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Excellent points Jayne.

Everyone remember: This is a peer support environment & clearly some people here are against IC while some are in favor of it.

Your mileage may vary in these discussions & debates, but - no matter what - please listen to your doc!

I think some folks are not aware of why this thread was begun and have lost all perspective. The OP's husband is going to an IC to delve into his "childhood traumas" before he works on his marriage.


THAT is the problem.

No one ever said that a depressed person shouldn't get on anti-depressants or they should STOP anti-depressants, that is not the issue. [Dr Harley does recommend this too] The issue is the DISTRACTION of delving into one's childhood to solve ADULT PROBLEMS. That is a DISTRACTION, just as Dr Harley states it is.

Just to get folks refocused, here is what Dr Harley says about that:

It's been 6 months of weekly IC (and weekly MC but that is helping).

Things have not been great in that time period. OW worked with H, and once exposed she made harrassment complaints and legal complaints of harrassment. She's been a nightmare. Big investigation at work that went on for 3 months, then they were both on leave, now they are both fired. Meanwhile, the court stuff is crazy also - having to defend her accusations which go on and on - get crazier and crazier. This week, I am filing a RO against her in fact.

IC has been supporting him to get through these issues, talk about childhood issues that he never dealt with also. The IC believes that he has a sort of arrested development back to when the abuse started when he was 8-10 years old. She is trying to help him grow up, basically. She has had action plans for issues in his life that center around getting along with people, completing projects (the last 2 chapters of his doctorate, which have been unfinished for 4 years).

Please refrain from personal attacks and help the poster with Marriage Builders concepts. That is what we are here for, folks! There is no need for personal attacks.

Thanks, MBSurvivor

D&S, please consider counseling with someone who is qualified to save marriages. Dr Harley states this kind of counseling is a needless distraction. [delving into childhood] His daughter, Dr Jennifer Chalmers, is one of the MB coaches and she is also a psychologist. If your H has any issues like that, she can address them in a way that benefits your marriage. Just because someone told you he needs to examine his childhood does not mean you need to blindly accept that.

Ok Melody, I've been following this thread and have to ask and in doing so, reveal to the board my personal past childhood trauma.

I was sexually abused between the ages of 5 and 6, by an 18 year-old uncle and on top of that my father was a severe alcoholic.

With that comes for me anyway the baggage of anxiety, a pessimistic attitude and the rest I feel I can't even begin to articulate.

I can go on meds (which I not on at the moment) and work on my marriage using the MB's concept, but how will that help me with the anxiety, the pessimistic attitude and other underlying issues?

Do I just mask the problems with drugs, because dealing with my past will be a distraction?

My marriage isn't headed for a divorce, and there's no affair, but the anxiety, the pessimistic person and other crap I can't identify or understand isn't helping matters any...

I will tell you one way those problems won't be resolved, and that is by "delving into your past." Examining your childhood does not solve pessimism or anxiety. The solution to your problems is in the present, not the past. Delving into the past does nothing for the present except keep you depressed, angry and triggered. I wasted years in counseling doing that very thing and it availed absolutely nothing.

What did work was focusing on changing my current behavior. By exchanging my pessimistic attitude with a positive one; learning appropriate ways to handle my anxiety. One thing I have learned is that one does not have to go into the past to resolve adult problems. It is a needless distraction from the solution.

MRAnderson, I am bumping this post because it might be helpful.

In a book I am reading called The Celestine Prophecy, it talks about being able to recognize and become aware of our behavioral patterns that resulted from our childhood influences. Basically it means we are all subject to our parents (dis)functions and they influence us daily. Until we learn to recognize how those dramas conditioned us, we cannot step back from them to recognize our own learned patterns of disfunction.

For instance, if a woman is freaking out everytime her spouse goes out on Thursday to play pool at a bar it would be helpful to him and her to know that maybe she is subconciously reacting to her (hypothetical) childhood experience of her father going out to the bar and coming home liquored up and beating that young girl time after time. Thus IC = value. But once uncovered, check it off the list and lets move to behaviors.

So to the point the IC helps uncover why you behave like you do, its valuable. No need to continue to dwell on it but it is necessary for an individual to see the WHY in order to move beyond their ingrained behaviors and evolve to something better by stepping outside of those patterns.

For instance my pattern I learned from my Dad was withdrawal anytime anything got serious or real strong emotions came out. He hid from emotions. I learned this pattern only during my marriage crisis. It would have been better to learn it before the crisis with an IC session or two. Luckily I grew beyond it or my marriage would have been lost. No amount of MBers would have helped my wife or me see that. It wasn't an obvious love buster.

