Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Religion, Sex and Trauma with Natasha Helfer, LMFT, CSTS

Transcript

Religion, Sex and Trauma with Natasha Helfer, LMFT, CSTS · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Trauma Thepist podcast. Plus listeners can listen to episodes early
0:03
Speaker 1: and ad free right now. Become a Plus listener by
0:07
Speaker 1: going to Apple Podcasts searching for the Trauma Theaverist podcast
0:11
Speaker 1: and signing up today. Welcome to the Trauma Nevers Podcast,
0:18
Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
0:21
Speaker 1: who experienced trauma. My name is got macpherson, and my
0:24
Speaker 1: mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
0:27
Speaker 1: each of us to help those around us. All right,
0:35
Speaker 1: you ready to do this?
0:36
Speaker 2: I'm ready?
0:37
Speaker 1: All right, here we go. So five for three, two
0:40
Speaker 1: and one are folks. Welcome back. Very excited to have us.
0:43
Speaker 1: My guest today, Natasha Elfer, Natasha.
0:46
Speaker 2: Welcome, Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.
0:49
Speaker 1: Awesome. So. Natasha is the owner and founder of Symmetry Counseling.
0:53
Speaker 1: She's a licensed a Marathon Family Therapist in Kansas, Utah,
0:57
Speaker 1: and also a certified sex therapist. She's been in practice
1:01
Speaker 1: as a mental health professional for over twenty years, primarily
1:04
Speaker 1: working with Mormon clientele around issues of relational health, faith,
1:07
Speaker 1: transitions and journeys, and sexuality. She hosts the Natasha Helper
1:12
Speaker 1: podcast and as a membership platform, providing resources, groups and training,
1:16
Speaker 1: all of which we're going to talk about. Natasha, very
1:20
Speaker 1: exciting for you to be here. I'm excited to talk
1:23
Speaker 1: about you. You know, as we were getting ready to start,
1:27
Speaker 1: you kind of summed up what your focus is and
1:30
Speaker 1: you said religion, sex and mental health and all super charged. Right,
1:39
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, share with the.
1:41
Speaker 2: You're not supposed to talk about right, right.
1:44
Speaker 1: Right, Share with the listeners. Where you're from originally and
1:47
Speaker 1: where you are currently.
1:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. Perfect. I'm actually a military brat, So I grew
1:51
Speaker 2: up kind of all over the place, moving around with
1:53
Speaker 2: my dad, who was in the military and the army,
1:55
Speaker 2: and so I don't really claim one place that I'm from.
1:59
Speaker 2: I was born in German. I'm my mother's schrom Argentinas.
2:02
Speaker 2: I'm a white Hispanic Spanish was my first language with
2:04
Speaker 2: lived in Spain for a while, just all over the place.
2:07
Speaker 2: But I live in Salt Lake City now in Salt
2:10
Speaker 2: Lake City, Utah, and I have been familiar with Utah
2:13
Speaker 2: for a long time because right around the time I
2:15
Speaker 2: was graduating from college is when my parents moved to
2:17
Speaker 2: Utah long term. So going back home, quote unquote was
2:20
Speaker 2: Utah and we do come from the Mormon background, so
2:23
Speaker 2: where Utah is very high in the Latter day Saint population.
2:26
Speaker 2: So yes, that's a little bit about me and my
2:29
Speaker 2: geography and where I'm from and who the people are
2:33
Speaker 2: that I come from.
2:34
Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome, all right, So let's start here. How the
2:38
Speaker 1: heck did all this get it? Did you start? Did
2:41
Speaker 1: you get into this field?
2:43
Speaker 2: Yeah? Now that's that's great because I did not think
2:46
Speaker 2: that this would be the intersection I'd be interested in necessarily.
2:48
Speaker 2: When I started working as a therapist, I just thought
2:50
Speaker 2: i'd work with run of the middle depression and anxiety
2:53
Speaker 2: and things like that. But what ended up happening is
2:56
Speaker 2: that because I was one of the few therapists kind
3:00
Speaker 2: of in my geographical area at the time that was
3:03
Speaker 2: Latter day Saint, then a lot of the Latter day
3:06
Speaker 2: Saints and Mormons would want to see me and meet
3:08
Speaker 2: with me, which is actually very common. A lot of
3:10
Speaker 2: people want to see somebody who is representing somewhat of
3:15
Speaker 2: their beliefs. You know, Catholics likes to see Catholic therapists and.
3:18
Speaker 1: Excuse me for scon So when you got into the field,
3:21
Speaker 1: you were already in that religion. You were already a Mormon.
3:27
Speaker 2: Yes, right. My parents converted to the Mormon faith when
3:31
Speaker 2: I was like five years old. I have some memories
3:34
Speaker 2: of that, right, I remember the missionaries knocking on our
3:36
Speaker 2: door and my parents letting them in, and that's kind
3:39
Speaker 2: of where our religious journey as Latter day Saints started.
