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Masochism
139 Plays11 months ago
In this episode, Grant and Fara discuss the topic of masochism. They explore what it means, how it shows up in our social media habits during difficult times, its connection to "doom scrolling", and strategies for coping with our potentially masochistic tendencies as we prioritize our mental health.
We hope you enjoy.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Themes
00:00:00
Speaker
It's kind of spicy like in the business world people like that was a little spicy but we kind of like spicy food but you don't want it to be too spicy but some people are just like i want to eat the spiciest thing possible. Hello i'm dr fair white and i'm dr grant brenner.
00:00:17
Speaker
We're psychiatrists and therapists in private practice in New York. We started this podcast in 2019 to draw attention to a phenomenon called the doorknob comment.
Doorknob Comments and Expressing Emotions
00:00:26
Speaker
Doorknob comments are important things we all say from time to time just as we're leaving the office, sometimes literally hand on the doorknob.
00:00:34
Speaker
Doorknob comments happen not only during therapy, but also in everyday life. The point is that sometimes we aren't sure how to express the deeply meaningful things we're feeling, thinking, and experiencing. Maybe we're afraid to bring certain things out into the open or are on the fence about wanting to discuss them. Sometimes we know we've got something we're unsure about sharing and are keeping it to ourselves. And sometimes we surprise ourselves by what comes out.
00:01:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Doorknob Comments podcast. I'm Grant Hilary Brenner and I'm here with my co-host Farrah
Exploring Masochism in Daily Life
00:01:06
Speaker
White. Today we're going to talk about a challenging but important subject, masochism. Especially, though we can't promise not to widen our discussion when it comes to social media engagement during times of strife and adversity. So Farrah, should we define masochism?
00:01:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think there are a lot of different sort of connotations that it takes on. And we're specifically talking about it in this one way right now, or this is how we intend to talk about it, right? So masochism is sort of thought of as the seeking out of pain for the purpose of pleasure.
00:01:47
Speaker
It's a sort of gratification and can take a lot of different forms, right? We can be masochistic in the bedroom or masochistic in the boardroom, right? Taking on too much and keeping ourselves up at night for really the purpose of being overworked.
00:02:08
Speaker
Can I ask a question? How is pain pleasurable ever? Like a lot of people are gonna hear that and go, that doesn't make any sense. So could you just elaborate on that part of it a little bit, what we mean by that, even psychoanalytically?
00:02:21
Speaker
You know, I think that in some ways, and for some people right there, is this unconscious. It's not always fully conscious, right? Which is why it gets played out in these different ways. Most people are not gonna say to someone random, hey, slap me across the face, I'd really like that, right? It's going to be a more subversive and private sort of drive and desire.
00:02:48
Speaker
So as often as operating either out of awareness or sometimes I think people have a kind of side-eye awareness of their masochism where I trained, like we talked, right, Freud talked about things being unconscious, like you're not aware of it or repressed. But we also talked about something called selective inattention.
Psychological and Biological Perspectives on Pain and Pleasure
00:03:08
Speaker
Like you kind of know it's there, but everyone pretends it's not there.
00:03:13
Speaker
But at the core is that sometimes, and this is what I'm really trying to get at is how is pain pleasurable? Why is a little bit of discomfort or distress enhances certain experiences, right? Or is necessary to enjoy them? And then there's the extreme kind of pathological masochism or like malignant masochism where that little bit of needing things to be tough
00:03:41
Speaker
in order to enjoy them fully turns into something really self-destructive or full like full self-hatred kind of thing. Yeah. And that's what I think is interesting about, you know, the idea of self-hatred and maybe masochism sort of indulges that a little bit for people who are uncomfortable, just feeling pleasure or feeling peace. They need that other side.
00:04:09
Speaker
of the pain along with it in order to be able to process it and to accept it. Yeah, there's a kind of a superficial way that people are like, well, you can't experience the joy without feeling the sadness, but that's not quite the same. Why might someone get off on being slapped? Why do you think?
