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October 20, 2013

42nd Year Retrospective

Posted by Nathen under Abandon Ship, aging, Benjamin Lester, Camp Latgawa, Candy Crush, Christina, Couples and Family Therapy, Damian Lester, Darlene Lester, death, desert living, Ely Lester, Ethan Mitchell, family, food, Gabriel, goals/intentions, heart rate training, Joshua Tree, learning curves, marriage, Maya, Morongo Basin Mental Health, NBTSC advisee groups, neurosequential therapeutics, Not Back to School Camp, Oliver Lee, Pacific Clinics, paleo diet, photography, Reanna, San Bernardino County, self-care, Steve Lester, therapy, Tilke Elkins, Transition Joshua Tree, work
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This is a long post, so first the short version. In the last year: I started working full time and am adjusting to that. I’m glad to be working towards my MFT licensure, but uncomfortable about how it pushes my relationships and other projects onto the back burner. My marriage gets better and better, despite this. The company I work for goes out of business so I get part of the summer off, and I get the exact same job (family therapist for US Marines & their families) with a new company.

And for the year ahead: I plan to continue this work, taking good care of myself, dance with Reanna every night, as promised to my friend, Tilke, in her “How to be a Real Artist” workshop, get in best shape in 5 years, and learn how to treat myself and Reanna really really well while working full time.

October: I started my year out at Farm & Wilderness, VT, staffing and teaching a really fun psychology project at Not Back to School Camp. As is traditional, I got really sick, but this time it was from a waitress in Rutland, not someone at NBTSC. I recuperated while visiting Ethan & Susannah, also in Vermont. Back in Joshua Tree, I started working out again (SERIOUS style), planted my first winter garden, fixed some electrical and plumbing problems in my trailer, and started setting up a private practice. In the process of hiring a supervisor, I found out that in California, unlike in Oregon, I cannot do my internship in a private practice. So I started looking for work in a local clinic.

Looking out over Woodward Reservoir from my cabin at Farm & Wilderness

Ethan, cataloging NBTSC lost & found in his library

The famous Quodlibetarian tub

Reanna

Reanna at Playa Del Rey

Ollie, a year ago

Ollie & Pap

Gabe, Damian & Maya on the Hwy 62 Art Tour

Trailer at sunset, looking south

November: I move into a new computer, archive my years of audio journal entries, and learn Sketchup while applying for and getting a job at Morongo Basin Mental Health: providing free, confidential therapy for US Marines, veterans, and their families. In what would become a series of small-town coincidences, a high school friend I hadn’t seen in decades worked there, saw my name on the interview list and sat in on my interview, interjecting stuff like, “Oh, yeah, good answer!” Nice way to interview. The manager of the military program assured me that the our contract was solid for at least two years. That’s about how long I need to get my hours for licensure, so the job sounded good–no chance of having to ditch my clients like I had to in grad school! I spent the rest of the month getting in as much time with Reanna and my family before starting full time work.

Rainbow over the Bartlet Mts

Maya & Ollie in hammock

Ollie helps Nana Honey cook

Me & Reanna

December:  My 93 year old Grandpa Bob gets really sick, and I get really sick taking care of him. I was pretty sure he was going to die. He had pneumonia and had to go on antibiotics for the first time in his life. It took me weeks to fully recover. He eventually recovered, too, but I’m not sure he’ll ever fully recover. He’s been on antibiotics off and on ever since and is progressively less mobile. It’s got me thinking a lot about dying–how I can support the people I love when they start having a hard time taking care of themselves, and how I want to die when my time comes.

I start at MBMH, reading 40 hours a week of protocols. I have Christmas with family in Joshua Tree. My brother Damian starts a weekly evening with family, listening to an integral Christianity lecture and meditation that turns out to be a presentation of integral theory to Christians, rather than Christianity to integral thinkers, but valuable nonetheless.

Reanna & Christina, Xmas

Reanna & Maya, Xmas

Ely, Christina, Pap, Ben, Rebeca, Xmas

Gabe, Ely, Ollie, Christina, Xmas

Reanna, ukulele, heater

Ollie, bundled up

January: I get my first paid vacation ever–one week off, fully paid by MBMH. Weird, pretty nice. I write my first attempt at a comprehensive political statement. Reanna and I start a three-month experiment with a strict “paleo” diet, which mostly means we cut out sugar and grains from our diet. The theory is that human adaptation to grains and refined anything is shallow at best. I also start cooking Mexican food (the paleo-friendly recipes) from Rick Bayless’ Authentic Mexican. I love it. And Reanna loves eating it. I start learning to play Reanna’s ukulele. I play and sing “Amazing Grace” most nights for a month. Fun!

