By Helaina Hovitz

Three weekends ago, as spring finally began to blossom, I saw oodles of couples strolling through Washington Square Park, gearing up for summer love that they undoubtedly hoped would stick around through the fall.

“Hey guys!” I wanted to shout from across the street. “Before you can love each other, you have to love yourselves!”

Why, you may ask, did I want to accost innocent pedestrians with such a tired cliché?

Because I, for one, didn’t have a clue about how to actually love myself until I met Mark Murynec, whose office I’d just left.

Photo by Nathan Harris at SetCamerasToStun.com

No, he isn’t a love doctor, nor is he a psychologist, therapist, self-help guru or life coach. He’s a Philosophical Counselor who helps people grappling with questions that feel too big to answer: What makes me happy? What’s my purpose? Who am I? Murynec helps “functional people with rational problems” find true happiness, and make better decisions about their career choices and relationships.

After getting his Master’s in Philosophy from the New School in ’07 and becoming certified by the American Philosophical Practitioners Association in ’08, Murynec started his practice in a quaint little office in the East Village. On weekdays, he’s Program Manager at a company that provides management services to non-profits, and on Fridays, he lectures at Molloy College. Weekends are when the magic happens.

If you want a better understanding of who you are and who you want to become, Murynec is the guy to go see. One thing to note: if you need psychological help for medical issues such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or depression, he can’t take the place of a licensed doctor. He can, however, work with you if you’re already in treatment.

After experiencing a life-changing 50-minute Q&A session for myself, I decided to turn the tables and show everyone why I consider it to be best $50 bucks I’ve spent in years.

Let’s start with the most obvious question: tell me where psychotherapy ends and you begin.
Well, if you have a headache, you take medication to kill the pain. If you’re sad, you take medication to feel better. On their own, meds only treat the symptom, while philosophical counseling helps treat the cause. There’s nothing I can do to help a headache, but I can help you be happy despite the headache—hopefully. Some people see a psychoanalyst for 15 years and still have the same problem. It just doesn’t work. Long rant summarized: psychology isn’t bad, but philosophy can also help.

What’s the biggest difference between you and a conventional psychologist, in terms of your approach?
Psychologists believe that mind=brain, so they treat mind and brain. But as philosophers, we believe that humans are composed of mind, body, and soul. To a psychiatrist, your past is what makes you who you are. I’m not going to dig up stuff from your past.

How can you expect people to deal with the present if they don’t also deal with the past, like a therapist/psychologist would have you do?
Your past is an integral part of who you are—but you can’t let yourself become defined by it. It’s easy for us to become mired in our history. We have to talk about the past and actually use it, or we will always repeat our mistakes. This is where we start. People are always looking to be reborn, right? Who you are can change, if you’re open to questioning yourself and everything you know, or knew.

Do you think people come to see you because it’s less stigmatic than seeing a  traditional psychologist or therapist?
Well, with me, there’s an element of non-judgment. I’m not analyzing you, for one, and I try not to be authoritative because I spend so much time trying to get people to question authority. I don’t say, “This is how things are.” I say, “This is how things might be.”

What are the most common questions people come to you with, in the beginning?
“Am I doing the right thing?” or “Am I wrong in feeling that way?” Also very common are: Who am I? What do I want? How can I change? Can we change others?

How often do people need to come see you before they begin to find answers?
Some people get it right away. I won’t try to get you to come every week like a psychiatrist might. I want to be useful, but I don’t like to apply any pressure. I want you to want it.

Sounds bad for business.
Yeah, but it’s best for the client.

Are you as open-minded with the homework assignments you give your students?
Ha. You know, my students don’t listen, but want to look like they are. They think I don’t see that they’re on their phones, and that if they look up and make eye contact with me for a brief moment, I’ll think they’re paying attention. I know they’re not.

What’s your class about?
I’m teaching a Sexual Ethics class at Molloy College. One of the things I have my students think about is this: what’s the difference between a friend and a boyfriend or a girlfriend? Is it just sex? What is it that distinguishes between the two, besides physical attraction alone? Try to answer that out loud. Not so simple.

Whoa. Okay, let’s talk relationships. I’m sure you get lots of people looking for help in that department.
Absolutely. Most recently, a client, let’s call her Jane, came to me for her first session because she fell in love with a girl who was different from the guys she’d always dated in more ways than just gender: good job, life plan, solid family, etc. Twofold, her parents disapproved, and Jane could sense herself sabotaging the relationship, rattling off reasons about why it wasn’t going to work.

Yikes.
When I asked her, “What does a good boyfriend or girlfriend do,” Jane found she couldn’t answer. After a while, she realized that the only expectation she had was that they had a stable job, an apartment, all externals. And none of it really came from her, inherently—that’s what her mother wanted. Jane came in saying she felt disappointed, but how can someone disappoint you and not meet your expectations if you don’t really know what you want?

Isn’t that always the way it goes?
You’d be surprised how many of us end up wanting what our parents want without realizing it, and without stopping to figure out what our own ideals are.

