 We're continuing our discussion on good mental health with solutions focused life coach and behavior expert out of Woodstock Vermont, Dr. Neil Miranello. I'm your host Matt Kelly, we're glad to have your company we'd appreciate it too if you'd like this video to give it a thumbs up or even to subscribe. We're continuing our discussion and our topic today is one that I like to think of is actually a pure nealism. I've heard it for a number of years having been a client of Dr. Neals. So for me it's old hat but even as I wrap my mind around it, it still blows my mind even today our topic is all human systems are flawed. And Neil of course, the original thought here was that all systems are flawed. We amended it a little bit to give a caveat here that all human systems are flawed and like I say when I think about this, you know, I can get down because when you start examining it I mean this this is really deep and profound and and affects every facet of everyday life for every human on this planet. Yeah, I think that obviously the area of my specialty is is mental health and mental illness. At the same time, it was through exploring that that I came to this conclusion that just just about all systems are flawed whether it's all human systems are all systems. My brother, who was a computer expert talked about the possibility that there are computer systems that are not flawed. I suppose if you, if you take them out of context that's probably true but when you look at the entire system, it's definitely the case but but I'd say the best way to explore this is pick a system. And I'll be happy to explain my associations with it and the ways in which it's flawed. I mean, I mean to that end. I mean, you can pick any system whether it be the judicial system, the health care system, our DMV, any, any system that we live on. Why don't you just pick one. You want to start with judicial. At one point, I probably testified on more cases than any other shrink in Vermont. It helps to have had two parents that were lawyers and two kids that are lawyers. So I know how lawyers think and that especially equips me to deal with things like cross examination, which is really nothing but a sword fight. But this simple reality is that the judicial system is set up based on laws and laws are good, but the judicial system also is based on on case law. And when you take any one case. You'll find that it doesn't apply to any other case. In fact, when they cite laws they wind up citing one case to make a case for another case. Another factor of course is that when it comes to laws laws are are passed by legislators and legislators are being influenced by lobbyists and lobbyists have specific goals in mind and operate with a single a single purpose. Not necessarily what is best for the United States of America or any other country. But are there flaws in the system. You don't have to look back more than six months to see the flaws in the in the American system. And, and, you know, what comes to mind for me here are unintended consequences. I mean the law can have you know the purest of intention yet unintended consequences, thereby prove your rule that you know all human systems are flawed. And even if you were to take it to that extreme of say medication. But it all has unintended side effects that you don't want. And that is an example that the system is flawed if I'm, you know, going that all I need to have my eyelashes longer, which there's a, you know, cosmetic product out there for that. So you have to take into mind all the potential side effects of using it, which could be even worse than than the ailment you're trying to cure. Oh, absolutely. But going a step further beyond that what you're talking about when you're talking about medication is often the drug companies and drunk drug companies are basically corporations who exist for the benefit of the shareholders. We don't have to go back very far to realize that some of those drug companies wound up using their medications without consideration of the implications. Many drug companies have wound up coming up with millions, hundreds of millions of dollars to pay back for the fact that they were pushing drugs as strong or stronger than heroin on the average person by convincing doctors that this was the right way to go. But it gets worse than that. The simple reality is that there are many things that I disagree with Bernie Sanders on, but I have to say that he's pretty much on the nose when it comes to drug companies and healthcare. You know, as we examine the question again all human systems are flawed it can be pretty disheartening when when you kind of really look at it. And so the only way that I can try to take solace or strength from it is to be well armed with that knowledge. So that I am not surprised or upset if the system or whatever has been created by a human ends up breaking down. That's exactly right, Matt. So here's where science and belief come into conflict when someone believes something to be true, and acts as if it were true. And there's no scientific basis for it or there's very slight scientific basis for it. They're indulging in a possible delusion, a fixed false belief. The difficulty with that is that if you act as if that's the same as science, which is a method of disproof, then you run into enormous problems. The simple fact is that that facts are facts and they exist and they can be backed up or disproved based on what the data is that you have the problem is that beliefs come in conflict with facts. And what happens, some people operate as if they beliefs were facts. That's a problem, and it is probably the single biggest problem with any kind of system that that has human elements, people who, and it's not just a problem it's even a problem for scientists, you know, much of the research done on drugs is done by by scientists who are working for drug companies. And the mechanisms for confirming whether drugs are valid or invalid are going to be used are going to make the be the positions desk reference has to do with comparing them to placebo is not taking into account the incredible power of placebo is so understanding the flaws of any system. It's really good for you to be able to make a decision about what is really best for you. I specialized I think in, in studying these systems, and in telling my clients as much of the truth as I can come up with, including when I don't know the facts, and where they can go to get it. Sometimes the internet, often it's not some of the internet sources are are nothing