I’m working full time, which I’ve never done. It’s not my favorite schedule. I had to let go of most of my projects. I started building a solar batch water heater in the fall, for example, that is still not finished. The schedule has simplified my life quite a bit. Work all day, spend the evening with Reanna. I gained more respect for my friends who’ve been working full time for decades and still manage to write some music or read books. I’m ramping into a caseload, though, and am seeing seven clients a week by the end of the month.

My endurance training is going great by this point. Mid month I got my heart rate up to 179 bpm without hurting myself. Very exciting.

Smiley and Gallant visit

Reanna in our clean, cold kitchen

Dinner’s almost ready. (Photo by Reanna.)

Grandpa Bob turns 94

Me in therapist costume, with Ollie. (Photo by Reanna.)

February: Full time work continues. I get trained in the Trauma Resiliency Model, which I find very cool and useful. I re-up the trademark on Abandon Ship. I feel sad that I can’t write music with my brothers right now, but have plenty of optimistic plans to do so… Reanna starts designing our future house, another exciting project that I have to watch from the sidelines. I love watching her get super deep into a topic like this, though. She is now the resident expert in passive-solar-optimized-very-small-house design. We start car shopping, too. We need to be independently mobile in Joshua Tree.

Trench. Hose feeding trailer finally to be buried.

Reanna & treehouse near the Mexican border

Ollie, Damian

March: I’m up to 16 clients at MBMH and I’m fighting for mastery of the intense paperwork load. The clinical work is going great. My supervisor is good, I am fully engaged by my clients, and I get to see a good variety of folks–kids, adults, families, couples. The paperwork is fairly unpleasant, though. Mental health providers that get government funding spend a huge amount of time and energy creating and maintaining a paper trail for their work. These clinics get paid based on the work they claim to have done and then various agencies can audit their files and take that money back if a box wasn’t checked or a T wasn’t crossed. I spend my first very late day at work in March, trying to catch up on paperwork. Reanna is not happy.

Highlights: A great lecture by Bruce Perry, planting my first spring/summer garden, endurance training going great (I work out during my lunches at MBMH), meeting the Transition Joshua Tree folks. And Reanna. Reanna is wonderful.

Lowlights: My truck fails smog and I begin what becomes an expensive debacle trying to get it to pass.  I start having sync problems with my Mac that I am still dealing with as I write. I start working on our taxes on weekends. Reanna is Canadian and that makes our taxes super complicated and somehow even though we hired a professional we ended up owing big fines.

Abandon Ship cover art, for the TM folks. Art by Tilke.

Damian & Ollie in old billy goat pen, future garden

Me, just having sunk the garden beds. (Photo by Reanna)

Reanna planting pepper starts

Ollie

Ollie & Reanna take the trash out

Ollie & Reanna rest in the hammock

April: I find out that Morongo Basin Mental Health has decided to go out of business after more than 40 years, at the end of June. That’s quite a shock and less for me than for the many decade-plus employees I work with. At home, our three months of paleo is up and I feel fine, as I have on just about every diet I’ve tried, but it clearly had not solved any of the problems we’d been tracking for the experiment. And I am sick in bed for a week for a third time this year. Reanna’s parents arrive for a month long visit. I don’t get to see them as much as I’d like, but we get in some fun events (like the Morongo Basin Conservation Association’s “Desertwise Landscape Tour” and Transition Joshua Tree’s Water Catchment Workshop), good talks, good swimming.  I get trained in sand-tray therapy by my supervisor, Richard Gray, which I find quite useful.

Reanna preps cholla buds for dinner

Family dinner at Damian & Maya’s (Damian with Bugzooka)

Doug & Kathryn up San Jacinto

May: We get a great little car, a gift from Reanna’s parents. It gets 38 mpg unless we use the AC.  At work, emotions are high and rumors are flying around. I try to avoid it as much as possible. My coworkers are mostly looking for work with great intensity. I decide that I will chill instead, concentrate on my clients, and do what I can to get my job back with whatever company picks up the military contract in the summer.  Meanwhile,  something is eating my garden. My weekends and after work time is often spent critter-proofing.

