Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E46: You Probably Need Therapy w/ Dr. Bob Schuchts

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E46: You Probably Need Therapy w/ Dr. Bob Schuchts · The Lila Rose Show

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For me, as as I progressed as a therapist, I began to
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incorporate more and more my spiritual life and my faith as
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that became more important to me and I experienced healing that
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way. I would invite people who are
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open to it to explore their faith background and then even
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in some situations, bring prayer into the situation.
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I recognize the limits of my ability to heal them.
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I would invite the Holy Spirit or invite Jesus into the
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situation and it was amazing the changes that started to happen
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people's lives. Well, we have a treat today for
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today's episode of the Lila Rose Podcast.
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Welcome back, everybody. We're going to be talking with
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Doctor Bob Schutz, who spent 30 years as a therapist, is the
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author of seven books, and is the founder of the John Paul the
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Second Healing Center. Dr. Schutz has done a lot of
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work specifically on healing from wounds, childhood wounds,
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spiritual wounds, sexual wounds, and helping people discover true
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healing and freedom. So we're going to get into all
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things therapy, healing, all the things that we've talked about
1:04
sometimes on the podcast, but from a lens of how do we
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actually pursue wholeness before getting into the interview with
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America's pro-life diaper. Thank you so much, Doctor
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Schultz for joining the show. Yeah, thank you, Lila.
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I enjoy your show, the ones that I've watched over over time.
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So thank you. Wonderful.
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Well, tell us a little bit. For those not familiar with your
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work, you also host a popular podcast.
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Tell us a little bit about your background.
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OK, Well, I was the second oldest of seven children and a
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Catholic family where my parents ended up divorcing.
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And so it was a defining moment in what was otherwise a really
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secure childhood. And I think that had a big
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influence on my choosing the field of marriage and family
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relations and becoming a teacher and a therapist with, you know,
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you don't know at the time, but those things certainly influence
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you. So I spent a number of years
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teaching as a therapist and early on got married in late
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college and had two daughters, and now I have 11 grandchildren.
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So our ministry, John Paul the Second Healing Center, is
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dedicated to springing healing to people.
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And we have healing conferences, marriage, and every kinds of
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different aspects of spiritual, psychological, emotional,
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physical healing. You shared in your best selling
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book Be Healed, which is an amazing book about some of those
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moments in your childhood and the experiences that you had
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that would ultimately inspire you to start your ministry and
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get into therapy. Can you share a little bit more
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about you mentioned your parents divorce.
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Can you share a little bit about a more about those events, how
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they shaped you and how they brought you into this field?
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Yeah, I to describe my family as I was growing up is just very
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solid. I felt very secure and loved.
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No family's perfect, but I had a really solid sense of family and
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it was extended family living close by.
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And so it really was shocking to find out that my parents, my dad
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was going to be leaving. My parents were going to get a
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divorced and found out that later that my dad was being
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unfaithful to my mom. And I love my dad from the time
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I was little till the time he died seven years ago.
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And so looking up to him as a role model, looking up to him as
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somebody I wanted to emulate, it really rocked my world in a in a
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pretty severe way. And even though I kept a faith,
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it, it rocked that too, because it was like, if this is what
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happens to my parents when they have a faith life and this can
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happen, then what, What good is the faith life?
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And so that led me to a lot of searching and struggling to make
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sure what I could trust, what I could believe.
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For a while I was just trusting myself and trusting my own
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ability to to understand and and figure things out, which
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probably led me into Graduate School in this field.
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Talk to us a little bit about your work on wounds.
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So you've written a lot about a wound.
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What is a wound in a human being?
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How do you know you what your wounds are?
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And then I want to hear, of course, your, your thoughts on
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how we can heal. OK, Yeah.
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You know, wound is just another word for trauma.
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Trauma is another word for for wound.
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And there's good work by people who develop the life model who
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talk about type A and type B trauma.
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So the type A trauma is the A absence of the things that we
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needed. So even just affection, touch,
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discipline, a presence of of two parents who love you all that
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all that would be type A trauma or type A wounds.
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And then type B trauma are the things we typically think of as
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trauma as, you know, a car wreck or a divorce or a parent dying
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at a young age or sexual abuse experience or something like
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that, where your world is shaken and, and it's more happens in a
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moment than you remember it in that way.
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And over, over time, as I was working with people and
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teaching, I ran across a list of wounds by Doctor Ed Smith.
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He's the one that founder of Transformation Prayer Ministry.
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And as I ran across that list, there was actually 8 of them.
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I saw in them a parallel to the seven deadly sins that we talked
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about in the Catholic Church. And, and so I compiled it into a
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list of seven deadly wounds. And they're ones that I had been
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hearing about that I'd experienced but never really saw
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a framework to to look at those wounds.
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And, and so they're things like abandonment, rejection,
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betrayal, which creates fear, mistrust, hopelessness, shame,
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powerlessness and confusion. And as I saw this list and, and
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and began to to look at its application, it was really
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helpful to give names to what most of us experience for some
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point in our life and actually in a lot of places in our life.
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There's a, a popular book you I think I've heard of it called
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The Body Keeps the Score, and it's by Bessel van der Kolk, I
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think is how you pronounce his name.
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But it's it's, you know, the theory there is even if you
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don't consciously think about what you experienced as a kid or
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even maybe as an adult, but often these are childhood
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experiences. Your body experiences the
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trauma, even if your mind isn't comprehending it or thinking
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about it. What's your take on that
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approach to psychology and how how how does that impact your
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work? Yeah, I find that to be very
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true. You know, there's been brain
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research that's shown that every memory, even if we're not
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conscious of it, is stored in our brains.
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And at what Vander Koch and others have said is that what's
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stored in our brains is also stored in our bodies.
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And so we carry around the trauma in our bodies and it
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makes a susceptible disease that makes us susceptible to injury,
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creates aches and pains and areas in our life.
