May 28, 2025 • 46 mins
The real problem in troubled relationships isn't poor communication – it's what couples are actually communicating to each other. Dr. Bruce Chalmer upends conventional wisdom about couples therapy in this eye-opening conversation that challenges everything you thought you knew about relationship struggles.
Drawing from over 30 years as a psychologist and couples therapist, Dr. Chalmer explains why the traditional advice to "communicate better" misses the mark entirely. "The couples are communicating perfectly effectively," he notes with gentle wisdom. "They're just communicating that they don't like or trust each other." This profound insight forms the foundation of his approach to helping couples reconnect and rediscover intimacy.
At the heart of relationship challenges lies the tension between stability and intimacy. While stability requires predictability, intimacy demands vulnerability and risk. Most couples, especially those with established lives together, prioritize stability so heavily that they avoid anything that might "rock the boat" – including honest conversations. Over time, this avoidance creates emotional distance that extinguishes the spark that originally brought them together.
The conversation takes unexpected turns as Dr. Chalmer discusses his journey from statistician to therapist, explains how infidelity affects nearly half his clients, and shares his concept of "sacred sex" as a transcendent connection that reaches beyond the couple to something larger. His compassionate approach acknowledges men's common reluctance toward therapy – not from lack of caring, but from fear of being judged or blamed.
Whether you're struggling in your relationship or simply curious about human connection, Dr. Chalmer's insights offer a refreshing perspective that honors the complexity of intimate partnerships while providing practical wisdom for navigating their challenges. In his words: "Be kind, don't panic, and have faith."
PARENTAL GUIDANCE ALERT: (Some language used in this interview may not be fit for minors or some adults may find objectionable so please advise with my apologies!)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome back to one on one with Mr you.
Of course, I'm your host, mryou, in studio with us today.
Author.
Psychologist and couplestherapist, dr Bruce, in studio
with us today.
Author.
Psychologist and couplestherapist, dr Bruce Chalmers, in
the building.
How are you, sir?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I am well.
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's going to be fun and exciting.
We had a fantasticpre-interview chat.
We talked about a lot of thingsthat I think our listeners are
going to enjoy.
So hopefully you have yourlistening ears on and if you
have any questions for myself orDr Bruce or any comments on the
topics that we're talking about, drop into the comment section.
We'd love to have your commentslive and we have Dr Bruce
(00:53):
comment on those as they comethrough.
So, thanks again for listeningand watching and, dr Bruce, as
we always do it's customary onour show I always ask the first
question about you, yourbackground, your childhood,
where'd you come from?
Where's what's life like forlittle?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Bruce, yeah, well, I grew up in Buffalo, new York All
right so.
I'm saying you're a fan.
Yes, I was a total Bill's fan,and I was, of course, when I was
growing up.
That was before the Bills werein the, before the AFL merged
with the NFL.
So I remember when the B billsactually won a championship,
(01:31):
they won the afl championshipone year, I think I was about 12
at the time.
Uh, they've tried since then.
They haven't quite made it.
Um, so I grew up there and uhended up.
Uh went to.
Uh ended up going to college atthe university of toronto,
actually, and graduated fromthere, ended up moving to verm
at the University of Toronto,actually, and graduated from
there.
I ended up moving to Vermont.
So I've been living in Vermontnow for 50-plus years and really
(01:52):
enjoy living here.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And along the way.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I ended up.
I had sort of a checkeredcareer.
Academically speaking.
I was a statistician for awhile.
I got a master's degree instatistics.
I got involved in that throughsome of my work I was doing
first for the state governmentin Vermont and then I moved over
to the University of Vermontand I was the resident
statistician in the computercenter for a while.
And then I got interested inclinical work, mostly through
(02:18):
going through some hard stuff inmy own life, which is how a lot
of people end up getting intoclinical work.
Yeah, and I discovered it wasreally a powerful thing to do
and I really found it felt likea calling.
It felt like something I reallywanted to do and so I got the
training and I've been inprivate practice now as a
psychologist in Vermont for alittle over 30 years and if you
(02:39):
do the math there I'm in my midseventies, so you know that was
fairly late getting into that.
I'm in my mid-70s, so I wasfairly late getting into that.
I didn't do it like right outof college went right on to
graduate school for it.
I didn't get the clinicaltraining for a while.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I think I had to be more mature before I felt I
could do that and I've beendoing that for a long time.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Okay, and somewhere along the way I got more and
more into working with couples,as I was was in practice early
on.
I got training working withcouples and families very early
in my internships actually, butI also was working with
individuals quite a bit, doing alot of work with people who
were recovering from trauma.
(03:17):
But I gravitated more and moreto working with couples because
there was something so I don'tknow compelling about it.
It was really inspiring to beinvited.
You know people were dealingwith really hard stuff and doing
it with a lot of courage andyou know the outcomes weren't
always great, but they werealways.
(03:38):
I just was inspired by all thefolks I was working with that
they were just showing suchheart in trying to get through
the stuff they were gettingthrough, so I found it very
rewarding work over the years itwould sound like it is.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I mean, it feels as though to me it could just be in
my small circle.
But it feels like couplestherapy is.
It's almost made like it's ajoke.
I mean, I see it the butt ofmany jokes in cinematic
productions and movies and TVshows.
It's like when you hear it itkind of takes you to that place
(04:14):
and it probably shouldn't.
Can you kind of shed a littlebit more light on why you think
couples therapy is not onlyvalid but important?
Because I think people who arewatching and listening may say
you know what.
They may see the same imagethat I see in these movies about
a couple's therapy and they'remaking a joke about it through
the entire movie and it's nottaken seriously whatsoever.
So kind of help demystify that.
(04:35):
If you don't mind doing thatfor us That'd be great.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, sure, yeah, you know, I think I know what
you're referring to.
I see those things too.
It's funny If I'm sitting withmy wife and we're watching a
movie that has a therapist in it.
I'm just insufferable.
You know, because, because Ikeep saying I wouldn't say
things like that, you knowwhatever.
But you know, I think thedifference is the one thing I
try to offer people, which youknow, I hear stories and any any
(05:00):
couple of therapists you go toyou're going to get something
different and that's valid.
If I think that I can livepeople's lives better than they
can, I'm not helping them.
You know.
If I think that I should tellthem what they're supposed to do
and how they're supposed tolive their lives and what rules
to follow, I'm not reallyhelping them.
And when I'm able to work withpeople without that illusion,
(05:23):
when I'm able to work withpeople with a sense of respect
for their own, you know thefolks I'm working with
overwhelmingly are not crazy andthey're not evil and they're
not stupid.
They're regular people like weall are dealing with really hard
stuff.
The reason it's hard is thatit's hard.
It's not because there'ssomething wrong with them, and
(05:46):
when I work from thatperspective.
It.
Can you know it?
It what I'm seeking when I'm,when I'm working with people.
What I'm seeking is what'smeaningful for them, and when
you do that, it's not.
It doesn't look like thosecaricatures you see in movies,
you know.
It doesn't look like somebodyjust sort of mediating people
yelling, yelling at each otheror, you know, telling them what
to do or things like that.
It looks more like peoplehaving to face hard stuff
(06:06):
without panicking, and a lot ofthe work is about helping people
face the hard stuff withouteither trying to avoid it, on
the one hand, or panicking aboutit, on the other.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Okay, what would you say?
And, of course, confidentialityand privacy are really
important here, but what wouldyou say would be one of the
hardest situations you've seenin couples therapy Something you
can share, even if it's acautionary tale for those that
are listening.
They may be thinking about thator may be in need of it and
didn't realize they were.
Could you share a story or two,or instance or two?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Sure, I mean, I think it's close to half anyway.
The couples that I deal with ina first session are talking
about infidelity, and infidelityalmost always is really hard.
Whatever they're dealing with,it's really hard.
And so, you know, the personwho was cheated on is often just
(07:00):
incredibly angry and incrediblyhurt and you know, they feel
betrayed, they feel like howcould this person have done this
to me?
The person, usually the personwho did the cheating, is feeling
guilty.
They, you know it's prettyunusual that they're saying, oh,
it was no big deal.
They usually are recognizingyes, I shouldn't have done that,
but I did.
And if they're sitting in atherapist's office, it's because
(07:21):
they're trying to work onsomething.
The folks who, you know, thefolks who don't want to work on
anything, don't come to see me.
So you know, if people are justsaying, well, the heck with it,
we're just going to split up,they're not going to see a
therapist.
So when they're sitting therein a therapist's office, it's
because it's.
It's such a common.
One kind of betrayal or anotherespecially infidelity but there
(07:47):
are other kinds of betrayal tooare so common in my experience
and I've learned a lot fromworking, seeing folks get
through the shock and work, worktheir way through to something
that feels like resolution,whether that's staying together
or splitting up, and so that'swhy I wrote that book and that's
, I guess I would say yeah, thecautionary tale there is well,
(08:08):
okay, not a good idea to cheaton your spouse If your deal is
monogamy, not a good idea toviolate that.
And yet people do a lot.
So there must be somethingmeaningful about it, there must
be something pretty compellingabout it, or it wouldn't happen
so much.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Okay, it sounds like infidelity is one of the biggest
things that you see in some ofyour sessions.
What would be the next bigthing that you would see outside
of infidelity?
What would be the other thing?
The big problem that thesecouples are trying to solve that
will come to you and your wife.
The big problem that thesecouples are trying to solve.
It will come to you and yourwife.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I think I would say the next thing I see after
infidelity would be where thespark is gone and it just feels
sort of dead and that feelsawful, so that one or the other
or both parties are just feelinglike it's so painful to try and
be together when there's solittle intimacy whether it's,
you know, sex per se or justother kinds of emotional
(09:06):
intimacy and they don't know howto get back to where it was or
they don't know how to turn thatship around and that's a really
painful thing that I see prettyfrequently as well.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
What do you think I mean without again, without
going into any deep details whatdo you think is the turning
point for people or couples whohave that particular issue?
Because it's very, veryintimate, it's very private and
you're talking about basicallyyou're not sharing it with the
(09:36):
world, but you're sharing itwith somebody who is not in the
room with you when all thesechallenges are taking place.
What was the turning point foryou in your session that made
somebody really just trust andopen up and say you know what
this is, what's going on.
