[00:00:48] Luke Storey: All right, Ross. Let's do this. I'm excited to, I'm excited to chat with you today. Uh, you, you are, uh, someone who has some expertise in something I've become [00:01:00] increasingly interested in the past, oh, 10 years or so after, you know, getting my shit together in, in many ways, um, getting sober, overcoming couple decades of addiction and so on, but the relationships and codependency and all of the things that, uh, you do as a clinician, uh, and as an expert have been something for me that took a long time to surface and begin to address, and so I'm really excited to have this conversation.

[00:01:29] Ross Rosenberg: Yes. Uh, sometimes when I was, uh, when I'm, like, on internet dating, I have to explain, "So why have I been married more than, and divorced more than a couple times?" And I, and I have to explain, "Well, you know, I have this codependency thing," and no one knew anything about it. And after a couple times, I had to, I had to figure it out because therapists had no clue, and I didn't much like it.

[00:01:53] Ross Rosenberg: I, and, and so I was compelled just by survival, you know, I had to [00:02:00] do something because something was happening, and I didn't know what it was, 'cause I, I never start off and say, "Wow, she is one hot narcissist. I wanna marry her." It doesn't start that way. I wanna be in psychological torment, emotional d- emotional, you know, angst.

[00:02:21] Ross Rosenberg: No. It, it's a human magnetism.

[00:02:24] Luke Storey: It's a terrible feeling when you're magnetized towards someone and you know they're not good for you, and yet you still feel compelled to try to make it work. I mean, I've been on both sides of that equation. Uh, hopefully I've never been a narcissist, but I was definitely selfish and, uh, unavailable for any depth of intimacy for a very long time.

[00:02:48] Luke Storey: But that, uh, I, there's, there's no pain like being in a relationship that you can't seem to get out of.

[00:02:56] Ross Rosenberg: Right.

[00:02:57] Luke Storey: You know?

[00:02:57] Ross Rosenberg: But, but by the way that they've [00:03:00] question, "I hope I'm not a narcissist," in itself is diagnostic. It shows that you aren't a narcissist. 'Cause a narcissist is not gonna go, "I hope I'm not a narcissist," because they're, they don't think they are.

[00:03:12] Ross Rosenberg: And the idea that they would be would upset them, so they can't say it. So there you go. Quick diagnosis. You're not a narcissist.

[00:03:19] Luke Storey: Well, good. I hope not. Uh, yeah, I, I think someone would've told me by now if I had those tendencies. Um, but- Oh, yeah ... one thing I really wanted to get into with you that I find is so interesting about your work, and that is your kind of reframing of the idea of codependency.

[00:03:39] Luke Storey: And codependency in and of itself as a mental, emotional, psychological issue is, I think one of the reasons it's really difficult to I- address is that there are so many different definitions of it, right? Right. And I- Oh, yeah ... and I think the way that, the way that you've redefined it, and well, you know, we can unpack that I think is really useful.

[00:03:59] Luke Storey: W- when I [00:04:00] first heard the term, um, it was limited to You know, Al-Anon and, um, you know, husbands and wives of alcoholics and drug addicts, right? Where the per- you know, you have a person who has a chemical dependency, and then there's a person in the relationship with them that is addicted to fixing them and is addicted to the addict, therefore is co-dependent, right?

[00:04:24] Luke Storey: They're, they're- Co

[00:04:25] Ross Rosenberg: dash.

[00:04:26] Luke Storey: Yeah. They, yeah. They're dependent on the person. Um, but the, the... as far as I understand your work, the way that you've kind of gone deeper into this is a bit different from that traditional model. So give us, you know, all the, all the various, you know, ways that this manifests.

[00:04:43] Ross Rosenberg: Yeah, let me start with the history of it.

[00:04:45] Ross Rosenberg: Um, so codependency started, as you said... um, actually, I was very impressed that, that you knew that. Um, it started in, in the, um, al- alcoholic addictions field, namely, um, in the 1960s. They started to figure out that once the [00:05:00] alcoholic went home from treatment, and they would relapse a lot. And they noticed that when they started vis- um, seeing the partner of the alcoholic in the family and involving them in treatment, there was a higher probability of success.

[00:05:14] Ross Rosenberg: So they started to see the connection between the partner of the alcoholic, the co-dash-alcoholic, and the alcoholism And in the 1980s, um, an umbrella term became well-known, chemical dependency. And, you know, we in the field, we stopped differentiating from, well, he's an alcoholic, but no, he, that's a drug addict.

[00:05:37] Ross Rosenberg: No, alcoholism, alcohol is a drug. Ethyl alcohol is a specific chemical. Therefore, chemical dependency, the umbrella term, represented both. Therefore, it was the co-chemically dependent. Well, that's way too many syllables for, for just one mouth to say. So that became codependent, chemically dependent. And, and that was a [00:06:00] dash, the partner of the addict.

[00:06:03] Ross Rosenberg: And then in the 1980s, uh, Melanie Beatty kind of hit, you know, hit the scene, and she said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, this is a problem of partners of alcoholics, but it's also kind of a personality trait of people that try to control others and try to, you know, help everyone with their problems, but they don't help themselves."

[00:06:24] Ross Rosenberg: So she then ventured out into explaining it as a lot more than the addict. But she still was fundamentally, um, focused and stuck on the addict part. One of the, her biggest errors-- And by the way, she is the queen of codependency. So when I say that, that's n- that's like, you know, uh, someone criticizing Einstein because some guy now created, you know, uh, uh, Hawkins or, I believe that's his name.

[00:06:55] Ross Rosenberg: No, she was brilliant, but at the t- at the time, she was [00:07:00] misled because she focused on codependency as someone who tries to control others. And so, and then it kind of mushroomed around that in the '80s and the '90s, and it didn't grow beyond that. And that, it became a term that became something to everyone.

[00:07:20] Ross Rosenberg: T- there were so many definitions of it. Uh, and it depended on who you talked to, who, you know, what therapist you went to, what book you read. So when I started to figure out something was wrong with me, you know, after my second marriage, uh, it, something just happened. Uh, it was this insight, this flash that It must be me.

[00:07:46] Ross Rosenberg: And a therapist said this, and I s- every time I tell this story, I still get goosebumps. And this ha- this was like 14, 15 years ago. She said, "You know, Ross, the problem is you fall in love with the same woman but with a different face." [00:08:00] I went, "What?" "Yeah, y- you got a broken picker." I went, "What?" I just, I just thought I'm just unlucky or I'm missing something.

[00:08:11] Ross Rosenberg: And it, and it, it changed my focus. Something is happening in me that I don't know that is playing out, that is compelling, impelling me to find certain type of people attractive and to get in these relationships that ultimately are miserable and, and difficult and, and, and just f- just ve- very psychologically challenging.

[00:08:35] Ross Rosenberg: And, and that was when I started to, to think about it. There's something going on in, in the attraction, and I came up with this idea, um, about 15 years ago. It's the dance concept, that codependents and narcissists are like tango dancers. You need a leader and you need a follower, and both, if they stay connected to their respective roles, [00:09:00] really enjoy the dance.

[00:09:02] Ross Rosenberg: But when, um... It is because of the matching of the opposite, um, dance styles, everything, uh, the spotlight's on the narcissist, leads. The, the c- the follower can just predict what he's going to, uh, you know, go, and the relationship feels well-matched. And I f- I came up with this idea and I wrote... This is before...

[00:09:27] Ross Rosenberg: God, the internet was just starting to become... It was just-- It was right after Al Gore invented the internet. And, and no politics here, but seriously, and that's when I, I wrote this little article and I, and, and people started saying, "Wow, that is a really good idea," and people started using it, and people started saying, "That is really helpful And that's when I created a professional training that talked about codependents and narcissists understanding the attraction.

[00:09:54] Ross Rosenberg: And that professional training became very, very-- it became one of, uh, uh, [00:10:00] PESI's a big training company, its top-selling trainings. And I was traveling all around the United States giving this training, this six-hour training about codependents and narcissists and the attraction. And by that time, I got married again and, and as I was trying to make sense of my life, trying to come up with explanations, I was able to put together a theory, a psychological theory, not just a couple clips and a couple interesting ways of, um, to explain all of the intr- under-- what's under the, the hood, the internal psychological dynamics that drive us unconsciously to repeat patterns that actually come from our childhood.

[00:10:43] Ross Rosenberg: And that made me come up with a word, uh, come up with a different definition for codependency. And I was very specific, like a scientist. Codependence-- codependency is a person that gives all the love, respect, care, trust, and [00:11:00] protection wants it to be reciprocal and it's not, and they stay in a relationship.

[00:11:06] Ross Rosenberg: Boom, that's it. That's it. They give all the love, respect, care, trust, and protection, want it to be reciprocal, and they stay in the relationship. And then I said, "And then you have personality on top of that." And then from that, I developed the theory. I created a lot other, uh, ex- explanatory devices to help people understand.