The highlight of the month by far is meeting my new nephew, Julian.

Julian in sling

Ollie in work gloves

First scorpion of a scorpion-rich year

June: I’m at 21 clients at the beginning of my last month at MBMH. The management has had me continue taking new clients but I’m starting to get nervous about it. It’s starting to look like my clients will have a significant lapse in services, and it pisses me off. I write people in charge at the county and local journalists but no-one can say how long it will take to get the military program back up and running. I know I’m fine. I can look forward to a full season working at NBTSC if things go badly. It sucks, though, that my clients are just getting dumped. It’s screwed up. I just have to set them up as best I can for the lapse and do the tons of paperwork to close their charts. Meanwhile, my co-worker, Jackie, introduces me to Candy Crush, which starts sucking up the cracks in my schedule.

Highlights: Jonathan & Ayako’s wedding in Idaho. Motorcycle safety class with Reanna. And being married to Reanna, of course.

Living room pano: Ely, Christina, Julian, Ben, Rebeca visit

Ben & Julian

North end pano from on top of Reanna’s sewing RV

Ayako & Jonathan, getting married

July: I’m unemployed again, but within two weeks I get interviewed by Pacific Clinics, the company who got the military contract that I’d been working for at MBMH. It looks like I’ll get the job based on the reputation I’d made for myself in that position. That feels good! It means I’ll miss most of NBTSC this year, too, for the first time in 14 years.

Reanna leaves for OR to do prep work for NBTSC and I delete Candy Crush from my phone so I can get some things done: install AC in our trailer, create an outside pantry, build a greywater cistern, make a front step for the trailer, get my motorcycle license, and a few other things. Satisfying. Then I fly up to OR to work the Camp Latgawa session of NBTSC.

Reanna hangs our laundry while I goof off with the camera

Cistern in progress

Julian & me

August: Finish at NBTSC (wonderful, as usual), and spend a few short days in Eugene at an NBTSC leadership summit, then back to Joshua Tree for my last week of unemployment. I completed some last-minute landscaping and plumbing projects, built a dry toilet and installed a weather station, then started training at Pacific Clinics in Arcadia.

At the end of August, Reanna got back from her travels, and we started shutting down all lights and electronics at 8pm and just hanging out until going to bed. This was lovely. We usually laid in the hammock outside, talking and looking at stars. The desert summer evenings are really, really nice. Especially with Reanna.

My advisee group, NBTSC Camp Latgawa

Ely & Julian before dinner

Reanna & Ollie, downtown Joshua Tree

September: I start making contact with clients and by the end of the month I’m back up to 7 clients. This is exciting, and it’s nice to be working with some of my old co-workers from MBMH, and the new crew at Pacific Clinics is an entertaining bunch. Working full time again limits what I can do in terms of projects, but I manage to put a new roof on the old goat pen/the new outside pantry, go visit Quail Springs permaculture farm, and start building a new composter with my 2-year-old nephew, Ollie.

At the end of the month, I have my first birthday at home in many years. Usually I’m at camp. It’s nice. My family threw me a little party and I’m glad to be here, even though I miss my people at Farm & Wilderness.

Yes, Ollie wants to help build the composter!

Rain Event, 29 Palms

With Reanna & ocotillo, on my 42nd birthday.

 

November 12, 2012

Thoughts on Attending my First Same-Sex Wedding

Posted by Nathen under family, marriage, same-sex marriage, weddings
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On September 15th I had the pleasure of attending the wedding of my second cousin Megan to her partner of nine years and fiance of two years, Mali. I am an egalitarian man and consider the legalization of same-sex marriage a no-brainer, but I was taken completely by surprise by how profound it was for me to see, for the first time, two women get married.

The wedding was wonderful and poignant in the same ways that all really great weddings are wonderful and poignant: The site and decor were both beautiful and quirky in a way that reflected the beauty and quirkiness of Megan, Mali, and their relationship. They are such a solid couple, so clearly in love after all this time, so happy and sure about their commitment to each other. I loved seeing everyone from both families there, getting along so well, excited and supportive, catching up with each other, and forming the bonds of one, big family. And we were all so sad that Megan’s father, Ev, did not live to be there, to cry tenderly at the ceremony, to give a hilarious and heartfelt toast at the reception, and just to be his generous, wise self with us.

The wedding was also moving to me in a way that I’d never experienced before, in a way that I’ve been trying to put into words ever since.

