#JointheConversation
During my 8½ year tenure at PCS (Psychological Counseling Services, Ltd) I sat in many sessions during the PCS intensives with some clients (most clients were from out-of-state) who expressed their reluctance to step outside their zone of familiarity. They were sitting in the middle of an extensive and extended outpatient treatment process with others and seemingly having strong insights and meaningful awareness as it pertains to their particular addiction or situation. Yet, these particular clients were expressly reluctant to plan on staying connected to their new peers at that time with whom they had been open and transparent and the peers themselves had been vulnerable and deeply honest about their pasts and painful choices. Equally these clients were adamant that back home they hadn’t been connecting with their peers outside of their regular recovery meetings either. These clients expressed various ways that they weren’t good at that sort of thing nor were they comfortable with that. Curious, I regularly inquired as to the hesitation to form bonds of support back home or with their new PCS peers beyond that current week, as this was often a recommendation for increased likelihood of recovery and accountability. These clients stated things such as, “I have tried inviting my peers to go out or to hang out after hours but they have declined or couldn’t. I am certain that if they would go with me then I would find that more comfortable for me to ask them to exchange numbers for continued contact after the Intensive we are in.” But due to their peers not taking these clients up on their offers, even for legitimate reasons, these clients would express that they had done their part and that was that, and nothing more could be done… and this was often about as far as they would try even back home.
“Oh really?” I would say. And in many of those moments I was struck with a memory of an old parable I would share of a man searching for wisdom from a great master guru and the lesson of fighting for your life despite limitations, doubts, and fears, culminating with the thought…
After recounting this parable and its message I would look into these clients’ eyes and say, “When you want your marriage, your integrity, your family, your health, and your recovery as much as you want to breathe… that’s when you’ll do whatever it takes, no matter the discomfort or unfamiliarity. To this they would typically sit there at that point, quiet and pensive… and eventually respond with something to the effect of… “Mark, that’s a hard truth to hear… and even harder to ignore. "I know what I need to do. But how do I do it?” To that I would say, “I’m so glad you asked, because there is hope!” And that is when the next level of their work continued.
These clients are no different from average citizens. As humans go we tend to stick with the familiar and comfortable. However, as experience has taught us, it is the adversity, the discomfort, and the challenge that pushes us to new and greater heights. This was so in my own healing journey, and so it has been for so many of my clients along the path of my career. Thus, I look forward to many more of them being encouraged and challenged to step beyond the familiar and into the initially uncomfortable recovery path.
Mark Bell, LMFT, CSAT: a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT) and a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT) currently with Arizona Family Institute whose career includes almost 9 years at Psychological Counseling Services in Scottsdale, AZ as a member of the PCS Intensive Outpatient Program and nearly 3 years as a primary therapist in Hattiesburg, MS at Gentle Path, an in-patient treatment center for Sexual Addiction under the direction of Dr. Patrick Carnes. Most importantly, Mark has been married 14 years to his wife, Dyan, and together they are the parents of 5 kids… all boys!" You can find out more about Mark and his practice at Arizona Family Institute.
Blog Disclaimer
The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (SASH) sponsors this blog for the purpose of furthering dialog in the field of problematic sexual behaviors and their treatment. Blog authors are encouraged to share their thoughts and share their knowledge. However, SASH does not necessarily endorse the content or conclusions of bloggers.
Information in blogs may not always be complete, up-to-date, accurate, relevant, or applicable to all situations. Legislation, case law, standards, regulations, descriptions of products and services, and other information are often complex and can change rapidly. Always double-check and confirm that any information you find on the internet is accurate, current, and complete in regard to your specific situation, question, concern, or interests.
This website and its agents make no promises, guarantees, representations, or warranties, expressed or implied, and assume no duty or liability with regard to the information contained herein or associated in any way therewith. No legal or other professional services are being rendered and nothing is intended to provide such services or advice of any kind. The inclusion of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or approval of those sites or their contents. This website bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external sites or for that of subsequent links. Those who visit or use this website, links or any other information assume all risks associated therewith.
Many betrayed partners enter therapy in a state of shock and disbelief, reeling from the discovery of their partner’s extracurricular sexual behaviors. They sit on my couch and tell me they had no idea, not even an inkling, of what their significant other was doing. They have been caught off guard, unaware, and they can’t believe this is happening to them.
