So, I'm now officially become an

40-year-old male virgin. Your now

41-year-old virgin is back with

astonishing results. I love this post.

Here is the astonishing result. Nothing.

Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

I'm sorry to let you guys down since

there is always this BS talk about once

you focus on your mission, your job,

don't think about getting a

relationship, just letting go, not

caring, things will fall into place. No,

they don't. Nothing happens. The women

at work ignore me like I'm used to be.

They talk about workrelated stuff, but

they don't tell me the time of day. They

don't look at me and they couldn't care

less. Love this. Not because this person

is suffering, but I think this person

captures a huge problem that people

face, which is that there's a lot of

advice out there, right? People say, "Do

this, do this, do this." And this is

great. I like this because this person

like actually like measured, right?

They're like, "Okay, I'm a 40-year-old

virgin. I'm going to try to do a bunch

of stuff." And one year later, I like

this because it has the bones of a

scientific study. And a year later, I

tried all this stuff. Actually, nothing

happens. None of it works. Here's the

problem. You know, I can already read

the comments. Oh, there's so much

frustration in your post. No wonder no

one wants to be with you. See, you're

all attached to the outcome. Otherwise,

you wouldn't write like this, etc., etc.

Well, you don't know me in person. I do

so many things, right? Uh way more than

a lot of other people. I'm not cynical.

I'm not an [ __ ] I care for people.

I'm funny. I help. I listen. I have

great skills. I care for myself. I have

stuff to do. I'm busy. No addictions. I

write good music. Right? They're also,

by the way, 6'7. So, he gets flirted

with by ladies over 60 who have

diabetes. No other girl woman has ever

flirted with me except old ladies. I

think this is a great post. I appreciate

when people post their problems. So,

here's what really struck to me. That is

the reason I decided to post again to

make stuff clear that gets ignored by

Dr. Kane Healthy Gamer Team. You can do

everything right. You can work your ass

off. You can have all the skills in the

world, but a lot of us are still going

to lose, right? I noticed a trend with a

lot of HG content recently. Everything

isn't working in your life. is in some

way or another your fault. You don't

have a boyfriend, girlfriend. It's

because you don't do this or that. Your

mind tells you this or that. You're not

moving forward in life. So, this is kind

of a challenge. This is a conflicting

situation. This person says, "Look, I'm

posting because I've watched content for

a year. I've done and this person has

invested a lot in things like emotional

regulation, social skills building,

maybe working out, going to the gym.

They do they do a lot of stuff and

they're here to tell us, look, at you

guys are like, "Hey, do this, do this,

do this." So now I'm sort of conflicted

because

of this. So when I read this post, I

think that this person isn't doing

everything right. And in fact, I think

they're doing a couple of things very

very very wrong. But on the flip side,

that's what I always say, right? I

always blame the person. Hey, you're

doing something wrong. So let me let's

start with that before we get to what to

do. So the first thing that I want to

say is I've worked with a lot of people.

I'm a psychiatrist. Worked with people

who are depressed, hopeless, people who

did everything right. Top of the list of

people who did everything right and life

still [ __ ] them. Mothers with

borderline personality disorder. If

you've ever talked to a mother with

borderline personality disorder, 55

years old, 58 years old, 62 years old,

estranged from all of their kids, they

did everything right. They tried

everything. They listened to all of the

advice. They've been in therapy for

years. Their kids are sometimes you just

fail. I've also worked with people with

major depressive disorder, bipolar

disorder, who tried everything. They've

been in therapy for years. Nothing

works. So now I have a challenge. So, on

the one hand, I don't want to be

punching down, right? This person has

the balls, pretty sure it's a dude, to

show up and say, "Hey, here's my

experience." Shares their authentic

experience. And they even point out this

pattern that Dr. K says, "Hey, it's

always your fault. Always your fault."

On the flip side, so on the one hand, it

feels like bad to punch down and say,

"Hey, yeah, you're right. You are doing

something wrong." On the flip side, like

what's my job? My job is precisely to

help people like this. That's why I got

into this. And one of the scariest

things is that this person isn't wrong.

Sometimes there is nothing that you can

do. Nine-year-old diagnosed with myoma

spreading through their body. There is

nothing you can do. I've had treatment

refractory depression patients. Nothing

we could do. I've had people who are

40year-olds virgins, 50-year-old

virgins, 65year-old virgins. Feels like

nothing you can do. And maybe there is

nothing you can do. Here's the first

thing that really scares me. When you

conclude that there is nothing that can

be done, there is a chance that you're

right and there's a chance that you're

wrong. But the thing that you can do to

really doom yourself is to incorrectly

conclude that there is nothing you can

do. The most damning thing. So our job

is first to get people to question their

conclusions, right? And and this is

where like I say this because there are

so many people that have tried it all.

This is not like a small part of the

population. This part of the population

is growing or just [ __ ] stuck as wage

slaves, lonely, isolated incelss, right?

There's so many people out there who

have looked at advice on the internet,

but nothing seems to work. And this is

where, how can I say this? This presumes

that advice fixes the problem. The

problem though is that if something is

not functioning properly in the way that

you approach the advice in the way that

you move through the world, if there is

something more fundamental so that

advice doesn't work, then that needs to

be fixed. And I I want to go back. So

mentalization I'm not I don't know that

this person has a personality I'm not

diagnosing them with anything, okay? But

this illustrates a point. So when I read

this post, I turned because I've been

reading this text for a year. Okay? So

mentalization based treatment is a

treatment for personality disorders. And

the cool thing about it is it's very

similar to like yogic practice and

meditative practice. Yogis in India

teach the same stuff that mentalization

people do. The difference is that

mentalization is designed for a group

with a particular pathology. So these

are people with borderline personality

disorder for example. Right? So the

58-year-old mother like I said whose

children have alienated them and and

they will say literally the same thing.

