546 - Therapy Myths That Hurt Your Relationships (with therapist Joe Nucci)

Welcome, Joe!

We’ve all seen therapy-speak tossed around on the Internet, especially on social media. Today we’re joined by Joe Nucci, licensed psychotherapist, to discuss these myths and the surprising negative effects they can have on your relationships.

Joe is a licensed psychotherapist and content creator. His debut book, published by Harper, is called Psychobabble: Viral Mental Health Myths and the Truths to Set You Free. It's available wherever you get books starting September 23rd, 2025.

During this episode, we bust some myths with Joe and chat with him about the following:

1. What’s the biggest therapy myth that you fell for yourself?

2. Was there a particular moment in your career that you started feeling concerned about this phenomenon?

3. How do you deal with the hate mail from people insisting that you are invalidating their experience by not being on board with things like self-diagnosis?

4. How does therapeutic language actually get in the way of couple’s communicating better?

5. How can we tell if it might be helpful or harmful to seek a diagnosis?

6. Do we run the risk of re-stigmatizing mental health issues?

7. What’s the line between being understanding of a loved one’s diagnosis while also holding them responsible for their behavior?

8. Are you a total bummer at parties correcting everyone on their terminology?

Check out Joe’s website and find him on Instagram @joenuccitherapy!

Transcript

If you find any transcription errors, please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about how therapy myths and therapy speak could not only be making your mental health worse, but also could be getting in the way of having healthy relationships. And we're very excited to be joined by a special guest today, Joe Nucci, Joe Nucci is a licensed psychotherapist and content creator. His debut book is called Psychobabble: Viral Mental Health Myths and the Truths to Set yout Free. It's available wherever you get your books starting September 23rd. Joe, thank you so much for joining us today.

Joe: Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to talk with you all.

Dedeker: So I want to know first personally, is there a therapy myth that you have fallen for yourself?

Joe: Ooh, what a great question. I think I've fallen for a lot of them at a certain point in time. You know, there's this thing called med school syndrome, where when like people go get their MD, like, like a doctor, not just a therapist, they go to school, they start learning about all these diseases, and they actually, not in a hypochondriac sort of way, like they think they're catching them, but they think they already have these, like, rare diseases, but I've heard it. Yeah. Yeah. But the more experience they get, it kind of starts. Starts leveling out. And I know that when I was in grad school, I was diagnosing myself with all sorts of stuff.

Dedeker: Yeah.

Joe: Like, I am. I've been officially diagnosed with ADHD, so that that is one I can confidently claim. But I know when I was in grad school, I'm learning about bipolar, and there's some overlapping symptoms in those diagnostic clusters. I'm like, well, is it this? Is it this? And I remember a professor just reassuring me that, you know, it's like, the more you learn about this stuff, the more you're gonna get a little bit better at it, a little bit more accurate, and I I think it's a fun note to open on because my approach to my content in my book is, look, mental health just got destigmatized. We're kind of in this interesting moment where it's popularized and there is a lot of harmful misinformation floating around, right? But I think we can also have a little bit of grace and compassion with it because, you know, if you just learned what depression was like a year ago, like maybe you're going to misuse it, et cetera. And so as I think about that, I think in terms of the myths that I talk about in the book, I think that myth number one, everybody needs to go to therapy. I used to certainly sincerely believe that now I kind of take the tune like I write about in the book. I think everyone could hope to benefit from it, but not everybody needs it. I think it's okay to rely on coaches and other types of support. There are other ways to benefit your mental health. That's another chapter. And the truth of the matter is from like a social justice perspective, we don't have enough therapists to treat all of the people who do have diagnosed mental illnesses. So while I think it's a It's something I used to say with a lot of, you know, righteousness and confidence. I'm not totally sure that one holds up to scrutiny.

Dedeker: No, that makes sense.

Jase: Well, a great point on both sides of that.

Emily: Yeah, absolutely.

Dedeker: I'm curious. So you don't need to out your age in the sense of telling us the exact years you were in grad school, but I'm curious about a snapshot of like when you were first learning to become a therapist, what the state of the union was as far as the rise of the Instagram therapist was, like the rise of mental health information crashing into social media.

Joe: Yeah. So my understanding is that self-help and mental health got really big on social media kind of during lockdown, like during COVID-19. So circa 2020. And I was actually finishing grad school at the time. And so I had my head in books. I wasn't really paying attention to self-help memes and stuff like that because, you know, I had an essay to write and I had a clinical caseload and my internship, and I was just busy. And it really wasn't until I started posting content at this point, that was like two, two and a half years ago, that I really started to pay attention to it myself. And so that was kind of my first real introduction to it when I started to look at it more closely. When the rest of the culture, when the rest of the world started paying more attention to it, I was also learning about it, but I was in grad school. I wasn't necessarily, you know, sending reels to my friends and classmates at the time.

Emily: And was there a particular moment in your career when you started feeling a little bit more concerned about this? Psycho babble thing that you're talking about here and people maybe misusing it or people using it in their relationships in a way that is maybe maladaptive to those relationships.

Joe: Yeah, you know, it's something that kind of happened pretty slowly and all at once at the same time. I just feel like over time I started to notice I'd be in a coffee shop or walking by a table at dinner and you would just hear the girl go, well, you know, he's a little bit on the spectrum or, you know, something about gaslighting or something about narcissism or whatever it is. And it just started to happen with more frequency and I just remember being like, oh, well, That's kind of weird, but then it started to happen more like when people would call me to seek psychotherapy, like in the consult call, they would have these buzzwords that were kind of defining the problem that they were coming with. And then I think it was one day a loved one of mine, a girl who was actively dating, really wanted to be in a relationship, met someone that really, really liked her. He sounded great. And she goes, I think he's love bombing me. And I remember being like, what does that mean to you? Like, what do you think that term means? And my understanding of that situation, and they ended up dating, by the way, but it was just kind of like, it sounds like this guy really likes you and he's being super honest and open and vulnerable. And I understand that going fast can be bad, but so can being super avoidant and not putting yourself out there. That can also be bad. I know that you all think a lot about relationships and a belief I've arrived at is that one of the reasons why this kind of language seems to creep into relationship stuff. Like, it creeps into relationship stuff, work stuff, family stuff. Why? Because these are all domains of our life that we just don't have as much control as we'd like. We don't have as much control over ourselves and our feelings and what other people do. And I think psychology and mental health can sometimes be an appeal to Authority, you know, as a way to kind of hold on to that control. And it can certainly be insightful. You know, I'm not saying don't think about psychology. I love psychology. Like, I'll riff about, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll. All day. But I think that, you know, it's, I think people, you know, if your relationship is uncertain or you're on your journey of love or whatever it is, like, of course you're going to gravitate to that influencer or that book that thinks that if you just have this insight, then you'll, you'll know, you'll know.