3:43
Speaker 1: I kept that up.
3:44
Speaker 2: I went to BYU, you know, as my undergraduate. I
3:49
Speaker 2: went to Friends University for my master's in Marriage and
3:51
Speaker 2: Family Therapy, which was also kind of a christian Esque
3:53
Speaker 2: based kind of university. And so I've been kind of
3:59
Speaker 2: work working with religious folks, whether it's Catholics because I
4:04
Speaker 2: speak Spanish fluently and so a lot of the Hispanic
4:06
Speaker 2: Catholics will come and see me, whether it's Evangelicals, because
4:09
Speaker 2: I've lived a lot of my adult life in the
4:10
Speaker 2: Bible Belt, like Kansas, in Wisconsin and kind of those
4:14
Speaker 2: middle of the state areas, and I come from a
4:18
Speaker 2: Mormon background, so a lot of the Mormon LDS folks
4:20
Speaker 2: have seen me as well. So although I did not
4:23
Speaker 2: plan to be a religiously focused therapist, a lot of
4:27
Speaker 2: religious folks came to see me, and I could see
4:30
Speaker 2: how their religious beliefs and their practices and how they
4:34
Speaker 2: agreed or disagreed, especially in marriages around some of those
4:37
Speaker 2: issues would affect mental health. Their sexual relations.
4:40
Speaker 1: Should give us an example.
4:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, for example, a very common thing I would
4:47
Speaker 2: see with all the different religions I've just mentioned is
4:51
Speaker 2: how purity culture would affect people. And let's talk about
4:55
Speaker 2: women in particular for right now. So if you identify
4:58
Speaker 2: as a woman and you were kind of brought up
5:01
Speaker 2: in purity culture, which might entail things like, you know,
5:05
Speaker 2: sex sex before marriage is a sin, you shouldn't really
5:09
Speaker 2: be exploring yourself that way. It also can come with
5:11
Speaker 2: a bit of a modesty rhetoric, like you should cover
5:14
Speaker 2: up your cleavage and your shoulders because you don't want
5:16
Speaker 2: to be too enticing to men, right, And so you
5:20
Speaker 2: grow up with all these messages, and so you're trying
5:23
Speaker 2: to keep yourself pure and virtuous and clean and lovely,
5:28
Speaker 2: and then you either one get married for the first
5:32
Speaker 2: time and start having your first sexual experiences and feeling
5:36
Speaker 2: kind of ill equipped, Like how would I go from
5:39
Speaker 2: saying no, no, no, to now all of a sudden
5:41
Speaker 2: saying yes to an aspect of myself that maybe I've
5:44
Speaker 2: kind of shut down because I wasn't supposed to feel
5:46
Speaker 2: sexual or erotic or sexy or seductive in those ways.
5:51
Speaker 2: Or maybe I didn't follow those standards and ended up
5:54
Speaker 2: having some premarital experiences or sexual intercourse, and now I
5:59
Speaker 2: feel a lot of guilt and shame about that, or
6:01
Speaker 2: I was made to feel guilt and shame. And some
6:04
Speaker 2: of these religious backgrounds, there's even kind of like public
6:08
Speaker 2: kind of punishments, you know, like maybe you're excommunicated, or
6:12
Speaker 2: you're this fellowship or your you know, people know in
6:16
Speaker 2: the congregation they've been kind of naughty in this way,
6:19
Speaker 2: and so that comes with a lot of internalized shame.
6:21
Speaker 2: And now how you know, ten years later, twenty years later,
6:24
Speaker 2: I'm seeing this couple and they're telling me these stories
6:27
Speaker 2: and how that's impacted their ability to surrender to pleasure,
6:31
Speaker 2: to be orgasmic, to communicate about their sexuality, to tell
6:35
Speaker 2: each other what they actually prefer sexually. And so many
6:39
Speaker 2: people struggle with these things even without the religious, you know, overlay,
6:44
Speaker 2: but especially with that conservative religious overlay can be very
6:47
Speaker 2: very threatening or difficult to know how to talk about
6:51
Speaker 2: and enjoy each other in those ways.
6:54
Speaker 1: So when you said when you first started out this
6:58
Speaker 1: was your client. Tell in a sense now and at
7:03
Speaker 1: that time, are you still you kind of alluded earlier
7:07
Speaker 1: that you were not a Mormon anymore?
7:10
Speaker 2: You were, Yeah, well so I yeah, my identity. I
7:14
Speaker 2: still identify as Mormon my personal identity. But in twenty
7:21
Speaker 2: twenty one, the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter day
7:24
Speaker 2: Saints did go through a formal process of excommunicating me.
7:28
Speaker 2: And the primary reasons for that wreas because I was
7:33
Speaker 2: not aligned with the prophets and the seers and the
7:35
Speaker 2: revelators that would be their kind of definition of apostasy.
