Shame Management: The Hidden Driver of Men’s Rage

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2:18Welcome back to the Mailroom with Dr. Jesse Mills. I'm Dr. Mills and as always, joined by my producer and voice of John Q. Public. I like to freshen up the new year with 100-year-old references, Jordan. Wait, Jordan Q public. I'm not sure if this will take that. But you look pretty good in a three piece suit and a fedora. And knowing you're collecting habits, you probably have a steamer trunk full of suits and hats from the Titanic. So you could probably pull off a Jordan Q public look. Yeah, I veer towards early 20th century. So, yeah, I'll take that. It's amazing. So, everybody, we got Stephen Pulitzer back by command performance repeat Indiana super fan.

2:56And I won't go through too much of his intro because we hit it so hard on the first time, but retired law enforcement, seminary graduate, which we didn't really talk about in the last episode. So you're going to have to give us, you gave us a shocking story about your first day on the force in L.A. But we got to hear some stories about how you got from the seminary to be a licensed clinical psychologist. But you focus on men and the people who love them and their mental health. You take great care of the patients I send over. So welcome the heck back, Dr. Poulter. It's an honor as always. Oh, Dr.

3:28Jesse, it's a pleasure. Talk to us about this. How did your work in the seminary lead you then from there to a clinical psychologist? You know, it's interesting. I want to be in a helping profession. I always had a spiritual leaning, if you will. My father was Jewish, but he converted to being Lutheran when he married my mom in the 50s. I always found I wanted to help people in some way or fashion. I went to Fuller Seminary over in Pasadena, and I worked at a church on the way up the valley. I was one of the youth pastors. And I found that a lot of guys coming in talking about their spirituality, I didn't feel equipped.

3:59You know, there's guys that you preach very gifted, but I didn't feel equipped to really deal with people on a grassroots level. And I thought I got to go further. That's what got me to go into psychology. And I felt like I could reach more people in this venue than the one I was in. It's a big jump. Well, service driven life. I mean, from law enforcement to seminary, that background, obviously you have this gene in there that you want to help people. And we really talked a lot about your modern masculinity and the books you've written in that field. And I think that gives us a framework to dive into one of the most profound things I've learned from you was this concept of shame.

4:36And you use this not as kind of what we think of as shame, but really almost as a framework for all of the badness that we harbor inside of us. And you can be ashamed by so many different things. You can be ashamed by a bad grade. You can be ashamed by denting the fender on your dad's car when you took it out, when you didn't have a license. But you can also carry shame about decisions you made or things that people did to you that make you who you are and the pain and the trauma that you carry. And your book, Shame Factor, which, again, I cannot recommend highly enough. I think it should almost be mandatory reading for any man that's trying to find his way in this world, which is basically any man.

5:19But you use the concept of shame to define this male experience and also just how it influences his relationship. So just kind of tell me, A, how you got into using this as a flashpoint and really as a metaphor for, as you talked about in the last episode. I mean, this is one of the three things that drives the majority of people into your office between shame, anxiety, and isolation. So as I said on that show, I think shame deserves its own episode. So here it is. Yeah. Let's talk about it. You know, Dr. Jist, Robert Bly said, if you're going to therapy and you're not making progress, you feel like you're wasting your time, you're probably not talking about your shame.

5:57That was a fastball between the eyes. And that was the first time I heard that term. This is when I was in seminary. I remember thinking, it's not sin, if you will, like you've done something wrong. Guilt is an action. Shame is the veins in a marble table or the grains of what it's inside of you. You know, it's not an action. It's a feeling. It's a state. When I first heard that, he said, if you're stalling with your clients, talk about shame. Now, I've had a lot of guys see me, I don't have any shame. I go, okay. So we kind of talked, walked through the back door of the building, if you will.

6:30And all of a sudden, you realize, yeah, his father committed suicide. He's embarrassed. That's a form of shame. That's embarrassment. You're embarrassed about your family. That's a form of shame. I want to go back to this, Dr. Jesse. By age five, the experts say you either are competent on one end of the scale or you feel inferior. reading, writing, arithmetic. And when kids lean further toward inferior, that's where shame starts to take a root. Like there's something wrong with you versus confident. I can read, I can write, I can dress myself. That keeps shame from taking root in your life. The second piece is how your parents spoke to you.

