 Welcome. I'm Steve Katz. This is shrink wrap Hawaii. This backpack is really heavy. As you might be able to see, I can't even sit up straight. It's like the rest of my life. I'm carrying around all this stuff, and I can hardly move. All the troubles in my life follow me. They're on my back like a monkey, and I can't get them off. Oh, God. I wish there was some help. Wait, Ken's here today. Oh, we'll be right back. I'm here with Ken Burtness today, thank goodness. And you can see that Steve's already slipped his pack off. I asked him to do that. What we're going to do is we're going to sit this down on the table, and then we're going to sort of, well, we're going to try to help him lighten his load. So, Steve, if you'd give me a hand. Oh, thank you. I can't believe how heavy this thing is. This is the stuff that we always carry around with us. And of course, the backpack is a metaphor, but it's a very important one because we feel the weight. Yes. And let's start taking some stuff out. Let's get right down to it. Let's figure out, oh, here it goes. And here's the first item in the backpack. And what's in this little package here, Steve? I don't remember. What is that? Oh, this is my sleeping pad. You know, it makes it a little softer on the ground. Okay, but that's what the backpack is in the backpack, but this is also symbolic of... That's my money troubles. That's your money troubles, okay. Well, let's just set your money troubles aside and see what other metaphor baggage you're carrying around. Wow, this is a big one. This is a big problem. What's this one? Well, of course, that's my sleeping bag, but I think that's my childhood. That's your childhood? Yeah. A rough childhood. Okay, let's put the childhood down here next to the money problems. Let's see how else we can lighten your load. Oh, this is a colorful one. Yeah, well, that's my tent. Your tent? And metaphorically speaking? My relationships. Your relationships, okay. So we've got childhood, we've got relationships, and we've got money. Let's pull one more out and see what we got here. Okay, this is sort of a... Not so heavy, but it's awkward. What would this be? Oh, let's see here. What is this? Oh, this is this plastic ground cloth. Ground cloth, okay. Yeah, I could... Well, that's like... What would that... That's my job. That's your job? That's my job. Okay, so not as heavy as the other things, but still a burden. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Now, if we... Actually, and we're not going to do this, but if we put this up and we ask Steve to put this on again, he would feel things to be much lighter. Yes. And that's really the important thing. The trouble with psychologists is we sit here and we talk about stuff. And the client is sitting there and they're listening to our talk and we're telling them, you know, you've got to lighten your load. You've got to get rid of some of this baggage that you're carrying around because it's really messing up your life. And it's taking away from the quality of your life. It's making it difficult for the people around you. And the clients are usually saying, yeah, yeah, but I need this stuff. I can't get rid of this stuff. Right, right. I need money. I need my job. I need my relationships. Absolutely. But you don't have to take all this stuff with you and the total weight. You can lighten your job problems up and you can lighten your childhood problems up and you can lighten your family problems up. And that's what we need to do. And that's where what I call monster backpack therapy starts is where we get the person to identify the major problems. And then, and here's the critical part. And I took this from Cheryl Strait's book, The Wild. Actually, it's just called Wild. And it was made into a motion picture with Reese Witherspoon. And partway through the picture, she came along and she's just weighted down under this. She couldn't even get up. She couldn't even get up. She's 120 pounds and her backpack weighs 80 pounds. Right. So then the only way, like you say, she could get up is to lie down on the floor and roll over like a turtle and then push herself up with this thing. And she's struggling with this. But she's a very macha woman, of course. And she's hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, which is one of the most difficult trails to do in the world. And it's one of the longest. Starts in Mexico and ends up on the Canadian-Washington border. So the whole west coast through deserts and mountains and everything else, she finally gets exhausted and gets to this point along the way and she meets somebody and that somebody says to her, well, let's lighten the load. And let's take a look at your backpack. And he does this thing that we just did with Stephen and I just did. He gets her to take everything out, including all the stuff, the stuff that's still in the backpack. Then, and here's the critical part, he makes her decide what goes back in the backpack and what gets left out. And so he doesn't make the decision for her. And that's the critical difference between monster backpack therapy and other therapies like this. She's got to make the client