Psychiatrists see us in our most vulnerable moments, all of our problems and dysfunctions laid bare to a stranger. We hope that they keep our secrets and help us solve our problems. We place our inherent trust in them, But what if they use that knowledge against us for their own benefit. In a brand new podcast from Wandering and Bloomberg, The Shrink next Door, host Jonah Sarah takes you deep into what it looks like when a psychiatrist becomes something
much more. You'll hear of extravagant parties attended by movie stars, a lavish home in the Hampton's, and the man at the center of it all. You're about to hear a preview of The Shrink next Door, which you'll meet host Jonah Sarah and hear about a relationship that would go on to affect two people's lives for twenty nine years. While you're listening, go subscribe to The Shrink next Door
on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening now. There's also a link in the episode notes that will take you there by any measure. Marty Markowitz was a success. He had an Ivy League diploma, a law degree. His own business and plenty of money, but when he hit thirty eight, he found himself feeling seriously overwhelmed. His rabbi recommended a
therapist he knew who had an office on Manhattan's East Side. Well, I go into his office, which was, you know, a modestly furnished office with a desk and a chair and a couch. The therapist name was Dr Isaac Hirshkoff, but he told Marty to call him Ike. He was a young, handsome man with a round face, a close crop beard, and curly black hair. He was dressed casually in an open collar shirt and shorts. I sat down right across from him, and we looked at each other, and he said, okay,
why are you here. Marty had seen a therapist before, the kind you would listen while you lay down on the couch and talk about your dreams. This therapist was different. His modus operandi was basically, I'm your pal, tell me what's bothering it, and let's take it from there. Marty spent the whole session laying out his problems. He told Ike how his father and mother had recently died, how he had inherited the family business, how he was having
a hard time dealing with his new responsibilities. When he finished, Marty says, Ike looked at him and said, I'm gonna take you on as a patient, and I said, okay. Nice. Not only was I taking him on as a patient, but he made Marty a promise. He said, don't worry, I'll take care of everything. I was overwhelmed and to have someone say to me, don't worry, calm down, this is nothing to get upset about. We're gonna straighten everything out, and we're gonna do it fast very comforting to me.
Marty wrote him a check. I think it was for a hundred and sixty dollars something like that. Back back in the day. It was June. Marty had come to Ike because he needed help, But if he had known what his new therapist had in store for him, he probably would have walked out the door and never come back. From Wonderie and Bloomberg, I'm Joe, No Sarah a columnist with Bloomberg Opinion, and this is the shrink next year. This is episode one. Welcome to the neighborhood. Every neighborhood
has its share of mysteries. We can live our entire lot fives and barely know the people just one door down. I have a summer house in Southampton, a couple of hours outside of New York. This part of the Hamptons is called the Bay Side. It's quiet, peaceful, a place to escape from the city in the hot summer months. Sampson and Jackie Guillatt have a house on the same street as me. My name is Jacqueline Guillott and we're married thirty five years. We're married fifty two years. They've
been coming here since the eighties. Most of the houses on our street are single story with wooden clappered fronts. Sampson and Jackie's house is no different, so lovely home. But there's one house on the street that stands out for starters. It's just bigger than most of the other houses. It's two stories instead of one, and it's the only one on the street with a separate guesthouse out back. And then there's the way it books. The house is spectacular,
with windows and windows and windows. Everything about it is over the top. This pond with goldfish, lots of fish, and a waterfall to the pond too. It's bigger, bolder, brasher than anything else on the Street. In two thousand and ten, my wife Dawn and I bought the house next door. It wasn't long before a man popped over to our house to introduce himself. He was dressed like a maintenance man, green khaki pants, a long sleeve workshire
and a faded baseball cap. He welcomed us to the neighborhood, and then he handed us a folder of press clippings and I literally just took them and said thank you. And but he wanted us to have them, you know, he really wanted Joe to have him. There were articles that a psychiatrist, Dr Isaac Hirshkoff had written and articles that had been written about him. In mid August, an invitation arrived to a summer barbecue next door, hosted by Dr Hirshkoff. I this would be the last of three
big summer parties he threw every year. I went alone. To reach the front door, I had to cross a bridge over a fish pond. There were maybe forty or so guests hanging out in the backyard. I roamed about, stopping here and there to chat. I spotted the actor Richard Kind, just in time to see him do a belly flop into the pool. There were a handful of other people too, people I recognized as prominent New Yorkers, like Dr Ruth, the TV personality and sex expert. It
was a warm afternoon. I chatted with a few people, sipped on my glass of wine, and began to wander around. At some point I found myself in the living room. There was a fake to draft bust Veoenician masks, plastic parrots hanging from the ceiling, even a giant gong. But
what struck me most the photographs. Lots and lots of photographs, and in nearly every one of them there was Ike Hirshkoff with a different celebrity, Ike with Henry Kissinger, Ike with Ellie Wizell, Ike with Brookshields, Ike with Gwyneth Paltrow, even ike with O. J. Simpson. It was like one of those diners where the walls are covered with pictures of celebrity patrons. At that moment, the man himself appeared.
He greeted me like a long lost friend and said that my wife and I should come over soon for a drink, and then he was gone. Sure enough, a few days after the summer party, the same maintenance man we've met before, showed up at our door again. This time he brought an invitation for drinks. It was very formal, as if he was reading from a script. I mean like Dr Hirshkoff would wants you to come over at such and such a time on such and such a day.
And the formality of it blew me away. And he was very, very exacting about how it had to go. So we went one of the strangest evenings I've ever had in the Hampton's, or anywhere else for that matter, but definitely the Hamptons. It was pouring rain. We headed over umbrellas in hand to get to the front door. We crossed a bridge. We could see COI circling in the water below. Ike and his wife, Becky welcomed us in and ushered us to a round kitchen table. There
were snacks laid out, carrots and salary. I served white wine. So what I remember is him talking incessantly about being a sex therapist and a celebrity therapist. And I can't remember the details, but that that it just really sticks in my mind that he kept going on and on about that it was more like a monologue than a dialogue. That's what I remember, what do you remember. I just remember thinking these people are I felt suffocated. I talked
about his work. I've never say thing like it, but I remember thinking it was very brazen about the details of his life, considering we were strangers, and also considering what he does. He did talk about an NBA sports guys and somebody a Yankees player. I just thought he lacked a lot of discretion given his field. We listened politely as he went on and on. I just remember
looking towards the door. Finally, after about an hour, I said we needed to get home, and we got up to leave, and it was very clear that I wanted a photograph, a photograph of me. I think he came out and said, what we'd like to get a picture of you? And it was just Joe. It wasn't Joe and I. So I let I take my picture, hint it to his wall, and then we left as fast as we could. I remember getting to her home, collapsing on a couch or something. Dawn told me she never
wanted to go back. There was no sign of the maintenance man the night Dawn and I went over, but I knew he was still around. Sometimes we'd be on our deck, and we'd see him outside working in the yard. When I returned to the Hamptons the following summer, I noticed something strange at the house next door. I would see the maintenance man out on the property doing his usual work in the backyard, but Ike karsh Coough was gone. I would never see him, or his wife, Becky, and
the Hamptons again. There were no more summer parties. It was as if they had simply disappeared. And that's when I learned that everything I had thought i'd known about my neighbor was wrong. It's it's a wild story. That's the maintenance man, the guy who came to our war with the press clippings, the guy we saw working around the yard. That was Marty Markoitz, the same guy who had first gone to see Dr Isaac Hirstkoff as a patient nearly thirty years earlier. That was just a preview
of The Shrink next Door. To listen to the rest, subscribe to The Shrink next Door on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now.