https://www.listennotes.com/e/56e49048240d4f3793ce53178093bb0c

There's something about you that I can't.

Help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh.

Welcome to the Human Intimacy Podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner with Maryann Michaelis. Maryann, how are you doing?

Dr. Skinner, once again, it's such a pleasure and honor to be here today. I've been thinking about this question because I know every time you say, Marianne, how are you doing? And I realize, like, it's a one-sided question. So I'm really excited to be here. But I also thought of asking, how are you doing?

You know, I'm excited. We have been working on this human intimacy conference for months now. It's coming together. It's almost a month away. We're literally just over a month away. And the experts, I've been talking with them. In fact, I've got some podcasts that we've done with them. You've heard from Jeff Stewart, you've heard from Dr. Sherry Denham Keffer. It's, and you're going to hear from Michelle Mays before we actually go live at the conference. So I'm so excited for this conference and to our listeners, if you haven't heard about the conference, we have a phenomenal conference of experts with over 400 years of experience. And so that's, that's what I've been working on. And it's, I'm excited. I don't know about you, but Marianne.

I'm just excited for it. It's going to be, I'm really excited to tell my clients about and say, here's a resource, here's a really valuable resource that, that can be helpful for you. I love I am all about giving my clients good resources. And so I am really excited about this as well.

And I'm, what's exciting to me is we have over 20 experts, 400 years of experience. So these are seasoned clinicians who've been the rounds with clients and they've been in their chairs. They truly understand what we're, you know, the topic of healing and renewal after sexual betrayal. So they understand it. And anyway, so that, I mean, if you really look at it, how am I doing? That brings me a lot of energy when I'm doing these types of things and, and helping get information out there that can help individuals in their and help couples in the recovery and their healing together.

It was a good place to be. It was good work.

I think we're, yeah, I honestly in this field, I feel so blessed to be able to be at maybe the crossroads of many people's lives as they make such important decisions. It's truly a privilege.

It is. And you know, to our listeners, you know, when Dr. Skinner, when you asked me, how am I doing? It is truly such a, for me and honor to be here. I have, I get to see and watch Dr. Skinner, as he many months ago said, I'm thinking about doing this human intimacy conference. What do you think about this? And I've had sort of a back row seat getting to watch the momentum and watch all of the time and effort that this is, that you've put into this. And it's truly just a remarkable effort and work that you're doing. So it is just, I am so privileged to be here.

So today we're going to be taking off one of the topics, and it's really when you get help. And I want to address this and we want to address this because there are many different ways that you as a listener can get help. And we want to talk about effective ways, somewhat effective ways and not effective ways. And I want to be really clear here. There are many voices that you can hear and you can be exposed to. And those voices with, you know, I really, that's why we express our appreciation at the end of every podcast, because we know there's so many different voices that you can be hearing, you can have and you can be listening to. And so we want to, we want you to know that we respect your time. And in this episode, we're going to talk about the different kinds of voices that can influence us at these crossroads of our lives. because sometimes the voices are helpful and sometimes they're not helpful at all. So, I'm going to get help or I'm seeking help. I found out that my spouse is cheating. I found that my child's having problems. I find that I have a family member dealing with an addictive behavior, any addiction. Well, where do I turn? Well, Marianne, we know that the first place that most of us turn today is online. Why? Because that's the easiest, fastest way to get information.

And oftentimes we can do that anonymously. We might have some, we often have a lot of shame about these issues. And so of course we turn on, we go online because I can, you know, pull up my phone out of my pocket and type in anonymously it feels. How do I get help for this? And as we, if I can just take that, you know, just keep this conversation going, it is really important to be able to know which sources you're going to, which ones are helpful and which ones might not be as helpful. There are specific sites that I do ask my clients not to necessarily use because of some of the ideas that are shared that aren't helpful. in healing. They can create more trauma and create more damage rather than being helpful to my clients.

