Up next in 10
Welcome to Adaptable | Behavior Explained! In this episode we bring in the amazing Barry Litt, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and EMDRIA Approved Consultant with 40 years of experience. Join us as we dive into the different attachment styles and how they may be affecting your relationships today!
I'm Kelly O'Horo, Attachment based EMDRTherapist, EMDRIA Consultant, and Advanced Trainer. I'm a mom of 5, Nonna of 5, wife, and a healer. I have the honor of spending my workdays walking along side people while they brave their healing journeys. I try to live with the generous assumption that we're all doing the best we can with what we know. Therapists are teachers for the "life stuff" and "emotional vocabulary" that may not have been learned due to gaps in our care givers capabilities. In the last 15 years I've learned that people are freaking amazing, resilient, and inspiring. Most importantly, we are hardwired for connection and for healing!
I hope to bring an authentic, compassionate, and unpolished approach while we explore a variety of topics such as parenting, marriage, relationships, dating, trauma, attachment, adoption, depression, addiction, anxiety, and love! There's a why for all behaviors and an explanation that makes perfect sense as emotion is at the root of it all.
-- Links --
https://linktr.ee/kellyohorolpc
https://youtu.be/rLnARKekvgo
https://www.emdria.org/find-an-emdr-therapist/
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0:06
hi everyone I'm Kell ooro and this is adaptable Behavior explained hi
0:12
everybody thank you so much for tuning in today I really appreciate your time and I'm especially excited for this
0:18
episode of counselor Cafe I have a friend and colleague with me today Barry lit and he's going to talk about
0:25
relationships and attachment and all sorts of other cool things that are relevant to all of you and um so I'm
0:33
just excited to have him here he's out of New Hampshire and we're really lucky to have him here on our show today so
0:40
Barry please introduce yourself and thank you so much for being here well thanks Kelly for having me it's a real
0:46
treat it's a real treat to be with you uh so I'm trained as a marriage and family therapist I've been in the field
0:52
for about 40 years now half of which is with um doing EMDR and now I'm an EMDR
0:59
uh consult consultant and my early training in uh object relations and family systems has
1:06
been a very very uh helpful marriage with the Adaptive information processing
1:11
model of EMDR and I've been able to integrate those can I chime in for just a quick
1:16
second there for those of you who haven't watched earlier episodes adaptive information processing is
1:22
really just the theory by which we all grow and develop we are learning creatures and mammals and so everything
1:28
we ever did we learned whether it was epigenetically or now uh in our environments and so so that's what Barry
1:36
is an expert in and I'm excited to hear how he marries these topics together okay well thanks for that that
1:41
clarification right that's that's sort of the driving engine of EMDR is is what makes people process through emotional
1:50
traumas we say from the bottom up emotionally right uh and
1:55
somatically um so I've been able to take my my learning in evolution over the
2:00
years uh into three different chapters and three different books and and workshops and trainings all throughout
2:07
the US and Canada um and that's what I'll be doing in San Diego in May and so
2:14
that's you know an exciting next piure for and for those for those therapists watching uh if you haven't seen Barry
2:20
present it's not to be missed he's Dynamic and and so charismatic and and really relatable and so it's so fun so
2:28
thank you so much for that and um um I'm I'm excited to Dive Right In so I'm going to give a little background on why
2:34
this topic is so important for all people not just therapists uh we are we are just hardwired to be reactive to our
2:42
environments and it's how we're wired and built and so everything in our environment stimulates memory and
2:49
sometimes that memory recalled is good and doesn't have any problematic Behavior associated with it and
2:54
sometimes the memory is maladaptively encoded in other words we end up triggered as if something
3:00
uh that we're seeing tasting feeling touching smelling today uh it reminds us of something that happened in the past
3:06
that was negatively stored and so those are called triggers or reminders in our nervous system and I want to make sure
3:13
we talk about that because I want my next question for Barry to have a little bit of u a a preamble so that those who
3:21
don't know what that is uh you have that background so Barry knowing that we all
3:26
as humans get triggered knowing that we don't want to and we judge our reactions
3:31
and often times those triggers really interrupt or uh create problems in our
3:38
relationships because we are getting our stuff on others when it's not necessarily their their problem to deal
3:45
with so in all your years of experience both clinically and in consultation how do you understand why people react
3:52
poorly to stimulus or why they get triggered from a zoomed out place right
3:57
right great question so to be sure you know you you mentioned the role of memory and the role of memory in humans
4:05
is to predict so we know what the next Watering Hole is it's so we know where the the Lion's Den is it's to anticipate
4:13
problems after all we did evolve in a predator pre environment so safety is you know uh of Chief importance
4:20
certainly in the way we evolved even though in the modern society it it may take a backseat to other concerns but
4:27