Do you typically see a high number of sexually curious clients?
Sex is very tied up in our identity, and that’s what I help people find, so yes. Sexuality is definitely becoming more fluid for women, but not so much men. I think it’s always kind of been that way, and that women are more open and willing to identify as bisexual. Men, on the other hand, want to identify with one side or the other, and it’s less acceptable to be bi. Female bisexuality is more understandable and natural.

Tell me about your relationships. Do you repeat romantic patterns yourself?
Oh, yeah. For a while, I only dated people I worked with. Everyone I had sex with worked at Disney.

What were you doing at Disney?
I worked there to put myself through graduate school. I sold t-shirts and programs at a kiosk at Beauty and the Beast on Broadway. I also walked up and down the isles selling $10 silk roses to people.

Tell me something most people are surprised to learn.
Sometimes the solution isn’t to end a relationship but to love yourself more.

How?
We don’t take the time to identify who we want to be, what we want to be like, or how we want people to think of us. For example, you can say, “I’m a great person.” But you’d be surprised at how many people can’t start listing off the reasons why. Hence, some of my clients realize they want to volunteer, become philanthropic, help the poor, or just help their buddies or their own families more. The point is, they have to start somewhere!

Did you study psychology? Seems like you know it well.
I took some in undergrad. But mainly, I know when something is rational and when it isn’t.

How?
That’s what philosophy is.

So how do we become rational?
We have to be willing to be uncomfortable and keep our irrational desires and impulses in control, even when they’re hard to ignore. We combat anxiety by living in “the now.”

But what if “the now” sucks?
That’s when we have to make a decision to say, “I don’t mind being hurt, because at least I’m alive.”

Wow. That’s one way to look at it. Okay, so here’s a big one: how do I start to figure out what makes me happy?
You like food? What kind? Do you like comedy? Who’s your favorite comedian? Where do you like to go? What do you like to do just for the sake of doing it? Not as a means to an end, but in and of itself? That’s how Aristotle defined happiness.

What makes you happy?
For me, ultimate happiness is other people. That’s why I work 12 hour days Monday through Thursday, so I can teach on Fridays and work Saturday mornings for little pay.

Well, that’s very noble. What else?
Cosmology blows my mind. Just knowing that life on a star is possible makes me happy. I also like a good steak. Oh, and there’s this flourless chocolate cake from Il Bambino in Brooklyn. It’s to die for, but I don’t go often enough. I actually only have it when I go on dates.

If she doesn’t like the cake, is it a deal breaker?
I don’t believe in deal breakers!

Bring this bad boy home.
With philosophy, you can get dark easily, or you can go the positive route. It just depends on what you want to believe in any given moment.

To contact Mark, email info@markmurynec.com. 

Donna Greenstein knew something was wrong with her son, but no one believed her. The mother of four first had two daughters and went through the usual pediatric milestones with them. Then her son was born and began to grow up.

“He would have tantrums that would last for hours and went above and beyond the normal realm of the terrible twos,” said Greenstein, a nurse. “He would rip wallpaper off walls, urinate on walls and throw feces at his sisters.”

Preschool and kindergarten teachers kept saying, “Boys will be boys. It’s nothing. He’s immature, he’ll catch up; this is typical boy behavior.”

When he started first grade, she received a call from his teacher, who told her, “‘We need to have a meeting; something is wrong.’ Finally someone was listening to me. Before, everyone told me I was crazy,” she recalled.

Her son was tested and diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder and bipolar disorder. Now 16, he is active in school and sports and is preparing for college. Without intervention, therapy and medication, his story would have had a different outcome.

ADHD is a chronic condition that affects millions of children in this country, and it affects boys four times more often than girls. There are three types of the disorder: inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive and combined ADHD, the most common, which involves all symptoms.

With the inattention type, a child has difficulty paying attention to details, is easily distracted, procrastinates and fails to complete homework or chores. These symptoms are often missed until a child faces the challenge of a structured classroom.

Hyperactivity symptoms present themselves in very young preschoolers. They include talking excessively, always being on the go, fidgeting, running or climbing excessively. Impulsivity symptoms involve inappropriate behavior, conversations, blurting out answers before questions are asked, interrupting others in social situations, knocking over objects or banging into people.

Dr. Lenard Adler, professor of psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center, said, “Girls are less likely to be diagnosed in childhood because they carry a higher load of the inattentive symptoms. So in a classroom, if you are daydreaming and not paying attention and distracted, you may be seen as underperforming, as compared to a boy, let’s say, who is behaviorally disruptive, in and out of his chair, interrupting his teacher.

“That doesn’t mean that girls don’t have any hyperactive impulses and boys don’t have any inattentive. But the balance is different,” he explained.

The causes of the disorder remain a mystery.

” We think the lion’s share of the transmission of ADHD—probably about 80 percent—is familiar,” said Adler. “It’s a disorder that tends to run in families.

“That being said, we also look for environmental causes that might be contributing; certainly it has been shown that maternal smoking during pregnancy may raise the risk for ADHD,” he said. “Another environmental factor that has been shown has been maternal abandonment.”

