The Maybruch Method
Excerpt
1. Be mechazek a person, not with pornography but who they are in general, that is the most important intervention in general. Not to target the pornography but to target the sense of self. Of course, the pornography itself can be targeted either separately or by a person who is an expert in pornography and sex addiction, but in general for first responders and often for the responders that are involved in therapy, being mechazek the person and letting him change the belief that I'm basically a bad and unworthy person [which according to Carnes is the root cause of addiction, and leads to a cycle of relieving the pain by using more porn] is often the most important intervention that exists altogether.
2. In addition, it's important for people that are rebbeim, people that are rabbanim, people that involved in conversations with people that are maturing, from adolescence until 40s and 50s and 60s and 80s, we're all maturing throughout our lives, to normalize sexual desires and urges. [Examples].
3. One of the most important parts to think about when counselling a person who is struggling with issues of pornography or sexuality is that euphemisms are not helpful. Lashon nekiyah is not only pointless, it can also increase the pain. [...] then it creates a phenomenal distance between the responder and the person who is asking for a response and also it feeds the exact cycle of shame and guilt that exists in the first place. You need to be imo anochi betzarah, with the person as opposed to being marchik yourself from the person. /
4. [Don’t say] “even if you've sunken very low, you can still find Hashem”. So think about it. Is that chizuk? If a person is struggling, he knows he's sunk low. He doesn't need to hear from his responder, even if you sunk low, you can still find Hashem. Chas veshalom. No matter who you are you can find Hashem. Be mechazek the person. Sometimes what you are trying to do to help a person can often be hurtful.
5. There's a specific shitah that I like to use when people speak to me about pornography, I sometimes use it, which tells the person that as they're trying to struggle with pornography, their goal is not to try to stop the pornography use but to monitor what situations make them more inclined to use pornography. It's not always something which is part of your toolbox but it's something which is helpful. I call it the assess[ment] sheet, and I can share it with you to try to help a person understand what makes him involved in pornography at a specific time. It's based on a lot of research[1]. [...] It's one eitzah to help a person be able to calm down a little from extreme sexual arousal in order to be able to help the person to think a little bit more about what's going on so if you ask the person to think before you're involved in your pornographic experience, I'm not telling you to stop, just think what are the situations which are making you do it. That has two benefits. Number one, you can get some information as far as what's making the person do it. Number two, it can help a person move from the very hotspot that they can't control themselves. Once they think about it a little bit, they can move a little bit more to a cold state and they might end up not even being involved as much in pornography altogether[2].
6. Another very, very helpful intervention of a first responder and of many responders in general is that people need to process their feelings of guilt and shame. When a person comes to anyone who they look up to, especially a religious person, they're not just coming from eitzah. Often they're coming because that person represents in some way, like chazal tell us, represents Hakadosh Baruch Hu or Hakadosh Baruch Hu's ratzon in this world. If they're approaching a person who they view as a religious figure, they're not just trying to ask for advice. They need that person to embrace them and tell them that they're not as bad as they think. The focus of speaking to the rav is not even necessarily to ask the rav to give them advice but for a person to smile and to nod and to let them talk sometimes for hours about the experience they're having. That's just not because they're a sounding board, which itself is helpful, but if they're a person who is rabbinic or religious in nature, that's also going to be a way for them to process their feelings. It's almost like they're talking to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Hashem is telling them don't worry. You're not as bad as you think, and the curative power of that is beyond words.
***
One last point. One of the ways to deal with sex addiction in general and many addictions is the 12 steps[...] more than half, really deal with a person's connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. [...] that tells us something amazing. When a person is struggling with addiction, often they feel they're nidchei Yisrael, they're out. They're totally out. [...] often a person doesn't need the 12 steps for this part. They can be very helpful, but as far as the connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that is something which any responder, any frum yid, can help the person see we embrace, we love them. People struggle. In life we all struggle. [...] the 12 steps should not be the only way a person can reconnect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu despite the struggles that they're having.”
