Lazy Healing, Hiccup Conversion, and Sex Exploration

Bobcast! Patron emails!

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/KIRK to get 10% off your first month.

00:00 PiS in public
01:56 How do you achieve secure attachment despite internal resistance? 
08:28 What about needing therapy makes Bob sad? 
10:32 Why may psychological echoes occur when starting therapy?  
16:03 What constitutes childhood sexual exploration vs. abuse?
34:42 'R', 'Sydney', 'Carl' OPP
39:25 How do you help clients that are in relationships that aren't serving them

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September 3, 2025

The Psychology In Seattle Podcast ®

Trigger Warning: This episode may include topics such as assault, trauma, and discrimination. If necessary, listeners are encouraged to refrain from listening and care for their safety and well-being.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Bob emails, what do you say?

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Well, yeah, but before we get to the emails, what,
I was on the train down to the airport, Oh, yeah,
last week, and this guy is about to get off
and he walks up to me and he's like, are
you doctor, Bob? And I'm like, well, I don't know
about the doctor part, but I'm Bob. He's like, I
listened to this podcast Psychology in Seattle and I hear

(00:23):
you on there. And anyways, I got recognized in public.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
They recognized, like your face, yeah, because sometimes people will
recognize the voice, right, so hear you talking or something.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I don't know, as far as I know, he recognized my.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Because you're not in many videos or anything.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Now there's a picture of me on the website. Yeah,
so whatever, and I'm less gray hair then, But yeah,
I don't know how. I don't know how he recognized me.
Maybe it was maybe he overheard me talking to Colleen
or whatever.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
But how to feel it was fun?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, it was trippy. Yeah, yeah, it was cool. Yeah
that happened. It happens to you.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'm just it doesn't happen very often.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, well, you know, it's like, but I'd like it.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
I like it when it happens. Yeah, people are always
really nice, respectful and stuff. Yeah, I find that they
often feel like they're interfering. But it it it. It
doesn't happen very often. So you know, if I was
like an a less celebrity or something and it was

(01:24):
happening all the time, I guess it would get a
little bothersome. Maybe I don't know, but yeah, it happens
so infrequently, and the way that people interact is pretty limited.
You know. It's not like they just sit down and say, hey,
let's talk. They will often say almost nothing, and I'm
the one that's asking them questions, you know, because I'm

(01:45):
curious as to what they like about the podcast, or
how long they've been listening, or what sort of stuff
they watch or whatever. So but yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
It was fun, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
This email is from Annual middle Tier, anonymous patron. She says,
I have a question for Bob. First, I want to
say how much I appreciate your story and your commitment
to growing and healing. It can be so easy to
settle into good enough and give up on creating something better,
and I have often looked to you as a role model,

(02:18):
as someone who never gets lazy about emotional growth. Would
you say that's true about you, Bob?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Not never, but yeah, buy and large.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, you face the shit and you have a therapist
that really makes you face the shit, and you voluntarily
hired him because of that and have been seeing him
for years. Yeah, it'd be easier to not.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
It, would I think about it all the time too.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, which leads to my question. She says, I discovered
Stan Tatkin last year. His books on his books and
description of avoiding attachment was so on the nose for
me that it really helped me understand attachment theory in
a personal way. My question for you, since you are
familiar with his work chiming in here. Are you familiar

(03:02):
with his work?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, I'm going to Los Angeles on Friday to go
to a conference he's giving. He's my personal he's my
current professional crush. Yeah. I've taken lots of training from him. Yeah,
good guy.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah. So my understanding is that he is an expert
on attachment theory and neurology.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
That is part of his thing. Yeah. Yeah, brain. That
guy can talk about a brain, holy cow.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, and about relationships and about how the brain works
in attachment and distress management and fear.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
And also big time object relations guy.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, he is a very interesting cat.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Going on, what do you do if you have a
strong internal resistance to creating the secure functioning relationship that
he describes? And she goes on here, so it sounds
like she is absorbing what stan tac Can saying. And
she's saying, I don't know if I you know, I

(04:04):
get it, but I don't know if I want to
do it right. So she goes on, I read his
description of things to do to create a secure relationship,
and it does not sound like something I want for
my life. I suppose that is what it means to
be avoidant, though if I follow his advice, my physiology
does not allow me to benefit from his tactics. I

(04:26):
don't relax with hugs. I find the majority of prolonged
physical contact quite distressing. So just chiming it sounds like
what she's saying is this Stantac can well recommend as
a part of the overall need physiologically and psychologically for
us to have physical contact warmth. And she's saying, I

(04:47):
don't like hugs. I don't like prolonged physical contact. Ike
going on, I can never calmly gaze into someone else's
eyes because it provokes anxiety in me. The concept of
play is the bedroom and out is anathema to me.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
I do have a.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Partner of more than a decade, but discounting the first
infatuation phase, I would say that our relationship is practical
and functional, and I would not call it intimate or passionate.
What are some tactics to begin a journey of change
that you think you should do logically, even if emotionally
and physically the results initially seem unattractive end of email.

