Latest / The Trauma Therapist / From the archives: The Meaning of Adult Attachment with Dr. Sue Johnson

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From the archives: The Meaning of Adult Attachment with Dr. Sue Johnson · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Are today we even another episode from the archives with
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Speaker 1: one of my incredible guests, Enjoy. Welcome to the Trauma
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Speaker 1: Evers podcast, a show about the incredible people dedicated to
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Speaker 1: helping those who experienced trauma. My name is Got macpherson
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Speaker 1: and my mission is to raise awareness of trauma and
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Speaker 1: to inspire each of us to help those around us.
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Speaker 1: All right, Sue, here we go, so five four, three,
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Speaker 1: two and one, our folks, welcome back to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: I am thrilled to have my guest today, doctor Sue Johnson. Sue,
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 2: I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Sue Johnson is a leading innovator in the field
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Speaker 1: of couple therapy and adult attachment. She's a primary developer
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Speaker 1: of emotionally focused couples and Family therapy or EFT, which
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Speaker 1: is demonstrated its effectiveness in over thirty years of peer
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Speaker 1: review clinical res search. She's the author of numerous books,
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Speaker 1: including Hold Me Tight, The Hold Me Tight Workbook, and
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Speaker 1: Love Sense, who's received numerous awards acknowledging her development of EFT,
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Speaker 1: including the APES Family Psychologists of the Year in twenty
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Speaker 1: sixteen and the Order of Canada in twenty seventeen. All right, Sue, welcome.
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Speaker 1: Great to have you here. My gosh, obviously you're someone
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Speaker 1: I've been wanting to have on this podcast forever, so
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Speaker 1: it's really a thriller and an honor to have you
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Speaker 1: joining me today.
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Speaker 2: Hey, I'm delighted to be here.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So before we get going, share with the listeners
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Speaker 1: where you're from originally and where you are currently.
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Speaker 2: You mean, actually where I am. I'm on the West
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Speaker 2: coast of Canada in Victoria. It's raining and it will
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Speaker 2: probably be raining for the next six months, but it's
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Speaker 2: the most beautiful place to live in the world, and
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Speaker 2: I'm Canadian. Our work is really international. We're teach in
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Speaker 2: forty countries. It's gone all over the world. We have
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Speaker 2: centers all over the world. We have ninety centers. Teach
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Speaker 2: My Stuff and Hold Me Tight, which is the book
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Speaker 2: for the public. I just can't believe it. It's just done
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Speaker 2: it again. It's translated everywhere, and it seems to be
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Speaker 2: helping couples around the world to create good relationships. Basically,
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Speaker 2: I think because it actually gives a picture of what
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Speaker 2: a good relationship looks like and how to actually get there,
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Speaker 2: which in all our nonsense about relationships in our present world,
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Speaker 2: I think people are very hungry for that. So I'm
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Speaker 2: all over the place, but I live here in the
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Speaker 2: beautiful forests and the mountains and the sea in Victoria.
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Speaker 1: Awesome. I'm really excited to get talking about that. Amy
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Speaker 1: said something that really struck me, you know, talking about
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Speaker 1: relationships and how to get there. Well, we will get
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Speaker 1: to that, But first, Sue, how did this start for you?
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Speaker 1: How did this? That's obviously a passion I wanted. I
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Speaker 1: really I want to hear how things started for you.
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Speaker 2: Oh? Well, you know, I was doing my doctorate and
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Speaker 2: I had very clear ideas. I knew, for example, that
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Speaker 2: most of from my point of view, most of psychotherapy
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Speaker 2: didn't use the most powerful thing in the room, which
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Speaker 2: is emotion. Emotion is the core organizing feature that organizes
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Speaker 2: puts together, structures your inner experience and the way you
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Speaker 2: dance with others. And really, I think psychotherapy has been
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Speaker 2: quite ambivalent about emotion. Most psychotherapy is about coping with
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Speaker 2: it and seeing it as an enemy. And I was
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Speaker 2: always very clear that it was powerful, that it was
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Speaker 2: the heart of everything, and that the only way to
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Speaker 2: get real change, not just a few symptoms here and there.
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Speaker 2: Real change was to go into this emotion, understand it,
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Speaker 2: and work with it. So I had biases. You know,
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Speaker 2: I was Rogerian. I believed in non pathologizing and listening
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Speaker 2: to people. I believe that people had very good reasons
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Speaker 2: for what they did. I just had to find the
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Speaker 2: logic and the order in that. So I had some biases.