Full Transcript
Recently, two Canadian researchers analyzed Google Trends for sexually explicit terms on a state by state basis in the United States. They found inextricably a high correlation of sexually explicit search terms in more religious and fundamental states. That is the more religious the state was, the more pornographic searches there were on Google. It's an amazing idea. It dovetails with the fact that research shows that whenever the Republican National Convention, and it's largely more of a right-wing organization, comes to a town, there's three times the amount of business in inappropriate and explicit clubs than when the Super Bowl comes to a city. What's amazing is that we see that often people that identify themselves as more religious or more fundamentalist, in the background have much more of a hidden sexual curiosity or sexual involvement. That speaks to why this is an important idea to address specifically within the Orthodox world.
As a correlator of that research, it would seem to say that in a more religious community, like ours, there's an increase in some sort of casual pornography use. That's something that I see in my practice. It comes up all the time, and my clientele is mostly from the Orthodox world.
But something else happened when the two researchers went back to their research. They did something which was even more astonishing. They surveyed individuals in the States, and they asked individuals, random individuals, do you search for pornography. These were anonymous studies. No one knew who was asking and no one knew who was answering, and in the same states that research shows had more involvement in pornography, the respondents answered that they didn't search for pornography.
Now this is research. That means in theory it could be that the actual people that were asked in those states did not search for pornography, but the trend is amazing. On a large scheme, not only were the more religious and fundamental states more interested in pornography by and large, but the respondents in those states also denied their interest. As a trend, if you do it with thousands of people, there's something amazing that we see. The interest is there but there's phenomenal denial. There's guilt, there's shame and denial of the experience, and that is the most important reason that it's exceedingly important that rabbanim and first responders are aware of the impact and existence of pornography in the community, because it's not only that it's there, but there's such shame, such guilt, and such denial it's often not going to materialize explicitly. But it's there. Al achas vekamah, imagine if that's what we have in fundamentalist states, within our community that there's such a taboo, such a phenomenal feeling of not discussing sexuality, how much more is there and how much is going to be denied, even to themselves. These responders were responding anonymously. No one knew who they were. They still denied it. And it's true in the frum community perhaps more than any other community in the world.
That really becomes on a larger scheme the major reason that perhaps more than any other community it's essential that we have discussions about pornography within the tzibur of Klal Yisrael that focuses on Torah and mitzvos. There is a zero tolerance policy in Klal Yisrael, if you look strictly in halachah for pornography and sexual involvement. As an extreme, without getting into terutzim and trying to answer up, the simple reading of the gemara and certainly the Zohar, if a person is motzei zera, if a man masturbates one time, he is chayuv misah bidei shamayim. That's zero tolerance. One time. That means if a person is a curious adolescent and wants to feel what it like to experience sexuality and masturbates once, he is going to be forfeiting his life, misah bidei shamayim, unless he does tremendous, tremendous teshuvah. In the world of kabbalah, there's phenomenal censure for people that are involved in sexually explicit or inappropriate behavior, as well as in halachah. Leaving aside what that means in halachah and how we break that down, it creates a phenomenal shadow of guilt and shame which can trail a person for the rest of his life.
In the world at large, pornography is not necessarily a problem. If people keep it to themselves and they can be involved in their job and their family life then it's not really an issue. The issue is if it is going to affect your relationship. But in the frum world, we have the same experience as what's called sex addiction but on much, much less of a scale. There can be a situation where a person is involved once casually or even a few times, by no means what science would call a sex addict, but the same phenomenal feelings of shame, guilt, and dysfunction are going to be there because the bigger they are, the harder they fall. In Klal Yisrael where there's such a tremendous halachic and hashkafic opposition to sexual behavior, there are going to be greater ramifications for those that stumble or they're involved in it even casually. That means that any of the instructions that exist in pornography in the secular world can't really bring to bear alone in the frum world because the experience that happens is completely different and much, much deeper.
Let's talk about some of the ways to be involved in how to help a person who is struggling with what we could call nonaddictive sexual behavior. Even if it's not addictive, the same experience applies. There's the guilt and the shame and the terrible feeling of self.
Firstly, it's important to dispel a myth. There's a myth that many people often feel. I've heard this from rabbanim, from therapists, from spouses, from parents, from people that are involved in any situation with a person who is struggling with pornography that if one could have more healthy sexual activity with one's spouse, he or she would be less involved with pornography. That's absolutely not true. First of all, the research shows that high sexual desire is not correlated with more pornography use so the fact that a person has more desire and doesn't necessarily have a boyfriend or girlfriend or doesn't have a spouse that's responsive is not going to result according to the research in more involvement in pornography.
