Podcast about horribly Svengali-like shrink

The Shrink Next Door

A cautionary tale at its most frightening, "The Shrink Next Door," is a serial podcast about an exploitative psychiatrist and his mark. I see this as an east coast version of the Brian Wilson-shrink relationship --the consequences of relinquishing too much control to a therapist, or anyone.

Caveat: It's a worst-case therapy story.

At first I thought you were talking about Joseph Burgo.

This guy actually has a humble"act" online.

I can't stand Joseph Burgo. The the jury is still out on The Shrink Next Door story.

I can't stand Burgo either.

Maybe I should give this podcast another try, MissBella. I’m sure I’d learn a lot. It’s just that I’m pretty sure I can see the way it’s heading, and it’s all so horribly depressing.....

I can be added to the can't stand burgo list.
I read about the guy in the podcast. I don't know if I could listen to it.

I can understand why anyone wouldn't want to listen to it beyond simply the time investment. It's a tough story. Maybe hearing it helps me for forgive myself for my own suspension of judgment. It also stimulates my thinking about personal mythology and the strong need for shamans, safety and guidance.

I absolutely can listen to the Shrink... podcast and am nearly done with whats available right now. There is very little to none that can trigger/make me feel bad these days to the extent that it would influence me/my moods significantly. Limit is time really. I'm listening to these on my walks and will share feedback later.
Thanks a lot, misbella!

oh my! 😯 very interesting story so far. i've listened to the first two episodes and I'm absolutely intrigued. i can't wait to hear how this ends. thanks for sharing this 🙂

It is not so much trigger - I just don't like listening to this sort of thing. I don't mind reading it and I listen to podcasts about other things, but for some reason this topic and listening are not what I would get through - I would spend a lot of time fast-forwarding-I get impatient with this sort of stuff.
I am glad it got posted and is on a podcast.

Stopdog. Each podcast page includes some text offering an executive summary, if you’re interested. There’s so much podcast material out now, I rarely get to ones potentially of interest..

The story literally came to journalist Joe Nocera when Marty invited his South Hampton new neighbor to a party. The truth eventually unfolded, and Nocera spent several years in research. I think it’s well written.

agreed...it's well written and presented. the story about how this story came about is definilty quite interesting in its self.

wow...just finished the 4th episode and of all the episodes so far, this one definitely resonates the most for me, especially Judith's story. it's unfortunate that there are others who have been harmed by this narcissistic shrink, but glad that Joe was able to locate and interview some of the other patients/clients and incorporate their experiences of their relationships and the therapy with Ike into this very peculiar story.

I was struck most by the fact some patients and at least one colleague found Ike’s behavior acceptable.

My group therapy had no fun side, nothing extracurricular, just a whole group obediently at the feet of two scornful, useless authoritarians. But like in this “cult,” I had a difficult time escaping.

I tried to listen to this while working but I'm paying more attention to this than work so will have to listen after I finish my homework in the evenings... I am interested.

I have not finished the whole podcast yet but, so far, I have been struck by Marty's own involvement as well. It is hard for me to comprehend how someone can get so enmeshed for so long but I guess it's only me as I fail to relate to many other types of long-term interpersonal enmeshment and dependency also reported on this forum. I've grown to accept that it is just something I will probably never fully comprehend but can be very real/serious for many people (just like my substance addiction was for me).

I can't say how far the vulnerable, younger me would have followed Dr. Ike down the rabbit hole in the cause of "healing." I thought too long that others had a life wisdom I lacked, and my therapists played guru roles to the hilt.

Fortunately, friends' guidance saved me from my bully therapists, so, unlike Marty, I wasn't isolated. Marty also didn't have the internet when the relationship started. Reinforcement is critical when disentangling from a cult, I think.

Then there's the unsourced quote:
"It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." Many people want divine figures and strong men.

What I bolded is so critical, I think, and an area where many Ts are definitely in the wrong, for example when they try to enforce that clients don't see another T in parallel (so a second opinion) and don't take the content of therapy elsewhere. It can serve them well when they try to manipulate and dominate but blocks reality checks. My 2nd T was very realistic in this sense and never told me not to seek feedback and help elsewhere, he more encouraged the opposite and that was also my opinion. I got into some crazy and useless fights with my 1st T over this though, who definitely tried to play the authority and dominance games. I refused to engage in that pretty shortly though and told him bluntly that I was not interested and did not see the point, especially if the feedback and advice he gave made no sense to me and some could have even been detrimental (e.g. not to seek other support when I was stuck in a nasty addiction relapse) if followed.

