In this episode of No Man’s an Island, Dr Jett Stone speaks with Dr Benjamin Bernstein, a clinical psychologist and writer whose work bridges play, therapy and fatherhood.
Ben’s path to psychology began in the classroom. As a high school teacher, he became fascinated by how his relationships with students affected their learning – a curiosity that eventually led him to train as a clinical psychologist. Today, he works with boys, fathers and families, helping them reconnect through presence, humour and emotional openness.
Together, Jett and Ben explore what happens when men and boys are given permission to play. They discuss how curiosity builds trust, how humour diffuses shame, and how therapy – like parenting – works best when approached through the “side door”. Their conversation moves from the fundamentals of psychodynamic work to the reality of adolescence, father–son connection and what Ben calls the “poverty of play” in modern adult life.
Through personal stories, clinical insight and practical wisdom, Ben reminds us that therapy isn’t about perfection – it’s about presence.
What we cover
- Ben’s journey from teacher to clinical psychologist
- Why curiosity, not correction, drives emotional growth in young people
- How play therapy helps adolescents process emotions indirectly
- Using imagination and humour to bypass resistance in therapy
- The difference between “boss mode” and “connection mode” in fathers
- Why teasing, when done safely, helps men loosen up and relate authentically
- How technology and overwork have created a “poverty of play” in modern life
- What it means to model emotional presence as a parent
- Ben’s reflections on risk-taking, authenticity and meaningful therapy
Listen and watch
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Takeaways for men
- You can’t connect with your children if you’re only measuring their performance.
- Curiosity builds bridges where criticism builds walls.
- Play is not a luxury – it’s how boys (and men) process the world.
- Teasing, humour and risk-taking are emotional muscles that need exercise.
- Being a “good dad” starts with being emotionally present, not perfect.
Quotes to share
“I realised the thing that most affected my students wasn’t what I taught – it was how I related to them.” – Dr Ben Bernstein
“The best therapy looks like playing catch – back and forth, not too fast, not too hard.” – Dr Ben Bernstein
“Fathers often slip into boss mode – asking for results instead of connection.” – Dr Ben Bernstein
“Teasing, when done right, helps loosen the string. It’s how we make things move again.” – Dr Ben Bernstein
“We talk about kids needing to play, but adults are just as deprived of it.” – Dr Ben Bernstein
Resources and links
- Dr Ben Bernstein
- Men’s Therapy Hub – Find a Male Therapist
- Episode 17 – Boys, Bias and Belonging with Matt Pinkett
Episode credits
Host: Dr Jett Stone
Guest: Dr Ben Bernstein
Produced by: Men’s Therapy Hub
Music: Raindear
TRANSCRIPT:
Jett (00:00)
Welcome to No Man’s in Island, a podcast powered by Men’s Therapy Hub, which is a directory of male therapists for male clients. I’m Dr. Jeff Stone, and my guest today is Dr. Benjamin Bernstein, clinical psychologist and writer who spent his career on the front lines of clinical work with boys and men. Ben has worked everywhere from college counseling centers to VA hospitals to state psychiatric facilities.
He served as the adolescent psychologist and assistant director of education at Silver Hill Hospital and helps run a program called Argent there. And he now has his own group clinical practice called Redwood Psychology. It’s based in Connecticut and New York. And he works with adolescents and families, including fathers to feel better connected to themselves and each other.
He’s published academic work on play therapy, working with adolescents and the deeper psychology of sports fandom and therapy, which we’ll definitely talk about today. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker Time and Psychology Today. And what drew me to Ben’s work is his psychodynamic approach to reaching teenage boys. He understands something essential about how boys and men relate to their inner worlds and why play isn’t just child’s work, but a lifelong capacity that we abandon at our own peril.
So then, welcome.
Ben Bernstein (01:23)
Jett, thank you so much for having me on today. I’m really excited to chat with you.
Jett (01:28)
So let’s start with your origin story. I know a little bit about it, but I want to know what inspired you to become a clinical psychologist and why work with adolescents, which for those of us who work as therapists know can be some of most challenging populations to work with.
Ben Bernstein (01:45)
Sure, so ⁓ there’s a long version and a short version, but I the shorter version is that I was teaching high school ⁓ and I realized that the thing that was most compelling to me about the work that I was doing was seeing how the relationships I had with ⁓ the students I was teaching would have a huge impact on their learning. And ⁓ I became more curious about that than I was about how to become a better history teacher.
and realized that the only way for me to kind of keep pursuing that question was to kind of understand better how relationships help people grow in general. And so from there, I went back to school, ⁓ got a PhD in clinical psychology, but kept my interest in working with adolescents, with teenagers, and ⁓ how relationships specifically would be able to help them to grow and change and heal and all those things.
Jett (02:38)
I think there’s probably a lot of listeners who are thinking to themselves, know, therapy interests me, or becoming a therapist, let’s say there’s a listener out there, like what gave you the courage to go from teaching to actually pursuing, you know, the whole laundry list of academic things you need to do and all the whole process of actually applying and going into it. Like what gave you the courage to do that?
Ben Bernstein (03:05)
⁓ well, I appreciate you calling it courage. it’s such a nice, a nice way to describe it. ⁓ I don’t know. I didn’t think about it as deeply as maybe I should have. I was really interested in this thing and I thought if I’m going to become a therapist, I want to do the amount of schooling and learning that’s going to help me understand things more deeply. it seemed like, ⁓ the longer schooling with way it was set up, but to some degree it’s like a function of the structure of, of.
Jett (03:32)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (03:35)
of how the professional psychology world works, which is like, have to go to school for a long time to be able to do this thing, which is kind of ironic because a of the research shows that, and not to undercut both of our professions here, but all the research shows that ⁓ years of training has no real major impact on therapy outcomes. ⁓ So I don’t know that I needed to go to school for six years, but that’s how it works. ⁓
Jett (03:57)
Yes.
Ben Bernstein (04:00)
In terms of courage, think it was passion. I it was like I wanted to understand this thing more deeply and that was the way to do it.
Jett (04:08)
Yes, you know it’s one of those things where sometimes the trainees and you know those working in hospitals can be some of the best therapists, right? They’re early on in their career but they have so much interest.
Ben Bernstein (04:17)
Totally.
Jett (04:22)
in helping out their patients. They’re getting the supervision. They’re asking the tough questions that sometimes it’s easy to take for granted. So this is a word to all those listening that if you have a trainee therapist or a postdoc or someone who’s in therapy school, whatever you want to call it, like that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to be an inferior therapist to even the most seasoned person out there. So I’m glad you had that. Can you say a little bit about your own?
if your own personal therapy or what your sort of experience of therapists were as a younger person and how that maybe influenced your trajectory to becoming a clinical psychologist.
