EP 409 - What happens when you strip away phones, comfort and pretence?

Therapist Jerry Hyde - often called “the most dangerous therapist in the world” - and filmmaker Mai Hua explore the raw truths of mental health, vulnerability and masculinity.

Released for World Mental Health Day, the conversation dives into why modern life keeps us disconnected, how radical retreats (no phones, no showers, no distractions) transform people, and why real healing means breaking the rules.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

Why Jerry Hyde is called “the most dangerous therapist”

How radical retreats challenge comfort, technology and ego

The link between phones, distraction and mental health decline

Why vulnerability is strength in therapy and relationships

How group therapy transforms masculinity and human connection

If you’re interested in mental health awareness, therapy, and breaking free from modern distractions, this episode offers unfiltered insights and challenges conventional thinking.

*For Apple Podcast chapters, access them from the menu in the bottom right corner of your player*

Spotify Video Chapters:

00:00 BWB with Jerry Hyde and Mai Hua

00:40 Introducing Jerry and Mai

01:52 Exploring Masculinity and Vulnerability

04:03 The Power of Retreats

05:44 The Impact of Technology on Mental Health

06:27 The Importance of Human Connection

08:50 Challenges of Modern Parenting

18:53 Understanding ADHD and Trauma

32:24 Gender Dynamics and Therapy

45:25 Therapy as a Lifestyle Choice

45:52 Challenges of Couples Therapy

47:02 The Art of Self-Inquiry

47:41 Collaborative Conflicts

48:09 Gender Differences in Therapy

57:44 Cultural Perspectives on Therapy

01:03:02 Making a Man: The Documentary

01:05:42 The Importance of Vulnerability

01:23:12 Therapy and Group Dynamics

01:25:17 Wrap Up

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If you'd like to be on the show, get in contact - mail@businesswithoutbullshit.me

This week on Business Without Bullshit, we're releasing a very special episode for World Mental Health Day.

We're joined by Jerry Hyde, the so called most dangerous therapist in the world, and filmmaker Mai Hua to explore masculinity, vulnerability, and what it really takes to create an honest human connection in an age of disconnection.

From retreats with no phones or even showers, to confronting trauma, to rethinking what it means to support one another, this conversation go deep into the heart of mental health for men, women, and everyone in between.

Check it out.

Hello and welcome to Business Without.

I am Andy Orey, and today we are joined by Jerry Hyde and Mai Hua.

Yes, yes, I got it right.

I didn't.

I couldn't practice the surname.

Jerry, famously dubbed the most dangerous therapist in the world, though he prefers mentor or companion, makes a return to the podcast from episode 81, God knows what.

We're on now.

Our very first episode recorded in this studio, in fact.

Is that right?

Unbelievable.

Jerry brings nearly 30 years of experience as a humanistic and integrated psychotherapist, blending tantric, shamanic and alternative philosophies into his practice.

He leads the UK's largest men's group practice, works with people of all orientations and mentors, group leaders.

Mai is a French Vietnamese artist and filmmaker based between Paris and London.

With 20 years as a color designer and a decade of filmmaking, she's directing three documentaries and produced hundreds of portraits.

Mai is now focused on her latest project, capturing the power and grace of one of Geri's retreats.

Jerry and Mai, a very warm welcome to the podcast.

Hello.

Thank you to have us.

I think the conversation that we're really interested in today, I mean, is you're obviously working on a new project and that would be lovely to discuss, but there's a theme to these projects, I think, including even the most recent one.

Is that about male masculinity or is the most recent project also about men's journey in the.

In the world?

The latest one?

Yeah.

So.

So, because we.

We've worked on the first movie together that's called Make Me a Man and it talks about masculinity and vulnerability because Jerry has been working with this man in the.

In his talking circles, in therapy, 25 years now.

So as a woman and as a feminist, I just wanted to make a film.

When I met him, I didn't even know it existed.

And I just wanted to be a little mouse, to be in a room with these guys and see what's happening there.

And so it wasn't possible because obviously I couldn't be in this men circle, but we could make a movie.

And that was the first project we did together.

And we've done a second project that is called May Day and that will be out later in the year.

And I could film a retreat in a mixed group this time.

So.

And when I say mix is mixed in terms of gender.

So we have women and men and queer people, but also in terms of class, in terms of spiritual practices, in terms of, yeah, belief systems.

And so, yeah, it's called May Day, and we're very proud of this project.

We.

We cannot wait for it to be out.

And so you recorded Mayday was what, over a week or a weekend?

Two weeks.

Two weeks, yeah.

12.

Where was it?

Secret in the UK possibly.

Maybe not somewhere.

And this.

I'll tell you where it is.

It's in Narnia.

Okay.

That's.

It's in a kind of.

I hope.

I hope when people watch it, they go, this isn't like anywhere I've ever been.

And that's.

That's intentional.

Not because we're being kind of avoidant or secretive, but I wanted to.

We wanted to go beyond anything you'd really seen before and take people into somewhere that's not geographically rooted with any particular association, more into a more internal experience.

So that was actually, you know, when you say where I'm not.

I'm not playing games, actually.

Doesn't matter where.

And what did those people come to do?

They all had personal issues that they wanted to resolve.

Did they come with an intention or.

Yeah, they came with intentions and with very different intentions.

We worked with them for six months before they came.

Okay, so some of them are here to find the very.

I don't know, their heart have been broken into pieces because they come from this highly toxic relationship or they need to find out traumatic memories that have been erased because of the trauma, and they want to have it back now because they feel ready for it.

Some people are just curious about what is a retreat.

I want to know what.

What's going on in this.

Some people want to find part of the truth that has been left somewhere.

They don't know, so they want to reconnect.

Some people were part of the production company.

Some people were part of the production company and said, I want to be.

I want to.

My place.

The producer was like, I want to come.

Okay, why not?

Does everybody carry these, the things that they need to resolve?

Because, I mean, if.

Let's just rewind time.

You know, you go back a few hundred Years.

I think it's the wrong angle that I'm always talking to people about, and I think it's in the film, actually.

I'm not trying to heal people.

I'm not interested in healing people.

I'm interested in.

You set people around a fire, they remember it.

It's the most ancient human way of being together.

And we were talking before we started about things that aren't working in our SoC.

I think it's because we've lost touch with each other.

So I'm.

It's not important to me.

Of course, everyone's got issues.

Everybody has pain, everyone experiences suffering, everyone is wounded.

Everyone, including our children, has shit parents.

Sometimes it doesn't matter.

I mean, of course it matters, but that's not the point.

For me, the point is to create an experience of togetherness, because I think whatever you got going on, it's easier.

It's easier with support.

Right.

And that all the old cliches stand up, it takes a village to raise a child, blah, blah, blah.

You know, I'm.

I'm kind of obsessed with this Dunbar number that we.

150.

150.

You know, and I think we've all grown.

You know, society's grown way, way beyond that.

But I think when you put people in a small group, I mean, I think it was day three out of day 14.

I remember saying to the whole group, we could all go home now.

I mean, we'd done three days of just completely on it, in it, really, really deep work.

And these were people, most of whom we'd never met before, who would never meet after, which was partly curated, but I mean, partly.

That's any group.

But I think what you have that's wonderful with any retreat is that I always love.

