The New Man 138: Stutz and Michels – The Tools That Stop Negative Thoughts

Phil Stutz and Barry Michels are "Hollywood psychologists," with a new book out, The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower--and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion. Tripp Lanier spoke with them on the New Man Podcast a couple of weeks ago - here is that conversation.

TNM 138: Stutz and Michels – The Tools That Stop Negative Thoughts

25 JUNE 2013

Podcast: Download

Do you ever get negative thoughts that you just can’t seem to shake?

Do you get all fired up to make a change but then eventually end up quitting?

And are you hoping that one day you’ll have all this crap figured out and you won’t have to worry about it anymore?

Phil Stutz and Barry Michels are here to discuss The Tools that’ll pull your butt out of a rut and share how these tools have helped other guys do some amazing things. Is it too good to be true? Let’s find out.

In this interview:

• A tool to beat procrastination
• How to let go of a grudge
• What to do if you’ve lost your temper
• How to stop freezing up in social situations
• Making peace with the parts you want to hide from the world

Also:

• How to get out of the worry and negative thinking spiral
• What to do when you quit and feel like crap
• The hidden expectation that is driving us nuts
• How to stop being a personal development jackass
• The two demons that kill your motivation
• When thinking screws things up

And:

• A story about a guy who “had it all” and then hit the wall
• How did he bounce back?

Click here to learn more about The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels.

About Phil Stutz and Barry Michels

From Studio360.org:

Phil Stutz and Barry Michels are Hollywood psychologists with a roster of A-list clients. “Especially among the actors, you have people where no one’s told them the truth ever for the last eight years, 12 years — literally never,” Stutz tells Kurt Andersen. “We tell them the truth about who they are, both the strong points and the weaknesses,” Michels explains. “And we’re pretty brutal about the weaknesses, because we want people to change.” Stutz and Michels have shared what they’ve learned with the stars in a book geared to the rest of us: The Tools.

Their tactics combine Jungian analysis with cognitive behavioral therapy. One chapter deals with what Jung called the Shadow. “Everybody has a piece of them that’s insecure — everybody,” Stutz tells Kurt. “It’s not particularly rational and you can’t get rid of it.” When, for example, a screenwriter sabotages his pitch at an important meeting, it may be because he or she is trying to hide the Shadow. Instead, Stutz and Michels say, the screenwriter needs to visualize this “shameful” persona, make friends with it, and enlist its aid in judgmental situations. “Although most people think of their Shadows as the source of their insecurity, if you can change your relationship with your Shadow, it becomes the source of your confidence,” Michels says.

The pair started their careers about as far from celebrity as you can get: Michels as a lawyer with political ambitions, Stutz as a prison psychiatrist at New York’s Rikers Island. In prison, Stutz explains, what you say is nowhere near as important as what you do and how you communicate non-verbally. “There’s a whole level of communication that, within psychotherapy, is not usually dealt with.”

Click here to learn more about The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels.

Rebecca Hazleden - Dragon-slayers and Jealous Rats: The Gendered Self in Contemporary Self-help Manuals

 
This is an intriguing essay from Rebecca Hazelden that appeared in the March, 2011, issue of the Cultural Studies Review Journal. Hazeldon looks at some of the variations of the gendered self that one finds in self-help books and argues that they are more accurately seen as political variations of the nature of the self than representations of patriarchal vs. feminist gender roles.

I don't agree with some of her assertions, but in general this is a better approach than to see everything as gendered - sometimes gender beliefs reflect more about political agendas than anything else.

Dragon-slayers and Jealous Rats: The Gendered Self in Contemporary Self-help Manuals

Rebecca Hazleden

Abstract

This article traces two broad discourses concerning gender in a selection of relationship manuals from 1974 to 2004. On the one hand are manuals promoting traditional gender roles, and on the other are those that promote financial and emotional independence for women.(1) In contrast to other analyses, I argue that these approaches cannot be categorised into a simplistic dichotomy of ‘feminist’ and ‘patriarchal,’ but that they are better understood as being bound up with conservative and liberal discourses of the self. I further demonstrate that these approaches both assume and require types of self that are somewhat removed from their historical antecedents and should be understood as neo variants. 

