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This is the response I got from a colleague after I sent out an email promoting a conference with Mark and Debbie Laaser coming to Houston. I am assuming this is true, although I will attene the conference and see for myself. This greatly pains me. Those of us fighting this battle are being divided when we should be united:
“Hope you are doing well. I’m afraid that the damage being done by the Laasers is pretty serious these days. I followed them in St. Louis this weekend and learned how serious their slander of Barbara Steffens and the trauma model for spouses has really been. It literally left Barbara in tears for 2 days.
One of colleagues in Chicago is hosting Barbara and the people she taught with in Houston next month in Chicago. It promises to be a great conference.
The trauma model is definitely not setting well with the old guard, and sadly, the fights are getting pretty nasty. One of my personal goals is to be positive, in spite of the negativity of others, but it’s been tough.”
thanks for the inside scoop, Ella,
I guess we could see this one coming. It’s like people still insisting that blood-letting is how to cure ailments. They will do as long as their livelihood is in danger. But I think there is more than livelihood at stake here for many of them. I think there is a co-dependent relationship with an ideology at stake for them. That ideology has to do the function and place of women and how they need to be controlled. This is why I freak out when some of these people spout off religious stuff at the same time, and many of them are based in my own faith tradition (albeit its patriarchal and misogynist incarnations)!
I think we need to send Barb St. our words of encouragement. She is indeed fighting an uphill battle, but one day the hill will simply disappear.
This is awful. I wish we were all in the position to offer some kind of support. Actually I think Karen posted a brilliant endictment of the old guard and their agenda on another thread. Really exposed the absurdity if it.
That is so sad!! If it wasn’t for her book I’d still be thinking I was “crazy”!!
On an upside – my counselor told me yesterday that the SA conference she attended last week had a lot of partner based seminars and that many of them were geared towards the trauma based model no just the co-dep model, so there is hope 🙂
I understand the two models. What i don’t understand is how we have to be put into one, that we are a co-dependent or we are suffering with PTSD. I think in this world of sex addiction where the addiction is so secretive, how do we even stand a chance. The everyday deception by a spouse is heartwrenching to say the least…but yet we are supposed to just let it go. Thats not how it works. Where are we as the spouse of a sex addict supported for just being who we are. That what we faced on a day to day basis was heart wrenching and rocked us to the very core. I still have hope tos tart some kind os support. Because the sadest thing in all of what they want to fight about is termed co-dependent or trauma model…is that the people who need help most are not being hleped. The women who cannot leave a terribly abusive relationhip, even if she wants to, does nto get the help she needs. So i say WTF to these guys, whoever they may be. They obviously have not been in our shoes, and have no idea what its like, and have no reality of what a partner of a sex addicts needs to help her…versus what is needed to help he help the addict.
Ugh. Love,
Floramissed you Flora.
And your point about getting help is important.
The trauma model functions to unseat the co-dependent model, but is only truly helpful when the therapist sees us as real people and actually wants to know what we went through.
love you,
d.Flora, have you read Your Sexually Addicted Spouse? Nowhere does it say anything about categorizing partners. Exactly the opposite. In fact, it states that 70% (not 100%) of wives met the criteria for PTSD. So, with the trauma model, no one is being labeled. That book is so liberating, so validating! It is changing lives! Barbara and Marsha have decided to bodly, yet respectfully, take on the big wigs like Carnes, and for that I have the utmost admiration for them.
Hi Flora,
First, welcome back! I really loved what you wrote because it gets to the point that woman need help. We can try to label everything to death and in doing so the simple basic premise gets lost in translation. Symantics may be good in teaching and theory but the reality is hands on basic care a woman needs.
Love, Nap
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