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Hello, and welcome to the next episode of the thoughtful counselor. Today I'm talking with Dr. Simona Nicola Lush. Dr. Nicholas received her doctoral degree in counselor education and supervision from Auburn University and a master's degree in clinical counseling with a concentration in couples and family therapy from the University of Montevallo. She's a licensed counselor, a licensed counselor supervisor, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and nationally board certified counselor and a certified sex addiction therapist. Prior to working in private practice, Simona served in various settings including residential, partial hospitalization and outpatient treatment facilities. Her specialty areas include couples therapy, addicted families, life transitions, eating disorders and spiritual concerns. She also enjoys counseling individuals through such issues as identity development, depression, anxiety, self esteem, grief and trauma. At her practice, Simona also works with families affected by sexual addiction and compulsivity. Having been born and raised in a communist Eastern Europe, her life story and passion for therapy are testaments of her belief that a future and hope are birthrights waiting to be embraced. She recently completed a qualitative study on the post traumatic growth experiences of partners survivors of sexual addiction. And with that, welcome Simona.
Thank you, Dr. Tyler. Thanks for having me.
I'm so excited for this conversation. I told you months ago that I wanted to have this and so I'm excited to share it with the listeners. But first, not everyone knows either way that I know you but I am interested to hear what is your maybe personal and professional journey that led to your work and relationship trauma and recovery?
Oh, yeah, how much time do we have? I would say that this calling found me I suppose. Almost like it was always meant to be for me. I knew I wanted to be that. And that refers to this way of being being the helper, the therapist. Even before I graduated high school, I would say I don't think I understood. I probably didn't at all what a therapist was at that age in post communist Romania. But I remember watching Goodwill Hunting, right? Coming out my first visit in the States I was 17, maybe or 18. And I knew that was it. I was just so deeply touched. And I honestly just wanted to be Robin Williams. Someone who sees people and helps them a hole that pain. So important to note, I think looking back I was I was already playing that part. The part of a therapist by that point in my life I had been exposed and deeply affected by the effects of addiction, especially sex addiction, infidelity divorce. So that is the background for me. And after moving to the States, I personally have had to undertake my own journey of healing. And along those lines as I was engaging in recognizing my own trauma and how this embodied I had lived I was also in the process of becoming a marriage and family therapist. So in my professional life, as a marriage and family therapist, from the very beginning, I was faced with the complexity of sex addiction, and it's from modifications on the spouses of sex addiction. So I guess what led me to this work, it's complex, maybe it was a way of completing my own personal story, putting the puzzles together, so to speak, but professionally was definitely a time before Ashley Madison, the me to movement when partners of sex addicts and pornography addicts and have much of a voice. Little research had been done on betrayal, trauma and recovery from this type of betrayal trauma.
That's so powerful to kind of first think what inspired you to even get into the field that says, I want to be a healer? And what is that going to look like? Then to really start exploring how those parallels happen from my own lived experiences being touched by this. And then what I'm seeing and witnessing of my client experiences to Could you maybe talk about what had you then think I want to make a study out of this, because a lot of times when things almost touch part of our personal narrative, it's hard in our defenses can come up. And as counselors we ever read, we might be avoidant of it. What actually had you say, like, I want to dig deeper in this?
Mm hmm. I think working with partners over the years, and seeing a lot of them coming in and saying, you know, I can't imagine a life after this. What is this? What is this going to look like after the dust settles ride? How am I going to envision hope? Is life possible after this, this much devastation, this much dust? That's not been settled. And this much death, right? So just realizing that that at looking for research, even looking for books, and books are starting to be written about betrayal, trauma, but not a whole lot of books around post traumatic growth, what life looks after this trauma. So I guess that's, that's what that would be my answer. I just wanted to give them hope. I want it to give them some kind of vision for their life. And I think maybe it was my own powerlessness around, they're spinning. They were just spinning, you know, for months, sometimes years. And I felt trapped and powerless with them. I didn't have very few answers about what comes. What comes next. So it just felt overwhelming. So maybe my own grappling with powerless, less as a therapist, but their own powerlessness. I wanted to help. I just wanted to start a conversation about hope, which is it's not a very researched subject at the moment.