We really need help here.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
One of the things I do almost always in the first
session is I give a little talkabout what I think, how often
and it's not always true, buthow often people get to that
point and when they hear that,that often has the effect of
kind of opening them up.
So I'll give a short version ofwhat I always tell people about
.
You know, why do we bothercoupling up?
(10:16):
Why do humans beings do what wedo vis-a-vis coupling up?
I mean, yes, we're mammals andwe reproduce sexually, but
there's all kinds of people whocouple up who have no interest
in actually making babies.
So why do we do this?
There's a lot of reasons why,but one way of understanding
what makes a couple work is thatwe're trying to fulfill two
(10:37):
different sets of needs.
We're trying to have bothstability and intimacy, and the
reason I separate those two isthat the skills you need for
stability are very differentfrom the skills you need for
intimacy, and yet they're bothneeds.
If they're not fulfilled enough, something just doesn't work.
So the way people often getinto that sort of deep freeze,
(10:59):
the way the spark tends to goout often, is that they are so
focused on keeping things stablethat they avoid rocking the
boat with each other, and whichisn't a crazy thing to do.
I mean, stability is important,especially if you do things like
have kids.
When people have kids, theywant to have things be pretty
stable.
You're making a life togetherwith someone.
(11:20):
You want to know that it'sgoing to stay relatively calm.
It's not a crazy thing to wantat all, but often what happens
then is they won't do what ittakes to be intimate.
Now by intimacy I mean that ina very broad sense.
I'm not just talking about sex,I'm talking about being
fundamentally honest withyourself and each other.
And when people are prizingstability so much, they will
(11:46):
often then avoid bringing upsomething that they worry will
raise anxiety, like justsomething as simple as a
complaint.
You know just saying, hey, Iwish you wouldn't do X, y or Z
that you're doing, or I wish youwould do X, y or Z that you're
not doing.
And if they've had theexperience of conversations when
they raise anxiety, kind ofgoing off the rails, they get
into a big fight, they get intoa deep freeze, whatever then
(12:09):
they will tend to avoid that andover time that becomes deadly.
It starts being that they walkon eggshells around each other,
or they can't say anythingwithout it turning into a fight,
or they build up resentment andthat's what kills the spark.
And so, you know, people oftensay, well, the spark can't last
more than a year or so?
(12:30):
Right, yes, it can, if you'rewilling to tolerate the anxiety.
People say that you have to beable to tolerate the anxiety of
intimacy.
What that requires really ismaturity, and you know how do
you develop maturity?
Best way to develop maturity isyou go through a bunch of hard
stuff and you get through it.
And so that a lot of thecouples that are coming to see
(12:51):
me, especially the ones, well,yes, the ones dealing with
infidelity, but even the onesjust dealing with that sense of
kind of a you know, a dead, adead relationship it's all about
learning to tolerate theanxiety of actual intimacy.
And that you know.
You're asking, like, what's theturning point?
Often you'll kind of see thelight bulb.
You know, when I'm explainingthe bit about stability and
(13:13):
intimacy, they will often say,wow, hadn't thought of it that
way.
That's just what we've beendoing, we've been all about
stability and we've beenavoiding intimacy.
And when they do that it's, onthe one hand, it's a little
scary because they, you knowthere's stuff that they haven't
wanted to go to.
That may be difficult.
There's usually good reason whythey're avoiding talking about
(13:34):
certain things that may bereally scary.
Maybe they discover they'rejust not compatible.
You know which is really a scarything to discover that's pretty
scary, yeah, but of coursemaybe they discover that they
can broaden their sense of youknow they can, they can risk it,
and then they can rediscovereach other, and that can be very
(13:54):
exciting.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I love that.
I don't know if I'm qualifiedto speak on this.
Next year will be our 30th yearof marriage.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That makes you qualified.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
We had ups and downs that you wouldn't believe.
There's some things that are inour book.
There's some things that are onthe first few seasons of our
podcast.
Beside that, a lot of it islargely unknown.
But, man, the work, theintentional work that had to
take place, I think it'sunderstated around us.
I don't think we realize thatwe have met with people.
(14:28):
We have met and counseledcouples ourselves, Not that
we're couples therapists, but weseem to fall into that boat
where we were able to kind ofhelp, maybe on a small scale,
maybe not anything clinical orreally really deep or anything,
but we just were able to helpwith that under the umbrella of
ministry for a long time.
And I feel like a lot of peopleare not willing to to kind of
(14:53):
take that step together.
There's always one that wantsto do it, the other one that
doesn't want to do it and theone that wants you to do it.
They say they want to do itbecause they think the other
person can get fixed by doing it, Not them.
They strike, so it can go bothways.
But a lot of times it's usuallythe wife that wants her husband
to go because he needs help.
She's tired of watching him.
(15:15):
She's fine, but he needs help.
But tell me how you would speakto the guy that's reluctant to
go on a couples therapy.
If you had a conversation withhim, how would you not convince
him?
But maybe ask the rightquestions to get the right
answers?
Why would he want to come underthat same scenario?
The wife is harassing him aboutit and he's like I don't need
(15:36):
this talking to a stranger aboutmy life.
The problem not there, you know.
How would you, how would youhandle that one?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
well, I'll tell you, I'm gonna answer that question.
And I'm gonna answer adifferent one.
First, because you're sayingwhat would I say to the guy
who's reluctant to come?
Well, the guy is reluctant tocome.
I'm not talking too muchbecause he's reluctant to come.
So the person I talked to and Iactually made a video about
this a few years ago the personI talked to is how do I talk to
the woman who's trying to getthe guy to come?
(16:03):
Because you know, what couldshe do, perhaps differently?
That would invite him to come,that would invite him to want to
come.
And I'll tell you what I.
So, what I tell those women,you know.
First of all, they need tounderstand why is the guy
reluctant.
Now, if you ask women why isthe guy reluctant, they will say
(16:27):
mostly the stuff that the guy'stelling them.
Often it's like the guy thinkswell, you're the one with the
problem, so you go.
You know you're the one who'sunhappy, you're trying to drag
me to therapy.
You're the one who's unhappy,you go.
That's.
The guy will often say that.
The woman will often Yep, ofcourse, yeah, the woman will
often end up saying he justdoesn't care enough.
He doesn't care enough to go.
You know, it's like if he caredenough about me he would be
(16:51):
willing to go and I?
No, that's not true.
It's not that the guy doesn'tcare.
It's almost never that the guydoesn't care.
It's usually that the guy isterrified.
Now, we're guys, we won't admitthat we're terrified, but
usually it's that the guy'safraid.
And what I point out to thewomen is he's got good reason to
be afraid.
He's not crazy to be afraid.
(17:13):
What is he afraid of?
He's afraid that the therapistwill side with the woman.
It doesn't matter whether thetherapist is male or female.
He's got good reason to thinkthat because that often happens
yeah, I mean very often.
You know it shouldn't, but veryoften that's what happens the
guy ends up feeling like oh,this is gang up on the stupid
(17:34):
guy, you know.
And so he has reason to worrythat.
He's worried that the therapistwill basically either say or
imply why are you with this guy,he's terrible for you, get out
of it.
Or even if he doesn't say thatexplicitly, even if the
therapist doesn't say thatexplicitly, the guy's worried
that the therapist is going tolead them, lead her to come to
(17:55):
that conclusion.
In other words, you know, andthat's not a crazy fear.
Everybody, or most people, Ithink.
If you know about couplestherapy, you probably know some
friends who went to it and brokeup.
It's not an unusual phenomenon,it's.
You know, a lot of people willsee couples therapy as uh-oh.
This relationship's on its lastlegs, and often it is.
(18:16):
So his reluctance isn't crazy.
And so when the woman canactually recognize, he's not
crazy to be afraid of it.
And, moreover, it's not that hedoesn't care.
In fact, the only reason he'safraid of it is that he doesn't
want to lose her.
He actually does care when shecan see that.
If she can actually validatethat when she's talking to him,
(18:37):
and she can actually say youknow, I think I can understand
why you're reluctant.
It makes sense to me I wouldworry about that stuff too.
That's often what will get theguy to open up.
That's often what will get theguy to say well, I really don't
want to lose you.
Maybe it's worth a try.
But you know, I'm glad youunderstand why I'm afraid, and
(19:00):
that's what can get the guy toopen up.
And then, if they go to therapyand they actually experience a
therapist who really clearlyrespects them both which I
certainly try to do.
That's what lets things happen,where the guy will not be
afraid anymore and then you'llactually get some, you know, get
some.
Actual progress can happen,because they can actually face
(19:20):
their issues.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So many questions I want to get into with you man.
There's so much.
Hopefully we have time to getinto at least the majority of
this.
So many.
But your book is CouplesTherapy in Seven Words.
You can get it on his websitectin7.com.
I'm sure it should be availableelsewhere as well.
You mentioned one thing in yourbook.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That's the podcast.
Couples Therapy in Seven Wordsis the podcast, the podcast
right, say again, the link tothe book is there.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Oh yeah, the link to the book is definitely there.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
I've written three books and you can find links to
there and also at my own website, brucechommercom.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Absolutely.
I want to get into some otherstuff.
Hopefully we won't run out oftime in doing so, but you
mentioned one thing in your bookabout how the relationship
problem that you've been seeingare almost always not about
communication.
Yes, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
That's the second book I wrote.
It's called it's not aboutcommunication.
Why?
Everything you know aboutcouples therapy is wrong.
Is that a snarky title or what?
Right, that is an arroganttitle.
I will, I will own that.
You know.
What am I trying to say there?
The reason I say it's not aboutcommunication.
Now look, I realize it's a.
It's a substantial.
I don't know what thepercentage is, but it's the big
majority of couples in the firstsession when I'm saying, hey,
what's going on?
In effect, they will say we needto communicate better.
(20:41):
You know, we need some rules ortools to communicate better,
because every time we try tocommunicate about anything that
we have any differences, it goesoff the rails.
So we need some rules Help uscommunicate, help us learn to
communicate better.
No-transcript effectivelycommunicating and they're
(21:29):
destructive.
They're, you know, they'reconveying to their partner.
I don't trust you.
I'm not even sure I love youanymore.
You just make me angry.
They're very effective atcommunicating.
It's not about communication,it's about what they're
communicating.
