ACT Professional Marriage Counseling

Being yourself

Being yourself: "Being yourself

Are you being yourself? Learn to recognize and acceptthe world and the people around us for what they are and not what we think they should be or how we can change them to thinking as we do.

Are you being yourself? We need to recognize and accept
the world and the people around us for what they are and not what we think they should be or how we can change them to thinking as we do. Now this can be very tough but sometimes we can make a difference, especially when we see injustice.

What I am saying is try to not beat your head against a wall trying to change someone to your way of thinking, just accept them for who they are.

To be happy you need to be satisfied with yourself: you need to know how to meet your needs.

Sure you are around other people wanting to satisfy their needs and this is healthy but just don't hurt yourself and stunt your own growth trying to satisfy other people's needs.

Now you need to be responsible for your own actions, I feel that of all the qualities in having good mental health this may be the most important as it takes a certain maturity to know and be able to express your feelings and then take the responsibility for your feelings and also your actions.

Doing this can make you a more mature and also stronger person.

Try to be a free person: listen to your own feelings"

Effects of Rape | Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network

Effects of Rape | Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network

Article,Please read.Click on title.

What are the Effects of Child Sexual Abuse?

What are the Effects of Child Sexual Abuse?

Click here to read the whole article.

Codependency & Recovery from codependent relationships

Codependency & Recovery from codependent relationships

Good information. Please click on title to read more

MEDArticleMgr

MEDArticleMgr

Interesting reading. Please click on the title to read more

Infidelity, Dealing with Infidelity

Infidelity, Dealing with Infidelity

Very insightful article.Click the title to read more.

Marriage and Money

Marriage and Money

A very important issue to the sucess of a marraige, not so much the amount of money, but the ability to stay on top of it together.Click on the title to read more.

The Guide -- Intercultural Relationships Flourish Despite Differences

The Guide -- Intercultural Relationships Flourish Despite Differences

A Great article for those couples that are in an interracial relationship.To read more click on the title.

Marriage Advice: Eight Steps to Marital Harmony

Marriage Advice: Eight Steps to Marital Harmony

Great article. Read on, click on title.

What is Marriage Counseling?

Marriage counseling

Definition

Marriage counseling is a type of psychotherapy for a married couple or established partners that tries to resolve problems in the relationship. Typically, two people attend counseling sessions together to discuss specific issues.

Purpose

Marriage counseling is based on research that shows that individuals and their problems are best handled within the context of their relationships. Marriage counselors are trained in psychotherapy and family systems, and focus on understanding their clients' symptoms and the way their interactions contribute to problems in the relationship.

Description

Marriage counseling is usually a short-term therapy that may take only a few sessions to work out problems in the relationship. Typically, marriage counselors ask questions about the couple's roles, patterns, rules, goals, and beliefs. Therapy often begins as the couple analyzes the good and bad aspects of the relationship. The marriage counselor then works with the couple to help them understand that, in most cases, both partners are contributing to problems in the relationship. When this is understood, the two can then learn to change how they interact with each other to solve problems. The partners may be encouraged to draw up a contract in which each partner describes the behavior he or she will be trying to maintain.

Marriage is not a requirement for two people to get help from a marriage counselor. Anyone person wishing to improve his or her relationships can get help with behavioral problems, relationship issues, or with mental or emotional disorders. Marriage counselors also offer treatment for couples before they get married to help them understand potential problem areas. A third type of marriage counseling involves postmarital therapy, in which divorcing couples who share children seek help in working out their differences. Couples in the midst of a divorce find that marriage therapy during separation can help them find a common ground as they negotiate interpersonal issues and child custody.

Choosing a therapist

A marriage counselor is trained to use different types of therapy in work with individuals, couples, and groups. American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) training includes supervision by experienced therapists, a minimum of a master's degree (including specific training in marriage and family therapy), and specific graduate training in marriage and family therapy.

When looking for a marriage counselor, a couple should find out the counselor's training and educational background, professional associations, such as AAMFT, and state licensure, and whether the person has experience in treating particular kinds of problem. Also, questions should be asked concerning fees, insurance coverage, the average length of therapy, and so on.

Normal results

Marriage counseling helps couples learn to deal more effectively with problems, and can help prevent small problems from becoming serious. Research shows that marriage counseling, when effective, tends to improve a person's physical as well as mental health, in addition to improving the relationship.

For Your Information

Periodicals

Johnson, S. M., and E. Talitman. "Predictors of Success in Emotionally- Focused Marital Therapy." Journal of Marital and Family Therapy 23 (1997): 135-152.
Lee, M. "A Study of Solution-Focused Brief Family Therapy: Outcomes and Issues." The American Journal of Family Therapy 25 (1997): 3-17.
Organizations
American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. 1133 15th St., NW Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005-2710. (202) 452-0109. http://www.aamft.org
American Psychological Association (APA). 750 First St. NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242. (202) 336-5700. ttp://www.apa.org

Fair Fighting

During this time both of you must remain consistent in this approach,
the following steps must adhered to;

1. at the first sign of a fight both of you are responsible to yell
stop and you both must stop.