So true. I mean, that's there's multiple things there. One, yes, this highlight that we have on maybe like damage, focus research. And there's a lot of research about like the overcoming of it. It's more like how do we understand this terrible thing, and then unpack it, versus what I loved about your manuscript, it was a way to kind of elicit hope. And I really resonate with what you said, 15 years counseling thus far. And there's been many of times that in treating this and working with survivors of infidelity and betrayal, it's almost like your hands are in the air of like, you know, this betrayal happened. I can think of, you know, five years ago, you two years ago, six months ago, and we feel stuck in it. Like we keep reliving this one thing and sort of how do we see a life beyond that? And yeah, I found even classic CBT at a certain point, like, you can't just reframe it away, like, logically it can, but the body still feels that. And so the power of kind of hearing the narratives of survivors and hearing from them themselves, how they found hope, I really found to be such a powerful key part of your manuscript. And I'm sure completing the interviews was something that helped to impair your own sense of hope.
Right, right. Right, exactly.
So can we talk a little bit about your qualitative study about post traumatic growth for individuals who maybe aren't aware of it? Could you expand a little bit on how do you see resilience? And then how you see post traumatic growth?
Okay. Well, I'll start with this. So my my research question was the broader question, what transformative life changes and outcomes have occurred for a former partners of sex addicts as a real direct result of this traumatic event. So as the direct result of the traumatic event that's so important. So and I would say, there, there was not a whole lot of research at around the investigation of the capacity of former partners of sex addicts to transcend a relational and betrayal trauma in order to transform the suffering into a resource for new meaning and growth. So, you know, in some ways, that's the way I understand that that post traumatic growth is the ability to transform the suffering into a resource. I would say that This term post traumatic growth I would start with that was used about 20 years ago. And it denotes the psychological transformation reported in response to a traumatic life experience. So it sort of suggests that trauma has the potential to add to one's life and can result in positive outcomes. So these positive psychological changes are the result of the struggle of the wrestling to make sense of that distressful event, having to tolerate so after tolerating the distress. In this case, case, throughout the challenges of betrayal, trauma, people have the or partners have the potential to transcend that relational and betrayal trauma, and to have a new life, new meaning and new growth. So in my study, the individuals moved beyond the pre trauma level of functioning. And they cognitively build and rebuild New schemas that incorporate the trauma suffered. And that allowed for a new understanding of reality and the self, I would say, Well, I would say resilience. The difference between resilience and post traumatic growth, the way I understand it is sort of like the difference between tolerance and capacity as a therapist, right? When you're a therapist, one of the goals that you have is to figure out how to increase your client's capacity for grief and for loss in this case, so they can make meaning of that and hopefully transform it into something else, and have a new life with it. The tolerance is what I would say is the resilience, right? Just the resilience is tolerating adapting to difficult and challenging life experience, experiences, especially through mental emotional behavioral flexibility and adjustment. So overcoming adversity and coping with the stress, and the trauma, to me is resilience is the tolerance. But post traumatic growth goes beyond that, it just helps with the building of that capacity to transform trauma into something else.
As you're saying that it reminds me of clients and the difference, I can continue going on and taking care of my children and showing up to work and has the betrayal versus I can write a new, more beautiful story about what I'm capable love, the love, I'm capable love. Because I think of some clients who you know, as they're grieving the loss of their relationship with the idea of their relationship, it's this idea of like, I will be broken forever in this way. Now, like in future partnerships, this will always be this broken part of me. To me, that's sort of that resilience that you show up, you even think there is a future maybe versus a post traumatic growth and like increasing this sense of skill worth, you use the word transform, I love that of what can you make from all of this now. And so that meaning making comes in that helps to sort of strengthen their internal identity. And particularly if I'm thinking partners who struggle with like worth, how is their worth, based on that internal sort of locus versus external, maybe the lack of validation I got from my partner?
