Episode 42: Lena Derhally MA, LPC On Social Media & Narcissism: How Social Media Impacts Our Mental Health
Show Summary:
Social media has become a tidal wave of influence over the last decade. Highlight reels, filters, and the chase for likes breeds a sense of comparison and lacking in all of us.
How is social media impacting us, our children, and our future? That is what we are getting into with today’s guest, Lena Derhally.
Lena Derhally is a licensed and Imago certified psychotherapist specializing in trauma-informed individual and couples therapy. Some of the issues she focuses on are: anxiety, difficult life transitions, grief, boundary issues, toxic workplaces and emotional abuse with romantic partners and family members. She is the author of The Facebook Narcissist: How to Identify and Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones from Social Media Narcissism.
I am excited to share this conversation with you that is all about how social media is impacting our mental health and what we can do to maintain a healthy relationship with social media.
Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction
2:51 - Why Lena chose to write a book about narcissism
5:19 - What is narcissism?
7:32 - Is social media making us narcissistic?
11:09 - What are the 3 E’s and types of narcissists?
15:12 - How does social media impact all mental health disorders?
16:37 - Social media and surveillance capitalism
19:04 - How our brain handles social media
21:39 - How do we make genuine connections in a social media world?
24:18 - Dealing with kids and social media
29:17 - Social media and dopamine
30:37 - Can people with narcissism change?
34:26 - Start noticing how you feel on social media
36:55 - Lena’s morning routine
38:28 - Lena’s podcast recommendations
39:20 - What Lena does to cultivate joy
42:31 - How to learn more and work with Lena
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Full Episode Transcript:
SPEAKERS: Dr. Andrew Wong, Lena Derhally
Lena:
What’s happening is people are constantly comparing themselves to others and feeling bad about themselves especially when people are taking, making huge efforts to curate this perfect picture life and people are like, “Well, I should have that”, and unfortunately, what social media is perpetuating is that the picture-perfect life is all things that are very shallow and insignificant like wealth, looks.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
It's promoting a lot of body dysmorphia.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
People look at other people's “perfect relationships” and I should also disclose I'm a couple's therapist and I know that most relationships aren't perfect but social media will have you believe it's very different and as a job now, as a therapist, I have to constantly normalize for people. It's normal to have-
Dr. Wong:
It’s not always red roses. Yeah.
Lena:
Yeah, so what you're seeing on social media is not what it really is and in fact, sometimes it's the opposite which I have a chapter about that too so.
Dr. Wong:
Social media has become a tidal wave that threatens to drown our sense of mental and emotional well-being. Highlight reels, filters, and chase for likes create a sense of comparison and a feeling of not enough in each of us. How is social media impacting our health, our children's health, and our future? This is one of the deep questions that we're asking and getting into today with today's guest, Lena Derhally. Lena is a licensed and certified psychotherapist who specializes in Imago therapy and also trauma-informed individuals in couples therapy. Some of the issues she focuses on are anxiety, difficult life transitions, grief, boundary issues, toxic workplaces, and emotional abuse with romantic partners and family members. She is the author of ‘The Facebook Narcissist: How to Identify and Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones from Social Media Narcissism’. I am Dr. Andrew Wong, co-founder of Capital Integrative Health. This is a podcast dedicated to transforming the consciousness around what it means to be healthy and understanding the root causes of both disease and wellness. I am excited to share this conversation with you today. Lena and I discussed how social media is impacting our mental health and what we can do to maintain a healthy relationship with social media. Welcome Lena to the podcast. Thank you so much for being on today.
Lena:
Thanks, Dr. Wong. I'm so happy to be here.
Dr. Wong:
So, we were chatting about your recent book that is coming out or has come out already, ‘The Facebook Narcissist: How to Identify and Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones from Social Media Narcissism’. There's so much depth in that title. I just love your title. How did you come up with that, and then how did you even come up with the idea to write a book about social media narcissism?
Lena:
Okay. Full disclosure, well one, I've always been really interested in narcissism and I think later on, we'll get into what exactly narcissism is. It's not what people think about necessarily when they think of the the buzzword narcissism but I've always been really interested in it as something that is responsible for all the worst things that happen in the world, whether that's you know murder, war, racism, all these really big things, and then even on a smaller societal level. It's very destructive to relationships and everything else, and so my initial idea was to write a book just about that, how narcissism sort of is impeding everything good about the world and how it seeps into all these aspects, of our lives and why that's dangerous and detrimental to us as a whole society and when I approached my agent with that book idea, she said, “You know, there's already a million books about narcissism out there”, but there was this one chapter about social media and narcissism and she said, “Do you think you can do a whole book on it?”, and I said “Let me see”. So I'm very research based in my writing because I never want to, you know, come out and say, “This is my opinion”. I really want to back it up, so I went and I saw there was just this treasure trove of research on so many aspects of narcissism on social media, so I set out to answer the question, is social media making us more narcissistic? or is, you know, what is it the chicken or the egg, you know? Or is a narcissist just attracted to social media and what does that look like and how is that impacting every single one of us, and so then the title was also my agent. She came up with the Facebook narcissist and we didn't want to do the Twitter narcissist because at the time, Donald Trump was president and there was a lot of people that which again I talk about in my book, he was the first person I think in the public eye in many many years that people came out and diagnosed as a narcissist, so we didn't want the whole book to be associated with that, and so you know we looked at Instagram narcissist, didn't sound great, so the facebook narcissist it was and then the other title I came up with my publishing company just trying to explain to people why they should want to read it, so.
