Jon Mills. Debating relational psychoanalysis

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Jon Mills (Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, Adelphi University, Adler Graduate Professional School, and private practice Toronto)

Debating relational psychoanalysis: Jon Mills and his critics

In Debating Relational Psychoanalysis, Jon Mills provides an historical record of the debates that had taken place for nearly two decades on his critique of the relational school, including responses from his critics.

Since he initiated his critique, relational psychoanalysis has become an international phenomenon with proponents worldwide. This book hopes that further dialogue may not only lead to conciliation, but more optimistically, that relational theory may be inspired to improve upon its theoretical edifice, both conceptually and clinically, as well as develop technical parameters to praxis that help guide and train new clinicians to sharpen their own theoretical orientation and therapeutic efficacy. Because of the public exchanges in writing and at professional symposiums, these debates have historical significance in the development of the psychoanalytic movement as a whole simply due to their contentiousness and proclivity to question cherished assumptions, both old and new. In presenting this collection of his work, and those responses of his critics, Mills argues that psychoanalysis may only advance through critique and creative refinement, and this requires a deconstructive praxis within the relational school itself.

Debating Relational Psychoanalysis will be of interest to psychoanalysts of all orientations, psychotherapists, mental health workers, psychoanalytic historians, philosophical psychologists, and the broad disciplines of humanistic, phenomenological, existential, and analytical psychology.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Arnold D. Richards.

Introduction: (Re)visioning Relational Psychoanalysis, Jon Mills.

1. A Critique of Relational Psychoanalysis, Jon Mills

2. Contextualizing is not Nullifying: Reply to Mills, Robert D. Stolorow, George E. Atwood, & Donna M. Orange

3. Assertions of Therapeutic Excess: A Reply to Mills, Marilyn S. Jacobs

4. "Neither Fish nor Flesh": Commentary on Jon Mills, Stuart A. Pizer

5. A Response to my Critics, Jon Mills

6. Conundrums: A Critique of Contemporary Psychoanalysis Interview on New Books in Psychoanalysis ,Jon Mills & Tracy D. Morgan

7. Fine-Tuning Problems in Relational Psychoanalysis: New Directions in Theory and Praxis, Jon Mills

8. Introduction to The Relational Approach and its Critics: A Conference with Dr. Jon Mills, Aner Govrin

9. Challenging Relational Psychoanalysis: A Critique of Postmodernism and Analyst Self- Disclosure, Jon Mills

10. Straw Men, Stereotypes, and Constructive Dialogue: A Response to Mills’ Criticism of the Relational Approach, Chana Ullman

11. On Multiple Epistemologies in Theory and Practice: A Response to Jon Mills’ “Challenging Relational Psychoanalysis: A Critique of Postmodernism and Analyst Self-Disclosure”, Shlomit Yadlin-Gadot

12. Relational Psychoanalysis and the Concepts of Truth and Meaning: Response to Jon Mills, Boaz Shalgi

13. Projective Identification and Relatedness: A Kleinian Perspective, Merav Roth

14. Psychoanalysis and Postmodernism: A Response to Dr. Jon Mills’ “Challenging Relational Psychoanalysis: A Critique of Postmodernism and Analyst Self-Disclosure”, Liran Razinsky

15. Relational Psychoanalysis Out of Context: Response to Jon Mills , Steven Kuchuck & Rachel Sopher

16. Challenging Relational Psychoanalysis: A Reply to My Critics Jon Mills

Author(s) Biography

Jon Mills, PsyD, PhD, ABPP is a philosopher, psychoanalyst, and clinical psychologist. He is a faculty member in the postgraduate programs in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, Adelphi University, emeritus professor of psychology and psychoanalysis, Adler Graduate Professional School, and runs a mental health corporation in Ontario, Canada. Recipient of numerous awards for his scholarship, he is the author and editor of over 20 books in psychoanalysis, philosophy, psychology, and cultural studies.

Reviews

"Imagine a book on psychoanalysis that gets your heart racing and your own critical mind aroused into action! Jon Mills and his critics hold nothing back in their critique of the relational model and of each other. The reader has a front seat to a theoretical and practical boxing match that vitalizes the conversation, sharpens our theories and practices, prompting further debate and dialogue. In this provocative, deeply stirring and academically rigorous collection, we are challenged to be as thoughtful and thorough in our own theorizing and practices, as is Jon Mills and his contributors. This is a text that clarifies, informs and ultimately inspires."