Jase: Something you didn't and you'll have more control.

Dedeker: Yeah.

Jase: I've been thinking, too, about what you.

Joe: Mentioned about, what did you say it was?

Jase: MD syndrome or something like that for the med school student syndrome. Med school student syndrome.

Joe: Yeah.

Jase: Because I've definitely encountered this with friends of mine who've gone to medical school where they go through that phase of thinking they have all all sorts of genetic disorders or all sorts of different things wrong with them. And I think it's an interesting case where it's not even just that they're getting misinformation, it's just that they're getting information they didn't have. And so they're trying to fit it into their worldview. And some of that includes themselves being like, oh, maybe it's this, maybe I have that, maybe I have this. And I could see that if we're in this time where talking about mental health has been destigmatized, that regardless of whether the information we're getting online is accurate or not, we're like those first-year med school students, just like getting all the info, but we don't have the context yet for understanding it. So we're totally much more likely to self-diagnose.

Joe: I mean, it makes sense to me. I think that the thing that's similar to being an MD or being a practitioner of therapy is these are both crafts, kind of like law or something. It does take knowledge, but then it takes practice with the application. I read a lot of books and learned a lot of terms and frameworks before I sat down in front of my first patient. But sitting down in front of the first patient, it didn't matter that I had read about what countertransference looks like. So for those of you that don't know, that's like the thoughts and feelings I have about my patient. That's like my stuff. I read about that. I read about all the ways to think about it and navigate it. But, you know, it was very different the first time my supervisor pointed out that I was letting it get the better of me.

Dedeker: Right?

Joe: Like that actually took practice applying these things. That's a great point.

Dedeker: Yeah. So I want to start getting into some actual myth busting. The way that you've laid out your book is very simple and very accessible in just like, here's a myth, and here's a myth, and here's a myth, and here's a myth. And so along this vein of living in a time where we're finally destigmatizing mental health as a topic, you place these two myths back to back. There's the myth that receiving a diagnosis is terrible, and there's the myth that your diagnosis is your identity. And I would love for you to share more about both of those.

Joe: Yeah. My understanding of people who come to therapy, as I've experienced them as their clinician, is a lot of times this conversation about diagnosis causes a lot of nervousness. It can provoke a lot of anxiety. And that's because people fear being labeled that they're quote unquote, crazy. But the truth of the matter is that the way diagnosis is used in a psychotherapeutic setting is that it's used to inform a treatment plan. So a lot of people, you know, they don't want this label. They don't want to be told that they're, again, quote unquote, crazy. But what I write about in the book is I say that's actually not the worst thing that can happen to you. I think. I think it's because if you have an accurate diagnosis and the treatment plan works, that that means that therapy works, and that means your well on your way to not needing therapy anymore or going to therapy less and not letting your symptoms bother you as much or whatever it might be. But there, there are cases out there, and maybe even to people who are listening to this, where the diagnosis was wrong. And so the treatment plan didn't work. And so you're spending time and money kind of going down a road that ultimately wasn't helpful, or what's going on is so complex that they can't label, they can't name whatever it is. And so sometimes you'll see people with multiple diagnoses or maybe it's kind of manifesting as one thing, but then it's actually another thing. So, you know, a favorite term on the internet is this idea of complex PTSD or C PTSD. Yeah. And that can look like ADHD or certain other types of stuff. And so getting a diagnosis, again, assuming that it's accurate, I actually think it can be a wonderful thing. And if it's accurate, a lot of people often feel like they have a lot of relief because they can go read about it. They can go follow creators. They can go like learn on their own. Like they're able to name this thing that's been bothering them. You know, once I had somebody coming to see me and they go, my mind just keeps on going to stuff like that might happen and it's always really bad and it won't let me not think about these things. Like what's wrong with me? And I go, are you describing anxiety like this person had never felt it before? Which I thought was so interesting is just someone who's dealt with that himself. And so even just being able to name it, at least for this case, that was just relieving right there.

Dedeker: Yeah, so we did a whole episode about that. I just looked it up, our episode 487, where Jase, you were sharing about how your depression diagnosis was actually the best thing that ever happened to you. And I think that's the thing that we're talking about right now. Yeah.

Jase: And it's interesting too, because I remember the first time I ever went to a therapist was in college. And it wasn't quite sure. And I went in being like, I want a diagnosis. I want to understand what this is so I can do something about it. And my therapist at the time, the one that I had, was very anti giving me a diagnosis, because I think he was more like, I don't want you to focus on just getting this thing and then latching onto that identity, maybe. I don't know what it was, but he was very much like, no, let's just look at what's happening and deal with that rather than trying to give it a label. And then Fast forward many years later, the depression thing didn't come up during that. It was still helpful, but didn't quite get there. And then much more recently, just last year, it started with a new therapist and was explaining to her some of my ruminations and recurring thoughts and things like that that were going on. She's like, well, yeah, it sounds like you have depression. I was like, what?

Joe: Wait, what? What are you talking about?

Jase: That can't be right. No one's told me that before. What do you mean? I don't know about that. No, that's too simple. It can't be that. It doesn't seem to fit what I thought the symptoms were. I kind of pushed back on it a lot, and it took her sort of convincing me. I wouldn't want to say convincing, but, you know, discussing it with me. And then it changed within that one session from some resistance to kind of a holy shit, like, oh, there might actually be something to do about this. And the reason why I say it's the best thing ever is that for me, getting that depression diagnosis makes it so now I experience much less of being a depressed person. Than I did before getting the diagnosis, which I think goes counter to this idea that I get my identity and now that's me. I'm a person with depression. Whereas I almost feel like I'm actually less the person with depression than I was before I knew that I had it because I wasn't getting treatment. But also, yeah, put you on the path of treatment. Exactly. That's what I mean. That's what I mean, that I was.