And it makes me feel confident when I do them, is there's a commonality, because you're not in Benidorm, you know, you've chosen to spend your money or take your time to go to a retreat somewhere normally quite uncomfortable.

If you're working with us, you know, we take away phones and electricity and hot showers and all the kind of people.

Things that people would expect in a spa.

And we go quite hard because it bonds people.

And the very fact that they've chosen that over, you know, I mean, every time I do something like this, I always go, why the fuck am I not on a beach?

What is wrong with me?

Why the fuck.

I do worry about you, Jerry.

Yeah, I'm gonna go have cold show.

Yeah.

You know, and, you know, if we're talking about wounds.

I think our.

Our wounds can become our skill set.

And I think for a long time I've recognized that for all my, you know, strengths and weaknesses, a therapist, I've got plenty of weaknesses as much as strengths, but my real strength is I know how to build families.

And that become.

That comes as a result of being in a family.

You know, where I was trying to hold everything together as a kid or I perceived that was my job.

I mean, I couldn't.

But, you know, same would be true for you in your own way.

But it's.

Yeah.

Healing is not.

It's not the main thing.

Ultimately, if I try and rewind the clock and say, you know, 100, 200 years ago, you know, there's a sort of.

People were hungry, life was hard.

The idea of sort of dealing with your mental health and obviously we're in a very different place now.

And it's interesting when you mention about.

You make it hard, like cold showers, you almost revert it to a sort of 100 years ago thing, which is interesting.

We don't have cold showers.

We don't have any showers.

No showers at all.

There's no showers?

No, there's no showers.

It's just a river.

And that's important.

That's important, is it?

Yeah.

It's important to what?

Return to a very basic existence.

Yeah.

Because that.

That all of this technology, all of this overlaying and newspaper, whatever.

Even fragrance.

Even, you know.

Even fragrance.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No deodorant, no showers.

And that's.

That's very interesting.

It's.

And you're trying to get.

Get the brain reconnected.

I mean, it's like I was reading a thing years ago which is just about feet, that the fact that we wear shoes mean our feet aren't getting communication from the earth like they used to.

And it has an effect.

I know this guy producing a product that it has things that stick into your feet.

And it was like, wow, what a basic thought that we always had this communication from our feet, and we don't now because it's very comfortable.

Rick Rubin never wear shoes, is he not?

But there's been an obsessed with being comfortable and the sacrifice of the mind becoming uncomfortable.

Of course.

Of course.

Almost is that.

I mean, it's too simplified.

But there's an element of.

That's what's going on, isn't it?

Of course.

And when it becomes easy and we're warm and we're on sofas now, the curious thing within that, certainly within a business context is, you know, Most entrepreneurs and business people I deal with deal with very intense environments.

They perhaps seek out, but they're also got sort of a comfortable environment.

I mean, I think, you know, we talked about this conversation.

Obviously, apart from holding you both in extreme, extremely high regard, I think there's a very interesting conversation for anyone about how, what should I do about mental health?

You know, at what point do I recognize I've got issues?

How do I deal with those issues?

You know, is it, you know, talking therapy?

So at the moment we're talking about the sort of extreme version, isn't it?

It's like the boot camp.

It's.

Is that how in a little way, you know, someone going on retreat, is that a little bit how someone wants to think about it?

They're sort of pulling in the plug, they're hitting the zip cord or whatever, are they?

And just sort of going, but I'm just disappearing.

And you have to do it for a reasonable period of time.

Do you know what I mean?

I mean, I think one of the most powerful things is to, you know, we've joked about this a lot.

You know, you list all the things that we're gonna do which are quite full on, and the, you know, from fasting for days at a time, sleeping communally, sleeping out in the woods without any food or shelter.

The things that people really go, hold on a minute, what are you talking about?

Is when you say you're not gonna have your phone for two weeks or 10 days, oh, no, you've pushed me too far now.

Can't have my phone, you know, so I'm even beginning to think maybe further down the road I'm going to start doing kind of tech detox retreats.

Just take people away from their screens, I think.

Yeah.

Because now the most extreme thing you can ask to a human being is to live without their phones.

Isn't that mad?

It's mad.

So we live in a very mad era of humanity.

Maybe they have been.

Maybe humans always say that, whatever the era.

No, I don't think this is the maddest ever.

We're cyborgs, some would argue now, aren't we?

We're no longer just humans.

Exactly.

I mean, you know, we were laughing before about my experiences from a sales point of view, but, you know, we don't hold knowledge like we used to.

I don't know my way around London like I used to.

I don't know people's mobile phone numbers.

I know my dad's and my mom's home number.

What, what happens with that?

You know, how much information am I no longer holding?

You know, the brain will hang on to what it thinks is important.

I read Wikipedia every night, but you ask me a week later, I'm like, I don't know.

I don't know.

My brain's like, I don't need to withhold this.

I mean, it's the brain.

I mean, that's a bit of a detail.

But you wonder to yourself, the brain saying, well, I know I can access that, you know, so it's okay.

But, you know, you're.

You're.

I think your statement's actually very powerful.

The most difficult thing for us to now is take our phone away from us.

You know, if you took my phone away from me now and.

And put it upstairs, that's a huge anxiety.

Yeah.

And then you.

You feel like podcast, you know, like, what the hell.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What do you do?

You just.

My sanity.

You have a central phone to say, well, if your mom dies or something, we'll give everyone a phone number.

There's an emergency number.

Yeah.

That never rang over.

Over the last seven years.

It never rang?

It never rang?

No.

God, that tells you everything, doesn't it?

Never run.

No.

Never once.

Well, can we touch some wood?

Because.

Of course, of course.

But I think it's interesting because the benefit of it, and I hope that we will find ways where we can have both.

But when you take the phone away and then people feel so naked, then you step.

It's a step towards your vulnerability and having what no one has anymore.

It's an honest conversation.

The thing you told me about jr, the French artist who went to a prison, he was working.

He's a street artist.

You know, the.

The French artist.

Is he a street artist?

Graffiti or is it.

Yeah, he.

He used to do graffiti, but after he did black and white prints of human faces all over trains.

But the thing about he.

He worked in some high security in the hardcore prison in California.

These guys are, you know, multiple life sentences.

And he said that the level of presence, because they have never, ever had phones.

Yeah.

These guys, the quality of presence in.

The prison, they never knew this because.

They'Ve been in prison for so long.

They've been in 30 years.

I mean, it's only 15 years.

What are we on iPhone?

16.

Yeah, 16 years.

Guys who were in there before who've never been exposed to it, had a different human quality of connectivity and presence.

Well, even being a generation, like, with.

Well, I was obviously much too young for this, but, you know, being a generation who grew up Four mobile phones.

I always think what a gift that is.

That I understand.

I'm so grateful that world, you know, my formative years till I'm 21, you know, I was so.

I mean, I'm still creative, we're still creative.

But I was so creative in my twenties.

Cause I was so bored.

So I'd get up and write a song, you know, we had drum kit and amps in the living room.

Just wake up, roll a joint, go in, make some music.

If I had a phone, I just sat in my bed and looked at.

Scroll through my phone.

I'm eating it at max now with TikTok rock.

I mean, my wife's very good at saying it to the kids.

It's like.

Like boredom's good.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's like we're desperate for kids to be permanently happy and permanently entertained.

