Overcoming the Victim Mindset with Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman

Psychologist Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman explores the difference between victimhood and victim mindset, explaining why learned helplessness is actually our default state, and how developing agency is the key to transformative change. He discusses vulnerable narcissism, the dangers of excessive accommodation, and why growth requires embracing adversity rather than avoiding discomfort. Plus: why Darth Vader is actually an example of overcoming a victim mindset. Dr. Kaufman’s exploration of the victimhood mindset reveals a central idea of the Perception Box, a framework developed by Elizabeth R. Koch for understanding the forces within us that shape how we see ourselves, relate to others, and move through the world. Scott Barry Kaufman is a psychologist focused on untapped potential and reframing intelligence. He is a professor of psychology at Columbia University and director of the Center for Human Potential. He has written and edited 11 books, with the most recent being Rise Above: Overcome a Victim Mindset. He has written articles for widely respected publications, including The Atlantic, Scientific American, and Harvard Business Review, and he’s also the host of The Psychology Podcast. In addition to teaching at Columbia, he also taught as a professor at NYU and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found. Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show. Visit unlikelycollaborators.com for more information. Episode Chapters: 00:00 Opening 02:53 Defining the Victim Mindset 03:30 Rumination and Entitlement 05:42 Rethinking Learned Helplessness 08:01 Victimhood vs Victim 09:04 Empowerment Traits 09:44 Genes and Resilience 12:22 Vulnerable Narcissism Link 15:59 Escaping Emotional Victimhood 17:00 Agency Over Accommodations 19:18 Letting Kids Fail 24:56 Villain Or Victim Game

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Oh, man, you know, I get riled up about this because it seems so obvious. But I'm like, I don't see that attitude of like, you know, yes, a crappy thing happened to me, whatever. And I got this.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm Elizabeth Koch. What's a perception box? It's this invisible mental box that each one of us lives in life, built from the material of our beliefs, life experiences, and the meaning we've made out of those experiences. You could think of it as a kind of reality filter that's constantly shaping how we see ourselves, other people, and the world around us. This podcast explores how, although the walls of this box are always present, they can expand in moments of curiosity, awe, and wonder, or contract in response to fear, anxiety, and anger. In each episode, we invite experts to share how to create lasting shifts in our perception.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  I'd like to introduce our esteemed hosts, Heather Berlin, Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Kristof Koch, Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Welcome to the Science of Perception Box. This week, our guest is Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman. We all go through experiences that shape how we see ourselves, what we believe we deserve, and what feels out of our control. Scott's work explores how easy it is to organize our lives around a victim mindset and how quietly limiting that can become. The goal is not to deny what happened. It's to question the meaning we've made out of our experience.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  What might be possible if that meaning isn't fixed? So first, we want to open up with our battle with the victim mindset. So Kristof, has there ever been an event in your life where you felt powerless, like a victim, and that really affected your outlook on the future?

• 1:58Speaker 02

  Never really has it. I mean, as a school kid, I got beaten times because I was too much of a teacher's pet.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  First of all, I'm sorry to hear that. I never knew you were like beaten up as a kid.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, in fact, at the school, they had to let me out earlier. So my parents talked to the teacher, and then they had to let me out earlier so the big kids wouldn't get me.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. I'm sorry. I know that.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  I haven't talked about it in like 50 years.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  But I don't think it traumatized me in any way that I can now, as an adult, ascertain. What about you? Have you had times in your life when you felt powerless as a victim?

• 2:34Speaker 01

  I had a very, like, the classic sort of Disney Cinderella story, evil stepmother, when I was growing up. And she was, she was pretty cruel to me. And I even had like two half siblings who she was very nice to. Scott, welcome to the podcast. How do you define a victim mindset?

• 2:55Speaker 00

  Oh, boy. I define a victim mindset as a dynamic mindset. I get all these emails being like, I loved your book. It perfectly described my ex-boyfriend or whatever. And I'm like, look, this is a book for everyone, right? So it's a dynamic mindset that we can all get into throughout the course of our day. It can vary, you know, we can be triggered. We can all have our moments. And when we're in this mindset, we blame all the world for our problems. We don't take responsibility for anything we can do. We're helpless, essentially. And the most important part of a victim mindset is we don't move forward with our life with agency or with productive rumination. You know, in the field of psychology, they distinguish between productive rumination and meshugana rumination. It's the technical term for it, which is Yiddish.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  You know, when you're stuck in meshugana rumination, you are constantly spinning this wheel over and over again about that one thing that happened to you when you were three. And you forget that you are now in the year 2025. And in the moment, there are so many things you can do to realize your higher potential.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  So victim mindset is not just, this is me and my ex. I was a victim, but it's, it's generalized to all sorts of circumstances.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  It's a broadened, generalized, dynamic mindset that applies anywhere you go. Perhaps you are in line at Starbucks and you're like, oh, man, I really should be at the front of this line because I've suffered more than everyone in this line.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Do people think that?