I listen to their stories, and I know that their shock and bewilderment is real and they truly did not know what was happening. But, at the same time, I also know that they did know.
I know this because in the weeks that follow they inevitably tell me stories about their relationship and various clues they overlooked. I hear about previous infidelities; about finding pornography, condoms, and secret Internet accounts; about changes in the nature of their sex life and their sense of emotional intimacy; about conversations, conflicts, accusations, and denials all indicating the presence of a problem.
Yet they still did not know. Even though they knew.
How does this happen? How do betrayed partners know but not know? And where does the part of them that does know go?
In the past, this type of behavior has been labelled “denial” and addressed as a form of codependence on the part of the betrayed partner. Today, thanks to an enormous amount of research on attachment, affect regulation, and the mind-body connection, we have new models that help us dig deeper and better understand the function and purpose of these knowing-but-not-knowing behaviors.
Jennifer Freyd, PhD, one of the seminal researchers on the topic of betrayal trauma, has spent years investigating why people don’t allow themselves to see the betrayal that is unfolding right in front of their eyes and why they do not remember the traumas after they have happened. In short, she has explored the question, “What would make someone literally not see and not know that which is easily seeable and knowable?”
To answer to this question, Freyd has connected what we know about the nature of human attachment with what we know about the ways in which humans are hardwired to respond to traumatic events.
When we pair up and enter into a long-term relationship, we begin a process of bonding with one another that is a beautiful and profound intertwining of two lives. In this mysterious attachment, we start to physically operate as one biological organism. As attachment experts Rachel Heller and Amir Levine write, “Numerous studies show that once we become attached to someone, the two of us form one physiological unit. Our partner regulates our blood pressure, our heart rate, our breathing and the levels of hormones in our blood.”[1]
As our bond grows through perhaps getting married, combining our homes, having children together, and working toward common goals, we become more and more interdependent with one another. And this is not codependency. This is healthy, normal, mutual dependency – the basic interconnectivity that makes relationships fulfilling and sought after.
If it is true that when we attach to someone healthy and functional, it feels good and provides a sense of security, grounding, safety, and wholeness, then the opposite is also true. When we attach to someone who is less than healthy – sexually addicted, for example – it can affect our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health in teeth-rattling ways.
Instead of grounding us, it puts us in freefall. Instead of security, we experience fear. Because our partner has caused us such deep pain, that individual now feels like a threat to our wellbeing rather than a source of comfort and safety. This danger is often experienced as a primal threat to the our emotional, psychological, and perhaps even physical survival.
When we experience events that create a sense of threat or danger, whether physical or emotional, the threat center in our brains (the amygdala) lights up and we react to the threat in one of three hardwired ways. We fight, confronting the threat in order to remove it and return to safety, or we flee, withdrawing from the threat to a place where we are safe, or we freeze, staying in place while our body shuts down and our minds go numb. Generally, if we can fight or flee, we will. When fight and flight are not available (or are perceived as unavailable), our freeze response kicks in.
Based on her research, Freyd has argued that the behaviors of not seeing and not knowing in those dealing with betrayal trauma are forms of the freeze response.[2] Rather than confronting the cheating partner or withdrawing from the relationship, betrayed partners go numb and fail to witness and process information about the betrayal. This allows them to continue operating in the relationship as though it remains safe. It allows them to preserve the relational bond that they often unconsciously believe they need to survive.
When we bring together what we know about attachment theory and how our threat response system operates, it creates the following equation for betrayed partners:
Freyd has called this survival-based form of not seeing and not knowing “betrayal blindness.”[3] One of the most important things to note about betrayal blindness is that it is an unconscious process. Betrayed partners are not consciously saying to themselves, “I don’t think I’ll let myself know about that.” Instead, their bodies register danger before the information moves into conscious awareness. Their coping strategies instinctually move to protect them by blocking out the information, rationalizing it away, or in some way keeping it from landing in conscious awareness where they would have to deal with it. This instinctual survival response ensures that one plus one does not ever add up to two in ways that would rob them of their primary relationship and the sense of safety and connection it provides.
Understanding the internal unconscious mechanisms driving betrayal blindness is imperative in order to treat betrayal blindness effectively while avoiding further unintentional, traumatization of the betrayed partner. Betrayed partners need active intervention balanced with empathic support to move out of the state of simultaneously knowing but not knowing into a state of fully integrated conscious awareness.