It's like, ah, let them be unhappy and bored.

Because that's when boredom made me get curious.

It made me explore, maybe experiment, you know.

It's a fantastic motivator.

Is it?

The phone is just so good at filling that hole, isn't it?

Yeah, like that.

It's so good at, like, oh, I'm a bit bored.

Oh, I'm a bit anxious.

And it's turned all of us into junkies.

I mean, I used to feel I was in a very exclusive club being a drug addict when I was young.

Now, I mean, everyone's looking for that dopamine hit and they.

They've sculpted these machines around dopamine, you.

Know, so you go to this retreat, you take this all away.

How instantaneous is it that things change?

I mean, there's a sort of.

There's an adjustment.

Is there?

And then there's this.

Regarding what?

Well, let's just go back to the.

I'm doing two weeks on a retreat.

I'm getting no showers, no this, no that.

But it actually seems one of the key elements.

You've taken my phone away.

Like all.

I mean, amazing.

Now more important than having showers and hot water and all these things is all of that seems fine next to taking my phone away, isn't it?

That I'm.

I'm.

My umbilical cords cut.

We bumped into someone in Paris recently who'd been on one of our retreats last two years ago.

And she said the most important thing for.

From everything we did was not to have my phone.

That really.

That really helped me.

And it's funny because people don't miss it.

No, they really don't.

A minute one.

No, you just See people sitting around.

They have committed to leave it at the entrance, if there is anything like an entrance where we're going, but they leave it there, they're not taking it back for two weeks.

As soon as they're committed to do that, it's really easy.

They don't miss it.

They're nourished.

They're nourished by human contact.

And I think for a lot of.

Us there's so many things to show.

That's what we're seeking on our phones is contact and then give them the real thing.

It's hardly, you know, you're not gonna go cold turkey when you got the real thing.

I mean, I found it absolutely mind blowing that they've only just started banning them in schools and stuff.

I mean, I found it, it's amazing.

I mean, as somebody went to school, it's like, are you kidding me?

That 14 year olds are still in.

Many schools are sitting there with a phone in their pocket.

But didn't you, I remember you telling me when I met you, so that's eight, nine years ago, that they were banning it in school playgrounds in France.

Some of them in Spain, because they.

Noticed that the playgrounds were silent.

Yeah.

Can you imagine a school.

That sound still freaks me out actually.

This sound of playtime still gives them.

Because school wasn't a good thing for me.

But the idea of a silent school playground is really sinister to me.

So, yeah, I mean, let's progress the conversation because this one element is okay, detox.

So this is very modern thing that's come into our lives.

The other element is revert back to a really basic existence.

Did you.

You've done these groups before, mobile phones, have you?

Are you old enough to remember doing that?

Is the mobile phone ever not been a terror and just cold?

No.

Showers was enough?

Yeah, I've done them since the mid-90s.

So, yeah, before I mean, very basic phones.

Did you think that you're in your anecdotal experience of the arc of people's mental health is the, you know, it was, it wasn't as bad back then or really everyone's been struggling for a long time anyway.

I would say that people presenting with particularly ADHD is becoming so common off the scale and part of that I think is, I would say is mobile phones and the Internet and our attention span being trained to all be kind of adhd.

My youngest daughter, I went in one day recently, she's, you know, she's diagnosed ADHD and is clearly on that spectrum.

But she had her Laptop and her phone and the TV on.

So she had three and she was managing to do it.

And I'm just like, oh God, yeah.

But that's her generation.

I mean she's 20, whatever.

I was, you know, I was one of those Ritalin kids.

But I mean it's just cause they thought I was stupid then.

But I think the ADHD thing is massive nowadays for a lot of reasons.

I mean we could talk about it.

It's context, it's connected to trauma, isn't it?

From what I understand it, it expresses itself much more strongly.

I think it's very conn with trauma.

I think it's the reason I'm hesitating is multi layered.

I think the trauma thing's real.

I think the trauma aspect of it is that, you know, I referenced that phrase it takes a village to raise a child earlier.

There's no villages involved anymore.

There's fewer and fewer parents involved anymore.

As the economic situation means that the idea, you know, my mom stayed at home when I was a kid, that ain't happening anymore.

For most families who can afford to have one person staying home looking after the kids.

So the put into daycare very, very quickly.

I think that's a massive factor and I'm seeing more and more of that.

But what I'm also seeing is that generation never know which initially is it Gen Z, what you know, kids, kids who are kind of hitting school age and of the age group to be diagnosed are being taken for, you know, to their doctors and then going through the whole procedure.

And then the parents who are more kind of, of my generation and my generation are going, oh shit, that makes sense.

So they're kind of self diagnosing as they recognize what's being pointed out in their own kids.

So you've got these different generations that are waking up to this reality and then you've got something else that is a personal opinion of mine which might be contentious.

A friend of mine who writes for one of the big newspapers got into trouble for connecting these things like ADHD and autism with kind of identity politics.

Like suddenly it becomes the excuse.

And you know, she got a lot of backlash to that.

I understand her point of view.

I don't think that people haven't got these conditions.

I think they all have.

I think it's very, very commonplace now.

But I think it becomes a way to legitimize trauma that we can't own.

Because there's still this hierarchy of trauma which I buy into.

I mean when I went to my first evergroup32 years ago.

I remember looking around the room and the stereotypes.

I felt envious of, you know, the guys off kind of Glaswegian council estates who'd had the shit kicked out of them by their alcoholic dads.

I felt jealous because I'm from Windsor and I went on skiing holidays and went to boarding school.

It's like, what have I got to complain about?

And I think people who.

Who have more.

Less visible traumas often struggle to legitimize them.

And I think if you go, if you realize your ADHD or your bit Asperger's or whatever, then it kind of does give you a reason to be in pain, which is not to dismiss your ladies.

No.

Well, that's why I'm avoiding using the word excuse.

But I think it becomes some banner that people wave.

You know, I can't help it.

I'm autistic.

Which is true.

But also, if you kind of put your attention onto the fact that you've been really hurt, even if you don't feel like, you know, deserve to say that.

But I think it's part of the class system.

Well, you're still saying, oh, I've got all these traits which fit with adhd.

Oh, I'm this thing.

You can't be changed, except I could take drugs.

Whereas perhaps, yeah, you exhibited these things, but you've got some undiagnosed trauma.

It's about actual legitimacy.

If I say to you, I went to boarding school, I went on skiing holidays, my dad had a nice car, never went without food, had nice clothes, you're gonna go, what's your problem?

Yeah.

Then you dig deeper, which is.

I mean, most of my client base.

And it's funny.

Cause when I started, I worked in domestic violence, and people used to go, cool, you've gone in the deep end, haven't you?

And I'd always say, no, he's hitting her.

I think I see the problem.

You don't have to be a very good therapist to work that out 30 years later.

I work with people who the main problem is what didn't happen rather than what did happen.

And then you're going, so what happened?

Well, I don't know.

Nothing.

And then it's hard to keep the conversation going then, because you're talking.

You're into kind of detective work and speculation a lot because you're talking about very benign neglect.

You know, neglect that wasn't intentional.

The neglect that a lot of kids are experiencing these days because their parents are having to work so hard to pay for Them, you know, the fairly average middle class existence, if they're lucky to pay for the daycare.

