A Podcast with Charlie Swenson - To Hell and Back

In the wake of the recent killing by federal agents of two adults in Minneapolis, this podcast represents an attempt to deepen my perspective on these events, on Donald Trump, and on the forces in our country that have supported him. I close with some thoughts about how to counter him in the coming days.









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DBT’s emphasis on behavioral specificity, validation, and dialectical thinking, while effective for therapy, must be sufficiently grounded in deep moral convictions and motivational forces if it is to be used to address a fascist takeover of our society.









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In this podcast Charlie reviews the six categories of people in the United States insofar as they are actors in the drama between democracy and authoritarianism, highlighting where it might be possible to change the momentum. He then discusses the role of “bystanders” and the psychology of bystanders, with a plea to convert bystanders to more active participants









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In this podcast, Charlie reflects on a recent consultation as a window into the way in which memory is tethered to certain moments, as an example of Linehan’s metaphor for validation as finding a nugget of gold in a pile of sand, and as a segue into the integration of DBT and depth psychology in therapy.









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The perspective within this podcast is that our current political process is seriously dysfunctional, having been taken over by decision-makers who seem disconnected from normal human morality. After noticing the resemblance of that process to what goes on in mob organizations and families, and in some families where incest occurs, we will identify the various roles in this ugly process and consider what can be done to improve things.









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