Richard Lloyd Jones: Up to 10 million teens develop disorders in the area, and worries about it can start much younger than that. Adults are worried about it, too, and companies make big profits on onurosis. We've become a culture obsessed with it to a degree unprecedented in history, but solutions to it remain elusive. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, we'll look at why, with all our focus on weight in today's culture, Many of us are getting fatter and fatter, while millions of others are wasting away to nothing.
What in the world is going on with our weight? There's so many factors at play here, aren't there? A skinny-as-a-rail 13-year-old looks in the mirror and sees a whale. The advertising agencies airbrush models to within an inch of their lives and dramatically alter how we see beauty.
Plastic surgeons give whoever has the money to pay whatever body they want. Doctors and drug companies push their solutions in packages of pills that make them richer and the rest of us much sicker. You know, research shows that 42% of first to third grade girls want to be thinner. 81% of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat. Our neurosis is being manipulated to make money.
And not just that. Our food industry has been seriously corrupted by a totally skewed profit motive that makes us realize that our corporations and political systems are exhibiting strong psychopathic tendencies. In the middle of all this, the work of Norberto Keppe can help us to understand what's going on and to develop new business and residence structures to take the power out of the hands of the banks and corporations and put the resources, money, and power into our hands.
These groundbreaking structures and ideas are outlined in Keppe's revolutionary book, Liberation of the People, the Pathology of Power. The book highlights his great idealism, but also his astute social critique and his solutions. It's really great stuff. If you write me at rich at richjonesvoice.com, I'll send you your own copy of that book. We're going to look at our topic today, the fattening and thinning of America, in a very expansive way.
My dear friend Susan Berkley from New York City is visiting us in Brazil this month, and I've asked her to join me in talking with Dr. Cláudia Pacheco, a psychoanalyst and vice president of Keppe's International Society of Analytical Trilogy. You know, Cláudia, trying to resolve the problems of eating disorders is a multi-layered problem, isn't it? It's not easy to solve.
Cláudia Bernhardt Pacheco: It is a difficult problem to deal with because it involves psychogenetic basis, it involves socio-economic values and habits, it involves family philosophy of life, and it involves psychological deeper problems. So you don't change this like in a... On a special diet. No, no, absolutely. And it is not advisable to fight the symptoms like increasing the necessity of diets and being worried with what you eat and so forth.
Because if you are focusing on the symptom, the problem which is not that one, that's just a symptom, will increase in intensity. So the more you push yourself to do a diet or to correct your eating habits, focusing on this problem itself. It's just only a time to get the problem worse and worse. Could I
Richard: talk about a specific example, Cláudia, that might help us to define your explanation a bit?
There was a woman I was reading about recently. We use this in the classroom sometimes. She was quite fat. And she said, "sometimes I know better than to do something but I do it anyway. I know I shouldn't have dessert if I want to lose weight but I go ahead and have that bowl of ice cream anyway. I feel awful afterwards and I should feel awful because I let myself down." How can you help us to understand this problem that the person has?
They have a lot of guilt about doing something that they know they shouldn't do but there's something psychologically behind why they do what they shouldn't do, isn't there?
Cláudia: "Eating disorders, Richard, are the same as sexual disorders, money disorders, money behavior that are addictive to spending too much money or people too much greedy and being too much worried with money or too much attached to money or to sex or to any addiction or like material things."
If you get addicted to some habits, these are all external manifestations of an internal unbalance. Generally, when someone comes to me and they have eating disorders, we have to see deeper down in themselves what does it mean that food that they have problems with, because we are mostly spiritual beings, not material beings. If we have something going wrong with our body. And this can be eating disorders.
This is just showing something that spiritually is going wrong, that despite we know that we should behave or feel in one direction, we do the opposite. And we don't want to deal with that. And this is very much linked to what Keppe discovered deep down in ourselves, which is the inversion process.
So the United States, every year, the statistics on obesity increase.
The last I heard was that something like 70% of all Americans are obese, which I think is defined as something like 50 pounds or more overweight.
I mean, some amazing amount of pounds above your normal weight. And obesity then is a symptom of a deeper problem. "What's wrong in my country?"
