True story.

In the summer of 1997, I went into downtown Nashville early one morning and a man with a mask knocked me out, slit my throat, and took my money.

You may be thinking, “How on earth did you survive such a grisly mugging? Tell me more.” Here’s the more.

That summer, I was experiencing a persistent tingling and numbness in both hands and arms. An MRI revealed that a cervical disk had slipped out of place and was pressing against my spinal column—hence, the symptoms.

I underwent an early-morning surgical procedure in downtown Nashville during which they entered through the front of my neck and removed the top of one vertebra, the bottom of another, and the disk in between. They then took a section of bone from my hip, grafted it into the slot, and bolted it all together with a titanium plate. The procedure was successful and, gratefully, I’ve been fine ever since. But I was left with a hefty bill.

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Now, let me tell you that true story again:

In the summer of 1997, I went into downtown Nashville early one morning and a man with a mask knocked me out, slit my throat, and took my money.

Without context, this sounds like a mugging. In context, it describes a marvel.

All conspiracy theories contain within them factual ingredients, grains of truth. The facts may be accurate but are assembled in an out-of-context way that is used to support a false interpretation.

Conspiracy theories are lies gussied up with facts.

The conspiracy theorist relies on disinformation which the Oxford Dictionary defines as “a form of propaganda involving the dissemination of false information with the deliberate intent to deceive or mislead.”

Disinformation is like a plow that tills up the soil where conspiracy theories grow to feed those starving for simplistic answers or looking for ways to confirm their prior conclusions.

For example, suppose someone wanted to propagate the notion that downtown Nashville is a veritable hellscape where no one is safe to even walk down the street and cited my out-of-context surgery example to bolster their point.

They might end the story with the line, “Hey, I’m just telling you the facts,” and that would be true. But their story would be false.

A conspiracy theory explains things. It need not be true, just explanatory. If the conspiracy pusher’s explanation matches what people want to believe, many will accept it as true and disregard any evidence to the contrary.

Strongman cults rely on conspiracies. Journalist Damon Linker writes:

It all makes sense now! A key that unlocks otherwise hidden order amidst apparent disorder.¹

Here’s another true story.

On the night of August 31, 1939, Nazi operatives dressed in Polish military uniforms “attacked” a radio station in the German border town of Gleiwitz and broadcast an anti-German broadcast in Polish. Known as the “Gleiwitz incident,”² it was one of several such staged events along the German-Polish border to create the appearance of Polish cross-border incursions.

Local police and members of the press were shown the bodies of dead Polish soldiers who had died in the attack. In reality, it later came to light, the bodies were those of Dachau concentration camp prisoners who were murdered, dressed in Polish uniforms, and deposited at the scene.

The next day, September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and thus began the Second World War.

Dead men in Polish uniforms along with the anti-German radio broadcast were the facts. But those facts were used to promote a fiction—that Germany was not the aggressor but the defender. Its invasion of Poland was entirely justified under the pretext of self-protection.

That was a lie gussied up with facts.

Conspiracy-pushers view opponents, not as citizens to be persuaded, but as enemies to be defeated. Fortress walls are only necessary when surrounded by enemies so people are kept in the fortress by continually being told that someone’s out to get them. And the more demonic the enemy, the more existential the threat and, thus, the tighter the security must be.

Journalist Katherine Stewart writes:

Authoritarian movements begin with a feeling of persecution and always thrive on the demonization of seemingly all-powerful others.³

The sine qua non of the conspiracy theory is the enemy because without one of those, the gates might be unlocked, allowing sinister others inside who are bent on destruction or letting in ideas that could challenge the lie.

The conspiracy-pusher propagates a lie to gain and consolidate power. Protection is what they promise. Power is what they want.

The reality-based community functions like an immune system preventing the spread of conspiracy theories while the story-based fortress is like a petri dish accelerating their growth.

Conspiracy theories can be crazy-making but…

Remember, you’re not crazy.

Till next time.

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Notes:

1. Linker, Damon. “Trump/Kennedy “24?,” Notes From the Middleground, June 16, 2023.

2. (German: Überfall auf den Sender Gleiwitz; Polish: prowokacja gliwicka)

3. Stewart, Katherine. (2025). Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy. New York, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.