that's not what our nervous system thinks our nervous system is always kind of on the lookout and so while trauma
4:33
can affect different people differently and we can't really predict who's going to be traumatized by what and that's
4:39
because it's a subjective reaction to an event as opposed to the event itself but
4:45
we do know is that the way people react can be sort of clustered or understood
4:50
is is generally speaking for the most part going to land in one or more of
4:55
three domains of self-experience or do domains of self-experience this is
5:02
threats to the continuity of my sense of self in the world and I can mention what
5:07
those three are and then and then kind of circle back and and say a little bit about yeah please do and when you say
5:13
domains of self or identity can you give an example of what that would look like or will you do that when you explain
5:18
those three domains I will yes okay uh okay so something bad happens it's going to
5:25
hit me in one of these one or more of these three domains they include attack attachment Merit and safety so the
5:33
attachment domain this is typically trauma within the first three years of life um research shows that about 40% of
5:42
individuals have an insecure attachment style that means that there was some more or less uh fracture of their
5:50
attachment relationship with the primary caregiver so that's going to be a persistent feature of their sense of not
5:57
only self but self in relation to other the next domain is what I call the Merit
6:04
domain this is concerns with self-worth self-esteem and so forth so while in the
6:09
first group it affects you know roughly 40% of the population nobody gets
6:15
through the Merit domain unscathed we are wired to doubt ourselves and to
6:21
compare ourselves to others often so the mer main really can involves everybody
6:27
and that's about feeling not good enough or a failure or not this enough or not that enough and then finally the safety
6:35
domain this is the sense of the world as generally a safe place gets fractured by
6:42
some event that you know at least I perceive as a threat to my my safety or Vitality a life-threatening event and so
6:49
this is for those who have you know experienced life-threatening events combat trauma motor vehicle accidents um
6:55
or things that created that fight flight or free response that says I'm going to
7:01
die so anything that occurs is going to land in one or more uh of those three domains right and
7:10
I think that for our viewers you nobody questions those safety domain oriented
7:15
injuries people don't argue about you know combat threat or car accidents or
7:20
explosions or tsunamis and nobody judges the reactivity in a human when there's a
7:27
safety violation of self uh and and that looks and tastes or reacts in the world
7:34
in a way that isn't suitable for the now you know if there's a soldier back from combat and he drops to the floor when he
7:40
hears a balloon pop at a party people might go oh but they don't judge him
7:47
because it makes sense that that's how he learned to survive and that one becomes so very obvious right you know
7:52
where I think I want to really zoom in a little bit more and I know that both Merit and attachment systems are are
7:57
incredibly important and will impa relationships I think that that the topic that doesn't seem to get on
8:03
people's Radars in an obvious way are those zero to3 memories that really grossly affect the attachment system and
8:10
I think part of that is because we don't have a lot of explicit memory tied to those things and we're not taught to
8:16
associate those experiences as children that well you know what if my dad works out of town six of seven days a week I'm
8:23
not going to feel like I'm safe in the world related to his connection and and love for me and it must be something
8:29
wrong with me that he leaves me all the time and people don't understand how that so greatly impacts how we believe
8:36
in ourselves in relationship yeah that's very true that's a really good point yeah in point of fact uh for the most
8:43
part we don't form uh explicit memories in the first three years so all the the remembering is not conscious remembering
8:50
it's implicit remembering and say more about implicit yeah so implicit memory
8:56
is the stuff you learn you don't realize you're learning like you know how do you put your pants on like nobody taught you
9:02
that it wasn't the way you learned you know like the the capital of Brazil it was something you experienced and
9:10
encoded without even knowing it was going on how do you open a door knob these are things that we do all the time
9:16
implicitly that is without conscious thought and how we relate what we expect of caregivers what we expect in terms of
9:23
you know how safe I'm going to be with a caregiver will I be um understood seen
9:29
comforted by a caregiver there's no language for this in the first few years these are you know preverbal years for
9:35
the most part but it's experienced and that experien is encoded and so my
9:43
system my attachment system is striving to figure away a a hand and glove fit
9:48
with my primary caregiver right this system will persist go ahead right oh no
9:55
I I was just going to say and I think that what people don't understand is how incredibly important those first three
10:01
years are to for the for the individual to develop in a sense of I'm worthy I
10:06
matter I'm lovable I belong all of those end up so deeply learned right without
10:14
learning without without someone teaching us and so we decide who we are in relationship to our value for others
10:20
and and when that's done poorly there's so much shame associated with that
10:26