They say I've looked at all this advice.

I've read all these things about

relationships and stuff like that. I've

tried giving gifts. I've tried listening

to them. I've tried doing this. I've

tried doing this. I've tried doing this.

I've tried doing this. Nothing works.

And that's because it's not the action

that is creating the problem. It is the

underlying way that this person relates

to the things around them. That's why we

call it a personality disorder. Now, I

have no idea if this person has a

personality disorder or not. I don't

really I can't evaluate that based on

the information. It's not my job. My

point though is that this thing that

works for BPD can be applied in some way

sort of like in the yogic system. We can

use it for everybody. So if you are

someone that tries a lot of advice and

none of it works, you have to look

deeper and this may not work for you,

but I am still going to try. Right? So

if I meet you where you're at and you're

like, "Yeah, [ __ ]

I'm not willing to do that. I could be

wrong, could be arrogant, could be an

[ __ ] but for those of y'all who have

given up on anything working, that's why

I [ __ ] started this is to help y'all.

And I want to make a case. I want to

show you guys what the actual problem

is. Okay, it could be could be

hypothetically. So, this is a problem of

mentalization. And let's understand what

mentalization is. It's kind of like such

a weird thing. So mentalization is

understanding that actions and behaviors

in the outside world are connected and

driven by things in the inside world.

That's it. Now it seems like common

sense and it sort of is. But there are a

lot of things about mentalization that

like are really hard to understand. Once

we show you guys what's in the book,

it'll become more clear. So the first

thing is that everyone is going to say,

"Yeah, I do that. Everybody does that."

And you're kind of right. Everyone does

it to some degree, but some people do it

more poorly than others. And the better

that you get at it, the less likely you

will end up with nothing works. It's the

fundamental thing. So, if nothing works,

but it works for other people. I don't

know if this makes sense. There's like a

piece of the equation that's missing,

right? And this person says that they're

ugly. It was hard at work to accept that

I'm ugly. And maybe the person is ugly.

We don't know. But here's the thing. I

don't know. I I sort of had a brain fart

there. Forgot what I was saying. But

let's go back to the core of

mentalization. Okay, I had some point.

So mentalization is like understanding

that behaviors are driven by internal

things. Now here's the key thing about

mentalization. This also means an

understanding of other people's

behaviors being driven by internal

things. Okay, this person kind of

concludes that no one has ever flirted

with him. And then if you kind of dig

down into it, he talks more about like

this means that I'm ugly. So what he

kind of says is like since no one flirts

with me that means that I am ugly. So

there's a couple of things about

mentalization that we have to understand

that are kind of weird. Okay. The first

is that mentalization is something

called preconcious. This is a bit hard.

Y'all y'all got to bear with me because

it's just bear with me. It'll make

sense. Okay. Mentalization is

preconcious. What does that mean? It's

kind of weird. It means a bunch of

calculations about why things happen are

made before you are consciously aware of

them and they get served up to you with

a silver platter. And a prime example is

no woman over 60 has ever flirted with

me. Therefore, I am ugly. Okay? Do you

see how that thought is logical, but it

gets served up to you? So one feature of

people who I don't know that this person

doesn't mentalize well but if you look

at the spectrum of people who mentalize

well versus people who don't mentalize

well some people who mentalize well are

able to consider lots of hypothesis. So

is the reason that they don't flirt with

me because I can't detect flirting

accurately which by the way fascinating

study. There's a study where they had

people flirting and they videotaped the

interaction. two people flirting or one

person is flirting with the other

person. Then they had this videotape is

watched by a neutral observer. So I'm

going to show you a video tape of person

A flirting with person B. 64%

of people who are neutral observers

watching a tape from flirting could not

detect flirting. Loneliness is at an

all-time high. Sexlessness is at an

all-time high. Relationships are

probably in the worst state they've ever

been in the history of humanity. And

that's why I made Dr. K's guide to love,

sex, and relationships. Let's talk about

who you should actually date. Falling in

love is sometimes one of the biggest

mistakes that you can make. You know, I

started to do a lot of research about

how to have like really good sex. Visit

healthygamer.gg/guide

to learn more. Good luck out there,

mother. Y'all are going to need it. So,

here's what mentalizing is. Okay, so

here's me and here's you. So, the first

thing is that there is a self and there

is an other. And then there are actions

on both sides. And then there are

internal external. This is the coarse

thing of mentalizing. The more that you

are able to separate these things out

and simultaneously consider them, the

better you are at mentalizing. I should

have started with this. When you fail to

separate these things, you become weaker

at mentalizing. So the core thing if we

remember mentalizing is psychic

equivalence. What is in my mind? There

is no separation between the outside

world and my internal mind. So if I were

to ask you, so here's a really clear

test to see how good or bad you are at

mentalizing. If I were to ask you, tell

me about yourself, and then I were to

ask you, what would other people say

about you? The closer those answers are,

the more bad you are at mentalizing.

Right? So in BPD, this kind of makes

sense. When when someone treats me

poorly, that means I'm a bad person.