Joe: Able to actually get effective treatment. Yeah. Well, here's a metaphor I sometimes use with my patients in my practice, often ones who are struggling with depression or something related. I wonder if it resonates with you. Basically I say, cuz oftentimes I think before people have the diagnosis or they've accepted the label when they're kind of in that stage that you were describing, they can often be really hard on themselves for not meeting all their goals or for struggling at work or in their relationships. And the metaphor I'll use is I'll say, if you like were sick with the flu, like if you had a fever, Would you be so hard on yourself that you haven't like mowed your lawn in a few weeks? Like maybe it's actually okay that you don't worry about mowing your lawn and let's actually just like get you in the shower. Like let's actually get you like cleaning up the kitchen and, and exercising again or whatever it is because you, you're sick or you're just coming off of a sickness. You're not at a hundred percent yet. And it's one of the, it's one of the weird paradoxical ways that I think using the like the mental illness metaphor, because a lot of practitioners to your point, they don't actually like the idea of categorizing it as illness. And I understand why and And by the way, I don't even usually diagnose in my practice, right? So it's kind of funny that I wrote those chapters that we're having the conversation, but I think that what sometimes people miss is they miss that there's actually an opportunity to have like compassion and like empathy for yourself, you know, that there is a biological basis, a biological etiology for a lot of these things, what's happening in your nervous system and in your mind and just giving yourself that permission to just kind of name it and feel it will often break the spell in a way. Yeah.

Emily: Can we talk about the diagnosis is your identity thing a little bit? Because I do feel as though people who are in our community, they're like, okay, I am this thing. And that is very much who I am. And I want to kind of steep myself in all of the communities that also represent that thing. And I think that is great in so many ways, but I do wonder sometimes if there are limiting factors contributing to that thought process that this is who I am and that's all I'll ever be. I don't know what you think about that or if you could explore more of what you talked about in that chapter.

Joe: Totally. So I think that it's generally very harmful to start to identify with your diagnosis. I believe I write in the book, it's kind of like a diagnosis is not something you are, it's something you have. And I know that makes you sound like such a therapist, you know, to kind of highlight that, but it's in, but, It's deeper than just a semantic distinction because like I said, the diagnosis informs the treatment plan. And so even if you are being diagnosed with something like ADHD or autism, which is like a neurodevelopmental diagnosis, and I often see people in those populations tend to identify more because it's not something that you kind of, quote unquote, cure or go into remission for, like you might with like depression or anxiety or something like that. I still think it's dangerous because at the end of the day, you can take medication, learn different executive functioning skills, or just be more aware of how your nervous system is designed compared to other people so you can be more functional in the world. One of the funny things that I think has happened is the DSM has evolved throughout its different editions. So that's the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders is there used to be a pretty narrow and specific criteria. For autism, but over time it broadened. And now it's a label that fits like Bill Gates or Elon Musk or these like, you know, eccentric tech billionaires. But then it also fits the person that actually needs disability accommodations.

Dedeker: Yeah.

Joe: And the reason it got expanded was it had stuff to do with insurance and all this stuff to get more people access to care, which I'm very much in, in, in support of, you know, therapy can be expensive and it's great to be able to help people afford it. But people at the APA, the American Psychiatric Association, his name is Dr. Alan Francis. He wrote this book called Saving Normal. And what he's basically warning against is don't over-medicalize everyday life. Don't let people over-identify with it, or you're going to have a culture of, you know, social contagion of people identifying with it. And he published that book, I want to say, in like 2012 or 2013, and it feels pretty prophetic. Yeah. You know, when you look at where we are now. And so I think that to summarize, it's two things. Right. You, you rob yourself of, quote unquote, getting better or just growing. But then two, it's also just like, I don't know, I think that, you know, is that person autistic or are they, you know, are they a little bit eccentric? Right. Does that, is that person, you know, ADHD or are they kind of like creative and a bit of a space cadet? We already have such wonderful language in English to describe each other. You know, is it nervousness or is it social anxiety? It's like, is it sadness or depression or is it apathy? Et cetera. And I think that, you know, people who have, I don't know if you all resonate with this, but when you do experience depression, you realize it's not sadness, it's not apathy. It's actually much more difficult.

Jase: It's very different.

Joe: Yeah.

Jase: That's why I was so resistant to that diagnosis, because I was like, I don't know, that doesn't fit with my image of what I think depression is of like, and I think sometimes depression can show up as sort of a can't get out of bed, can't get up in the morning, but mine was much more on the, No, I'm very high functioning, high performing, doing a podcast, having a job, all these things, but the inner stuff that's going on in my head is pretty dark, pretty miserable, right? And so it's, I was like, well, no, that doesn't fit depression. Maybe it's anxiety or something else and there's overlap there, but it's, but again, the diagnosis helped me get on the treatment path that really worked and worked right away. Like, I got very lucky in that sense that the first medication I tried was really helpful. And I know that's not always the case, but that definitely worked for me.

Joe: But that's wonderful to hear. Have you all had Dr. Judith Joseph on your show?

Dedeker: No.

Emily: She came out with a book earlier.

Joe: In the year called High Functioning. She's a researcher, a psychiatrist, that's doing really great work kind of understanding the high functioning manifestations of all these diagnoses. And so it could be cool down the line. Definitely.

Dedeker: I want to switch gears a little bit to cover a myth that I was actually really surprised to see in your book, which is that personality frameworks are reductive, inaccurate, and not helpful. So when you refer to personality frameworks, you're talking about frameworks like Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, Human Design, Astrology, I think you even include the big five personality traits in there. And I was not expecting it because I thought for sure, you know, as this person is really trying to cut through the BS, you know, I feel like things like Myers-Briggs or low hanging fruit to cut through.

Emily: Oh, they're not verified.

Dedeker: Yeah, they're not validated.

Jase: Rigorously validated. Yeah.

Joe: Oh, my God.

Dedeker: You acknowledge that some of these frameworks are maybe more suspect than others, but still make the argument that it could be helpful for people.

Joe: Yeah, totally. Well, I like that in keeping you all on my toes, because like I alluded to earlier, it's like, you know, I'm very I'm very firm in my stance that diagnostic criteria and diagnosis has an important place in all of this. And I don't actually diagnose, you know, my patients with it unless it's clinically relevant. Part of that is because they don't accept insurance as well. But in this particular case, when it comes to personality frameworks, it's kind of like, yeah, a lot of them aren't evidence-based. And what I talk about in the book and what I like to say when this comes up is people that get really upset about personality frameworks, like not being evidence based or being too reductive or, you know, whatever. It's a little bit like criticizing a restaurant's menu for not being a cookbook. Like, it's just not what it's for. Like, I'm just like, since when did it, like, this isn't, you know, formal research. It's about actually reducing reality down to simplified components to give people a shared understanding of something like being reductive is actually The point, so for example, I'm a big Enneagram guy. So if I'm just talking about Enneagram, why not?