I now recognize my first tendency to withdraw from emotions (my wifes anger for example) and turn it around to engage her, acknowledge her anger, help her prevent it from becoming a love buster (its just a signal something is wrong THANK YOU ML and LA) and find ways to affirm her and solve the situation (my apology if needed).

My wife is learning her pattern which she learned from her mom of not being able to express physical affection to me when around others. Not groping, just hand holding. Now fortunately we don't need an IC because we have all you smart people helping us learn but for others I can see that uncovering these childhood patterns with an IC is indeed very useful. I think even AA would say you have to face and own your behavior before you can change it. Knowing why we learned to act like we act IMHO seems to help tremendously. Again not for months and months in IC but if we know why, we can much more easily recognize it and change it.

Just a couple of things:

I realized that my parents' excessively high standards and inability to encourage without a big "But" at the contributed to the fear that I will never be good enough

I realize that being ridiculed for my unattractiveness as a young child undermined my confidence as a young adult/adult

I realize that suffering sexual abuse at puberty awkened some feelings in me I was in no way prepared to deal with.

I realized all these things before I ever entered a therapist's office. Because they make sense. Now, there were benifits to discussing those things briefly, but there was one thing that changed EVERYTHING with regards to parents, childhood trauma and bullying, sexual abuse....

For me, that thing was forgiveness. Now, many well-trained people out there argue AGAINST forgiving an abuser. But that is what freed me. Not talking ad nauseum, not exploring how my fellow first graders made me FEEL, not talking to a pillow and pretending it was my mom to get my feelings out.

Now some people (close friends even) have suffered things I could not dream. But the bottom line is, EVERY family is somewhat dysfunctional and EVERY person had a "bad" childhood, depending on how you look at it. I refuse to let that teenage boy, those cruel children, that trusted family friend, and even my own well-meaning mother determine how I live and what kind of M I have.

One thing that I have learned is that one does not have to examine their childhood or understand the source of their behavior problems in order to solve problems. In fact, looking into the past is a distraction, because there is really no way to know WHY a person acts the way they do. Just think, if we had to know the WHY of every behavior, we would probably never change because that is an impossible mission.

For example, when I feel anxiety, I don't have to examine my childhood to resolve it, I can do that without knowing the cause. If the only way to resolve adult problems was to find their source in one's childhood, I think most people would stay pretty sick because that is unrealistic goal.

Additionally, I was not raised in an affectionate home and was never exposed to such behavior. But I did not have to examine my childhood to change that; all I had to do was adopt affectionate behavior.

I do know that bringing the trauma of the past into the present is not productive and does nothing to make the present great.

AA does not advocate delving into one's childhood at all. They don't want to hear your crap. What they focus on is changing PRESENT behavior, just as does Dr Harley.

here, here!! Well said. Agree with every word.

Another thing I learned the hard way that was that continually BLAMING my mommy for my poor lot in life kept me crippled and kept me distracted from my OWN bad behavior. My childhood was horrendous, just horrendous; I was born to 2 ALCOHOLIC 16 year old hippies who didn't know right from wrong and who abused me horribly. They were terrible parents, but you know what? The buck stops right here when I turn 18. I am fully responsible for my adult behavior and fully in control of it. I don't need to yap about my mommy in order to change. I just have to CHANGE IT.

The greatest relief came when I stopped blaming them and forgave them. They were dumb kids. If I was going to crow and complain about them accepting me, I had to learn to accept THEM, warts and all.

As an adult, my relevant "PAST" started when I was 18. I am responsible for everything thereafter and that is all that matters. Bringing childhood trauma into the present is to just punish me twice. To that, I say NO THANKS.

This is a great post Luri.

How did you get to the point of forgiveness?

To be honest, I think the big factor for me was my faith and my understanding that after all Jesus had suffered to offer me forgiveness, I could not refuse to offer it to others. But some was harder than others. The mean kids? They were kids, just like me. Kids don't really grasp the effects of their actions. The teenage boy? Sort of the same thing. He was most likely drunk, and who knows what kind of a life he might have had to endure. The family friend was tough. I got good and mad about that. But I also saw him for what he was after he had to step down from his position over an A with his secretary - he was a pathetic, unhappy, rudderless man who really deserved more pity than bitterness. Mom? Well, that's a work in progress. Her love for me overall generally balances out the crap...but strong boundaries help that.

I don't see forgiveness as an event, or even a feeling. I see it as a choice of thought. And sometimes that choice has to be made over and over before it "sticks." It's something that frees ME.

Ugh, Now I sound like a therapist!

You sound like a GOOD therapist! The feelings led to different behaviors, which led to different feelings!

ML...

Sorry for the personal attack. It was unwarranted and uncalled for. I just cracked. No excuse.

Thanks....I can be nice with the right meds - tee hee hee:)

Thank you, Cantfigureitout, apology accepted.

She is also funny as hale!