Dr. Wong:
Lena, thank you. What is narcissism? Let's kind of get into that definition. I always think of it in terms of this person from Greek mythology looking in a pond, you remember the Narcissus, right?
Lena:
Yeah and that's where the term comes from. Narcissus is Greek mythology. The legend is that he died because he caught his reflection in the mirror and stared at it and fell in and drowned. That's one version of the story, and so again it's this cautionary tale of, “Oh. If you're obsessed with yourself, if you're vain, it's not a good thing”. And that's what people I think think of when they think of narcissism is this larger than life, look at me, you know? And the cover of my book is a woman with duck lips taking a selfie, and so that is part of it. It's an attention attention-seeking type of disorder but it's also on a spectrum, and so I think it's important for people to know that we have something called narcissistic personality disorder which is in the DSM which is our psychology, you know, diagnosis bible I call it and at one end, at the 10, you know, we look at really destructive behaviors, and so narcissism. I like to use Dr. Craig Malkin from Harvard, his definition of it which he defines by triple e which is lack of empathy, entitlement, and exploitation, and so those are the three hallmarks of narcissism and when it's really dangerous, it's on, you know, eight to ten and that's again when you see the real horrible things happening with that extreme entitlement, extreme exploitation, almost zero empathy, but then you can have, you know, along the scale, you can have, people can have varying traits of it and not be full-blown narcissists, and so, you know, this book is also about self-reflection and saying, “You know, maybe I have some of these traits and that's okay”. We all kind of do unless you're at one. Usually people who are really low or on the other side, they're very much people pleasers. They like to shrink and don't like to have attention and oftentimes, you know, they almost have some self-hatred but that's not good either, and so we say it's kind of you want to be kind of around a five on the spectrum.
Dr. Wong:
Okay. So somewhat, you know, trying to deal with whatever's going on in your life.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
But not super narcissistic. In a social media age like we're in now, is it fair to say that we're all becoming somewhat narcissistic?
Lena:
Well.
Dr. Wong:
Or no?
Lena:
I think after doing a lot of research, I do think that social media is encouraging narcissism especially in younger people especially when you look at it from the point of the attention seeking and the lessening of the empathy because if you think about it, when we're behind a screen on social media, we're not in these face-to-face interactions and actually, there's a lot of studies that show auditory empathy is really important, even more important than visual empathy, and so we don't even have the auditory going on there, and so you know a lot of the times in anonymous forums or forums where people aren't identified or even on Instagram or somewhere where you are identified, people lash out and they lose sight of what's behind the screen and, you know, who's that behind the screen.
Dr. Wong:
What about zoom versus in person? Zoom is auditory and visual potentially if the video is on.
Lena:
Yeah. I actually think as a therapist doing zoom sessions, I actually think zoom is okay but I don't think it should take the place-
Dr. Wong:
Right.
Lena:
Of real life interactions but I think it's a fine substitution at times but it should not become your whole life. You definitely need hugs.
Dr. Wong:
Right.
Lena:
And affection and in-person interactions and I think the pandemic showed us how much that really is important but, you know, social media is showing a lot of people now that in order to succeed, you have to be a brand. You have to curate this image of your life and, you know, some people spend hours and hours taking a picture to find the perfect picture to put on their Instagram which I also talk in my book is promoting these false narratives that other people look at and I also looked at it in the book well. what is witnessing narcissism on any level of the spectrum from like, you know, moderate to high? What is that doing to the person observing it? And so I wanted to look at that as well because I think that's a big problem too.
Dr. Wong:
Is that starting to the witness, becomes less empathetic as well? Is that what's happening there?
Lena:
I think it could but I think in that particular situation especially when we look at younger people, especially teen girls, but even adults, you know? I always say I had a friend who was talking to me about this book and she's not really on social media but she's on Linkedin, she's really successful, she's a professional and she's like, “I have a good self-esteem. I'm like a self-aware person but I go on Linkedin and I feel really bad about myself because I'll see, even though I know I shouldn't cognitively, I know I'm a successful person”, you know, but it's always that comparison factor and so what's happening is people are constantly comparing themselves to others and feeling bad about themselves especially when people are making huge efforts to curate this perfect picture life and people are like, “Well, I should have that”. And unfortunately, what social media is perpetuating is that the picture-perfect life is all things that are very shallow and insignificant like wealth, looks.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
It's promoting a lot of body dysmorphia.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
People look at other people's “perfect relationships” and I should also disclose I'm a couple's therapist and I know that most relationships aren't perfect but social media will have you believe it's very different and as a job now, as a therapist, I have to constantly normalize for people. It's normal to have-
Dr. Wong:
It’s not always red roses. Yeah.
