This is the second half of the very long post that is really, “Why Everyone on My Team Is YOUR Answer,” that I started on Monday. These are the rest of the Core Values of the Love Yourself Love Your Marriage program and ONLY people who are totally aligned with them can even talk to me:3. Non-judgmental Approach
Now when you first hear this one, it is hard to imagine. I’ll admit that.
Because basically, we are abstaining from calling someone evil, bad, cruel.
How can we do that?
Well, if you understand the context in which people act as they do, then their reactions actually make sense.Let’s take Dave whose mother yelled and screamed like crazy at him. Dave learned to tune out when he was 5 years old. That’s obvious, right? It’s the most logical, rational thing in the world.
But now Dave marries Maria and when she gets upset, her voice goes up. She’s not actually putting him down or disrespecting him. She’s what one client used to tell me was “being passionate” about something.But Dave tunes out.
So here’s Maria telling him how hurt her feelings are when he tunes out….and what is he doing?….
Tuning out.
Ouch.
But it’s not that Dave is cruel or mean. He’s just on automatic. He’s protecting himself.As a team, we understand Dave this way. And we understand Maria’s frustration, too.
So what do we do?
Instead of calling Dave names and putting a victim label on Maria, we help Dave make friends with that vulnerability in him that he wants to pretend isn’t there. And we help Maria love herself so much that she isn’t fazed by Dave’s growing pains.4. Trauma-Informed Approach
Now we get to the heart of our approach. If the “cause” of difficult, painful behavior is not that a person is inherently sick or bad, then what is it? What do I mean by “environment” or “context” as I’ve been using it here?The answer is “trauma.”
Little kids are the most vulnerable people on Earth. They really don’t have the capacity to “get over” things like divorce of parents, or the fighting, or being neglected or abused emotionally or physically.They don’t.
They might look like they did. But that’s just on the outside. Inside, they’re raw and bleeding. And hiding it. Both from you and from themselves.
And generally speaking, two people are attracted to each other because they both have had similar traumatic experiences. So what we have is two people with trauma histories learning to love and give to one another when that was never done to or for them. At least not in a healthy way.When you read in the linktree list “2 Principles of a Good Marriage,” you’ll see a long list of what therapists are referring to as Little “t” trauma. This little “t” stuff didn’t make the DSM, but we don’t care. It’s real.
Bessel van der Kolk says it’s real and his book (The Body Keeps The Score) has about a quarter of it just for references of all the research that he’s done or known about.(There is a lot of politics regarding the creation of the DSM categories, BTW. I’ve written about that on my personal blog in previous years.)
5. Self-Energy Approach
Remember I was talking about people pretending to themselves that they’re fine when they aren’t? And that they hide those weak parts out of total fear of what might happen if they became vulnerable?Well, the good news is that when we start to separate the visible protectors – defense mechanisms, or coping skills – from those soft, vulnerable parts and we separate all of those from the core Self of a person, we get something amazing.
Something that was never seen before. Something powerful through willingness to be vulnerable. Something courageous and kind and wise.We call that “something,” Self. Or soul. That’s the term we use which comes from the pioneering work of Dr. Richard C. Schwartz.
In short, we believe that everyone has this shining, clean, clear thing that we call Self. Only we’ve hidden it for years because that was the only way to survive.
But it’s not so badly hidden that we can’t access it. We can and we do. Every day in working with people just like you.We don’t do this by force. We do it with love, patience, kindness, and our own Self-energy. That’s right: to be able to do this work with others, we have to have been doing it all along with ourselves. And we do.
In marriage counseling, that last step is Communication. But we need to be very careful: Only two people who can access their own Self-energy can communicate what they really want and need in a way that actually gets what they want or need. When we’re not in Self-energy, it generally backfires and we not only don’t get what we want or need but we dig ourselves into a worse hole than we were in before.6. Appreciating Parts Approach
So when the protective parts are moved aside to expose the lovely, glowing Self, do we throw away all those parts? All those defense mechanisms?
No.
We need them too.
We are not simply a Self. A Self is the energy of being, appreciating the good in life, seeing the big picture.But Self doesn’t move forward. It doesn’t make judgments. It doesn’t protect itself. That’s up to all those defense mechanisms and all the other parts that get us to work in the morning and know the route to get there without thinking.
The other parts have gained street-smarts and cunning. We do need their protection from time to time. Sometimes, we – with our Self-energy – can gain their trust enough to soften their harsh ways.But we never throw them out. They’re part of us, and much to be appreciated. The title of Dr. Schwartz’s book says it all: “No Bad Parts.”
And we all believe that.
7. World-Class Approach
This team members need to have Master’s Degree training and at least a Level I training in Internal Family Systems (IFS) which is the therapeutic approach that understands Self-energy and parts.
But we go beyond the training and the experience.
The people here are good people. And they put you first. At least most of the time. We also have to model self-care so we absolutely do have boundaries. But that doesn’t stand in the way of our commitment to you.We are reachable 24/7 if you need us.
Yes, even on weekends.
We think about you and how to best help when we aren’t talking to you.
We’re kind. And we want you to feel like you received more than you expected. That’s our team goal.So, I ask you, are all of us the “right kind” of therapists for you?