So if I taught them and manytherapists will do this if I
taught them rules to communicatebetter, all I would be doing is
(21:50):
giving them a bunch ofcumbersome rules to communicate
how much they don't like eachother.
It wouldn't do them any good.
What they need to figure out ismaybe how come they don't like
each other and maybe they canlike each other again and then
they don't need the rules.
And that's the thing you knowand I love to give it.
It's probably a silly analogy,but you know, if you think
(22:11):
teaching people, I'll put itthis way If you look at a couple
, the sort of couple thatdoesn't make appointments to see
me because everything's goingwell right, some think of maybe
your own marriage.
It's you know, I feel this wayabout my marriage.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
When things are going well in a good way.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
No, I'm saying a good thing when things are going
well, a couple that is doingwell.
And you know, when people seeour podcast I do, the podcast I
do is with my wife.
She's not a therapist, she's aretired educator, but we've what
people comment.
A lot is our chemistry.
It's like well, you guys looklike you really do like each
other.
Well, we do.
And when, when you see a couplethat is doing well, they are
(22:50):
more or less following the rulesthat everybody teaches.
They're not doing it formally,you know.
They're not doing it carefullyand like active listening and
making sure you know.
But informally they're notinsulting each other, they're
not calling each other names,they're actually listening to
each other and trying tounderstand what the other is
saying.
That's what couples do whenthey're doing well.
(23:10):
So a lot of therapists will saywell, if that's what couples do
when they're doing well, let'steach couples to communicate
that way and then they'll bedoing well.
And that turns out to be wrong.
That turns out to be a fallacy.
Trying to teach people tobehave like well-functioning
couples doesn't make themwell-functioning.
It's the same thing.
Here's my silly analogy.
(23:30):
If you think about tennisplayers the top tennis players
when they hit the ball, younotice how they grunt.
They didn't used to do thatwhen I was a kid, but for the
last 40 or 50 years they gruntwhen they really hit the ball.
Have you seen that?
Yeah, I've heard it.
So if you're teaching tennis, Iguess that means just make sure
(23:53):
everybody grunts and thenthey'll be top tennis players.
Well, that's ridiculous.
The grunting doesn't make themtop tennis players.
There's probably somethingassociated with being a top
tennis player that makes themgrunt, but teaching them to
grunt won't teach them anythingyou got to teach them to be a
good tennis player.
Teaching a couple Say what, saywhat.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I don't know how you're going to grow up beyond
that, but okay, keep going.
I don't know how you're goingto grow up beyond that.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
But okay, yeah, so that's the point.
You know, teaching people toact as if they're
well-functioning doesn't makethem well-functioning.
They actually have to bewell-functioning, and that's not
about learning to communicatebetter.
That's about what's going onthat's making them so pissed off
.
And if you can actually gothere, then you have a shot
actually of people relaxing andbeing able to hear each other
(24:38):
and being able to recognize wow,there are multiple realities.
You know the phenomenon.
You asked about turning points.
It's another one of my favoritethings to note.
In a turning point and I hopeit's okay to use this language I
call it the oh shit moment.
Is it okay to say that?
Not now.
How about the oh shoot moment?
Let's call it the oh shitmoment.
Is it okay to say that?
Not now?
How about the oh shoot moment?
Let's call it the oh shootmoment.
(24:59):
Go ahead, sir.
So the point is it's not the ohshoot, we'll say it that way.
It's not the oh shoot when youhit your thumb with a hammer,
it's the oh shoot when it's likeoh shoot, that's what's going
on here.
Oh, you're not crazy, butneither am I.
But we really do differ here,don't we?
You know that's a turning pointmoment.
(25:20):
You get there, when you getpast the instant panic, when you
know when people aren'tdefensive, at that point they're
just hearing it.
And the reason I call it the ohshoot moment rather than
calling it the aha moment, youknow, aha is lovely, aha is like
aha, we've solved it.
Well, the oh shoot momentdoesn't solve it yet, but it
means that they can stopfighting.
At that point they can say, oh,that's what our problem is.
(25:42):
I didn't realize you werethinking of it that way.
I'm not sure I'm okay with that, but at least I'm understanding
where you're coming from.
You know that's the oh shootmoment, as I like to call it
using the other word, and that,but that that moment is that is
a real turning point and I'mdramatizing it by calling it a
moment.
You know it's really more of aprocess, but when a couple can
(26:05):
get there, you can almost seethe light bulb.
You know when a couple getsthere, then they're.
They have a shot actually atbeing able to hear each other
and actually maybe reconnect.
You know that's.
It's amazing what happens whenthey can do that, because a lot
of times what will happen is thethings they thought were so
crucial They'll recognize maybethey're not as crucial as they
(26:27):
thought.
Maybe it's like, oh, I actuallycan be okay with some stuff I
didn't realize could be okaywith.
Or, you know, also sadlysometimes it happens it's like,
oh, wow, we are two good people,but I see why we're not right
for each other.
It's just not going to work.
That's really a bummer andthat's sad when it happens.
(26:51):
But even that is a kind ofsuccess because it means that
they can both move on with asense of, you know, integrity.
They don't have to feel like,oh, it was all a waste of time.
They can recognize wow, we hadgreat times that we had.
We can move on now and realize,well, we shouldn't stay
together.
So it's painful when thathappens, but either way, there's
a clarity that they can getfrom that.
(27:11):
So that my whole bit about it'snot about communication is
really it's about that sensethat no, it's not how you're
communicating, it's what you'recommunicating.
I do want to add one otherthing, which is about that
snarky subtitle of the book.
Yeah, why?
Everything you know about thecouples therapy is wrong.
That applies to me too.
Everything I know about couplestherapy is wrong too.
Which is to say, I do have somegood ideas, lots of people have
(27:32):
good ideas.
If I think, I know, if I thinkI have the last word, I'm going
to cause harm rather than good,I really have to be humble about
my own understandings.
I have some good ideas.
They work a lot, but they don'talways work, and I need to
understand that.
So that's what I mean by that.
Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
All right.
Now, based on the title of thisepisode, there are three areas
that I really want to try to getinto, but we're going to have
to do a rapid fire.
I don't want to miss out on theopportunity to kind of hear
some of the stories.
One awesome story that youshared in our pre-and-agree chat
that I definitely want to beshared here.
So I'm going to ask you maybethree or four more questions to
see if we can move through themrelatively quickly and give the
(28:13):
audience more of a broaderunderstanding of what you do,
what you're involved in.
I think it's very, very, veryinteresting.
But one question here sex, goodsex and sacred sex what are the
differences?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
there.
So sex is whatever you think.
It is Plain old sex.
You know, if you think it's sex, it's sex and you know it's not
just intercourse, it's whateverit is.
You know Sex sex it's sex, it'snot just intercourse, it's
whatever it is.
Sex is a lot of things, If youthink it's sex.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
It's sex.
I don't have to quibble aboutthat.
I was watching a podcastyesterday that under the age of
18, that first talk to your momabout that.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
He just, he's like keep going, kids, talk to your
parents, right, absolutely, ohmy God.
So Right, absolutely.
So what makes it good sex iswhat I say.
What makes it good sex is whenyou move from just plain old sex
to being present, emotionally,spiritually, physically present
with yourself and each other,which is to say intimate.
That's what I mean by intimate.
That's what makes it good.
Sacred sex is sort of like acumulative.
(29:12):
It's like learning math.
You know you have to learn itcumulatively.
You know you gotta.
You gotta be, you gotta be okaywith plain old sex before you
can get to good sex, and yougotta be good with you, gotta be
adept in good sex before youget to sacred sex.
Sacred sex is when it's it's nolonger about just the two of
you anymore.
It's such a you're so attunedthat you're in tuned with forces
(29:33):
that are much bigger.
You know, in religious termsit's like it's holy.
In religious terms it's God isinvolved.
Or in cultures that wouldn'tuse in those terms like tantric
sex that the folks from often,like India and from the East
will talk about.
That's the notion of sacred sex.
So it has a lot more to do withyour sense of the sacred than
(29:53):
it does about sex per se.
So that's what I mean by that.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, lot more to do with your sense of the sacred
than it does about sex per se.
So that's what I mean by that.
Yeah, thank you, very good,very good, all right, so there's
a few more things.
I want to try to get them in.
We are, we're up against itright now, really.
Um, you shared a story about agentleman by the name of Darrell
Davis.
Are you going to share thatstory again, can you?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
can you get into that ?
I don't know him personally.
I'm just amazed by what he hasdone.
He is a black man who decidedit would be a good idea to go
visit KKK rallies to talk to theguys.
What amazing courage to do that.
And he didn't go.
Of course he didn't go to allof them.
(30:35):
Yeah, I mean I, you know, I'llbet you can relate, you know, I
mean I'm not black, I'm Jewish,and we're not exactly welcome at
KKK rallies either, and I don'tknow if I could pull that off.
But he has done that and he nowhas a collection I think of I
don't think it's literally 200robes that people sign up, but
it's a whole bunch of robes andover 200 people have renounced
(30:56):
white supremacy from having hadconversations with Daryl Davis.
Unbelievable thing to do, and Ifind such inspiration in that,
and to me that applies incouples therapy too.
It's so much about getting past.
Whatever these huge differencesseem to be, they just seem to be
set in concrete, and whenpeople can experience genuine
(31:18):
respect, it just tends to softeneverything up.
And so these KKK guys who wereable to actually have a
conversation with a black manwho was treating them with
respect again, incrediblecourage to do that and actually
they recognized that, wow, thestuff they had thought was true
wasn't true.
They were able to actually say,oh, all of these assumptions
(31:41):
I've been making about, you know, racism turn out not to be true
.
And they were able to see thatbecause they experienced
somebody being deeply respectfulof them, which I just think is
an amazing thing.
So that you know that appliesin the world of therapy I think
everybody as much as it does.
More broadly, and you know, beit race relations or politics or
whatever, daryl Davis is aco-founder of an organization
(32:02):
called the pro-human foundationand I want to put a shout out
he's also involved with braverangels, which is another
organization I want to give ashout out to.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Absolutely.
I think that this, that story,was deep to me on a lot of
different levels.