Roy Barsness, PhD, Professor, The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology and the Brookhaven Institute of Psychoanalysis; author of Core Competencies in Relational Psychoanalysis.

"This is an exhilarating, refreshing, and brave volume. Why? Because Jon Mills is not afraid to challenge dogma and theoretical hegemony, to ask the reader to think with (or for that matter, against) him. Mills’ commanding and passionate rhetorical and intellectual skills shine through as he engages both his sophisticated interlocutors and the vexing conundrums and aporias at the heart of contemporary psychoanalytic relational theorizing. The best kind of psychoanalytic journey,　Debating Relational Psychoanalysis, offers　a　vigorous, rigorous, and ultimately compassionate and redemptive conversation between Mills, the critic, and Mills’ critics, in which familiar thought is tested, and one’s truths are turned over, maybe tossed aside, maybe reaffirmed with renewed (and newly philosophically grounded) conviction."

Jill Gentile, PhD, NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; author of Feminine Law.

"Jon Mills tells us "There is nothing more exciting than a clash of ideas, except for, perhaps, sex." 　I think that says it all.　 His controversial critique of Relational Psychoanalysis is provocative on many grounds. And the often-heated responses by his critics reveal both intellectual differences and personal affronts. In the end, it is the reader who benefits from this unique dialogue between intellectuals nimbly defending their own ideas.　 It will force you to think harder, and feel more deeply, not only about what you believe, but also how you practice."　

