this because if you are somebody
who can follow instructions, you can find this. I mean, very easily. Those three traits tend to
be conscientiousness, okay? And I love the word conscientiousness because it's not just kindness. Kindness is a good way to think of it. But you can be kind and
kind of be a pushover. And that's not attractive. Conscientiousness is smart, attentive. It's somebody who reads into
a text message and thinks, wow, she was making herself
very vulnerable there. That's conscientiousness. - I like how you just
threw in a compliment. - No but it's-
- Appreciate it. - It's true, it's a certain intelligence, awareness and attunement. And then on top of that,
conscientiousness is motivated. So you can't be on your ass
all day and be conscientious 'cause then you can't meet the needs that you anticipate about the person. So conscientious is that guy
who drives the car around in the rainstorm so his
wife's hair doesn't get wet. It's my husband who checks
my alarm for me every morning 'cause he knows I'm
terrible at time management and he makes sure that I set
it a reasonable amount of time before my first meeting and not the 20 minutes I think I need. And then he'll come wake
me up with a cup of coffee. That is ultimate conscientiousness. And it is true. I mean, I will tell you as somebody who's with
a conscientious partner, your love increases over
time as you continue to feel grateful and admiring of that person. The second one, you
want somebody who is low in a big five personality
trait called neuroticism. You want somebody
emotionally stable in a way. Now this doesn't mean you can't, I'm somebody who doesn't get the blues or struggle with mental health issues. Trust me, Ty is with
somebody who, you know, I'm all over the place. But you want somebody who
kind of owns their shit and isn't going to just be emotionally unstable all over. You know, you want somebody
who is generally happy and has some life satisfaction. Having a partner who has serious,
not mental health issues, but unmitigated emotional
distress and instability is really hard on the partner. And it's really hard on
other family members, including children if you have children. So it's just a predictor of happiness. - So there's a certain threshold of chaos that if you exceed it-
- Well said. - is going to be destructive to a long-term relationship.
- That is a perfect description. - But then again-
- Without chaos. Not the mystery chaos you love
with your little poet brain. I'm talking more like just somebody who there's just no peace, there's no peace. There's a problem with everything. Everything becomes more difficult. Going to a party is a chore, you don't know if they're gonna
have a meltdown at the party or how many complaints about your friends or everything is a problem. So you want somebody who
has just some resiliency, I think is a good term
for it, some flexibility. - [Lex] Some spice is
okay, but not too much, like the-
- Right. Flexibility, resiliency, easygoing, okay? The third-
- Yeah. - is really interesting I think. So he found that having a partner with sort of moderate adventurousness, not high adventurousness, actually leads to greater satisfaction. And the reason for that
is high adventurousness equals novelty seeking. - Wow.
- Shiny new things. And so if you're in a
monogamous relationship, if that is what's important to you, it's going to be very hard for a partner who is novelty seeking to be faithful. So that will cause a lot of pain. But also novelty-seeking people tend to always have new
projects, new interesting things. And so their attention is drawn
away from the relationship. And so you can just feel pretty
neglected or unimportant. - By a little bit. - But you want a little
bit of adventurousness. So you want your person to
be sort of self-motivated, individuated, have their own interests, not completely dependent
on you, but also, I mean, low adventurousness is not a bad thing. Ultimately what you're getting with low to moderate
adventurousness is that rock, that feeling of stability, that home. And I made some references earlier, like when you're 70 and
you turn to your partner, do you want him to be hot or, you know? For instance, my dad
has dementia right now and my husband turned to me on the plane, we were all coming back from a trip and where we really saw
how severe it's getting. And he just turned to me, he
knew how much pain I was in, even though I wasn't showing it. And he said, "I want you to
know that if it comes to a point where we need to take care of your dad, he needs to live with us,
you don't even need to ask. I am 100% on board and will help." And those are the things that
matter, that home feeling. And technically that's
a trait that's usually, that's sort of a, my husband caring so much
about family and home and taking care of things that matter, those are things that
tend to be associated with that low to moderate adventurousness, somebody who really cares
about simple things and family. - I wonder if those three things are something you can work on. You know, conscientiousness,
you can probably- - You can.
- Proactively observe yourself and, you know, do it more regularly. - Right.
- Neuroticism might be the hardest one probably to control.
- I think so. Well no, I mean, I was pretty neurotic in my early 20s. - And when you wake up to it, maybe you, if you're self-aware about it, maybe you'll be able to control it. - Yeah, I think self-awareness is key. I think that's why I love therapy so much. I think life is about growth
and our potential for growth and to make our own lives better, to make the lives of others better, to serve others, to heal. All of us are this collective healing, and I think we're all capable of growth. - And the same with adventurousness. I'm somebody that's
pretty low an adventure, but I keep throwing myself out there just for the extra adventures,
so you can grow in that way. - Yes, and I am high in adventurousness and I was not really ready to settle down. I was married earlier in my 20s. But I would say that I
am much more prepared to be in a committed
long-term relationship now in my 40s than I was when I was younger. - But in that same way, for me, I like to connect myself
to high adventure people so that it, like, brings me out. It's like they're a horse
and I get to ride them or something.
- Yeah. And that's the thing. So high adventure people are attractive, they're interesting, exciting. But it can be a world of
heartbreak because, you know, you're only under that
spotlight for a few minutes and then they're onto
the next shiny thing. - Yeah, but heartbreak is part of love. But that might be the drug thing that you were talking about. Speaking of adventurousness,
what about sex? What role-
- Oh, sex is important. - does sex play in a
successful relationship? - Well it, okay, so I'm
saying it's important, but I wanna qualify that. Everybody has different levels of sex that are satisfying to them. Sex can definitely bond
you to your partner. Orgasms are amazing. They de-stress us. They're healthy. I mean you can have an orgasm and have a lower level
of stress for 48 hours. I think that's pretty incredible. If you have, I mean, just
that kind of physical contact with your partner, even a
20-second hug with your partner has similar benefits to an orgasm. You're gonna have a lower stress level. You're gonna feel immediately
closer to your partner. You're gonna get a rush of oxytocin, which is gonna make you feel happier, more grounded throughout the day. So that's a 20-second hug. You extrapolate that to sex
and things are gonna be great. - Mm-hmm. So it's just physiological? - Mm-hmm.
