Ep. 41 Southern Fried Armchair Psychology

This week on the Carolina Snowflakes Podcast we’re flexing our untrained and highly unqualified skills in a little bit of armchair psychology. What is more fun than trying to guess what’s wrong with the people around you? Nothing, that’s what.

We begin with a little bit of Snowflake history in telling how each of us came to find the field of psychology to be a point of interest and how we’ve broadened our understandings over many years. No worries, we have a copy of the DSM-5, so we’re practically professionals.

Listen in as we talk about a cool study from 2018 in which researchers examined something called “collective narcissism” and how it shapes Americans’ perspectives on the importance of their own states in defining U.S. history. Indeed this study ended up being SO interesting that the researchers took it even further in a global program. How do residents of different countries rank the importance of their home country in terms of influence over world history? The results of this narcissism study surprised us and we guarantee they’ll surprise you too.

Then we share our theories on how the phenomenon of transference and counter-transference can be used beyond the walls of a therapy setting to explain things like why Donald Trump was our President for 4 years. Though we’d like to think it was simply bad luck, there’s more to it. If anything we’ve learned that gut reactions may not always be “right”, but they tell us a whole lot about the person(s) feeling them. We’ve also learned through systems theory (and watching a lot of Dr. Phil) that “bad apples” rarely occur within a vacuum, but instead are the product of rotten surroundings left festering for far too long.

And finally, we close this week’s episode with a fun game we like to call DSM Roulette. We guarantee you’ll love this game so much you’ll want to play it with your friends and family. Note: we’re pretty sure no conservatives were actually harmed in the making of this game. Pretty sure.   

So pull up a seat and join us this week for a highly entertaining episode called Southern Fried Armchair Psychology!

 

Reference:

Wan, William. (2018, July 3). “America is a nation of narcissists, according to two new studies”. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/07/03/america-is-a-nation-of-narcissists-according-to-two-new-studies/