You know, and, and so it's interesting that you say that because, as I said in the beginning, there's situations where we can get information that is not helpful. And, and the truth is, is people also could not be helpful. And I, in my research, I was looking at individuals who had experienced sexual betrayal. and I asked the question, how effective was the support that you received from family members or others? Very helpful, somewhat helpful, not too helpful, really unhelpful. And there were a significant amount of people who were kind of meh, and then there was a significant amount of people who were like, it was not helpful at all. In fact, it was hurtful.

I'm so grateful that you bring up this issue. I have so many clients, especially when we're first getting started, and I'll say, I want you to get into a support group. It's really important that you have support and that you have a place that's safe and that's healthy and where you can get support and where people share your story, where there's a me too. And so many times I'll have clients say, well, I have family and friends. I've told all my family about it and I have some friends that I can talk to and so I'm fine. I don't need that support network. And what I often see is I, I don't see a whole lot of progress happening with that because. maybe I still need to protect my spouse because that's their brother-in-law or their brother or their family member. And the beauty, I believe, in support groups, there's so many that are online. They're in person as well, but there's so many online. The beauty I find is being able to have a text group, being able to say, Hey, we were talking about this. We were working on this concept this week. And here's what I learned. There's a structure. and there's a format for healing and growth and recovery rather than I am just talking to some people about it. And there's also usually there's a text group. So at two in the morning, I can text somebody and say, Ooh, I am really struggling. And somebody else might be up at two in the morning, but I might not text my sister at two in the morning. Right. Just putting it out there to a really safe place where I know those other people are able or whoever is able to respond will.

So you've kind of identified a couple of things that I want to address here. One is we can turn to family and we can turn to friends. And as I shared in the research, may or may not be helpful, may have a negative influence on us, may have a positive influence on us. Again, so we have to know whether we can turn to them and whether they will be there for us. And then you identify the second group, which are people who are in a group maybe experience something similar to us and they can relate with us. They can also be a support to us, a voice that we can cry on a shoulder or ask for help or reach out for support when we need it. Really important there then is separating out the different types of help that we can get. And I'm going to tell you, the more help that we have that is positive, the faster the recovery and the healing will go. because meaningful support is one of the lead indicators of healing and recovery. If you have support, you're more likely to make progress.

And when we're looking at PTSD, which when we look at betrayal trauma through that PTSD lens, isolation and avoidance, that's one of the PTSD criteria. That's one of the impacts. I think it's important too. One of the things I, I often hear clients say, kind of the pushback, they'll say, well, Nobody has the same story. Like my story is not that big of a deal. Like, I don't, I just don't feel like I really fit there. And I want to be really clear with this. Nobody has the same story as you because nobody has lived your life. However, support groups exist because we come together under an umbrella, an umbrella of pain, an umbrella of experiencing pain, grief, shame, hurt. And just because you slam, you know, a car runs over your foot and I slam my hand in the door, we both have pain. It might look different, but we both have pain. Nobody's story will be the same. And so I want to make sure that that's not a prohibitor, that that doesn't prohibit somebody from going to a group and showing up in a group. I know the first group I showed up in, it was like, oh, my story has nothing. Like, my story is like nothing compared to that person's story. And I was so grateful for somebody to say it's an umbrella. We, we connect together with the emotion, and that's where we meet, because that we can share.

One of my favorite things to do is we do betrayal trauma intensives, and we'll have four to six individuals come to our Center. They don't know each other from anybody. Literally from. I've had them from all over the world. Join it. Phenomenal. I mean, literally all over the globe and. They come together and some of my favorite experiences, day one, I'm a little bit hesitant, but then I start opening up and I start sharing and I start hearing and they begin to develop this support for each other. By the end of the third day, they're not only giving each other hugs and phone numbers, they're planning their next rendezvous together where they're going to be together. And we've had that multiple times where our groups have, they've come in for three days, and they're still connected years later because in that experience they shared deep emotions, they felt connected, they were vulnerable with each other. Some of the most powerful work that we do are those three days. And then what they do afterwards, fellowship, friendship, connection, bonding, supporting each other in times of need. It's an incredible experience and it speaks to the power of connection especially when you're in crisis.

