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Something a little different. A peek into the male mind when it comes to the spokesperson for all women: none other than Oprah.

I have a gruff, blunt, journalist friend who claims he doesn't like Oprah much (even though he had never seen the show.) I never gave it much mind until recently, when I had a little more free time on my hands, and actually started using my Tivo for the first time. So, always being up for something different from the usual "Guys' Night Out" of burgers and beer, I got my DVR together, carted it over, and announced that the evening's festivities would be pizza and Oprah shows.

As you may guess, I was greeted with a grimace, a roll of the eyes, and something muttered like, "Crazy shrink stuff again..."

"What?" I said.

"Nothin. Maybe we'll learn something. I went out too late last night anyway," he retorted.

This dude is a man's man, is in a public service, and not much for highbrow social activities. He likes and respects women, is the kind to rescue kittens from trees and save a stranger from a speeding car, but at the same time he has a raunchy sense of humor that you don't want going off around your mom or your boss. While many men secretly harbor his locker-room worldview, this guy is open and in everyone's face about what he thinks of politics, religion, love, and all things to be avoided in diplomatically touchy social venues. Why would he hold back on his opinion of Oprah?

I couldn't resist seeing what he would do if he actually SAW the show.

I know that she has been building her empire for over twenty years, and I have missed a direct viewing experience of all but one of those years. I now wish Tivo had been invented twenty years ago. Over time I have read news stories about her, and snippets of biographical info about where she came from, where she's going, and what she cares about generally. Yet, for those twenty years I don't think there was one single weekday among them where I was possibly free at nine, ten, or even eleven am (I have lived in three time zones) to actually see her talk to the public.

Tivo is a very new convenience in my life, and for those years and at those times I was either studying or seeing patients. Given a little more time in my life to enjoy the guilty pleasures of pop culture - and as a first time author - I decided to turn my Tivo loose for the very first time on that Grand Dame of all things feminine and spiritual.

It has been quite a surprise to me; for what started as another exercise in being a student - training a scientist's eye on a show that I thought might teach me about the public's taste for what's available in the book market, general education on a pop icon - turned into pure entertainment mixed with insight into human behavior very different from what I'm used to.

So there I was, bringing my newest source of entertainment and a whole different insight into human nature over to a buddy's house.

After I turned the thing on and wired it up, he said, "Don't tell anyone we watched this stuff. Especially women we know...No, don't tell other dudes we know... Hell, don't tell anybody. Got it?"

More blunt than he usually comes across to me, he remarked that he considers Oprah to be "sensationalist," and even "manipulative" in how she steers guests into reviewing tragedies and victories in life they have experienced.

I listened with an open mind, but suspected I would strongly disagree in the end. I thought back to some of the episodes I had seen and wondered if there was any cajoling people into saying things they don't really mean to say, just to create drama for the production. (I have seen this in a fair amount of reality tv and even some fringe news shows - the kind that have an agenda to attack guests in a way that twists the truth.) Something didn't feel at all right about Oprah fitting into this kind of clever but dishonest strategy.

He went on to wonder "why in the world is she on every issue of her own magazine?" I didn't know the answer to that one. "See? She must be a megalomaniac," he said.

I did notice this over the years, but never stopped to think why it was she did this. Had to admit I'd never heard of any other magazine do such a thing. Maybe he had a point.

Then I recalled an important distinction in psychiatry. There are two kinds of "narcissism," technically speaking. Most people think that "narcissism" simply means "vanity." It doesn't to those in the mental health fields. Rather, it is something like being childish, self-centered, and prideful. The two kinds of narcissism are pathological narcissism and "healthy narcissism" - pathological pride, and healthy pride.

The latter was epitomized by author and test pilot Chuck Yeager, who once said, "It ain't braggin' if you can do the thing!"

I repeated this back to my journalist friend, and said that maybe there is a chance that Oprah - having paid her dues, overcome incredible odds, and spoken truth to power since her early years - simply "can do the thing." Healthy pride.

"Nah!" he said.

"Well, why is your picture on every newspaper column you do?" I said.

After an uncomfortably long pause, he said, "Because I just look too good not to."

Touche.

I think the Chuck Yeager idea is a fantastic one for people to know. So many of us are taught from a young age to be very careful not to outshine others. We get them to like us for our self-effacing humor, and surrender our own voice for fear that our superiors may be offended they are losing a grip on controlling us.

Too few of us realize that WE are the ones who give ourselves the freedom to speak, to say what is unpopular but likely closer to the truth than the politically correct thing, and that WE are solely responsible for not being heard. Because we sometimes have to be the only one in the world to stand and say the words that no one else is willing to.

I must admit, if I had not seen the Oprah show, I may not have ever heard of Paul Coelho or his beautiful novel, The Alchemist. Whether you are a man or woman, this story has quite a lot to guide us with in finding a personal voice amidst a crowd of one mind, and a life's purpose amidst those who might command you to act from only what THEY think is "your place" to do so.