Those kids are growing up neglected, but no one's doing it to them, so they're not gonna have anything to complain about.

It's not as black and white as violence.

It's not.

It's just, you know, it's funny, my wife's so good at trying to keep the kids away from screens and stuff, and yet they see us just stuck on these phones all the time.

You know, you wonder how they're gonna see it or.

It's clearly very important to you, these devices, aren't they?

You know, but I mean, the.

What didn't happen is that you didn't have anything just very expressive in violence or.

Yeah, you had an average experience.

Isn't that always the case, though?

Weren't the parents always struggling to be present?

I mean, the woman would take the role.

No, no, no, I really don't think so.

I mean, I'm definitely.

I could be accused of romanticizing the past, which I do.

But, you know, my grandparents lived next door to their parents, lived next door to their brothers and sisters.

All the kids played out on the green.

Everyone kind of communally raised the kids.

There was a village raising the children.

You had a whole bunch.

You didn't need daycare.

There was no au pairs in that in those days.

All right.

You know, maybe my ancestors would have been maids and what have you in big country houses, but it was still something that was done very collectively.

And I think we live in such a.

An isolated world now, you know, especially in these big urban environments.

I mean, who knows their neighbors anymore who.

You know, we were in Marseille recently, which we're thinking of moving to.

I was blown away by being in a big city where the amount of people that said good morning to me, really, you know, there's a number of other things, but people saying good morning on the street, that's.

That's something we've lost over the years.

If I just.

Let's take a step back.

So say I'm sitting and I'm thinking.

I mean, I don't even know how to exactly identify mental health issues, but I think we all know when we're just, we're struggling, there's doing retreats.

You do a lot of male groups, but there's.

There's group therapy and then there's talking therapy.

I mean, are those.

Are there any.

What are the other.

Are there any.

I'm missing there?

Sort of main, Main, you know, individual, one to one Talking therapy, male groups is.

They're all talking therapies in a way.

I mean you can get obviously into this medicines and there's other ways of doing it, you know, getting drunk together with your mates in the pub.

But as a base.

Let's just start as a base position are those you do it individually, you do it in groups or you do a retreat, you do a sort of separation.

Are those primarily the options available to me?

Available to me if I'm sitting there thinking I need help with me?

Yeah, those are, those are the ways that I do.

But they're all.

Whether it's one to one with me, I'm forming a relationship with people and I don't tend to do short term work.

I've got clients I've worked with for probably 25 years now.

I'm forming a relationship with them.

I mean, I think everything I do is a response to the increasing isolation in the world, the increased connectivity.

And yet we're so isolated at the same time.

Yeah, I, I think that's what, that's why people are not that triggered about leaving the phone when they enter the.

The circle because they're, they're nourished by the.

Oh, because they're actually isolated with the phone.

Yeah.

It's actually the thing that's making them lonely, of course.

Have you done much therapy in your life generally?

Is that.

Yeah, Me, myself, yeah.

Yeah.

I've done since my kids is so 19 years, almost 18 years.

But I think that what phone does as well is that it's.

So what we're saying is kind of chopping the anxiety away.

One of the anxiety is to be rejected by others is to be inadequate, is not to shine enough, not to have the right joke, the right expertise or whatever.

And so when you enter a circle in a retreat like Jerry does, no one feels that because the settings.

And that's what I really wanted to make a movie about that and propose Jerry to do a movie about one of his retreat is that Jerry is holding a space where he set rules that will make it okay for everyone.

Whatever, wherever you come from, whatever your intention is, you're welcome around the fire.

The rules are actually very sophisticated now that I've, you know, filmed him working.

Edited, re edited, re edited.

Can you give an example?

So for example, I'm curious because I don't know what they are.

Yeah.

So for as a filmmaker, most of the time when you write a movie, it's about a hero's journey.

So the person is there.

Yeah.

What's the struggle they're trying to get.

They have a struggle and they go through it, okay?

And so they have grown through that.

And most of our narratives is about how heroic this person is.

She could be her fate or the destiny because of her courage, because whatever.

Or he's.

Of course.

And what Jerry does is exactly the opposite.

He's holding a culture.

He's creating an ephemeral experience.

So two weeks.

And the experience will transform anyone who comes.

So in this retreat, I really wanted to have very different people.

So we were saying different people.

Diverse, diverse.

Different ways of seeing life.

Diversity of thought.

Diversity of thought.

So people who are feminist activists and people who are rather masculinist or, you know, this kind of essential masculine strength and energy.

Energy and all this kind of belief system, okay?

You put these people around a fire, they may fight because they really don't see life the same way.

And one will have to.

They will have to negotiate that whether they can have a conversation or whether it will become a fight.

It's their own story.

But Jerry will have a way to make people listen to each other that is irresistible.

And at the end of the journey, they will have a space where they have expressed their thoughts, their beliefs, but they have also listened to the other people's journey and be like, huh, okay, Maybe one of the guys say, maybe I need a new set of ears to listen instead of talking all the time.

And I think that a talking circle, when it's well held world.

Because it can.

It can be kind of dangerous to put people around.

Well, it could kick.

It could kick off.

It could kick off.

But there's an energy Jerry would bring.

Or this.

When people talk about holding a space, there's a very particular thing someone needs to do, which is kind of, I'm the boss.

Yeah.

You know, it's very paternal almost.

I mean, we could say that Jerry is an Alpha for sure.

Sure, sure, sure.

He's an alpha, 100%.

But what I like about this Alpha way of expressing in Jerry, I don't know if it's very English, but is that he's using that power, his charisma, his knowledge, for a compassionate purpose for people to understand each other more, to listen to each other more, to connect with themselves more.

I mean, you're a feminist, you say.

And I think.

I think these.

It's funny, you can't even think of what's the opposite of a feminist, because a feminist means equality.

So a feminist is actually a neutralist in a way.

Yeah.

For equality.

I had to look it up years ago, actually, you can have male chauvinism and female chauvinism.

So I think most people, if you stop someone in the street, they think feminist is female chauvinism, which means I think women are better than men, which I technically am because I technically think they are better other than taking the things off top off bottles and throwing the rubbish out, you know, but.

But there's an.

Of men and women really lost touch with, you know, their identities are so confused now.

I mean, I think I. I think it's certainly true that as a man, and this is something I think you've explored a lot, Jerry, that I feel very lost as to what it is to be a man, you know, make with a man or.

I think there's a sort of pressure on both sides.

A man can never be a mother, really.

They can, they can.

I'm not saying they can't, but they can't produce babies, they can't breastfeed.

I mean, people may argue against that.

So there's thing that we're always limited by, but a woman could be anything now.

And so there's the sense of.

The sense of how, how we sit.

And it's fascinating because I wouldn't.

You would identify as a feminist.

You wouldn't identify as a masculinist, whatever that.

Oh no, absolutely reject that.

Yeah.

And what does it mean?

It would mean equality too, by the same definition, wouldn't it?

It would mean that we both seek equality.

So feminism, when you look it up, because I had two years ago after an argument I had with someone I was very confused in, and then it is.

Feminism is the belief in equality between men and women.

Ex.

Exactly.

And then you can make an argument that, you know, some intelligent friends of mine have said is that's bullshit.

Men and women are different.

Yeah.