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Speaker 2: But basically I'd done almost every other kind of therapy
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Speaker 2: and I started working with couples and I found that
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Speaker 2: I was completely ineffective, and so I thought, oh, oh, oh,
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Speaker 2: oh wait a minute. Then ah, right, So you know,
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Speaker 2: you know when you're a graduate student, you think everything
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Speaker 2: is in the library if you can just find it. Well,
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Speaker 2: I went all over the library and I read everything
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Speaker 2: a love marriage and it was all rubbish. Okay, it
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Speaker 2: didn't help me at all. And people said, oh, you
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Speaker 2: teach your couple's communication skills. Well, the trouble with that
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Speaker 2: is you can only use them when you're not all
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Speaker 2: hot under the collar and freaked out of your mind, right,
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Speaker 2: So it doesn't really work. So I just got desperate
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Speaker 2: and decided to tape all my sessions. My sweet couples
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Speaker 2: allowed me to, and I became this maniac. I was.
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Speaker 2: I was a maniac graduate student. Okay, I was. I
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Speaker 2: was gone, Okay, I was. I became this maniac graduate
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Speaker 2: student watching tapes again and again and again, and it
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Speaker 2: was amazing. It's like it. It became very clear to
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Speaker 2: me that, of course there's a structure to relationships. Of
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Speaker 2: course there's a structure to our emotions and how we communicate.
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Speaker 2: And look, you can see these patterns, and you can
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Speaker 2: see that some patterns lead people into desperation and loneliness
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Speaker 2: and isolation and anger and shut down. And there are
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Speaker 2: other patterns that lead people out into more openness or
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Speaker 2: balance or connection. And I started working with these patterns.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let me pleasure it there. So get specific. What
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Speaker 1: do you mean patterns of emotion that lead people out?
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Speaker 1: Give me an example.
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Speaker 2: Well, for example, if you look at most distressed couples
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Speaker 2: in North America, particularly couples that are working with trauma,
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Speaker 2: and we see over the years, I've seen many, many,
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Speaker 2: many couples working with trauma. Okay, if you look at
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Speaker 2: them in North America, mostly what they're caught in is
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Speaker 2: what we call blame withdraw. One person is getting angry
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Speaker 2: and saying you don't talk to me. Where are you?
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Speaker 2: What's wrong with you? How come you don't do this?
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Speaker 2: The other person is defending and shutting down. The more
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Speaker 2: they shut down, the angrier the other person gets. I mean,
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Speaker 2: that's a very simple way to describe it. But if
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Speaker 2: you look, you can look at that a thousand ways
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Speaker 2: communication skills. I wouldn't do that. I'm an attachment theorist.
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Speaker 2: I believe in attachment science, which is in the last
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Speaker 2: twenty years has basically told us who we are very clearly,
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Speaker 2: and I think you need that as a guide to
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Speaker 2: any kind of good therapy. And what attachment says is yes,
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Speaker 2: on one level, this is about your irritation and shut down.
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Speaker 2: But actually, if you really listen, if you really listen,
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Speaker 2: there's desperate emotional priorities going on there where one person
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Speaker 2: is really saying. If you really understand attachment, one person
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Speaker 2: is saying, where are you? Where are you? Where are you?
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Speaker 2: Where are you? I'll force you to respond to me
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Speaker 2: where are you? Where are you? Because if you don't respond,
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Speaker 2: I don't matter. I'm alone and we don't have a relationship,
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Speaker 2: and I'm massively unsafe because I'm a bonding social human
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Speaker 2: being and I need to know you respond to me.
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Speaker 2: That's my main survival cue in the world. And so
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Speaker 2: I'm screaming, where are you? But it doesn't sound like that.
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Speaker 2: It sounds like you never right, And the other person
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Speaker 2: is saying, I'm rejected, I'm not wanted, I'm a failure.
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Speaker 2: I can't do this. I'm overwhelmed. I don't know what
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Speaker 2: to do. I'll just hunker down. I'll hunker down. I'll
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Speaker 2: hunker down and wait for it to stop. I'll shut
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Speaker 2: her out, I'll shut down. And of course, the more
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Speaker 2: that person shuts down, more alone and desperate the other
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Speaker 2: person feels. If you are dealing with trauma at the
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Speaker 2: same time, I invite you to think about the fact
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Speaker 2: that what attachment science says is that emotional isolation is
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Speaker 2: iatrogenic for human beings. We're not wired for it. We
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Speaker 2: can't do it. Basically, we're lousy at it. But if
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Speaker 2: you add a few demons in there emotional isolation and
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Speaker 2: you feel helpless, main survival code is to call for
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Speaker 2: others and have them come, and no one's coming, You're
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Speaker 2: all alone. If you also have some demons in the
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Speaker 2: room that are hijacking your brain, that are telling you
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Speaker 2: the whole world is dangerous. That are telling you that
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Speaker 2: there's no solution to this vulnerability. Well, then you're in
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Speaker 2: a total existential pickle and you do really desperate things,
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Speaker 2: like as I told the Canadian Army, and they basically
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Speaker 2: believe me, which was great. As I told the Canadian Army,
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Speaker 2: they said, well, we don't want to ask. We want
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Speaker 2: you to help us with our families because we don't
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Speaker 2: know our soldiers to commit suicide. I said, do you
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Speaker 2: understand that, I think in those days, I don't know
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Speaker 2: what it is now, eighty percent of our soldiers commit
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Speaker 2: suicide in the two weeks after their partner has left them.
