S.1 E.7 Wednesday 04/17/2019—Stimulus and Response
Andrew has a session Vladimir Poplov and discusses his marriage and rage triggers. Gina harps on Andrew to attend a Gambler's Anonymous meeting.
Season 1 Recap:
Fergus secretly plots Andrew’s demise from prison. The Beck family mourns the death of patriarch Ted Beck, but childhood wounds between Andrew and Brandon still fester. Andrew reluctantly agrees to give a speech at his father’s memorial ceremony on Saturday. However, Andrew has other matters on his mind, mainly how to tell Sandra he has a gambling problem when last week’s events have her ready to leave him. Andrew and Gina try to get his patient roster back on track after his gambling and out-of-office distractions have him dangerously close to losing everything he has worked for. Meanwhile, at The Five Iron, Lorry successfully pulled off Operation Phoenix and deflected not only the police and a SWAT Team but also when one of Fergus’ henchmen asked about Andrew’s whereabouts.
Episode 7. Preview
Andrew counsels hockey player Vladimir “The Russian Bear” Poplov after a one-game suspension for an excessive beating he gave an opponent. Andrew also counsels Vladimir on his tumultuous marriage to a Russian ex-supermodel, who provokes him. Andrew teaches Vladimir about the benefits of living in the space between stimulus and response. Andrew is still struggling with his strained relationship with recovering drug addict pitcher John Palmer, who he fears may be heading down a dark path.
Andrew rolled out of his mother’s sandstone-covered driveway, stones crunching underneath the weight of his car. The crunching sound enabled him to refocus and release the tenseness from the last few minutes.
Andrew raced in his LC500 down North Street to the sound of angry horns blaring in the microseconds it took to pass them on the other side of the road. He veered right at the fork off North Street onto Sprain Road without letting up on the gas. He gently pressed the brake as he steered the car into the left lane and made a hard right into his driveway, barely missing the trees that lined his entrance. He braked and skidded within inches of hitting his closed white garage doors.
Andrew let out a big smile as he peered in his rearview mirror to see the dirt and gravel that kicked up behind his car. The bigger the cloud, the bigger the smile.
Andrew went to his home office and called Gina.
“Hello, Gina, I’m back at home. Is there any word from JP?”
“No. But did you see your email this morning?”
“No, why? Something important?”
“I sent you a bunch of Gamblers Anonymous locations near the office.”
Andrew winced.
Gina sensed the pause. “Well, I knew you wouldn’t do it. Look, I know the resistance. I know how important it is if you can just get to your first meeting. It will make all the difference.”
Andrew tried to be cordial and appreciated her concern. “Thanks, Gina, but can we talk about the patient roster? I feel like I’ve been out of touch with them for days.”
Gina shifted easily into business mode.
“Who do you want to start with?”
“JP, he pitches tonight, right?”
“Yes, this is the last in a three-game home stand against the Nashville Ramblers of the Central Divison. This is the rubber match. They split the first two games on Monday and Tuesday. JP is up against Gary Holman. He’s the third pitcher in their rotation, a righty.”
“Okay, the Tides match up pretty good against righties. Hopefully, they can give JP some offensive support.”
“He hasn’t checked in. And he hasn’t returned my calls.”
Andrew felt his stomach drop.
“What about Vlad?”
“He is in LA, the Sentinels face the Dragons. They are in last place in the Pacific Division with a record of 15 and 56. The Sentinels are 53 and 19 after their clutch win against Winnipeg on Monday night. This should be an easy three points.”
Andrew thought to himself; I need to see if things have settled down at home with Isrena and that his anger is not going to get triggered by her cutting remarks.
“Okay, I’ll give him a call. I’ll call back to talk about Lamar and Robbie. Also, can you reach Steve Gotski, JP’s agent, and see if he has heard from him?”
“Will do, boss. He’s Lamar’s agent, too, right?”
“Yes, Steve and I go back to my LSU days. We were both interning for the team; he handled scouting reports and data analysis, and I handled the performance evaluations and psychological states of the players.”
“Gotcha, I’ll call Steve. You check in with Vlad.”
Andrew clicked off with Gina and called Vladimir Poplov, the New York Sentinels star defenseman and enforcer nicknamed “The Russian Bear” because fighting him was like fighting a bear. And he never lost a fight. Andrew had been treating him for severe childhood trauma and marital issues he was having with his wife, ex-supermodel Isrina Salenko.
