connor welcome to worlds apart there is hardly anything more unsettling for in our sis's than meeting another narcissist and letting their inflated egos collide these babble off titan civil like in their relevant greek myth is always long and nasty but it's also inevitable if one is to breach that just order or killing isn't that exactly what we witnessed in the clash between the good america infatuated by its exceptionalism and the narcissist incarnate donald trump well to discuss that i'm now joined by i don't know call shit every now and young and psychoanalyst and author of wrestling with our angel's inner and outer democracy in america under the shadow of donald trump dr culture that such air grate on a great pleasure for me to talk to you if think you very much for your time you

grew up in it's good to be here i was greatly influenced and helped by your amazing book on the archetypical defenses of the split psyche but i am at a loss of how to describe it out of your so that they can understand the. been our system dynamic which is such a hallmarks of our times can he do that. in a way that will not take the entire time that we have booked for this conversation sure the paper that you're focusing on today wrestling rather angels came out of my work with early trauma with. and what i discovered in their inner worlds so what i'm going to be talking about is mostly the sources the powers the personifications in the inner world of trauma no doubt. what what became clear to me was that these patients were suffering terribly from

experiences in their early life where they were sexually abused or physically abused or emotionally abused. and the feelings that they had when they were little were so powerful and so unbearable that they had to beasts dissociated we call dissociation one of the primitive defenses that simply means split off from consciousness and buried in the unconscious in these parts of the south which are usually represented as a child an innocent child an orphan child or wounded child. in some way are usually protected by powers that are very powerful now and those are the powers that i call in my article the diamonds or the angels and there are 2 of them usually one is a very violent personification. who usually attacks

all the the links between that child in the inner fortress and the outer world and tries to keep the child in and controlled so that doesn't reach out and get hurt again and then there's a 2nd a power or angel a bright angel which tends to weave illusions around that child which he comforted in the inner world so that's the basic structure to 2 forces and inside an innocent child an orphan child that's being protected but also strangely enough being persecuted by the system and in your latest assaye you know you suggest that we can see these dynamics and donald trump and that these dynamics and in and of themselves sort of create the basis for a bin asa system designer now we hear about narcissism a lot in relation to donald trump and i think it's important to stress that not. says it is not the moral flaw it's not a curse word it's

a structural condition of the traumatized psyche only this wave can preserve itself and function and you know as i was preparing for this conversation it occurred to me that one of the reasons so many russians genuinely sympathize with donald trump is because. the 20th century left our collective psyche deeply traumatized and i understand why psychologically intact people like yourself with a react more strongly to the outrageous parts of personality but isn't it also his wound that part that at least to people like me is just the salient as he is ugly part is and are also part of but he's appeal or he's archetype magnetism if you will well done trying to use caught. in the same

narrative structure that i've described in in what i call the self care system with these 2 powers and the inside child in the sense that he's identified with innocence the child in the system is is innocent. so that innocence can be projected onto a lot of things i mean donald trump just projected onto the american nation. onto himself and onto his base he's an expert in declaring that he's a victim an innocent victim of forces outside himself that are nefarious and evil the safe news the deep state all the rest of it so the basic structure of of innocence inside a an angry fortress. which also depends on a lot of allusion. is is fundamental to explain on and in america right now there's a whole segment of the population that feels deeply injured deeply victimized

nuclear overlooked and out of this identification with innocence there is a tendency to find grievances and to. to soak in those grievances and that righteous indignation and that anger and rage. there was also if you're talking about a segment of the american population. and it comes to knowing your ass if you primarily associate that segment with trump supporters or trump himself. don't you think that he's opponents and the people who despise trump and what trump has stands for very very bitterly victims of the exact same dynamic that's a very important point of sana. that you're making. the that the basic structure of this psychology which i call a dissociative psychology is totalitarian it's authoritarian. that is to

say there's a real split between a a ruthless tyrannical kind of authority or power and. vulnerable a more vulnerable portion of the population or the person and authoritarianism exists as much on the left as it does on the right currently in the united states it's much more conspicuous on the right but. adar know who is the the person in the 1950 s. of road about fascism and authoritarianism and he made up the fascism scale that he delivered 250000. college students i think but he found as much much tendency for this kind of splitting and righteous grievance on the left as he did on the right so your your point is very well taken and we see it all over in the u.s. right now everybody's outraged now i'm a big admirer of james hillman as i'm sure you know writes here. in one of his

