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The Three Rs For Healing Harmful Relationships · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kim Lee, child and adolescent psychotherapist and author.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to let people know that the paperback edition of The Life That Belongs to You has gone live today on Amazon and this is linked on, or rather than linked, is actually referenced on my Facebook page.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I wanted to just say that probably uh the the the paperback edition may very well be more appealing than the the e-book, and certainly the next book, which is currently uh in final editing, will be available on paperback in paperback form only.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: However, returning to the current book, I wanted just to say a bit more.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I did an introductory episode on the book, but I want just to break it down a little.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: The subtitle of this book is The Three Rs.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And people who listen to these podcasts will know that I've talked about this principle before on this particular model.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's become a bit more refined, and it isn't just about helping people to recover from harmful and damaging relationships as adults.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It goes back much further than that, and it applies to all of those relationships that we've experienced, which have in some way uh constricted us, have damaged us, who which which which we bring into the present and find expression through current relationships.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this has a lot to do with the patterns that become sort of imperceptibly formed, but become apparent through outcomes, how relationships tend to be, how our sense of ourselves tends to be.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the three R's provides a structure which really helps us to think through that process.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: The three R's are recognition, reckoning, and recovery.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now recognition asks what is happening, what has caused what has happened.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Reckoning asks what is now happening in me, and recovery asks, how do I choose to respond?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, recognition, the first stage, begins with reality.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's the process through which individual episodes start to become visible as patterns, and harmful relationships are often difficult to understand while they're being lived.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Each incident arrives separately.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, an argument occurs, an apology follows, life settles, something else happens, a promise is made, and another period of calm begins.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But each episode, whilst it may have its own explanation, actually it gets repeated and that forms a pattern.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So what recognition does is it asks us to notice, not to decide immediately what another person is, but to take our own experience seriously enough to examine it.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because recognition is the restoration of reality.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And once a pattern becomes visible, then another task begins.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now that task, the new beginning, has to do with what I've called the reckoning.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Once it's visible, we see what's happened, and it's not the same as understanding what it meant.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Reckoning asks us to consider consequence.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: The consequence, what did the relationship cost?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: What did we lose?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: What did we suppress and deny?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: What became internalized?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: What happened to our confidence, boundaries, or ability to trust our own perceptions?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is a powerful stage because it may bring grief, anger, and a powerful desire for acknowledgement.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it may also bring memories or emotions that were difficult to process while the relationship itself still had to be managed.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Reckoning is not punishment, it is taking account.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's the process through which the consequences of experience begin to acquire meaning.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And quite often that is something we can only do from a distance, a distance of time, a distance away from those who have caused the damage.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes this is a process which is facilitated by therapy, but it's not always required.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think the thing is that you know what we saw at the time, what we experienced, endured, and allowed at the time, we saw through a very different lens to how we might see it now.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was then, and this is now.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in the now we look back and we we can see what happened, but we can also make a different kind of sense of it, and that's important because change does not occur without understanding.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Simply having positive thoughts about yourself, expressing gratitude or whatever other thing you might do, which may be helpful, doesn't actually undo the damage.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: The undoing of the damage happens as a consequence of going through a process which concludes essentially with the recovery stage.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, recovery is often imagined as a kind of return to the person we were before.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's enough.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because experience changes us, and the task isn't simply to recover an earlier self, but to decide what we wish to do with what we now understand.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So recovery isn't so much about retrieval, it becomes more about development.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: It encourages us to become more aware of our relational patterns, our psychological hooks, the role of empathy, the importance of boundaries, and the histories that may influence how we attach, accommodate, or seek recognition.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose is not to make us harder or more suspicious or less capable of love, it's to help us remain psychologically present within our relationship.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And recovery turns understanding into choice.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I'm offering is a framework, it's not a formula.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's presented as a sequence because each prepares the ground for what follows.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: We need sufficient recognition before reckoning can become meaningful.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: We need sufficient reckoning before recovery can become more than an attempt to escape distress.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not a linear process.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: You may recognize something and then doubt it.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: You may believe you've completed a period of reckoning only for a memory or a loss of or emotion to return later.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: You may feel recovered in one area of your life and unexpectedly activated in another.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean you're going backwards.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is a process which includes regression or backward steps, but it's temporary.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the beauty of this model.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's very forgiving.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing is, it's not directive, it's a guide.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not intended to tell you how to be.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a way of guiding you through a process, so you tell yourself.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that is one of the things I enjoyed writing most about this book.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that it isn't prescriptive, it's explanatory, it intends to illuminate, but above all else, it attends to it intends to liberate, or rather, enable the process of liberation.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And by that I mean the becoming who you feel you need to be.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to tell you what that is because I have no idea.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: All I can do is signpost.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you if you buy this book, take your time with it.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, quickly.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So as of today, the paperbook, paper book, I'll try that again.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Paperback is available.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you're very welcome to go and have a look at the description of it on Amazon.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: The ebook is there as well.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: But as I said earlier, I think maybe yeah.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the paperback is going to be more um more appealing to some of you.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening, and I'll be back soon.