In this episode, Simone and Malcolm discuss the concept of disassociation and how it can be used to improve the lives of people who suffer from trauma and trauma-related disorders. They discuss the benefits and drawbacks of dissociation, and what we can do about it.
00:01:09.440And this strikes me as really weird because whenever I come across research on the effect of sort of different perspective thinking or taking,
00:01:17.500like if you think in terms of the third person, it's only positive.
00:01:23.180I've never actually seen research that frames thinking about yourself or a situation you're in from some distance as coming out negative.
00:01:31.560And yet all these people on the left only talk about it in negative context, but in a sort of very different context.
00:01:37.780So for a while, I've been operating under this assumption that basically we need to be thinking like Elmo talks.
00:01:44.360And yet all these people think it's bad.
00:03:47.180I looked into the research on, you know, different perspective-taking interventions.
00:03:51.140And ultimately, I think all of us should disassociate, always and proactively.
00:03:58.540And I think people who frame it as a bad thing are missing the point and also are more like classic leftist progressives who take a victimhood mindset and who take a –
00:04:07.140Simone, do you know what's going to come of this podcast?
00:04:52.120You know, this whole ship of Theseus thing, right?
00:04:54.120Like, can you actually live forever when your views constantly change, when your cells switch out?
00:04:59.920You know, like, we constantly talk about this in the context of that.
00:05:03.420We talk about where we draw the definition of self, right?
00:05:06.640How, like, conservatives have a sort of circle of self closest around, like, your core family and then your community or religion, whereas progressives, you know, the self is like, you know, foreigners, especially migrants who are refugees, et cetera, and, like, much less your own group.
00:05:22.640If you're white, then it's hatred of your own group.
00:05:24.660So we talk about that kind of contextualization of identity.
00:05:28.540We also talk about how identity politics have, you know, sort of ruined society.
00:05:33.080And people are even commenting on the episode that we ran as we're recording today, which was on why there's been this rise of anti-Semitism.
00:05:40.140And that a lot of people are kind of blaming Reform Jews for inventing identity politics and then just talking about how damaging identity politics as a concept has been.
00:05:50.800And it really is very damaging to society to get people to associate more with, like, groups, like my group.
00:05:58.160And I would note for that episode, I do think that Reform Jews played a role in inventing identity politics, but I don't think a bigger role than, like, the Unitarian Universalists.
00:06:07.900And I think blaming, you know, real Jews for what Reform Jews are doing is about as bad as blaming, like, real Christians on what Unitarian Universalists are doing, right?
00:06:23.980So, you know, we need to have a lot of different conversations about the contextualization of self and me and how we view ourselves and our lived experience, to use a term commonly used on the left.
00:06:36.720Because it's important and it is profoundly, it has a profound effect on our life and on society.
00:06:42.940And so this is an important conversation to have, and that's why we're getting into it.
00:06:47.540So let's first start with what people are talking about when they talk about disassociation, especially with regard to disassociation in moments of trauma and abuse.
00:06:57.780So people are usually describing disassociation as a mental shutoff, where the mind disconnects from feelings and the body or surroundings to get through something overwhelming or unsafe.
00:07:10.100It's a common, often automatic trauma response when someone is going through something really tough.
00:07:16.360So clinically, it's a process where thoughts or feelings or memories or a sense of identity become disconnected from one another.
00:07:24.540And it exists on a spectrum of mild zoning out to more severe states where a person feels detached from reality or themselves.
00:07:31.960Like you'll hear people say things like, you know, I was watching myself go through this or something.
00:07:38.540They'll use language like, I was watching it happen from outside my body, or it felt like a dream or like a movie.
00:07:44.680And then during versus after the traumatic experience where disassociation happens, it can occur basically while it's happening, but it can also happen after where you might have patchy or missing memories or difficulty feeling emotions.
00:08:02.720And basically, when disassociation is frequent or uncontrollable, and if it interferes with daily life, though this is a very subjective evaluation, in my opinion, it can be diagnosed as a dissociative disorder.
00:08:19.160For example, depersonalization or derealization disorder, which I'd never heard of before.
00:08:24.380Disassociative identity disorder, which I had heard of before.
00:08:27.260And these are actual mental health conditions in which a person has ongoing problems with memory or identity or perception or a sense of self because of repeated or severe disassociation, which is typically linked with trauma.
00:08:39.440And it goes beyond ordinary zoning out and starts to interfere with life and relationship and functioning.
00:08:45.520So that there are multiple types of it.
00:08:47.480There's dissociative amnesia where episodes of memory loss and just basically like, I don't remember this happening, or I don't remember this thing about me, or life events that may have been traumatic, like they just have no memory of it, or forgetfulness, or people enter like fugue states where they could travel or wander with no memory of it later.
00:09:06.780There's also depersonalization or depersonalization disorder, which I'd not heard of, like I said, persistent or recurring feeling of being detached from one's own body or experiences, which is depersonalization.
