Why Couples Counseling Backfires With Abusive Partners w/ Dr. Peter Salerno | S2E15

You’re not crazy for thinking therapy would help. You were taught that relationships can be “fixed” if you just try harder, communicate better, or show more empathy. But when you sit beside someone who thrives on blame, chaos, and control, therapy doesn’t heal the relationship, it becomes another weapon used against you. 

Dr. Peter Salerno, psychotherapist and expert in personality pathology, joins Lisa to dismantle one of the most dangerous myths survivors are sold: that couples counseling can repair abusive dynamics. He breaks down why disordered partners don’t collaborate, why they show up as “model clients,” and how therapists who aren’t trained in pathology end up validating abuse, deepening your confusion, and escalating the danger. 

Together they expose how language from therapy (boundaries, respect, communication) gets twisted into ammunition, and why survivors often leave sessions questioning themselves instead of the abuse. 

This conversation is a lifeline if you’ve ever left therapy feeling smaller, more ashamed, or more bonded to someone who’s harming you. You’re not the problem, the dynamic is. Seeing the truth is the first step toward reclaiming your safety, clarity, and self.

Transcript

00:00:17:22 - 00:00:39:12
Speaker 1
Couples counseling is one of those really difficult things that I know. Everybody who is in an abusive or toxic relationship is either done or considered at some point, thinking that it's going to help, thinking that you're having relationship issues or you're having disagreements, or that you both need to work on things. But in my experience, couples counseling has been dangerous and I've seen a lot of really negative outcomes.

00:00:39:14 - 00:00:49:04
Speaker 1
today I'm joined by Doctor Peter Salerno and we're going to talk about the different things you might see in couples counseling. And if you've ever done it, I'm sure you'll see yourself in this episode. But

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Speaker 1
first I would like to properly introduce my guest. So, Doctor Solano, can you tell us a little bit about who you are?

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Speaker 2
Sure.

00:00:56:02 - 00:00:57:09
Speaker 2
I am a

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Speaker 2
psychotherapist.

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Speaker 2
And

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Speaker 2
predominantly my career has been focused on

00:01:02:00 - 00:01:03:05
Speaker 2
personality disorders

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Speaker 2
and trauma. So I've specialized in both of those. I've written a few books.

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Speaker 2
I've written a book about

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Speaker 2
narcissism in the nature nurture debate, and I

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Speaker 2
try to debunk some myths in that book related to what a lot of

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Speaker 2
popular media

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Speaker 2
portrays is narcissism, that I

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Speaker 2
think is inaccurate based on the research.

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Speaker 2
I've also,

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Speaker 2
coined the term called

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Speaker 2
traumatic cognitive dissonance to explain the type of dissonance that occurs

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Speaker 2
through intentional manipulation and relationships.

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Speaker 2
And then I recently released a book called Cruelty by Nature, which talks about the science of intentional abuse.

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Speaker 2
And

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Speaker 2
predominantly now I

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Speaker 2
counsel people and consult with individuals who are coming out of relationships with

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Speaker 2
individuals who have severe personality pathology,

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Speaker 2
and they're trying to make sense of

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Speaker 2
what happened in those contexts.

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Speaker 2
And I think we'll probably cover a lot of that

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Speaker 2
today. Yeah.

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Speaker 1
Absolutely.

00:01:53:11 - 00:02:04:09
Speaker 1
And as a quick aside, those books are phenomenal. I've read them all, and I really recommend that people read those, especially if you're considering couples counseling with someone who is abusive or toxic or disordered.

00:02:04:13 - 00:02:08:09
Speaker 1
That'll definitely be some education that you need prior to going in.

00:02:08:11 - 00:02:14:07
Speaker 1
why don't we kind of start with what have you seen in couples settings if you're working with someone?

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Speaker 1
I feel like it's a little unfair because you're a specialist in this, so you probably can spot the disorders more than your average therapist. But what do you think it is when couples sit down? What's the intention that most couples are trying to achieve in therapy that just isn't going to work if someone's disordered?

00:02:30:11 - 00:02:35:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, so if somebody is disordered in the in the dyad, in the treatment unit,

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Speaker 2
what happens is

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Speaker 2
the therapist

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Speaker 2
and it's not necessarily their fault.

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Speaker 2
If they're not trained in personality pathology they wouldn't know what to look for here.

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Speaker 2
So I'm not saying anything disparaging about therapists, but it's important to talk about this because there's a lot of inadvertent harm that can be extremely damaging.

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Speaker 2
The therapist might be assuming that both

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Speaker 2
people in the in the

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Speaker 2
couples dyad

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Speaker 2
are showing up to collaborate to solve problems,

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Speaker 2
and that they both have collaborative

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Speaker 2
capacity and a willingness to solve problems.

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Speaker 2
Right. That's that's the first major problem is

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Speaker 2
assuming mutual collaboration.

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Speaker 2
So

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Speaker 2
when somebody with a personality disorder is in the mix,

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Speaker 2
you can't assume collaboration with them.

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Speaker 2
And one of the reasons is because they don't

00:03:19:03 - 00:03:22:01
Speaker 2
collaborate to solve problems in a relationship. They

00:03:22:01 - 00:03:26:14
Speaker 2
try to make it so that one person is right and the other is wrong. Right. And so

00:03:26:14 - 00:03:33:20
Speaker 2
the idea of going to therapy to resolve problems kind of goes out the window. If one person's intention is simply to be right,

00:03:34:01 - 00:03:37:14
Speaker 2
right, and to be confirmed in their ways versus trying to,

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Speaker 2
exercise humility, understanding, compassion, empathy, those types of things, they don't actually show up in a relationship

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Speaker 2
with a disordered personality because their motivation is really just to be the one who is not problematic and to externalize all of the blame.

00:03:53:09 - 00:03:53:19
Speaker 2
So,

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Speaker 2
a couple showing up to couples therapy to resolve problems.

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Speaker 2
it's not

00:03:57:09 - 00:04:00:19
Speaker 2
going to happen if there is a personality disorder in the mix

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Speaker 1
I love the directness of that. It's it's not going to happen, people.

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Speaker 1
I wish someone had told me that, to be honest, when I did counseling, I did not know that

00:04:09:09 - 00:04:17:13
Speaker 1
I was sitting beside a disordered person, nor did I have any clue about disorders, so I would never have known. I am so lucky

00:04:17:18 - 00:04:23:03
Speaker 1
that the therapist has some level of knowledge and training and absolutely spotted it.

00:04:23:05 - 00:04:33:06
Speaker 1
But that's not what I see. So what you're talking about is so much more common in what I hear about from my clients who've either done it or are doing it in conjunction

00:04:33:06 - 00:04:34:13
Speaker 1
working with me. But

00:04:34:16 - 00:04:35:19
Speaker 1
the therapist might

00:04:36:00 - 00:04:36:20
Speaker 1
see

00:04:37:00 - 00:04:44:12
Speaker 1
this person talking about their side of things and ask the victim of abuse, not recognizing that they're a victim.

00:04:44:14 - 00:04:51:09
Speaker 1
You know you need to be more communicative or have you ever tried spending more time together or frankly, like having more s—?

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Speaker 1
Have you tried?

00:04:52:10 - 00:04:53:19
Speaker 1
it pushes the victim

00:04:53:23 - 00:04:57:20
Speaker 1
to start to consider the ways that they're causing their own abuse? Yes.

00:04:58:00 - 00:05:02:07
Speaker 2
Absolutely. And everything you just described is the therapist assuming collaboration.

00:05:02:10 - 00:05:02:16
Speaker 1
Right?

00:05:02:19 - 00:05:04:20
Speaker 2
you don't get a degree in psychology

00:05:04:20 - 00:05:05:01
Speaker 2
and you're

00:05:05:03 - 00:05:07:18
Speaker 2
typically not taught that somebody is going to show up.

00:05:07:22 - 00:05:09:03
Speaker 2
Like not to

00:05:09:07 - 00:05:15:05
Speaker 2
try to correct problems. What you think is people are showing up and they're investing their time and their money to heal or to get help.

00:05:15:09 - 00:05:18:18
Speaker 2
And unfortunately, that's just not the case with these disordered people because

00:05:18:20 - 00:05:21:17
Speaker 2
they don't solve problems the way normal people solve problems.

00:05:21:17 - 00:05:24:07
Speaker 2
The way they solve problems is they try to escalate drama

00:05:24:11 - 00:05:30:18
Speaker 2
and externalize blame, and they actually end up creating more problems and sustaining old ones when they go to therapy.

00:05:30:22 - 00:05:33:01
Speaker 2
Another thing that's really detrimental

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Speaker 2
is the therapy. Modalities for couples are designed to,

00:05:37:01 - 00:05:38:14
Speaker 2
validate both perspectives.

00:05:38:19 - 00:05:50:11
Speaker 2
So a lot of therapists are validating abuse without knowing it because they're not seeing the signs or looking for the tells or even understanding the counter transference, which is kind of what they're supposed to

00:05:50:14 - 00:05:56:13
Speaker 2
pick up on and feel and react to when somebody is being deceptive and when somebody is feigning collaboration.

00:05:56:17 - 00:05:57:16
Speaker 2
There's just not a lot of

00:05:57:19 - 00:06:00:03
Speaker 2
formal training in that. And so

00:06:00:07 - 00:06:02:13
Speaker 2
the likelihood of, of going to therapy

00:06:02:17 - 00:06:04:00
Speaker 2
and finding somebody who

00:06:04:04 - 00:06:04:19
Speaker 2
is,

00:06:04:19 - 00:06:07:07
Speaker 2
well versed in that is at this point, it's

00:06:07:07 - 00:06:09:01
Speaker 2
unlikely what you're going to see is that

00:06:09:04 - 00:06:10:15
Speaker 2
they're going to try to conceptualize

00:06:10:15 - 00:06:12:15
Speaker 2
these abusive behaviors, either as,

00:06:12:15 - 00:06:13:23
Speaker 2
trauma reactions

00:06:14:03 - 00:06:16:11
Speaker 2
or somebody who's really trying but just can't.

00:06:16:11 - 00:06:17:13
Speaker 2
And so you can teach them,

00:06:17:17 - 00:06:18:11
Speaker 2
you know, that's

00:06:18:15 - 00:06:20:10
Speaker 2
that's just not the case.

00:06:20:13 - 00:06:22:03
Speaker 2
This time part. Oh

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Speaker 2
yeah.