2. both of you figure out a reasonable time to continue the fight and
set an appointment with each other.

3. when you get together to fight you must set a time limit and when
the time is up you MUST quit the fight or set a new time to further the
fight, again setting a time limit and following the other rules.

4. when you fight the past cannot be brought up, you cannot call each
other disparaging names or use put downs.

5. When the fight is over you both get up and walk away from the fight
signifying that it is over and move on.

6. PLEASE TREAT EACH OTHER WITH RESPECT AND IT IS OK TO LAUGH TOGETHER.

Robert J. Heard, MA, BCETS

Bonding and Marital Success

Bonding & Marriage Success

Bonding is central to marriage success. That's not very surprising. The vast majority of couples planning for or contemplating marriage start off very bonded.

What is surprising for many couples, though, is the unexpected vulnerability of their initial powerful attachment. The biggest mistake that couples make is to take their bond for granted by assuming that their connection will stay strong because they love each other or with 'hard work.' But they don't have an intentional strategy to maintain the strength of their union.

Without a specific plan, most couples' attachment may grow weaker over time, whether or not they want this to happen, placing their marriage at risk. The first years of marriage are the riskiest for divorce and affairs. Couples report that "the spark is gone," or that while they still love each other, they are no longer "in love" or have "grown apart."

Some couples think that starting a family together will reinforce their bond. For many, it is the opposite. They may stay together because of their kids, but their tie to each other is actually diluted as their attachment to their children displaces their connection to each other.

What disrupts their bond, so unexpectedly?

The fact is that nature never intended for the exhilarating feelings that you experience when falling in love to endure with the same intensity over time. The brain chemistry (based on elevated levels of dopamine and norepinephrine) that underlies romantic attraction can't remain in this state very long. Nature doesn't want us to burn out. That special chemistry that drives courtship is destined to fade.

This phase of intense bond formation used to last through the wedding. But now that couples postpone marriage and often live together, it is common for passion to subside--often well before the wedding or soon thereafter.

Nature intends our initial, temporary falling-in-love bonding period to be replaced by a longer-term attachment between partners--with a totally different underlying brain chemistry (based on oxytocin and vasopressin). [Fisher, et al, 2002]

But, some of us find it easier to form and maintain these long-term bonds. According to researchers, different attachment styles rooted in early experiences with parents play an important role in bonding: Most of us have what the experts call a secure attachment style based on a comfortable balance of closeness and independence in their intimate relationships. They tend to be relatively self-confident, accepting and supportive in relationships.

Many people with colder and/or rejecting early attachment experiences continue to have some degree of difficulty with romantic bonding during adult life. They may be less comfortable with closeness and trust, find it difficult to depend on others or be depended upon. On average their relationships last about half as long as those with the more secure style.

Those whose early attachments were particularly unreliable tend to be preoccupied and obsessive in relationships, needy and vulnerable, and experience difficulty getting as close to others as they would like. They bond easily, but their relationships are the least durable.

All of these attachment styles are considered normal. But both of these less secure styles are prone to experiences of jealousy and loneliness. They also tend toward defensiveness and blame and have difficulty getting their needs met.

In addition to any bonding challenges posed by these attachment patterns from childhood, there are many realities of modern life that disrupt our longer-term attachments (even though they interfere less with the earlier phases of our relationships):

Every couple has 5 - 7 unresolvable differences, so there's a lot to disagree about once you start thinking about getting married. If you don't have good approaches to managing your differences, your disagreements will take a toll over time. Conflict can raise your level of negativity and undermine mutuality.

Then there are just the day-to-day pressures that tend to pull couples apart--jobs and careers, finances, kids, not enough time in your day. Lot's of couples don't understand that if you try to put your relationship 'on hold' while you give more attention to a new job or to children, it will be much more difficult than you imagine restoring the closeness between you.

The different approaches of the genders to many aspects of relationships, including communication and bonding, are another factor that can stress couples' feeling of closeness over time. The pursue--withdraw pattern, where one partner keeps after the other to resolve an important issue or for more closeness, while the other feels overloaded and keeps withdrawing or picking a fight to get away, is especially dangerous. This pattern is what's primarily behind the stereotypes of the 'nagging' wife and the husband who 'doesn't talk.'

The changes in sex that challenge couples over the long term, as partner novelty declines and differences in approach to sexuality get in the way, can also contribute to diminished bonding.

All of these factors can chip away at the strength of your bond, in part by disrupting the brain chemistry that underlies it. Many couples count on the strength of their initial bond to get them through these challenges and can't imagine that it might fade.

So what can couples do to avoid the seemingly inevitable slide toward greater disengagement? Well, fortunately, there's plenty. But for most couples, it doesn't happen on its own. You have to plan and strategize to keep your bond strong. And it's best to start early, just when you can't believe that you'll ever need it.