presenting issue and so we have a lot of shame that we have to overcome often times I think of that as a little bit of
10:32
a of a of a red flag for me as a therapist like there's probably some really early developmental attachment
10:38
wounding we have to look at when shame is just at the Forefront of presenting issues would you would you agree with that yes I would now shame can certainly
10:46
be um associated with um trauma in the Merit domain I'm not good enough I'm a
10:52
failure uh and I feel embarrassed or shamed but to be sure shame and fear are
10:59
are sort of the the companion emotions of attachment trauma and sometimes it
11:05
can be you know quite uh you know self-evident like oh I can't stand to be
11:10
alone you know if I'm alone uh then I I'm fearful and and I'm not comfortable
11:16
and yet my friends and neighbors are have no problem but a lot of times it's not quite so clear it could be that I'm
11:23
fine when I'm by myself it could be that when I have a partner who doesn't pay attention to me or ignore me or gives me
11:30
you know the the Stone Face you know that that might be very
11:35
triggering so for some folks being I don't know where I stand I don't know where I stand with them if their face
11:42
doesn't give me some information that says I see you I feel you you matter and
11:47
they have you know they lost their car keys and so they have a scowl and the
11:53
person thinks uh what's wrong what did I do why exactly yeah so you know you know
11:59
we're always reading each other and again implicitly unconsciously some of that becomes conscious like oh I noticed
12:06
that you have a scowl but unconsciously my mirror neurons my
12:12
Monkey C Monkey Do neurons are are looking to you as a mirror and it's as
12:19
if you know we're playing mirror and mirror on the wall all the time and I look in the mirror and I don't see a reflection coming
12:24
back and that's a freaky outy thing right and and now I'm going to make some
12:30
attributions you don't love me anymore you don't want me anymore I've done
12:36
something horrible I'm alone I'm abandoned and now I'm back to this
12:41
horrible place that I would have experienced probably countless times as
12:46
as a as an infant as a toddler right and of course not in memory but in in
12:52
sematic memory this is so familiar and I don't understand why right I don't
12:58
understand why now there's an attribution process that that takes place I'm going to feel very bad but it
13:06
happened when you gave me that stonewalling nothing face therefore face
13:12
is is the problem you're the problem your face you're the problem your face is the problem that expression you gave
13:17
me it's it's the responsibility of why I feel the way I feel Bango yes so you
13:23
know in in one of the virtues of the model of understanding that these are
13:29
triggers that that people carry is if I'm activated like that my
13:35
natural inclination is to point the finger you know and attribute it to
13:40
something you're doing or not doing there's this old adage you know if I if I point the finger at you I got three
13:45
pointing back at me right and and that's useful in terms of stepping back and saying okay what am I going through I'm
13:51
really activated what does that mean I'm I'm really emotional I'm fearful I feel
13:57
shame h I mean I want to say it's your fault but you know knowing myself this
14:03
is I'm alone I don't matter I'm not enough this is a me thing this is my
14:08
attachment trauma right it's not a character flaw you know it's it's it's just a part of my early wiring exactly
14:16
and getting some knowledge about our own histories really can help us start to connect those dots so so how do you
14:23
understand the critical components of of the attachment relationship in the therapeutic setting
14:29
you know as far as healing our wounds as people come in and see us right right good question so when people see a
14:37
therapist you know it's a vulnerable relationship it's an intimate relationship and so people are going to
14:43
transfer that attachment style onto the therapist that's what we call the word
14:48
transference and for that matter the therapist is a human too and the therapist is going to transfer you know
14:54
my own attachment style into that relationship and we call that counter transfer it's the same phenomena we had
15:01
counter and we talking about the therapist but it's the same thing so the attuned therapist and therapists you
15:08
know the old adage know thyself very important I can use my reactions to the
15:14
client I can study my client's ability to to be open or to be candid or their
15:21
variously guarded uh as tools to understand what their attachment system
15:26
is doing how it's playing out in the therapy and the reporting from the
15:32
client in addition to my observation can help me understand how this attachment
15:37
is playing out in their actual lives um that and what happens in our office is
15:43
likely what's happening outside of our office yes yes Al great data although
15:49
yes in a much more minimized form generally speaking because people are on their best behavior right um and the
15:56
therapist you know is a a secure attachment figure you know
16:01
we're we're trained and disciplined to be non-reactive um the whole structure of
16:07
therapy is that um I don't rely on my clients to you know parent the child
16:12
child or earn income or you know share tasks so by Design the therapeutic
16:19
relationship is is kind of this very uh distilled uh petri dish to to to see
16:25
this play out in a safe way that all s you know for intervention right and and talk a little
16:34
bit about how the attachment relationships that people experience and of course their their wounds related to
16:41