But they can be equal in rights.

They can be equal in rights and.

Of course in opportunity.

That's what feminism is about is it's a kind of.

It's as if you say I'm a humanist.

Yes.

But if I'm a humanist who, who is anti racist, I also understand what are the specificities of the oppression that in racism that plays out onto people like me.

So it's equal rights.

Yeah, it's exactly that.

So we want equal rights.

We want everyone to be seen as a human being.

But there are specific ways to oppress people.

Whether it's about because they don't have money, or they are people of color, or they are queer people or they are women.

Sorry.

So it's different so feminists will know better how women or queer people are oppressed.

Specifically anti racists will know better how people of color are oppressed, etc.

I guess my question is the phone has obviously had this huge effect on us and it's disconnecting us with its connection.

I mean, the irony.

But is it.

There's a disconnection between men, men and women as well.

Is the sort of part of what goes on is them reconnecting as men and women.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I've always so passionate about Jerry's work with men.

But when I've been his retreat seven years ago, and it just changed my life.

And over the years because I've come ever since every year as a participant or as a helper.

I've seen the world change because of me to.

And I've seen the dynamics between men and women changing.

And I've seen how healing it is to be in a circle where women can listen to men's stories and men can listen to women's stories.

And I remember this specific year.

Yeah, it was three years ago.

At the end of the two weeks.

We found out circles after circle.

So there's one circle every day.

Day when talking circle every day and circle after circle.

We found out that all the women who were participating in this retreat have been raped once in their life.

Every woman around the circle.

And give me goosebump just mentioning it.

And men are like, okay, I get it, I get it.

And it's not against men that we're expressing what we've been through.

True.

It's just.

Can we share our stories?

Is there a space to share our stories to be listened to, to be believed, to.

To find support instead of being victimized?

Or do you see what I mean?

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting for me because I've been raped as a man, so I always find it.

And my wife specializes in rape.

And I find this word rape is a giant word because there are just so many versions of that.

Of course, there are people who've had sex and a few days later decided that maybe they didn't want to do that and they were a bit coerced.

Versus what everyone pitches in their head when they think of rape.

Of a woman being dragged down a back street and being like, forcibly, you know, violent rape.

And that, you know, I know from my wife practicing it is incredibly rare.

And actually most things in the.

So I don't.

And you could.

I could get attacked forcibly in terms of.

I'm taking.

But as Someone who has been raped.

It's like.

And had been sexually harassed badly and stuff.

This word rape, I find.

I mean, it's a bit of a tangent, but I just find it's like, cool calling someone a murderer when really it's like, you know, well, okay, this is a giant.

I think it needs.

I think it needs categories like murder does first degree, secondary, third degree.

It's almost like with rape, it needs to be like, can we categorize things a little bit?

But I think there's something very powerful, particularly for women, what it represents, because it's about that sort of.

There's a.

There's a natural sense of physical.

Physical overpowering.

You know, there's almost.

That's the implied sense when really it's about sort of consent and stuff.

But that's.

That's slightly taken away from the point you mentioned made.

Because I thought what's really powerful that you said is that men and women listening to each other's issues.

Like what.

You know, it's almost unpopular.

I would say what a lot of the stuff you've done, Jerry, to go and look at men and look at what men are.

What.

Why.

Why do you.

Why have you got involved in that as a narrative or is a problem?

I haven't.

It's just sort of.

No, you haven't.

This is the thing that, you know, we talked about when we first met.

I got no interest in gender.

I got no interest.

Yeah.

I think I recognized what I had experienced.

I mean, again, there's lots of layers.

I went and worked in domestic violence, so I was working with male perpetrators.

And I went because I hated men, because.

Mostly because of my relationship with my dad.

And I very quickly felt a lot of compassion and empathy for these guys who were struggling with a very basic language, which I'd been taught as well, which is if you're hurt, then hit someone.

And I realized that most of them just needed to.

To expand their vocabulary.

And they didn't want to be violent.

They just needed to explore different ways of communicating.

You're saying they were hurt, and then their reaction was to.

That makes it sound like an excuse.

But I think for most men in those days, and we were talking 30 years ago, they had no language for vulnerability.

Their role models were the John Wayne type stereotype.

Like me.

I was told when.

I mean, I remember in Datchet, where you went to school.

I also went to the local state school there.

Cause I wasn't posh yet.

But I remember, you know, getting knocked around, you know, whatever, in the Playground.

And my dad's advice was, if someone picks on you, punch them as hard as you can in the face.

And that was his fatherly advice.

So that's my programming.

Then when I started to work with these guys, I realized they just didn't have another language.

And if you could educate them not just in what to say to other people, but when I say educate them about themselves, to learn to listen to themselves and find a different language to communicate.

Communicate, which is not popular language for a man, which is to say, I feel vulnerable, I feel frightened, I feel ashamed, I feel humiliated.

Humiliation's a big one.

So I started out there.

Then I started running private men's groups.

And why?

I don't know.

I've always run mixed groups.

I love running mixed groups.

I think there's something very efficient in running men's groups with a mixed group.

I think men hold back.

I was about to say.

I was about to say weird.

That vulnerability will be best listened to by ladies almost, or may maybe better listened to by men.

But we're scared of what men will think of us.

Is it?

Or we're scared of what women will think of us.

I think.

Well, I mean, it's interesting.

I think if you bring a woman into one of my men's groups, which we did when we were filming, they shut up.

Because all their kind of mummy issues, all their programming about what they can show in front of women, how they should be as men in front, kicks in.

So it's a kind of just an efficiency thing for me.

I mean, I love working with.

I did run a women's group for a while.

It was an absolute shit show.

I mean, I thought it was great.

Personally, I was really into it.

But it illustrates what Mai was saying.

And I learned an awful lot from it.

I'm very grateful.

It only lasted about four months.

They came to me and said, we'd like to be in a group with you.

And I was like, well, I only run men's groups.

They were like, well, could you facilitate one for us?

And we tried it.

And the reason it ultimately didn't last very long was because they'd all been violently raped.

And each time they came, they were traumatized by here.

And they go and go.

It took me a week to get over that.

What, listening to each other's stories?

Yeah.

Whereas my guys, I would say 40% have been sexually abused.

But unlike you and me, you and I are actually two of the only men I know who've been physically raped.

Me by a woman, you by a Man, I'm the only man I've ever met who's been raped by a woman.

But all the other guys who've been sexually abused have been seduced.

And most of them don't know they've been sexually abused.

Cause it was a special relationship.

The guy was really nice or he was my favorite teacher or something like that.

And you have to persuade them, you know, that was wrong.

And they go, no, it wasn't that bad.

Isn't that.

That's part of rape?

I mean, I still remember my, my very old girlfriend, my brother, when I had this experience and coming, you know, and, and like, and I was.

You would get very confused, all these sorts of things and that, you know, my brother listening to me and like, well, do you want to do it again?

No, I'd be like, I'm revolted by the idea of it.

It's like, you know, so therefore, by.

Definition, I think it's great what you're saying about the degrees of murder and degrees of rape.

I think for me, I feel the same.

I really struggle to use that word in reference to myself.

I feel like I'm making a fuss still.

But that's part of the trauma, isn't it?

That's part of it.