Ben Bernstein (05:00)
Yeah, I mean, that’s the other thing I guess that pushed me towards that the direction of becoming a therapist was having a really helpful therapy experience myself. I I was in therapy like as a as an adolescent as a kind of tween. I know that we had the word tween when I was a tween, but as a tween, I guess for anxiety, I had difficulty sleeping through the night and I would have nightmares all the time and went to therapy, hadn’t experienced there that least correlated with me not.
doing that much anymore. ⁓ I think it was helpful, but I had a really impactful therapy, ⁓ kind of like in my mid 20s. For a couple years, I was seeing a therapist and ⁓ for a lot of reasons, difficulty figuring out a career path, even while I was working, know, trying different jobs, but feeling kind of lost there, feeling lost romantically. I think through my experiences with that therapist ⁓ was able to make a decision career wise happened to be the exact same career as her, but we can read into that later.
Jett (05:58)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (05:59)
Um, and, uh, you know, got married, have a family and all the kinds of things that I think I wanted was able to kind of get by going through therapy. Um, and so that also seemed like a, that was also a motivator for me of like, well, I know this thing is works. I know it’s interesting. It’s enjoyable. And how do I, how do I become part of it?
Jett (06:20)
it sounds like the therapist that you had gave you something and was able to contain parts of you that other people in your life couldn’t contain and hold. And this gets at why the therapy relationship is different than other relationships.
that it offers up a space for something more than a friendship can handle, something more than a parent can handle. And I just think that’s important for those who are therapy skeptics out there to think about.
Ben Bernstein (06:55)
Yeah, yeah. So I could share things with my therapist and then instead of her being repulsed by them, she could explore them with me. She didn’t just say, ⁓ no, no, that’s fine, that’s normal, but she just was curious about it. And then I could be curious. Instead of condemning myself for something that I was thinking or feeling or doing, I could start to be curious about why I was doing it because I wasn’t consumed with shame about it.
Jett (07:19)
Yes. And that’s another thing that I experience with men who are new to therapy, you know, young adults who are new to therapy is this sense of like, will my shame be tolerated? Can I be contained in all of my feelings and all of my intensity? And then to come to find out that all parts of you are okay and acceptable, know, within reason for therapy. ⁓ Like that is just something that is so fresh.
and you don’t just get in your everyday life. That’s what makes therapy different than other relationships.
Ben Bernstein (07:56)
Well, I would say, you you said, well, within reason, I would say actually what makes therapy, made my therapy so great. And what I think would make make therapy great in general is it doesn’t actually have to be within reason. Like part of it is that like, ⁓ like I’ll work with fathers where I’ll work with kids who say things that like ⁓ would not be reasonable to share outside of therapy because they would be like seen as monstrous, disgusting, repulsive, like all these things. But what I’ve learned from being a therapist is that
Jett (07:58)
Good night.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (08:26)
everybody has these kinds of thoughts and feelings. What the exact thing is, different. And so it’s kind of like, in some ways, to embrace the irrational. And that’s part of what I think is like cool and effective about therapy is creating a space for that.
Jett (08:35)
Mm-hmm.
Yes, I’m glad that you clarified that. It’s going to segue very nicely into the psychodynamic segment that I have. You’re queuing me up. I guess I was just saying that if you’re going to show up with ⁓ weapons and unclothed to my therapy office, I’ll send you away. That’s all I’m saying. What is it? Well, actually.
Ben Bernstein (08:49)
I was trying to set you up. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, no, I would also send that person away. Come
back with clothes and leave the weapon at home.
Jett (09:13)
That’s true. Okay. So some of that you get it. Some of that you can, ⁓ you know, handle. So let’s talk about psychodynamic work and then we can talk about psychodynamic work with adolescents. So people who are listening right now might not know what psychodynamic psychoanalytic psychotherapy is, right? They might be thinking, Hmm, I want to choose a therapist. This one says they’re psychodynamic. This one says CBT in your own words. Like what is psychodynamic therapy and why is it important to you?
Ben Bernstein (09:41)
Yeah,
I’m like nervous to say it because I feel like there are people who are like very, serious about what psychodynamic and psychoanalytic mean and that they’re going to listen to this and like criticize it. ⁓ So that’s my caveat. I understand it as meaning therapy, it’s focused on relationships, both past and present. That’s open to exploration and that sees ⁓
what we’ll call defenses, people have the term like defense mechanism, defenses as being important to understanding how and why people get stuck. ⁓ So for example, ⁓ somebody who ⁓ had a really bad relationship with one of their parents growing up, ⁓ and you know, maybe continues to, is having a tough time having relationships as a teenager, as an adult, ⁓ understanding how the thing that they use to protect themselves from their parent, let’s say,
hiding or lots of conflict is still being played out in their life as an older person. Helping them understand that and then having a different kind of relationship with the therapist would be psychodynamic therapy. So then they have a relationship with the therapist where when they’re, let’s say, hiding themselves in some way, which work really well to keep their mean parent away, the therapist can point that out but not punish them for it and not also retreat from them because of it.
Whereas everybody else in their life, when that person is hiding or withdrawn, just says, screw him, doesn’t spend time with him anymore, instead they’re all alone. So the therapist can help them both examine what’s happening and actually experience things differently. So you have like two different components there. That’s what, how I understand psychodynamic therapy.
Jett (11:19)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
And you’re right in saying there, you know, we have all of our supervisors of past in our head critiquing that definition of, you know, psychodynamic psychotherapy. And I would add that maybe uniquely psychodynamic psychotherapy ⁓ focuses on unconscious processes, those processes that we might not be fully aware of and calls it by name, right? Other therapies do the same. And that we’re interested as psychodynamic therapists.
in conflict, and ambivalence and inhabiting that complexity. It’s less tools-based, I would say, than CBT, right? It’s less based around specific skills, although there is that part of it as well. And their therapy relationship itself plays in…
in some parts of psychodynamic therapy more than others, but it plays a role in the therapy itself. So what goes on in the room is indicative of how someone relates outside of the room. Would you say that that’s fair to add those pieces in?
Ben Bernstein (12:28)
Yeah, the only thing I would say, the whole tools question is the only thing I would kind of push back into say that like, think we in psychodynamic therapy, which I’m not even like, I would say I’m a psychodynamic therapist, but like, I’m not a, I’m not like a cultist, like a lot of therapy has become religion. And in the sense that like, people are really passionate about like their modality of therapy, and it’s the only thing they’ll do. I think for me, when I say psychodynamic therapy,
Jett (12:32)
Ahem.
