Dr. Margaret Heffernan: Willful Blindness

Guest bio: Dr. Margaret Heffernan produced programmes for the BBC for 13 years. She then moved to the US where she spearheaded multimedia productions for Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard&Poors. She was Chief Executive of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and then iCast Corporation, was named one of the “Top 25” by Streaming Media magazine and one of the “Top 100 Media Executives” by The Hollywood Reporter.

The author of six books, Margaret’s third book, "Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril" was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times. Her TED talks have been seen by over 13 million people.

She is a Professor of Practice at the University of Bath, Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme and, through Merryck & Co., mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organizations. She chairs the boards of DACS and FilmBath and is a Trustee of the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution.

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Note: Dr. Heffernan's sound is soft. We apologize. Turn up the volume and that should help .Thank you!

[cowboyjohnsontown]

Excellent talk. At around 26:00, I totally relate to the feeling of not wanting to "confront" my doctor about wanting to come off my SSRI. I always had the feeling that I shouldn't be on it. I was put on it at 10 years old and years later at age 34, I've been slowly weaning off for quite some time.
However, the fear of even having a conversation with my doctor was a big reason I stayed on the drugs so long. I had tried in the past to talk to different doctors about coming off paxil and they were always resistant and looked at me as if to think, "wow, he's even crazier than we thought." I always felt like I ran the risk of ruining our relationship or that I'd "get in trouble" if I didn't 100% comply.
What changed this recently, was spending a number of years in a high-level management job at a large corporation. I've become much more used to gaslighting, strange manipulation, and difficult conversations. Once I started to treat my doctor like a high-level executive, my conversations were much easier. In my experience, psychiatrists are similar to high-level executives in the sense that they have a very fragile ego that is easily threatened. Knowing this, it made my conversations with my doctors much easier. Allow them to feel in charge but know that YOU are in charge of yourself.

[stanley]

Great interview. Sounds like the last 4 years.