Right, right. Right, right. Yeah. And, yeah, I like that. And also that the idea, I think there's a difference, huge difference between my window of tolerance is increasing and therapy helps with that. But I'm not necessarily struggling and wrestling with that distress with the stages of grief with making meaning out of the suffering, and allowing for that growth process to happen.
So when we were thinking about your participants who so kindly shared their stories, and I know that you were very mindful of how to do this in a way that still sort of protected them and, you know, rehashing things that were very painful, what are some key findings that you'd like to share of what came from their stories?
Um, wow, there's so much here. I, I would say, you know, I'm gonna start with sort of scientific talk for a second. So a purposeful sample of 12 participants, so I interviewed 12 participants. And what came out of that is that they build a new and superior live structure at the end of this experience, especially in the, in the following domains, perception of self, a body knowing which I can talk about that a little bit later, their interpersonal relationships, spiritual authenticity and philosophy of life and priorities and appreciation of life. So I would say those were sort of the, the domains that I have, I've noticed this adaptation at the superior adaptation level in regards to psychological functioning. That was not there before, it wasn't there before the betrayal trauma, which
was huge. So yeah, if we can go a little bit into each of those domains and sort of help to encapsulate what was that shared experience he found among the 12 participants, right,
so the shared experience, so the the first theme that was identified was a change perception of sense of self. So wrestling with the after effects of the trauma altered the course of their identity development, and even destabilize existing identity commitments. So the disclosure and the discovery of the sex addiction, either or both eventually lead to a slow awakening to who they are. And just the desire to want to be a new person to want to be strong to allow that change to happen for from inside this type of identity work to happen from the inside and on their own terms. So they had to tear down the identity that they had before in their marriages. And they had to adopt a very different self, they had to discover and uncover the self on their own terms. So I would say that was a slow awakening, right, a slow awakening. And most of them talked about how these significant changes in their identities were perceived as unexpected and unintentional, which corroborates the experience of real post traumatic growth versus the illusion of growth. So important here to mention, I think participants attributed the awakening or the waking up, most of them said, you know, I was sleeping beauty. So I had to wake up and I had to remember an old self, but they attributed this waking up to the individuals struggle with the new reality of the aftermath of relational betrayal. Then the second theme was learning to listen and and honor the body signals. This was probably the most surprising for me yet one of the most prominent themes, their realization of a compromised relationship with their bodies prior and amid their marriages, a self betrayal sort of if you want, followed by a restoration of that relationship with their body in the aftermath of betrayal, trauma. A newfound personal strength was another theme. So inner strength was perceived as their greatest transformation. And it's beautiful to just read their manuscripts and I honor them it just, I It's so emotional to see that in the face of profound challenges, I mean, profound challenges. Not only the brain being hijacked, but divorce negotiations, custody battle that battles trying to find safety, psychological safety, emotional safety, physical safety, sometimes having to buy new homes to move to start new careers, to make meaning of their children's suffering and loss. These women discovered that they could handle major unexpected difficulty difficulties and that they were stronger than they thought. Another one that would not surprise me was the new found personal strength came through the engagement and psychological help. This emerged clearly and effortless, effortlessly. psychological help card was compromised of individual therapy therapeutic groups related to codependency and interpersonal relations. chips, some faith based life coaching, and other support peer partners of sex addicts are former partners of sex addicts, I would say the 10 out of 12, participants reported being guided by their individual therapists who foster safe and supportive environment and helped increase their emotional tolerance and expand their cognitive understanding around sex addiction and healthy boundaries and family of origin, dynamics, all of that. And say,