Karen J. Maroda, PhD, ABPP, author of Psychodynamic Techniques

August Baker: Hello, I'm August Baker with the New Books Network. Today we are talking with Dr. John Mills, a Canadian psychoanalyst, psychologist, and philosopher who was previously a guest on New Books Network about 10 years ago. He's a faculty member in the postgraduate programs in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy at Adelphi University and Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Psychoanalysis at the Adler Graduate Professional School. He's the author and editor of over 20 books in psychoanalysis, philosophy, psychology, and cultural studies. Today we're talking about the book Debating Rational Psychoanalysis, John Mills and His Critics. And so this is an interesting volume. It contains both Dr. Mills' writings and those of his critics. Roy Barsness said that, "This book was like having a front seat to a theoretical and practical boxing match." Jill Gentile called the book, "Exhilarating, refreshing, and brave," and Karen Maroda said that, "The often heated responses by his critics reveal both intellectual differences and personal affronts." Dr. Mills has been called quote, "The most important and profound spokesman to critique the relational psychoanalytic movement." It's a pleasure to speak with you. Welcome, Dr. Mills. Dr. John Mills: Thank you for having me. August Baker: So I wanted to start off by talking about these three terms, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and then relational psychoanalysis. I think of psychotherapy as being the broadest, and then psychoanalysis is a type of psychotherapy, and then relational psychoanalysis would be a type of that, but I'm wondering if you could maybe give just a placeholder definition for these things so we can understand what they are. Dr. John Mills: Well, this is a ongoing debate. We have a difficult time defining what psychoanalysis is and does, let alone what psychotherapy is and there's a lot of fine hair splitting when it comes to this. Then when we try to define what relationality is, you have a whole contingent of people who are debating what that really means. Maybe we should go with the conventional definition that psychotherapy is a form of a talk therapy that's based upon dialogue and communication. Of course, that would apply to the definition of psychoanalysis, but it really, I think, comes down to the historical differences in theoretical orientations, assumptions about human nature, and the frequency in furniture wars that exist between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. August Baker: Could you tell the listeners what you mean by that? I think I know frequency and furniture would be how many times a week you come and whether you lie on the couch. Dr. John Mills: Correct. Correct. I think that's misguided in today's culture. Psychoanalysis has to accommodate the types of people that seek them out and so I believe that in today's society, and particularly in North America, but maybe the United States in particular, that traditional psychoanalysis is a dead dog. Only a few people can have the luxury of attending many times a week and have the funds to do it. I'm in agreement with Lou Aaron that particularly a relational approach is becoming more mainstream among psychotherapeutic practitioners across the board that are drawn to the relational tradition but they don't have to be considered bonafide analysts. They're often people who are using psychodynamic and analytic approaches to their weekly treatment of the patients. August Baker: Okay, I understand that. I think that what people may not realize, although you are known, as I said before, the most profound critic of relational psychoanalysis, you are yourself a relational psychoanalyst, and you have a lot of good things to say about relational psychoanalysis. I think that this book has articles going back 20 years. It covers the history of this debate. I'm just wondering, as you look back, what would you say are the most important of the criticisms that you've made about relational psychoanalysis? Dr. John Mills: Well, I guess having written another book on this 10 years ago, I would think that the main criticisms I have is that the relational movement hasn't really developed its own coherent theory, so that is the thing that I would definitely like to see people work on in the future. I believe that some of the completely blown out of the water statements that some of the early writers that were contributing to this discussion are a complete negation of Freud, complete negation of classical analysis, which is completely misguided in my opinion. This is where the drive versus relational model gets misrepresented in the literature. As a philosopher studying German idealism and psychoanalysis, we had to read these texts. Anyone who's read Freud's Collected Works will immediately see that how easy he and his followers have been misrepresented in the literature. I think that's an important criticism that we don't need to have these extreme bifurcations when it's really about matters of emphasis. Looking at what classical theory has to contribute and building on that would be a better approach in my opinion. But of course, we know what revolutionaries do. They need to build up a movement. August Baker: Right. Dr. John Mills: When you find a straw man, it's easy to burn. August Baker: Right. Dr. John Mills: And then you set yourself apart as being unique and different. But then when you say things like, "This is a two person psychology or Freud only as a one person," that's not true. When you hear things like the myth of the isolated mind, that's completely not true. Nothing like this was in Freud's texts. The other, I guess, important, I think criticisms have been the almost wholesale adoption of the postmodern term. I have grave concerns about that because again, it's overstating things, particularly if you want to boil everything down to language, as if everything's a social construction. That's not the case. A similar approach would be in let's say in the sciences where everything's boiled down to a brain state. Well, that's not the case. August Baker: Mm-hmm. Dr. John Mills: So these extreme views of mind, of nature, of reality and truth in epistemology. Then I guess, although I find the entire approach to relational work to be one that I have identified with since my early career and have considered myself relational practitioner, that to what degree are we comfortable with the excesses that