Lena:
Yeah, so what you're seeing on social media is not what it really is and in fact, sometimes it's the opposite which I have a chapter about that too so.
Dr. Wong:
Nice. So those three e's you discussed: lack of empathy, entitlement, and exploitation.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
Can you unpack exactly what those mean to the listeners?
Lena:
Yes and also, when I unpack it, I'm gonna explain there's different ways and different types of narcissists we have and they present themselves differently and I think that's really important to know because when you see that, you're like, “Oh, okay. Now, I know”, sort of. It's not just this big grandiose type of presentation.
Dr. Wong:
Okay.
Lena:
But yeah. Lack of empathy again is just exactly what it is, is not being able to put yourself in another person's experience. A lot of the times in relation to social media, we have really strong correlations with sadism and lack of empathy with cyber bullying which was one of the darkest chapters that I wrote, the cyber bullying thing especially with kids really stabs me in the heart.
Dr. Wong:
And these can lead to even things like suicide.
Lena:
Oh yeah. And I had to write about that too. And I think it’s.
Dr. Wong:
Traumas.
Lena:
Yeah. Real trauma, lasting trauma. And, you know, my friends and I we always say, “Oh. We're so glad that we didn't have to have social media”, because, you know, I was born in 1980, and so I didn't grow up with that.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
But I was bullied.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
And I can't imagine how much more traumatic that would have been adding the cyber bullying on top of that because bullying is a real form of lack of empathy. It's showing complete disregard or care for how somebody else feels, and so I think that is one of the darkest parts of narcissism but they all go hand in hand. Entitlement is when you think that you deserve things that, you know, you break the rules and ways and think that you should get special treatment and that you're better than everybody else. I often explain it to my little children as, you know, you go to somebody's house for example and they ask you to take off your shoes, you take off your shoes. I don't care if you think it's a dumb rule or a silly idea or you don't do it in your house like you go into someone else's space, you respect that. And I think we saw a lot of this type of entitlement coming out in the pandemic when, you know, an establishment or a business would put up a rule and people were like, “Well, I'm going to go in there and I'm not going to respect that rule”. That to me is the epitome of what entitlement is. And then we have exploitation which is, you know, we see it all the time. People exploiting workers and things like that, underpaying them, you know, and doing it intentionally, you know, knowing that they're doing that and.
Dr. Wong:
Right.
Lena:
Yeah. All of that, you know? Maybe, you know, ignoring labor laws and things like that with little disregard. I also talk about when I was 25, I had a job where legally I was entitled to a lunch break and they wouldn't give me one and I was also not allowed to take bathroom breaks unless I asked them, so if you think about that, that's a real exploitation of my labor.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah, yeah.
Lena:
I was only 25. It was my first job but, you know, looking back, I'm like, “Wow. That was really wrong and I probably should have stood up for myself”.
Dr. Wong:
I'm curious if you see a pattern of narcissism based on, you know, social media and, you know, developing a lack of empathy, entitlement, exploitation across cultures and nations and is this something more, you know, aligned with Western culture and an emphasis on individualism? Is this more of a universal human trait that could be brought out with social media across all cultures?
Lena:
Oh yeah. There's studies that actually look at all of these things cross-culturally especially looking at selfies and they're looking at it at different cultures. It's worldwide.
Dr. Wong:
Worldwide. Okay.
Lena:
Yeah, even the bullying stuff. It's all really prevalent everywhere.
Dr. Wong:
It’s very sad.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
But I think what is really great, amazing, about your book is that it sheds light on these practices, so if someone is using social media let's say, I think there's a few things here. We know that narcissistic personality disorder, is that the DSM?
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
That is a mental health disorder that's diagnosable, etc. but like you said, there's a spectrum, so how do you see social media overall impact mental health as a whole? That's a more general type of question.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
Is it good for us? Is it bad for us? Is it depending on the dose?
Lena:
Yes. I think those are great questions and I don't want to look at social media as all bad and one of the things I have to acknowledge and recognize in writing the book is I'm not advocating for a mass exodus of social media because it's here to stay. I mean.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
There's been people who've written books before me who are like the guys behind ‘The Social Dilemma’ Netflix series, you know? Like, “Get off social media. I designed it”
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
Or, “I won't let my kids use it”.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
If we're not listening to them, who's you know nobody's gonna listen to me, so it's here to stay and there are good things about it. For example, if you have a business. I mean I've been introduced to so many cool businesses through social media and, you know, there's definitely and connection and now we're such a transient society. I mean I have friends and family all over the world, and so being able to be easily connected to them in that way, I mean there's lots of benefits to it.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
And the studies show that if you use social media for emotional connection and things like that, there are benefits to it but if you're using it for more nefarious reasons like attention seeking or anything like that, it's not good.
Dr. Wong:
And the problem is it sounds like that Facebook and other social media companies, part of their business design is to get us to become more narcissistic. I mean I believe that's my understanding of how these companies grow and promote their networks, so how do we use social media in a smart way?
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
That we can harness the benefits while minimizing-
Lena:
Right.