And it wasn't until I was 50 or maybe even older, I mean, in the last 10 years that a therapist said to me, jerry, what happened?

I told him and he said, that's rape.

I was like, nah, that's not rape.

He said, okay, so let's change the genders here.

Yeah, yeah, swap it round.

If it's a 17 year old girl, girl and a 45 year old man climbs on top of her and she's crying and shaking in fear and he her anyway.

What's that?

I was like, oh, that's rape.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I was an au pair stroke runaway, working at, you know, friends for a friend's mum.

And that's what she did to me.

She told me I was, it was every, you know, it was like the graduate.

She was like, this is every young man's dream.

And it took me 40 years or something to begin to recognize how much that had harmed me.

So.

But that would, you know, just back to the women's group thing.

That was the difference was the violence and extremeness.

But why, why they.

Each time they'd come along and they'd listen to other people and it would affect them.

Yeah, it was re.

Traumatizing.

And that is one of the tricky things with therapy is you have to be very, very Careful because you can re traumatize people through the telling of telling of the stories, especially when you have a collective.

So that's one of the shadow sides of circle work.

I say suppose.

And now a quick word from our sponsor.

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Let's be very practical.

Let's just say whether I'm a man or a woman, I'm.

I'm.

I. I don't know exactly what the signs are, but I think people know it when they see it that their mental health's not in good shape.

You know, I don't even know where people start part.

No, but this is a. I really want to address this and I don't have a problem with what you're saying with mental health.

I think it's a very real thing in our society.

Yeah.

And I love that.

Was it the Krishnamurti quote?

It's no measure of well being or something like.

It's no measure of well being to be.

To be well adjusted to a profoundly insane society.

So I think that's what we got going on.

But I think there's degrees, like there is with everything.

There's proper mental health issues, there's what I refer to that all of us have experienced at times, which I would say is emotional health issues.

And then there's what I said.

My mum had a carer last year towards the end of her life and this old woman, old woman, she's same age as me, old woman then came in and she was just chatting and it's weird when someone moves into your mum's house.

So we were making awkward small talk in the kitchen and she's like, what do you do?

And I said, I'm a therapist.

And she said, oh, you must meet a lot of very disturbed people.

Which I haven't heard that kind of line for about 25 years.

And I said to her, if you hear that someone goes to the gym, do you go, oh, he must be disturbed?

She's like, no.

I was like, what's the same with me?

People come and see me, like they go to the gym.

I'm now a lifestyle choice for people who want to stay healthy, want to stay mentally fit and well.

And that is 99% of my business business.

And that's what I encourage.

So the point where I don't, you know, I don't work with, you know, I'm not.

I'm not the best person to work with if you.

I mean, people I work with in an ongoing way will have dips and will have, you know, a crisis or a breakdown or whatever.

I'm fine with that.

But I realized over Christmas I was talking to someone about.

I'm.

I mean, I'm a trained couples therapist, but I don't attract couples.

Couples.

The couples don't come to see me, you know, And I thought, oh, I'm not very good.

And then I realized it's not because I'm not very good, it's because I don't want them because when a coup comes, they're always in crisis.

Yeah.

No one goes to couples, so we're getting on great.

Should we go and have a chat with a couple?

So, I mean, it'd be good if they did.

They go in crisis and then they leave.

When.

Usually when that crisis is solved.

I'm not in crisis management.

I like working long term, just as a kind of lifestyle is your, you know, if you.

If someone recommends you go to the gym three times a week for 40 minutes a day, what do you recommend to people?

Does it depend, you know, what kinds of.

Of exercise should I be doing for my mental health?

I guess I think that's the mo.

The most important thing.

And I've been engaged in.

Gosh, I don't even know when I started.

I mean, you say you've been in therapy.

It does make us sound like we're mad to some people.

But like I say, it's a lifestyle choice.

So I go to therapy because it keeps me engaged in a state of perpetual curiosity.

And the most important thing I've ever learned in.

In the best part of 35, 40 years I've been doing this kind of thing, is to practice the art, what I call the art of self inquiry, which is to go.

Is that true?

Like one of our ongoing arguments to the point where I swore I'd never work with my again over this film, is I've been really critical, like really mean and nasty and critical.

Call.

Of you.

Yeah, don't get all vulnerable with me.

No, no, no, no.

I have.

I've been really mean and I've accused her of being.

In terms of producing the film.

No, no, I've just said she's a really shit collaborator and I've attacked her.

And I've said, you're really bad at collaborating.

You know, you don't listen to my ideas, you just do your own thing, blah, blah, blah.

And I said to her earlier, I told her she had to pay me a tenner because I felt like I deserved a reward for actually fessing up to something which was a joke, but it's not true.

I'm a shit collaborator.

It's not her.

Your vulnerability shows that.

I mean, even as a man, it kicks in, doesn't it?

This sort of like, I mustn't, you.

Know, I have to be right, you.

Know, and also I mustn't cry.

I must be strong.

I have to be right.

I have to be right.

Yeah, that's curious.

It's such a curious way of living.

I mean, I've had that as well, but for other reasons where I needed to be right, because I did.

I didn't want to be attacked by my parents.

So it was a kind of default mode that expanded in me when I grew up.

But as a woman, we don't have to be right.

You know, we don't have to have the answer.

We don't have to provide.

So it's not.

It's not something that is so prevailing.

I would agree in my anecdotal experience that a man.

Yeah, I need to be right.

And my relationships with women.

There's other stuff that goes on with ladies in terms of, you know, I don't want to use the word agenda, but they may have something that they're.

Yeah, but they're.

Yeah, they're being right does feel quite male as a sort of like.

It's an ego.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we've just got a bit stronger ego of like, you know, that's our identity more, isn't it?

We've got more of a right to be right somehow, you know.

Yeah.

And there is the, you know, you grew up with the cowboy things and Superman and, you know, you had to be this guy.

I mean, what a burden.

We're very afraid that, you know, you hit on a real thing of when I have.

I'm having problems getting triggered in my job about a client or something.

And it's.

I can feel my brain kick off a lot of it is I don't like being wrong and possibly I am a little bit wrong and I know I'm a little bit wrong.

And then I'm brain is doing everything it can to write another email, do another thing to show them I'm not wrong or something.

Yeah, yeah.

On the surface, I'm very happy to admit I'M very happy.

But, you know, I'm.

I'm okay with saying I'm wrong.

You know, there's a moment in the.

In the more recent film where I talked to the group about having got something wrong.

And that wasn't rehearsal.

It was something.

And it was absolutely authentic and it was appropriate and I had misjudged something.

But I think I was able to do that because I worked with a woman therapist in a group setting, and quite often she'd go, yeah, I got that completely wrong.

I found it really inspiring.

It was a wonderful gift.

We almost say it as a falsehood sometimes.

Men do, don't we?

We do a sort of like, oh, and I'm probably totally wrong.

Absolutely right about this.

You know, we throw that out quite a lot as well.

Sort of.

I notice, actually, if I may use a medical term that I'm not really qualified to use, but my slightly more narcissistic clients do that.

Slight, you know, self deprecation.

I'm absolutely wrong about this, Andy, and I don't know what I'm talking about.

But, you know, I'm absolutely right.

But.

Yeah, so interview.

Let's do this as a gym.

Let's go and do it.

I mean, I do.