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Speaker 2: And do you understand that you set up their partner
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Speaker 2: leaving them. Of course, these guys looked at me like
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Speaker 2: I was a lemon. Okay, I said, you don't help them.
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Speaker 2: You don't even help the partners understand that the man
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Speaker 2: who goes away on deployment is not necessarily the man
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Speaker 2: who comes back. You don't help the partner know how
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Speaker 2: to respond. You know, the partner just says, who are you?
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Speaker 2: This nice guy went on deployment and now you're like
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Speaker 2: freaked out. You know, a hyper hyper sensitive angry or numb.
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Speaker 2: Who the hell are you?
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Speaker 1: You know?
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Speaker 2: And of course nobody helps. So the best predictor of
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Speaker 2: recovery from trauma by far, and this is a lot
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Speaker 2: of what I say sounds like opinion, Please believe me,
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Speaker 2: it's not. It's research. The best predictor of recovery from
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Speaker 2: trauma is a secure connection with another person that you
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Speaker 2: can turn to. It gives you a safe haven, secure base,
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Speaker 2: and we knew that with couples. We work with trauma
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Speaker 2: couples for years. Recently I've gone into the field of
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Speaker 2: individual therapy. We do efit emostly focused individual therapy. A
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Speaker 2: primer came out last year, the primer in e FIT,
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Speaker 2: and we focus a lot, a lot on trauma because
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Speaker 2: even though I've been known as a couple's therapist, I
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Speaker 2: and my colleagues have always seen traumatized individuals, for me,
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Speaker 2: particularly warvetts, but also particularly complex PTSD, where people have
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Speaker 2: been so abused in their childhood that it isn't just
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Speaker 2: a wound, you know. Trauma comes from the Latin word
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Speaker 2: to wound. It isn't just a wound. It's a wound
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Speaker 2: that has interfered with their basic ability to develop any
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Speaker 2: kind of balanced sense of self, of competent sense of self,
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Speaker 2: any ability to regulate their emotions. It's interfered with those
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Speaker 2: developmental processes. So as they go through life, they're caught
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Speaker 2: and we call it the trauma trap. They're caught in
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Speaker 2: not knowing how to regulate their overwhelming emotion because PTSD
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Speaker 2: is basically an emotional disorder. That's what it is. Not
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Speaker 2: knowing how to regulate their overwhelming emotions and doing it
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Speaker 2: in dysfunctional ways that then make everything worse and feedback
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Speaker 2: into the trauma. You know, addiction is one of them.
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Speaker 2: But you know this is a trap. The way you
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Speaker 2: protect yourself because you've never really had any balanced, safe
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Speaker 2: place to learn about who you are and to learn
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Speaker 2: how to befriend your emotions and deal with them and
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Speaker 2: order them and use them as a compass. The way
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Speaker 2: you protect yourself becomes a prison which feeds right back
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Speaker 2: into your trauma. And you know that's what happens with
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Speaker 2: distressed couples, the way they protect themselves, you know, getting angry,
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Speaker 2: shutting down feeds right back into how alone they both feel,
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Speaker 2: and how desperate they both feel, and their negative behaviors.
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Speaker 1: Right, So, let me jump in here for a second.
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Speaker 1: So you know, you were talking about you provide an
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Speaker 1: example of the couple in the room and them kind
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Speaker 1: of talking and kind of getting angry and maybe yelling,
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Speaker 1: going back and forth, and you said something, you said,
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Speaker 1: you know, some people this could be viewed many ways.
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Speaker 1: One could view it as an imperfect communication and we
13:44
Speaker 1: need to adjust how they're communicating. And I thought that
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Speaker 1: was really interesting. And then you you looked at it
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Speaker 1: through the EFT lens. But when you're working with a
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Speaker 1: couple and you're looking at them with this EFT lens,
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Speaker 1: I'm curious, was you know what attracted them in the
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Speaker 1: first place. Was it their kind of need for each
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Speaker 1: other's the way they dealt with their own emotions, you know,
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Speaker 1: like they needed that other person. But now here they
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Speaker 1: are maybe several years down the road, and it's that
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Speaker 1: exactly that's causing them to have this kind of difficulty
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Speaker 1: and so forth.
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Speaker 2: Now I don't think of it like that. I think
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Speaker 2: of it that we all have the same attachment tells
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Speaker 2: us we all have the same basic needs and fears
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Speaker 2: as human beings. We all need to connect. We all
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Speaker 2: need to know that if we call someone will come
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Speaker 2: someone who sees us, who cares about us, who were
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Speaker 2: important to we all need to know. So falling in
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Speaker 2: love is kind of a you know, sexual attractions very useful,
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Speaker 2: but falling in love is sort of a universal thing
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Speaker 2: that we all do, seeking this emotional connection with another
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Speaker 2: human being. And then I think, you're in a dance
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Speaker 2: and you're playing emotional music, and maybe you've never even
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Speaker 2: seen what a good relationship looks like. You don't even
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Speaker 2: know what a good relationship looks like. You're just you're
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Speaker 2: just playing the emotional music, you know, and you hurt
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Speaker 2: each other and you alienate each other, and things go
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Speaker 2: wrong and you get stuck, and we all get stuck.