[Click here for Vlad’s backstory]
In excellent English, albeit Russian accented, Vladimir answered, “Hello, Doctor Beck. I’m very sorry to hear about your father’s death. This must be a tough time for you.”
“Thank you, Vlad, and I appreciate you sending the text Monday; I was dealing with quite a lot, and I’m sorry I didn’t respond.”
“No need to respond, Doctor. I was sending for you, not me.
“I’m here for you, too. I wanted to check in to see how you were feeling and if you and Isrena were getting along better.”
“After our session last week, I apologized for getting angry with her and asked her if we can talk nice to each other. Not always ya, ya, ya, ya, at each other.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she try.”
“That’s great. I’m really proud of you. It takes a big man to be the one to find peace in a marriage.”
“If I wait for her, that day never come. So I do. She will be nice, especially when I am away. As model, she knows life on the road. She never start trouble while I am away.”
“Well, that’s good to hear that she is understanding about travel and the focus that is needed when you are away from home.”
“Nyet, not that. She knows I can always hang up phone or not take her call. When she mad at me, she wants to say to my face.”
“Oh.”
“Sometimes I wonder, Doctor Beck, if she happy when I’m mad?”
“Did you ever think that she just might be looking to get a reaction from you? To show some emotion towards her? Do you ever smile at her?”
“For no reason? Just smile, like clown?”
“No Vlad, sometimes people need to see your expressions, to connect emotionally to you. You can be pretty stone-faced sometimes, so maybe she is trying to get some emotional reaction from you. And the only reaction she knows how to get from you is anger.”
“What should I do?”
“Perhaps tell her how nice she looks and say it with a smile.”
“She will think I’m crazy.”
“Not if you do it sincerely.”
“Okay, I will try when I get back to New York. Is that all, Doctor?”
“No. How are you feeling about the whole Teddy Newsome thing?”
“I’m glad I didn’t hurt him too bad. He deserved a punch in face for dirty hit on Chris Kruder, but not as bad as I beat him.”
[Click here to read about Vladimir’s fight and Andrew’s locker room counseling]
Vladimir paused and added, “I did not get to thank you for getting me out of a long suspension. How did you do that? Mr. Asherton said you threatened to sue them?”
“I didn’t threaten the committee. The head of the committee made a disparaging remark towards you, and I capitalized on it. I was purposely trying to frustrate them with long responses, and I used the kind of language that I knew, due to their negative biases around therapy, would invoke an insensitive reaction from them. Instead of them finding a way to punish you, I got them focused on taking back their words. I stole the puck and instead of them being on offense, they had to play defense.”
[Click here to read about Andrew’s defense of Vladimir]
“Da, that’s good analogy.”
“Look, we both know that as your role as an enforcer, violence is part of the game. And I know we talked about many things about your childhood that brought up some painful and repressed memories. We still have some work to do, but awareness is the first step. I believe in you and that you can get past every time a player on your team is hit, even with a dirty shot, it doesn’t have to trigger when that happened to your little brother Nikki.”
“Da, I know that. Like you say, one-time thing, yes?”
“Yes, let’s hope so. We have to live in the space between stimulus and response.”
“I do not understand.”
“The stimulus is when something happens, like when an opponent shoves a stick in your ribs, or you see one of your teammates get hit with a dirty play. You then get to choose your response. Go right after him and fight and get the penalty, or wait until you can get him on another play: stimulus and response. To use a different analogy, because you are an electrical engineer, when you connect circuits or wires, that is the stimulus. The response is if you get shocked or not.”
“Ah, I see. No sense in getting angry at wire, even if I get shocked. I control my mind and find other way to wire the circuit, yes?”
“Exactly. Find another way. Controlling that mental space between stimulus and response allows us to find another way when we get angry or upset.”
“Da, understood.”
“Good, because I don’t think I can use that same tactic on the Disciplinary Board again, I think that was a one-time thing. He will be wary of me next time.”
“No next time, Doctor Beck. If I have to fight, I have to fight. That is my job. But I will be careful not to do anything to jeopardize my team for playoffs.”