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In case you’re interested, I’ve written two books dealing with relational dramas:

How to Solve Your People Problems: Dealing With Your Difficult Relationships (2008)

Ties That Blind: Unraveling Stories That Keep Us in the Dark (2025)

The Emmy Award winning series, The World at War, was released in 1974 and its twenty-six episodes took viewers on a deep dive into the people, places and events of the Second World War.

In the first episode, which chronicled Hitler’s rise to power, German educator and politician, Werner Pusch, described his experience of attending a 1930’s rally for Adolf Hitler:

For the first few minutes, he wasn’t a good speaker; he was just warming up and finding the words. But then, he turned out to be a terribly good speaker. And the whole atmosphere grew more and more hysterical. He was interrupted after nearly every phrase by big applause and women began screaming. It was like a mass religious ceremony.

As I listen to his speech, I feel the more and more excited atmosphere in the hall. For some seconds, again and again, I had a feeling of what a pity I can’t share that belief of all those thousands of people—that I am alone and contrary to all that. It was funny, I felt that he was talking all the nonsense that I know, the nonsense he always talked.

But still, I feel that it must be wonderful to just jump into that bubbling pot and be a member of all those who are believers.¹

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On much less serious level, that yearning was fulfilled for me in college when I attended football games where it was socially acceptable to cuss at people and wish them into the infernal regions.

But what happened at those gladiatorial facsimiles was all in good fun. No one took it seriously in the life-or-death sense. The objective was to beat our opponent and cheer when we did.

In those Saturday games, I was experiencing the warmth and exhilaration of the bubbling pot—the dopamine hit of crowd inclusion. Or what French sociologist Émile Durkeim termed collective effervescence.²

The late theologian Eugene Peterson once wrote:

Classically, there are three ways in which humans try to find transcendence—through the ecstasy of alcohol and drugs, through the ecstasy of recreational sex, through the ecstasy of crowds. Church leaders frequently warn against the drugs and the sex, but, at least in America, almost never against the crowds.³

Why is crowd inclusion important to us and what are its effects? There are several things to note here.

FIRST, we’re all driven by what social scientists refer to as the coalitional instinct. That is, we tend to group ourselves with others who are perceived to share a common identity. When someone says, “These are my people,” the coalitional instinct is being reflected in that statement.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing; it can be a good thing. If a single charcoal briquette is pulled out and set off to the side, it goes out quickly. But if it’s kept in with all the others, the reciprocal warmth keeps the fire burning for a very long time.

We need our individual identities but we also need a group to which we can attach ourselves. Healthy groups serve to enhance our individual identities and are supposed to shape us into better versions of who we are.

But that’s sometimes not the case. The yearning for group affiliation can be so great that some members will overlook anything that reflects negatively on the group. Put another way: Their ties to the group can blind them to truth. They can forfeit their individual identities in exchange for the collective identity of the group.

SECOND, we’re all subject to conformity bias which is the tendency to shapeshift one’s individual opinions to match the collective opinion of the group. It can operate in the shadows of one’s psyche and have its change effects without the person realizing it.

But there’s also a conscious version of this bias called motivated ignorance where a person chooses to turn a blind eye to inconvenient or uncomfortable realities. I’m quite certain I experienced both versions growing up in the collectively deceptive world of Jim Crow Mississippi.

THIRD, research psychologist James Marcia⁴ theorized that there’s a stage of development during adolescence called foreclosure when ideas, values and opinions are shaped by an authority figure to whom the adolescent forwards that power. “Since you believe it, so do I,” is the young teen’s thought. That’s a normal, to-be-expected stance for the adolescent to take during that stage.

But it’s not normal to stay there. Instead, they should eventually move on past that stage when, as maturing adults, they learn to think for themselves. Ideas, values and opinions that are uncritically accepted early on become critically evaluated as the teen grows toward maturity.

But some teens enter young adulthood stuck in foreclosure—devoid of critical thinking abilities—and remain inordinately dependent upon someone else to do their thinking for them. They are chronologically older than their developmental ages and, like foreclosure adolescents, are always on the lookout for someone else to tell them what to do, what to believe or how to think.

Thus, they become easy prey for demagogues, cult leaders, exploitative religious leaders, or power-seeking authoritarians who will gladly assume that role. Skilled demagogues understand this and have been exploiting that mass vulnerability in a variety of settings for a very long time.