Full Citation:

Hazelden, R. (2011, Mar). Dragon-slayers and Jealous Rats: The Gendered Self in Contemporary Self-help Manuals. Cultural Studies Review, Vol 17, No 1; pp. 270–95.

 
The abstract also functions as the first paragraph of the paper, so here are the next two paragraphs, which form a bit of an introduction.

Although
 the 
term 
‘bestseller’ 
is 
hard 
to 
define, 
it 
is 
likely 
that 
each 
book 
in this
 study
 at
 some
 point
 held
 the
 position
 of
 best‐selling
 therapeutic
 relationship
 manual 
in 
the 
United
 States, 
and 
often 
also 
throughout 
the
 world.(2)
 By 
‘therapeutic
 relationship
 manual’,
 I
 mean
 a
 book
 grounded
 in
 popular
 psychology
 that
 has
 the
 putative
 aim 
of 
aiding 
the 
reader 
in
 developing 
and 
managing
 more
 harmonious 
and
 fulfilling 
intimate 
romantic
 relationships.
 This 
is
 a 
popular
 format 
that 
encompasses hundreds of 
new 
titles
 each 
year,
 as
 well
 as
 having
 produced
 some 
of
 the
 enduring
 classics 
of 
self‐help—the
 therapeutic 
relationship
 manuals 
in
 this 
study
 are 
all 
still in
 print, 
with 
the
 exception 
of 
Marabel 
Morgan’s 
The 
Total 
Woman. 
Books 
offering
 advice
 on
 finding
 a
 partner
 were
 excluded,
 as
 were
 dating,
 etiquette,
 household‐management 
and 
sex
 manuals.(3)
 There 
is
 a
 certain
 amount
 of
 diversity 
between
 these
 books
 and
 I
 do
 not
 claim
 that
 all
 relationship
 manuals
 fall
 into
 the
 two
 categories
 used 
here,
 or
 that 
all 
books 
within 
a 
category 
are 
consistent 
with 
each 
other. 
Neither do
 I
 imply
 that
 readers
 simply
 accept
 and
 absorb
 the
 intended
 messages
 within
 these
 texts.
 Numerous
 studies
 have
 been
 made
 demonstrating
 that
 women
 read
 sceptically,
 interpretively
 and
 resistingly.(4)
 Nonetheless,
 the
 unabated
 proliferation
 of
 self‐help 
books 
and 
the
 saturation 
of
 our
 culture 
by 
psy 
truths 
tell 
us 
something important
 about
 our
 values,
 both
 on
 the
 societal
 level
 and,
 as
 self‐help
 books
 are
 increasingly
 translated
 into 
numerous 
languages 
and 
spread
 across
 the 
world,
 at
 a global 
level 
as 
well.(5)
 As
 Elias
 has 
pointed 
out, 
an 
advice 
book
 has 
to 
relay 
a 
message with
 which
 its
 audience
 can
 identify.(6)
 In
 other
 words,
 the
 prescriptions
 and
 proscriptions
 within
 self‐help
 are
 ‘already
 constituted’ 
realities
 for
 the
 readers.(7)


It 
is 
also 
important
 to
 acknowledge 
that
 women
 overwhelmingly 
constitute
 the 
readership. 
Relationship 
manuals
 are 
usually 
aimed
 at 
women
 and 
women 
are more
 likely
 to
 purchase
 and
 read
 them.(8)
 Some
 self‐help
 authors
 even
 assert
 that
 men 
are 
uninterested 
in 
self‐help:
 ‘Men
 don’t 
read
 magazines 
like 
Psychology
 Today,
 Self,
 or
 People’
 because
 ‘they
 are
 more
 concerned
 with
 outdoor
 activities,
 like
 hunting, 
fishing,
 and 
racing 
cars 
…
 and
 couldn’t
 care 
less 
about 
…
 self‐help 
books’.(9)
 One 
author 
includes 
a 
small 
section, 
near
 the 
end 
of 
his 
book, 
which
 he
 encourages
 his 
readers 
to 
show 
to 
their 
partners 
and 
begins 
‘I’m 
assuming
 that
 this 
letter 
is 
the first 
thing
 you’re
 reading 
in 
this 
book 
…
 give 
me 
three
 minutes 
to 
talk 
to 
you
 man 
to man’.(10)
 That
 the
 presumed
 audience
 is
 gendered
 is
 of
 crucial
 importance,
 because
 the
 ‘injunction
 to
 understand 
one’s 
life,’
 or 
one’s
 self,
‘ for
 example
 as
 an 
autonomous
 individual
 …
 can
 come
 to
 mean
 something
 entirely different when we look across the designations of ... gender and sexuality.(11)