(05:25):
So basically, she's saying, even though I really don't want
to do these things, and I'm not even sure if
I would, it kind of sounds like she's not entirely
convinced it would help to push past it or something. Yeah,
but she's so convinced by stand tacking that She's like,
but it sounds like I'm supposed to do that. I
don't know. She's ambivalent about it. What advice would you

(05:46):
have for that?

Speaker 2 (05:47):
I'd say, why do you think you have to? If
you're satisfied with how things are, then like, if it
ain't broke, don't fix it? Right If what's going on
for you is good or good enough, great, then then
you don't you don't need to do anything. I think
that's fantastic. What I really think is there is no right,
one right way to be in a relationship. There's no

(06:10):
one right formula to have for a relationship. The relationship
is there as a resource as you want it to be.
So if it's what you want, great. If there's elements
of it that you don't want or want something different
or more, then that's where to go for And your
body will tell you. Yeah, if you want more of this,
more and more sex, or more some kind of sex,

(06:31):
or or more you know whatever. I mean. Playfulness is
not the right thing to do. It's so, it's just
it's just it works probably for a lot of people,
but it doesn't work for everybody. So if you're satisfied, don't,
don't change a thing. Fuck it, it's not important. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
I would piggyback on that by saying it sounds to
be anonymous and what was it, anonymous Middletier patron that
you might your avoidant nature or your fearful, disorganized attachment
nature might be as a defense to establish and maintain

(07:13):
this status quo is to focus on the most extreme advice,
so to speak, the stand tech can provides.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Oh, that's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Because you're focusing on the hugs and the eye contact
and the play in the bedroom and yeah, that's pretty
advanced stuff. Yeah, and there's so many things you can
do short of that that would be pretty significant and
also very healing and helpful.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
Oh, I just love this response. That's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Well, why do you love it?

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Because what you're doing is you're suggesting that what they're
writing in is their defense is actually talking yeah, directly
right and scaring the shit out of them, you know whatever.
It's fascinating. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
So like eye contact, yeah, that be good, But staring
into someone else's eyes that causes anxiety for anyone.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
It's just a lot babies have to downregulate by looking away,
and they get fucked over by parents that won't let them.
So just because gazing into somebody's eyes could be a
resource for helping your body soothing, Colm, doesn't mean it's
a good thing. Babies look away, babies, normal babies look away?

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, all right, just take a break, yeah, or back
from the break. Another email from YouTube member and annual
Long term pat Rebecca from Philly. Wow, what's going on?

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Man?

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah? They say hi, Doctor Kirk and Bob. I was
listening to the Patroon episode titled Bob's Attachment from twenty
twenty two, and I had a question for Bob. You
mentioned that needing therapy makes you feel sad. I'm curious
what thoughts come to mind when you think about needing therapy.

(08:57):
What about needing therapy makes you feel sad? Initially, it
made me think of how I often hear shame about
needing therapy. But it didn't sound like that's what you're
talking about. It sounded like maybe you were talking about
how what happened in your life, combined with having to
get comfortable with getting help outside of yourself, has been
hard to accept on some level. But maybe I'm off

(09:18):
I'd like to hear more about what's going on with
you internally when expressing that thought that needing therapy makes
you feel sad? Love you both? Is that weird to say?
I hope not? End of email. Yeah, Rebecca, that's super
weird and creepy that you say you love us both.
Just joking.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
I think it's nice. We love you.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
We love you too, Bob, why does it make you
feel sad to need therapy?

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, I suppose it isn't the needing therapy that really
makes me sad. It's the pain that is inside that
is there that Let's see, how am I saying this.
I don't. I don't mind needing therapy, That's fine. What
I what I'm sad about is the pain that already
lives inside me that made it necessary and having suffered

(10:06):
for you know, years with you know, all this shit
I had to go through. So that's what makes me sad.
But I'm not sad to go to the doctor to get,
you know, help. I'm sad because you know, I cut
my hand. I mean, that's that's.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Well, great metaphor, but well, no, the metaphor would be
you'd be sad if your friend punched you in the face,
which made you have to go to the doctor.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Right, that's that's yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, yeah, all right. Next email long term Annual, anonymous
patient from California. She says, at the end of the
recent bobcast, you mentioned getting to the end of your
Google doc for Bob, so I thought I would ask
a quick, silly question. I was plagued with hiccups during

(10:52):
my chaotic childhood. When I moved out at eighteen, they
tapered off and stopped. Inspired by listening to psychology in Seattle,
I started therapy a couple of years ago. For the
first six months, the hiccups came back with a vengeance.
My question is do these sorts of psychological echoes happen

(11:12):
often for people starting therapy? And an email Bob, what
do you think?