can easily happen and from the literature has happened when there's too much self-disclosure, self-revelation, counter transference, enactments, which is the big term today. I'm a little bit more conservative than some of my relational colleagues are in presenting their case work but that doesn't mean that I don't approach my work that way. August Baker: Right, I see that, and I got the sense from that, from reading the book. I think when I started reading the relational literature, I was also shocked by, because I had read Freud first, I was shocked by the mischaracterizations of Freudian theory and I was exasperated, angry. Then I wondered why. Why am I getting angry about this? Especially because ... Is it my identification with Freud or just sometimes I think, am I being pendant? Why can't relational analysts, a lot of them are analysts full time, not scholars, so they haven't read the standard edition. I find myself exasperated, but I also kind of wonder why I am so exasperated. Just to be provocative, what's wrong with the relational analyst today not knowing Freud at all and having a mischaracterization? Dr. John Mills: Well, for whoever that applies to, let's say arbitrarily, if they haven't read Freud, then they really have no business critiquing Freud. Most of the literature draws upon secondary sources and you don't see them delving into these texts that you would see in the humanities. A lot of other analysts who work full-time as clinicians are also very focused upon clinical work and not necessarily on where our roots are. August Baker: Mm-hmm. Dr. John Mills: And that is looking at historically some of these leading seminal texts that should be required for anyone who studies psychoanalysis. But also the whole movement, the whole movement of psychoanalysis, the mere fact that Jung was just airbrushed out of history is amazing. The rich writings and view of life that he has to offer and the soul. But again, these are also political things. People may not be interested in theory and scholarship, but they really should be. I don't know if I would say I was angry reading these things, but kind of astonished that some of it would even be published because it's just patently false or wrong. August Baker: Right. That kind of brings me to the next question. When you started pointing this out, pointing these things out, you evoked a lot of strong reactions, and I was wondering why you think that was? What sort of chords did you strike? Why did it creates such heat? Dr. John Mills: Well, I was a relatively young person coming on the scene, so let's say I was probably mid-thirties when I started publishing a great deal, and the original critique article is what brought the heat. I can't, of course, know what people's internal emotional states are or their motivations or their conflicts or why they would feel so personal about a critique of ideas but we all know of our narcissistic inclinations all too well. I think that one thing that philosophy taught me was you needed to develop a capacity to argue for your position, and that always involves critique, and involves originality, and it also means that you don't take things personally. That's also what the role of science is. It's to follow up on models, ideas, and if they can't be verified, you abandon them but you don't get angry at your audience if certain high scientific hypothesis don't prove out to have any evidence or validity. I think a lot of this is that people were offended that their ideas were being critiqued and their overly identified with them also is due to a lot of political and power differentials that exist among the codery of friends. August Baker: Right. Yeah. It's interesting. I think you suggest this, if not say it, the relational movement talks about the importance of being nurturing and kind and supportive, and it's almost like that carried over into the scholarly work. We want to be supportive of each other's scholarly work, not ruthless critique, as you say. Dr. John Mills: Well, clearly in the last two books that came out on, I think it's a idealizing relational psychoanalysis and another critical examination, if you carefully go through those books, read them where they're supposed to be critiquing each other, it still seems very much like a circle of friends having some minor disagreements rather than, let's say, in the tradition of critical theory that one would be ruthless about these things. August Baker: Right. Yeah. I also had the sense that when relational psychoanalysts have written histories, there's a tendency to want to validate each certain theorist along the way as improving on the one before, and in that sense, the originator Freud just becomes that author who was improved upon 17 times. Dr. John Mills: But I think that's what the buddy system's about, right? Mutual self-promotion. August Baker: Right. One of the things that you draw attention to is the comparison of psychoanalysis and philosophy and know thy self as something that you could tie in with both philosophy and psychoanalysis or psychotherapy. I was wondering how would you distinguish those two, first of all? Clearly we might say that philosophy would be important for everyone, but or psychoanalysis would only be for people who, what? Can't ... Well, first of all, they have the resources to benefit from this but also there would be ... There are people who can achieve insight and authenticity without therapy. Do you have any sense of what then distinguishes the enterprise of philosophy from the enterprise of psychotherapy or psychoanalysis? Dr. John Mills: Well, there's a lot of differences. I think the difference is really on the focus and the goals, and so at the same time, there's a lot of overlap to such a degree is it's very hard to tease out anything that really stands apart from archaic ontology, so to speak. It's been said that Plato is the first psyche analysts. His entire introduction to this Dialogues to the Western World was the first textual introduction to philosophical thinking. What's he focus on? He focused on the soul. Hence when Aristotle comes and then basically he creates the edifice for where we are today, largely, it's hard to think about how psychoanalysis is a unique or distinct theory. I think the main distinction, though, would be that Freud introduces the centrality of the unconscious in all these aspects of psychic life that had been talked about by the ancients. Now, when it comes to a method of healing or a method of treatment, given that we are relatively