Re Lil I think I remember Lou saying one time that he went to a meeting and was put off by the fact that you couldn't get any advice or solutions there Yes, that was me. I went to one group of Adult Children of Alcoholics,1X a week, a new and in thing to do at the time, and there was this guy in a masters program that had to finish writing his final paper to graduate. Week after week, he said the same thing. After the third week I asked him if I came over on Monday night, "WOULD IT HELP." Simple solution, right? I got stares I didn't like from the group. They abided by the no cross talk rule.
I was in another similar group EA, (Emotions Anon.) on a different night during this same college time. The EA group allowed some cross talk and people could ask for opinions. I felt the EA group was about 5X more helpful.
Both groups were comprised of college students, some in college, some working for a long time. A couple of times the group met at the PTSD, Vietnam Vet's center where there was a LSW that did a little steering and gave us a little direction, or advised someone to get individual counseling because the individual might need professional advice/help for some problems/topics.
I also believe many of our fixes to problems we have are internal and just need to be expressed. I think the right AA group can be very helpful if the individual is close to a solution.
Where the person is not even close to being up to speed or way off track, sometimes the cross-talk, if allowed, helps people move forward faster.
An example is if there are 10 people in a group and a person speaking something and at least 6 people disagree with the speaker, I felt it helped move the person speaking closer to a solution.
The cross-talking EA group always endorsed the philosophy, the individual had to make the final decision.
We (the EA group)always said, to everyone, speaker or cross-talker, "thank you for sharing."
When I was working with the boys in the group-home, I had to take then to AA meetings so I went to the AA meetings to make sure the boys were not hooking up with other local "just going through the motions of court mandated AA but no intention of not drinking members, or I attended the ALANON meeting in the next room. Strictly by the book and rigid. Not the growth I saw in the one EA group but certainly much better than not going at all. The meeting was mostly about the books and lacked some of the personal ups and downs of the common everyday man or woman.
I suppose different groups, different strokes. I know some groups would break up if cross-talk/questions/advice was allowed.
This board kind of runs counter to that... but I still enjoy giving advice and hearing advice. While I think AA type groups are good, I see 10X more wisdom here on the forum because we can ask questions and we can offer advice. We can also say "thank you for sharing" and "take what you can use and leave the rest behind."
The strictly AA form meetings I attended did not endorse/allow much talk about books like "Come To Your Senses" and all of the other related books talked about here on SSM forum. BTDT and got the "please stick to the AA literature" Lou.
I will say some aspects of an "in-person meetings" are beneficial and am not discouraging anyone from attending and AA based, group meetings. I am mostly saying how much I like this forum because it embraces many forms of literature, has a wide variety of participant's and with the exception of a few cyber punch-outs, gets along well.
What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage By AMY SUTHERLAND
AS I wash dishes at the kitchen sink, my husband paces behind me, irritated. "Have you seen my keys?" he snarls, then huffs out a loud sigh and stomps from the room with our dog, Dixie, at his heels, anxious over her favorite human's upset.
In the past I would have been right behind Dixie. I would have turned off the faucet and joined the hunt while trying to soothe my husband with bromides like, "Don't worry, they'll turn up." But that only made him angrier, and a simple case of missing keys soon would become a full-blown angst-ridden drama starring the two of us and our poor nervous dog.
Now, I focus on the wet dish in my hands. I don't turn around. I don't say a word. I'm using a technique I learned from a dolphin trainer.
I love my husband. He's well read, adventurous and does a hysterical rendition of a northern Vermont accent that still cracks me up after 12 years of marriage.
But he also tends to be forgetful, and is often tardy and mercurial. He hovers around me in the kitchen asking if I read this or that piece in The New Yorker when I'm trying to concentrate on the simmering pans. He leaves wadded tissues in his wake. He suffers from serious bouts of spousal deafness but never fails to hear me when I mutter to myself on the other side of the house. "What did you say?" he'll shout.
These minor annoyances are not the stuff of separation and divorce, but in sum they began to dull my love for Scott. I wanted — needed — to nudge him a little closer to perfect, to make him into a mate who might annoy me a little less, who wouldn't keep me waiting at restaurants, a mate who would be easier to love.
So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him. By nagging, of course, which only made his behavior worse: he'd drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever.
We went to a counselor to smooth the edges off our marriage. She didn't understand what we were doing there and complimented us repeatedly on how well we communicated. I gave up. I guessed she was right — our union was better than most — and resigned myself to stretches of slow-boil resentment and occasional sarcasm.
Then something magical happened. For a book I was writing about a school for exotic animal trainers, I started commuting from Maine to California, where I spent my days watching students do the seemingly impossible: teaching hyenas to pirouette on command, cougars to offer their paws for a nail clipping, and baboons to skateboard.
I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.
The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't. After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.
Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I'd kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.