someone I found that really hope inducing myself as a counselor and reading your manuscript, because I don't know how timing works with you and a lot of your clients. But for some of my clients, we can be sort of like working through this and talking for such an extended time that I wonder, like, therapeutically like I hear it cognitively. But the action is there or still that really embracing the reality of the betrayal, and really sitting within the body kind of going back to your second theme. There was almost this disconnect, where I feel like as a counselor, I sometimes have to remind my client of the betrayal of like, you know, your defense mechanism that's putting it down there bearing, we have to still have it present in the room. And so to see this theme that it really does help even if the timing feels like I don't I don't know, if I'm helping to guide my client along this, that your participants really found that to be such a vital tool as part of their post traumatic growth. Yes,
and they found therapists who taught them how to resource how to be in their bodies, how to be mindful of their present moment, how to release grief, in those moments of, you know, waves of grief coming, and they found those therapists the most effective, honestly,
that's hugely here. I didn't mean to interrupt you then. So are we on the fourth theme now? Yes, so
another theme of that was new career paths. So they very slowly became more self reliant, more self confident, just being engaged in psychological help and getting the support that they needed. And becoming more self reliant fostered the opportunity to reinvestigate personal makeup, resulting in a whole lot of fresh knowledge regarding their own abilities or talents, awareness even of previously unknown strengths and interests regarding vocational paths. So amidst emotional exhaustion, financial limitations confusion, they still figured out how to start new careers, some of them started new businesses, they pursued new degrees, master's degrees and higher degrees, and they just surprised themselves with their self efficacy.
I wonder how much of it too is like increased emotional capacity, that without this weight of betrayal, and what my partner is doing, and all this mistrust, how they were able to kind of put that emotional capacity to things that really propelled them and other goals and other life giving forces.
But and the power of the wrestling with that distress? Yes. And too many of them talked about that. Two years in between, in between the decision to get a divorce and starting a new life, right, that process of getting divorce for most of these women were 18 months to two to three years. And those two or three years, they were able to wrestle and make meaning of their old life and their new life and how to keep going right, I think it's important to know, I don't I don't know if we're going to get to this, but it's important to kind of touch here. Most of my participants reported long term engagement in marital therapy in those in those two years. And they did not feel like the therapists gave them any kind of tools and did not help with with where they were right. They are individually. So they all spoke about the difficulty of finding adequately trained therapists for this period of time.
Interesting. Wow. So what would you say and this may be more anecdotally versus what was covered in your manuscript in working with survivors of relationship betrayal? What are some of those challenges that you might help to illuminate other counselors because I think this fits in well with we need proper training in order to really help guide these individuals at a time where they might feel their MO was to helpless. What have you found to be some of the more difficult challenges and helping these folks?
I think that they feel so unprepared. And they stay in the shock. And in the shock and awe stage for way too long. Because I think that therapists do not explain to them on the on the very first part of the treatment, very first few sessions, how their brain is hijacked, what brain trauma, what betrayal, trauma does to your brain and to your body. And so they feel very, very lost and confused about where they are. I would also say that I don't know if many therapists ask about safety, physical safety, in physical safety, psychological safety, emotional safety. So a lot of these women have to endure a lot of emotional psychological, and sometimes physical abuse, a lot of crazy making, and they don't know how to get to safety. They don't know what normal is, they don't know that this is not normal. And they want a therapist who can see through that lack of safety and see through the addict mind and through the addicted brain and through the addiction as soon as possible, so they can help them with their own safety and their own grounding mechanisms.