those three domains show up in the office and and how we we have to
16:47
navigate that space right right well uh to be sure uh
16:53
there are you know different styles of attachment and I recommend anybody who's not familiar or um you know wants to
17:02
brush up on to look at your video Kelly on attachment Styles it's it's it's
17:07
thank you very nice it's very clear it's very well done and it delineates you know what these styles are and can give
17:13
us insights into how they might play out um the attachment of of uh an individual
17:19
their style is a persistent feature um it tends to go throughout the lifespan
17:24
and it will modify according to development but the fun fundamental of it will will persist it'll show up in
17:31
the therapy relationship it'll throw up show up in Intimate Partners or at work or anybody who's in that more or less
17:38
close area yeah and that attachment relationship uh that was developed When
17:44
We Were Young that of course like you said it shows up everywhere all the time and without our knowing typically about
17:50
how we show up in the world and it affects uh the way that we are in relationship everywhere we are or
17:56
everywhere we that's absolutely right yeah now these attachment styles that again you did a very lovely job of of
18:02
describing need to be understood as a scaler phenomena as opposed to you know I either have this or I don't have this
18:08
it's like to what extent do I have this style more or less and the more there's
18:13
attachment trauma the more it will be felt by intimate others including the
18:19
therapist so a client presentation for example when the the presenting problems
18:24
are things about like I don't feel like I belong I don't feel like I matter people you know who are close to me
18:30
don't really know me or care about me they don't include me I feel alone these
18:36
are indicators in in the EMDR speak we talk about negative cognitions core beliefs that are
18:43
persistent these are going to show up sooner or later in on the client presentation but the therapist is also
18:50
may come to consultation and say you know I'm not sure what to do with my client I don't feel like I'm providing
18:57
the right service I don't feel like I'm doing enough I feel like I don't have what it takes um I get nervous when they
19:04
enter because I feel like whatever it is you know they're they're too much for me
19:10
well those are the complimentary attitudes so you see what I'm doing is I'm reverberating with that
19:18
same sentiment almost as if telepathically you know I'm feeling their attachment system so I'm actually
19:24
getting data about their early life even if we're talking about you know their time at work so the therapist can
19:32
utilize this uh and and it's hard and it's challenging but with consultation
19:37
it can be very helpful to utilize this to feed it back in a corrective way in in the therapy right and we're creating
19:45
new memory Moment by moment in the therapeutic setting that can help reestablish I can you know I can show up
19:52
a certain kind of way if I'm a client and the therapist can then mirror back a more appropriate stance based on that
19:59
experience and create new Pathways and and uh and help make make known make
20:05
what was implicit explicit in that experience so that they have awareness
20:10
of those past present connections because we bring to light what's happening in that and of course what it's happen what's happening in their
20:17
relationships which which you know better than I do that's what brings people into therapy most of the time is
20:23
you know my partner my husband my child my whatever and I dot dot Dot and they
20:29
dot dot dot right you know that's right that's right and that partner child you
20:34
know uh husband spiles Whatever May in fact do dot dot dot but the real issue
20:41
is how does it affect me and am I being triggered and so my triggers are my
20:48
problem to solve this is a good news bad news situation for for people for
20:53
clients the the bad news is that these attachment styles are very persistent that is the nature of Being Human to
21:01
attribute it to outside sources it's it's what the other person did it's what the situation is it's the world is
21:06
coming apart that's why I feel this way um and so there's often a tug-of-war
21:13
with Partners or with a therapist about well no it's it it's not I'm doing something wrong it's my partner it's not
21:20
I'm reacting anybody would feel this way so there has to be sort of a a battle
21:26
about um attribut tion to what do I attribute this um I'm not going to change how the world is or is not coming
21:34
apart no but the good news part is that I can come into Mastery over what my
21:40
nervous system is doing with these things uh and that's where bottom up therapy like EMDR really comes into to
21:47
play my reactions are from the emotional brain I'm not going to talk myself out
21:52
of these things I can try but I'll probably just wind up beating myself up
21:57
uh because I'm I'm using the wrong tool you know for the wrong problem um the intellectual part of my brain is really
22:03
not the driver it's the emotional part and the sematic part so a bottom
22:08
so-called bottomup therapy is about transforming what my nervous system is doing with these various triggers so
22:15
that now I can rise above my reactivity and then find a skillful compassionate
22:21
way of dealing with these things right that better matches today's circumstances and slows my system down
22:27
enough so that I have time for choice because that reactivity is is just it's without
22:33
choice because it's so somatically informed and it's too fast and that's because by Design By You know the
22:38