00:09:19.200And then there's the feeling that the world around you is unreal or foggy or dream life, which dreamlike, which is derealization.
00:09:26.200Even though technically you understand, like on an intellectual, factual level, you know that the things that are happening around you were real.
00:09:32.880And then there's disassociative identity disorder, or DID, which is also called multiple personality disorder, which I think you've said isn't really real.
00:09:42.680Yeah, so the preponderance of evidence is that this is like being trans or something.
00:10:59.300Well, he always says, if he doesn't know where he learned something, he'll just say, well, I learned it when I was a baby from my grandfather.
00:11:05.340Yeah, or like, or he'll have some kind of backstory.
00:11:08.100But my favorite was about learning karate in the jungle with his grandfather.
00:11:11.200I'm like, what kind of backstory are you building, man?
00:11:13.900I learned karate in the jungle with my grandfather.
00:11:56.460Like, I don't know what's going on, Malcolm.
00:12:00.160But what I think is happening is it is obviously horrible when people are abused or mistreated.
00:12:06.440It's not, I'm not, I'm not trivializing that.
00:12:09.740What I think may be happening is that the extreme hardship people have experienced that leads them to innovate or responsibly develop disassociation as a coping mechanism has uncovered a survival mechanism that is both useful in these extreme environments, but also could be very useful in everyday mundane life.
00:12:30.140And here's the thing, the research backs it up.
00:12:37.720Because I've come across all these different studies.
00:12:39.320And like, I didn't really put it together until I really started harrumphing and thinking about all these people talking about disassociation negatively.
00:12:46.640Because you know how I used to save all these studies?
00:12:48.820I sort of stopped doing it when I could just ask AI and find any study I was interested in learning about.
00:12:53.780I used to save studies that were like, oh, this is useful.
00:12:56.620And a bunch of the studies that I'd found, there was a very common theme of like, oh, like if you're having a conflict as a couple, you know, just have the couple like outline it or discuss it as though they're discussing another couple's problems and they're going to build a better solution.
00:13:10.640Or like, you know, if you're trying to get yourself to say, okay, okay.
00:13:24.980So several lines of research, not just the whole like conflict resolution among couples, suggested taking a third party or distanced perspective.
00:13:34.640But distance is just another word for disassociated.
00:13:37.200Third party is just another word for disassociated from one's own life.
00:13:41.200So that's third person writing or future self age, progressed image interaction, that kind of thing can help with emotion regulation.
00:13:48.460It can help with planning and it can even help with some health related behaviors.
00:13:53.200So the following I'm going to summarize is, is just justice.
00:13:56.040And you can ask any AI, just ask any AI about this.
00:13:58.840And for those who follow us on Substack or on Patreon, I'm going to include all my notes in this and links to sources in the show notes.
00:14:04.980I asked both Brock and Perplexity, they pulled up a bunch of studies.
00:14:08.420Here's what Brock found that they found mostly the same research, but okay, let's, let's go through some of it.
00:14:13.420So there's one sort of cluster of themes, which is just self distancing.
00:14:17.020Like in other words, taking a third person perspective or visual fly on the wall view disassociation, right?
00:14:23.880Oh, like it was like watching a movie.
00:14:26.760Except when you do it proactively, it's actually really effective.
00:14:29.900So research, research led primarily by a guy named Ethan Cross, and then Oslam Iduck demonstrates that adopting a self distance perspective, like thinking about oneself in the third person using one's name or visualizing from an observer's viewpoint, just the Elmo approach.
00:14:47.200Elmo thinks this reduces emotional reactivity and promotes adaptive reflection on personal situations, including pain and conflicts and stress.
00:14:56.760So in both 2005 and 2008 research that Cross was on and Iduck was on one of them, they, they found that participants reflecting on negative experiences like anger or depression from a self distance perspective showed lower emotional and physiological reactivity, like lower blood pressure.
00:15:15.540So like your actual cortisol levels here are lower compared to a self immersed first person view, the self distancing facilitated reconstructing events rather than recounting them reducing stress.
00:15:26.240So you're not reliving the trauma, which is exactly what was described in that one of two forms of disassociation where it's happening after the fact where people are distancing themselves from the traumatic event, but it doesn't have to be traumatic.
00:15:37.980It could be that time where you could be that time where you had road rage or that time you relate to class or that time you bombed on a test or that time you embarrassed yourself in front of friends or colleagues, right?
00:15:46.340So in 2010, Iduck and Cross found that spontaneous self distancing during reflection on conflicts predicted less rumination, lower emotional reactivity over time, and more problem solving behavior in couples interactions.
00:15:59.640So this can make your relationships more productive, which is very different from the way that people talk about disassociation in the, in the context of relationships, they always talk about it in terms of like, oh, this enables the abuse to keep happening because it allows you to tolerate it essentially is what they're trying to argue.
00:16:17.720But this points out that when properly applied, it helps you problem solve and resolve the conflicts.
00:16:25.360So it's, it's like saying, you know, like, oh, like she drank water and she died of water poisoning.
