26. Crucible Therapy with Dr. Dave Jenkins.
James Christensen: https://jamesmchristensen.com
Transcript:
James: I was wondering if you'd be willing to tell me some of your memories of Dr. Schnarch. What first impressed you about him and what your relationship with him was like?
Dave: Thinking about my relationship with Dr. Schnarch, I met him as David. I actually started listening to some of his recordings prior to knowing who he was. To be honest, I don't know how I stumbled across his material, but I found his website, ordered his material and started listening and then started reading his books. And it was one of those things where it's like, this guy makes total sense to me. It's counterintuitive, which is oftentimes how my brain operates. I said, I gotta learn more, I gotta know more. And so as I was on his website, I learned that he was going to be on the east coast and this was back in 2015.
And that particular seminar was on affairs, dealing with affairs. And historically, David had always been out on the west coast or in Colorado. So when I learned that he was going to be close to where I was, it was a no-brainer. I said, I gotta get there. I gotta go and meet this guy and learn from him. And so lo and behold, went to the week long seminar and I was relatively quiet, trying not to be a fan boy, but relatively quiet. Along the way, David has a way of pulling you into his orbit and asking questions, and I got to know him a little bit better. He had asked me to fill in as a role play by the way. He had asked me to fill in for one of Barbara's—and you know, Barbara Fairfield, another person that I highly respect in the crucible arena. He had asked me to fill in as the husband for a client that she was working with. And so Barbara gave the rundown of the husband's characteristics, the husband's typical profile, how he would react. And then of course, Barbara played the wife. And so David took that opportunity to interview Barbara and I as the couple. And so we had to interact along that way. And I will tell you, watching him in real time, and for him, it wasn't just an act, it was him on how he deals with clients. That was phenomenal. That was very inspirational. Especially being on the other side as if I were a client. And so ever since then, I realized the impact that he has. And so that was my first introduction and I said, you know what? I need more.
James: What was so different about how he dealt with clients? Because I never got to meet him. But everyone who talks about him talks about him as someone who had a special gift, and when he worked with clients, when he worked with someone in a close, close setting, there was something different. There was something special. What was it?
Dave: All right, so let me answer that in two ways. If you know David, he's very abrasive, very direct, very harsh, in your face, and this is just the way it is. But in the back of my mind I was like, how is this guy gonna work as a clinician? But when he sat in the chair, he was able to see and be compassionate and draw you in without being harsh or critical. And he had a very kind way about presenting himself and he could see through the BS. And so that part made him, I believe, very approachable and very effective, and being able to see behind the masks that people often present.
James: So you would say that, what I hear you saying is two things. First, though he was quite abrupt and abrasive, when he was in close contact with the person, he was not that way. That makes sense to me. And then the other part is just being able to see through BS and hold onto what's real and help other people make contact with what's real.
Dave: Yes, David had a really good way of conceptualizing what people need, and also timing on when to be able to deliver. And then also how to challenge folks to not take things at the first glance. Amongst colleagues, amongst peers and teaching, he came across as very abrasive and his approach was the best. His approach was superior. It was one of those things that most people took offense if they had another favorite tool. For example, he was always harsh on those that came from the attachment theory. And so he would always really drill down on that. But when he did that in public, it came across as if he was stepping on those. But I will say, the more I got to know him in his later years, he moved far away from that stance of his crucible approach being superior to recognizing that it's a place of different level of maturity. And when folks grow and mature, they will naturally begin to see, okay, this approach works. So the basis of crucible is the Bowenian, more of the differentiation model as opposed to attachment or insecure model that attachment has.
And so with that stance, as he matured and grew, it was no longer about using other approaches to show the difference. It was just about, okay, here's crucible and here is the difference. And so in the early stages of when David was developing his model and being able to teach, it was often used as a comparison to what was popular amongst that day. And so since a lot of the newer clinicians were coming in from attachment theory, naturally his presentations gravitated towards, here's the difference between the two. And so as David matured and grew, it was no longer one of those battles he even went to anymore. And when people would bring up, well, what about, he would say, okay, however, here's where Crucible fills that gap. And so he would move from that stance. Which made his presentations later on much more palatable, but much more open. And so it was no longer as abrasive, and then it was easier for newer folks coming on board to be able to say, oh, okay, I see where he is coming from.
James: I know you're a man of faith. How does your crucible work interact with your belief?
Dave: Oh, that's a great question. Yes, I am a man of faith. Using the differentiation model and crucible model was always really running consistent with my faith. Even though David was a Buddhist and practicing Buddhist, his beginnings, he was Jewish, but he said he converted to Buddhism. And it was funny because he shared this with me and he said, yeah, this is what all Jews do. Once we mature and grow up, we become Buddhists. And so he would always make that joke. And that for him, he said it made sense, but I never found any inconsistencies from crucible to Christianity.