brain's design to go that fast on purpose to keep us safe alive and well and so when it's obsolete when it's an
22:45
obsolete reaction that slowing down helps us have a response which is so much better serving for our
22:52
relationships and the now and of course can better match our our circumstances of the now so we reduce that encoding
22:59
so what what are the known implications for you what what are the implications
23:05
of this known quantity when it comes to how do we as humans need to take account
23:11
for knowing this right right so I mentioned the the the challenge of
23:17
attributional process that I I have a natural tendency to want to say it's someone else's
23:22
fault the adaptation of this attachment style may have had a very important role
23:27
when I was you know a youngster but as a grownup I'm going to have a tendency to continue to to play this out even if
23:33
it's obsolete and example of something we might have done as a child that was
23:39
serving and necessary but then when we do it in our partner relationships how it's problematic oh sure that's a great
23:46
question and and again I'll just reference you know your own video on attachment style so the dismiss of
23:51
avoidant attachment style of adulthood comes from an early childhood where
23:56
caregivers are reliable unsafe or UNS soothing and there could be a thousand
24:02
reasons for that it could be anything from primary care give her usually the mom you know was sick was anxious was
24:09
depressed you know was being beaten up you know that she's ill that she's absent I mean that the list really goes
24:14
on there doesn't have to be a bad guy but it means as an early as an early
24:20
toddler infant when I seek safety and the caregiver is not the thing that
24:26
provides safety I may turn inward I may turn to toys I may turn into to rituals
24:31
I may play by myself and so very early on I take my attachment is just aimed
24:37
like like beaming outward and instead I I curtail it and I beam it inward to
24:44
take care of myself um children who are doing this are often dissociative they
24:49
actually have uh anesthesia going on they don't feel so much distress so they look they could look fairly content um
24:57
but they're stress is is out of awareness dissociated well that's suitable for that early childhood
25:04
environment but you know try to run an intimate adult relationship that way so when my partner makes a bid for
25:11
attention affection Attunement it does not compute uh and I
25:17
might shut down I might have that anesthesia happen again that dissociation I might turn away uh the
25:23
stonewalling I referenced earlier you know if my partner's upset with me and my partner is is engaging in Conflict
25:31
which is often just a bid for more engagement I may shut down and dissociate and I don't know what to do
25:39
with that it's so unfamiliar right because I couldn't get the attention of my caregivers when I was young and so I don't know what to do
25:45
with this now exactly and it might over me but that won't be my attribution
25:51
however my attribution will be oh well my partner's too needy my partner's too demanding my partner just wants to fight
25:57
I don't like fighting I'm a peaceful person I don't see the need for all this emotionality so you know often people
26:03
will invent a story we're we're wired for a story we figure it out and we want to say here's here's what's happening
26:10
and this is why exactly this is why I feel this way right so you know that
26:16
couple may wind up very likely triggering each
26:21
other's uh injuries so you know I'm triggered in that you know the the in
26:27
the in the attachment domain of self because my partner is is demanding relational engagement that is
26:34
overwhelming to me and my shutting down May trigger my partner's attachment
26:39
insecurity you see and then we're often running right and so so often happens
26:45
that's right and so what often happens is is each of us sees the problem as the
26:50
other one and we attribute the solution as you know belonging to the partner or
26:56
belonging to you know if my father only told me he was proud of me that would be like a merit domain type of thing then I
27:03
would feel good about myself if if my children excelled in school then I would
27:08
feel successful that's a merit domain thing um if my partner you know engaged
27:14
with me more intimately then I wouldn't feel so alone that's an attachment thing
27:20
so we tend to get into this battle of well you need to to change so I feel
27:26
better and my partner counter well no no you need to change so I feel better yes
27:33
but I feel worse than you do because because you did this terrible thing right well no no no I feel worse than
27:39
you you owe it to me because last week you did two terrible things right yes but I had I had a bad childhood yeah
27:47
well you had a bad childhood I had no childhood I was raided by Wolves you know I I I got fed by you know raccoons
27:54
taught me how to open trash cans that's the kind of childhood you owe it to me right and so what I call a
28:01
race to the bottom you know that suffering is associated with entitlement
28:07
and if I suffer more I'm entitled to have caregiving right and so couples
28:13
often Partners Collide in terms of who's entitled to be caring for whom right you
28:20
know see each of us want to be me me me and in ser and in service of the discharge of our own pain and discomfort
28:25
we fall into the blame game that's it in the projection game that's right and it's easier for feeling my
28:32
responsibility to clean up my reactivity on my side of the street absolutely and
28:38
also I don't think you know I don't believe that people know they're doing it for the most part I think people are