Yeah, you're talking about allowing ourselves to be seen and in that very incredibly vulnerable state of doing intensive work, when others witness that, we're drawn. We're drawn to each other as humans. We're drawn to each other's vulnerability and pain. That's where we connect when we can truly really see each other. So that makes a lot of sense.

So when we do groups, in fact, when I train other therapists, and I do this throughout, again, I do train other therapists throughout the world, I mean, I share story or story after story and I hear them share stories, therapists, about, well, I'm running this group and so many positive outcomes. And yet, in some of the research that I was looking at, I asked the question at the end, do you have a support group or have you ever been to a support group? And in my experience, over 90%, and these are people who were involved with pornography, only 10% had actually been reached out to a group for support. So they were struggling with using pornography. They wanted to stop, but only 10% of them had actually reached out for support in a group setting. Now, I know there's a lot of fear there. There's a lot of concern. But I'll tell you, when I see people make the greatest progress, it's often directly related to group support and giving a voice.

You know, one of the traditions of one of the groups in my area for sex addiction, you know, they'll say, Three groups a week for recovery, two groups a week for sobriety. And that might seem a lot, but it turns into, oh, this is my place where I go and I connect. Part of recovery, the biggest part of recovery is recovering our ability to connect with other people, to turn when I'm having a hard time, to turn to a human versus an addiction. and so we do need that.

And, and multiple types of groups. Right. I can do it for recovery, but I also can do it for healing. And, and when I find individuals engaging in the group process, I know as a therapist that my job is often easier.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

And, and the research also shows that group support can even be as beneficial, if not at times more beneficial than individual therapy. Individual therapy. Absolutely. We work, we work on trauma. We do some deep digiNg and deep work. But the research shows there is power in sitting in a group and having somebody say, well, this is what I learned in therapy. Or hearing somebody, I'll never forget, one of my clients who is so terrified to go to a group, she came back and said, Marianne, it was like that other person in the group was reading my journal. It was just like mind blowing for her. Oh, there are other people who get this. and, and so being in that space where there are multiple people holding our story and we're okay there, that lets our nervous system just settle.

It's beautiful. Right.

Yeah.

And, and so, so we're talking about ways that people can, who are suffering, addiction, trauma or anything else can get support and help. We've talked about family members. We've talked about getting group support. I want to shift a little bit. Right. So there's a little bit of a shift here into accountability. Because many times when I work with clients, I encourage them to get a sponsor, somebody who is really their person to turn to in difficult times because I can attend a group but that does not necessarily mean that I have a sponsor, somebody who I can share my biggest deepest challenges with especially if I'm dealing with addiction or unwanted behaviors. and a person that I can turn to, they may be the person that in some ways saves my life.

Yes, I have a sponsor. I attend support groups and I have a sponsor and I can attest to being able to say, Ooh, something just happened and I need somebody just to talk it through for a minute. And having a sponsor just because they can be objective, they say, oh, yeah, yeah. I experienced that. And they can give me a frame, a reframe of, here's a way to see that differently. Because when we are dysregulated, when we aren't thinking clearly or seeing clearly or we're in a lot of pain, having that objective person on the outside can be so powerful. Somebody who's, who understands because they've walked that path. But it doesn't mean that they have the same qualifications of of a therapist. I think that's important to clarify here.

Right. And now we're talking about, again, when I did research on what effective people who are effective in overcoming drug and alcohol addiction, it's what we call recovery capital. They have multiple elements that add to the recovery. And that's, I think, a problem in our healing and recovery culture that we think that, well, I did that. I tried a group. but rarely is it one thing that leads to change and healing. It's usually multiple things added together, the additive effect that gets people over the top. And so I often say, let's just put a lot of these healthy things into this, under this umbrella so we can add to these things so you can succeed.

