Disclosures and Couples Healing Post-Discovery — Special Guest Dr. Stefanie Carnes (Episode #2)

There's something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh, Something's around you. Welcome to the Human intimacy podcast. I'm Dr. Kevin Skinner. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to my friend and colleague, Dr. Stephanie Carnes. She is the president of the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals and a senior fellow for Meadows Behavioral Health. Dr. Carnes is the clinical architect of Willow House relationship healing for women struggling with sex, love, and intimacy disorders, and works closely with the staff. Dr. Carnes is also a licensed marriage and family therapist and an approved AAMFT SO supervisor. In addition to being a licensed marriage and family therapist, she's a sexologist certified sex addiction therapist, and she's the president of itap, the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals. Now, not to mention all of the other things that she's done, she's also the author of four books, at least that I'm aware of. Her most recent book, courageous A Guide for Couples Conquering Betrayal, is a phenomenal resource. Now I want to introduce you to my friend and colleague, Dr. Stephanie Carnes.

Well, hi, Kevin. Thank you for having me today.

I am so excited to be with you. I've known Stephanie for many years. It's actually more than 10. We probably met in 2013 when I was studying to become a certified sex addiction therapist. I was just so impressed with the work that you were doing.

I don't think you. It has been a long time.

Today we will have many listeners who are dealing with sexual betrayal or unwanted sexual behaviors. But I want them to understand and learn more about you, what it's like leading an organization and being the president of itap. I also want to talk a little bit more about the work that you are doing in your life. But before we do that, I'd love to hear something fun and unique about you.

I have a couple different things that come to mind. One is that I love sailing and boats, and I used to race sailboats, so that's really fun. And also, when I was younger, I loved to travel. And when I was younger, I went on tour with the Grateful Dead.

You went on tour with the Grateful Dead?

I did.

Oh, my goodness. How fun for you. So you love sailing, you love boats. I bet you got that from your dad.

Yes, I did get that from my dad. You're right.

That love for boats. Do you still get a chance to be out on boats very often?

I do. I try to get out as much as I can. I recently just got a little cabin up in Northern Minnesota on a lake. So I'm really excited about that. I'll be spending my summers there and so I'll get to be able to spend a little bit more time on the water than I have being kind of landlocked here in Arizona.

Well, good for you. The land of what they say is 10,000 lakes or whatever. I think that's the nickname of Minnesota, right?

Yes, it is.

And the temperature is definitely not Arizona weather in Minnesota in the summer.

That's right.

Fantastic. So you've done so much in your professional life. Just a question. What drives you to just be the best person you can be? You're writing and helping people, training therapists around the world. What is it that drives you?

I think that, you know, wanting to make a difference and having been personally impacted by sexual sex addiction and betrayal trauma in my life, you know, it's really important to me to see other people be able to treat this effectively, see therapists treating us effectively, and for clients to get compassionate and effective treatment and to really work towards destigmatizing this. And so it's been so rewarding during this work. It's been very rewarding working with the clients themselves. Just seeing the incredible transformations that can come from this and the unexpected people. Obviously this is devastating and catastrophic for most people experiencing this. But, you know, over time, you know, this having the experience of recovery can bring gifts to people's lives and transformations to people's lives. That's really amazing to watch. It's amazing to watch couples that are able to grow closer and people that are able really become, you know, more authentic and, you know, more who they want to be in their recovery. It's also just been a joy working with the therapeutic community to try to make that happen and with a lot of people that are like minded and passionate about the same topic.

So how long have you been a therapist, Steph?

In 30 years, actually. Wow. 30 years.

Wow. So me, you and I are on the same track. I started therapy in 1995 and it's.

The same year for me too as well.

So this field of sexual compulsivity, sexual addiction, whatever we want to call it, along with the betrayal trauma, you've you talked about it influencing your life and then really making it your career to just really help people, highlight how to best practices, how to do that. Tell us a little bit about your journey and then tell us a little bit about itap if you would.