I just kind of feel like as aman, I've been dealing with a
lot more men's issues,especially on our show and doing
more ground tables with men andchat discussions, and that
isolation piece is just one ofthe biggest things that men have
a challenge with and alsoinability or unwillingness to
(32:35):
connect.
But when we do that, when wereally not be in a room, we with
a whole bunch of other men,that's not what I mean, that's
not really a connection.
But when we actually really areintentional about connecting
and getting to know and hearthese stories from other people
and hit and peeking into theirlives, we realized how big we
made our own stuff and it wasn'tthat big a thing.
We made it into a massivemountain that keeps us from all
(32:58):
the other men and keeps us fromcompassion and connections.
Like you know what?
It wasn't that big a deal.
Look at what a deal.
Look at what he's dealing with.
Look what he's dealing with.
It's worse than mine.
I wouldn't make it if I had todo what they deal with and it
just kind of demystifieseverything.
So I love that story of DarrellDavis man, you mentioned some
things about your area inVermont.
I want to just the next to lastquestion I ask you so we can get
(33:19):
out of here.
You mentioned about your areain Vermont and how this is a
very strong Jewish communitywhere you are and there was some
discussion between you and Iabout Israel and anti-Semitism.
I noticed a big topic thatcrunched into a few minutes and
I recognize that.
So I apologize in advance toeverybody that's listening.
(33:40):
Dr Bruce, I'm going to give youmore insight.
You contact him and kind ofhave discussions with him.
You can get into more detailsabout what we're talking about
right now.
But in short, talk to me aboutVermont, the community that you
are a part of, what you'reseeing in the interfaith
examples, and just kind of breakthat down for us a little bit,
if you don't mind getting intoit please.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Sure, yeah, well, it's interesting in Vermont
because it's a very small Jewishcommunity.
So, you know, one of theeffects of that is I suppose it
wouldn't be surprising, you know, since I'm very much involved.
You know, I'm kind of wellknown in the Jewish community
and in various circles.
So what that ends up meaning isthe clients I work with are
almost never Jewish because Iprobably know them or know
(34:23):
people who know them or what.
You know what I mean.
It's like I can't work withfolks that are my own friends or
acquaintances even so.
That's just interesting.
But I probably work with asmaller percentage of fellow
Jews than I would if I were in abig city where there would be
all zillions of people that Idon't know around here.
It's like if they're Jewish, Iprobably have some connection
with them.
You know, because it's a verysmall Jewish community.
Have some connection with them.
(34:43):
You know, because it's a verysmall Jewish community.
The anti-Semitism stuff is.
I mean, ask any Jewish personand you will probably find, wow,
it's been really, it's alwaysbeen a thing.
It's not like that's new.
In fact, it's been around formillennia.
You know, in one way or another, especially in the last several
hundred years, it's been aroundand it keeps cropping up one
way or another, and the mostrecent stuff in the last several
(35:04):
hundred years it's been aroundand it keeps cropping up one way
or another, and the most recentstuff in the past couple of
years has been incrediblypainful.
It's been painful sort of rightacross.
Whatever people's politicalviews are, whatever their views
are about how Israel has beenhandling itself, right across
the spectrum, it's still beenreally painful, and so that's
something that you know lots of.
(35:25):
When Jews get together, we talkabout it, which, again, not real
surprising.
I think that's true of anygroup.
Look, I imagine you know, whenblack people get together, you
talk about racism in ways thatwhite people don't talk about.
When Jews get together, we talkabout anti-Semitism in ways
that non-Jews don't talk about.
I think that's pretty normalstuff.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
I suppose.
So I guess that does happen.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I don't know.
I've never been in a group youknow?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
No, that makes sense.
That makes sense In the areawhere you are in Vermont.
Is that a big challenge thatyou're seeing?
I mean, this is a smallcommunity so you know of course
any news, good or bad, getsaround pretty quick.
Probably Is that a problem youguys are seeing that
precipitates that you guys havethese discussions, or are you
kind of pulling it from mediacues and what's going on in the
(36:14):
world or globally, or are youseeing it in your neck of the
woods directly.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
We are actually seeing it in our neck of the
woods.
Again, it varies a lotdepending on where you are.
But in Vermont it varies a lotdepending on where you are.
But in Vermont, it's funny,it's not so much the
anti-Semitism of the right, theNazi type, it's more the
anti-Semitism of the left,depending on how you analyze
that.
But kids in school are reallysubject to a lot of painful
(36:40):
stuff, especially since theevents of October 7th a couple
of years ago.
That has been really hard forfolks.
I know we actually see it inVermont and so it's.
Vermont is an interesting placebecause there's a real
tradition here of tolerance andI say tolerance because it's
interesting.
It's more tolerance than it isacceptance, but it's definitely
(37:02):
tolerance.
There is a real tradition hereof saying well, you get to be
who you are here, butantisemitism has come up in
various forms locally and thatit is the topic of conversation
a fair amount even here.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Okay, we got two more questions left.
We're going to try to make thishappen this week.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
We're up against it seriously.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
First question you mentioned improv three in our
conversation.
I think it's hilarious onlybecause we have some deep
conversations about forgivenessand betrayal and couples,
therapy and faith and interfaith, as you just mentioned, and now
we're talking about where didthree come from?
Tell me briefly how is it alove for three-Eta?
(37:45):
Is it an analogy you use inyour work?
Where did 3-Eta come from inall of this?
Speaker 2 (37:51):
It's totally an analogy that I use in my work
because I've done very little ofit.
I'm not trained in that oranything.
You've probably seen improvright and it can be absolutely
hilarious when it happens.
The analogy in my work is myfirst session is pretty
structured, my first session.
I have particular things.
I mentioned some of it earlier.
I talk about stability andintimacy and I do a family
(38:13):
diagram and I you know it'spretty structured.
After that, or even after likethe first half of the first
session, it then becomessomething that I think is very
akin to improv theater.
And why do I think it's akin toimprov theater?
There's one rule, as Iunderstand it, there's one rule
of improv theater.
The rule is yes and yes.
(38:33):
And In other words, somebodypresents you with some
ridiculous thing and your fellowactor has just come up with
some ridiculous idea and throwsit into the mix and you never
say no.
You never say no, we're notgoing there, we're going here.
It's always yes.
And and then you throw insomething maybe even more
(38:54):
ridiculous.
Now, how is that like couplestherapy?
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not trying to make fun offolks.
It's not that we're throwing inridiculous things.
It's that in the beginning ofcouples therapy.
It's not that we're throwing inridiculous things, it's that in
the beginning of couplestherapy it's up to the therapist
to be the one who can do theyes, and Because the couple is
usually in no shape to do that,the couple is in no damn it mode
(39:14):
.
They're not in yes, and mode,right, they're just there
Whatever the other person issaying.
They're feeling like you're notunderstanding and they're in
negative mode.
But to the extent that what thecouple therapist is doing is
saying, wow, that's interesting,even if it's awful, you know
it's like wow, you cheated,that's interesting.
You know I don't usually saywell, that's interesting, but I
don't say oh, my God, that'sterrible.
(39:35):
You know you shouldn't havedone that.
Well, they already know thatit's like well, like improv
theater, and then subsequentsessions.
Again, there's not a lot ofstructure except follow the
meaning where it goes, whichagain is my understanding is
just like improv.
So that I have a section, achapter, in one of my books.
(39:56):
In that book it's not aboutcommunication.
I have a chapter in there thatsort of looks at how I do
therapy and that's why I compareit to improv theater.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I love it.
I love it All right, ascustomary, all of our guests ask
answers.
The last question I ask all ofour guests.
So this is not just me pickingon you.
I do this with everybody.
I'm picking everything that youdo off of the table.
And the whole point of thisquestion just to preface it for
you is that it allows us to kindof go back in the childhood a
little bit and think about thedreams and the goals that we had
(40:27):
and put on the shelf stuck in abureau drawer and left them in
there for years.
I'm definitely a chief offenderin that regard, but I'm taking
author off of the table.
I'm taking couples therapistsoff of the table.
I'm taking psychologists off ofthe table.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
What would Bruce be doing if you weren't doing any
of those three things?
Wow, you know I'd like to bethinking I'd probably be a
professional musician.
I would have gotten whatinstruments?
Oh, I play a bunch ofinstruments the only one I'm.
I mean, I play guitar, I playpiano, I play recorders.
(41:05):
I play.
I was in an early music groupfor decades.
I've played a bunch of earlyinstruments, you know, crumhorn
and things like that, and I wasnever, never at a professional
level of any of them, exceptprobably recorders, where I'm at
the most professional level andyou know I've been.
I'm on some recordings, playing, recorder and and sing.
And I also sing, again, not ata.
I'm not a soloist type singer,but I do a lot of choral singing
and I compose a lot.
So I would probably be doingthat.
(41:28):
There was a point in my careerwhere I had a chance to go get a
master's degree in early musicand I declined because I didn't
want to do it for a living, andI don't know if I have the chops
for it.
Really, you know, I just don'tknow if I you know, but who
knows?
But if we're going to make analternative universe, that's
probably what I'd be doing.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Oh boy, here we go.
But that was fantastic, man.
Thank you, Dr Bruce, for beingon with us.
Man, BruceChomacom is where youcan find, I would think, all of
your work there.
The link we gave you earlierwas for the podcast website
Couples Therapy in Seven WordsC-T-I-N number 7 dot com.
(42:06):
I'm sure there were manyquestions left on the table.
I know I had plenty of them,but Dr Bruce is open to talk
about faith, interfaith, theplight of the Jewish community,
his love for Thuridic.
I know it's a little deeperthan what he told us about
musical competitions.
I know we only scratched thesurface of that.
Of course, anything regardingcouples therapy and perhaps
having an appointment, deeperthan what he told us, I mean
(42:26):
talk about musical competitions.
I know we we only scratched thesurface of that.
Of course, anything regardingcouples therapy and perhaps
having an appointment made withhim and his wife is something to
do a fantastic job of whatthey're doing and his books.
But he has like three books outthere betrayal and forgiveness.
It's not about communicationand we ignite it in the spark.
So by all means, reach out tohim, Bruce.
By all means reach out to him,Bruce, traumacom.
Third, thanks for being on withus.
This was a very enlighteningconversation, man you are.
(42:47):
You got a lot of layers, man.
This was a great thanks, well,thanks for having me on.
The pleasure is all mine, ofcourse.