Dedeker: I took my very first Enneagram test yesterday. Like after resisting for so many years, after listening to so many podcasts talking about how bullshit it is, and resisted, resisted, and then finally paid to take an Enneagram test, and I'm a type one, and I hated reading this very accurate description of myself, and I've just been pickled in it ever since.

Joe: Yeah. Okay. Was it all the way? Everyone go around. Do you all know your type?

Emily: So you're a one? I don't know. I've never taken it before.

Joe: We've talked about it. We'll talk off air.

Emily: I can type you.

Dedeker: Yeah.

Jase: It's been a long time. It's been a long time since I took it, but I think it's still.

Joe: Accurate that I'm a six. Okay. Okay, cool. Do you know the framework well enough?

Jase: Do you want to guess what I.

Joe: Am or do you just want me to tell you? I don't know it well enough. Okay, maybe. I'm a type three. When I first took the test, I was a type seven, like the enthusiast, like the really kind of like fun loving one. But then I got diagnosed with ADHD and like went to therapy and got on some meds. And then type three is the achiever. They're like the more kind of like success driven like image conscious one. And it was so funny because when I, when it dawned on me that maybe I wasn't as much of a seven as I thought, my first thought was like, but being a seven is like a way better look. Which is like such a three, but it's such a three thing. So I think the three is accurate.

Dedeker: Because I'm learning that being a one is not a good look, I think, you know, No, because it's called the reformer, the Pilates reformer, the one who thinks everyone's wrong all the time. Jase is the loyalist.

Emily: I would suspect Emily could be the loyalist too, but... I was like, I'm probably what Jase is, because he and I are pretty similar in a lot of ways.

Joe: We tend to score pretty similar. Yeah, exactly. That's right. But you know, even this is, it's because even for those who are listening or watching this, even though you may not know like what a type one or type six or type three or like whatever it is, like, that connection that we all just had where it's like instead of me listing out the very, you know, detailed description of what a three is or what a seven is or whatever, it allowed us to like be connected, you know what I mean? And that's what I think that these different, not just personality frameworks, but just a lot of psychological frameworks are for like people will, people will hate on like the five love languages, you know, and they'll cite that, you know, it's, it has like problematic like roots or like this like that or whatever, and it's just like, I'm sorry, I am a couples therapist and you'll get a new couple coming in and they just have to learn, because it's one thing to understand, right? I'm a words of affirmation person, just as an example. It's one thing to understand that intellectually, but it can be another thing where it's like, oh, well now I'm in a relationship where it is not in my general settings for me to be giving compliments and words of affirmation all the time. What are the strategies that I need to employ to make sure that my partner, who I love so much, feels loved, you know what I mean? And like, and that's, that's what makes it a helpful framework for therapy. We don't even need to use it, but it's helpful to help us get there faster, you know?

Dedeker: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. We've talked so much. Yeah, we also, yeah. Our episode, if anyone wants to go back and check out our episode 473 was where we had this whole similar debate about the love languages.

Joe: Right.

Dedeker: Looking at, like, the arguments for and the arguments against. And I think a framework like that is a two-edged sword because, you know, I work with couples as well, and I've seen couples come in who are gridlocked and like, I think over identified with this like love language issue and like kind of think, oh, it all leads back to it's because, you know, he doesn't spend enough quality time with me or like, it's because I'm a quality time person and he just refuses to do that, right? That's what it all leads back to when maybe there may be other factors. And I think in most cases though, as you're saying, Joe, it just creates more tools to grab onto for hopefully furthering connection. Between people.

Joe: Totally. Yeah. Or at the very least, you know, developing self-awareness and figuring out where your blind spots are. Because even a really evidence-based personality framework like the Big Five, like people might say that being agreeable is better than being disagreeable. And it's like, are you sure about that? Because disagreeable people tend to hold leadership positions more, they tend to get paid more. You know, they may not be quite as popular, But you know what they're not struggling with? They're not struggling with people pleasing. Right, right. And so, you know, when you said earlier, it's like, oh, like, like people don't like the ones people don't like this. Those people that are having those opinions, I don't think understand the framework that they're talking about holistically. Because like the truth is any two types on the Enneagram can date, any two types of the love languages can have a very loving relationship. You can have any sort of score on the five-factor model, and be an absolute wonderful person who's contributing well to society and is perfectly great to be around in some capacity. It's all just how we want to organize these things.

Dedeker: Yeah, but the joke's on you. But because I'm a one, I also don't give a shit that people dislike the one.

Emily: This is why Detacher is the alpha of the group also.

Joe: Oh my god. Good.

Emily: Can we pivot to this one? The mindfulness is good for everyone myth? Because also Dedeker is very, very steeped in Buddhism and has had a mindfulness and meditation practice for a really long time. She took the two of us on a meditation retreat where we were silent for three days. It was very intense.

Joe: Did you do one of those?

Dedeker: Oh, yeah.

Joe: How was it?

Dedeker: I do every other year. Yeah, I do like a silent, like usually like at least a week long retreat every other year.

Jase: We all did one together a few years ago.

Joe: Yeah.

Emily: It was pretty mind blowing.

Joe: It was great.

Jase: Actually it was pretty profound.

Joe: Yeah. That's what everyone says and I'm scared that I need to go do it, but y'all are scared with you. I talk for a living and it's a little bit confronting. So I'm like, I don't know, but maybe next year.

Dedeker: Yeah. Okay, yeah. So, yeah, I want to talk about an argument I had at a party recently about this, but share with us your kind of counter argument against this assumption that mindfulness can be a good practice for everybody.

Joe: Well, it's just funny, right? Because, you know, what? Like 10 to 15 years ago, mindfulness was like a hippie thing that no one took seriously. And now if you tell your PCP that you're experiencing anxiety or something, they're like, well, have you tried meditating? And it's just like, it's just like the standard of care. And to be clear, I practice mindfulness. It's an essential skill for everyone to learn, but it is not the be-all end-all solution to mental health or being super adaptive or being super functional. What I talk about in the book is, you know, depending on what you're dealing with in terms of your mental health is it may actually be the exact opposite of what you need. So if you're, you know, dealing with something on the bipolar spectrum, for example, and you're feeling impulses or compulsions to engage in activities that are not going to be good for you, you know, is the right call to be mindful and to feel those impulses to their deepest and let them pass by. Or is the better intervention to distract yourself, right? To go on a walk, to actually be mindless, right? To actually not be super mindful. I also think when it comes to just general, like, emotional Fitness, mindfulness is certainly essential. You have to be able to feel your feelings. You have to be able to be non-judgmental about them. But, y'all, I don't know if you know this, but feeling your feelings is really tiring.