speaking, we're still in the infancy, if you think that psychology as a formal discipline did not even become organized until late 19th century, so we're only talking over 100 years, but there's been always attempts at internal healing, at amelioration of internal conflicts or external conflicts, and various types of cultures had their own indigenous or shamanic types of healing practices and rituals as does religion. August Baker: We think of the confessional as a one possible forerunner of therapy. Dr. John Mills: Yeah, absolutely. But in our modern era now, this is different because people often aren't coming into treatment because they want to ponder the universe. They're coming into treatment for specific existential reasons that have to do with the quality of their phenomenal life, their relationships with other people. These are the main things that bring people into treatment. They're not happy. That's a little bit different than more of a pedagogical type of approach to reading and discussing philosophy. August Baker: I think, I can only speak, well, I can't even speak to Being and Time really, but I certainly can't speak to anything after Being and Time but if you think about Heidegger and Being and Time, there is a sense of crisis there of a need to uncover clear. I know you mentioned, what is it? Aletheia? Dr. John Mills: Aletheia. August Baker: Aletheia. It's more though the individual as opposed to the individual with someone else and in fact, there's a lot of suspicion about das Mann. Have you thought about that? Because when you talk about uncovering or clearing away or opening up a clearing space, it seems like it has some resonances with the psychoanalytic treatment. Dr. John Mills: Oh, absolutely. I certainly am an admirer of Heidegger's work, not his personhood, and having written on Being and Time in a few of my publications, the notion his turn to the truth of being is really a return to the ancient notion of disclosedness or unconcealment. Of course, that's exactly what we're doing in the consulting room. We're looking for things that are hidden, but yet have always been present. We're trying to open up spacings in the psyche that provide a porthole to other unconscious realms. At the same time, there's always going to be a concealing or a covering over when there's a new opening and that's the dialectical nature of the psyche. August Baker: Right. Yeah. There's sort of a suspicion of systematic theory in Heidegger. Well, as soon as it gets built up, you might need to tear it down again. That's my sense. Dr. John Mills: Well, it depends, yeah, how you want to look at it. It's interesting that Heidegger had disparaged in comments to say about psychoanalysis when he seems to have been engaging in his own existential psychoanalytic philosophy. [inaudible 00:20:43] is basically the human being who exists as a self, lives in proximity to others, and within a communal world and within the cosmos itself, and we have a relationship to all these different aspects. Yet there's those hidden elements, those unconscious elements, that are in Heidegger's philosophy, he just doesn't bring it out that way. August Baker: Right. Yeah, I was just reading this, but he does say we don't really want to look at the reflecting eye because the nature of the human may be that that's precisely not who the subject is. The subject might be instead the other, the das Mann, or the They. It's almost like he, but it did seem very similar to me. Dr. John Mills: Well, yeah. Well, das Mann would be, or the They comportment would be an inauthentic one, but it's one in which we all live in every day. We have to go through both, again, it's a dialectical kind of sojourn through both authentic and inauthentic states, and it's just part of the human trajectory. If we can come together with pulling these things into more of a unification, I would say that that is probably more helpful for a person to integrate different aspects of themselves. August Baker: Now, I know you've talked about how the unconscious is so important in psychoanalysis, and sometimes it seems like it's been left behind, although one of the articles in this volume that by Sopher and Kuchuck is pretty helpful about incorporating it back in. But I was wondering about the death drive. It seems to be still completely absent from relational psychoanalysis. Let me read, just, here's a quote from you in this book. "Unless one is a misanthrope, disturbed, traumatized, or deranged, all people deep down want to be happy, experience peace, to flourish and prosper, to beget or create, to have a family or be a part of what a family signifies, love, acceptance, empathy, validation, recognition. Then contrast that with Freud civilization and its discontents. Men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved. Your neighbor tempts you to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him." What has happened to that? Dr. John Mills: Well, these are two polarities. I think one is grounded in our natural desires, it's grounded in embodiment. It's actually comical that anyone would want to deny the reality of the life within that revolves around Freud's two primary drives, whether it be sex or eros, or whether it be aggression and death. These are central aspects to who we are that gets played out in different modes, different manners. On one hand, of course, this is the edifice of his turn in Beyond the Pleasure Principle where death becomes the impetus for life and it's about an integration of the two polarities in the psyche that are simultaneously striving for their own expression. Then when you impose on there, what you really want is to have it all, have your cake and eat it to too, but we would prefer to have these conflicting wishes met in circuitous ways or through compromise formations. I don't think anybody, well, again, anyone who is being genuine and honest is going to negate that they don't have these aggressive inclinations in them. We all do, just they come out in different forms, and particularly they can come out in relational, what we see all the time, they come out relationally due to the degree that we call them relational aggressions or microaggressions now. But this is again, the way that the dialectic flows. This is the way the dasein will meander through the various modes of authenticity and inauthenticity, getting back to Heidegger. What's the central thesis of Heidegger? Well, he says, do the essence of dasein on one hand is care, it's concernful solicitude, if