- But I wonder, there's probably metrics
about how often you have sex, how that correlates to successful
relationships and so on. - Well there are, but it
really has more to do, it's sort of like, remember
I was talking about processing conflict and what matters is do people feel like it's been resolved? Do they feel like there's been a repair? Not necessarily how they go
about doing it. Same with sex. Does each partner feel sexually satisfied? So that could be once
a month for one couple, it could be five times a
week for another couple. It could be never for
other couples, truly. I mean, so sex has a ton of benefits, but its absence isn't
necessarily detrimental, I guess, would be the qualifier
depending on who you are. - And I know couples that use sex as part of the conflict
resolution process. - It's hugely effective for that. If it works for both parties. All parties. - That's true.
- Not just both. All. - That's true. What do you think about infidelity? You know, what's the cause of infidelity? Why do men and women cheat? - It's different for
everybody, but I mean, even earlier I was saying
with adventurousness, like if monogamy is
something you're doing, I've seen in my own practice, I've seen the entire range of couples who are open about having
sexual relationships with other people and fine with it. Couples who wanna be fine with
it, but find out they're not. Couples who aren't just couples. Couples with multiple people, you know, multiple romantic relationships. I've had couples where
affairs are tolerated and not talked about, they're not enjoyed, but they are not the type of betrayal that will destroy the relationship. Sort of a understanding
and keep it outta my face. And then also we won't talk about it. - So an affair that happened without getting permission first, and as long as you don't talk about it, it's not going to do a
damage to the relationship? - Right, but we can't even
talk about it like that, right? - Okay.
- So nobody's going to admit that the affair is happening. There can't be any evidence of it. It's sort of a just look the
other way type of a situation. But the partner who is not
having the affair, right, they typically know. They certainly know that their
partner is capable of that. They just kind of know, but they don't want it in their face. It would become a problem
if it was in their face. As long as certain needs are met and everything else is okay at home, it's just one of those things
where don't ask, don't tell. - Well, that's an interesting point 'cause I had a bunch of
arguments with people. I tend to hang out with,
especially in the tech sector, people who really value like
honesty and radical honesty. And I keep arguing with
people about this because to me, it's not that simple. Like that's an example right there that honesty can be really destructive. Like, honesty is also a
really complicated thing to get to the bottom of,
'cause what is really honest? - Yes.
- And, you know, like how do I look in this dress? Like, there's a million ways- - It's perspective.
- to answer that. - Yeah.
- Perspective. A lot of-
- It can be cesspool in my mind if I'm in a bad place or my partner and I haven't, like if Ty and I haven't
been connected lately, my honesty of what I
actually think about him would be horrifically damaging and completely unfounded also. And it can change on a dime. - [Lex] But that's also not actual honesty to the big picture of how you feel about him.
- Right. - I have interacted with a few folks who talk about their previous
sexual partners, for example, the numbers of sexual partners they've had and they feel like that kind of honesty is actually empowering and
enriching to the relationship because all the sexual
experiences you've had in the past make you a better sexual partner, better partner in the present. And to me, from the
culture I've come from, that's like anti-romantic. - Yep. Yep.
- Like I, you kind of throw the past kind of away, you don't really talk about it. It's kind of there in
this amorphous shape, but it's almost as if you've
met together for the first time and this is a beautiful new thing, like you're creatures that have woken up from a long slumber. - Right, you're starting anew. - Yeah, starting anew.
- Right. And you want some mystery there. - Right, I think the mystery and like you have to figure
that out about each other. So I'm not exactly sure
that honesty is always- - It's not for everyone. And then also is honesty harmful or helpful at certain points too? - Yeah.
- So you're talking about sort of like disclosing
prior sexual history? - Yeah.
- I thought you were going to go to, so if you've had an affair, do you keep that under your hand? - [Lex] Oh, yeah, that's
a really tough question. - Or are you obligated to disclose it? - [Lex] It's a really, that's very- - It's a very tough question. Very tough. - Well, what do you think is the answer? - I have my own personal beliefs. I also then like I have
my therapeutic beliefs. I think frankly, and this
is just me as a human being, not Shannon the psychologist. I believe that if you have
fucked up, and I, again, I'm coming from a framework
right now of monogamy. If you are committed to somebody you love and you have fucked up, you don't get to shed
your guilt onto them. You need to carry that burden. It's not necessarily,
I think it's simplistic and unsophisticated to be like, "But then you're being dishonest." I think it's actually selfish
to unload it on somebody else and give them the trauma of imagining. What we do know about
infidelity is that it can create an actual post-traumatic
stress like experience for the betrayed partner
where they are having intrusive thoughts about it. Those are unwanted thoughts
and it's uncontrolled. It comes in at multiple times a day. They'll have depressed mood, they'll have nightmares about it. Their entire sense of security, safety, self-esteem gets shattered
because of your actions. I think it's kind of, yeah,
moralistic and naive to think well they deserve to know the truth, if you actually know the harm that that sort of betrayal does. Especially if you truly
mean to stop it, right? - Mm-hmm.
- So if it was a one and done or if it
happened and you've stopped it and you do not intend
to do it again, frankly, I think you live with that burden. You live with that discomfort. - Thank you for saying that
'cause I totally agree, but it's like logically it's doesn't quite make sense to give that advice, but psychologically makes complete sense because you really are
destroying another person's mind. Their faith in love, in relationships, their trust, everything. And then you're imprisoning
them to be stuck with you for months or years if you're
trying to work through it, through that torture. So you should be carrying that burden of working through it, I think. Why do you say that that's
your personal opinion versus your therapeutic,
like what therapeutic- - Well I think everybody
has different values. So I think that's a value-based decision because to me, the hierarchy
is kindness and do no, like do no further harm. Over in that case, over truth, right? - Yeah.
- Whereas other people, you know, my husband for instance, he is like truth above all else. You don't get to decide
what I know or, you know, you don't get to decide whether or not I can handle that knowledge. So he would even see my determination of, you know, that I should carry
the burden sort of arrogant, like, well why don't you
let your partner decide whether or not they, you know,
why do you get to choose? I don't know. I think there's
value to both arguments. I absolutely see his point. - [Lex] It's fascinating.
It's fascinating. - I absolutely see his point. And his, I think, is like a
very humble sort of option, like, you don't get to
choose what's better, you just need to give them the information and they can choose. But I think, I don't know,
I think it's kinder to hold. I think it's going to cause
your conscience more discomfort to hold it. And I think there's sort
of a cleansing we do when we share that information. I think in real life
most people disclose it because they can't stand the
secret anymore themselves. That, to me, is a selfish act. - And with unemployment
applications and so on. And just with friends would ask people, "What do you care more
about truth or loyalty?" Just to get to see how they think about those different questions. And yeah, I was surprised how much variance there is on that. - And also conceptually, I bet, conceptually I don't think we
actually know where we stand until we're faced with
a situation like that. - Yeah, I think people, a lot of people, especially when they're younger, say especially if they're
kind of intellectual, they'll say, "Truth above all else." - Yeah.