Thanks to you.

You know, I've been dealing with my own stuff.

And yeah.

You know, I'm in therapy.

I mean, I find it hilarious, may I say that I. I switch from doing meetings to suddenly I'm on this zoom and it's like.

And because I'm someone who's scared of silence, I just start spouting stuff, you know, I. I'm just like terrified, you know, if, like.

And I. I wonder now it's okay for a man like me that A, grew up around women, B, is quite open with my emotions.

C. Massive thing.

My father told me he loved me all the time.

My dad is the one that cuddles you.

My dad is an incredibly.

For.

For his generation.

1942.

I have now really realized how an incre.

And emotionally my dad is for a man of his generation, the way he's open with me, the way he talks to me is very unmasculine.

I would say it's very masculine.

It's just not the stereotype.

It's just not the stereotype.

Like, he's a man that he's reliable and he's strong.

He's incredibly paternal.

But maybe it's slightly for him.

But what I wonder what in therapy is.

I think of my friends who have no emotional language, who do tend to be Men who only use humor and they, they like, they just clam up at any sort of awkward thing.

I'm like A, they wouldn't go to therapy, but B, I'm like, what happens in these sessions for them?

You know, I just start talking.

You know, I just start just.

I just keep talking until I.

But it's an art that you, you, you learn.

I mean I think that for me it was back in the days I was young and therapy was different.

But I think it took me two or three years before.

Takes practice, like everything.

Yeah, I really began to, to work.

And so I've now I've reached.

Maybe I've reached stage two of therapy because I'm like, can you start.

Can I start doing something like a bit more pr.

Like a bit more like give me something to model or framework around what I'm doing because I can turn up and just spout.

And there's value in that because.

Because I'm someone who can just like flick this thing and just let my stream of consciousness come out.

Stuff just starts coming out.

The danger of that is it become.

You might as well.

Well hum.

I'm gonna do that next session.

No, I've seen, I've seen that.

I've seen that.

It took me a few years to work out what was going on, but it is, it's people who are really frightened of contact, just like yourself.

You've got fantastic.

You know, we used to call it gift of the gab when I was.

A. Yeah, I took a lot of bollocks.

Fantastic at talking.

But it is also a way of creating a kind of noise field around it that keeps people aware.

It's not, not uncommon at all.

There is some things, if I'm really honest, there are some things that I would struggle to admit to anyone, even myself.

You know, there's a couple of little details.

If I, if I was really cold in the dark.

Maybe you're right.

Maybe it's a sort of like, you know.

But my's right.

It's an art.

It's an art.

You got to practice.

You have to learn how to be the client.

Can you, can you live life without therapy?

Yeah, of course you can.

I would, I would say that.

But I'm married to a therapist.

But that's why I'm keen to reframe it because you say most of my wouldn't go to therapy.

I hope they don't go to therapy.

I hope they find another human being that they can.

What I offer, if you want to really strip it down to the most simple thing is I'm a human being who sits and relates and engages with another human being where the fear is hopefully removed of what I will think.

Because you go, oh God, I can't talk to my mates down the pub again.

They keep hearing me talk about my fucking blah, blah, blah, they're going to get bored of me.

Or I can't talk to my family because then they don't want to hear about my sex life or blah blah.

There's all these rules about what you can and can't talk about.

So this thing we call a therapist at this point in history because there's always been someone you go and talk to some old man in the village or up on a hill in a cave or something, or a witch before we burn them all.

There's always been someone that we need to talk to that's separate from our social group or separate from our family.

And I think that's the bulk of it.

It's a kind of mini routine retreat.

It's a human relationship where you don't fear judgment.

And you know, people have.

This is an interesting one.

If we've got time.

People are saying to me a lot in the last year, aren't you frightened you're going to get replaced by a bot?

And I'm like, no, I hope I am, I hope, I think it would be great.

I think, I genuinely believe, and this, I'm sure this will be possible soon.

If you and I did a therapy session, we put our phone on your phone on the table and it had an app on it that listened to the whole thing without sharing it with the Chinese or whoever else wants to listen, that if that little bot could listen to it and then build a profile and then you go home and it could continue to ask you relevant questions that made you self reflect, that would be fantastic.

Am I going to be replaced?

I don't think I'll be replaced in 10,000 years, no matter how good AI gets, unless it becomes conscious because it can't fucking suffer.

And you pay me, and I say this to people from time to time, you do not pay me for an hour of my time.

It doesn't cost 90 quid for an hour of my time.

Cost 90 quid for my life, cost 90 quid for the last 60 years.

It cost 90 quid for the divorce, the mental breakdowns, the drug addictions, the boarding school, the sexual abuse.

I mean, I remember when you had some, some nasty crap online about something and I remember you mentioned it and I googled something and then I saw someone saying, oh, this.

This guy's got more problems than me.

And I was like.

I was like, good.

That was on my website, wasn't it?

Yeah.

I don't wanna probably.

I was like, I don't wanna go to someone with a perfect life.

I remember we're having problems with breastfeeding.

There was this woman that we were put in touch with and she was like this Germanic woman.

I've had 72 children.

I've breastfed enormous boobs, everyone.

I breastfed perfectly.

I'm like, how am I getting this woman around the house?

And my wife's trying to.

Oh, it's terribly easy.

I've had 72 chills.

Look.

Pop, pop, pop, pop.

I'm like, man, I don't need advice.

For someone who found it easy, I need advice.

But actually, it's deeper than advice, isn't it?

It's something about that third party we're talking about.

It's something about you can't talk to you.

You know, you can't talk to your business partners or your wife.

I mean, in my job as an accountant, I get a little bit of this.

I'm a little bit someone that they feel they'll slump in the chair.

But it also works both ways because my job is not just to be your mate.

My job is to do what your parents or your friends might not say, which is you come to me, you go, I just can't get a girlfriend.

And they were going, how do we tell Andy?

He's just got a really bad bo.

My job is to go, I think maybe you want to have a shower.

Yeah.

You know, that is my job, to be very real and very human and say, look, this is how I experience you.

This is the fact that you just talk non stop and I can't get a word in.

Andy is why we don't have a more intimate relationship.

That's my job.

Yeah, yeah.

To tell the truth, out of interest, did you grow up in Vietnam?

No.

She's always, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Because, I mean, France has a, you know, you wonder out of these cultural bits, like, you know, how the French.

Let's do how the French see it differently then.

So you know how the British.

The British.

The British approach to work is like, as my friend, my dear friend put it, you know, and he's a Frenchman.

He said, it took me a long time to work out that you guys go to the pub and get drunk to deal with your problems.

You know, when it's about food and I don't Know what if it's dying out?

But if the men's way of dealing with it certainly, certainly was.

And perhaps.

Perhaps the women as well.

But to go to the pub and get drunk with their mates, you know, and that's how sort of happening in France, is it?

Yeah.

So what do the French.

What do the French do to do with their problems?

What would be the classic, like, you know, where'd you get your release from eating cheese and complaining?

Of course.

Cheese, wine, of course.

I don't know.

It's interesting, I think, that women did talk a lot together.

They gather together.

But that's almost in all societies, isn't it?

You know, British women would gather together, wouldn't they?

They don't have the same alcoholic.

I mean, I always say the same joke.

Cause I always tell that.