lectures well before a double trump rose to prominence he was comparing the american collective psyche as you're a movie character forrest gump was in the sand and they. he says associated believing in his own goodness and i think sarah to say causing a lot of bloodshed there around the world without being cognizant about that i think generally speaking that's the mentality of the political class that. ruled america before trying to despise him so much i'm not trying to deprive anyone of their all of those but in terms of psychological are tribal forces didn't you need the intensity of somebody like donald trump to great knew that because in your book you describe he has a sort of grand aggressive defense but to me he seems to be somebody who's actually trying to break through and not know who shouldn't go in that they just association . well. donald trump is is more symptom than he is the cause of

what's currently going on in the country i mean the american people are constantly identified with heroic. narratives right america is exceptional the shining city on the hill. and we you know we we won the 2nd world war which nobody understands their history by the way the soviet union went through . or get accomplished but that that is a history that has a longstanding place in in the american psyche and donald trump is not the cause of it he's simply a symptom of this kind of structure he said but again my question was whether he is somebody who despite all his grotesque nature canal actually ramadan because he you mentioned a shiny sea is shining city on the hill to me if it looks more like

a rep puzzles tower that the you describe so elegantly in and metaphorically in your books and as a as most union analyst am i'm sure you're appreciate the symbolic west them off folklore and in those folk tales it's all often the patterns the order or the village full who can't see through the illusion and who can break the spell that all their people cannot again as much as we may be condescending towards trying personally on a personal level his antics he's behavior don't you think that they had drought people who defies the american policy actually need it to have him as a wake up call if nothing else. well it's possible i mean we'll see. right now his followers you know have become very radicalized and part of that radicalization is that they are literally. believing in really bizarre conspiracy theories not just the feel action was stolen but that this

curing on conspiracy that there's an actual combat of. pedophiles owned by the democrats that are that are eating babies i mean it just is right out of grimm's fairy tales and a large event really because i mean the previous elections ressa posen plea still and by the russians i mean they say you know it's a conspiracy theory. of oh actually not a very different kind it's biggest similar it's just that it was easier to point to the russians the crew enjoy this you know day kids long and even the united states or don't inject haps but that it's easier to point to the russians than to you own up to what donald trump represents well to go on up that's the key you're right it's easy to find a scapegoat outside of the self there's some new evidence by james kim and you know it occurred in a in opinion. in the opinion page of one of the politico i think it was

death to the brain the neurophysiology of the brain on grievance on resentment and outrage is the same as a narcotics so there's evidence now that the people really get addicted to outrage and anger you know usually people who are addicted can see the error in their ways eventually and give it up but if there's pleasure innit. as there seems to be in the polarization and the partisanship in the united states right now then it's very much more difficult to to own your own party that you see owning your own cart used part of the democracy of the psyche and that was very precious to young we are all made up of different parts ensure parks interior parks and they all have to learn and to have a seat at the table and have

a part. in the in the best functioning of the wholeness of the personality so democracy is that is a huge value for psychology for my work for young but it's hard won you know it's a beautiful ideal but all the forces of the treatment of psyche and the traumatized psyche conspire against it gets a call so we have to take a very short break now but it will be back in just a few moments as they chant. secret prisons are not usually what comes to mind when thinking about europe however he even the most prosperous can be deceived we've been busy roads on the way to view

houses were allowed to leave prison was located on the only way you can paul had access to the story investigators held the uncovered the darkest dealings of the secret services but i mean. the great ignore in dog door nonsense. p.c. may be a sore knee. thing for justice. welcome back to all the parts that don't know the culture the author of wrestling with our angels in there and al to democracy in america i did the shadow of donald trump dr

culture and one great gift of the archetype of psychology is this realisation that good and evil are always symbiotic to quote go there we always dealing with a power which externally will see evil and externally works good in both ourselves and others and what question that i had while reading your ass a beach i don't think you're actually answered is what is this deep prayer redeeming good that trumps very conspicuous evil may have brought well you pose a challenging question i don't know that i would agree with the premise that donald trump's evil is bringing good. i think it's conceivable that good will come out of this. but it won't be because of trump's attitudes and positions nor will it be because of his base because his base is completely identified with