7:39
Speaker 2: And the reason I wasn't aligned with the profits, seers
7:43
Speaker 2: and revelators was because as a sex therapist, I was
7:46
Speaker 2: speaking up in my community about sexual health, sexual rights,
7:51
Speaker 2: LGBTQ rights, and so I was very adamant about LGBTQ
7:58
Speaker 2: people being able to affirm themselves, be able to come out,
8:02
Speaker 2: be able to feel like they're good, righteous, whole people,
8:05
Speaker 2: that they're not sinning by being homosexual or bisexual or
8:08
Speaker 2: transgender or all these things. And I also spoke up
8:12
Speaker 2: quite a bit about masturbation because there's still a lot
8:15
Speaker 2: of very conservative religions that see masturbation as a sin,
8:19
Speaker 2: whether you're Orthodox Jew or Mormon or even some Orthodox Catholics.
8:25
Speaker 1: How long had you been I guess thank you for
8:27
Speaker 1: sharing that. And my question is when you first started,
8:32
Speaker 1: you were in the religion, you were seeing these individuals.
8:40
Speaker 1: How important was it for you to be a believer
8:45
Speaker 1: in a sense as you were seeing these people? And
8:49
Speaker 1: I'm curious about what happens. Was there some kind of
8:53
Speaker 1: a transformation where things started to rub against one another
8:58
Speaker 1: in a sense, and you're like of belief systems and
9:01
Speaker 1: how you continue to help people?
9:04
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, And I think that this is a journey
9:06
Speaker 2: that many therapists have, you know, as you start out
9:09
Speaker 2: kind of in your own belief systems and then you
9:11
Speaker 2: go into the field of psychology and mental health and
9:14
Speaker 2: you're taught in ethics one oh one, that you've kind
9:17
Speaker 2: of got to put your beliefs aside and you've got
9:19
Speaker 2: to meet people where they are and their beliefs and
9:22
Speaker 2: their experiences. And I having been in the profession really
9:26
Speaker 2: for almost thirty years now, I see how we as
9:29
Speaker 2: therapists oftentimes fail at that, Like we do project our
9:32
Speaker 2: own belief systems or our own ideas about health due
9:36
Speaker 2: to our own religious or even secular biases in ways
9:40
Speaker 2: that can be really harmful for people who are coming
9:44
Speaker 2: to see us. So it's really important work that therapists
9:46
Speaker 2: need to do is do our own personal work. And so, yes,
9:50
Speaker 2: I loved my faith. I loved being a Mormon woman.
9:55
Speaker 2: I loved the gospel, which is how we refer to things.
9:59
Speaker 2: And yet I I could start seeing how different people
10:03
Speaker 2: were coming in with different experiences than me, or mirror
10:07
Speaker 2: experiences of my own, and then I had to start thinking,
10:11
Speaker 2: wait a minute, how did sexual shame affect me?
10:14
Speaker 1: Right?
10:14
Speaker 2: How did these teachings or practices affect my ability to
10:18
Speaker 2: enjoy and own and be self determined in my own
10:22
Speaker 2: sexuality and in my own relationships. And so it really
10:25
Speaker 2: became kind of a journey of not only shifting my
10:29
Speaker 2: ideas and my beliefs and my values while still very
10:32
Speaker 2: much honoring my faith tradition and wanting to be included
10:35
Speaker 2: and involved. I did not want to be excommunicated. I
10:39
Speaker 2: did not want to be ostracized for my faith community,
10:42
Speaker 2: which I actually have a lot of love and you know,
10:45
Speaker 2: compassion and memories with and also seeing this is not working.
10:51
Speaker 2: There's many things here that are not working.
10:54
Speaker 1: What specifically, well.
10:55
Speaker 2: For example, what really made me speak out about masturbation
10:59
Speaker 2: for the first time is that I started feeling complicit
11:02
Speaker 2: with a system that was harming adolescence. I can't tell
11:06
Speaker 2: you how many adolescents I've seen throughout my career where
11:09
Speaker 2: they're actually self harming, suicidal, depressed, anxious, scrupulous like OCD.