make the decision. So otherwise she's not going to buy it. If she's just going to say, and he's going to say, well, you got to leave this and you got to leave this. And she's going to say, no, just like you did. I can't leave this. This is important. I've got to carry this. Instead, he makes her make the decision. And that's what we do. That's what we need to do with our clients. Now, unlike the movie and the movie and in the book, she made the decision in like 10 minutes, maybe a half an hour. Then she got out, picked up her pack, found how much lighter it was, and went on the rest of her journey. Yeah, it's not so quick. Yeah, it's not so quick. So what we have to do is, generally what I try to do as a therapist, is lighten their load one piece at a time. So the one piece that she decides that she can most leave behind, we say, let's go ahead and work on that this session. Then she goes out with her backpack metaphorically, with all this baggage that she's still carried in, but it's lighter. It's not totally light, but it's lighter than when she came in. Right, so at least now there's a little hope. There's a little hope, and every time she comes back in, we lighten her backpack. And the more we lighten her backpack, the more she sort of gets into the metaphor and the easier it becomes. Those first couple things that she's leaving behind are going to be difficult. Yeah, I mean, they're attached to the problems. Right, exactly. Yeah, it's like you really begin to believe that you need all this stuff. Yeah, and you do. Like for instance, let's take childhood. Okay, here's what you identified as your childhood. Right. You don't want to leave all your childhood behind because... There were some good times. There were some good times. Yeah, we want to hold on to those. So what you do is you say, okay, we're going to lighten this, and we're going to take the bad times out, and we're going to deal with them. And we're going to put them in our past experiences, but we're not going to angst about them, you know? And that's... We don't tell her this. We actually work with her so that she can resolve some of those issues and set them aside so that even if she puts stuff back in, it's not nearly as heavy. So to be more concrete, let's say I had a father that used to beat me every day. Right? That's obviously part of my childhood. Right. And because of that and other things, maybe I get very angry easily, especially when I'm triggered by somebody who somehow, even in a remote way, reminds me of my father. Absolutely. Right. So how do I let go of that when it's so much a part of me? Like... One of the ways that you can do it, and there are many ways to do this, but one of the ways you can do it is simply talk about what your father did to you. Yeah. And that he was exercising control over you. Totally. He was making you miserable. He was making you unhappy, hurting you. He was doing all these things to you. Yeah. But that was in the past. If you carry this bag around, you're still letting him intrude on the present. You're still letting him control you. And that's what we would work. It wouldn't be as easy as simply saying that to the client, but that's what we would work on, giving her control back. Forgetting about that or letting that go, won't that be letting him off the hook? No. Because what it's going to be doing is moving you forward. This has nothing to do with letting him off the hook or excusing him. He's got to deal with that. He's got to deal with the consequences of what he's done. Well, even... We don't have to deal with his control anymore. But I mean, for me, letting him off, like even if he's dead already, right? For me to let go of the anger feels like somehow it was okay. Yeah, you're excusing him. Yeah. You're pardoning him. Yeah. Now, and that's not the way, because here's where we work in forgiveness. And forgiveness is a very important part of therapy. People think that if they forgive somebody for the harm that they've done them, then they've let them off the hook. Right. Okay? What you have to do is show them that forgiveness is healing. It's not to heal them. It's not to let them off the hook. It's to heal yourself. Not to heal the abuser. Yeah. It's a way of severing that bad experience of leaving this piece of your baggage behind and severing that, not excusing him but making your life better. Why is it so hard for people to get that? That's why we have to work on it quite a while. But forgiveness is a real big part of that. When you're talking about abuse or past injuries or hurts that people have given you. Yeah. And then that's where we have to focus on forgiveness. It's like in divorce cases. When we're going through an acrimonious divorce. Yeah. And we're blaming our spouse. Right. And hurting the kids at the same time. And hurting the kids at the same time. And once the divorce is granted, we go away and we think everything's going to be okay. But it's not. The hurt is still there. The pain is still there. Yeah. And it's never been resolved. You're still carrying around the baggage. I guess this was your relationship baggage. Right. Yeah. Okay. So you're still carrying that around. Oh, it's heavy. It's heavy. Yeah. So forgiveness is a way to do that too. And it's not a thing of excusing. Or in any way contradicting what happened before. Okay. So that's a good one. Because that relationship, even if you're divorced, especially if they're children, even if they're adult children now, you still have to deal with the ex. Yeah. Right? And most likely, neither one of you has changed very much. So that it's not like it's all in the past. It's like every time you have an interaction, you get triggered again. And it's really hard to work on not reacting the same way and causing new stuff. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I thought you were going to give me a trick to do. No. Well, there's always a trick or a technique. And you made me forget it right off the bat by asking me about that. That's one of the wonderful things that happened. The point though is that when you have relationships, because you talked about relationships in the kids. Yeah. And we tend to think, well, we've got to be nice because of the kids. We do that when we're in a toxic relationship. Let's take a break. Toxic relationship will come right back. Thank you very much. Hello, I'm Crystal from Quok Talk. I've got a new show here. You've got to tune in. Check out my topics on sensitive, provocative, female issues. So Tuesday mornings, 10 o'clock, don't miss it. It's going to be fun and dangerous. Hi, I'm Ethan Allen, host of Lakeable Science on Think Tech Hawaii. I hope you'll join me each Friday afternoon as we explore the amazing world of science. We bring on interesting guests, scientists from all walks of life, from all walks of science to talk about the work they do, why they do it, and moreover, why it's interesting to you. What the science really means to your life, its impacts on you, how it's shaping the world around you, and why you should care about it. I do hope you'll join me every Friday at 2 p.m. for Lakeable Science. Oh, huh! This is Rez McJaggle, University Hawaii football team under Rolovic is going to kick back this season. In case you didn't understand me, University Hawaii football team is going to kick back under Rolovic this season. So be sure to follow us on Think Tech Hawaii and Hibachi Top. I'll be at every game. And remember, aloo-ha! Welcome back. Welcome back. This is Steve Katz. This is still Shrink Rep with Ken Burtonis today. And we're talking about toxic stuff. Toxic stuff that we're lightening our load from. Yeah, yeah. And Steve brought up marriage and divorce and children. And it's toxic whether the family stays together or they separate. Right. Or they divorce. Yeah. And people tend to think, like we said before the break, that once you divorce, everything's going to be fine because you're away from that toxicity. Well, you carry the toxicity with you, like all this stuff that we have in the backpack. We're still carrying the toxicity with us unless we lighten that. Yeah. And forgiveness lightens it. And so forgiveness is a way of doing that. People think that it's just about the kids, but it's not just about the kids. People have to do this whether they have kids or not. Right. Because when you're married to somebody, when you have that closer relationship, it's part of your history. And you can't leave your history behind. No. And if the history is toxic, it's going to keep coming back in your mind. And it's like you're still bearing the load, except that little voice is in the back saying, you know, oh, God, I got to talk to her. And it's not just coming back in your mind. It's coming back as the young people say today, IRL in real life. Yeah, exactly. In impacting real life. Right. And making real life a lot less pleasant than it should be. The difficulty is interacting with the same person that helped you create all this toxicity, or you did it together, right? But now reacting in a different way so that it doesn't cause more of the same. Exactly. And here's where forgiveness comes in, okay? And it's not excusing what happened. And it's not excusing your spouse, for instance. And it's not excusing you. Right. Because sometimes we think, oh, it's all my spouse's fault. But we really know it's not. It takes two to tango. It takes two to make that toxicity. Right. So we've not only got to forgive our spouse, but we've got to forgive ourselves. And that's the hard part. But if we work on forgiveness with our clients, we can have them do it a little bit of a time, just like lightning the load in your backpack. I want you to be me. Okay. And I'll be your husband. Okay, so... No, it's gay relationship. No, no, okay. You be me, I'll be her. Okay. And, you know, something just happened, and I say to you, why are you always going to do that? You know, it's always the same. You're just a narcissistic, self-interested person. I know, a narcissistic, self-interested person who loved you at one time and who you loved at one time. So... Oh, don't give me that. Okay. What should I give you? Why don't you just be different? Okay. Why don't you just be more generous in caring about other people instead of yourself? Okay. Let's talk about me being