Speaker 2 (11:16):
I don't think it's common, but I don't know. What
I thought was conversion disorder. Yep, but I don't really know.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, it's well understood, goes
back a long time, very common. You know, we can't know.
But the possibility, strong possibility, given what you've seen, is
that the hiccups were a manifestation of the stress you
had in childhood, either because it was your body's way

(11:48):
of trying to alert yourself and others that you weren't
going you weren't doing okay. But it could also just
be cortisol levels resulting in something that triggers a cascade
of physiological responses out of eventually lead to like indigestion
which lead to hiccups or something you know it's just
hard to know how the body works in that way. Also,

(12:08):
our neural chemicals that are in our brain are also
in our gut, you know, the gut brain system, and
it could throw something off there. Who knows. And then,
of course, as you left the house and we're no
longer experiencing that trauma on a daily basis, your body regulated,
and then when you enter therapy, you at the very

(12:31):
least were touching on the emotions that were involved in childhood,
if not flat out talking about what happened when you
were a child, and that stress came back. Also, it's
a regression to some extent. Your body is going back
to that mode. You know, there's our inner child comes
out and the coping mechanisms and the expressions, including the

(12:55):
hiccups would come to the forefront. What's great is that
in your email, the longer email, you were saying that
you don't it was just a temporary period. So in
a way it's a pretty strong indicator that you were
doing what you're supposed to be doing and healing.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
But did you have a question about conversions?

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Is it common anymore?

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Well, it depends on what we mean by you say conversion. Disorder,
which is in the DSM, but conversions is a broader topic,
are very common. Yeah, I would venture to say we
all have some conversions, some somatic manifestations, and sometimes you know,
there's some obvious ones like blindness or numbness or something the.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Glove NSDSA you ever, you know, like the their hand
goes numb. Yeah, and it doesn't follow, you know, the
way the nerves work. But like I can't feel on my.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Left hand, meaning that functionally there's nothing wrong with the nerves,
but the person can't feel right, that sort of thing.
Those are obvious examples of conversions. But you know, somatic
experiences as a result of psychological stress is universal, right,
But you wouldn't call, you know, we typically don't call

(14:11):
like losing sleep a conversion, or indigestion a conversion, or
diarrhea or headaches or fatigue or something. But they're all
in the psychoanalytic sense somatic conversions. They're just not on
the obvious and at the at the high level of

(14:35):
intensity that would qualify for conversion disorder. You know, the
DSM just took a psychoanalytic term and tried to formalize it.
And there's a pretty high bar that. But yeah, conversions
are very normal, but we're all having.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Them all the time.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
And then yeah, the conversions that are more obvious like this,
were more common in the past. It's hard to know exactly,
but anecdotally it seems that way because back then there
were even fewer opportunities to talk about your emotions, and
it was more socially acceptable actually to express stress through

(15:13):
physical means like that. In fact, around the world, when
you look at other cultures, every culture has a different
sense of what's allowed emotionally, and you will see that correlation.
With less ability to express emotionally, you'll see more, at

(15:33):
least anecdotes of conversions, more clear manifestations of converting one
psychological stress into a somatic, real experience. You know, that's
the thing. It's not all in their heads and they're
not making it up. They literally are blind. They literally
are paralyzed. So you know, there's that. All right, It's

(15:57):
take a break, we get back more emails. All right,
back from the break. Next email is about sexual child childhood,
sexual exploration versus childhood abuse anonymous listeners. She says, in

(16:18):
your first Pedophile episode with Jay, just chiming in, did
you listen to that episode. This was an episode a
couple of years ago I interviewed someone who used the
pseudonym of Jay, and he talked about his own pedophilia
and his urges in his tremendous amount of trauma that
he'd been through as a child and as an adult.

(16:40):
And there was a story he told about having been
attracted to his niece and how I don't know if
he would use this term, but he basically was grooming
her but resisting actually sexually assaulting her, but was having

(17:02):
a lot of romantic esque sort of attraction to her
and spending a lot of time with her, giving a
lot of attention, and then it was scaring him. So
he actually told his brother, the father of the girl
that he had he was a pedophile and that his
feelings towards his little daughter was a concern. The brother

(17:23):
was sympathetic but protective of his daughter obviously, but the wife,
the mom, was not sympathetic and cut off at least
when we were talking. So you know, that was just
one story, but also just the amount of Tronomy's been through,
Like his dad killed himself and was talking with the

(17:47):
son like right up until the moment or something like that,
and then he went to church to try to find
a community and heal and he befriended a couple at
the church who kind of took him in, and then
the wife sexually assaulted him, and then he ran away

(18:08):
from that. And so it was just a really interesting interview,
and it was, you know, one of the many interviews
that I do, but for whatever reason, it became I
think it's our most popular YouTube video we've ever made.
We've made like five thousand videos or something, so's it's
been kind of an interesting thing. And so that's prompted
a lot of other pedophiles to email me saying that