Now, there were oftentimes that I would translate in my head on how this applies, how it didn't. The part of being responsible for the choices we make, growth and maturity, differentiation and looking at the different triangles that often pop up, it always made sense for me. So I never saw that as something that was an impediment, even with my Christian beliefs.
James: What was the biggest impact that he had on you personally?
Dave: The biggest impact, we've had quite a few impacts. David and I, when we first got together and met, we had a disagreement and I confronted him on it. I won't say what the disagreement is because that's not fair to him because he's not here to be able to give his side of it. But I will say that when I confronted him on it, he said some things to me. He said, I said it that way because I thought you could handle it. And then when I mapped you out, I think I was accurate. The second time we met, he came back. He said, I thought about what you had said to me the last time. Because I came back to his conferences even though we had a disagreement. Some people would say, well, why would you go back? He had something I wanted. And whether or not we had a disagreement or words, I wasn't gonna let that get in the way of me getting what I wanted. He had some knowledge and information I wanted from him. But nonetheless, the second time I came back, we met.
And you may have heard this before, but I'll fill in the gaps. David is a big hugger. And so he would come up and when David gives you a hug, it is not a side bro hug. It is not a two second, let me let go of you hug. David had a way of a whole body hug, draw you in and I think I count to at least 10 seconds before he would let go. And sometimes it's like one of those uncomfortable long hugs. But that was his, he said, I just wanted us to be present. And so when we met the third time rather, he gave me that long bear hug and he whispered into my ear. I've been thinking about what you said the last time we interacted, and I apologize. He said you were right. And then he says, I'm glad you came back. After that, we just had a general understanding.
And for the longest time, David didn't know that I had worked in law enforcement. And when he discovered, this is probably our third or fourth main encounter, that I worked in law enforcement and how I was using his approach in law enforcement, he was excited. He says, I'm excited to hear that my approach is going that far and being used in that way. And so he saw light years ahead of even some of the things that I was encountering, and so that was really impactful as well. I also shared with him how I used it within the prison setting. And this was prior to my exposure to Crucible, but it was just a natural fit. And so as he and I discussed how I had used Crucible even before then, not having the same language, that was also very impactful. And so we continue to expand on that.
In particular, I'll share with you, we talked a lot about mind mapping and being able to, in the prison we call it reading the room, situational awareness. We call that in the military and in law enforcement, we often talk a lot about situational awareness and being able to read others. And so the examples I used for him, how I explained it in the law enforcement setting is that your safety is paramount when you are reading whether or not a suspect is going to run, fight, or basically surrender. And so he was tickled to be able to hear how when I explained to others using the examples of law enforcement about mind mapping, he's like, yep, that makes total sense. And then later in the years we also started talking about how as a black person, or a person of color or minority in today's world and culture, mind mapping has always been a part of our survival. And so when I met David and started talking about mind mapping and reading the room and situational awareness, it was kind of like, oh yeah. Yeah, we do that often. And then also the same thing when it talks about impression management, managing other people's impression of you, rather than being authentic, rather than being who you are. So these are some of the conversations that we had and David and I, we did record one of our conversations and that's out there as well to be found where it was really impactful, just being able to go over how racism and mind mapping, and how that plays out. Good, bad or indifferent, just a survival skill.
James: Let me ask you a different way. How have you found Crucible useful in working in the law enforcement community?
Dave: So within the law enforcement community, there's a lot of trauma, and a lot of unspoken trauma, undealt with trauma. And so when I work with agents, investigators, police officers, first responders, it's really helping them settle themselves. But the way trauma plays out and the way they're on edge is that becomes their typical norm. But when they go home, it's hard for them to hold their relationships together or even trust that their partner has their back or be able to just let their guard down. And so when I often use or work with individuals, I have that approach from the Crucible and just helping them lean into, "Hey, here's the decisions you're making, here's the effect you're having on your family." I also use a lot of mind mapping, how they're constantly reading the room. But one of the things that many people that experience trauma, they're not consciously aware of how other people are also reading them. And so we talk about in their own relationships, how do you think your family's reading you as you're reading them, as you're mapping them? What's their map of you? And so getting them, turning up the heat, allowing them to actually allow themselves to be seen authentically. And then also sometimes dealing with the things they are exposed to that are not always pleasant. And even though they want to protect their families from the traumas that they see, they still vicariously bring it home through their actions. And so it's very one of those things where when you work with those individuals, helping them see themselves, but also be kind to themselves and deal with themselves in the presence of their family or using their family as well. There's where you can gain a little bit of traction and help them to be able to move forward and not have that learned sense of helplessness where they oftentimes feel.