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But the more severe the trauma, the more effect it has in the
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body. And so there's a lot of good
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therapies now that are working through what people experience
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in the body and, and even in in the Christian Catholic world, a
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lot of physical healing also has spiritual and emotional healing
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behind it. So what kind of school of
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thought informs your psychology? I mean, you've mentioned a few
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things, you know, different types of trauma that you have
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studied and what you see the correlation between wounds of
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the seven deadly sins. What would you say is the
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philosophy or the anthropology that underpins your approach to
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therapy? Yeah, I would.
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Early on I was introduced to what then was called systems
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approach, which is just looking at our person as a as a system
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within a series of systems of body, soul, spirit that are not
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separate, but together. But we also live in family
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systems. We also live in a social system.
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And so to be able to look at the whole context that whatever we
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experience psychologically also has a relational component to
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it. And you know that there there's
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things don't come out of nowhere.
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We internalize ways in which we've been treated.
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Even genetics, we're finding out, are patterns that may have
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happened in other generations relationally that then get
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stored in the body and get passed down to the next
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generations. That's an incredible thought.
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Meaning if your your grandparents are great
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grandparents, there was divorce or there was disease or suicide
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or other other dramas that that affects us genetically.
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Yes. Is that theory?
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And then then it affects us in other ways, physically and
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emotionally also. So I, you know, I remember
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talking with a therapist one time and we were discussing, you
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know, the kinds of people that she sees.
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And there was this comment that they made, which was, you know,
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an estimate. And this is, you know, from a
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therapist who's practicing. So they're seeing people that
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need her help. But she said something to the,
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to the tune of, you know, 80% of people she's would say would be
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benefited, at least 80% roughly would be benefited from therapy.
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What are your thoughts on that? Meaning there's so much, there's
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so many wounds, there's so much that you know, no one's perfect.
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No childhood is perfect. We are not perfect.
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And so in all of that mess, inevitably people need, people
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need help. What are what's your take on
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that? Yeah, I when I was growing up,
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there wasn't a lot of therapy available and it was psychiatry.
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It was considered for only mentally ill people.
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But over time and as our culture's changed and as I've
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witnessed in my practice, I think everybody can benefit from
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therapy at some level because it's who doesn't want somebody
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to really be able to give them undivided attention and listen
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to areas where they've struggled and be able to assist them in
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that process. And whether that's from a a
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friend or whether that's from a counselor or a therapist or a
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spiritual director, we we all need that kind of accompaniment.
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And so how we receive it can vary, but therapy is one way
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that's a safe environment to do that.
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I've heard the criticism from some that therapy is just
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especially talk therapy, I think, as I think it's called,
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is just, you know, maybe a waste of time or over dwelling on the
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past. And there's some people that
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really hate the idea of therapy. Maybe there's have loved ones
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who think that they should go, but it feels like a stigma to
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go. They think, oh, I, I don't want
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to, something's not wrong with me.
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And what goodwill it be just talking to a shrink would be
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the, you know, colloquial wave that might, they might think of
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it. What what?
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What is your response to that? Yeah, they're probably people,
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some of those people from my generation who that's what we
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would call it, a psychiatrist was a shrink and it's a stigma.
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But I think that's so much less the case right now.
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I think there's so much more social acceptance, but there's a
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lot of reasons why we might be resistant to it.
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And what you'd mentioned is talk therapy can be a waste of time.
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It can be if all I'm doing is focusing on the same thing over
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and over again and kind of dwelling there.
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So we need to do more than just talk.
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But talking and having somebody listen is the beginning of good
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therapy. And how would someone even know
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if they would benefit from therapy?
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Let's say they're, you know, they're doing OK, but they have
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not the best They are struggling in in a relationship.
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Perhaps they're struggling with forgiveness.
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They're struggling maybe with anxiety, but they're not really
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like, oh, it's not clinical anxiety, but it's, it's, you
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know, something that is still a struggle for them.
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Maybe they have they keep falling into sexual behavior
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that they don't want unwanted sexual behavior.
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They may not consider it an addiction though.
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You know, those kind of middle of the road cases where it's not
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an extreme life altering behavior or problem, but it's
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something that's still hanging on.
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Yeah, I would, for any person, I would say pay attention to the
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difference between fear and desire.
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Like if there's some inkling to go and there's some desire to
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go, but there's a fear related to that, it does really pay
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attention to what what's the desire and then what's the fear?
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A lot of times it's it's just getting over the hump, but it's
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also important to have a good therapist.
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And if you're a person of faith, it's important to have a
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therapist who will recognize and respect your faith and integrate
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it into the therapy. If you're not a person of faith
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that that might still be a good choice, but it may not may may
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want somebody that has more of a framework of background that you
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do. I have heard a lot of horror
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stories, Doctor Schutz, about people that have gone to therapy
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and they were told to divorce or they went to therapy and they,
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you know, brought their teenager and they were told that the
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child should get on puberty blockers.
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And I think we just were doing an interview the other day and
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someone was sharing that Horror Story.
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So how does one even navigate, let's say they think they might
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be benefited from therapy, they want to give it a try, but
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there's such a, there's a lot of chaos in the therapeutic world.
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How does one even navigate that? Well, first of all, asking
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people, asking for people that you know and trust if they know
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a good therapist or if you're part of a church, they would
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recommend somebody that's a good therapist.
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But yeah, I've, I've heard the same horror stories and it can
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be destructive. And so there's, there's good
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caution in that. And, you know, I know in my own
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experience, when my wife and I were going through difficulties
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and the therapist said, well, maybe you need to separate.
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And I intuitively knew that wasn't what I needed.
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But it's a very vulnerable situation when you're meeting
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with somebody and you've trusted them and they're giving you this
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advice and you begin to doubt yourself.
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And so I could see how people could be let into things that
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they really don't believe would be helpful.