When someone doesn't flirt with me, that

means I'm ugly. And it's not that it

isn't true. You may be ugly. But there

is a differential diagnosis for an

absence of flirting. Maybe the reason

that they aren't flirting with you is

because they're going through a breakup.

Maybe the reason that they aren't

flirting with you is because you are

missing it. Maybe the reason that

they're not flirting with you is because

they're gay. Maybe the reason that

they're not flirting with you is because

they view you with you developed a

platonic relationship with them. You

missed the boat on the window of

expressing romantic interest and so

they've slotted you. They've

friend-zoned with you. That doesn't mean

you're ugly. You can friend-zone people

who are physically attractive. Happens

all the time. This really confuses

people. They're right. They're like, "Oh

my god, how can you possibly be friends

with someone who is physically

attractive?" Here's a prime example of

the failure of mentalization. the

failure of the gap between self and

other. I have difficulty making friends

with people that I'm attracted to.

Therefore, if you claim to be able to do

it, it is false. You are lying. You are

deluding yourself. It cannot be done. I

cannot do it. Therefore, it cannot be

done. How have you tried to do it? I

don't know. Forget all those questions.

It is preconcious.

It just presents in your head. This is

the failure of mentalizing separation

between self and other. It doesn't

necessarily say anything about you if

someone behaves in a particular way.

We're not saying that there isn't a

correlation. We're not saying that there

are absolutely studies that show that if

you are more ugly, you will get less

romantic interest. That is true. But do

you guys understand that there's a

difference between that generalization?

But it is also true that sometimes

people who are below five on

attractiveness end up having healthy

relationships that are sexually

fulfilling and have kids, right? Where

do ugly people in the world come from?

They have ugly parents. And I'm not

saying that to be a dick, but like you

guys get that, right? When two pretty

people have kids, their kids are pretty.

When two mediocre people have kids,

their kids are mediocre. When two ugly

people have kids, their kids are ugly.

Where do ugly children come from? It's

like, I'm not trying to be a dick here.

And of course there's variance.

Sometimes you get two pretty people who

have a mediocre kid. Sometimes you get

two mediocre parents who have beautiful

children. Sometimes you get two mediocre

parents who have ugly children. There's

a certain amount of beauty is in the eye

of the beholder. There's a certain

amount that's objective. My point is

that it's once again preconcious. It

just presents to you in this way. And

the key thing about mentalization is you

have to be able to separate out internal

drives with external behaviors. That's

the other thing. So first is separation

of self and other. Second thing is when

I act a certain way, it is because of

certain things. So, prime example of

poor mentalization that is not

personality disordered is avoidant

attachment, fear of commitment. Why have

you guys been dating for 7 years and

aren't getting married? And this is

where you all may say, "Ah, I see what

you're saying, Dr. K. This is the

internal driver that is leading to a

lack of marriage." Incorrect. This is

the preconscious mentalization response.

Fear of commitment isn't actually the

reason. Fear of commitment is what pops

into your head originally, but there are

thousand different things that go into

this. I'm ashamed of myself. I'm not

afraid of commitment. I want nothing

more than to be married to this person,

but I think they are better than I am.

I'm afraid I'm going to screw it up. I

have sexual thoughts about other people.

I've got FOMO. Once I get married, it

means marriage equals decrease in

freedom. You guys see my point? This is

rich. There's all kinds of stuff going

on. It's not a fear of commitment. It is

a thousand different things that we that

our brain says, "Oh, yeah, it's fear of

commitment." This is what people don't

realize. Flirting is designed to be

missed. The whole point of flirting is

like safety, right? If I come on too

hard, then it makes things awkward. So,

the way that I'm safe about it is like I

have plausible deniability, right? And

so, the whole point of flirting is that

we don't want to send a strong signal.

We want to send a weak signal that is

hopefully picked up and then

reciprocated. That's how it works. And

this is insane. These are neutral

observers. These not even people in the

interaction. In the interaction, your

likelihood of detecting it is even way

lower. And you guys may have seen these

posts on social media about like, I

don't understand why men don't approach

me. Like, I'm sending signals, they're

not picking them up. That gets into

other stuff about, you know, like men

being afraid to approach women and

respecting boundaries and things like

that. We're not going to go down that

that road. My point here is that when

you are good at mentalizing anything

that happens in your life, whether it is

your behavior or somebody else's

behavior, you are able to see lots of

different reasons for it. Okay, so let's

look at this text. Characteristics of

mentalizing central concept that is that

internal states are opaque. Remember we

said it's preconcious. So the first

thing that mentalization researchers

figured out is that the default state is

for your emotions, motivations, desires,

and thoughts to be hidden from you,

right? Everyone thinks they know what's

going on inside them. It's actually the

opposite. Like you just get floated, if

you really pay attention to this, this

is so weird. You get floated a

conclusion. My boss doesn't like me. And

people can ask you about it, but it's

not like you literally went through like

a sequential pro. You think you did, but

that's not actually what you did. Okay.

Inferences are prone to error and so

mentalizing easily goes ary. Inferences.

No one is flirting with me. Therefore,

dot dot dot unlike most aspects of the

physical world are readily changeable.

So, overarching principle of mentalizing

is to take an inquisitive stance. Okay.

So, we're going to show y'all when

mentalizing is done incorrectly, what

does it look like? Pre-mentalizing modes

of subjectivity. Mind world isomorphism.