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Speaker 2: We all get stuck in relationships, we all get stuck
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Speaker 2: in life in dealing with our basic overwhelming vulnerability. You know,
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Speaker 2: we don't we have brains that don't like uncertainty and
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Speaker 2: unpredictability and no solution vulnerability. So we're always seeking ways
15:56
Speaker 2: out of that. So I think it's just kind of
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Speaker 2: an actual thing. I think that the thing that distresses
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Speaker 2: me a bit is that even though hold Me Tight
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Speaker 2: is so successful and we have hold Me Tight, we
16:08
Speaker 2: have the hold Me Tight online program ww dot hold
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Speaker 2: Me tight online that you can do in your own
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Speaker 2: home with your partner, and it's used all over the world.
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Speaker 2: Even so, I think people are starving for connection. In
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Speaker 2: our world. We're lonelier and lonelier and more and more depressed.
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Speaker 2: And really, as far as I'm concerned, we should be
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Speaker 2: teaching attachment in school. We should be looking at building,
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Speaker 2: teaching kids in school how to build communities, how to
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Speaker 2: reach for each other, how to support each other. And
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Speaker 2: we should be showing pictures of what a good relationship
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Speaker 2: looks like. And if you look at our world, my goodness, me,
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Speaker 2: most eleven year old kids get exposed to pawn Mike,
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Speaker 2: are you kidding? And this is when they're impressionable as hell.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's not about misinformation. It's about, from my
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Speaker 2: point of view as a relationship orientated therapists, it's about
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Speaker 2: toxic lies. And people are saying, tell me what a
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Speaker 2: good relationship looks like, tell me how to get there,
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Speaker 2: and instead we give them oh things like, well, you
17:23
Speaker 2: can't have good sex if you're very familiar with somebody.
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Speaker 2: This is nonsense, This is a lie. The research says
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Speaker 2: the opposite. But the people who have the best sex
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Speaker 2: of the people who are happy in long term relationships.
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Speaker 2: So you know, there's so much rubbish out there, we
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Speaker 2: just get confused and lost. And then wait, let's.
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Speaker 1: Talk about that. What does a good work I mean,
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Speaker 1: obviously there are many examples, but what does a good
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Speaker 1: relationship look like? What does a healthy relationship look like?
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Speaker 2: It's a secure bond, a secure bond, which and all
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Speaker 2: the research says if you have a secure bond, even
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Speaker 2: with just one person, you are more resilient to trauma,
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Speaker 2: you are more resilient to stress, You are healthier, you
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Speaker 2: feel better about yourself, you have a more competent sense
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Speaker 2: of who you are, you're I mean, it goes on
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Speaker 2: and on and on. It's associated with every mental health, good,
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Speaker 2: good thing that you can imagine. Okay, but what it
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Speaker 2: basically looks like? And we do it in our therapy.
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Speaker 2: We create these what we call hold me type conversations.
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Speaker 2: We help people show how they freak each other out
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Speaker 2: and how they get stuck in these negative patterns, and
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Speaker 2: then we blame the pattern, not them. We say, oh,
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Speaker 2: you're both caught up in this dance, and for very
18:41
Speaker 2: good reasons. And then they start to see the pattern
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Speaker 2: and they start to not demonize each other. Then when
18:48
Speaker 2: there's a certain sense of safety and balance, we go
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Speaker 2: in and we help them take risks. And what it
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Speaker 2: basically means hold me type conversation is that you feel
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Speaker 2: safe enough for a person that you can go in
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Speaker 2: and touch your emotions, your vulnerability, and you can go
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Speaker 2: in and make sense of it, and you can share
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Speaker 2: that you can reach to the other person in a
19:17
Speaker 2: way that pulls that person close to you. So you know,
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Speaker 2: the woman who's screaming and yelling at her partner, and
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Speaker 2: he's got PTSD, so when she screams and yells at him,
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Speaker 2: he's absolutely on the ceiling. She's screaming and yelling at
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Speaker 2: her partner. She's able in our therapy and in the
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Speaker 2: Hoby type conversations to turn and say to him, well,
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Speaker 2: I do scream at you. I do. I get so desperate.
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Speaker 2: I'm so desperate. I feel so alone here. I feel
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Speaker 2: like I've lost you already, that you don't need me
19:56
Speaker 2: and you don't see me, and I get so scared.
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Speaker 2: I don't know what to do. So I scream and
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Speaker 2: yell at you and get mad, and I don't know
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Speaker 2: what to do. I'm just so scared. And her partner
20:10
Speaker 2: who's never heard this. Sometimes the partner needs help to
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Speaker 2: like what about it? Why? Who are you right?