[00:11:27] Ross Rosenberg: Yeah. I connected it to trauma, and then about 10 years ago, I finally said, "I, I gotta get rid of this term codependency. I can't stand it. It's, it's so demeaning." And that is when I came up with the term self-love deficit disorder, and I developed the theories and everything about that. And that, that's the evolution of how I got to this place, and it all started with me trying to end the chaos and the pain in my own life that no therapist understood.

[00:11:59] Luke Storey: [00:12:00] Wow. Incredible.

[00:12:00] Ross Rosenberg: That was a, that was a long answers, but, but, but that, but that, but that's the story.

[00:12:04] Luke Storey: It's, it's good. I love... There's no answer that's too long for me, 'cause there's so many ideas I can tease out of each one. Um, you know, thinking about my own experience with, I don't know, different variations of what one might call codependency, h- how I've noticed it in my life experience is the sense of not being...

[00:12:27] Luke Storey: I mean, it really boils down to self-love, you know, is the thing.

[00:12:30] Ross Rosenberg: Yeah, self-love deficit. '

[00:12:33] Luke Storey: Cause I, I had such little access to self-love, self-worth, self-respect, I would find myself sometimes overly dependent on getting that from, from someone else, from a romantic partner. Now, I've never really, uh, you know, chased narcissists or addicts or anything like that, but over the years I've noticed that, um, as I've been able to love and accept myself more, like my re- relationship now with my wife, we [00:13:00] have a really fulfilling, healthy, beautiful relationship.

[00:13:03] Luke Storey: I mean, I can't even... It's like, I can't even believe it, you know? Coming from where I came from. But it's like I can be okay even if she's not okay. You know what I mean? It's like I, I know what's hers and I know, and I know what's mine, whereas in the past, if there was some sort of disturbance in my partnership, I could not relax.

[00:13:23] Luke Storey: I couldn't, I, I didn't, I didn't know how to self-soothe and, and be resourced within myself to feel okay on my side of the street. So there was, like, this very blurred line between where my emotions and needs ended and the other's began, and things like that. Um, but when you, when you speak of the framework that you're working with now and that you, you use to, you know, help clients overcome this issue, the way I've experienced that is more in what I would say is, like, the love addict and love avoidant kind of dynamic, right?

[00:13:57] Luke Storey: Where you meet someone and there's [00:14:00] this magnetism that you can't explain, and it, it feels so right, but it's not that it's, you know, as you learn through pain in my case, it's not that it's right, it's that it's familiar, right? There's like... It's like a, it's like getting the combination to a lock, right?

[00:14:17] Luke Storey: And it's like click- Right ... boom. It just, it opens or it shuts, right?

[00:14:21] Ross Rosenberg: And, and, but there is a specific explanation for that.

[00:14:24] Luke Storey: Okay, so yeah, just what- however you wanna unpack some of that and, and, uh, tease it apart

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[00:16:09] Ross Rosenberg: So, so let me start with, so when I created-- I, I remember the day that I, I f- I came up with the word because I was hanging around another therapist who kept telling me self-love, self-love, self-love, and just on and on about self-love, and so it was in my mind.

[00:16:22] Ross Rosenberg: And I, and I thought, "Well, codependency is a... You know, people who are codependent, they don't love themselves, and if you did love yourself, you wouldn't be in this trajectory that's gonna end up in a relationship with a narcissist." So I came up with the term self-love deficit disorder, and I created a simplistic theoretical, um, illustration to explain it.

[00:16:46] Ross Rosenberg: It's a pyramid. At the very foundation is attachment trauma.

[00:16:52] Luke Storey: Mm.

[00:16:53] Ross Rosenberg: That is the trauma that a child experiences being raised by a [00:17:00] narcissistic parent, and often because of that, human magnet syndrome always bring the narcissist and the codependent together, or the SLD. And that trauma is substantial, that it is so big it is cordoned off and placed in another part of the brain that is not accessible to conscious memory.

[00:17:19] Ross Rosenberg: The same places that the trauma, PTSD trauma goes to. You just can't get to it by remembering it. So on top of attachment trauma on it is core shame. It's this fundamental belief that you are unlovable, unworthy. And on top of c- core shame causes this condition called pathological loneliness. This is an existential disease.

[00:17:43] Ross Rosenberg: This is bone-aching loneliness that only goes away when you're in a relationship. Because when you are by yourself, you are connected to your sh- And we go back down to the, the shame and the trauma. And the next level on [00:18:00] this pyramid is self-love deficit disorder addiction. Now, it is a very specific addiction.

[00:18:07] Ross Rosenberg: It's not love addiction. It's not, you know, sex addiction. It is a, it is a, an addiction f- um, a relationship addiction, that the pain of your existence, your shame and loneliness, is so consuming it only goes away when you're in a relationship. And because of the human magnet syndrome, you're always going to pick the, um, the narcissist.

[00:18:32] Ross Rosenberg: So on top of the addiction is the very top of the pyramid, is all of the traits and personality types that we know as codependent. So instead of saying a codependent is this type of person and does this type of things, it's, it's much more effective and more clinically appropriate to say codependents, uh, are trauma victims that had their psychological and personality [00:19:00] development stunted and are acting out this trauma through the shame, the loneliness, and the addiction, and ultimately ending up with a narcissist and being one of many different types of codependents.

[00:19:16] Ross Rosenberg: So, so the transition from codependency to self-love deficit disorder, the pyramid Started to help people get a, a very c- concrete idea. By the way, I got some, uh, lawnmower guys that are out there. If you can hear that-

[00:19:32] Luke Storey: That's all right ...

[00:19:33] Ross Rosenberg: hang m- hang in there 'cause they're, they're almost done. I apologize.

[00:19:36] Luke Storey: It's all good. That's ... It's so funny 'cause right before we s- start, normally our gardeners with the leaf blowers come b- yesterday and they got postponed till today. Five minutes before we were supposed to start, my guys were going. Uh, and they just finished in time so it seems to be, seems to be something in the air today.

[00:19:56] Luke Storey: It's all good.

[00:19:57] Ross Rosenberg: Yeah, my guys are narcissists. They like a lot of attention. No, I'm [00:20:00] joking. So, so, so by redefining it as a trauma disorder, it explains that, um, uh, of course, an, um, that we unconsciously are playing out our childhood, um, in which, um, we were raised and had this interrupted, arrested, or very dysfunctional attachment experience where we never learned about self-love.

[00:20:28] Ross Rosenberg: We only learned as a child to survive, we had to learn how to make the narcissist happy. And if you are that child and you can mold yourself into what the narcissist wanted out of you, you came out of your childhood with this understanding that you're only as good as what you do or don't do or how you make other people happy.

[00:20:51] Ross Rosenberg: And that's a trauma-caused scenario and that plays out in adulthood. And because it's [00:21:00] unconsciously stored, you can't get to it in regular therapy. So that's why I created my treatment program.

[00:21:06] Luke Storey: So cool, man. Yeah, so spot on. And, and that explains why , why when something is just familiar, it feels right. And, and we can't, um, intellectually- Oh, yeah

[00:21:20] Luke Storey: we can't intellectually see that, right? It's like y- y- no, no, no matter how self-aware you are, if you haven't found some method or means by which to get into the subconscious mind and start to heal those, those early wounds, I know from experience that you're, you're just doomed to keep repeating it. As you said, you know, a new p- a new, uh, you know, wife with a different face kind of thing, right?

[00:21:42] Luke Storey: It's like- Yeah ... in these cycles over and over again. But I really, I love how you, uh, used the term pathological loneliness. You know, as I mentioned to you the other day when we had a quick chat, I've sp- spent the past couple years writing a book about loneliness, right? And just coming at it from every possible angle based on, um, you know, how I've [00:22:00] experienced it throughout my life.

[00:22:01] Luke Storey: But when you describe this pyramid, you know, it's just such a tragic cycle because w- we're, w- we're yearning for this connection, this intimacy. We're yearning to be loved, but if, if one is trapped in, in these kind of roles and these dynamics, it's like everything you do to try to get that sense of connection and, and being loved and wanted just for who you are, not based on what you do, right, it only further reinforces the loneliness.

[00:22:31] Luke Storey: You know, it's the same thing with, with substance abuse, you know, same thing. It's like you, you feel isolated, disconnected, alone, so you start, you know, using substances.

[00:22:40] Ross Rosenberg: But it's a different loneliness. The pathological loneliness doesn't happen when you're in a relationship with a narcissist. The l- the loneliness, the, the, the isolation, the degradation, those all play out, but the pathological loneliness is really deep and connected to the core of your personality.[00:23:00]

[00:23:00] Ross Rosenberg: So a lot of, lot of SL... Okay, so, so I call it self-love deficit disorder, SLDD. The person is self-love deficient. I call them SLDs. So I will say instead of codependent, SLDs, and instead of codependency, I'll say SLDD. So those are my words.