Dr. Wong:
The more disruptive, you know-
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
Technologies.
Lena:
That's the disturbing part. There's a concept called ‘surveillance capitalism’ which is basically like we're all being watched
Dr. Wong:
Surveillance?
Lena:
Surveillance, capitalism.
Dr. Wong:
Okay.
Lena:
So they're using us, the big tech companies, and we all know this, this isn't a secret anymore, using us to make money and exploiting us again, so I have a metaphor in the book for big tech as the narcissist, you know? It's not even just an individual problem. It's like we're being exploited and they know that they're doing it.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
And they're, you know, social media is very addictive. The likes and validations are like dopamine hits.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
They know how to target what we're looking for once you get into a rabbit hole, you buy this, you buy that. It's all about consumerism and watching us and predicting our behaviors, and so that's the surveillance part and then the capitalism part is again like, you know, this is all just for money without any ethics behind it, so that said, I mean there's many different things you can do. One, some people leave social media altogether. They don't like that. That's fine. You know, some is maybe you can delete some of it. I used to be on Twitter. I found it was really bad for my mental health. I deleted twitter and haven't gone back. I use Instagram very sparingly, very short amounts of time. I use it for, you know, very specific purposes and oftentimes just because I have a book coming out, you know, my publishing company wants me to have some kind of presence, so, you know, I'll do that but it is just to keep in mind that it is very very addictive and the addiction isn't good for us. It's like anything, you know? Too much of anything is bad for you, so if you can find ways to moderate it, maybe deleting apps off your phone and only going on in your browser and just being really aware of how this beast kind of sucks you in and trying not to give in to those temptations but everybody knows themselves best, so I think most people listening will know I may be a person who needs to actually like delete for a few weeks and see how I feel or someone who's like, “You know, I can be kind of moderate about this”.
Dr. Wong:
I think it's a great suggestion to delete apps off the phone if people are overusing it because really the combination of social media plus a mobile phone is like dynamite. I mean it's sort of like social media is already trying to capture your attention, and then the cell phone itself can be, you know?
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
It has games on it and other stuff. You check email.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
So there's like so much on there.
Lena:
The human brain hasn't evolved to absorb all the information that we're getting which is another thing. We're constantly being hit with information because of our phones. Constant exposure to the news which is often very negative and, you know, I have a Master's in Communications and Media Studies. One of the first things we learned is, news is designed to be negative because what keeps people watching is fear. Also in my book there's been really interesting studies that engagement is driven by angry and hostile types of posting and the tweets that get the most engagement are the most vitriolic.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
And so again, these companies know it. The media knows it, so we're constantly being fed fear and vitriol and divisiveness and it's all coming at us so fast that it's really hard even for, again, for an adult brain to process it right. Imagine a developing brain like a preteen or a teen being hit with all of this, you know?
Dr. Wong:
So it's almost like junk food for nutrition, you know? Junk information for our brains.
Lena:
Yeah, exactly. It's a lot. And you know, they also are capitalizing on the fact that people want short attention span types of things, so it's like bulletproof, you know, bullet points or lists and things that are really quick reads, so it's just- there's not a lot of depth. It's just again, just being hit like if you can think about tennis balls being lobbed at you from every direction and it's not good for our brain. Again, our brains haven't evolved to process that kind of stuff.
Dr. Wong:
Right.
Lena:
This is all new.
Dr. Wong:
Multitasking is a myth, right?
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
It's like we're supposed to be focusing on one thing at a time.
Lena:
Yeah. And even us as parents and I'm going to be the first to admit this like I have an addiction to my phone to a degree, you know?
Dr. Wong:
Sure. Yeah.
Lena:
If I want to be present with my children, like I need to put that phone away.
Dr. Wong:
That's what I've found too.
Lena:
Yeah and it's really disturbing actually because, you know, I'll be doing homework with my kids and one of them will get a concept and be doing it on their own then I'll you know look at my phone, sneak like do my email, push, see if I got an email and, you know, I'm aware that that's not the person I want to be either but it's also just to show how addictive this is that even somebody who wrote the book.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah. Same, same with me.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
I'll play hide and seek with my phone. I'll put it under the pillow cushion.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
And try to forget about it, so I focus on, you know, playing with my kids or something I'm trying to focus on really. So what do you think the antidote is to social media? How can we get reconnected with those around us that we care about and also with ourselves in a real way? Is there a way to, again, kind of marry these things together if social media is here to stay, but then, you know, how do we promote more real connection as well?