00:04:30
Speaker
Well, I know that there may be some differences in how the pain response system processes endorphins, opioids, like medications like heroin or OxyContin. And there are some times that people, for example, who enjoy self-mutilation, cutting themselves, or find it a relief or pleasurable, have some kind of biological processing that is different from the way other people do. Pain is meant to be
00:04:59
Speaker
from an evolutionary point of view, a signal, right? You avoid pain because it's associated with tissue damage. And so there's a way where rationally, like masochism, doesn't quite make sense. Psychoanalytically or psychologically, you know, I'm hard pressed to explain it in a way. Oh, well, I think you just gave a good physiological explanation, right? But is there, and I guess that's what you were getting at, you wanted to
00:05:29
Speaker
listeners to know, and I think it's important that they know that these things that they feel compelled to do aren't actually that inexplicable. It's sort of like, I don't know whether it's pronounced pika or pika,
00:05:44
Speaker
eating non-food material. Yeah, like eating chalk, eating cardboard. Starch is the common one. In certain parts of the United States, people eat starch or cornstarch particularly. Right. And a lot of people develop it during pregnancy, but it's actually, then they found that those impulses are really part of the body's desire to regulate something.
00:06:10
Speaker
they were able to find it in blood work, right? So there is a physiological- Like it might be a missing vitamin that you can get from dirt or hurt something.
00:06:19
Speaker
Well, there's another thing is, well, maybe pain or even abuse or mistreatment of some sort was part of an early relationship with someone loving, or at least upon whom one had an absolute dependency like a parent. And it may be that at an early, early developmental stage, and this is more psychoanalytic or developmental, that pain and love got associated.
00:06:44
Speaker
And that can have like a meaning level of it, which is more like, what does it mean? It could also have like a classical conditioning, like they just got paired like stimulus and response in a Pavlovian sense. And so that in adulthood, unless the person kind of works through it, then they will equate being mistreated with being loved, for example.
00:07:06
Speaker
I'm not sure how that would come up with things like S&M, where, you know, people enjoy that. But there is something about pain that's not too intense, which people seem to seek out. Maybe there's an evolutionary element to that, too, where pain is part of exploration. And so if you don't feel any pain ever, then it means you're stagnant. Yeah, that's a possibility that you're missing out on certain experiences, right? Because certain experiences are by nature.
00:07:35
Speaker
Dating is one of them. And I think a lot of people try to avoid it or they try to sort of modulate it, protect themselves in these different ways. Because I do think that when people feel like an out of control, kind of like surprising, something that they didn't expect, they do end up going into shock. And I think particularly for people who have a history of trauma or have
00:08:05
Speaker
let's say, inherited trauma. Intergenerational trauma from stuff that happened to their parents or their parents' parents or their whole clan.
Masochism's Role in Society and Relationships
00:08:16
Speaker
There can be this idea of some safety and suffering.
00:08:23
Speaker
We're learning and suffering, right? Like for me, my religious upbringing, we were taught to be aware of ways that we could get hurt again. And that was painful to learn it. But there's something about pain which is part of learning where pain can be a signpost in a way. You know, if you work out, there's like good pain and bad pain. The good pain is kind of like, oh, my muscles are sore. That's great. The bad pain is like, I think I need to have my Achilles tendon reattached.
00:08:54
Speaker
And you kind of don't always know the difference. We don't always know when it's too much and when it's sort of adaptive. But there's a kind of, there's a reason we feel pain and there's a reason we sometimes are open to it. But is that masochism? You know, I almost think, I wonder if you agree if by definition masochism is problematic, just because the term is a pathologized term. Is there healthy masochism?
00:09:23
Speaker
Well, it's a pathologized term, but I don't think that it is by nature problematic. I think if we look at every individual and let's say society at large, right, we're sort of composed of like a masochistic side, but then also on the other hand, like a sadistic side. Sadism is really sort of the opposite. It's sort of the enjoyment of inflicting pain.
00:09:53
Speaker
being the one who slaps people around or teases or bullies, although I guess the sort of motivation for bullies is probably very complex. But I think sometimes people, even in loving relationships, will be a little masochistic or a little bit sadistic.
00:10:16
Speaker
It's kind of spicy. Like in the business world, people are like, that was a little spicy. But we kind of like spicy food, but you don't want it to be too spicy. But some people are just like, I want to eat the spiciest thing possible. And they really love that. And that probably has a biological element as well as a psychological kind of whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And I think there's another quote from Nietzsche, which is like, I have given a name to my pain. And that name is dog.