[00:23:16] Luke Storey: Got it.

[00:23:17] Ross Rosenberg: But, but they are very unhappy and lonely, as you describe, in a relationship.

[00:23:23] Ross Rosenberg: But if they leave the relationship And don't rebound. That pathological loneliness, it's a different animal. It is, it is consuming and painful, and it draws them back into-- It's not like it makes you want to, um, meet a narcissist and suffer. You're looking for the solution to that suffering, and that is falling in love and losing yourself.

[00:23:52] Ross Rosenberg: And the human magnet syndrome, first of all, uh, um, we are wired by-- we evolved biologically that [00:24:00] if we meet someone and, and we are compatible, we undergo, and Dorothy Tennov created this term, limerence, where we just, like, fall in love, and we can't stop thinking about them. You know, we, we have problems sleeping and eating.

[00:24:12] Ross Rosenberg: And that limerence stage, it's just a part of being human, um, lasts anywhere from two months to six months. But the limerence for a codependent or an SLD and a narcissist, it's limerence on crack. It is this deliverance from deep, searing loneliness to ecstatic joy. As my dad said, "It's when the soulmate unknowingly meets their cellmate."

[00:24:40] Luke Storey: That's great, dude. You-- Re-real quick, you just reminded me, my, my dad passed away last year, and, um, so of course, you know, so many, so many of his, like, uh, coined terms and just things he said to me throughout my life will come to me at different times. But I remember many years ago, uh, you know, I was in these kind of cycles of dysfunctional [00:25:00] relationships and just getting my ass handed to me over and over again and, um, he said to me, he goes, "Luke, you know when you walk into a party and you see that woman over there and you just, you just know she's the one.

[00:25:11] Luke Storey: There's just something about her." Yeah. You know, you just start to get tingly, and you get this- Yeah ... strong feeling like you really need to meet her?" And I said- Chemistry ... "Yeah." I said, "I know, I know that feeling." He goes, "Well, you know what you're supposed to do?" I said, "Well, yeah, you go get her number." He said, "No, you run."

[00:25:24] Luke Storey: You know? And then he said to me another time, he s- when he got married for the third time, and it, it was a very happy, healthy marriage, um, he said when he met his wife that it was the first time he met a woman and instead of it feeling like a drug, it felt like home And I was like, "Boom, that's it."

[00:25:45] Ross Rosenberg: He justifies my theory.

[00:25:47] Ross Rosenberg: He explains it because it, it, it is an... If, if you are so dreadfully lonely and have this deep shame, and you unknowingly carry this, this trauma you, that you can't even remember, [00:26:00] um, it's this pain that only SLDs or codependents know, this. And that is why when I created this term pathological loneliness, it caught on fire.

[00:26:09] Ross Rosenberg: It's like, whoa. Yeah, I know exactly that loneliness. And not only does it go away, but all of a sudden you're in love, and, and you're, and you're probably having a lot of sex, and you're probably not sleeping much, and, and you're having limerence on, I call it limerence on crack. And it, it's, it's a miracle.

[00:26:30] Ross Rosenberg: It's wonderful. It's like, it's like heaven until you wake up and the narcissist starts to show who they are, and then you fall prey to feeling entrapped, not only by the narcissist, but by your own fear of being alone.

[00:26:46] Luke Storey: Ah, yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:46] Ross Rosenberg: So your, your dad discovered some, some form of healing that allowed him to break that, that curse, and through self-love, meet someone who [00:27:00] was similarly self-love abundant, and that is a calming love.

[00:27:06] Ross Rosenberg: Yeah. It's exciting too- Yeah ... but it's not taking you away from pain and agnity. Agnity. Agony, and it's n- some codependents spend their whole lifetime and never know that.

[00:27:20] Luke Storey: Yeah. Yeah. I know when, when I got that feeling, uh, when I met my wife, and I remembered my dad telling me that, and, um, I thought, "I think, I think this is what he was referring to."

[00:27:31] Luke Storey: It... I felt so safe, right? And it was very grounding and calming, but the interesting thing is in the beginning, I was so used to that toxic magnetism and just the- Right ... the thrill, the rush, the high of, like, trauma bonding with, with women, that in the beginning I was like, "Is this okay?" You know what I mean?

[00:27:56] Luke Storey: It's like, it, it... It felt like being in a [00:28:00] healthy dynamic was so foreign to me that I would, I would get in my head and wonder if there was something wrong, 'cause it was too normal. I felt too safe, and I'd never felt that way.

[00:28:10] Ross Rosenberg: What is familiar feels paradoxically safe. Um, because if you're an SLD, you grew up at your earliest parts of your life, that is what enabled you to feel loved, is by meeting strong narcissistic personality and finding a way to make them happy.

[00:28:34] Ross Rosenberg: That was your love. That's the only love that you ever had, and that's the love that you identify. That is why if a, if a person who's self-love abundant, s- psychologically healthy, meets a narcissist Part of the human magnet syndrome theory, there's no chemistry. The, the, it's like it doesn't feel right. You know s- you know, that person's talking way too much about themselves and is bragging.

[00:28:59] Ross Rosenberg: That's [00:29:00] kind of creepy. And, and, and, and the narcissist is thinking, "Well, this doesn't feel right. That person is way too confident. It's making me insecure."

[00:29:09] Luke Storey: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

[00:29:11] Ross Rosenberg: Um, but when, but when it matches, the fireworks go off.

[00:29:16] Luke Storey: Right.

[00:29:16] Ross Rosenberg: And that's the chemistry of the opposite attraction, the human magnet syndrome.

[00:29:22] Luke Storey: Have you ever thought about writing a, a film script?

[00:29:26] Ross Rosenberg: You know, it's so funny you said that. I, uh, you know, I've been truly blessed in my life. You know, I, I came up with this idea, um, at a time that I actually started a counseling center. So all this stuff was going on, and I was exploring and, um, and, and, and experiencing different forms of success.

[00:29:46] Ross Rosenberg: And this whole thing was like a, a rocket ship. Um, it, it hit so hard. The book started selling really big. My YouTube channel, which is now up to 38 million [00:30:00] views, but it was... I was then, not anymore, a rock star. Everything I put on there was huge, traveling around the United States, and so I came up with this idea.

[00:30:11] Ross Rosenberg: I, I, I came up... And I actually wrote a script for it. It was going to be a mixture of a play and an educational seminar. And I, I forgot the name of it. I'll, I'll, I'll come up with it later. But, and I wrote it, and I, and, and I really got into it, and then the reality hit. I don't know the first thing about, you know, that whole, um, the, I mean, uh, uh, what do we call it?

[00:30:39] Ross Rosenberg: The whole business, you know, mechanisms, you know, involving that. So it was over my head, so I put it aside. So no, I, I, so I did for a little while, but not since then. You, you wanna write a screenplay and make me famous?

[00:30:53] Luke Storey: Well, it's f- it's funny that, yeah. I don't know how to write them either. Um, the, the reason I thought of that is just [00:31:00] it's, it's really difficult, I think, to, for many of us to get our head around some of these concepts, right?

[00:31:08] Luke Storey: Even though many of us have experienced them in different ways at different points in our life. But I feel like if there was a, you know, a, a dramatic film wherein all of these dysfunctional dynamics were played out in a way that was so overt and obvious, it might help us to be able to, you know, identify them in our own life in a way that's less abstract, right?

[00:31:33] Luke Storey: It's like you can, you can read a book about something and go, "Oh, yeah, I kinda get it," but there's, it's like the seeing is believing thing, right?

[00:31:39] Ross Rosenberg: There, there are- hundreds, if not thousands of songs and movies that are about this, about falling in love. The, the, the, the nice girl, the nice guy falls in love with the edgy, charismatic, bold person, and it then just crashes.

[00:31:59] Ross Rosenberg: Um, [00:32:00] and the, those movies are-- it's, it's the same theme, but it's a different book. So the, the-- it is part of our culture to talk about, you know, the, these, these poor codependents falling in love with these selfish bad people and, and the drama. But, um, I'm, like, 65. I'm trying to figure out... I'm trying to navigate towards retirement, not towards writing a screenplay.

[00:32:25] Ross Rosenberg: But, but, but, but y- you find someone to write me a screenplay, sure.

[00:32:29] Luke Storey: Sure. I'm, I'm, I'm taking note of that. Why

[00:32:31] Ross Rosenberg: not?

[00:32:32] Luke Storey: You just made me think of, you know, like, these themes are so prevalent in pop culture and music- Oh, yeah ... and you j- you just made me think the, the, the existence of rock and roll itself could owe a lot of debt to this human issue, right?