Here are some approaches that marriage success research has shown will help to keep your bond vital:

· Build positivity in your relationship. No one can avoid some negativity, but limit it. Marriage research has revealed that happy couples have at least five positive interactions for every negative one. Couples who slip below five-to-one have a hard time restoring the balance. Repair after your fights. Don't allow prolonged periods of resentment to persist.

· Make time for your relationship--no matter what.

· Daily, non-stressful communication--continuing to keep up with each other's lives--is another bonding activity. And it's one that tends to go by the way when lives become busy. Remember how curious you were to learn the details of each other's lives when you were getting to know one another?

· Approach life as a team. Don't become adversaries, even when you disagree. Your disagreements are something that both of you must take an active role in managing. Planning and dreaming together are bonding for both genders.

· Appreciate the male need to bond through shared activities. Make time for the intimate talking that women usually prefer for bonding--but make it easier for him by scheduling it at a good time, setting a time limit on these discussions, and limiting any negativity.

· Keep your sex life active. Schedule a regular date night, especially if things are slowing down. You'll be surprised how the anticipation will whet your appetite--just like it did when you were dating. Introduce new forms of novelty to compensate for the inevitable diminishing partner novelty. Overcome any disagreements about initiating and active/passive roles by taking turns. The brain chemistry stimulated by sex is critical to renewing your bond.

· Celebrate your relationship. Develop rituals to commemorate your anniversaries and other memorable relationship milestones. Build a relationship mythology by telling your stories, such as that of how you met.

Adopting these strategies builds a bonding immunization for couples. These approaches help couples to build up a reserve of attachment that will help maintain their relationship through the inevitable stresses and challenges of contemporary married life and prevent disruption of their connection. Couples who are already experiencing tension or disengagement can revitalize their link by embracing these approaches.

Plan to keep your bond strong by learning more about practical bonding strategies that fit your relationship style and are comfortable for both genders. Enhance your intimacy, communication and conflict management skills at a Marriage Success Training seminar.

Nuturing Love and Respect in Marriage

Nurturing Love and Respect in Marriage

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The Family: A Proclamation to the World reminds us that we have an obligation to love and serve our marriage partner. To love them effectively, we have to know and understand their inner world—their likes, dislikes, thoughts, and feelings. Taking the time to do this and then acting on what we learn is a powerful way to nurture love and respect in our marriage. Researcher John Gottman calls this process enhancing our "love maps."

What is a love map? Gottman says it's the part of your brain where you store important information about your spouse. It's like a mental notebook where you write down unique traits of your spouse and things about him or her you want to remember. It includes your spouse's dreams, goals, joys, fears, likes, dislikes, frustrations, and worries. Things like your husband's favorite breakfast cereal or the name of your wife's best friend are important "points" on the map.

Why are thorough love maps so important? Because they strengthen marriages. Couples with extensive love maps remember important dates and events, and they stay aware of their partner's changing needs. They constantly seek updates on what the other person is doing, feeling, and thinking. Being known in this way is a gift each partner gives the other, bringing great happiness and satisfaction. It also makes couples better prepared to cope with stresses on their marriage.

For example, in one study Gottman interviewed couples around the time of the birth of their first child. For 67% of couples this stressful event was accompanied by a significant drop in marital satisfaction. But the other 33% did not see such a drop, and many felt their marriages had improved. The difference was the completeness of the couples' love maps. "The couples whose marriages thrived after the birth had detailed love maps from the get-go. . . ," says Gottman. "These love maps protected their marriages in the wake of this dramatic upheaval."

Couples who had established a habit of finding out about each other's thoughts and feelings were likely to continue doing so at a time of change. Their deep knowledge about each other and their practice of staying in touch protected their relationships from being thrown off course. They grew to love each other more deeply because there was more about each other to love.

Here are some activities to help you nurture love and respect by expanding and using your love maps:

Play "Love Map 20 Questions" with your spouse. Together write down as many detailed, personal questions you can think of (at least 20). Include a wide range of questions from many different categories. Take turns asking each other questions from your list. Then see if you can answer the questions for each other by turning your questions around. Instead of asking "What is your dream vacation?" ask "What is my dream vacation?"
Keep score if you like, but keep the game lighthearted and fun, not competitive. Examples of the categories and questions you might ask include the following:

Family: Which of my parents do I think I'm most like? Why?

Friends: Name two of my best friends and how I met them.

Work: How do I feel about my boss? What would I change about my job?

Hobbies: What are my three favorite things to do in my spare time?

Dreams: What is one of my unrealized dreams?

Favorites: What is my favorite dessert? TV show? Sports team?

Feelings: What makes me feel stressed? When do I feel confident?

Exchange journals. For two consecutive weeks, keep a journal. Write something every day, even if it's brief. Try not to focus on your actions, such as "Today I went to the store and took the kids to soccer." Rather, focus on your thoughts and feelings-"I was really upset by the way Bob treated me at work today" or "I read an article today and it reminded me of. . . ." At the end of the two weeks, exchange journals.
Use your love map to show you care. Think of something special or unique about your spouse-something personal and specific, such as a talent, dream, favorite thing. Then turn that thought into a kind act for your spouse, such as making her favorite dish or clipping from the newspaper a course announcement about something that interests him. You might also write your spouse a note about one of their best qualities. For example, if your husband or wife is especially dedicated to his or her job, write a note saying how much you appreciate and admire this. Slip it into a briefcase or purse.