00:06:22:19 - 00:06:23:04
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:06:23:07 - 00:06:34:11
Speaker 2
A lot of framing of like, these are just negative interactive patterns. And if I can just steer you in the right direction, all of this will be resolved. Not factoring in that some of these people don't want to give up the abuse they're inflicting because it's working for them.

00:06:34:16 - 00:06:37:09
Speaker 2
And that's a foreign concept to your average,

00:06:37:14 - 00:06:38:03
Speaker 2
therapist.

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Speaker 1
I agree with you so much. You know, I've gone live before and I've seen therapists in the comments of my lives, but this is multiple times. And if I say things and I try to be respectful, I'm a coach. I'm not here to,

00:06:50:07 - 00:06:51:10
Speaker 1
really discussed what

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Speaker 1
therapists learn in their programs because I know it's different and it's not all the same.

00:06:55:10 - 00:07:01:21
Speaker 1
But like, fundamentally, I hear repetitiously from so many psychologists and therapists that

00:07:02:00 - 00:07:04:23
Speaker 1
collectively, as a as broadly speaking, you're not trained

00:07:05:02 - 00:07:08:16
Speaker 1
in the programs about personality disorders and whatnot. So

00:07:08:18 - 00:07:21:14
Speaker 1
I'm thinking of several recent examples where therapists were like, this is not true. We are trained. We absolutely are. You're wrong. And I think like perhaps you were trained, but to think that, broadly speaking, therapists have a deep understanding.

00:07:21:19 - 00:07:29:12
Speaker 1
I mean, my proof is just in that I'm not seeing that. And I've just heard from too many therapists. And again, we're not attacking therapists. This is

00:07:29:15 - 00:07:30:15
Speaker 1
maybe an issue with

00:07:30:19 - 00:07:34:02
Speaker 1
the education system and the programs that are being run.

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Speaker 1
I think it's nice that you would assume that everybody in front of you is here willingly and wanting to collaborate.

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Speaker 1
I wish that maybe there was more training on how to assess

00:07:44:16 - 00:07:45:16
Speaker 1
levels of

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Speaker 1
willingness to be collaborative first, in some capacities that like when you sit down with a couple, is that what you're doing? You're immediately sort of looking for

00:07:53:18 - 00:07:55:01
Speaker 1
a lack of collaboration.

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Speaker 2
I'm not necessarily looking for it, but I'm highly aware

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Speaker 2
of the possibility that it could exist. And so I don't have this confirmation bias that you both shown up and you're doing your best. I just don't think that way. Now, a lot of people say that's

00:08:07:20 - 00:08:10:13
Speaker 2
cynical or skeptical, but I believe

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Speaker 2
It's a therapist job to be a bit skeptical because we are scientists before we're advocates.

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Speaker 2
That seems to really not,

00:08:17:08 - 00:08:18:15
Speaker 2
resonate with a lot of people.

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Speaker 2
Maybe it sounds harsh, but

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Speaker 2
the people who are coming to you are coming to you because they can't solve their problems on their own. So you can't expect them to know exactly what's going on.

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Speaker 2
So you do have to be a little bit

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Speaker 2
like, well, maybe not all of this is true. This is, you know, they're bringing their psychology to you.

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Speaker 2
Right?

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Speaker 2
Even in relationships, though,

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Speaker 2
especially in,

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Speaker 2
long term committed relationships, the person who's being abused

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Speaker 2
shouldn't go into the relationship thinking,

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Speaker 2
gosh, I wonder if I'm going to get totally

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Speaker 2
like

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Speaker 2
hoodwinked and duped and sucker punched in about ten years.

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Speaker 2
Like, why? Why would you even enter into it if you thought that was a possibility? So

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Speaker 2
it's also just kind of like human nature doesn't really,

00:08:56:22 - 00:09:01:01
Speaker 2
give a lot of room to this possibility that someone's going to,

00:09:01:03 - 00:09:02:16
Speaker 2
be problematic in a way where

00:09:02:16 - 00:09:03:18
Speaker 2
there's not a way to repair it.

00:09:03:18 - 00:09:04:22
Speaker 2
But unfortunately,

00:09:05:02 - 00:09:07:22
Speaker 2
with these individuals, the way that they're wired, the way that they're

00:09:07:22 - 00:09:09:12
Speaker 2
motivated, they do

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Speaker 2
they like to blow things up.

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Speaker 2
rather than,

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Speaker 2
you know,

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Speaker 2
create,

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Speaker 2
an understanding and a resolution.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, they definitely love, love problems. I actually remember a couple of different things. We had two different couples

00:09:22:04 - 00:09:27:13
Speaker 1
counselors over the years, and the first one essentially made me never want to do it again, even though we later did. But

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Speaker 1
the first one, it was very like, okay, you guys have communication issues. Really all issues in marriages and in relationships all come down to communication.

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Speaker 1
I remember him saying that so clearly and

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Speaker 1
My abuser communicated that he felt like there was a lack of respect,

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Speaker 1
that I didn't respect him. Now, in hindsight, I absolutely did not. But I had reason to. But we never got that far and it just turned into

00:09:51:13 - 00:09:55:12
Speaker 1
I'm not respectful enough and how can I show more respect?

00:09:55:18 - 00:09:58:10
Speaker 1
Respect is obviously very important to him, so that would help.

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Speaker 1
And I'm sitting here thinking, what does that mean?

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Speaker 1
And I mean I have whole

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Speaker 1
opinions and probably a whole topic for another episode on what

00:10:04:23 - 00:10:11:01
Speaker 1
abusive men deem as respect to begin with. And my take in my relationship was that it was more

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Speaker 1
compliance,

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Speaker 1
I would say, than anything, just blind agreement.

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Speaker 1
And

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Speaker 1
you know, blind loyalty and trust for no reason.

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Speaker 1
But

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Speaker 1
it really I left that after 5 or 6 sessions, just like I, I cannot sit here for one more week

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Speaker 1
and be told that this is my fault.

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Speaker 1
Like something's off and I didn't know what and I didn't know it was abuse. And we need to talk about that.

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Speaker 1
We don't know that this is abuse. So many people say, don't go into couples counseling if you're in an abusive relationship, but

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Speaker 1
I'm sure you agree most people don't know that they're in an abusive relationship. So like, if I don't have the language to label it as abuse, I'm not

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Speaker 1
going to know to seek out a therapist who understands abuse or to not do this at all,

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Speaker 1
or to seek out a therapist who understands personality disorders.

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Speaker 1
You just going in thinking.

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Speaker 1
And

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Speaker 1
my partner seems really angry or

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Speaker 1
we seem to constantly be

00:11:00:03 - 00:11:06:02
Speaker 1
misunderstanding each other. We read the book The Five Love Languages and I think we're just speaking different languages.

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Speaker 1
This is what brings people in. So it makes it like impossible to

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Speaker 1
get anywhere in therapy.

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Speaker 2
Yeah,

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Speaker 2
it's a big misconception that communication

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Speaker 2
one of the main problems in relationships, especially these relationships. Communication is not the problem.

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Speaker 2
the problem is

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Speaker 2
there's one person that's perceiving

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Speaker 2
something in a very disordered way,

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Speaker 2
and they're not going to let go until you,

00:11:27:02 - 00:11:28:19
Speaker 2
as you said, submit and comply.

00:11:28:22 - 00:11:31:01
Speaker 2
that's what the therapy ends up becoming about.

00:11:31:03 - 00:11:31:23
Speaker 2
The problem is

00:11:32:02 - 00:11:33:06
Speaker 2
a therapist who's,

00:11:33:08 - 00:11:36:14
Speaker 2
looking at a human being in front of them and seeing someone who

00:11:36:18 - 00:11:39:03
Speaker 2
is seemingly, well, they're showing up, right?

00:11:39:06 - 00:11:40:09
Speaker 2
They're going to validate

00:11:40:12 - 00:11:41:08
Speaker 2
the abuse.

00:11:41:08 - 00:11:45:01
Speaker 2
and again, like you said, if the client who's being abused doesn't even know they're

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Speaker 2
being abused because

00:11:46:05 - 00:11:52:04
Speaker 2
we've historically defined abuses like physical bruises on the skin or things that are visible or things that,

00:11:52:06 - 00:11:54:02
Speaker 2
you can be convicted of a crime for

00:11:54:06 - 00:11:56:21
Speaker 2
there's all kinds of abuse that are just as damaging,

00:11:57:00 - 00:11:59:14
Speaker 2
that are hidden, concealed and invisible.

00:11:59:18 - 00:12:00:03
Speaker 2
And,

00:12:00:04 - 00:12:05:09
Speaker 2
it's a very dangerous situation to give a disordered person the ammunition

00:12:05:12 - 00:12:08:00
Speaker 2
from therapy to have all of these new words like,

00:12:08:05 - 00:12:08:12
Speaker 2
you know,

00:12:08:15 - 00:12:14:17
Speaker 2
whatever it may be, like the validation and boundaries and dismissal and respect and neutral and all this stuff and,

00:12:14:21 - 00:12:16:06
Speaker 2
you know, I have the right to

00:12:16:10 - 00:12:21:00
Speaker 2
this, in this, in this because, you know, the therapist said you have to respect my boundaries and all this stuff.

00:12:21:00 - 00:12:23:15
Speaker 2
It all gets weaponized. So that language just ends up

00:12:23:20 - 00:12:25:16
Speaker 2
increasing and expanding their

00:12:25:20 - 00:12:27:21
Speaker 2
their toolkit of abuse. Right.

00:12:28:01 - 00:12:31:01
Speaker 1
You know, I remember sitting at my kitchen table one night and it was

00:12:31:06 - 00:12:32:21
Speaker 1
4:00 in the morning because

00:12:33:00 - 00:12:34:22
Speaker 1
woke me up in the middle of the night to pick a fight.

00:12:35:03 - 00:12:44:03
Speaker 1
And we were in therapy. And this was with the therapist who recognized what was going on like years later. And he was like, okay, so red, green exercise.

00:12:44:03 - 00:12:45:15
Speaker 1
This is what she taught me. So.

00:12:45:19 - 00:12:48:17
Speaker 1
And he provoked me to get me into the red.

00:12:48:21 - 00:12:52:06
Speaker 1
And then he was like, go green right now, do it. Go green. And I'm like,

00:12:52:09 - 00:12:57:10
Speaker 1
what exercise is this? What are you talking about? He was like, that's what she said. You have to go green when you're red. So do it.

00:12:57:14 - 00:13:02:22
Speaker 1
I was like, I am quite confident that she didn't put you in the red zone and then just scream, go green

00:13:03:01 - 00:13:06:06
Speaker 1
in your session with her because we did some solo sessions.