It’s a well-worn technique from the authoritarian’s playbook that’s been referred to as power epistemology which is the manipulation of knowledge by those in charge to gain and maintain their control.

We’re lured into deception, not so much because we’re convinced a false idea is true. Rather, we’re lured into a place of camaraderie. We’re reeled in by biting the bait of relationships, not of intellect. And that can be crazy-making.

Remember, you’re not crazy.

Till next time.

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Notes:

1. Elstein, David (Director). (1973). The World at War. Thames Television.

2. Durkheim, Émile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, (1912, English translation by Joseph Swain: 1915) The Free Press, 1965: ISBN 0-02-908010-X; HarperCollins, 1976: ISBN 0-04-200030-0; new translation by Karen E. Fields, Free Press 1995: ISBN 0-02-907937-3

3. Eugene Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir (New York, HarperCollins, 2011)

4. Marcia, James; Waterman, Alan; Mattison, David; Archer, Sally; Orlofsky, Jacob (2011). Ego Identity: A Handbook for Psychosocial Research. New York, New York: Springer Publishing Company.

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In case you’re interested, I’ve written two books dealing with relational dramas:

How to Solve Your People Problems: Dealing With Your Difficult Relationships (2008)

Ties That Blind: Unraveling Stories That Keep Us in the Dark (2025)

When I was a little boy and got caught doing something wrong, my parents would ask, “Alan, did you do that?”

Having been busted, I’d sometimes reply, “No, it wasn’t me. I’m not sure how that happened.”

“Alan, are you telling us a story?” they would ask with a parental tone of non-belief.

By story, they weren’t asking me to provide an account of what happened. They were asking me if I was covering my lie with a story that sounded like truth.

I was.

Stories For Good

Stories can be wonderful. Many of us were lulled to sleep as children by bedtime stories. We take novels on vacation so we can sit on beaches and get lost in a good story. We read or watch biographies that unfold the stories of historical figures. We binge-watch series in which we’re swept up in the gripping drama. Pundits consider the most effective politicians to be those who can tell stories that sway audiences.

Authors like Mark Twain or William Faulkner told stories that capture the mind while conveying important truths about life, precisely because those stories capture the mind.

Like capsules containing small amounts of active ingredient, truth is often propagated best when it comes wrapped in a compelling narrative.

Stories For Evil

But sometimes, stories are used to convey falsehoods that sound like truth.

The capsule is comprised of out-of-context facts that surround a false active ingredient so that when the capsule is swallowed, the lie is more easily ingested.

Hitler’s rise to power was energized by his propagation of the stabbed-in-the-back narrative which held that the Germans didn’t lose World War I on the battlefield, but were instead betrayed by sinister Jewish and Communist insiders.

Such conspiratorial formulations are sometimes referred to as deep stories, which sociology professor, Andrew Whitehead, describes as being powerful because,

they give people ready-made narratives rooted in culture that provide organization and structure to the world around them. They are effectively the lenses through which we see and interpret our social worlds.^x

In my book, Ties that Blind, I talk about growing up in Jim Crow Mississippi which was held to a deep story called the Narrative of the Lost Cause. Begun in the 1860’s, it was the philosophical underpinning for the justification of racial oppression still occurring in the 1960’s and beyond.

I describe the Lost Cause Narrative this way:

While he was certainly not alone in the ideas he formulated, this movement was given a name by Virginia journalist Edward Alfred Pollard who proposed that the cause for which Southerners fought and died was indeed righteous, but they had been defeated simply due to the superior military and industrial strength of the North. It’s not that their cause was bad, Pollard argued, but rather that their resources were insufficient.

In Pollard’s retelling, Southerners were good people devoted to a good cause who were conquered by bad people. It was a mythical, romanticized view of Southern heroism and gallantry. So, for Confederates still licking their wounds after Appomattox, the Lost Cause became an analgesic salve.

The Narrative of The Lost Cause was a set of lenses through which everything was refracted, leaving us with distorted views of all things racial.

Understanding this doesn’t let us off the hook—we were still responsible for our actions. But it does explain how otherwise good people can be so blind.