• 4:20Speaker 00

  I think a lot of people do. Well, this book stemmed from my research on vulnerable narcissism, which is entitlement to special privileges because you've suffered and you think you've suffered the most, you know? But I like to say suffering isn't a competition, right? And it's a much healthier mindset, which I call the empowerment mindset, to think about all the things that you can do to move forward with your life with purpose and a sense of growth.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Have you ever had a sort of victim mindset in your life?

• 4:50Speaker 00

  For sure. I mean, I'm human, too.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  You are?

• 4:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I got, these things definitely, you're surprised?

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Slightly.

• 4:58Speaker 00

  These things are totally seasonal. You know, when things are going well, you know, it's a lot easier to have an empowerment mindset.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  So it's fluid. It's flexible. It's not like you get locked into one.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's both. It's both a trait and a state. It's a dynamic mind, but I want to focus, I want to focus not on the trait today. I want to focus on the dynamic mindset that we all can go in. But it also is a trait, you know, everything is, every psychological thing, if we want to really nerd out about it, is both a state and a trait, you know? There's individual differences in virtually every psychological trait you can possibly look at, you know? But it's something we definitely can come in and out of at different points of our day and our life. When, when things are not going well, it's very, it's our default state. So that was the insight that Martin Seligman and his colleague had recently, is that they got their theory completely wrong.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  You mean, they learned helplessness?

• 5:51Speaker 00

  Correct. They got their theory of learned helplessness wrong.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Maybe you can explain that theory.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  I would be happy to, because they started off shocking rats and dogs.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Dogs.

• 6:00Speaker 00

  Dogs, really.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Dogs.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Well, and they extended.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  He's never been called out on that.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  Well, we can do that if we want right now.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  I'm happy to call him out on that.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  You know, they started their career, you know, putting these dogs in cages.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  And keeping the door open a little bit so the dog could leave. And they were curious. The research question is how many shocks will take before they don't even attempt to leave anymore? You know, do they learn helplessness that even if they're free? They, in their mind, they're in their own mental prison, right? And so that was the research question, and they found that it didn't take that many shocks before this settled in. But then they generalized it to humans.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  If they couldn't control it, that was the critical difference because they have these different groups, right? The dogs that could somehow control the shock, they did not have this learned helplessness compared to the ones that had no idea what prompted, what triggered the electric shock.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, so feeling, yes, because locus control, you know, you feel like you're not

• 7:03Speaker 00

  in control of your life story anymore, or your future, or your, you know, I don't know how the life story thing applies to dogs, but.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  But so then how did it shift? So this has been in like the public ethos for a very long time. So what changed?

• 7:17Speaker 00

  After enough studies on humans, they realized that their theory was not exactly correct in humans. They found that the default state in humans is helplessness. It's not what humans learn. So what is learned is hopefulness. And that's something that dogs don't have the opportunity to do.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  But evolutionarily speaking, why would, it doesn't, it doesn't seem like it makes sense on the surface why helplessness would be the default state.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Are you saying a baby is helpless naturally, innately?

• 7:46Speaker 00

  Well, the mindset is.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  The mindset.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Certainly, yeah, oh, yeah, baby is, that's the best example of a stimulus mindset of helplessness you could possibly give. You're just crying all the time.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  But they literally are helpless. And they need to recruit help. But why would our default state be helpless?