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And I think it's like any kind of medical, medical treatment or
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psychological treatment. We need to be the ones making
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the decisions about what we do and not hand it over to the
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authority of the person. We can listen to their advice.
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We can understand it, but not not just categorically trust it
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because the therapist is saying it.
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That and I've heard too, you know, if you go through a word
16:45
of mouth network friends that you trust and that there are
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also, you know, Christian counselor type directories
16:50
online that are starting places too.
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So typically speaking there are there is help.
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I mean, no matter where you live, there is going to be some
16:58
place to start to look for that help and to get that help that's
17:03
needed. So in terms of the, you know,
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kind of going back to the role of therapy and healing, help us
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understand for folks listening, maybe they've never been to
17:14
therapy or they, they kind of have a view of therapy and
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they're not sure if they're, they think that it's really
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necessary. You made this comment earlier
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that you do think all people could benefit from therapy.
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What happens in therapy and how does it actually help people
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heal? Yeah, the good questions are not
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not easy to answer quickly. Take your time the.
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First time, yeah, OK, The, the first thing that happens, in my
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experience at least, is I want to get to know the person, not
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just the problem. So I want to I want to hear what
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the person loves, who the person loves and what the person
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believes, what they're desiring in therapy and then to focus on
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OK, what what motivated them to come.
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So the beginning of it is just getting to know each other and
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it's the same on their level of being able to develop a trust
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that they're going to be listened to, that they're not
18:09
going to be told what to do or controlled, but they're going to
18:12
be guided and and helped. For me, as as I progressed as a
18:18
therapist, I began to incorporate more and more my
18:23
spiritual life and my faith. As that became more important to
18:26
me and I experienced healing that way, I would invite people
18:30
who are open to it to explore their faith background and then
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even in some situations, bring prayer into the situation or
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recommend where they could go to receive prayer or the sacraments
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in addition to the therapy. So it depends on what kind of
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therapist it is. I was a marriage and family
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therapist, and so sometimes I'd meet with couples, sometimes I'd
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meet with individual adults, sometimes I'd meet with
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teenagers or children. And but for me, it was always
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important to understand the context of their relationships,
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that it wasn't just them focused on themselves, but recognizing
19:10
that whatever was going on with them also had a relational
19:13
component. It was both affecting the people
19:15
around them and being affected by the people around them.
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And I would always get to a point where I recognize the
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limits of my ability to heal them.
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And this is where the change happened in my practice over the
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years and recognize that if a person was a person that was
19:33
open in faith, and particularly if they were Christian, I would
19:36
invite the Holy Spirit or invite Jesus into the situation.
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And it was amazing the changes that started to happen.
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People's lives where our talking can only go so far.
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And we could address even traumas from a standpoint of
19:53
being able to understand where the wounds are, but we couldn't,
19:57
I couldn't free the person from the wounds.
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They're, they're talking about it.
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They're facing it, was bringing it out into the light, was
20:04
allowing it to be heard. And you know, we, we've heard a
20:06
lot of times over the years that there's two parts of the trauma.
20:12
There's the initial experience of whatever's happened and then
20:16
there's having nobody to listen, nobody to tell it to.
20:20
And so therapy heals the second part if you have a good
20:23
therapist who's. Really attuned to and really
20:25
listening to the person. But even then I find that that's
20:30
not enough, that, that there's a need.
20:31
And that's why we started to jump on the second healing
20:34
center as I saw so much happening in my practice and I
20:38
wanted everybody to be able to experience this, that we, we
20:41
then began to develop conferences so that people can
20:44
have this understanding and, and have the tools to begin to do
20:47
that. It's such an important
20:49
distinction that you made between, yes, the event or the
20:53
circumstances that created the trauma, the wound, versus just
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not having someone who sees you, hears you, empathizes with you,
21:00
loves you in sharing that trauma.
21:03
And so the therapist can help with that second piece, like you
21:05
said, but that first piece, you know, unrooting or healing that
21:10
initial trauma, whether it was sexual abuse or divorce or
21:13
abandonment or something, that is really the hardest part.
21:17
And so talk to me a little bit maybe about an experience that
21:20
you had with the patient, the client that really opened your
21:26
eyes to how can I successfully help this person reach full
21:30
healing? You had some amazing stories in
21:32
your book, Be Healed and in many of your books.
21:34
What would be a story that would help people understand how that
21:37
full healing can happen with a a therapist involved, but maybe
21:42
not being the source of the healing.
21:43
It's ultimately coming from God. Yeah, again, my my mind goes to
21:48
a a lot of different examples, but let me let me focus here.
21:52
So let let me take two different situations.
21:54
Let's say I have a child come in, a parent sends a teenager in
21:59
and I recognize as a teenager speaking that the teenager
22:03
doesn't want to be there, but the parent wants them there.
22:07
I would then meet with the parent and talk to the parent
22:12
about being the best therapist for their child.
22:14
But let's say, let's say there was a sexual and I've ran into
22:17
this a number of times. Let's say the child had been
22:20
sexually abused and it was a family member, maybe a
22:24
stepfather or a grandfather or a grandmother or a babysitter that
22:28
were the ones who had perpetrated the abuse.
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And when the child comes to the parent, to the mother, to tell
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the mother because of her own insecurity, denies it, doesn't
22:42
want to face it, and then traumatizes the child.
22:47
So as an example of that work, I can remember, I talk about this
22:50
in my book Be Transformed. There was a woman who came in
22:55
and she, she was from another state, but her family had come
22:59
to me for therapy and she was just found out.
23:06
Her daughter had tried to tell her when she was younger and she
23:09
denied it, but she just found out from other children that her
23:13
husband, their father had sexually abused them.
23:16
Now, Can you imagine the devastation for everybody
23:20
involved? I mean, just incredible
23:22
devastation in the family and the mom when she found out the
23:27
news, separated from her husband and moved down to be with her
23:30
relatives. And we started therapy.
