Tools to Bolster Your Mental Health & Confidence | Dr. Paul Conti

Episode of Huberman Lab · May 4, 2026 · 2 h 10 min

Andrew Huberman and psychiatrist Paul Conti discuss self-reflection, agency, behavior change, trauma, intrusive thoughts, and happiness, drawing on Conti's book What's Going Right?

Summary

Andrew Huberman hosted psychiatrist Paul Conti to discuss Conti's new book, What's Going Right? A Powerful New Method for Optimizing Your Mental Health. Conti argued that self-view is highly malleable and that people should begin self-examination from a position of strength, noting that far more is going right in most people than is going wrong, in contrast to what he described as the mental health system's focus on labels and deficits. He recommended "compassionate curiosity" toward oneself, awareness of self-talk and life narrative, and an observing ego that knits the self together across states.

The two discussed the balance between thinking and doing, prompted by Marc Andreessen's remark on David Senra's podcast that great men of history did not sit around thinking about their thoughts. Conti said each person has an individual profile of reflection and action, that externalizing thoughts through speech or writing engages error-checking processes, and that stereotypes about quiet or verbal people should not be applied without understanding the person and context. He described using clinical inventories to find "X's that mark the spot to dig," setting collaborative, modest goals, and gaining small wins.

On behavior change, Conti argued that insight into inherited patterns restores agency because humans dislike being controlled, but that there is no internal enemy: people get in their own way for understandable reasons such as fear of failure or feeling undeserving. He discussed intrusive thoughts, the meaning of dreams, how the limbic system ignores the clock and calendar in trauma, and healing childhood trauma through equanimous self-observation. Huberman shared Larry Squire's advice about displaying photographs of positive memories, which Conti framed as shaping the climate of the unconscious mind.

Later they discussed good and evil in spirituality, which Conti cautioned against oversimplifying, and happiness, which he defined as peace, contentment, and the capacity for delight rather than being happy-go-lucky. Conti recounted an elderly relative who founded a bank and, in his nineties, told him he was at peace with his life and death.

Chapters

2:51
Malleability of the self and What's Going Right
Conti explains why self-view is flexible and why starting from strengths is consistent with truth.
8:12
State dependence and the observing ego
Conti describes how self-observation knits one self together across different situations.
12:24
Compassionate curiosity, falseness, and social media
The two discuss true versus false self, oversharing online, and the need for enough aloneness.
20:59
Doing versus thinking
Prompted by Marc Andreessen's comments, they explore balancing introspection and action and differing reflective capacities.
29:55
Internal and external processing
Conti explains how speaking or writing thoughts engages error-checking, and Huberman shares a conversation with his sister.
41:56
Quiet versus verbal and self-inquiry prompts
They caution against stereotypes about quiet or talkative people and discuss the book's structured questions.
53:17
The examined life and changing unwanted behavior
Conti describes probing patient inventories for choices versus habits and finding where to dig.
1:02:54
Collaborative goals and small wins
Conti explains setting measured, collaborative action steps to build empowerment.
1:08:39
Insight into inherited patterns and agency
Conti argues insight into childhood patterns frees people because humans dislike being controlled, though there is no internal enemy.
1:22:49
Trauma, internal turmoil, and self-talk
They discuss living intentionally, exhausting internal rumination, and harsh self-talk versus treatment of others.
1:29:08
Intrusive thoughts and dreams
Conti outlines recognizing and interpreting intrusive thoughts and cautiously learning from dreams.
1:35:23
Trauma, emotion, and healing childhood wounds
Conti explains how limbic systems ignore time and recommends equanimous observation of one's past.
1:42:24
Positive memories, spirituality, and good and evil
Huberman shares Larry Squire's photograph advice and asks whether belief in a devil aids behavior change.
1:52:53
Happiness, death, and a life well lived
Conti defines happiness as peace, contentment, and delight and recalls an elderly relative at peace with his life.
2:03:10
Writing the book and closing
Conti reflects on what writing taught him and the two joke about Lex Fridman before closing.

Key points

What was said, by whom, with the exact words. Timestamps jump to the moment.