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Speaker 1: Right?
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Speaker 2: But the partner is like, if we've done a job right?
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Speaker 2: The partner is moved open and says, I don't want
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Speaker 2: you to be scared. I didn't know you felt that way.
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Speaker 2: I don't want you to be scared. What do you need?
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Speaker 2: And you know we're basic as human beings. The woman
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Speaker 2: burst into tears and says, I need to know I'm
20:40
Speaker 2: matter to you, and he weeps, and he says, the
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Speaker 2: reason I shut down so quickly is because you're the
20:49
Speaker 2: most important thing in the world to me, and you
20:51
Speaker 2: matter so much. If you translate this into individual therapy
20:57
Speaker 2: for trauma, often you will find us doing in therapy,
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Speaker 2: and I've talked about this in the primer for if It.
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Speaker 2: You will see us going in and helping the adult
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Speaker 2: competent person who's in the session with you, who the
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Speaker 2: therapist has resourced and helped to feel strong, going in
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Speaker 2: and talking to the traumatized child, you know, and doing
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Speaker 2: the same thing like my latest warvet, I remember saying
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Speaker 2: to him, so all this terrible shaming, terrible things you
21:36
Speaker 2: say to yourself really started at twelve, at eleven, can
21:41
Speaker 2: you see a little eleven year old Tao? And first
21:44
Speaker 2: of all, he's in his head. He doesn't want to
21:46
Speaker 2: go there, he says, No, therapists are stupid. They're always
21:48
Speaker 2: persuading me to think something else when what I think
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Speaker 2: is true. Okay, I understand. Can you see a little
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Speaker 2: eleven yolder is nevertheless, can you see an little eleven
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Speaker 2: year old? Towel? I want him on an emotional level
22:00
Speaker 2: because there I can move him. And he says, no,
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Speaker 2: I can't see him. No I don't. I don't see
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Speaker 2: his face. He's a ghost. No, I can't see it.
22:08
Speaker 2: Will we move and walk and walk around so you
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Speaker 2: can't see him? Oh? I think I can see him.
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Speaker 2: It seems to me he's you know, So gradually, gradually
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Speaker 2: I say, can you see an an eleven year old?
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Speaker 2: Time he says yes, I can see him. I said, okay,
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Speaker 2: So here he is. He's he's scared, and he's and
22:29
Speaker 2: he's trying so hard to please his father and his
22:32
Speaker 2: brother and his mother, and they all want different things.
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Speaker 2: And he's lost and he's scared, and he doesn't fit in,
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Speaker 2: and he's lost, and he's telling himself what these dreadful things.
22:45
Speaker 2: He's a traitor and he's disgusting, right, What doesn't a
22:49
Speaker 2: little eleven year old towel feel? And this great big
22:54
Speaker 2: guy who's resisted me for ten sessions and told you
22:59
Speaker 2: have to work to resist me for ten sessions, believe me. So,
23:02
Speaker 2: and this great big guy who's resisted me for ten
23:05
Speaker 2: sessions stops, Thank goodness, he doesn't say, I'm in a
23:11
Speaker 2: deep existential crisis. You don't seem to understand. Yes, I understand.
23:15
Speaker 2: Let's go and look at little levenear hotel. Finally he stops,
23:18
Speaker 2: and he says he feels sad. I say, yes, he
23:25
Speaker 2: feels sad. And we stay there and we walk around
23:29
Speaker 2: in that, and I say, what would you like to
23:32
Speaker 2: do to help him?
23:34
Speaker 1: So?
23:35
Speaker 2: I don't know nobody ever helped him. I I don't
23:39
Speaker 2: because self compassion for this man is like foreign He
23:42
Speaker 2: doesn't even know what it looks like. Okay, so he
23:45
Speaker 2: beats himself up all the time. Finally he says what
23:48
Speaker 2: people always say, we're so we're a human family. Okay,
23:53
Speaker 2: there's a map to human beings. It's called attachment. And
23:56
Speaker 2: in all our research we've had, we've done so much
23:59
Speaker 2: research over the last thirty years. I've got a map
24:02
Speaker 2: when I'm in therapy, so i know where I'm going.
24:05
Speaker 2: I say, what would he like to do? And this
24:08
Speaker 2: man is great, big, self denigrating, tough man says, he
24:16
Speaker 2: holds him. See yes, And you go in and hold
24:20
Speaker 2: him and he can he tell you it feels good
24:24
Speaker 2: to be held. This is like the couple's process. It's
24:26
Speaker 2: the same, but it's with parts of self, right, with
24:30
Speaker 2: the most vulnerable part of self and the self that
24:33
Speaker 2: can have the resources to comfort and hold an order.