Jase: Sure.

Joe: And there it's called adaptive avoidance. Sometimes avoiding it, suppressing it in the right way can be very, very healthy. If you're struggling with a substance problem, it is not advisable to use a glass of wine, right? Or a joint or whatever it might be to take the edge off. But if that is not where your mental health struggle lies, if you don't have a very addictive personality, and you've had a really long day, it's like, you know what? That's okay. Like, it is okay to, you know, watch a movie or, like, eat some food. Now, again, if you're struggling with binge eating disorder or something that kind of resembles that, right? Maybe reaching for that tub of ice cream or that bag of chips. Like, maybe that's something you need to work with your therapist about. Right? But, like, it is okay to not necessarily be in all of your feelings all the time. And I say that, you know, is, like, if I was mindful during every single one of my sessions all the time, I would be burnt out.

Dedeker: You know, it's okay to be able to sometimes select.

Joe: Selective disassociate in an adaptive way.

Dedeker: Yeah, selective disassociation. I like that. That's gonna be the next million dollar app. I'm gonna try to develop the headspace for selective disassociation. Actually, I think that's social media.

Joe: Never mind, it's already been created. Okay. Well, I don't know if it's in the book, but are you all familiar.

Dedeker: With the difference between empathy and compassion? We did an episode about this ages.

Jase: Ago, but look at that.

Joe: Tell us about it. Update us. Basically, the general idea is that empathy is when you feel their pain.

Dedeker: Yeah.

Joe: Compassion is when you feel warmth and goodwill but remain detached. And so if you're very mindful of your empathy, particularly on social media where tragedies all over the world, it just feels so personal. I remember where it really hit me was the fires in LA. It was just like, you didn't even know whose account it was, but it was like, this was your friend and they're a houses burned down. It was so hard to watch. But here's the thing, that tragedy wasn't happening to me. And so for me to be super mindful to just get soaked up in all of whatever I was feeling, I don't think is the emotionally strong or flexible or the mentally healthy thing to do. I think it's okay to remain a little bit detached and to kind of, like we said, kind of selectively and intentionally disassociate if you can. Because what some studies have shown actually is that people that remain in that compassionate headspace can actually help the people suffering more. They're able to think of more ideas, often better ideas. And so when it comes to issues of, you know, tragedy or social justice, there's this question of allyship, right? Where it's like, well, maybe you shouldn't be in your feels. Maybe it's okay if it's not happening to you. Maybe it's actually better to take a step back.

Dedeker: Because then you can actually access energy.

Joe: Sure.

Jase: Exactly. You can think more clearly. You can problem solve when you're not in the middle of like the person actually suffering. It is.

Dedeker: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I appreciate that you addressed this. I was at a party a few months ago, and at the party, I ended up talking to maybe the worst person you can end up talking to at a party, which is the straight guy who just started meditating six months ago. God bless this guy. I do not think there is anything wrong with him personally. He was a great guy. It was just, he is in this chapter of life, right? That chapter, and I think actually this does happen to a lot of people who maybe have just started a successful meditation practice, where there is that evangelism urge, right?

Emily: This has resolved... A lot of things.

Dedeker: A lot of things do that, right? This has resolved so much for me. This has made so much sense. For me, I got to tell everybody about it. It's the solution to everything, right? And yeah, we had a little bit of a debate because when he learned that I do like somatic experiencing therapy with my clients, where he was just like, oh, somatic therapy, that's just mindfulness. Like we should just be teaching people mindfulness. We should just be teaching people to meditate. And I did have to kind of make that argument of like, yes, mindfulness has a lot of good. And, you know, when you're working with someone who like can't watch a TV show because whenever a particular scene happens, they have like a full body trigger because of their particular PTSD. I can't just tell this person, get on the mat, sit and feel it necessarily. Right. They're not at that stage of the process. You know, it's like there has to be more intention and more care and ironically more mindfulness about the approach, I think, rather than just telling people, oh, you just need to learn how to sit with the feelings.

Joe: Totally. Well, the way I work in my practice is I'm always curious about, like, what's the most functional strategy, like what's going to bring you a little bit closer to the goal that you value. So if someone is depressed, sometimes the cause of their depression is emotional suppression. Emotional suppression actually underlies lots of mental health concerns, from eating disorders to anxiety, Etc. But if you're trying to help a self-conscious teenager who has a fear of public speaking, let's say, if it's diagnosable social anxiety disorder, that is not going to get better on its own. You probably want to have a professional come help you with that. But if it's just normal, teenaged, feeling self-conscious, feeling nervous, the last thing you want to do is have them get super present in their body, you know, and feel it to its deepest extent. They need to learn the skill to be more adaptive and to put themselves out there and actually get that positive reinforcement of how good it'll feel. When they stand up on stage, when they watch the tape back, et cetera, et cetera. There's actually a study done where they found that some of these higher touch interventions, I think for adolescents with mindfulness or this kind of social emotional learning stuff, it actually made a lot of anxiety and depression worse. Because these things that are good if you're at an inpatient treatment center or if you're in therapy don't necessarily work when it's just the regular emotion. And that's one of the reasons why It's just so great to be having this conversation and why I was so, I'm so passionate about this topic and wrote this book. Because it's not, it's just me, you know, wagging my finger and be like, you,'re using this term wrong. It's like, no, like actually, like your mental health is at risk.

Dedeker: I need you, I need you to please listen and to kind of get into the nuance because it matters. That's funny because I, yeah, I did.

Joe: Write down kind of a half joke question of like, are you just a total bummer at parties correcting everybody on their terminology?

Emily: Oh my God.

Joe: Yeah. You know, well, lately as I promote the book more, it's a little bit like when you read my book, you're gonna realize, right? There you go. You don't know, but,. But no, you know, I'm all for humor and exaggeration and satire, and you can use all these words in any of these ways. That's never been the problem. The problem has always been somebody with a ring light or somebody who read, you know, one book on attachment styles saying definitively that, you know, this boy you went on one date with has an avoidant attachment style when the more accurate assessment of what's happening is that boy is avoiding intimacy with you. And attachment styles don't manifest until you are attached. And so it happens, well, for me as a therapist, it happens all the time where people will enter, you know, they've been single for so long, they finally enter this amazing relationship, and then it's like six months or even sometimes up to a year later, all of these attachment style problems manifest and they think they're going crazy. And it's like, no, you're just in it. You're attached. You are committed to this person, and this is how you're navigating it. So let's talk about it. You know, it's just not helpful for.