[00:32:47] Luke Storey: I mean, you think about blues music and country music. Like, almost every old blues song and country song is describing, you know, "My baby left me. She won't pay me no mind," yada, yada. I mean, it's like all these themes are such, um-- [00:33:00] they're so embedded in our culture, but I don't think they're, they're framed in a way where, where we see them as like, "Oh, this is what not to do."

[00:33:07] Luke Storey: It's just kind of like, "Oh, this is the way love is." But that's only the way love is if you had a traumatic childhood and you haven't healed your shit. You know what I mean? It's not supposed to be like that if you're a healthy, functional adult.

[00:33:20] Ross Rosenberg: Yeah, and by, and by the way, some of those songs are written by narcissists.

[00:33:23] Ross Rosenberg: Narcissists have no idea what's wrong with them, and so they-- and so when someone leaves them, the-- if, um-- there's a lot of supremely talented narcissistic songwriters that write, um, really good songs, and they're very clear to me when I, I see them interviewed. And then there are some codependent songwriters.

[00:33:43] Ross Rosenberg: So, so the pain of, like, you know, heartbreak, um, can be written, um, regardless of someone being a narcissist or codependent i- if you're talented. What is heartbreaking to me is the pattern. It doesn't have an answer or a solution [00:34:00] because the, the, the, the lamenting, the, the sadness It only goes away temporarily when you meet, if you're an SLD, you meet someone who finally feels right.

[00:34:11] Ross Rosenberg: You don't know that it's a version of the parent that raised you, that it's, it's the love that you only know. You just fall hopelessly in love with that person, and then it hits you. W- you wake up, and they start showing who they are, and you start feeling trapped and afraid of leaving. And, and then you continue with where you started, um, before the narcissist with the sad life.

[00:34:40] Ross Rosenberg: It's just you're not alone. My mom died a broken codependent. My maternal, uh, grandfather did, my paternal grandmother. People-- There are so many people out there that never get a chance to know what self-love is and, and, you know, what your dad experienced. You know, finally, you know, falling in love with [00:35:00] someone and, and feeling calm and peaceful and not this rollercoaster ride of drama and chaos.

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[00:36:35] Luke Storey: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so we've been throwing around the term narcissist and narcissism quite a bit. I'd, I'd love to get, um, your working definition. I feel like in pop culture, in, you know, psychology TikTok and whatnot, um, that this term gets thrown around quite a bit.

[00:36:55] Ross Rosenberg: Oh, yeah, totally, and it's annoy- it annoys the heck out of me.

[00:36:58] Luke Storey: I f- I feel like it's [00:37:00] attributed to people who, who maybe don't actually qualify for that in a, in a, in a clinical context. They're just maybe kind of an unconscious, selfish person who, you know, is kind of ego identified and really into themselves. But to me, like, a narcissist is someone who's almost borderline sociopathic, you know?

[00:37:20] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Or psychopathic. Well, it was even- It's like, yeah, I think it's, I think it's much worse than people often kind of... 'Cause it's just thrown around so loosely. So what, what, you know, as a clinician who's written books about this stuff, um, what, what's your definition of it and how do, what does that look like?

[00:37:38] Ross Rosenberg: As, before I do that, I, I share your frustration because there are so many people and their sister and brother, um, on, on YouTube and podcasts talking about this stuff and, and, you know, they're, they're coaches. They got two months s- um, training and, and th- their major credential is their life experience and their survival story.

[00:37:59] Ross Rosenberg: Um, [00:38:00] I'm a scientist. I think scientifically. I'm a psychotherapist, but I always, like, my mind always feels like it's a scientist's mind. So when I started doing all this stuff, it had to fit within the mental health, um concepts that I was trained in, that I learned in, that were developed over a period of hundreds of years.

[00:38:24] Ross Rosenberg: And so my, all of my work can be tr- directly attributed to other psychological theory. Um, and so because of that, when I created the codependency definition, it had to be simple. It had to be specific, and it couldn't change. 'Cause if you go in and you get a diagnosis for ADHD, which I also have, um, it's like you got these symptoms.

[00:38:51] Ross Rosenberg: If you have these symptoms, then you got the disorder. If you don't have the symptoms, you don't have the disorder. So I created that simple definition of [00:39:00] giving all the love, respect, caring, trust, and, and protection away, wanting it to be reciprocal, not insane in a relationship. And then I expanded it to self-love deficit disorder, came up with the pyramid, and, uh, well, the same thing with narcissism.

[00:39:16] Ross Rosenberg: So I use the term pathological narcissist. A SLD or codependent, they fall in love with a pathological narcissist. That is one of three personality disorders: narcissistic, borderline, and antisocial personality disorder, the last of which is a sociopath. So SLDs, me, I'm a recovering one, and my clients, they're going to have one of those three personality disorders.

[00:39:46] Ross Rosenberg: The sociopath is much different than the person with narcissistic personality disorder. But what the sociopath, the borderline, and the person with NPD have in common, they have a narcissistic core. [00:40:00] They're very different. So Pathological narcissism is a mental health disorder that is classified as a personality disorder.

[00:40:10] Ross Rosenberg: Then I created a continuum. Um, it's called my relationship compatibility continuum, that on one end, it's got plus five. It's, it's how much love, respect, caring you take versus give. The narcissist, people who need all of it and give nothing are plus fives. On the other side of the continuum is a negative five who give it all away.

[00:40:38] Ross Rosenberg: In the center is a zero. So that's your hypothetical person that gives as much love, respect, caring as, um, they take. So you can be somewhere on the continuum. So you can be on the codependent side, but not codependent, just you just give too much, you care too much. You can be on the narcissistic [00:41:00] side, but not pathologically narcissistic.

[00:41:02] Ross Rosenberg: So when I use the term pathological narcissism, I'm-- and within the context of someone with self-love deficit disorder, I'm talking about someone with a personality disorder who doesn't know they have a pro... All personality disorders have this in common. The person doesn't know they have a problem. They blame other people for their problem.

[00:41:24] Ross Rosenberg: They are unwilling to get help, and should they get help, it doesn't last. So these are disorders that have a very, very low probability of, of getting better And that is why, um, um, it's so simple to differentiate when we're talking about pathological narcissism of this mental health condition versus a selfish person who's maybe arrogant, who's a little vain.

[00:41:52] Ross Rosenberg: Well, yeah, well, they're, they're selfish. I don't use the word narcissist. I go, "Well, they're selfish, they're arrogant, they're entitled," but [00:42:00] that doesn't make them a pathological narcissist. Those people are a different breed.

[00:42:04] Luke Storey: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I li- I like the continuum. It, um, you know, on the far end of the narcissistic spectrum, it, it kind of reminds me of, uh, you know, from my, my days in addiction recovery.

[00:42:18] Luke Storey: At, at a certain point after a number of years, I got pretty good at predicting, uh, when someone was gonna last and when they weren't, right? You see someone new come into, you know, meeting rooms and things like that, and it seemed like the one determinant of success or failure in terms of recovery was and is one's capacity to be honest with themselves.

[00:42:44] Luke Storey: I mean, I think it even says that in the, in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous somewhere. It's like people who don't have the capacity to be honest with themselves, that type of person, it seems like is almost a lost cause you know? Because if a, if a true narcissist [00:43:00] doesn't have the capacity to be self-referential and, uh, self-aware, then all they're going to be able to do is project blame and manipulate to stay within their kind of bubble of, um, delusion, right?

[00:43:17] Luke Storey: Whereas if someone has a little, a little peak of light that allows them to see, like, "Hmm, there's a common denominator in all my problems, and I think it might be me,"

[00:43:28] Ross Rosenberg: you know what I mean? Yeah. And, and you're right. The nar- the narcissist does not have the capability, the ability to understand that they're a problem because they're broken.

[00:43:38] Ross Rosenberg: So if you think of a family and where there's two siblings. Mm-hmm. One ch- one child became Dad, who's the narcissist. Daddy's golden child, hero child. Um, and, and that child figured out a way to be daddy's little angel or s- you know, soldier, whatever. And, and, and that is the be- beginning and the, [00:44:00] the etiology, um, the, where SLDD starts.

[00:44:05] Ross Rosenberg: But the child that's not able to figure that out- is the child that the narcissist hates. It's the child that the narcissist despises. It's the child that is projected all of the worst things a- about the narcissist gets that. The nar- um, the bad child, the bad seed, the selfish kid. That child during this attachment period gets not only no love, c- uh, conditional love, he gets the opposite.

[00:44:33] Ross Rosenberg: That is the beginning of a personality disorder. That is why they're so broken because it's like if we look at, like, a child that was raised four years in a r- um, a Romanian orphanage, they are going to h- they're going to be a sociopath by the time they're 18 because during those attachment years, they were, like, in a, in a nightmare life.

