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Has anyone been to 3 day intensive with Jeff & Ella Hutchinson? I am also wondering how expensive such therapy can be. I really want to feel I have tried everything to save my marriage…
They are bad news so stay far away from them. The sisters and JoAnn can fill you in. They know way more than I do.
I cannot respond in a sane manner…
Those two should rot in hell for eternity. He should because the MF is still lying. She should because she damn well knows he is and is just cashing the check on the backs of other women in true pain..
Do not get me started…
Either call Minwalla and speak with him about your best course of action or save your money for the divorce.
I know there are Minwalla threads here. I cannot calm down enough about the Ella/Jeff snake oil circus to respond in a cohesive manner…
I’m sure the saner sisters will help. Don’t give up just yet.
Sorry, I’m no help to you at this moment….
I think Omar Minwalla is your best bet. He’s the best there is and you can google him and visit his website. I think his first phone consultation is free. Many sisters from the site have used him and really like him. Hes located in California and follows a trauma based program and not the 12 step program where they treat the spouse ‘like they are sicker than the sex addict’. If you compare Dr. Minwalla’s credentials to the couple you mentioned there is no comparison. If you’re going to spend money, it’s best to spend it on the best there is and he’s it.
Well then I can’t help you. The stuff these guys do don’t have anything to do with Christianity as far as I can tell.
I would humbly suggest you care about the therapy being good. Church is available 24/7. Good therapy is hard to come by…..
It’s not like Minwalla is going to try to convert you to devil worship…
It’s expensive because it is the only one doing any good. It’s not like “Christains” like Ella and Jeff are cheap. They are charlatans of the Christain faith and I would rather talk to the devil than them. At least the devil is honestly just the devil.
Of course if you want to go and do it then go. You asked and I answered. I support you no matter what.
But remember, a year from now ( and I am being benevolent) when you see that your h is still doing whatever it is then don’t say you weren’t warned.
Ella hates SOS. She hates every one of us. Jeff hates us even more. You decide.
Thank you all for the responses. I read somewhere he charges around $6000? If this is true, we wouldn’t be able to save that much money in a very long time. I read on the forum about Minwalla, but can’t find any success story. I would like to use EMDR to help myself, this will be much cheaper, but I also want to save my marriage and I don’t know where to find help. I went to J&E website and found some opinions online and I really like them. But I don’t want to trust those opinions – they may even write them themselves. What is really wrong with them? Is it a scam?
This is what I remember….Ella’s h is actually a
SA himself in ‘recovery’ and decided to do counseling with other men who are SAs. Some may interpet that as the blind leading the blind if you catch my drift. Ella is an actual therapist and was on SOS as a member at one time before she was asked to leave.I think they believe in what they are doing. I don’t think it’s a scam. It’s just a matter of getting the best help possible and that Dr. Minwalla. He’s been known to taper fees if you cannot afford the full amount. If I was seeking help I would see him for sure.
Zraniona, YOU can’t save your marriage, because you’re the only one married. Maybe you could have a marriage of some sort in the future, but only if HE gets the help HE needs to become a healthy, sane individual. Until then, any couples’ work is a waste of time and very likely to further traumatize you. IMO.
Minwalla offers different “intensives” some for partners and some for SA’s and some for couples.. Etc..
I cannot tell you that my marriage is just so peachy (I wish I could). I can tell you without Minwalla that my H would be nowhere near where he is. He has been “sober”. He does listen. He is so helpful that it is actually annoying. He signed papers to protect me financially. He tries very hard with the kids. If I yell he keeps his mouth shut and listens ( again, it annoys me).
If your goal is to truly save your marriage then call Minwalla and get his suggestions. I don’t care what it costs. If that is your ultimate goal then he is your only shot. He will work with you on price. My H was supposed to be in for about 20k and it ended up under 10k…
This is not a designer handbag that costs thousands and you could get by with a knockoff for a hundred or less. This is your life and what you want for your life…
A summary of the Ella and Jeff Hutchinson Story.
I will try to summarize a very long story into something cohesive for the Sisters who don’t know the whole story.
When I first started the Sisterhood of Support almost two years ago Ella was a new counselor and she wrote to me asking about the Sisterhood.
I gave her the professional courtesy of a free membership. My sites have always had a policy of no advertising, no mining or stealing of e-mail addresses and it has always been very clearly stated in writing.
Almost as soon as she became a member Ella started sending private e-mails to Sisters promoting her ‘weekend intensives’ that she was running with her husband Jeff.
Jeff is a Sex Addict who, among other things, had an affair with Ella’s sister while she was living in their home.
At that time Ella was a new counselor and Jeff had no credentials, yet they were charging a lot of money for their weekend intensives.
I found out what Ella was doing because some of the Sisters wrote to me complaining.