00:10:45
Speaker
in the sense that pain is kind of you can count on it, and in a sense it's safe if you assume the worst, then there's a way where you're not going to be disappointed. And any Nietzsche scholars, if I got that wrong, please, you know, let us know. But I think that's right. So how does that pertain to the terrible things that are happening in the world today?
00:11:05
Speaker
and something like doom scrolling. And I know there's like a basic thing as a disaster psychiatrist. We say like, don't spend too much time reading the news. And there's a term from cognitive behavioral therapy called symptom prescription. Like we need to keep tabs on what's going on. So spend no more than 10 minutes twice a day reading the news. So you stay up to date. We need to know, but don't do it more than that because it will make you feel a lot worse.
Global Events and Mental Health
00:11:30
Speaker
What do you think about doom scrolling? Is that masochistic or when is it masochistic?
00:11:36
Speaker
I think it can become masochistic. I don't know that we need to say more than there's just a lot of horrible stuff happening in the world. And so this is more how do we sort of take care of ourselves and manage to function through all of this because it can be really debilitating for people. And I know that
00:11:59
Speaker
It's, you know, I'm not in the greatest place ever. I know that my practice has been really busy. So people are not coping. And I think that is evident by, you know, everything that we're seeing. Right. So masochism could be a form of coping and it could be adaptive or maladaptive to an extent. Yeah. And I think it can also be
00:12:24
Speaker
sort of, yeah, brought on by the intense guilt that a lot of the intense guilt, the self hatred that a lot of people maybe in this country feel for being physically safe, right? So we're physically okay. Most people who are listening to this probably feel safe in their homes or they have enough food to eat. And
00:12:51
Speaker
That's a hard thing to make sense of when we know that not everyone in this world experiences that. You could feel like that all the time, right? And that's one of the reasons why I do a fair amount of volunteer work, because any given day there's terrible things happening all the time. And we learn to tune it out. We dissociate. I live in Manhattan. There's not a day that I don't walk by someone who is just abjectly suffering.
00:13:21
Speaker
And I usually think about it, like, what can I do? And there's no good answer. Giving people food, that's OK. Giving people money, you can question that, supporting a charity, unclear if it helps. But when something like the war in the Middle East comes up,
00:13:40
Speaker
And it's not just a war because there's a war in Russian Ukraine, which people organized around. This, for a lot of people, hits closer to home for different reasons. But that sense of guilt can be there and even a sense of shame or self-disgust, self-hatred. And I know a lot of people who have actually traveled to the Middle East, both
00:14:02
Speaker
on both sides of the conflict who feel an obligation to go there themselves for different reasons. And then there's people here who aren't doing that, who think about doing it. I heard about a psychiatrist who went off. And again, I know that's true for both sides of this particular conflict.
00:14:21
Speaker
for Jewish or Israeli people, as well as for Palestinian Arab people wanting to go and help out, and then people here sort of being guilty. But I'm not sure if that's exactly the same as the kind of general doom scrolling that sort of, you know, people have been talking about for years and years and years, though I would say any conflict in the Middle East
00:14:43
Speaker
has special meaning because of the sum total of human history. That part of the world has been a source of conflict since before recorded history. In a certain sense, it's kind of like the belly button of
00:14:59
Speaker
the planet in a way where Eastern Europe, not to take anything away from the suffering there, but Eastern Europe doesn't hold the same significance as Israel and Jerusalem does. It's the seat of multiple world religions, and the Middle East in general is also the seat of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
00:15:20
Speaker
Buddhism is not there, thankfully. I don't know what we would do if all the other religions claim the same spot. But it definitely hits a much deeper nerve for our global consciousness, in my opinion. And so the risk of masochism and sadism is greatly amplified, I would say, for that reason alone. But it makes it harder to stay off the phone, because it's so important.
00:15:46
Speaker
for sure. But I also think that when people feel this connection, like exactly what you're talking about, they also feel, I think, at least this is what I've been hearing, they feel an obligation and a pull, right? And it feels not
00:16:08
Speaker
right to stay quiet, not right to disengage. And so it's like, how do we determine what the correct level of engagement is here? I think the answer is that everyone individually has to determine it for themselves and has to know also within themselves what happens if we read a detail
00:16:37
Speaker
or see a video or hear something that is seriously disturbing.