00:13:06:08 - 00:13:14:02
Speaker 1
I don't even know what this is like. I've never I've googled it. I've never heard of this red green exercise. I'm sure it came from somewhere, but I'm sure that it was,

00:13:14:06 - 00:13:16:13
Speaker 1
I want to say twisted, but really, I mean warped

00:13:16:16 - 00:13:17:22
Speaker 1
into something else.

00:13:18:02 - 00:13:19:16
Speaker 1
But that's like, to me,

00:13:19:16 - 00:13:23:20
Speaker 1
a wild example of how you learn something in therapy and then they weaponize it

00:13:23:23 - 00:13:24:13
Speaker 1
like that was.

00:13:24:18 - 00:13:30:09
Speaker 1
I am sure she didn't mean wake your girlfriend or wife up in the middle of the night, dragged them out of bed by their feet

00:13:30:12 - 00:13:32:00
Speaker 1
and scream at them in the kitchen.

00:13:32:04 - 00:13:32:19
Speaker 1
It's crazy.

00:13:32:22 - 00:13:34:13
Speaker 1
These are the crazy things that can happen.

00:13:34:17 - 00:13:42:05
Speaker 1
But maybe on a on a less crazy level, what do you commonly see when you are sitting with a couple?

00:13:42:07 - 00:13:44:05
Speaker 1
because you know what you're doing. You

00:13:44:05 - 00:13:46:20
Speaker 1
get this, you've seen it, you might have a different perspective. But

00:13:46:23 - 00:13:49:23
Speaker 1
what do you think you are seeing that others are not seeing?

00:13:50:03 - 00:13:52:15
Speaker 2
I think the main thing is we kind of touched on it earlier, but

00:13:52:20 - 00:13:56:07
Speaker 2
not going to assume that the two people that are coming into the

00:13:56:12 - 00:13:57:16
Speaker 2
therapy are

00:13:57:19 - 00:13:59:14
Speaker 2
knowing exactly what's wrong,

00:13:59:16 - 00:14:01:13
Speaker 2
but oftentimes, you know, they're just

00:14:01:17 - 00:14:03:11
Speaker 2
it's no fault of their own, but they're going to speak

00:14:03:16 - 00:14:05:07
Speaker 2
their truth, their experience.

00:14:05:09 - 00:14:06:17
Speaker 2
there's ways to tell

00:14:06:21 - 00:14:09:21
Speaker 2
when somebody is like feigning collaboration.

00:14:10:01 - 00:14:16:04
Speaker 2
And one of the easiest things, I mean, I've gotten a lot of heat for this in the past because it seems like it's oversimplified. But

00:14:16:07 - 00:14:21:02
Speaker 2
a lot of times these individuals will go and they'll be like model therapy clients like the the

00:14:21:06 - 00:14:25:18
Speaker 2
disordered person, like they will go do the assignments, they will do the homework, they will practice it.

00:14:25:23 - 00:14:33:17
Speaker 2
They will remind their partner, we need to do this. You know, they'll report back like, you know, like the teacher's pet and like they'll act like everything is like.

00:14:33:22 - 00:14:35:01
Speaker 2
But they don't realize

00:14:35:04 - 00:14:37:09
Speaker 2
that they're giving themselves away in a lot of

00:14:37:13 - 00:14:38:19
Speaker 2
subtle ways. You know,

00:14:38:23 - 00:14:39:19
Speaker 2
one of the things is,

00:14:39:23 - 00:14:42:18
Speaker 2
if they were really doing all of those things in a sincere way,

00:14:42:21 - 00:14:44:00
Speaker 2
and the other person,

00:14:44:00 - 00:14:45:12
Speaker 2
was receiving it sincerely,

00:14:45:17 - 00:14:46:16
Speaker 2
it would feel safe.

00:14:46:20 - 00:14:48:06
Speaker 2
That's that's something that's really big,

00:14:48:10 - 00:14:48:17
Speaker 2
you know,

00:14:48:21 - 00:14:49:19
Speaker 2
it would feel safe.

00:14:49:23 - 00:14:54:01
Speaker 2
It doesn't feel safe when someone just, like, goes through the motions to look like they're like a model

00:14:54:05 - 00:14:54:15
Speaker 2
client.

00:14:54:20 - 00:14:59:05
Speaker 2
And then you, they do a really good job of making it seem like they're really in it here to, like, work it out.

00:14:59:09 - 00:14:59:18
Speaker 2
There's

00:14:59:23 - 00:15:05:09
Speaker 2
inevitable contradictions and inconsistencies and disordered people that they're not even aware that they're giving up.

00:15:05:12 - 00:15:06:18
Speaker 2
So those are some things that

00:15:06:20 - 00:15:11:06
Speaker 2
really need to kind of like zero in on and sort of inspect and investigate or notice,

00:15:11:09 - 00:15:14:04
Speaker 2
something that's really important, that's absolutely useful.

00:15:14:10 - 00:15:17:22
Speaker 2
it requires a lot of skill and training. And it's not necessarily,

00:15:18:02 - 00:15:19:12
Speaker 2
something that comes naturally.

00:15:19:16 - 00:15:20:00
Speaker 2
Is

00:15:20:04 - 00:15:25:20
Speaker 2
reading like the counter transference, like, what are the emotional reactions that the therapist is having towards each individual?

00:15:25:23 - 00:15:26:20
Speaker 2
those things

00:15:26:20 - 00:15:27:07
Speaker 2
there's

00:15:27:10 - 00:15:29:04
Speaker 2
not like a universal way to,

00:15:29:04 - 00:15:32:18
Speaker 2
experience a narcissist or, or an abusive person, but

00:15:32:18 - 00:15:33:16
Speaker 2
there are like

00:15:33:21 - 00:15:35:04
Speaker 2
things that give it away,

00:15:35:07 - 00:15:36:09
Speaker 2
that there's something

00:15:36:12 - 00:15:36:23
Speaker 2
off.

00:15:37:02 - 00:15:38:04
Speaker 2
And I think people

00:15:38:08 - 00:15:39:21
Speaker 2
need to pay more attention to that.

00:15:40:00 - 00:15:42:04
Speaker 2
What happens usually is if that comes up

00:15:42:04 - 00:15:50:06
Speaker 2
with an average therapist, they'll dismiss it outright and go back to the unconditional positive regard for the person rather than confronting this and saying,

00:15:50:11 - 00:15:55:15
Speaker 2
you know, this is coming up for a good reason, like, why am I feeling dread all of a sudden when this person is supposed to be

00:15:55:18 - 00:15:56:14
Speaker 2
collaborating?

00:15:56:18 - 00:15:58:10
Speaker 2
That's really important data.

00:15:58:13 - 00:15:58:20
Speaker 2
You know,

00:15:59:01 - 00:16:04:16
Speaker 2
you can get to the point where you can be really skilled and accurate in assessing what that is.

00:16:04:21 - 00:16:06:07
Speaker 2
Then there comes the problem of.

00:16:06:11 - 00:16:08:08
Speaker 2
Therapists, you know, they

00:16:08:13 - 00:16:09:08
Speaker 2
they want to help.

00:16:09:12 - 00:16:09:20
Speaker 2
So

00:16:09:20 - 00:16:12:23
Speaker 2
it doesn't always feel good to confront that right in the here and now.

00:16:13:04 - 00:16:15:18
Speaker 2
a lot of therapists aren't willing to say that this person is full of it

00:16:15:21 - 00:16:16:18
Speaker 2
and then call that out,

00:16:16:23 - 00:16:18:23
Speaker 2
Also, you have to be careful if you do that, because

00:16:19:04 - 00:16:20:06
Speaker 2
that could potentially put

00:16:20:06 - 00:16:21:07
Speaker 2
the victim in more danger.

00:16:21:11 - 00:16:28:07
Speaker 2
there's so many subtleties to this. And it's really kind of hard to explain like right here on the fly when I'm not like in the room with somebody like this.

00:16:28:11 - 00:16:32:01
Speaker 2
But I just want to say there are so many ways to get really good,

00:16:32:05 - 00:16:33:06
Speaker 2
and skilled at

00:16:33:11 - 00:16:36:04
Speaker 2
learning when somebody is just simply not collaborating.

00:16:36:09 - 00:16:37:03
Speaker 2
Another thing is

00:16:37:06 - 00:16:38:02
Speaker 2
a lot of people,

00:16:38:07 - 00:16:38:15
Speaker 2
have

00:16:38:20 - 00:16:46:16
Speaker 2
I think we went over this with Doctor George Simon. They have incongruent affect. They might tell a sob story or a trauma story, but it's incongruent with what's actually

00:16:46:19 - 00:16:50:20
Speaker 2
what they're actually experiencing inside. And then what the other person is experiencing. Like

00:16:50:23 - 00:16:52:13
Speaker 2
if somebody is in a lot of pain,

00:16:52:17 - 00:16:55:13
Speaker 2
it's natural to feel empathy for them or compassion for them,

00:16:55:16 - 00:16:55:23
Speaker 2
right?

00:16:56:02 - 00:16:59:10
Speaker 2
If somebody is telling a painful story and that's not lighting up in you,

00:16:59:14 - 00:17:12:03
Speaker 2
you you want to wonder about that. And this person is saying all the right things. You know, they were abused as a kid. They were traumatized. They have an insecure attachment. Their father never paid attention to them. That's why they have to be this way, etc..

00:17:12:08 - 00:17:13:19
Speaker 2
And then it doesn't really add up

00:17:13:23 - 00:17:14:17
Speaker 2
emotionally.

00:17:14:17 - 00:17:15:23
Speaker 2
Something's not congruent.

00:17:16:03 - 00:17:21:19
Speaker 2
You know, it takes years to kind of fine tune, like how to trust yourself to know what's going on.

00:17:21:23 - 00:17:23:16
Speaker 2
And there's not always words for it,

00:17:23:19 - 00:17:24:04
Speaker 2
but,

00:17:24:07 - 00:17:25:11
Speaker 2
all that is to say,

00:17:25:15 - 00:17:29:15
Speaker 2
there's a lot of things that you have to simultaneously pay attention to when you're in the room

00:17:29:17 - 00:17:32:07
Speaker 2
and you have to be careful what you say and what you don't say,

00:17:32:11 - 00:17:33:12
Speaker 2
because you never want to

00:17:33:15 - 00:17:35:07
Speaker 2
endanger the victim further.

00:17:35:07 - 00:17:37:06
Speaker 2
And that inadvertently happens a lot.

00:17:37:10 - 00:17:38:17
Speaker 1
We got fired in ours.