But there's more than that. In the Orthodox world there's a phenomenal taboo against deviant sexual behavior, which means that even if a person feels that he or she is not being sexually satisfied, there is such a phenomenal association of negativity with doing something which is sexually inappropriate, with being involved in pornography and certainly a sexual affair then for a person to say, oh because I'm not being sexually satisfied, I'm going to do that is almost like saying, you know what? I find that Shabbos isn't as meaningful to me so I'm just going to go and be mechallel Shabbos. Of course people do it, but the ramifications are so great it can't be dependent on the fact that a person is merely not feeling sexual satisfaction from his or her spouse.
Another important thing to point out as far as pornography is concerned, most of the time both masturbation and pornography use go hand in hand. Most of the time. There are always exceptions. If a client walks in and confides in a rav or in a therapist or in a person that he's talking to casually, anyone that is a ba'al eitzah, that he has a problem with shmiras einayim, usually it means he's masturbating and he's watching pornography in order to create it. If a person says anything to do with hotza'as zera, usually it means the reason he's masturbating but that's from pornography. Almost always the two are related. It is internet pornography use and masturbation that go hand in hand. It's so hard to say a complete sentence. Often a person is meramez only to one and it really is megaleh the other one is there too.
What do we do? What intervention can people do, specifically if this a problem which plagues Klal Yisrael again more than probably any other community, not because of the specific prevalence but because even a tiny bit of deviance is going to be a problem? So what does Klal Yisrael do?
What's unique about pornography in a religious situation parallels research about pornography in the general world. Often internet pornography can begin because of a person trying to find sexual gratification or sexual curiosity but it ends up being compensatory. What that means is that a person feels a certain sense of inadequacy. If a person turns to an app or the internet or something digital or even something which is a person who he doesn't have a real relationship with, even if it's curious and exciting in the beginning, often a person feels such an emptiness, such a vacuum inside that eventually the behavior spirals if they're trying to just help numb the person from that feeling, which means a person is interested, maybe, in trying to explore something sexually, but eventually the person feels so bad. There's such a cycle of guilt and shame and terrible feeling about himself or herself that most of the motivation to continue to be involved in sexual behavior is not really traced to the excitement anymore or the gratification but because a person needs to numb himself from the experience and the horrible sense of shame and guilt and lack of sense of self. Think about it. What's amazing is that we have a spiral which is self-feeding. It starts off as even one action. There's such shame and guilt and halachic and hashkafic problems and complexities a person feels that the only way to numb oneself from that shame and guilt is to be involved in that behavior again and again and again. The behavior no longer becomes enjoyable and something the person finds thrilling, even if he or she convinces himself sometimes that it does. That is the exact remedy, the only remedy the person can have, for the guilt and the shame and the terrible feelings of self, which means that when we're dealing with pornography, it's not just pornography. When a person confides in you that he or she is struggling with anything to do with pornography, you're always struggling with a person who has a phenomenally difficult battle with the sense of self.
One of the gurus, one of the masters of the field of sex addiction, is a person named Patrick Carnes. Patrick Carnes himself was a sex addict, and he then was able to create an entire method of helping himself and others climb out from the world of sex addiction. He became perhaps the most well-known authority on sex addiction.
One theme which goes through his literature that he wrote, such as Out of the Shadows and other books that he wrote about sex addiction, is that the risk factor for sex addiction is the core belief I am basically a bad, unworthy person. The more a person has that, I'm basically a bad, unworthy person, the more a person, number one, is at risk for sexually acting out and number two, a person is going to find that when he acts out, he can't stop it but rather to the contrary, the entire behavior is now to compensate for that feeling of being even more bad and more unworthy and more guilty and having more shame.
This is true in society at large but it's true much more in the Jewish community. There's such a negative feeling of self that exists with any deviant sexual behavior. This is going to not only create the problem. It's going to make it insurmountable for a person often who is struggling.