• 8:01Speaker 00

  There's something very primal about a helpless state, which signals to others and gets us reward. I mean, it's actually pretty rewarding, even in, especially in the social media climate we live in, to signal victimhood. And a lot of, I talk in the book about, you know, it's independent. Victimhood is independent from a victim mindset. I want to be very clear.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  You're our actual victim.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Totally. There are horrible things that happen to us. And of course, we want the utmost of compassion for all that. But these things can actually come apart. You can have been the recipient of a horrible thing in the world and not have a victim mindset. You could not have had anything happen to you and generate a victim mindset.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  So where's the difference in people that person A, you know, something bad happens, they think of themselves a victim, and person B, the same thing happens, but they, they say, okay, this is bad luck, and they go on. Is it genetically? Is it, is it a different upbringing? Is it because they locate their locus of control within them that ultimately I'm the actor?

• 9:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's definitely a big part of it. The part two of the book is kind of looking at what are those characteristics of the opposite? One thing is you see a lot of people who don't fall into this victim mindset often. They, they are, they've learned to be lucky people. It's not, they're objectively lucky people. They're more open to luck in their lives. They're more receptive to things all around them. So they don't just focus on the, the negative of every situation and expect a negative in every situation. Gratefulness is another big part of it. There's a, not, not just having gratitude for good things that happen to you, but they can be grateful for the crap that happens to us. They'll be like, oh, what can I learn from this situation, you know? So that's definitely a big part of it. You know, you said the, you brought the dirty word G, the G word, and I'm glad you did.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Dirty? I mean, we are all products of our genes and our environment.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  Oh, totally. But, I mean, it is, it's still a dirty word in a lot of circles because in a lot of these kinds of studies, they don't control for genes, and then they make claims about environment, like your parents, it's your parents' fault. And it's like, well, it is, and this is a point I make in, in my book. It is to a large degree, it's because your parents gave you their genes. That's why it's their fault, you know?

• 10:14Speaker 01

  But aren't your genes for like resilience? You know, two people experience the same trauma, one goes on to develop PTSD, another doesn't, they're finding that there are genetic differences, and there's a protective factor.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. And, I mean, I don't need to lecture you guys on how everything is nature nurture, and there's no, I don't believe in genetic determinism. There are certain dispositions that absolutely color your world and make it more likely that you'll view something as traumatic. You can take the same two people who raised in the same family, and they have the same experiences, and one grows up being like, what a traumatic childhood I had. You know, mother was always yelling at us. And the other one may have more of a sunny disposition, is like, I had a great childhood. And it's like, wait, what? You both had the same experiences?

• 10:57Speaker 01

  That's the perception box.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  I'm not sure what's an ego.

• 11:00Heather Berlin?

  I don't know how this relates.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  No, he grew up with a twin or with a younger brother.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  Oh, that's true.

• 11:07Heather Berlin?

  And he had an abusive father. Yes.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  And then he, uh, he died in a drunken car accident.

• 11:14Heather Berlin?

  He was, became an alcoholic and, but you know, what, how does this then relate to kind of a negative self schema?

• 11:21Speaker 00

  You know, I'm a personality psychologist as well, you know, as, as like creativity, but really I'm really into different sources of personality variation. And the trait neuroticism, I don't think we really realize just how pervasive it is across all internalizing disorders. I mean, some people argue it's the, it's the trait that, that it's the central nucleus.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  It's one of the big five.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  It's one of the big five. Yeah. Oh, I can do a waxer of the ocean.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  Okay. We got openness to experience, which is my favorite. That's my favorite is openness to experience. I scored 99% on that one. And then we have neuroticism, which is literally your, your brain is wired to constantly feed it negative thoughts. It's basically how we could put it. Um, your, and, and emotions, you know, you're just constantly like, you know, think way out and right. Like constantly you're walking around the city like, oh my God. And it's funny, it can be funny, you know, when you verbalize it out loud. The neurotic mind, it can be kind of funny, but it's not so funny when you're living it. Extroversion, introversion, agreeableness, and then conscientiousness.

• 12:17Heather Berlin?

  Well, we didn't go in the order of ocean.

• 12:19Speaker 00

  Oh, you're right.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  So are you implying there's a relationship between the narcissism trait and victim?

• 12:27Speaker 00

  Yes, but vulnerable narcissism. So there's two different types of narcissism. Everyone, everyone thinks narcissism, they conjure up a bravado kind of narcissism, right? Which is like, I'm the best. But my research has really dived into quieter form. Um, and it's neurotic. It's, we can call it also, we call it neurotic narcissism. There's something very self, uh, excessively self-focused about depression, for instance. Now, when I say that, I'm not at all trying to diminish the real suffering of people who are depressed or, but there is something, um, about you can't, you get stuck in this default mode way of thinking about yourself. Um, that you just can't stop ruminating about yourself in a lot of ways and how this is going wrong and that's going wrong.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  This is going wrong. So it's a, it's a unique form of.

