Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Dr Jonathan Shedler,

he's a psychologist, author, master clinician and a clinical professor of psychiatry at the

University of California. We do not understand ourselves. Almost all of what is inside of our minds

is obscured from us. We don't need to exclusively despair though, with a little work and some good

insights from psychoanalysis, the view can be made a little clearer. Expect to learn why people

believe that their suffering makes them more moral than others, how you can create a false identity

without realizing it, the ruthless danger of projective identification, how come it's easier

for us to see people as only either good or bad, how extreme envy can be manifested, the manipulative

strategies we all enact without thinking, and much more. Dr Shedler's stuff is really cool. I'm

not super familiar, I wasn't super familiar with psychoanalysis before this, I kind of thought it

was this old and worldy kind of forgotten, doesn't really make sense anymore insight. But the fundamental

lesson is that we do not know ourselves and the subconscious mind is largely in control,

the only way that we can become aware of that is by doing work like this. So I actually really,

really appreciated it today and I hope that you take tons away from this one. We are approaching

Christmas and given that I've thought it might be an appropriate time to ask for a Christmas present,

if you are listening on Apple podcasts or on Spotify, just pick your favorite episode from

the last year and share it with a friend. That is the best thing that you could do for me. The only

way that this show grows is from people like you sharing it with people like you and if you've had

one that's particularly been great or interesting or useful or emotionally supportive this year,

just send it to someone or throw it in a group chat and induct them into the cult of monomysdom as well.

Thank you very much. In other news this episode is brought to you by Crafted London. They are the

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