It's important that you not do something generic. The purpose of this activity is to show your spouse that you know and remember specific things about him or her. So don't just buy your wife some flowers-buy her yellow rose buds because you know those are her favorite.

Other examples:

During a visit to her in-laws, Ann found out that when her husband, Steve, was a little boy he always wanted his birthday cakes decorated like choo-choo trains. A few months later, she surprised Steve by making a train cake for his birthday.

Bob's favorite movie was playing at the local theatre. After work, Susan surprised him with pre-paid tickets for the evening show.

Bill's wife, Jill, loves to try new recipes. While he was picking up a few things at the store, he also picked up a cooking magazine.

Use your love maps to speak your spouse's "love language." Each of us likes to be loved in our own way, according to our own love language. Enhancing our love maps allows us to become more knowledgeable about our spouse's love language so that when we send a message intended as loving, it will be received as loving.

When we neglect to learn our partner's love language, it's easy to make mistakes when we intend to communicate love. For example, Robert got up at 5:30 one Saturday morning and washed, waxed, and polished the floors, cleaned the garage, cut the lawn, and planted flowers. He thought these actions were a great way to communicate love to his wife because for him, such actions communicate love. At noon he showered and was about to leave. As he walked out the front door, his wife said: "John, the least you could do is kiss me good-bye!" He thought he had already shown his love by doing the chores above and beyond what was expected, but her love language required affection. Without it, she did not truly feel loved.

Develop a "Caring Days" list. One way to learn to speak each other's love language is to practice "Caring Days," a technique developed by therapist Richard Stuart and clinically shown to strengthen marriages. Here's how to do it:

First, sit down together and develop a Caring Days list by agreeing on several behaviors or actions (say, nine for each partner) that you find loving and would like to receive from your partner. These actions must be:

1. Specific (such as "Tell me you love me at least once a day"),

2. Positive (not "Don't do this" or "Stop doing that"),

3. Small enough to be done on a daily basis (such as "Call me at work during lunch, just to see how I'm doing"), and

4. Not related to any recent conflict.

Second, agree to doing five of the actions on the Caring Days list each day for two weeks. Even if your partner doesn't follow through with his or her list, be patient and persist in doing your list.

Third, put the Caring Days list in a conspicuous place, such as on the refrigerator door or bathroom mirror. List the actions in a center column and your name on one side and your spouse's names on the other. When an action is received, note the date next to the action. This will help reinforce speaking one another's love language.

At the end of two weeks, evaluate how your relationship has changed.

An action one wife listed was a "daily back rub." He liked her to "snuggle up close to me when we sit together." Creating, keeping, then following a current Caring List reduces the guesswork in nurturing love and respect in marriage.

Written by Megan Northrup, Research Assistant, and Stephen F. Duncan, Professor, School of Family Life, Brigham Young University.

The Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children

THE SEXUAL DANGERS
OF SPANKING CHILDREN
Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children was published in 1994 and last revised in August 2002. Copyright is waived on this publication and it may be freely reproduced and disseminated. For readers' convenience, a PDF version of this publication may be viewed and downloaded at www.nospank.net/sdsc.pdf. For further information about corporal punishment of children, visit www.nospank.net and, for information specifically about its sexual implications, visit www.nospank.net/101.htm. Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Direct all inquiries to PTAVE, P.O. Box 1033, Alamo, CA 94507, e-mail ptave@nospank.net or call (925) 831-1661.

“It is a disgusting and slavish treatment which would certainly be regarded as an insult if it were inflicted on adults... And consider how shameful, how dangerous to modesty are the effects produced by the pain or fear of the victims. This feeling of shame cripples and unmans the spirit, making it flee from and detest the light of day...”
Quintilian, A.D. 35-95

“But what you would not so readily believe upon my affirmation, was that there are persons who are stimulated to venery by strokes of rods, and worked up into a flame of lust by blows... A strange instance what a power the force of education has in grafting inveterate ill habits on our morals...”
Johann Heinrich Meibom, physician, 1629