If you have any furtherquestions, I think we'll ask Dr
Bruce to jump on to our YouTubechannel and in the comments
section under this episode,which is live, so you can be
able to find it right away,he'll drop all of his
information there and that'llgive him a chance to connect
(43:10):
with you guys directly and theycan send their questions and
comments or ask where they canfind any particular word they're
trying to find or any questionsthey have about therapy, etc.
So thanks again for doing this,man.
This has been fantastic.
Any closing thoughts for us man?
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Just, you know the seven words of our podcast be
kind, don't panic and have faith.
That's my closing words.
I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Thank you very much, all you guys listening and
watching.
Thank you for supporting one onone with Mr you and, of course,
dr Bruce Chalmer.
Pleasure to have you, sir.
Fantastic Dr Bruce, and Mr DrBruce and Mr Yu, we're out.
Welcome back to one on one with Mr you.
Of course, I'm your host, mryou, in studio with us today.
Author.
Psychologist and couplestherapist, dr Bruce, in studio
with us today.
Author.
Psychologist and couplestherapist, dr Bruce Chalmers, in
the building.
How are you, sir?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I am well.
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's going to be fun and exciting.
We had a fantasticpre-interview chat.
We talked about a lot of thingsthat I think our listeners are
going to enjoy.
So hopefully you have yourlistening ears on and if you
have any questions for myself orDr Bruce or any comments on the
topics that we're talking about, drop into the comment section.
We'd love to have your commentslive and we have Dr Bruce
(00:53):
comment on those as they comethrough.
So, thanks again for listeningand watching and, dr Bruce, as
we always do it's customary onour show I always ask the first
question about you, yourbackground, your childhood,
where'd you come from?
Where's what's life like forlittle?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Bruce, yeah, well, I grew up in Buffalo, new York All
right so.
I'm saying you're a fan.
Yes, I was a total Bill's fan,and I was, of course, when I was
growing up.
That was before the Bills werein the, before the AFL merged
with the NFL.
So I remember when the B billsactually won a championship,
(01:31):
they won the afl championshipone year, I think I was about 12
at the time.
Uh, they've tried since then.
They haven't quite made it.
Um, so I grew up there and uhended up.
Uh went to.
Uh ended up going to college atthe university of toronto,
actually, and graduated fromthere, ended up moving to verm
at the University of Toronto,actually, and graduated from
there.
I ended up moving to Vermont.
So I've been living in Vermontnow for 50-plus years and really
(01:52):
enjoy living here.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And along the way.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I ended up.
I had sort of a checkeredcareer.
Academically speaking.
I was a statistician for awhile.
I got a master's degree instatistics.
I got involved in that throughsome of my work I was doing
first for the state governmentin Vermont and then I moved over
to the University of Vermontand I was the resident
statistician in the computercenter for a while.
And then I got interested inclinical work, mostly through
(02:18):
going through some hard stuff inmy own life, which is how a lot
of people end up getting intoclinical work.
Yeah, and I discovered it wasreally a powerful thing to do
and I really found it felt likea calling.
It felt like something I reallywanted to do and so I got the
training and I've been inprivate practice now as a
psychologist in Vermont for alittle over 30 years and if you
(02:39):
do the math there I'm in my midseventies, so you know that was
fairly late getting into that.
I'm in my mid-70s, so I wasfairly late getting into that.
I didn't do it like right outof college went right on to
graduate school for it.
I didn't get the clinicaltraining for a while.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I think I had to be more mature before I felt I
could do that and I've beendoing that for a long time.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Okay, and somewhere along the way I got more and
more into working with couples,as I was was in practice early
on.
I got training working withcouples and families very early
in my internships actually, butI also was working with
individuals quite a bit, doing alot of work with people who
were recovering from trauma.
(03:17):
But I gravitated more and moreto working with couples because
there was something so I don'tknow compelling about it.
It was really inspiring to beinvited.
You know people were dealingwith really hard stuff and doing
it with a lot of courage andyou know the outcomes weren't
always great, but they werealways.
(03:38):
I just was inspired by all thefolks I was working with that
they were just showing suchheart in trying to get through
the stuff they were gettingthrough, so I found it very
rewarding work over the years itwould sound like it is.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I mean, it feels as though to me it could just be in
my small circle.
But it feels like couplestherapy is.
It's almost made like it's ajoke.
I mean, I see it the butt ofmany jokes in cinematic
productions and movies and TVshows.
It's like when you hear it itkind of takes you to that place
(04:14):
and it probably shouldn't.
Can you kind of shed a littlebit more light on why you think
couples therapy is not onlyvalid but important?
Because I think people who arewatching and listening may say
you know what.
They may see the same imagethat I see in these movies about
a couple's therapy and they'remaking a joke about it through
the entire movie and it's nottaken seriously whatsoever.
So kind of help demystify that.
(04:35):
If you don't mind doing thatfor us That'd be great.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, sure, yeah, you know, I think I know what
you're referring to.
I see those things too.
It's funny If I'm sitting withmy wife and we're watching a
movie that has a therapist in it.
I'm just insufferable.
You know, because, because Ikeep saying I wouldn't say
things like that, you knowwhatever.
But you know, I think thedifference is the one thing I
try to offer people, which youknow, I hear stories and any any
(05:00):
couple of therapists you go toyou're going to get something
different and that's valid.
If I think that I can livepeople's lives better than they
can, I'm not helping them.
You know.
If I think that I should tellthem what they're supposed to do
and how they're supposed tolive their lives and what rules
to follow, I'm not reallyhelping them.
And when I'm able to work withpeople without that illusion,
(05:23):
when I'm able to work withpeople with a sense of respect
for their own, you know thefolks I'm working with
overwhelmingly are not crazy andthey're not evil and they're
not stupid.
They're regular people like weall are dealing with really hard
stuff.
The reason it's hard is thatit's hard.
It's not because there'ssomething wrong with them, and
(05:46):
when I work from thatperspective.
It.
Can you know it?
It what I'm seeking when I'm,when I'm working with people.
What I'm seeking is what'smeaningful for them, and when
you do that, it's not.
It doesn't look like thosecaricatures you see in movies,
you know.
It doesn't look like somebodyjust sort of mediating people
yelling, yelling at each otheror, you know, telling them what
to do or things like that.
It looks more like peoplehaving to face hard stuff
(06:06):
without panicking, and a lot ofthe work is about helping people
face the hard stuff withouteither trying to avoid it, on
the one hand, or panicking aboutit, on the other.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Okay, what would you say?
And, of course, confidentialityand privacy are really
important here, but what wouldyou say would be one of the
hardest situations you've seenin couples therapy Something you
can share, even if it's acautionary tale for those that
are listening.
They may be thinking about thator may be in need of it and
didn't realize they were.
Could you share a story or two,or instance or two?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Sure, I mean, I think it's close to half anyway.
The couples that I deal with ina first session are talking
about infidelity, and infidelityalmost always is really hard.
Whatever they're dealing with,it's really hard.
And so, you know, the personwho was cheated on is often just
(07:00):
incredibly angry and incrediblyhurt and you know, they feel
betrayed, they feel like howcould this person have done this
to me?
The person, usually the personwho did the cheating, is feeling
guilty.
They, you know it's prettyunusual that they're saying, oh,
it was no big deal.
They usually are recognizingyes, I shouldn't have done that,
but I did.
And if they're sitting in atherapist's office, it's because
(07:21):
they're trying to work onsomething.
The folks who, you know, thefolks who don't want to work on
anything, don't come to see me.
So you know, if people are justsaying, well, the heck with it,
we're just going to split up,they're not going to see a
therapist.
So when they're sitting therein a therapist's office, it's
because it's.
It's such a common.
One kind of betrayal or anotherespecially infidelity but there
(07:47):
are other kinds of betrayal tooare so common in my experience
and I've learned a lot fromworking, seeing folks get
through the shock and work, worktheir way through to something
that feels like resolution,whether that's staying together
or splitting up, and so that'swhy I wrote that book and that's
, I guess I would say yeah, thecautionary tale there is well,
(08:08):
okay, not a good idea to cheaton your spouse If your deal is
monogamy, not a good idea toviolate that.
And yet people do a lot.
So there must be somethingmeaningful about it, there must
be something pretty compellingabout it, or it wouldn't happen
so much.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Okay, it sounds like infidelity is one of the biggest
things that you see in some ofyour sessions.
What would be the next bigthing that you would see outside
of infidelity?
What would be the other thing?
The big problem that thesecouples are trying to solve that
will come to you and your wife.
The big problem that thesecouples are trying to solve.
It will come to you and yourwife.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I think I would say the next thing I see after
infidelity would be where thespark is gone and it just feels
sort of dead and that feelsawful, so that one or the other
or both parties are just feelinglike it's so painful to try and
be together when there's solittle intimacy whether it's,
you know, sex per se or justother kinds of emotional
(09:06):
intimacy and they don't know howto get back to where it was or
they don't know how to turn thatship around and that's a really
painful thing that I see prettyfrequently as well.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
What do you think I mean without again, without
going into any deep details whatdo you think is the turning
point for people or couples whohave that particular issue?
Because it's very, veryintimate, it's very private and
you're talking about basicallyyou're not sharing it with the
(09:36):
world, but you're sharing itwith somebody who is not in the
room with you when all thesechallenges are taking place.
What was the turning point foryou in your session that made
somebody really just trust andopen up and say you know what
this is, what's going on.
We really need help here.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
One of the things I do almost always in the first
session is I give a little talkabout what I think, how often
and it's not always true, buthow often people get to that
point and when they hear that,that often has the effect of
kind of opening them up.
So I'll give a short version ofwhat I always tell people about
.
You know, why do we bothercoupling up?
(10:16):
Why do humans beings do what wedo vis-a-vis coupling up?
I mean, yes, we're mammals andwe reproduce sexually, but
there's all kinds of people whocouple up who have no interest
in actually making babies.
So why do we do this?
There's a lot of reasons why,but one way of understanding
what makes a couple work is thatwe're trying to fulfill two
(10:37):
different sets of needs.
We're trying to have bothstability and intimacy, and the
reason I separate those two isthat the skills you need for
stability are very differentfrom the skills you need for
intimacy, and yet they're bothneeds.