Yeah, that is helpful to hear. Because I do sometimes wonder when a client does present with something that is shocking to me, or appalling, or clearly out of that, you know, little normal expectation, quote, normal, I always worry that it's like, I don't want them to feel judged by my reaction. And sort of, you know, we have this stoic therapist face. But many times, they have actually found it to be powerful when sort of my jaw drops. And it's like, is that not normal? And it No, I can tell you client that in a healthy relationship, those behaviors are not what you would expect. And then a lot of times that can be validating for clients who have been, you know, gaslit are convinced otherwise, or manipulated of what is that sense of normal, particularly if from their family of origin, they witnessed some similar parallels that maybe their body, their brains or emotions, don't see where that compasses of what is healthy behavior? Right,
right. Right. Right. And I would say lastly, I would also say I don't think that we realize how isolated they are, by the time they come to us, and how much shame they live. So they live in this freeze zone of shame, and they are spiraling into shame. Because disclosure discovery probably has had happened already. And that reality of trauma triggered is so unbearable at times. And there, they make extraordinary attempts to cope with the shocking reality of betrayal, but they're not prepared. Of course, they don't understand what's going on. So all of this, plus the crazy making of the addict the nature of sex addiction, they just live in so much self questioning self doubt, they think nobody would understand them. Just the societal shame of of sex addiction in general isolates them even more. And that's where they are when they come to us. Yeah.
So you just kind of described a little bit of that emotional journey that they go through of, you know, the shock, the shame, and even with that with discovery. That's a question I asked my clients sort of, were you was this disclosed to you by your partner? Or did you discover it, which to me is almost a supplemental trauma then of that shock, that denial? That guilt then of was I snooping or, you know, did I mean to do this? And then how do I address that with my partner?
That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's a very good question to fruit. Yeah, for us to figure out what where are they and sometimes they come and they don't know. Their body has a knowing and they don't know how to describe that. And we have to help them through that knowing that body knowing so yeah, there's that's that's why the the therapy modalities and just us as therapists we have to be so flexible, and adaptable with this population.
And knowing that we're talking about sort of individual been betrayed, but when you're dealing with betrayal in a sexual addiction, I feel like that's this added nuance because I may be betrayed, but it might be a situational thing. It may be isolated. And then there's this overcoming of it. Versus I imagine with a lot of these individuals, this may have been repetitive, pervasive through space and time. How have you found to sort of understand what that experience is like of multiple betrayals, because I think it adds this component of feeling then, you know, foolish feeling regret, feeling a lack of hope, because this wasn't just a mistake. And I've learned from it. Now, it's this thing that someone continues to do to me, but tells me they don't know why or they don't have control over it. Do you have any thoughts or reactions to that?
Yeah, I would say in short, those people with chronic experiences of infidelity, and, you know, finding partners, other partners, finding emails, finding chat rooms, finding information all the time, the chronic cycle that goes with sex addiction, I think those partners are already in full blown PTSD by by the time they come to us and just even acknowledging that teaching them about what PTSD is, and what reality is and what reality is not. To them. And just the power of even intrusive thoughts or flashbacks, parts of themselves that in a way, keep them safe, and keep them in that denial and just stuck in that cycle of, you know, yeah, self craziness, you know, am I making myself crazy? Is this crazy? Is this normal? So just treating that person as, okay, you have in front of you, somebody with full blown PTSD? And how are you going to go from here, just being incredibly patient.
And it's interesting, because you can almost with that lens, observe some of their protective measures. With some of my clients, I've seen it as far as they obviously they bring it up to me what the issue is, but then maybe the next several sessions, they show up late or they have to leave session early, or they just can somehow distract us in the session content, where we don't really get to the deep part of it, because they're still in that sense of denial or being so disconnected from their body. I'll have clients sometimes that will tell me these very excruciating stories as if they're telling me the weather, and you can just see they're so disconnected from their bodies are in this place of, well, what can I do about it, and sort of me trying to validate it and support it, but also empower them without oversight by educating them to death of you know, where this pathway can go? And that this doesn't just have to be your version of normal?
Yes, and I would say, you know, that's why the modalities. The therapy modalities like somatic experiential modalities body, right, brain therapy, and body therapies are so so powerful, because you want your clients to be in their bodies, and constantly in sessions like that, stopping them and saying, What do you notice? What is it like for you to tell me the story right now, in this moment? You know, it just, hey, I'm assessing, hear if my client is dissociated? Or are they in the room telling me the story? Is this a movie that they're watching? And they're not there? Or is this a story that they are inside of and their character in the story? And they are, you know, they're feeling the story in such a way that they can know what is real and what's not real?