Lena:
I think again now that we are learning to deal with this pandemic in a way where we can be social again and do things, I think that, one of the researchers I interviewed for this book, he's a top researcher on narcissism, W. Keith Campbell, he has teen kids and he said, you know, he talks something about what he calls CPR- compassion, passion, responsibility. He's like, “You know, I don't care so much what my kids do as long as they have, you know, something they're passionate about, they're compassionate, you know, they're responsible people but that most of their life exists offline”, and so I have that same philosophy in my house just as I do about everything. As long as you have positive relationships and you're seeing those people and you have very, you know, really strong quality, not quantity remember.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
The studies are that the quality of our relationships are way surpassed the quantity of them, so even if you have two really good friends, you know? Just having that type of support and having something you like to do, you know, even it's a hobby. I don't care if it's stamp collecting or reading, you know, or anything like that is just making sure that most of your time is spent offline and doing meaningful things that bring you some kind of fulfillment or enhance your relationships and take them to the next level instead of, you know, it will deplete your relationships to just have them exist through Facebook where you're just liking each other's pictures and people will say that they lose connection with people because they just get so used to the shallow interaction, “Oh. I saw your vacation at Disney. I liked it”, but nobody's picking up the phone anymore and actually talking because it's like, “Oh. I've already seen what's going on in their life”, and so actually when I went off facebook, I was like, you know, the people who want to talk to me, I'll talk to them and that's it.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
Everybody I had, you know, I said I had 700 friends. I didn't have 700, who has 700 friends?
Dr. Wong:
Yeah,yeah. No one. No one has that many.
Lena:
Do these people really need to see, you know?
Dr. Wong:
Right.
Lena:
The milestones of my toddler? No. The people who want to see the milestones of my toddler are like probably a very small group of people including their grandparents.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah. Did you get off of Facebook?
Lena:
I did, I did.
Dr. Wong:
Nice, nice.
Lena:
It was a really good thing for me but again, yeah. My real friends and the people, you know?
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
I pick up the phone and call them and..
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
And they will do the same.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah. Facebook friends is not, it's like you said, it's very shallow and it's not really the real connection, the deep connection that you would get with picking up a phone, calling someone, going out to lunch with someone, things like that.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
That's huge, so yeah. More real interaction, and then you have kids, you know I have kids. I know a lot of listeners may have kids as well. How can we teach our kids to navigate social media in a healthy way?
Lena:
Yeah. Well, it's so interesting. This is really timely. This morning, The New York Times’s feature, they have a morning roundup, was exactly about digital life and social media negatively impacting teens, and then they cited recent articles from the Atlantic and The Washington Post and The Washington Post article was interviewing parents who don't allow their teens to have phones at all, so it's absolutely under no circumstances. With apps, I think some parents let them have flip phones.
Dr. Wong:
Okay.
Lena:
Where they could text or phone.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah, for an emergency.
Lena:
For emergency. Yeah, things like that. So, you know, I think that if you can keep your kids off these things as long as you possibly can, I also again want to be sensitive to the fact that I know a lot of parents don't want to give their kids phones, their social media, but then feel bad because their kids are the only ones that don't have it.
Dr. Wong:
It’s peer pressure, right?
Lena:
They also don't want them to be the pariah or whoever's left out.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
They don't want to do that to their kids, so I also understand that completely is that you don't want that for your kids but if you can keep them off as long as you can, if you can hold off on social media as long as you can and also just talk to them about, again, how addictive it is, how it's not real a lot of the time, how comparing ourselves to others is, you know, again, it's not the reality what we're comparing ourselves to isn't necessarily the truth, right? And so I think having those conversations and keeping it open, I think that's one of, as a therapist too, I think that's really important. You know, my children play roblox for example.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
Which is a very addictive game and they play sometimes with other people but, you know, we have an open floor plan, so when they're playing, I'm always hearing and we're constantly having conversations about online safety, so they could parrot you a whole, you know? And they come and they tell me exactly what's going on and what they did and, you know, we'll be like, “Oh, that was great. You blocked them or you reported somebody for cursing and, you know, so things like that. So it's actually sometimes can be really good, learning opportunities and just keeping the dialogue open. I find when we restrict too much, it has the opposite effect, so for example, if you can you tell your kids they can never have sugar, I hear so many stories and again about another parent sneaking sugar to the kids or a babysitter doing it or them finding ways to go and do it, and then that's when we start seeing more disordered eating come about is when things are-
Dr. Wong:
They go into the extreme.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
At that point, yeah.
Lena:
So I take that concept and apply it to almost everything in life, right? Is that if something is a part of our life and it's here to stay, how can we have open conversations and talk about it, so our children know how to navigate it? So that's kind of where I'm at right now.
Dr. Wong:
That makes a lot of sense. Let's talk about the neuroscience a bit. What does social media do to our brains and, you know, how do we protect our brains from excessive social media or like you said before, how do we utilize it in a smart way?
Lena:
Yeah, so again as I said before, our brains are not evolved or adapted to the influx of information. There's still so much we don't know about that particular aspect of it. We do know there is a lot of research on heavy social media use and I’m not exactly sure how they're defining heavy social media use but let's say just a lot of it because we do have teens that are really addicted to it and adults too but to the point where they're losing sleep for example, you know? And losing sleep impacts your brain and your brain function, right? So we even have some studies out there that may indicate that Alzheimer's and things like that may come from like prolonged or chronic lack of sleep. We don't know for sure but I think there's interesting information.
Dr. Wong:
Suggestions.
Lena:
Suggestions, yeah. About just how lack of sleep is a form of torture, so you can even link it if you're addicted to social media and you're not sleeping as much or the blue light's glaring at you all the time. You know, there's a lot of impact to your brain.
