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OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home JULY 1, 2021 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Dr. Deb
Nothing Works Out for Me By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.
Y
itzi was in a funk. He should have been happy; after all, there he was at his good friend’s wedding. Second wedding, I might add. The first one didn’t work out and now his friend bravely was taking on the second. “Good for him,” Yitzi thought. “But no matter what I do, things do not work out for me. I tried marriage counseling. Actually three times….” His thoughts just got darker as he thought about it. The first time, he dragged Zena to the counselor and she would not talk. She sat perfectly still and contributed nothing. He didn’t try too hard, either, he recalls. “But the counselor should have or could have brought out the issues,” he complained internally. It was one of those, “Uh, huh, and how do you feel about that?” type of counselors. That’s why his wife wasn’t talking – because there wasn’t a “that” on the table to feel anything about. Yitzi remembers being scared to put the “that” on the table, the things that caused their endless quarrels. And Zena was sitting there with her arms folded and an expression on her face of “I dare you to blame me for anything!” So nothing happened. The second counselor opened us up, Yitzi recalled with horror, and boy, that was not an improvement. He felt worse as he recalled the rage – going both ways – in that room. The counselor had no control and finally Yitzi walked out. The third time, Yitzi didn’t show up, but the counselor just looked his wife in the eye and declared that Yitzi was a “loser” who would never man up to the position of husband that he was
required to hold. She couldn’t wait to get home and tell him what the counselor had said. Thinking about that last time, Yitzi had to agree. He was just a loser. He fell into a deep despair that went on for weeks, not exactly a very encouraging thing for the wife who was expecting a modicum of improvement from the counselor’s declaration. Good luck. Counselors who mistakenly think that being confrontative is a great idea are not necessarily helpful. I wrote right here some time ago just the opposite – that counselors cannot whitewash the truth because there will never be any positive changes without laying reality on the table. But… And this is a big “but” – there are ways to level with someone that work very well and ways that do not. Yitzi? Are you following this? Because this is for you. It’s not your fault! [There is no actual Yitzi, BTW, just thousands of people that fit this general description] Here are the mistakes the counselor made: • She did not think of Yitzi as a person After all, even someone who is sitting on a cardboard box out in Times Square doing drugs was once a beautiful neshama that came into this world expecting the best. What happened to that baby that they ended up homeless and disconnected from reality? Well, you know where I solidly stand on that. It was not happenstance. HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn’t do happenstance. He created a perfect world. It’s our job to use it wisely. If you talk to a baby, make eye con-
tact, coo, change its diaper and feed it properly, it will be a happy baby. (Yes, colic can mess things up, but they grow out of that, too.) If you give the same love and care to a small child, while adding in gentle but consistent boundary-setting, that child will be fine. The bum on the street got deprived of what people are supposed to get and escaped in a hurry to a far, far away place. Now, I can’t speak for Yitzi. I don’t know what happened to him, but it behooves the counselor to have found out. And that doesn’t not mean she’s making excuses for him, either. It means she is scientifically tracing back the origin of behavior that seems off target. So you don’t call your client – even in your own mind – names. Not “loser,” not “narcissist,” not “abuser,” not “sick,” and not “beyond hope.” And while you’re at it, you’ll do better work if, in your own mind, you lay off the DSM terminology. It only separates you from the empathy you need for your client. There is one case where a marriage is “beyond hope” and that is when, after very kindly attempts, repeatedly, the client simply won’t show up and won’t participate and thinks everything is fine. Even then, working with the other spouse alone might intrigue the missing partner enough to join eventually. I rarely give up on a marriage. To go on, that counselor should have gently asked Yitzi for his version of things. If he shrugged his shoulders
and didn’t speak, she should have invited him to a session alone “so he would be more comfortable,” figuring he was afraid to speak in front of his wife. Which leads to the next point. • She did not provide Yitzi with the three guides for coping with his situation properly There are three key emotional areas that people need in tip-top shape in order to function at their best. The first is to be aware of their triggers. Normally, we react to things that trigger us in a way that is not helpful. We may become frightened, depressed, aggressive, numb or any number of other things. These reactions are unique to us; that is, the thing that sets one person off will not bother another person. The counselor needed to have gently led Yitzi to examine himself: What makes him run away? Why does he not measure up at work? How come he doesn’t believe in himself? He needs to embark on a path of self-discovery to figure out how his own upbringing led to the things that trigger him and how he chose his particular way of responding to those triggers. Then, of course, he needs the tools to tame those triggers. This will not happen automatically, and it is less likely to happen just because you’re aware of it. Tools such as mindfulness and Internal Family Systems are appropriate. The second key emotional area goes hand-in-hand with the first. Not only does Yitzi have to understand how his background affected him but
