An Inside Look at the Clinic: "My Husband Doesn't Understand; I Am Falling Apart from His Insensitivity!"

"I'm going crazy because of him! He doesn't care about anything! 'People died at Meron?' 'Oh well'; 'The kids are screaming?' 'So what...?'; 'I'm hurt?' 'It'll pass'. That's what he says.

"Technically, he helps a lot, takes the burden willingly, but emotionally he is insensitive, doesn't see what's right in front of him. What kind of person does that make him? And what's going to happen to me when I get old? Who will care for the children when I'm not home? I can't let go, and in a few weeks, with Hashem's help, I'll have to give birth; I'm already going mad with worry about who will take responsibility for my children?

"The truth is I'm really desperate. We've been to countless therapists, spent a fortune, got hundreds of tips and directions that didn't last more than twenty-four hours... Everyone tried to teach him how to open his heart, but it's not working. I keep trying to see the good but keep breaking down in the face of this insensitivity each time again..."

That was the painful and familiar monologue that began the session. I sat on my chair, looking with empathy at the distressed woman sitting across from me. Her husband sat beside her, listening to her accusations. I also looked at him with supportive eyes full of understanding. I felt that both were receiving the empathy I was projecting, and silently tears started to well up in their eyes, representing years of overwhelming suffering.

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"And how do you feel?" I asked gently, with genuine curiosity and without judgment.

"I... I don't really understand what she means; I mean, I'm aware of the situation and her feelings, but she describes suffering, catastrophes, miserable and neglected children. I see a blossoming family, a wonderful woman, such a beautiful world that Hashem created... The one thing that bothers me is that my wife always carries everything. She shoulders everything happening in the world. She takes responsibility, feels guilty, must be the one constantly caring and worrying, and then she comes to me exhausted and upset, full of anger that I didn't see, hear, or feel. Who asked her to take all this on? She sees things I don't. She gets sucked in, drained, depleted, and in the end, I'm to blame for not being dragged into the emotional whirlpool with her."

"I don't understand you!" the woman interrupted him. "How can you not see it? Last night Dvori woke up scared from a nightmare and knocked on our bedroom door. True, you were the first to get up and handle it. But how did you take care of it? You turned on the light and gave her a pillow and blanket to sleep by our door. That's all you did, then you went straight back to sleep. Is that what you call care? Where's your heart? The child is anxious, and you turn on the light for her... Perfect solution! And what happens then? I, a woman about to give birth, have to get out of bed and sit with her on the sofa for 40 minutes. Talk to her, listen, comfort her, and only after a very long conversation did she finally get the calm she needed and go back to bed with a smile on her face. And you were already back in dreamland..."

"I'm asking you," the woman turned to me, her eyes expecting a magic solution. "Everyone tells me I'm right and then I ask myself - maybe I should listen to the advice that says my husband will start taking responsibility only after I can stop being responsible, but how can I let go when I know he won't really take it?

What do I do? I'm exhausted. I'm broken!!!!"

It All Starts with Fear

Therapy sessions in clinics often open like this, and the common denominator among them is the desire and plea for a solution.

In fact, when someone seeks therapy, they find themselves in total desperation that drives them to come and plead for a new idea for control.

To understand the depth of these matters, let's take a few steps back.

How does this happen? Where does it come from? We need to understand that a person's psyche is composed of two processes - trust and control.

When I feel good and relaxed, and nothing threatens me, I don't need to do anything, because I trust myself. The moment something threatens me, I automatically feel 'fear', and fear requires control, actions to respond to fear. For example, when there is an alarm, 'fear' comes, and the immediate response is to control – taking actions to manage the fear - heading to the shelter.

Trust is the ideal state until fear, which is essentially the loss of that trust, and control is the reaction to fear.

How do these processes occur? Consider a newborn, who emerges from the most protected place into an unprotected world. His initial response is crying. This transition from a protective environment to an unprotected one is a complete sense of helplessness, expressed by crying.

The next stage is when his mother picks him up; at that moment, he regains his sense of protection. So what happened here? The feeling of absolute helplessness prompted him to trust his mother completely; without her, he's lost and helpless.

As time goes on and the infant begins to develop, he starts to exhibit independence, gaining self-confidence, and building his system of self-control. If the parents grant him independence and trust, he will continue to develop autonomy, and consequently, a system of self-esteem. However, if the parents undermine his independence, they will suppress his ability to develop self-trust, and consequently, fears will develop within him.

When an individual experiences various traumatic incidents throughout their life, fear is instilled, their self-trust is shaken, and subconscious fears and anxieties develop about encountering similar events again.

(Photo: shutterstock)

For instance: a child who falls into water loses confidence in water, resulting in the loss of self-trust facing water. If that experience is not processed, he will develop subconscious, distrustful fear, manifesting when encountering water or similar scenarios, prompting a need for the control mechanism to handle that fear and anxiety, originating from that stated lack of self-trust. In short: the more trust is developed – through childhood - the lower the level of fears, reducing the necessity for exerting control.