Dr. Wong:
Definitely.
Lena:
From those effects but there is some research that heavy social media use can impact your memory, can cause memory deficit and then I had here a note that it can even cause some permanent changes in brain structure.
Dr. Wong:
Oh, wow.
Lena:
That there's some evidence behind that too but again, they're talking heavy social media use.
Dr. Wong:
Meaning like amygdala-prefrontal cortex imbalances and things like that or something else?
Lena:
I didn't get too much into that I was actually just researching that recently.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
But I think again, it's very preliminary, so I don't want to like put anything out there.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah, yeah.
Lena:
But there is some interesting- I mean how could it not?
Dr. Wong:
It must. Right.
Lena:
I think that's what the neuro scientists are saying.
Dr. Wong:
If you’re doing anything, whether it's like if you ride a bike, you know, every day, you're going to get better at riding a bike, so probably similar there.
Lena:
Yeah but there's definitely the memory deficit stuff and the addiction stuff and how–
Dr. Wong:
What about attention? We know that there's like if you get a Facebook like the dopamine centers light up. Is there some potential over activation of those dopamine receptors leading to attention deficit issues?
Lena:
I think that's something that definitely should be explored.
Dr. Wong:
Should be researched, yeah.
Lena:
For sure. Again, the addiction component I think is the problem. A lot of parents will complain if they give their kid an iPad even for half an hour and again, some brains handle it differently than others. I think some kids are actually fine with an iPad and putting it down but there's some that really melt down and you take it away, and then they're so dysregulated, and then for a long time, it takes a long time to self-regulate again and I think that's problematic too, so I also think we have to look at it sort of as individually and not again, put blanket statements that everybody reacts to it that way but in those cases, that's kind of I think a big alarm that, “Hey. Your kids really dysregulated or you're really dysregulated”. You feel really bad after you use it so..
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
There is something going on I think in the brain and with the addiction to that and having to withdraw.
Dr. Wong:
Pull away. Right.
Lena:
Withdraw, yeah. You have to withdraw.
Dr. Wong:
Withdraw. So here's an interesting question for you, Lena. Let's say that you're with someone, you're dating someone that's narcissistic or you think they're narcissistic, how easy is it for them to change, you know? Let's say they're on social media all the time or maybe they're just narcissistic, is it something that's sort of baked in as a personality or is it something that can be modified over time with behavior?
Lena:
So there's some controversy around this. My personal feeling about this is they're really high on the spectrum like a 10, 9, you know? The lack of empathy is so low, the lack of self-awareness is so low, then no. Don't even try and I think that's when you have some very very abusive partners and again, even partners that kill their spouses or, you know, partners, boyfriends, girlfriends, what not and that was what my first book.
Dr. Wong:
The first book, yeah.
Lena:
Was about. It was about a man who..
Dr. Wong:
Let's talk about that.
Lena:
Killed his pregnant wife and children and I said, “You know, this was a hidden narcissist”, like he wasn't and I wrote it because again he wasn't the picture of what everyone thinks was a narcissist of this, you know, grandiose, “Look at me. I'm so great kind of guy”. He was very humble and very subservient to his wife and the perfect family man to everyone who knew him, even his wife, and some set of circumstances happen to sort of bring out this real narcissistic selfish side in him to the point where within weeks, he decided instead of divorcing his wife for another woman, the answer would be to murder her and the children which is so, you know, incomprehensible to normal people but again, that's why I kind of like to warn people, you know? There's some levels like once you see certain behaviors, no like don't even try but there are people who have insight and self-awareness to change and may have these traits, you know, and they may not be in eight to ten, maybe they're seven, maybe they're seven, eight. If people want to change and want to go to therapy, there's narcissists on social media who are self-diagnosed narcissists and don't like being labeled for example and also feel like they're working hard to try to change that and, you know, I'm not going to dispute that, so if there's people out there who are like hey I’m a narcissist or a narcissistic person but I want to change and I'm working on it, If that's an authentic, you know, genuine way of being and the intention is good..
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
Then there's a possibility but definitely individual and couples therapy is..
Dr. Wong:
Okay.
Lena:
Very recommended in those cases.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
Because couples therapy is a lot about cultivating empathy and using empathy. It's kind of the only way to have a relationship, mutual empathy.
Dr. Wong:
My understanding is individual therapy versus couples, that would not be with the same therapist usually?
Lena:
It could. It depends on how the therapist works but in a situation with somebody who's narcissistic, I would probably say it's probably better to have a different therapist.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah. You do both in your practice?
Lena:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
Depending on the situation, yeah.
Dr. Wong:
Well, great. I hope that this conversation has been really helpful for all of you out there listening. I know this has been really helpful for me just because, you know, social media has become very dominant. I think useful and necessary, you know, part of kind of, you know, building our platform, you know? Jen's doing a great job with social media here.