Ben Bernstein (12:56)
tools could be part of it. And in fact, I just published a paper ⁓ where there’s a kid who creates his own tools, he creates his own system, his own form, and we created them together. ⁓ So like his own ways of like remembering to take a deep breath or whatever it might be. But to me, like the dream is that like, we’re not having to think about using tools. ⁓ It just becomes a more natural, authentic way of being in the world. Like I think most adults who function throughout society who didn’t like learn
tools and therapy, they’re not like thinking, all right, now time to do, you know, the stop tool or now time to turn on this tool. Like you just know how to do things because you’ve had enough experiences or learn or learn from your life experience, how to like talk to other people and how to like, you know, calm yourself down enough when you’re really stressed out about something. So tools can be helpful and it’s good to have those things. But I think if they become too much like external to the person, then
they’re not really natural anyways and then you’re kind of functioning like a robot so that’s my only but otherwise yeah I agree with you
Jett (13:54)
That’s right.
Would you say ⁓ our generation of therapists in let’s say age 20 to 50, that’s a pretty big range, ⁓ or maybe, maybe.
Ben Bernstein (14:07)
Wow. I
feel 20, yeah.
Jett (14:12)
Maybe let’s just say like 30s, 40s for now. They are more likely to identify themselves as integrationist, meaning that they’re combining different schools of therapy than say our predecessors. Like I feel that way when I look around that like no one wants to be a hard liner, you know, ⁓ in one particular mode. Whereas like people who supervise us, I felt like I saw that a lot more.
Ben Bernstein (14:37)
Yeah, I think that I think that’s true. And I think it’s logical because the evidence we have from research is that ⁓ no modality has any more or less power than any other modality that there are good and less good and bad therapists there in effective therapists and effective therapists. But there aren’t modalities that are more or less powerful than the others. ⁓ Yeah, I mean, I could I could I don’t know how the listeners care about things like this. like, Bruce Wampold, W A P O L D is like a
Jett (14:58)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (15:07)
famous researcher who’s kind of proven this time and time again, like we should stop, we can keep inventing new therapies, but we should stop doing research on them. Because if you invent a therapy where there’s like a ritual that seems like it’s gonna make sense to you and make sense to the patient, and you have a good connection with the patient, and you agree to what the goals are of the therapy, nothing else really matters so much. You will have most likely some success. If the therapist has some personal quality or whatever it might be, that allows them to be a good therapist.
So like there are good therapists, but there aren’t really good or bad therapies.
Jett (15:41)
Yeah, it also matters a lot the context that you’re working in. You’ve worked in hospitals, I’ve worked in hospitals, you’ve worked in hospital for far longer than I have that certain skill-based therapies might be more effective for a certain population, let’s say, who needs a higher degree of care than an outpatient.
somewhere else. So I just wanted to add that point to that, like, I wrote a book of tools. there’s a, you know, I was trained psychodynamically. And so I feel the same way you do that. I’m trying to, I’m always grappling with how to integrate skill-based, right? How to emotionally regulate in a moment, say, tools for that breathing, cognitive diffusion tools, while also being with the person who’s in front of me, which psychodynamic therapy is so good at training you to do. And I want to talk
Ben Bernstein (16:10)
Yeah.
Jett (16:32)
about, it looks like you had, you wanted to chime in.
Ben Bernstein (16:35)
No, I disagree with
you that like, ⁓ you know, if you have the tools, if you’re teaching somebody like breath work or you’re teaching somebody ⁓ like techniques to do in their mind, but ⁓ you don’t have a good connection with them, you don’t have a good relationship with them, as a therapist, I’m skeptical about how effective that therapy is gonna be. ⁓ Yeah, and likewise, if you have good relationship with somebody who’s a therapist, but you’re not thinking about…
Jett (16:57)
Yes.
Ben Bernstein (17:03)
how you’re gonna help them or how they’re gonna learn from the experience, I’m also kind of skeptical. So you kind of need both of those things, but.
Jett (17:09)
Yeah, and there’s no tool that I’m talking about that could work for all individuals that they have to be tailored to the person and attuned to the person. there’s a creativity to skills-based therapy too that I think sometimes gets lost that like you can through the therapeutic relationship, which we’ll talk about, like, and through the relationship of the therapy client relationship, you can together co-create.
tools together using the foundation of the therapeutic alliance. ⁓ And so I think that there’s that element. And good therapy is good therapy. Like we’ve watched therapy videos and whether someone has the label CBT or psychodynamic, like just good therapy looks like good therapy when you watch the tapes of it. Would you agree with that? Let’s talk about play therapy because you’ve written about it before and I just love your thinking on it.
Ben Bernstein (17:57)
Yeah, I would.
Jett (18:06)
And can you tell us a bit about how you utilize play therapy with adolescents? Like, what’s your thinking around that?
Ben Bernstein (18:17)
So. ⁓
Play therapy, I would say, like, it’s really obvious what it looks like with little kids. So I want to say, explain what that looks like briefly first, and then try to explain how you would like translate that into working with adolescents or even with adults. ⁓ So play therapy with adolescents is you walk into a room, obviously with a younger child, you walk into a room with a younger child, they’re like toys and games and basketballs and costumes and things kind of around the room. And you just, you know, you sort of see what they want to…
pick up and play with. And then you play with them. So you let them direct to some degree, this is like non-directive play therapy, you them kind of direct where it goes. And in doing so, you can get a lot of really interesting information and data. And that information and data can be really helpful to understanding what’s going on for them and let them communicate in ways that they’re not gonna be able to just with their words. Like a six-year-old is not gonna come in through them and say,
The reason why I’m ⁓ feeling so anxious is because my dad left when I was two and my mom told me that he died, but I don’t think he’s really dead because I did see one of my cousins once and they talked about him like he was alive. Like that’s a sort of summary of a case that I once worked with, kind of changed some details. Like a six-year-old is not gonna say that, but what they can do is they can come in the room and…
Jett (19:38)
Yeah.
Ben Bernstein (19:47)
They can start playing with Legos and having the Legos be like these characters who are parents and children and then when the Legos dies. And then, wait, now we’re playing. And something like, ⁓ I’m dying. And like, the kid is like, you’re in heaven. And I’m like, heaven, what’s it like up here? He’s saying, it’s really nice. You can come back and visit sometimes and just say things to me. And then the kid can say like, ⁓ I miss you when you’re in heaven.
Jett (20:02)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Ben Bernstein (20:16)
And so like I can know from talking to the parent, like here’s some of the content that’s there. For the kid, the way they’re going to talk out and like make sense of their world is going to be through this much more kind of kind of surreal kind of way of doing things. And so for me to basically like, again, like kind of like the therapist does when you tell them the shameful things as an adult, just to tolerate that and not be like, okay, but like, ⁓ how are your deep breaths going? Or like, you know, can you tell me like, you know,
Jett (20:41)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (20:44)
here’s what you do when you’re anxious. We can do that too. I’ve done that with kids at age two and it can be helpful. But they’ve got some stuff on their mind. This is the premise of think a lot of therapy, which is there’s things going on inside of thoughts or feelings that are happening and by talking about them or putting them out there, ⁓ you feel better. That’s kind of like unburdening yourself. That’s a premise. But for kids, that’s really hard to do.