Guilt, Shame, and Emotional Relief through Masochism
00:16:44
Speaker
Well, yeah, and so masochism might be a useful concept. Freud, this is from 1924 or earlier even, 1900, proposed the term mental masochism. And here's the quote, for people who find their pleasure not in having physical pain inflicted on them, but in humiliation and mental torture.
00:17:08
Speaker
And so there's a difference between physical pain and mental masochism. And to me, that fits what we're talking about, particularly if you're saying there's some guilt. And guilt demands what? There's one thing that alleviates guilt, which is punishment.
00:17:26
Speaker
And I've heard a lot of, you know, in the psychoanalytic sort of discussion, one of the differences between guilt and shame is that guilt sort of has a solution, which is punishment. If you're punished, then you're relieved of guilt, though it can come back obviously, especially if the punishment doesn't fit the crime.
00:17:47
Speaker
Or if there's an ongoing, you know, insult, like, you know, the only thing that would really make me feel better is to go do what I think I should do. And then there's a sense of shame, which is a social emotion. And shame is really important for learning often. But if shame is sort of used wrong,
00:18:05
Speaker
It can be used to humiliate, and then that has a corrosive effect on a person's self-esteem and sense of self. It leads to narcissistic injury, and then the person may end up really hating themselves. And as you know, Freud talked about that as having
00:18:23
Speaker
like an overly critical super ego, the super ego being the internalized morality, typically of the parents, but also of the society. So masochism may provide a relief from many of those negative emotions in the form of deserved self punishment. Right.
Social Media Engagement and Mental Health
00:18:44
Speaker
And I guess the thing, I mean, all this makes sense, but
00:18:52
Speaker
You're like, what do I do to get relief? Right. I think like titrating it to make sure that the punishment matches the crime, right? Let's say the crime for us is being safe or being whatever, fill in the blank.
00:19:11
Speaker
Well, I think, I mean, part of the shame might be being safe and that might feel something like cowardice. The crime might be not standing up, not fighting. And that would be true regardless of, you know, whose team you're rooting for or which team you're on. Letting the group down, which is a terrible crime. Yeah.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think we can look at it on a lot of different levels, but I think if we're going to engage in that way, I think bringing this into awareness, meaning what am I feeling? Am I feeling shame? Am I feeling guilt? I'm reaching for my phone and what is my emotional state? Like before I open up whatever social media news app,
00:20:04
Speaker
and really checking in with ourselves, I think. What is my emotional state? Also, what is my motivation? So if you have the concept of masochism and you have conscious about it, which hopefully people can be, and you're reflecting on your experience in the moment, then you can ask a number of different questions that will expand your ability to make
00:20:30
Speaker
choices. One of them is, what am I feeling? You know, is this impulsive? A specific question might be, am I doing this because I feel guilty? Is this a way for me to sort of make myself feel better by maybe punishing myself, but also maybe by keeping up to date on what's happening? Certainly with uncertainty, getting information is helpful. That's another motivator, right? I want to know what's going on. And then you can ask yourself, at what point am I checking too often?
00:20:59
Speaker
Right. And then it no longer can rationalize to myself that it's out of utility. Right because people think it's very important a lot of the times that they know and that they stay informed.
00:21:12
Speaker
It occurs to me that grief and sadness is part of it as well. There's a form of ongoing grief as we wonder what happened if there are new losses, like when we find out that, you know, Gazans have died or hostages or soldiers are dying. And so I think there's a piece about sadness, grief and loss. But there's also a kind of a spectator piece of it, which is,
00:21:39
Speaker
I think harder to identify when there's a sensationalism. And we're drawn to like, you know, hear about bad news. There's a kind of what is it called schadenfreude, kind of guilty pleasure, which may have a masochistic element. Right. I think if people are really feeling that
00:22:02
Speaker
Let me just illustrate that though. So for example, on one hand, regardless of who I'm rooting for or what I believe is right and wrong, when I read the news, there's going to be some things that might make me outraged and feel pain. But even when I see destruction taking place against the outgroup, whatever that outgroup is for me, then you can feel pleasure that your enemy is being destroyed.