Lena:
Yeah. That’s her job. Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
You know, this is something that can be used for good like we're using it for access to Integrative Health and you're using it to promote your book to provide awareness about social media narcissism, so this is a really great, you know, conversation today about how to really balance the, you know, the benefits of social media while minimizing I guess potential harms for that but yeah. I'm going to be very looking forward to checking out your book. I'm starting to pop a list of books to read now, so that one, and then you have a first book like you mentioned before which we can talk about in a minute but overall, yeah, this has been really great- I don't know if you have any other comments you want to make about social media or, you know, any final you know top three advice for listeners about if they're on Facebook or other social media, what should they do?
Lena:
Yeah. I think well, one, if you're on social media, just start noticing how you feel when you're on it. When you see certain accounts, you know, how do you protect your peace, preserve your joy? That might be muting different accounts. Now, I think it's a brilliant feature is you don't have to unfriend someone but you can hide their posts, so just kind of noticing how you feel when you're on it, maybe some things bother you and some things don't, so sort of learning how to cultivate and curate a feed that works for you and again, if you really feel like you're not feeling good when you're on it, that may be an indication that you should take a break. A lot of people take breaks and never come back because they realize. Selena Gomez is a celebrity example of that or she's been off social media I think for four years and she said it was the best thing she ever did for her mental health.
Dr. Wong:
Oh, good for her. Yeah, yeah.
Lena:
I think if you're in the public eye like that..
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
You really have to be so careful about- that's a huge factor in, you know, your mental health because you're getting bullied.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
You're getting people saying crazy. Even if you're that famous, you still have feelings. You know and you're still impacted by that stuff, so I would say that's kind of my advice about that, but then using it for good again there's just in terms of, you know, social and racial justice and exposing injustices in the world like cell phone cameras have been great because they tell the truth in a way. You know, journalism has traditionally been owned by certain things that have special, you know, special interests but when we really have this raw footage of this is what's happening on the ground here or whatever, I think it really helps in telling the truth and telling stories and and moving the world forward, you know? It can.
Dr. Wong:
It sounds like using it like a CPR lens, compassion..
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
Passion, responsibility
Lena:
It can especially if you're using it, yeah, but then on the flip side, it can also recruit, you know, white supremacists and they find their own groups in the dark web, so that, you know, it's complicated but I think if we want to put the positive spin on it. looking for ways to be, yes, compassionate, empathetic, and using it for good, there are ways we can do that so.
Dr. Wong:
Thank you so much Lena for being on today.
Lena:
Thank you.
Dr. Wong:
We have a few other closing questions that are really pretty fun .
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
As a health kind of routine, you know, we know that having a morning routine is often associated with getting the day off to a good start and kind of having this a sense of establishing that circadian rhythm for your body, so curious to see if you have a morning routine and if you don't mind sharing that with our listeners?
Lena:
Sure. I do have a morning routine. I wake up and I'm not a morning person, so I wake up and I don't get out of bed for-
Dr. Wong:
It could be a noon routine, you know?
Lena:
Yeah. I mean for like, you know, until I have to but luckily I'm married to someone who's a morning person.
Dr. Wong:
Okay.
Lena:
So, you know, he's kind of usually getting things going.
Dr. Wong:
Okay, okay.
Lena:
But I actually do Wordle now every morning. That's the first thing I do.
Dr. Wong:
Oh yeah. It’s getting really popular.
Lena:
And actually, it's kind of I made fun of it for a while, then of course I got sucked in but I think it's kind of good to get my brain going, you know, first thing.
Dr. Wong:
It's very fun.
Lena:
Yeah. And then sometimes, if I have time, I'll have just a quick bath because I find that the hot water kind of invigorates me.
Dr. Wong:
Okay.
Lena:
And kind of like wakes- some people, the cold water wakes them up. Hot water is just soothing and if I work out a lot, so if I have some aches left over, you know, it's sort of..
Dr. Wong:
So that's your coffee or cup of coffee in the morning?
Lena:
Yeah, yeah. Because I'm more of an intermittent faster.
Dr. Wong:
Nice.
Lena:
So I probably don't do that until later on but yeah. I like to start my day with like a little brain, you know, something to get the brain going and just kind of lying there for a bit, letting myself wake up, take that quick bath even if it's 10 minutes, you know?
Dr. Wong:
What's the hardest Wordle that you've solved so far?
Lena:
I don't know. I can't remember.
Dr. Wong:
It’s a fun game.
Lena:
I think the hard ones are actually the easiest ones when they could be anywhere like if it's like board, b-o-a-r-d, it could be hoard, it could be..
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
You know, so like you're going down and.
Dr. Wong:
Yes,yes.
Lena:
Is it an h? Is it an s? Like you've got four letters.
Dr. Wong:
Running out of guessers.
Lena:
Yeah. Actually, those are the hardest.
Dr. Wong:
And do you listen to podcasts, yourself? Curious if you have any podcasts that you'd like to recommend as one of your favorites?
Lena:
Yeah. I like ‘Being Well’ with Dr. Rick Hanson.
Dr. Wong:
Okay.
Lena:
And ‘Therapist Uncensored’. They're all therapists podcasts and about mental health but they have such a wide range of topics. Therapist Uncensored actually does a lot on narcissism.