• 13:14Heather Berlin?

  But are the other types of narcissists ruminating about themselves in a positive way?

• 13:18Speaker 00

  Yes, they really are. They're like, they're just obsessed with admiration and, um, and accolades.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  So they would not fall into the victim, the, the sort of the.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  Well, the, the tie I wanted to make was between vulnerable narcissism and a victim mindset. We all can, we all can fall prey to it. Um, it sort of takes a different flavor. It's interesting to think about the different flavors of how these things can manifest these, these selves. The, the kind of victim mindset that you see involved narcissism is a very woe is me type of victim mindset of like, oh, um, I'm not appreciated enough for my suffering, you know? Whereas the grandiose one is I'm not appreciated enough because, uh, people don't realize how great I am.

• 13:57Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 13:58Speaker 00

  So it's a little bit of a different flavor.

• 14:00Heather Berlin?

  So do you think social media encourages the victim mentality?

• 14:03Speaker 00

  Well, um, I had a conversation with Jean Twenge about this. She wrote the great book, Generations. And I was like, is this current generation, a nation of vulnerable narcissists? And she's like, yep. She's like, you nailed it, you know, because, um, prior generations, it really was about grandiose narcissism. But the, but the self-esteem movement in the eighties.

• 14:22Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  Gave rise, I think, to grandiose narcissism.

• 14:26Heather Berlin?

  But I think it's a societal problem because like, you know, when you think about stuff like the coddling of our mind. Yeah. Like, you know, this started with safe spaces and trigger warnings and everyone can't handle anything uncomfortable. And then the professors capitulated and it was like also from pressure from parents. Oh, I don't want my kids to have a bad grade. I used to, when I was teaching at Vaster, would have students come, they would hand in the essay before the essay was due. So they can find out what they need to do to change it, to make it a good grade. And now, you know, in my day, in our day, whatever, you didn't have something in time, you didn't have it on time. Now everyone gets extensions and you can do it. And so there is this sense of like, teaching the victim mindset.

• 15:07Heather Berlin?

  And it's like at a societal level, like, no, you can't handle it. So we'll create these accommodations for you. And so it's both from an internal, like psychological, but also this external societal phenomenon.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  You're right. Um, there's this sort of how does society reward some of these things?

• 15:21Speaker 02

  How can we help people expanding their perception box? You're not curious, you're not open to the world.

• 15:27Speaker 00

  This is such a, um, this topic of this book is so related to the perception box. It's such a natural, uh, fit. Even the notion of us being in mental, getting ourselves in these mental prisons is a very perception box kind of way of thinking about it. We have to constantly remind ourselves that the doors open, uh, metaphorically. We have to constantly remind ourselves there are steps we can take immediately that added up over time may lead to long-term changes. And will probably be, or at the very least will make it more likely than not. I have a chapter in the book on, don't be a victim to your emotions. Um, so that's about not identifying with your emotions and taking them so seriously, you know, treating them as facts.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  You know, that because I'm feeling this sensation, I have to immediately jump in and take it seriously. That it's something that needs attention immediately.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  So dissociating myself from my emotion, that they are two different things.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. The word dissociation has a specific meaning in clinical psychology, so I didn't worry of using that word. But, um, not identifying, uh, saying, you know, I am not this anxiety feeling that I'm feeling right now. I am feeling something that may be anxiety, but I am more than that. You know, I am a strong mother beeper, you know?

• 16:46Heather Berlin?

  And also just because you're feeling something doesn't mean make it real. I mean, you're justifying your feeling, but it doesn't mean that the thoughts that you have around it are real.

• 16:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's exactly right. My personal story, real quick, in three seconds. I had an auditory learning disability when I was a kid and they, they, they interpreted that as, oh, I was stupid. Because it took me an extra millisecond to process information. So I was bullied a lot. I was put in special ed. But there was something within me, a fire that was burning where I did not want the crutches. And I wanted to be just treated like everyone other student. I had to fight my way out of special ed and I was the first one in my school district for the kid to break out, you know, of special ed.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Or you mean not the parents to me?