We had been unwittingly swept up in a pattern collective deception where we normalized the abnormal, defended the indefensible, and justified that which can’t be justified.

The Lost Cause narrative began in the 1860’s but it was we—I—in the 1960’s who continued its propagation.

I also describe what I call the story-based fortress.

The story-based fortress is the collective equivalent of the drama-dependent relationship where “getting along” is contingent upon staying inside the drama role assigned by the dramatist.

Just as individuals lacking reason abilities opt for drama as a means of relating, groups sometimes engage in a collective drama in which everyone gets along by participating in the pretense.

It’s based upon a story that sounds real, could be real and is widely accepted by others as being real. But it’s a counterfeit reality that passes itself off as real currency while not being worth the paper on which it’s printed.

I’m calling it a fortress because its inhabitants see themselves as embattled souls who must protect themselves from hostile outsiders (or devious insiders) who seek their destruction.

Similar terms capturing this idea are ideological bubbles, echo chambers or informational silos.

It should also be noted that the story-based fortress is a two-act drama. Act One is where people are manipulated into believing a false narrative. Act Two is where the deceived, after having been passed the baton of deception, willingly or unwittingly run with it.

Stories for good are capsules in which the active ingredient of truth is surrounded by a compelling narrative. Stories for evil are capsules in which a lie is surrounded by a story that sounds true while being false.

We must be careful which we ingest.

Remember, you’re not crazy.

Till next time.

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Notes:

* Whitehead, Andrew (2023). American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church. Ada, Michigan: Brazos Press.

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In case you’re interested, I’ve written two books dealing with relational dramas:

How to Solve Your People Problems: Dealing With Your Difficult Relationships (2008)

Ties That Blind: Unraveling Stories That Keep Us in the Dark (2025)

I mentioned in the first edition of my recently-resurrected The Drama Review that I’ll be talking about dramas that occur on both individual and collective levels.

Those who’ve been hoodwinked in close, personal relationships often ask, “How could I have been so blind?”

But those watching a friend or relative who’s been swept up in a collective hoodwinking often ask, “How could Uncle Fred have been so blind?”

Collective deception is not an uncommon phenomenon and examples abound. The list includes:

· sociological hierarchies such as castes

· authoritarian political systems such as dictatorships

· demagogic systems such as the Lost Cause Narrative

· religious cults

· non-religious end-of-the-world sects

· some populist political movements

· mobs (as in crime families)

· ethno-nationalist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan

· pyramid schemes

· health-related scams that purport to tell you what traditional medicine or the pharmaceutical industry won’t

· financial grifts where people are conned out of their life savings by smooth-talking con artists, or

· virtually any conspiracy theory.

The question I’ll start answering in this letter is: “How can we explain the blindness of Uncle Fred?”

It’s an important question that warrants a longer answer than the one I’ll give today so stand by—you’ll be hearing more about this in subsequent letters.

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Uncle Fred has two basic needs, as do all of us. Those needs are attachment and identity. Identity is our need for self-definition and attachment is our need for relationships. We want to know who we are and who our people are.

These two needs are operative in all of us whether we realize it or not and often influence our choices and behaviors—for good or bad. And they can be exploited.

Put succinctly, our needs for attachment can be exploited to pull us into deception and our identity needs can be exploited to bind us in.

Rather than whacking through the psychological weeds to explain this from an academic perspective, all I’ll do today is illustrate it. The illustration, which I included in my latest book, comes from a movie that’s old but is also likely familiar to you. That movie is The Sound of Music and it was released in 1965.

The cinematic musical told the story of an Austrian family, the Von Trapps. The mother had previously died so the central figures were the father, his seven musically-talented children, and a governess hired from the local abbey in the town of Salzburg.

The characters actually existed in real life, though generous amounts of dramatic license were taken in the screening of their tale.

Central to the story was the annexation of Austria by neighboring Nazi Germany, an event referred to as the Anschluss. Austrian-born Adolf Hitler deemed himself justified in unifying the German people who lived in both countries. Many Austrians viewed the annexation, not as an invasion, but as a family reunion and became loyal members of the Third Reich.

But not Georg Von Trapp. Having previously served as a submarine commander in the Austro-Hungarian navy during World War I, he was offered a commission—though it was an offer he couldn’t refuse—to resume his military service, only this time as part of the German naval forces. Being opposed to Nazi ideology, he decided instead to gather up his family and leave Austria.