Jett (21:09)
Yes.
Ben Bernstein (21:12)
because they don’t have the verbiage for it. They don’t have the mind for it to be able to put it in these nice neat boxes and these nice neat paragraphs. Let’s play therapy with little kids. ⁓ And interestingly, with that kid I just mentioned, once I got the mom to tell the kid the truth about what had happened with his dad, ⁓ that ⁓ the kid started playing a little more advanced level. I was like, let’s play chess. Let’s play basketball. But didn’t need to be quite so surreal.
Jett (21:38)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (21:42)
because he had more truth in reality in his life and some of his symptoms went down, were causing him problems in school. With an adolescent, ⁓ I’m not necessarily going to walk into a room full of toys and stuff, I you could, but you might be talking, but I’m going to let us talk more imaginatively than necessarily just about the problems at hand. I’m going to have some faith ⁓ that letting them direct the conversation and talking about the topic that they are feeling excited about
Jett (21:57)
⁓
Ben Bernstein (22:11)
will lead to some kind of imaginative work. for example, can I keep going? So for example, ⁓ there’s a teenage boy I worked with where he was having panic attacks before school, before big tests, before athletic events, and ⁓ just a lot of anxiety. And we started and I thought, well, I gotta really give this guy tools. I really gotta talk about how do you deal with anxiety and moments of panic.
Jett (22:17)
Please.
Ben Bernstein (22:40)
I kind of taught him some of those kinds of things. So you can like find these things on chat, GPT very quickly or any of preferred AI ⁓ vendors. ⁓ But you know, or books, but like it’s very, you know, like for example, like one of my favorite books, Quiet Your Mind by Dr. Jetstone. But my point is like there are easily accessible tools. This kid wouldn’t do them. He wouldn’t use them.
Jett (22:58)
Ha ha ha.
Ben Bernstein (23:07)
And he wasn’t like saying he wouldn’t use them. He was very compliant, but like it wasn’t helping him enough. So I said, you know what, let’s just, let’s this was like play therapy. Where do you want to go? I didn’t say where do you want to go, but just let him talk about, he’s a passionate Knicks fan, like really love the Knicks. ⁓ And ⁓ would talk about basketball with me. And what became the conversation was not just like, who’s your favorite player, but what do you like about that player? And
If you were on the Knicks, if you were a player, what kind of player would you be? you’d be a bench warmer. Okay, well, why a bench warmer? What if you had any talent you wanted to have? So now we’re kind of in this world of pretend. Like I’m not saying put on a Knicks jersey and now pretend to be a player. I’m in his mind, I’m letting him use his imagination more. And in doing so, he’s starting to explain why he thinks of himself as a bench warmer. Well, I’ve never been felt really that special. ⁓ Or he might say, ⁓ when he says, I’d like to be ⁓
you know, the point guard, I wish I could be more in control of things. So I’m letting us get to important conversations and topics, but not trying to force it by being so like on the nose, I’m kind of going through a side door, so to speak. And so trying to go right to the front door. In general, I think that also works with any age. But I think with adolescents, especially, it’s, it’s important because for very, one, a lot of teenagers, work with lot of teenage boys, but Mrs. Show teenage girls as well, but I work with lot of teenage boys.
Jett (24:17)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (24:32)
They don’t want to be in therapy. ⁓ They don’t want to talk about things like feelings. These are not like, it’s also, it’s just like not a good time to be alive. Like kind of middle school and early high school. I just don’t really know almost anybody in my personal life and turning out for myself. Like that was like a pinnacle of life. ⁓ Even like my, I have friends who are like the most popular kid in the grade in eighth grade were like, I was so.
Jett (24:44)
Yeah.
Ben Bernstein (24:59)
miserable. I was so unhappy. Like I didn’t know what’s going on at all. ⁓ Like even once we’re like hooking up with people or like, I don’t know what I was doing. Like how could I let how could I have done that? Like that was so uncomfortable. It was exciting, but so uncomfortable. So like, it’s not a great time. So like trying to talk about those things directly. It’s like asking somebody who had a bad day, like go through your day for me in detail. Like it’s like, it’s not going to be so helpful. So letting them talk about the topics they want to talk about and trusting
Jett (25:06)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (25:27)
that within that, if you listen carefully, if you listen in my mind, kind of like for the unconscious stuff, you’ll hear it. ⁓ So, yeah.
Jett (25:35)
Let me pause you there because there’s so much,
there’s so many golden nuggets in there to dive in. Well, I think for people who are listening who have a teenage son or even, you know, a kid who’s a preteen and it’s just so difficult to get through to them. You know, they’re giving you monosyllabic responses. They’re, you know, just seem kind of shut off. They’re, you’re asking them direct questions of how was your day. That this side door
Ben Bernstein (25:39)
Great, go ahead and mine them.
Jett (26:05)
approach is so important. ⁓ And it comes with the agenda of play, I guess you could say, right? Like, let’s take this where this goes. Let’s tinker with what’s on your mind. And I’m not going to direct where.
it’s going to go, I’m going to let you, I’m going to let us kind of go with our wheels roll on this. And it’s so important because, you know, families are, you know, parents are coming in and saying, kid, you know, they have significant issues, right? Like anxiety, depression, self harm. And I think sometimes the idea of play therapy feels too light for something that’s so serious. But I think what your message here is like, no, no, no. Sometimes if you go directly to the source, you’re going to meet resistance.
And then if you talk about the Knicks, and this is, you know, maybe a boy is more likely to care deeply and be passionate about the Knicks. You want to go where the fire is, man. You want to, like, if you’re a firefighter, you want to go where the fire is. That’s where the passion is. And so things like video games, things like sports, and I know you’ve written about this, like they’re not superficial, even if they feel like it’s just a game. No, no, no. There are so many emotions. There’s so many doors to open within that.
parent, just go through those doors. You don’t have to be a therapist to do some of what you’re talking about here. Can you make that bridge between how you think about reaching these hard to reach kids and what you tell parents of these kids?
Ben Bernstein (27:29)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So, ⁓ mean, I’ll kind of direct a little bit towards fathers only because I think this is an area that you’ve, know, you work with a lot of fathers and, ⁓ was a men’s therapy podcast. ⁓ so too often, I think what happens is that fathers go into, ⁓ I’ve been calling it boss mode, but like, that sounds too cool. And I don’t want to like make that seem like a good thing. So maybe I put it like employee mode where they treat their sons like employees and they’re like,
Jett (27:40)
Please. ⁓ Yes.
Hmm?