Paul Conti
Conti argues that starting self-examination from what is going right reflects reality, not just comfort, whereas the mental health system focuses on what is wrong.
“think to start off with what's going right, it's not just a way of looking at it because it feels better, but it's consistent with truth”
Listen from 5:10 · What's Going Right? (book)
Paul Conti
Conti contends the mental health system encourages labels that can make people feel more helpless.
“to put labels on ourselves that often just make us feel worse or make us feel more helpless or hopeless in understanding”
Listen from 5:43 · What's Going Right? (book)
Paul Conti
Conti says the modern world offers too much connectedness and too little aloneness, pushing people to rely on external cues for preferences.
“where the modern world has gone is it offers us too much the opposite, where there's not enough aloneness”
Listen from 20:12 · Social media and self-presentation
Paul Conti
Conti argues each person needs an individual balance of reflection and action, with too little doing risking learned helplessness.
“But if we're doing too little, then we can feel idle and there can be a sense of learned helplessness”
Listen from 22:47 · Self-reflection and introspection
Paul Conti
Conti attributes widespread anxiety about being alone with oneself to a lack of leadership in the mental health field and mental health stigma.
“I think that comes from a lack of leadership mentality. in the mental health field and then the stigma of mental health and our fears”
Listen from 23:03 · Self-reflection and introspection
Paul Conti
Conti explains that putting thoughts into words, written or spoken, engages different brain error-checking processes and holds the brain more accountable.
“making words and putting those words out there in writing or in speech is different. It holds the brain more accountable”
Listen from 31:23 · Internal versus external processing
Paul Conti
Conti reports that in intensive treatment, patients often realize by the second day that much of what they do is habit rather than choice.
“by midway through the second day of an intensive process, the person wants to revisit almost everything”
Listen from 55:25 · Behavior change and agency
Paul Conti
Conti prefers collaboratively arrived-at goals over directives and emphasizes that small wins build toward larger change.
“small wins empower and embolden us to grow. to take a little bit more chances and get bigger wins”
Listen from 1:05:24 · Behavior change and agency
Linked moment · 1:10:16Skip to 1:10:16 using a listen link in the info box.
Paul Conti
Conti argues insight into childhood patterns frees people, since both copying and reflexively opposing an over-controlling parent can be unhealthy.
“Yes, it's insight that sets us free and it's insight that puts us in the driver's seat of our lives. Otherwise, we're just reacting”
Listen from 1:10:16 · Intergenerational behavior patterns
Paul Conti
Conti holds that although people get in their own way, they are not their own enemy, and there is always a reason behind self-obstruction.
“here the magic realization is that there is no enemy. That we can get in our own way”
Listen from 1:19:53 · Behavior change and agency
Paul Conti
Conti says people more often treat others kindly while being harsh with themselves than the reverse.
“For most people, if it's different, it's the opposite where people are treating others much, much better than they're treating themselves”
Listen from 1:27:42 · Self-talk
Paul Conti
Conti argues intrusive thoughts always carry meaning and must first be recognized, with strategies ranging from redirection to medication.
“there is a meaning to intrusive thoughts. There always is. So we want to recognize them. We want to look for that meaning”
Listen from 1:29:24 · Intrusive thoughts
Paul Conti
Conti explains that emotional systems do not track time, so a present trigger can make a past event emotionally current.
“They don't know that there's a clock or the calendar. So it's not that that was then, this is now. A trigger in the now can make then now”
Listen from 1:37:40 · Childhood trauma
Paul Conti
Conti says people do not reflect on good past experiences often enough and that doing so empowers rather than breeds complacency.
“We tend to have a bias in us towards the negative and we don't stop and think, hey, you know, I did that really well”
Listen from 1:42:35 · Negativity bias
Andrew Huberman
Huberman recounts Larry Squire telling him that displaying photographs of good times benefits adult memory and cues positive emotional states.
“having photographs on your wall of times that were really good is very good for your adult memory. And it cues up emotional states for you”
Listen from 1:44:05 · Negativity bias
Paul Conti
Conti cautions that an overly reductionist view of a single good and single evil force can lead to self-persecution or feeling beleaguered.
“if we get too over-reductionist, there's a single force of good and there's a single force of evil”
Listen from 1:50:25 · Good and evil in religion
Paul Conti
Conti defines happiness as peace, contentment, and the capacity for delight, rejecting happy-go-lucky obliviousness.
“we can find happiness because we can weave peace, contentment, and delight into our lives”
Listen from 1:54:14 · Happiness

People

In the conversation

Andrew HubermanAmerican neuroscientist, professor at Stanford School of Medicine and host of the Huberman Lab podcast
Paul ContiPsychiatrist quoted on psilocybin and the unconscious mind

Discussed

Marc AndreessenVenture capitalist referenced on founders and ayahuasca
David SenraPodcaster who interviewed Marc Andreessen
Barbara ChapmanNeuroscientist and Huberman's late graduate advisor
Larry SquireUC San Diego memory researcher known for work on the human hippocampus
Lex FridmanAmerican podcaster and AI researcher; same host, second diarization label covering the interview segments
Friedrich NietzscheGerman philosopher cited for the idea of embracing one's fate

Topics

From the publisher

Dr. Paul Conti, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist and an expert in how to improve mental health and increase your sense of agency and wellbeing. He is also an expert in trauma treatment. We discuss practical tools you can use to gain insight into your natural strengths and to make better life choices on your own behalf. We explore how these tools can help overcome low motivation, intrusive thoughts and self-destructive bad habits. We also discuss how to balance internal reflection and external action to ensure you move your life forward in the right directions. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Helix Sleep: https://helixsleep.com/huberman BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman Rorra: https://rorra.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Paul Conti (00:02:51) Self View; Tool: What's Going Right?; State Dependence (00:10:03) Sponsors: Helix Sleep & BetterHelp (00:12:44) Tool: Compassionate Curiosity; Falseness; Social Media (00:21:00) Doing vs Thinking; Self-Reflection (00:29:55) External vs Internal Processing, Balance (00:40:42) Sponsor: AG1 (00:42:26) Quiet vs Verbal; Questions to Learn About Self (00:53:17) Examined Life & Reflection; Changing Unwanted Behavior (01:02:54) Making Positive Changes, Problem Solving (01:07:26) Sponsor: Function (01:09:03) Behavior Pattern Insight & Reclaiming Agency (01:17:06) Agency & Control; Getting in Your Own Way (01:22:49) Trauma, Living Intentionally; Internal Turmoil (01:29:08) Intrusive Thoughts, Tool: Self Talk Awareness; Dreams (01:34:10) Sponsor: Rorra (01:35:23) Trauma & Emotions; Healing Childhood Trauma (01:43:32) Photographs, Positive Climate for the Mind; Spirituality, Good & Evil (01:52:53) Happiness & Expectations; Death, Living a Good Life (02:03:10) Book Writing; Acknowledgements (02:07:25) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow, Reviews & Feedback, Sponsors, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer…

Summary, chapters and key points were generated from the episode transcript on September 27, 2026. Quotes are checked word for word against the transcript.

Categories: Mental Health·Self-Improvement