Feeling Out of Control

The stage at which a patient approaches a therapist is after losing control, after attempting to manage the fear and self-doubt through control, yet control didn't succeed. So, with the feeling of losing control, the inability to handle the fear, he approaches the therapist, essentially surrendering from a deep sense of total desperation. Now, the therapist has the power to rebuild trust within him, consequently reducing fears and the need for defenses.

Let’s illustrate this: suppose there is a fire in a high-rise building, and the fire is raging on the lower floors; instinctively, the residents would run to the top floors to escape the flames. As per our principles, there is control exerted against the fear.

Suppose a man stands on the rooftop shouting "Jump from here! There's a mattress below!" It’s likely no one would dare to heed his call. But, as the fire climbs to the upper floors of the building and people reach a state of total helplessness - that’s the point where they have the strength to trust and leap from the roof.

(Photo: shutterstock)

And here comes an interesting question - after all, these are entirely sane people. What drives them to such a risky act? The answer is the overwhelming sense of helplessness that forces them to trust and "throw themselves"!!

That's essentially what occurs in the mind of the patient; they arrive at therapy after trying every conceivable form of control for security, but the miracle didn't happen... Now, when they show absolute helplessness and complete dependence on the therapist, there are two ways forward: one is to give advice and thereby equip the patient with a new range of control tools, leading the patient to a fleeting sense of power, utilizing new controls until the next collapse... Essentially, they're not confronting the fears or the root issue but intensifying it. As fears continue to grow, alongside the control mechanism, the outcome can be destructive and dangerous.

The second, and correct, way is to rebuild a trust system for the patient. To reach the roots of the fears, accept and understand the past pain, evaluate the defense mechanisms and their implications, and grant space and legitimacy for fear. Gradually, with precise questions and a delicate process - the need for control diminishes, and a space of trust and tranquility develops. 

The Journey of Coping

At first glance, the two stories at the beginning of the article appear unrelated and necessitate entirely different therapeutic approaches.

However, that's not the reality. In fact, there are three stories here of helplessness leading to the development of defenses: A woman developing hypersensitivity, her husband developing emotional resistance, and a young man developing fears and anxieties.

Each of these three symptoms is essentially a defense against fears that developed from a personal, unique, life journey full of struggles, manifesting different emotional responses to defenses.

Providing an immediate or pinpoint solution to the situation for which they came is just the perfect band-aid but doesn’t solve the root of the issue, which may pop up tomorrow under a new trigger. This is a long and sensitive story that starts from events experienced in childhood, leading them to this point, and without engaging in a deep process of inquiry and understanding, we have not fulfilled our role.

Through a deep process in sessions, the life picture gradually becomes clearer, explaining as a perfect puzzle, these defenses:

That hypersensitive woman grew up with a warm and protective but emotionally unstable mother, experiencing either dramatic highs or lows in her mood, including outbursts. The young, helpless girl developed extremely sharp instincts, enabling her to speculate and anticipate her mother's mood swings. She lived in a constant state of fear of the next moment which might disrupt her daily calm, paying attention to every facial expression, tone change, eye look, and body movement. Even today, decades later, away from her parents' home, she is unable to detach from the feelings of those around her; her heart trained for years to be alert around the clock cannot ignore and disengage.

In contrast, the man grew up on a completely different ground. He is the child of kind, good parents whose life circumstances kept them heavily engaged outside the home, having established a significant act-of-kindness venture, completely absorbed in endless tasks; the children at home grew accustomed to absent parents. There was ample money and material means, but attention was rare, unseen. This child, very early on, realized that if he sought warmth and affection, he would find himself hungry, thirsty, and miserable, thus creating a perfect defense: an emotional armor blocking the world of feelings. Simply put, he doesn't feel! And before us is an adult fearing to expose his feelings because he learned they have no place. The result seems to be insensitivity towards those around him, for what we didn't receive, we cannot provide...

These clashing defenses between the couple created the opportunity for a transformational process, which will be expanded upon in a separate article.

There Is a Solution!

And as mentioned before, if I dared to take away from anyone their defense mechanisms, they would be left with fear and generate new defenses.

So what do we do? The first step is the analysis and the new, amazing, and intriguing understanding of the need and fear behind the pattern we’ve created - this holds a very special and powerful element of acceptance for the patient. Instead of feeling guilty, problematic, hopeless, or doomed, they understand that it is a survival technique for overcoming a significant fear.

For the couple, this insight brings much relief - that woman who sees her husband as insensitive and selfish, or the man who perceives his wife as weak and accusatory - now they view each other with understanding and acceptance.

So, we've left with a positive feeling, and what's next?

This is where the tremendous and wonderful secret of therapeutic gifting comes in. Conversation in the therapy room, which is a safe space for the patient, about the past pain experienced, with understanding and acceptance of our defense systems – it has the power to rebuild trust, consequently reducing fears, and the psyche becomes less reliant on clinging to defenses.

* * *

This was a small glimpse into deep and wonderful processes. The explanations are challenging to convey. But the principle is singular: the story above the surface is the tiny part of the story. Always remember that you are seeing the tip of the iceberg of life's journey and emotions. And that tip is merely a "protective cap".

The author isa lecturerand therapistin addictionsthroughcouples therapyand group psychotherapy usingdynamic methods

Email: 0777009146a@gmail.com