My experience working with betrayed partners has shown that clients come out of betrayal blindness as their internal capacity to cope with the information they have been avoiding grows. Often, the initial therapeutic task is to grow the person’s internal strength, confidence, and sense of self to the point that they are able to look fully at what is happening in their relationship and survive it emotionally, even when it is incredibly painful. This is a slow and gentle process, requiring a skilled therapist who can balance challenging the client’s defenses with nonjudgmental empathetic support.
This process begins to move the client into a more conscious form of knowing but not knowing. They become aware of the not knowing and the purpose and function of that coping mechanism. With support, they are able to consider what it would be like to allow themselves to know and they start to imagine a world in which they can tolerate the information, survive it emotionally and begin to integrate it fully into their experience.
Michelle Mays LPC, CSAT-S is the founder and Clinical Director of the Center for Relational Recovery with offices in Leesburg, VA and Washington DC. She has spent the last 16 years specializing in treating sex addiction, betrayal trauma, relationship issues and childhood trauma. She is also the founder of PartnerHope, an online resource for betrayed partners and has recently published the book, The Aftermath of Betrayal.
References
[1] Levine, A. & Heller R. (2010). Attached: The new science of adult attachment and how it can help you find—and keep—love. Penguin.
[2] Freyd, J., & Birrell, P. (2013). Blind to betrayal: Why we fool ourselves we aren't being fooled. John Wiley & Sons.
[3] Ibid.
Blog Disclaimer
The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (SASH) sponsors this blog for the purpose of furthering dialog in the field of problematic sexual behaviors and their treatment. Blog authors are encouraged to share their thoughts and share their knowledge. However, SASH does not necessarily endorse the content or conclusions of bloggers.
Information in blogs may not always be complete, up-to-date, accurate, relevant, or applicable to all situations. Legislation, case law, standards, regulations, descriptions of products and services, and other information are often complex and can change rapidly. Always double-check and confirm that any information you find on the internet is accurate, current, and complete in regard to your specific situation, question, concern, or interests.
This website and its agents make no promises, guarantees, representations, or warranties, expressed or implied, and assume no duty or liability with regard to the information contained herein or associated in any way therewith. No legal or other professional services are being rendered and nothing is intended to provide such services or advice of any kind. The inclusion of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or approval of those sites or their contents. This website bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external sites or for that of subsequent links. Those who visit or use this website, links or any other information assume all risks associated therewith.
Creative therapies can nurture resilience in a client. When used to heal individuals it can be an impactful tool in moving clients along in the therapeutic process. My passion is working with clients who are experiencing relational trauma, especially those traumas that are created by intimacy issues, infidelity and/or sex/love addicted spouses.
Resilience is a key component to an emotionally balanced, healthy lifestyle and sometimes, through childhood neglect and abuse, many of us were unable to have opportunities to practice the skill of resilience in childhood. If a client’s childhood was unstable and unsafe, resilience skills could not flourish due to incoherence of left and right brain assimilation. According to the American Psychological Association, “resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress.” It is our ability to “bounce back” from difficult experiences. We all have the ability to be resilient but trauma reactivity gets in the way of us using it as often as we can.
How do we tap into our clients’ natural stores of resilience? How do we help clients mine it and use it? One way I help is through an ongoing picture/story that is created. I often, while hearing their stories of trauma and survival, think of clients as super heroes helping themselves as an action figure. I state that one of their super powers is resilience. It could be fashioned into a lasso, a sword, magic hands, magnified heart, etc. I share this superhero vision with them when appropriate in their journey (once quite a bit of safety has been established or once sufficient therapeutic alliance is created) and a client can begin to imagine her own version of what this looks like and she draws/paints or sculpts a rendition while in my presence. Art therapy is remarkable in its ability to allow the client to create space for play and learning about themselves, while providing unspoken clues of what is needed to best help and support their journey. Art, when used as part of the experiential therapies, helps us do that better while reminding our clients that play and learning are connected in our brains. When completed, clients will often take pictures of their creations, using this as a reminder of their power. We get to add to that picture with more superpowers along the way. “Super Powers” such as: Safety, Truth, Passion, Clarity, Wisdom and Courage are some that usually are added. This right-brain-focused activity (creative/art therapy activity) helps create brain change that is healing and the clients have created a "different" or enlarged vision of themselves in a playful, non-threatening and really non- triggering way.
