People can't be honest with their therapists: lies and/or/as therapy.

maybe part of the problem is that we
have such a low opinion of ourselves that we think that the people who know us well know that we're scumbags know that we have bad motivations know that we won't keep our promises know that we've let them down in the past like if i tell my brother if i tell my best friend there's no one for real he's gonna say yeah i know you're [ __ ] i've heard you say this before i know and if i go and talk to this quote-unquote professional they don't know any of my tricks they don't know any of my track record they don't know anything about character i can tell them anything and they believe it um my father was something like a compulsive liar um some kind of mythomaniac he lied about everything all the time his therapist didn't have someone like me sitting in the room taking notes to then say yeah every single thing this guy just told you was was a lie like this stuff is factually wrong like the therapist is receiving this stuff as as fact uncritically right i'll pause for just a second because sure a lot of the examples you're giving involve people that are being dishonest about wanting therapy so forget all that we're talking about somebody who is genuinely interested in being honest with a therapist and getting actual help from this person oh oh no i think i think they all are i think my father he wanted help he wanted to change but he can't stop himself from lying right so just sorry real really simple example this is really simple down to earth example it's not embarrassing anyone you know if if you asked my father so he had nine kids right if i got there nine right so it's a giant number okay he had nine kids if if you said to him you know why do you think it is that so many your kids had had drug and alcohol addictions like either alcoholism or some other drug problem he would say to you what are you talking about none of my none of my kids have ever had a problem with drugs and alcohol and you could then try to sit there for an hour and get him to admit that he actually does have definite knowledge of several of his sons really having long term like like anything so but he wants help no he wants help he's going to go in and get help from his from his therapist but there's no way his therapist is going to know the truth about anything in his in his life and i mean so the kind of honesty you're talking about so even henia this other youtuber she's the example you know it's not that she would lie to a therapist intentionally i'm going to presume the best about her is she capable of coming into a therapist and if she was really capable of that level of detachment and self-analysis she probably doesn't need the therapist if she was capable of coming in and saying that look she has a history of drug addiction and lying about drug addiction and these are the knock-on effects of drugs and like i already know from our youtube channel all kinds of problems in life you know of course it's it's hard to be honest those things and someone like your brother let's just say someone who's known you from childhood and it's still your friend today they may know your [ __ ] they may know your track record they may have a sense of your character and they may able to be able to confront you about the ways in which you're being dishonest and this so-called uh professional they they can't do any of that right so i think that's also an interesting important part of the contrast here i guess i just i so so from your perspective even if so because you're again you're still talking about people that essentially can't be honest and i don't think that's everybody like are you are you so i understand are you suggesting to some extent that people can't even address their own issues that's i'm suggesting that's what they need help with that's like the stuff i the stuff you can be honest about isn't what you're gonna help so you know real so i'm i'm divorced my ex-wife there's no way my ex-wife could have come into a therapist and presented the problems in the relationship this therapist being someone who doesn't doesn't know us at all now if if we had someone like one of my brothers who had lived in the same city with us and knew us for all those years right that would be a very different scenario and you know you could present oh well this is what i think the problem with the relationship is and this brother could be like well look you say that now but i remember what you guys were dealing with three years ago and then i remember when this happened that's a different perspective right but no and again that's not even not even saying that my ex-wife intentionally wanted to lie but exactly what it is you you need help with of course that's what you can't be honest about and let's sorry video games are a great example too all kinds of people are going to go into the therapist and ask for help they don't think video games are a problem you know like oh yeah my marriage is falling apart and this is my situation at work and you know my my grandfather died and i was really sad at the funeral and the therapist may not even ask how many hours a day are you playing video games you know like and it turns out this person let's just say they're playing video games three hours a day seven days a week which today is considered a normal level of play it's not even an addict but by today's standards right it's like oh well you know your relationship with your wife would be different if you if you weren't playing video games you know not again not saying you would intentionally lie not saying this guy comes in with an agenda to be dishonest but this kind of uh insight analysis and perspicacity um people who are sad and distraught and broken and asking for help of course they're not capable of course [Music] not you