So what do you do? What interventions can any responder have to help a person who is struggling with this phenomenal feeling of shame, of guilt, and pornography use? In reality a large part of targeting the experience of pornography, especially if a person is what we would call nonclinically addicted, meaning it's not that he is masturbating several times a day every day and being involved with pornography that he can't pull himself away, but he finds the experience is sometimes, and even once is too many, that creates the feeling of guilt and shame and phenomenal struggles with self, so the intervention then is not always to target the pornography but more importantly to build the sense of self. Within the world of therapy there are many different ways that clinicians like building sense of self. Some are more deep and have analytic approaches such as psychoanalysis. Others are more CBT or DBT, cognitive behavioral therapy or dialectical behavior therapy. Mashgichim and others just try to help be mechazek a person. Whatever normal way a person tries to help be mechazek a person is not just words, that cuts to the very core of the problem which causes pornography and makes a person continue to struggle. However a person is able to be mechazek a person, not with pornography but who they are in general, that is the most important intervention in general. Not to target the pornography but to target the sense of self. Of course, the pornography itself can be targeted either separately or by a person who is an expert in pornography and sex addiction, but in general for first responders and often for the responders that are involved in therapy, being mechazek the person and letting him change the belief that I'm basically a bad and unworthy person is often the most important intervention that exists altogether.
In addition, it's important for people that are rebbeim, people that are rabbanim, people that involved in conversations with people that are maturing, from adolescence until 40s and 50s and 60s and 80s, we're all maturing throughout our lives, to normalize sexual desires and urges. There is such a taboo and such a focus on lashon sagi nahor and lashon nekiyah in Klal Yisrael, which is a very, very beautiful aspect of who we are, but sometimes conversations still need to be had. There are questions which often people are afraid to ask and many don't even know the answers too. Whether a person is single or married, there are sexual struggles and urges which are not shameful and not embarrassing. They're very normal. They need to be discussed in a proper forum. For example, if a person is single, it's only normal for a person to wonder how long could I wait? I'm 18 and I'm curious. What is sex like? I'm 25 and I have not found a partner. I go out on dates and girls are attractive, but I have no sexual outlet. These are very difficult questions, but at least to acknowledge the questions is exceedingly important. The questions are there either way. It's either they're openly expressed or only under cover.
For a married person, how could I deal with the issue of harchakos? How could I manage with almost two weeks that my sexual urges are still there but my wife is a nidah? I have no way of even manifesting it altogether. I can't even look at certain parts of the body that would be exciting. These are very difficult questions, but these are struggles that many people have. These are normal struggles and not to even address them is almost negligent on the half of many that could be addressing them. They're important questions to validate, even if there aren't necessarily ready answers, to let the person understand the question is a good question and that the question should sometimes linger is important because either way the question is there.
One of the most important parts to think about when counselling a person who is struggling with issues of pornography or sexuality is that euphemisms are not helpful. Lashon nekiyah is not only pointless, it can also increase the pain. Think about it. A person is watching sexually explicit material, things that most people would be embarrassed even to talk about, and when he talks to his rav or to his first responder, the person uses lashon nekiyah, uses words that even make it more distant. If a person talks about inyanei pritzus or zenus or devarim asurim, then that creates a certain negativity. The very reason a person is coming to a responder is to try to get chizuk, to try to feel that he's not the worst person in the world, he's not already in gehenom she'ein kamahu and then all you're going to do is talk about pritzus and devarim asurim and devarim ra'im or nebach. The more you use words which often are used in order to help a person build their resistance to sexual urges but in this situation the person is involved in who knows what and then you're going to use words which are going to be euphemistic then it creates a phenomenal distance between the responder and the person who is asking for a response and also it feeds the exact cycle of shame and guilt that exists in the first place. You need to be imo anochi betzarah, with the person as opposed to being marchik yourself from the person.
Along the same lines, there's a very common phenomenon. Sometimes people say even if you've sunken very low, you can still find Hashem. So think about it. Is that chizuk? If a person is struggling, he knows he's sunk low. He doesn't need to hear from his responder, even if you sunk low, you can still find Hashem. Chas veshalom. No matter who you are you can find Hashem. Be mechazek the person. Sometimes what you are trying to do to help a person can often be hurtful.