I contacted Ella privately and it was not pretty. Let’s just say she is not very professional and actually denied contacting the Sisters.
She was banned from the site. I lost several members over the fiasco. She is very manipulative and found some Sisters who felt she was the victim.
Jeff has a website. One of our Sisters commented on his website, and that blew up into another mess. The comment challenged Jeff’s ‘recovery’ and he responded with anger and both he and Ella tried to drag me into that mess. I had nothing to do with anyone else’s comments on his website.
Fast forward almost two years.
If any of you are not familiar with my website, marriedtoasexaddict.com go to it and take a look. It has been a long standing policy that the site does not accept comments from Sex Addicts.
Well, for some unknown reason Jeff decided to come on the married site and blast me, my websites, the Sisterhood and the Sisters. You can read that here–you will have to read through the comments to get to the start of Jeff’s:
http://marriedtoasexaddict.com/sex-addict-military-husband-special-children/
Our Sister Diane wrote her own post about what happened. You can read that here:
http://marriedtoasexaddict.com/ambush-deconstructing-sex-addicts-onsite-behavior/
And, it gets even worse. Barbara Steffens, author of Your Sexually Addicted Spouse, and a long time friend and collegue, e-mailed me several times criticizing me for leaving Jeff’s comments up and blaming me for the critical comments that followed his. This was devastating to me and it has not yet been resolved.
So, that’s it in a nutshell.
My opinion is that Ella has never resolved the issues of Jeff’s betrayals and she continues to prop him up and present him as a professional, which he is not.
I do not think Jeff is in any type of recovery although he MAY have stopped his sexual behavior. His comments on the married site show that.
Jeff does not have any formal credentials that qualify him to be doing any sort of counseling, let alone intensives. Intensives should be, and usually are, operated under the direction of a medical professional like a psychiatrist. Even Ella’s credentials as a counselor do not qualify her to be running intensives.
I do not think that any Sex Addict should be giving any sort of input to a Partner. It is the perfect formula for therapy induced trauma. ~ JoAnn
Thanks for you time and energy here J. Sure appreciate the overview. I learned more from your post here.
Your integrity shines,
DesireeI was ( unknowingly) the one that stirred the pot with Jeff and Ella. He had a link ( it was on her website) that said “ask an addict”. So, I took him and her at their word and did ask.
I contacted Diane and told her to tell me to just stop arguing with them as they were clearly ridiculous. Diane read what I wrote and had the sense to copy it all. Ella “banned” me from asking any more questions because “she could not have addict hate speech” on her site…
Diane has the copies. I wrote NOTHING inappropriate. I have no problem with them being published …
My questions to Jeff ( which was advertised to be to Jeff but answered by Ella) were all basic, normal questions. They ( he and she) responded to everything until I wrote that I was a member of SOS. I had NO clue that this was an issue. After that, I was banned….
Draw your own conclusions…
In my professional life, one of the accomplishments, that gave me the most satisfaction was helping to start and lead an ongoing postpartum and infant feeding support group using cutting edge thinking that the mainstream healthcare system would NOT do because they were wanting $$$$$ not the best outcomes for patients.
Well, I have 15 years of experience before starting,this broader community based ongoing drop in group. It was wildly successful from the start. We had many interns, from a wide variety of disciplines, coming to learn about the program model.
I was strict, like JoAnn. This program was for the families benefit. Period. I volunteered all of my time (20-30 hours per week) for years. The families were thriving. We were bursting at the seams. The interns were thrilled.
BUT, I spent about 2/3 to 3/4 of my time PROTECTING the model from those who wanted to mine the program participants for their business interests.
There was an endless stream of efforts. I got used to it. I would not budge. People were not pleased that I would not budge. I was polite but did not budge…..over and over again.
Dammit, women need social support that is among themselves and no one should interfere. The woman can say ANYTHING, Dammit.
Oh, I left the project to deal with SA RAT and the long road to divorce. Fortunately I taught replication in varied settings, including WIC. It was time to launch the model to sink or swim.
Now I am cooked. Our local project was turned over to someone I trusted. Just another loss….among more than I can count.
JoAnn, keep up the good stance girlfriend!
JoAnn, I’m really disappointed to hear that Barbara criticized YOU for letting Jeff hang himself.
I must confess that I haven’t followed up on my APSATS certification because my experience at the training was such a mixture of good and bad. I saw the organization tiptoeing around the CSATs, trying too hard not to offend them or rock the boat. What I had hoped would be a revolution turned out to be a lesson in playing nice in the sandbox.
I suspect there’s a reason Minwalla opted out.
jumping forward and will read posts after. Dr. Minwalla saved my life. How’s that for a success story. If I’d been sent back to the old fake therapy for the addict and had them pile on me for my “disease” I really would have been drinking the purple kool aid, dished up to me by one of those co centered programs.
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