Tamara Cooper
My name is Tamara Cooper. I want to introduce myself and share how I ended up at Seeking Integrity: Los Angeles (SI:LA). I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT). I met Erin Snow, our Clinical Director, in the late summer of 2022. When I first met her, I felt an instant connection. I was training to become a CSAT at that time. I was passionate and excited about doing the newly learned sex addiction work, so when Erin called and mentioned a possible position opening with SI:LA, I was ecstatic. She shared that the position would be family support and working with the spouses and partners of the men in treatment. I would be the liaison between the spouses/partners and the treatment process, answering questions, offering support, and helping with boundaries and aftercare plans.
I was intimidated because I had not worked with betrayal trauma before, at least not in the acute crisis way that leads to inpatient treatment. I was also scared because I imagined partners experiencing intense pain and I was not sure how they would respond to me joining them right in the middle of such a personal and stormy part of their lives. Plus, do not forget, I had already decided how good I would be at working with the sex addicts with my new CSAT training. Ha!
But then I thought about it and I decided that none of this happened by mistake, and that I should trust the process. So I accepted the position. My plan was to work with the partners until I could grab the next available job working with the guys in treatment. It is so funny to even read that because things definitely did not go that way, and I am so grateful.
I started working at SI:LA in October of 2022 and, if I am honest, I did not think I would make it in this role. It is tough for me to explain, but it kind of felt like trying to juggle a burning stick, a car, and a can of gasoline while dropping none of them and not catching on fire. The work was sensitive and complex. It needed me to provide a soft and trustworthy place for partners’ pain to be held and contained, while also providing a solid and powerful place to help partners begin to set boundaries, feel empowered, and let go of the control that was keeping them safe.
Working with partners is an intricate dance that requires delicacy with the delivery of information, education, and support. Initially, I felt like I would come on too hard or too soft or too educational and I would inevitably upset or anger people. I could not figure out the balance. I would get stuck in my head worrying about what to say and how to say it, and I would lose myself in that space. But I knew that this work was important and needed, so I made the decision to get out of my own way and do it with all my heart.
In time, I found a steadiness that betrayal trauma seems to steal from betrayed partners. I worked on learning as much as I could about how important boundaries are for the transitions partners must make. I looked closely at how boundaries are oftentimes confused with requests or with rules. I then taught about how boundaries are crucial as protective measures that can help keep partners safe while allowing them to get better acquainted with being in their own bodies and building a much-needed sense of self they can turn to when making the choices for moving forward in healthy ways. The more I realized this is such empowering work for partners, who constantly feel as if the rug is about to be pulled out from under them, the more motivated I was to help them understand how to set and implement healthy boundaries.
I thought I had a good handle on trauma and its impact, but one day I happened upon an article about Jaak Panksepp, who’d conducted a study where he assessed rats playing before and after a tuft of cat fur was put in their habitat. The study found that after placing the cat fur in the habitat, the rats, who had been previously assessed as playing and “chirping” up to 50 times per five minutes, stopped playing completely. No play, no chirps. It took three days for the rats to begin playing at all, and the level at which the rats were willing to play never reached the pre cat fur levels. This basically says that the play systems/centers of the brain cannot be engaged while the fear systems/centers are engaged.
What does this have to do with betrayal trauma? Well, after I had been with SI:LA for a while and was feeling more comfortable and was more involved, I realized that there was a gap that was being missed. After the guys would leave treatment, they would often reach out and share things like: “My partner is so angry that she cannot give me grace to heal or try to get better,” and, “How can I ever make things better when my partner so miserable? She is never happy, she never smiles, so it feels like all this work I’m doing is for nothing.”
Panksepp’s rat study kept coming to mind when I heard these statements. The partners were experiencing a ton of fear and hypervigilance, so they could not get in touch with or engage in happiness and play. They were overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness, not because they did not want to be happy but because physically and emotionally they could not go there. They were stuck in the fear system. At that point, I realized we needed an extra layer of partners’ work.
I thought about how we have the guys to treatment, we have them join 12-step groups and get sponsors, we have them seeing therapists, and always the focus is on them getting better. Then I thought about the fact that if we do not always take the time to help the partners heal from the intense trauma they’ve experienced, and when that is the case we are missing a big piece of the puzzle.
I spoke to Erin and Tami VerHelst, our Chief Relationships Officer, about these thoughts and my dream to build a betrayal trauma intensive or retreat for partners, and the amazing group of people at SI:LA helped me do it. We have now had two amazing Empowered Women retreats to help betrayed partners, with a third retreat coming up in September. The women who’ve attended have validated the need for these intensive weekends, which mean the world to me, too. I am so proud of the work that the brave participants show up and do, and I am so honored to be able to be a part of it.
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If you or someone you care about is struggling with sex or porn addiction, help is available. Seeking Integrity offers inpatient treatment for sex and porn addicts, low-cost online workgroups for addicts and betrayed partners, as well as an Empowered Women retreat.