But I mean, to me, it makes me laugh.

But whenever we go for a drink, I always ask for an adult portion.

Because these little beers that you get in France.

In France, yeah.

But you get a pint.

And I remember saying to you, I mean, I'm not a big drinker, but I remember saying to you ages ago, it's nine pound or nine euros.

And my was like.

Because they'd go out of business.

Because we come here and we have one drink for an evening and they will sit.

I mean, you know, English people don't do that.

You go into the pub and you.

Drink well, you're there to get well wasted.

Yeah, yeah.

It's dying out.

Yeah, but it's curious.

I mean, you can analyze it.

It's curious that, to be honest, maybe the British are the weirdos.

What is this destructive.

I think I'm gonna be really general now.

I find French people on the whole, deeper and willing to engage in something.

Yeah, but that's the people that you see.

Maybe a simple question like this.

Do you know where the French people get more seek therapy, you know, on the whole, more than we do or anything like that?

No, that I don't know.

I just know that French people are.

When they are in therapy, they're much more into analysis.

They're not into what Jerry does, where you talk a lot with your therapist and he challenges you by mirroring back what Gerry was saying, how he experiences you in France.

It's a lot about, okay, you are on the couch and you just speak and the person is behind and takes notes.

Okay.

It's psychiatric.

It's more medical, isn't it?

I forget what it's called, but it's old school.

It's old school.

It's not about relationship.

I think France is behind in us.

I think we've.

And I like that.

I like that because I love working with French people because they're hungry.

I think England, we are more influenced by American therapeutic culture.

Right.

And I love working with English people as well.

We've become a bit like, let's get it all out.

We expect it.

We expect it.

And it's.

You know, I like the freshness of working with French people and I like the fact that they kind of get excited and they're really, really hungry, whereas I'm, you know, I'm like any English person.

It's like, oh, go to therapy.

You know, we.

We just learned last week.

I didn't know that.

Talking circle.

Therapeutic talking circle seems to be forbidden in France because.

Group therapy.

Yeah.

Because they.

Because they fear cultish.

Cultish behavior.

Yeah, yeah.

It's not illegal if you're a qualified psychoanalyst.

You can run a medical.

More medical Hospital.

Yeah.

In a hospital.

But you can't do what I do.

Wow.

They're worried about creating cults.

Yeah.

What you do.

Quite right, too.

What you do would be forbidden in France.

I mean, I need to double check, but that's what we were told last week.

It would.

That sits well with me.

As in, like, I can imagine that, you know, and.

And French people are much less collective than English people.

Much less collective.

Yeah, much.

They're much more into individual.

And I have to regard the British as quite individual in our way we approach it.

No, we got that whole Dunkirk spirit thing.

What are we most proud of over.

The years of bringing these retreats together and gathering mainly English and French people?

I can see, I can see different dynamics.

Humor.

I mean, one weapon is humor, you know, and humor's about self deprecation.

And then you have to learn quite.

And we French people, we bond.

But I think I.

No, I think that the.

All the English people or the British people I work with, once you get them there, they'll tend to stick it out.

Whereas the French people might be the ones going, going, oh, I'm.

I actually need to leave a day early.

And, you know, there's less of a sense of we're all in this together, which I'm really trying to kind of harness that and bring that.

The French army were never any good, were they?

You know.

No, no, no.

I mean, it's, you know, better when their pecker is up, as my history teacher used to say.

French army, great when their pecker is up, useless when they start falling apart.

It's my favorite.

To which I take.

You know, I always take every opportunity to share, particularly with Mai, even though she said it 93 times.

But how many French soldiers does it take to defend Paris?

I don't know.

No one knows.

Cause they never try.

So your first film was Making a Man, which is obviously, first of all, very briefly, what is Making a Man?

Make me a man.

Make me a Man.

So it's a movie we've done together.

It's a kind of.

It's a documentary.

One hour and ten minutes.

And it's about asking interviewing men who've been in Jerry's talking circles, sometimes for 25 years.

So who have been working on themselves or, you know, being in therapy for 25 years, and who have access to the vulnerability in an amazing way.

And as a human being, it's already very rare.

But as men, it's like gold.

So for me, I really wanted to listen to them.

So when we met, I wanted to make a movie, but Jerry said no, because bringing camera.

Yeah.

Would damage the integrity of their work.

And I just didn't think they would open up.

Yeah.

And I think you were right.

And after MeToo happened and Jerry had the intuition that they had something to bring on the table.

We didn't know yet.

Just after Mitu, it was just women saying, okay, I've been abused.

Or, me too.

But there was no response.

Yeah, there was no response.

We didn't know about the rape culture.

We didn't know that it was linked to the way we maybe be programmed as men and women.

We didn't make the relationship to that.

But.

But Jerry had the sensation that he could do something with just who they are.

I love the way you're taking it.

You're telling it.

It's so woke and politically correct and appropriate.

It's just so not true for me.

Really.

Really.

I didn't give a shit about metoo.

I felt jealous because she'd made a film already and was like, I want to make.

That's why I did it.

Ego.

She'd made a film.

This is her second film.

She'd already made a film.

I do relate to.

What, you mean the Me Too movement?

Yeah.

No, I mean, it's really the MeToo thing, really.

Kind of these movements that come along.

And it's hard when you don't have a response.

Like, it's one of those things.

It's a bit like, you know, it's hard for a white person to respond to Black Lives Matter.

It's hard for a man to respond to me too, isn't it?

But I think where you illustrate it there is interesting.

Is here's these incredibly vulnerable.

Well, these men who have opened up and trained their vulnerability and work in groups to deal with what they've done through, Gone through.

There's a vulnerability about me too, isn't it?

It's all about that.

So it's saying almost the assumption is like, if you were being really crass, and I think I do see this sometimes from people, is that men don't have feelings.

Almost.

You know, it's almost.

I know that sounds ridiculous, but I, I.

Well, for instance, I've experienced it with an ex girlfriend who was like, you know, well, I'm gonna have a baby.

If we.

If I get pregnant, I'm keeping the baby.

And, you know, don't worry, you don't need to do anything.

I'll keep the.

And stuff.

And I'd be like, what?

And you know, like.

And she was like, no, no, you don't have to do anything.

I'll keep it.

And I'm like, I'm a human man.

You're talking about it.

And those moments as a man, you're like, oh, my God, you think I don't.

You know, there's that phrase, oh, men only care about sex or something.

There can be this sort of thing of like, we don't have emotion.

Now, what I think it is, and we've expressed is men are definitely worse at expressing those.

That's why we made the film that we made.

In the end, I did some talking head interviews with some of the guys, and I showed it to a film who said, this is great content, but you need some kind.

You don't need a story, but you need some kind of something to tie it all together.

And I'd been taking groups out to the First World War battlefields because it's a very emotive place for all of us.

And so we just.

We went out there and Mike came for that part of it.

And we walked, you know, in the miseries of kind of rain in December through these old battlefields.

And I think we were tying it in not just for a visual or an emotive thing, but because I.

For me, that's.

Those are the people that went through that.

Some of whom came back who.

That's the cliche when you see, you know, someone talks about, oh, yeah, my dad was in the war, but he never talked about it.

So it's these generations of men.

Politically, I don't think men have ever been that eloquent.

With our emotions.