First it hit me how different this looked and felt from the hetero weddings I’ve attended. It illuminated how, like most humans, I am effortlessly and undeniably aware of gender and gender expression in the people around me, and how I fixate and perseverate when what I see does not match what I am used to seeing. It had become completely ordinary for me to see and support same-sex couples, but I had still seen very few images of same-sex weddings.

And at the same time, it looked and felt so obviously right. Of course these two people are standing in front of their adoring families, committing their lives to one another. I’ve thought for a long time that if a couple–any couple, regardless of sexual orientation–can have a happy, stable commitment, especially with the support of their families and community, the world is a better place for it. Witnessing this wedding felt like a shift of that thought into much deeper, experiential knowledge. And why had it taken me 41 years? Simply because I had not been exposed to this moment. I feel certain that I would have been accepting, maybe even excited, as a child, by the symmetry of reality: Some men marry women, some marry men. Some women marry men, and some marry women. It’s about who you love, and who you love is different for different people. We just need access to the schema, the models, the moments.

Second, it hit me how it was Megan and Mali’s bravery that was giving me and the other 120 guests access to this moment. There is real danger as well as the certainty of judgement from a lot of people in being out like they are, and having a wedding is being all the way out. But what a gift: I got to grow into a stronger ally. I imagine we all did.

Third, I had a huge feeling of relief and excitement. Having recently been married myself, I was keenly aware of the cultural baggage that marriage and weddings carry, the history and reality of gender oppression represented by fathers giving their daughters away to husbands, the history and reality of prescriptive gender roles that have felt like prison to so many women. Would participating in these ceremonies and institutions influence my wife and I to behave against our egalitarian principles? How could we possibly know?

Suddenly, here was a wedding and a marriage that was clearly not about gender oppression. Here was proof that it can be done. Here was the possibility of the philosophical redemption of heterosexual marriage from its ugly history.

 

December 17, 2011

The Elements of Friendship According to John Gottman

Posted by Nathen under advice, books, friendship, John Gottman, lists, marriage, relationships
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John Gottman is a rock star of the science of marriage relationships. He studies them in great detail, minute interactions, facial expressions, heart rate, stress hormones. Using that data he can predict with a high degree of accuracy which relationships are heading for happiness or unhappiness, stability or divorce. I should say that this is prediction in a technical, statistical sense, not in the sense of prophecy. He can’t tell you if your relationship will fail, only whether your relationship behaves in similar ways to those that have failed in the past. Still, that’s a lot better than nothing, and it’s been enough for him to build an exciting theory of relationships.

In his theory, the most important, without-which-all-is-lost part of your relationship is the friendship. By friendship, he means several very specific things. Here is a summary of his summary from his newest book, The Science of Trust:

  1. Track your partner’s inner experience by asking lots of questions and remembering the answers.
  2. Make a habit of finding things to appreciate your partner for and letting them know each time you do.
  3. Notice the things your partner does and says that could be responded to, and respond positively to them. Pretty much all of them—you can miss or fail to respond to at most 3 out of 20.

If you are not doing this work, he says, you are not behaving like couples who manage to sustain satisfying, meaningful, passionate relationships, who manage conflict well enough, and who stay together longer than 6 years. Maintaining friendship in this manner is the bare minimum.

 

April 17, 2011

John Gottman on Contempt, Idiots, Maniacs

Posted by Nathen under contempt, criticism, four horsemen of the apocalypse, George Carlin, John Gottman, marriage, video
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March 2, 2011

Husbands, Stop Rehearsing Distress-Maintaining Attributions

Posted by Nathen under attribution, Couples and Family Therapy, gender, John Gottman, marriage, marriage and family therapy, relationships
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One of the ways that John Gottman says people talk themselves out of their marriages is “rehearsing distress-maintaining attributions” in between arguments. That is, instead of making up stories about how their troubles are passing and circumstantial, they make up stories about how their troubles have to do with permanent flaws in their partner’s character. Over time, this version of the story solidifies and they reinterpret the entire history of the relationship using that filter.

This is another of Gottman’s gendered findings; it is mostly a problem because the men (in heterosexual marriages, at least) do it. It’s a problem when women do it, too, they just don’t tend to as much.