There are major organizations that in their advertising use terms like shmutz or drowning and that's perhaps for advertising. Perhaps it's helpful or advertising is often sensationalist. It helps get a person in. But in terms of counselling one on one, it is not helpful and often very, very hurtful to use anything euphemistic or anything which makes a person feel like he is a second level or tier two. That's part of the struggle. It's certainly not part of the solution.
There's a specific shitah that I like to use when people speak to me about pornography, I sometimes use it, which tells the person that as they're trying to struggle with pornography, their goal is not to try to stop the pornography use but to monitor what situations make them more inclined to use pornography. It's not always something which is part of your toolbox but it's something which is helpful. I call it the assess sheet, and I can share it with you to try to help a person understand what makes him involved in pornography at a specific time. It's based on a lot of research.
There's a phenomenal researcher originally from Eretz Yisrael named Dan Ariely. He published research around 10 years ago where he went in the University of Berkeley in California, and he asked people questions about sexual behavior. First he asked them about things they would do and then he asked then about things that most people, even in Berkeley, would consider deviant, things that people would often not do. People responded that they would do these behaviors but they wouldn't do these behaviors. He said he had the people respond to the questionnaires again when they were in an aroused state. They were told to watch pornography and to be aroused and while they were aroused they were supposed to answer the questions again and often the very same behaviors people said they wouldn't be involved in, when they were in an aroused state they said they would be involved in. Which means that when a person is involved in sexual stimulation, it's very, very hard for the person to think logically. A person is not always sexually stimulated but once a person is, it's very hard for the person to take themselves out of it and to answer the very same questions they would answer negative to otherwise.
That's an important thing in general for responders. Sometimes if a person can take a step back and try to think not to stop the pornography but why is it that I'm specifically about to do it right now, that can help a person move from a hot state of sexual arousal to a cold state or at least a little bit of seichel and thinking which can often be a way to help a person wane the sexual experience a little bit. It's one eitzah to help a person be able to calm down a little from extreme sexual arousal in order to be able to help the person to think a little bit more about what's going on so if you ask the person to think before you're involved in your pornographic experience, I'm not telling you to stop, just think what are the situations which are making you do it. That has two benefits. Number one, you can get some information as far as what's making the person do it. Number two, it can help a person move from the very hot spot that they can't control themselves. Once they think about it a little bit, they can move a little bit more to a cold state and they might end up not even being involved as much in pornography altogether.
Another very, very helpful intervention of a first responder and of many responders in general is that people need to process their feelings of guilt and shame. When a person comes to anyone who they look up to, especially a religious person, they're not just coming from eitzah. Often they're coming because that person represents in some way, like chazal tell us, represents Hakadosh Baruch Hu or Hakadosh Baruch Hu's ratzon in this world. If they're approaching a person who they view as a religious figure, they're not just trying to ask for advice. They need that person to embrace them and tell them that they're not as bad as they think. The focus of speaking to the rav is not even necessarily to ask the rav to give them advice but for a person to smile and to nod and to let them talk sometimes for hours about the experience they're having. That's just not because they're a sounding board, which itself is helpful, but if they're a person who is rabbinic or religious in nature, that's also going to be a way for them to process their feelings. It's almost like they're talking to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Hashem is telling them don't worry. You're not as bad as you think, and the curative power of that is beyond words.
One last point. One of the ways to deal with sex addiction in general and many addictions is the 12 steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous. They're modified from Alcoholics Anonymous to other types of Anonymous to Narcotics Anonymous and to sexual addictions as well. If you look at the 12 steps, you can google them, you can find them, a large part of the 12 steps, more than half, really deal with a person's connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. They use the term higher power but a large part of the AA steps are that a person can use those steps to connect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. But that tells us something amazing. When a person is struggling with addiction, often they feel they're nidchei Yisrael, they're out. They're totally out. A person should use the 12 steps but often a person doesn't need the 12 steps for this part. They can be very helpful, but as far as the connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that is something which any responder, any frum yid, can help the person see we embrace, we love them. People struggle. In life we all struggle. But the 12 steps should not be the only way a person can reconnect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu despite the struggles that they're having.