28:44
not doing this by choice I think they're doing this by not because they've not known any other way and they don't
28:50
understand how to attribute their emotional experience to something that isn't happening right now they just
28:55
don't know we should learn this when we're young young and of course that's not that's that's not what happens for us so you know I think the the bullet
29:03
point here is we have to clean up our side of the street in relationships and we can control our reactivity and we can
29:09
become masters of our own nervous system with putting in the work for sure yes well said very well said so so when
29:15
thinking about the healing Journey what do you think is the primary Pitfall that you see whether coming from the client
29:21
perspective or the therapist's perspective yeah so I'll I'll Circle back to the attributional process so so
29:28
often for example when when couples in particular but individuals as well come
29:33
to to therapy often they're looking for a relational solution to an intas
29:38
psychic or psychological problem if my partner would do more of this and less of that I would feel safe I would feel
29:46
secure I would feel like I'm good enough if my uh I I just had somebody the other
29:51
week you know I like it when my partner says you know you're pretty well that
29:57
you know that sounds very benign and isn't that a nice thing but the problem is what if my partner doesn't think I'm
30:03
pretty I mean it's it's really possible that I'm I'm not that pretty to my partner I mean that's just a reality or
30:09
that I'm not good at something or that they don't like my sule I mean it's got to be fair game that my partner can be
30:16
honest with me and I need to have the resilience to to to bend like Willow and
30:22
not break like glass uh but if you see I'm really traumatized would say in the Merit domain my partner says you know
30:28
doesn't say I'm pretty or I don't look good in this or my sule is is burnt and I feel as a traumatic injury again my
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go-to is to say well you see this is this is you you're too critical you're not nice enough you're not kind enough
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this is really a a me problem and as I said before I might have to go several
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rounds with my therapist before I can accept that this is a trigger in me right one of my one
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of my common statements to clients is I I get they did all those things and that
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totally sucks for you and they're not in here yeah right since they're not here
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would you be okay learning how to tolerate and or show up for yourself in
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a different way than you currently do yes absolutely and if so let's do that because they're they're not here I can't
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control anything they're doing and furthermore we can't ever control anything anyone else ever does and so
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our most primary ability would be in Chang in the way that we respond to
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people's reactions or statements or stimulus in the world and that's like where we become the most empowered yes
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absolutely and in fact can I share a little tip that sometimes I I find
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augments that please that process so it's a it's a an exercise that I I I
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call the convincer and it's it's based on a very bad psychological phenomena that we
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really do not understand and that is to to say that we typically have different emotional reactions from one eye to the
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other not always but sometimes and so when a client says well of course I'm
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upset because my partner did X I might invite them to do this exercise and and to say so cover an eye
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and think about how upset you are and give it a number 0 to 10 yeah it's an
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eight you know my partner did this terrible thing to Me Now cover the other eye huh
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that's more like a two what's the big deal now it doesn't always go that
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smoothly and every now and then you know the eyes are the same but 90% of the
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time are better there's a differential what's very hard to say that my partner is a real jerk with this
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eye but is like okay in that eye like how does that happen how did reality changed that much so I call it the
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convincer because it's a very visceral way to get into touch with the fact that no this is a really my reaction to yes
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my partner did in fact do X and not y but it's my reaction my relationship to
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those behaviors that's really at play that's awesome like an internal fact Checker yeah that's right yes so that
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can be that can somehow you know Leap Frog some of the the the tug of war about you know is this a is this