Mental reality equals outer reality.

Internal has the same power as external.

Thoughts are felt as real. Subjective

experience of the mind can be

terrifying. Intolerance of alternative

perspectives links to concrete

understanding. Self-related negative

conditions may be felt to be too real.

Reflects domination of self affect state

thinking with limited internal focus.

Managed in therapy by clinician by

avoiding being with blah blah. Okay,

here we here it is cuz everything's in

my book. What does non-mentalizing look

like? excessive detail to the exclusions

of motivations, feelings, or thoughts.

So, when we look at this, okay, there's

nothing you can tell me I don't already

know. But that is not the reason I'm

writing this. The reason is to show you

that even after doing all of it and

more, some people are not going to make

it, some will lose. I am a person who

has individual appearance that no one

seems to like. Well, I shouldn't say no

one. The only group of men flirting with

me are over 60 and have diabetes. This

is no joke. It is funny, yes, because

the pattern became so obvious, but it is

true. No other girl has ever flirted

with me except old ladies. And just for

the record, I am 6'7. Okay. So, let's

look at exclusion of motivations,

thoughts, or feelings. Do you guys

detect in this any semblance of the

women's motivations, thoughts, or

feelings? Are these complex human beings

that are driven by all kinds of stuff?

Is the picture that we're seeing here

more like this or more like this? How

unid-dimensional is it? This, by the

way, is a great paper. Highly recommend

it. If you guys want a good summary on

mentalization, focus on social factors.

Focus on physical or structural labels.

Lazy. Tired. Oh, yeah. The reason that

things are this way in my life is

because I'm lazy. Preoccupation with

rules and responsibilities. Denial of

involvement and problem. This is more

pathological, right? Or maybe it's not.

This person tried everything, so they're

sort of involved in the problem. This is

what's tricky. We have to get to

pseudomentalizing later. Blaming or

fault-f finding. This two is like kind

of black and white expressions of

certainty about thoughts and or feelings

of others. This is my favorite. In this

person's mind, how certain are they that

other people find them ugly? Now, this

is what's really confusing about

mentalizing. Here's what's really

confusing. So, if I were to just ask

you, this is how you tell. I'm not

interested in arguing about whether this

person is ugly or not ugly. In the

mentalization textbook, there's a

beautiful passage about how they say the

biggest mistake you can make as a

therapist is actually in in engaging

with this crap at all. If you try to

prove to them or you inquire, are you

ugly? Are you not ugly? You've already

lost the battle. Okay? So, I'm going to

explain how you fix mentalizing. Okay?

Because people say, "I am ugly. I am

lazy. Here's all the evidence. Here is

how you fix mentalization. Fear of

attachment." And then I say, "No, bro.

like like let's get you like secure

attachment, right? When you engage with

this and argue with someone about this,

it doesn't work. That's not how you fix

mentalization. It is not even trying to

convince the person that they're ugly.

If I tried to convince this person that

they were not ugly, what would they do?

Wouldn't work. The way you fix

mentalization is by adding all of these

arrows. The way you fix mentalization is

not in dealing with any truth in your

mind. It is understanding fundamentally

on a more basic level that truth in your

mind is not true. You'll get that like

this is why I'm doing this. I know it's

hard to understand. I know it's been

auditous route. Right? So if I get get

into they say, "Oh, I should do

something. I I should go to the gym

every day." And if I engage with them

around that, lost. They say, "Oh yeah, I

don't need to stop drinking." Yeah, you

do. Try to convince them. Lost. Game

over. Right? If they are blaming

themselves, if I am working with an

incel and they say all women are [ __ ]

and I try to argue with them about that

belief, lost. No way. Oh yeah, I am this

way because my neighbors are mean.

That's the fault. The solution is

actually in just adding more to the

equation. What mentalization is is it is

separating out self from other. We're

moving this in this direction. I'm over

here, you're over here. It is in

separating out behaviors from

motivations. This person did not flirt

with me because of this, this, this, or

this. So now what we're going to do is

look at forms of non-mentalizing. Number

one, psychic equivalence. Okay? So what

is in my mind is tied to the outside

world. Basically what this means is that

if I believe something in here internal

external I believe I am ugly therefore

no one flirts with me these two things

are connected healthy mentalizing is

doing this literally separating out so

when I'm I'm working with people in this

capacity like if I'm working with

someone with BPD love working with

people with BPD one of the most

enriching and wonderful experiences I've

had as a therapist which I know some

people don't like people with BPD but

like they're just amazing human beings

And the reason I love it is because they

are trying so hard but they're missing

something fundamental. And if you can

help them realize that you see such an

amazing outcome change, their life

transforms. They have stable

relationships. People invite them to

things instead of trying to dodge. It's

like night and day. So if you connect

internal feelings with external stuff,

why don't women why can I I feel

ashamed? I feel alone. I feel rejected.

I feel hopeless. All of this collapses

into sexual marketplace value. You guys

kind of see that? Another form of poor

mentalizing, teological mode. Okay. A

focus on understanding actions in terms

of their physical as opposed to mental

constraints. Over reliance on what is

physically observable. Understanding of

self and others in terms of physical

behaviors. Only a modification in the

physical world is taken to be a true

indicator of the intentions of others.

Manifests itself as behaviors that

generate observable outcomes. Extreme

external focus, momentary loss of

controlled mentalizing, misuse of

mentalizing for teological ends. Okay,

this is where we get to the pathology.