(18:30):
they would like to come on the podcast, and I've
interviewed a few of them as well, from different you know,
coming at it from different angles. But anyway, so anonymous
listener says, in your first Pedophile episode with Jay, he
mentioned he experienced sexual activity with a slightly older girl
and it was labeled abusive. Okay, just chiming in. I

(18:52):
don't remember that. So it sounds like he's saying, oh, yeah, yeah,
actually I do remember that that when he was in
grade school, there was a slightly older girl that he
had this really intense, close sexual attachment relationship with and
the thought is maybe that kind of imprinted on him

(19:14):
or something somehow anyway, But according to the anonymous listener,
it was labeled as abusive by Jay. While I don't
disagree with that term, I'm curious about the differences between
child and child abuse and child exploration, if there is one.
I very briefly experienced something similar with my male cousin

(19:34):
as a child, and while I don't feel especially traumatized
by that, I'm now a parental figure to a nine
year old girl, and I wanted to know what's considered
normal expressions of sexuality and what's considered abusive. Thank you,
And if you mail Bob, what do you think?

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Well, I'm wondering about the what do you mean normal
expressions of sexuality toward a nine year old? Like? What
are they asking? Do you know? Yeah, that's essentially, Oh,
don't express sexual interest in a nine year old? I
think right, No, No.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Childhood sexual exploration is a thing.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Oh yeah, I thought they were talking about they're attracted
to a nine year old niece. Is that what they're saying? No?
Did I mishear it?

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Oh God, let's reread this. I very briefly experienced something
similar with my male cousin as a child, meaning similar
of age.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, yeah, And while I.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
Don't feel especially traumatized by that, I now I'm now
a parent figure to a nine year old girl, and
I wanted to know what's considered normal expressions of sexuality
for nine year olds with them.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Oh, I'm so sorry, I totally misheard this, Okay, yeah, well,
you know, I'm reminded of Amanda Franklin that class we took.
I don't even remember what it was, was it child
development or a child whatever. Anyways, what she said was,
let's see, I can remember there is an amount of

(21:03):
exploration between kids that's totally normal and innocent, and usually
they're kind of giggly and nervous about it, and it
doesn't have any kind of negative impact. It's just like
kind of like that's the way the species is. So
I suppose you would consider it trauma if there was
a traumatic or post traumatic effect, and if there's not,

(21:25):
then it isn't right. And I know that they have
these like, you know, standards around you know, the age
difference between you know, the two kids, that whatever, and
so I think the least when I remember is five
years is what they consider, you know, like maybe it's

(21:46):
more than just kids playing and maybe it's a kind
of exploitation or what or I don't know, and I
don't even know about that. I mean, it's just sort
of arbitrary. I guess you got to put a number somewhere.
But I guess as the age difference between two kids
that are exploring, is that age difference grows, maybe the
likelihood that it would be coercive or sexually abusive or
some kind of power dynamic also grows.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah. Yeah, the five year thing I think is when
we're talking about an adult with a minor Okay, I
and even then I'm not sure about that, And there's
different statutes in every state, and I don't know the
statues regarding children. But even then, it's you know, whenever

(22:34):
the law tries to formalize these things, it's a little
silly but not bad to try to have some guidelines
around it. But anyway, Yeah, all that is what I
would say. It depends on harm and trauma, which usually
depends on things like coercion, intimidation, and demands for secrecy,

(22:56):
power differential, this sort of thing. Society we usually do
focus on just age difference. But that's silly because you
can actually be sexually abused by someone younger than you. Yeah,
so you know, a seven year old can absolutely sexually
abuse a ten year old, a seventeen year old can

(23:17):
absolutely sexually abuse a twenty nine year old. Think it
could happen. It's not common for that to happen given
the age difference, but it has happened that those things
have happened. And just looking at age is this really
stupid way that society. Society today at least on Twitter
and stuff, will just look at age, Like if you

(23:41):
have a twenty two year old that's dating an eighteen
year old, they'll be like pedophilele I mean, what the
fuck is now? Maybe, but it's so stupid people are
I don't know anyway. Yeah, but the problem is is
we don't want harm to happen to begin with. We
don't want to assess after the fact is their harm

(24:04):
and then say, oh, well that was not age appropriate
sexual exploration. That was traumatizing because you can have two
nine year olds who have a gigly experience and it's
you know, from the outside, if you saw it so
to speak, or knew the details. You would say, well
that sounds like normal, typical kind of stuff. Well that

(24:27):
can that can be abusive, That can be harmful. Also,
you can have something that would likely produce trauma and harm,
but it doesn't actually produce trauma harm. It's not something
we want to endorse because it would very much risk harm.
But harm is an automatic from a scenario that you
could lay out in a vignette. The other thing is

(24:49):
the harm and the trauma can the effects can be delayed,
or can be unconscious, or children might not feel comfortable,
or even adults looking back, they might now feel comfortable
even disclosing that they were harmed. So it's such a
hard thing to assess for but I took some notes
on this just to kind of formalize this. So when