I think many of these dictator-like Ts are deeply insecure deep down and often are drawn to the profession because they learn they would be able to manipulate and take advantage of confused and vulnerable clients. I am pretty convinced that anyone who want to be cult leaders and dictators fall either in that category or have psychopathic tendencies.

A therapist I know non-professionally started to use interrogative protocol with me, posturing as if I were accountable to her. I no longer seek a guru, much less her, and I stopped her right away. I can imagine her with a vulnerable client.

I personally never sought or accepted any kind of guru, the only way I could see young myself getting enmeshed would be a romantic affair and perhaps mixed with some work collaboration. I did that several times in my youth with teachers/mentors and all of them were decent people and good relationships, no harm whatsoever and quite a bit of mutual gain. We treated each-other as equals. With a narcissistic/guru-like therapist it would never last long though, I disliked those kinds of people even when I was very young, so I can't see myself with someone like Ike... my "weakness" used to be smart, accomplished, creative and often quite enigmatic people. But with decent morals. Usually with quite some similar personality traits and interests to myself, which typically comes with a need for independence and not desiring authorities/followers/dependency, more equal but sufficiently autonomous collaborators, friends, advisors, mentees etc. I can imagine mistaking the enigmatic nature of an introverted, somewhat eccentric creative person with unique charisma who is not averse to risks with a paranoid, secretive, purposefully manipulative and only superficially accomplished person who would take unethical risks but no responsibility, for a while when I was very young though. I definitely had an issue with sometimes confusing/separating my professional and romantic interests when I was younger and needed quite a few rounds of trial and error to learn to identify these different things. I imagine someone who has people-pleasing, serving tendencies and a strong desire to join/belong to some powerful bigger structure can end up in a version of that confusion as well quite easily. We definitely bring these patterns from early life and it usually takes quite some experience to change them, if ever.

I’m not in a place where I could listen to a podcast like this, but I did read about it and find the concept frightening yet entirely believable.

I over-extended myself to pay my therapist for nearly a decade of services (approaching six figures). The majority of what I paid for was to feed an insatiable emotional addiction to therapy. At certain points during treatment I would have done nearly anything she asked. It was very scary to witness my own vulnerability and am grateful to have gotten out as in tact as I did.

Admitting to myself I was not only hoodwinked, but assisted in my own scamming was a major part of the pain.

....On a different topic, I wonder if the biggest victim, Marty, is on the autism spectrum. An Aspergers family member similarly was scammed by a caregiver.

(I found him better care and a restraining order stopped the exploitation.)

i have such mixed feelings about reading your response, because on the one hand, i'm quite envious of those who've had the wherewithal or 'luck of the draw' to never have to experience the powerlessness, shame, fear and overall mind Fck experience of being enmeshed with someone, like i was with my ex-T for many years. i don't think i would ever wish this experience upon my worst enemy. but on the other hand, i now can look at this from a new perspective and have reached the point where i understand and embrace just how empowering and healing that this sh*%ty experince has been overall for me . as difficult as it was, there is no denying that this experince has been one of the main catalyst to my change and personal growth to a more fulfilling life. fortunately, on most days, i can honestly say that i'm quite content with this...it is what it is.

The similarities you note between substance addiction and romantic/sexual affairs and cult-like following and dependency on therapists, and similar gurus, is important, I think, to a better understanding of the Marty-like phenomena.

About 12 years ago I was having terrible difficulty with what seemed then, and still seems, an internal addiction to beating myself up emotionally. Shame, contempt, an almost sadistic haughtiness directed at myself. It served to numb out the shame and contempt I was feeling from other sources in my life at the time, perhaps imaginary, perhaps memories, but still present. I hadn't gotten any help with this from therapy, therapists didn't even seem to see this as the big problem that, to me, it was -- perhaps I didn't emphasize it in my therapy, so perhaps it was hard for them to comprehend. AND perhaps they had never been taught about it?

I consciously, therefore, chose to start drinking before I went to sleep, to numb out the incessant self-directed aggression since there was nothing I could do internally to turn it off. I didn't become addicted although I did overuse alcohol for some years. And I have overcome, finally, a lot of my original addiction to self-directed emotional aggression.

I got the idea, frankly, from reading something in one of Heinz Kohut's books about the difference between narcissistic behavior disorders, like substance addiction, and narcissistic personality disorders. I was never diagnosed with, and don't think I have/had, a narcissistic personality disorder as currently defined by the DSM. But I do think there are things that got cross-wired or stymied in my personality development, probably due to trauma, one of which occurred in a hospital when I was 3. (That one for sure, not my parents' fault.)

As you wrote in another post:

there is something about narcissism, maybe idealism, that seems to me involved in situations like Marty and Ike that could be interesting and possibly helpful to people, eventually, to investigate further.