But this is what I want you guys to

focus on. Over reliance on what is

physically observable, understanding

self and others in terms of physical

behaviors. You guys heard of looks

maxing? You guys heard of sexual

marketplace value? Have you heard of

being an alpha? When these people talk,

where is their focus? They're

deterministic. If you look a certain

way, if you make a certain amount of

money, women will you high value woman,

men will line up and they'll buy you

bags and they'll buy you this and

they'll pay for this and they'll pay for

this. Focus on external things. If a man

does not pay for your hair, pay for your

nails, pay for your bag, he doesn't

value you enough. The concept that

someone could value you more than

anything in the world, but they're

[ __ ] broke today does not even enter

their minds. Do you guys see that? Like

how insane that is? That a behavior that

someone has does not correlate one to

one with what goes on inside them. And

I've seen this like all kinds of ways,

right? So, like when I'm working with

someone who is suicidal and has major

bipolar disorders, the person I'm

thinking about right now, severe bipolar

depression, they want to kill

themselves. Why? Because they love their

family. And I've also worked with

children of people who killed

themselves. And they believe, "Oh my

god, my dad, if he had loved me more, he

would have stayed alive." Right? There's

like a complete disconnect. Dad thinks

you're better off without me. Child

thinks if my dad loved me, then he would

have survived. He would have kept going.

He wouldn't have done this. They look at

one action and they end up in completely

opposite poles. And once again, the

solution here is not to convince someone

that they did love them or didn't love

them or anything like that. That's not

the solution. This is where people so

many people miss the boat. And I'm going

to say this like 10 times during this

lecture because I want it to sink in.

And it's not clear to me that I have the

capacity to explain this in the way that

I want y'all to understand it, which is

maybe a failure of my mentalization.

Maybe I should look at what I'm saying

and then realize, okay, I'm actually

explaining it pretty well. The solution

to mentalization is not meeting in the

middle. It's adding additional arrows.

And when we have this teological

framework, okay, like literally you can

look at stuff about manosphere. You can

examine this post if you want to. And

what you will find in this post is

physical things that are hyperfocused

on. Actually, this person does a really

good job. They they talk about all kinds

of other stuff. I think there's a lot of

good stuff going on here. So, not to

demonize. There's there's a lot here.

Okay. Okay, so that's a big difference

between this person and like manosphere

looks maxing kind of people. And and

this once again is like you know it's

not about whether improving your looks

improves your chances of dating. There's

no question about that. But it's like

what are the other variables? And people

who are poor at mentalizing have few

variables. Then we go to pre-mentalizing

modes of subjectivity. Ideas do not form

a bridge between inner and outer

reality. The mental world is severed

from outer reality. This gets a little

bit more pathologic. Okay. To the

listeners, this is what's really cool.

You can detect whether someone is bad at

mentalizing based on your response. If

you roll your eyes and stop paying

attention to them, their reasoning is

kind of circular. So like when you see

like people start going on political

when they start vomiting what they have

ingested about politics. Does that make

sense? I'm going to swallow a lot of

political stuff. it's going to be in

here and I'm going to just vomit it back

out without really thinking about it,

without understanding the nuance,

without understanding contradictory

perspectives. The patients discourse

feels empty and meaningless unless you

mentalize in the same way in which case

it feels like truth that no one else is

willing to accept. Marked by

simultaneously held contradictory

beliefs. Okay, this is another big one.

If sexual marketplace value is a thing,

why are most of the human beings on the

planet who are mating of average looks?

If this is a thing, why is there so much

evidence? Like I I I think a good

example of this, we did this pretty

[ __ ] clickbait video. This is one of

the clickbaits that I can actually get

behind of why women prefer beta males.

And there's a really cool study that

shows that the drive for muscularity,

how muscular you want to be, is

inversely correlated with the length of

your relationship. So the more muscular

you want to be, the less likely you are

to be in a long-term relationship,

right? And women are able to pick up on

this. So they actually prefer dudes that

are like more in the median towards the

median than people who are very extreme.

But that's not what people would have

you believe. They'd have you believe

that if you get in shape and you make

more money, if you what is it again? Do

everything right. They want you to

believe that you can do everything

right. You can work your ass off. You

can have all the skills. They want you

to believe that you're going to win.

That these external behaviors will

mathematically lead to a particular

solution. And that's what we see in this

community, right? We see the sort of

idea that if you do if you make more

money and you do this with your hair and

you do this and you do this, you get leg

lifts, you break your shins apart,

insert metal rods to get 2 in taller,

that if you do these things that there

is a there's just a really clear

physically observable things, physical

behaviors that you can do that'll solve

the problem. People's minds basically

don't exist. People don't have choice.

They don't have preferences. They don't

have traumas. None of that stuff

matters. Doesn't exist even. And this is

the interesting it's preconcious. Okay,

here's a basic problem. So if I am

saying this to you, this is a problem of

mentalization. You may have various

rejections of it, arguments against it,

whatever. Either you'll reject what I

say, which is fine cuz I could be wrong,

right? So that's like part of my attempt

to mentalize is the acknowledgement that

just because it feels true for me, it

could be wrong for you. Just because it

makes up sense up here doesn't mean that

it's actually true in the external

world. Fine. Second thing, this is

what's actually like trickier. Okay,

hard to teach but really important is a

lot of y'all will say, "I already do

this." You're right, Dr. K. Plebs,

[ __ ] plebs on the internet, they

don't do this, but I do. So, we got to

talk about pseudommentalizing. So,

intrusive pseudomentalizing is

characterized by opakeness of minds is

not respected. So, this is the first

thing. There is a disrespect of if you

say you do this, there may be some of it

that you do, but there's a lot of it

that you're not doing that you don't

see. Does that kind of make sense? It's

kind of a mind [ __ ] where it's like you

see the part that you do, but you don't

respect that there are things going on

in your mind that you're not aware of.

