Viewpoint, #96

Stephen Schwartz:

If we had five people in this room right now and we had them take a look at me and then had them turn around and ask them what color is my tie, we would get all kinds of responses from people wanting to please us and say something. Eyewitness testimony is just one facet of all different types of testimony. And you're right. Histories change when people are talking and people have motivations. The rules of evidence allow you to look into the bias of witnesses and some may have bias.

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

Looking at the pattern of one's judgments and prejudices and also attractions is a way of kind of reading an X ray of parts of your inner world on the outside screen. If I see the discrepancy between who I really am at the moment and how I'd like to be, that's uncomfortable. Now that could either be an inspiration to just go back to work, or it could make me get angry at someone for depriving me. Or if I can make them look smaller than then the difference isn't so bad and I can feel better. Or I can just lie to myself rather than face that tension.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 96, Viewpoint, airing for the first time on Sunday, July 14, 2013. Today's guests include Stephen Schwartz, principal attorney with Schwartz and Schwartz, and psychotherapist Dr. Steven Aronson. As a physician, I've learned that Viewpoint is everything and that everyone has a story to tell. Things are not always as they seem. We're never entirely sure that what we see is what is reality or what we hear is reality. So if we can have an open mind and be compassionate and listen to what we are told or explore more what we think is going on around us, we're certainly going to be better off in our own lives. And I think that we're also better off when dealing with other people that we coexist on this planet with. We hope you enjoy our conversations with Stephen schwartz and also Dr. Steven Aronson. Thank you for joining us today. Today I'm sitting with a man who is no stranger to the microphone. This is Stephen Schwartz of Schwartz and Schwartz, a local attorney who also happens to do broadcast work, actually in the area of sports and is an umpire and has so many different talents. But it's somebody that I've known for many years through my son Campbell, who played sports with his son Andrew. It's a pleasure to have you here today.

Stephen Schwartz:

Thank you kindly. Real pleasure to be here, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So we're going to talk about the lawyer thing, which is really important, and we're going to talk about some more serious subjects. But why is it that you like sports so much that you would dedicate your time to being a local announcer and an umpire for Little League baseball?

Stephen Schwartz:

Well, I think it's how I grew up. You know, we grew up as huge Red Sox fans in Portland, which was really troubling. Of course, my children think that the Red Sox are just always champions because, you know, especially my youngest two championships within his 6, 16 years. My father lived and died, you know, a whole life without ever seeing the Red Sox win a championship, which was the case with most people in New England of that generation. But having three boys didn't hurt things. My wife, Susie, who's also an attorney, was a professional ballet dancer in New York City and had danced at the Joffrey School for several years. And that may be, in fact, where my kids get their athletic prowess, frankly. But, you know, having three boys, things changed a little bit in terms of our interests and scope, and it kind of gravitated towards sports and athletics as well as music for my kids. So I just think that that was a natural extension. I started coaching Little League. They used to make us umpire the coaches, and I liked it, so I kept it up. And that was my one tie to baseball. After my kids all went to the dark side and started playing lacrosse, which all three of them do, and we would go to all of their games anyway, and, you know, well, what this is like traveling to all of their games. And at Portland High, they needed somebody to film the games for the coaches and for TV3. WPPS. TV3, which is Portland Public Schools, has a station that Time Warner gives them. And as a result of that, they broadcast the game. So I said, I'll do it. And then, you know, I actually saw another young man from Dering High School A student doing some games, and he was in front of the camera and he was doing some announcing. And I said, you know, I think I can do that. So I started to announce games. We started during the playoffs run when Portland High went to the state championship. They played in Falmouth versus Bangor. And I was really bitten by the bug. So since that time, I've been broadcasting all sports, ones that. Where I have a dog in the fight where my kids are playing. And now I do other things. Like I've done basketball playing playoffs, including the state championship two years ago for Deering High. And I was also, I should say, among my two majors in college. I was a broadcasting major. So I did the news for a local station up there. And I think it was just. It's a natural progression. And I think it's really my midlife crisis. My midlife crisis is umpiring and broadcasting well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You know, it's not the worst midlife crisis to have, given all the possibilities. So I think that's all right.

Stephen Schwartz:

Fair.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It strikes me that no matter whether you're doing work as an umpire or work as a broadcaster or work as an attorney, part of what you need to do is be an observer of life. You have to be paying attention. In some cases, you need to be making judgments, but in other cases, you just need to be open to what's going on around you. Is this something that started when you were younger? This sort of keen observational sense and need?