In the movie, the oldest Von Trapp daughter had fallen in love Rolf, a local boy who was evidently more smitten with the Nazis than he was with her. Rolf had become part of the Brownshirts, a paramilitary wing of the Nazi party that was thus called because of the color of their uniforms.

Needless to say, there were tensions between Rolf’s commitment to the Nazi cause and the Von Trapps’ rejection of all things Nazi.

All that I’ve explained above leads us to the following scene.

As the Von Trapps were absconding from Salzburg under the cover of darkness, they were being pursued by a team of Nazis who were hot on their trail. Just then, out of the shadows stepped Rolf who held them at gunpoint and pulled out his whistle to call for backup.

Captain Von Trapp, who had a fatherly sort of relationship with Rolf, gently tried to persuade him to drop his gun and to come with them instead. Rolf did relinquish his weapon and the Captain’s attempts at persuasion seemed to be working. Until, that is, he uttered these ill-fated words: “Rolf, you’ll never be one of them.”

At that, Rolf stiffened with resolve, blew his whistle, and the Von Trapp family fled into the night, escaping Austria and eventually settling in the United States.

Here’s the point I’m making by relaying this story.

The Rolf the Von Trapps had previously known was a good kid. That’s what they saw on the outside. But they had failed to see what was happening internally with Rolf who was clearly going through some things.

There was a contest of sorts being held for Rolf’s affections, one contestant being the Von Trapp daughter and the other being his local Nazi circle. At some point—or more likely at some series of points—Rolf threw in his lot with Nazis and became “one of them,” not realizing that the price of admission was to become, not only of them, but like them.

It’s axiomatic that we become like whom we worship. That’s what happened with Rolf.

Captain Von Trapp gave him an offramp (“come with us”) that he refused to take because doing so would have ripped him away from his newfound attachments and stripped him of his newfound identity—things to which he now clung tenaciously.

His need for attachment had drawn him into this evil throng and his need for identity was keeping him in. And staying in had turned him into someone the Von Trapps didn’t know.

Political commentator, Ezra Klein wrote:

An identity, once adopted is harder to change than an opinion. An identity that binds you into a community you care about is costly and painful to abandon. And the mind will go to great lengths to avoid abandoning it.*

That’s why healthy groups can morph into religious or political cults that believe bizarre things. As author Wright Thompson noted,

A cult is built on believing the absurd if the absurd justifies the cult.”^**

More on collective hoodwinking in later letters.

Remember, you’re not crazy.

Till next time.

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Notes:

*Klein, Ezra (2020). Why We’re Polarized. New York, New York: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster.

**Thompson, Wright (2024). The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi. New York, New York: Penguin Press.

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In case you’re interested, I’ve written two books dealing with relational dramas:

How to Solve Your People Problems: Dealing With Your Difficult Relationships (2008)

Ties That Blind: Unraveling Stories That Keep Us in the Dark (2025)

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In my latest book entitled “Ties That Blind: Unraveling Stories That Keep Us in the Dark,” I tell two stories: one in which an individual was blinded in an up-close, personal relationship and another of an individual who was blinded by a collectively deceptive system. Below is how I explained what happened in the first story.

Problems Are Inevitable in All Close Relationships

We’re attracted by each other’s positives but we encounter each other’s negatives when we get in close, and it’s the clash of those negatives that causes relational problems. At that point, we need problem-solving capabilities for that relationship to function normally. Healthy relationships are not ones that suffer no problems but rather ones that can solve the inevitable problems that come with closeness. In fact, solving relational problems builds connective relational tissue and we get closer. But failing to solve those problems shreds that tissue and we grow apart. There’s a direct correlation between relational closeness and the ability to solve relational problems.

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Reasonable (Reason-Able) People Can Solve Relational Problems

Five prerequisite abilities are needed to engage in relational problem-solving. These five abilities enable us to do the right things with our wrongs. No one is born with these abilities but, like muscles that were once atrophied, they can become stronger with use. In fact, I’ve called them reason muscles because, when strengthened, they enable us to be reasonable or reason-able. When used, imperfect people can resolve differences with imperfect others and get along in healthy ways. All of these abilities are counterintuitive to our natural inclinations. Here are statements that reflect those abilities:

· “I could be wrong, you could be right, let’s talk.”