more generous and you being more generous. Let's talk about both of us being generous. Don't tell me about... I've always been generous with you. Okay. And let's talk about an instance where we both need to be generous, maybe with our kids. How can we both be more generous with our kids? Well, you can give me more money. You earn more than I do. I always did. That's got nothing to do with it. Well, you can see we're... You're just cheap. Yeah. You can see we're having fun with it and it's fun on camera, but when you're... It's not fun in real life. It's not fun in real life. But if you can get your client in that toxic relationship to maintain their cool and maintain their good feelings and spirit, you know? And forgiveness is a way to do that. If you've forgiven yourself and that's gone a long way to forgiving your partner. So she comes back and she's vitriolic or she's just giving you a whole pile of stuff. Okay? We're on camera. I can't say the S-word. So if she's giving you all that stuff, she can only go so long with you being calm and pleasant. You know, that's going to diffuse the anger and you just have to keep at it. And that's what you have to work with your client at. And you have to work at your client with being that way with themselves too. Yeah. When they're sitting alone and they're saying to themselves, I should have never done this. Right. You know? And I look back in the thing. I'm at fault here and I shouldn't have done that. You've got to be calm with yourself. You've got to be forgiving with yourself. And if you do those both together, it becomes a lot easier. And you should see the results fairly quickly because it's very hard to fight with somebody who won't fight back. It's very hard to stay angry at somebody who won't be angry at you. The problem with relationships is we're waiting for the other person to be... To change. To change first. To be kind and calm and forgiving. And then, if they change, then we'll be willing to change. Right. We've got to get our clients to do it first. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes that's a hard sell, but eventually they face a choice whether they go first or it never happens. Right. And we work with them through role-playing or whatever. You know what you get? You get... Why do I always have to be the one to go first? Because you're the stronger one. You need to be the stronger one in this if you're going to make the change. Do you want to make the change? We don't say it quite that boldly. But we... It's very clear that if something is going to happen, they need to be the ones to have it happen. Now, that doesn't mean that it's all going to be one-sided. The way we have it set up with forgiveness and everything, eventually that partner's going to come around. And the relationship is going to change. And the relationship, if there's kids involved, the relationship with the kids is going to change. And they're going to be much more comfortable with their parents. Yes, somebody once said to me when you're doing therapy with children, you have to work with the parents until the children get better. Truly. Most of your problems, and I started off with adolescent psychology and with an adolescent caseload, and most of their problems originated in the toxic family environment. Right. And they get to be the identified patient. Right, exactly. Yeah. And that's why family therapy is so important when you've got a kid involved, whether they be adolescent or pre-adolescent. Because there's only so much you can do if you have to send them home to a toxic home environment. Right. And that's going to neutralize the good stuff that you're doing. So that's why I moved to family therapy because it allows me to deal with the family as a whole. There's a few very interesting studies that I've read that shows that when people have a mental illness emergency and they get sent to the hospital or some sort of institutional setting, the ones that get someplace, send someplace else upon release besides the family, if they get some sort of a halfway house or some other therapeutic setting or even with other people, like foster parents, do better than the ones that get sent home. Yeah. The relapse rate is much lower when they get sent anywhere else except to their family. And they found in the stuff that I read two reasons for this. One is the family's hypercritical. Two, the family cares too much. You know, they get, I'd lay down my life if only you would do blah, blah, blah. Which leads to guilt and shame and a lot of other things too. Right. And that makes them also hypercritical. Like, I can't believe you did that. After all I've done for you. Whereas people who aren't so invested in the outcome don't do that. Yeah. But you need a third group, okay? Here's the one group that you're saying that goes back to the toxic family. Right. The other group that goes someplace else. Right. You need a third group that goes back to their family after their family is detoxified. Right. And so if you can detoxify the family, and this is the strength of family counseling, you can turn somebody who's creating havoc into somebody who's creating