“That’s all I can ask Vlad. I know Mr. Asherton will be happy to hear that, too.”
“Okay, team breakfast soon, have to go.”
“Good luck tonight, I’ll be watching.”
Andrew clicked off his call and sat back in his chair. He put his hands behind his head and stared out the windows to his back yard. He thought about how far Vladimir had come. Just a week ago, he was a man filled with repressed memories of the death of his younger brother, which he blamed himself for. Andrew took pride in helping a good man, a very misunderstood man, start on the road to healing.
People in the sports world, media, and the management of the New York Sentinels saw Vladimir Poplov as a raging beast. Yes, he was a man other hockey players feared. But that was the purpose of an “enforcer.” If an opposing player hit a Sentinel player with a cheap shot or a hard check that injured a Sentinel player, they could expect that the “Russian Bear” would be unleashed on them. At a minimum, they would suffer some hard punches. At worst, like Boston’s cheap shot expert, Teddy Newsome, they would end up leaving the game on a stretcher.
But there was a man behind the violence. This man loved his family, adored his father and mother, and doted on his little brother Nikki. When tragedy hit Vladimir’s family as a boy, he did not have any other tools but rage in how to deal with the sadness.
In their sessions together, Andrew felt proud he got past Vladimir’s armor and got him to open up about his childhood traumas. Andrew hoped his breakthrough would also transfer to his home life with his troublesome and argumentative wife, Isrena.
There was more work to be done, but Vladimir and the Sentinels were playoff-bound. The price was costly, and the price was John’s trust. John practically begged Andrew to come to Miami to watch him pitch. However, when Asherton threatened to ruin Andrew’s career if he did not turn around and go back to New York City to get Vladimir out of a crisis, Andrew had to choose between John and Vladimir.
[Read why Andrew turned the plane around]
Now, John was MIA, and there was a lot of work to be done to get John back to therapy. John was in danger…mentally, emotionally, and physically.
John was alone.
Andrew believed John was feeling abandoned and let down by the one man who supported and counseled him through his rehab and the sudden death of John’s father. Andrew knew the response to this abandonment stimulus would be a series of bad choices. This was the crucial time when addicts lost hope.
If Andrew did not get to him quickly, he would head down a dark path. And Andrew should know— as a psychologist…and an addict.
Up Next:
S.1 E.8 A Slice of Humble Pie Covered With Hard Truths
Andrew is desperate to bring John Palmer back to therapy, for John’s benefit, for Andrew’s practice, but also for the guilt and shame he feels for lying to John that he flew down to Miami to watch him pitch. Super Agent Stephen Gotski, a long-time friend with who they share several clients together, including John, gives Andrew some hard truths but says he will try to get John back to therapy.
Author’s note:
In this episode, Andrew talks to Vlad about the psychological concept of Stimulus and Response. There is a quote from Austrian neurologist and psychologist Viktor Frankl:
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
When we are triggered, by staying in the space between stimulus and response, we can better manage our mental health and get through difficult situations. Vlad’s rage is triggered by the need to defend his teammates when someone tries to hurt them. While the need to defend his teammates is noble, the response of uncontrolled violence creates some problems, even for a hockey player. Although Andrew needs to take some of his advice regarding his impulsive behavior and gambling issues, I always find it interesting how he can give such great advice but yet has blinders on to his weaknesses.
Childhood traumas affect us all differently. I find it interesting how the character interprets their trauma and how it informs their decisions and reactions.
Sitting in the space between stimulus and response is a practice I use regularly. When NYC bikers almost run me over when I have the walk, I try not to let their selfishness and complete obliviousness to the rules of the road cause me to lose my temper and allow it to disrupt my day when they are halfway down the block. The difficulty is when I feel that anger, to breathe and realize, “I’m okay; I didn’t get hit, and my day is not that disturbed.”
But that still doesn’t always stop the thought of me wishing I had a water balloon to throw at them. 😉
One other unique feature in this episode is that I have links to three chapters in Shock & Denial. If you so choose, you can read some of the backstory and some of the scenes that Andrew or Vladimir reference.
Let me know if you find that helpful or distracting.
Thank you!
Chris K. Jones
"Just smile at her? Like clown?" I laughed out loud at this, Chris. Very enjoyable episode. I'll be interested to see what happens with John Palmer.