- It's like, all right. - [Shannon] You're exactly right. - All right. (both laughing) Until-
- It's a platitude. - Until you get to hear a
truth that truly breaks you, that truly hurts you, it
causes suffering to you. And then you realize or a
truth you give to somebody else will cause them suffering. And then you get to see that
suffering destroy their life and maybe your relationship and so on. And then you're like, "Oh." - Yeah, like should I
sit my dad down right now and be like, "Dad, your dementia, like you have dementia again today, I'm gonna tell you, you have... Dad, you're not making sense." No, it's not going to be discussed. We're gonna make him comfortable. And I mean, yeah, I think
it truth can be a little bit of a platitude sometimes. - Some of those complexities
are all the things involved in the challenges of what makes
a relationship work, right? - Mm-hmm.
- What do you think about open relationships in general? My worldview is such that I see the beauty and value in monogamous
relationships just for me, but I'm also open to the possibility of what works for other people. Have you done any kind
of work with the people in open relationships? - As clients or research? - As clients?
- Oh yeah. Yeah. - Is there some interesting differences between open relationships
and monogamous relationships? - You know, I think that
may have been actually what was behind my question
about the satisfaction with them being on the extremes. My hypothesis essentially
was is that because they, if you are really all in, you've worked out some of the kinks. I think I've seen couples who are trying it out, like for the first time, it
tends to get a little haywire. There's some excitement in the beginning. Everybody's really excited about it. I think the philosophy makes
sense to a lot of people. The science of it makes
sense to a lot of people. But we have been raised in a society that is pretty monogamous, so there isn't a lot of
scaffolding around it. And there's a lot of
inner conflict, I think, for people to go away from the values that they've been taught
since they were kids. And so jealousy arises a lot. And also, it's very difficult to be, I think, as truthful and
direct as you need to be, which you're describing in
these polyamorous situations where everybody is laid out on the table. So I think that's something
that may be practiced. In my own work with
clients, I've just noticed that the partners who are happier in these situations, who I've worked with, they
are more experienced at it. - Yeah.
- They seem to have it down. - You testified in the Johnny
Depp/Amber Heard trial, based on your role as a clinical
and forensic psychologist. It was watched by, I don't
know how many people, maybe tens, maybe hundreds
of millions of people. What was that experience like? - Thank God I didn't
know that at the time. - Were you scared?
- Oh yeah. - Given the size of the platform, how many people are watching?
- Well, scared typically isn't the word when I testify, I'm always excited and
a little trepidatious before I testify because
the stakes are so high for everybody's life in that room. This was different. Anxiety isn't usually my brand. And I just skipped anxiety that morning and went straight to terror. And I was mad. I was
mad at the legal team. I was funny, like I was having
all these strong emotions. I couldn't find my bobby pins. I almost started crying
'cause I couldn't find them. I was pretty unhinged that morning, and in a way that was
really unfamiliar to me. And it was right when I cried 'cause I couldn't find my bobby pins, that I realized I needed to get a grip and that I was a professional
and that my hair didn't matter even though it ended up mattering. People noticed that it was crazy. But I got a grip and I went
in and I just did my job. - So the terror in the
end helped you focus and do your job well? - I think it does and it's
a little scary, though, 'cause I know what fear does cognitively and there is a sweet spot
where you want some stress and then you can be really
acutely focused and attuned. But then if you go over this threshold, you get sort of that frontal lobe shutdown where you're not thinking clearly. And everybody knows that experience from taking a really
stressful test at some point, like in high school. And then they're going over
the answers with the teacher in class later and they're like, "How did I miss that
question? I know that." You're just in a different state. That's when you have too much stress. I think this day I actually was bordering on too much stress, if not
clearly in that threshold. But once you're sitting
there for a little bit and you're asked the questions, you can kind of go into a routine of just wanting to talk about your work. - So what is the work, the job of a forensic
psychologist in that context? - In the Depp/Heard trial, I was serving as an expert witness based on a psychological
evaluation of one of the parties. So forensic psychologists
can serve the court or in legal matters in a number of ways. They can act as a confidential consultant for an attorney on a case, or they can even assist
with jury selection. They might testify without
doing an evaluation if they're just coming to testify about sort of a subject matter. And then they wouldn't be
answering specific questions to either of the parties, but just talking more
hypothetically about a field area. In this case, because I was ordered to
conduct an evaluation, I evaluated one of the parties and then you provide a report to the court with your findings and then you testify as to what your findings were. - But from my perspective,
just watching you, you seem to have held
it together really well. So what do you attribute that to? So you said like it calmed
down after you were able to ask the question. So to me, if I were just to
put myself in your place, it seems like the internet and the world would be very nitpicky
about individual words. You're speaking from a place of scientific rigor. And so you have to be very
precise with your wording. - Very precise.
- I would feel like so much pressure about
each single word I choose. Did you feel that pressure that you had to be extremely
precise with the words? - Always. The pressure is so high
going into testifying. I think that's where I feel
the most pressure is preparing, and literally the moment until
I start having to answer. And then I don't even have the luxury of thinking about myself because it is so important
that that answer be clarified and understandable to the court, that that becomes my focus. And that's the godsend, is
that I can stop thinking about how scary it all is, because I need to pay attention
to explaining something. - So if it's okay, I
would love to talk to you about the Personality Assessment test. 'Cause I think it's
actually super fascinating. - The Personality Assessment
Inventory or the MMPI-2? You're probably referring to the MMPI-2, which is one I talked a lot about. - MMPI-2. Yeah. So maybe can you explain the
MMPI-2, seems fascinating. - It is.