By TOM JOHNSON

Spanking, defined as slapping of the buttocks, is a form of hitting and thus of physical violence. That fact alone should make the spanking of children unacceptable by the same standards that protect adults, who are not as vulnerable. However, there is more to spanking than simply hitting: spanking also trespasses on one of the body’s most private and sexual areas—the buttocks. To fully address the wrongness of spanking children, therefore, we must consider not only the issue of physical violence, but also the issue of sexual trespass. While the harm of spanking’s physical violence has been thoroughly explained and demonstrated over the past century in a vast body of academic literature, scientific research, legal treatises, and relatively recently in the popular media, it is quite rare that the sexual consequences of spanking are openly and seriously discussed. This pamphlet aims to raise public awareness about the sexual aspects which make spanking an especially inappropriate and even dangerous way of disciplining children, whether it is done by parents, educators or other caretakers. While this pamphlet focuses on “spanking,” the most seemingly benign form of physical punishment, the arguments raised herein apply equally to paddling, switching, caning, strapping, or any other mode of forcible buttock-beating.
Buttocks are a sexual zone
Like women’s breasts, the buttocks are a sexual or erogenous part of the human anatomy, even though they are not actually sex organs. This is why baring one’s buttocks in public is considered indecent as well as unlawful and why their exposure in movies or on television constitutes nudity. It is also why someone who uninvitedly fondles another person’s buttocks is treated by law as a sexual offender. The sexual nature of the buttocks is explained not only by their proximity to the genitals, but also by their high concentration of nerve endings which lead directly to sexual nerve centers. Hence, the buttocks are a major locus of sexual signals.

Children are sexual beings
The sexuality of the buttocks is significant not just to adults, but to children as well. Even though they are sexually immature and without an active sex drive, children are from birth neurologically complete sexual beings who are capable of experiencing erotic sensation. The existence of pedophiles, furthermore, means that children can also become the targets of sexual intentions. As much as we might like to imagine childhood as an innocent, carefree world beyond the influence of sexuality, we do children a disservice if we fail to recognize that they too have erogenous zones which deserve consideration and respect.

Spanking as sexual violation
Since children are sexual beings and since the buttocks are a sexual region of the body, we should question the propriety of slapping children’s buttocks. We generally understand that fondling or caressing a child’s buttocks is a sexual offense (even if the child does not understand it to be so). We also know that slapping an adult’s buttocks is a sexual offense (even if the offender does not get sexual pleasure from doing so).

The question, then, is why slapping a child’s buttocks is not considered a sexual offense. Is it because spanking, unlike fondling, is physically painful and used to punish misbehavior? No, or painfully spanking a misbehaving adult would not be a sexual offense. Is it because children are less likely to be sexual targets than adults, less likely to feel violated, and therefore protected less strictly? No, or fondling an adult would be a far more serious crime than fondling a child. A more plausible explanation for this breach of logic is simply that the majority of people are unable or unwilling to believe there could be anything indecent about a practice as old, common and accepted as the spanking of children—something which nearly everyone has received, given or witnessed at least once. And since spankings typically come from esteemed or even beloved authority figures, many people are loath to question this behavior.

In any case, freedom from sexual violation is one of the basic tenets of liberty most revered by Americans and by most of the free world. As this principle of inviolacy applies to adults, it should apply equally, if not especially, to children, who are below the age of consent. Spanking children may be a time-honored tradition, but any tradition that so gratuitously disregards their inviolacy deserves to be discontinued.

Some argue that spanking is justified or even commanded by the Bible, specifically the Book of Proverbs. There is a distinction, however, which should be of key interest to fundamentalists, between the practice in King Solomon’s day of beating people on the back and the modern American habit of buttocks-hitting: the latter is not prescribed anywhere in the Bible. Moreover, it should be kept in mind that the Old Testament contains passages which could be (and in some cases have been) construed as divine endorsements of wife-beating, racial warfare, slavery, the stoning to death of rebellious children and other behaviors that are outrageous by today’s standards. As Shakespeare once wrote, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”

Spanking as sexual abuse
As in ages past, there are people today who are sexually excited by spanking. This trait, which is often expressed in pornography and associated with sadomasochism, is known in scientific literature as flagellantism. While many flagellants seek to engage in consensual spanking between adults, some find the spanking of minors to be either more arousing or more opportune.

Since children in this country up to eighteen years old can still be legally and forcibly spanked by parents, guardians, teachers, school principals and other child care professionals, it is often easy for flagellants to obtain positions where they can sexually abuse children with little or no fear of repercussions. As long as society sees spanking as a legitimate act of discipline, and as long as the spanked youths are presumed to have “deserved” it, sexually abusive spankers have an effective moralistic disguise for their true motives. History, court records and current events contain numerous cases of flagellant sexual abuse against defenseless victims, and there is no telling how many instances have gone unreported.

Some adults might rationalize: “Well, I know my intentions are purely nonsexual, so there’s nothing wrong with my spanking a child.” The main problem with this rationale is that it fails to consider all the children who are at the mercy of other adults, among whom there will always be some with motives that are not so pure – and not necessarily obvious. Even spankings that have no sexual motive contribute to the cover that sexually abusive spankers depend on, affirming the old alibi: “Hey, lots of people spank their kids. So what’s the big deal?”

Spanking and psychosexual development
Even without sexual motives on the part of the punisher, spanking can interfere with a child’s normal sexual and psychological development. Because the buttocks are so close to the genitals and so multiply linked to sexual nerve centers, slapping them can trigger powerful and involuntary sensations of sexual pleasure. This can happen even in very young children, and even in spite of great, clearly upsetting pain.