If they're not fulfilled enough, something just doesn't work.
So the way people often getinto that sort of deep freeze,
(10:59):
the way the spark tends to goout often, is that they are so
focused on keeping things stablethat they avoid rocking the
boat with each other, and whichisn't a crazy thing to do.
I mean, stability is important,especially if you do things like
have kids.
When people have kids, theywant to have things be pretty
stable.
You're making a life togetherwith someone.
(11:20):
You want to know that it'sgoing to stay relatively calm.
It's not a crazy thing to wantat all, but often what happens
then is they won't do what ittakes to be intimate.
Now by intimacy I mean that ina very broad sense.
I'm not just talking about sex,I'm talking about being
fundamentally honest withyourself and each other.
And when people are prizingstability so much, they will
(11:46):
often then avoid bringing upsomething that they worry will
raise anxiety, like justsomething as simple as a
complaint.
You know just saying, hey, Iwish you wouldn't do X, y or Z
that you're doing, or I wish youwould do X, y or Z that you're
not doing.
And if they've had theexperience of conversations when
they raise anxiety, kind ofgoing off the rails, they get
into a big fight, they get intoa deep freeze, whatever then
(12:09):
they will tend to avoid that andover time that becomes deadly.
It starts being that they walkon eggshells around each other,
or they can't say anythingwithout it turning into a fight,
or they build up resentment andthat's what kills the spark.
And so, you know, people oftensay, well, the spark can't last
more than a year or so?
(12:30):
Right, yes, it can, if you'rewilling to tolerate the anxiety.
People say that you have to beable to tolerate the anxiety of
intimacy.
What that requires really ismaturity, and you know how do
you develop maturity?
Best way to develop maturity isyou go through a bunch of hard
stuff and you get through it.
And so that a lot of thecouples that are coming to see
(12:51):
me, especially the ones, well,yes, the ones dealing with
infidelity, but even the onesjust dealing with that sense of
kind of a you know, a dead, adead relationship it's all about
learning to tolerate theanxiety of actual intimacy.
And that you know.
You're asking, like, what's theturning point?
Often you'll kind of see thelight bulb.
You know, when I'm explainingthe bit about stability and
(13:13):
intimacy, they will often say,wow, hadn't thought of it that
way.
That's just what we've beendoing, we've been all about
stability and we've beenavoiding intimacy.
And when they do that it's, onthe one hand, it's a little
scary because they, you knowthere's stuff that they haven't
wanted to go to.
That may be difficult.
There's usually good reason whythey're avoiding talking about
(13:34):
certain things that may bereally scary.
Maybe they discover they'rejust not compatible.
You know which is really a scarything to discover that's pretty
scary, yeah, but of coursemaybe they discover that they
can broaden their sense of youknow they can, they can risk it,
and then they can rediscovereach other, and that can be very
(13:54):
exciting.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I love that.
I don't know if I'm qualifiedto speak on this.
Next year will be our 30th yearof marriage.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That makes you qualified.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
We had ups and downs that you wouldn't believe.
There's some things that are inour book.
There's some things that are onthe first few seasons of our
podcast.
Beside that, a lot of it islargely unknown.
But, man, the work, theintentional work that had to
take place, I think it'sunderstated around us.
I don't think we realize thatwe have met with people.
(14:28):
We have met and counseledcouples ourselves, Not that
we're couples therapists, but weseem to fall into that boat
where we were able to kind ofhelp, maybe on a small scale,
maybe not anything clinical orreally really deep or anything,
but we just were able to helpwith that under the umbrella of
ministry for a long time.
And I feel like a lot of peopleare not willing to to kind of
(14:53):
take that step together.
There's always one that wantsto do it, the other one that
doesn't want to do it and theone that wants you to do it.
They say they want to do itbecause they think the other
person can get fixed by doing it, Not them.
They strike, so it can go bothways.
But a lot of times it's usuallythe wife that wants her husband
to go because he needs help.
She's tired of watching him.
(15:15):
She's fine, but he needs help.
But tell me how you would speakto the guy that's reluctant to
go on a couples therapy.
If you had a conversation withhim, how would you not convince
him?
But maybe ask the rightquestions to get the right
answers?
Why would he want to come underthat same scenario?
The wife is harassing him aboutit and he's like I don't need
(15:36):
this talking to a stranger aboutmy life.
The problem not there, you know.
How would you, how would youhandle that one?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
well, I'll tell you, I'm gonna answer that question.
And I'm gonna answer adifferent one.
First, because you're sayingwhat would I say to the guy
who's reluctant to come?
Well, the guy is reluctant tocome.
I'm not talking too muchbecause he's reluctant to come.
So the person I talked to and Iactually made a video about
this a few years ago the personI talked to is how do I talk to
the woman who's trying to getthe guy to come?
(16:03):
Because you know, what couldshe do, perhaps differently?
That would invite him to come,that would invite him to want to
come.
And I'll tell you what I.
So, what I tell those women,you know.
First of all, they need tounderstand why is the guy
reluctant.
Now, if you ask women why isthe guy reluctant, they will say
(16:27):
mostly the stuff that the guy'stelling them.
Often it's like the guy thinkswell, you're the one with the
problem, so you go.
You know you're the one who'sunhappy, you're trying to drag
me to therapy.
You're the one who's unhappy,you go.
That's.
The guy will often say that.
The woman will often Yep, ofcourse, yeah, the woman will
often end up saying he justdoesn't care enough.
He doesn't care enough to go.
You know, it's like if he caredenough about me he would be
(16:51):
willing to go and I?
No, that's not true.
It's not that the guy doesn'tcare.
It's almost never that the guydoesn't care.
It's usually that the guy isterrified.
Now, we're guys, we won't admitthat we're terrified, but
usually it's that the guy'safraid.
And what I point out to thewomen is he's got good reason to
be afraid.
He's not crazy to be afraid.
(17:13):
What is he afraid of?
He's afraid that the therapistwill side with the woman.
It doesn't matter whether thetherapist is male or female.
He's got good reason to thinkthat because that often happens
yeah, I mean very often.
You know it shouldn't, but veryoften that's what happens the
guy ends up feeling like oh,this is gang up on the stupid
(17:34):
guy, you know.
And so he has reason to worrythat.
He's worried that the therapistwill basically either say or
imply why are you with this guy,he's terrible for you, get out
of it.
Or even if he doesn't say thatexplicitly, even if the
therapist doesn't say thatexplicitly, the guy's worried
that the therapist is going tolead them, lead her to come to
(17:55):
that conclusion.
In other words, you know, andthat's not a crazy fear.
Everybody, or most people, Ithink.
If you know about couplestherapy, you probably know some
friends who went to it and brokeup.
It's not an unusual phenomenon,it's.
You know, a lot of people willsee couples therapy as uh-oh.
This relationship's on its lastlegs, and often it is.
(18:16):
So his reluctance isn't crazy.
And so when the woman canactually recognize, he's not
crazy to be afraid of it.
And, moreover, it's not that hedoesn't care.
In fact, the only reason he'safraid of it is that he doesn't
want to lose her.
He actually does care when shecan see that.
If she can actually validatethat when she's talking to him,
(18:37):
and she can actually say youknow, I think I can understand
why you're reluctant.
It makes sense to me I wouldworry about that stuff too.
That's often what will get theguy to open up.
That's often what will get theguy to say well, I really don't
want to lose you.
Maybe it's worth a try.
But you know, I'm glad youunderstand why I'm afraid, and
(19:00):
that's what can get the guy toopen up.
And then, if they go to therapyand they actually experience a
therapist who really clearlyrespects them both which I
certainly try to do.
That's what lets things happen,where the guy will not be
afraid anymore and then you'llactually get some, you know, get
some.
Actual progress can happen,because they can actually face
(19:20):
their issues.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So many questions I want to get into with you man.
There's so much.
Hopefully we have time to getinto at least the majority of
this.
So many.
But your book is CouplesTherapy in Seven Words.
You can get it on his websitectin7.com.
I'm sure it should be availableelsewhere as well.
You mentioned one thing in yourbook.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That's the podcast.
Couples Therapy in Seven Wordsis the podcast, the podcast
right, say again, the link tothe book is there.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Oh yeah, the link to the book is definitely there.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
I've written three books and you can find links to
there and also at my own website, brucechommercom.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Absolutely.
I want to get into some otherstuff.
Hopefully we won't run out oftime in doing so, but you
mentioned one thing in your bookabout how the relationship
problem that you've been seeingare almost always not about
communication.
Yes, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
That's the second book I wrote.
It's called it's not aboutcommunication.
Why?
Everything you know aboutcouples therapy is wrong.
Is that a snarky title or what?
Right, that is an arroganttitle.
I will, I will own that.
You know.
What am I trying to say there?
The reason I say it's not aboutcommunication.
Now look, I realize it's a.
It's a substantial.
I don't know what thepercentage is, but it's the big
majority of couples in the firstsession when I'm saying, hey,
what's going on?
In effect, they will say we needto communicate better.
(20:41):
You know, we need some rules ortools to communicate better,
because every time we try tocommunicate about anything that
we have any differences, it goesoff the rails.
So we need some rules Help uscommunicate, help us learn to
communicate better.
No-transcript effectivelycommunicating and they're
(21:29):
destructive.
They're, you know, they'reconveying to their partner.
I don't trust you.
I'm not even sure I love youanymore.
You just make me angry.
They're very effective atcommunicating.
It's not about communication,it's about what they're
communicating.
So if I taught them and manytherapists will do this if I
taught them rules to communicatebetter, all I would be doing is
(21:50):
giving them a bunch ofcumbersome rules to communicate
how much they don't like eachother.
It wouldn't do them any good.
What they need to figure out ismaybe how come they don't like
each other and maybe they canlike each other again and then
they don't need the rules.
And that's the thing you knowand I love to give it.
It's probably a silly analogy,but you know, if you think
(22:11):
teaching people, I'll put itthis way If you look at a couple
, the sort of couple thatdoesn't make appointments to see
me because everything's goingwell right, some think of maybe
your own marriage.
It's you know, I feel this wayabout my marriage.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
When things are going well in a good way.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
No, I'm saying a good thing when things are going
well, a couple that is doingwell.
And you know, when people seeour podcast I do, the podcast I
do is with my wife.