Like that's the baseline. Okay, here's

another example here. I love this.

Extends knowledge of thoughts and

feelings beyond a specific context. So

if you believe you mentalize but you

instead of looking at individual

scenarios you are making generalizations

then you are not mentalizing properly.

You're doing something called

pseudommentalizing. Presents knowledge

of thoughts and feelings in an

unqualified way. So what does an

unqualified way mean? I interpret this

to be whatever [ __ ] your brain

generates, are you able to look at the

shortcomings in that thinking? Case in

point, I did it when I said, "Oh, like

maybe when I say mentalization is

important, I must acknowledge that you

guys may disagree." So, it's like

looking at the shortcomings in your own

thinking and what mistake am I making? I

am failing in recognizing the opakeness

of my own thoughts. So, I can point out,

you see guys, I'm mentalizing. I pointed

out the weaknesses in my thoughts, but

even I am unaware of lots of things in

my thinking. Does that kind of make

sense? So even when I say I'm

mentalizing, well, I'm failing one of

these requirements because I'm not

recognizing the opakqueness of my

thoughts, there are all kinds of other

considerations which I might might not

be thinking about. Is this an ego battle

between me and some [ __ ] Redditor

where I'm using my platform to bludgeon

them? That could be something that is

opaque that I'm not aware of. Right?

Okay, this one's kind of scary. Okay.

Presents thoughts and feelings with a

richness and complexity that is unlikely

to be based on evidence. So, this one is

kind of hard to manage, but I'll tell

you what this looks like. When you see a

wall of text that may not be supported

by external things, that's when you're

doing this. And if you guys pay

attention to mental health subreddits or

people, you know, just talking about

stuff on the internet, really good

example of this is like strong political

discussions. there walls of text all the

time that people are very very very

passionate about that and they just

assume that if I'm really passionate

about it and I write about it a lot

about it that there's like a lot of

evidence to support it. You guys kind of

get what I'm saying? What I want you all

to do is judge with a critical eye. When

someone presents a wall of text, what is

the actual evidence and how strongly do

they feel about it? Next thing, here's a

beautiful thing. When challenged,

defaults to non-mealizing

accounts. Love this. When someone is

challenged, they will become

hypertological.

Everybody knows women only date men who

have money are this tall. So when you

challenge someone, they can even

mentalize at the beginning, but their

response is in hyper teological. Their

response is in psychic equivalence. I

feel this way, therefore it is true.

Right? to strongly held political

beliefs. You will see this very clearly

when you challenge someone's political

perspective. Do they critically think

about it or do they default to all

liberals, all conservatives, all this,

all that? We start to become black and

white. Now, the problem is that this

person will sort of do what's called a

pseudomentalization. Okay? So, intrusive

pseudomentalizing. Let's talk about

destructively inaccurate

pseudomentalizing. Denial of objective

realities that undermine subjective

experience. Huge. People who are in your

demographic sometimes do better than you

are capable of doing. They're like,

"Nope, I'm doomed. There's nothing I can

do." Sometimes, and this is more

pathologic, I think, denying someone's

real feelings and replacing them with a

false construction. This is when we get

to like borderline personality disorder

and antisocial personality disorder and

and things like that. Another example of

pseudoact pseudommentalizing is thoughts

about others felt by them as confusing

and obscure. If you literally like ask

people like when when someone says

something that is contrary to your

experience, what is your experience of

that? They're like, I just really don't

understand it. They start with this

person is wrong. And then they really,

and I love this in our community because

you guys will try. It's beautiful to

see, right? And and the person who

posted this like I'm so grateful to you

because we could not be having this

discussion unless you had the balls to

post this. And people will show up and

they'll be like, I really do not

understand. I'm going down the incel

pipeline. I do not understand. I cannot

fathom why someone would date anyone

like me. I cannot understand it. People

say this all the time. I'm confused.

Like, it really just does not make

sense. People say they want someone

who's supportive and I'm supportive and

I'm alone. It does not make any sense to

me. And see what they're the mistake

they're making. And now we kind of get

to this. The mistake they're making is

they're not respecting all of these

other things. And this is the core thing

about mentalizing. Okay? And this is

sort of the solution, but we're going to

be pretty quick about it. The simplest

thing, the reason that I focused all of

these things on the negative aspects of

mentalizing is it's pretty simple. Don't

do that. Now, that's a bit more complex,

which I agree. And and remember that

mentalizing is something that, you know,

this is a clinical manual design

designed for fully trained mental health

professionals. And if you guys want to

know what to do, this cannot be reduced

to a 5-minute YouTube video. Let's look

at one other negative thing. So here's a

list of things that it the more you

observe these the less likely

mentalization is happening in a healthy

way. Lack of attention to thoughts,

feelings, and wishes of others.