• 17:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Like it didn't, like dawn, doesn't dawn on students. I don't understand what was different about me, you know, even to today.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  You had a higher sense of agency. You located your locus of control within you rather than your parents or your teachers.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  But when I have a student in my office saying like, hey professor, um, just so you know, I get three times extra time on the test. And, and I say, have you thought maybe you can handle it? You know, I'm not saying like, I want to put you in a situation where I'm going to embarrass you or you're going to, but like my tests are really easy. And I was wondering like, it might give you a sense to, you put yourself in a challenging situation to learn more about yourself, to learn more about your limitations, to question it. And they're like, no, it never dawned on me. And no, I get that's, that's it. I've yet to come across a student who questions, questions the accommodations other people put on them. And I wish there was more of that. I wish more students believed in themselves even more than other people.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  When you challenge them in this way.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  They can't even think in that term. It's taboo. It's taboo to question that someone might have higher potential for themselves than they realize they have. And I think that's part of the problem is that we need to shift something in our collective consciousness where we all start to get outside of our comfort zone and see what we're really capable of.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  We need adversity to grow, right?

• 18:45Speaker 00

  We need adversity to grow. Absolutely. Oh man, you know, I get riled up about this because it seems so obvious. But I'm like, I don't see that attitude of like, you know, yes, a crappy thing happened to me, whatever. And I got this. And that's, to me, that's what an empowerment mindset is. It's honest love. Acknowledging honestly that something happened. You're not, we're not wiping it under the floor, uh, rug or whatever. And we're also saying, yeah, and I got this and I can move on and I got resiliency.

• 19:12Heather Berlin?

  But I think the problem is also not to blame parents or whatever, but this is a mindset of like, I, they're not allowing their children to fail. Parents have to allow their kids to fail. So when I'm doing therapy with a kid who's has OCD or neuroticism, whatever. I have them practice, will do purposely get this one wrong on your homework. And we're just going to sit with it and see how you feel with that discomfort and see if you can tolerate it.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Awesome.

• 19:35Heather Berlin?

  And it's like inoculating them because life is going to throw them, you know, the curveballs and there's going to be difficulties. And if you're in the mindset, if you think I always have to win and I always have to get A's and I always, not everyone gets A's. And so inoculating your children and allowing them to fail will give them, will give them some resiliency. And they don't fall into this victim mindset because then it becomes either I succeed or I'm a victim.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  That's exactly right.

• 19:59Heather Berlin?

  But is there something in the, is there any sort of neural correlates to any of this? Or like, is it related to neuroplasticity or ability to change or different mindset? Or do you know, is there any research on this?

• 20:09Speaker 00

  It's interesting. I don't think that a neuroscience explanation always, um, adds extra explanatory value.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  I'm shocked.

• 20:18Heather Berlin?

  I'm going to walk out of this interview right.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  I, I, it's funny. I have this friend who, um, is obsessed with everything I say, he has to convert it into neuroscience. He's like, what's the neuro basis of that? And I say, so what?

• 20:29Heather Berlin?

  No, I agree. I agree with you.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  So, and now, now I, I love neuroscience. Don't get me wrong. And I, I actually started my career studying the neuroscience of intelligence. So I do think there's value in, in those domains. But when it comes to, uh, I'm not sure, um, what additional value it adds to know that your amygdala was active.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Mechanisms, once you know the mechanism, you could, if you think about it, intervening, using pharmacology or using brain modulation technology. That's what people want to do, right?

• 20:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, I, I think sometimes there's too much of a obsession.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  With technology and fixing your brain.

• 21:07Heather Berlin?

  My summary of this is that even if we could discover the neural mechanism, let's say, of victimhood or of, I don't know, growth mindset, and we can implant electrodes to like, put us into this positive mindset all of our lives, it might make it less meaningful, just like everyone gets a trophy.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  I think it's less meaningful.

• 21:26Heather Berlin?

  And you don't have a contrast, right? Happiness all the time means nothing if it's not in contrast to something.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  No, you're right. I think that there are all sorts of different approaches in life, right? There are top-down and bottom-up approaches. You know, some would argue maybe a combination of both are good. You know, something interesting about the sort of bottom-up neuroscientific, like if we use TDSC, for instance, like, I hear you, and I get the emerging technologies that could potentially, you undergo a TDSC treatment and it completely just deactivates.