Speaker: Throughout the talk, you mentioned he a lot. A few times you mentioned that she struggles with pornography. How often does this happen that she would be struggling with pornography?
Research shows that pornography use in general, internet pornography use, is two third male and one third female. That's in the general world. In my experience specifically, in the Orthodox world there is a lot of sexual inhibition and to be involved in pornography in general means there's going to be a breaking from that sexual inhibition or sometimes the sexual inhibition is what feeds internet and pornography use, but inhibition often applies to females more than males. There's no research that I know about specifically but anecdotally what I see in my practice is that it's less females than males, perhaps not as much as a third like in the secular world but it definitely exists. There is going to be a prevalence of women that are involved in pornography, for curiosity, for interest, or for the lack of gratification from their own husbands and what they think is going to be helpful to be involved in pornography.
Dealing with Spouses
Speaker: Isn't marriage itself impacted when either spouse is involved in pornography?
Oy, oy, oy. This is the biggest issue that exists with pornography. There is a tremendous difference between the way men and women see pornography use with their spouses. When a woman finds that her husband was involved with pornography, that in her mind is the equivalent of an actual sexual affair. There's no difference whether it's a sexual affair with a live person or on the internet, it's the same. She's going to feel a phenomenal sense of betrayal, a sense of being lied to, a sense of who's my husband. I don't even know who he is, that always or almost always accompanies any act of pornography. Often when a couple is coming for counselling as far as pornography use, yes the husband wants to stop using pornography because it's not necessarily correct in halachah, etc, but that's not the real issue. The real issue is the wife feels like he took her and he beat her emotionally. She sometimes feels like it's physically. It is as bad or often worse than a sexual affair. The reason it might be worse is that a sexual affair you at least need a person. Sometimes she feels she could watch her husband and know where he is. A virtual affair you can just have a phone, anything. Situations that people can just even if their phones are filtered, they're going to look at stores and just finds explicit searches within stores on the internet, things that can't necessarily be filtered, Macy's or simple department stores. They're going to always try to feed that sexual urge. Wives feel like it's a phenomenal betrayal.
For husbands often, the husband who is betraying, he feels like whatever, you're right. I have my wife. I love my wife and she gives me sexual pleasure sometimes, but this is what I'm involved in too. For the husband who is involved in the sexual behavior, he feels like okay, I shouldn't be doing it and I feel really bad and guilty, etc. He's certainly not trying to hurt his wife. That's what he'll often say. He's not trying to hurt her and he can't even understand why she's so hurt. One might say, as a mashal, that it's sort of like the idea we have based on the Torah and the gemara that for a man to be married to several different wives but a woman is only allowed to be married to one husband. Not that that necessarily has bearing on society today but the concept, that's often the way people see it. The man sees it, whatever, I have one wife and this is one tzarah, or another few spouses. He doesn't view one as being pogeah in the other. On the other hand, the wife views it as absolute adultery.
Then let's turn it to the flip side. Often that's true if the wife is involved in pornography as well. If the wife is involved in pornography then the husband can sometimes feel betrayed but often not as much. The husband is often more curious. He's insecure. He feels like is this something to do with me? Am I not giving my wife satisfaction? But often it's by no means viewed by a husband whose wife is involved in pornography as bad as a wife whose husband is involved in pornography.
Speaker: If the wife comes to the first supporter, what should the first supporter be telling the wife or not telling the wife?
There are three points to tell a wife if she feels so betrayed. Number one is to validate. It's exceedingly important for her to cry and to validate. This is al eilah ani bochiyah. This is a terrible, terrible, terrible situation. And not to answer up, not to say oh come on, your husband isn't trying to do anything. He has his own gesheft, his own business, and it's nothing to do with you. Just listen, listen, listen. She's struggling with phenomenal, phenomenal pain, pain that might not even go away throughout her life, with therapy or without therapy. That's how deep the pain is. It's exceedingly important to validate, to listen, to cry with her, to hear the tremendous pain that she's feeling. She's totally right. There's no wrong or right, whether she feels this, she feels that. That's number one, to just validate the pain.