She's not a therapist, she's aretired educator, but we've what
people comment.
A lot is our chemistry.
It's like well, you guys looklike you really do like each
other.
Well, we do.
And when, when you see a couplethat is doing well, they are
(22:50):
more or less following the rulesthat everybody teaches.
They're not doing it formally,you know.
They're not doing it carefullyand like active listening and
making sure you know.
But informally they're notinsulting each other, they're
not calling each other names,they're actually listening to
each other and trying tounderstand what the other is
saying.
That's what couples do whenthey're doing well.
(23:10):
So a lot of therapists will saywell, if that's what couples do
when they're doing well, let'steach couples to communicate
that way and then they'll bedoing well.
And that turns out to be wrong.
That turns out to be a fallacy.
Trying to teach people tobehave like well-functioning
couples doesn't make themwell-functioning.
It's the same thing.
Here's my silly analogy.
(23:30):
If you think about tennisplayers the top tennis players
when they hit the ball, younotice how they grunt.
They didn't used to do thatwhen I was a kid, but for the
last 40 or 50 years they gruntwhen they really hit the ball.
Have you seen that?
Yeah, I've heard it.
So if you're teaching tennis, Iguess that means just make sure
(23:53):
everybody grunts and thenthey'll be top tennis players.
Well, that's ridiculous.
The grunting doesn't make themtop tennis players.
There's probably somethingassociated with being a top
tennis player that makes themgrunt, but teaching them to
grunt won't teach them anythingyou got to teach them to be a
good tennis player.
Teaching a couple Say what, saywhat.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I don't know how you're going to grow up beyond
that, but okay, keep going.
I don't know how you're goingto grow up beyond that.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
But okay, yeah, so that's the point.
You know, teaching people toact as if they're
well-functioning doesn't makethem well-functioning.
They actually have to bewell-functioning, and that's not
about learning to communicatebetter.
That's about what's going onthat's making them so pissed off
.
And if you can actually gothere, then you have a shot
actually of people relaxing andbeing able to hear each other
(24:38):
and being able to recognize wow,there are multiple realities.
You know the phenomenon.
You asked about turning points.
It's another one of my favoritethings to note.
In a turning point and I hopeit's okay to use this language I
call it the oh shit moment.
Is it okay to say that?
Not now.
How about the oh shoot moment?
Let's call it the oh shitmoment.
Is it okay to say that?
Not now?
How about the oh shoot moment?
Let's call it the oh shootmoment.
(24:59):
Go ahead, sir.
So the point is it's not the ohshoot, we'll say it that way.
It's not the oh shoot when youhit your thumb with a hammer,
it's the oh shoot when it's likeoh shoot, that's what's going
on here.
Oh, you're not crazy, butneither am I.
But we really do differ here,don't we?
You know that's a turning pointmoment.
(25:20):
You get there, when you getpast the instant panic, when you
know when people aren'tdefensive, at that point they're
just hearing it.
And the reason I call it the ohshoot moment rather than
calling it the aha moment, youknow, aha is lovely, aha is like
aha, we've solved it.
Well, the oh shoot momentdoesn't solve it yet, but it
means that they can stopfighting.
At that point they can say, oh,that's what our problem is.
(25:42):
I didn't realize you werethinking of it that way.
I'm not sure I'm okay with that, but at least I'm understanding
where you're coming from.
You know that's the oh shootmoment, as I like to call it
using the other word, and that,but that that moment is that is
a real turning point and I'mdramatizing it by calling it a
moment.
You know it's really more of aprocess, but when a couple can
(26:05):
get there, you can almost seethe light bulb.
You know when a couple getsthere, then they're.
They have a shot actually atbeing able to hear each other
and actually maybe reconnect.
You know that's.
It's amazing what happens whenthey can do that, because a lot
of times what will happen is thethings they thought were so
crucial They'll recognize maybethey're not as crucial as they
(26:27):
thought.
Maybe it's like, oh, I actuallycan be okay with some stuff I
didn't realize could be okaywith.
Or, you know, also sadlysometimes it happens it's like,
oh, wow, we are two good people,but I see why we're not right
for each other.
It's just not going to work.
That's really a bummer andthat's sad when it happens.
(26:51):
But even that is a kind ofsuccess because it means that
they can both move on with asense of, you know, integrity.
They don't have to feel like,oh, it was all a waste of time.
They can recognize wow, we hadgreat times that we had.
We can move on now and realize,well, we shouldn't stay
together.
So it's painful when thathappens, but either way, there's
a clarity that they can getfrom that.
(27:11):
So that my whole bit about it'snot about communication is
really it's about that sensethat no, it's not how you're
communicating, it's what you'recommunicating.
I do want to add one otherthing, which is about that
snarky subtitle of the book.
Yeah, why?
Everything you know about thecouples therapy is wrong.
That applies to me too.
Everything I know about couplestherapy is wrong too.
Which is to say, I do have somegood ideas, lots of people have
(27:32):
good ideas.
If I think, I know, if I thinkI have the last word, I'm going
to cause harm rather than good,I really have to be humble about
my own understandings.
I have some good ideas.
They work a lot, but they don'talways work, and I need to
understand that.
So that's what I mean by that.
Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
All right.
Now, based on the title of thisepisode, there are three areas
that I really want to try to getinto, but we're going to have
to do a rapid fire.
I don't want to miss out on theopportunity to kind of hear
some of the stories.
One awesome story that youshared in our pre-and-agree chat
that I definitely want to beshared here.
So I'm going to ask you maybethree or four more questions to
see if we can move through themrelatively quickly and give the
(28:13):
audience more of a broaderunderstanding of what you do,
what you're involved in.
I think it's very, very, veryinteresting.
But one question here sex, goodsex and sacred sex what are the
differences?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
there.
So sex is whatever you think.
It is Plain old sex.
You know, if you think it's sex, it's sex and you know it's not
just intercourse, it's whateverit is.
You know Sex sex it's sex, it'snot just intercourse, it's
whatever it is.
Sex is a lot of things, If youthink it's sex.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
It's sex.
I don't have to quibble aboutthat.
I was watching a podcastyesterday that under the age of
18, that first talk to your momabout that.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
He just, he's like keep going, kids, talk to your
parents, right, absolutely, ohmy God.
So Right, absolutely.
So what makes it good sex iswhat I say.
What makes it good sex is whenyou move from just plain old sex
to being present, emotionally,spiritually, physically present
with yourself and each other,which is to say intimate.
That's what I mean by intimate.
That's what makes it good.
Sacred sex is sort of like acumulative.
(29:12):
It's like learning math.
You know you have to learn itcumulatively.
You know you gotta.
You gotta be, you gotta be okaywith plain old sex before you
can get to good sex, and yougotta be good with you, gotta be
adept in good sex before youget to sacred sex.
Sacred sex is when it's it's nolonger about just the two of
you anymore.
It's such a you're so attunedthat you're in tuned with forces
(29:33):
that are much bigger.
You know, in religious termsit's like it's holy.
In religious terms it's God isinvolved.
Or in cultures that wouldn'tuse in those terms like tantric
sex that the folks from often,like India and from the East
will talk about.
That's the notion of sacred sex.
So it has a lot more to do withyour sense of the sacred than
(29:53):
it does about sex per se.
So that's what I mean by that.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, lot more to do with your sense of the sacred
than it does about sex per se.
So that's what I mean by that.
Yeah, thank you, very good,very good, all right, so there's
a few more things.
I want to try to get them in.
We are, we're up against itright now, really.
Um, you shared a story about agentleman by the name of Darrell
Davis.
Are you going to share thatstory again, can you?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
can you get into that ?
I don't know him personally.
I'm just amazed by what he hasdone.
He is a black man who decidedit would be a good idea to go
visit KKK rallies to talk to theguys.
What amazing courage to do that.
And he didn't go.
Of course he didn't go to allof them.
(30:35):
Yeah, I mean I, you know, I'llbet you can relate, you know, I
mean I'm not black, I'm Jewish,and we're not exactly welcome at
KKK rallies either, and I don'tknow if I could pull that off.
But he has done that and he nowhas a collection I think of I
don't think it's literally 200robes that people sign up, but
it's a whole bunch of robes andover 200 people have renounced
(30:56):
white supremacy from having hadconversations with Daryl Davis.
Unbelievable thing to do, and Ifind such inspiration in that,
and to me that applies incouples therapy too.
It's so much about getting past.
Whatever these huge differencesseem to be, they just seem to be
set in concrete, and whenpeople can experience genuine
(31:18):
respect, it just tends to softeneverything up.
And so these KKK guys who wereable to actually have a
conversation with a black manwho was treating them with
respect again, incrediblecourage to do that and actually
they recognized that, wow, thestuff they had thought was true
wasn't true.
They were able to actually say,oh, all of these assumptions
(31:41):
I've been making about, you know, racism turn out not to be true
.
And they were able to see thatbecause they experienced
somebody being deeply respectfulof them, which I just think is
an amazing thing.
So that you know that appliesin the world of therapy I think
everybody as much as it does.
More broadly, and you know, beit race relations or politics or
whatever, daryl Davis is aco-founder of an organization
(32:02):
called the pro-human foundationand I want to put a shout out
he's also involved with braverangels, which is another
organization I want to give ashout out to.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Absolutely.
I think that this, that story,was deep to me on a lot of
different levels.
I just kind of feel like as aman, I've been dealing with a
lot more men's issues,especially on our show and doing
more ground tables with men andchat discussions, and that
isolation piece is just one ofthe biggest things that men have
a challenge with and alsoinability or unwillingness to
(32:35):
connect.
But when we do that, when wereally not be in a room, we with
a whole bunch of other men,that's not what I mean, that's
not really a connection.
But when we actually really areintentional about connecting
and getting to know and hearthese stories from other people
and hit and peeking into theirlives, we realized how big we
made our own stuff and it wasn'tthat big a thing.
We made it into a massivemountain that keeps us from all
(32:58):
the other men and keeps us fromcompassion and connections.
Like you know what?
It wasn't that big a deal.
Look at what a deal.
Look at what he's dealing with.
Look what he's dealing with.
It's worse than mine.
I wouldn't make it if I had todo what they deal with and it
just kind of demystifieseverything.
So I love that story of DarrellDavis man, you mentioned some
things about your area inVermont.