So you're saying maybe I'm in the mood for this right now, or I have this need for this other. area right now, but it's having multiple choices and multiple tiers of support, I think is what you're talking about.

So let me give you an example of this. I was attending the late Mark Lazar. He was really influential. Him and his wife, I think Deborah, they wrote some books. They were very influential.

He created the Thanos, the check-in.

Yes. Great, great stuff, great work.

Right.

And so I was attending something that he was presenting at a really interesting presentation. And he said, look, I'm just I'm gonna tell you my story. And he shared part of his addiction story and the secrets and how he's working on sobriety. And he'd been sober, I don't remember this time, years, I mean, I think even decades. And he said, so it doesn't matter where I was then, today, today. He said, When I came here last night, I called up the hotel in advance. And he said, I checked to make sure that they would put me in a room where there was no cable. and if there was a cable, if they would remove it. Now he's decades into this recovery journey and he's sharing this story. He said, but let me tell you a story a few months ago. I got to the hotel, the cable wasn't taken out and I was extremely vulnerable. Back then I traveled a lot, he said, as I was presenting and lecturing. And he said, so I pulled out my list. I called the first guy not available. Call the second guy, not available. Call the third guy, not available. Call the fourth guy, he wasn't available. 5-6-7-8-9. He said, I got to my ninth person before somebody answered. He said, In my recovery, he said, it's not one. He says, I have a team of people that I could contact at any time and know that I could get support. Now that was before there was all this group messaging today, Right? You could put a group together and you could have 10, 12, 15 people and I'm gonna guarantee you, if you had that kind of a group support, you've got a team to help in this process. And in the recovery journey, you need more than just a single person because it puts a lot of pressure on a person when you're in vulnerable times. So having a team approach to those difficult moments, in my experience, leads to better outcomes and better recovery.

And I know in your book, you talk about that. You talk about, is it 10 or 15 people? I mean, you talk about having an extensive list of people specifically because we need that. And I've had clients who we've talked about this before, and, you know, it's like, it's okay if somebody doesn't answer. They may be at the hospital with their son who just got in a baseball accident. And I've had clients have that happen. And so having that list of multiple people is so important. I remember being in a training with Patrick Carnes and him talking about his support people. And he, he talks about having support people that he's, they've had these relationships for 30 or 40 years that they turn to each other. And when their spouses die, they turn to each other. This is about finding support from healthy places is about developing these relationships of having places. where we turn.

So accountability teams, having a sponsor, which is more of a specific person that you turn to in crucial moments and, but also just to report, catch up on that you can share your inner challenges with and not feel fear or feel like you have to hold back. I could do a whole series or a whole session on just how to best interact with a sponsor. We don't have time for that today because I think we many times when we think about a sponsor, I think people misuse or misunderstand how to do that. For example, they report after they've relapsed, not talking with the sponsor before, just as a small example. So there's so many things that could be changed in how we interact with a sponsor. So sponsor, group accountability, family, friends.

Yeah, and I, and I, that word that you use there, I think is just paramount. It's the accountability. We do better when we are accountable to people, when we need to report back here, Here's how I'm doing and checking in. The research shows that that's how we change. That's how we do better. We need that accountability. That word is so, and I know we could do a whole podcast just on the accountability factor, but I just want to make sure that we're underlying how important that is.