their own sense of righteousness and goodness and inflation there they have a very narcissistic position they think they can't talk to the rest of us who would like to have a conversation that is is free of outrage but does a concert is that really fair because any i mean i'm sure you remember hillary clinton calling trial supporters deplorable and that's a very clear example of splitting people into good and evil absolutely and that the liberals in america want to see themselves as you know being for all the good against all the bad but i know from personal experience of covering many american wars that it's not the case absolutely and i thought that was a deplorable statement that she made. and it was splitting absolutely but you see good and evil architectural categories they don't belong to the human they belong

to the gods if we want to if we want to shape something good on this middle earth where we live it's going to be in bringing the opposites together you know having conversations and that's ideally what democracy is designed to do it's designed to you have your position i have mine and we talk together with the underlying assumptions that we are both human beings you see that there's something very powerful in young's idea of equality and that is there were all equal because we're sacred. we are very best spark of the divine and if we had that in mind when we debate each other we might we might be able to have conversations that the don't vilify and demonize each other and interject good and evil on each other there's a culture that i also want to ask you about his presidency which is such an archetype

both profession i mean it requires you to suppress your humanity as a method to the collective and it's a very big challenge for anyone i mean the young show that power has a tendency of eating into the humanity of the individual but when and narcissus who's already driven by these collective forces comes to power i wonder if it may have an opposite humanizing in fact because i mean look at sean's farewell speech he barely was able to hold back east here is hearing those people chanting that they love him. well i didn't see that address and i'm glad to hear you have just magically very revealing about exactly the things you talk about well you see the need to see his to see him on the verge of tears is exactly what the country has been hungry for forever. because that's the human side. the narcissistic side

the garner self esteem from wealth and position and power and the projections of goodness and innocence by everybody else that's not something that sustains people they need the human connection if you have somebody that's identified with the powers of the office that's by definition our society or inflation in union psychology we we have something called inflation which is our word for narcissism which simply means that the archetypal forces of the psyche. inflate us they process up they make us bigger than ourselves and people with a narcissistic personality derive their self-esteem from their projections inflated projections of other people but the dr crossett i'm sure you would agree with me that i hope your bigger a bit nearer than that turns political opponents are. perhaps even more are cynical in using those archetype of power ism and the chinese have long called

the merican elections a beauty pageant you need at you know an acceptable amicable picture of a candidate but in terms of a real substantive debate in terms of recognizing a person's flaws talking about his weaknesses there's very little of that i mean maybe i'm wrong but. part of me sort of antipodes that the reason why some merican so many americans prefer trump is because in his failures he's authentic whereas many of his opponents in that i suppose its successes and they did it they don't seem that janie and jane you well i disagree with you there i don't think in his failures he's authentic i think he denies his failures altogether that there's a transparent they're going by their big sweet well they're written all over the results but don't forget donald trump can't get anywhere near the feelings that have to do with say you're losing you know to crecy and that's why conspiracy

theories are needed because if you get close to feelings of humanness sadness grief loss sail you're you're close to the soul. but for the person with the trauma of history you can't even get close to those feelings so you have to dissociate them and protect yourself with identifications with with well look at him he's he's got golden hair he lives in a tower he's got king midas wealth and he says only i can fix it so that's not exactly the you know joe biden are our new president lives in a basement wears a mask and talks all the time about his own injuries what i want to ask you about is how to deal how america or health america should be processing asked such a phenomenon as trump has and according to you that could. the several ways of doing that why has the direct work of relief you know which would be more painful

but they'll commit more hiney healing owning up to it or it could be channeled through on your aussies trying to disassociate from trying trying to say that he's somebody else's foreign agent or their work of some evil forces we should do you think america has taken collectively so far in processing what trump represents. well i mean right now where we're trying to heal from the polarization in the splitting and i don't know which way this is going to go i'm worried about it personally. you know the the radical side of the republican party which crashed into the capitol on january 6th they have a position and a worldview that is very antithetical to the reality that most people in the american population live in. so we have 2 realities now it's it's

