SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Each week, a guest draws a card from NPR's Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. Esther Perel is a world famous psychotherapist and host of the podcast "Where Should We Begin?" She's about to go on tour to connect with her audience in person. She told Wild Card host Rachel Martin that her parents' experience as Holocaust survivors shaped her world view.
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RACHEL MARTIN: What emotion do you understand better than all the others?
ESTHER PEREL: Dread.
MARTIN: Oh, that is a fascinating answer. Dread?
PEREL: Dread.
MARTIN: Why?
PEREL: Because it is the one that lingers the most. It is a combustion of a lot of different things. That involves fear and grief and worry and uncertainty and vigilance and ominous. And there's something religious about it. The others are more - they're lesser for me. This one sits a little bit on top of many others.
MARTIN: You can answer or not, but what is the root of that dread?
PEREL: I think that when I would listen to my parents talk about their experiences, I developed a response of, you know, you never know what's around you. Where is the danger roaming around you? What is the thing lurking in the dark that you don't know? Be careful. But I am a very non-careful person also. So you don't want that feeling to rule you. You don't want to walk around...
MARTIN: No.
PEREL: ...Frightened.
MARTIN: Yeah.
PEREL: So you become what they call counterphobic.
MARTIN: What does that mean?
PEREL: Means that the very things that scare you the most, you defy them as if you have no fear at all.
MARTIN: Well, that seems quite healthy. Well, except in the extreme.
PEREL: If you have dread, you shouldn't be hitchhiking, for example.
MARTIN: Correct.
PEREL: Right. But I would do the things that would kind of defy the very fears that I would have.
MARTIN: Was there any part of you, though, that made that connection when you were younger?
PEREL: I knew that I would do things that other people would think are, you know...
MARTIN: Yeah.
PEREL: ...Bold, this and that. And I would - it would look like I'm fearless. But, in fact, I have dread.
MARTIN: Did it feel like, then, a small internal and personal victory when you would - every time you would raise your thumb...
PEREL: Yes.
MARTIN: ...And the car would stop, and then you had a nice exchange, and they dropped you off and it was fine.
PEREL: Or any other that you should - you know, it's like, no.
MARTIN: Yeah.
PEREL: It's death defying.
MARTIN: Yeah.
PEREL: To act as if you don't have the dread is an act of defiance of death.
MARTIN: Yeah.
PEREL: So every time you have a little victory, whatever the victory is, it's not...
MARTIN: Yeah.
PEREL: The thing itself has no meaning. You think, ah, I was able.
MARTIN: I did it.
PEREL: That's why I say it has a religious connotation.
MARTIN: Because it's - you are beating...
PEREL: You define the odds.
MARTIN: ...The finite.
PEREL: Yes, you define the odds.
MARTIN: Yeah.
PEREL: It's a very - but it's not an uncommon...
MARTIN: No.
PEREL: ...Feeling. When you - when people describe to you some of their conundrums and you say, that is dread.
DETROW: Esther Perel's tour starts this fall. You can watch that full conversation on YouTube by searching for NPR Wild Card. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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