Personal journey. I had, you know, was impacted by this in my family origin. I have a very famous father who, you know, Kevin, who through his own real struggles with significant trauma in his history, you know, significant PTSD in growing up in a home with alcoholism. He basically developed an addiction to cope with a lot of his pain around all of that and wanted desperately to fix it and tried everything, tried shock therapy and many different modalities to try and recover. And it wasn't until he and another gentleman started the first SAA meeting walking around Lake Harriet in Minneapolis and he launched SAA that he was able to get into recovery. That being said, it really impacted my family. I mean, obviously I was a young child growing up in this situation and so it was traumatic for me. It was traumatic for some of my other family members. And so I learned a great deal from that. He basically took something that was a real struggle for him turned around and created something really beautiful out of it and a training program to try and teach people how to work with this and developed all these wonderful materials to try and help addicts recover, which was incredibly inspirational. And I have experienced my own betrayal trauma in my marriage. Kind of followed suit in his footsteps, kind of funny reluctantly, because I never wanted to be in the addiction field initially.

Uh huh.

But I was. I originally taught in the marriage and family therapy program. I was in private practice. I worked in a lot of marriage, medical, family therapy. But as my life changed and was further impacted and the field changed and I started doing some of the work and it became a lifelong calling for me. And so I feel very blessed that I'm able to do this work and hopefully able to impact the lives of other people that are going through similar experiences.

And so in essence, you kind of grew up in that world, but maybe more. When you got your education, you became a professor, you were teaching, and at some point your dad decided that he was going to step down from being the leader and president of itap and he chose you to replace him. And now you're working with thousands of therapists in the ITAP community. What's that like for you?

Yeah, it's really exciting. So we have over 3,000 members and we're, we're in over about 35 different countries around the world. We are expanding into a Spanish program, hopefully reaching some Spanish speaking countries this next year and developing a lot of programs too. We have obviously our CSAT program, which is our main program, but also we developed a program for betrayal trauma for therapists that want to help people, specifically the partners. We've developed a program for couples called our CBIRC program, which is Certified Couples Betrayal Recovery Therapist and then we have some other programs like multiple addictions like gaming, food addiction, gambling and Internet financial disorders. And also we also developed a rainbow advocacy program. So we've been growing a lot and just providing a lot of education in areas that we feel passionate about. So it's been super exciting to watch the development and help, you know, steer the development of ITAP in recent years. And just really, I'm just really proud of everything that our organization has accomplished.

And if you step back and look at your journey to this process, you've expanded upon what your dad originally had. You guys provide online assessments to help clinicians help their clients. In fact, if there's one thing I would say about the ITAP community, you're dealing with sexual compulsivity, you're dealing with betrayal trauma. And I don't think you can get a better treatment program from a therapist, either a CSAT certified sex addiction therapist or a certified partner trauma therapist. I can tell you over and over again, people who've gotten bad therapy and they come to our office and they're like, so someone finally understands what I'm dealing with. And now I understand what I'm experiencing.

I appreciate you saying that. And unfortunately I've experienced the same thing. There's a lot of well meaning therapists out there that will dabble in doing this work without any training, thinking that, you know, oh, it's probably not that different from chemical dependency or thinking that they can just kind of muddle their way through it and then they end up really doing damage. And we've gotten a lot of those phone calls too. They, they don't really know how to do things like a disclosure or a proper diagnosis. And there's different ethical issues that can come up. The training is really important.

Yeah, can we go into that concept of a disclosure? Because this seems to be a topic today that I'm hearing more and more people saying, are you sure you need a disclosure? Isn't it going to make matters worse if we talk about these things? Or you're just making matters worse? Why bring this stuff up? What would you say to that question? Because I get it often.