Here are a few more paragraphs that get into the role of feminism in self-help - and how this becomes a political issue as much as or more than a psychological self-help issue.

In
 the
 1970s,
 a
 new
 feminist
 model
 of
 sexuality
 began
 to
 appear—that
 of
 individualistic
 sexual
 autonomy.
 Sex
 manuals
 began
 to
 focus
 on
 the
 private
 sexual
 experience
 of
 women:
 ‘It
 is
 a
 very
 self‐centred
 experience
 …
 your
 focus
 must
 be
 solely
 on
 your
 sexual
 stimuli
 and
 whatever
 increases
 it’;
 ‘you
 must
 assume
 responsibility
 for
 your
 own
 sexual
 pleasure’.28
 This
 outlook
 saw
 orgasm
 as
 a
 right,
 and
 a
 product
 of
 learning,
 not
 of
 instinct.
 It
 was
 argued
 at
 the
 time
 that
 placing
 a
 strong 
emphasis 
on 
non‐coital 
techniques
 rendered 
the 
man 
dispensable 
to 
female
 pleasure,
 further
 reinforcing
 women’s
 sexual
 independence.29
 This
 latter
 view
 politicises
 female 
sexual 
autonomy,
 on
 a 
model 
of
 sex
 among
 equals.30
 Sex
 began
 to be 
understood 
as 
part 
of
 the
 total
 life 
experience—competence 
and 
independence
 in
 sexuality
 were 
to 
be 
attained
 as 
part 
of 
a 
broader,
 more
 general 
social
 pattern,
 and
 sex 
manuals 
promised 
that
 this 
type 
of 
sexuality 
would
 pay 
off
 in
 other
 areas
 of 
life
 as 
well.31
 These 
sexual
 relations 
both 
reflected 
and
 produced
 more 
general 
cultural
 attitudes
 and
 values,
 stripping
 away
 the
 moral,
 sentimental
 and
 romantic
 notions
 that
 had
 surrounded
 female
 sexuality.
 They
 made
 respectable
 the
 unmarried
 sexually
 active
 woman,
 giving
 women
 more
 freedom
 to
 leave
 unsatisfactory
 partners.32
 At
 the
 same 
time, 
however,
 women 
became
 obliged 
to
 be
 actively 
sexual
 beings 
in
 a 
way 
that
 they 
had 
not 
before.33
 That 
is, 
women
 were
 now
 obliged 
to 
be
 free
 with 
their 
sexuality—competent,
 skilled,
 proficient 
in 
their 
own 
pleasure, 
multi‐orgasmic—and
 open
 to  new
 pathologies
 of
 frigidity,
 emotional
 over‐sensitivity,
 dependence
 and
 sexual
 dysfunction.
 These
 new
 capacities
 required
 new
 interventions: 
self‐interrogation,
 self‐examination
 and
 work
 upon 
the
 self.34 
Indeed,
 the
 obligation
 to
 work
 on
 oneself
 was
 adopted
 by
 many
 feminist
 writers,
 such
 as
 Susie
 Orbach,
 for
 whom
 feminist
 self‐improvement
 and
 self‐liberation
 included
 investigating,
 nurturing
 and
 developing 
the
 inner 
self.35