Predisposition to massive

generalizations and prejudice. Circular

explanations, a concrete explanations

are extended beyond the rain range

within which they could be appropriately

used. Good example of this is the

concept of alpha males and wolves and

stuff like that. You can make whatever

general observation about biology that

you want to from an animal species and

some of that is going to translate over

into humans, but like unless you are

accounting for the complex nature of

human conditioning, bonding, social

norms, you know, I I I've never heard of

a wolf being pressured to be an

investment banker. So, unless you're

incorporating that possibility into your

model, the model doesn't translate.

Speaking in absolute terms, he always

style of blaming or fault-f finding.

Exaggerated characterizations and black

and white thinking attributions in terms

of unchangeable personal

characteristics.

I'm ugly. Inflexible and rigid. Sticking

to the first reasonable account of

behavior, assumptions and motives based

on physical appearance. Y'all, this text

was published in 2016 and it's like,

wow, 10 years later, how many people

does this describe? arbitrarily

established ideas accepted without

question. Once again, alpha males

overgeneralizing from single instances

of expression on the part of others to a

general and more extreme state. Just

look at this. Like this is nuts, right?

This is insane. Like this describes what

is happening in our society right now at

a huge level. Political conflict, wars,

gender dynamics, the threat of AI, the

people who say, "Oh yeah, AI is going to

replace everybody's job." Are they

mentalizing? Are they generalizing? Are

they considering alternative

perspectives? Are they looking at

studies from MIT that suggests that

actually it's not going to replace a

whole lot? Right? There was a study

recently that sort of suggested that

conversation for a different day. So

what's happening right now is we have

this like information trash diet that is

conditioning our thinking. And the more

conditioned our thinking becomes, the

more divorced from reality we become.

Because basically there's this thing

called science and science has one you

know it's got several but it's got like

one pretty consistent conclusion which

is that a worldly phenomenon is made up

of multiple things generally. So if you

look at economics there is not like

economics is not an onoff switch.

There's lots of different factors. Even

at the level of like cell membrane

dynamics, there are complex equations

that govern cell membranes. Are they

reducible to chemical forces, biological

forces, and physical forces? Absolutely.

Can we predict a lot of that stuff?

Absolutely. Neuronal firing is on the

one hand really simple. Electrical

charge passes across a membrane,

depolarizes the membrane, fires a

neuron. But as we add layers of

complexity, a neuron firing does not

mean no one wants to [ __ ] you. bluntly,

the more complex the system becomes, the

more complex our view needs to become.

So if we look at a human behavior and we

want to ask why is this true in my life,

the more variables you add to the

equation, the more likely you are to get

to a good result. Now there is a limit

to the variables that you need to add

which is based on things like factor

analysis. So if we look at something

like charisma, there are 5 to 12

different components of charisma.

Interestingly enough, physical

appearance is number six. There are five

more things that are more important to

having charisma than your physical

appearance. If you need evidence of

that, just look at no shade on the dude,

Winston Churchill. Incredibly

charismatic. I don't know that his Only

Fans would be super successful, right?

And maybe that's just my take on his

physical appearance. Winston Churchill

is known for a lot of things. Being a

sexy [ __ ] I don't know how true

that is. Maybe he is known for that.

Okay, so now the question becomes, okay,

Dr. K, what do I do? And this is where

it's one of those things where there are

a lot of things to do, but telling you

all of them doesn't help. You need to

start with the first one and do it

really well. And it's really simple.

Okay, let's talk about what to do. I

couldn't find what I was looking for,

but I will find it. But we're going to

go to this. So the problem with

mentalizing is that everything is one

thing. Psychic equivalence, right? Hyper

reliance on physical things. Like these

are the problems. So what we want to do,

goal with mentalizing is add arrows and

separate things out. So there is

internal and external. These are not the

same. What do you feel and what does

somebody else feel? So my favorite

example of this because I've asked this

to people with BPD. How do you feel

about yourself? How do other people feel

about you? If those answers are the

same, you're not mentalizing properly.

Period. Right? There's a difference

between how other people perceive you

and how you perceive yourself. So the

more you add to that gap, the more

you're mentalizing. Actually, this is

self versus other. So, good examples of

this are borderline personality

disorder, which is when self and other

are together, right? There's no

difference. If someone is mad at me,

that means that I'm a loser. Their

feelings aren't separated from my

feelings. Here's what's really

interesting. Mentalizing works really

well for antisocial personality

disorder. In the case of antisocial

personality disorder, can y'all guess?

Can you all guess what the self other

dichotomy looks like in ASPD? Very good.

Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Man,

you guys got there so fast. Self.

Other's empty. Narcissism is sort of

over here, right? So, it works for NPD2,

but great, there's no separation. So,

still the goal in in mentalization based

treatment for antisocial personality

disorder. I I've never done

mentalization based protocols and

antisocial personality disorder. That's

a disclaimer, but based on my

understanding of it, right, is first

thing that we want to do is add someone

over here and then we want to separate

them out. But adding them is the big

part. We want to separate out external

from internal. So, are you hyperfocused

on physical things? then focus on

feelings, focused on thoughts, focused

on motivations. If you are hyperfocused

over here, then focus on actions. You

guys see like why I love this stuff

because this describes so many problems

in our community. Some people are way

too stuck in their own head and they

just don't physically represent like

this is what this looks like. I want to

solve all the problems in here and then

I will act. They're so it's not even

that that won't work, right? This this

is what I mean about mentalization which

is so like slippery about it. It's not

even that that won't work. It's that you

are literally viewing things in an

unhealthy way. So if if you shift from

internal what I'm thinking this way, I'm

thinking this way. I'm trying to figure

out nihilism and the meaning of life and

depression and logic and I'm watching

YouTube videos and watching YouTube

videos. You're watching YouTube videos

and instinctively you know like I'm not

doing anything. Unhealthy mentalizing.

separate out the external from the

internal. Hyperfocus on the external in

the case of all this like dating stuff.