The alternative to rehearsing distress-maintaining attributions is rehearsing relationship-enhancing attributions, and this is exactly what Gottman found that the people in marriages that ended up happy and stable did. It’s probably a good idea, then, to practice rehearsing relationship-enhancing attributions if you can. Try thinking about the strengths of your relationship, good times, things you are proud of, ways that current conflict is passing and circumstantial. If that is difficult to do, think instead about couples counseling.  If you want to keep your relationship, you probably need help.

 

May 11, 2010

Divorce and Ideology?

Posted by Nathen under alcohol abuse, Americans, battering, Democrats, divorce, drug abuse, education, family values, headlines, marriage, National Public Radio, social class, statistics, unintended pregnancy
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I listened to a story on NPR a couple days ago about a how high divorce rates and teen-pregnancy rates are correlated to the state’s political ideology. Republican states have significantly more divorce and teen pregnancy. In fact, as a whole, the US divorce rate has been holding steady since the mid-90s, while the “red state” divorce rates (and teen-pregnancy rates) continue to rise. That means the blue states make up the difference and their rates are falling. NPR speculated that it’s because in family-values states, people get married earlier because of social pressure or so they can have sex, but choose badly because they don’t know themselves as well as they would several years later, when Democrats tend to get married. They also note that states that are swinging Democratic, like New Hampshire, are starting to have less divorce and teen pregnancy too.

It makes some sense, though I wouldn’t have guessed it. There are a couple of things not made explicit in the story that I wonder about. First, I wonder if the Republican fixation on “family values” issues is being driven by this phenomenon; to someone living in a Republican state, divorce and teen pregnancy are really pressing issues, because their ideology and behavior are not matching up. It could even be a vicious cycle: Values driving divorce driving values…. Second, I wonder how much of this has to do with money. Social class, really. Red states tend to be poorer, and poverty puts serious stress on a marriage. And poverty is correlated with a lot of other stressors, like substance abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse. Also, they mention that the demographic whose divorce rates are dropping the most are women who have graduated from college. I’ve been attending a state university for a few years now, and I can tell you that it’s not full of poor people. These kids (‘ parents) have money.

 

May 3, 2010

Predictors of Divorce, According to Elizabeth Gilbert

Posted by Nathen under age, alcohol abuse, battering, children, divorce, education, Elizabeth Gilbert, infidelity, lists, marriage, mental illness, relationships, statistics, violence
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Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book about marriage, Commitment, lays out her interpretation of a Rutgers report on divorce statistics. Here’s her list of things that correlate with divorce, in the order she mentions them. She lays them out with a lot more subtlety, humor, and personality, but read the book if you want that.

Your parents are divorced

You are alcoholic

You are mentally ill

You cheat on your spouse

You gamble compulsively

You are violent

You are younger than 25

You have not gone to college (especially the woman)

You have children

You lived with your spouse before marriage

You have different racial backgrounds

You are different ages

You have different religions

You have different ethnic backgrounds

You have different cultural backgrounds

You have different careers

You don’t know your neighbors

You don’t belong to social clubs

You don’t live near your families

You are not religious

The man does not do housework

 

April 26, 2010

Interracial Marriage, Legal for 43 Years

Posted by Nathen under free will, generations, marriage, probability, racism, Supreme Court
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Reanna is reading me a book, called Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage, a memoir about a marriage and the history and culture of marriage. I’m only just into chapter 3, but so far, it’s good.

One thing the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, writes is that in 1967, when interracial marriage was made legal by the Supreme Court, seven out of ten Americans believed that it should remain illegal.

!

Wow. It’s hard to imagine anyone outside of the most racist crackpot seriously defending that position anymore. I wonder how many of that 70% are still alive, and what they think now? Two generations–the Lost Generation (born 1883-1900) and the G.I. generation (born 1901-1924)–have died since then. Two have been born since then–Gen X and Millennial. But two entire generations, Silent and Boomers, are still alive from that time.

I also wonder how many people would still believe interracial marriage should be illegal, if not for that activist-court decision? Could it be that if not for the Supreme Court’s very unpopular interpretation in 1967 that 70% of us would still believe that interracial marriage should be illegal? Would the anti-miscegenation laws have been struck down anyway, by political representatives of the liberal Boomers when they came to power?

And isn’t it easy to imagine that you would have been one of the 30% enlightened people in 1967 and hard to imagine otherwise? Chances are, though, we would have been in the racist camp. This kind of realization is one of the big reasons I doubt the existence of (much, at least) free will. It really seems as if I’ve come to my views on interracial marriage (and most other things) through consideration of facts, but it’s quite likely that the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision had a bigger effect on my beliefs than any of my own efforts have.