11:17
Speaker 2: And when I really get to the heart of it,
11:19
Speaker 2: they're feeling extreme guilt because they masturbated once in the
11:24
Speaker 2: last three months, and they shouldn't masturbate at all, and
11:30
Speaker 2: so they're being put at odds with a natural human
11:33
Speaker 2: drive due to their religious belief system. And so they
11:37
Speaker 2: love their religion. They're trying to be good, they're trying
11:40
Speaker 2: to be worthy and pure and righteous, and yet they
11:43
Speaker 2: fall and fail and they masturbate. Whether that's once a
11:47
Speaker 2: week or once a year, you kind of get the
11:49
Speaker 2: same reaction where we know it's pretty normative for a
11:52
Speaker 2: teenager to may masturbate once a few times a day
11:55
Speaker 2: even or not masturbate at all. Right, these are all
11:58
Speaker 2: right human show up, but they're feeling at odds with themselves,
12:03
Speaker 2: and so then how do they internalize that, Well, I'm broken,
12:06
Speaker 2: I'm an addict. I'm you know, I'm sinful. God is
12:10
Speaker 2: unhappy with me. I can't pray to God, I can't
12:13
Speaker 2: have a spiritual relationship with God because I'm unclean. And
12:17
Speaker 2: this is ongoing, and it happens over and over again,
12:21
Speaker 2: because of course sexual drive is repetitive, just like our
12:24
Speaker 2: hunger drive is right and like that, and so they
12:27
Speaker 2: really start internalizing self loathing, self hatred. And many of
12:31
Speaker 2: these young people have never had sex, have never even
12:36
Speaker 2: really dated other people, but because they're having a relationship
12:41
Speaker 2: with their own sexual selves, they just feel miserable about themselves.
12:45
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering under what remise they even came to you.
12:50
Speaker 1: I'm assuming they didn't tell their parents. I'm having a
12:53
Speaker 1: hard time with not masturbating. I need to go see
12:56
Speaker 1: a therapist. Yeah. Did they come to you because I'm
12:59
Speaker 1: p or the things aren't working? You know that's interesting too.
13:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, in these religious communities, it's actually pretty common
13:06
Speaker 2: to have somebody come in and say I've got a
13:08
Speaker 2: masturbation addiction, and even for kids and parents to be
13:13
Speaker 2: talking in that way about very young people. So they
13:16
Speaker 2: may come in being very frank, like I'm struggling because
13:19
Speaker 2: I have a masturbation addiction, and it's your job to
13:22
Speaker 2: help me stop masturbating, right as the therapist. Or it's
13:26
Speaker 2: your job to help our son or daughter stop masturbating.
13:29
Speaker 1: Right.
13:31
Speaker 2: So that's one way it can present, but yes, other
13:33
Speaker 2: ways it presents is like, why are you self harming?
13:37
Speaker 2: You know, why are you cutting your arms or your legs?
13:39
Speaker 2: And that takes sometimes weeks or months to start understanding
13:44
Speaker 2: where that distress is coming from. And not that it's
13:47
Speaker 2: always tied to sexual shame, but it was happening enough
13:51
Speaker 2: that I was like, I can't just sit around as
13:53
Speaker 2: a therapist in my community and ignore that some of
13:58
Speaker 2: these teachings that we are holding very rigidly on are
14:03
Speaker 2: actually harming people instead of helping people. And we should
14:08
Speaker 2: have the wherewithal to understand that although we can be
14:12
Speaker 2: very tied to religious teachings and even scriptural doctrines, we
14:15
Speaker 2: should be able to be flexible enough to understand when
14:18
Speaker 2: things are harming people. Another very clear examples LGBTQ community. Right,
14:23
Speaker 2: if your belief system is that being homosexual is a sin,
14:27
Speaker 2: or that acting in a homosexual way is a sin,
14:30
Speaker 2: or not identifying with your gender is a sin, now
14:33
Speaker 2: We've got a whole population of people who are either
14:38
Speaker 2: hiding or being ostracized, or being deemed wicked or unrighteous,
14:46
Speaker 2: and this has huge mental health effects, to the point
14:50
Speaker 2: that we know through good research that people in the
14:53
Speaker 2: LGBTQ community who are not affirmed run a risk of
14:58
Speaker 2: three to ten times suicidal rate of the rest of
15:02
Speaker 2: the population. Right, So this is a really like an endemic, right,
15:06
Speaker 2: that's happening, and much that is driven by religious beliefs
15:10
Speaker 2: and teachings.
15:12
Speaker 1: At what point during your when you started out as
15:16
Speaker 1: a therapist, did these issues begin to come into play
15:19
Speaker 1: for you?
15:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say year one, year one.
15:24
Speaker 1: At what point did you really begin struggling with that?
15:28
Speaker 2: Yeah?
15:29
Speaker 1: I think I questioning.
15:30
Speaker 2: I would say that I struggled my whole time. I
15:34
Speaker 2: still struggle, Right.
15:35
Speaker 1: And were you having like collegial discussions and yes, and
15:40
Speaker 1: how did those go?
