In our last episode Anarie shares her experience with betrayal trauma. At the end of the interview I had stopped the recording just before she made another important and insightful comment. She apologized for not having a “success” story. Knowing that comment would lead into a valuable conversation I asked to continue recording and if I could share that conversation with the audience.
This episode picks up right after Anarie’s success comment and contains our real-time conversation on the definition of success. Within this episode Anarie mentions my divorce which I have written about here.
Anarie also mentions she found comfort around how I have defined therapeutic success. This comment was in reference to a comment I made within my Facebook group, on this post.
That comment was as follows:
“Thank you so much for posting this, I actually have a podcast planned on this very topic. I don't have much time to thoroughly address this topic, but there is a few problems here. However, before I share my concerns; there are many amazing therapists out there who give everything they have and have been instrumental in saving marriages. Now the problems with some therapists:
1) This is a complicated one, and unless you've trained to become a therapist and tried to make a living solely as a therapist, it’s difficult to understand. But the education system, career path to therapy is completely unsupportive of private practice.
2) The stats (and MHO, and a problem with gottman) is the stats are stupid and measuring the wrong outcomes. You don't measure success on marriages "saved". This is potentially ethically wrong. I've worked with too many therapists who attempt to "save" marriages even in abuse. My job as a marriage therapist isn't to "save" or end a marriage. But to guide, support two individuals to healthy living and how to navigate the differences in loving and support ways. Sometimes that’s separation. Too many therapist enable unhealthy relationships to "save" a marriage, so not good.
3) Kind of related to number one. There are occasional exceptions, but marriage therapy shouldn't go beyond a year or two at the most. Ideally 1-12 months, with follow ups as needed. Any longer is indicative of individuals needs for underlying mental health issues that would do best treated in individual counseling. One of the first things I tell my clients is I’m working my self out of a job from day one. After about 6 months we revisit and if progress isn't made I may make suggestions for alternative treatment or therapist. Which leads me to 4...
4) Why is it such a concern therapist are working with couples for a decade or more? Two reasons; enabling and the therapist becomes part of the family system.
5) Clients are not adequately informed by the therapist or what therapy is for. Too many spouses arrive at therapy to convenience the other that they are wrong. They use the therapist to get the other to change, without changing themselves. This is called triangulating.
There are many great therapists out there, but we need to do a better job at communicating the purpose of therapy, the therapist role and the clients role.
Podcast Transcript:
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00:05 Voice Over: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter-day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel on this episode of Improving Intimacy.
00:26 Daniel: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. On today's episode, I wanna take a few minutes and share with you a discussion I had with our last interview, Anarie. In our last episode, we talked about her experiences around betrayal trauma and what it was like to go through treatment. And at the end of our interview, I had turned off the recording and she had made a comment, and that comment was, "I'm sorry, this isn't a success story." I asked for permission to continue recording and to share the conversation that you're about to hear, so that's what this is. What does it mean to be successful in our journey? And I think you'll find this enlightening. I hope you enjoy.
01:12 ANARIE: I really wished that it could be like...
01:14 Daniel: How are you not a success story?
01:15 ANARIE: Well, I know I am, I appreciated what you said somewhere, [01:22] ____ I saw you say somewhere, about how we define success in therapy. That was like really validating for me. But I know a lot of people in the middle of betrayal trauma wanna listen to the success stories, it resulted in connection. And I do believe that LifeSTAR, I know there are successes that come out of LifeSTAR, mine didn't, and I feel like I'm getting clear all the time on like why it didn't, but...
01:43 Daniel: Wait, wait, wait. I think you and I are on the same page, but...
01:47 ANARIE: Okay.
01:47 Daniel: When you say success, you mean you didn't get a divorce?
01:53 ANARIE: Well, yeah, yeah. It would have been successful if he and I had successfully connected and I had a great marriage now.
02:00 Daniel: But it's so... Sorry, not but...
02:01 ANARIE: But I couldn't control, I couldn't control his side of things.
02:04 Daniel: The interesting thing about differentiation though is that it will sometimes lead to divorce, because you are recognizing the need to be an individual in the relationship and the other person can't.
02:19 ANARIE: Yeah, yeah. And that's the better outcome.
02:22 Daniel: Yes.
02:23 ANARIE: That divorce is a better outcome and not the situation. But... So I'm just voicing some of my internal fears of, I have this issue of people are gonna write me off because I failed.
02:33 Daniel: No...
02:34 ANARIE: But I mean, you're proving you got divorced and you still are a valid voice [chuckle] in [02:38] ____.
02:38 Daniel: Yes.
02:39 ANARIE: But that's where I'm wrestling right now, it's like, I'm worried that because I am divorced, everyone can just write me off as a failure. So... Anyway, it's my own issue at the moment that I'm voicing to you.
02:51 Daniel: Are you okay? Would you be okay if I included this part? This is huge, this is huge.
02:57 ANARIE: Yeah.
02:58 Daniel: The fear, 'cause our definition of success plays a big role in recovery, period. I don't care what you're dealing with, if you have a predetermined idea or expectation of what success is, within reason, right? Of course, we wanna be healthy. Healthy is a reasonable expectation of treatment, whether it's medical, therapy, etcetera. But when we get down to the specifics of, "We are gonna be this type of married couple for the rest of our life and we're gonna parent our kids this way," that type of expectation where it's evolving, especially the agency and being of another person, that gets in the way of what you're discovering. And the reality that maybe success means you two need to go on your separate way, and this is...
03:49 ANARIE: And that can be an issue in some couples' therapy as well.
03:52 Daniel: Big time, yes.
03:54 ANARIE: That if there's too much commitment, do we have to make this marriage work at all costs? They can interfere with the health and well-being of the marriage and of everybody involved.
04:03 Daniel: And you're right, a lot of people... Well maybe not a lot, hopefully not a lot, but some will listen to this and say, "Well, then you're a failure." But that's part of the culture that we have to shift, because that mentality is hurting and isn't understood well, and is getting in the way of meaningful treatment, helpful treatment. And so. Yeah, I would...
04:27 ANARIE: Yeah. And I never imagined at the beginning of treatment that my story would end in divorce or that the outcome would be. But it's okay that it did, and I really believe that it's what's best for me and it's what's best for him in the way that things needed to go for us.
04:46 Daniel: Excellent, thank you.
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