[00:44:56] Ross Rosenberg: Well, not as bad. The person who is, you [00:45:00] know, is the bad kid, the, um, the object of the narcissist's ridicule grows up really broken, and they have to shut that all down. They figure out a way to not feel it. They put it in their unconscious, which is why narcissists don't know what's wrong with them, can't remember their childhood, and don't have insight.

[00:45:21] Ross Rosenberg: They are so broken, and they want love. They want someone to love them, and so the human magnet syndrome works. The codependent, the SLD meets the narcissist. It's a reenactment of their childhoods, of something that feels normal, that feels right, that's this intensity, and they, the narcissist finally can control their own destiny and make things happen and no one will hurt them at the expense of the codependent.

[00:45:53] Ross Rosenberg: So yeah, the narcissist has no idea, is, is completely broken, and [00:46:00] needs someone to, to love them, and unfortunately, SLDs or codependents are wired to do that

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[00:47:50] Ross Rosenberg: What's

[00:47:50] Luke Storey: your take on attachment theory? That, that's another one like narcissism that's kind of gained some, gained some popularity and there are a number of different, [00:48:00] uh, you know, ways to look at it or definitions. But it seems one thing that everyone in the mental health space can agree on is that your early life experiences and the, the level of care and love and attention and nurturing that a kid gets is going to determine how they're able to connect with other people throughout their lives.

[00:48:20] Ross Rosenberg: Well, you know, it's funny because, you know, when people talk about evolution, they go, "Well, it's a theory," but it's really not a theory, it's a fact. Wow. So and there are certain things that are actual theories that people agree on, don't agree on. You know, you, you have different... So attachment theory is, is fact.

[00:48:37] Ross Rosenberg: Um, and so that's why I laughed, is because it's not do I l- believe in it or I don't. People in the mental health field, it's part of their training and it's, it... John Bowlby started it and all these famous people developed it. It is a s- staple of mental health information that explains that our mental health, our adult [00:49:00] personality is shaped by the relationships we have in the very earliest part of our life, and the most important relationship a child is to have is with its caregivers.

[00:49:12] Ross Rosenberg: And if a caregiver is unconditionally loving, a normal parent, normal parents make mistakes, normal parents need therapy. But a parent who unconditionally loves their child, um, there is an attachment and the child feels lovable. It's like they look in the mirror and they say, "He's lovable," because my whole childhood I was told I must be lovable.

[00:49:35] Ross Rosenberg: And so, uh, so attachment works that way. W- if you are deprived- Mm-hmm ... of attachment and all you, you love that you get is by molding yourself, that is attachment trauma. Remember the, the, the pyramid? Attachment trauma is the foundational layer of SLDD. That trauma caused your codependency. [00:50:00] You didn't get unconditional love, you got conditional love, and you had to be someone else in order to get it.

[00:50:06] Ross Rosenberg: And so attachment theory is s- just regular science. There are elements of attachment theory that some people have opinions on. You know, there, you know, there's, and, and, um, but Basic attachment theory is the black and white building blocks of how we understand mental health. We can explain a monkey. If a monkey or, um, a, a rhesus monkey...

[00:50:31] Ross Rosenberg: There was all this re- research, research in the '50s and '60s. If it, if it had a abusive mom, the monkey would raise their children and be an abusive mom. It happens in, in, in l- in primates and other mammals and, and no differently than humans except, of course, we have a mind.

[00:50:50] Luke Storey: When it comes to, um, it, when it comes to people kind of leaning toward the codependent side or the narcissist [00:51:00] side, how much of that is determined by overt trauma such as abuse versus, um, neglect and it- neglect and abandonment, right?

[00:51:13] Luke Storey: There's kind of, the way I look at trauma is sometimes it's things that happen to you, and sometimes it's things that don't happen for you that you needed. There's, like, unmet needs and then there's, you know, overt harm. Do, do those two broad categories kind of send a kid off in one direction or the other in a, in a way that's somewhat predictable?

[00:51:31] Ross Rosenberg: I, I first wanna say some- and hold on to that question 'cause I, I know how my brain is. I might not get, I might remember it. But I wanna say this, that trauma is not what happened to us. It's the experience of it. So if you are, um, your dad is an alcoholic and beats the crap out of you four or five times, um, a year, broken nose, bruises, but when he's not drunk, he loves you and says he's sorry.

[00:51:57] Ross Rosenberg: Um, or another kid won't [00:52:00] have a dad because the dad, um, left mom, um, and shows no interest and grows up with no father figure The psychological harm caused by the father who was an absent, who showed no interest in the child, is far more serious than the psychological harm of someone being abused. So trauma is not what, um, happens to us, it's the child's experience of it.

[00:52:28] Ross Rosenberg: Abandonment and deprivation often has much deeper traumatic roots than abuse. But to your question, um, attachment trauma is unique in itself. Um, so you can have like, you know, trauma that are specific moments of time. That is described through the concept or the th- um, the, uh, diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

[00:52:59] Ross Rosenberg: So if [00:53:00] you were raped as a child, um, repeatedly, um, which is just a, a horrible nightmare, sexually abused, that is its own type of trauma that is, that is built up on top of the attachment trauma. Attachment trauma is this unique trauma that happens over a period of time that during a time of development of personality.

[00:53:26] Ross Rosenberg: So they, they're different, but often go together. Someone who is a, um, an SLD will remember really traumatic moments when, you know, um, something happened, but they won't remember the attachment trauma because that was at the very first part of their life all the way till they were an adolescent. It was the-- It's, it's the dysfunctional background noise.

[00:53:54] Ross Rosenberg: And by the way, denial is an acronym. Don't [00:54:00] Even Know I Am Lying, except no is spelled wrong. And it demonstrates denial happens to us. We don't always do it. We don't always remember or know w- that we're in denial, and that's a very important concept, but I'm kind of getting a little bit scattered here. So focus me, please.

[00:54:20] Luke Storey: Yeah, it's all good. It's all good. Uh, uh, it's all really important information. Um, I mean, one thing that I find very encouraging, despite the fact that, you know, as you said, there's a lot of, um, I don't know, like newly minted experts when it comes to these issues that we're discussing here today, um, much like there are, you know, a lot of, um, people probably using psychedelics, which is, I think, a really exciting and- Yeah

[00:54:47] Luke Storey: emerging trend in mental health, but there's also a lot of people- Yeah ... who are probably doing it in ways that are harmful- They're g- ... if not benefit- you know ... they said

[00:54:54] Ross Rosenberg: we're, we're getting high and saying it's helping them. Uh, maybe both.

[00:54:58] Luke Storey: I think that all of these ideas are [00:55:00] really positive in terms of these are things that weren't talked about when I was a kid at all, you know?

[00:55:05] Luke Storey: And now it's like there's much more public awareness about family systems and trauma and things like that. So, you know, there's a little bit of, um, bathwater in there with the baby at times, but I think it's, it's really, I don't know, it's just such an important aspect of holding our human family, the collective together, 'cause we can only be as well as each individual- Yeah

[00:55:27] Luke Storey: right? And it's like-

[00:55:28] Ross Rosenberg: Right ...

[00:55:29] Luke Storey: there's so many people I think that sense and see ob- you know, objectively that there's a lot wrong with the world. There's a lot of suffering and evil that seems unnecessary, and i- many of us are tempted to go out and try and fix something externally. And meanwhile, you know, we have all this baggage from our childhood that we haven't dealt with, you know?

[00:55:50] Luke Storey: So it's like I, I think the work that you're doing and the topics we're discussing today, I don't think there's anything more important than this.

[00:55:57] Ross Rosenberg: Well, thank you. I, I really appreciate that.

[00:55:59] Luke Storey: And so wha- [00:56:00] whatever direction it goes and meanders, I, I'm, I love it all.

[00:56:03] Ross Rosenberg: No, no, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna keep on topic, but, but and you ma- I wa- you made me, uh, think about it is so I, so, so I created the definition of codependency, then that evolved into the definition of self-love deficit disorder, then that involved in the theory that it's an attachment disorder.

[00:56:22] Ross Rosenberg: It's a, an addiction. It's a personality. I mean, I'm, I am the type of person that does not ski- stay stuck on one theory. I use whatever theories work, and I bring them together, family systems. And, but the trauma part is the trauma that is responsible for SLDD cannot be addressed in talk therapy. It, um, it's not available in that part of our mind, and I learned this- decades ago by accident, um, before Bessel van der Kolk and Peter Levine, who were titans, um, in the fields of [00:57:00] trauma, people that are just absolutely brilliant.

[00:57:03] Ross Rosenberg: I figured out in the 1980s that you can get to a person's memories through this technique that I eventually would call the HITCH technique, healing the inner trauma child trauma integration technique, or HITCH. And, and so you can't solve this problem if you don't get to the, the foundation, going back to the pyramid.