Stephen Schwartz:

You know, perhaps I must say that, you know, when I was growing up and I went to Deering High School, Lincoln Junior and then Deering, I, you know, I don't believe that I was necessarily the best student, but there were certain classes in which I did quite well and such as speech class, for example, or make, you know, and making speeches or running for, you know, office at the school and things like that. So, you know, I think that's where it probably all started. And then I think that it was actually a piece of advice that I received much later on when I was a practicing lawyer and assistant DA in York county, and my boss was Mary Tusignant, who was the da And I was trying my first felony trial. It was a jury wave trial. I was a prosecutor, and I was asking her a question while a witness was talking, and she just kind of looked at me and gave me this stern look and said, listen. And I'll really never forget that. It didn't matter what I needed to talk about or think about. She said, you must listen to what the witnesses are Saying, we talked about that. That was a great piece of advice for me. The fact is that I think as an attorney, or when you're on the field or anything else, you have to listen. I have often commented that, and I. I kind of feel this way in a trial, although things are much more intense when you have one, when you're in hearing and people's sometimes lives are at stake and their livelihoods and things like that. But on the baseball field especially, I feel like you can tune everything out and just concentrate. You got to know the rules and you get to watch parts of the game. If you're being, if you're doing well as an umpire, you're missing a lot of the game. You might see a great home run, but if you're on the bases, you better be checking to make sure the person, the people are tagging the bases. So you don't get to see it go over the fence unless you're behind the plate. But so there's that. And I do think that, of course, you have to perceive all that is around you as an attorney. It's extremely important.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it's the ability to look at things more globally, but also more specifically, which comes in both as an attorney, as an umpire, as an announcer as well.

Stephen Schwartz:

Well, it's really very true. In fact, I'm preparing right now for a case that's likely to be going to trial in a criminal matter. And I have really needed to spend some time with the police report, reading every single word, really delving into the specifics of it instead of the generalities that we deal with when we go to court on discussion days and things like that, really getting into the minutiae of the facts of the case. And I've engaged my own investigator to do an investigation to go behind what the witnesses seem to be saying, the police witnesses and other witnesses. And so you have to be very detail oriented. And you do have to look at the specific, even though you have a broader view.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As a teacher of physicians, I have sent medical students into a room and had them come back with a story that a patient has given. And I've gone into the room with them and the story shifts slightly. So I've noticed that there's a big difference between what one person sees and hears and perceives and what another person sees and perceives. So how do you deal with that as a part of the practice of law?

Stephen Schwartz:

Well, you know, I think that jurors are smarter than perhaps in years past and more educated. I think judges are as well. And I don't think that eyewitness testimony in and of itself is. I think it is sometimes enough to convict, and sometimes that's all there is in a criminal matter or in an accident case or something like that. But I think that people realize that eyewitness testimony is to be scrutinized. That, you know, if people. If we had five people in this room right now and we had them take a look at me and then had them turn around and ask them, what color is my tie, we would get all kinds of responses from people wanting to please us and say something. From people that, you know, that think it happens to be a gray and black tie, but two tone black, to who knows what to, I thought I saw a maroon there. And I think that people are, you know, are wise to that and they're educated to that. They're educated to that because of things like the Innocence Project and because there is a concept in criminal law called actual innocence. It's a concept that we don't have to prove and by any means. We have to raise reasonable doubt sufficient that at least one juror on a jury of 12 in state court, you know, will. Will be. Will have that doubt. You know, I just think that eyewitness testimony is just one facet of all different types of testimony. And you're right, histories change when people are talking and people have motivations. And My Cousin Vinny was a great movie and it really showed how eyewitness testimony really can be flawed. And the woman hadn't been wearing her glasses when she saw what she thought she saw and her timing was off. And you have to do that when you have an eyewitness. You have to look behind that. There are experts that you can engage if your clients have the resources that will be glad to talk to a jury about eyewitness testimony. And it's false. People are educated to that even by watching csi. You know, I mean, they know that there needs to be or they believe that there needs to be something more, that there should be a science to it. And, you know, and that's why if you have DNA evidence, for example, it's largely, not completely, but largely irrefutable.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What kind of motivations could people have in seeing or hearing something and, and sort of changing it to what they believe it to be?