Yeah, there's so many reasons to after sexual betrayal to get honest about it. First of all, it's, it's supported by empirical research that couples that do a stay together are more likely that the betrayer is more likely to have been honest. For example, there was a study that was done that looked at betrayers who were. Two groups of people looked at betrayers who were willing to be open and honest. And a second group of betrayers that weren't willing to be open and honest. The first group had an 89% marriage survival rate. The second group had a 59% marriage survival rate. So it's a huge difference just on that variable. And it also lines up with. With a lot of what the person struggling with the addiction is learning about in recovery. Being accountable, taking responsibility, being trustworthy, being honest, being authentic, being living in their integrity, which is very important for a person newly in recovery and to be able to let go of their secrets. And for the partner, it empowers them with the truth and gives them the ability to make healthy choices for themselves based on the truth, which is critical and allows them. You know, many partners have been lied to, gaslit, you know, had a very confusing story told to them about what was actually happening. And it leaves them with a lot of questions where they're pursuing the betrayer for answers. And it creates a very tense environment. And the truth helps them reclaim reality and develop a cohesive narrative about what happened, which helps them start trusting their gut instincts again, feeling like they're not going crazy. So it can be really important for the partner's healing. And then for the couple, it also provides the foundation of honesty from which to move forward. So you could. A lot of what you're saying, like, there's some people. Isn't it going to make it worse? Well, in those situations, you're actually just, like, avoiding suffering, not talking about very big issues. And there's not really true intimacy that's happening. You're not really sharing who you are in your relationship. Which ends up. What I've seen in couples like that is 10, 15 years later, they're still distressed. They have. They are not. They've never dealt with the affair. There's a lot of resentment. They're in unhappy relationships, and nobody really. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants to live like that. And even though it's painful, couples can they follow the path of recovery. They can get stronger on the other side of this. I've worked with couples that, say, have said things to me like, we would have never gotten to this point in our relationship had we not gone through everything that we did. So it can be transformative for the couple as well. Now, not all couples make it through naturally. Sometimes this is a step in dissolution of a relationship when a partner decides that's not something that they can do or move forward with. So I'm always surprised by actually how many people do end up staying together.

I think it's Interesting. That stat you show shared earlier about the number of couples who actually talk about the details are more prone to stay together. To me, that's one of the things that I when people come to me and say, do we really need to do this? I'm saying, let me just show you what. Statistically, if you want to increase your odds of making it, this is what you're going to do. And that's statistically, I think that study was over a thousand couples.

Yeah, so.

So we're not talking a small number. We're talking a very large group of people. You talk about the details, you're more likely to make it.

Yeah, absolutely.

So let's talk. I know a lot of listeners are going to have this question, what do we do with the children? You grew up in a home where you probably understood some of the details. I've heard you share this story. Do you mind sharing this story from a child's perspective and what parents can do today as they're trying to rebuild their relationship? What about the children?

Yeah, it's such an important question you're asking, Kevin, because the children are often forgotten about in these situations and even in the most loving families and the most parents that are very invested in parenting, when something like this shatters your world and you're just trying to hold on to sanity and keep your family together, it's very easy to lose focus on being an involved parent because you're focused on just trying to get get through all the pain and the devastation. So children can often feel things like neglected or they can be very confused if they find out information about what happened. Or they can be in put in positions where they are taking care. Like you get a little parentified or having to take care of the household. They can have confusing feelings around sexuality and what that means. Am I safe with my addicted parent or am I could I become an addict? Right. So many different things can come up with them. Just a lot of confusion. They can feel very concerned about the welfare of the betrayed partner and feel like they or either party, really either parent, that they may need to take care of them. They might get triangled into the conflict of the parents. So there can be so many different ways that children are impacted. And I think it's really important in terms of the field. We've worked very hard in recent years in getting good materials for partners and really being able to support them better. But really there's still not a lot out there for the kids. And the kids are the ones that get forgotten a lot out of, you know, in the family situations, it's so important, like if, if your listeners are couples going through this, to do things like staying very consistent with involvement and routines and showing up for them, like even though things are hard, is making the effort to get to the baseball game and the dance recital and to really be still very active presence in the family. Also just being mindful not to put the kids in the middle of conflict, that can be very important too. Also just being very mindful of not giving children information that is not appropriate for their age level. You know, that's really important as well. So there's just a lot of different things to think about. So if you are a couple struggling with it, it's worth talking to your therapist about the kids, how you can support them, what is the best course of action for them for their treatment, if they need treatment, depending on their situation.

So let's go to a specific scenario. Let's say that we've got a 13, 14, 15 year old who knows that something is going on. Mom and dad are going to therapy. They're spending more time doing things that you don't really understand, but they know something's going on. They ask the question, what's going on between you and dad? Dad or you and mom? What do you think the parents should say in a scenario like that? 12, 13, 14 year old.