Number two is there's almost always going to be a feeling of inadequacy of the spouse. Although I mentioned the idea that it's not correlated with a woman's sexual inadequacy, how much time she and her husband spend together sexually is not correlated, almost always the woman is going to be struggling not just with pain but with a sense of self. She feels whatever her sense of self was beforehand, she's going to feel like she was pummeled, like she was really assaulted. Her sense of self is going to be lower than low. To see that, to acknowledge that, and not to fight it but to be mechazek the person not just for the pain, which is step one, but to acknowledge the sense of self that she is going to be struggling with and say yes I see, I can only imagine how you feel and the experience that she's going to be having. Often in the beginning not to necessarily fight it and say come on, you're still a really good person. It's too early for that. Just to be sensitive and to know that she's going to feel, that struggling sense of self in a way that she never would have imagined is something to be sensitive for and to acknowledge and to help her by just listening and reaching out and being mechazek her in who she is.
Number three, which is often not in the very beginning, but to think of ways to cope. Number one, to make a referral. There are excellent sex addiction experts to be able to refer and make sure that both he and she seek therapy. Often in the world of interventions, if the husband is the one who is involved in pornography, he's going to be the one who is going to seek intervention. He feels the sense of guilt, the shame, etc, that we were referring to. He's going to seek intervention. He's going to be going to a therapist, and there are some excellent therapists. The wife is going to be struggling herself. The wife needs therapy. She needs therapy one might say as much as he does or even more because she's a victim. She didn't do anything and all of a sudden her world was turned topsy turvy. She needs intensive therapy to help herself. Not because she has a problem. In life we all have problems. That's part of what makes life life. To be able to build her sense of self and understand what she's going through and to process that phenomenal experience.
People make a mistake often. There are excellent groups, some groups better than others. There are some excellent groups for men and excellent groups for women. Groups do not replace therapy. Groups are in addition to therapy. Groups such as AA groups or SA groups, groups that are going to help deal with sexual addictions, are helpful for a person to process and to build a sense of self. They don't replace therapy for the man or for the woman, for the one who is the addict or the person who is deviant in their sexual behavior, or the other spouse. Both need therapy as well as the experience of having a group. The third thing that a responder should do is try to make the treatment plan of helping both of them know they're going to see therapy, even more important than groups. Sometimes the therapists can help them arrange the groups, but they should both see therapy to help them deal with this exceedingly difficult situation that they're involved in.
Speaker: A marriage could survive this or should be able to survive this?
It depends. A marriage can be able to survive this situation. It's not always the right thing. One of the most important shikul hada'as that in essence a person has to make when they're dealing with relationships is when do we say this engagement or marriage or relationship should be something that we put our effort into and the couple really needs it to survive and thrive and when is it that we say the best thing for you in the world is for you to say goodbye and start again. Even if you don't start again, even if there's very little chance that one or the other is going to get married, sometimes it still might be the best thing. It's very, very hard to know and there's no specific textbook as far as what the right answer is, but it's true certainly with marriages in general and certainly with a marriage that struggles with an affair or a virtual sexual affair.
But as an interesting aside, a very powerful point. What I find is very often many marriages need intervention and in almost every therapeutic situation, whether we're dealing with depression or anxiety or something in marriage or a personality disorder, people don't often just wake up one day and say, you know, I'm going to go to therapy today. There's some reason. There's something which happens, often an event which made them feel exceedingly uncomfortable that makes them involved and pushes them to seek therapy, but really the therapy should have been something that they pursued a long time ago. Often it's true with pornography as well. Many situations that are involved in pornography, the marriages themselves were struggling. That's not necessarily why the pornography happened, but it happens to be an important side point.
Speaker: Is transferring this part of the conversation to the rebbetzin, let's say I can't go here, would that possibly even have a negative effect?