(This enables a person to knowledge potential wrongness.)

· “I see where I’m wrong.”

(This enables a person to acknowledge actual wrongness. They can step outside of themselves and make accurate big-picture self-observations. It’s sometimes referred to as one’s observing ego which enables them to self-observe, self-monitor and self-correct.)

· “It bothers me when I’m wrong.”

(This enables a person to cringe when noticing a personal flaw. They are bothered if their actions are incongruent with their aspirations. If their walk doesn’t match their talk.)

· “It bothers me when I hurt you.”

(This enables a person to be empathic. To understand the impact of their flaws on someone else and then allow that knowledge to govern how they treat the other.)

· “When I’m wrong, I’ll change.”

(This enables a person to not only see their flaws, feel bad about them, and feel bad about the negative impact on the other, but to then be incentivized by that understanding to change for the better.)

If two individuals who have these abilities encounter problems when they get in close (which they will), it behooves them to engage in problem-solving for that relationship to function healthily. They may not know how to problem-solve but they’ve got the capacity to learn.

Unreasonable (Un-Reason-Able) People Can’t Problem-Solve So They Dramatize

But the failure to participate in problem-solving for some people is attributable, not to an information deficit, but to an ability-deficit. They simply don’t have the internal, psychological capabilities to participate in relational problem-solving. They may be brilliant problem-solvers in some technical aspects of life but lack what’s needed to solve problems that occur in close, personal relationships. The normally-functioning person does the right things with their wrongs but these people do the wrong things. By way of contrast with the list above, here are some statements that reflect the lacking abilities in those areas:

· “I’m right, you’re wrong, end of discussion.”

(This person lacks the ability to acknowledge potential wrongness.)

· “I only see where I’m right.

(This person has deficient observing ego capabilities and lacks self-observational abilities. If something goes wrong in a relationship, they assume it can’t be them, it must be the other.)

· “If I’m wrong, so what?

(This person doesn’t cringe when noticing a personal flaw, they shrug. It’s of little consequence to them when their walk doesn’t match their talk.)

· “I’m only bothered when you hurt me.”

(This person is empathy-deficient. Concern for self overrides any concern for the other.)

· I’ll not change because I’m not wrong.

(This person fails to notice their personal flaws observable by others and, therefore, has no incentive to change for the better. We don’t change what we don’t see.)

Drama: The Unreasonable Person’s Relational Alternative

Unreasonable people have the same need for relationships as anyone else. Unable to relate the healthy way, they opt for an alternate way of relating called drama. The way a drama operates is like this:

My job in our relationship is this; your job in our relationship is that. As long as we stay inside our drama roles, we’ll have a good relationship. Any questions?

Their ability to relate depends upon the other performing their obligatory drama role. They can’t deal with the reality of their own imperfections so they construct an alternate reality—a pretense—in which others are obligated to participate.

Many names have been used to describe such individuals. Most of these are terms of derision that have become part of our vernacular such as jerks, creeps, bullies, difficult people, or personality disorders, to name just a few of the nicer ones.

Psychologist Greg Lester, in his excellent seminars on personality disorders, describes them this way:

A personality disordered person is one who has a pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving that is so limited, rigid, and inflexible and that lacks productive self-awareness to the point that it makes their behavior inappropriate and problematic to themselves and others, validates their fragile sense of self, creates an inability to self-correct, and creates dramas rather than solving problems.*

That’s what these people do. Their deficiencies prevent them from engaging in healthy relationships so they stage plays, or dramas, that enable them to appear to function well while keeping their malfunctions undetected. They mimic normality while operating abnormally.

And their numbers are not inconsequential. Studies show that between 15 and 19 percent of the general population, regardless of continents or cultures, meets the diagnostic criteria for a personality disorder.^** That’s one out of every six. I’ve often had clients ask me, “Am I just a jerk-magnet?” as if the few that are out there are mysteriously drawn to them like mosquitoes to a bug light. I’ll usually respond, “No, they’re just all over the place.”