- It has like its output, the results has some basic
skills as code types. And just reading through the different- - It's so complex. It's a thing of beauty. - Because the human mind
is really complicated. Even, you know, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, like all of these things are really complicated. There's like, many of them
we don't understand well. There seems to be a
huge amount of variance, and yet you have to be
able to stitch together a bunch of characteristics
that give you intuition about the unique aspects of each person. You want to be able to have tests that get you closer to identifying the peculiar flaws or
beauties of a particular mind. So this seems to do a good job. Just reading through the different- - Can I borrow that-
- Descriptions of the code- - next time I testify? That was the best description. - I don't know I'm being
poetic. I apologize. - But
- No, that was a beautiful description. - You have to be in part
poetic about the human mind. It's not math, it's psychology. Okay. So what is the MMPI-2? Like, what are we talking about here? Like, it's a questionnaire? - Yes. That's a great start. So it is a questionnaire,
yet 567 yes/no questions. I'm gonna tell you what's most
beautiful about this test. So they used an empirical
keying method to develop it. What that means is that they didn't have a bunch of psychologists
get together and say, "Let's ask them, let's make
sure that we identify people who have somatic complaints
or physical complaints by asking them questions about
like numbness in their hand," nothing like that. What they did instead
was they threw, you know, like take 1,000 questions
at a group of people who they know had a certain mental illness and a group of people who
didn't have that mental illness. And then they looked for patterns in what the people with
mental illness endorsed as yes and no of those random questions. So it would be, for instance, there's a bronze light
fixture right there. One of the questions out
of the 1,000 might be, "I like light fixtures that
are bronze. True or false?" And they looked for correlations in the way that people would answer to these completely innocuous,
just boring questions. So there was no real way that a test taker could foresee the point of answering. - And so because they can't foresee, it's very difficult to cheat to get to a conclusion they want? - Very difficult, and not only that, but you can imagine using that approach, you can then look for patterns for almost any type of response style, for any type of personality trait, any type of mental illness. You just get a comparison group and then a group who's
using that specific strategy or has that specific mental illness or has that personality trait, and you just look for patterns. - And there's a scale
output of different kinds? - So-
- And there's code types? - Yep, so you've got validity scales and those are just fascinating and often one of the most useful parts of this test in forensic context because they show you how a person is approaching the test, how they're answering
questions about themselves. So for instance, you can
see if they are tired, you can see if they're kind
of responding randomly. You can see if they are in
an unsophisticated manner trying to make themselves look
perfect but not very nuanced. You can see if they may
be deceiving themselves and truly believe that they are perfect, whereas others don't see it that way. You can see if they're exaggerating. You can see if they're
exaggerating because they're truly, it's a cry for help. They are in extreme distress, but they feel as though they
need to really punctuate it to get people to notice. Or you can see if they're
exaggerating in a way that is, you know, driven for
a specific outcome or gain. It's just fascinating and it's the most well-developed
assessment we have for a person's approach to answering questions about themselves. - So it gives you the context about- - [Shannon] How honest they're being. - the state of the person
as they're answering them. - Yeah, yeah. Their honesty, how
forthcoming they're being and how accurate they're being. - And then the result
of the classification based on the tests are these code types? - Right, well, so you have
these clinical scales as well. You have 10 clinical scales that look for different kind of primary
clinical pathology issues. This test doesn't tell you
anything good about yourself. At best, it just tells you that you're not responding
in a way that is dishonest and that you are kind,
not hugely problematic, but there's, you know, it's
not looking for strengths. So you have these 10 clinical scales that look for variations above the mean of the population in certain areas. Anywhere from, you know,
depressive symptoms, manic symptoms, physical complaints, anxiety, nervousness,
aggression, social engagement, a whole scope of human experience. And then there're much more
nuanced scales from those. So little subscales. And then the real power,
though, of the MMPI-2 is in, as you said, these code types. And these code types
are additional patterns that have been detected that
really can be more defining of a personality. So you look for peaks. There can be either two extreme
peaks or three, typically, that make a code type. And those peaks are higher scores on these personality traits. And specific code types can
give you a very nuanced picture of a person's general approach to life and their personal relationships,
just their personality. - So you can build on
top of those code types an understanding, yeah, of how that person's going to deal with different kinds of situation. And then there's, by the
way, a lot of code types. - [Shannon] There are a lot of code types.
- I was looking at them, they're pretty interesting. - It is truly fascinating.
- I wanna take this test. I wanted to see which one I would. - [Shannon] I have given it
to some people in my life. It's just phenomenal. - How hard is it on your side
of the table to give the test? - Oh, it's easy. You just proctor, you just
make sure that somebody, there's no distraction,
that they're well rested. They are sitting there
and they can just take it in front of you. - So I guess the question is, because the questions are well designed in that it's hard to mess with them. You just give the- - It's very hard to beat it.
You just hand it to them. - [Lex] And it's yes and no? - It's yes and no. - [Lex] Okay. - But I should also add
to this, that this test, as much as I love it and
it is the most researched and widely used personality
assessment in the world, it is not in and of itself definitive. So you use it like you already
have sort of a hypothesis and you use this for clarification. And it has a ton of value for
showing somebody's response or their approach, how
forthcoming they're being. But other than that, you
really need to consider it as a piece of the puzzle. You had said stitch together earlier, and that was just one
of those points you made that was perfect for describing this. - There's probably no
one perfect test, right? For personality.
- No. - I wonder there, especially
with advancements of AI, there could be more, more and more sophisticated
ways of measuring, of collecting data about your behavior. - [Shannon] Absolutely. There could be. - And being able to measure some kind of more productive kind of, especially not in a forensic context, but more in a trying to figure out like how to improve your lifestyle, improve your relationships,
all that kind of stuff. So the results of the
test with Amber Heard, if you can speak to the public stuff. You said that the results
of Ms. Heard's evaluation supported two diagnoses, borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder. Can you speak to each one
of those? What are they? What are the basic characteristics of borderline personality disorder? - Sure, well, so right now, the DSM-5, which is sort of the Bible
for mental disorders, it's what we go to, our Diagnostic Manual. It classifies personality
disorders according to clusters. And Cluster B is one that
involves the emotionally erratic, interpersonally erratic
emotional disorders. And those include histrionic
personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. Eventually, there's been
some research on this and a lot of support
for us eventually moving into a more spectrum-type approach to considering personality disorders where you'd essentially
be looking at dysfunction in different domains of
somebody's functioning that has persisted over time. And again, the really important part is, it seems to be a stable trait
part of their personality. That person, you know, it's in their interpersonal relationships, it's in how they handle their own life, their own functioning, their mood. And it's not just situation
based. It seems to be all areas. I don't love the title
histrionic personality disorder. I think its history is, it's pretty controversial and
there's some misogyny in it. But that all being said, as a servant to the court
and somebody who is there to just provide the
science as it exists today, my job is to relay. And in this specific case,
I was ordered to provide my diagnostic impressions, a diagnosis. And I don't get to decide which diagnosis, whether I like a certain diagnosis or not. Ultimately if the criteria are
met, that diagnosis is given. So as we have it right now with the current personality
disorder categories, histrionic personality disorder is probably the most controversial. Some people believe that it is narcissistic personality disorder light. So sort of a less obvious, less malicious version of
narcissistic personality disorder. And I think that will
probably get sussed out if we do move to a more
spectrum-based approach 'cause then you would be describing sort of a personality disorder and then you would add the traits to it. So, you know, with issues
in interpersonal functioning and et cetera. So you could be a little bit more specific rather than having to just
put somebody in a category. - So that's where things
are moving, you're saying? - That's where things-
- Things are kinda clustering. - [Shannon] are moving. - From clusters based
view of NPD, antisocial personality disorder-
- To more of a spectrum with personality dysfunction, then you list the traits that are there and I think that'll be more accurate. Especially there's so much overlap between these personality
disorders right now, especially Cluster B, it is not uncommon for
people to have two or three personality disorders to meet criteria for two or three at the same time. So speaking about borderline
personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder. Borderline personality
disorder can best be thought of as a disorder of instability
and impulsiveness, emotional instability, instability in a person's
self-identity, sense of self. Instability in a person's relationships. And then underlying all of this is an intense fear of abandonment. Histrionic personality
disorder is more of a disorder of emotionality, dramatics
and attention seeking. This, you know, histrionic disorder typically is known for the dramatics. And people who are observing
or interacting with somebody with this disorder may
even feel themselves almost kind of wanting to turn away. There's a sense of play acting
as the person is speaking or engaging with you. Something just feels a
little bit disingenuous and a lot of attention seeking. Similar to borderline
personality disorder, you might see with histrionic
personality disorder attempts to manipulate. However, the motivation with
histrionic personality disorder is that attention, whereas with borderline
personality disorder, the underlying motivation
for almost everything is to avoid abandonment. So you'll see frantic
attempts to avoid abandonment, frantic attempts to keep people close. And those frantic attempts
can be really harmful to the person and to others. - To the person themselves?