 

March 1, 2010

Mo’ and Chad

Posted by Nathen under Chad, community, humor, Jeannie Lee, marriage, video
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Two of my good friends, Mo’ and Chad, have never met, even though I’ve known Chad for 33 years and Mo’ for 9. It’s geographical–Mo’ is part of my Oregon community and Chad is in southern California. It’s too bad because they’re both really funny and it would be great to get to watch them riff. Mo’, for example, early on, decided that Chad was my imaginary friend and made a lot of good fun of me: “Oh, riiight, Nathen– “Chad” climbed Mt. Whitney with you…” etc.

When Chad married another good friend of mine, Jeannie, a few years ago, Mo’ and his partner Vangie made this video for them. I’m not sure how funny it will be if you don’t know Mo’ or Chad, but if you’re reading this blog, you probably know one or both of them, and I think it’s just plain funny:

 

February 17, 2010

The No-Secrets Policy

Posted by Nathen under CFT cohort, countertransference, Couples and Family Therapy, graduate school, infidelity, marriage, marriage and family therapy, no-secrets policy, relationships, secrets, statistics
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Yesterday, I participated in my master’s program’s OSCEs–Objective Structured Clinical Exercises–for the students in the year ahead of me, who are about to graduate. My cohort played clients in specific, challenging scenarios for the second-year-cohort therapists. The activity was adapted from a medical school test of clinical ability.

My scenario was the most challenging of the day. The therapists came in expecting to be doing a goal setting exercise with a couple but found that only one of us (me) had showed up. I was to immediately disclose an affair and request that the therapist not tell my wife about it. I had ended the affair, felt very guilty about it, and was certain that revealing it would destroy our relationship. I was to try and get the therapist to help me with the “things that pushed me to do this.”

I am not a good actor, so it took all my attention just to get my part across in a semi-believable way. When I watched my cohort-mates play the same part, though, it was heart wrenching. They did such a good job showing remorse, almost crying, showing the fear of losing their husbands, and over “a stupid mistake.” (Well, three stupid mistakes with one person.) I really felt for them–and they were just pretending! I can see how much preparation I will need to do to handle this kind of situation effectively. I am certain to have clients who have affairs. I just looked up the statistics, and the lowest numbers I found are that about 15% of married women and 25% of married men have sexual affairs. That means that at least one out of four couples I see will have had or are heading towards an affair.

Our clinic has a “no secrets” policy for couples counseling. It’s something we bring up on the first day of therapy. If one member of a family has an individual session, what is said in that session is not going to be confidential to the rest of the family. The idea is that for this work, it is the relationship that is our primary client, not the individuals, and that secrets (differentiated from privacy) are toxic to relationships. Also, if the we are brought into one person’s secret and keep it, we can no longer serve the relationship without bias.

I think that the no-secrets policy is a good idea and I have been planning to use it in my work, but now, seeing it in practice, I see that it’s not just a matter of having a policy. I will need to thoroughly wrap my head around how it will apply in different scenarios. I will need to talk it through with a lot of people so I feel comfortable and confident in my thinking. I will also need to remember to remind clients about the no-secrets policy the moment I see that a couples client has come in alone. We introduce the policy during the first session, but that may not be what a client is thinking about when they disclose an affair. They may think that I have trapped or betrayed them if their disclosure is followed by, “Remember that no-secrets policy we talked about during our first session?”

Ideally, in this case, we would work together with the client on a palatable way to reveal their actions to their partner and then work with the couple to heal the rifts. We don’t automatically tell the partner about affairs, either. There are some things that we are required by law and ethics to report, like death threats or the abuse or neglect of a child, but affairs are not one of them. If the cheating partner refuses to allow revealing the secret, I would have to refer the couple, for suitably non-specific reasons, to another therapist who could be unbiased, if in the dark.

I think that I need to rid myself of some countertransference when it comes to affairs. That is, as it stands, I think I might favor cheat-ee over cheating clients, because it’s harder for me to relate to cheating. I walked out of our role plays thinking, “Wow, it’s so much simpler and less painful to avoid an affair than it is to deal with the aftermath!” Can anyone recommend a good book or movie that could help me empathize with someone having an affair–especially someone who feels like they are not in control of their actions, or just not thoughtful, in sexual infidelity?

This is interesting and sometimes painful work I am getting myself into!

 

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