There's so many factors to consider having with that, so many factors. First of all, developmental age level of the child. You have some kids that are nine going on 20 and some kids that are 13 going on seven. Right, right. And also do they have, are they at risk? Do they have any of their own things going on? We want to, you know, be very aware of the child's life and could learning more information put them over the edge? Like if they're eating disordered or running away from home or using substances or maybe what do they already know about the situation? We have to find out what they do already know. Also their own, you know, sexuality and where they're at with that. Maybe you have a 14 year old that's viewing poor themselves and it could be a great gift for a parent to say, hey, you know what, I got in a struggle with that myself and I've had to get into recovery and get into meetings. Right. That could be a great gift for them. So we want to be mindful of that. Each family situation is unique and what I advise therapists to do is really meet with those families, talk to the parents about what, first of all, what are their desires what are their values and how do they, what do they want to. What do they feel is important to impart with the child? So there's a balance between not perpetuating secrets. Certainly we want to be able to give them some information to make them not feel like they're going crazy or there's a big secret and not giving them too much information. Right. And the appropriate amount of sharing that could look like something. If the parents for example aren't willing to. Or at. Aren't at a place where they want to share. It could be something like daddy lied to mommy and mommy's very upset about that right now and we're working on that something too. Or sharing minimal pieces of information that's age appropriate it to all the way sharing about their recovery. Now I wrote an article years ago actually that typically we recommend, you know, at least mid adolescents like 15 or 16 before actually sharing with a child that you're in recovery for sex addiction. Just because we want kids to be a little bit older to be able to grasp what that means. And of course you always doing that in instances when it's in the child's best interest, for example, to explain what they already know or to stop the intergenerational passing of the. Passing the addiction on to the next generation. Right. You always want to be able to articulate why it's in the child's best interest. There are some instances where it's. You have to do it when they're younger. Let's say dad's on the six o' clock news and. Or they've been arrested for their behavior. So as you can see, there's just so many different factors that go into this. So what I would advise your listeners to do is really meet with your therapist about it and discuss a really good plan of action that the parents are comfortable with and they feel like meets the needs of the child and is in their best interest.

You know, that's really interesting. I often find that parents often aren't on the same page of what they should tell their children. And so you've got one parent who says we really gotta talk about this. And the other parent says no, we don't need to talk about it. And that's really where you need a counselor to help you guys navigate through that part. Because when children are given too much information, I think it creates a place of unsafety, that lack of safety because they have so much uncertainty and then they see the discord between their parents. So I think as parents, if we could put down the Guard and say, you know, we may not agree what we're going to tell the children, but in order to best help them, we probably ought to put down our own interests.

Exactly. Exactly. They have to put the needs of the kids first because it can be traumatic. I have worked with, you know, kids and adult children that have been traumatized by the way information was shared to them. So they really want to proceed with thoughtfulness and intention in this area.

Awesome. Thank you. I've got one more question related to working with individuals and the disclosure process. As we've talked about the disclosure process, we've talked about couples and we've talked about talking with children, but what about the individuals who aren't in a committed relationship and really don't have someone to talk to? What could they do that would help them? If they don't have other people to share their disclosure or to open up to what are some things that they could do?

So that's what the 12 step program is all about. You know, is about really sharing with your sponsor those things. And doing a first step and a fourth and fifth step is. Really encompasses a lot of talking about those things. Part of the reason for doing that is to let go of those secrets. People don't realize how much holding big parts of your life secret creates internal angst and can cause things like depression and anxiety. And people will create these lives where they have all these secrets. And it's so difficult and they're so uncomfortable with it all, and they don't realize until they're able to let that go, how much relief that brings. I hear that all the time from people in recovery, like, wow, I feel like I finally have let go of all of that. And all of a sudden the depression gets better and the anxiety gets better and the relationships start falling into place. And so it is important to share and let go of those secrets. Now. You know, naturally you would. If you have a partner, you want to be able to share with your partner. But also, it's not just your partner. It's your peer group, your therapist, your sponsor, and just being congruent with your private life and your public life. And being a. That's what being an integrity is all about. Being able to be transparent and free from all of that. And that's a really important component of recovery.

Awesome. Thank you. A couple of final questions. What is the most challenging part of your work for you?