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Well, at the beginning, what was most important for her was just
23:36
to be able to share what she'd experienced, the trauma.
23:40
Just have somebody listen and understand and sympathize, be
23:45
compassionate. And at that point, because even
23:49
though she had a face, she was not open to her faith at the
23:52
beginning. But the more she spoke, the more
23:55
she became open to it. And she started going to Mass
23:59
and she started going to confession.
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And so she was bringing this incredible hatred, rage and
24:07
shame that she felt for allowing us to go on under her own roof
24:12
into confession. And I started to see changes
24:15
happening as she was receiving communion and as she was having
24:19
confession. And at a certain point, she then
24:22
became open to praying. And so we would get into some of
24:27
these memories that were just so overwhelming, so traumatic.
24:31
And I would say, OK, can you just invite Jesus to be with
24:35
you? You know, he's promised to never
24:37
leave us or forsake us. Can you invite him to be with
24:40
you in that situation? And as she would do that, all of
24:44
a sudden, revelation would come, light would come.
24:48
She could begin to see it. She could begin to forgive
24:50
herself. She even got to a point where
24:53
she could forgive her husband without reconciling with him,
24:59
but have compassion for him, so much so that she invited him to
25:03
come down and receive therapy. And when he came down, he was
25:07
such a broken man. He, he finally the, the secrets
25:10
had been broken. He finally faced to all that he
25:13
had done with his daughters and to his wife.
25:16
And he really hated himself. You know, there's a scripture
25:18
passage. It is better for a millstone to
25:21
be put around your neck than to hurt one of these little ones or
25:25
cause one of these little ones to sin.
25:26
And he said that's what I deserve.
25:27
I just desire, deserve to be drowned in the bottom of the
25:30
sea. And he was suicidal at that
25:32
point, but did. He face prison time.
25:36
Doctor shoots for the sexual abuse.
25:38
No, no he didn't. It had happened many years
25:42
earlier and and so there was the statues and limitations was
25:46
over. But his wife also wanted his
25:50
healing. You know, when she got her
25:52
received her healing, she didn't want him to go to hell.
25:55
She wanted she wanted to be able to be reconciled with God.
25:59
And so there was a long process of working with him to the point
26:02
where he then could recognize that he needed God in his life.
26:07
Is that was the thing that was really missing for him that that
26:12
he needed forgiveness. He needed to be able to find
26:15
healing for his daughters and his wife and his family.
26:18
And so watching that process for him was just so beautiful as he
26:23
then went to confession for the first time.
26:25
But even after he went to confession, he couldn't forgive
26:27
himself. And he says I won't forgive
26:29
myself until my children can forgive me, which I said that's
26:32
noble, but it doesn't help them. Because if you can't forgive
26:35
yourself and we involve your children here and they're hating
26:39
you and you're hating yourself, you're going to get so stuck in
26:42
your own self hatred. You're not going to be able to
26:44
help them heal. So eventually it turned into
26:48
daughters coming and sharing with their mother and father
26:52
present about all their pain. And they, they had had so many
26:56
symptoms of that abuse, you know, from eating disorders to
26:59
lesbian lifestyles, so, so many things that had affected had
27:03
been affected because of that abuse.
27:05
It was so beautiful to watch God work in that family and bring
27:10
healing to the mother first, the father 2nd, and then through
27:14
them, the children and. So these were adult.
27:19
These were adult. Just to clarify, these were
27:21
adult. Children.
27:23
Who shared this with their mother after childhood?
27:26
I mean, there were adults as adults.
27:27
They should this happen to me in childhood, the mother separates
27:30
from the father. There's there's no opportunity
27:32
for criminal charges because of the statute of limitations.
27:36
And then this miraculous story that you're sharing of the
27:40
daughters forgiving their father and the father seeking total
27:46
repentance for this evil that he did.
27:48
I mean, it's almost impossible to hear a story like this today.
27:52
Yeah, it is. It was so beautiful.
27:55
And without them focusing on the relationship with God, with the
28:02
relationship with Jesus, I don't believe it would have happened.
28:05
It was them with the Church, with the sacraments, with Jesus
28:09
directly in prayer that allowed the rest of the healing to
28:13
happen. And I saw the mother 10 years
28:18
later, this happened to run into her.
28:20
She was back in town visiting her family.
28:23
She told me about what had happened in the next generations
28:27
and that her husband had died the year before, but that the
28:30
the trust had been restored in the family, which, you know,
28:32
everybody recommends don't ever trust again.
28:35
You know, person like that can't be healed.
28:37
But in this situation, there was that healing and there was that
28:41
trust, and it was just beautiful to see.
28:43
And so for me, I began to see through many experiences that
28:48
God could do so much more than I could as a therapist.
28:51
And so my job was to invite people into being able to share
28:55
about their pain, to walk into the trauma, but then to allow
29:00
the Holy Spirit to take it from there.
29:02
And I really began to see, as I said, just really miraculous
29:06
things take place. There is a statistic that
29:11
there's a few different of them, and you may have heard this one,
29:13
but I think it's one in four. There's estimates that one in
29:17
four women have experienced sexual abuse and many of them as
29:21
children. Do you see a lot of this in your
29:24
practice? I have a lot of questions.
29:26
I want to spend some time talking about sexual abuse and
29:29
sexual wounds, and I also want to talk a little bit about
29:31
divorce. I think these are two very
29:35
pervasive problems in our culture and a lot of people
29:38
suffering from them. Yeah, I agree with you.
29:42
Yeah, I heard the statistics are one in five boys, one in four
29:45
girls. It's hard to tell because
29:48
somebody don't report. So it's probably more than that.
29:52
But in my book Be Restored, I talk about everybody living in
29:55
this culture has had some experience of sexual abuse, that
29:59
is, has a distorted experience of sexuality, whether it's
30:05
through the media or whether it's through their own personal
30:08
experience, whether it's through their childhood experiences.