15:41
Speaker 2: Well, some of them went really crappy, because I think
15:45
Speaker 2: I could start seeing how a lot of my colleagues,
15:48
Speaker 2: especially other lds or evangelical therapists or Christian therapists, were
15:52
Speaker 2: actually also complicit with the system. Instead of prioritizing their ethics,
15:57
Speaker 2: they prioritize their religious beliefs, So they were themselves imposing
16:03
Speaker 2: a lot of I mean, it's it's therapists who you know,
16:07
Speaker 2: practiced electroshock therapy in the nineteen seventies on gay people
16:12
Speaker 2: to try to change their sexual orientation. It's therapists who
16:15
Speaker 2: did that. It's therapists who had homosexuality in the DSM
16:21
Speaker 2: as a disorder up until the late nineteen seventies, right,
16:26
Speaker 2: So we have been complicit in the mental health field
16:30
Speaker 2: with some of the problems that we've created. That still
16:34
Speaker 2: is some of the problems. You know, even now, very good,
16:37
Speaker 2: well renowned therapists will say things about sexual lifestyles or
16:41
Speaker 2: non monogamy or things of that nature that are based
16:45
Speaker 2: in kind of purity culture shame based approaches. They're not
16:49
Speaker 2: really based on sexual health principles. So I had to
16:52
Speaker 2: do a lot of freaking work on being uncomfortable, right,
16:57
Speaker 2: being uncomfortable, Like this feels uncomfortable, and yet people are
17:01
Speaker 2: telling me this is what works for them, but because
17:04
Speaker 2: it doesn't work for me and my religious beliefs, and
17:06
Speaker 2: I'm uncomfortable, and I had to really work hard. And
17:10
Speaker 2: that really started happening for me when I decided to
17:13
Speaker 2: become a sex therapist. I went back to train as
17:17
Speaker 2: certified sex therapist, which is basically a.
17:20
Speaker 1: Till while you were still in uh what in the
17:24
Speaker 1: book in the belief system?
17:26
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, in the belief system?
17:28
Speaker 1: Did you have to did you? Could you do that
17:30
Speaker 1: out in the open?
17:32
Speaker 2: I did?
17:34
Speaker 1: I did?
17:34
Speaker 2: I mean really eventually, That's what did me in, right,
17:38
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what did me in as a as
17:40
Speaker 2: a Mormon, was being open.
17:42
Speaker 1: So were you able to tell your colleagues like, I'm
17:44
Speaker 1: taking these courses as becoming a sex therapist and they
17:48
Speaker 1: were like, what the hell are you doing? Yeah?
17:51
Speaker 2: I think well I would say I didn't necessarily tell
17:55
Speaker 2: people I was doing it. I started critiquing other therapists
17:58
Speaker 2: and then yeah, there's been a lot of infight between
18:01
Speaker 2: therapists on a lot of these issues, like even the
18:05
Speaker 2: sex addiction concept. That's not an actual diagnosis, right, That's
18:12
Speaker 2: a term that a certain professional came up with Patrick Carnes,
18:16
Speaker 2: you know, back in the seventies eighties. I forget when
18:20
Speaker 2: and programs have been developed, but it's not a diagnosis.
18:23
Speaker 2: It's been you know, put forth by a body of people.
18:29
Speaker 2: And these are things that therapists are having infights about
18:32
Speaker 2: all the time, and I think it's very confusing for
18:34
Speaker 2: the public because the public will go to a sex
18:36
Speaker 2: addiction specialist who's a licensed professional, and then they'll go
18:41
Speaker 2: to a certified sex therapist, which is the training, and
18:44
Speaker 2: they're going to get very different approaches on a similar issue.
18:50
Speaker 2: But one of them is trained like in ways that
18:53
Speaker 2: are respected by a board, a governing board, and one
18:57
Speaker 2: of them is trained by one person's approach.
19:02
Speaker 1: That's very interesting. I wasn't aware of that. So, just
19:05
Speaker 1: as an aside, what are those different approaches? So you
19:08
Speaker 1: have a sex addiction therapist on the one hand and
19:11
Speaker 1: a certified sex therapist, are they too kind of points
19:17
Speaker 1: distant points on a continuum in a sense? Are they antithetical?
19:21
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think they are because the position of the
19:26
Speaker 2: a SECT organization is an American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors
19:31
Speaker 2: and Therapists is a sex addiction is not a helpful
19:35
Speaker 2: approach to dealing with sexual issues, even when there is
19:38
Speaker 2: sexual compulsivity or impulsivity. That is not an approach that
19:42
Speaker 2: is actually effective in helping people reach the goals that
19:45
Speaker 2: they want. That's a very clear stated statement that a
19:47
Speaker 2: SECT has come out with in the last few years.
19:51
Speaker 2: So but you know, I like, this is something that
19:55
Speaker 2: is very like I call it the pornography dilemma, for example,
19:59
Speaker 2: and in my clientele, like we were taught from our
20:04
Speaker 2: religion that, for example, pornography is evil, debase, perverse, horrific,
20:09
Speaker 2: a sin, and you have a right to have those
20:11
Speaker 2: beliefs about pornography. You can believe whatever you want about pornography.
20:15
Speaker 2: But then what happens is that that gets conflated with illness.