Ben Bernstein (28:05)
tell me about like your production, basically whether it’s school or sports or whatever it might be, you grades, ⁓ or tell me about like what, like, their questions are very much like, show me the data, the numbers from like the last quarter. And like, it’s just like, it’s not a great place to be in as a kid, because best case scenario, you’re like doing, you’re showing good numbers or you’re like producing well, but then like,
It’s not like you like feel necessarily like a closeness with the father. You’re like, I’m like doing a good job, but you still feel kind of disconnected. And so like, instead of being in that boss mode, I would want to encourage fathers to think about connection mode, which I probably needed a better name in connection mode because boss mode sounds so cool and connection mode sounds less cool, but you think of one, you can let me know. But connection mode would be like, how do I just like show an interest in what they’re doing or just like kind of be parallel to them?
Jett (28:51)
Yeah
Ben Bernstein (29:03)
and just spend time together. Like maybe it’s like ⁓ you’re sitting and watching a game next to each other. It doesn’t have to be like, and you ask them some questions about like who their favorite player is. ⁓ Like it doesn’t have to be like about the thing at school. You can ask about school. It’s fine to do all that, but you’ll just get, I think, more resistance. being like, we use the word attune sometimes in therapy, like trying to just be like on the same level as the kid, kind of with whatever they’re doing.
Jett (29:12)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Ben Bernstein (29:32)
⁓ finding time to spend together. And it’s crazy how like, correlated that’s been in my experience with like, with the things that the dad does care about in terms of the those like outcomes that like, like if your kid’s not like, six, seven, sorry, ⁓ like he’s probably not going to be a professional basketball player. But in terms of like, like, being passionate about a thing that they’re passionate about, if they feel like the dads in their life and like cares about it, I see
Jett (29:49)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (30:01)
things get better all the time. One kid I worked with, he’s like, I just want to see my dad more. I just want to see him more. He’s like a very dad’s like a very successful, very high up at a company and a good dad, I think. Like, like I think when he was with his kid, he was having a good time with him. But you know, the kid would come home and bring a test home and get like a 97. They would say, where’s the other three points? And it could be like, like, I went from a B to an A, like, can you just like
see me for what I’m working on here, and then like, can you just like play ping pong with me? Or like, you know, come in when I’m doing my homework and you can say like, what are you working on? And even if the kid says like, just some dumb math, like, okay, yeah, math was tough for me too. Or say like, okay, do want me to take a look at or help you out? Like, I’m happy to be here for you. Just to sense that like you’re there. So that presence is more important than like making sure they’re meeting their like monthly goals.
Jett (30:32)
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, hopefully you can trademark ⁓ boss mode and connection mode before this airs so no one steals it. But, you know, that…
So much of malsocialization does relate to what you’re producing. What have you done lately? What are you doing? And I think that contrasted with play, it’s less goal-oriented. That it’s activity that’s based on doing for the sake of doing it. And there’s a fancy term for that, I think, out there somewhere. Whereas like the… ⁓
you know, when you’re doing activities that are very reward based, you know, it’s different than that. And so bring play into your kid’s life and the conversations you’re having, think is so incredibly important. one of the things I was thinking of is you were saying that, you know,
Talking about the Knicks, like that’s easy for me. You know, I enjoy talking about sports and I could connect with an adolescent around that, like video games, right? Or there’s a parent who doesn’t care about sports or video games. Like how do you fight through that disinterest boredom around these subjects that your kids are into? You know, I have two daughters, for example, like, you know, they’re not playing with this type of toys that I would have played of growing up, right? ⁓ An American girl doll. Like sometimes I struggle as a dad.
to, you know, stay, like I don’t have much endurance for those conversations. How do you, like, how do you work through that, you know, with your kid?
Ben Bernstein (32:34)
Well, yeah, you’re screwed. I think like for someone that’s getting ⁓
I would say like if you can if you can be curious about the things that you’re genuinely curious about, like for me, if I was like it was like the American Girl doll, like I’m not going to be like, like, how do you like keep her hair so straight? That’s like not interesting to me. But if I was like, like, wait, so she’s like an escaped slave. ⁓ Like and she’s like, what’s the
and she’s like just living in the North now. what’s, like I am curious, there’s an American girl named Addie who I had to read, when I was in first grade I had to read a book about Addie, so I remember that one piece. I remember they made her eat worms. ⁓ So I’d be like asking like how is she doing like as a teenager up in Detroit? I’d be asking my daughter, like I’m curious about that. Like did she tell her kids that she had to eat worms? Like the kids would be like, dad, like no. Like I’m like, well so what is like, what is her life?
Jett (33:09)
Yeah.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (33:28)
Like, tell them, I just, like, you’re a therapist, so like, you are curious about that kind of stuff. So I would just like bring that curiosity to interactions with your daughter. But also like, you’re not going to be interested in every single thing. Like, my kids are interested in certain things. Like, my son’s like really interested in cars right now. Like, really interested in cars. I’m like kind of interested in cars. But like, I can get a little more curious about certain things. I’m like, well, can you explain how they work? I don’t really get how a car works. Like, I know I push the gas and make it like,
Jett (33:28)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (33:58)
Why does it have like, why does the spoiler thing exist that way? Like all I ask questions like that. He’s also interested in Minecraft. I don’t, I have trouble getting interested in Minecraft. ⁓ so like, I’m yeah, so I’m just like not, I’m not like talking about that much. And you know what he, he knows he’s like, I can tell you like, you know, why don’t you care about Minecraft at all? I’m like, I just like, I’m not as interested in it. I’m like honest with him. I don’t know. good. I don’t know. That’s good parenting, but like, I think he feels connected to me. Cause like I’m still there. I’m not like.
Jett (34:09)
Yes, as would I.
Ben Bernstein (34:27)
I’m not talking to you. Or like, if you’re playing Minecraft, I won’t be, I won’t pay attention to it. But like, I’m still interested in it. I think the most important thing is like, I’m trying to, I’m actually trying to be playful with him about it. So like, what I’ll do is they watch these YouTube Minecraft videos that have like these characters in it. Sometimes I’ll imitate the voices of them and like have conversations with my kids as one of the characters, like while we’re driving somewhere. ⁓ Like there’s a, there’s a thing called Milo and Chip and I’ll like, I’m like a…
Jett (34:33)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (34:55)
Chip is like this Australian guy, so I’ll do the Australian accent and I’ll like make up weird jokes about it. That’s just my personality. So…
Jett (35:02)
But
that’s one of the reasons why I wanted you here, because you’re not afraid to… I wanted you to do the impression. No, but there is… Go.
Ben Bernstein (35:07)
You want to hear the impression.
But like,
I think it’s like, it’s important. The way I do therapy, which is why I think I do therapy well with adolescents, maybe better than I do with some other groups, maybe because like, I like the thing that adolescents are the most allergic to is like, bullshit. I think more than any other age. ⁓ And so I just like, I’m just very straightforward and honest with them. If they like don’t want to be there, like I’ll start the session like, so like, it seems like you don’t want to be here.