30:11
And obviously the more severe, the more that trust is broken in
30:17
primary relationships and the more violation there is, the
30:19
more trauma is associated with that.
30:21
So the trauma and sexual abuse is is actually twofold.
30:25
It's the betrayal of a trusted person.
30:29
And then it's the never being able to share it with anybody.
30:34
And then it's the violation in the most intimate places of
30:38
their body and soul being violated, manipulated,
30:43
transgressed. And so the trauma is multiple.
30:48
And we also find that with a lot of people who've been sexually
30:50
abused, there was also a deficit of the type A traumas.
30:55
There's a deficit of connection, a deficit of safety for many.
30:59
And so the healing even has to go beyond the sexual abuse
31:03
experience down to the deeper wounds of abandonment.
31:05
And so many people experienced abandonment, and that made them
31:09
more susceptible to the sexual abuse because of the affection
31:13
that was given there. That was just meeting a real
31:16
unmet need. And then it gets twisted and
31:18
turned into something else. So yeah, that the healing for
31:23
that is, is really in depth. I tell the story and be healed
31:27
where I saw it accelerated, it was just miraculous healing.
31:31
But for the most part, that's it's a longer, deeper experience
31:36
of healing. And depending on the
31:38
relationships and depending on how much early trauma there was
31:41
before the sexual abuse, that healing process can be even
31:44
harder. But I, I've seen over and over
31:48
again, I worked with so many people who have been sexually
31:51
abused and I saw the healing take place and it was beautiful.
31:54
Similarly, with adultery, I saw so many couples reconcile and,
32:00
and restore trust and restore their family life.
32:04
And so again, bringing God's presence into the situation can
32:09
do a lot. You know, nothing's impossible
32:11
with God, is what the Scripture says, what I guess the Blessed
32:14
Mother said. A couple practical things about
32:18
that. I know people listening are
32:21
really concerned. I mean, there's a lot of parents
32:23
who listen to the podcast are a lot of, you know, aspiring
32:25
parents one day or aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews
32:28
and people just care about children generally speaking.
32:31
What you know, you mentioned everyone has some form of sexual
32:34
abuse, even just from the media's images and portrayals.
32:37
And then just all of the chaos in today's society.
32:41
What would be some ways that we can help protect the children
32:45
that we're responsible for from abuse?
32:49
Yeah, so many ways. One is being really careful
32:53
about media what what media children are exposed to and at
32:58
what ages. You know, so many people that
33:00
I've worked with have gotten involved in pornography.
33:03
It started when they were 8/10/12.
33:06
And so, so of parent to be aware of and protective of a child's
33:12
media, whatever comes into the home, but also their
33:15
friendships. And there's, there's nothing
33:19
more important than a trusting relationship between parents and
33:22
children. So it's, it's the whole history
33:24
of that child's relationship with a parent that allows them
33:27
then to share if something happened at school or something
33:30
happened with a relative and it can be dealt with right away.
33:35
If that trust isn't there, then the child's much more
33:38
vulnerable. You know, the the level of
33:42
attachment and connection and safety in the relationship
33:46
really becomes a buffer against so much trauma around them.
33:53
What are some of the things that you recommend to parents about
33:56
developing that buffer of connection and communication
34:00
and, and connected to this? I also want to ask you about,
34:03
you know, children. I, I know a lot of stories of
34:05
children and one of the, one of my areas of work is exposing
34:08
sexual abuse cover ups happening.
34:10
You know, sexual abuse of children that's happening in the
34:12
cover up of those that abuse in how children even talk to adults
34:17
about what they're experiencing and how the adults respond.
34:20
But First off, you know, what would be some ways that parents
34:24
or you know, people who care about kids can build a strong
34:27
attachment and connection to their children?
34:31
But I think it starts in in the womb and it's the parents
34:35
attitude towards the conception of the child is really critical
34:39
and the nurturing the child in the womb, eating emotionally,
34:46
you know, prayer for the child. But then from birth on just the
34:51
attachment to both parents. What what we find is children
34:56
who have a healthy attachment with both a mother and a father
35:00
are much more protected than a child who has an attachment with
35:04
one or the other. And so that's really critical.
35:08
And I know there's a really painful issue in our culture,
35:11
but really for for moms to be able to be at home with their
35:15
children as much as possible, You know, we've gotten to a
35:19
place because of so many factors where it's almost really
35:24
difficult for mom to stay home. And so I'm not trying to create
35:27
guilt, but it's really important for attachment for those years
35:32
to be with mom and dad and mom primarily and dad secondarily,
35:37
and with the siblings and having meals together, having time
35:41
where you know, children can share what's happened during
35:45
their day. Having a parent that's there
35:47
when the child gets home from school and the child isn't going
35:50
to some after school program. But all of those things are
35:54
really essential for protection. But the other thing is just to
35:57
be aware, Even if a parent can't do some of those things, just an
36:01
awareness to be able to look at your children and know them well
36:06
enough to see where they're suffering, see where there's
36:08
something bother them and, and you know, be respectful of their
36:13
freedom. But also be creating an
36:17
opportunity for the child to share and letting the child know
36:21
that when they do share, they're going to be respected after the
36:24
sharing. The sharing is not going to be
36:25
used in such a way. It's going to hurt the child
36:28
because that that becomes devastating too.
36:32
You made a really interesting comment that I think is a hot
36:35
debate even in the sort of more conservative circles and
36:39
certainly in culture today. And some people say it's not
36:41
even worth debating because the the jury's out or the jury's in
36:45
and it's fine. We know women belong in the
36:48
workplace, mothers belong in the workplace.
36:50
They just need generous parental leave, come back after a few
36:54
months and then baby goes to. Daycare or baby?
36:56
Goes to a nanny and then they're all set.
