The Power of Radical Honesty - Dr. Anna Lembke

[Music] thank you hi welcome to a special episode of after skool I'm Dr Ana Lembke professor of Psychiatry and addiction medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and I'm really excited for you to watch this animation on radical honesty let's Dive In every major religion and code of ethics has included honesty as essential to its moral teachings all my patients who have achieved long-term recovery have relied on truth-telling as critical for sustained mental and physical health I too have become convinced that radical honesty is not just helpful for limiting compulsive over consumption but also at

the core of a life well lived the question is how does telling the truth improve our lives let's first establish that telling the truth is painful we are Wired from the earliest ages to lie and we all do it whether or not we care to admit it children begin lying as early as Age Two the smarter the kid the more likely they are to lie and the better they are at it lying tends to decrease between ages 3 and 14 possibly because children become more aware of how lying harms other people on the other hand

adults are capable of more sophisticated anti-social lies than children as the ability to plan and remember becomes more advanced the average adult tells between 0.59 and 1.56 lies daily liar liar pants on fire we've all got a little smoke coming off our shorts humans are not the only animals with the capacity for deception the animal kingdom is Rife with examples of deception as a weapon and a shield the Loma chusa pubicolas Beetle for example is able to penetrate ant colonies by pretending to be one of them something it accomplishes by emitting a chemical substance that

makes it smell like an ant once inside the beetle feeds on ant eggs and larvae but no other animal Rivals the human capacity for lying evolutionary biologists speculate that the development of human language explains our tendency and Superior ability to lie The Story Goes Like This the evolution of homo sapiens culminated in the formation of large social groups large social groups were possible because of the development of sophisticated forms of communication allowing for advanced Mutual cooperation words used to cooperate can also be used to deceive and misdirect the more advanced the language the more sophisticated

the lies lies arguably have some adaptive Advantage when it comes to competing for scarce resources but lying in a world of Plenty risks isolation craving and pathological over-consumption let me explain in today's world of overwhelming abundance it is easy to slip into behaviors that feel good in the short term but are ultimately destructive in the long term we engage in lying and create a false Persona or a mask to cover up our behaviors which leads to shame and isolation and fuels ongoing consumption we cannot get out of this cycle of destructive shame that fuels addiction

until we stop lying and start being who we really are radical honesty telling the truth about things large and small is essential not just to recovery from addiction but for all of us trying to live a more Balanced Life in our reward saturated ecosystem it works on many levels first radical honesty promotes awareness of our actions second it Fosters intimate human connections third it leads to a truthful autobiography which holds us accountable not just to our present but also to our future selves further telling the truth is contagious and might even prevent the development of

future addiction awareness lying can become so routine that we are unaware that we are even doing it I call this the lying habit to restore a truthful Narrative of Our Lives we must become aware of The Lies We Tell ourselves and others recounting our experiences gives us Mastery over them whether in the context of psychotherapy talking to an AAA sponsor confessing to a priest confiding in a friend or writing in a journal our honest disclosure brings our Behavior into relief allowing us in some cases to see it for the first time this is especially true

for behaviors that involve a level of automaticity outside of conscious awareness when I was compulsively reading romance novels I was only partially aware of doing so that is to say I was aware of the behavior at the same time I was not aware of it this is a well-recognized phenomenon in addiction a kind of half-conscious state akin to a waking dream often referred to as denial denial is likely mediated by a disconnect between the reward pathway part of our brain and the higher cortical brain regions that allow us to narrate the events of Our Lives

appreciate consequences and plan for the future many forms of addiction treatment involve strengthening and renewing connections between these parts of the brain honesty promotes intimate human connections telling the truth draws people in especially when we're willing to expose our own vulnerabilities this is counter-intuitive because we assume that unmasking the less desirable aspects of ourselves will drive people away it logically makes sense that people would distance themselves when they learn about our character flaws and transgressions in fact the opposite happens people come closer they see in our Brokenness their own vulnerability in humanity they are reassured

that they are not alone in their doubts fears and weaknesses intimacy is its own source of dopamine oxytocin a hormone much involved with falling in love Mother child bonding and lifetime pair bonding of sexual mates binds to receptors on the dopamine secreting neurons in the brain's reward pathway and enhances the firing of the reward circuit tract in other words oxytocin leads to an increase in brain dopamine while truth-telling promotes human attachment compulsive over consumption of high dopamine Goods is the antithesis of human attachment consuming leads to isolation and indifference as the drug comes to replace

the reward obtained from being in relationship with others experiments show that a free rat will instinctively work to free another rat trapped inside a plastic bottle but once that free rat has been allowed to self-administer heroin it is no longer interested in helping out the cage dread presumably too caught up in an opioid Haze to care about a fellow member of its species any behavior that leads to an increase in dopamine has the potential to be exploited what I'm referring to is a kind of disclosure porn that has become prevalent in modern culture where revealing

intimate aspects of Our Lives becomes a way to manipulate others for a certain type of selfish gratification rather than to Foster intimacy through a moment of shared Humanity there is a well-known phenomenon in AAA called drunkologs referring to Tales of intoxicated exploits that are shared to entertain and show off rather than teach and learn drunkologs tend to trigger craving rather than promote recovery the line between honest self-disclosure and a manipulative drunk log is a fine one including subtle differences in content tone Cadence and affect but you know it when you see it truthful autobiographies create