I want to just the next to lastquestion I ask you so we can get
(33:19):
out of here.
You mentioned about your areain Vermont and how this is a
very strong Jewish communitywhere you are and there was some
discussion between you and Iabout Israel and anti-Semitism.
I noticed a big topic thatcrunched into a few minutes and
I recognize that.
So I apologize in advance toeverybody that's listening.
(33:40):
Dr Bruce, I'm going to give youmore insight.
You contact him and kind ofhave discussions with him.
You can get into more detailsabout what we're talking about
right now.
But in short, talk to me aboutVermont, the community that you
are a part of, what you'reseeing in the interfaith
examples, and just kind of breakthat down for us a little bit,
if you don't mind getting intoit please.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Sure, yeah, well, it's interesting in Vermont
because it's a very small Jewishcommunity.
So, you know, one of theeffects of that is I suppose it
wouldn't be surprising, you know, since I'm very much involved.
You know, I'm kind of wellknown in the Jewish community
and in various circles.
So what that ends up meaning isthe clients I work with are
almost never Jewish because Iprobably know them or know
(34:23):
people who know them or what.
You know what I mean.
It's like I can't work withfolks that are my own friends or
acquaintances even so.
That's just interesting.
But I probably work with asmaller percentage of fellow
Jews than I would if I were in abig city where there would be
all zillions of people that Idon't know around here.
It's like if they're Jewish, Iprobably have some connection
with them.
You know, because it's a verysmall Jewish community.
Have some connection with them.
(34:43):
You know, because it's a verysmall Jewish community.
The anti-Semitism stuff is.
I mean, ask any Jewish personand you will probably find, wow,
it's been really, it's alwaysbeen a thing.
It's not like that's new.
In fact, it's been around formillennia.
You know, in one way or another, especially in the last several
hundred years, it's been aroundand it keeps cropping up one
way or another, and the mostrecent stuff in the last several
(35:04):
hundred years it's been aroundand it keeps cropping up one way
or another, and the most recentstuff in the past couple of
years has been incrediblypainful.
It's been painful sort of rightacross.
Whatever people's politicalviews are, whatever their views
are about how Israel has beenhandling itself, right across
the spectrum, it's still beenreally painful, and so that's
something that you know lots of.
(35:25):
When Jews get together, we talkabout it, which, again, not real
surprising.
I think that's true of anygroup.
Look, I imagine you know, whenblack people get together, you
talk about racism in ways thatwhite people don't talk about.
When Jews get together, we talkabout anti-Semitism in ways
that non-Jews don't talk about.
I think that's pretty normalstuff.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
I suppose.
So I guess that does happen.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I don't know.
I've never been in a group youknow?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
No, that makes sense.
That makes sense In the areawhere you are in Vermont.
Is that a big challenge thatyou're seeing?
I mean, this is a smallcommunity so you know of course
any news, good or bad, getsaround pretty quick.
Probably Is that a problem youguys are seeing that
precipitates that you guys havethese discussions, or are you
kind of pulling it from mediacues and what's going on in the
(36:14):
world or globally, or are youseeing it in your neck of the
woods directly.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
We are actually seeing it in our neck of the
woods.
Again, it varies a lotdepending on where you are.
But in Vermont it varies a lotdepending on where you are.
But in Vermont, it's funny,it's not so much the
anti-Semitism of the right, theNazi type, it's more the
anti-Semitism of the left,depending on how you analyze
that.
But kids in school are reallysubject to a lot of painful
(36:40):
stuff, especially since theevents of October 7th a couple
of years ago.
That has been really hard forfolks.
I know we actually see it inVermont and so it's.
Vermont is an interesting placebecause there's a real
tradition here of tolerance andI say tolerance because it's
interesting.
It's more tolerance than it isacceptance, but it's definitely
(37:02):
tolerance.
There is a real tradition hereof saying well, you get to be
who you are here, butantisemitism has come up in
various forms locally and thatit is the topic of conversation
a fair amount even here.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Okay, we got two more questions left.
We're going to try to make thishappen this week.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
We're up against it seriously.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
First question you mentioned improv three in our
conversation.
I think it's hilarious onlybecause we have some deep
conversations about forgivenessand betrayal and couples,
therapy and faith and interfaith, as you just mentioned, and now
we're talking about where didthree come from?
Tell me briefly how is it alove for three-Eta?
(37:45):
Is it an analogy you use inyour work?
Where did 3-Eta come from inall of this?
Speaker 2 (37:51):
It's totally an analogy that I use in my work
because I've done very little ofit.
I'm not trained in that oranything.
You've probably seen improvright and it can be absolutely
hilarious when it happens.
The analogy in my work is myfirst session is pretty
structured, my first session.
I have particular things.
I mentioned some of it earlier.
I talk about stability andintimacy and I do a family
(38:13):
diagram and I you know it'spretty structured.
After that, or even after likethe first half of the first
session, it then becomessomething that I think is very
akin to improv theater.
And why do I think it's akin toimprov theater?
There's one rule, as Iunderstand it, there's one rule
of improv theater.
The rule is yes and yes.
(38:33):
And In other words, somebodypresents you with some
ridiculous thing and your fellowactor has just come up with
some ridiculous idea and throwsit into the mix and you never
say no.
You never say no, we're notgoing there, we're going here.
It's always yes.
And and then you throw insomething maybe even more
(38:54):
ridiculous.
Now, how is that like couplestherapy?
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not trying to make fun offolks.
It's not that we're throwing inridiculous things.
It's that in the beginning ofcouples therapy.
It's not that we're throwing inridiculous things, it's that in
the beginning of couplestherapy it's up to the therapist
to be the one who can do theyes, and Because the couple is
usually in no shape to do that,the couple is in no damn it mode
(39:14):
.
They're not in yes, and mode,right, they're just there
Whatever the other person issaying.
They're feeling like you're notunderstanding and they're in
negative mode.
But to the extent that what thecouple therapist is doing is
saying, wow, that's interesting,even if it's awful, you know
it's like wow, you cheated,that's interesting.
You know I don't usually saywell, that's interesting, but I
don't say oh, my God, that'sterrible.
(39:35):
You know you shouldn't havedone that.
Well, they already know thatit's like well, like improv
theater, and then subsequentsessions.
Again, there's not a lot ofstructure except follow the
meaning where it goes, whichagain is my understanding is
just like improv.
So that I have a section, achapter, in one of my books.
(39:56):
In that book it's not aboutcommunication.
I have a chapter in there thatsort of looks at how I do
therapy and that's why I compareit to improv theater.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I love it.
I love it All right, ascustomary, all of our guests ask
answers.
The last question I ask all ofour guests.
So this is not just me pickingon you.
I do this with everybody.
I'm picking everything that youdo off of the table.
And the whole point of thisquestion just to preface it for
you is that it allows us to kindof go back in the childhood a
little bit and think about thedreams and the goals that we had
(40:27):
and put on the shelf stuck in abureau drawer and left them in
there for years.
I'm definitely a chief offenderin that regard, but I'm taking
author off of the table.
I'm taking couples therapistsoff of the table.
I'm taking psychologists off ofthe table.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
What would Bruce be doing if you weren't doing any
of those three things?
Wow, you know I'd like to bethinking I'd probably be a
professional musician.
I would have gotten whatinstruments?
Oh, I play a bunch ofinstruments the only one I'm.
I mean, I play guitar, I playpiano, I play recorders.
(41:05):
I play.
I was in an early music groupfor decades.
I've played a bunch of earlyinstruments, you know, crumhorn
and things like that, and I wasnever, never at a professional
level of any of them, exceptprobably recorders, where I'm at
the most professional level andyou know I've been.
I'm on some recordings, playing, recorder and and sing.
And I also sing, again, not ata.
I'm not a soloist type singer,but I do a lot of choral singing
and I compose a lot.
So I would probably be doingthat.
(41:28):
There was a point in my careerwhere I had a chance to go get a
master's degree in early musicand I declined because I didn't
want to do it for a living, andI don't know if I have the chops
for it.
Really, you know, I just don'tknow if I you know, but who
knows?
But if we're going to make analternative universe, that's
probably what I'd be doing.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Oh boy, here we go.
But that was fantastic, man.
Thank you, Dr Bruce, for beingon with us.
Man, BruceChomacom is where youcan find, I would think, all of
your work there.
The link we gave you earlierwas for the podcast website
Couples Therapy in Seven WordsC-T-I-N number 7 dot com.
(42:06):
I'm sure there were manyquestions left on the table.
I know I had plenty of them,but Dr Bruce is open to talk
about faith, interfaith, theplight of the Jewish community,
his love for Thuridic.
I know it's a little deeperthan what he told us about
musical competitions.
I know we only scratched thesurface of that.
Of course, anything regardingcouples therapy and perhaps
having an appointment, deeperthan what he told us, I mean
(42:26):
talk about musical competitions.
I know we we only scratched thesurface of that.
Of course, anything regardingcouples therapy and perhaps
having an appointment made withhim and his wife is something to
do a fantastic job of whatthey're doing and his books.
But he has like three books outthere betrayal and forgiveness.
It's not about communicationand we ignite it in the spark.
So by all means, reach out tohim, Bruce.
By all means reach out to him,Bruce, traumacom.
Third, thanks for being on withus.
This was a very enlighteningconversation, man you are.
(42:47):
You got a lot of layers, man.
This was a great thanks, well,thanks for having me on.
The pleasure is all mine, ofcourse.
If you have any furtherquestions, I think we'll ask Dr
Bruce to jump on to our YouTubechannel and in the comments
section under this episode,which is live, so you can be
able to find it right away,he'll drop all of his
information there and that'llgive him a chance to connect
(43:10):
with you guys directly and theycan send their questions and
comments or ask where they canfind any particular word they're
trying to find or any questionsthey have about therapy, etc.
So thanks again for doing this,man.
This has been fantastic.
Any closing thoughts for us man?
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Just, you know the seven words of our podcast be
kind, don't panic and have faith.
That's my closing words.
I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Thank you very much, all you guys listening and
watching.
Thank you for supporting one onone with Mr you and, of course,
dr Bruce Chalmer.
Pleasure to have you, sir.
Fantastic Dr Bruce, and Mr DrBruce and Mr Yu, we're out.
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