[00:57:26] Ross Rosenberg: So the, the treatment, the therapy, and there's a lot of different treatments and therapy now that can actually get to trauma. Um, EMDR does a decent job at it, but there's, uh, there's a lot of trauma-informed therapists that are really smart out there, but you gotta find them. But if you don't solve the unconscious part of trauma, the part you can't remember, you keep repeating yourself Because you're doing something unconsciously.

[00:57:53] Ross Rosenberg: It's not a habit you gotta stop. It's, um, it's not, you know, looking in the mirror and giving [00:58:00] yourself, you know, you know, affirmations. These are- it's as if you are- there's this blueprint is encoded in your personality, and it's going to play out because the very nature of your being and, and your psychological health was developed on this broken foundation.

[00:58:19] Ross Rosenberg: And so what I do in, in my Self-Love Recovery Treatment program, part of what I do, and not all of what I do, is I get to that trauma and help the SLD go back in time, the codependent, and connect to what happened and bring that forward into conscious memory, which is integration, so it can be solved. It can't get-- You can't get to it by regular talk therapy, which is why codependency therapy doesn't work.

[00:58:52] Ross Rosenberg: It is terribly, terribly ineffective, and I'm-- I very, very rarely ever hear of a [00:59:00] positive outcome of someone going to codependency if you accept the human magnet syndrome. And codependency is this disorder which plays out with you falling in love with narcissists, this, that, and the other. So that's the challenge, is to understand trauma, especially when to the observer, it's invisible.

[00:59:20] Luke Storey: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, I know from personal experience, uh, that one can spend many years talking about their trauma and their childhood and, um, maybe get a, a better understanding of, of oneself, but still not- Yeah ... be able, but not be able to break out of the patterns that result from that , from that trauma.

[00:59:42] Ross Rosenberg: Yeah, I, I call those beta memory.

[00:59:44] Luke Storey: I'm curious about your, um, you know, methodology. I know you work with people, um, you know, and we'll put a, a link to your website and people can work with you. But I've heard you speak to this codependency that it's something that can be healed, and you've found, you've found ways to get into [01:00:00] the subconscious mind and to, you know, unearth these things where they can actually be healed.

[01:00:04] Luke Storey: Um, the only thing that I personally have experienced that was able to do that, uh, has been working with plant medicines and psychedelics. And, you know- Mm-hmm ... I was on a personal development and spiritual journey for 20 years in a, in a very serious and committed way, and there were just things I could not change.

[01:00:24] Luke Storey: I just could not overcome them despite a really high level of understanding, right? Of like, okay, I know why, you know, what, what the origins, the roots of these issues are, and I totally understand it. I can talk about it. I can articulate it. I can journal about it and write, you know, inventories about it, yet I walk out the door and do the same exact thing that I've always been doing.

[01:00:46] Luke Storey: For me, the only way I could get in there was using entheogens, where I could actually go back and-

[01:00:52] Ross Rosenberg: And what, what, using what? What word did you use?

[01:00:54] Luke Storey: Uh, entheogens, different psychedelics, ayahuasca, uh, a- and whatnot, right? [01:01:00] Where, where I think it was helpful for me because I, I did have some level of a framework of understanding, so when I would go into those spaces, I'm not just laying there like, "Oh, th- whoa, look at these trippy colors and patterns."

[01:01:13] Luke Storey: Like, I don't care about any of that. I'm, I, I know that my goal is to get into my subconscious mind and to unearth those things so that I can actually face them and fully feel them and, and get them out of my nervous system and out of my body. And I just, I, you know, because my experience Is that, that's me, but I know that those experiences and that, that kind of, that path isn't appropriate for all people.

[01:01:38] Luke Storey: So I'm, I'm always really keen to find people that have found a way that doesn't require you to be throwing up for 12 hours, you know, sitting in a jungle in Peru somewhere, right? It's like, God, how do you get into the recesses of the mind without using anything, ketamine or MDMA therapy or whatever?

[01:01:55] Ross Rosenberg: Yeah.

[01:01:55] Ross Rosenberg: And, and so, so let me talk about that. So, um, Adolf [01:02:00] Huxley, uh, I don't know, early 1900s wrote a book, Doors of Perception. And, and, and, and as you were talking, I actually thought of this book that I haven't thought about in years. Is so when y- And, and it was the f- one of the first books that, um, was written about a person's experience with psychedelics.

[01:02:17] Ross Rosenberg: And so some psychedelics, they open up these metaphorical doors. They, um, because the br- the part of the brain in which these trauma memories are encoded, it's a specific place. It's in the, the part of the brain is called the amygdala. And, um, it's a, like an almond-shaped part of the brain, and it's exactly where those memories are encoded, and that amygdala is not connected to the thinking part of the brain.

[01:02:47] Ross Rosenberg: It's below that. Um, so th- these memories are actually removed. And that's the same with PTSD. If, you know, you're in the, you know, in the war, and you saw all your friends died, or, you know, you had to [01:03:00] kill someone, a matter of survival, and, and, and the trauma is just too painful for you to keep in your conscious memory.

[01:03:07] Ross Rosenberg: The, the brain just, um, just the way we evolved, moves it offline. It's still in us. W- It still affects us, but we don't remember it. So my hypothesis is, and, and it's just a hypothesis because I'm not a neuropsychologist or a neurosurgeon, and certainly haven't done research in psychedelics, is it opens up a door, and it, it gets to that same door that I open.

[01:03:33] Ross Rosenberg: I open it up differently, and I have a lot more control than the, the... 'Cause I, I've known a lot of people that have had very positive healing, um, experiences on ayahuasca. Um, and about thirty-three percent of those, now this is my anecdotal evidence, this is my statistics, um, and I've been around a while, sixty-five-years-old, been in the field forty years.

[01:03:59] Ross Rosenberg: But [01:04:00] of the people that have e- had positive experiences with psychedelics, it's not lasting But there's a s- a s- 35%, they take that and they do something with that. They have intention that you have. "I want to get to the bottom of my trauma. I want to figure out a way to not suffer. I'm going to do this, this, this journey, this, um, ayahuasca trip or whatever it's called, and I'm going to heal."

[01:04:29] Ross Rosenberg: And then it comes to them. They open up these doors and they get to the memories, they get to these insights, and they keep it alive in memory. And then that memory, they, they stay connected to it and they work on it like psychotherapy, like integration. If I, if I bring it, bring a person back to the child that they were f- in their mind were frozen at and connect to that and the, the evocative emotional pain that comes [01:05:00] up, they're healthy enough to bring that forward so that they can sort it out consciously.

[01:05:07] Ross Rosenberg: Well, that's what people like you did. That's what the, the successful people that have used psychedelics. Um, otherwise, it's these insights that are just amazing and life-changing and then, you know, it kinda wears away and you get back into life.

[01:05:23] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:05:24] Ross Rosenberg: It has to be a part of a healing journey, which is why there are therapists now that are actually using those medicines in order to work specifically on trauma.

[01:05:39] Luke Storey: If your meditation practice feels like work instead of peace, listen up. A lot of us sit with the best of intentions. We're trying to quiet the mind, experience inner stillness, maybe even connect with something deeper within. But the fact is that if your body can't let go of background stress, it makes all of that more difficult, sometimes even impossible.

[01:05:58] Luke Storey: And that's why I use [01:06:00] the Apollo Neuro. It's a wearable that sends gentle rhythmic pulses through your body, and that signal communicates safety through your sense of touch. And when your nervous system feels safe, everything changes. Your breath slows down, you settle in faster, and you can actually drop into a meditative state without all the struggle.

[01:06:18] Luke Storey: I've noticed when I use the Apollo, I just go deeper and faster, like my body finally decided to cooperate with my mind, and it doesn't stop there. Apollo comes with an app called Smart Vibes AI that learns your patterns and automatically adjusts the support you need when you need it. Here's where you wanna go to get your nervous system dialed in.

[01:06:38] Luke Storey: It's called apolloneuro.com/luke. And if you use the code Luke, you get $99 off the Apollo wearable and Smart Vibes AI bundle. Apollo takes the friction out of my meditation practice, but the real win is how it helps my system stay calm, present, and way less reactive throughout the day. So you definitely wanna check out [01:07:00] apolloneuro.com/luke, and that code is Luke to save $99.

[01:07:06] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah. So if, if you're not working with, um, you know, anything exogenous and you're just working with someone one-on-one, and I don't know if it's something you can describe, uh, or how proprietary your process is, but give me an idea of how you're getting in there. Oh, sure, sure. 'Cause it's, you know, these m- these, these-- the, the, uh, you know, amygdala, it's like a vault, you know?

[01:07:34] Luke Storey: It's like, how do you crack the safe to get your, you know, your awareness in there to make these things malleable to the point where you can actually move past them? It's just fascinating to me. I've tried, uh, EMDR, and I, you know, before I- So- ... worked with medicine, I d- I didn't really find it to be effective.