Cláudia: You know, Susan, this for me shows an enormous unsatisfaction, deep down, a tremendous unsatisfaction with the lifestyle of American people. "Because generally people feel anxious. There is something missing innerly in their lives. They are not satisfied. They want to calm down their anxiety, their insatisfaction, their fears.
But mostly insatisfaction. And this insatisfaction brings the notion of being hungry. I need something. I need to fulfill something that is missing. And this that is missing is not food. It's not something material because, as I said before, we are mostly spiritual beings. And if our spiritual needs are not being satisfied, we will need to cover up or to compensate it."
But we try to compensate invertedly with material things, money, food, sex or other habits, escaping habits. So when we speak about spiritual I'm not saying that people should go to more to churches or read the bible or having more spiritual practices. It's not not that simple. We are spiritual beings meaning that we are transcendental beings. We are energetic beings. We are psychological beings.
We are mostly linked or we live from the spiritual energy, which is linked to good feelings, love, which is linked to truth, to the right thoughts, using correctly our intelligence, and mostly through pure action, which involves all the other aspects of ourselves. So if we are not in pure action, saying that if we are not doing good, beautiful things, like artistic things, scientific things, useful, meaningful things in our lives.
If society does not provide us the means to accomplish our mission in this planet, which is to do something beautiful, good, and useful for humanity, then we will really feel very unsatisfied.
Richard: You've talked about this many times in this podcast, Cláudia, about how the society doesn't permit us to live the truth of what
Cláudia: we are. Society, in fact, feeds this pathology. Absolutely incorrect.
Yes. And not only society, but family members and our peer group, they adopt this so-called social values. So the mask, the social mask is so important. The clothing you are using.
Richard: The weight you are, the
Cláudia: brands you're wearing.
This gets into the whole question of eating disorders in young kids, and even women, grown women. We are constantly comparing ourselves to our friends.
Oh, she's thinner than me. Look at her. And it seems as if eating disorders spread like an epidemic.
Yes, that's right. And they tend
Cláudia: to say that these are very much related to low self-esteem kind of problems. Problem. I would add something which is deeply psychological in ourselves. And this is present in all human beings, which is the problem of envy. So people manifest a lot of envy in this society, the way it is oriented, because the way you look is more valuable than what you do, what you really do of useful for other people and yourself.
So the role you play in society nowadays is much more connected to serving this mask, to serving the powerful, to serving the appearance, to serving the richness. It's all money and material-related things. So you envy people a lot if they look more like the fashion magazines show you should be like. So or your friends or your neighbor. So envy is very much related to this in terms of no matter who you are no matter how beautiful you can be no matter as anorexia is no matter thin and elegant you can be the other one is always better than you are.
So envy is present. And it's present, too, among sex. So that's why it's more present among girls than boys, this problem. Because generally girls are very much envious of men and of boys. And they want to have a boy-like figure. Very thin, no breasts, no curves, nothing. So this is all a problem to be researched deeper in the envy source, a psychological problem of
envy.
Isn't there also a component that people take a pleasure out of overeating? Is this linked to envy, a sort of an inverted upside-down pleasure? "Yes, it is. Because people
Cláudia: tend to think that the sensorial pleasure, or a pleasure, is more important than, as I said, psychological, spiritual pleasure. Very few people look for this because of this inversion of super value they give to material aspects and to sensorial pleasures, which are
Richard: very
Cláudia: self-destructive, by the way."
We say to ourselves, I'm just going to treat myself. I deserve that piece of cake today. I worked very hard. I had a fight with my boyfriend or something. I deserve that chocolate. Yes, like a cigarette.
Cláudia: And then you take in something that is going to poison your body. And it's a pleasure. Because all sensorial pleasure, in terms of being an addiction, is a pleasure to destroy.
It's something very sick and weird in ourselves. But there is such a thing. And if it's Scandinavian girls, in a big quantity, now it's like an epidemia. They cut themselves with razor blades. Not just in Scandinavia. Yeah, so it's a manifestation of this destructive pleasure. Well, a psychological problem, which is inversion.
Richard: Dr. Keppe has talked about this a lot in his work, that the will of the human being is inverted away from happiness and towards this pleasure you're talking about, which is always a more ephemeral, transitory thing.