accountability single simple truths about our day-to-day lives are like links in a chain that translate into truthful autobiographical narratives autobiographical narratives are an essential measure of lived time the stories we narrate about our lives not only serve as a measure of our past but can also shape future Behavior in the more than 20 years as a psychiatrist listening to tens of thousands of patient stories I have become convinced that the way we tell our personal stories is a marker and predictor of Mental Health patients who tell stories in which they are frequently the victim seldom-bearing

responsibility for bad outcomes are often unwell and remain unwell they are too busy blaming others to get down to the business of their own recovery by contrast when my patients start telling stories that accurately portray their responsibility I know they're getting better the victim narrative reflects a wider societal Trend in which we're all prone to see ourselves as the victims of circumstance and deserving of compensation or reward for our suffering even when people have been victimized if the narrative never moves Beyond victimhood it's difficult for healing to occur one of the jobs of good Psychotherapy

is to help people tell healing stories if autobiographical narrative is a river Psychotherapy is the means by which that river is mapped and in some cases rerouted healing stories adhere closely to real life events seeking and finding the truth or the closest approximation possible with the data at hand affords us the opportunity for real insight and understanding which in turn allows us to make informed choices as I have alluded to before the modern practice of psychotherapy sometimes falls short of that lofty goal we as mental health care providers have become so caught up in the

practice of empathy that we've lost sight of the fact that empathy without accountability is a short-sighted attempt to relieve suffering if the therapist and patient recreate a story in which the patient is a Perpetual victim of forces beyond their control chances are good that the patient will continue to be victimized but if the therapist can help the patient take responsibility if not for the event itself and for how they react to it in the here and now that patient is empowered to move forward with their life I have been deeply impressed with AA philosophy and

teachings on this point one of the preeminent AA mottos often printed in bold type on its brochure is quote I am responsible in addition to responsibility Alcoholics Anonymous emphasizes rigorous honesty as a central precept of its philosophy and these ideas go together the fourth of aaa's 12 steps requires members to take a searching and fearless moral inventory in which the individual considers his or her Character defects and how they have contributed to a problem step is the confession step this is where AAA members admit to God to ourselves and to another human being the exact

nature of our wrong this straightforward practical and systematic approach can have a powerful and transformative impact a truthful autobiographical narrative further allows us to be more authentic spontaneous and free in the moment the psychoanalyst Donald winicot introduced the concept of the Fall self in the 1960s according to winicot the fall self is a self-constructed Persona in defense against intolerable external demands and stressors winicot postulated that the creation of the false self can lead to feelings of profound emptiness no there there social media has contributed to the problem of the false self by making it far

easier for us and even encouraging us to curate narratives of Our Lives that are far from reality in his online life my patient Tony a young man in his 20s ran every morning to take in the sunrise spent the day engaged in constructive and ambitious Artistic Endeavors and was the recipient of numerous Awards in his real life he could barely get out of bed compulsively looked at pornography online struggled to find gainful employment and was isolated depressed and suicidal little of his real day-to-day life was evident on his Facebook page when our lived experience diverges

from our projected image we are prone to feel detached and unreal as fake as the false images we've created psychiatrists call this feeling derealization and depersonalization it's a terrifying feeling which commonly contributes to thoughts of suicide after all if we don't feel real ending Our Lives feels inconsequential the antidote to the false self is the authentic self radical honesty is a way to get there it tethers us to our existence and makes us feel real in the world it also lessens the cognitive load required to maintain all those lies freeing up mental energy to live

more spontaneously in the moment when we're no longer working to present a false self we're more open to ourselves than others as the psychiatrist Mark Epstein wrote in his book going on being about his own journey toward authenticity no longer endeavoring to manage my environment I began to feel invigorated to find a balance to permit a feeling of connection with the spontaneity of the natural world and with my own inner nature truth-telling is contagious and so is lying Lao Tzu wrote If you don't trust people you make them untrustworthy trust is something that takes time

and effort to build and can be destroyed in an instant Friedrich Nietzsche wrote I'm not upset that you lied to me I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you telling the truth is a two-way street by being open and honest with others we Inspire them to be open and honest with us if you don't trust yourself you will live in fear that others will betray you so honesty starts with not lying to yourself and this honesty has a contagious effect conclusion my patients have taught me that Honesty enhances awareness creates more satisfying relationships

holds us accountable to a more authentic narrative and strengthens our ability to delay gratification it may even prevent the future development of addiction for me honesty is a daily struggle there's always a part of me that wants to embellish the story just the slightest bit to make myself look better or to make an excuse for bad behavior now I try hard to fight that urge although difficult in practice this handy little tool telling the truth is amazingly within our reach anyone can wake up on any given day and decide today I won't lie about anything

and in doing so not just change their individual lives for the better but maybe even change the world thanks for watching this episode of after skool if you want to learn more you might try my book dopamine Nation finding balance in the age of indulgence [Music]