So now we transition, and this is where a lot of people are now turning to information from podcasts, they're listening. They. They're getting information meeting with coaches and therapists. And I want to separate a few things out because you're listening to our podcast, which we appreciate. A podcast gives information. It's informational. A book is informational. An online class is informational. It's not therapeutic, although it could create therapeutic outcomes and a positive outcome in healing just by learning. I could read a book, and it could be really helpful in my healing Journey. So knowledge is power. I believe that. to 1000%, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this podcast. We wouldn't be doing this podcast. Now let's talk about the difference between a coach and a therapist. Because a lot of people today, a coach is less expensive than a therapist. And a coach can help in times that maybe a therapist can't. You can have a relationship in certain ways with a coach that you can't with a therapist. And so today, in today's world, coaching is, might I say it's blowing up. There's coaches for this and coaches for that. There are coaches everywhere. And I know a lot of therapists that are actually threatened by that. And I want to say that we want to make sure that we aren't doing harm. And that's a really important concept. One of the key differences between a therapist and coach is that therapists can help you process through emotions past, present, that are traumatic and difficult, whereas a coach is not trained to do that. and so a therapist and a coach would have very different roles in a journey to deal with, say, trauma or recovery. If I turn to somebody and I'm in trauma and they don't know how to deal with it, it can actually make my trauma worse. So even a seasoned clinician has to learn how to be, learn how to treat trauma, because in my experience, Marianne, and I don't know about you, I don't think I've seen a client that hasn't experienced some form of trauma.

No, no. And what I want to add to this conversation is that I remember early in my career having some questions about coaching came up for one of my clients. Their spouse was working with a coach and I had some questions trying to understand so I reached out to one of my friends who was a coach and just said, you know, how does this all work? And she said, my son could decide to be a coach tomorrow. There's no regulation. It does. There's no, as a therapist, I have to be licensed with the state. I have to take a test. I have to prove that I'm competent in a lot of different ways. And I have very specific ethical standards. My license can be revoked if I I'm not complying with the standards that have been set to protect our clients, the people we work with. And I remember just being so flabbergasted and she's like, yeah, my son could be a coach tomorrow. He could just decide he wants to be a coach and he could coach people. And that's great, except for when it's damaging to my clients. And I have seen some clients who have been impacted by coaches who don't necessarily have the tools to manage the trauma that clients are needing help dealing with. Right.

And so a couple of key concepts there. One is anybody can become a coach. And yet there are wonderful certification boards for coaches. Again, a coach's primary job. Let's talk about the difference. A coach can help you specifically set goals. They can listen and help you ask yourself questions. They can give you insights, things to think about. Therapists do a lot of those things as well. Then we bump into, say, traumatic events or memories from the past, which are, in our experience as clinicians, the past is very influential on the present and we can't ignore it. and so we start doing things like bumping into past traumas, childhood traumas, and in many situations, even individuals dealing with addictive behaviors usually have stories that need to be worked through from a traumatic lens. And when that doesn't happen, I often see that people revert back to old coping mechanisms because the root issues have not been addressed. And that's, I think, where therapy really can be beneficial is we help clients get to their unresolved root issues that are not necessarily addressed in coaching.

Yeah. And so I would say if we're looking at an order of operations, I would say my recommendation for clients would be recovery, whether it's healing recovery or recovery from an addictive behavior, group support and therapy, working with a therapist. And once we've dealt with those roots and gotten to the root of the trauma or the issues, then coaching can be fantastic because it is. Coaching is really forward, moving forward into the future. Therapy is usually about the past, but oftentimes the present, we, we're bumping into the things in the past until we've, until we've addressed them. So it's kind of like mowing your lawn or weeding. You know, when I was a kid, I used to weed and, you know, you could just go pull off the top of the weeds and then it just regrow back because the roots there and. I see therapy as the pulling up the entire route and getting it out so that it's not coming. Then I can do fantastic moving forward into the future.

And I often ask the question, can we be more effective as therapists? And I'm going to address the question for a second. I think the answer to that is yes. I am much more effective when my clients are learning great information. When they do reading on their own, when they listen to podcasts, they get insights and information. It's very common for my clients to say, Hey, I really like this. I love it when my clients come in and say, Hey, I really appreciated this on your podcast. I love that. But because I understand that they're engaging in the learning process and that is where we begin to see people are craving knowledge and information. That's fantastic. The application of it, the changing of habits, the motivation to do something different, that's all of us. We're all working to motivate someone to be better and to reach their heights. that are possible for them. Yeah.

So we were talking about there's certain times and sometimes we do need more specialized care.