• 21:55Heather Berlin?

  Can you unpack, say, what TDSC is?

• 21:57Speaker 00

  It's an electrical current that can temporarily, completely deactivate a targeted portion.

• 22:03Heather Berlin?

  Like transcranial magnetic stimulation?

• 22:05Speaker 00

  That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And, and so there are, some people argue, we might have a thinking cap someday where it deactivates your left brain so that you can actually think more outside the box and have more insights, things like that, and, and increase the chances that you'll have a creative insight. Some people are using it for depression. Some people are using it for insight. Let's say we had a TDSC protocol that allowed you to shift immediately when you're in a victim mindset and you go, boo, no, I'm in an empowerment mindset. Would that be such a bad thing? No. I'm not saying that's, that'd be a horrible thing. However, what is my however? What am I grasping at? You know, I'm, I'm also a humanistic psychologist, not just a cognitive scientist, I'm also a humanistic psychologist. And there's something that I think I don't want to ever lose, which is the humanity of

• 22:50Speaker 00

  the journey of self-actualization. There is no protocol for self-actualization. And I think that's what bothers me sometimes, when we get so stuck on trying to find the protocol for happiness and realize that, there's a great Nietzsche quote, like, there are plenty of people who will be happy to tell you, to walk down the bridge with you. But you and only you can pull them into the depths of your soul, and you have to take responsibility for that self-actualization insight.

• 23:16Heather Berlin?

  So what you're saying is there's no prescription for self-actualization?

• 23:20Speaker 00

  That's what I'm saying.

• 23:21Heather Berlin?

  It's an individual journey.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  It's an individual journey that has to be lived. It has to be lived.

• 23:25Heather Berlin?

  Which means you have to get some scrapes and bruises along the way.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it may also be helped along and nudged along here and here by all sorts of, by other people, by books you read, and maybe by psychedelics, or by, you know, you know, TMS, or some other technique.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  TDSC, and, yeah, no, that's for sure. I, I, yeah, I don't, you know, I want to still stay respectful of a lot of people who are doing amazing advances in neuroscience, amazing advances in our, and are even creating protocols and things for, for helping us be happier. But when it comes to the full self-actualization of a human, I don't want to lose the humanistic aspect of it.

• 24:01Heather Berlin?

  So I think the important thing, as researchers who have been interested in studying the relationship between the physical brain and the mind, that there is still something about the experience itself, the psychology itself, that we still can't just explain by the underlying mechanisms, that has to be a lived experience. Like, you have to experience life to achieve these levels of self-actualization. And there might not be a formula for that.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  And not just experience, but also examine your experiences. All that is very important. I mean, there's different, simply different levels of analysis, right? Understanding why I feel the way I feel based on neuroanatomy and neurochemicals is a level of analysis. But I don't think it's the same exact understanding as understanding why I feel the way I feel because of its threat to my existential dreams, desires, and hopes for the future.

• 24:54Heather Berlin?

  Those are different levels and different explanations. So we're going to do a little game. We're going to talk about a movie character, and we're going to discuss amongst ourselves whether it's, they are a villain or a victim.

• 25:05Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 25:05Heather Berlin?

  So I'd like to talk about Darth Vader. Victim or villain? What, what is your take on that?

• 25:11Speaker 00

  Victim or, wait, are those my only two options?

• 25:13Heather Berlin?

  What, is there a third? What's the third option?

• 25:16Speaker 00

  The thing about, about him, which is, I think, a great example, is I think he's a great example of overcoming a victim mindset.

• 25:22Heather Berlin?

  What? Okay, explain. Do you tell? Okay.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  The dude, you know, can't breathe, you know, he's like, he's not.

• 25:30Heather Berlin?

  Oh, he managed to become like an evil emperor despite his?

• 25:33Speaker 00

  Yes. No, I, I'm aware that maybe the thing he, you know, the, the agency that he applied to his life may have moral connotations. I, I understand that, and I acknowledge that. However, I still think, you know, and I think it's also a great example of how you can overcome a victim mindset and necessarily use it for good, you know, it's a villain origin story, and you overcome that, and you're like, I'll show the world, you know?

• 25:57Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  And then you end up not doing great things, but you, you know.

• 26:01Heather Berlin?

  You know, a lot of villains were, were hurt as children.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Every single Superman movie, right, always has an origin story where something bad happened. And either they became good, or they became evil.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  That's right. But they still both overcame a victim mindset.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:18Heather Berlin?