20:19
Speaker 2: We'll see, if you look at pornography, you must be sick.
20:23
Speaker 2: And the metaphor I try to make is like orthodox
20:26
Speaker 2: Jewish people they don't eat pork, right, and that's their
20:29
Speaker 2: right to have that belief, But we don't have like
20:32
Speaker 2: pork addiction programs for people who don't comply with the
20:36
Speaker 2: standards of their religion.
20:39
Speaker 1: Right.
20:39
Speaker 2: It doesn't all of a sudden become an illness or
20:42
Speaker 2: a disease because you are not conforming with religious standards.
20:48
Speaker 2: And that's I think where this gets very much conflated.
20:50
Speaker 2: And this hurts spouses as well, because then spouses get
20:54
Speaker 2: this idea that we should be doing something about this.
20:57
Speaker 2: It's my job to hold you accountable and if you
21:00
Speaker 2: say you're not an addict, then you're in denial. So
21:03
Speaker 2: we're conflating, you know, a program that's somewhat helpful for
21:07
Speaker 2: actual dependence, you know, substance addiction versus human sexuality, which
21:12
Speaker 2: is wildly diverse, and most religious, most religious conservative spaces
21:19
Speaker 2: do not make space for solo sexuality, which is actually
21:23
Speaker 2: a very important part of human development. You know, we
21:25
Speaker 2: touch our own bodies and we even soothe our own
21:28
Speaker 2: bodies from the time that we're in the feet, you know,
21:30
Speaker 2: we're fetus, you know, in the womb, So whether that's
21:34
Speaker 2: sucking your own thumb or pulling your own ear, or
21:37
Speaker 2: touching your genitalia, that is soothing behavior from the time
21:40
Speaker 2: that you're a baby and a toddler. And we're saying no,
21:43
Speaker 2: you do not have a right to touch your own body,
21:46
Speaker 2: and I, as your spouse, can see that as a betrayal.
21:50
Speaker 2: You know, now we're talking about betrayal trauma because I
21:53
Speaker 2: am going to be so upset that you have a
21:56
Speaker 2: relationship with your own body or your own mind, because
21:59
Speaker 2: this church concept has taught me that that's how I
22:02
Speaker 2: should respond to that. So it's it's very heavy, it's
22:06
Speaker 2: very heavy work.
22:07
Speaker 1: It's very heavy. I'm speaking with Natasha Helfer. You know, Natasha,
22:11
Speaker 1: I just got to say I love talking to you
22:14
Speaker 1: because you just kind of embody this very forceful independence,
22:22
Speaker 1: this very forceful compassion. You know, when I imagine you
22:32
Speaker 1: starting out as a therapist within the umbrella of this
22:40
Speaker 1: religion and the I think almost shackles in a sense
22:47
Speaker 1: that provided for you as a therapist, just as a therapist,
22:50
Speaker 1: and to move through that to get to a point
22:54
Speaker 1: where you're and it's working with the people in front
22:58
Speaker 1: of you. You know, it's because the people that you
23:00
Speaker 1: were working with and how you moved through that, I
23:03
Speaker 1: can't imagine that journey. Let me ask you a personal
23:09
Speaker 1: question here and don't answer it if you don't feel comfortable,
23:14
Speaker 1: But I'm curious about like, were you married at this time?
23:17
Speaker 1: Did how did that impact your marriage and so forth?
23:23
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, no, I was. I was married when I
23:25
Speaker 2: started my MFT program. I started I think like two
23:29
Speaker 2: weeks after my wedding date. So yeah, and I am
23:34
Speaker 2: divorced now, but my ex spouse was very supportive about that,
23:39
Speaker 2: and I think it did shift, you know, as I
23:42
Speaker 2: was starting to learn all these principles and you know,
23:44
Speaker 2: because I was a marriage and family therapist, so obviously
23:46
Speaker 2: I was thinking about my own marriage and how I
23:49
Speaker 2: show up and what my conflict style is, and of
23:52
Speaker 2: course how he's showing up, and so I think in
23:55
Speaker 2: some ways it was very helpful for us. In other ways,
23:58
Speaker 2: my ex would always joke, it's like, well, married to
24:00
Speaker 2: a marriage therapist, so anytime we have an argument, I
24:03
Speaker 2: just get a bill in the mail or something like that.