00:22:31
Speaker
Of course, that can be very complicated, particularly when it's not so clear kind of who is the enemy and who is, you know, an innocent. And so these things obviously get very complicated when you try to think about, like, why am I reading the news more than, you know, the public service announcement recommends. Yeah. And also what do I intend to do with that information? Such as?
00:22:59
Speaker
Like, am I going to share it and engage with people and try to change people's minds or do I want to sort of be in a position of distributing this
00:23:14
Speaker
type of knowledge. I think like on social media or texting it to a friend. And for what purpose? I think it feels really good for people to sort of mobilize. And we see like a lot of the stuff that's happening in the forms of protests and marches as as really important. I look at it like, OK, well, what what do
00:23:40
Speaker
does someone need to be able to process this? And sometimes they need to process it with others.
00:23:46
Speaker
Well, yeah, in some collective way. And we have social media. So, you know, people can find me on X or what used to be called Twitter at Grant H. Brenner MD. And what I see on Twitter is really, there's maybe four or five different trends, right? One of them are the people who post things supporting their view, which is one side or the other side. Another are people who are kind of calling for global compassion.
00:24:14
Speaker
and who aren't really taking sides. And maybe they have their own personal view, but they're not leading with that on social media. And a lot of times what people are posting is information that they want to share because they imagine that it will be convincing that they're
00:24:32
Speaker
you know, that they're right and the other side is wrong. And then, of course, you see people say, oh, well, that's a deep fake, right? That's photoshopped. And you hear that about both sides of any conflict. You know, that person is lying. They made it up. And then you see people who are just kind of not not addressing that at all. But certainly that what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me. And social media can create a sense of community that would be much harder to get, for example.
00:24:59
Speaker
though, of course, it can also be harmful and misleading. Yeah, I guess that's the other thing that I'm curious about. And I don't know if you have any answers or if we need to like tap an expert for this. But like if social media, you know, which is where a lot of this stuff plays out, if that were helpful and that were actually moving us closer to like a more peaceful and evolved like
00:25:29
Speaker
world, then why does every single study show that it's super damaging to our mental health? I would say it's actually maybe not accurate that every single study shows it's damaging because that's not my experience. I actually remember seeing a study of how social media was used for a large community
00:25:54
Speaker
involved with forest fires where sharing information was actually helpful. I had read a study where social media was actually useful, where social media was used to share actionable information and not just for a sense of community, which is useful for people for support. That's a key factor with resilience. Our interview with John DiPiero on resilience really highlights how important community is.
00:26:19
Speaker
but social media can be additionally useful if it has actionable, useful information and advice. And so when I post on my account at Grant H. Brenner MD on Twitter, I try to post useful perspectives, though some of it is more kind of like venting. And if we all collectively agreed on doing that, that would be great, but that's not the case. You can advocate for that on Twitter or X as it's called, but not everyone's going to go along with it.
00:26:49
Speaker
And some people may actually try to undermine that. Right, right, right. I do feel like given what you just said, when people go to post or they go to respond, you know, to think for themselves, is this actionable or useful in any way, right? What is this, what need does this fulfill?
00:27:13
Speaker
Right? I think you also have to ask yourself to that how am I feeling question is at times like this a lot of people feel quite despairing and hopeless and helpless. Even things that during ordinary times they might have a more kind of balanced view of they kind of go that's not going to make a difference.
00:27:31
Speaker
And the human brain has a tendency to focus on the negatives anyway. And right now we do have a tendency to focus on or valence the negatives even more. And it's very hard to come in sort of with a call to kind of keep things in perspective and be optimistic.
A Compassionate Future and Human Tendencies
00:27:48
Speaker
because that can be hurtful and offensive to a lot of people. You certainly have to acknowledge the horror that's taking place all around, not just for the people directly involved, but really for sort of anyone who's aware of what's going on or almost anyone just feels awful about what's happening around the world. If you're compassionate, there's people who are sociopathic and sadistic who won't feel that way. That's a small percent, but it's always going to be there.
00:28:12
Speaker
But what I want to say is I'm thinking about Steve Pinker. Okay, Steve Pinker. Do you know who that is? Mm hmm. Writer, philosopher. He wrote that book that like things are good. Is that the?
