S6, Ep 3 Best Friend Therapy: Ego - What is our ego supposed to do for us? When does ego get in our way? How can we strike a balance?

Friendship Therapy

Emma Reed Turrell

Society & Culture, Relationships, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Elizabeth shares a challenging work scenario, in which she found herself at the pointy end of someone else's ego.

We go back and look at the original meaning of ego through the eyes of Freud, with an overview of his theory of three-part personality, to build an understanding of how egotistical behaviour, narcissism and power-play intersect, and what we can do when we come up against “big egos” in our daily lives.

We wrestle with a tug of war between our instincts and morality and find our balance on a seesaw, which concludes that it’s good to talk and, if talking about feelings makes us less acceptable to some, we’re here for it.

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For more on Freud’s three-part psyche: https://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html

Emma references the work of Dr Christine Dunkley and her work on Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT): https://amzn.eu/d/9yLqPUU

Elizabeth talks about Jung’s Collective Unconsciousness and Emma expands with group imago theory which you can read more about here: https://amzn.eu/d/eLujeLP and https://www.awesomebooks.com/book/9780285647763/transactional-analysis-in-psychotherapy

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp.

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy

Transcript

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0:00.0	supercruises.com. The ultimate cruise booking experience.
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0:11.3	Hello and welcome to Best Friend Therapy. I'm Elizabeth Day, author and podcaster,
0:16.6	and for over 20 years I've been best friends with a therapist.
0:20.7	That's me. Hello, I'm Emma Reed-Tarell and I'm a psychotherapist.
0:24.6	In my private practice I talk to clients about the challenges they face in daily life,
0:28.6	and we work together in a non-judgmental supportive space to increase their sense of well-being.
0:33.2	And as her BFF, I get all the benefit of her expertise and wisdom for free. Emma makes me feel
0:39.6	better about life, but also helps me to understand why I act the way I do.
0:44.7	Ah, thanks Liz. She's also one of the only people allowed to call me Liz.
0:49.2	We wanted to open the doors to our friendship and throw a light on the therapy we all need in our
0:54.4	everyday lives. Each week we chat about what's on our minds to get deeper in our minds.
1:00.3	Two best friends, one therapist, no filter. That's Best Friend Therapy.
1:08.0	Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Best Friend Therapy, where I,
1:11.6	me, Emma Reed-Tarell, gets to talk to you about egos. Mine being one of them.
1:18.9	Elizabeth Day is right behind me. I'm just muscling on in here because it's all about me too.
1:25.7	Stop looking in the mirror. Put it down. You stop looking in a pond where you were gazing
1:32.2	admiringly at your own reflection. Hang on a second, that's a success.
1:37.6	Yes, we're talking about ego. And I was very keen to do this episode partly because I think I
1:45.6	struggle not with ego in a kind of overwhelmingly ego-miniacal sense, but in the sense that
1:52.2	sometimes I feel defensive when my pride is dented. And I think that is a lot to do with ego.
2:01.3	And there's one particular thing that I know you and I are going to talk about, which has just
	...

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