it's very scary because. you know i don't know maybe you saw the story it was ran in c.n.n. of a nurse from north dakota who was very upset about the fact that many of the people in her hospital who had colon and were dying. were denying that there was such a thing as coded and were angry at her because she was fighting a conspiracy that it perpetrated this terrible thing and they were dying there in their last breath instead of calling their loved ones they were angry at her for perpetrating the conspiracy and i told that story to a colleague in the college said to me that psychotic. and i thought to myself and i thought wait a minute it's not psychotic because what when when we were diagnosing psychosis back in graduate school there was a consensual reality that everybody understood was reality we all got it from the

television they were saying something called the fairness doctrine that required to attend all the 3 major stations reported the same news as soon as the fairness doctrine went out and we had talk radio and opinion and fox news and rush limbaugh and all the rest of it so what i said to my colleague was the psychosis isn't in the person who had a belief the psychosis is in the culture the doctor caution that i think i agree with the a diagnosis completely having studied and working as they have as well as in many other countries but you know ultimately at the end of the day you will have to ask yourself a question why do you have such a major split i mean. you know the support of supporters and opponents of the bill is how many argue about how many people voted for him and how many people voted against him but ultimately your country is split right in the middle and it's right you don't get to such point in 4 years definitely not and in fact if you are

looking at the polarization trans and the united states you know they began well back in the sixty's they accelerated with a collapse of the soviet union but. they were exacerbated in recent years so let me pose this question to you what is at the root of such a maintenance permitting. what's at the root of it is trauma. you know that's my field and i believe that we are now living in existentially very frightening times and. the 2 most frightening things right now are course co-head which is killing hundreds of thousands of us all over the world and. climate change i mean we are burning up the world for our children and. these are things we don't want to look at. we're living in traumatic times existentially traumatic times and to face those feelings we have to face our own grief our own

limitations our own complicity. and these are things we would rather not say so it's a very much more convenient and attractive thing to deny that that reality is even happening and and disappear into a reality that denies the reality of the human condition the human condition right now on the face of this planet is deeply troubled. and deeply hurt and deeply grieved and dramatically injured and we don't want to look at it i know that americans have this very strong internationalist stricken them but you know here in russia we have a saying that it's easier to the humanity of your own neighbor and whenever america tends to look. elsewhere and try to fix the situation there we always shutter because it's. actually be russians at least perceive that as another form of this association at tending to somebody else as one's own rather neurotically projecting those ones on to others then treating your own dealing with your own grief now i

know you just like this slogan of america 1st but one of the things that. this country heard than it is not only to call for additives although it was there but also an intention to actually turn in a warts and attend to that grief and leave the rest of us deal with our own problems now trump hasn't succeeded in that but do you think biden has enough in him to actually do that because he also has this international has that janda of you know projecting american values around that well then clearly you guys have a lot of your own internal problems which need to be fixed 1st before you try to fix somebody else's problems do we or do we have for now i couldn't agree more i think the key is is for us to turn inward to look at our own problems i don't know whether you remember a statement made by angela merkel she was she was countering

a group of nationalists who are. trying to return germany to german nationalism and she said we have a history that breaks our hearts you know we're responsible for the deaths of millions and millions of people she said the only nationalism we can have the only way to love this country is with a broken heart. and the only way for us as americans to love our country right now is your broken heart that may be true by the way of you and the soviet union as well dr culture that's been there great talking to you again that great pleasure a great honor for me thank you very much for your time you're so welcome all the best year. ever thank you for watching hope this year again next week on the walls of our. long. term.

right now there are 1000000 people who are overweight or obese it's profitable to self. and sugary and solti and addicted it's not at the individual level it's not individual willpower and if we go on believing that the never change this obesity epidemic that industry has been influencing very deeply the medical and scientific establishment. so what's driving the obesity epidemic it's called for both of.

the week's top stories on the wrong side of the deal with russia the boy and make this sport next week over boxing the foreign minister told us. russian the russian reconstruction you have a very bad experience with another christian computers i do not want to name. and become the latest latin american nations to get hundreds of thousands of russian shots as the head of the united nations heralds the role sputnik beacon played for the virus. to a halt in parts of france and spain. to question the e.u.'s procurement system.