00:28:25
Speaker
He wrote a book called The Better Angels of Our Nature. And he makes a case based on research that over the years, things have notably gotten better. And anyway, if you listen to his debate, and I listened to it again, I was at the original debate years ago with Robert J. Lifton, who had a piece in The New Yorker that was excellent.
00:28:47
Speaker
Robert J. Lifton studied evil and they debated at the New School several years ago. I attended that in person. It was really awesome. And Steve Pinker acknowledges these negatives. He does not appear to be actually downplaying it, but he does want people to understand that societies more and more have applied kind of the rule of law and that things have gotten way better. And you could even say that about what's happening in Ukraine and in the Middle East, that we have a much lower tolerance
00:29:17
Speaker
So the wars of the last century, tens of millions of people died. And then by the Korean War and the Vietnam War, we had much lower casualties, civilian and combatants. And in the wars of this century, we are completely aghast when it's in the thousands.
00:29:36
Speaker
And so our tolerance for human destruction and suffering has gone way down. At the same time, our horror has gone way up, which makes sense. It should go up. We should feel more horror and more of a desire to address smaller and smaller problems as things get better. But that's not going to make make anyone feel great, to say the least.
00:30:00
Speaker
No, but I guess it's good to know that people are horrified. And we're horrified more by less of an insult. And so my hope is that what comes out of this is a commitment to a more compassionate future for society and for humankind.
00:30:27
Speaker
That would require a real collective recognition. Correct. And you could say, well, the way that human beings learn collectively and individually, right? You know, you and I probably know this.
00:30:40
Speaker
But we see people who have trouble changing, because we're therapists and clinicians. But in general, people seem to wait until things get worse than they need to be or they should be. So the human capacity for denial or whatever you want to call it, and maybe masochism is a part of this. Maybe we're too masochistic as a species, so we accept or even enjoy too much pain. It would be way better if we would
00:31:09
Speaker
decide to change things before it got close to what feels like the edge, right? The, whether the doomsday clock is, you know, a minute from midnight or whatever, and that word doom, right? Doom scrolling, doomsday clock, it speaks to the fear of extinction.
00:31:29
Speaker
And one thing that I'm fond of tweeting is that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a comet, but the biggest threat that we face, barring some kind of natural disaster like that, is ourselves. Whether it's through our own destructiveness or whether we create AI, which turns on us, though there's no guarantee that it will.
00:31:54
Speaker
My advice for the people who are creating AI is please don't give AI sadomasochistic tendencies and safeguard against it. And please don't train AI to use denial. Well, yeah, maybe then after we fix those bugs in AI, we can fix that.
00:32:16
Speaker
Is it a bug or a feature? You know, what got us here won't get us there. And this is maybe another podcast, but you can ask how come evolution has sort of wired us for conflict like this? We probably needed it to survive because we really did have to like fight with each other for scarce resources. My view is there's really the world is very rich.
00:32:35
Speaker
If we wanted to, we could really make a great place for everyone.
Closing Remarks and Self-care Suggestions
00:32:39
Speaker
We'd have to stop building weapons and we'd have to be really wise and thoughtful about how we move forward together. And it's not really clear how to do that, but I'll keep tweeting. I'll keep tweeting it. What about you? Any advice for listeners? No, to just be mindful and take care of themselves. Understand that you might not be able
00:33:04
Speaker
I think it can feel dangerous to come too close to others, but you might not be able to process some of this alone. So to sort of find those pathways and find the safe people and the compassionate people and stick with them.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think I agree. And in terms of self-care, I think it is important for people to be thoughtful and reflective and try to be resilient, look for ways to help that work and sort of not fall into despair too much.
00:33:39
Speaker
but also to honor the despair and the grief and the needless destruction, and to try as much as possible to empathize with sort of shared humanity while also sticking with what you believe is right. All right, guys. All right, thank you for listening.
00:33:59
Speaker
Yeah, you can find us at www.doorknobcomments.com. And we're also on X, aka Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, at Doorknob Comments. And we look forward to hearing from you. Please stay safe and most compassionate wishes for everyone. Remember, the Doorknob Comments podcast is not medical advice. If you may be in need of professional assistance, please seek consultation without delay.