not love for others, and on the other hand, it is fraught with anxiety and it's terrified of death. Death, anxiety is a driving force. He has his own little dialectic going on. But I do think in the end that we're all trying to fumble toward ecstasy, so to speak, and hope that we arrive on some kind of relational docket. Because I'm doing clinical work for 25 years, you know all too well, people who suffer from isolation, loneliness, solitude, their own aggressions that they cut off opportunities for interpersonal connection and intimacy. August Baker: But is there a sense that ... We look out there and we see a lot of people who don't seem to want to experience peace, well, or love, acceptance, sympathy, validation, recognition. Maybe within a certain group they do, but not on a grand scale. I'm wondering if there's a sense in relational psychoanalysis that that person has been traumatized or that person is disturbed, or that is some sort of injury that needs to be corrected, and I'm not sure why that follows. Dr. John Mills: Yeah, I would agree with you that I think that the shifting away from, it's not really about innate drives, that's creating these inter psychic conflicts that due to frustrated wish fulfillment, but it really has to do with our relationship to other people and that's the emphasis, that's the primacy of relatedness that they want to put on things. On the other hand, it doesn't negate the fact that we could have both of these proclivities that are operative at once in the psyche, and some people develop more of a one sidedness, and they haven't been able to find that balance between their internal desires and conflicts. The other thought is people have the need to have enemies. August Baker: Right. Yeah, you said that. I thought that was a good point. Yeah, it's exhilarating. One of the things you talked about what is exclusively relational, and there was a survey of, I guess, what people, relational psychoanalysts consciously emphasized, so we get non-a authoritarian, deep listening, and immersion, courageous honest speech. Then in fact, the study did arrive at one broad category, love. I'm thinking Winnicott, Hate and the Countertransference, it's somehow just such a refreshing thing to read because it's, I guess, normalizing. I just wonder, that itself seems to be also contrary maybe to the more classical view, which was hate is natural and we can't take people for what they say they're doing. We don't really know. Dr. John Mills: Well, I would think that my relational colleagues would agree with that. I would imagine the way the analytic environment is set up is to irritate the transference, and that's going to bring out all these negative things, everything from one's developmental traumas to their deprivations, their lack, the abuses that they've either had in fantasy or reality, and they project it onto the analyst. Over time this is what happens. I would imagine if they're like myself, even if you operate relationally, you're still having to deal with people's hostilities. August Baker: Right. Also, I think the thing about Winnicott is he says he shows his hate by the end of the hour. Maybe that's just too strong a word for people to use now, the word hate, but there's also hate and frustration on the analyst's side. Dr. John Mills: Yes. August Baker: Isn't that more emphasized in the classical literature and kind of deemphasize now? Dr. John Mills: Well, again, I don't keep up on every writing that's taking place in relational journals, but I don't know. I think there's a great deal of writing about enactments and countertransference. August Baker: True, true, true. Right. Dr. John Mills: Impasses and- August Baker: Yes, that's certainly true, right. I thought a very interesting chapter in the book by someone named Merav Roth who talked about declining view, and I wasn't really sure what your thoughts were on that. Is the concept of projective identification something that you work with or that is helpful to you? Dr. John Mills: Oh, very much. One of my early books is called Treating Attachment Pathology, and I definitely find the concept and the function of projective identification be extremely useful, particularly clinically, maybe not so much as a developmental theory that Klein would adopt, but if you look at projective identification from the standpoint that Klein was seeing this extremely disturbed kids, what we would call attachment disordered or disorganized attachment styles today, that kind of could make sense. But to take a developmental concept from infancy and then retrofit it to the adult world is problematic. But anybody who works clinically is going to be floating in their own counter transferences around whose projection is it? Unconsciously, I'm identifying with something that I can't even identify in myself. It's overwhelmed me emotionally or cognitively that I don't know how to deal with in the moment and then only by processing it later, you realize that the patient was evacuating this nasty stuff into me, and I was absorbing it and I very much think that the projective identification is a terrific concept to use, particularly around clinical theory. I used it in supervision. It's just invaluable. August Baker: Yeah, and I thought that was an excellent article. Some of the critics are making very good ... Or you learn a lot from reading their pieces. I guess we only have time for one more question. Karen Morda said that the often heated responses by his critics reveal both intellectual differences and personal fronts. I recognize that you've won awards and a lot of recognition for your work in this area, but it seems like, as I was reading it, I kept thinking there must have been some pretty dark times in the beginning when you were getting so much criticism. I can't imagine there weren't. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or how you got through that. Dr. John Mills: Well, yeah, that was a rough time. In a nutshell, I kind of got alienated and excommunicated from certain circles, and then I also had been befriended by many, many senior people in the field that went on to help me and build my career so if anything, it was just a, I suppose, an inevitability that I would create enemies and then meet new friends. August Baker: Well, that's a good point. Yeah. Okay. Well, Dr. Mills, I really appreciate your talking with me today. It was a pleasure to read the book and very engaging. Thank you very much. Dr. John Mills: Well, thank you for your kind invitation. I appreciate it.