36:59
What's your perspective on balancing?
37:02
Yeah, sometimes there's real economic needs a family has, and
37:04
so there needs to be extra income brought into the family
37:08
from a working mother or just the mother.
37:10
Like my case as an example, I'm doing some work outside the
37:13
home. I get to work in the home a lot,
37:15
but I'm doing this podcast as an example.
37:17
What is your take on the right view of this, the right
37:21
boundaries to have as a mother who's involved in other work to
37:25
ensure that she's not sacrificing the crucial bond and
37:30
nurture she owes to her children?
37:33
Yeah, really good question. And I just, I want to make it
37:37
clear, I'm not wanting any mom or dad to feel guilty about the
37:41
life circumstance that they're in or any shame about that.
37:47
What I do say is I think is healthy work for a mom and a dad
37:53
to be engaged in. That puts the family as a
37:56
priority. And so when Margie and I were
37:59
having children, I was going to Graduate School.
38:02
We worked our schedule out so we could both be there as much as
38:05
possible with our children. And Margie worked part time and
38:08
I work part time and went to school with my children.
38:13
And again, that they have the opportunity to do this, but this
38:16
was a priority. They've both been at home, but
38:20
my both my children have also worked in the ministry with us,
38:24
the John Paul the Second Healing Center.
38:25
My daughter Carrie has a nine children and she's a speaker.
38:32
She's a speaker and she's a writer, but always the children.
38:36
And she took a long period off of doing that to to be at home
38:42
with the children that they homeschooled to be able to
38:44
provide for them. My daughter Kristen was not able
38:47
to have children they adopted too.
38:49
And with that, she ended up not working anymore to be home with
38:54
the children. And again, it can be a greater
38:58
burden. But I think when we when again,
38:59
this is a matter of faith, when we take that step of trust with
39:02
God and, and do something that we do out of conscience, I think
39:07
he provides for it. But I also think that women
39:12
having something like that you're describing something that
39:15
they contribute in the work world is a good thing.
39:18
It's not, it's not all or nothing.
39:20
It's a matter of balance. And how do we work that balance
39:23
so that the children are a priority?
39:26
Any principles for balance? One more question on this topic,
39:30
and this is something I navigate and I know a lot of young
39:33
mothers personally that navigate this where they want to make
39:36
sure they're primarily with their children physically.
39:39
You know, that quantity time and that they're present and giving
39:43
them their quality time and that they do feel whether economic
39:47
needs or they have other work that they're doing, it's
39:51
important as well. And So what would be rules of
39:53
thumb that you have? I don't know if you have these
39:56
for are navigating that and knowing, OK, this is too much or
39:59
this is too little. And I understand there's a lot
40:00
of Gray area, it's prudential for families, but what are some
40:03
principles that you recommend? I don't so much have ground
40:07
rules as much as knowing your children and knowing your family
40:11
life and knowing when your children are suffering because
40:15
of separation from their parents.
40:20
If children are secure. I'll give you an example.
40:24
When, when we were in student housing, then our next door
40:26
neighbors, both parents worked or Margie and I, one of us were
40:29
there with our children. And the little boy would come
40:32
home at 6:00 with his parents and he was the same age as my
40:37
daughter. And he would just cry for an
40:40
hour as his mom was, as his mom was fixing the meal.
40:47
You know, she needed to do that. And there was a lot going on.
40:49
And again, no condemnation of their situation.
40:53
It was just very painful to see his pain of just finally getting
40:58
back with his family and still feeling like there's so much
41:03
that had to take place. It's so much harder for a mom,
41:07
particularly to to care for children, to care for a home.
41:11
You know, even if parents are sharing that responsibility,
41:13
it's so much harder on the woman.
41:16
I actually did my dissertation of the changes that happened in
41:19
a family with a transition to parenthood.
41:22
And one of the things that I found is the husband's work went
41:26
up twice as much that the work at work and at home where the
41:32
the mother's work went up four times as much.
41:36
Wow. So a common fight that would go
41:38
on is the my wife's saying, I'm overwhelmed, I need your help.
41:41
And the husband says, what do you mean you need my help?
41:43
I'm doing twice as much as I was before.
41:45
And she says, well, it's not helping, you know, that that
41:48
kind of dynamic and we can understand it.
41:51
And that's just a natural situation.
41:54
But what I found in the research is that those couples where both
41:58
parents were working full time had a more difficult transition
42:01
to parenthood than the ones that were able to take a leave or
42:06
were working part time. And, and again, those are
42:09
crucial months. And you know, we say, well,
42:12
we'll have three months leave. But the biggest attachment
42:15
period for a child is from 6 to 12 months.
42:21
And I think before 3, the best caregiver for a child is is the
42:29
mom and the dad and a grandmother would be a close
42:33
second or aunt who's very much involved in the family.
42:37
But someone where there's going to be ongoing attachment to
42:40
having attachment to a daycare worker really doesn't help that
42:43
child's adjustment with the family.
42:47
It's, you know, hard for some people to hear that, but it's
42:50
also so important. I mean, this is this is, you
42:53
know, the classic problem in our culture today is that kids are
42:56
not getting the priority. You know, they're with abortion,
43:00
they're certainly not the priority.
43:02
They're actually being killed and thrown away.
43:04
And then, you know, we have a very adult centric culture as
43:07
opposed to a child focused culture where we're in this
43:11
project together to help build up the next generation.
43:15
Yeah, and and we've, we've all bought into it in, in such a way
43:19
because of the pressures in the culture.
43:22
So it's, it's really difficult to turn the tide and come back
43:27
and go in the other direction. And again, it's not saying that
43:31
there shouldn't be good healthy work for both men and women in
43:35
the family. It's just where is the
43:37
attachment focus? And you know, one of the things
43:39
when I studied, when I studied the whole history of the family
43:45
and the changes that took place in the Sixties, 70s and 80s,
43:48
some of the writers who were more radical feminists would say
43:53
we need to not have our children attached to us.