Emily: I guess with that, let's get into some of the myths about relationships.

Joe: Yeah, let's do it.

Emily: One of them that you talked about is the more emotional intimacy, the better.

Dedeker: That's not true? Yeah.

Joe: Well, it depends. One of the messages I communicate in that chapter is this idea to remember that, you know, intimacy is not just this like unidimensional thing where you have more of it or you have less of it because there's different types of intimacy. The intimacy I have with my patients is profound and maybe even deeper than what I have with some of my friends, but I'm not going to go with my patient to a party, you know, I'm not going to bring them like out to dinner, like, you know, because that's not what the relationship is for. So an example I talk about in the book is it may be necessary, even desirable, to be able to talk to your therapist about the details of the horrible things that have happened to you that resulted in trauma and, and grief and, and all these things. Does your partner need to know all these details for you two to feel close, for them to love you? Maybe you don't want them to know because you don't want them to know the, the nitty gritty of what happened to you. And I think that's perfectly okay. I think that's an individual decision and more is not necessarily better. I'd be curious to know kind of from all of you, you know, because when we start thinking of different types of relationships and different types of connections, it's also a matter, I think, of what you want to prioritize. I'm sure you're familiar with Esther Perel.

Dedeker: I'm assuming, of course. Patron saint of relationship podcasters, as I call her.

Jase: Yeah.

Joe: So she's famous for putting this idea, you know, out into the culture that, like, intimacy and desire can butt heads. And I think there's some truth to that. I think that insight is oversimplified. I'm not sure that it's always the case, but if the kind of relationship you want is one that's full of adventure and passion, maybe you don't need quite as much of the talky-talky and the sharing of feelings. And it can change, right? It can change at different stages of the relationship. I think that some people get really turned on, and I mean erotically, by intimacy. Intimacy and vulnerability is hot to them. Other people, it's just scary. And it may just not be necessary for what they need the relationship to be in this upcoming chapter.

Dedeker: Yeah, I think it can be such a tricky balance in relationship. I keep thinking about a client I had years ago where she and her husband were going through a rough patch. And in the name of intimacy and vulnerability, he he had opened up his diary and read to his wife everything he had written in processing this rough patch. And that caused a lot more damage than any good, even though, like, that was very vulnerable and very intimate for him to share that with her. And ultimately, like, then she was holding on to these, like, raw, unfiltered thoughts and feelings from her husband. And I was pretty convinced in their situation that, like, it did more harm than good. Like, does that mean he shouldn't have shared anything or not been honest at all? Like, of course not, like, I. I think there's ways that he could have communicated or maybe could have tried to figure out what are the most important things to communicate here. But yeah, I think about that sometimes.

Emily: Inside thoughts.

Joe: Correct.

Emily: They don't necessarily need to be outside thoughts.

Dedeker: Yeah, but it starts to get into some tricky questions around, you know, when you're in a very classic close long-term romantic relationship, like how entitled can you feel to knowing your partner's deepest inner thoughts or not? Maybe that's a relationship by relationship sort of thing, but I don't know, these are things I chew on.

Jase: That's the part where it made my mind go to is on the receiving side or like the asking side. Is that something I feel like has really changed and evolved and I think gotten to a better place in my life now than when I was younger, where I feel like I used to, if you get the sense of like, oh, something's going on with this person I'm dating or something bad happened or they're struggling with something, it's like, I want to know it all. I want to know it so I can help you and love you and we can be close and all that. And I find that now I've learned much more both for my sake as well as theirs. I don't need to know everything. It's okay for there to be some things that we can talk about if you want, like that's open. But you don't need to recount for me all the details of this horrible thing that happened to you or something like that. And I found this even with friends and things or new relationships, knowing when it's okay to not need to know something and actually truly being okay with that, not being like, I hope I find out eventually, but just truly like, that doesn't have to be our relationship. They might have a therapist or other people for that.

Joe: Totally. You know, I think this idea to lean into the vulnerability is important. It's important to be able to do that, but I think that people often misquote Brene Brown, because if you listen to her full TED Talk, she actually includes, and she writes about this in her books, that the type of unfiltered kind of bearing all of your shame, like, rawness and realness that she believes you must be able to do, she then clarifies and says, you really only need, like, one person. Right. You know, and sometimes I think people have kind of taken the insights and then, like, misapplied them in these, like, you higher touch ways where it's like, now we're networking at a conference in a sharing circle and everyone's talking about their trauma and it's just like, is this the best way to do this? I'm not sure.

Emily: Yeah, definitely.

Jase: I want to go on to this next myth here. And I feel like my mind's already gone to variations on this, so maybe we'll get to that. But this one is that therapy will make you ready for a relationship. It kind of reminds me of the whole, you gotta love yourself before someone else can love you or those sorts of things. You gotta get fixed first.

Joe: Sure. Well, the first thing I would say is that if there is a mental health concern that is preventing you from dating or being a desirable dating prospect, then of course you might want to go work on that and maybe kind of take care of yourself first. But I think that a lot of people have turned to therapy in recent years and look at therapists as these kind of wise sages of all things, you know, that have to do with relationships and with humor and, and love for all my therapist colleagues out there. It's like, look, a lot of us have, like, kind of, like, messy dating lives, myself included. Like, we're not, like, I don't know, like, when, like, when would it was I expected to, like, be this, like, expert. It's just, like, kind of funny to me. I'm, like, really good at diagnosis. I'm good at, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy. I'm good. Even good at like relational, like kind of focused therapy and stuff like that. But that's still, that's, that's therapy. That's not, that's not like the journey of love, you know what I mean? I am just as confused and excited about the journey of love as I think that most people are. And so, like I said earlier, I think that it's not that psychology has zero insights to offer on this, and that's why people turn towards it, but I think that we need to, to take it all with a with a grain of salt. And I think that the mistake I see most people make is they use this idea that I need to work on myself as an excuse to not be vulnerable, to kind of not put themselves out there when someone good or even great comes along. And I think that anyone who has been brave enough to really put themselves out there on the journey of love knows this, that you can talk about it, like you can talk about it in therapy or even work through some of your emotional stuff, like in therapy, but to. To intellectually understand what it's like to be totally vulnerable with a person that you like. And that could be because you're in a deep, committed relationship, or maybe just at the beginning, just telling them, like, wow, I really like you to feel that fear, you know, because it's called vulnerability for a reason. You know, it's like, it's because they could hurt you with it. You know, that feels way different. I was just talking to a. A friend of mine who's in a new relationship, and they were. They were just talking about how unsettled they feel, and it's just like, well, for the last couple of years, you've been cruising at a certain altitude. You've had a fling here and a fling there, but no one really was this special to you. And now we're all of a sudden at a much higher altitude, and you're looking out the window, and you're like, that's a long way down. But you're not going to be able to practice tolerating that or navigating that.