And I want to ask you a question. That's kind of a tricky question. But I'm sure listeners will wonder, sort of how you stay. I don't want to say unbiased, because the client that's in front of you is the client. But I find that when I've heard enough about a problematic or harmful partner, it is hard for me internally not to just sort of like scream out, like, Please don't go back or, you know, please don't put yourself back in harm's way again. And of course, I can't and we have to have the client feel empowered. But have you navigated any strategies to kind of help you stay? I think, use the word earlier patient in this process versus the clarity you see on the outside of what's healthy or unhealthy relationship.
Right? Oh, goodness, I think that, you know, I, I had somebody tell me a long, long time ago, and I think it was probably my therapist, said, You know, I want you to imagine that you are having to put your seatbelt on and you're going to have to ride in their car for a very long time. Just buckle in and wait until they're ready to stop the car. So yeah, so I would say I have even though that's not my purse, finality professionally. And And personally, I have learned that I have to listen to my body in session, my body is my greatest tool. And if I find that urgency, then I have to kind of regulate myself. And I have to remember the stages that they're going through and kind of assess what stage stage they're at. And the very first few sessions or maybe four months, all I all I do is they are I'm present, validating their own reality, and I am trying to constantly set them in a framework of the present moment like, okay, when he did that, what was that like? And where do you feel that in your body? And what happens when you feel that and can you describe that I try to slow everything down as slow as possible, because what you notice with this population, and really, every every traumatized person is, the story tends to be fast and loud, and hurried and urgent. And if you, if you want to get to the bottom of where that sits in their bodies, you want to slow everything down.
I've also found, sometimes my clients want to sort of go through every single detail, every single betrayal, every single one if I need to hear the whole confession from start to finish. And sometimes I found that that helps clients to kind of make sense of it, and then can separate from responsibility. For more clients, though I see it actually be harmful, because there's always new things to discover. There's always another, you know, lie that can be found there. And I've tried to almost get them to see this umbrella of the picture is that this partner is not as safe as you thought. That's what we can focus on versus spending 30 sessions detailing every single transgression and every single betrayal. How have you balanced that sort of this in your pursuit of slowing it down? How maybe detail oriented you found to be useful? Or maybe for counselors, if you know, there is more of a somatic way that they can address it? Have you found anything helpful in your work?
When he kind of said this study, what's fascinating about this is that, you know, my question was, to them was never about their trauma, it was never about their trauma story, or their betrayal, trauma, it was just really about the life that they build, after this experience, as a result of this experience, all 12 of them took time, and I'm talking about an hour or two, just to tell me their story of betrayal. And I think that aligns very well with the Post Traumatic Growth Theory of, you know, individuals have to tell their stories, they have to sit in that distress, in order to experience meaning making and some sort of transformative power. to wrestle with with that trauma. So I would say this, this story, and the telling of that story is very powerful is very purposeful, very significant. When it comes to details, depends on what stage they are, if they are in the first or second stage where you know, the they're still in self denial or denial, or intrusive thoughts are there, I tried to kind of circumvent the details and always get them to be in their bodies. I think in later stages, if if something comes up, and there are episodes and maybe details that are very informative or helpful to whatever it is that they're working through, I allow for that to happen. I think it depends on how I feel in session and where they are in their process.
I definitely agree with how you put that because I feel like if it helps to sort of inform this idea of what's their responsibility versus partner responsibility there can be use in it. Versus if we're gonna spend our entire hour just sort of rehashing a text conversation, it almost is a way that they stay out of their body because they stay hyper focused on the details. And we're not actually getting to the inner work. And while yes, being an empathic witness is so powerful. After so many sessions, it's like okay, but we've got to get back into your body of what you're going to do with the data that you know, and I also find that clients and times will get so stuck that they need to have they'll call it closure to me. I just need closure. I just need my partner to answer x y&z question and trying to kind of guide them away that you may never get it closure may not exist in the way that you're imagining it.