The obligations of a drama vary depending on the needs of the disorder. For some, the obligated role is to acquiesce to the person’s control. For others, it’s to caretake the person demanding the caretaking. For others, it’s to reflect back to the person the praise they so desperately crave. There are many other examples. Regardless of the specific requirements, the common-denominator feature is this: I need you to be for me whom I need you to be.

Dramas also contain within them an implied negative consequence for non-compliance. If you don’t perform your obligatory role in my drama, you’ll come to regret it, is the inferred but very real message. In some cases, the consequence is disruptive. In others, it’s dangerous.

We’ll continue to talk about dramas and their crazy-making impact in upcoming newsletters.

Remember, you’re not crazy.

Till next time.

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—

Notes:

*Lester, Gregory W.; Godwin, Alan E. (2020). Demystifying Personality Disorders: Clinical Skills for Working with Drama and Manipulation, p. 10. Eau Claire, Wisconsin: PESI Education.

**Lester, Gregory W. and Godwin, Alan E. (2020).

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In case you’re interested, I’ve written two books dealing with relational dramas:

How to Solve Your People Problems: Dealing With Your Difficult Relationships (2008)

Ties That Blind: Unraveling Stories That Keep Us in the Dark (2025)

I’ve talked with countless people over the years about the mind-bending experience of being in relationship with crazy-makers. I’ve certainly experienced my fair share. We call them crazy-makers because they make us feel, well, crazy. But there are many other names we use such as jerk, creep, manipulator, difficult person, or a whole host of not-so-nice terms of derision. The mental health nomenclature that sometimes fits is personality disorder.

Relating closely with these people is mentally discombobulating because to do so, we’re obligated to participate in an alteration of reality. I’ll illustrate this process through something called suspension of disbelief.

Suspension of Disbelief

A few years ago, I was conducting a seminar on manipulation in Manhattan. That particular trip coincided with our wedding anniversary, so my wife flew up to meet me and we spent a couple of days doing the NYC tourist thing. As a very kind gesture, our kids bought us tickets to Beautiful, a Broadway show telling the story of Carole King and her music. We’ve always been big fans of hers, so it was not only beautiful, it was wonderful.

It’s amazing how many well-known songs she’s written, many of which were made famous by other singers like James Taylor, the Righteous Brothers, the Drifters, the Monkees, Herman’s Hermits, and Aretha Franklin. During the play, some of those songs were sung by actors portraying Carole King and other performers. It was all fabulously entertaining.

Now, imagine this. After the show, the missus and I are walking back to our hotel and I say the following:

That was nice but I could tell that actress wasn’t actually Carole King. And the Righteous Brothers? Obviously not them. And, not only that, you could see stage workers rolling in different backdrops to make us think they had changed locations. I mean, I enjoyed the music and all but, I’m sorry, the whole thing was just so fake.

That’s not what I said. In fact, we couldn’t stop talking about how much we enjoyed it, how professional it was and how privileged we were to be there.

But you know why we were able to enjoy the show so much? It was because of something called suspension of disbelief—a term originally coined by English poet and literary critic, Samuel Taylor Coleridge—to describe what happens in dramas and literature.

Suspension of disbelief is what enables us to ignore the fact that actors are playing real people, to disregard the stage workers, to get into the story, and to enjoy the music. It’s why we’re entertained by an illusionist sawing a woman in half while realizing full well that’s not actually happening.

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When we suspend disbelief, we lay aside what we know to be true in order to experience the emotions we’d have if it actually was true. The volume of the rational brain is turned down while the emotional brain’s volume is cranked way up. In performances, we know what we’re watching is all pretend (the rational brain), but we willingly participate in the pretense for the pleasure of the moment (the emotional brain).

Suspending disbelief happens with movies and stage productions, but it also occurs in the dramas staged by manipulators. The unspoken—but very real—obligation is to disregard that which is true and participate in the manipulator’s pretend version of reality. Relational “success” with that person is contingent upon our willingness to suspend disbelief.

For example, I had a client once who worked for a jerk. Her boss was widely known as a magnificent person. His public persona was that of a man who was kind, intelligent, funny, and generous. But his private self was quite different. For those who worked with him in close quarters, he was temperamental, rageful, vindictive, and unrealistically demanding.