This superhero persona then becomes part of our clients’ narratives and they can dream and act in a comic strip or a story, practicing doing things differently in a safe place until they can use it (live it) somewhere in their lives.
Questions you can ask as you utilize this therapeutic technique are:
How would your super-woman handle this scenario?
What would your superhero tell you in this situation?
The ability to playfully engage in practicing the superhero’s strengths in the world creates an opening for it to actually happen. It brings up the best of our inner child strength, that magic power of trusting in many possibilities, with the propelling power of believing in our dreams. I believe resilience, joy and passion are connected.. Along the journey of healing, the client can, hopefully, engage in meaningful self discovery, which gives them (and us - thank goodness!) markers and glimpses about their true self/higher self, the self THEY want to be, not the self everyone else wants them to be.
What will your costume look like?
How will you protect yourself from villains?
What will you use to activate your resilience?
What other superpowers do you have?
Will they be activated with a lasso, bow and arrow, wand?
Is the costume infused with any magic?
If we, as therapists, are present enough with them, we can take the clues and shine lights on them – bringing them to our clients’ conscious, aware mind. Anything that has to do with action that comes from that true self is inspiring and gives them motivation to move forward… sometimes in tiny steps and sometimes in great leaps and bounds. This is resilience in action!
I have included pictures of this creative therapy tool being used by a partner of a sex addict over time. (Note: Photos were added with permission from the client for educational purposes.) This client, “Fran” had become stuck and alienated from her true self because she was living a life full of PTSD symptoms enhanced by her husbands porn addiction and his extra marital affairs. She didn’t even recognize herself by the time she asked me for help. She was diagnosed with depression and complex-PTSD. In the first year of her treatment, she created many superhero personas to engage as she worked toward feeling better.
These pictures are Sandtray depictions of her superhero narratives. Remember, you can just offer markers and paper to create this opportunity for a client. At our center, we are lucky enough to have an art room and a Sandtray room so that clients have a choice about how they create their superhero story.
In the first one, you see a standard bearer (her superhero was named “First in Line”) readying herself to climb up and over her community/family/self beliefs with her superpowers in the standard that carries endless amounts of "energy" and "courage". Her goal was to get to the rainbow and the treasure: endless hope and endless riches. The only direction from me was, "Let us see what ‘First In Line’ looks like today."
Toward the end of her therapy, she created a new superhero persona and created this Sandtray: It shows Fran as Wonder Woman, elevated and with her arms as wide open as she could extend them, addressing her attributes (her superpowers) of Intellect, Sense of Humor (and Peace and Honor… she just didn't know that yet), and Tenacity. When she combined her three superpowers she became Powerful and Competent. This image became her grounding and empowering force and she used it in her daily life. She has since gone on to create a fulfilling business that feeds her passion and wisdom and is rarely touched by PTSD symptomology or depression symptoms.
I hope this post will challenge your creative superhero in how you do therapy with your own clients. The more passionate and creative we are, the more we can help nurture those aspects in them. Helping them recognize and practice the resilience within them will help to create sustained mental health growth and progress.
Sharon Rinearson, LCSW, Certified clinical Partners specialist-candidate, and a certified clinical trauma professional has extensive experience treating individuals, couples, and families with mental health disorders, including those associated with addiction and the trauma reactions created from living with an addict. She has many certifications in play therapy, sandtray and sandplay therapies and is an innovative experiential therapist. Sharon is the co-founder and Director of Clinical Services of CORE Behavioral Healthcare
Blog Disclaimer
The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (SASH) sponsors this blog for the purpose of furthering dialog in the field of problematic sexual behaviors and their treatment. Blog authors are encouraged to share their thoughts and share their knowledge. However, SASH does not necessarily endorse the content or conclusions of bloggers.
Information in blogs may not always be complete, up-to-date, accurate, relevant, or applicable to all situations. Legislation, case law, standards, regulations, descriptions of products and services, and other information are often complex and can change rapidly. Always double-check and confirm that any information you find on the internet is accurate, current, and complete in regard to your specific situation, question, concern, or interests.
This website and its agents make no promises, guarantees, representations, or warranties, expressed or implied, and assume no duty or liability with regard to the information contained herein or associated in any way therewith. No legal or other professional services are being rendered and nothing is intended to provide such services or advice of any kind. The inclusion of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or approval of those sites or their contents. This website bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external sites or for that of subsequent links. Those who visit or use this website, links or any other information assume all risks associated therewith.