This kind of sexual stimulation, which undermines any disciplinary purpose and which most people would agree is unsuitable for children in any context, can cause a child to impressionably attach his or her sexuality to the idea of spanking. This fixation may endure to cause problems in adult life. Or, on the other hand, the child might react against these unseemly feelings of pleasure by repressing his or her sexuality, so much perhaps that as an adult, he or she has difficulty experiencing sexual pleasure and intimacy.

An additional danger is that the confusing mixture of pleasure with pain will become the basis for permanent sadomasochistic tendencies. Sadomasochism, in which a person takes pleasure in inflicting or receiving pain, drives behavior that is destructive to oneself and to others, and therefore to society at large. While the intensity and background of individuals’ sadomasochism varies widely, the great majority of studied cases point to the same primary cause: childhood whippings, usually on the buttocks.

The odds that spanking a child will lead to psychosexual aberrations would be difficult to calculate. However, the fact that there is any chance of these problems occurring should be reason enough to abandon the practice. (It is important to note that even children who are never spanked themselves can be negatively impacted by seeing other children punished this way.) The risks are completely unnecessary.

Spanking and modesty
Imagine your reaction if an authority figure, having discovered some misdeed of yours, pinned you across his lap and began slapping your buttocks. Painfulness aside, most people would consider this a rude, inexcusable assault on their modesty, no matter what they had done to “deserve” it.

Many people might assume that children, especially very young children, are too ignorant or naive to feel such indignity, or perhaps too impressed by the physical pain of spanking to care about much else. The truth is, however, that spanking can seriously injure a child’s sense of modesty. When a child is old enough to be told by adults to act modestly (which is not merely a social requirement, but also a wise precaution against potential child molesters), that child is likely to internalize and develop modesty as a personal value that will increase with age. This value persists even though the child might lapse into immodest behavior from time to time, as most children do. Consequently, the child whose buttocks are slapped may experience deep and lasting sexual shame, especially if the punishment is done in front of others or involves a state of undress. Actually, there are some adults who consciously emphasize this humiliation as part of the punishment (and some, for that matter, who do not limit spanking to younger children or even to preteens). But just as inflicting sexual shame is an unthinkable punishment for adults in any civilized society, it is surely an outrageous way to treat children.

It is a strange inconsistency, furthermore, for adults to exhort children to modesty while punishing them in a way that aggressively denies their modesty and privacy. Such mixed messages tend to confuse children or make them skeptical toward adult authority. Especially if adults hope to instill children with strong values of modesty, self-respect, and respect for others — values that become very important through the trials of puberty and adolescence — adults should teach by example and refrain from the disrespectful practice of bottom-slapping.

Conclusion
It is not disputed that spanking has a sexual side as well as a punitive side. Indeed, our popular culture and media suggest there is wide awareness of this fact, however unspoken. Society has nonetheless failed to squarely address the serious implications of spanking’s punitive/sexual duality. Considering the power of sex to corrupt, along with the coercive nature of punishment, we should be alarmed at the very idea of discipline through spanking – all the more so when it is directed at a group of people as powerless, fragile and unsuspecting as children.

EXPERTS’ QUOTES
“Spanking on the buttocks can produce definitely erotic sensations, including sexual orgasm, in some children. Some of these children have been known to cause themselves to be spanked, by misconducting themselves on purpose and by pretending distress while receiving the desired ‘punishment’... The frequency with which this happens is not known, although it may not be altogether rare... The spankings in these cases may have been given for the adult’s own perverted gratification (‘sadism’); or at least there might have been culpable awareness and toleration of the child’s sexual reaction on the part of the adult. ...Only some decades ago perverts masquerading as governesses or tutors were reportedly anything but rare in some European countries.”
J. F. Oliven, M.D. Sexual Hygiene and Pathology (1965)

“In many cases, the avowed disciplinary value of flagellation in schools and colleges was a mere pretense to enable sadists to secure sexual titillation.”
George Ryley Scott, historian, sociologist, anthropologist. The History of Corporal Punishment (1938)

“When a child is hit on the buttocks... [t]his kind of violent touch can be sexualized in the child’s mind not only because of a real flow of blood into the genitalia, but also because of a longing for intimacy with the parent: if painful physical touch is the only fulfillment of that longing, then this can “feel good.”
Shere Hite, sex researcher, sociopsychologist. The Hite Report on the Family (1995)

“These are the realities that most of us remain eager to deny... So long as children are beaten by adults, the obsessions with domination and submission, with power and authority, with shame and humiliation, with painful pleasure – all hallmarks of sadomasochism – will remain an enduring consequence of the ordinary violence and coercion done in the name of discipline... Sadomasochism is not an aberration; it is inherent in corporal punishment...”
Philip Greven, professor of history. Spare the Child (1990)

