Understanding The Adelson's: Roots, Culture & Control
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Families that look “close” on the outside can actually be suffocating on the inside. In this segment, Tony Brueski is joined by psychotherapist and author Shavaun Scott, along with Stacy and Todd, to unpack the roots of enmeshed families—the kind where loyalty becomes control.
We dig into cultural influences, from Jewish and Asian traditions that normalize family loyalty, to the rise of helicopter parenting. We explore how narcissistic parents turn children into extensions of themselves, expecting achievements to reflect back on them rather than fostering independence.
Shavaun explains the family continuum: disengaged (hands-off), balanced (healthy independence), and enmeshed (over-involved). Where does a family like the Adelsons fit? They raised high-achieving children, but at what cost? Their careers soared, but their moral compasses cracked.
This conversation looks at how enmeshment breeds anxiety, depression, and adult children who struggle with identity and boundaries. We also ask: Is there ever such a thing as a “good” enmeshed family, or is it always toxic in the long run?
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#AdelsonTrial #EnmeshedFamilies #ShavaunScott #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #FamilyPsychology #DanMarkel #DonnaAdelson #TrueCrimeCommunity #PsychologyOfCrime
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A Better Help ad. |
| 0:02.3 | Lewis Capaldi partnered with Better Help to get word out about how important therapy can be. |
| 0:07.6 | I struggle most weeks to get up, get myself up and ready and go to therapy or whatever. |
| 0:13.0 | Even like to open the laptop to talk to, my therapist sometimes could be really difficult. |
| 0:17.4 | But I do it because I realise how important it is for me to continue to feel |
| 0:21.3 | good. Because I felt the best I've felt in a long time through therapy. |
| 0:25.6 | Learn more about online therapy at betterhelp.com. |
| 0:29.5 | A better help ad. |
| 0:31.5 | Lewis Capaldi partnered with BetterHelp to get word out about how important therapy can be. |
| 0:36.8 | I struggle most weeks to get up, get myself up and ready and go to therapy or whatever. |
| 0:42.2 | Even like to open the laptop to talk to, my therapist sometimes could be really difficult. |
| 0:46.6 | But I do it because I realise how important it is for me to continue to feel good. |
| 0:51.0 | I felt the best I've felt in a long time through therapy. |
| 0:54.8 | Learn more about online therapy at betterhelp.com. |
| 0:58.6 | This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Bruske, Stacey Cole and Todd Michaels. |
| 1:08.6 | Families are supposed to be our safe place. |
| 1:11.8 | What happens when the lines blur so much? |
| 1:14.3 | Loyalty become from his own kind of prison. |
| 1:16.7 | That's what we're going to be digging into today. |
| 1:19.0 | Of course, it's all relating to the world of the Aedlestons. |
| 1:22.6 | We're not here to do a... |
| 1:24.7 | We're going to be pulling apart the psychology of a meshed family, the idiotic, |
... |
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