And I wouldn't say sometimes I found in my cases there's so much complexity. I'll give you a couple of examples. You can get really bad information like on a marriage. Somebody could say, well, this is what's happening and that's happening and I could project onto you my fears, my issues. I could tell you what you need to do. Well, you need to do this or the reason they're doing this. Now that becomes traumatic for the individual because they're trying to make sense of it. So I've heard people say, well, this person said this and this person said this. And when you hear so many voices, it can actually you can have too much data, too much information. So I often say while we have multiple potential support systems, we have to also make sure that we're all pulling in a similar direction. because if we're not working in a similar direction and we're hearing multiple voices, like I've had some clients say, I can't talk to my family because they insist that I leave or insist that I stay. I've got a best friend that will, you know, says, if you leave, I don't want to be your friend because he or she is, you know, and, and so they're being unduly influenced by people who are not understanding the power of listening. to the person who is suffering.

So you're saying that our own junk gets in the way oftentimes when we're trying to support somebody else. My opinions, my experiences, I project on and say, oh, well, it must be like this for everybody because this is how I've experienced it. And so you should do this. Right.

And that's where the danger comes in because I did it this way. That's the way, that's the way, that's the best way. And the best therapist, the best coach, the best of any of us has this statement that I've shared with our audience before. The seeds to the solutions to our problems lie within us. As a therapist, rarely, in fact, I don't tell my clients what to do. I help them see, look into a mirror, make the decisions, understand the consequences, walk them through and I help them process emotions that they're stuck in that they don't know how to get through on their own. I also help them learn how to communicate effectively, how to break old patterns, because that's what we've been trained to do as therapists.

And because it would be unethical for you to tell anybody what to do in their life because you're not living their life and you don't have, you know, I look at my clients and if I meet with a client on a weekly basis, that's maybe four hours a month. That's not very much time for me to be able to crawl into their universe and be a good judge of what they should do. And ethically, my training is that my client is the expert on their life.

That's right.

Because you said those seeds lie within. Ideally, a therapist's job is to help the client. see and find the answers that are best for them.

That is right. That is right. So, in our conversation today, we have tried to outline some of the key ways that you can get help when you need help. Hopefully, you have got people who do care that are willing to be with you in your pain and in your suffering. Also, we have to recognize the people who could not be there or can not be there or who are unduly influencing us in negative ways. that's a really important thing. I have to understand, are these people helping me in the direction that I feel like want to go to? Or are they hindering my progress? Or can I not even tell the difference because I don't know because I'm so out of sorts myself. So these are questions that we all need to be asking because not everybody is going to help us in the path that's going to be best for us. We need to identify the people who can help us, who want to be with us in that path without projecting onto us what they want us to do.

And I think it's important to also realize, I've had clients who have turned to family members saying, I need support, and family members have said, I can't. This is too triggering for where we're at. It can complicate relationships when we have multiple faceted relationships with people to turn that way. And so I think it's really important to understand the role of boundaries and making sure that we, we're sharing in places that will be helpful for us rather than harmful. I want to shift just a little bit, Dr. Skinner, because I imagine if I'm a listener listening to this, I'd be saying, okay, great. So where, what kind of, where do I find these, where do I find this support? What should I be looking for? help me understand. So you're talking, we're talking in a, at a high level. And so now how do I find the support that I need? Where do I do that?

So let's just start with the different possibilities, right? There are many different 12-step groups. And those 12-step groups, I won't list them all, but it depends. I mean, you could look on the specific issue that you're struggling with or dealing with. I mean, there's, there's groups for people who have partners who are into addictive behaviors. and those who are dealing with addiction. So there's a wide range of that. Take the specific issue that you're struggling with, type in a support group in my area, and you're probably gonna find a support group either in your area or online. There's so many online groups today. So support groups, that's one. Number two, I think you have to understand some groups offer sponsors, some don't. I recommend early in the change process, in the healing and recovery process, if you can find a sponsor even better yet. Sometimes that sometimes that some organizations offer a coach who's kind of like a sponsor. So that's a that's a great support thing. That's a possibility. And then we also have to look at the deeper work that needs to be done. And let's say that I'm dealing with addiction. You want somebody who understands addictive behaviors. If I'm dealing with trauma, complex trauma, past present trauma, for example, we work we've been trained to become certified sex addiction therapists. but we also been trained to treat trauma through EMDR or accelerated resolution therapy, or I mean, a therapist who is trained in trauma, you should understand that these modalities, the specialty is helping individuals work through traumatic experiences. So that's really where specialization comes in. And so if you have had a complex life, abuse, violence, addiction, mental health challenges, anxiety, depression, these are the areas where you would want to make sure that you get proper support to help you deal with both the mental aspect of it and also deal with the traumatic experiences.