I was using what trainers call "approximations," rewarding the small steps toward learning a whole new behavior. You can't expect a baboon to learn to flip on command in one session, just as you can't expect an American husband to begin regularly picking up his dirty socks by praising him once for picking up a single sock. With the baboon you first reward a hop, then a bigger hop, then an even bigger hop. With Scott the husband, I began to praise every small act every time: if he drove just a mile an hour slower, tossed one pair of shorts into the hamper, or was on time for anything.
I also began to analyze my husband the way a trainer considers an exotic animal. Enlightened trainers learn all they can about a species, from anatomy to social structure, to understand how it thinks, what it likes and dislikes, what comes easily to it and what doesn't. For example, an elephant is a herd animal, so it responds to hierarchy. It cannot jump, but can stand on its head. It is a vegetarian.
The exotic animal known as Scott is a loner, but an alpha male. So hierarchy matters, but being in a group doesn't so much. He has the balance of a gymnast, but moves slowly, especially when getting dressed. Skiing comes naturally, but being on time does not. He's an omnivore, and what a trainer would call food-driven.
Once I started thinking this way, I couldn't stop. At the school in California, I'd be scribbling notes on how to walk an emu or have a wolf accept you as a pack member, but I'd be thinking, "I can't wait to try this on Scott."
On a field trip with the students, I listened to a professional trainer describe how he had taught African crested cranes to stop landing on his head and shoulders. He did this by training the leggy birds to land on mats on the ground. This, he explained, is what is called an "incompatible behavior," a simple but brilliant concept.
Rather than teach the cranes to stop landing on him, the trainer taught the birds something else, a behavior that would make the undesirable behavior impossible. The birds couldn't alight on the mats and his head simultaneously.
At home, I came up with incompatible behaviors for Scott to keep him from crowding me while I cooked. To lure him away from the stove, I piled up parsley for him to chop or cheese for him to grate at the other end of the kitchen island. Or I'd set out a bowl of chips and salsa across the room. Soon I'd done it: no more Scott hovering around me while I cooked.
I followed the students to SeaWorld San Diego, where a dolphin trainer introduced me to least reinforcing syndrome (L. R. S.). When a dolphin does something wrong, the trainer doesn't respond in any way. He stands still for a few beats, careful not to look at the dolphin, and then returns to work. The idea is that any response, positive or negative, fuels a behavior. If a behavior provokes no response, it typically dies away.
In the margins of my notes I wrote, "Try on Scott!"
It was only a matter of time before he was again tearing around the house searching for his keys, at which point I said nothing and kept at what I was doing. It took a lot of discipline to maintain my calm, but results were immediate and stunning. His temper fell far shy of its usual pitch and then waned like a fast-moving storm. I felt as if I should throw him a mackerel.
Now he's at it again; I hear him banging a closet door shut, rustling through papers on a chest in the front hall and thumping upstairs. At the sink, I hold steady. Then, sure enough, all goes quiet. A moment later, he walks into the kitchen, keys in hand, and says calmly, "Found them."
Without turning, I call out, "Great, see you later."
Off he goes with our much-calmed pup.
After two years of exotic animal training, my marriage is far smoother, my husband much easier to love. I used to take his faults personally; his dirty clothes on the floor were an affront, a symbol of how he didn't care enough about me. But thinking of my husband as an exotic species gave me the distance I needed to consider our differences more objectively.
I adopted the trainers' motto: "It's never the animal's fault." When my training attempts failed, I didn't blame Scott. Rather, I brainstormed new strategies, thought up more incompatible behaviors and used smaller approximations. I dissected my own behavior, considered how my actions might inadvertently fuel his. I also accepted that some behaviors were too entrenched, too instinctive to train away. You can't stop a badger from digging, and you can't stop my husband from losing his wallet and keys.
PROFESSIONALS talk of animals that understand training so well they eventually use it back on the trainer. My animal did the same. When the training techniques worked so beautifully, I couldn't resist telling my husband what I was up to. He wasn't offended, just amused. As I explained the techniques and terminology, he soaked it up. Far more than I realized.
Last fall, firmly in middle age, I learned that I needed braces. They were not only humiliating, but also excruciating. For weeks my gums, teeth, jaw and sinuses throbbed. I complained frequently and loudly. Scott assured me that I would become used to all the metal in my mouth. I did not.
One morning, as I launched into yet another tirade about how uncomfortable I was, Scott just looked at me blankly. He didn't say a word or acknowledge my rant in any way, not even with a nod.
I quickly ran out of steam and started to walk away. Then I realized what was happening, and I turned and asked, "Are you giving me an L. R. S.?" Silence. "You are, aren't you?"
He finally smiled, but his L. R. S. has already done the trick. He'd begun to train me, the American wife.
Amy Sutherland is the author of "Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers" (Viking, June 2006). She lives in Boston and in Portland, Me.