24:37
Speaker 2: And so he goes in and he holds him, and
24:40
Speaker 2: you know that man moved. Oh he moved from constant
24:45
Speaker 2: rage to being hijacked all the time, to not being
24:49
Speaker 2: able to relate to his family, to depression. I mean
24:54
Speaker 2: depression goes hand in hand with PTSD. We know that
24:58
Speaker 2: he moved into to balance and into self compassion. If
25:06
Speaker 2: you know how to work with emotion, if you have
25:09
Speaker 2: a map, this is the essence of EFT, whether you're
25:12
Speaker 2: working with couples or individuals, especially in trauma. If you
25:16
Speaker 2: know how to work with emotion and you have a
25:17
Speaker 2: map to where you're going, it is so powerful. Our
25:22
Speaker 2: research says you can create so much profound change in
25:27
Speaker 2: such a short time. I mean, we have thirty years
25:30
Speaker 2: of research.
25:32
Speaker 1: If I made Sue, it feels listening to you talk,
25:35
Speaker 1: it feels like you're describing bringing the person back to
25:40
Speaker 1: true north in a sense.
25:41
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a nice image. That's a nice that's a
25:44
Speaker 2: lovely image.
25:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like you're kind of realigning their soul
25:49
Speaker 1: the organism. Why do we stray from you know, why
25:54
Speaker 1: are we shooting this bickering and fighting and below that
25:59
Speaker 1: is the longing for attachment, the lost attachment, the unattachment.
26:06
Speaker 1: Why are we straining from that? Why do we not
26:08
Speaker 1: want to or are we hiding that?
26:10
Speaker 2: In a sense, Well, we're complicated human beings, and our
26:15
Speaker 2: society hasn't exactly validated. Our society still says a strong
26:27
Speaker 2: adult is independent, able to be separate, you know, making
26:34
Speaker 2: choices on their own and you know, able to put
26:37
Speaker 2: their emotions aside. This is horseshit. Okay, that's not a
26:42
Speaker 2: strong adult. That's somebody waiting to be knocked off their perch.
26:45
Speaker 2: A strong adult from an attachment point of view, because
26:49
Speaker 2: attachment is a developmental theory of personality, that is also
26:54
Speaker 2: totally useful for the therapist. From an attachment point of view,
26:59
Speaker 2: a whole secure person who has a secure relationship with
27:04
Speaker 2: themselves and with others and so can keep their balance
27:08
Speaker 2: in the world and deal with whatever's happening. The whole
27:12
Speaker 2: secure person knows they're vulnerable, knows what that vulnerability looks like,
27:18
Speaker 2: accepts it. So that's why I'm a human being. Your
27:22
Speaker 2: human beings do not do well alone. They're not wide
27:25
Speaker 2: for it. Your nervous system isn't wide for it. It's
27:28
Speaker 2: not because you're weak or strong, you're just not wide
27:31
Speaker 2: for it. You're a social bonding animal. Okay, So really
27:38
Speaker 2: strong human beings who are resilient trauma, and the research
27:41
Speaker 2: on this is huge, knows their vulnerabilities, can accept them
27:49
Speaker 2: and cope with them, and can tune into their own emotions,
27:54
Speaker 2: trust their emotions as a compass, befriend them, listen to
27:59
Speaker 2: them or them, and can tune in to other people
28:05
Speaker 2: and turn to other people as a resource. They can
28:07
Speaker 2: reach for other people. They can reach No towel now
28:11
Speaker 2: can reach when he starts to blame himself. He can
28:16
Speaker 2: find that secure adult part of him that he found
28:21
Speaker 2: in therapy with me, and he can turn and comfort
28:23
Speaker 2: that little eleven year old boy, instead of saying, oh,
28:27
Speaker 2: that little eleven year old boy. You know, I can't
28:29
Speaker 2: see him. He doesn't exist. He's a ghost. He's a ghost. No,
28:32
Speaker 2: he doesn't matter, he's he's he was the traitor, he
28:36
Speaker 2: was the no. No, no, no no. That middle eleven
28:39
Speaker 2: year old boy is is a valuable part of you.
28:43
Speaker 2: It's a sad part of you. It's the part of
28:46
Speaker 2: you that never got seen. So of course you can't
28:49
Speaker 2: see you. Why would you be able to see you?
28:53
Speaker 2: Nobody ever saw you? Did they tell nobody ever saw you.
28:57
Speaker 2: For the first twenty years of your life. You spent
29:00
Speaker 2: your whole life desperately trying to carve yourself into the
29:05
Speaker 2: image of what your family wanted. They all wanted different things,
29:09
Speaker 2: of course, which is that's crazy making, right, that's complex PTSD. Right.
29:14
Speaker 2: You know his brother wanted him to be the national
29:18
Speaker 2: hero in the army. You know, his father wanted him
29:22
Speaker 2: to be shut down and compliant and never never asked
29:26
Speaker 2: for anything. His mother wanted him to be a child
29:30
Speaker 2: constantly dependent on her, never never, never, never leaving her,
29:34
Speaker 2: hanging on to her. Well, you know, this young boy,
29:39
Speaker 2: just most of the time, if you listened to him.