Yeah, I would say it's the difference between WoW is is this person in emotional numbness and or avoidance? Or are they processing the grief? Are they you know, are they trying to to make meaning of some piece of their story? For
sure. So what are some key factors that you believe after this study, and also just in your years doing this factors that facilitate post traumatic growth and partner survivors? I would say
it was evident from the findings of this study that the women had to disengage from previous goals and assumptions from previous schemers, right. So they had to work, do the work of grieving, grieving what what used to be grieving their ideal life, and financial security in order to allow some degree of constructive cognitive processing to occur. So just even realizing that that they an engagement had disengagement from previous life and previous goals that has to happen, that's the mourning process. Engagement in individual therapy. So I would say 1011, even out of the 12, participants talked about how therapy was, you know, all of them said I wouldn't be here I wouldn't be sitting on this couch without my therapist without their wisdom and patience and guidance. So group therapy support groups, positively impacted their growth, following betrayal and its effects. And I find in their stories are found in their stories that their therapists were able to encourage exploration of treatment goals, as they relate it to various aspects of PTG, right of post traumatic growth, such as, can you imagine yourself here, what would you do with your life, and also encouraging them in their identity and their talents and their strength and their potential, then I would say in addition to that, spirituality played a huge part in this. And their relationship and their their, their understanding of the higher power, their relationship with their higher power, which is very much redefined in this process, was a tool for them to assimilate betrayal, trauma, and enhance that post traumatic growth after the trauma. Another one is the significance of processing grief and its stages. Wow, this was such a vital element in this study. So I would say, as a therapist, I would normalize the slowness, I would really pay attention to the intersection between meaning making and grief. Do everything slow, be steady and patient and be present be present with with what they're wrestling with? The very last one, joint A thing I think one of the one of the ones that really surprised me also was the power of attending support groups, therapeutic groups, but the power of building a community around them. So the study show that former partners of sex addicts build a community of peers around them, and those who did early in the stages of recovery came out with such better outcomes. So they saw people that had taken this journey ahead of them, and they had information and knowledge about the stages about good legal system help and good groups and good therapists in town. And just spend time with them figuring out how to you know how to process their own trauma with other people that have gone through that? Yeah, so they're a great resource, they found a great resource in other in other partners of sex addicts. Yeah.
So you're kind of already going into where I wanted to address recommendations for counselors based on all your work in this area. So a lot of what I heard is slowing down where as counselors who may have an urgency for treatment goals, outcomes, you know, how many sessions are approved by insurance, really slowing down this work, and then with your grief work, being able to not only have that sense of community, but resourcing, which is something that I found in my own studies of dealing with grief that the emotional connection and healing is important. But having tangible resources can really help a person when they're in crisis. And that part of their brain just doesn't have the same capacity to try to resource having those on hand and being able to provide that can really aid in this moving towards recovery, and maybe even post traumatic growth. Yes,
yes, I would say that would be the first resource that they talked about after therapy was peer support, and how effective that was in encouraging them to engage in that deliberate rumination, right? These, these people that have gone ahead of them and experienced all of this trauma and the post traumatic growth, gently confronted them on shattered core beliefs and assisted them with understanding the journey towards healing. Other other resources that I would say that are helpful is being able to know how to help your clients with self regulation skills, and distress tolerance skills, explaining to them how the brain is hijacked by this, giving them books and materials on this subject. I would also say advocating for where they are in any way you can, such as, yes, putting them in touch with other people, but you know, finding groups for them, or ministries that advocate for this population, because in that shock and awe stage, it is very hard for them to access their prefrontal cortex and think through solutions. And I would say for me, when I started training in rider in therapy, somatic experiential therapy modalities that added an extra something right. So even if you just read about it, you understand somatic experiences, which in this in this study, that's an incredible, incredible finding for me that, you know, people are so used to self betrayal so disconnected from their bodies, but just understanding and getting trained and somatic experiential therapy modalities.