Jett (35:28)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (35:41)
like make me think makes sense. Like, why would your mom made you come here? Like, I wouldn’t want to here. What would you rather be? Like, what would you rather be doing? And like, there’s a relief there for them. They’re like, we’re not pretending. We are, we are not. ⁓ I’m just saying pretending is good. We’re not being fake. And there’s an actual like, authenticity that comes through in being playful in in the making jokes about things that is really refreshing. And I’ll just say this one.
little thing here, which is like, if you think what the most important relationships in your life, like the ones that are most meaningful to you, I think because they’re very, they tend to be a little bit more, not always, but they tend to have some playful quality to them. ⁓ Like, for example, like, I don’t know, being married, like if there’s not some room for like some teasing or some play, like that’s what flirtation is. Like, it’s not going to be such a satisfying marriage. My friendships, my male friendships,
Jett (36:22)
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (36:37)
So much of it is teasing. So much of it is like riffing and teasing and making fun of this and joking about that. And like, if that was to go away and it was just like, so like, how are you doing? Like, what is going on with your feelings these days? I would be like, I don’t want to be friends. And that doesn’t sound good to me either. And I’m a therapist. So think like keeping that spirit alive for your relationships with your kids is important too.
Jett (36:59)
Yeah, you know, as much as it’s important with those adolescents to be direct, you know, and say the thing, right? Not being, not shying away from saying the thing is a form of playfulness, which is goofiness, right? Which is kind of like…
letting loose and doing things that you would not, you know, jump around or doing things that would be socially unacceptable in other spaces or unconventional. And I think that that’s a beautiful thing. And so if we’re out there, you know, if you’re parent out there looking for interventions, it’s like sometimes that side door means just ⁓ goofing off a little bit because that’s not just like, you know,
Ben Bernstein (37:25)
Exactly.
Jett (37:43)
a side dish to the main dish. That gets you to the main dish. mean, that gets you to the place of them feeling a sense of comfort and safety and presence, as you said, to then talk about, you know, bullying, let’s say, or their anxiety, right? It warms the waters.
Ben Bernstein (38:03)
and gives them an experience of not being bullied. Like if they’re being bullied and then they come home and their person’s like, what’s going on at school? What are they doing to you? Tell them what they’re doing to you. it’s like, I would be like, ⁓ like you’re not bullying me, you’re kind of like on me, as opposed to like, let me give you a different kind of experience at home where things are not so intense, where you’re not being like pushed to do a thing that you don’t want to do. Cause that’s kind of what bullying often is, it’s not just teasing.
Jett (38:13)
Yeah.
Ben Bernstein (38:29)
But you think of it’s like somebody’s getting their lunch money stolen or like being pushed into a locker or given a swirly. These are like, you know, comic strip kind of examples. What if instead you come home and it’s like, ⁓ you know, the most famous one for fathers and sons, like playing catch. mean, playing catch is like such a therapeutic good activity. Cause you’re like, it’s like, when I think of what good therapy looks like, it looks like playing catch. The ball just has to keep going back and forth and back and forth. You don’t. I have.
Jett (38:33)
Yep.
Do you have a football in your therapy office?
Ben Bernstein (38:59)
A couple footballs. got a Nerf one. I got like regulation size one. I got a little basketball. I have lots of different kinds of
Jett (39:05)
And these are footballs, by
the way, sorry to interrupt you, these are footballs, not soccer balls, just for the cultural differences here.
Ben Bernstein (39:09)
Right, right. I also,
don’t, and the office I’m using right now, I don’t have a soccer ball because it’s not really built for it. But like I’ve worked in therapy offices before where there’s a soccer ball. ⁓ And like I’ll have like a hacky sack, like things that people can use to throw around with like, ⁓ it’s, that rhythm is important. Like we are animals. And so like, like things like rhythm and movement and like back and forth, like those things are very soothing. There’s a reason why people like to like, you know,
Go in the ocean and float.
Jett (39:40)
Yep. And let me just say for the dads out there, that the dads that I work with, there is a poverty of play in their life. mean, you know, myself, I’m always searching for ways to, you know, for someone to throw a ball around with or to be able to joke about something or to just like let loose in that way. And I just feel like there is a…
At least in America, right? There is a condition of work and seriousness and losing male friendships that sometimes the play that’s hard, difficult to extend in reaching our kids is the play that we don’t have in our own life. And it’s really sad when you think about it, that we don’t have these venues or these third spaces. know, it’s not so easy to just join
a rec team, know, find the time to do that. There’s always, when’s the time for that? And maybe there’s not a question there, it’s just a reflection that sometimes that’s in us as adults, that poverty of play and how important it is in our lives.
Ben Bernstein (40:55)
Well, I would say it is very important to say that on that note, when there are issues with kids and teenagers, I don’t know what percentage, 90 to 100 % of time, you can find some kind of similar thing happening with the parents. Like a kid who I have, who I’m working with, who’s got some OCD symptoms, the dad doesn’t have OCD, but incredibly serious, incredibly regimented, incredibly disciplined, all these things that are like,
very helpful qualities for him in his life, in his professional success. And like, there’s just no model for being loose and relaxed with the kid. So like when the kid is anxious or worried about something, he gets very obsessive, which the father does too. And so like, for me, it starts with like, can you model for your kid the kind of thing that you want them to be able to see and do? And most times for parents, it’s like, well, I’m being so…
Jett (41:27)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (41:51)
like serious, I want them to be more serious. I want them to stop goofing off so much. Like, I don’t know, like, I don’t want to have kids goof off less. Maybe there’s like finding the right place and time for it. But ⁓ yeah, it is kind of sad that like there’s not more spaces for this in adult life. ⁓
Jett (42:00)
Good.
How do you approach that clinically? Like if you’re working in this case with a dad, you work with families, people of all ages, like it’s very difficult to let your guard down for a lot of men. Like they’re just, we’re…
High-strung, balled up, right? And it’s like, I would love to be able to just be free enough in spirit to get down on the play mat and pretend to be a monster or to, you know, wear a goofy wig or to do a funny day, like with my kids or reach them. I just, I don’t have time with work. I just feel like I’m so stressed and tense that… ⁓
I wasn’t played that way and I wasn’t played with that way when I was a kid. I’m role playing this a little bit for you because this is the presentation that I’ll get every once in a while. It’s like I’m not asking for an answer from you, but like how do you approach someone who’s so high strung, a parent, father in this case, so high strung that’s difficult to activate play?
Ben Bernstein (42:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
So,
I like to use the high strung because a lot of the way that I think about doing that is through teasing. ⁓ I tease them. And I’ll be a little bit pretentious and overly intellectual about it, but high strung, the word string is in there somewhere. Teasing comes from this word, teisan. I read this whole paper about this. And teisan is a Scottish word for teasing, which you use to help ⁓ with wool.