(25:12):
it comes to age appropriate sexual exploration, the typical characteristics
are that the children are of similar age. They are
of similar developmental level, which is also important because just
being you know, like a ten year old can have
although age wise is much younger than a fifteen year old,

(25:33):
if the fifteen year old suffers from a developmental disability,
that fifteen year old might have the mindset of a
five year old or something and so therefore a ten
year old has that power and that ability to exploit
and use. But there's also the difference in power regarding
social power wealth, Like if you are a wealthy family

(25:56):
and you have a servant or something, that servant has
a child, and the master's child has power over the
servants child. That kind of thing. Also, another aspect typical
to age appropriate sexual expiration is that it tends to

(26:17):
be as you were saying, Bob, it's kind of brief.
It's infrequent, it's spontaneous, driven by curiosity. It's not driven
by a desire to exploit or to have sex or something.
It's usually just huh, I wonder what yours look I
heard about penises today, What does your penis look like?

(26:39):
Or whatever? You know? And then I'll show you yours
if you show me. Mind. Now, that can be abusive,
you know, the common experience. So that's why it gets
kind of weird. And this is why it's so important
that we talk with kids in an age appropriate way
so that they can know that they can say no,

(26:59):
because children, when they're not given those tools and they're
faced with a scenario like this, which isn't extremely common,
but it's common enough, then they don't know what to
do and they give in and or something minorly bad
happens and they don't tell anyone about it, and then

(27:19):
it progresses. So in the same way that you can't
protect your child from falling down, for example, what you
want to do is do your best to prevent them
from falling down, But also you want to teach them
how to walk and how to detect when there's danger afoot,

(27:40):
like hey, don't run down this rocky hill, so that
when they are not with you, then they can gauge
that for themselves. It's the same thing here. Also in
age appropriate sexual expiration, there's no coercion, there's no bribery,
there's no intimidation, there's no threats, there's no force, there's

(28:00):
no demanded secrecy. As I was talking about. Common experiences
include things like you know, like I was saying, questions
about once private parts, about like what is your thing?
What does your peep look like?

Speaker 2 (28:15):
That kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Also private stimulation or even self stimulation, sorry, private self
simulation also essentially masturbation, but not like to orgasm, just
kind of like rubbing, right, That's that can be very
very normal even for babies, infants, but sometimes children in

(28:38):
an age appropriate way, in a non intimidating, non course
of way, well we'll do it together or something stimulation
of each other. That's not typical. It's not automatically a problem,
but that's a pretty big red flag. Also, another typical
scenario would be playing house, and as a part of that,

(29:00):
kids will in their way say, Okay, we're gonna play house,
and that means I'm gonna come home from work and
we're gonna go on our laptop and answer some emails,
and then we're gonna cook dinner, and then we're gonna
have or whatever they think, you know, we're gonna have
mommy and daddy time. And they just get into bed

(29:21):
together like a simulated bed and they like they like
go ooh ooh because they heard their parents having sex
one time and that's all. But they don't do any
sort of insertion or any sort of rubbing or stimulation.
It's just it's just play.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Right.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Sometimes that can manifest is like get on top of
me and move because I heard that that's what is
done or something. You know, it can get a little
interesting and again still age appropriate. Now that isn't to
say that that can't be harmful. It absolutely can. That
sort of playing house can. So that's another point that

(29:58):
I want to make is that you can have you know,
I think it's not hard for us to detect a
situation in which harm is obviously happening where you have
a kid who is doing this with a lot of
different kids, has been abused themselves or exposed to pornography
or something, and has a mission. Right they're going over

(30:22):
to their friend's house or their cousin's house, and it
seems like they were planning on doing this thing and
they wanted to kind of groom, so to speak, their
peer into going along with this sexual play. And the
sexual play is pretty advanced, and the other kid is

(30:46):
not really wanting to do it, but kind of feels
pushed into it. It involves kind of an elaborate attempt
to keep it secret behind closed doors, and that kind
of thuff. You know, that's pretty easy to detects like, oh,
that's probably going to be harmful to the child, because
you know, the key here is that trauma isn't just
an action. It's the way it's felt and the way

(31:08):
that it feels when you're the victim of that is,
I'm being used as a sack of meat, I'm being
pushed around, I'm being scared into doing something, I'm being pressured,
I'm being bulldozed, and now my body is someone else's
and that is extremely traumatizing. It's very unsafe to feel

(31:30):
that way, and it translates to the outside world after
that event, where you generally feel unsafe. You generally feel
like your body isn't yours. You generally don't trust other
people to not have that intent right, to not have
that wish to do that to you, regardless of your
feelings about it. That's very unnerving, and so that's the trauma.