more than an attempt to sell things to people using facts in quotes. It happened to me recently. I was in a situation where I was received an email that said that that shark tank, which is a show that I've seen a few times on TV, had recommended and totally backed a particular medication for losing weight. And as you know, weight has been a big issue for me over the years. And I read the article, I went ahead and ordered the stuff, and then found out that shark tank never mentioned this had nothing to do with it. So I engaged my system, which was the particular credit card that I was using. I let them know that I had been built. And they checked it out and came back to me and said, No, this is, they didn't say the system. They didn't say that they actually shark tank it proved it, but what they did say was the way in which it was handled was totally acceptable. So I wound up taking the hit. With the full awareness that I have been built. No better way to learn than getting conned by somebody. Well, and that, you know, is a flaw of the internet, if you will. And it's also a flaw of the of the email system. And it's also a flaw of the credit card system, which I was using. In fact, I made my main credit card a different one after that company that is more customer friendly. Yeah. Yeah. The one thing that you know was coming up to mind here for me is, you know, this also sort of serves as a as a guidepost for me and I would hope for those who are watching as well in the pursuit of perfection, which you know can be a neuroses as well. Knowing that all human systems are flawed, anything that a human creates, there's going to be a flaw. So the pursuit of perfection really is sort of the Mobius strip as you and I've talked about. Yeah. Yeah. And, and something of a a time related problem. In other words, what was perfect 20 years ago or 30 years ago was not perfect now and will not be perfect under 20 years from now. But an example of how systems are flawed. You don't have to go very far. Obviously I'm familiar with the mental illness system. What it comes down to though is that in the early DSM diagnostic and statistical manuals of mental disorders. There was a disease called Involucional Melancholia. Now, Involucional Melancholia sure sounds like a serious disease. In fact, Involucional refers to menopause. Melancholia clearly refers to depression. Involucional Melancholia was a disease which existed in one of the early DSMs, but it was basically a setup for rich men who were married to their first wives to get rid of their first wives and to marry their trophy wives. What they had to do was add their, their wife diagnosed with Involucional Melancholia institutionalized, and then they could get divorced and marry a younger woman. Involucional Melancholia no longer exists in DSM. I wonder why. Yeah, yeah. The other thing that was coming up here was for me anyways, was the fact that I need to be forearmed that any system I look at is going to have a flaw and, and to back that up to its source. All humans are flawed. I'm flawed. Me too. I don't know anything that I were to create or even you were to create as much as we would try for its perfection or to be free of flaws. There's going to be flaws in it, because that's the human condition it seems like, you know, now we go back to everyone's doing their best. It's true that you're doing your best. I'm doing my best perfection to me is a false goal. I'm trying to do better now than I did a month ago and I hope I'll be better a month from now than I am now. But what happens when you get to perfection and is perfection for you perfection for me, you know, concept of heaven and hell are good examples there. Heaven for one person is not going to be heaven for another person and what's hell for one person is not going to be out for another person. You have to look at it from the individual perspective and knowing my flaws, which I have spent quite a bit of time studying is something which helps me to figure out what's right for me at this moment. And that goes back to one of our other topics that we all live in our own reality. Exactly right. And the reality that I live in is one where the goal is to understand reality understand what is real. Not just what is real for me but what is real for the person I'm talking to, or the system I'm dealing with. You talk about human systems, you're talking about families, you're talking about communication within families, and you have all kinds of ways in which those systems can get screwed up. If you step on my toe. If I go out, it hurts. And the pain that goes away in a very short period of time, unless I decide that Matt stepped on Neil's toe on purpose. If I decide you stepped on my toe on purpose, then we have a potential feud that can be going on hundreds of years from now. I remember back in 2021 when Matt Kelly stepped on Neil Marinol's toe on purpose. That's why Matt's descendants and Neil's descendants have had a feud for the last several hundred years. It's all in the attribution that you give to the motivation of what's happening and that's a common flaw that gets made in all human systems or family systems or communication systems. It's all again and we talked about this on this podcast series. It's all in your response again. And your perception of the intention. I have found over the years that to assume that people's intentions are good. Usually works a lot better than to assume that they are crazy or evil, even though they may be crazy. It doesn't much matter. What matters is that when you assume they're good, the person has to say, Oh no, I waited. I'm crazy. I'm evil. That's not a correction many people make. So if you assume the person's intentions are good, it's possible to go from there in a direction that helps them to be better. Wow. And speaking with Dr. Neil Maranello continuing our podcast series on good mental health as we examine his tweets, our topic for today's discussion is all human systems are flawed. You know, if we take that human out that caveat out for a bit. To me, I would say then that that is not necessarily an accurate act euphemism, only because to me it seems that nature is perfect even in its imperfection, if you will. And so I would say that that word human really has to be in this theorem that all human systems are flawed. Oh, you make a good point there. I think that George Carlin had a very good point about nature versus human beings, and he said there's nothing wrong with the earth. The earth will be here long after we're gone. That's