Jett (43:20)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Ben Bernstein (43:40)
to make it spin so you can tell. You tease wool, you’re kind of a little aggressive with it. Not too much so to get it to move. If you tease something, it kind of makes it move more smoothly. So I will tease, this is what flirtation is. If you watch, or anybody flirt at a bar, or you watch, it’s all like, if it gets too extreme, it can be mean. That’s one of the risks of being played like this. But I will tease a dad in a family therapy session. And I’ll be like,
Jett (43:40)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (44:10)
⁓ Like, wait, really? Like, you’re going to play golf? Like you? I thought you were like, you know, like way more like cool than that. Like you’re like a suburban golf dad. like, or I’ll look for opportunities to tease and I’ll look for opportunities to be teased by them. Because teasing is actually like a way of actually helping them to become less high strung, to become a little bit more loose. ⁓
Because what we’re playing with there is a little bit of aggression. We’re playing with like sort of testing certain things. And that allows, think, for, you know, if it’s the only way that it exists, it’s not great. But if it’s, if it’s, if it’s completely missing and everything is serious, that’s also not so great. So that’s like one way I’ll do it in sessions. I wouldn’t say like, I’m not saying fathers should like tease their kids, but maybe like making fun of themselves, like having room for self-deprecation there could be a way that they do it.
Jett (45:04)
Totally.
Ben Bernstein (45:05)
and models their kids like not taking themselves so seriously. And like, look, I mean, like I said before, it’s like you’re have an interest in all the things that your kids are interested in. But even just spending time with them together in a way where you’re not distracted, and I wanna get, wanna say that, is like a huge thing. And one of the things that I think is really, not that like all dads were like perfect and in their kids’ lives before smartphones, but like the advent of smartphones for our whole culture, not just for men and boys.
but has become a huge impediment to that kind of connection. And so I think the other thing is just put your phone away when you’re with your kids. Just put it away. ⁓ That’ll go long way on its own.
Jett (45:48)
and let your nervous system settle enough to be able to then go into this play mode. But the metaphor of teasing is beautiful. ⁓ And there’s an art to it too. And then if you don’t know how to do it, you really don’t. It’s bullying. But if you know how to do it, it’s one of the loveliest ways of relating with another person.
⁓ And I think, you know, when I work with men who are coming to middle age and who are, you know, high school and college is becoming a farther and farther in the distance, it’s like there’s text chains out there or WhatsApp groups, right? And it’s like…
you know, a little bit here, a little bit there, but then it’s like male friendships. We, we, we store them away and then we, you know, produce them when we need them. We dust them off the shelf and pull them off. And it’s usually with teasing. is, is, it’s not that women don’t tease, but it is a male relational style. It is the way that so many of us bond. So if you do it with
your son or an adolescent who’s struggling, you’re speaking their language. And so you’re starting that way as a therapist to get to the serious stuff, to get to the real issues. I think it’s great.
Ben Bernstein (47:11)
Right, like I had a family therapy session the other day where like a son had like kind of joked that his parents were like doing drugs to like try to get them in trouble. He was like, I mean, you just talked to my parents, like they’re the problem. Like they’re at home like doing coke all the time. Like this was like a joke he was making. And instead of me saying like, well, come on, like, can we be serious for a second? Like, ⁓ can you guys like, can you just talk about what, like you are having trouble in school. Instead I said,
Yeah, I turned to parents, was like, so like, why are you guys doing so much coke? Like, what is it that you need? Like what? And then I was like, actually, before you do that, let me ask you, turned to Ken, I why do your parents need to do all that coke? Like, why do think they’re doing all the coke? Just because like, the parents were not doing coke, because like a very like straight edge family. Like, instead of trying to like, go away from this kid’s kind of like, joke at his parents, I went right towards it. And was like, in my mind, I’m like, there’s something there, let’s see where this goes. And he was like, they have to, because like, it’s the only way that they can like, pretend to be interested in what I’m talking about. It’s like, ah.
Jett (48:08)
Yep.
Ben Bernstein (48:09)
There we go. Like, I didn’t say that, but I’m thinking like, that’s what’s at the heart is that he feels like they’re not interested in what he’s interested in. He feels it. And then they could say, actually, like, I do struggle to be interested in what you’re interested in. Because the dad says, I grew up like dirt poor. And like, all I could think about was like, how do I like make money enough to take care of my family? And so when I see you doing what you’re interested in, and that’s not directly a money making thing, like you’re not
Jett (48:28)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (48:39)
like right now, pre-med in high school, I’m like worried. And so I’m like constantly trying to warn you and get you back in the path. Like I could then might have been like, that’s kind of your thing, dad. Like congrats, you’ve become very successful. So like your son is not growing up in dirt poor, but he’s not dirt poor. And like, he’s probably not going to be, and he’s not like failing all of his classes. So you don’t actually have to worry that he’s going to be this like disaster. So the father’s anxiety from his own childhood is like coming in here, but all that kind of opened up.
Jett (49:00)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (49:07)
Because instead of when the kid made this joke that the kid said with a straight face that his parents were like using cocaine, instead of going away from that, I went right towards it. And so I think like when parents notice their kids saying things, like forget being interested in like the content of what like like Minecraft, forget like you have to be interested in American dolls. Don’t forget it. You don’t necessarily have to. think instead of like, it’s like the process of what you’re doing with them. It’s like, like
Jett (49:15)
Yes.
You ⁓
Ben Bernstein (49:34)
when they’re playing with the American Roll Dolls, are they doing something that you can find a way in in terms of like, can you play up a certain thing? they’re like, I think your kids are, are they like doing the dolls like this? Or are they like talking about, what is the actually thing that’s happening with the dolls?
Jett (49:50)
I mean, they have backstories, have lives, have houses, they have cars. yeah, of course, yeah.
Ben Bernstein (49:53)
Are they playing pretend with them and stuff?
Yeah. Yeah. So like, I would, I don’t know why, like you don’t do it for like an hour, but like, even if you like spent like 15 minutes, 15 minutes, mean, think of the things you’ve done for 15 minutes. You’ve watched YouTube videos of like the scene of Lord of the Rings that you’ve like, like the battle scene at Helms deep. You’ve watched that or like you’ve watched the replay of like the Stanley cup finals from like 1998.
Jett (50:12)
No, haven’t.
Ben Bernstein (50:23)
like 30 times like right 2010 right my point is like you have 15 minutes you just sit there with them and like just let them boss you around and like just be yourself within the play even if they even if you don’t nail it like you they will notice and feel that and appreciate that that 15 minutes goes like a long
Jett (50:24)
2010, but yeah.
Yeah, it’s so interesting how these things, what we do as therapists and what we do as parents, there’s overlap, right? One’s a clinical setting, one’s a non-clinical setting. But it’s, you know, I was reflecting as you were talking about this that in order, well, that story of, you know, the family therapy story that you just told, you know, I was thinking, was like, why if I was that dad would I trust you more when you were able to be sarcastic and teasing?
