Session Notes

Husbands and Wives: Men and Women: Nerds and Free Spirits:

“Your Free-Spirit spouse will not come to any more meetings if all you do is tell him or her what to do. The first draft of the budget is your chance to have your ‘say.’ After that, sit back and listen. Accept the fact that your mate has valid input. Remember, you are doing this to coax your spouse into better money management and financial unity and believe me, your concessions are a small price to pay for unity. The budget committee needs to have rules. First, keep the meeting brief. It’s a budget committee meeting, not a Camp David accord. Nerds like me to love to look at all possible scenarios and projections. However, when the objective is agreement with your Free-Spirit spouse, you have about a 17-minute window of opportunity before he or she tunes out. “

Aside form the labels there offer a few key empathy building points for agreement.

News from Agape Press

Cohen’s methods have raised some questions, however; and he has lately taken sharp criticism over a May 23 appearance on Cable News Network (CNN), in which he demonstrated a technique that involves cuddling a male client in his lap. Another of the unusual therapy techniques depicted involved a client hitting a pillow with a tennis racket while shouting the name of a parent or other individual who elicits painful childhood memories.

Cohen, who refers to himself as a reorientation therapist, explained the “holding therapy” exercise as a means of using “healthy touch” on clients, who very often were “touch deprived” as children. He says this technique is one of the most effective ways to help men and women leave homosexuality.

“They’re hungering for that intimacy and that bonding that they didn’t experience in primary relationships with parents and/or same-gender peers,” the psychotherapist asserts. “So what we have to provide then, in the Christian community, is really mentoring these men and women,” he says, “and a lot of them need healthy touch — hugging, holding, just palling around, buddying around.”

You know, some ideas are so colossally dumb nothing more needs to be said except to mention that this is not reparative therapy in any sense of the term and this is NOT PRACTICED HERE!!!!!

Caught in a Crush :

“These experiences hint at the type of closeness we hope for in the world to come, where we will be known, even as we are fully known, as we experience an intimacy with God and all redeemed creatures that we can only faintly imagine now. The aches we experience remind us that we still live here, in our shadowy bodies and broken world. But our longings can also remind us that we are moving toward something more. On the most fundamental level, our aches point homeward. As Frederick Buechner wrote, ‘Beneath the longing to possess and to be possessed by the beauty of another sexually %u2014 to know, in the Biblical idiom %u2014 there lies a longing, closer to the heart of the matter still, which is the longing to be at last where we finally belong…. When I think of all the beautiful ones whom I have seen for maybe no more than a passing moment and have helplessly, overwhelmingly desired, I wonder if at the innermost heart of my desiring, there wasn’t, of all things, homesickness.’”

This is a great article on dealing with the longings we all have for Heaven which are misplaced onto others. I disagree with the sinful spouses definition. It is more areas which the grace of God has not been realized, the unmet needs of childhood, and the temptation of the Evil one.

Insomnia

Are you dissatisfied with your sleep? Do you routinely become sleepy during the day? Does your bed partner notice any unusual behavior while you sleep? Answering “yes” to any of these questions may mean that you have a sleep disorder. Before considering non-prescription or prescription sleep medications, try the following:

Seems like good advice…

Are Christian Fathers Better Fathers?: :

“evangelical dads spent more time with children playing, helping with homework and talking. They ate an average of 27 more meals a year with their children and were more likely to coach youth sports or lead youth activities. ‘Evangelical Protestant fathers are very involved with their children, which I found surprising, given their tendency to embrace traditional gender attitudes,’ Wilcox noted. So how can you defy society’s expectations and become an even better dad than you already are? -Watch a favorite TV show with your child. Ask him about the characters and storyline. This is a simple way to enter your child’s world and recognize other influences that affect the way he thinks. -Take your son or daughter to a restaurant you both like. Share favorite things and talk one-on-one without the competing demands of other siblings, phone calls or TV. - Keep reading. Even tweens will enjoy reading a book aloud with you. -Include children in projects. Ask them to help you string the Christmas lights, paint the basement or change the oil in the car. The teaching, connecting and fun will be invaluable.”

Part of me wonders if this list is realistic. Can God, then the spouse be kept as higher priority

Teenage Heartbreak:

“A person’s faith is also a good indicator as to the health of the relationship, Matt says. If a guy doesn’t love you for your faith, character and personality, then he’s more than likely with you for other reasons. You can tell how a guy really feels about you by how he treats you, by the things he says to you, and how he chooses to show his affection for you. Don’t forget to check your faith, too. If you don’t have a strong relationship with Jesus Christ, take the time to grow that before you get involved with a new relationship. When things get tough and your feelings start to get overwhelming, remember these wise words of Eleventyseven: Guys and girls may break your heart but [God will] always be there. “

This is a good basic article on determining if a guy genuinely likes you. It is an encouraging reminder that even strong feelings will decline with new circumstances. I also feel grieving is needed.

