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MAY 27, 2021 The Jewish HomeHome OCTOBER 29,|2015 | The Jewish
Dr. Deb
Why Can’t You Do Regular Therapy By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.
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very intelligent person not too many months ago asked me a question that I first thought was obvious and then after examining it for a while – that’s how I am; things need to percolate inside sometimes – realized that it was a great question and deserved a wellthought-out answer. Here’s the question they asked: if your course teaches us everything we need to move into being a happy couple, getting along well and things going smoothly, then why do you need extra trainings that are in a Facebook group? And the corollary question that comes up a lot, too, is: why do you need a course at all? I just want to have regular therapy sessions. So since I think both questions deserve complete answers, I want to explain to you why the system I’ve set up is far superior to what I used to offer as “traditional therapy.” Question 1: If It’s So Good, Why Do I Need More? The short answer is: You don’t. The proof is that before I came up with all the new additions to the course, people were succeeding beautifully in learning how they work, understanding what triggers them, learning skills to no longer be triggered, learning skills to feel good about themselves (even the parts of them that they never liked), harnessing that learning to have fruitful, calm, and honest conversations, increasing understanding and compassion for their mates, and starting to work together in a harmonious way. However, if I could impart that knowledge in a way that: a. made the information more un-
derstandable on a deep level b. made it possible to more quickly utilize the information in different contexts c. made the process much less painful than before – then wouldn’t it be worth it to learn new ideas and tools? A good comparison that came to mind is this: Suppose you’re in New York and you want to fly to Chicago. You can book a seat on a plane that will absolutely get you there. Now suppose a different carrier came up with a faster way to get there, or a way with much more legroom, or (my favorite) a way that enabled the seat to recline more without being in your neighbor’s lap in the seat behind you. Or perhaps the trip was guaranteed to sail smoothly through air pockets without those stomach-churning dips, or the food was actually good and catered to weird diets like kosher-gluten-free-nondairy. And so on. Wouldn’t you rather take the trip
with the amenities of the second carrier? So that’s the idea of adding new learning to the course as we go along. Let me give you a real example that students in the course and all graduates for all time have access to now: I’ve been writing here lately about Internal Family Systems (IFS), created by Dr. Richard Schwartz. The idea of parts was not his own discovery. Prior to his advent on the scene, parts were believed to be associated with a terrible malaise called “Dissociative Identity Disorder” (originally called “Multiple Personality Disorder”). What Schwartz brought to the attention of anyone interested to know was the idea that we all have parts. That is, you don’t need to have a diagnosis of any kind to recognize that you may have different notions, ideas, and preferences within you that vie with each other at times.
When I created my course, I was not familiar with IFS. The doctoral program I went to did not even have a page on it. And, to make matters more interesting, there is no one else but Schwartz who talks about the fascinating experience of a couple working on recognizing their own and their partner’s parts. In fact, Schwartz wrote the only book on it in existence, “You are the One You’ve Been Waiting For: Bringing Courageous Love to Intimate Relationships.” And what I did was spend two months going through Schwartz’s book on my live Facebook trainings even though I had added three modules to the course (that’s three weeks) and intensive twice-a-week one-to-one therapy during those modules. In fact, I now do two trainings a week which are all on new ideas that I come across which will enhance the course learning and help couples cement their relationship. Today, for example, I spoke about the idea of how we often use the same catchphrases in our interactions and how powerful it would be if we found catchphrases that represented our true goals and mission for our families rather than un-thought-out and unhelpful remarks. I included as well several research pieces from the book I mentioned in my last column, Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code. The side that gets some people down is that I do these trainings on Facebook. Well, I have some opinions about Facebook, too. But you know what? To me, it’s just like the internet. I would not be able to reach out to help more people, discover new things to read, or put up my