Well, I can name about a whole handful of things, but one thing that's been a struggle is the critics out there. You know, there have been. There are people out there that, you know, really continue to say that things like sex addiction is not real, porn addiction is not real. I have a lot more patience with people saying, well, I don't think we should call it sex addiction. I think we should call it hypersexual behavior disorder or compulsive sexual behavior disorder. I get that, you know, different kind of theories behind it. I understand that. But to. There are still people out there saying that it doesn't exist, it's not a real thing, that it's just part of another disorder, or, you know, that it's, it may, it's just a high sex drive or all sorts of, you know, baloney and for lack of a better word. And it's so frustrating because what ends up happening is that it keeps the stigma up. It makes people who are suffering feel like there must be something really wrong with them. It makes them feel like they can't reach out for help there. It puts misinformation out there to keep people from getting good treatment and good health. And so it does and keeps the stigma really going. It's just which in turn keeps things from getting things like insurance reimbursement and therapists trained and regular mental health training programs, which they're not right now, and a diagnosis from being in the dsm. So the more stigma, the more confusion that gets perpetuated around this. It holds the field back and that is frustrating to watch.

I couldn't agree more. I really have a hard time when again, I'm not asking people to come to my office. They're calling up because they have a self diagnosed problem. They're saying, I need help, I can't stop viewing pornography, or I've hired 10 prostitutes in the last two months. I something's going on, I need support. And then we start looking at their history and sometimes they'll have gone to a therapist and the therapist will have said, you just have a high sexual libido. I mean, there's nothing up with that, nothing really wrong with that. That's just, you're just expressing yourself sexually and the person's crying in my office.

Right, exactly.

But they received treatment earlier. They might not have gotten that divorce and their children might still want a relationship with them. But when we put it in the context of we can't accept things are addictive, well, the research on dopamine, I mean, I don't care what you want to call it, whether it's addictive or not. When people are seeking a reward that's harming Their relationships and they can't stop you. Call it whatever you want to call it, right?

I couldn't agree more with you, Kevin. I mean, for me it's like, you know, I work at the inpatient level. So by the time. It's so unfortunate because so many times we get people that have gone to well meaning therapists that are just misinformed and don't have, you know, a lot of therapists out there don't have the opportunity to see a lot of these clients. So they might see one or two and they'll, and they'll say, oh no, this isn't a real thing. And then, you know, that person just continues to get worse and worse and worse and they go to a different therapist. Right. But when for people like you and I who are treating this all the time, and I have people coming in residential who we have a steady stream of suicidal people, steady stream of people who have just destroyed their lives, absolutely lost everything to where their behavior has escalated into extremely damaging situations and their lives are destroyed. And they have gone to see therapists along the way that missed the boat, gave them misinformation, you know, minimized what they're experiencing and didn't get them to the right therapists. People who are trained on how to actually do something about it. And it's so sad when you're sitting across from that person that now, you know, is there like porn addiction escalated to viewing sexual abuse images and now they're a sex offender on the sex offender registry or who a partner whose loved one has actually killed themselves. I've been in those situations and it is really hard to continue to see people out there saying, continuing to propagate nonsense when they're hurting people.

I couldn't agree with you more. I have a really hard time when people come to my office. I'm not asking them to come to my office, but they're calling up because they have a self diagnosed problem. They're saying, I need help, I can't stop viewing pornography. Or I've hired 10 prostitutes in the last two months, Something's wrong, I need support. And then when we start looking at their history, sometimes they've gone to a therapist and the therapist will have said, oh, you just have a high sexual libido. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. You're just a normal person expressing your sexual desires. And yet here they are in my office, they're crying. Had they received treatment earlier, they might not have gotten that divorce or their children might still want a relationship with Them. But when we put it in the context of we can't accept things as addictive, the research on dopamine. I don't care what you want to call it, whether it's addictive or not. When people are seeking a reward that's harming their relationship and they can't stop, you can call it whatever you want to call it.

Right? Yeah. It's funny. My father always talked about. Talks about how, like, if. And we'll say to his clients, something. I'm paraphrasing here, but something like if you could put the energy that you put into your addiction into finding your purpose, into finding your greater calling, your satisfaction. That's what recovery is about, is getting to where you really want to go in life. And so many addicts, they've got so much motivation, they're just going down the wrong. Motivated, on the wrong path. So we have to re. Channel those things into finding your higher self, your purp. Purpose, your true connection with people, true intimacy with people. And that's where joy and happiness and, you know, being really, you know, truly happy in life, that's. That's what it takes.

Awesome. All right, one more question. All right. You're the daughter of Patrick Carnes. Patrick Carnes, the founder of essay. I mean, literary sex addiction, probably coined by your dad, really, looking at this concept. And yes, there's been critics throughout the years, but probably millions of lives have been touched by your dad's work. What's it like being his daughter?