By 
the 
late
 1980s, 
self‐regard 
and 
self‐liberation 
had
 become 
an 
imperative
 in
 self‐help 
to 
the 
extent
 that 
women
 who 
did
 not
 prioritise 
their 
own
 self‐fulfilment
 were
 characterised
 as
 psychologically
 disordered—’loving
 too
 much’
 or
 co‐dependent.36 
I
 have 
discussed 
this
 phenomenon 
elsewhere, 
but
 will
 mention 
that
 co‐dependence 
can 
be 
characterised 
as 
a
 pathologisation 
of 
femininity, 
or 
as 
a 
reverse
 discourse 
with
 the
 potential 
to 
liberate 
women 
from 
positions
 of 
subordination.37
 In
 this 
latter
 view,
 women 
use 
expertise
 to 
liberate
 themselves
 in 
opposition
 to 
their
 putative 
feminine
 nature—or 
at 
least 
to 
furnish
 themselves
 with 
a 
limited
 space
 in
 which
 they 
can 
refuse 
to 
play 
their 
appropriate
 gendered 
role.38



In
 her
 classic
 study
 of
 relationship
 manuals,
 Hochschild
 bemoans
 the
 tendency
 of
 1980s
 and
 1990s’
 self‐help
 to
 exercise
 a
 general
 ‘paradigm
 of
 [emotional]
 caution’.
 She
 suggests 
that
 feminism 
may be 
‘escaping 
from
 the 
cage’ 
of
 a
 social 
movement,
 to 
endorse
 and
 develop
 a
 capitalist 
ethos 
of
 private 
life
 that
 is
 foreign
 to 
its 
original 
aims 
and 
that 
is 
emotionally
 barren. 
She 
argues
 they 
allow
 ‘the
 worst
 of
 capitalist
 culture
 to
 establish
 the
 cultural
 basis
 of
 the
 struggle
 for
 equality’.39
 While Hochschild 
sees
 a
 paradox 
between 
what
 she 
calls 
the
 emotional
 ‘warmth’
 and
 the
 ‘patriarchy’
 of
 the
 ‘traditional’
 books,
 and
 is
 surprised
 by
 the
 emotional
 ‘coolness’
 of
 the
 approach
 she
 calls
 ‘feminist’,
 these
 are
 part
 of
 a
 long
 tradition
 of
 such
 tensions
 within the debate about the nature and role of women—a point to which I shall return.

There are a handful of myths in the world (well, mostly on the internet so people think they are true) about supposed differences between men and women, especially concerning our brains. This brief article from Christian Jarrett, Ph.D (editor of the British Psychological Society's Research Digest blog and staff writer on their magazine The Psychologist) at his Psychology Today blog, Brain Myths, tries to clear up some misunderstandings.

There is a related series of myths about language use in men and women, many of them created and/or perpetuated by John Gray, the &%$@# behind the whole men are Martians and women are Venusians stupidity. Dr. Yvonne K. Fulbright debunked this nonsense in a column at Huffington Post last year - I have included it below.

One of the really stupid myths that won't go away (I've seen it in academic gender studies articles) is that women use way more words per day than men. Louann Brizendine, author of  The Female Brain, is often quoted on her assertion that women speak an average of 20,000 words per day, while men speak a paltry 7,000 words per day (but it's only sloppy research on her part, the myth goes back 15 or more years). An article from Scientific American dispels the myth emphatically.

As you may notice, this is one topic that infuriates me - Gray and others generate fortunes making this stuff up and people are so uneducated in science and psychology that they believe it. But what the hell, they also believe that John Gray is an actual PhD, when he doesn't even hold a master's degree from an accredited school.

Two Myths and Three Facts About the Differences in Men and Women's Brains

Gender brain differences are real, but we should interpret them with caution

Published on July 20, 2012 by Christian Jarrett, Ph.D in Brain Myths

 

MYTH 1: Women’s brains are more balanced

"It is true that men use one side of their brain to listen while women use both sides," says the Suite 101 website with misplaced confidence. 

This is a variation of the popular idea found in many books and websites that men depend more than women on one hemisphere or the other for particular functions (especially language), and related to this, that women have a chunkier corpus callosum—the bridge of neurons that connects the two brain hemispheres.