In The Alchemist, Coelho says, "To show you one of life's simple lessons," the alchemist answered. "When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed."

Which appears to tell us that even when we speak truth to power - even when we say what no one else is willing to say, yet must be said - sometimes we are not heard even so. Sometimes what one person says (and we all know is right, deep down), falls on deaf ears, but that is not the point. We are all called to be courageous - to do our part to contribute - even if what we say is not heard, accepted, or used by others.

Soooo... what I realized and told my friend is that in his brazen, politically incorrect, tell-it-like-he-thinks-it-is, opinionated, macho, quick-to-judge ways, he actually has quite a bit in common - no, a great deal in common - with Oprah herself. Both of them speak their minds, not swaying with the opinions of the winning team du jour. A warrior speaks - at the risk of being temporarily unpopular - to be true to what they believe.

Oprah's show is like an exploration of the passions and the emotions, vague and invisible processes in us that do not operate by organized laws or logic. If you followed along in my other blogs, these are at work - "passions" and "emotions," respectively - in the "Reptilian Brain" and "Mammalian Brain" of our psyches. Which makes perfect sense to me now when you consider that these things are far more powerful at grabbing our attention - calling us to action - than the proper but passionless, emotionless, logical reasoning of the "Higher Brain."

The Reptilian Brain compels us to increase our survival potential, for one - and is the very reason we are glued to CNN when there is a report about a natural disaster, even if the tragedy is occurring an ocean away. The hidden message underneath the headline is, "If you don't stay tuned, this could happen in your neighborhood too."

Likewise, the Reptilian Brain is designed to give us an instinct for identifying with our own gender - hardwired into us, giving us reflexes to make us more appealing to the opposite sex, and thereby pass on our genes. It jumps to attention at stories about sex (which is why "sex sells"), information about whether we fit in well enough with other women (if you are a woman) or rank favorably among other men (if you are a man.)

Many ages ago these Reptilian-brained reflexes were absolutely necessary to secure stability and safety of the human race. So that men and women would find each other and the race could go on.

While the Reptilian Brain is about the "passions" - ultimately, the drivers of our behavior in mental "pleasure" versus "pain" - the Mammalian Brain is more about our range of emotions between happiness, and the unhappiness we call anger, sadness and anxiety.

Even if we are not instinctively under the passionate threat of life and death circumstances, or the passionate concern of not finding and keeping a great partner in love at the moment, we also care about finding happiness in general - a sense of self-esteem and therefore self-worth. This is where the Mammalian Brain matters.

Well, Oprah has both of these "brains" covered for the viewer, and surprised me in the way she chooses stories and people to interview. Unlike the hate-monger news shows, the alarmist reports on how we are all in danger of this, or imperiled by that - or a force-feeding of fringe belief systems that are neither fair nor balanced in opinion - Oprah's show seems to me to be about very real people who encounter challenges in life that really could happen to any of us. Passionate, emotional concerns that cut across all intellectual points of view, and all cultural and personal experiences. We can all connect. (Except my friend, so far...)

Yet the show is not focused on passionless intellectual debate, a thesis on ethics, or the stale, dry ways of many an academic. Rather, she seems to let the emotion and the passions of guests come out to create a kind of wisdom, judgment and conclusions that are beyond a debate of mere words. A judgment of the passions, conclusions of the heart, and a wisdom of the spirit.

At that, my friend says, "See? Oprah is too woo-woo New Age, and now YOU'RE starting to worry me too." He prefers the facts alone, not all the "emotional stuff."

I must admit, I am not at all interested in the stories about home improvements, makeovers, or anything to do with kitchens. I despise kitchens. I don't cook in them, sit in them, or like them to take up my time or energy. Not when hundreds of restaurants are blocks away on the bustling streets of my Chicago neighborhood. Give me a different one to go to every night for the rest of my life - cheap, hole-in-the-wall...I don't care as long as it is a new experience where I can get to talking to new people.

Yet, taken in through the eyes of a scientist, Oprah's ways can be seen as anything but woo-woo New Age mysticism, or "girlishness" that no man would be interested in viewing. Hers is actually a stage on which people's psychological character can play out, revealing itself, and telling a story that is also the answer to the burning questions we have. The story IS the answer.

My friend was still unmoved. Ugh.

He went on to say that "Look, that all sounds nice, but everything is rigged on Oprah," and "not only that...it's rigged to fit her agenda... preaching her personal opinions to tell people what they ought to believe."

Suddenly, an "a-ha moment." If you have checked out other areas of this blog, you might notice that all people can be divided up into four types of personality. One of those is called the Warrior. I have said that for two people to get along famously, even as best friends, they are ideally of OPPOSITE personality styles. That way they "have something to offer one another" which the other person can't provide themselves. Well it turns out that both my friend and Oprah are Warrior-style personalities. Organized, logical, and very confident.

It was no wonder to me now that he was so contrary about my "new discovery" in her show. He didn't realize that he felt a sense of competition with her.