Emily: Unless you're up there. And there's so much healing that can happen, I think, in tandem with another person while you are exploring the bounds of what a new relationship can be and learning maybe that the patterns of old don't necessarily need to happen again in this new relationship and sort of breaking this idea that, like, every relationship will look in this potentially toxic way that it once did. At least that's kind of the journey that I've been going through after being in a very, very long nine-year toxic relationship. And now, after one year of a pretty healthy relationship and just understanding, wow, things can be different and how great that is.

Joe: Absolutely.

Emily: We did an episode recently that touched a little bit on emotional intelligence. And I think that it's definitely something that's thrown around a lot. And I do think that it's a marker for a lot of people that they put up on a pedestal and say, this is something that I can really point to as being a great great trait about myself. And something that you say in the book, a myth is using therapeutic language makes you emotionally intelligent. And I guess the real question is how does therapeutic language actually get in the way of a couple potentially communicating better?

Joe: Yeah. So if I think about how it might get in the way of a couple communicating better, I think about how often it's far more helpful. To just use non-diagnostic or non-clinical terms to just kind of say what you mean. My impression is that a lot of people will resort to this language in an argument or a fight with their significant other because it's an appeal to authority, right? Because psychology apparently knows something fundamental about the human condition that the rest of us don't know. And so if you're going to invoke something about attachment or narcissism or whatever the buzzword is, It kind of does pack that extra like rhetorical like sting. But what I often find is that it's kind of like, okay, maybe he's a narcissist. Maybe he's not. Could you have communicated what happened in this specific fight that he was selfish or immature? You know, because you know who's naturally narcissistic, like a child, like, you know, like, and so a lot of people, you know, like, I am a big fan of like the developmental psychology approach that it's like we're all overdeveloped or underdeveloped in different capacities. And the goal is to push yourself forward depending on what is functional or what is adaptive. And so I think that's a far more compassionate look than slapping on a diagnostic or a pseudo-diagnostic label on someone. The metaphor I talk about in the book, this was given to me by a senior clinician, a mentor, is it's a little bit like learning a new language or learning to play an instrument. At the beginning, it's important to be kind of confined to these rigid ways of speaking. So for example, I speak a little bit of Spanish, and when you're first learning Spanish, you learn to say, Yo, ablo español. But then when you get a little bit better, you realize you can just say, Ablo. And for me at the beginning, it's important to understand what the proper grammar is, but then you can start to have some fun. Then you can kind of apply it differently, or maybe you're doing rigid, notes or chords on, like, a flute or a guitar. But then after you get good at it, you can riff. You can add your own, like, style to the music. And that's how I think about using therapeutic language to be more emotionally intelligent. It matters far more how you apply it than just using the word. So, for an example, if I am interacting with someone who does have some narcissistic traits, or maybe they're just a little selfish, do I know how to be with that? Like, do I know how to trigger self-awareness, so they're a little bit less selfish. Do I know how to gray rock? Because they're pretty narcissistic and I know that this is not going to be something that I want to deal with. Like, for me, that's a sign of emotional intelligence, but just being able to.

Dedeker: Talk about it is not the same thing as being able to do it. So, like, what would you recommend if you think this is happening in somebody's relationship? If, if, like, one partner is weaponizing therapy speak against the other, or even if not necessarily weaponizing, but, like, therapy speak is clearly getting in the way of clarity and understanding.

Joe: Can you give me an example? Maybe something you've dealt with or a client has dealt with?

Dedeker: Oh, gosh.

Joe: Yeah.

Dedeker: I mean, the things that come up most often that I see with couples is, yeah, people throwing the term gaslighting around. People have all kinds of really clever ways that they use the term boundaries. Yeah, I think those are some of the top two offenders, I would say, like what I see in people's relationships.

Joe: Yeah. Well, I think that there's a number of different approaches that you can use. You could, shameless self-promotion, you could read the book or just Google the terms and just get really clear, right? Or talk to your therapist and get really clear on what they mean so you can not be so disoriented if they're kind of used against you. However, if you start getting into a debate about the operational definition, it quickly becomes this power struggle that I don't think is always helpful and doesn't bring either party where they want to go. And so what I'll do, what often happens for me is I'll just kind of, in a weird way, ignore and look past it, not in a dismissive way where it's like you don't even respond to what they're saying, but more in the sense that if somebody accuses me of gaslighting, I could option A, clarify that gaslighting is a grooming process that can't take place in a single instance, right? I could actually just say like, oh, well, how do you remember it going? You know, 'cause that is actually like the opposite of what a gaslighter would do. You know, and it kind of, you have to kind of like, it's kind of like if you're playing chess, it's like you might have to like sacrifice a pawn to like hit the queen, like in the right position, right? Wow. You have to, there has to be a little bit of like, a little bit of finagling when it comes to boundaries. It is not unhealthy or abusive to negotiate with someone's boundaries because a boundary isn't, I talk about this in the book, right? It's a boundary is not a preference. And being able to discuss it so they know what the consequences will be if they violate your boundary. Like that's actually, I would argue that's actually like healthy. I see a lot of people using boundaries to just kind of like end the discussion and their word is final. What often happens when people are discussing boundaries in this way is that they get hung up on the fact that maybe the person isn't just like honoring their preference, right? When the reality is that it's really a boundary when there's going to be consequences. Maybe that's how much you hang out with them or how you are when you're with them, like, et cetera, et cetera. And so I think it's far more beneficial to be curious about that Dynamic than to get into this power struggle over, like, what a boundary means. And unfortunately, I do think we are kind of in this, like, moment in, in culture, the current Paradigm is I think a lot of people will use these terms inappropriately, and it's, it is okay to just kind of sigh a deep breath and accept that and accept that, like, maybe you're not going to.

Dedeker: Have a productive conversation with this person.

Joe: Until they spend a little A little less time on TikTok.

Dedeker: Boy, real boy.

Jase: What a sentence right there.

Joe: Yeah, yeah.

Dedeker: Okay, so this is a myth. I've never heard this phrase before, but it's the myth of freak in the head, freak in the bed. Now, I'd heard lady in the streets freak in the sheets. I'm intimately familiar with that one. But tell me a little bit about this freak in the head, freak in the bed.