- Mm-hmm. - (sighs) So the fear of abandonment can result in the very
thing you're afraid of. - Right, and there has
been some research also to suggest that borderline
personality disorder has different types as well. And I think this is really
important because in my own work, I have encountered many people with borderline personality
disorder, in my own life, right? And there are different types, right? I'm thinking specifically
of a girl I really love who I've worked with for years, who is so self-aware
about this and endearing and she owns her shit. I can forgive almost anything if somebody just owns their shit. She might lose her temper,
she might lash out. She can be erratic, but she
will come back and apologize, own it and accept full responsibility. And not only that, but
identify it and make changes. She doesn't want to be harmful. I adore that about her. I think it's an admirable
quality more of us could have. That's very different than
when you think about it, there are nine different symptoms and you only need five to meet criteria. So depending on which symptoms you have, you might be far more calculated,
conniving, manipulative, or you may just be more of the impulsive, kind of messy, emotionally erratic type. And so there's some new
research also coming out that's even suggested that among women, those that score higher in some of these more calculated traits of
the disorder may actually be, it may be a certain presentation
of female psychopathy. Yeah.
- Are some of these personality disorders, again, probably impossible
question to answer, but how much of it is nature,
how much of it is nurture, or how much of it is in the genetics and you just can't do much with? Maybe another question, a
different way to ask that is how much can you help that? How much can you become better? - That is a tough question. So there's been a ton of change in the way we've thought
about the etiology of these personality disorders. Specific to borderline
personality disorder, I think in general the
view is that most people believe that it was
associated with neglect or trauma in childhood. While there is a correlation there, there's a correlation between that and many mental health issues, not just borderline personality disorder. We also, there is evidence to support a genetic basis for this
personality disorder. And there are people who have borderline personality disorders that report no childhood
trauma or difficulty. And I have seen, you know, sometimes things just happen,
so I think it's a mix. I think we need to think
of it as bio-psychosocial, which is generally the
answer to most things when you're talking about how a mental health issue comes to be. I certainly think that in most cases, and here's just me
speaking personally, again. I think in my own work, in most cases what I see
is that somebody may have some sort of predisposition, then they go through certain life events and learn patterns of behaving
that may serve them well as a child in a dysfunctional situation, but end up being very
problematic later on. Or they just have enough
hardship that that gene, whatever it was lying dormant, that little borderline
personality disorder gene expresses itself. And you'll see that with
things like schizophrenia, depression, anxiety disorders. There tend to be certain ages where you'll just see
(imitates bomb exploding) that expression happen. - All right, for the
record, it got cold in here. So we upgraded with a blanket. (both laughing) You look cozy. Just as a question for me,
just observing the trial, it was interesting that first of all it was a really raw and honest exploration of a intimate relationship
between two people. - Oh yeah.
- It was interesting to watch, I suppose I haven't
watched that kind of thing. It made me think about what
makes for a good relationship, all the many things we've
already talked about in this conversation. It was useful for that. But also there was raw recordings of two humans' interaction. What'd you think about that,
that there's recordings? It's kind of interesting. - The act of recording your partner? - Yeah, not the ethics of that or so on, but the fact that you have this data. It made me wonder, like if I recorded myself,
how would I sound like? - [Shannon] Well, you do record yourself. - No, but here with microphones. But when you're in private.
- Yeah. - You wonder, like I had a bit of a fight
with a friend last week and I wondered which one
of us was the asshole. I would love to hear the recording 'cause we were a little bit, I think we were a little
bit rude to each other. And I wonder how it went wrong. What-
- I love that you asked yourself that
question, that's so useful. - We made up the next day and we, I think both agreed to
not ever talk about it, (both laughing) but I want the data. - Just bury it deep.
- Yeah. - You know, I record my couple sessions and one of the primary purposes
of that is so that after, if they start to get nasty
with each other in the session, I can stop it and I can
say, "What was that," right? And most of the time that
what you're describing is so useful because
we don't see ourselves, we have no idea that we
just came off as critical. We think we're being completely
reasonable and thoughtful. You know, whenever somebody is
sort of retelling an argument they got in, they said,
"And then, you know, I was just caring and just asked, I mean, why, is there a reason you did?" You know, something like that. If they can actually see
themselves, they realize, no, their jaw was clenched,
their voice was raised. They actually called a name.
