NOTE: THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BINAH'S BI-WEEKLY COLUMN THERAPY: A SNEAK PEEK INSIDE
I really need to have a heart-to-heart talk to certain somebodies. And it may be you I am talking to, so listen up.
Lots of people are in therapy today.
No, I am not getting into a discussion about why there are more people than ever today in therapy. All I am going to say on the subject is that people are refusing to be miserable any more than is strictly necessary. So today if someone is suffering, they will seek help to alleviate the suffering. Often with great results.
Gone are the days when children were socially isolated, bullied, experienced nauseous feelings before every test, or had headaches every time the Chumash teacher walked in and nobody cared or noticed. Gone are the days when marriages just coasted along, or strained relationships between family members were accepted as status quo.
Today, if there is a possibility of positive change (and there always is!), people go for help. People take their children for help. Children even take their parents for help. Neighbors, teachers, spouses, siblings. All are reaching out for help. For themselves. For loved ones.
Once, I sat at a table at a simchah. I said, “If you look around this table, everyone single person here appears happy and successful. And often they are. But somebody in their family is not. And if I tell you that every third person sitting there has somebody in their family going for therapy, I would be grossly mistaken. Every second person has somebody in their immediate family going for therapy, and every single person has somebody from their extended family going for therapy (whether you know it or not)!”
And I love when the people I speak to exclaim in surprise that they actually do not believe it, because they are often unaware that their very own sibling, parent, child, or spouse is seeing a therapist.
Enough with all this.
Who am I speaking to right now?
To the unmarried adult client in therapy, and their parents.
Often, an older teen enters therapy for a variety of reasons that is impacting her functioning. She can be a great kid. Wonderful parents. Beautiful family. Sometimes despite the love the parents have for their child, there is a lousy relationship. Sometimes the parents are part of the problem, sometimes not. Whatever the issue is, the parents actually sacrifice much to send their suffering adult child to therapy to help her. And guess what? Therapy helps.
The client is happier socially, capable of getting a job, talks about marriage.
And miracles of miracles, the client gets engaged.
To a great guy from a beautiful family and everyone is thrilled.
And she is yanked out of therapy.
Because it’s a stigma to be in therapy and nobody wants to ruin this kallah’s chances to be happily married. And keeping a secret about therapy is wrong. So the best option? Terminate therapy! She is engaged anyway, so who needs therapy? Or she is in the shidduchim parshah, so she’s done. Wasn’t that the goal of therapy anyway: to make her marriage material?
No. No. No.
This is precisely the very worst time to take a client out of therapy.
If a client terminates therapy, it needs to be done because she is finished and has achieved her goals. Not because she is entering shidduchim, or she is engaged, and it is a secret she cannot tell her chassan, prospective chassan or new husband.
Often, the issues a client comes into therapy with are ones that are either exacerbated with new stressors, or must be reworked with a new stressor. For example, if a high school student suffers from anxiety, from social issues, from anger management, from indecisiveness, therapy will be very effective at that time. But often, if the new stressors come up too soon after, such as a set of parents divoring, a new move, graduating, entering the work force, becoming engaged, married, or pregnant for the first time, the results have not been fully solidified and may come up again in a different form.
The good news is that the foundation of therapy allows for quicker and better results, but the new stressors most definitely need to be addressed.
As Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski once said, “Marriage is not a hospital.”
Being engaged or newly married is not a solution to a person’s issues. It is often a stressor that can actually exacerbate the issue itself!
Or, if a person is in middle of therapy, the issues of marriage need to be addressed in ways that was not relevant beforehand when the client was in high school or before shidduchim.
Practically speaking, what is family to do when therapy is stigmatized and continuing therapy can cause one of two problems? Its stigma can jeopardize a girl’s shidduch prospects. And if continued secretly, during the engagement or after marriage, it can undermine the very foundation of that new relationship which should NOT have secrets.
This is a very tough question.
But not tough enough that there are no solutions.
In my experience, when working with such a situation, continuing therapy and revealing the secret does not impact on shidduchim. But it needs to be addressed case by case on an individual basis. Many factors play a role in how to achieve this. It is important to assess the culture to which this client belongs. If she is engaged after one b’show or three and then does not meet her chassan until the wedding as in Chassidish circles, or if she is meeting or talking weekly as in the Litvish circles; or any other variation thereof.
It goes without saying that the guidance of a Rav before shidduchim, during shidduchim, and once a girl (or boy) is engaged is crucial. But just as crucial is the collaboration between parents/client, Rav, and therapist who can each contribute to understand the nature of the situation and best address it in context of continued need for therapy, and the problem of stigma, the detriment of secrecy, and a desire for a successful marriage. When to say. What to say. Why to say.
I speak to the parents of these clients. To the clients themselves. I speak to the potential in-laws of these clients. I tell them that they have still gotten the best shidduch.
And I will tell them that if they cannot work this out, often, neither will the marriages.
LINKEDIN PROFILE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mindy-blumenfeld-a8067583
My book, Therapy, Shmerapy, can be found in bookstores or online