43:58
We need to make sure that our children don't attach to us.
44:00
Because if they do attach to us, they're going to lessen our
44:03
capacity to be equal in the workplace, to have an equal
44:08
standing. And it's that's fine from the
44:12
standpoint of the mom working, but it's not fine for the child.
44:17
A child who doesn't have attachment with a mother is
44:19
going to have all kind of psychological issues later on,
44:22
either detachment and not attached to anybody, or anxious
44:27
attachment where they're going to attach too much to people
44:33
outside because they're in such need of that comfort.
44:38
It's, it's really important what you're talking about.
44:41
So thank you. And I, I think people can follow
44:43
up more. What's what's a book or a
44:45
resource do you recommend for people that particularly want to
44:47
study attachment and raising children and how to how to do
44:52
that in the best way with all the demands and the the needs
44:55
that happen outside the home? Yeah, there's a podcast and I'm
44:59
trying to think of his name. He's up in Seattle area podcast
45:05
of somebody who talks a lot about attachment.
45:09
I can't you know, some of the classic books are Ainsworth and
45:12
Boby, but I I can't think of a good book that I would
45:17
recommend. Maybe the life model would be a
45:19
good book looking at the developmental needs and in my
45:24
book Be restored. I have a chapter talking about
45:28
human development and that might be helpful also.
45:32
I have one more question on, on sexual abuse to close it out.
45:34
And then with the time you have left, I do want to talk about a,
45:37
a divorce and healing from that. So with all the sexual abuse
45:42
that's happening in the culture and so many kids facing it,
45:45
there are, and I've I know so many stories because we study it
45:48
at Live action. I studied it in my journalism
45:51
over the last decade. There are children who never
45:53
talk about what they endured and maybe later on it manifests and
45:57
they'll share as an adult or they're just acting out so much
46:00
as a kid that they end up in the therapist therapy's office,
46:03
therapist office. And that's when it's finally
46:05
discovered. And then there's cases where
46:08
people say our people accuse the child of somehow misleading
46:14
people, meaning the child maybe is not intentionally trying to
46:16
cause harm. But there's cases where I've
46:19
heard well, as the child misremembering or is the child,
46:23
is the child always right if the child reveals that they endured
46:26
this? What's your your take on this?
46:29
Yeah, we've really swung on both extremes in a in an unhealthy
46:34
way. 1 was denial that any child had been sexually abused, and so
46:39
we don't believe any of the reports.
46:41
And then there there came a point where reporting of sexual
46:47
abuse became such that it could be used as a weapon by the child
46:53
against a parent that they resented or against somebody
46:56
else that they resented. And then there was all the false
47:01
memory claims, which I think we're not mostly not legitimate.
47:06
They were just manipulations in court to to keep the child
47:10
quiet, to protect the abuser from being arrested.
47:14
Meaning if a child shares that memory of being abused and it's
47:18
used in a court case, when the opposing side says, well, their
47:22
child is just inventing that and misremembering that, you're
47:25
saying that's actually not the case.
47:27
Child's not going to be up there lying about a memory.
47:29
They're telling the truth. Yeah, unless, again, unless it's
47:32
being used to manipulate and punish the parent for some
47:35
reason. But again, what's happened that
47:37
they want to do that? And that's pretty rare that that
47:40
would. Is that pretty rare in your
47:41
experience? Yeah, in my own personal
47:43
experience, that's not very often.
47:45
I've seen it maybe once or twice.
47:47
So typically if there's a a revealing from a child of of any
47:52
kind or even an adult talking about their childhood, you found
47:55
that 99.9% of cases they're telling the truth.
47:59
This is a real serious thing that needs to be addressed.
48:02
Yeah, I'm, I'm usually very slow with somebody who's revealing a
48:07
memory that's been repressed till, till we I validate the
48:12
process of them expressing it and facing it and walking
48:15
through it. But before they take the next
48:19
step, I want them to have a real confidence that the memory is
48:22
real and that they have validation.
48:24
And usually they'll be validation of it in lots of
48:27
ways. But you know, sometimes people
48:30
can be influenced by something they read or something they
48:32
watched on TV or something like that.
48:34
And it explains for them why they have this resentment
48:37
towards a parent. And it may or may not be that
48:41
there was sexual abuse there, but I would say my the principal
48:46
as a therapist was twofold. 1 is always trust what the person's
48:50
telling me until we find out it's not true, but never trust
48:54
it until we find out it's true. So it's, it's trusting in the
48:59
process that let's keep going until, you know, but let's keep
49:06
going, you know, because no child wants to face that trauma.
49:12
And so when you see somebody beginning to uncover deep trauma
49:16
like that, the level of pain that they're in, the level of
49:20
fear that they're in, the level of, of their whole body shaking,
49:24
you know, they're not making. This isn't an act.
49:27
There's, there's some trauma there that you need to listen
49:30
to. And we just want to create a
49:32
safe environment to draw it out as a therapist until, until they
49:36
can know. And then then they go from
49:39
there. You mentioned Doctor Schutz
49:43
about divorce earlier and in your life.
49:45
The trauma of divorce led to you going on this amazing journey
49:49
and building the center and building your practice, writing
49:53
the books that you've written. It's incredible how God used the
49:56
trauma to ultimately bring you to do so much good for other
50:01
people. There's a popular cultural
50:03
narrative today that divorce is not a big deal, that it actually
50:07
can be better for the kids to divorce if the parents are
50:10
fighting or they don't really like each other.
50:12
And I'm not talking about extreme situations of abuse.
50:14
So I'm going to set that aside. If there's like, abuse in the
50:17
home, where there's physical violence, where there's, you
50:20
know, emotional terror, terrorizing happening, I'm not
50:22
talking about that. I'm talking about we fell out of
50:25
love, we're incompatible. There's an affair.