I think it's important to also realize that sometimes we don't find a group that fits, like it's not always one size fits all. And sometimes I've had clients who will go to multiple groups. I've had clients who struggled with alcoholism. I've had clients who struggled with narcotics and sex addiction, and they may be going to a group for each of those, and, and that's pretty common. And so it's okay to double up. There's an organization that, a national organization called NAMI, N-A-M-I, that you can go to and you can look there for different types of support. So I might need support, even while I'm on my own Journey, dealing with a family member who's struggling with a, with a mental issue with depression or suicide. or even autism or there's, there's so many areas that we might need support. And as my clients, as I'm working with my clients, as we're doing our work, they may realize, oh, I, I was abused as a child. I was sexually abused. And so I will refer them out to a support group for childhood sexual abuse. And so recognizing it's not just, hey, I can only have like this one flavor. Hey, I can double up and this group might have a great curriculum or I really like the content, but the groups aren't really helping me, but I really like this group. And so what I'm trying to say is it's okay to mix and match as well.

And I think that's just important for everyone to understand is if you don't feel comfortable in a group, don't give up. Find your people, find the people that you align with. And I will say a couple, I mean, there's a lot of other little caveats here. Like if you struggle with social anxiety, a group might not be your best starting point because you need to deal with a therapist to deal with the social anxiety. I read an article where people with high social anxiety in a group actually really it was, it didn't work. In fact, it created more stress because of the social anxiety. So you might need to deal with social anxiety before you head into a group and get that kind of support. Other people, they really need a group and they really need that kind of accountability. And so the sponsor and the therapist are there to support, but the group is the main help agent. And so again, there's lots of different ways to our listeners. Your challenge is to find your way. Because what we can't do is say this is the exact formula for you. But if you will put in the effort, you will find the answer for you. And today we've listed and outlined many things that successful people utilize. in their healing and recovery journey. Marianne, final thoughts from you today?

My final thoughts are really close to home on this. I attended my first support group in 2015, and that was for me the pathway that opened up my healing journey. And so I, my final thoughts for our listeners are that you are worth taking the time if If you're not finding the support that you need, keep looking. There is help and there is hope.

Yes.

Thank you for being here. And this is a journey. And if you look at it as this is a journey, this is just a step in the journey to a more, fulfilling life and healing.

Yeah. And one of the things I've been saying lately, is that we are our own science project.

I love that.

And, and so that's what I tell my clients. Look, some of the things that we're going to try in here, they may or may not resonate today. We've outlined many different possibilities. What I do know is that as long as we keep trying, there's always hope. And the hope comes in the effort, in the learning and the growth. And because you showed up to our listeners today, you showed up here, we just, again, we want to say thanks. And we also want to let you know that there is always hope in this change process, in this journey.

Dr. Skinner, sorry, I just saw you take a breath like you were gonna say something, but I just wanna, I think this is an important place. I know one thing that we didn't talk about that I want our listeners to be aware of is as we get ready to close and we once again talk about that human intimacy conference, I do know that you have some groups through some of your courses on human intimacy, and we didn't talk about that. I think I'd love to have our listeners hear about that. Yeah.