00:16:30.940Like it's a tool you it's, it's, it's not good or bad.
00:16:34.920In 2014, they found that third person self-talk, like, why is Simone upset?
00:16:39.580If I were doing it for myself, why is Alma upset?
00:16:42.600Reduced emotional reactivity under stress, including in socially anxious individuals.
00:16:47.300Hello, that's me without requiring extra cognitive effort.
00:16:51.440And, and this was supported by ERP and fMRI evidence showing decreased activity in brain regions linked to emotional pain.
00:16:58.980So you, people can't just be like, oh, this is just subjective reports.
00:17:01.680No, like they're doing functional MRIs.
00:17:03.920It's so good that I forced you to dissociate.
00:17:11.700How do so many people get the idea that it's a bad thing?
00:17:13.840Like in the moment though, it's also really useful.
00:17:17.300So we're not talking just about reflecting on other events, but they, in this case, Mosser et al in 2017 found that silent third person self-talk quickly.
00:17:25.480That is within one second, lower distress when viewing aversive images or recalling painful memories, aiding emotion regulation for pain, like experiences.
00:17:34.140So like if you're going through something rough and you immediately try to recontextualize yourself, like if you sort of proactively disassociate, like intentionally, it'll, it'll be less painful as it happens to you.
00:17:45.560And then Grossman and Cross in 2014 found that self-distancing enhanced wise reasoning about interpersonal conflict, reducing bias and promoting balanced perspectives.
00:17:54.600So it's making you a better colleague, friend, lover, spouse, whatever, a parent, like it's just, it's a smart thing to do.
00:18:03.720And these effects extend to reducing reactivity in PTSD veterans, though some subjective distress duds did persist.
00:18:11.280But I mean, obviously if you've been through something crazy, of course, but it does improve also interpersonal criticism delivery.
00:18:17.760Because, you know, when, when you, when you detach things from yourself emotionally, obviously they get better.
00:18:22.240Another thing, and this is not, this is a little different, but you know, this is something that I do a lot and I want to get into it a little bit is the concept of temporal distancing, like thinking about your future self or a broader time perspective.
00:18:33.640So right now we're recording this in January.
00:18:36.060This is the month of future day in our, in our techno Puritan family.
00:18:40.300And this is one in which we try to get our kids to begin thinking about the long-term future and future generations and the future police and identifying with the long-term future.
00:18:49.620And throughout my entire life, I have done things like right to myself in the future and really contextualize myself as just one link in an unbroken chain.
00:18:57.960Like I'm just serving the concept of future Simone, which is in turn serving the concept of future generations and human flourishing.
00:19:06.140Like I, it's very disassociative, but on a more granular level, just in terms of like, oh, can we make people happier or like healthier?
00:19:15.160There's, there is really interesting research on this concept of temporal distancing.
00:19:18.660So it's not just a weird techno Puritan thing to be super into stuff like this.
00:19:22.420So it really just broadly involves viewing situations from a future oriented or broadened temporal lens and Brunhelm and Senegal and I, I duck again, the same guy who did the other like distanced studies in 2015 found that adopting a temporal distance, like this too shall pass reduced emotional distress and stress reactivity by focusing on impermanence.
00:19:46.580You know, when you know, when you know that you're just kind of like going through this blip in time and that time.
00:19:50.340Are you saying that this is what incel should be doing?
00:19:52.340I mean, I can imagine no one in society that's more traumatized than our incel fans.
00:19:56.460But, but they don't, they can't necessarily say this too shall pass.
00:20:15.440And then Chishima et al in 2021 found that writing letters to or from one's future self during COVID-19 in this case increased temporal distancing and immediately decreased negative affect and it boosted positive affect.
00:20:27.720So it can really help to just put things in perspective if you're going through something stressful, like say, I don't know, a global pandemic.
00:20:35.440And then White et al in 2018 found that self distancing from future stressors, like visualizing them from afar, reduced vivid negative imagery and facilitated adaptive coping.
00:20:45.700So just in general, like being less stressed, thinking with that temporal distance is really helpful.
00:20:51.080And then sort of along those lines, I remember reading about these and I found them really interesting studies that had people see like AI age diversions of themselves caused some interesting effects.
00:21:02.960So research by Hal Esner Hirschfeld focuses on enhancing continuity with one's future self, particularly through visualizations of an aged self.
00:21:12.160So in 2009, he found that there was higher future self continuity, like feeling connected to your future self.
00:21:18.100Owning this used to be something that you like had to pay a bunch of money to do or have specialized software.
00:21:29.220No, because your family's never going to, no, you just need to see yourself like old with white hair because you're never going to go bald.
00:21:53.700I am curious to see what our audience says about you having a beard.
00:21:56.680Cause everyone's like, well, all he needs to do is just present as more masculine and then your audience will respect you.
00:22:04.080And I guess a lot of people don't realize, like when I don't have my glasses on, I actually have a lot of features that like look maxers go.