29:41
Speaker 2: He was alone. He spent his whole childhood playing video
29:44
Speaker 2: games to get out of all this. But he can't
29:48
Speaker 2: in the beginning, he can't even formulate these things right.
29:53
Speaker 2: So many of us walk around really not knowing who
29:56
Speaker 2: we are on an emotional level until something traumatic happens
30:00
Speaker 2: to us that knocks us off. So our society doesn't
30:03
Speaker 2: give us a healthy view of what human beings are.
30:07
Speaker 2: It doesn't give us a healthy view of relationships, and
30:10
Speaker 2: we get lost and stuck. You know, relationships are complicated,
30:14
Speaker 2: Your emotions are complicated, Life's complicated. It takes over us
30:17
Speaker 2: all and we all get stuck. We all get stuck.
30:21
Speaker 2: Therapist gets stuck, you know. I mean, here, I am
30:24
Speaker 2: talking to you, and I can tell you, you know, an incident.
30:29
Speaker 2: I use it when I teach where you know, I
30:31
Speaker 2: had the most enormous, terrible, embarrassing fight with my seven
30:35
Speaker 2: year old son on a Saturday morning in Starbucks in
30:38
Speaker 2: my local community where everybody knew who I was. Well,
30:42
Speaker 2: you could say, well, so you know better than that, No,
30:45
Speaker 2: actually I don't, because because I got real upset and
30:50
Speaker 2: I lost it and I attacked him and then the
30:54
Speaker 2: whole thing went to hell, and I'm just caught in
30:57
Speaker 2: the emotional dance because I'm a human being and my emotions.
31:02
Speaker 2: My emotions are the most powerful thing, right They color
31:06
Speaker 2: my world, They organize my thoughts, they organize my actions,
31:12
Speaker 2: and if I can't befriend them and make sense of them,
31:15
Speaker 2: I'm in trouble. So you know, me the therapist, you know,
31:23
Speaker 2: start screaming, screaming at my son in Starbucks on Saturday
31:27
Speaker 2: morning because I'm a human being. But I have to
31:30
Speaker 2: tell you. We resolved it, which is wonderful, and we
31:33
Speaker 2: resolved it my son, who bless him, bless him. My
31:38
Speaker 2: son turned around after the fight and said to me, hey, mom,
31:44
Speaker 2: that conversation didn't go too well, did it. And then
31:48
Speaker 2: I started in a different place. I started with the
31:52
Speaker 2: desperation and the vulnerability instead of the why are you?
31:58
Speaker 2: I started with I'm terrified that you're failing your whole school.
32:04
Speaker 2: I'm terrified, and you won't talk to me about it,
32:07
Speaker 2: and I don't know what to do about it, and
32:08
Speaker 2: I feel helpless. I started there and we had a
32:11
Speaker 2: whole different kind of conversation because I'm what we call AI, accessible, responsive,
32:18
Speaker 2: and engaged. That's what a good relationship looks like I'm
32:22
Speaker 2: opening up to him and reaching for him, and he said, oh,
32:28
Speaker 2: he said, well, actually, I've already failed everything, so maybe
32:32
Speaker 2: I should have told you. And I'm scared to death too,
32:34
Speaker 2: so we're both scared. The interesting thing is when we're
32:38
Speaker 2: both scared and we know that by the time we'd
32:43
Speaker 2: walk six blocks to get home, we'd resolve the whole
32:47
Speaker 2: thing and made a plan for the future, Whereas for
32:49
Speaker 2: eighteen months before that, we can hardly talk to each
32:52
Speaker 2: other because I would always start with, excuse me, I
32:56
Speaker 2: don't think you've done your home right, and he would
32:59
Speaker 2: roll his eyes, and I would say, oh, you know,
33:02
Speaker 2: just roll your eyes. You know, I'm just your mother,
33:04
Speaker 2: you know, what do I matter? And we're off, right,
33:06
Speaker 2: We're off.
33:07
Speaker 1: But.
33:09
Speaker 2: We're sensitive, and nobody really teaches us how to use
33:15
Speaker 2: our emotions or listen to them. Nobody really teaches us
33:18
Speaker 2: how to connect. I mean, right now, personally, I think
33:21
Speaker 2: we're in the most disastrous social experiment in human history.
33:25
Speaker 2: We're actually teaching kids not to look at faces but
33:29
Speaker 2: to stare at screens. I do not know what we
33:33
Speaker 2: think is going to happen, but I think it's going
33:35
Speaker 2: to be a complete disaster. It's the opposite of what
33:39
Speaker 2: we should be doing. If we want healthy human beings
33:43
Speaker 2: who can deal with difficult traumatic experiences, this is not
33:47
Speaker 2: the way to go. But that's Hey, we're a capitalist society.
33:51
Speaker 2: This is the way to make money. This is the
33:53
Speaker 2: way we're going.