So what I do is I do educational groups. I have people go through my content, and, and then we discuss it. So, like, what really, let's just say that my book, that's one of the things that we've been through. So I've written a book on treating sexual addiction, treating trauma from sexual betrayal. And so what I do is people join the group, and I just go through it chapter by chapter. They've got questions, and I answer them. and then, you know, it really helps me be better as an author to get that kind of feedback, but it also helps those who are participating, like they ask their questions and then they support each other. And so I do some online virtual support groups just so people feel connected. If you'd like to learn more about that, you can do that@humanintimacy.com on our website. You can learn more.

So I can join one of your courses and I can like, see you and talk to you and yeah, ask my questions to you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, that's the, that's the goal is because I find that when people have the right information, they make better decisions. And so it's easier in some ways to do it in a bigger group where you can ask, they can ask questions and they can feel support. I've got groups that have been running and just talking with people literally from around the country. so much fun. And, and they really then support each other. And they're, it's just lovely to watch. I love it when people are supporting each other because there's certain things as a therapist I can do. There's certain things as a support educator that I can do. And then the greatest support is often when you have people who've been through many things like you, who understand you.

Wow. And I hope our listeners can understand that this opportunity, Dr. Skinner, you train certified sex addiction therapists from all over the world. You do, you train and supervise therapists as they're learning how to work with this. And as a researcher, you definitely get and understand. You understand the healing and the recovery processes and to be able to access and say, oh, help me. I read this in your book and I'm understanding this in your, in your program or in this course. and now let me ask you the questions so that I can understand how to apply it to myself. That's available for our listeners through these courses.

Yeah. So if you go to humanintimacy.com/supportgroup, you can learn more about what those groups are. And again, we just would invite them to join us if they can. Now, the other thing I should mention coming up on this conference as we get ready to close, if you haven't signed up for the conference, time is running out. By signing up, you get access to not only every expert who will be doing a presentation, they'll be answering questions, but you also get access to all the pre-conference sessions, which are going to be recorded where people are going to be coming and asking questions. You can get to know the experts a little bit more. I mean, think about it. I'm bringing some of the world's best Experts, we're going to have conversations about the healing process and the journey. I mean, that's, that's even before the conference begins and it will continue afterwards. You also have access to post pre and post. Absolutely. You sign up for this conference. You're going to have access to every time I interview one of these experts, whether it's before or after the conference, you're going to get access to them. Now, in addition to that, you come to the conference and you're going to get a recording. Every session is going to be recorded. So you're going to have continuous access of, Hey, I remember this and you can go back and review it. to it in addition to that, and it's running out. And this is, this is the last week that I'm offering it. And that is they will get when they sign up as an individual or as a couple, they will get access to my 100 day course, which is the treating trauma from sexual betrayal course, the 100 days to healing and the acting out those who've been acting out 100 day course all have a virtual assignments. You can go through watch videos, though that's actually free. if you sign up for the conference. So all of that is there to our listeners. If you haven't signed up, I don't know how else to get you invited or invested in this. My hope is that it excites your mind and my end goal is make human intimacy a possibility in all people's lives.

Thank you for your work, Dr. Skinner.

I love what I get to do and thank you so much, Marianne, for your time. It's always a great conversation.

It is. Thank you to our listeners for being with us. I would just add as we're wrapping up talking about the conference, I've been in trainings, CSAT trainings with Dr. Sherry Kopper, Michelle Mays. She is actually one of the main speakers that will be speaking to all at the ITAP symposium this year. So she's been selected to speak to all of the CSAT community. These are really incredible individuals. who have spent a lot of time understanding, researching, and who are passionate about helping and healing. So I hope that you'll consider joining us.

Yeah, my hope is you'll join us. And in the meantime, our hope is that you find peace in your mind, answers to your questions, and I'm excited for the journey that we're all on together. This is going to be an interesting year. We've just started our second year of this podcast. and I just genuinely appreciate everybody's time. So thank you very much. And Marianne, thank you for joining us today.

Always a pleasure. Smile. And laugh when you laugh. Something's around you.

It's like you're shining, you're starring.