“I have had constantly to do with neurotics in whom sadistic feelings were first aroused by corporal punishment; after the sadistic impulse thus awakened has been repressed and forms the starting points of very malignant aberrations about which it would be very disingenuous to aver that they would have developed without the free use of the rod... The number of those who are harmed through beating, especially upon the buttocks, is undoubtedly very great... Even one who passionately contemns sexuality will hardly be inclined to deny that the corporal punishment induced well-marked sexual stimulation—although the gluteal region is not within the domain of the genital organs.”
Oskar Pfister, physician, psychoanalyst. Love in Children and its Aberrations (1924)

“Frequent spankings, too, may have a negative impact on sex development. Because of the proximity of the sex organs, a child may get sexually aroused when spanked. Or he may so enjoy the making up that follows the punishment that he will seek suffering as a necessary prelude to love. There are many adult couples who seem to need a good fight before a good night.”
Dr. Haim G. Ginott, child psychologist. Between Parent and Child (1966)

“Advocates of corporal punishment in schools should examine very carefully the weight of evidence now available and, particularly in light of the pornographic component, consider whether they can justify the continuation of a system with such a capacity for exciting unhealthy interest.”
British Psychological Society, “Report on Corporal Punishment in Schools” (1980)

“Being beaten excites children sexually because it is an intense excitation of the erogenous zones of the skin of the buttocks and of the muscles below the skin...”
Otto Fenichel, M.D. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (1945)

“Ever since Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions, it has been well known to all educationalists that the painful stimulation of the skin of the buttocks is one of the erotic roots of the passive instrument of cruelty (masochism).”
Sigmund Freud. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, VII (1905)

“The adult flagellant fantasy, in short, always derives from the infantile one. As with all sexual perversions, we are dealing with a variety of arrested development...that puberty and subsequent experience have been unable to dislodge... We need to examine its roots in childhood...”
Ian Gibson, The English Vice (1979)

NEWS REPORTS
The New York Times (12/22/92)
The director of a Manhattan junior high school for children at risk of dropping out was arrested yesterday and charged with sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy who was a ninth-grader at the school, officials said... [Investigator Robert] Viteretti said that on two occasions [the director] asked the boy into his office, then closed and locked his door and pulled down the boy’s pants and underwear. ‘He would start spanking the boy for his own sexual gratification, and stroking and caressing his genitalia,’ he said...

The Sacramento Bee (3/26/95)
PHOENIX — The headmaster of a private school has been arrested and accused of forcing a 15-year-old girl to remove her clothing and kneel in prayer while he struck her with a wooden paddle. The girl’s mother witnessed the paddling, too frightened to do anything to stop it, Phoenix police said... The teen’s 6-year-old sister, waiting in the next room, also heard her sister’s cries for help, police said...

Her mother had brought her there to consider enrolling her in September.

Police say Michael William Wetton told the girl during her 75-minute ordeal on Feb. 24 that he wanted her to understand corporal punishment, which is used to discipline students at the school... After Wetton’s arrest, some parents directed anger at the police... “The Bible says to use the rod,” [school board member Rosemary] Rice said, adding that the arrest “is an assault on Christian beliefs.”...

As part of the orientation, Wetton reportedly took the girl to a room alone and told her to take off her clothes. Crying, she removed everything but her bra and panties. Wetton then struck her once with a wooden paddle. Wetton then reportedly forced the girl to disrobe completely, made her kneel as if in prayer and struck her across the buttocks. Then, police say, he forced her to grab the edge of a table, spread her legs and submit to another swat. Finally, he made her bow down to him and recite the Lord’s Prayer.

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
(8/19/97)
ELYRIA—Raymond Boyle could get two years in prison after pleading guilty yesterday to child endangering for spanking his teenage daughters with their pants down.

Gary A. Crow, executive director of Lorain County Children Services, said the case shows how blurry the line can be between discipline and abuse.

Ohio law permits use of reasonable corporal punishment, but prosecutors said Boyle’s methods were a mental risk to his daughters, 15 and 13...

Amherst police Detective Alex Molnar said Boyle, 39, required his daughters to strip naked from the waist down before spanking them last year.

Officials said one girl was spanked three times, with the first in January 1995 and the last in April 1996; and the other was spanked in April 1996.

Molnar said they confided the humiliation to a school counselor after the April incident. Molnar said the girls were punished by their father repeatedly for minor things, including misbehaving on the school bus or disobeying his rules...

The News-Times (Danbury, CT)
(12/3/96)
LITCHFIELD, Conn. (AP) - A little league coach accused of repeatedly spanking a little girl after pulling down her pants has been charged with sexual assault.

Ronald Ellis, 30, of New Hartford, was in Bantam Superior Court on Monday. He was released on a written promise to appear in court.

Ellis has been charged with fourth-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor in the October incidents...

The Gazette (Montreal) (10/31/00)
Amanda Green was being a naughty 7-year-old and knew it on that day 13 years ago when she played with the water and climbed on the toilets in the girls’ bathroom at Greendale elementary school in Pierrefonds.

She and her girlfriend were caught by their teacher, and Amanda knew shewas in for it when she was sent to the principal’s office.

David Wadsworth, principal of the school, immediately said he would see the girls individually. When it was Amanda’s turn, the Grade 2 student nervously entered Wadsworth’s office.