That makes a lot of sense. Are there any books or resources you personally have found to be useful?
Um, I would say there is a book on healing the vagus nerve that I found very helpful, and I show my clients, I very much encourage them to read books on betrayal such as betrayal bind a betrayal bond anything by Patrick Carnes, also betrayal binders by Michele Mays, entangling betrayal. Another this there's a little book that most most of my clients read, it's, it's called after the dust settles, it's an old book, it's written by one of the one of the partners, there are some podcasts about betrayal there are focused on that those are very helpful. And some, you know, websites, I would say, the I T A p.org. That's the International Institute for trauma and addiction professionals, maybe that's where you want to look and see, you know, what kind of therapists in your town or CSAT, they're certified, they're trained, or maybe your therapist can kind of look in and help me out. Some of these other partners of sex addicts have gone ahead of ahead of you can help you with some recommendations. And I also know that the some shaw.org by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, I mean, that's it's known to be a treatment or referral Routing Service and they might help you with, Hey, this is where you go, this is what you do. for your clients and for yourself if you are a partner.
Thank you. And I'll link as many of those resources as I can to the episode. I have a selfish just clinical question. I kind of want to ask you, since I have you here, for your clients who really feel stuck in the why, why did this happened? What? What can I do to protect myself and make sure this never happens? How have you navigated? Because we're speaking of a person who isn't in the room and trying to understand their psyche, and the why and the causes? Have you found anything particularly helpful to kind of have clients unhook themselves from this? I get it. It's this this attempt to understand because then maybe I can prevent it from happening again in the future. But yeah, selfishly, anything you found to be useful to get clients past that why someone else chose to do this thing with the answer that we may never get.
Wow, that's a tough one. Dr. Tyler? No, I'm
sorry to put you on this.
My very last, one of my very last question for my participants was that how do you make sense of that? And when I would ask that, you know, the conversation would go back to self forgiveness. And I think that's a key in my findings, they have had to go through a whole lot of self forgiveness to let go of wanting that answer. And also, most of them said to me, I can't make sense of that. I don't know how to make sense of that. I have just had to accept that this is this was my lot in life. And so I guess, I would say, you know, learning how to hike the mountains of disappointments with your clients, and in this case, they are big disappointments, generational disappointments, and just sitting by them until they don't want the answers of the why. And their grief is you know, is kind of resolved at some level.
I love that metaphor of the hiking, I'm a good metaphor person. What I've also found useful is the metaphor that I read somewhere of sort of you don't ask the snake like why did you? Why did you bite me? Why do I have this bend and we just tried to get rid of the venom and that we can spend our whole life chasing the snake saying Why would you do this to me versus can we do healing from removing the men? Um, so I do really appreciate you letting me kind of pick your brain there in today's conversation.
Yeah, no problem. And I would I would also say to that the that's where the emphasizing spirituality and their relationship with the higher power is so important because a lot of a lot of these individuals have to sit at that intersection of you know, the meaning of pain and the meaning of theodicy. It God is so good, their higher power is so good. And yet this happened to me and to make peace with with that, you know, with the character of God with their higher power. I think that's another key of this. Of this. Why question? Yeah.
Well, I thank you so much for doing the study for helping to increase hope that we can give our clients which I think is such the most crucial part of our role being a hope Bringer and I appreciate your time today to discuss your
work. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. And that's
another episode of the thoughtful
counselor. Thanks again for tuning into the thoughtful counselor today. We hope you enjoy the show. This podcast is made possible through our partnership with concept, Palo Alto University's Division of Continuing and Professional Studies. Learn more about thoughtful counselor and some of the other amazing continuing education offerings provided by concept at Palo Alto you.edu. Forward slash concept. As always, if you are a fan of the show, we would love to hear your feedback and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you subscribe