Stephen Schwartz:

Well, you know, it could be an unconscious motivation. It could be a desire to please. It may not be anything nefarious, but it depends. You are allowed. The rules of evidence allow you to look into the bias of witnesses. And some may have Bias.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what happens when you have a variety of different people and, and everybody says something slightly different and you don't have any DNA evidence and you're working on trying to either defend or convict somebody? How do you deal with that?

Stephen Schwartz:

Well, if you have a variety of people with a variety of different opinions or views of the facts, then it seems to me that you likely have reasonable doubt.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And so that would mean.

Stephen Schwartz:

Would mean an acquittal in a criminal case. It would mean if you have a duty to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt, it could be difficult. If you're in a civil matter in the civil arena where the standards are either by a preponderance of the evidence or by clear and convincing evidence, which is a step in between that and reasonable doubt and preponderance, then you may have some people that question, some jurors that question or fact finders that question what is right and whether or not the matter has been sufficiently proven.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So is this the reason that we have tried, to the extent that we have tried to allow people to have the benefit of the doubt, to give them, to read them their Miranda rights, to make it possible for them to try to prove their case, because there is this possibility of reasonable doubt?

Stephen Schwartz:

I want to understand your question. Why do we have things like Miranda rights and things like that? Yeah, I mean, we have them because the United States Constitution demands it. And the United States Supreme Court has said this is what it means to have a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. That is not just a right that sits in the abstract. That's a real palpable right that all of us have and people need to be told about. That right is what that case stands for, Miranda versus Arizona stands for. And there are other rights, such as the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, which is part of that as well. You have the right to counsel, and that's a right that people are told about usually fairly early on in the proceedings. Does it mean that on occasion you're not going to get the information that you need in law enforcement? Maybe. Does it mean that somebody who is not going to be badgered because they're thinking about it and they're saying, you know, I think I want to have a lawyer? That may be also true. However, the constitutional rights that we enjoy are not for the benefit of the government. They're for the benefit of individuals.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And is that because in the past people weren't given the benefit of rights and were sometimes unjustly jailed?

Stephen Schwartz:

Unjustly jailed, or, you know, I mean, the classic example is you know, beaten with a rubber hose, you know, you certainly hope you don't that that doesn't happen in this day and age. But it did happen. And I think that that was one of the wrongs that was that the Supreme Court sought to correct. And furthermore, our founders, excuse me, sought to correct the injustices that they saw with respect to the justice system in Britain.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We'll return to our program in a Moment on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast. We've long understood the important link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the subject is Tom Shepard of Shepherd Financial.

Stephen Schwartz:

My wife and I have three kids. The first one likes to spend her money. The second one likes to save it. And the third, well, the third is more like an investor. And when we smile and laugh and make light of the relationship that they each have with their money, it reinforces their behavior. So our question for you is, what relationship with money did your parents reinforce? Do you and your partner reinforce those as well? If you want to learn more about the different kind of relationships you may have with money, go to www.shepherdfinancialmaine.com. knowing what has been reinforced will help you have a better relationship with your money.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's interesting to me as somebody who has heard a lot of patient stories and has heard a lot of I've heard, you know, I'm a family doctor, so I'll bring a family in and the father will have one thing that they say and the mother will have one thing that she says. And everybody has a different perception of the reality, but they also have different needs that they need to fulfill. Say it's a child that they think might be abusing drugs. It may be something that the father needs to have go a certain way because of something that's that has to do with him.

Stephen Schwartz:

I almost can understand what you're getting at we pride ourselves in my office. And it was something that my father did and I try to do. I've been doing this now going on my 28th year in representing the whole person. And what that means is. And it is mostly in a criminal matter. It's not exclusively though, because if we have a client who's been involved in a serious accident and needs medical treatment or bills paid, we help them through that too. We don't just say, you know, you just work on getting better and we won't do anything for several years and then, you know, and then we'll get a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That's not how that works. It's, you know, compensation based on injuries. But we try as best we can to marshal the medical treatment and help with that if we can and counsel because as our diploma says, we are attorneys and counselors at law in a criminal matter. When somebody comes into my office, and especially the younger they are, the more this applies, but it could be to anybody. You know, our goal is to try to help people to not recidivate and not just to, you know, take the one case and put it through the system, unless that's what our client's desire is. And of course, when you represent young people, families come into the room, we'll excuse them at times when the attorney client privilege needs to be intact and people. And we don't want to lose that. But otherwise, if somebody wants their friend or family in the room to talk about the case generally or where we're going to head with it, then that's fine. What we tell our clients, especially our juvenile clients, and we actually have a written fee agreement that says this, that they sign. They don't have capacity to contract, but they sign it. And the guarantor, whoever is paying our fee, signs it. And we have a paragraph that makes it very clear that regardless of who is paying the freight, that's not the person that calls the shots with our advice. Our clients make decisions and we actually put in there even if the decision made by our client is in contravention to what the guarantor wants to happen. So, and I think that's an added comfort level, I can tell you that. And so we'll meet with the whole family, we'll come up with a game plan or whoever our client wants in the room, the family wants in the room. And you know, and some will say, you know, well, we want these very strict bail conditions. And I'll say, well, you know, I want to talk with you about that, I think we can do things and see if our client is willing to do these voluntarily, counseling or evaluations and things. But I'd rather not make it subject to a bail condition because I'm representing, you know, your son in this case. And if your son violates the bail condition, your son's going to go to Long Creek or maybe to the county jail for a while, and that's problematic. So my job is to mitigate those damages as well as to see to it that somebody can be helped. So if that was the nature of your question in terms of involving family and that sort of thing, then that's what we try to do. I always tell my clients, you know, when you leave this room, you can pick up the phone and call me and we can have a private conversation. And that has happened to me on more than one occasion. I'd have a client say, I know you're representing me, for example, for this theft case that I have. My parents don't know I have another theft case pending. Can you help me with that? I'll usually say yes, but, you know, I won't be able to necessarily send mail to your house and, you know, we'll have to talk about that. But of course I can help you with that. And so that's happened to me before.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What type of legacy would you like to leave for your sons? I mean, obviously you still have many years of practice ahead of you, but you, I'm sure, are thinking about the legacy that your father left you. You have three sons and. And what would you like them to know and to learn from you?

Stephen Schwartz:

Well, I do think that having a work ethic is important to having a strong work ethic. I'm able to do things like broadcast because I'll go to the office and maybe stay there till 11pm Many nights, or work from home or something like that. So I think that's important. You know, my kids, in my opinion, have much more varied interests than I did at their age. They have many more things at their fingertips, much more information, of course, at their fingertips than I ever had. And I'm not sure that I can leave a legacy for my kids as much as learn from them. They're musicians, they are decent athletes, they're decent students, and. And I think all at a much younger age than there were good students and musicians than I was. I mean, I was in a band in law school and we played in a few venues. Not very much just for the fun of it. And although my. My friends who are musicians are really good. I was actually the singer and played a little guitar. But, you know, I think the legacy that I'd like to leave is the word perseverance. I remember in seventh grade I got like a two and when four was the best on perseverance and my father sat me down and explained to me what perseverance means and how to keep going at something. And that was when my grades at that particular time were pretty good. But perseverance was an issue. And so I think that would be a good legacy to leave to persevere and to, you know, to keep going for it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I appreciate your coming in and talking to us today, and I think there are many parallels between medicine and law. So it's been interesting for me to hear some of the things that you've dealt with with your clients and to think about how those types of things have impacted me and how I've dealt with my patients. So really appreciate your coming in and talking about all of this with me. We've been talking to Stephen Schwartz of Schwartz and Schwartz here in Portland.

Stephen Schwartz:

Thank you kindly. It was a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast hope that our listeners enjoy their own work lives to the same extent we do and fully embrace every day. As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marcy Booth from Booth, Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marcy. If we all saw things the same way, it strikes me that life would be less complicated. We would have all the same experiences, share the same perspectives and point of views. But at the same time, if we are all seeing the same things the same way, life would be pretty boring or mundane. I get more, way more out of life by discussing and sharing my viewpoint with my family and friends and trying to understand and learn from theirs. It's the same with relationships with clients. Of course they see their businesses from one point of view and I from another. It's this partnership of shared perspectives that creates value. It lets me and my team focus on their business, financial health, so they can spend more time visualizing their success. And that's just the way I see it. I'm Marcie Booth. Let's talk about the changes you need. Boothmain.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

There are lots of different ways to see the world, and there are people who spend their time helping us see the world in different ways. One of these people is Dr. Steven Aronson, who is a psychotherapist with Mental Health Associates of Maine, which is right here in Portland. Dr. Aronson has a very eclectic background in training and has been in practice since 1971. So we're pretty privileged to have you here in the studio today to talk to us about the way that we see the world and the way that we can enrich our experience in the world by trying to take a different view. Thank you for coming in.

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

You're welcome. Thank you for the invitation.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why did you decide to become a psychotherapist?