Joe: Yeah, so this is a joke that I'm pretty sure every boy heard in his adolescence in the locker room.

Dedeker: Did you hear it, Jase?

Jase: I don't know if it was worded this way. Tell me more about it, and I'll tell you if I heard it.

Joe: Oh, yeah. Well, tell me how it's worded, because I definitely phrased it to be more kind of like a meta myth or a meta articulation. But the idea is there seems to be this idea in culture, and I've seen it in memes, and I hear people talk about it where this idea, it's like, oh, that person's kind of crazy. Yeah. He must be great in the sack. And I thought about that deeply, and I included in the book because I decided that that is just not the case. Because the truth is... You're sleeping with.

Dedeker: Many freaks and collecting all of my data.

Joe: Exactly, exactly. This is both evidence-based and my anecdotal experience has led me to believe that a lot of, maybe I'll call it actual mental illness, diagnosed mental illness, will often interfere with sexual function in a way that is often not pleasant, not conducive of increasing pleasure. One of the things I explore in the book is I consider, well, why do people maybe believe this? And I think there's a few different reasons. I think that when it comes to mania or hypomania, there's kind of like this idea of hypersexuality, I think, can be very like exciting and uninhibited. But I think for me, there's actually an issue like of consent there. Because if someone is genuinely in a manic episode and they're having unprotected sex with strangers, and that's not something they're doing because they want to be free and experience pleasure, but because they're impulsive and compulsive and can't stop themselves, you wonder, well, is that really fun? There's this YouTube video somewhere, I forget who did it, where basically the snarky side professor is like, oh, you think the point of life is to be deliriously happy? Here's a video of someone in mania, and the person can't even articulate a sentence that makes sense. It's actually not the point, right? So there's that. I think about, people with relational wounds, so this is like mommy or daddy issues, stereotypically might want to be more of a pleaser in bed, and maybe that could be a way that they're like a freak in the head, a freak in the bed, et cetera. And maybe if that's your thing, if you want to be very selfish or you want to kind of be serviced in that way in bed, that could be very, very exciting. I don't know if it necessarily is translating to more pleasure for everyone, because lots of people, regardless of if they identify as Dom or sub or a giver or receiver or whatever it is, lots of people like to make the other person feel good. You know, I don't know if that argument really holds up. And I also think too that there's just this, you know, there's this idea that narcissistic psychopaths don't really have like a sense of self. And so the way, the way their pleasure centers go off in their brain. So if I smile, like I smile at you, because like I laugh at your joke, you're like, oh, like Joe likes my joke. And like, that's like a very oversimplified way to describe like how our brains work in like a pro-social sense. But someone with an antisocial personality disorder, right, or something related to that, that's not how their brain works. Their brain, they can mimic that, but they're mostly like manipulating people. And I don't think it's a far cry at all to say that maybe sex with someone who is very, very manipulative and can just kind of give you everything that they want or everything that you want, to give you a mind-blowing experience to potentially further manipulate you or control you. Maybe that's fun the first few times, but I would actually consider it to be kind of a form of abuse. People that use sex and orgasms almost as a weapon, because the drugs and the hormones that flood your body during, before, and after these activities, you're in a more suggestible state. And that's why, and we all know people when they're really attracted to that dirt bag that they're dating, but they can't see it. They literally can't see it. You know, I think it's an unfortunate, uncomfortable thing to get present to, but the number of people who are weaponizing that in a malicious, manipulative way is not zero, you know? And I just think it's good to know. And so are they, you know, quote unquote freak in the head, as problematic as that is for someone who cares about to say for somebody because of destigmatizing mental illness, like the meaning of it, like, is that leading to more pleasure short term, maybe long term?

Dedeker: I don't think so, you know? All right, listeners, before we wrap up today, it is time for what we are calling the Uberlube Speed Round. Because, just like lube, good therapy should make things smoother and not more complicated.

Jase: Wow. I was trying to come up with a little theme song for this.

Emily: Beautiful jingle.

Dedeker: So, Joe, I'm going to throw out some heavily used therapy terms, and you give us your reality check in one sentence or less, if possible.

Joe: Okay.

Dedeker: Are you ready?

Joe: All right, let's do it.

Dedeker: Okay.

Joe: I'm ready.

Dedeker: Trauma.

Joe: Not everything bad that happens to you is a trauma because trauma is about your current relationship to the past, not about the past itself.

Dedeker: Neurodivergence.

Joe: While there are people who fit the definition of what we might term neurodiverse, we already knew that different brains and their different nervous systems were wired differently long before this became a movement.

Dedeker: Gaslighting.

Joe: Gaslighting is not disagreeing because it is a grooming process that takes place over time.

Dedeker: People pleasing.

Joe: People pleasing is problematic if you are engaging in behaviors with an ulterior motive, or if that's not actually what you want to do, but I would say it's actually a wonderful thing to want to live for others and please others.

Dedeker: Narcissist.

Joe: If we've all are dating narcissists, then we have to ask, why are they getting all of the men and ladies? They must be doing something right.

Dedeker: Empath.

Joe: Your trauma probably did not make you an empath. People that are overly emotionally monitoring themselves and others are usually hypervigilant and could benefit from a little bit of therapy.

Dedeker: Projecting.

Joe: Projection is just one of many defense mechanisms that the mind engages in to protect itself. Usually it's being used incorrectly.

Dedeker: Boundaries.

Joe: Boundaries are not preferences.

Dedeker: Great. That was great. You did fantastic.

Jase: I had this urge to have like a buzzer there to be like, oh my God.

Joe: Bing, bing, bing.

Jase: Use our promo code, MULTI, M-U-L-T-I, for 10% off and free shipping.

Joe: Just before this episode, all four of us were talking about how great Uberlube actually is.

Emily: All of us actually have used it in our real lives. We love it. Yeah, it's wonderful. Joe Nucci approved. Joe Nucci Therapy endorsed. Yes. There you go. Amazing. Joe, this has been so interesting. I think so many people are going to come back to this maybe over and over again and really want to read the book after hearing this episode. When is the book coming out specifically, and where can people find more about you and your work?

Joe: Thank you so much for having me. This has been a lot of fun. Would love to come back, talk more psychology, relationships, and all the fun things.

Jase: I'd love that.

Emily: Absolutely.

Joe: Yes, please. The book is available September 23rd. 2025, wherever you get books. And if people want to follow up with me for my content, I'm on YouTube, I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok, I'm on all the things. Joe Nucci Therapy, that's N-U-C-C-I, like Gucci.