This is my bias. My bias is that one of the things we're trying when a person is struggling with pornography they feel so religiously shunned within themselves, the more a religious figure can tell them it's okay, we can talk about the situation even though I'm a rav and you're a person who is of the opposite gender, in an appropriate way these things can be discussed. Again, this takes a lot of shikul hada'as. A person has to know if he or she is the right person for it because if it's in any way inappropriate, it's going to not just be halachically terrible. It's going to create more damage than a person can ever imagine. Let's argue for a minute. We're talking about a rav who knows himself that he's able to really be with caring and concern and seichel hayashar to a woman that is turning to him. That can sometimes be such a helpful thing that a person saying I can't discuss this with you is going to be feeding the exact sexual shame and guilt that otherwise is part of the problem in the first place. It's very, very hard to say as a carte blanche, as a rule. People have to know themselves. But in the most ideal sense, the fact that we say this is beyond my scope, this I can't touch with you, this is going to be something which you need to talk to my rebbetzin about can sometimes create the feeling of shame or feed the feeling of shame which we're trying to fight.
Speaker: Wonderful. Just going back to one other question that came up. Many times when people are talking to bachurim specifically they talk about how damaging pornography will be to their marriage, how it objectifies women, etc. Is that the way to talk to bachurim about this?
In general we live in a dor that needs unbridled chizuk. Chizuk, chizuk, chizuk, chizuk, chizuk. Everyone needs chizuk. We need chizuk in everything, in talmud torah, in yiras shamayim, in tefillah, everything. The more a person even mentions negativity such as gehenom or aveirah or cheit or negative ramifications, the more a person is feeding not only religious problems in our community but the guilt and shame around sexuality. It might be true. That's Viktor Frankl's idea and that's an idea which can be very much part of pornography. It's going to be objectifying women and making a person have sexual gratification without the phenomenal power of a relationship. It's true. But in my understanding it is not anything that a person should say in a shmooze or in a dvar Torah to bachurim because all that does is create the cycle of guilt and shame which leads to pornography in the first place. It's not that it's not true but in the experience of helping bachurim what they need is chizuk, chizuk, chizuk not negativity because that's not only something which is going to undermine their religious involvement but it's exactly what feeds pornography use in the first place.
Speaker: Do you have any final thoughts on this topic?
In general if a spouse comes to you and is faulting himself or herself then chizuk, chizuk, chizuk is so important. It's important for everyone but there are so many ways for people to beat themselves up and to help them not is something which is significant altogether.
One other point as far as there are some interesting books to read. There's a wealth of information on this. Again, most of it is focused on the world of the sexual addiction. Outside the frum world, pornography is only a problem if it's a sex addiction. In the frum world it's a problem even if it's a little bit, but there are some excellent books which people might not necessarily find they agree with completely but to at least be aware of it is helpful. There are two points as far as these books are concerned. Number one is that two of the three books I'm going to mention were written by people that themselves were sex addicts that recovered and they went on to help the world. That itself is a phenomenal feeling. The idea that people talk about their sexual addiction, the idea of being able to be modeh al haemes is such a tribute to these people that they are telling the world I struggled with it. It's not something which they're happy about but what more of a way to help deal with the shame and guilt than being modeh al haemes? That's right, I did it, chatasi, avisi, pashati and now I'm going to be stronger. It's a beautiful tribute to who they are and that's part of their ability to cure others. The book that really broke open the world of sexual addiction is a book called Out of the Shadows by Patrick Carnes. Another book which was originally told to me by a person who is a phenomenal expert in sex addiction, a dear friend named Lew Abrams. He's a frum person who is an expert and a tremendous mentsch and a sincere person and a dear friend. He referred this book to me originally. It's a book named Sex Addiction 101 by Robert Weiss. Robert Weiss also struggled with sex addiction and he's a talmid of Patrick Carnes. It's a bit of a different flavor than Patrick Carnes but very, very readable and very helpful. Another book that also was originally referred to me by Lew Abrams is a book called Facing Heartbreak. That's a book which was written by several people. One of them is Stefanie Carnes. Stefanie Carnes is Patrick Carnes' daughter and she jumped on the bandwagon to help him with his institute dealing with sex addiction. Facing Heartbreak is a book that is a manual which is specifically written for spouses. It's to help them deal with the discovery and the ensuing time of their spouse being involved in sex addiction. It can be worthwhile for a spouse to read but it's also important for a first responder. It highlights many of the issues that spouses are going to deal with and just seeing what they assign as part of the worksheets can help a person see all the issues that they're going to deal with when they respond. Those are three of the many books that can be very, very worthwhile for one's own edification.