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cleaning up my side of the street or is no I just got to find a different partner right that's great cool
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being that clients will be able to to see like with that convincer oh okay so
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I can see more it's my side of the street what what do clients need to do to heal so the theory of change from my
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point of point is is a three-legged stool of getting it doing it and feeling
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it differently now the getting it part that's that's kind of the thing that happens most quickly that's because the
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front part of our brain that's where we learned the capital of Brazil we can learn stuff we can have Insight um in
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another language it's called cognitive restructuring it could be called psychoeducation but I need to learn that
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there's you know things that I'm doing my partner's doing that there's a model of fair play that I can learn and I can
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become acquainted with so there were rules about conduct that I can learn rules about exactly what we're talking
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about about reactivity doing it differently means oh instead of engaging in a in a fight is
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there a way I can step back listen more patiently have more compassion and
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concern um or set good limits however the doing it it hinges on
34:37
the feeling it differently so if my emotional brain isn't really resourced
34:44
enough to do it differently I will invariably fall back on Old Habits so
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getting it doing it and feeling it differently is to me the essence of of
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therapy and the getting it part that's the talk therapy that most of us are familiar with uh the doing it you know
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sometimes cognitive behavioral therapy emphasizes doing it or relational therapies emphasized doing it and the
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feeling it is really that bottomup processing that we've been talking about is changing how my nervous system
35:15
responds to stimuli so that I actually have my frontal lobes available to me to be more skillful to have choices yes
35:23
yeah so so tell us why you like to tmdr therapists about this
35:28
concept well I love to teach about this concept to me you know the human
35:34
condition is endlessly fascinating um I think that therapy is
35:39
is still a little more art than science there's an art to being aun there's an art yeah uh timing when to time or how
35:48
to time my interventions um the how to be with people you know in in in counseling 101
35:54
It's You Know lesson one build rapport now let lesson two like it's just
36:03
overlooked just comes naturally it does not come naturally right our own attachment Styles our own lived history
36:09
is going to influence how we engage with clients so the good news is that there were rules and there were rules even
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though it's an art there are guide guide rails that kind of keep me understanding like what makes people tick what is the
36:24
source of their suffering what are some of the channels through which they can heal how can their relationships become
36:32
more optimal optimized for you know safety responsibility trust building um and
36:39
it's it's a beautiful Enterprise that is to me a rich combination of theory I
36:46
have to understand The Human Condition I need to know what the guide rails are for the client for me and technique uh
36:54
like the the convincer I just showed you and and a whole number of techniques that I've developed over the years to
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really augment that feeling at differently stage that's awesome well I am so very
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excited to have gotten to hear from you today and um I feel like I could talk
37:13
with you all day long and have a thousand questions and uh I'm so grateful for for your willingness to
37:20
meet with me and share with share with our viewers a lot of these really important insights that quite frankly
37:26
probably should have learned in high school and just you know coursework that says here's how people work and here's
37:32
how it might be problematic if you don't understand you know wouldn't that have been nice more so than algebra at least for
37:39
me and probably most yeah I know yeah ways we could have spent our time more
37:45
wisely uh but anyways I just thank you again for coming and uh being with us
37:50
today and I look forward to more time with you in the future and we'll probably have to do this again sometime
37:56
so again and thank you Kelly and thanks for your generosity yes absolutely so uh
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hopefully you enjoyed this episode everybody I really appreciate your tur tuning in and please make sure that you
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share this or subscribe if you want to see more content like this and of course
38:14
uh don't forget to lead with love it'll never steer you
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you
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