00:17:38:17 - 00:17:40:16
Speaker 1
and I say that like I,

00:17:40:18 - 00:17:43:05
Speaker 1
love this woman for for firing us because

00:17:43:08 - 00:17:45:00
Speaker 1
the violence which had,

00:17:45:03 - 00:17:48:08
Speaker 1
I'm going to say paused I would have said stopped but paused is a better word.

00:17:48:12 - 00:17:49:07
Speaker 1
It paused

00:17:49:11 - 00:17:53:05
Speaker 1
and then it started to get worse. The dragging me out of bed by my feet.

00:17:53:05 - 00:18:01:12
Speaker 1
Stuff started happening while in therapy and yet living separately. So she was like, the danger is increasing. So I'm going to need to

00:18:01:16 - 00:18:04:15
Speaker 1
halt all of this. We cannot continue. You are not safe.

00:18:04:19 - 00:18:08:19
Speaker 1
And that was a really hard conversation to hear because I was like, wait a minute, like, you

00:18:08:22 - 00:18:10:20
Speaker 1
need to help us. What do you mean

00:18:11:00 - 00:18:12:13
Speaker 1
you can't fire us?

00:18:12:17 - 00:18:14:13
Speaker 1
What happens then? You know, and I mean,

00:18:14:16 - 00:18:17:11
Speaker 1
I think in hindsight, like, well, you get safe and you.

00:18:17:15 - 00:18:19:09
Speaker 1
We separated. That was kind of the point but

00:18:19:12 - 00:18:21:20
Speaker 1
it made it so much worse. And I think that's something that

00:18:22:00 - 00:18:25:02
Speaker 1
people don't seem to understand when they're like but I just want to try,

00:18:25:04 - 00:18:29:16
Speaker 1
I think it's hard to even know what kind of advice to give to a survivor or a victim that

00:18:29:20 - 00:18:32:10
Speaker 1
wants to go into this sort of knowing, because

00:18:32:14 - 00:18:40:02
Speaker 1
I deal with, and I'm sure you do to people who know that or believe that this person is disordered, but they certainly know that they're abusive or toxic in a

00:18:40:02 - 00:18:42:09
Speaker 1
lot of the cases by the time I see them.

00:18:42:14 - 00:18:47:10
Speaker 1
so they go into it somewhat, knowing that they're going in with a disordered person or an abusive person,

00:18:47:14 - 00:18:51:08
Speaker 1
but they don't seem aware of how much worse it can get

00:18:51:12 - 00:18:51:21
Speaker 1
and

00:18:52:01 - 00:18:56:23
Speaker 1
how abuse can really escalate if they feel cornered or attacked by.

00:18:57:02 - 00:19:02:00
Speaker 1
Because on one hand, it's really validating for the survivor to be like, yeah, the therapist sees it and agrees.

00:19:02:01 - 00:19:05:23
Speaker 1
But what happens when a disordered or abusive person feels like

00:19:06:02 - 00:19:07:04
Speaker 1
two against one

00:19:07:08 - 00:19:08:06
Speaker 1
in a therapy setting?

00:19:08:10 - 00:19:09:06
Speaker 2
Dangerous.

00:19:09:07 - 00:19:10:05
Speaker 2
I used to have,

00:19:10:07 - 00:19:12:07
Speaker 2
you know, trainees working under my license.

00:19:12:11 - 00:19:14:11
Speaker 2
And so, you know, they had clients. And

00:19:14:15 - 00:19:17:11
Speaker 2
the way that works is you're the supervisor. They're the supervisee, so

00:19:17:13 - 00:19:21:08
Speaker 2
they see the client, but they're technically my client, right? Because they're working under my license.

00:19:21:12 - 00:19:22:21
Speaker 2
And I had this person,

00:19:23:01 - 00:19:23:14
Speaker 2
and

00:19:23:19 - 00:19:27:01
Speaker 2
she was working with a couple, and the guy was absolutely,

00:19:27:03 - 00:19:28:16
Speaker 2
disordered, based on,

00:19:28:18 - 00:19:29:03
Speaker 2
what?

00:19:29:05 - 00:19:30:09
Speaker 2
She was revealing to me?

00:19:30:12 - 00:19:31:21
Speaker 2
Something that was really dangerous,

00:19:31:21 - 00:19:38:12
Speaker 2
that happened. And again, it's not I'm not saying anything disparaging, but we need to get the word out, you know, to alert people of this.

00:19:38:17 - 00:19:44:01
Speaker 2
her way to help the victim was to help her get more in touch with her boundary setting.

00:19:44:05 - 00:19:48:03
Speaker 2
So she encouraged her to go home and set firm boundaries with this guy.

00:19:48:05 - 00:19:49:03
Speaker 2
And then the guy hit her.

00:19:49:07 - 00:19:49:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, right.

00:19:50:01 - 00:19:50:11
Speaker 2
Because

00:19:50:15 - 00:19:54:14
Speaker 2
it's not that the woman had a weak boundaries, it's that the woman intuitively knew

00:19:54:17 - 00:19:56:15
Speaker 2
if she sets them, she's going to get hurt.

00:19:56:20 - 00:20:02:13
Speaker 2
So to try to empower or encourage somebody to set boundaries with an abusive person is only going to escalate the abuse.

00:20:02:16 - 00:20:07:11
Speaker 2
You have to be careful what you tell the victim to do, right?

00:20:07:17 - 00:20:09:12
Speaker 2
You're not even supposed to really tell them.

00:20:09:15 - 00:20:12:20
Speaker 2
You know what specifically to do. That I think was a

00:20:13:01 - 00:20:18:00
Speaker 2
kind of a rookie mistake, but it could have been a fatal one, depending on how malignant this person was. Right?

00:20:18:04 - 00:20:18:15
Speaker 2
So

00:20:18:19 - 00:20:20:01
Speaker 2
it's understanding

00:20:20:05 - 00:20:21:10
Speaker 2
the bigger picture here.

00:20:21:13 - 00:20:23:04
Speaker 2
Not everything's co-created,

00:20:23:09 - 00:20:27:08
Speaker 2
right? Some people are just not operating in their relationship in a collaborative way.

00:20:27:12 - 00:20:28:01
Speaker 2
Right. And then

00:20:28:01 - 00:20:33:17
Speaker 2
you need to kind of know what the person is capable of and you need. And the way to do that is you ask the right questions and you get the right data

00:20:33:21 - 00:20:35:14
Speaker 2
and you kind of get a feel for the person.

00:20:35:17 - 00:20:37:18
Speaker 2
It's just really, really important to get,

00:20:37:20 - 00:20:39:04
Speaker 2
specialized training

00:20:39:08 - 00:20:39:15
Speaker 2
and

00:20:39:20 - 00:20:40:18
Speaker 2
again, you can't

00:20:41:00 - 00:20:43:16
Speaker 2
predict who's going to come to your office as a therapist, right?

00:20:43:16 - 00:20:51:18
Speaker 2
you take a referral, you're ethically obligated to, you know, get the referral. But once you start to notice that maybe, like, these problems are getting worse or that, you know, this isn't really

00:20:51:21 - 00:20:53:11
Speaker 2
like two people just trying to

00:20:53:15 - 00:20:59:01
Speaker 2
come together to resolve it, you have to either refer out to a specialist or you need to kind of say,

00:20:59:05 - 00:21:01:06
Speaker 2
I don't know if I'm the best fit for you.

00:21:01:06 - 00:21:06:03
Speaker 2
I'm going to try to find somebody else. I mean, it's complicated on all sides, right? It's like, it's not just

00:21:06:06 - 00:21:08:08
Speaker 2
that therapist sucked or this,

00:21:08:08 - 00:21:09:01
Speaker 2
kind of a thing. And

00:21:09:01 - 00:21:11:04
Speaker 2
there's so many variables that are hard to control.

00:21:11:08 - 00:21:11:16
Speaker 2
But

00:21:11:19 - 00:21:14:08
Speaker 2
I think what's most important and I think what you're trying to do is

00:21:14:11 - 00:21:15:15
Speaker 2
you can't just go to,

00:21:15:19 - 00:21:19:00
Speaker 2
like, any average therapist and expect that they're going to understand this.

00:21:19:04 - 00:21:20:17
Speaker 2
And unfortunately, I think now

00:21:20:21 - 00:21:26:21
Speaker 2
there's more responsibility on clients to do more searching for the right type of help, like really be clear on

00:21:27:00 - 00:21:30:04
Speaker 2
what the profile and the biography of the therapist is telling you.

00:21:30:08 - 00:21:37:14
Speaker 2
If they believe that there's no such thing as disorder and everybody deserves unconditional regard and it's just a matter of misunderstanding

00:21:37:17 - 00:21:41:11
Speaker 2
and you're being abused, or you think you might be being abused, but you're not

00:21:41:15 - 00:21:42:19
Speaker 2
necessarily calling it that.

00:21:42:19 - 00:21:43:08
Speaker 2
I would

00:21:43:13 - 00:21:46:21
Speaker 2
keep searching. That's not a profile that is telling me that they

00:21:47:01 - 00:21:47:10
Speaker 2
are going to

00:21:47:12 - 00:21:48:12
Speaker 2
confront abuse in a

00:21:48:13 - 00:21:49:07
Speaker 2
appropriate way.

00:21:49:12 - 00:21:51:13
Speaker 1
I remember, you know, interviewing

00:21:51:16 - 00:21:57:08
Speaker 1
the therapist prior to and I remember asking her, do you have experience working with people who just

00:21:57:12 - 00:21:58:14
Speaker 1
like argue and

00:21:58:14 - 00:22:04:07
Speaker 1
the consult was alone. I was by myself. So I had a little bit more freedom. But I would never have said abuse.

00:22:04:11 - 00:22:05:22
Speaker 1
Not even the word toxic, in fact.

00:22:06:01 - 00:22:09:19
Speaker 1
But I remember saying to her, do you have any experience with people where like,

00:22:09:23 - 00:22:17:10
Speaker 1
I just feel like I'm wrong all the time and I'm constantly in trouble and I feel afraid and like nervous to be wrong and I

00:22:17:12 - 00:22:21:16
Speaker 1
in hindsight, I sounded like somebody who's with somebody disordered, I suppose.

00:22:21:20 - 00:22:25:00
Speaker 1
But what I was really trying to ask was like, can you help me?

00:22:25:04 - 00:22:36:14
Speaker 1
But I feel like I may have been lucky a little bit that I had some shreds of language, but ultimately I didn't go in and say, like, do you have experience working with people who are in abusive relationships?