true, you know, regarding climate change or whatnot. Maybe it's just humans that are, you know, fooling with that very small habit, habitation zone, or the human species. Humans are the floor. There it is. Well, I have to tell you I'm thoroughly enjoying this topic it is as I refer to one of the nealisms that I like to refer to is sort of one of the top 10 basic concepts that describe you and your philosophy as you share it outward. And for me, I can say that I honestly benefit from it again it's not something that's in the forefront of my mind but it probably should be more and it would probably help me better to cope with the challenges of living in a flawed system. Well, it doesn't matter what system you looked at you look at whether it's capitalism or socialism or any other social construct whether it's religion. They all have flaws in them. Sometimes the best way to look at a system is to start with the with money. What extent our system set up to produce money, rather than to produce what's best for the people that are being served. I've talked before about the idea that that any, any group of people, whether they be lawyers or psychologists or psychiatrists or medical doctors or, or any any other group of people. The first rule is not really written down, which is protect the other people in the group. When the first rule should be protect the people who you are serving. And often the financial benefit is the one which can be looked at as the flaw. To what extent is this system out for get making money, rather than serving customers. All human systems are flawed. Again, when I think about it. It brings me back to something that you just said, which was social constructs. And in a sense, you know, it could be a printing press, let's say which is actually a physical construct versus a social construct like our justice system. And I think we see this concept, certainly more in our social constructs than in our physical constructs, but this it transcends both. Yes. And, and if you look at the printing press or any even something that's that tangible. If you look into the background you often find that the background shows that the person who invented the particular object is not the one who's getting the benefit of it. Often not even the one that is credited. And everybody kind of agrees that Thomas Edison was a great inventor. And those who've looked into it in detail find that a lot of his inventions were done by somebody else. Right, right. Tesla being an example and yet, you know, sort of goes back to again what you just talked about. And that was about the need for profit, certainly in this physical construct, if you will, which was the electric grid and the invention of electricity and. And that was at his motives where I don't think Nicola Tesla was thinking that he was thinking much further far ahead, and not using that pedantic viewpoint and thinking of how could humanity have benefited and maybe that was his flaw. Well, nobody starting point. And I'm not sure this is what is more than my tweets are not but a starting point is that nobody can predict the future. So whatever it is that you come up with, whatever the invention is whatever the concept is whatever the social construct is, you know, an argument can be made that God is a social construct right. There are probably more people that have been killed in the name of God, and any, for any other reason than yet. The truth is that if you really look at it carefully, everyone has a different concept of God construct the social construct is. served by various religions, and various individual perceptions, but deciding okay I'm going to buy the social construct that the Catholics have over the social construct that the Protestants have or those over the social construct that the Jews have or whatever they're all. They're all constructs which come out of interactions among groups of people in which, if you actually take them one at a time and you say okay describe exactly what God is to you, you will find no two are alike. And, and you know as I apply this to our current paradigm, if you will, and that, you know, people see institutional racism, or things like that. It's, how can you not see it in a sense, how can it not be there. If it is a human created system. Human systems are flawed, and it feels to me that these people who are complaining about, you know, institutional oppression or whatnot. They're looking for perfection. And like it or not the system that we live in here in the United States seems to have been one of the best yet that's been created. That's a very good point, you know, and when I was studying testing, which is something that psychologists learn. It was very disturbing to me to understand that all tests have enormous flaws built into them. And IQ tests are a good example, you know, it was very early determined that IQ test discriminated against African American people. What you have to take into account, though, is the fact that there are errors in every system and understanding those errors and using those errors to figure out how can you actually use it to help people. The concept of diagnosis, for example, is an extremely interesting one. In the 50s and 60s, psychologists were quite different from psychiatrists. The medical profession basically took over the concept of mental illness. And they required it to require any emotional illness to be called a disease. There's no plug test for schizophrenia. There's no way you can tell whether someone has a passive aggressive personality disorder, which probably doesn't exist anymore because whoever the person was who insisted that be in the DSM may have died and replaced by another person who was interested in paranoid personality disorder. When you look at the systems and how they change over time, what you wind up realizing is that it's all a matter of social construct. The idea that the way a person thinks has to be in some level called a disease means that we are all diseased. Maybe disease should be thought of as a hyphenated word, dis-ease. Right. You're not comfortable and you're so uncomfortable that you wind up doing things that bring you to a shrink or that bring you to somebody who's, to the attention of somebody who is one of the enforcers, whether it be a psychiatrist, policeman, or some other lawyers or whatever. What you wind up with is the simple fact that these are all social constructs. They're all things which exist for the purpose of serving the present need, but not necessarily the need of a week from now or a