What she had done was wrong, Wadsworth told her, and now he was going to let her pick one of two choices for a punishment: either he would tell her parents and teachers what she had done and take away certain privileges, such as recess and gym; or she could take off her pants and panties and let him spank her as he would his own child, and no one need ever know what had happened.

“Can’t I leave my underwear on?” asked Amanda. No, she vividly remembers Wadsworth telling her, embarrassment is part of the punishment.

Amanda, a feisty child, knew she shouldn’t have to remove her clothes. She didn’t like either punishment, she told him, defiantly. Perhaps taken aback by someone willing to stand up to him, Wadsworth told her to leave his office and never again brought up the incident.

Amanda’s friend chose the spanking.

Wadsworth has pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography - pictures and videos of children being spanked - as well as to sexual assault and gross indecency against eight former students at a Pincourt elementary school. Amanda Green, now a Concordia University student, finds herself haunted by how many other children might have chosen to be spanked on a bare bottom by a man everyone believed was a sweetheart principal and a terrific teacher...

A letter read on BBC Radio 4’s “Any Answers?” (4/84)
“My partner is a retired headmaster of a prep school where he had the power to beat any small boy. He now spends a great deal of time and energy in contacting young men and women who are willing to be beaten, as this is the only way he can get sexually aroused.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer (4/10/95)
...He is 61, small, heavy, not particularly noticeable. Barbara, his second wife of 15 years, knows about his addiction and continuing recovery.

“If he’s late getting home, I get nervous,” she says. “I’m not concerned about him picking up a woman. I’m scared he’ll get caught being an exhibitionist.”

His father liked spanking him. It was humiliating and ritualistic, with his father always saying the slap of his hand on his son’s bottom “sounded like a drum or timpani.” His mother, 15 years younger than her husband, kept quiet. The result: “I’ve exhibited myself constantly with the attendant fantasy of a punishment scenario.” Spanking is what he sought. In fact, his first arrest was for soliciting two girls to spank him...

SUGGESTED READING
Charles, Jeffrey, Sin, Sex and Spanking School-Aged Children (1994). Online at www.nospank.net/s-chrls.htm.

Freud, Sigmund, “A Child is being Beaten: A Contribution to the Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversion” (1919). Reprinted in the Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. (Consult a university library.)

Gibson, Ian, The English Vice. London: Duckworth, 1978.

Green, Gerald and Green, Caroline, S-M: The Last Taboo. New York: Grove Press, 1974.

Greven, Philip, Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse. New York: Random House, 1991.

Hyman, I. A., Reading, Writing and the Hickory Stick: The Appalling Story of Physical and Psychological Violence in American Schools. Boston: Lexington Books, 1990.

Krafft-Ebing, Richard von, Psychopathia Sexualis. (1886) (Translated from the German. Consult a university library.)

Maurer, Adah, Paddles Away: A Psychological Study of Physical Punishment in Schools. Palo Alto: R&E Research Associates, 1981.

Miller, Alice, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child Rearing and the Roots of Violence. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983.

Newell, Peter, Children are People Too: The Case Against Physical Punishment. London: Bedford Square Press, 1989.

Scott, George Ryley, The History of Corporal Punishment. London: T. Werner Laurie, Ltd., 1938, Republication: Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1974.

“Spanking Can Be Sexual Abuse” (Compilation). Online at www. nospank.net/101.htm

Straus, Murray A., Beating the Devil out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families. New York: Free Press, 1994.

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Narrative Therapy

Narrative Therapy was developed by Michael White and David Epston. Its central idea is:

The person never is the problem. The person has a problem.

A problem is something you have, not something you are. You don’t have to change your nature. You have to fight the influence of the problem on your life.

All of us need to select from the huge amount of information the world throws at us all the time. We need to organise what we see, hear, feel and remember into a meaningful ‘story’ or ‘picture’. This always introduces biases: we notice and remember things we find interesting, important, and in line with our beliefs, expectations and prejudices. We ignore, forget or play down things that are contrary to the way we see the world. So, things we notice and remember tend to confirm and strengthen our story about ourselves and our world.

This is fine for most people, because they live reasonably happily within their world. Problems arise when a person is stuck in a story that makes him/her, or others, unhappy. Examples are stories involving beliefs like:

"I am a violent person, have a short fuse (and can’t help it)".
"I am no good, useless, have no worth, no-one could possibly love me."
"The world is a terribly dangerous place and I am helpless in the face of its threats."
They all involve the belief that "there is something wrong with me".
Narrative therapy is a search for events which prove these beliefs to be false. There are always exceptions: events that occurred, but didn’t fit the story, so were ignored, played down or forgotten. They can be used to "write a new story", one that separates the problem from the way the person sees himself/herself. Once the problem is found and named, it can be fought. In the process, the person does not have to change. S/he discovers a past, an identity, that was always there, but hidden by the biases of the previous story. The new story liberates the person from the shackles of the problem.
I think in terms of the concepts of Narrative Therapy, and talk its language to clients.