7:03Now that has to be permissive or passive, but many guys are spoken very harshly and they feel like there's something wrong with them. They take that on as that harshest as if they're defective, inferior. You know, we go to adolescence and get bullies. I've never met a bully who doesn't have a shame factor active, whether he's beaten by his dad or something terrible. Now we get in our 20s, get the guy that's stealing, selling drugs or doing something very risky. It's a way to offset this. I don't feel good about myself. It goes into toxicity, which is really untreated masculinity. It's the dark side.

7:37It's the shame factor as full tilt. Doctor, I have one story. The shooter in the Mandalay Bay grew up in La Crescenta. Oh, wow. Not on our street, but he was in the area. He was my sister's age. His father got arrested by the FBI for being a bank robber, like the Ted Most Wanted. You just see him in the post office. Yeah, of course. And the day his father got arrested, after that, the family left the area within a month. And we never saw him again. And when the shooting came down, when I heard his name, I was like, no way, it's so-and-so. And it turned out that he admitted that he resented authority for what they did to his father.

8:12Women internalize shame, men externalize it. That's why it's so dangerous. It's one of the things I've learned as a policeman. Mass shootings, whatnot, men externalize it, women internalize it. Eating disorders, depression, anorexia, bulimia, all that, where men will externalize it. They're very aggressive as a way to offset it, to push it out. I always tell guys, let's start with the fact that you don't feel good about yourself inside. When did that start? And doc, I'm telling you, it goes back to elementary school, first, second, third grade, something happened. And then they internalized it and just kept going.

8:46You just said so much there. I mean, just even the idea of the difference between how men and women process shame and manifest it is huge. Hey, Doc, this is the other thing that's mortified me in 2018. The publisher fact-checked me on this. 92 % of all murders in this country, gunpoint murders, are either by ex-lovers, divorced their romantic deaths of that 92 88 percent are women wow stunning and the other there's not one mass shooter they use the definition of five people or more who's a woman in this country as of today so it goes back to that premise that men externalize shame and they take it out on society they blame it that's where robert bligh always talked about the father figure you got to deal with the father figure inside of you or you you're going to be self-destructive to the greater good so how do you recognize that you know how do you how do you see somebody, you know, if you're a teacher, if you're a coach and you're not a therapist, you don't have the tools and the education that Dr.

9:45Stephen Poulter has, but you have access to a kid that's obviously suffering shame. How do you address it? You know, I love football and baseball and these coaches who really connect with these boys. When a young man feels like he's cared for, he's going to be better. So many coaches say boys' lives. They really do. They don't even know it. And doc, these are the three things I've realized with men, three things they want to feel understood, which means being seen, accepted, I'm okay as I am. And number three, feeling loved. When those three, that pillar, that triangle's not there, you get shame, that rage that I'm not good enough.

10:24There's something wrong with me. And I don't believe in anger management. I believe in shame management. Ooh, I like that. All anger management is a manifestation of untreated shame. I've never not seen that true. Wow. And guys, this is terrible. Spousal abuse when I was a police officer was, this was before 1992 when they changed the laws where the victim had to prosecute the perpetrator, or now the police can do it. The police can come in and say, okay, you're going with me. And I think that has cut down the desk by probably 50%. Wow. That's my C. Shane talks it, looks toxic, meaning it's out of control.

10:58It's like a house with no thermostat. You're someplace, you hear a guy raging, like we were LAX two weeks ago, this guy's raging at the counter. and my daughter says to me, he's externalizing his shame. Well, you taught her well. Thank you, Julia. Yeah. And she wasn't wrong. Yeah. I thought this guy was going to go postal. I mean, go nuclear. Right. Let's go back to the coach. Those three things about being understood, accepted, and loved. One thing gang members have in common, I learned fatherless sons, and that funds the rage. It emotionally funds it. I met guys. You ever met your dad? No. Where's he?

11:33San Quentin. while my dad got murdered. It was relentless. The bloods of the crypts. I talk to these guys like, what are you doing here? You're white. Yeah. And the guy goes, did you ever meet your dad? Yeah. I met my dad. I've never met a guy who really knows his dad. So that's where shame is. And we don't want to candy coat it, but I also don't want to get extreme. I find that the majority of my practice, we're going to get to the shame factor. You want to change your life? Let's pull that out by the roots. If something's not working, let's start there. It's an etiology. Let's start there. Thank you.