The Register

This study therefore provides no evidence for the claim that female-pattern cerebral functional lateralisation is likely in gay males.”

Hot on the heals of the discredited, “Gay gene,” comes the theory of the, “Gay mind.” Seems the research can’t back that one either…

BTW: To date, with over a decade of fruitless searching, there has never been discovered credible evidence of a direct causal relationship between biology and sexual orientation. But hey, the search must always continue.

Admitting that same sex orientation is developmental would raise the very real and present specter of healing same sex orientation for those who desire such…

DesMoinesRegister.com

A Des Moines pastor shot a mentally disabled boy with a BB gun after he ignored the pastor’s warning not to knock on his door, police said Tuesday.

No more sissy pastors for Idaho — oh no — mess with this Full Gospel pastor and your hide gets ventilated. Onward Christian soldiers — oh, wait…

Truth is so much more fun then fiction…

Probably the most richly government funded and the most poorly researched program in existence is AA. It is a program that claims to bring freedom to millions — whom it tells will always be alcoholics, must attend meetings for the rest of their natural life and must spend such, “Working their program.” Not surprisingly, it has a failure rate of at least 80% and probably is failing at a rate of 95%. For the curious, here are some references:

There are so many voices it is difficult to determine the original source but the information was initially (Quite accidently) released from AA’s own internal studies — which they have been aggressively working to suppress ever since. The most public airing of the data occurred August 20/2004 at 11:00pm and September 12/2004 at 9:00pm on the Showtime original show called, “Penn & Teller: Bullshit.”
    Due to AA’s efforts, the documents are not widely available so Penn & Teller showed them onscreen during their broadcast. They detail a 95% failure (to cease drinking) rate at 5yrs from date of entry.

In my mind, one of the best secular treatment programs out there is St. Jude . A different but parallel retention statistic is right on their home page as well which states that 95% of people don’t even last a year in the program… Do the math: If 97% of programs are AA based, then it comes out even worse then 95% unless there is some hidden program out there with 10 million people in it… St. Jude runs a treatment program that sounds a lot like a secular Living Water’s/Regeneration Ministries program for chemical addictions.
    This is the future of secular level treatment. They have an independently verified 70% success rate — the best in the industry.

Another voice has been Dr. Jeffrey Schaler (Author of, “Addiction is a choice.”) who solidly disputes both that Alcoholism is a disease or that disease related models (Like AA) have any success in treating the disorder. His claim is that while AA appears to help 5% of people who go through it, 5% of people who undertake no treatment manage to get well on their own.

A third has been Jim Christopher — SOS Sobriety — who is willing to give AA only an 80% failure rate at 2yrs from entry. He then disputes the success of such through a detailed assessment of the group think, thought control, cloning, mystique, self-confessions, group speak, fear of judgment, increasing codependency, unhealthy identification and veneration of texts/leaders as being identical to the functioning of a cult. He questions whether the persons have simply exchanged one addiction — alcohol — for another — thought control.
    He is making a critical assessment here in that he understands that addiction is addiction. Just because the socially unacceptable behavior has stopped does not mean that you suddenly have a fully functional person able to live the fully human lives they were created to enjoy.

A fourth is a gentleman by the name of Dr. Lance Dodes MD (The author of, “The heart of addiction.”) who again disputes the idea that alcoholism is in any way related to a disease. He believes that the root of addiction is emotional pain and the practice of an addiction is a maladaptive strategy of coping with such.
    He, by implication, is probably one of the more aggressive in this area as the entire thrust of his argument is that AA is treating symptoms (The behavior of drinking) — not the problem. Thus, any apparent healing seen can not be legitimate — it’s a mask for the problem that just makes it look good but further shatters the person. (He would probably even dispute the 5%…)

S.M.A.R.T. Recovery program’s web site notes that, to date, the effectiveness of AA and related programs is essentially unproven. S.M.A.R.T is a secular humanist treatment program. They are somewhat less then effective but they are a very interesting read as an option…

It just takes common sense really. Clients who have been in AA tell me that they never wanted to drink more then when they were in the program. By the time you label people addicts, then judge people for their failures and then tell those who are already at the end of their rope to work harder (while holding their wounded feet to the fire), it’s only logical that they need a pain killer…

Here’s the bottom line: Statistically, people will always have a better chance of recovering if they have never been exposed to AA’s alcoholism and drug addiction treatment programs.

Just in case it isn’t already clear, we do not and will not use 12 step programs of any sort.

The Influence of Fathers: :

“Involved fathers find the time to attend their children’s games and recitals. They pull themselves away from the TV to show their children how to change a tire and balance a checkbook. They set firm limits and encourage their kids to do their best even when they fail. Take a look at the questions below. What did you need from your father that he gave you? What did you need but didn’t receive? How did his positive input help you to succeed? How did the negative aspects possibly set a series of consequences into motion that you may still experience?”

This is a good article on the history of the influence of fatherhood and specifics of necessary guidance.