Other possible causes linked to the disorder are lead exposure, certain food additives and, possibly, gluten.

Children with ADHD without proper intervention often struggle in the classroom, tend to have more accidents and injuries, are more likely to have trouble interacting with peers and adults and are at increased risk for alcohol, drug abuse and delinquent behavior.

Making the diagnosis of ADHD is not always easy, since there is no one specific test such as a blood test or CAT scan that can make the definitive diagnosis. Instead, it is usually made by gathering the child’s history, first with the parents and later from the observations of teachers, before the child is brought in for evaluation.

Standard treatments for ADHD include medications and counseling. Often, children can go on to lead productive lives. Typical medications include stimulants such as Ritalin, Adderall and Dexedrine, but there is no one perfect medicine, and it is often a trial to see which one or combination of them will be the most effective.

The stimulants help boost and balance the neurotransmitters, or brain chemicals, that help improve inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity.

There are side effects to all meds; some may include decreased appetite, weight loss, insomnia and irritability. It may take several rounds of fine-tuning to find the perfect combination. Nonstimulant medications, along with antidepressants and clonidine, have also been used successfully.

Greenstein advises parents like her to seek treatment early.

“A lot of parents, I have found, are afraid of medications, so they allow their children to suffer for so many years because ‘I don’t want to put my son or daughter on medication,’” she said. “I think they do more harm than good, because the child’s self-esteem takes a major blow when they are not able to function in a classroom with other children.

“Once you medicate them and get them under control, their self-esteem starts to blossom, they learn, they start to feel better about themselves.”

Her son had difficulty maintaining friendships his first years in school. Now as a teenager, he has friends, is active and is looking forward to college.

“I have him burn off energy so he does mixed martial arts and track,” Greenstein said. “You have to keep all of that energy focused in a positive direction.”

For more information about the Gruson Fund for Brain Tumor Research & Care, visit www.grusonfund.org/news.html.

1. Fear of Flying by Erica Jong. There’s a reason 20 million copies are in print. Jong’s hilarious 1973 therapy, sex and feminist tour-de-force about hot, unhappily married 29-year-old poet Isadora Wing fantasizing her way through Freud’s Vienna will make you want to see a shrink, be a shrink, screw a shrink and screw over a shrink before you can say “zipless.”

2. Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth. Told as a monologue from patient Portnoy to Dr. Spielvogel, Roth’s 1969 laugh riot is his most popular book—except with his own tribe, who called him a self-hating Jew. It’ll remind you that your family’s ethnic insanity is actually normal. And you’ll never again say, “What am I, chopped liver?” without laughing (or puking, depending on your gross-out level). Book is way better than the film starring Richard Benjamin.

3. August by Judith Rossner. For a more serious chronicle of psychoanalysis, this 1983 bestseller could be subtitled “Looking for Dr. Goodbar.” Luckily 20-year-old New England client Dawn Henly finds her in a 40-year-old Manhattanite, Dr. Lulu Shinefield; their five years together make compelling reading. Okay, the names Dawn, Lulu and Shinefield are Dickensian, and I wouldn’t recommend the realistic, dialogue-heavy soft cover for the beach. Still, Rossner’s story is the real deal, and you’ll be thankful your background is nowhere near as insane as Dawn’s.

4. The Treatment by Daniel Menaker. Thirty-two-year-old Upper West Side wimpy teacher Jake Singer has a crazy Cuban Catholic head doctor, proving you don’t have to be a Jewish shrink to be meshuganah in this serio-comic Manhattan shrinkfest. Fascinatingly, Dr. Morales turns out to be dead-on about his patient’s need to grow balls. Bonus: rent the recent fun movie starring Ian Holm as the last foul-mouthed Freudian.

5. Therapy by David Lodge. One wouldn’t think a British satirist could do justice to psychoanalysis. But this 1995 satire charmingly chronicles the misadventures of 50ish sitcom writer Tubby Passmore, a successful, rich married dad in England addicted to everything from psycho- to aroma-therapy.

6. Genius by Jesse Kellerman. I don’t even like mysteries, but I couldn’t put down this tale by a shrink (married to a shrink!) depicting real crimes and not just imagined ones. In this quick, clever 2008 Queens-and-Chelsea-located whodunit about 33-year-old East Coast art dealer Ethan Muller, bodies get unburied faster than you can say unconscious wishes.

7. The Schopenhaur Cure by Irvin Yalom. Prolific psychiatrist-novelist Yalom nails his 2005 portrait of 65-year-old ailing West Coast psychiatrist Julius Hertzefeld, incorporating sex addiction, mentor/protégé connections and philosophy into this tale of two men’s search for meaning. Almost as good as his nonfiction best-seller Love’s Executioner.

8. Envy by Kathleen Harrison. The ick factor concerning creepy 47-year-old married male Park Slope psychoanalyst William Moreland in this 2005 beautifully written novel will make you happy you can’t afford therapy anyway.
–
Susan Shapiro (susanshapiro.net), a Manhattan writing teacher, is author of the novel Speed Shrinking.

Theodore Laquercia
President, Society of Modern Psychoanalysts

Letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.