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14:54the idea that anger management should be redefined as shame management the person that's on the receiving end of whatever that reprogramming is going to look like has to be able to be vulnerable i mean almost sounds like you know i'm i'm not ashamed of anything i'm just mad right that's How do you tell the guy that's angry? That's different. Yeah, but how do you tell the guy that's angry that what you're really doing is you're suffering from shame because then you're asking him to be vulnerable, which got him in this mess in the first place because nobody loved him. Nobody respected him. He was isolated.

15:25He didn't have a father figure. And now you say, no, look, if you just go to anger management classes, then every corporation, that's what we do when we have a disgruntled employee. We send them to anger management. But really, I got to start thinking about this as a supervisor and a director of multiple different divisions. I got to start thinking about the people that I'm referring to anger management that, hey, let's talk about the shame that got you to this level of anger. So, doctor, I have a guy in my office in the fall, couples therapy, because I think he hits his wife. I can smell it. You just know.

15:59And he starts yelling. And I put my hand up. He goes, what? You're scaring her. What do you mean? Linda, tell him. And she starts talking, he goes, had no idea. It's like he's emotionally drunk. That's why I talk about emotional sobriety. It's like they black out, doc. You know, neurologically, that part of the brain shuts down. Like, it just goes automatic. And he scares his wife. He said that's the first time in his life that paused. He thought he was just talking loudly. No, he was raging, feeling powerless. The only thing I always tell guys when they say, I feel disrespected. No, no, you feel invisible.

16:35Big difference. because if you felt visible, you wouldn't be angry. You'd feel seen. But this whole thing about shame and man, one of the best kept secrets, I believe. Well, it's a terrible secret to keep. I mean, that's something that needs to be out there. But now you brought something else. You just, every time you say something, you bring up something else, which is the idea. If you feel disrespected, I love what you said. It is an invisibility. It's you think I'm working so hard. I've done so much. you know i'm putting it over time yeah nobody cares nobody cares well i always say but you know and this is where i may be wrong so i'd love for you to correct me i always say okay well they may not but but you know the intrinsic drive for you to know that you're making a difference should be enough but how do you tell somebody that feels disrespected or now that we're going to say invisible how do they deal with that if they're never going to get it from their partner or from their employer.

17:33What are the steps to get that guy out of that pit? I go, this is where I always joke. Okay, I'm gonna be a psychologist right now, okay? I go, were you ever complimented growing up? No, never. Anyone come to your baseball games? No. Anyone come to your graduation? I've gotten a lot of no's. It's heartbreaking. Now they get married hoping she's gonna fix that. And I go, she can't fix, it's not hers, it's yours. Let's work on you being, you can see yourself I'm like, go take care of that little boy inside of you. And I always tell them, I'm not getting touchy-feely here, but there's a belief in you that you're not valid.

18:10And bring home a paycheck is wonderful, but what you really want from your wife, she has no idea. You're speaking French and she speaks English. There's no translation. I just want to know how you give that guy the tool then to say, okay, that's happened. I love what you said in our last episode. You're in the valley. Yeah. You just keep going. but how do you get out of that invisibility so that you feel the relationships you have now are worth of you and respect? So I ask them, what would being visible look like with your wife? What would that look like today? And doctor, that's our trail out of the Grand Canyon.

18:47What does that look like today? Because if they're present, they're not raging. When they're raging, they're back at some other drama. I always tell my girl, let's come back to this present moment. What can she do in the present moment that would feel like you're being seen and you're not invisible? Temperature drops. Yeah. Temperature drops. You know, and they like, yeah, maybe when I come in the house, we said hello. Boom. Okay, let's do that. And like three or four things simple. Always go, break it back. What can we do right now? You're reacting to your past, not the present. Your wife loves you.

19:21She adores you, but she can't fix. That's not her job. That's yours. That's why you're with me. That's why we're here. Wow. And growing up, I remember thinking most of the guys on our street, we never saw our dads. We weren't orphans. We just kind of fatherless. I don't want anybody to feel that. My dad was gone from age 15 to 25. And that was a tough time. I was left taking care of my mom. Wow. And I thought, I want to help men be their best self. When that man walks in my office, all I am is a paycheck. No, you're not. No, you're not. Ask her what she would say at your funeral. We've done that in the office, and they're blown away.