It's not something permanent like happiness would come from the fulfillment of doing something good, of developing yourself, of helping other people. It's more the immediate pleasure, oh, there's some chocolate, I'll take it now.
Cláudia: Yeah, so if I feel this feeling of hunger, then I have to stop and not eat and see what comes to the surface. What does it come to the surface?
An anxiety. And behind the anxiety, what is behind the anxiety? So in analysis, in integral psychoanalysis, we have to check this. What is behind this anxiety? So, some unsatisfaction, something is missing. And many times people associate food with love, affection, comfort, inner comfort. And they will never get this from food. They will get this through other means, which are mostly psychological. So if I am missing love and affection, it's because I am in a denial of giving love and affection, not receiving, but also not receiving, not accepting.
So if I do not accept, if I do not live affection, love, and doing good, and being good, so I will miss that in my life because I'm fed by this. My organism is fed by this energy, the energy of doing good, the energy of pure action, which is this essential universal energy.
Richard: It's important to see that this love is not something that we get on the outside either because a lot of people think, well, I need more love,
Cláudia: so I'm going to have more sex.
I'm going to find more partners in order to get more love. Yes, I'm not being loved enough. I didn't receive love from my parents.
Talk a little bit about, there's a big sociopathological component of overeating too. I mean, in the United States, it's almost impossible if you, for example, you're on a road trip. Say you're traveling by car from New York to Boston.
If you don't want to eat McDonald's, You have to bring your own food.
You're in big trouble. You're
Richard: in big trouble in the United States. I remember that. You have to go to great lengths to pack your own food, to choose special restaurants ahead of time. So what's going on with this, Cláudia? What's the sociopathology that Keppe's talked a lot about? What's behind the whole food industry making people fat or making them want to be thin?
What's behind all this?
Cláudia: Richard, when I start thinking about this, I see so much evil intentions in those powerful people. They are so sick and so evil-intentioned, and all the things they produce, they build, they sell, it's oriented to our destruction. Most of what we buy, most of what we eat, what we do, what we watch on TV, what we read in newspapers is extremely evil against humanity.
And I have felt in myself, in my life, in my practice, a big problem with the powerful organizations because they absolutely don't want our message to go through.
Richard: Our message
Cláudia: being, Dr. Keppe, your message and the message of hope, of consciousness, yes. Yes, in truth, they are doing the opposite of what they should do. It seems that they want, consciously, intentionally, to destroy humanity and having even profits through this destruction. They take advantage from the inversion, the envy, the confusion, the lack of consciousness of humanity for their own profit and even to destroy.
So you pay to destroy yourself in this society. You pay to be deceived by medias, by TVs, by politicians. So you pay to be killed by doctors, by hospitals, by drugs. You pay to be killed when you go to a restaurant, when you go to a supermarket, when you buy food. You pay for all of this. You pay for your own destruction when you drive your car and when you cause a lot of pollution to the world.
When you brush your teeth and you take in this fluoride, which is very poisonous. Whatever you do, you pay a lot to be destroyed.
Richard: Can all of this be changed by Analytical Trilogy or do we need a revolution in the streets? Oh
Cláudia: my God. Richard, this is a question that I still don't have the answer. I don't know what is going to happen.
What I know is that we work day, almost day and night, non-stop working to bring this consciousness to everybody as much as possible. So we produce TV shows, we speak on radio, we write books, we write magazines, we see patients, we give lectures, we organize conferences. But it seems that as long as people in power do not state something for the people, they don't believe it's true.
It's something weird that happens. It seems that the people only believe in the mainstream academics, mainstream medias, mainstream doctors, mainstream whatever.
Richard: Lines of thought, philosophies.
Cláudia: Yes. So this is a big problem. How to change mentality? So we try we do and we have in our favor the reality that what is truthful is more powerful than what is a deception. A false philosophy, a false attitude doesn't last, is not as energetic as it is what is what is truthful, what is real. So we have this at our side and we also have at our side the resonance effect, which is also something very true.