(31:52):
So we've all heard that. But when something is more subtle,
like you have, say to kids who both come to
the table and say, let's play house again. And I
heard that mommy and daddy have sex sometimes, so let's
you get on top of me and you're supposed to
make noises or so or I don't know, and that happens,

(32:16):
and the person who actually initiated the play actually has
trauma afterwards. That can happen because it can become kind
of weird for them and it could feel unnerving or
too or it went too far. Like say you have
two nine year olds or something, and one person is

(32:37):
like you know, say you have a girl who hangs
out with her boy cousin and is just like I,
and the girl is the one I want to play
house And the girl says, Okay, we're gonna cook dinner,
and then okay, cousin of mine, I want you to
get on top of me and I want you to
bounce up and down. And you know, it only lasts
for like a few seconds, but during that time and

(32:58):
then he's he he doesn't even want to do it.
He's just sort of like, that's what I'm being told,
and I want to play with my cousin.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
So he does it.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Then it ends and they move on with their day.
But her, the one who initiated it, could be harmed
by that because maybe he got a little aroused, maybe
she got a little roused. Maybe it felt unsafe because
he was on top of her and he's bigger than
her or something, and it felt kind of scary, even

(33:27):
though she was the one that initiated it. So that's
why it gets kind of weird. And this is why
we want to talk with kids, and we can't avoid
kids going through bad experiences at all times, unless we
lock them in a cage.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Which is a bad experience. Right.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yeah. So the problem is is that when you talk
about this in society, especially when we think about actually
communicating to kids, everyone gets or most people get up
in arms about it and freak the fuck out and
think that to talk about such a thing would be
revealing that you're some sort of perth, which is just

(34:05):
a huge problem and perpetuates all of the secrecy and
harm that continues to happen for children. It's a huge problem.
Parents are better on average today than they were thirty
years ago, but not by much. And schools are a
little bit better today than they were thirty years ago,
but not by much. And so I understand the question.

(34:28):
But that's my answer to that question. Let's do one
more email. After a short little break, what do you say?

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Right on?

Speaker 1 (34:42):
All right, we're back from the break. I want to
do a little opp call out to some patrons. What
do you say to that?

Speaker 2 (34:54):
I say, R, let's do R.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Oh you want to do our okay typing in R
and I'm just gonna go regardless of length. So we
have Raya from Oakland, who has been a patron since
three days ago. Welcome Raya, Thank you, Raya. And then

(35:20):
we have Laura Rose from floyd Floyd's Knobs, Indiana.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Is it the knobs with the kay Yeah?

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Huh Floyd's Knobs, Floyd's Knobs. No apostrophe?

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Oh? Is it all one word?

Speaker 1 (35:39):
No?

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Two words? Floyd's Knobs.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
She became a patron five days ago. And then we
got I'm only reading the people that give their their address.
So we have Robin from Akron, Ohio, who became a
patron a week ago.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
And we have Ryan from Sacramento, California, who became a
patron about a month ago, so thank you so much.
We also have another Ryan from Montreal, So we had
two Ryans who became a patron within one day of
each other.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Isn't that trippy?

Speaker 1 (36:19):
That's weird? Isn't that weird? Are there any other examples
of something like that happening? Give me a name, like
a first name, because it's kind of funny sometimes to think, like, so,
give me a first name, Loretta Lorette. How do you
spell that? Would you say?

Speaker 2 (36:35):
To tease? To tease?

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, no, lorettas if I'm spelling it right.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Sydney with a Y. Now Sydney, yeah with.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
A y s y Right, that's like Sydney. There are
six Sydney's, right on, Is that funny?

Speaker 2 (36:50):
That's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Sydney from god knows where? And then we have Sydney
from Overland Park, Kansas. And then we have an other Sydney,
so I say Sydney L. And then we have Sydney
G from Gondos or Sydney. Another Sydney from Seattle. Hey,
it looks like she lives in West Seattle or he
or she. I don't know the gender. And then we

(37:13):
have Cydy I. And then we have another Sydney from Reno, Nevada.
Isn't that kind of interesting? That's give me another name.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Carl, Carl.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
There's not a lot of Carls in the world anymore. Oh,
we got some Carls.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
You see.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
See we got Carl from Rochester, New York. We have
Carl from Sweden. Seems like a like a yeah, those
are the only two Carls, but we have a lot
of car Lee's. Here's another Carl from They say Rochester.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Uh yeah, I already said right we uh oh no, wait,
there are two carls from Rochester. WHOA wait, wait, Carl C.
You have two accounts I think you have, which means
you're being charged twice, Carl C Way to go, Yeah,
because same address. So you might want to cancel one

(38:15):
of your accounts because you've signed up twice within a
couple of days. Every time. I know that happens sometimes
when when people so you got to log in with
the same email anyway, or.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Or or sign up a third time? Why not? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Uh, There's a Carlie from God Knows where. Another so
carly D from God Know, Carl G from God Knows where,
Carli nothing for God Knows where, Carlen, a Carleen from
God Knows Where. A David Carlyle from Europe somewhere or
England or Britain. We have a Laura Carlyle from God

(38:49):
knows where. We have a Carli from Germany. We have
a Caitlin Carlton from Shoreline, Washington. We have a Carly
B from God Knows where. And we have a Philippe
Carl from Montreal. Sounds sort of frenchy, right, So that's

(39:11):
a lot of Carl based names.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Carl Carl who knew all right?

