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Healthy Love is an Inside
Job
An Interview with Dr. Brenda Schaeffer
by Tim Miejan
 A highly respected Twin Cities author, licensed psychologist and certified
addictions specialist in the area of sexual addictions, Dr. Brenda Schaeffer regularly
helps individuals and couples better understand their relationships and learn how
to strengthen them.
As director of Healthy Relationships Inc. in Minneapolis, she conducts therapy, training
and workshops. She believes "the highest goal a therapist can have for clients
is to instill in them the belief that solutions to their problems lie within them,"
and she seeks to give them tools to connect with that inner wisdom.
Dr. Schaeffer is known internationally for her books Love's Way and the best-selling
Is It Love or Is It Addiction?, Loving Me Loving You, Signs of Healthy Love, Signs
of Addictive Love, Power Plays and Helping Yourself Out of Love Addiction. With more
than a half million copies of her publications in print, she has helped people understand
the difference between healthy love and love addiction. She spoke from her office
in the Twin Cities about healthy relationships and much more.
You're the director of Healthy Relationships Inc. Why did you choose that name,
and specifically a focus on relationships, in your professional career?
Brenda Schaeffer: The first publications I did with Hazelden were titled the
"Healthy Relationship" series. I had four pamphlets at that time, and one
of them included signs of healthy love. More than 100,000 copies of each of those
pamphlets have been sold since then. Then I developed a "Healthy Relationships"
newsletter. By the time I had to create another corporation separate from my clinic,
it seemed obvious what I would call it.
A healthy relationship is not just about two persons or a family. Healthy relationship
starts with the self. The first place you go for a healthy relationship is inside.
Is it most crucial that we work to heal ourselves and then our relationship with
someone else will mirror that healing process?
Schaeffer: Getting to healthy love is an inside job. Holistically speaking, the
outside does mirror the inside. The outside and inside have a correlation. For those
not yet in a relationship, remember that you don't have to wait until you're perfect,
because you never will be.
Every relationship has three entities: an "I," a "You" and a
"We." The "We" can only be as healthy as the "I" and
the "You."
When I do counseling, I see what the issues are and I see the projections that they
may not be aware of. I ask each person to spend some individual time to look at their
own story and what they bring to any relationship and decide if there is something
they want to grow beyond or change.
In my book Loving Me, Loving You, about balancing love and power, I recommend a healthy
contract in which "I commit to becoming the best me I know how to be and share
that me with you in an honoring way." Instead of the idea of ownership, I believe
vows should include a commitment by each person that "I am willing to look at
my part and continue to grow with you."
The divorce rate is still very high in this country, indicating that there are
likely millions of people struggling in relationships. Are there any general issues
that contribute to that?
Schaeffer: I don't know what the research actually says about that, but from
my perspective, first of all, we're living longer. I saw something on a movie that
was humorous, but true. It used to be that people only lived to their 50s or 60s,
and if they were unhappy in a relationship, they didn't deal with it because it was
too close to the end of life. Oftentimes now, if people in their 40s or 50s -- which
can be considered middle age -- are really unhappy, they tend to look outside of
themselves. That's what I write about regarding love addiction. We're constantly
looking outside our ourselves for solutions.
Also, couples wait too long before they seek help. They have the same problems for
two or three years before they go to therapy. By that time, the situation may be
beyond repair, because there has been so much hurt and damage that people don't want
to put the time and energy into the healing. Some people almost develop a hate toward
their partner.
What's an early signal of relationship problems that couples may be missing. Unhappiness?
Schaeffer: I would call it an inner discontent. Not feeling safe. Not trusting.
When people are newly in love, their virtue shines. At that time, there are specific
chemicals in our brain that we feel, but we cannot sustain that high. As life gets
more routine, we need to shift from that chemical high of new love to emotional and
spiritual bonding.
People don't know how to do that, or they have been wounded in the past and fear
kicks in and they start withdrawing. Usually people are not even aware that they're
doing it. They can withdraw into addictions, in their work, having kids, and all
of a sudden they realize how distant they are. I think it's very important to recognize
this distance, the sense of not feeling safe.
I think the number one problem I encounter is the lack of emotional bonding. People
may know how to bond physically, or bond in terms of their social roles, but they
are afraid to be emotional, or don't know how to be emotionally vulnerable to each
other. People who can do that are in relationships that make it.
Typically, when do we learn how to do that? When we're children? And some people
don't learn because they are in dysfunctional families?
Schaeffer: Yes. I had someone say just this week, "I came from a really
loving family. I knew my parents loved me, but they could never use the words 'I
love you.' We had rules about touch and we had rules about expressing feelings."
There are non-verbal rules, and when you're newly in love, you forget about those
rules. These rules are unconscious. The rules are: Don't touch and don't show your
feelings.
I think the key to healthy love is about consciousness. Look at patterns that feel
good and patterns that aren't feeling good -- and have the courage to talk about
them early, and don't be afraid to go for help.
What is the typical process you see couples move through in unhealthy relationships?
Schaeffer: There's a seven-stage process that I talk about in my books that moves
from an addictive love, which can be a mild co-dependency, to fatal attraction.