24:04
Speaker 2: You know it is. So he had a good sense
24:07
Speaker 2: of humor about it, but I do you know, it
24:10
Speaker 2: did start both of us had a lot of very
24:13
Speaker 2: deep discussions about how growing up in the space that
24:16
Speaker 2: we did did keep us sexually kind of limited in
24:22
Speaker 2: a lot of ways. I had had premarital sexual experiences
24:26
Speaker 2: prior to my marriage, he had not. That created conflict
24:31
Speaker 2: between us, and you know, issues of resentment that we're
24:34
Speaker 2: both pretty comfortable like just acknowledging at this point. I
24:37
Speaker 2: think we were both doing the best we could at
24:39
Speaker 2: the time. But that created a lot of internalized shame
24:43
Speaker 2: how I could present, whether or not I could moan
24:47
Speaker 2: or sigh or dress in certain lingerie, or present as
24:52
Speaker 2: sexual or sensual. It was always like, oh, if I
24:55
Speaker 2: do that maybe he'll get the sense that I did
24:58
Speaker 2: these things before, or that I'm somehow worldly, or so
25:03
Speaker 2: you can see how that just would limit me in
25:05
Speaker 2: my sexual expression and my ability to orgasm, and my
25:09
Speaker 2: ability to enjoy and surrender. And I'm sure he had
25:12
Speaker 2: similar you know, maybe fantasies or thoughts or ideas. Who
25:16
Speaker 2: knows that may he didn't feel comfortable sharing with me
25:19
Speaker 2: because oh no, what would she think if I mentioned
25:22
Speaker 2: something that I would like to do that maybe is
25:24
Speaker 2: a little taboo or a little different. And so and
25:28
Speaker 2: both of us now have had our own journeys outside
25:32
Speaker 2: of the church, and we are divorced. But I think
25:35
Speaker 2: that we can see how that impacted us greatly personally.
25:40
Speaker 2: And then you know, just right off the bat, like
25:41
Speaker 2: when you say, well, what, right off the bat, Like
25:44
Speaker 2: in the first year of me practicing, I had a
25:46
Speaker 2: mixed orientation marriage, right, So, a gay man married to
25:49
Speaker 2: a straight woman.
25:52
Speaker 1: They were they Mormons.
25:54
Speaker 2: They were Mormons. Okay, what else are you supposed to do?
25:57
Speaker 2: Especially back in that age group. The Church was specifically
26:02
Speaker 2: at that time encouraging gay people and lesbian people to
26:05
Speaker 2: marry heterosexually, with this idea that as long as you
26:09
Speaker 2: do what's righteous and as long as you both love God,
26:12
Speaker 2: everything will work out. Well, that's like really bad advice,
26:15
Speaker 2: really bad advice, and it doesn't work out, and you
26:19
Speaker 2: can't get you know, pray the gay away. And I
26:22
Speaker 2: didn't know what to do with this mixed orientation couple.
26:25
Speaker 2: Do you think I got mixed orientation couple training in school?
26:28
Speaker 1: No?
26:28
Speaker 2: I did not know. And then I ask the LDS
26:32
Speaker 2: Family Services for help, and they send me books that
26:35
Speaker 2: are really like conversion therapy, and I'm like, this doesn't
26:38
Speaker 2: sound right, And I mean, we have a lot of
26:42
Speaker 2: conversion therapy still alive and well in this country. You know,
26:45
Speaker 2: people send their miners and even you know, emerging adults
26:50
Speaker 2: to conversion therapy. And it's become now illegal in most
26:54
Speaker 2: states for miners. But if you're eighteen, nineteen twenty, that's
26:58
Speaker 2: a huge part still may be like, no, please, I
27:01
Speaker 2: don't want to be gay because my God says being
27:04
Speaker 2: gay is a sin and I'm going to go to
27:05
Speaker 2: hell and I can't do these things that I desperately
27:08
Speaker 2: feel driven to do. And you're in this extreme internal
27:12
Speaker 2: conflict and internal homophobia that impacts every aspect of your life,
27:18
Speaker 2: not just your mental health, but your relational health, how
27:20
Speaker 2: you have relationships with other people, your sexual health, right,
27:24
Speaker 2: your spiritual health. So this has been a passion of
27:28
Speaker 2: mine because I have just seen the tremendous burden and
27:31
Speaker 2: sadness and tragedies that happen, including completed suicide due to
27:36
Speaker 2: these just very internal struggles where we can't have spaces
27:42
Speaker 2: where we can be spiritually connected, especially to a deity.
27:45
Speaker 2: If that's what we're going to believe in, that's all
27:47
Speaker 2: knowing and all powerful and be okay and accept ourselves
27:52
Speaker 2: for how we show up in this world.
27:55
Speaker 1: So you your website is why I am Counseling dot com.
28:02
Speaker 2: Yes, sim counseling okay, and you can also find me
28:06
Speaker 2: at Natasha Helpford dot com. So either way, okay.
28:09
Speaker 1: Now, in terms of the services you provide, what do
28:13
Speaker 1: you what do you offer?
28:14
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I we well we so all the people
28:17
Speaker 2: who are who work and my practice are trained and
28:19
Speaker 2: all these things that I'm talking about, right, So I
28:22
Speaker 2: make sure they're trained in sexuality and religious trauma and
28:24
Speaker 2: religious faith transitions and all these things that people may
28:29
Speaker 2: be struggling with mix faith marriages. You know, when you
28:31
Speaker 2: have one person who believes and one person who doesn't,
28:34
Speaker 2: and make sure they're both honored and respected in that process.