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

Well, I think it came naturally. When I was a young person at school, all my friends seemed comfortable talking to me. I didn't think about it at that time, but from an early age I was always interested in mystery, in discovering what lay behind apparent reality. And the greatest mystery of all seemed to be consciousness. So I think without knowing it, it moved me in that direction and out of a number of fields that I could have enjoyed. Psychology seemed to give me the greatest flexibility.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When you say that you had an interesting consciousness, was this something that developed while you were in school, or is this something that you had a sense of before you even began getting an education?

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

What came first was the attraction to mystery. It always seemed to me that there was more to life than the material world around me. There must be something that lay behind this and something that was behind us. And so I was attracted to all the things, you know, people are attracted to in that situation. Spent some time looking at extrasensory perception and flying saucers and ghosts and lost civilizations. And as I matured, it moved towards the mystery of how do we know anything? What are we doing here? What is the meaning of life? What's the meaning of existence? And there has to be something behind it. I could see that the tree was inherent in the seed. The entire pattern for the tree was in the seed. Just add Water, dirt and sunlight, and it exfoliates out of that tiny little seed. So it seemed to me that we exfoliate from somewhere into our life and into our bodies, and we're motivated to do what we do and what we don't do by patterns within us, much of which we don't know anything about. So I could see within myself that they were hidden patterns. The question of who am I and what is my purpose here? What kind of responsibility do I have for being alive? Gradually became more predominant. And as I become an adult, it could become more articulated that way. But look, looking back, I see a trail of breadcrumbs that led me to this place.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Did you start having these questions about who you were and what there was behind, what was behind, what was behind, what was behind? Did you start having these questions when you were younger?

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

Yes. Yes, I had these questions when I was a boy.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And so how did that feel to be living in a world where a lot of people didn't really have those types of questions?

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

The same way it feels now as most people don't.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And are you any closer to the answers?

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

I am for myself, or at least I have sufficient additional meaning to keep me happily on the search without being frustrated.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You do have this very eclectic background, cognitive, behavioral, Jungian, transpersonal, and many other things I think that you have got an education in and an experience with. How has this all lent to a greater understanding within yourself of the bigger questions and the bigger answers, perhaps?

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

Well, one analogy that comes to mind is the Hubble telescope has many different instruments in it. So if you look at the universe just in terms of visible light, you get one picture. If you add infrared, you get another. Ultraviolet, you get another. Radio waves, you get another. And the composite begins to build and build and deepen and deepen. So you see more and more. What is there that you couldn't see without the extra instrumentation? So I think we're just like that. We need to learn to look at ourselves. When Socrates or whoever, his teacher was advised to know thyself, I understand he didn't come up with that, but he's gotten the credit. How do you know yourself? Our senses direct us into the world outside of us, where life seems to be and all activity seems to be, and where we're going to find fame, wealth and happiness. And yet all our experiences of life are inside of us. They're in our mind, in our heart, in our sensations. So we seem to live outside, but we don't really. We live inside, and we have all these impressions and vibrations coming from the outside through our senses to tell us what the world is around us. But our hopes, our dreams, our expectations, our thoughts, our feelings, our aspirations, the nasty parts of us, the saintly parts of us, that's all inside, that's all invisible, that's who we are. So to know yourself, you have to look at that. Our senses help us observe outside in the world. But to know yourself, you have to observe yourself. And there are no sense organs that we know about for seeing inside. And yet we do. We can see our thoughts, we can see our feelings, we see our contradictions, our hopes and our fears if we're looking, if we know how to look. So all of these experiences help me develop a variety of instruments, you might say, or attitudes or ways of paying attention. Inside my heart and my mind and my body, looking into my past and the interpretation I made of it, which has changed over the years. So you can change your past. It's just a story. My aspirations and fears of about the future, which are just fantasies and have no reality. And all of that has helped me develop a multi layered understanding of this pattern that I know as Steve inside this body I was born into. And so that gives me a very different sense of myself and my interaction with what seems to be the world around me, because it's really experienced only in the world within me. And each of us is a world unto ourselves.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That sort of groundlessness is a challenging thing for, I believe this culture, probably many cultures, where we are always striving to achieve some sort of solidity. We're always trying to find some sort of sense of security of who we are and identifying things about ourselves that can help us create more. Well, I guess solidity is the word, right? How do you work with this groundlessness in yourself and in people who come to see you in your practice?