I think most people start out in denial -- "I don't have it so bad compared
to other people." Then we move to discontent. Questions come up, like "Do
I love him and does he love me?" We usually don't talk about that discontent.
Maybe we get involved in our work or we have another kid. We just keep going, pulling
ourselves up by our bootstraps, and go back into denial.
I feel it is helpful if people who are in the second stage of discontent can sit
down, in a non-threatening way, and share, "Something's going on here. Can we
talk about it? It isn't about blaming or shaming, but what can we do to make this
relationship grow beyond where it is?" That is better than waiting two, three,
four, six, 10 years, holding back this tension to the point where it's beyond repair.
If we move forward, we get to the third stage of confrontation. Usually confrontation
involves trying to change the other person. "If you were more communicative,
I'd be happy." Or, "If you were more sexual, I wouldn't act out."
There's a lot of judgment in that stage.
Schaeffer: Yes, and a lot of projection and blaming and shaming. A lot of power
struggles. This is usually when people come into therapy -- or they go back into
denial or they start looking outward for other solutions.
The fourth stage is psychological separation. It's what we were supposed to have
done in adolescence. We're supposed to know who we are, what we bring into the relationship,
how to communicate and understand what from our past is no longer useful. These things
are understood through therapy, and people can do that by reading books.
I've traveled in places where people don't have the luxury -- and it is a luxury
-- to get to get counseling and therapy. Many people don't have access to therapists
or insurance to help cover it. These people have picked up my books and have come
up to me saying, "It was so helpful just to read and know I am not crazy, that
there is a reason I am feeling the way I am, and there is hope."
The fifth stage is resolution of self. You've really looked at the questions of "Who
am I? Why do I fear intimacy? Why am I so angry? Why do I say yes when I mean no?
What do I believe about men, women, love, relationships and power?" Then you
are working on self-resolution. You do the sorting and integrate the new with the
old.
Stages four and five are "I" stages. They seem rather narcissistic, but
they are what we were supposed to have gone through in adolescence.
I don't encourage people to throw away a relationship until they have gotten past
this point. If couples have looked at their own fear of intimacy and have taken responsibility
for what they bring to the relationship, it's a lot easier to do couples counseling.
If you do it at the confrontation stage without doing the inner work, it doesn't
work. They still have things inside that will sabotage the process.
The sixth stage is healthy belonging. At that stage, I actually have had couples
write new commitment vows. At this stage, some couples also leave, realizing that
they got together for the wrong reasons. They can leave without all the shaming and
blaming and do it more respectfully.
If someone in this stage is not married, they recognize that belonging is much broader
than just having a partner. It's having healthy support people in your life. It's
friendship. It's family.
Love and relationship are not synonymous. Love is this huge energy that we get to
share in many different ways and places.
The last stage is reaching out. We need a healthy relationship with ourselves and
other people. Healthy relationship is a fueling dock. Those are the places we go
to get refueled so we can go into life and share our unique gifts or meaning with
the larger world. It's a lot easier to do that when you feel safe and loved in a
relationship.
If the fuel tank is empty, someone may never achieve their purpose. A bad relationship
is like a headache. Where does your energy go when you have a headache?
What new techniques or approaches are being used to strengthen relationships today?
Schaeffer: There is a lot of new brain research that allows us to use MRI scans,
for example, to show the effect of love on the brain patterns of two people in love.
We now understand more about the neurochemistry of love and sexuality. In that regard,
I can help explain some things to people who may be in love addiction or sex addiction.
My experience is that more men are willing to come to therapy than before. Half of
my clients are men.
I think therapists in general are becoming more skilled in understanding and working
with behavior. In my practice, however, I think issues involve more than just behavior.
If someone has been traumatized in a former love relationship, they have to be able
to heal that emotionally. I think there are more techniques now that help us deal
with trauma. I do a lot of trauma work.
I think there are more holistic approaches related to the body, mind and spirit.
When someone has felt betrayed, it goes all the way to the soul of the person. It
is important to have techniques to help heal the spirit. Good therapy helps people
change behaviors, thoughts, emotions and spirit.
I encourage people to look for a therapist who can help heal or direct people to
resources to heal on those different levels. I am a licensed psychologist, but I
also have a specialist in sexual addiction and a doctorate of ministry in spiritual
psychology, so I can talk about that and understand people's depths of woundedness.
I don't profess a particular faith, because I work with people of all faiths and
no faith. On many occasions a person's spirit is broken or is feeling soul-less,
experiencing soul loss. You look at empty faces and empty stares, and you can talk
about changing behaviors and stopping addiction, but they need to fill up spiritually
as well as emotionally. It's important to help them reconnect with their soul.
For more information on Healthy Relationships, visit www.loveandaddiction.com
or call (952) 903-9215 or toll-free 1 (888) 987-6129.
Tim Miejan is editor of Edge Life magazine. Contact him at (651) 578-8969, toll-free
1 (888) 776-5687 or e-mail editor@edgelife.net
Copyright © 2005 Tim Miejan. All rights reserved. |
| February 2005 |
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