One source of the myth is a theory proposed by the late US neurologist Norman Geschwind and his collaborators in the 1980s, that higher testosterone levels in the womb mean the left hemisphere of male babies develops more slowly than females, and that it ends up more cramped. But the Geschwind claim is not true: John Gilmore and his team scanned the brains of 74 newborns and found no evidence for smaller left hemispheres in male babies compared with females. Also debunking the idea of greater lateralisation in male brains, a meta-analysis by Iris Sommer and her colleagues of 14 studies, involving 377 men and 442 women, found no evidence of differences in language lateralisation between the sexes. On the thickness of the corpus callosum, Mikkel Wallentin reviewed the evidence in a 2009 paper, including post-mortem and brain imaging studies. “The alleged sex-related corpus callosum size difference is a myth,” he wrote. 

FACT 1: Men’s brains are bigger

Men do have bigger brains than women, even taking into account their larger bodies. This has been documented time and again. To take just one example, Sandra Witelson and her colleagues weighed the brains of 58 women and 42 men post-mortem and found the women’s were 1248 grams on average, compared with 1378 grams for the men. Note, there’s an overlap between the sexes, so some women will have larger brains than some men. A Danish study of 94 brains published in 1998 estimated that the larger male brain volume translated into an average 16 per cent greater amount of neurons in the neocortex of men versus women.

FACT 2: There are sex differences in the size of individual brain structures

The hippocampus, a structure involved in memory, is usually larger in women; the amygdala, a structure involved in emotional processing, is larger in men. It’s also true that the cortical mantle (made up of grey matter) is thicker in women, and that women tend to have a higher ratio of grey to white matter (white matter being the kind of brain cells that are insulated). However, it’s important to note that these differences may have more to do with brain size than with sex—in other words it could be that smaller brains tend to have a higher ratio of grey matter, and it just happens that women tend to have smaller brains.

MYTH 2: Sex-related brain differences explain behavioural differences between the sexes

According to John Gray, author of Why Mars and Venus Collide, men are prone to forgetting to buy the milk because of their more localised brain activity (as quoted by Cordelia Fine). 

It’s tempting to see the brain differences between the sexes, mythical or otherwise, and think that they explain behavioural differences; such as men’s milk amnesia, their superiority on mental rotation tasks or women’s advantage with emotional processing. In fact, in many cases we simply don’t know the implications of the sex-related brain differences. It’s even possible that brain differences are responsible for behavioural similarities between the sexes. This is known as the “compensation theory” and it could explain why men and women’s performance on various tasks is similar even whilst they show different patterns of brain activity. Bearing this in mind, readers should treat with extreme scepticism those evangelists who draw on supposed sex-related brain differences to support their claims about the need for gendered educational practices.

It’s also important to remember that behavioural differences between the sexes are rarely as fixed as is often made out in the media. Cultural expectations and pressures play a big part. For instance, telling women that their sex is inferior at mental rotation tends to provoke poor performance; giving them empowering information, by contrast, tends to nullify any sex differences. Related to this, in countries that subscribe less strongly to gender-stereotyped beliefs about ability, women tend to perform better at science. These kind of findings remind us that over-simplifying and over-generalising findings about gender differences risks setting up vicious self-fulfilling prophesies, so that men and women come to resemble unfounded stereotypes. 

FACT 3: Sex-related brain differences matter

Whilst we should be cautious about how we interpret sex-related brain differences (Cordelia Fine reminds us that “the male brain is like nothing in the world so much as a female brain”), it’s important not to take political correctness too far and deny that differences do exist. The neuroscientist Larry Cahill makes this point in his 2006 paper “Why sex matters for neuroscience”, in which he reviews many of the sex-related brain differences. Furthering our understanding of sex-related brain differences could help shed much needed light on conditions like autism and depression that tend to be found much more often in men and women, respectively.

Further reading—do read Delusions of Gender, The Real Science Behind Sex Differences by Cordelia Fine; Pink Brain, Blue Brain by Lise Eliot; and Brain Gender, by Melissa Hines (and Deborah Cameron's The Myth of Mars and Venus). Avoid Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps by Barbara and Allan Pease; Why Mars and Venus Collide, by John Gray; and The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine (also avoid The Male Brain).