Hyperfocus on the internal in the case

of nihilistic puer eterni that are like

paralyzed and never do anything. And the

tricky thing there is that they want to

find that silver bullet right and I'm

not saying that even the silver bullet

doesn't exist or how to find it. The

problem is that they are looking for the

one thing that will puncture this and

fix it. The fact that you are looking

for this in the first place is the

problem. find solutions that are

insufficient. Don't find perfect

solutions. But then I don't feel good

about that. And then you're like, "How

do I get rid of those feelings?" You You

see what I mean? It's like, "How do I

know I'm making the right choice? How do

I do this without feeling anxious? Where

are they looking? Their eyes are always

over here. And no matter how many times

we say, "Okay, don't do this." And then

they're always just looking in the same

place. That's the problem. And in the

case of people who are focused on bags

and looks maxing or whatever, we're not

saying don't improve your appearance.

We're not saying that this is wrong. It

is woefully and damagingly incomplete.

Okay. Basic goal of mentalization is

separation of self and other. Separation

of internal and external and adding more

things to any equation. Understanding

that avoiding the use of

generalizations. So if you generalize

try to add as many specific things

because a general truth doesn't really

is not usually actionable whereas if

there are specific factors those are

actionable okay and those are the kinds

of things that like coaches try to do

mentalization dimensions automatic

versus controlled so key thing is

remember it's preconcious so it pops up

in your head so it's a rapid and

reflexive process like it happens every

day actually this is a little bit

different but still illustrates the

point if you guys want to learn how to

mentalize slow it down, add words to it,

reflect, add attention and try. So just

pay attention to these two things and

move in whichever direction you need to.

Okay? So if you are hypermentalizing of

your own state, limit interest or cap

capacity to perceive other states, then

we need to focus on other people. If

you're hyperfocused on other people,

then you may have you may struggle with

emotional contagion. Okay, here's the

really fascinating thing. Sometimes

there's a really cool thing that they

observed here. This is an aside. So,

some of these people are actually

accurate in mind readading of others.

Here's what's really interesting. They

have no understanding of others, but

they're good at prediction. So,

sociopaths are good at this. People with

BPD are good at this. So, when you're

hyperfocused on other people, your

ability to read them is actually pretty

good. You can predict their actions, but

you have no idea what's going on under

the hood, which there's a whole

fascinating section on. And then the

other thing that we want to do to kind

of illustrate this is ability to make

mental state judgments on the basis of

internal states. Right? So I am doing

I'm taking this action because of a

richness of internal stuff. And we can

apply this to other people as well. This

is what's kind of weird. It is other

people's internal stuff, right? They're

behaving this way because of something

going on internally inside of them. The

reason my BPD mom is sending me

inflammatory text messages is because

when they try to send you kind messages,

they don't get a response. And so when

they're kind to you, you pull away. And

when they're inflammatory towards you,

they piss you off and at least you're

closer. An understanding of their

internal environment, that they're

looking for approval, that they're

looking for love, will help you in

dealing with them. Okay? When someone

starts ining down mid in one of your

games, right? Right. So, there's a

really interesting observation which is

that the higher rank you go in a

competitive video game, the more

toxicity you encounter. People will say

like, you know, once you get to

challenger or like immortal or whatever,

right? Like that's where you find the

most toxic people. Why is that? Let's

practice a little bit of mentalizing.

How much effort does it take to get

there? And what is your reward for being

there?

You know, if you're a Twitch streamer

making some money, maybe that's a decent

reward. But for most of these people,

right, we're talking like top 5,000

players, like it's really hard to be in

the top 5,000. But if you're like number

4,882

and you're playing said game for 10

hours a day and you don't have [ __ ] to

show for it, what do you think your life

is like? You're making all the same

sacrifices as a pro, but you've got

nothing. And then no wonder you're more

prone to get pissed off when things

don't go your way. And so people who are

external have higher sensitivity to

non-verbal communication, tendency to

make judgments on the basis of external

features and perceptions, and can lead

to rapid assumptions unless checked by

internal scrutiny. Right? So key thing

here is balance whatever you're doing.

That's the solution. Now, I'm noticing

that there's probably a need for a more

structured DIY mentalization thing. So

I'm thinking about that now. But that's

where we are so far. So, TLDDR, I know

it's not like a advice doesn't work.

Fine. So, there isn't something really

concrete to do because if I say, "Hey,

do this, it'll work." What I'm saying is

change the way the fundamental way that

you interpret the world around you. And

literally, when we take people with

narcissistic personality disorder,

antisocial personality disorder, and

borderline personality disorder, and we

teach them this skill, these illnesses

get better. But if you're doing this

stuff in some other dimension of your

life, dating, politics, whatever, the

more you do this, the better off you

will be. Okay? Your mileage may vary.

But I think that there's a strong

argument to be made for the learning of

mentalization skills makes things

better. And this is sort of what yoga

does too, right? Yoga focuses on

observation and awareness of the

internal environment. That's really all

they care about.