[01:07:51] Luke Storey: I've done hypnosis. I mean, I've done some things-

[01:07:54] Ross Rosenberg: I didn't really wanna diss EMDR. EMDR in by itself is just partially effective. It has to be [01:08:00] connected to something else.

[01:08:01] Luke Storey: Got

[01:08:01] Ross Rosenberg: it. So let me-- So, and so about a year or two in, in, um, out of grad school, I got this job. It was a perfect job because I had to do a little bit of everything, and it was, you know, a baptism by fire.

[01:08:14] Ross Rosenberg: I was just learning as I went. And I had this client, and we'll call her Catherine. Like, um, and I don't know what I did, but I got, I got her to the memories. I, I got her-- I got into there. It was completely by accident. It was, you know, who knows? And, and she was crying, and she was remembering things as a child, and I'm like going, "Whoa.

[01:08:39] Ross Rosenberg: What's-- No one told me about this." And it was like, I get goosebumps remembering it. And so After that session, she didn't come back for four weeks, and I was like, you know, scared. And she came back and she said, "You know, I was suicidal after that session." And I went, "Bleep." I, I don't know. I, [01:09:00] I'll save you the editing.

[01:09:01] Ross Rosenberg: Hmm. Um, um, expletive, expletive, expletive. I freaked out because, you know, I mean, I, I'm s- I'm an ethical therapist. I don't wanna kill anyone. And that is the very beginning when I started to understand whatever happened can be dangerous if it's not done well. And so over time, I started to figure it out, but I started putting very distinct guardrails around me, and I started to develop, um, safety mechanisms so that, you know, I could not only open up a door, I started to learn, well, I can close the door.

[01:09:37] Ross Rosenberg: The metaphorical door to the person who is in this, for lack of better words, trance, it's, it's an actual door. Um, it... And the, the memories that are recalled, which are what I call HD 360 pristine, almost 8K movie. They're [01:10:00] specific feelings and memories. They are frozen in time, and they are so specific and so exact, um, they can be brought forward.

[01:10:10] Ross Rosenberg: And so I developed it over time and, and bec- and created y- this technique. But to ... It'll suffice to say what it is, is I find a way to bring a person back to the point right before the mind had to freeze and remove the memory. The next step is to get through this door, and it, it's really complicated, and I don't wanna say too much because I don't want people out there trying it and, and like, you know, having, you know, and risking the harm of people.

[01:10:47] Ross Rosenberg: But, you know, through things that I do and say, I open up that door, and what I do is ... And it sounds made up, but I find the child. The memories [01:11:00] are represented as the child that they were. And my client I, um, can see this child. And what I do is I cr- and I, I get goosebumps. After all these years, I still get goosebumps.

[01:11:14] Ross Rosenberg: But my client is actually experiencing in their mind, in their heart, in their body, um, this, um, this ex- this experience of being with a child, that part of them that was cleaved off, broken away from them. And I connect them, and I have them talk to the child, and I have them convince, um, the child that they're getting better and they can protect them, and there's no reason to, like, be afraid, and it's okay.

[01:11:47] Ross Rosenberg: And, and they ask the child permission if they can remember her after the session so that they can keep her alive or him alive and continue to protect. And it's, [01:12:00] it is to the client, they are there. They are talking to this part of themselves. And I, I guide that whole ... It's like, it's like I'm doing work with two people, literally.

[01:12:14] Ross Rosenberg: I have a child, and I have the person, and to my client, it is very, very real. And they not only see the child, acknowledge the child's fear, but promise the child that they will be a steward of their own mental health so that they can come forward and don't have to be hidden And so after I do all this stuff, I kinda wrap it up, and I make su- I have my client say goodbye to the child, and it's a very emotionally evocative process where-- and th- where they hug the child, and then the child almost, um, um, dissolves in their embrace into them, and they become one, and [01:13:00] that's the moment of integration.

[01:13:01] Ross Rosenberg: And after that session, I spend time talking to my client, and they go, "Oh my God, I can't believe what happened." And, and we process it, and we talk about it, and I talk about the importance of, of remembering this, and then I warn them 'cause I remember what happened twenty-five years ago. "You might get really depressed.

[01:13:22] Ross Rosenberg: You might get this. You might get that. Here is my phone number." I'm a very boundary therapist, but when I-- but in these situations, I will give up my phone number up because my clients actually never take advantage of it 'cause I have good boundaries. And, and they come back the next session, and they go, "Oh my God, I felt so different because..."

[01:13:44] Ross Rosenberg: And, and that's the magic of it. That's the integration. So, so that's the, it's a really simplistic way to explain what happens, but it really does happen that way. Um, it's, it's not-- I am not making suggestion like a hypnotist. [01:14:00] You know, cr- it-- they're remembering the trauma and, and the shape, and the size, and the, the brain, and the body of the child that they were, and they bring her back, and that doesn't...

[01:14:14] Ross Rosenberg: and that's integration.

[01:14:15] Luke Storey: Beautiful. Beautiful. I've, I've had similar experiences, so I, I definitely relate to that. Yeah.

[01:14:21] Ross Rosenberg: Which is what you, you had this intuitive sense of where to go with that, and it-- so you didn't have a therapist do it. Y- you figured it out just like I figured it out, except I figured it out so I can do it with other people.

[01:14:33] Ross Rosenberg: I try to do it

[01:14:34] Luke Storey: myself too. Necessity is the mother of invention, you know?

[01:14:38] Ross Rosenberg: Well, I, I was di- I was divorced way too many times. You know, I'm no longer ashamed of it. It's, um, I needed it to finally to, to get to self-love. But no one understood it, and I was tired of feeling like crap. I had to figure it out, and if no one else figures it out, I, I was

[01:14:57] Ross Rosenberg: You know, I don't know. I'm not very religious. I'm a [01:15:00] scientist. But Gift. I got a gift. I got the ideas, and I'm sharing them with people. And, and, and, and when I'm retired, I, I can look back at my career and say, "You know, I think I did something good."

[01:15:15] Luke Storey: Yeah, absolutely. Can you describe how emotional incest and enmeshment in our childhoods inform how we relate to people as adults?

[01:15:31] Ross Rosenberg: Oh, sure. So let's, let's define emotional incest first. Um, there's a great book, um... There was a time I was a, a certified, uh, sex addiction treatment provider, and one of the guys that was a teacher was a guy named Ken Adams that actually wrote a book about it, Covert, um, Incest or something like that.

[01:15:49] Ross Rosenberg: Wonderful book that's all about it. Ken Adams. So to understand, uh, emotional incest is to first start off with the very uncomfortable definition of sexual incest. Sexual incest is [01:16:00] when an adult cannot meet their sexual needs in their life and turn to defenseless kids and exploitively, um, uses them to meet these adult needs and creates tremendous trauma.

[01:16:13] Ross Rosenberg: Sex- sexual incest. Emotional incest is when an adult cannot meet their emotional needs, their relational needs, their connection needs, their attachment needs, and they turn to a defenseless child, and they groom the child to be responsible for their emotional health, and the child grows up feeling tied to that person as an appendage, and their life mission is to make sure mommy or daddy or whomever is, is not unhappy.

[01:16:46] Ross Rosenberg: They are, um, they sacrifice the, the, the sanctity of the innocence of childhood, um, and take on the, uh, immeasurable responsibility tra- [01:17:00] traumatically, uh, trauma of having to be an adult to a person who is completely unable to take care of themselves. And there is a huge stunting in, um, in attachment. So if we're talking about regular attachment trauma and then you throw that it happens to be the relationship with that SLD, the co-dependent actually was emotionally, um, it was emotionally incestuous, well, that's-- there's different degrees of bad.

[01:17:34] Ross Rosenberg: And so that type of, um, neglect, abuse is very, very damaging because it results in the worldview of the victim where they don't have a sense of self and they have to, um, take care of someone- who's supposed to take care of themselves, and they never get anything. They, they d- they don't get [01:18:00] safety, they don't get love because they're too worried about the other person.

[01:18:04] Ross Rosenberg: It's, it's very saddening to see an adult who was raised that way who still is responsible. I had a client, actually a recent situation, and I don't wanna say anything more than that. Um, the session never got past, um, one session. But th- that's all I wanna say about that. Um

[01:18:30] Ross Rosenberg: It's, it's a, it's, it's a, it's a debilitating, um, form of abuse.

[01:18:35] Luke Storey: Uh, sometimes I'll hear either kids or parents refer to their relationship as, uh, something to the effect of, "Oh, I'm, you know, I'm not even his mom. We're like, we're best friends. That's my best friend." It's always like a re- a red flag for me w- especially when I hear parents, and I'm like, you kinda get the sense that the roles of the relationship [01:19:00] are more peer-to-peer than they are-

[01:19:03] Ross Rosenberg: No, it's actually parental, the parental to child.