Speaker 1 (39:19):
This email will probably take too much time. Uh okay,
this email I will do instead, and I am copying
and pasting to keep it organized. Long term annual patron,
She says, Hi, doctor Kirkabob, I'm a new therapist. I
graduated last.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
Year, and I see gratulations.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yes, absolutely congratulate. And I see clients with a variety
of issues, but see many individuals looking to work through
relationship issues. Oftentimes they're partners, so sus like individual therapy.
Oftentimes their partners either are unwilling to do couple therapy
or have been a or have been a silent participant

(39:58):
in couple therapy. So my client, it's come to me
hoping to learn strategies to fix their relationships. Just chiming in. Yeah,
there's a very common presenting problem in therapy, and a
worthy one, right, Yeah, yeah, completely agree. Going on a
majority of the time, my clients are women in heterosexual relationships,
mostly leaning on the anxious side, where their male partners

(40:22):
sound to be mostly on the avoidance side of the
attachment spectrum. My question is, how have you both supported
clients who are pretty clearly in relationships that are not
serving them and their relationship is dragging them down. I'm
finding it hard at times to hear about a client's
partner saying really hurtful and abusive thanks to them, or
leaving for the night without any notice, not supporting them

(40:44):
even in times of need, like after surgery or child
or childbirth. And I'm sometimes tempted to say, leave this man,
you deserve so much better. Sometimes leaving feels impossible for them,
especially when children are in the picture. Any advice is appreciated.
Love you both, and love the podcast. Keep doing what
you're doing, end of email. Just a little asterix here

(41:05):
when she says keep doing what you're doing. I take
that to heart because when I write into podcasts, I
often will have that kind of message, because I find
that a lot of content providers, because of the criticism,
will feel bad about the sort of content that they

(41:27):
provide in some way because it rubs someone wrong. And
I'm often thinking, Okay, you know it rubbed that person wrong,
but please do not change your format or your vibe
or your content, because that's what I love. Please don't
get off track. So I don't know exactly what long
Terminoto's patron was getting at, but maybe that's what she's

(41:49):
getting at, and it's a good reminder. But Bob, the
question is, how have you both supported clients who are
pretty clearly in relationships that are not serving them and
the relationship is dragging them down.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yeah? Okay, well, golly, I'm flooded with I mean, I
read this email last night and I'm still flooded with responses,
you know, thoughts that are not so well organized just yet. Okay,
So first off, it's nobody's business to say you should
or shouldn't be in a relationship, So try to put
that out of your mind. That's you don't know if

(42:25):
that's true, and people are very quick to make that
kind of judgment and we're all full of shit when
we do, so don't do it. If you're having that
kind of thought and it's distracting you from being a
good therapist, then talk about it with your supervisor or
your own therapist or a colleague or whatever to try
to keep it from getting in the way.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, and along those lines, you need to frame this
as counter transference. Yeah, it's not a clinical conclusion that
your client should leave their partner, right, that's counter transference.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, So there's that, So you can keep labeling the
behavior like if you believe it's abusive, then say so, yep,
I think that's abuse. Yep, I think that's abuse. Yep.
I think it's reasonable for you to want, you know,
your partner to give you notice it before they disappear
for a night. Yeah, that makes sense to me. I

(43:19):
could see why that. And then it's like, well, how
do you feel about that? How do you feel? What's
that like for you? And are you experiencing what you
want to be experiencing in this relationship? Is it meeting
your need? What need is it meeting? What is the
purpose of the relationship? And how's that working? And it
sounds like what you think is that because of kids,

(43:40):
people are you know, dependent on the relationship or the
support of the partner in order to you know, stay
afloat or whatever. That's a real thing, you know. Of
course that might be domestic violence, but it also is
people become financially dependent on what they don't have a
clear way out. It isn't for you to try to
figure that out. How can therapy? I mean I say

(44:02):
this to my clients frequently, which is what do you
want to get out of this today? How can we
be paying attention to you properly.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Right, And they almost will never say I would like
you to pressure me to leave my partner, yeah, or
I would like you to evaluate whether or not my
marriage is viable, right right?

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah? So yeah, right, like I could do that. I
don't even know what the fuck that means. So, and
then one thing to keep in mind is if somebody
does decide to leave and then you know two weeks
later that that's not what they're doing, don't give them
a hard time about it. If they're gonna leave, that's
a difficult thing to do. But people aren't bound to
be quote consistent, So roll with whatever comes in the office.

