Posts in self-care
Therapists and Tone Policing

Last week I listened to some podcasts that a male “sex addiction expert” produced. They feature some of the more progressive female voices in the still-prevailing mainstream of partner care. This particular male “sex addiction expert” is re-marketing himself as an advocate for women and the partner experience. But he still can’t help but complain about wives and partners who present "angry."

    Is this starting to sound or feel familiar? We're too angry? I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it with therapists who default to tone policing when you finally share what your husband or boyfriend did to you and the destructive impact that has had on your life. This therapist, like so many of these cookie cutter treatment practitioners, uses our anger as his excuse for not hearing the story we tell—a story that might compromise the assumptions that keep that misogynist treatment model humming along making money. So, instead, when faced with the reality and the potential for women’s anger, sex addiction therapists become the “tone police."

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