Sometimes they're shocked. - So just a quick, just to linger on it, you labeled Amber Heard
as a 3-6 code type. Going back to our discussion,
which can mean that quote, "She's heavily concerned with image, prone to treating others with cruelty, unable to admit
responsibility for wrongdoing and prone to externalizing blame." And then I also went into the MMPI-2 list. 3-6 includes anxiety, tension, rigidity, fear of criticism,
suppressed hostility, merging in passive or episodic aggression, suspiciousness, egocentricity, what else? Projection. What can you say about that
code that it's not captured in the different personality disorders? What are we supposed to do that from a forensic psychology perspective? And what are we supposed
to do that in general, forget the 3-6, in general, these kinds of code types in that context, in the context of a trial? - If I'm understanding you correctly, it's sort of what's the
point of these code types? - Yeah. Thank you for
asking the question better. I don't know what I'm
doing. I'll just sit. I just actually honestly
really find MMPI-2 fascinating. - I love that you do. I love that you get it because I just, to me it's such a, it's almost unbelievable
that humans created it. But I think that goes back
to that empirical key method of creating something
that enabled it to be as robust as it is, and
something that is very difficult to beat, if not impossible. But the code types
really, so it depends on, in any forensic case, what really matters is
the psycho legal question. So what is the legal question? And then what is the
psychologist's responsibility in assisting with whatever
question they're being asked? And there's some
questions we can't answer, some that we can. You don't always need
to provide a diagnosis when you're asked to provide a report. It depends on the jurisdiction,
it depends on the statute. Some jurisdictions actually
require a diagnosis. In this case, I was asked
to provide a diagnosis. So when I'm considering a diagnosis, you're integrating
multiple different sources of information. You're integrating an
examinee's self-report, you are adding collateral data, usually. I wasn't able to obtain collateral
interviews in this case. And that was the decision of the court. They said no collateral interviews, but typically, that would be
something that you would add. You're looking at records,
ideally from birth up until the date that the
alleged injury occurred. And I'm speaking now specifically to a personal injury evaluation where something, where
somebody is claiming that they were harmed psychologically. But you want as many records as possible to show how a person functioned
before that event occurred and how they functioned after. And you want it to show
financial functioning, physical functioning,
academic functioning. Basically, where is there evidence that something in their life changed? Where is there evidence that harm occurred other than from what they're telling you? And in addition to all of those records that you're reviewing, in
addition to their self-report, then you're also going to
give some of these tests like the MMPI. So the code types are really
that strength of the MMPI-2, it gives you really nuanced information about a person's personality. Now again, you're not gonna use the MMPI-2 or any other test by itself to diagnose someone or, you know, decide that the person
is telling the truth, not telling the truth. It is just another piece of data. And when it's working
the way it's supposed to, it lines up really nicely with all of the other data you're getting, including what you've
observed from the person during your interview with them, the information they're giving you or inconsistencies with the
information they're giving you, the consistency or inconsistency
of their self-report from the records, what the
records themselves say, et cetera, et cetera. - So it's adding, it's helping
you clarify and clarify and clarify the picture you have of the person.
- Yep, just dialing it down more and more. You're just making sure that
it is as accurate as possible. - Okay, so given how huge this trial was, given how eloquent you were, I know you don't think of it that way, but from a public perspective, you are like the star
because of how well you did. - That's insane.
- It's, I mean, you know? - I'm pretty sure Camille's the star. - Camille's also incredible. I've gotten a chance to interact with her. She's somebody that really inspires me by how good she's at her job,
how much she loves her job, and how much the fame,
the money, whatever, has not affected the basic
core integrity of who she is as a human being, so
she's also incredible. Okay, what's the takeaway for
you personally from the trial? How has it made you a better person? How's it changing, changed or solidified who you are as a psychologist, as a forensic psychologist,
clinical psychologist and so on? - Wow, I mean a lot happened
in my life around that trial, leading up to the trial, after the trial. So let's tackle forensic
psychologists first. - Sure.
- Okay. So in terms of forensic psychology, I am grateful to that trial for really strengthening my abilities. The stakes were so high
that I took, you know, I was retained about two
years prior to the trial. So I really delved deep
into the academic side of forensic psychology and making sure that I was adhering as closely as possible to standard practices, best
practice recommendations for this specific type of an examination. It was intellectually
awesome and challenging. I felt like my brain was
on fire for a full year leading up to the trial, and
that can be really, really fun. It was just challenging. But I am really proud of the work I did. I think the stakes were really
high. It's serious work. It's important that it's
done well and accurately, and I felt really good about it. - So have some of those
lessons carried through to your practice now to both research and some of the things you're doing in terms of helping couples? - No, I mean, as you know, my practice hasn't changed that much. This was more just
something that was more, it demanded so much more of my time than my typical forensic work does. And personal injury cases, or in cases where there
is an allegation of trauma or psychological harm tend
to be super labor intensive. This, given the magnitude and how long it had been going
on and the back and forth, required a ton of work
before the trial as well. So it pulled me away from the practice. I think it's been nice to
go back a bit if, okay, so now personally, I've
learned some things. I've learned that I need
to slow down a little bit. - So this took a lot from you? - It took a lot. But it
was really the culmination. I feel like there are
these hoops we jump through again and again, you know, academic challenges
that we continue to meet and then there's a next one
and a next one and a next one. And in the beginning, like when
you're getting into college or applying to grad schools, you don't really realize this is going to be a never ending thing. Especially if I continue with research. Forensic work, I love it
because it is so academic. You know, you're writing
these 75-page reports and with citations and
you have to be accurate. It feels like a doing giant board exams again and again and again, it never ends. But that feeling, I think
you and I were talking about how it's fun to doubt
yourself because it pushes you to do better work. So if you keep having high stakes, you're going to work all the time, work yourself into the ground, constantly be thinking
about, oh this question, I'm not sure if I fully know the answer and all the research behind
that, so I should go there. And again, super fun. But I don't just do
forensic psychology all day. I also own a clinic. I provide therapy. I've been
providing therapy for 15 years. So what happens is you have clients who maybe you've stopped seeing, but when they have a
crisis in their lives, they reach out to you again,
even if it's seven years later. So you've accumulated 100s of clients who at any given time are gonna reach out when they're in crisis, whether or not you're
working on a federal case or in Virginia for this. And that is never going to be
something easy to grapple with because I feel that I am
letting somebody down. I know I am because these are
people I genuinely care about and they care about me and they trust me and I wanna be able to be there for them. I know that it's
disappointing if I can't be. And it's also very