00:22:36:18 - 00:22:38:13
Speaker 1
My partner is a narcissist.

00:22:38:13 - 00:22:39:21
Speaker 1
I would never know that.

00:22:40:00 - 00:22:40:09
Speaker 1
So

00:22:40:14 - 00:22:45:16
Speaker 1
it is so important to get the right therapist and yet we don't know what that is.

00:22:45:20 - 00:22:52:04
Speaker 1
So you look even if you know if it's abuse or you think it's disorder, do you look it up? And I feel like you can click anything on Psychology Today

00:22:52:09 - 00:22:55:11
Speaker 1
and say that you have experience, but how do you really know

00:22:55:15 - 00:22:59:08
Speaker 1
that the therapist knows what they're talking about? I feel like you need to be in the room and then

00:22:59:11 - 00:23:00:22
Speaker 1
who knows what happens at that point.

00:23:01:01 - 00:23:03:07
Speaker 2
It's just like the field of medicine, right? Like

00:23:03:08 - 00:23:04:07
Speaker 2
all doctors go to

00:23:04:07 - 00:23:05:00
Speaker 2
medical school

00:23:05:03 - 00:23:08:02
Speaker 2
and they pass their exams and they do their residency. But

00:23:08:02 - 00:23:08:14
Speaker 2
there's a

00:23:08:18 - 00:23:10:15
Speaker 2
really distinct difference from

00:23:10:19 - 00:23:13:05
Speaker 2
like a psychiatrist and an oncologist,

00:23:13:09 - 00:23:17:11
Speaker 2
but we call them doctors. And so somebody can just call anyone up and say,

00:23:17:15 - 00:23:20:11
Speaker 2
oh, you know, my internal medicine doctor has a medical degree.

00:23:20:11 - 00:23:22:10
Speaker 2
They can prescribe psychotropic meds.

00:23:22:13 - 00:23:28:11
Speaker 2
I wouldn't recommend going to your internal medicine doctor for those types of events, even though they can legally prescribe them.

00:23:28:14 - 00:23:30:03
Speaker 2
I would go to someone who went,

00:23:30:06 - 00:23:33:01
Speaker 2
you know, further into specializing in what those meds do,

00:23:33:06 - 00:23:37:15
Speaker 2
because there's a lot of people who get thrown on an antidepressant when they have PTSD,

00:23:37:19 - 00:23:38:13
Speaker 2
from abuse.

00:23:38:13 - 00:23:41:18
Speaker 2
And their doctor said, oh, you probably just have some anxiety. They'll take this.

00:23:41:22 - 00:23:43:07
Speaker 2
It's the same thing with therapy.

00:23:43:11 - 00:23:44:19
Speaker 2
There's no such thing as,

00:23:44:19 - 00:23:47:07
Speaker 2
you get a degree, you pass your exams,

00:23:47:11 - 00:23:52:09
Speaker 2
and then you know everything about psychology and you shouldn't, and no one should expect you to. So

00:23:52:12 - 00:23:53:17
Speaker 2
I give this example a lot.

00:23:53:17 - 00:23:58:04
Speaker 2
I have no business being in a room with somebody with autism or schizophrenia.

00:23:58:08 - 00:24:04:03
Speaker 2
I learned about those things, I studied them, I legally, you know, when you're when you're a licensed therapist, you can legally

00:24:04:08 - 00:24:05:05
Speaker 2
diagnose them.

00:24:05:10 - 00:24:08:05
Speaker 2
Should you, if you haven't specialized? Absolutely not.

00:24:08:09 - 00:24:10:14
Speaker 2
I don't think that you have any business doing that. So

00:24:10:18 - 00:24:20:02
Speaker 2
look for people who's like have like a paper trail, if you will, of training specifically pathological abuse relationships, pathological,

00:24:20:05 - 00:24:20:14
Speaker 2
you know,

00:24:20:18 - 00:24:22:01
Speaker 2
romantic relationships.

00:24:22:04 - 00:24:28:14
Speaker 2
there's phrases now where people will put on their profiles that, you know, you need to pay attention to related to this type of thing.

00:24:28:18 - 00:24:30:16
Speaker 2
Unfortunate. You mentioned Psychology Today.

00:24:30:20 - 00:24:36:22
Speaker 2
When you're creating a Psychology Today profile as a therapist, you get the option to check all boxes on what you

00:24:37:02 - 00:24:37:11
Speaker 2
treat.

00:24:37:15 - 00:24:39:14
Speaker 2
And it's really just as simple as

00:24:39:18 - 00:24:43:17
Speaker 2
maybe I'll get more clients if I check more boxes so they could very well.

00:24:43:22 - 00:24:51:00
Speaker 2
The personality disorder box. A lot of therapists think personality disorders are just another way of saying trauma disorders or attachment disorders.

00:24:51:04 - 00:24:53:14
Speaker 2
So they lead you into thinking that they know exactly

00:24:53:18 - 00:24:54:17
Speaker 2
what you're dealing with.

00:24:54:21 - 00:24:56:18
Speaker 2
And unfortunately, it might just be

00:24:56:22 - 00:25:02:12
Speaker 2
that they thought, oh yeah, I read about those in school. I could check that box too, because I technically learned about it.

00:25:02:16 - 00:25:02:22
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:25:03:02 - 00:25:03:20
Speaker 2
again.

00:25:03:22 - 00:25:04:13
Speaker 1
I could do that.

00:25:04:17 - 00:25:06:06
Speaker 2
I'm not trying to disparage,

00:25:06:09 - 00:25:11:13
Speaker 2
you know, the field. I'm just saying there's a lot of things that it's important to look for.

00:25:11:16 - 00:25:12:04
Speaker 2
And,

00:25:12:09 - 00:25:16:15
Speaker 2
It's hard to find good help in this realm. I think there's incredible help for,

00:25:16:18 - 00:25:17:22
Speaker 2
all kinds of other mental,

00:25:18:03 - 00:25:19:11
Speaker 2
conditions and issues.

00:25:19:16 - 00:25:21:18
Speaker 2
But you also just got to think about the, you know,

00:25:21:22 - 00:25:22:05
Speaker 2
just

00:25:22:09 - 00:25:28:18
Speaker 2
practically, pragmatically, two people coming together because they can't figure out why they're making each other miserable.

00:25:28:22 - 00:25:32:00
Speaker 2
they would typically sincerely want to stop feeling miserable.

00:25:32:04 - 00:25:35:21
Speaker 2
Personality disorders. They don't want to stop feeling miserable because

00:25:36:00 - 00:25:39:16
Speaker 2
they don't necessarily feel miserable. They just make people miserable.

00:25:39:20 - 00:25:40:06
Speaker 2
Right.

00:25:40:10 - 00:25:41:20
Speaker 1
Big distinction. Yes.

00:25:41:22 - 00:25:44:17
Speaker 1
And I mean, they like it to a degree. Like they like

00:25:44:21 - 00:25:46:13
Speaker 1
the chaos and the drama,

00:25:46:17 - 00:25:54:06
Speaker 1
even though they tell you your drama and your chaos and they hate it. But like, that's not really what's going on. So it's hard. Yeah, I can only imagine

00:25:54:10 - 00:25:54:19
Speaker 1
in

00:25:54:22 - 00:25:59:09
Speaker 1
therapy. I feel like what makes it dangerous is a variety of things.

00:25:59:09 - 00:26:04:07
Speaker 1
Obviously, you're talking about if you leave therapy and he goes and hits you or something that or like worse.

00:26:04:10 - 00:26:05:09
Speaker 1
But I think even

00:26:05:10 - 00:26:12:18
Speaker 1
the lessening of emotional safety and the but the therapist said that you have to be more respectful like that and then you're,

00:26:12:18 - 00:26:17:21
Speaker 1
only deepening this and you get more confused, more invalidated, and less likely to leave.

00:26:17:23 - 00:26:27:23
Speaker 1
Like I had wanted to write this man a letter. I found out he was retired, so I skipped it because thank goodness he's retired. But it occurred to me, like, I want to tell you that you made me stay.

00:26:28:04 - 00:26:34:09
Speaker 1
I just wanted him to know he could never have responded. It was fine. I just felt compelled to say, you made me stay

00:26:34:12 - 00:26:35:21
Speaker 1
in an abusive relationship.

00:26:35:21 - 00:26:37:17
Speaker 1
And he went on to do some things that

00:26:37:17 - 00:26:40:12
Speaker 1
could have cost me my life, because you didn't pick up on it.

00:26:40:15 - 00:26:42:20
Speaker 1
And I just, you know, maybe that's not fair.

00:26:42:21 - 00:26:46:18
Speaker 1
I'm not saying what I felt was fair, but I just was like, you should know

00:26:46:22 - 00:26:48:15
Speaker 1
what you did and that you missed the point.

00:26:48:19 - 00:26:51:07
Speaker 1
I don't think he understood how I was feeling

00:26:51:10 - 00:26:52:02
Speaker 1
in the room.

00:26:52:06 - 00:26:58:04
Speaker 1
What do you think survivors and victims are feeling when they're sitting there watching their abuser?

00:26:58:07 - 00:26:59:01
Speaker 1
DARVO

00:26:59:05 - 00:27:02:00
Speaker 1
in therapy or, you know, victim blaming therapy?

00:27:02:03 - 00:27:02:14
Speaker 2
Well.

00:27:02:19 - 00:27:07:22
Speaker 2
I think a true victim because, you know, obviously personality disorders feign being victims

00:27:08:00 - 00:27:09:01
Speaker 2
and listen, I know,

00:27:09:02 - 00:27:11:18
Speaker 2
we're having an interview here. So I can't go into all the nuances.

00:27:11:21 - 00:27:16:16
Speaker 2
I'm not denying that a lot of people with personality disorders do have histories of adversity.

00:27:16:20 - 00:27:22:05
Speaker 2
You know, the science shows that that adversity isn't what actually is causing the personality disorder.

00:27:22:09 - 00:27:22:16
Speaker 2
But,

00:27:22:19 - 00:27:24:01
Speaker 2
there's a difference between

00:27:24:04 - 00:27:27:08
Speaker 2
a victim who's experiencing what you just described, DARVO

00:27:27:10 - 00:27:28:06
Speaker 2
those types of things.