Well, boy, I could go on and on and on about that, too, Kevin. But he has. It is amazing to see all the lives that he's touched. You know, it's funny, I've often said if I had a nickel for every time somebody came up to me and said, your father saved my life, I would be like a rich woman at this point. Right. So he's just. He has touched so many people so profoundly, which is just wonderful. But it's also just been a joy to work with him on, all on an ongoing basis. It's, you know, initially, I. Like I told you at the beginning, I didn't want to work in this field, and I was reluctantly. I was doing different things, and I was reluctantly dragged into it. But then when I started working with him and I was working alongside him inpatient, it became very rewarding, and we really enjoyed working together and then speaking, doing speaking engagements together and teaching together and working at I in itap together. And it's been an incredible joy of my career to be able to work with him and had frustrations. One of the things that's just so funny is that he is just such an amazing speaker sometimes, you know, he'll have a keynote speech later during the week, and I have a big, you know, speech coming up, and I'll say to him, well, what do you know? How's your preparation for your speech coming? He goes, and it'll be like the day or two before he's like, I'm still trying to decide what to talk about, you know, and yet I have to, like, work so hard on preparing things. And then he'll get. He'll stand up and just, you know, talk them to the cuff and get a standing ovation. You know, he's just such an incredible mind, and it's been, you know, so he's oftentimes, you know, kind of this visionary person who's always kind of operating at 60,000ft, and I come kind of behind him and try and tag the. The dreams to the earth and make them happen. So.

Right.

And working together in that way.

So if there's one thing that your dad has taught you, what would that be? That if you could say, of all the things that I've learned from my dad, the thing that sticks out the.

Most, it is, well, I guess from him, I would say that you can turn difficult situations into success stories.

Love it. All right, so what advice would you give to couples wanting to heal from betrayal trauma?

Oh, my goodness, Kim. So one of the things that I would say is that recovery is possible, that recovery mechanics and recovering partners, you know, healing from the betrayal trauma can be great partners. The things that you. The tools that you learn in recovery are the tools that it takes to be a great partner. I tell that to my addicts all the time. It's like you are learning tools to be in your integrity, to be better, a better communicator. And you just have to, you know, continue to follow and do the next right thing. Be reliable, show, you know, be impeccable with your word. You know, just trying to encourage them that keep in mind the end goal, recovery is possible, and you can become that person that you want to be. And that I would say that's true for couples that you can get to where you want. I've seen it happen so, you know, many times over, so it's wonderful to see, like, I know a lot of recovering couples that are in their 20th year or 30th year that are spending their lives together, so you can conquer this.

Excellent. So, Steph, one more question. If you could Give the world any advice on how to have a healthy relationship. So now we're talking. Stephanie Carnes, 101 Guidelines for How to succeed in relationships. What would you want the world to know?

I think respect is really important in relationship. Finding somebody that you respect and who respects you because that lasts over time, I think. And I find that when couples approach their relationships with mutual respect for one another that their communication is better and, you know, their sex lives are better and everything about the coupleship is better. So hold on to respect for your partner and choose somebody that you respect, you can respect.

Thank you very much. All right, any final advice you'd like to give to our listeners before we close up today?

No, I think that's. That's everything for me. Kevin, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to be on and talk about so many different things.

Steph, it's been such a privilege. I always enjoy talking with you. You're a blessing to me and the CSAT community and to itap. Thank you for the people that you serve. You're just a kind person and generous with your time.

You bet. Thanks for having me, Kevin.

One final shout out to Dr. Stephanie Carnes. Thank you so much for joining us. Now, for those of you who are looking for resources of support, you can learn more about the certified sex addiction therapist or Certified Partner trauma therapist@sexhelp.com where you will find a list of therapists in your state or in your country. In addition, if you're looking for personal support, if you've been the person acting out, @human intimacy.com we have a 100 day course designed to help individuals dealing with unwanted sexual behaviors. In addition, we have an advanced course titled the Essentials for Healing from Sexual Betrayal. We invite you to learn more about this@humanintimacy.com and thank you so much for letting us be a part of your healing journey. May you be blessed as you pursue deep, intimate human relationships. Thank you very much. Laugh. When you laugh something surround you it's like you're shining.