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

Paradoxically, it turns out not to feel groundless. It feels much more solid. And it's the outside world that seems much more impermanent. You know, you get a house, you lose a house. You get a car, you lose the car. You're young, then you're old, you have a job, then you don't have the job. People like you, then they don't like you. So what is permanent outside and when? Whatever I think outside is my interpretation of it. If I change my mind about something, it changes. Well, whatever it is didn't change, but my experience of it changed because I now have a different attitude. So what the world out there is depends on what I think it is and feel it is. And if I come to see how I've come to those conclusions, maybe might have been accurate at one time but isn't now, or might be modified by a different perspective. Or maybe it was because I got conditioned to think of certain things in a particular way and now I don't. My world changes, but it changes because I've changed as a person, in my heart and mind and my attitudes. From the ordinary outside viewpoint, where everything is material and has a solidity for our senses, it seems grounded, but from the inside there's now a sense of solidity about myself that was never there before.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.

Stephen Schwartz:

When one enters a nature preserve or

Stephen Schwartz:

A thousand eyes are looking upon us.

Stephen Schwartz:

Hard eyes make us separate from nature

Stephen Schwartz:

Soft eyes connect us to nature and

Stephen Schwartz:

We welcome and observe the world around

Stephen Schwartz:

we are seeing the world around us

Stephen Schwartz:

I think that in landscaping, in working

Stephen Schwartz:

things I really try to do is have a great deep reverence and respect for the natural world.

Stephen Schwartz:

to my clients as we work together

Stephen Schwartz:

I'm Ted Carter and if you'd like to contact me I can be reached@tedcarterdesign.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

At the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast we believe we are helping to build a better world with the help of many. We like to bring to you people who are examples of those building a better world in the areas of wellness, health, and fitness. To talk to you today about one of these fitness is Jim Greaterix, the president of Premier Sports Health, a division of Black Bear Medical. Here is Jim

Stephen Schwartz:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

one of the things that we know is a side effect of some of these medications which we call psychotropic medications, is an interesting disruption of the dream state. And the dream state has been something that I know Jung and Freud and others have used for a while to actually examine our lives and bigger patterns and maybe even patterns of things that we didn't that we don't remember. So when we use medication that disrupts the dream state, are we somehow disrupting these clues that we could be using to figure out what's going on in our lives?

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

I once read a quote attributed to some rabbi who said an on examined dream is like an unopened letter from God because we don't pay much attention to dreams anyway. Most of us, most therapists do not use dream work, but the question is really out of my field. I just know what I've read about levels of sleep dreams and that insufficient REM sleep is not so good. So to the degree to which it's disrupted, that's probably not helpful. But most people don't pay attention to their dreams anyway and if they have one once in a while, I wouldn't know how to interpret it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, indeed, we've become a sleepless nation regardless of use of psychotropics. I mean we've become a nation that that doesn't necessarily go to bed on time, doesn't have very good sleep throughout the night. Given this possibility that dreams are an unopened gift from God, if we're not sleeping well enough to dream, then we actually can't receive this gift.

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

One would presume that would follow. I think in many ways one of the downsides of our technology is that we can change our natural rhythms. We don't have to go to sleep when the body wants to.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What about some of These very basic human instincts that have somehow become mislabeled as bad or evil. On this show, we don't talk a lot about sex, but that's a very primal drive. That is something that we need for procreation. And yet it's become associated in most situations with something bad or evil. Evil. And it does become something that people want to not think about and not deal with because there's so much shame associated with it. Do you think that this is one of the reasons why people are perhaps not as connected to one another as they could be because of shame around things like this? Very basic human connection.