difficult to separate out the professional therapy relationship from loving someone
who you've seen through some of the most difficult
parts of their lives. And I can explain that
to people all day long, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's gonna be easy
for someone to accept when I can't talk to them. And they just found out, you know, their husband was leading
a double life or, you know, their sister just died and
I can't even get on a call because I am getting maybe
15 messages like that a day, and have to testify and
have to run my practice. So I think that was why
I need to slow down. This case, I was doing all of that, and then like the academic
load or the work involved was just tremendous. And some stuff happened. Like my dad, he started
having his cognitive decline. I got a medical diagnosis
that is stress-induced. I really thought I was
getting away with it. I really believed that people who talked like a lot about self-care
were kind of full of shit and just didn't know
how to push themselves. I still believe in pushing ourselves, but I think I kind of
traversed into an area without realizing it, where I
was no longer pushing myself to challenge myself or
see what I was capable of, I was almost pushing
myself like as a necessity 'cause I didn't know
what else to do anymore. Just an obligation. It wasn't even, yeah. I wasn't pushing myself to do, the Depp/Heard case
reminded me of that feeling of pushing myself to do something I wasn't sure I was capable of and overcoming that
challenge, that was rewarding. But when you're piling that on
with like running a business and all these other things
and trying to be perfect at all of them, that just starts to become like a feeling of necessity
and it's not healthy. - That said, you somehow
manage to hold it all together to put forward a masterful
performance and like you said, still take care of all these clients 'cause you're the most
important person in their lives for many of them. Is there a secret to
that? Is there any hacks? Is is there- - I don't sleep a lot. I don't get a... No. And honestly, it's
not 100, it's not... It's a work in progress, right? I don't have an answer for, I wouldn't want my life
to be any other way. You know, I wouldn't
have had the opportunity to work on this case if I
hadn't established my practice and had outreach. And so I can't figure out like
which piece you take it out without it all crumbling. But I would love to have
a little more downtime. - So it all kind of works together. And this passion is the fuel that's behind all of it, probably. That's probably the reason you haven't lost your mind quite yet. - Maybe, yeah, maybe. Unless, I mean, it depends who you ask. (both laughing) - What about the stress of
just being in the public eye? Has that been difficult for you? - That's a lovely question,
thank you for asking it, 'cause it is nice to
talk to you about this 'cause I feel like you probably
understand it a little bit. That was something I was
absolutely unprepared for. Like I said, I had no idea
how many people were watching when I testified, I had no idea. And I got off the stand, I kind of staggered to the back room and truly thought about
lying down on the floor 'cause I was so exhausted. And, you know, I'd been
up studying all my stuff, terrified that I was gonna
forget some statistic about the MMPI-2. - It's gonna be so
great. It's great for me. It's gonna be great for
people to hear this, that you're human, your two flaws, (both laughing) that's extremely stressful
for many, many hours. I wondered how you can sit
there for so many hours and stay so focused and listen
so well, it's so difficult. - Well, I mean, I could
talk about that too. The moment I came to almost like, came back to my body
and realized where I was and just wanted it to stop and felt like I was burning alive. I just was thinking, I
don't wanna do this anymore. I don't wanna do this
anymore. Is this gonna stop? And then another question came and I just had to get back to it. But so after I testified the first time, I went in that back room, I might have laid down on the ground. It's kind of a blur. I mean, I might have. I do remember that Wayne Dennison, one of the senior managing
partners at Brown Rudnick, who is a phenomenal guy
and absolutely brilliant. I will be indebted to him for
life because I trusted him. I trusted him. And that made all the difference in probably how I testified. But he came in the back and
he was looking at his phone and he said, "You're on
the cover of 'Time.'" Something on, you know, like Apple news. And I thought, I mean I really, I thought he was messing with me. I thought it was his
joke way of saying like, I did great. - You've worked with veterans. What is PTSD in the that context? What's the landscape of
psychological sufferings that veterans soldiers go through? (Shannon sighing) - Well, if we're talking
about combat exposure, you're seeing things
you're not meant to see. You're seeing the worst of humanity. People harming other people. It's not natural for others
to intend to harm us. It's not natural for us to harm others. And this dehumanization can
occur that's so troubling and disturbing that
people have a hard time living with it later. Or they just feel this ongoing anger. It depends, it depends on the
trauma they're exposed to. It depends on, you know, whether their convoy
was ambushed by weapons that were purchased from money that was given to this village
from the US government. It depends on whether they did something that they have a hard time
reconciling outside of war, now that they're back
home in civilization. Depends on whether they
lost a lot of their comrades and feel that guilt of being a survivor. And again, not everybody develops PTSD. It really, it's a mental
disorder, it's serious. We talk so much about trauma and PTSD gets thrown around lightly, when actually it's very difficult to meet the full criteria
for that diagnosis. And many people experience
severe trauma in their lives and only about 14% are likely
to actually develop PTSD. It's an exception, not the norm. Traumatic stress is absolutely normal. After something traumatic happens, you'll likely have nightmares,
you'll likely have anxiety, you'll feel depressed
because you're a human being and something abnormal happened. But PTSD is a longer-standing condition that is significantly
impairing in a person's life. And I think we've lost that in some of the sort of narrative in society. It just, everybody has PTSD, but no, you can have traumatic
stress, you can be distressed, you can be affected by trauma and not have that particular diagnosis. PTSD significantly impairs people's lives. - How do veterans, how do soldiers who suffer from PTSD or are close to that kind
of diagnosis begin to heal? What's the path for healing? - Well, I will hand it to the military because I think in terms of working with their active
duty service members, they really invest
heavily in mental health. The US Department of
Defense was one of the first to bring animal-assisted therapy into any type of treatment
in the early 1900s with bringing, you know,
farming into certain hospitals and letting veterans help with the farms and brush the horses, which is so advanced because now we have all this research on animal-assisted therapy
and how beneficial it is. And just looking in the eyes of a dog can increase your pain threshold and speed healing after a cardiac arrest. Help people with dementia
to ambulate more freely. It's incredible stuff, simple. And the military was
ahead of the game on that. And I don't think that's changed. I did my training at a
military hospital in Hawaii, Tripler Army Medical Center, it was phenomenal training and, you know, our psych department, there was so much
interesting research going on and it was so integrated. So you might not imagine that the military would be doing this, but we
had an acupuncture department, we had a chiropractic department,
we had a yoga section, we were doing yoga sessions there. I mean, anything that has
evidence to support its efficacy was being utilized. And I think that's pretty
cool about our government. They have a lot of funding so I'm glad they're using it on that. The real challenge I think
comes with the large scale need at the veteran population, and they slip through the cracks. I know that the DOD had a campaign going where they were doing outreach
to anybody who served, for instance in the Vietnam War. The problem is they were trying to get all of these people assessed