[01:19:07] Ross Rosenberg: The child is the parent. Right. That's the incest. Peer-to-peer-

[01:19:11] Luke Storey: Right ...

[01:19:11] Ross Rosenberg: it's still incestuous, but it's like they are taking care of the person that was supposed to take care of them. And it's ... And if ... And as adults, it's, it's very sad to see these adults. They, they, they can't ever be in a healthy relationship because they are forever stuck in this dungeon, this trap of taking care of someone who will never take care of themselves, and taking on the responsibility and the fears and the anxieties that go with that.

[01:19:44] Luke Storey: Right. Right. Yeah. It's quite, it's quite a burden. Uh, well before we, before we, uh, get out of here, you know, you've kind of explained some of your work, um, which sounds really intriguing, and I think your confidence in your ability to help people based [01:20:00] on your clinical experience says a lot. You're not like, "Eh, we'll just throw something at the wall and see what sticks."

[01:20:05] Luke Storey: I mean, it really seems like you've, you've systematized-

[01:20:07] Ross Rosenberg: Maybe in the beginning I did that. Maybe in the, uh, uh, late eighties, early nineties, but, you know, uh-

[01:20:14] Luke Storey: It, it seems like you've systematized this and really built, as you've referred to, kind of a scientific model, which I think is- Yeah ... um, you know, obviously is really important.

[01:20:22] Luke Storey: What does it look like for people that work to you? I've got your site, selfloverecovery.com. Yeah. Uh, and we're gonna put all your stuff in the, in the show notes for people to click on today. But if someone listening was like, "Wow, I think I might have some of these issues," they wanna work with you, what does that look like?

[01:20:37] Ross Rosenberg: Well, first of all, Mike, I lo- I, I, I love the name of my company, Self Love Recovery Institute, and s- recovery has this kind of double entendre. You know, it's like alcohol recovery. You know? You, um, you're gonna find something that's lost, and you're also gonna heal on this path. Um, and so, um, everything that I do, um, you can find out about it from my [01:21:00] website, selfloverecovery.com, or you can, um, shoot me a- an email at help@selfloverecovery.com.

[01:21:08] Ross Rosenberg: I, I have, um, audio and video seminars. Um, I have, um, um, of course this treatment program. I also provide traditional psychotherapy, and I'm also an expert witness and consultation, um, um, uh ... Ooh, God, my words are, I'm losing my words at the end. I'm glad it's at the end of this. I'm losing my words. Um-

[01:21:32] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:21:32] Luke Storey: Better than in the first five minutes. Oh, oh, sure.

[01:21:34] Ross Rosenberg: Yeah. A consultant. I'm an expert witness and legal consultant. I'm going, that's- Um, and, and that's something I do, and I help people understand what they can and can't do, what is actually reasonably ex- what they can expect will happen should they try to divorce someone, um, who is a pathological narcissist.

[01:21:54] Luke Storey: Ah.

[01:21:56] Ross Rosenberg: And most, most people have this idea that they're gonna hire me, and I'm gonna go in, [01:22:00] and I'm gonna... in the court, I'm gonna point, "That's the narcissist. She's innocent." Well, it doesn't work that way. And 99% of the people that call me, um, ethically, I do my job and, and I give them tons of information, and I say I can't help them because there's, there's no magic bullet.

[01:22:20] Ross Rosenberg: The s- the court system, in many ways is rigged, and you gotta pay the money, uh, for legal representation. But you, but if you do have the money and you can afford a good attorney and, and, and someone like myself, you can find a path forward to overcome the obstacles that most people fall prey to, um, when divorcing a narcissist.

[01:22:44] Luke Storey: That's really interesting. Yeah. I'm, uh, that's actually a pretty valuable res- resource for people because narcissists, by definition, are highly manipulative, you know, and like [01:23:00] really good at gaslighting and can probably turn a courtroom upside down if they're really skilled at that kind of manipulation.

[01:23:06] Luke Storey: Well- So that sounds like having, you know, a team on your side if you're stuck in a situation like that would actually be really smart.

[01:23:13] Ross Rosenberg: Well, and, and that's how it is. I, I always had this fantasy, and it's just a fantasy 'cause it's too late, but my fantasy would be, would be a profiler, um, in the FBI.

[01:23:22] Ross Rosenberg: Because when I work with my clients, they are often, like, amazed at how much I can predict what's gonna happen- And what makes their partner tick. I, I, after all these years, the patterns are just so ingrained, um, I can see a few steps ahead of time. And, and, and that helps, um, when I give these, um, um... When I say legal consultations, I am not an attorney, but I know a lot that attorneys won't say that they should know

[01:23:57] Ross Rosenberg: So, so yeah, make no mistake, I don't [01:24:00] give them attorney advice. I give them, um, good advice that they can use with their attorney. And often I will work with the attorney and give them advice and ideas c- on, on how to overcome certain obstacles and achieve a victory. Of course, I can't tell them how to do it in law- Yeah

[01:24:17] Ross Rosenberg: but I can give them kind of the, the, you know, guidance and, and, and some ideas.

[01:24:22] Luke Storey: Awesome.

[01:24:23] Ross Rosenberg: So thank you. I really appreciate this. Thank you for inviting me. I, I love your podcast and I am honored for being on it and, and I wish you the very best.

[01:24:33] Luke Storey: Likewise, man. Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, your, your line of work is really close to my heart

[01:24:39] Luke Storey: Like I said a couple times, I'm just like, "Ah, this is the most important work we can be doing," I think, you know? Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm happy to support. I've got one closing question for you, Ross, and it's a- Sure ... three, three-parter.

[01:24:53] Ross Rosenberg: Ooh.

[01:24:53] Luke Storey: Who have been three people, teachings, books, philosophies, anything that have [01:25:00] influenced your life and your work that you'd like to share with the audience?

[01:25:03] Ross Rosenberg: Oh my gosh. Um- I know, uh, uh, m- my hero is Martin Luther King, and I don't know if that has anything to do with my job, but there's just something about standing up for truth and, and, and risking adv- adversity in order to, to do the right thing and to make things right. Um, but I can't think of any heroes other than my clients.

[01:25:29] Ross Rosenberg: Um, I, I, I look at my clients with such awe sometimes at what they do and how far they come, and, and sometimes, um, I'm, like, pretty amazed too, because I'm, I'm just, just doing, I'm... It just happens. I, I don't spend, I don't know, hours preparing. And so I, uh, the heroes, in my opinion, are the, are my clients that do the work because there's no, there's nothing more difficult than to go from being an SLD to finally [01:26:00] embrace this permanent condition of self-love abundance.

[01:26:03] Ross Rosenberg: Epic. And, uh, and I'll email you, um, the other two that I can't think of right now.

[01:26:09] Luke Storey: Okay, fair enough. Well, I mean, I'll let, I can let you off the hook 'cause you have more than three clients, I'm assuming, you know, so we can, we can use them- I've had a few over the years,

[01:26:18] Ross Rosenberg: yeah ... fill this niche.

[01:26:18] Luke Storey: That's- Yeah ... I mean, that's, that's really cool though.

[01:26:20] Luke Storey: I, I, I appreciate that. Yeah. I, I appreciate the humility in that. Well, uh, thank you again for, for taking the time to hang out with me today. I look forward to chatting with you again, and thanks for doing the good work in the world, man. We need people like you.

[01:26:34] Ross Rosenberg: Same, same to you. Thank you. You be well.

[01:26:42] Luke Storey: What's up, friends? Glad you could hang out with me for this week's episode of The Lifestylist. If you wanna make sure you never miss a single damn thing, hit that subscribe or follow button right now, 'cause new episodes drop every Tuesday. Plus, the last Friday of every month, we do a raw Ask Me Anything session based on your questions.[01:27:00]

[01:27:00] Luke Storey: And here's something a lot of listeners don't know. At lukestray.com/podcast, you can search the entire back catalog. I'm talking over 600 episodes of biohacking, spirituality, healing, and straight-up truth bombs. You can punch in any topic or guest you're curious about, and you'll pull up exactly what you want in seconds.

[01:27:18] Luke Storey: And hey, if today's episode moved you, share it with a friend. Text it, post it, slide it into a DM, whatever. Word of mouth is how this community grows. And I've got one request for you. If you've gotten value from this show, one simple way to give back is to leave a quick rating and review. It really helps me reach new people and lets me know which episodes hit the hardest.

[01:27:39] Luke Storey: And I can't emphasize enough how much your rating and review matters. There's a reason why almost every host begs their audiences to do it. But unfortunately, most listeners don't take action. So be the one who does. And once you do, go back and hit up lukestray.com/podcast, where you can dive into all the archives, the audio, video, show notes, and of course, [01:28:00] transcripts.

[01:28:00] Luke Storey: Thanks in advance for supporting the show, and until next time, be well, my friends

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