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

That's an interesting idea. It certainly is another way that we artificially, through imagination, distort natural processes. How can we imagine the kind of creative energy inside of biological material that can create a human being? And we all carry this energy somehow within us. We don't know how it got there. We have no idea what it is, because we don't know what we are, how we got here either. And under certain conditions, it produces another human being who, as I said, sort of exfoliates out of somewhere into the fetus and then out of the womb and into the world and begins to grow and grow just like a tree. And then it does stuff. And then after a while, it gets old and shrinks and the body dies. Tremendous mystery. And it appears that humans have more pleasure from the sexual act purest than animals. So when we're looking for stimulation to distract us, that's a very powerful one. Plus, at certain points in life, it is an overpowering drive, certainly for men and certainly for women when they're in the childbearing age. And if it hasn't been damaged emotionally or mentally by shame messages or guilt messages or sin messages or abuse, emotional or physical or sexual, then it has a natural flow, or ought to. In those cases where those other factors have come into play, and unfortunately for large numbers of us, they are there, then it gets very confusing. And as I said earlier, reality is what I think it is. So if I think that breathing is bad, I'll feel bad about breathing. If I think that sexual energy is bad, then I'll feel bad about experiencing it. But good luck. You. You're not going to stop breathing. And you can't stop experiencing sexual energy. It's going to go someplace. And if it doesn't find an appropriate expression, it'll find an inappropriate expression. And if it doesn't find an external expression, then it'll make us sick inside. I shouldn't be having these Feelings. Well, you've got a body. You're programmed to have these feelings at certain points. What are you going to do about it? So it's very unfortunate that in some cultures, and this one in particular, were so hypocritical and dualistic about it at the same time. The traditional messages are restrain yourself. The popular culture is pouring out messages to the opposite. Hypersexualizing everything, and then surprised that we have difficulties with this. On the other hand, it's a very mysterious and amazing process. And it releases such potent emotional energies and psychological energies that if appropriately contained within an appropriate relationship, it can produce a tremendous health and bonding. But it's often misused for power. It's exploited for various things because, I guess, like, money, people want it. And so there's nothing wrong with money. It depends how it's used. And sex is a natural process. It depends on how it's used.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When these feelings get. Maybe have, innocent, have. I don't want to say dysfunctional exactly, but perhaps there are some. Some dysfunctional associations, sexual feelings. Can. People tend to project things onto other people outside of themselves because they're so uncomfortable with whatever it is they're feeling inside that they just want to get rid of it. And they just want. And they'll look at somebody outside of themselves and they'll start to assign some sort of blame or some sort of story to somebody else when it, you know, when it comes to.

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

Well, I would say that's the essence of projection, whether it's got to do with sex or anything else. We see all sorts of behaviors and attitudes around us all the time that are different from our own. But we don't personally get offended and emotionally charged up and judgmental. Want to do something about all of them. They're only certain of them. And the pattern for me is different from the pattern for you. Well, why is that? Because it's a projection of the pattern within me. Why do certain people volunteer to be censors? None of you should look at that stuff. I'll take the burden on myself. Well. Really. Well, thank you. But why are you doing that? Looking at the pattern of one's judgments and prejudices and also attractions is a way of kind of reading an X ray of parts of your inner world on the outside screen. For instance, on the positive side, why do we have certain heroes and not others? Why are your heroes different than mine? Because I see in that person or in that story something that resonates with. I would like to be that. Why? Because I'm already programmed to be something like that, and I'm not that yet. But that's in the direction of what I'd like to be. Otherwise why would I have that attraction? The same way if there's something particularly personally repellent to me and I'm really going to take a public stand. Now, I'm not talking about cruelty, you know, I'm just talking about behaviors that don't harm people. But I don't like the way that person lives. I don't like their politics. I don't. Well, what's it to you? You know? All right, so you don't like it. In any given moment we have all sorts of preferences. We have intellectual preferences, emotional preferences, physical comfort preferences. No moment gives us gratification of all those preferences. Some complex closer, and then we want to hold onto them and then they go and we think they've been stolen. But usually we never get everything we want in a given moment. But it's not the fact that we don't get our preferences that creates a loss of energy or an explosion. It's my objection to the fact that I'm not getting the moment that I expected. Now what's going on here? I expect it, I want it. There's something wrong. I'm not getting it. Return this moment to the sender, to the, you know, the factory. Give me another one. So again, maybe this comes back to the friction we were talking about earlier that the inability to tolerate the delay of gratification, the inability to actually see that payment is necessary first. If you want something of value, they can't just charge it. I mean, you can if it's a material thing, but not if it has to do with learning something or changing your feelings or developing a relationship. Anything of a non material nature. You can't have it when you want it, you've got to earn it. You want to learn Chinese, study for 10 years, you want to learn medicine, study for at least seven years, you want to learn anything, you've really got to work at it. If you want to become a more brave person or a more tolerant person, you got to work at that. You have to see the places you're not brave and not tolerant and figure out what you're going to do about that. Takes time. So this builds up friction. If I see the discrepancy between who I really am at the moment and how I'd like to be, that's uncomfortable. Now, that could either be an inspiration to just go back to work or it could make me get angry at someone for depriving me, or if I can make them look smaller, then the difference isn't so bad and I can feel better. Or I can just lie to myself rather than face that tension.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What about the idea of a group projection where an event happens and people choose to see it a certain way and yet it's really not that way, it's some other way and eventually it could be proven that they were incorrect. Why would an entire group of people see an event one way?