And I think it’s because I trusted you as a therapist, if you can tease and do it well and land it, that that tells me that you’re comfortable with yourself. And that means that you’re present enough and tolerating your anxiety about being the professional therapist enough to go for it, to shoot your shot. ⁓
Ben Bernstein (51:29)
Mmm.
Jett (51:39)
And I think that’s part of it too, is now we’re talking about why you maybe want an experienced therapist before we were talking about why training can be better, but more experienced therapists have handled their own anxiety enough through their own therapy and whatever else they do to be able to take their shot at improv.
Ben Bernstein (51:59)
I would agree and disagree. I will disagree that you have to be an experienced therapist to do that. In fact, think sometimes it works against people. Experienced therapists become so routine and not always, but experience does not necessarily mean that the person is more willing to take risks. In fact, it could mean the opposite. I’ve got my own set routine and my own pattern and I just do it this way. ⁓
Jett (52:01)
Nope.
Okay.
Ben Bernstein (52:21)
Whereas somebody who’s coming into it knew, like you could have had like your own therapy or your own healing experience outside of going to therapy training school. Like there’s not necessarily so much happening in therapy, therapist training programs that is going to make you into somebody who can take good risks as a therapist. In fact, like maybe it was like, I mean, I I haven’t do this, but like you’re like ayahuasca journey or like maybe it was like you’re like, you know, seven years in a, in a monastery or whatever it might be. Like maybe it was like playing professional sports. I have no idea that like helped you get
a certain level of self comfort and toughness and like self possession to be able to take risks. ⁓ That said, I totally agree about the risk part, because that’s also what we want our patients to able to do. in some ways, like we’re at when we asked people to make a change, we’re asking them to take a risk. When we’re asking somebody, even if they’re doing risky, risky behaviors, we want them to stop, it’s actually a risk for them to stop drinking, because they’ve never been able to cope with their feelings by not using alcohol.
Jett (52:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (53:20)
They’ve never been able to cope with their feelings by not, you know, having like lots of sex with everybody. Like, so like for those reasons, like we want patients to be able to take risks. And so we have to be willing to take some risks ourselves as the therapist. Denzel Washington has this quote, amazing speech. If you want something, maybe it’ll self-help you, but like, I don’t know. I think it’s, I don’t know Denzel Washington, but Denzel Washington has like a commencement speech at Penn from like, I don’t know, 2011-ish, I don’t know exactly when, but you can find, if you Google, you’ll find 50 editions of it. have like, you know,
Jett (53:25)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (53:50)
pump up music with it all that stuff. But he’s this lion where he’s like, nothing meaningful in life can really happen that doesn’t involve risk. And like as a therapist, I need to model that and take risks. And if I’m not doing that, it’s not gonna feel, there’s not really so much of a chance in my mind that like we’re gonna see a major change or a major connection with our patients. I just don’t see things possible.
Jett (54:04)
Yes.
Ben Bernstein (54:20)
there has to be some moment of risk. It could be a self disclosure. It could be like, I don’t know where this is going to go. But let’s follow this way. It’s like, it’s like that is part of it. And it makes the therapy much more intense in a good way, meaning like, the therapy becomes more intense. And therefore, I think more effective, like we need a certain level of intensity of it’s like, can be boring, boring therapy just can’t work. So the therapy needs to be like intense enough. And the risks help do that.
Jett (54:48)
Yeah, it raises the stakes when the therapist brings some vulnerability to the table. It models it. It makes it a psychologically safe place to be vulnerable yourself. Those are just solid examples of how it works in the therapy room and out of the therapy room. So it’s definitely takeaways. I wish we could talk about this forever.
So we covered a lot of ground. We asked this of all of the guests on this podcast, that if I gave you the keys to the vault and you could do anything to advance the cause of men’s mental health, what would it be?
Ben Bernstein (55:25)
Yeah. So I don’t think there’s a magic fix, but I’m going to answer the question the best I can. I thought about it advance a lot. And I was like playing around with different ideas. I mean, I think the highest leverage thing I would do would be to somehow get rid of smartphones, like schools, home in general. Dumb phones are okay. But like, I just think we need more presence with each other. ⁓ Like I just…
Um, like my family, like we celebrate Shabbat, like we’re Jews and Jewish and we like every Friday night through Saturday night, like we spend time together. We are in a part, we are in a community of other people and people don’t have their phones with them. So like you have to, you can’t like, we go to synagogue and like people talk to each other. Like my kids play with their friends. I like, we have people over for dinner, for lunch, or we go to somebody else’s house for lunch. And like we’re all together.
And there’s this like, even if it’s like at somebody’s house who like, don’t, I can’t, I can’t make a good conversation with them. It’s like, nothing I like that much. ⁓ or like whatever, like we just, just the act of being in that communal space together is like incredibly powerful. And like, in the best versions of those, is very playful. Like people are joking around making like, they’re teasing each other a little bit. Like we’re also talking about like serious things like with my kids, like we might.
My kids are like middle elementary school, like second, third grade. We might all be sitting in the room reading together at some point, just our own books. Or we might wrestle and it might just be like, I’m throwing them against the couch. All these things, they’re not guaranteed to take place. If you don’t have smartphones, people can still find ways to leave each other and isolate. But they definitely…
Jett (56:58)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Bernstein (57:22)
can’t take place when everybody’s like kind of got their face glued to a screen. And so like if I could.
Jett (57:26)
So it would be a program
that snatches phones and out of the hands of…
Ben Bernstein (57:32)
Yeah, would be like, it
would be like, yeah, I mean, like, it would be like to create like a real taboo around that basically, to create a real taboo around having this. I mean, schools are now taking steps to, to ban phones or to make it difficult for kids to have phones and them. But the thing that schools can, cause I work with a lot of schools is like, I’ve talked to many principals who are like, and we can do this. But like, if like, as soon as they leave the school, it just like unfettered, unrestricted access to all things like sort of smartphone screens, Snapchat, all those things.
Jett (57:37)
⁓ okay, there you go.
yeah, it’s happening.
Ben Bernstein (58:01)
you know, all the different video, like all the different addictive games and all that stuff. Like it’s, it’s not really going to make a big difference. It just, it just like makes it, it’s taken like learn a little bit better, which is good. Like we should do, we should do that. But like we should just create those spaces in general, all over the place.
Jett (58:09)
Yep.
Yeah, and I think if you follow the work of Jonathan Haight, I think he has a program out there that’s already helping institute that in school. ⁓ yeah, I mean, as a parent, as a person, I just can’t agree more. ⁓ So thank you so much for coming on. It’s so fun to talk to you and I hope to see you in person soon.
Ben Bernstein (58:43)
Yeah, likewise. Thank you so much for having me on here.