Thanks for posting all these articles. I especially like the one on LRS animal training. I think there could be a lot more to this approach than just saying “oh.” Think about this a minute. We on this board have been discussing various methods of relationship therapy. Schnarch emphasizes individual growth. IMAGO, Harley, Gottman, Schlessinger, and other emphasize the relationship and other validation. DB seems to borrow from both but does so in a passive, withholding manner (as with the last resort technique).
I like the idea of LRS in this article in that I can see how it combines all these methods together. From the growth perspective, I particularly like the idea of researching your spouse as you would an animal and understanding what makes him/her tick. Identifying mannerisms, preferences, behaviors, etc. is all a way of learning your partner’s love language, is it not? It also requires understanding his/her FOO. I can see how this greater understanding would be very appealing to the spouse, giving the sense of validation we all need. So many of the IMAGO and Marriage Builders techniques can be used.
To be a qualified “trainer” would you not need to do your own background work, coming to terms with your own FOO, your own issues, behaviors, etc.? Isn’t this really what Schnarch is all about? And wouldn’t the ideas of Blackfoot and others regarding the alpha male blend in nicely? This seems to be very much in line with Cesar Milan’s methods too.
So failure to modify the behavior of your spouse may not necessarily be the fault of your spouse, but partly your own fault as the “trainer.” I know thinking of my wife as a particularly stubborn primate can be a helpful image to help my detachment. (If I get even more frustrated I can just move my metal image down the evolutionary scale. LOL!)
I like the idea that strong boundaries are used as the “punishment” (bringing about the differentiation and holding onto yourself ideas) but enmeshment is given as the reward (helping to satisfy the relationship approach and abate any abandonment issues). In this way I can see some of the value of Dr. Schlessinger’s ideas coming to play in the reward phase, through the use of the most relevant love language.
I’m going to think a little more on this. I like the idea. It is a LOT more than just saying “oh.”
Referring to the "oh" was just my little bit of SSM-board humor...
It was especially interesting to read that "it's never the animal's fault." That can translate into our R's as when the assumption of good will is in place (meaning that assumption that our partner does not INTEND harm to us and does not harbor any malice), then we can assume that our partner's actions come from a place in them that ultimately has a positive purpose, e.g., self-protection (of them), keeping the peace, avoiding conflict, etc.
We don't want to tweak this so far that I become responsible for my partner's actions or (as the other article said- obsessed with "fixing," but I can certainly learn more effective approaches. Then it's neither person's fault, but simply searching for what works.
The way that this approach is like the "oh" is that it suggests when the animal does not follow the training command, you simply withdraw engagement at that moment. Translating that into human to human behavior, it's like NOT jumping into the pit, NOT getting into a discussion of why and wherefore, NOT scolding them or telling them "how much that hurt." Just a blank stare and an "oh."
Quote: What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage By AMY SUTHERLAND
Lil, good article.
What stood out to me is how she changed her own responses. Changing her standard responses changed the interactions, which changed the relationship, which changed her spouse.
This lines up with something I think needs to be given more consideration. We have all described some of the relational "dances" we do. In fact, we've seen the same frickin' interactions described over and over.
When we find ourselves in repetitive disfunctional situations, it would behoove us to study it, figure out how we're contributing to it and put together a game plan to do something different yourself the next time it occurs. And do that each time the next time comes up. Instead, what we often do is more of what we did before. Which gets us more of what we got before.
Quote: what we often do is more of what we did before. Which gets us more of what we got before
Absolutely true! And when the other person reacts the same way to our repetitive behavior, it's all too easy to say, "See, I TOLD you s/he would never change!"
Thanks for the articles, Lil. I'm just kind of skimmin' this a.m. because I have a ton of work stuff to handle. I copied and pasted the LRS article into my personal SSM file, and, after skimming the martyr article, I recognized myself, but didn't save it--hey...don't worry about me...I'll be fine...just leave me here in the dark cold room...go and live your lives. Sigh.
Been out of town for a few days over the holidays, then trying to catch up a little.
I agree with you, but the problem I have had (and still have) is that too much of the not-jumping-into-the-pit tactic can quickly begin to feel like abandonment for me. That triggers my anxiety, especially since my W is prone to check out of the marriage at the drop of a hat. She is still reading Schnarch but understanding differentiation seems to be slowly sinking in with her (she said something about holding on to herself the other day). The part that I feel is lacking in this approach is the reward. She complains that I do not validate her enough (she still does not see how needy she is in this regard), so I can see giving praise is a reward that might give her the motivation to not withdraw into her divorce mentality.
Before, the only thing I could come up with was the integrity argument. Withdrawing was not fair play, it was not good for the kids, it was a power play, etc. This type of integrity argument goes nowhere with her since it implies there is something wrong with her. I did not think about giving rewards for not withdrawing. I can see rewards as a way to nicely sidestep the integrity argument, which is a pit in itself. I just need to keep telling myself "it's not this animal's fault." LOL!
life.
This list, along with some of the "fixer list," will I ever change? Can I get there from here? 
Thanks for the URL and the work you have done.