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

They share a mindset. Groups are like psychic organisms in a way. People who think the same way will just naturally seek each other out. And mostly for benign reasons, sometimes creative reasons. Like attracts like, and we tend generally to gather with people who we feel are like us. So if I have a particular kind of prejudice, I may gradually find myself surrounded by people who share that, because people don't make me uncomfortable. So I exclude them or they exclude me. So after a while there's a whole group of us with a certain kind of mindset. And if you get someone in that group with charisma who can act as leader and most people are followers, then they will take their issue and project it. It's the same as I was talking about earlier. The world is what I think it is, and if I believe X, Y or Z about a certain person or group, I believe it. I can find others who believe the same thing. So the more one has invested one's self image in a particular belief or system or point of view, to back down means a diminishment of myself because I think I'm my image. And then my image gets stuck to where I live, my bank account, my car, my friends are, and my belief system, which policies I go along with, which political party I belong to, and that becomes me. So anyone who doesn't agree with any of those things is directly attacking me. I can tolerate that. Nor will I admit I'm wrong. That would mean I'd have to change my image of myself. That's too painful. I've worked too long to build it up.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In the situation of people who are, say, falsely accused of a crime, you don't necessarily have an entire group of people who are being led by somebody charismatic to convince the group that this crime has occurred or not occurred. Sometimes you have people with very disparate viewpoints and they all somehow believe the same thing until eventually they are disproven. Why does that sort of thing happen if you don't have one unifying person, or you don't have a group of people who all Feel the same way.

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

Well, that's happened to me because the evidence, as I was looking at it, looked persuasive. Maybe later I find out there was more evidence that wasn't presented, or there's another point of view I didn't see. Or maybe I realized that I've done something similar, even in secret. And if I'm honest with myself, I can see, you know, I'm not a bad person, but I see how I got into that pickle. So maybe that could have happened to somebody else, too. You know, who am I to pick up the first where we're all just struggling along here, trying to figure things out. And usually the more certain I am, the more wrong I prove to be later, because things are usually more complex than that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And what if you're the person who's falsely accused?

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

Well, that's a real growing experience. But we've all experienced that at some point in our life, somebody important or several people important made a judgment about us that wasn't fair. I didn't do it. Why won't you listen to me? So, yeah, it doesn't feel good, but I think it happens to everyone. If we can learn how to use uncomfortable experiences to be less identified with our image, less concerned with what people think, and also recognize that we make the same mistakes. So it's hard to be tolerant of someone who's misjudging me. But if I'm honest, I've misjudged people, and I didn't do so with bad intentions. I just got it wrong. Sometimes they'll come around and apologize, sometimes they don't. That's life. Somebody said to me recently that they realized that presentment was a cup of poison that they drink every day, thinking it's going to make them better.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So in the final analysis, I guess reality is fairly subjective. And we're all walking around with our own different versions of reality, and we're all trying to understand where we've come from, where we're going, where we are right now. And these intersecting realities, this intersecting sort of groundlessness that can possibly lead to groundedness, perhaps it can just help us to be a little bit more compassionate and less judgmental towards everyone else. If. If we know that there is this subjectivity that occurs, wouldn't that make a better world? It would make a better world, yes. Dr. Aronson, it's been a pleasure to have this conversation with you. How can people find out about Mental Health Associates of Maine or the work that you're doing?

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

They can look at the website Mental Health Associates of Maine here in Portland. Just Google it. And their phone number is 773-2828 and I believe an operator is standing by.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been speaking with Dr. Steven Aronson who is a psychotherapist with Mental Health Associates of Maine. Thank you for helping us take a different view of the world and ourselves for this time period that you and I have been talking and hopefully people will go out into the world and continue to try to take a different view.

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

Thank you. It's an interesting experience. Nice talking to you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 96, Viewpoint. Our guests have included Stephen Schwartz and Dr. Steven Aronson. For more information on our guests, visit drlisabelisle.com also realize that the interviews we're providing you with over the course of an hour are just bits and pieces of what we've picked up as we've talked to our guests. For full interviews, please go to our website drlisabelisle.com you'll be glad you did. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on itunes. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our E. Newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. You can also follow me on Twitter and Pinterest doctorlisa and read my take on health and well being on the Bountiful blog. We'd love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

to you each week.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle hoping that you have enjoyed our Viewpoint show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Stephen Aronson:

It.