If you think. If you have a perception, an insight, here, now, or if you have a strong, truthful thought and knowledge, this consciousness will resonate with other beings that are looking for answers, that are ready to receive this kind of wave
of telepathy. Being very practical, being an American, being very practical, and I would imagine after hearing this, and you've given it, you've framed this discussion with the greater thing, you know, the greater teachings, the greater learnings.
I would imagine, though, there's still probably some people saying, okay, what should I do? You know, this is what Americans always ask, you know, what can we do? Being very practical, reading
Cláudia: our books, listening to our podcasts, watching our TV shows through Internet.
Richard: Telling friends about things. Telling friends
Cláudia: about it and doing analysis by telephone if they cannot come to Brazil or to one of our centers.
Richard: Cláudia, there's many lines of psychoanalysis psychotherapy many ways they can go. What's the difference they're going to experience coming through this psychoanalysis with you with
dr kepe's clinic because they'll be doing it by phone which people are not used to.
Cláudia: What's the the difference they will experience in this this work that you do. Well there are many many differences. One major difference is that we focus in the inner self, the solutions coming from within.
So you don't have necessarily to change something that you don't want to change or you cannot change outside of your life of yourself. And so it's focused more in this inversion that we carry in our in our lives and this is really something that if you have this insight then you start changing absolutely with not so much effort. And also we don't focus in symptoms.
We don't we don't mind if the person is not doing such and such diet or losing weight or they are not changing behavior. They don't need to change behavior. They need to become conscious of the innermost roots of the problem, which are spiritual, psychological, and eventually they will like to change their lifestyle for sure, but this will not be an obligation. This will be spontaneous.
It will be something that the person will enjoy better other things than eating too much or destroying themselves, having this pleasure in hurting themselves.
Richard: This is an aspect of Keppe's where he talks a lot about this. You don't need to change your behavior. You need to see why you have the behavior you have. "Yes." And this
Cláudia: is this inner journey that's so powerful in Analytical Trilogy that it's difficult to understand this until you have an experience of it. But when you start to understand yourself, to really see yourself better, then things start to make a lot more sense.
And you will have so much more satisfaction in other things, other areas of your life. You will feel so much more satisfied with you, with what you do, with your understanding. Because understanding things, acknowledging things, it's so satisfying, it's so fulfilling. You can be for instance we sometimes we have a some meetings with dr capi where he explained things to us and we can be there for hours not feeling uh tired not feeling hungry or dizzy or sleepy or anything.
We it is as if we were outside time and space and this is the reaction we have we get when we are in tune with this essential energy which we are mostly made of. Essential energy which is not physical. Physical energy is a it's it's also a part of this essential energy but it's a lesser part of it at least in ourselves.
As Keppe says we are mostly angels with a body than rational animals, as
Aristotle said. I was thinking also, I wonder if we want to say anything about this beauty that a person has inside, overeating is an attack against an inner aesthetics, a very beautiful, something so beautiful and harmonious inside. Didn't it make this giant monstrous body around that? "Yes, the
Cláudia: inner beautiful feelings, Susan.
Because if you watch a movie, Hollywood movie of the 50s, 40s, you see a lot of statics in it."
At that time, people thought, oh, this is just a mask. We should be more real, more true to ourselves and to the world. So let's show our bad part.
Richard: Let's talk about reality.
Cláudia: Reality. So we show what we really are inside. And this is an inversion. Sickness violence is not what we really are inside. We are not sick people really sick people inside in our essence in the core of ourselves.
The pathological behaviors they are just like a mask they are artificial and behind this is our true self which is very beautiful very truthful divine creatures. And so if we don't try to go back to that the destruction is endless. We can destroy ourselves endlessly. There is not such a thing as the bottom to reach and then to go back. So the beautiful feelings where are they in american civilization now.
We saw this a lot I saw this when I was a child and they were like a light or signals to follow always a light, a hope and they used to play with those happy end American movies there was always a happy end.
But this was beautiful because in reality this should be our true lives with a happy end. We should be living in paradise now here and changing our lives for better and now, not only after death. It's
Richard: comforting to understand that our diseases, our weight problems, our neuroses, our aberrations, we destroy our health more than make ourselves sick. Helping us to have consciousness of how we do that is something Nerverto Keppe has dedicated his life to and what this podcast is all about. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones.