Dr. Wong:
So that’s two podcasts, right? Two podcasts?
Lena:
Yeah. Being Well with Dr. Rick Hanson.
Dr. Wong:
Okay.
Lena:
Therapist Uncensored also has some really cool stuff and trauma and neuroscience and a lot of the cool up, you know, trendy but still valuable.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
Modalities like polyvagal theory and..
Dr. Wong:
This is also emerging now in terms of how to treat people.
Lena:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Wong:
You know?
Lena:
In a very good way.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
They're all really really powerful tools for healing and so.
Dr. Wong:
I’m going to check that out.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
And what do you do every day to cultivate joy because we know that's another key part of, you know, like you said, like having that passion, you know, having that reason to get up in the morning after your bath.
Lena:
I come at this from a place of privilege as somebody who's never experienced, you know, serious clinical depression or anxiety so I like to put that out there is that as a mental health professional, we can't always cultivate joy if we're depressed or anxious and, you know, and so it's not easy. I want to say that too that especially for some people, it's a real struggle and it's an everyday struggle and it's not your fault, you know, that you can't do that.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
Again, so from my place of privilege, how I cultivate joy, I think it's been, you know, years but also I'm from the Middle East and I have family, you know, in places where they don't get to enjoy the same types of freedoms or, you know, what we enjoy here in the U.S.
Dr. Wong:
We take for granted.
Lena:
We take it for granted.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
So much and I've worked in Oncology and end of life care and with the homeless in my career, and so seeing all this suffering and, you know, it's just perspective every day, and so I constantly have that in my head, is that as long as we have our health, we could pay our bills, you know, we're not struggling, our survival needs are met. It was a good day. Those problems can be solved, so anytime I have a day where it's like my health was good, everybody's fine like we have all our little struggles but those are things that, you know, we can solve that or it will get better in its time or whatever. It's always going back to the basics.
Dr. Wong:
It's like gratitude.
Lena:
Yeah, gratitude.
Dr. Wong:
And putting into perspective.
Lena:
My loved ones are happy, healthy or, you know, relatively happy and healthy.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah, yeah.
Lena:
Then it was a good day, and so I'm constantly reminding myself of what I have and just because I don't ever want to be in a position where I don't have it anymore and feel like, you know, those were good years that I didn't appreciate so..
Dr. Wong:
Got it. It makes a lot of sense.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
I think that daily practice also cultivates the neural pathways that cultivate gratitude. I believe that gratitude's also associated with good health.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
You know, too, so that's another. That might be a good way to kind of get people into a more of a balanced situation with social media, you know, seeing the Jones’s.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
With the fancy car or the vacation, whatever.
Lena:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
You can then go back to that kind of groundedness that you just mentioned there.
Lena:
Yeah. And more money doesn't make people happy.
Dr. Wong:
Absolutely.
Lena:
Notorious B.I.G famously said, “Mo money, Mo problems”.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
But all the studies show that, you know, again, once your basic survival needs are met, happiness levels are more or less the same in people.
Dr. Wong:
Right.
Lena:
Acquiring more sometimes gets you into that mindset of always wanting more instead of kind of looking at and again, I do this in my therapy practice, “Well, we're always looking at what's wrong but let's look at what's right”, you know? And let's put our focus more on that, so there's some mindfulness with that but I think there's also, you know, in cultivating joy, something we all can do is being selective about where we put our energy and who we spend our time with and as I've gotten older, my boundaries have become really good with that and really just putting my energy and time into the things and the people that really fulfill me and kind of cutting out the rest, so.
Dr. Wong:
Great. Thank you so much Lena for those wonderful words of wisdom. How can listeners learn more about you and work with you?
Lena:
Sure. My website is now lenaderhally.com, so there's some contact information there. If you want my instagram.
Dr. Wong:
Yes.
Lena:
That’s therapy with Lena and..
Dr. Wong:
Okay.
Lena:
You can message me on there.
Dr. Wong:
So l-e-n-a.
Lena:
L-e-n-a, therapy with Lena. Derhally is d-e-r-h-a-l-l-y.com and that's got you know the book information. If anybody wants to work with me, I'm a referral-based practice only but anybody listening to this is considered a referral to me, so you can reach out to me.
Dr. Wong:
Great. And you have your own podcast, some I think?
Lena:
Sort of. Yeah. I mean we kind of go back and forth with it for years like when we're inspired to do it but it's Sessions with Bob and Lena.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Lena:
And it's with another Imago-certified psychotherapist. Imago is a type of couples therapy but we also do a lot of individual work, so but yes. We talk a lot about, you know, the themes we see with our clients and what's going on in the world and.
Dr. Wong:
Great. Well, this has been so helpful for everyone talking about narcissism and how to engage in social media in a healthy way, so thank you so much again Lena and thank you so much for listening.
Lena:
Thank you. Pleasure being here, thank you.
Dr. Wong:
Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to us today. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a moment to leave this a review. It helps our podcast to reach more listeners. Don't forget to subscribe, so you don't miss our next episodes and conversations and thank you so much again for being with us.