  Wow.

• 26:18Speaker 00

  I mean, but Spider-Man, right? They killed his parents when he was young, or Batman, sorry, Batman, they killed his parents when he was young, and Batman overcame a victim mindset and helped others. I think.

• 26:28Heather Berlin?

  Spider-Man 2, his uncle got killed, and then he became, you know, he said, I think, again, I'm not a huge comic person, but I believe that he could have stopped the robber who was, who ended up killing his uncle, and he didn't. And then after, from that point on, he thought, I have to now, you know, protect people.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:49Heather Berlin?

  And stop these bad things from happening. But it's a really interesting point, that you could overcome victimhood and either use it for good or evil, your newfound.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Absolutely. There's evil agency and there's pro-social agency.

• 27:02Heather Berlin?

  Ah.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  But the important point here for our purpose is agency. You have to develop a sense of agency, otherwise you will always feel, I'm not responsible. It's always the system that does me in.

• 27:13Speaker 00

  That's correct. That's correct.

• 27:14Heather Berlin?

  Yes. So, you know, you have to take up arms, but how you use them.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:18Heather Berlin?

  Depends on your personality.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's true.

• 27:21Heather Berlin?

  Every week, we ask a perception box question.

• 27:25Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 27:26Heather Berlin?

  And this week, Kristoff picked the question. So you and I don't know what the question is, and we are going to answer it.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Are you ready?

• 27:39Heather Berlin?

  Ready.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Have you ever gone through something painful or very uncomfortable that you later on reassessed as actually being very positive for you?

• 27:47Speaker 00

  Yes. So I recently, past couple of years, took up magic as, as a hobby, mentalism. And in the beginning, I would constantly embarrass myself. I would go out to bars, I would go out to just anywhere I could do. I would set up a beach, in Santa Monica Beach Path, I set up a table, it said, free magic, I'll read your mind. I did mentalism. And I just put myself out there to the experience of rejection. And I learned so much from that. And it did hurt in the beginning, you know, like, I got a lot of rejection. But I'm really glad I did it because I, I stuck with it. And, and now, like, I love it.

• 28:25Heather Berlin?

  I, personally, getting divorced, choosing to get divorced, has been a very, and was a very painful thing to have gone through and to go through. But in my case, it was the right decision, and I'm glad that I did it. But, you know, sometimes things in life are very difficult. And you don't realize until after you go through them that you actually grew as a person.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  So you do feel that you did, that you did learn something? I mean.

• 28:58Heather Berlin?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. I learnt that, I actually learnt that I am even stronger than I thought I was, I think. Yeah, no, I did, like, I thought I, I maybe I won't be able to, it'll be, it's so difficult for me to get through this. Like, that'll be difficult for me to function and do my job and take care of my kids and do all these things, you know, simultaneously. And I do, I wasn't sure that I could do it. But I, in some ways, surprised myself. And I learnt that I'm, I'm more resilient, even though I had gone through these childhood adversities than, than I, than I thought, you know, I was.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  So it's a perfect instanzation, right, that you grow through adversity. What is it, the motto of Candace Per Aspera D'Astra? Through adversity to the stars. So I guess that's very non-PC now.

• 29:50Heather Berlin?

  I think we need, the, the, the message of this podcast is we're like promoting adversity. We're promoting sitting with discomfort. And like, because that's where growth happens.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  That's what it is. It's perceiving the discomfort in a different way than you're used to perceiving it.

• 30:04Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, and using it.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  Through adversity to the stars.

• 30:07Speaker 00

  I like it.

• 30:08Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, I love that.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  The state motto of my, where I was born. I was born there, as you can hear.

• 30:13Heather Berlin?

  In Kansas, of course. That makes sense. Scott, thank you very much for joining us.

• 30:18Speaker 00

  It was such a pleasure to be here.

• 30:19Heather Berlin?

  It's been a pleasure. And if you'd like to learn more about your own perception box, spend some time this week answering the same perception box questions that we asked our guest. And check out our other questions on our website at unlikelycollaborators.com. And you can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch the show or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This has been Science Perception Box, created by Unlikely Collaborators in partnership with Pod People. I'm Dr. Heather Berlin.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  And I'm Dr. Christoph Koch. Thank you.