50:28
Those cases, which are the majority of cases today.
50:32
What is your response to that? Yeah, let me put it this way
50:38
back in terms of the child's nature.
50:41
So the in the Scripture it talks about the two shall become one
50:44
flesh, right. And that relationship between
50:47
mother and father, that sexual intimacy fully becomes one flesh
50:52
when a child is born, when a child's conceived, then a
50:54
child's born. But it's not just a physical
50:58
reality. It's not just that the child
50:59
carries both parents DNA, it's the child carries both parents
51:05
affection and nurture and heart. And so when parents even begin
51:12
to fight and the child feels the tension in the home, that child
51:17
feels a tearing of their heart. And when a when a child, when a
51:23
parent's divorce and that bond between mother and father is
51:26
broken, the child actually gets a broken heart.
51:31
Their heart is ripped apart. And so many of the of the early
51:36
studies on divorce, we're looking at things like sports
51:39
performance and school performance and intellectual IQ
51:42
and all those things. And those aren't the things that
51:44
are affected. What's affected is the capacity
51:47
to trust, the capacity to relate at a heart level, the capacity
51:51
to give yourself emotionally to another.
51:54
And so many children of divorce are wounded in those ways.
51:57
And if they don't go through a healing process, they stay stuck
52:01
in that way. You know, I was sharing about my
52:03
own story. It was 13 years before I began
52:06
to see the effects of that in my relationship with my wife.
52:10
You know, we had things that we were dealing with, but it was
52:12
largely the unhealed pain of my divorce, my parents divorce,
52:16
that led me to wall off and protect my heart whenever
52:21
tension came, whenever anxiety came.
52:25
And it wasn't until I entered into the deeper trauma of the
52:28
abandonment and betrayal and the healing of that.
52:32
And, and again, that's an ongoing healing, but you know,
52:34
the, the substantive healing of that.
52:36
Could I then open my heart again and trust?
52:39
And that's how children, you know, so many of my brothers and
52:41
sisters took a long time to get married because they had a hard
52:45
time trusting marriage. It's also interesting that my
52:48
parents, my mom had seven brothers and sisters and six of
52:52
the seven in the 70s and 80s got divorced after my parents did.
52:57
And so there's also this effect not only in the child's life,
53:02
but in the, in the siblings and the generations, you know,
53:05
because marriage is a bond with a whole family.
53:08
And when that bond is broken with a family, it has a
53:11
shattering effect, not just for the children and the spouses,
53:15
but for the brothers and sisters and the extended family.
53:18
It's it breaks the fabric of of relational trust.
53:24
There's probably a lot of people listening who have been touched
53:27
by a divorce. Virtually, I would say every
53:29
family in one way or another, you know, family system,
53:31
extended family has been touched by divorce today.
53:34
I think more children are born today to single parent
53:36
households than to an intact family.
53:39
That's how pervasive this is. What's your advice for, you
53:43
know, the hope that you have to offer?
53:45
I know that you have a lot because of your work to people
53:48
who've been hurt by divorce. Yeah, I'll give you an example
53:52
from a woman, but I'd actually counseled her parents and just
54:00
maybe one or two sessions and they got divorced.
54:03
And then I had this daughter in class at when I was teaching at
54:07
a Community College, and she let me know that her parents had
54:12
been married and divorced three times.
54:16
And she said, I'm never going to get divorced.
54:20
And I said, that's good. You you recognize the pain of
54:23
it. She says, I'm never going to get
54:24
married. I said, so you're never going to
54:27
have children. Oh, no, I'm going to have
54:29
children. I'm just never going to get
54:30
married. And I said to her, can you hear
54:34
what you're saying? Because of the pain that you've
54:37
gone through that you haven't healed from?
54:38
And I get it. I really understand it
54:40
personally. You're not going to have your
54:43
child go through that pain so that you're not going to even
54:46
provide your children with a stable home and marriage so that
54:50
child could grow up in a healthy 2 parent relationship that you
54:55
longed for in your heart. I said that's not healing,
54:59
that's self protection. And so that's really the key and
55:03
in the healing process is we first of all acknowledge not
55:07
that we're going to solve it by the decisions we make.
55:10
Those are called inner vows that usually don't help us at all.
55:14
They're they're resolutions made out of fear.
55:17
But what, what's really helpful is when we say this is the
55:22
effect that's happened in my heart.
55:24
I don't want to continue to repeat that.
55:26
That was what was my motivation. I didn't want my children and my
55:28
wife to experience what I saw my mom and my dad and my brothers
55:34
and sisters and me experience. So I was going to do everything
55:38
I could to work through that pain.
55:43
They come to the other side of that and that really motivated
55:46
my whole professional life as well.
55:50
Well, what's so hopeful is that there is hope that there is
55:53
healing and that's the entire scope of your ministry is be
55:56
healed. You can be healed.
55:59
I love this conversation, Doctor Schutz.
56:01
It's really beautiful. I hope we can have you back on
56:03
the podcast. There's so much more to talk
56:05
about here. How can people find your work
56:07
and your your your writing? Yeah, John Paul, the second
56:10
Healing Center, it's JPII healingcenter.org and we have
56:16
talks, we have conferences, we have books, we have workbooks
56:22
are just whole ministry is dedicated to bringing healing
56:26
and there's so much encouragement that's there as
56:30
people enter into that. And so not ready for therapy,
56:32
this might be a great way to enter into the process.
56:36
And I think in many ways it's better than therapy because it's
56:39
grounded in a in a solid anthropology of who we are as
56:43
human persons and the church's teaching.
56:47
Awesome. Thank you so much, Doctor
56:49
Sheets, for your ministry and for doing the podcast with me
56:51
today. Yeah.
56:52
Thank you, Light. I appreciate everything you're
56:54
doing too. Thank you.