00:27:28:10 - 00:27:29:18
Speaker 2
There's a sincere

00:27:29:22 - 00:27:30:07
Speaker 2
like

00:27:30:10 - 00:27:31:01
Speaker 2
terror

00:27:31:06 - 00:27:36:08
Speaker 2
and bewilderment as to what's going on. They really don't know what's going on. Like

00:27:36:08 - 00:27:36:19
Speaker 2
one

00:27:36:22 - 00:27:39:04
Speaker 2
you know, victims typically don't go around like

00:27:39:08 - 00:27:41:00
Speaker 2
labeling their partners

00:27:41:03 - 00:27:45:22
Speaker 2
as narcissists or abusers because, like you said, oftentimes they don't even know that they're being abused.

00:27:46:00 - 00:27:49:11
Speaker 2
So you want to look for that to like somebody who's really

00:27:49:14 - 00:27:50:08
Speaker 2
sincerely

00:27:50:12 - 00:27:54:08
Speaker 2
confused about what's going on. I think that that also identifies,

00:27:54:11 - 00:28:03:06
Speaker 2
you know, who the true victim is. The people who feign being victims are often quick to point fingers and externalize blame, and sometimes they do it without knowing it because

00:28:03:06 - 00:28:04:15
Speaker 2
they do it so habitually.

00:28:04:17 - 00:28:06:07
Speaker 2
They just kind of give themselves away.

00:28:06:10 - 00:28:06:17
Speaker 2
But,

00:28:06:19 - 00:28:08:12
Speaker 2
there's a lot of ways to identify

00:28:08:15 - 00:28:12:10
Speaker 2
somebody's being coerced, somebody's being, you know, forced into submission,

00:28:12:15 - 00:28:13:17
Speaker 2
somebody who is,

00:28:13:20 - 00:28:14:18
Speaker 2
really just,

00:28:14:23 - 00:28:16:13
Speaker 2
in anguish inside.

00:28:16:15 - 00:28:20:04
Speaker 2
can pick up on that. And there's a difference between that and somebody who

00:28:20:08 - 00:28:24:04
Speaker 2
is trying to win favor with the therapist or making a good impression.

00:28:24:10 - 00:28:24:17
Speaker 2
And

00:28:24:17 - 00:28:26:14
Speaker 2
there's something missing underneath that,

00:28:26:17 - 00:28:28:17
Speaker 2
that a real victim would actually be,

00:28:28:21 - 00:28:29:13
Speaker 2
you know, holding

00:28:29:17 - 00:28:30:10
Speaker 2
deeply. Yeah.

00:28:30:13 - 00:28:33:18
Speaker 1
I know there's a lot of nuance to that. Like, I'm thinking

00:28:33:22 - 00:28:34:19
Speaker 1
I remember

00:28:34:23 - 00:28:35:20
Speaker 1
one of the things that

00:28:36:00 - 00:28:42:05
Speaker 1
therapist said to me in a solo private setting, she said that she noticed that I deferred to him.

00:28:42:08 - 00:28:45:09
Speaker 1
She would ask us a question and I would immediately like,

00:28:45:13 - 00:28:50:00
Speaker 1
what do you think? You answer, you go ahead. You talk, you say, what's your issue?

00:28:50:02 - 00:28:53:08
Speaker 1
And she and I go, I'm not saying that she thinks that's the

00:28:53:12 - 00:29:01:07
Speaker 1
number one thing, but she just noticed that and she perceived it. And I would say correctly as a lack of safety on my part. Right.

00:29:01:11 - 00:29:05:23
Speaker 1
Actually speak. So if it was like, well, what are your issues with him? I'm like, well,

00:29:06:04 - 00:29:09:22
Speaker 1
and like fiddling with my hair quite literally because I was nervous.

00:29:09:22 - 00:29:11:02
Speaker 1
So she picked up on that.

00:29:11:07 - 00:29:13:03
Speaker 1
But I think some victims,

00:29:13:07 - 00:29:15:12
Speaker 1
true victims of abuse, I don't mean the ones playing it.

00:29:15:15 - 00:29:17:13
Speaker 1
You're in therapy, and you may be.

00:29:17:16 - 00:29:20:13
Speaker 1
I think it's probably a smaller category, but it exists. I'm sure

00:29:20:17 - 00:29:27:11
Speaker 1
you've watched all the videos. You know who doctor Peter Salerno is? You follow Lisa Sonni on social media. You know, he's a narcissist.

00:29:27:16 - 00:29:32:05
Speaker 1
You know, like you just convicted. And you get him into couples therapy because you haven't heard this episode yet,

00:29:32:09 - 00:29:34:11
Speaker 1
and you're like, he's a narcissist.

00:29:34:13 - 00:29:37:17
Speaker 1
I know you're not speaking broadly or like you're not speaking,

00:29:37:17 - 00:29:42:00
Speaker 1
generally like this covers every single scenario. But I do know what you mean. Like most victims

00:29:42:04 - 00:29:44:08
Speaker 1
go into it sort of truly

00:29:44:12 - 00:29:46:05
Speaker 1
bewildered was the perfect word,

00:29:46:08 - 00:29:49:05
Speaker 1
just absolutely like, what the hell is going on here?

00:29:49:05 - 00:29:53:01
Speaker 1
Why are we always fighting? Why is this always so hard?

00:29:53:05 - 00:29:55:14
Speaker 1
You really, they are so interested in

00:29:55:18 - 00:29:56:20
Speaker 1
self-reflection.

00:29:57:00 - 00:30:03:11
Speaker 1
Like, really? Tell me, what am I doing that's making this be this way? Because he says it's my fault and I want to do better.

00:30:03:15 - 00:30:07:12
Speaker 1
I just know that women sit in these meetings and they don't recognize

00:30:07:16 - 00:30:15:01
Speaker 1
that it's abuse and they don't understand what the hell is going on. And they walk out of therapy feeling super invalidated. It might make them stay.

00:30:15:04 - 00:30:17:12
Speaker 1
we have to kind of notice what's happening in ourselves.

00:30:17:12 - 00:30:19:11
Speaker 1
I think if you walk out of therapy feeling

00:30:19:15 - 00:30:22:03
Speaker 1
certainly invalidated, but more confused,

00:30:22:08 - 00:30:25:21
Speaker 1
that's got to be a good sign that you're probably not with the right therapist. Right.

00:30:26:01 - 00:30:26:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. Absolutely.

00:30:27:02 - 00:30:28:16
Speaker 2
there's a difference between like

00:30:28:20 - 00:30:31:23
Speaker 2
resistance due to fear and lack of collaboration

00:30:32:04 - 00:30:36:21
Speaker 2
or when somebody is like frozen like in emotional paralysis because of the abuse.

00:30:37:01 - 00:30:40:18
Speaker 2
But that feels a lot different to than somebody who's just refusing to

00:30:40:21 - 00:30:42:08
Speaker 2
cooperate and collaborate.

00:30:42:12 - 00:30:46:11
Speaker 2
something that might be a good exercise to do is speak with a therapist,

00:30:46:14 - 00:30:52:17
Speaker 2
do like a consult or something prior to bringing your partner in the room and just saying, this is what I'm experiencing.

00:30:52:23 - 00:30:59:02
Speaker 2
Hopefully the right therapist will say, yeah, I don't think therapy couples therapy is indicated. I think maybe some individual support for you.

00:30:59:06 - 00:31:01:01
Speaker 2
But right now what you're describing is you've been

00:31:01:05 - 00:31:03:21
Speaker 2
kind of beating this dead horse and the person is not

00:31:04:01 - 00:31:06:07
Speaker 2
there's no resolution that's a problem.

00:31:06:10 - 00:31:06:18
Speaker 2
Like,

00:31:06:22 - 00:31:07:09
Speaker 2
again,

00:31:07:13 - 00:31:08:13
Speaker 2
people who have

00:31:08:17 - 00:31:10:09
Speaker 2
true internal conflicts,

00:31:10:14 - 00:31:11:01
Speaker 2
their,

00:31:11:01 - 00:31:15:17
Speaker 2
ego to start that the things that are happening to them, the symptoms are experiencing, they want to rid themselves of them.

00:31:15:17 - 00:31:17:01
Speaker 2
They want it to go away.

00:31:17:03 - 00:31:23:21
Speaker 2
another that's really important to see in, in a couple's therapy dynamic is that it's what's called a help rejecting, complaining

00:31:24:00 - 00:31:26:00
Speaker 2
a personality disorder will

00:31:26:01 - 00:31:28:22
Speaker 2
reject the help that the therapist offers and then complain that

00:31:28:22 - 00:31:29:23
Speaker 2
it hasn't been helpful.

00:31:30:03 - 00:31:30:14
Speaker 2
So

00:31:30:14 - 00:31:33:20
Speaker 2
that's oftentimes an indication of some, some pathology.

00:31:33:20 - 00:31:35:03
Speaker 2
I worked with a couple who

00:31:35:07 - 00:31:39:04
Speaker 2
the guy would come up with all these excuses. Why the things I was trying to help him with

00:31:39:07 - 00:31:40:07
Speaker 2
just wouldn't work.

00:31:40:11 - 00:31:42:11
Speaker 2
Like, oh, that's just impossible, impossible, possible.

00:31:42:15 - 00:31:44:04
Speaker 2
And then I finally just kind of said

00:31:44:07 - 00:31:46:10
Speaker 2
You know, it sounds to me like if none of these things

00:31:46:12 - 00:31:47:10
Speaker 2
work, then

00:31:47:10 - 00:31:50:07
Speaker 2
what I'm hearing you say is that this relationship isn't going to work.

00:31:50:12 - 00:31:50:22
Speaker 2
So

00:31:51:02 - 00:31:54:22
Speaker 2
this couple ended up getting a divorce, thankfully, because this guy was very narcissistic,

00:31:55:03 - 00:31:56:19
Speaker 2
and unwilling to face it. But

00:31:56:23 - 00:32:04:01
Speaker 2
apparently throughout the entire divorce proceeding, which was dragged out for years intentionally because, you know, there was a refusal to collaborate,

00:32:04:05 - 00:32:07:08
Speaker 2
he actually said that the reason he got a divorce was because of me.

00:32:07:13 - 00:32:10:21
Speaker 2
He was backed into a he was backed into a corner in that session.

00:32:10:21 - 00:32:12:21
Speaker 2
And I'm the reason his marriage didn't work out.

00:32:13:00 - 00:32:27:10
Speaker 2
I mean, that's that's a perfect example of somebody who shows up and they he never had an intention of being sincere. He never had an intention of being humble, being accountable. It was really he came there to see if I would confirm that his wife was the problem

00:32:27:14 - 00:32:28:12
Speaker 2
and that.