When people are of the same personality style, but lack good boundaries, they are even more likely to not get along. When they have great boundaries, they might not become the best of friends, but they can at least most certainly be civil. They can agree to disagree without getting into a dramatic debate. My take on our discussion so far was that Oprah must be a very mature person (and therefore not "manipulative," "sensationalist," or other things he said, because:

a.) to rise from humble means to that of her own necessitates a mature character,

and

b.) because the show actually teaches people to have good boundaries (which are the epitome of maturity.)

I had to go to a recent story I saw on the show, to explain (after deleting everything on kitchens, cosmetics, home organization, or housewares.)

There was a young, clean-cut, but ignorant male on there. He said he held very strong feelings that homosexuals are evil, going to hell and the like. The situation set up - likely for the tv show called 30 days - was that the single young heterosexual man would live with a single, gay roommate in San Francisco for thirty days. At the end of the month, he would simply be interviewed to see what his opinions were - whether they would change if at all.

It was quite a story. While the man retained a degree of his beliefs about the moral right or wrong of homosexuality, he had an opportunity to see the drama, the story, the emotions and culture of a group of people with very different identity than himself. He met the very conservative father of a lesbian daughter, who was hard-pressed to say that his own daughter ought to be denied rights, respect or responsibility in society any less than that of his heterosexual sons.

The young man found himself a stranger, an outsider, the minority in a local culture, and his roommate actually defended his right to discover his own personal truths about life.

In the end - as all people who travel broadly, make friends with those of all walks of life, and dare to read, debate, and wrestle with beliefs in others not at all like our own - the young man emerged from his experience with a far more accurate collection of direct experience, discussion, and responsible consideration of his formerly despised and judged fellow humans.

He said he now believed that homosexuals have the right to be who they are, and to rights, contributions, and civic duties no different from the rest of society. He had actually become more tolerant through directly testing his judgmental opinion in the real world, where he, like any of us, discovered that people cannot exist in a cultural bubble that ignores how truly dependent we are on each other - no matter our background or our differences.

It was a lesson just as easily transferred to prejudice of age, race, religion, economic class, or anything else.

The story had taken care of the growth of his sophistication of character, and vicariously, of any of our own. It was about none other than having good boundaries. Good boundaries are always mature, and anything but manipulative.

After months of watching Oprah guide, and interview, and comment on, display, interpret, and all manner of exploring the feelings and life-passions of others, it was gratifying to see her tell a very personal story and her opinion on the matter.

She said that "everyone has their belief systems, and I have mine. I have the right to state them, and so do you." She went on to say that she deeply believes that homosexuality is a state of identity present since birth, that it is biological, and therefore hardwired in the individual.

Turns out, science supports her in the vast amount of research articles on the subject. In the models we have been studying, the Reptilian Brain houses the gender instincts. Because the Higher Brain and its logic, reason, ethics and intelligence do not control our instincts (which are by definition, "unconscious,") it makes perfect sense why one's gender identity does not respond to forceful opinions or beliefs of others. It works on autopilot, and has been hard-wired in there since birth.

Science is not a belief system, like one has a "hunch" or a mere opinion. It is what it is because it is true for every situation we look at using its tools. If hundreds of people all do the same experiment, they all get the very same results.

Oprah's belief was right in line with the science, and that made her in line with me too. I could connect with that. No woo-woo mysticism there.

So now both my journalist friend and myself too, had found something quite in common with Oprah, and even he, the uber-sceptic, the contrarian debunker of all things emotional or passionate, found himself interested and agreeing. He was pretty into the story about the famous guy who was in a head-on collision with a semi-truck, and crawled away just before his car exploded. And we both cracked up at the demonstration by actor Will Smith on how to "Man-cry": stuffing your tears as if you are about to sneeze, and just wave people away until you're alone.

There is was, right in front of us. Whether the story was about an ignorant person, a prejudiced person, a scapegoat, a victim, or a bully, the entertainment and insight I have come to crave from that show and others has actually helped me teach a friend something new about how people grow character.

The experience of a story that we follow - one which steers us across the paths of others, to let us place ourselves in their shoes - is in itself our best teacher, coach, therapist, advisor, and mentor.

Yeah, it wasn't burgers and beer for once.

But it was worth trying out some culture that women the world over are into. What could be more important for two dudes to do?

We all owe it to ourselves to read widely, open our opinions to new evidence that makes them fuller, more sophisticated, and accurate, and to just sit back and reap the rewards of growth that come from letting our own life stories play out. They teach us all we really need to know to be happy, passionate about what we do for a living, who we are, and what we have to offer others in friendship, dating and marriage.

I am very prone to open everything up to debate in this blog, and my other place to reach people, including the free newsletter for men at www.doctorpaul.net and for women at www.womenshappiness.com

Thanks again for commenting below!

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Paul Dobransky

Dr. Paul Dobransky

The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love

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