comfort. You can turn somebody who's hurting somebody into somebody that's helping somebody. So they go home to a nurturing environment rather than a harmful environment. That's the group that we're looking for. That's the work. Yeah. And that's the group that will turn out best of all. Yeah. But taking care of that, the family is really monumental. Well, I didn't tell you it was going to be an easy field to get into, did I? A lot of us, you're changing the whole, you're changing each person's individual story and the way they relate to their story and the relationships and all the relationships within the relationships. It's not quite as difficult as that because once you start the change, then there's a reaction. Once somebody starts nurturing instead of hurting... Oh, right. As soon as the identified patient gets better, someone else gets sick. No. That does happen, right? It does happen. Yeah. But the majority of cases, though, if the one person is being nurturing and the other person picks that up, you know, because violence is catchy, okay? Right, right. But so is goodness, you know? If somebody is being good to you, it's hard for you not to be good back to them. If somebody is being hurtful to you, it's hard for you not to hurt them back. Right. So both of these things are working. So once you start the chain, it becomes sort of a chain reaction. Right. And once the mother starts treating the father better and then the father starts treating the kids better and the kids start treating each other better, then it becomes easier for all of them because all of their relationships become easier, becomes more positive. Right. And they go to bed at night and they're not so wound up, they're not so angry, and they're saying, you know, my sister did something good for me today. Who would have thought, you know? Yeah. Or my father said a kind word to me and, you know, reinforced me, said a good thing about me. Wow. You know? That's huge. Yeah, that's huge. And it spurs that other person to say something nice back to somebody else in the family. Right. So it's the initial inertia that's difficult to overcome. But once you get that going and you start making a little bit of progress, it starts interacting and the progress starts coming a little easier. So it's not like you're... It's not like Sisyphus rolling the thing up the rock of the hill, having it slide down all the time. Right. But it's so hard to get the beginning, like, to stop the blame game. Right. You know, like, yeah, but you always do this. Yeah. And then you come back to the clients and you say, well, they know. I can understand your feelings, but is this getting you any place? Right. You blame him. He blames you. The kids blame both of you. Is, you know... But they're so entrenched in that belief. Yeah. Then you bring the future in and say, well, okay, you're entrenched in this and you're going to stay in this. Is this what you want your future to look like? No, I want a divorce. Do you ever recommend that? Sometimes. Sometimes it just, you know, people go their separate ways. Yeah. But as you said before, even if they do divorce, there's still, especially if there's kids involved, they're in a relationship. Yeah. If I'm doing family counseling, I'm going to be right up front with the family and the people in it and say, you know, we're going to do a lot of good work. We're going to make this relationship better. But in the end, you know, there's a 10% chance, maybe, that, you know, you're still separating. Now, if I'm doing divorce counseling, the same thing is true because I'm making the relationship better because that toxicity has to go away like we were talking earlier, even in a divorce. Yeah. So the relationship has to improve. So I tell them, I say, okay, you'll have to understand that we're doing divorce counseling, but if this goes, you know, well, there's a 10% chance that you'll not want a divorce. Right. And you want to go back to it, you know. There's always that chance. I have couples that come in like that, oh, we just come in here to have an amicable divorce and then they won't leave each other. Yeah. Because you've changed the relationship. You've changed it into a more nurturing one instead of a hurtful one. So there's all possibilities, but whatever they go, whatever they choose, and they have to choose, not the counselor. Right. It's going to be better than if you hadn't, you know, introduced things like forgiveness and nurturing and, you know... What do you say when they come in and they say, okay, so how many sessions is this going to take? You know, I've got to drive all the way from wine out. Right. Six. Well, how many sessions, you know, do you want it to take before you get better? You know, I mean, can you quantify it? I don't think I can. But maybe you can. Maybe you can tell me how many sessions it's going to take. Oh, I can't afford it. Or until... She just gave me a little message. We have to wrap it up. I hope everybody out there is cured. We can talk about this some other time about what we do. Thanks for coming in again, Ken. Always a pleasure. Join us next time for shrink wrap Hawaii, Aloha.