For my client, every day—every minute—at work felt like walking through an emotional minefield where the smallest of missteps could blow off a foot. Over time, being on constant guard had taken its toll on her, both emotionally and physically. She came to see me because she was worried about herself. And so was her husband.

But there was something else going on. She was constantly required in this drama to overlook her boss’s nasty traits and pretend they didn’t exist. She had to participate in a false portrayal—that her boss was indeed kind, intelligent, funny, and generous. She was required to overlook what she knew to be true and participate in a grotesque pretense, because not doing so would likely get her fired. And having to support that bending of reality was taking its toll.

Suspension of disbelief while watching movies or attending plays is pleasurable. But suspension of disbelief in real world dramas is miserable.

· It can cause us to lose the conscious distinction between what’s real and what’s not.

· It can cause us to compromise our principles for the sake of staying in the good graces of an unprincipled “lead actor.”

· It can cause our individual selves to dissolve into the collective blender of those enabling the pretense.

· And the physical toll that takes on us can actually make us sick.

In real life dramas, ongoing suspension of disbelief makes us feel crazy. But relationships based on truth involve no pretense. And such healthy connections can serve as sanity reference points. More on those sanity-grounding relationships in upcoming Drama Reviews.

Remember, you’re not crazy.

Till next time.

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Notes:

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. (1817) Edited by Nigel Leask. (London: J. M. Dent, 1997. ISBN 0-460-87332-6).

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In case you’re interested, I’ve written two books dealing with relational dramas:

How to Solve Your People Problems: Dealing With Your Difficult Relationships (2008)

Ties That Blind: Unraveling Stories That Keep Us in the Dark (2025)

Share The Drama Review by Dr. Alan Godwin

If you’ve read the Harry Potter books or seen the movies, the following will sound familiar to you.

At various points, Harry, Hermione and Ron uncover information that sheds light on what had previously been in the dark. What had long been hidden was now revealed. Clarity now replaced confusion. Previously-held suspicions could now be confirmed.

At the moment of revelation, Harry would slip into an angry state of self-deprecation during which he’d ask, “Of course, why didn’t I see it before?”

Harry would then flog himself unmercifully for failing to see what had been there all along. How had he missed it, he wondered?

For over 35 years as a psychologist in private practice, clients have come into my office with complaints of having been lied to, manipulated, or exploited by some individual who appeared one way but turned out to be someone quite different. That manipulator may have been an unscrupulous business colleague, a back-stabbing friend, a duplicitous coworker, an unreasonable family member, a cheating spouse, or an assumed-to-be-trustworthy religious leader who turned out to be a wolf in shepherd’s clothing.

When pieces of the puzzle fall into place and the picture on the puzzle box comes into view, they often ask their own version of the Harry Potter question…and with the same level of self-deprecation.

· How could I have been so blind?

· Why didn’t I see it?

· Why was I so stupid?

When clients ask such questions, I try to counter the self-flogging by offering some perspective. Relational dramas (in which we’ve all been caught) look and sound like real life and are easy to miss. Pickpockets can pick our pockets before we realize our pockets have gotten picked. Simply beating ourselves up for being hoodwinked is foolish. But learning from the experience produces wisdom.

3 QUESTIONS THE DRAMA REVIEW WILL ATTEMPT TO ADDRESS:

1-How do we get trapped in dramas?

2-How do dramas hurt us?

3-How can we escape the drama trap?

I’ll be using this space to explain how we can get lured into believing that fictions are facts, whether this happens on individual or collective levels. I hope that my writing turns on some lights so readers can see more clearly what is often missed. Those swept up in individual dramas often later ask, “How could I have been so blind?” Those watching a friend or relative getting swept up in a collective drama might ask, “How could Uncle Fred be so blind?” I hope my writing provides some thoughtful answers to these very common questions.

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Dramas make us feel crazy which is why we often call those who stage them “crazy makers.” But there’s a difference between feeling crazy and being crazy.

I’m hoping your main takeaway from each Drama Review will be this:

Remember, you’re not crazy.

Till next time.

In case you’re interested, I’ve written two books dealing with relational dramas:

How to Solve Your People Problems: Dealing With Your Difficult Relationships (2008) https://a.co/d/05vee9Ib

Ties That Blind: Unraveling Stories That Keep Us in the Dark (2025) https://a.co/d/03gcN4QB