month from now or a year from now. One thing that comes up for me on this is that there's a power dynamic in any one of these human systems. And that is going to contribute to the flaw, if you will. And we spoke for a minute there about profit being just one example of that. But you're bringing up another one, which is very good, which is that most systems, most human systems are authoritarian. They're set up with an organizational power structure and the person at the top has the power to fire people below. And each person below can be assigned certain responsibilities. I remember taking a course in graduate school in which the only variable was the organizational structure of any organization. The teacher gave an assignment to each of us come up with a problem that exists in your organization and come to the next session with that problem and the structure of your organization. And the first person he took was a woman who described a personality conflict between two people in the organization. And the teacher said, let me see your organizational structure. And he pointed to the two places, the two slots in the organizational structure. And he said, these are the people we were having personality conflict. And he was right. The very structure of the organization naturally set up those two people to be in conflict with each other. And when you start looking at the system, you have to look at all the variables in the system. And it's very hard to, but once you get what I call the bestault, the whole which is more than the sum of its parts. And then you can usually project the rest, you can say, oh, okay, maybe this is where the problem is. And then you have an opportunity to actually change it. I work with individuals and I work with families and when I work with the systems, whether it be a community, my question is who's my client. And if the client is a system, and I look at the system in terms of what can be done that hurts the fewest people, the least, that gets the job done, so that the flaws can be corrected. And I do suggest that that's a way that we out here in the everyday world also try to go about our interaction with these systems. I mean, you know, the question is, how do we survive when the starting point is to recognize that what you see as the problem may not be the problem. In fact, I tend to approach things from the perspective of doing my best to understand what the whole picture is. I say to my clients, if I'm good at anything, it's, give me 25 or 30 pieces of 100 piece puzzle, and I can usually paint in the rest, but I can always be wrong. And when I see another piece, it may be that it needs to be changed. The bottom line on it from my point of view, though, is taken to account and figure out what are the important variables here, what are the ones that are really enforcing what goes on. And many studies have shown that often we get hung up on a specific detail, and that becomes more the focus when it's not the real problem. The scene in Catch-22, Joseph Heller's seminal book, in which it's the Help the Bombardier scene. And Yossarian is doing his best to deal with the Bombardier who has a broken leg and he's trying to heal the leg. And finally, after taking care of the leg and the guy is still complaining, Yossarian realizes that the guy's been gut shot. And the focus on a particular thing can always create a butterfly effect. In fact, one little thing affecting all kinds of other bigger things later on that you didn't anticipate. Wonderful. Our topic again today with Dr. Neal Miranello is all human systems are flawed. We're continuing our podcast series examining his tweets. You can follow the Good Doctor online on Twitter at coach Dr. Neal. Neal, your final thoughts on this theory and nealism as I like to refer to it is that all human systems are flawed. How do we go forward to, you know, manifest what we want in our lives when we have to recognize that the social constructs as well as the physical realities that we live in are not perfect. Yeah, I think the starting point is to take a look at your perspective on a system and see whether it's a perspective which opens up options or closes options. Authoritarian systems tend to close options tend to say, do what you're told or else. Other kinds of systems that we obviously were authoritarian system would be like a libertarian system, which has huge problems too because a world without without rules doesn't work. And when you have, if I can, I consider mental health to be directly proportional to the number of options you have. And so if you approach a particular problem from the perspective of what are the possible solutions to this problem. And I want to be open to all of them, rather than to, you know, close my mind to such a degree that I only see one possibility. I just like you to push down the wrong domino. And I also think it, you know, maybe this is just me but maybe through our work. I think the human mind likes rules and sort of wants rules. And I can see that in my own everyday life, you know, as we talk about ADLs and, and that, you know, I need to have more structure, so that my life can actually function more efficiently and be perhaps more fulfilling. If we didn't have these social constructs, flawed as they are, I think we would probably live in a much different reality that might be even more fearful than what we live in today. So going back to something we talked about before, again, my reductionist philosophy brings everything down to cocktail and attitude. And the cocktail is, in fact, the rules that you follow on a daily basis. And, and I follow my rules very religiously, except when it doesn't work. You know, I normally meditate three to four hours a day. I got a call from my son in the middle of my meditation today and I had to interrupt it in order to talk to him. And I had some fairly heavy meetings today. At the same time, maybe the cocktail that I've done every other day helps me to get through today so far. The attitude is really the assumption that there is nothing perfect, but there is a right way to deal with this situation right now. And if I can tap into that, what comes out of my mouth will be the right thing. The cocktail and attitude that's going to be a topic of another one of our podcast episodes for sure. Dr. Neil Maranello is in Woodstock, Vermont. He is a solutions focused life coach as well as a behavior expert with near six decades studying the human condition. On behalf of the good doctor, I'm Matt Kelly. We're both wishing you good mental health.