for PTSD and it was great. Like, they were getting phone calls, mail, it was sort of saying, "Hey,
we know that you served, come on in. Or let's schedule you an
exam with a psychologist and just see if you're owed benefits." The idea of it's great. The problem is that they outsourced to this third-party company. They're paying really low
rates for a one-hour meeting with a vet. And you don't need to
be specifically trained in assessing PTSD. And so you're getting these
variations and opinions that are coming through. And I've had clients who, to me, who I've worked with for years, who have clear combat-related PTSD according to gold standard measures, according to my knowing them
and observing their symptoms and how impaired they are. And it is clearly associated with combat, the content of their intrusive thoughts, their nightmares, et cetera. And they are having a one-hour meeting sometimes by phone with
one of these psychologists who's been contracted by this
third-party organization. That's not even enough
for me to get through the first through few symptom questions on the CAPS-5 assessment for PTSD. But in that hour the
psychologist is saying, "Definitively, no PTSD." And it's been a travesty for some people, especially for those who
need an advocate the most. It tends to happen to my veterans who are maybe a little
bit less sophisticated in presenting or
advocating for themselves, more humble, less, you know, the guys who need deserve
it the most, right? They're just getting passed
over and it's a maze. I'm not quite sure what
the solution is, though, before, I mean I've worked
for government agencies. It's a massive population. I love that the outreach is even happening and trying to get these
guys in for assessment. I think we can criticize any system. I'm glad that system is even happening, but it still needs to be better. - So I've gotten to a chance to interact with a lot of soldiers that
served in Iraq and Afghanistan. And now a lot of soldiers from all different kinds
of nations in Ukraine, went to the front. There's a bond between
soldiers unlike any other. I don't know if you can speak
to, why do you think that is? On the opposite side of PTSD, there's a deep human connection, there's like a love for each other. What is that? What is that about war and combat that creates that kind of- - Well you're seeing, we talked earlier about
that vulnerability, right? So I believe that combat, I believe that most survival situations strip away all ego and, I mean, there are a couple
different layers to this, but I have not served in war. So I wanna be cautious here. But from what I know just about psychology and also from my own
experience of survival, survival-type experiences, when you're with a group of people and all the egos stripped
away, nothing else matters. The focus is on the here and now and a specific mission or your day-to-day, you can get really close. You're very, very vulnerable. And also in my experience, the guys I work with who have served, there aren't a lot of people who understand what they've been through. Not only some of the unspeakable things they've been through in combat, but some of the things that they feel are unspeakable about returning, especially if they are
experiencing trauma. A lot of them, you know, some of the things that
service members with PTSD are the most reluctant to disclose is the feeling like they may not know if they love their children
anymore or their wife, that they don't even know
if they can love anymore. That they feel emotionally numb. That they wanna kill someone. That they have a whole lot of
racist beliefs and thoughts. There are a lot of things that can be associated with PTSD that aren't as clear or expected. And these guys don't have many people who understand it or they
don't think they would, but a lot of their fellow
service members do. - Man, so I'm going back to Ukraine and boy, nothing makes, nothing reveals the human condition in a more pure form than war. - [Shannon] Hmm. - Especially the kind of war you get in that part of the world. Especially the war in Ukraine, which is a very 20th century kind of war. - Mm-hmm. Brutal. - (sighing) Well like I mentioned
in a few different ways, you're exceptionally
successful by, I think, the best definition of success. You're doing what you love and
you're one of the best people in the world that doing it. And so what advice-
- Thank you. - would you give to young
people that look up to you, that saw you in the trial, which is your most public facing thing, and are just looking, young people that are looking
to find what they wanna do with their life career-wise or? - I love that question. - What would you tell them? - I'm gonna tell them
something my dad told me. He said to me, "Shannon,
just pick anything. Pick anything. If you like it at all
studying it, just pick it." He was like, "Look, don't
worry about the job. You don't even know all
the jobs that exist. Pick something you like,
you will make it your own." And that is exactly what happened. I like psychology. I was
reading some self-help books. It's not like I had this
calling where I, you know, looking back I can
actually create that story 'cause I think now it makes a lot of sense that I do what I do. But I was lost and scared. I started studying psychology. I met a professor who
was really inspiring, who wasn't even a psychology professor, but he was public policy. I stayed in touch with that professor. He is a dear friend still to this day. That was 20 years ago. We do research together in Mexico, integrative research with, you know, public policy officials and
environmental engineers. And I get to be the
psychologist on the trip. I never ever dreamed that that
sort of stuff could happen. I didn't know about forensic psychology. I also wanna warn anybody who's interested in forensic psychology that it's not like you're like solving crimes all day and getting calls by the FBI. You are going to be sitting
alone in your home office with your husband bringing
you like bowls of cereal and reminding you to go to the bathroom 'cause you haven't gotten
up in like 24 hours from the computer, and you're gonna have
papers all around you. And you're just gonna write 75 dense pages with citations of like science. It's brutal, it's academic- - But you're gonna love it. - But it's fulfilling. My friend Frannie posted
a meme of one of the girls from "Glee" or something,
crying and saying like, "I'm the happiest I've ever been." And she said, it reminds her
of when I try to convince her to do forensic psych, 'cause I think her mind is perfect for it. You have to be strategic and thorough. But it's a slog. But it's wonderful. It's wonderful. - The image of your
husband bringing you cereal while you work on the 75 pages is maybe the most romantic
thing I've ever heard. So we started on love. Let me ask one last question
about the same topic. What's the role of love
in this whole thing, in the human condition, in this whole experiment
we've got going on on Earth? - I think it's all there
is, like that Jewel song. - [Lex] How's that go? - God, I don't, don't sing it. Don't sing it. Don't get it in my head. - [Lex] Please don't sing it. - There have been some
profound moments in my life where I feel like I am closest to kind of the truth of
life or what it's all about. And usually, there's this
resonating sense of love and ease and love for myself,
love for other people. Sort of like it's all
okay, we're all okay. We're gonna get through this. I liked what you said about
the harm caused by like the misinformation or negative
things being said about you because you're right, it
harms that bigger picture. I think it holds us back,
takes us back from that truth. - That there's a love
that connects all of us. And that if you remember about that love, it's all going to be okay. I really hope it's going to be okay. - Me too.
- I believe it will be. Thank you so much for
talking today, Shannon. - Thank you.
- You're an incredible person. Thank you for everything-
- You are too. - you do, and for everything you stand for and from everything from your text message to just who you are and for
this amazing conversation. - Thank you. - Thanks for listening
to this conversation with Shannon Curry. To support this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you some more words from Charles Bukowski. "Sometimes you climb
outta bed in the morning and you think, 'I'm not gonna make it,' but you laugh inside, remembering all the
times you felt that way." Thank you for listening. I
hope to see you next time.