00:32:28:12 - 00:32:36:12
Speaker 2
So that happens a lot too. Is that the help rejecting complaining? It almost seems like they're trying really hard because they're very emotional. And,

00:32:36:16 - 00:32:37:13
Speaker 2
there's this idea that

00:32:37:17 - 00:32:39:08
Speaker 2
disordered people don't get emotional

00:32:39:11 - 00:32:42:06
Speaker 2
and they're very emotional. They're just emotional in ways that aren't,

00:32:42:09 - 00:32:43:08
Speaker 2
you know, productive.

00:32:43:11 - 00:32:43:23
Speaker 2
So,

00:32:44:01 - 00:32:48:20
Speaker 2
we can go all day with all the nuances and things like that, but it's just really important to

00:32:49:00 - 00:32:51:10
Speaker 2
get some time with the therapist,

00:32:51:12 - 00:32:52:03
Speaker 2
before

00:32:52:07 - 00:32:54:02
Speaker 2
I think you even enter into the couples thing.

00:32:54:02 - 00:32:55:08
Speaker 2
Unless you feel safe.

00:32:55:12 - 00:33:00:18
Speaker 2
You know, couples who come in feel safe, they problem solve, they do the Gottman stuff, they do the attachment stuff.

00:33:00:22 - 00:33:07:15
Speaker 2
It gets worked out pretty quickly. I know I'm kind of oversimplifying, but it's true because they're willing to go do it because they don't want to live this way anymore.

00:33:07:20 - 00:33:09:06
Speaker 2
That's not the case with abuse.

00:33:09:06 - 00:33:11:20
Speaker 2
The abuse is going to be sustained because the abuser,

00:33:12:01 - 00:33:13:05
Speaker 2
you know, is benefiting from that.

00:33:13:09 - 00:33:16:12
Speaker 1
I think a lot of women go into this thinking that, you know,

00:33:16:15 - 00:33:28:11
Speaker 1
he's got trauma, like we have communication issues because when he was little, his mom used to scream, so if I ever raise my voice or it just brings him back, so can you help us work through his childhood trauma?

00:33:28:15 - 00:33:31:22
Speaker 1
And again, if it's a disordered person, they may have trauma.

00:33:31:22 - 00:33:36:12
Speaker 1
That's not the cause of their behavior, but we think that it is. So

00:33:36:15 - 00:33:42:15
Speaker 1
it's my question like, why does therapy feel like the next logical step for people, even if they know with abuse?

00:33:42:19 - 00:33:44:11
Speaker 2
Here's how the therapist should handle that.

00:33:44:16 - 00:33:46:00
Speaker 2
If that person

00:33:46:04 - 00:33:49:17
Speaker 2
has that trigger that's being activated from their childhood trauma,

00:33:49:20 - 00:33:52:18
Speaker 2
that is not something that's supposed to get resolved in couples therapy.

00:33:52:22 - 00:34:05:16
Speaker 2
Couples therapy is actually not supposed to be a deep dive into the individual. It's supposed to be, you know, problem solving, the dynamic in the relational dynamic. So if that person does have those things, here's how you can help them.

00:34:05:16 - 00:34:11:01
Speaker 2
If they're lying about it or if it's not really the culprit. They go to individual therapy. They sort that out.

00:34:11:05 - 00:34:12:18
Speaker 2
If that's really what's the problem,

00:34:12:22 - 00:34:16:07
Speaker 2
those issues in the relationship should be resolved. That rarely happens.

00:34:16:12 - 00:34:22:13
Speaker 2
You know, if if you send up someone with a personality disorder to therapy to work on their childhood,

00:34:22:18 - 00:34:24:08
Speaker 2
it doesn't make the relationship any better,

00:34:24:11 - 00:34:27:04
Speaker 2
which tells you that that really wasn't the reason why

00:34:27:04 - 00:34:29:09
Speaker 2
it was problematic, you know, and they're not

00:34:29:11 - 00:34:31:17
Speaker 2
really willing to do that because I think they

00:34:31:17 - 00:34:32:06
Speaker 2
know that

00:34:32:06 - 00:34:33:16
Speaker 2
that's a convenient excuse.

00:34:33:22 - 00:34:35:03
Speaker 2
It might even be true.

00:34:35:07 - 00:34:39:05
Speaker 2
You know, again, these people do come from really adverse environments,

00:34:39:09 - 00:34:42:04
Speaker 2
but a lot of people come from adverse environments and don't act that way.

00:34:42:07 - 00:34:42:14
Speaker 2
Right.

00:34:42:17 - 00:34:43:12
Speaker 1
That's the takeaway.

00:34:43:16 - 00:34:47:19
Speaker 1
Show up and like that. It's true. You know, we don't all act this way. So it's it's not

00:34:47:22 - 00:34:59:03
Speaker 1
like I don't care about your trauma, but like just we can't lean on that as the cause and the excuse. And there because I mean, man, a narcissistic person will bank on that and, you know, poor me the whole way through.

00:34:59:03 - 00:34:59:12
Speaker 1
And then

00:34:59:15 - 00:35:01:05
Speaker 1
everything just continues.

00:35:01:09 - 00:35:02:03
Speaker 1
But I feel like

00:35:02:07 - 00:35:15:01
Speaker 1
therapy always feels like the next logical step, because the world tells you that your friends, your family, it's like, have you tried therapy? Have you tried that? And people are not realizing all of what we're talking about that therapy is not going to fix

00:35:15:06 - 00:35:23:07
Speaker 1
an abusive relationship. In fact, therapist Aisha Grevenberg who we've had on my show before, I love that she said this, and I'm having her back next season.

00:35:23:12 - 00:35:27:04
Speaker 1
To talk more about this topic is that therapy doesn't fix abusive men

00:35:27:08 - 00:35:27:19
Speaker 1
at all.

00:35:27:23 - 00:35:34:18
Speaker 1
We're not talking about couples therapy. She's talking about that's not what's going to help. And she's actually not specifically talking about a disordered person.

00:35:34:22 - 00:35:42:07
Speaker 1
For her. This is like a sociological issue. This is a society. This is a belief system. Your worldview completely needs to change.

00:35:42:07 - 00:35:51:02
Speaker 1
You need to unpack all of your misogyny. So there's to me, there's no world in which you send a narcissistic or abusive person to therapy,

00:35:51:06 - 00:35:53:17
Speaker 1
couples or individual thinking that that's going to

00:35:53:21 - 00:35:54:17
Speaker 1
heal them

00:35:54:21 - 00:35:57:01
Speaker 1
because it's not really why they're being abusive.

00:35:57:04 - 00:35:57:19
Speaker 2
Absolutely.

00:35:57:23 - 00:36:10:15
Speaker 1
what do you feel like the audience needs to know here about deciding whether or not they're going to go? I think that there are people we may have convinced and they're never going to go. Some people still will. I would have put myself in that category. You could have told me never to go.

00:36:10:15 - 00:36:11:11
Speaker 1
I would have gone.

00:36:11:15 - 00:36:13:14
Speaker 1
So what would you tell people?

00:36:13:19 - 00:36:15:21
Speaker 1
Make sure you've got the right therapist?

00:36:16:01 - 00:36:21:10
Speaker 1
What about internally? How can you tell if this is feeling like things are moving forward or not?

00:36:21:13 - 00:36:25:04
Speaker 2
I would actually say before you go and seek therapy, I think,

00:36:25:06 - 00:36:29:18
Speaker 2
this interview crosses your, your media or you happen to stumble upon it

00:36:29:22 - 00:36:33:04
Speaker 2
and you are not sure what's going on in your relationship,

00:36:33:07 - 00:36:35:21
Speaker 2
I would actually get some education

00:36:36:02 - 00:36:36:17
Speaker 2
before

00:36:36:20 - 00:36:38:01
Speaker 2
taking the step to therapy.

00:36:38:05 - 00:36:40:04
Speaker 2
I would get, you know, read the right books,

00:36:40:09 - 00:36:43:19
Speaker 2
you know, maybe you have to go down the rabbit hole of all of these interviews

00:36:44:01 - 00:36:45:04
Speaker 2
this kind of content

00:36:45:07 - 00:36:45:21
Speaker 2
because

00:36:46:01 - 00:36:46:21
Speaker 2
you have to

00:36:47:01 - 00:36:47:20
Speaker 2
broaden

00:36:48:00 - 00:36:49:05
Speaker 2
and expand,

00:36:49:05 - 00:36:51:17
Speaker 2
the possibilities of what's going on in the relationship.

00:36:51:21 - 00:36:55:21
Speaker 2
It might not be that you guys just have a communication problem. It might not be that,

00:36:56:01 - 00:37:03:06
Speaker 2
you're just misunderstanding each other, or it might not be that there's unresolved trauma. What it might be is that there's somebody intentionally derailing

00:37:03:11 - 00:37:04:23
Speaker 2
the progress of the relationship,

00:37:05:03 - 00:37:06:22
Speaker 2
to maintain control of the relationship.

00:37:07:02 - 00:37:07:16
Speaker 2
And

00:37:07:20 - 00:37:09:14
Speaker 2
get really clear on,

00:37:09:18 - 00:37:10:04
Speaker 2
you know,

00:37:10:08 - 00:37:12:18
Speaker 2
the terminology and the pathology.

00:37:12:18 - 00:37:19:10
Speaker 2
And then when you do start to look for therapy, therapy, again, the word therapy means to heal. It's about healing.

00:37:19:14 - 00:37:20:04
Speaker 2
So,

00:37:20:08 - 00:37:29:01
Speaker 2
you know, you can't heal someone else's wounds in a couple's therapy dynamic. That's not how it works. They need to go and take care of that if that's really what it is that's causing the dysfunction.

00:37:29:05 - 00:37:29:12
Speaker 2
And

00:37:29:16 - 00:37:31:04
Speaker 2
somebody who is really,

00:37:31:08 - 00:37:37:09
Speaker 2
you know, not functioning optimally because they're traumatized, they would want to do that because it feels terrible to walk around with trauma.

00:37:37:12 - 00:37:37:21
Speaker 2
So

00:37:38:02 - 00:37:40:00
Speaker 2
there might be some resistance and some fear

00:37:40:02 - 00:37:41:07
Speaker 2
to the process. But that's not

00:37:41:07 - 00:37:41:17
Speaker 2
that's not

00:37:41:20 - 00:37:43:05
Speaker 2
lack of collaboration. That's

00:37:43:08 - 00:37:43:21
Speaker 2
legitimate.

00:37:44:02 - 00:37:44:10
Speaker 2
But

00:37:44:14 - 00:37:45:11
Speaker 2
also kind of

00:37:45:13 - 00:37:51:21
Speaker 2
take inventory of your relationship are these enduring patterns of behavior that just will not get better no matter what you've tried?