28:37
Speaker 2: So we offer individual counseling, we offer marital counseling, we
28:41
Speaker 2: offer group therapy. I have developed like a series of
28:46
Speaker 2: twelve different groups for pretty much all the issues that
28:49
Speaker 2: people have when they're shifting their faith beliefs, So whether
28:52
Speaker 2: it's reframing your female sexuality, addressing male sexual shame. I
28:58
Speaker 2: even have a group on non monogamy because a lot
29:00
Speaker 2: of people are interested in that, especially coming out of
29:03
Speaker 2: really rigid systems, but they don't want to blow up
29:05
Speaker 2: their lives, you know, and their relationships. I've got groups
29:09
Speaker 2: on religious trauma. I've got a faith transition membership platform,
29:13
Speaker 2: so if you're going through a faith transition of any kind,
29:15
Speaker 2: you can join us every Wednesday night for that first
29:18
Speaker 2: wednesdays that the night are free. So we have a
29:20
Speaker 2: lot of services just through our clinic, and if we
29:24
Speaker 2: can't help you, we usually know of the resources that can't.
29:27
Speaker 2: So even if you just call us and you're like,
29:28
Speaker 2: well that doesn't sound like a great fit, we can
29:30
Speaker 2: point you into a good direction. The other thing that
29:33
Speaker 2: I offer, which is a different platform, is learn religion
29:36
Speaker 2: therapy dot com. So I am starting a training for therapists.
29:41
Speaker 2: So if you're a therapist or a coach where you
29:44
Speaker 2: work with religious clientele or they're dealing with these kinds
29:47
Speaker 2: of issues and you need to know how to work
29:49
Speaker 2: with these kinds of concepts of how to work with
29:52
Speaker 2: conservative religious people, or people who are leaving conservative religions,
29:55
Speaker 2: or people who are having sexual issues or sexual trauma
29:58
Speaker 2: due to religious upbringing. I'm creating trainings on all of
30:01
Speaker 2: that as well.
30:02
Speaker 1: Wow, and where can people find that?
30:05
Speaker 2: Learn religion? Yeah, learn religion therapy dot com. Learn Okay,
30:12
Speaker 2: because most of us, even though it's in our ethics
30:14
Speaker 2: to get religious training, most of us didn't get a
30:16
Speaker 2: lot of religious training or you know, like I remember
30:19
Speaker 2: one class where we kind of mentioned like be you know,
30:23
Speaker 2: be aware of the people and what their religious backgrounds are.
30:26
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, well, that's great training. How
30:30
Speaker 2: do how do we actually sit with different beliefs than
30:33
Speaker 2: we have, maybe our honor beliefs that you don't understand
30:37
Speaker 2: as well, And it's really tricky balance.
30:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as we close out here, I want you
30:44
Speaker 1: to just share with our listeners a little bit about
30:46
Speaker 1: your podcast. The Natasha Helper podcast. We'll also have that
30:52
Speaker 1: linked up. What do you do on it? What do
30:54
Speaker 1: you talk about?
30:56
Speaker 2: Yes? I start off every session by saying, we are
30:58
Speaker 2: here to challenge and destroy shame. So that's the goal, right,
31:04
Speaker 2: And how do you destroy shame? Well, you educate yourself,
31:07
Speaker 2: you learn about things, you practice things that you're uncomfortable with, right.
31:11
Speaker 2: And so a lot of the guests that I have
31:13
Speaker 2: on the show are either authors of books or people
31:16
Speaker 2: who've been through their own journeys of how they have
31:19
Speaker 2: you know, and we can you know. I've had everybody
31:22
Speaker 2: from cancer survivors on the show, to religious trauma survivors
31:26
Speaker 2: to I just interviewed the author of what is Compersion,
31:32
Speaker 2: which is this lovely idea to help people who are
31:35
Speaker 2: non monogamous. So I try to cover lots of themes,
31:39
Speaker 2: including having interviewed doctor Wenell, who is the person who
31:44
Speaker 2: really coined the term religious trauma syndrome. So you know,
31:48
Speaker 2: years ago, now, decades ago now. So if I has
31:52
Speaker 2: to do a sex, mental health, or religion, I'm going
31:55
Speaker 2: to try to interview you.
31:58
Speaker 1: Natasha. Awesome, I love talking to you. I'd love to
32:02
Speaker 1: have you back a later time. It seems like, there's
32:04
Speaker 1: so much to talk about and just love your passion.
32:07
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being again, so much.
32:08
Speaker 2: And I'd love to come back anytime.
32:10
Speaker 1: Thank you, all right, all right, take care, bye bye