(44:43):
You should not well you said two weeks ago you're
going to leave, and no you're not doing it. No,
don't do that. That's bullshit, right right, and learn that
from you, I mean not that you know.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yeah, In fact, that is universally what I have experienced.
Clients will declare that they're are going to leave and
at best so to speak, you know, I don't want
to say best, But the shortest amount of time between
a declaration like that and an actual divorce is like
five years.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah, So.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
With lots of ups and downs and changing your mind, there.
So you know, whenever I hear that, I think there's
a fifty percent chance that this marriage will be over
in three years. And there's a fifty percent chance that
the marriage will never end even though they are one
hundred percent sure they want to leave their partner right now.
So yeah, well said. The only thing I'll add is

(45:37):
that that we as therapists are getting one side of
the story.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
And so.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
As a as a couple therapists, you know, you and me, Bob,
we'll hear, you know, the couple will sit down on
the couch and you'll hear one side of the story.
You know, one person's like, let me tell you what
happened last night, what he did or whatever, and you
hear that story and you just think, my god, what
an asshole. And then he tells his side of the
story and you're like, whoa huh. Sounds like both are assholes.

(46:13):
Are neither assholes or triggering or and the stories will
be completely different. They will have a completely different narrative.
So outside of abuse, which is a different story, what
is likely happening is you are getting the anxious attachment
version of the story and you're not hearing anything, So
you have to envision, not to protect these husbands that

(46:39):
aren't in the room, but to have an accurate picture
of what actually happened. If you're going to help your
clients who are sitting in front of you, you have
to into it somehow. What your client is doing wrong,
the triggering they're doing to their partner, the misperceptions, if
they're of anxious attachment, They are irrational at times, they

(47:02):
are distorting at times, and they are going to tell
a story that is, you know, newsflash, not going to
be accurate, So you can't just take what they're saying
is like an objective scientific fact.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Right.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
The other thing that I'll say is that even in
couple therapy, it is a minefield for ourselves a therapist
when we hear stories like this, because we care about
our clients and we've been through shit like this ourselves.
So it's hard, you know, And I get it you're saying,
you know, how do you You're asking a very good question,

(47:38):
which is how do you deal with that? Emotionally? You know,
It's like, I care about this client and I'm hearing
week after week of this mistreatment, and even if half
of it is true, or even a quarter of it,
is true. I just don't know what to do. I
just feel so bad, like, well, I don't understand why
she doesn't leave him.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
A very least.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
It's getting kind of boring to hear week in and
week out of just like why are you dealing with this?
And that's normal and that's hard, and that's the job
of us to gain perspective, to return to compassion, to
have a viable conceptualization of the other person of the relationship.

(48:24):
Most importantly, that does not vilify one person or the other. Now,
sometimes there are villains, but not usually. So, Yeah, it
is hard, But the most important thing I would say
is you are experiencing a very common thing. But what

(48:46):
you're experiencing is a lack of compassion towards the partners
that you're not talking to. That's not going to help,
you know, And it's a pitfall of many therapists that
don't know what the fuck they're doing. True, and they
will take their client's story hook line and sinker, and

(49:06):
the whole session will just be about motivating the client
to leave their partner. And even if that works, the
problems that the client had before they walked into your
office are perpetuated. Maybe even made more concrete, and their
next relationship will be even worse. Either they have picked
the wrong person, or the same dynamic will occur or something.

(49:28):
Who knows, but you're doing no good. Now, there are
exceptions when you actually have an abused partner who's been
gas lit and been pushed into learned helplessness or whatever,
and your job is to build them up. Your job
isn't to get them to leave, and your job certainly

(49:49):
isn't to be frustrated with the client that doesn't leave.
But your job is to help them identify that they
are being abused and they deserve to not be abused.
But your job is not to say you deserve to
not be with that person, because that's a decision that
they have to make. What you can absolutely say, without

(50:10):
giving it a kount of transference, is your client deserves to
not be harmed. That's all that you can say. You
can't say my client deserves not to be married to
that person, because that's a higher level, specific decision that
only clients make. But it's a human right that people
deserve to not be harmed, and that can actually happen
while staying married. You know, I've worked with that now

(50:33):
I'll tell you when I have clients like this, absolutely
there's a part of me that is like, please divorce
this person for your sake, you just And also I
hate this guy and I want him to get his
just dessert, which is to have you say, take this
marriage and shove it up your ass and.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Please.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
But you know, and I felt that feeling. But you know,
I also myself that's not my job, and I have
to process those feelings in another format because no client
wants their therapists to have that point of view. If
that's all that they wanted, they would talk to their friends,
because that's all. That's what their friends and family will say. Universally,

(51:16):
what they want from us is a place for them
to explore and to get to know and to feel
safe to not leave their partner. You know, that's what
they're looking for us, you know, looking to us for
They're looking to us for a safe, non judgmental, you know,
balanced listener who isn't going to jump to conclusions and
might even hold the client accountable for what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
To contribute, my therapist does that damn right, and so
he should.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
Yeah, well that does Over that episode Psychology Seal everyone
out there, please take care of you Solif, because you
deserve it.