* * * * * * *

Male-Female Communication: Debunking the Mars-Venus Myth

Dr. Yvonne K. Fulbright - Sexologist, Sexuality Educator, Author

Posted: 02/13/11

Go to a popular news site like The Huffington Post and plug the term "mars venus" into the search field. At least a dozen blogs come up, making reference to men and women speaking "different languages." The dogma of John Gray's "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" is everywhere, and it appears positioned to get even bigger with Summit Entertainment reportedly acquiring the film and TV rights to Gray's franchise.

Why should we care? According to scientific research and Deborah Cameron's "The Myth of Mars and Venus," Gray has "he" versus "she" communication all wrong.

Turn to any Mars/Venus-based resource, and you'll hear that men and women are fundamentally different in the way they use language to communicate. The supposed differences between the sexes, they say, are due to nature, not nurture; humans are hard-wired so that females excel in verbal tasks -- explaining why she wants to talk his ears off about feelings, needs and "where we're at," and why he is so turned off by such attempts.

Yet, as Cameron's book points out, the data on gender communication differences indicates otherwise:

Myth: Females talk more than males.
Fact: A review of 56 research studies by Deborah James and Janice Drakich found 34 that reported that men talk more than women, with females talking more than males in only two studies. A more recent University of Arizona study in the journal Science reported that both genders speak almost the exact same number of words daily (16,000).

Myth: Females are more verbally skilled than males.
Fact: While a 2005 meta-analysis of studies on gender differences in verbal/communicative behavior by Janet Shibley Hyde found a moderate effect size favoring women, it also revealed that there was a close to zero effect for reading comprehension, vocabulary and verbal reasoning.

Myth: Females seek to connect with others, while males use language with the intention of accomplishing things.
Fact: Studies by researchers Kathy O'Leary and Pamela Fishman indicate that the genders may differ in patterns because they're engaged in different activities or are playing different conversational roles. These differences don't necessarily appear when males and females are doing the same things or playing same roles.

Myth: Females use language cooperatively, because they prefer harmony and equality.
Fact: Hyde's meta-analysis indicated that there was a moderate effect size for women when it came to smiling during conversations. There was also a small effect size for them when it came to speech production, talkativeness, affiliative speech and self-disclosure. Still, who's to say that this isn't due to nurture and not nature, especially when there's no data to support the former?

Myth: Males are more direct and not as polite in communicating.
Fact: Hyde's meta-analysis showed that there was only a small effect size favoring males when it came to conversational interruption and assertive speech. There's actually more variation in communication within each gender than there is when you compare any differences between men and women.

As the research shows, the language skills of men and women are nearly identical. Yet the myths they debunk are still used to support the premise that the genders are regularly misunderstanding each other due to mere genetics. With the media fully on-board the Mars/Venus bandwagon, "failure to communicate" across genders has been used to explain everything from why men don't take out the garbage upon request to why a rapist didn't understand his victim's attempts to resist. Ultimately, both genders suffer.

Men are sized up as inarticulate, aggressive Neanderthals, incapable of feeling emotions and being sensitive. Women are criticized for being overly cooperative and caring doormats. Such discrimination shapes beliefs and influences actions, both personally and professionally.

When it comes to mating, he is supposed to be allowed to "go into his cave" when times get tough or when there's something that needs to be done or discussed. Maintaining the relationship becomes her responsibility, requiring that she accommodate his communication style.

When it comes to the job market, females are supposedly better at jobs involving communication and empathy, while men are supposed to be better suited for analyzing complex systems. She is favored when it comes to jobs involving teaching, nursing and counseling. He is considered better suited to occupy positions of power and authority, as in engineering, banking and politics.

Anybody who is truly enlightened and who knows anything about males, females and relationships knows that that is all wrong. Still, the Mars/Venus phenomenon continues to make millions. When will we let science command the "he versus she" communication conversation?

Follow Dr. Yvonne K. Fulbright on Twitter: www.twitter.com/YvonneFulbright