33:54
Speaker 1: So you know, let me ask you this too. As
33:57
Speaker 1: we kind of wind down here. You said so many
33:59
Speaker 1: things that I've got to have you back because there's
34:02
Speaker 1: so much to talk about. But is it is it
34:06
Speaker 1: possible for you know, thinking about our listeners here who
34:10
Speaker 1: are listening to this, and we're kind of talking about
34:12
Speaker 1: relationships here, is it possible for one person in the
34:16
Speaker 1: relationship to be accessible? That you said that use that
34:22
Speaker 1: are ar E? What is this going on here? That
34:27
Speaker 1: are our acronym accessible?
34:31
Speaker 2: Responsive and engaged? Are you there for me? Are you
34:34
Speaker 2: there for me? Is the big question in all relationships.
34:37
Speaker 2: Are you there for me? If the answer is no,
34:40
Speaker 2: everything starts to go sideways. So that's the big question. So, yeah, AAR.
34:47
Speaker 2: Is it possible for one person to be AAR and
34:50
Speaker 2: the other person.
34:51
Speaker 1: Not well and to have a successful relationship?
34:55
Speaker 2: Well? No, I mean, at various times people will be
34:59
Speaker 2: more access and responsive than others. You know, I've been
35:02
Speaker 2: married to my partner for thirty six years. At various
35:06
Speaker 2: times I might be more open than him, however, and
35:10
Speaker 2: there's a certain point where if I'm really going to
35:15
Speaker 2: make a bid for his attention and caring, I need
35:20
Speaker 2: him to be able to respond. So I can't do
35:22
Speaker 2: a relationship on my own. It's a dance. It's a dance,
35:27
Speaker 2: and it's around dealing with your fears, vulnerabilities, and needs
35:32
Speaker 2: and longings in a way that pulls the other person
35:35
Speaker 2: closer rather than pushing them away, and that makes you stronger,
35:39
Speaker 2: of course, but no people have to be able to
35:43
Speaker 2: at least join their partner in that dance to a
35:46
Speaker 2: certain extent. You know, people have different levels I need.
35:53
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, look at all my work. I
35:56
Speaker 2: need a more accessible, responsive, engaged man than many many
36:00
Speaker 2: many women do. I do. So it's Johnny good that
36:03
Speaker 2: I married one, although I don't think you mind me
36:06
Speaker 2: saying we've both changed a lot and we've both grown
36:11
Speaker 2: each other up, and I'm not sure I think the
36:14
Speaker 2: first couple of years we weren't that good at it.
36:17
Speaker 2: We didn't know each other very well. We got married
36:19
Speaker 2: very fast and the first couple of years were rather rocky,
36:23
Speaker 2: but we've gone through a lot of trauma together and
36:31
Speaker 2: that in those traumatic, overwhelming experiences where we lose our balance,
36:37
Speaker 2: we've always been able to be there for each other
36:40
Speaker 2: and that builds in us, strength in each of us,
36:44
Speaker 2: and it builds a good relationship.
36:48
Speaker 1: To As we kind of close out here, what's the
36:51
Speaker 1: best way for people to learn more about your work?
36:55
Speaker 2: You can look at my website, Dr Sue Johnson dot com.
36:58
Speaker 2: You can look at the eye THEFT website, which is
37:01
Speaker 2: I'm director of the International Center for Excellence and Emotionally
37:05
Speaker 2: Focused Therapy. That's www dot ic ee FT dot com.
37:13
Speaker 2: You can find all our research there. There's thirty years
37:16
Speaker 2: of research. We've researched everything you can imagine. We can
37:22
Speaker 2: show you what needs to happen in therapy, how you
37:26
Speaker 2: can do it as a therapist, and we can show
37:28
Speaker 2: you that these are the results and this is what
37:30
Speaker 2: it looks like three years later. So there's all this
37:33
Speaker 2: research and resources, resources for therapists, courses. We teach a
37:39
Speaker 2: lot with PESS, but we also have all kinds of
37:42
Speaker 2: courses on the ISF site. You can look for my books.
37:47
Speaker 2: There's lots of little youtubes out there. I'm always shocked
37:50
Speaker 2: some of them look kind of weird. I look like
37:53
Speaker 2: the Queen, which I don't like. I don't like that,
37:56
Speaker 2: but anyway, because I'm anti monarchy, I don't want to
37:59
Speaker 2: look like the Queen. So but you know that you
38:04
Speaker 2: can find a lot, a lot of stuff on the internet.
38:06
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have that linked up here at the show
38:08
Speaker 1: notes page. It's the Trauma Papers podcast dot com. So
38:12
Speaker 1: so thrilled to have you here. You are so inspiring,
38:18
Speaker 1: I mean, and obviously so passionate about your work, and
38:23
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here.
38:25
Speaker 2: You're most most welcome.
38:26
Speaker 1: It was really fun, all right, Take care okay,