00:37:52:02 - 00:37:58:11
Speaker 2
No matter how compliant and small you've gotten in the relationship, you know, you can do a lot of your own work before you go into

00:37:58:15 - 00:38:00:21
Speaker 2
therapy, thinking that the therapy is going to somehow

00:38:01:01 - 00:38:01:19
Speaker 2
change.

00:38:01:22 - 00:38:02:06
Speaker 2
You know,

00:38:02:10 - 00:38:02:23
Speaker 2
someone

00:38:03:03 - 00:38:09:19
Speaker 2
in a really profound way. Therapy can change collaborative people in very profound ways. I mean, it can be lifesaving.

00:38:09:22 - 00:38:15:09
Speaker 1
I'm so pro therapy, pro licensed mental health therapy. And I say that as a coach, I think there's space for

00:38:15:12 - 00:38:17:10
Speaker 1
you know, all of us to be in this industry. But

00:38:17:13 - 00:38:20:23
Speaker 1
it is really important for people to know what they're walking into.

00:38:21:02 - 00:38:21:19
Speaker 1
You said,

00:38:21:19 - 00:38:26:11
Speaker 1
your recommendation would be to like, slow down before you even get into therapy and do some education.

00:38:26:17 - 00:38:30:20
Speaker 1
I just want to like re plug your books here because I truly mean this. There is

00:38:31:01 - 00:38:33:17
Speaker 1
been very few books that I have read over the last

00:38:33:21 - 00:38:36:03
Speaker 1
5 or 6 years that I've been sort of in this field.

00:38:36:07 - 00:38:41:15
Speaker 1
I could name on really one hand the amount of books that I think are like profoundly

00:38:41:18 - 00:38:43:16
Speaker 1
like life changing things to read.

00:38:43:20 - 00:38:51:04
Speaker 1
Why Does He Do That? By Lindy Bancroft, How He Gets in Her Head by Don Hennessy and I mean this all three of your books like top five.

00:38:51:07 - 00:39:02:06
Speaker 1
I truly those books and I hear from people too. I mean obviously this is my opinion, but I am constantly hearing from people how life changing your books have been. And I only recently read

00:39:02:11 - 00:39:04:12
Speaker 1
Cruelty by Nature because it's new.

00:39:04:12 - 00:39:05:11
Speaker 1
It just came out. But

00:39:05:14 - 00:39:16:10
Speaker 1
like to learn that it's so on purpose, I think is something that's going to light up people's brains. You're not going to sit there in therapy thinking, hey, we're collaborative. When you realize

00:39:16:14 - 00:39:20:09
Speaker 1
that somebody who is this abusive and this pathological is literally

00:39:20:13 - 00:39:23:07
Speaker 1
I'm oversimplifying, but like aware of what they're doing,

00:39:23:10 - 00:39:24:19
Speaker 1
they understand right and wrong.

00:39:24:19 - 00:39:28:00
Speaker 1
They know that they're hurting you and they're fundamentally doing it anyway.

00:39:28:05 - 00:39:29:06
Speaker 1
To me, that's like

00:39:29:10 - 00:39:34:16
Speaker 1
the key that unlocks everything. And it might deter you from going to therapy with them at all, which

00:39:34:19 - 00:39:37:04
Speaker 1
would be a win in my books,

00:39:37:07 - 00:39:37:23
Speaker 1
I think. So.

00:39:38:02 - 00:39:38:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. Me too.

00:39:39:00 - 00:39:42:12
Speaker 2
I just want to I'll say this because, you know, it might be jarring to hear, but

00:39:42:12 - 00:39:45:01
Speaker 2
it's an unfortunate reality. We have to accept

00:39:45:05 - 00:39:57:18
Speaker 2
abuse is a social strategy for a lot of people. It's not an unconscious reaction to trauma. It's a social strategy. It's working for them. They won't give it up to save their life or their relationship.

00:39:57:23 - 00:39:59:14
Speaker 2
So if you're with someone like that,

00:39:59:18 - 00:40:04:21
Speaker 2
I would avoid going to a therapist who assumes that every human being is the same on the inside,

00:40:05:00 - 00:40:12:11
Speaker 2
and they all just want to be better. And you can find the wound and and then and then problem solved. Marriage saved or or relationships saved.

00:40:12:15 - 00:40:13:14
Speaker 2
I will also say,

00:40:13:18 - 00:40:14:20
Speaker 2
it might be a good idea,

00:40:15:01 - 00:40:15:13
Speaker 2
to,

00:40:15:16 - 00:40:15:23
Speaker 2
you know,

00:40:16:02 - 00:40:18:13
Speaker 2
consult with some coaches even before therapy.

00:40:18:16 - 00:40:20:12
Speaker 2
One of the reasons why the coaching,

00:40:20:15 - 00:40:21:05
Speaker 2
field

00:40:21:08 - 00:40:28:09
Speaker 2
has blown up in the last ten years is because of lack of competent care and therapy. There were coaches who were willing to say, hey,

00:40:28:12 - 00:40:32:21
Speaker 2
something's wrong, because we're going to these professionals and they are invalidating

00:40:32:21 - 00:40:37:20
Speaker 2
my experience and they're saying that I need to stay with the person who is going to cost me my life.

00:40:38:00 - 00:40:39:02
Speaker 2
Why are they doing that?

00:40:39:06 - 00:40:45:05
Speaker 2
And there was actually there's been survey data in the last ten years that show that, like the forums that people created,

00:40:45:09 - 00:40:47:03
Speaker 2
to try to make sense of what they were going through,

00:40:47:07 - 00:40:48:02
Speaker 2
you know, kind of

00:40:48:06 - 00:40:53:04
Speaker 2
have given rise to, like, this coaching field of like coaches who will blatantly say,

00:40:53:08 - 00:40:59:06
Speaker 2
I think that person is intentionally doing this, or that person is, you know, a narcissist where therapists will not be willing to do that.

00:40:59:11 - 00:41:03:13
Speaker 2
Right? Yeah. So there's more options than just traditional therapy, you know?

00:41:03:13 - 00:41:08:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. I love that you said that, obviously. But I am so that coach that's like so that's abuse.

00:41:08:15 - 00:41:09:08
Speaker 1
Right. And

00:41:09:08 - 00:41:17:01
Speaker 1
a lot of people book with me to ask that question. You know, I have lots of long term clients, but I also have a pretty good amount of people that are like,

00:41:17:05 - 00:41:22:01
Speaker 1
this is abuse, right? And I think that therapists are like, well, hold on, we're not going to label.

00:41:22:01 - 00:41:23:12
Speaker 1
And we and I'm like, yeah, that's abuse.

00:41:23:16 - 00:41:24:02
Speaker 1
And

00:41:24:06 - 00:41:29:07
Speaker 1
I know when I'm oversimplifying things and I know that there's nuance and context, but I also

00:41:29:10 - 00:41:39:18
Speaker 1
intentionally and openly. Right. I'm not doing this sort of in the shadows of I'm oversimplifying because I think some of this doesn't need to be so complicated. I'm not a scientist yourself

00:41:39:21 - 00:41:41:15
Speaker 1
that to you, but is

00:41:41:20 - 00:41:44:11
Speaker 1
repetitious name calling abusive?

00:41:44:14 - 00:41:45:04
Speaker 1
Yes.

00:41:45:08 - 00:41:49:13
Speaker 1
Let's not. Well, maybe it's an attachment. Maybe he's a. I don't care that

00:41:49:17 - 00:41:56:07
Speaker 1
it. So I like the I think there's that's why there's room for all of us like listen to the scientists but maybe listen to the interviews

00:41:56:11 - 00:41:56:20
Speaker 1
of

00:41:56:23 - 00:41:59:22
Speaker 1
both of us collaborating together to bring you this message of

00:41:59:22 - 00:42:02:00
Speaker 1
couples counseling does not work

00:42:02:03 - 00:42:03:10
Speaker 1
with this type of person.

00:42:03:15 - 00:42:05:07
Speaker 1
And if you're going to do it anyway, be as

00:42:05:10 - 00:42:08:19
Speaker 1
eyes wide open and prepared as you possibly can be

00:42:08:22 - 00:42:15:02
Speaker 1
before you go into it, thinking that this is going to change them, even them going into solo therapy, like I said, is probably not going to do

00:42:15:06 - 00:42:16:15
Speaker 1
much, if anything at all.

00:42:16:20 - 00:42:17:06
Speaker 1
But

00:42:17:09 - 00:42:20:02
Speaker 1
people are trauma bonded and people are,

00:42:20:05 - 00:42:22:20
Speaker 1
desperately attached to these relationships.

00:42:23:01 - 00:42:29:23
Speaker 1
So I know it's really difficult for people and for those that are listening or watching and you don't know, Doctor Salerno and I actually host

00:42:30:03 - 00:42:38:04
Speaker 1
some group coaching programs. One is called Trauma Bond Recovery and one is called Rise and Rebuild. And I think fundamentally, you've got the group of people that are

00:42:38:08 - 00:42:44:17
Speaker 1
in or out of the relationship, but actively attached, actively trauma bonded, that want to really learn the true,

00:42:44:20 - 00:42:48:16
Speaker 1
actionable skills to get yourself out with proven methods

00:42:48:20 - 00:42:56:19
Speaker 1
and then rise and rebuild is for people who are typically out of the relationship or, let's say, on their way out at least, who are really like, I've got my

00:42:56:21 - 00:42:58:12
Speaker 1
PhD in narcissistic abuse

00:42:58:14 - 00:43:04:11
Speaker 1
And I'm done with the podcast and the books, and I just want to focus on myself, and I just want to feel better.

00:43:04:15 - 00:43:13:16
Speaker 1
And that's what Rise and Rebuild is geared towards. So I'll have the links in the description, and I'm going to put all the links to your books in the description as well, because I really want people to have access to

00:43:13:19 - 00:43:15:00
Speaker 1
to get those and really

00:43:15:03 - 00:43:15:14
Speaker 1
learn

00:43:15:18 - 00:43:17:09
Speaker 1
these incredible things from you.

00:43:17:09 - 00:43:20:06
Speaker 1
So thank you so much for being here today, and.

00:43:20:10 - 00:43:21:08
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me.

00:43:21:11 - 00:43:22:08
Speaker 1
Next season. Of course.

00:43:22:13 - 00:43:24:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely.

00:43:24:06 - 00:43:37:23
Unknown
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