19:58Wow. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. I'm blown away. I mean, that's... This violence, they wanted me to speak on that school shooting down in Texas a few years ago about why the police didn't go in, why they waited an hour and a half. And I'm not quite sure with what it came out criminally, but I know emotionally, a lot of the parents are single moms, and they felt the men didn't protect them. And I told the dean of the college now, we got to talk about that. He looked at me like, we're not touching that. That's really what's happening. These women feeling like men didn't step up. That's the crisis in a lot of ways.

20:35These guys taking care of themselves. Yeah. Fatherless sons. And I always tell guys, you didn't have a dad. You got someone in here. And like Robert Bly says, the day you forgive your dad, it's the day you enter adulthood. Now, that's an eight mile walk, eight miles uphill out of the Grand Canyon. It can be done. It can be done. And that's doctor. Well, I would tell guys start thinking about that. And the other day, Stanford graduate, I'm not doing it. Okay. I go, but your life's not going to move very far. You're driving with a handbrake on. Yeah. I know I've thrown a lot out doctor, but the same factor, but that's it.

21:06I mean, I think actually gave us some actionable items. So, so we've got to get to this segment again, where you're probably going to be okay. And I'm going to give you another scenario and see if this guy is going to be okay. And it different, different setup than we had on our last episode but you're this is a 32 year old guy he's he's coping with the history of sexual abuse he suffered as a teenager and say it was an older person it was maybe a teacher it was a coach and coerced him into his first sexual experience and he trusted and liked the person a lot and the person swarmed a secrecy kind of a stockholmey kind of thing that he could never divulge they had this relationship but he was able to move on.

21:44Person completely cut ties with his coach, but still carries this shame, blames himself for it. Still probably hasn't processed this relationship now that's 15 years in the past. So it's going to be a two-part. Are you going to be okay? One is, is he going to be okay? And two is, how do you counsel somebody with a history of sexual abuse to help his partners help him deal with that past experience? Because then it becomes, again, part of the shame that he carries. But then the other people in his lives are going to absorb some of that shame, I would imagine. So how do you do this? This is a terrible analogy.

22:26You know Aaron Hernandez from the Patriots. Oh, poof. Yeah, it's starting off terrible. Okay. Part of what they say in his documentary, the documentary about that he committed suicide, he could not deal with the sexual abuse. Right. He just could not have that publicized. And I tell him, man, when he comes in and we talk about it, I go, you are 80 % home. Wow. You're at mile 22 of a 26-mile marathon, brother. You've got this. I think of the Penn State guys. They're all in their 30s, doctor. It was very interesting. You said 32. Yeah. Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky, yeah. Yeah. Debacle. I find a lot of guys need at least 10 years in between the incident and really talking about it.

23:05and helping them is that they can enjoy their partner and not bring the perpetrator in and putting that on the shelf again your bookshelf behind there doctor i love the bookshelf yeah yeah put it on the bookshelf yeah please if you didn't listen to last episode listen to get the bookshelf analogy that's amazing it's a chapter or a book in your life but it's there always will be there but you don't have to keep rereading it and don't make the other people read it for you either. The fact he's in the office, I want to give him a hug. Right. Brother, you have done the unthinkable. Right. You've confronted it.

23:50Cardio metabolic is one of the biggest health challenges in the U.S. and evaluating patient risk across multiple conditions requires careful attention. With so many testing options and guidelines, getting a clear picture of patient health can still be a challenge. LabCorp brings clarity. Our cardiometabolic testing solutions support early risk assessment and empower more informed decision-making so you can focus on what matters most, your patients. Visit labcorp.com to partner with LabCorp and simplify complex patient profiles. When people turn to healthcare for weight loss, they're looking for real support.

24:24That's why more people are choosing orderlymeds.com. Orderly Meds connects you with real doctors and access to proven GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and terzepatide. No guessing, just a more supportive experience. And all shipped directly to your door in discreet packaging. Do your research. Ask questions. Then, visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast for an exclusive offer. That's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Individual results may vary. Not medical advice. Eligibility required. See site for details. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Jewel Osco. It's stock up savings time now through March 31st. Spring in for storewide deals that earn four times a point.