James: I really like this situational awareness and then, mind mapping and mind masking in a family or relationship setting?
Dave: And mind twisting.
James: And mind twisting, yeah. Where especially if I have a job like in law enforcement, your job relies on your ability to read, to map, and to mask, both. And when you come home, there is going to be a price to be paid if you continue masking to the same extent you would naturally mask at work.
Dave: And sometimes do it in a way that works to only your advantage and you're assuming that your partner's not mapping you. And so you might try and twist it a little bit or use it to your advantage. Oh yeah.
James: Tell me more about twisting.
Dave: Mind twisting, it's sort of like, well, what happened was... It's leaving out details in your favor. It's leaving your partner with one impression, but you're doing something totally different. Another parallel might be gaslighting. It's taking someone's reality and twisting it and distorting it rather than being open and honest and forthright. And many people do that. Yeah.
James: So gaslighting is trying to make it seem like you are crazy instead of dealing with the reality of what your preferences are or what your observations are.
Dave: It could be even as subtle as, "No, no, no. That's not really what I meant. And you're misinterpreting what I said." So it's like twisting it for the letter of the law to your own advantage. And so it's mind twisting, as subtle or in the extreme.
James: We all do that to a certain extent. In some families, it has become almost like the national pastime, like some families are just so twisty, whereas it's just everyone is used to doing it all the time and we don't even realize what we're doing.
Dave: Oh, absolutely. My other favorite is sarcasm.
James: Yeah. Tell me about that. What's so harmful about sarcasm? Isn't it harmless?
Dave: Oh, I love it because sarcasm, and this is my definition, sarcasm is anger that leaks. You're trying to hold it in, but it comes out on the side. David used to tell the story, he says, sarcasm is no fun if the other person doesn't get the joke. See, sarcasm only works so long as I can map that you are going to get the hidden meaning. If you get the hidden meaning, got it. Now, if you call me out on the hidden meaning, the beauty of sarcasm is I could just say, "What, you can't take a joke?" I can jump back to the joke part. So now it leaves you stuck.
And so sarcasm is another way of mind twisting, but it also has a double message. Now if you've ever tried to be sarcastic with someone that doesn't get the secondary message, you realize that the joke's on you. Now, I always give a joke when I talk about sarcasm and my wife is really good because she'll pick up on my sarcasm and she'll say "What? I don't get it," which leaves me with, do I now have to explain it? But even though she winks, she does get it. So it's the banter that goes back and forth. Yeah.
James: I've seen people who defend themselves and they'll say something mean and then they'll say, "Oh, I was just joking." and it's really important to stop that and be like, "No, wait a second." The thing you're calling a joke, first of all, no one laughed. Second of all, it didn't make anybody feel good or enjoy themselves. So you're calling it a joke, but the intended impact was to make things worse for the people around you, not to make things better.
Dave: It's a one way joke, and it did make somebody feel good. The one inflicting it.
James: The person inflicting it. Yeah. It's like a jab, not a joke.
Dave: David would call that marital sadism.
James: Yeah. Tell me more about it. It's such a fun phrase. Tell me more about marital sadism.
Dave: You know, marital sadism is the part that you get the schadenfreude from, from making your partner miserable. You get to inflict it and people enjoy a little bit of pain and misery.
James: And you're gonna pretend it wasn't on purpose.
Dave: Absolutely. Unless you're really good at it and then you say, "Okay, you caught me. Yeah, you're right." You lean into it. But married people don't always mean the best for their partner, especially when they're angry with them and they can't directly tell them they're angry because they map out that their partner can't handle the direct anger. So it goes underground, indirect. Marital sadism. But I learned all those things from just working with David a bit and being able to help couples see that dynamic between the two. And then how do you turn up the heat with the couple that is there, helping them to become a little bit more authentic and say, look, can you stand on your own two feet and say that, say what you really mean and what would happen if you did say that? Yeah.
James: Why is it so important to turn up the heat? Why is that such a critical part of working with a couple?
Dave: Using the metaphor of the Crucible, as a therapist being that crucible that helps couples to be able to boil off the impurities, turning up the heat is one of those phrases that just says that we're going to maintain a little bit of accountability or intensity or just stick with it and not rescue someone prematurely. And as a person in the helping profession, it is so easy and tempting to rescue people and not let people feel discomfort. But I've grown to the place of realizing that growth comes from discomfort. And so turning up the heat is the metaphor of allowing people to be a little bit uncomfortable in order to grow.
So when I work with couples, I use the analogy of going to the gym. And I explain to them, can I make gains in the gym if I have a spotter that continuously takes the weight off of me as I'm bench pressing? And most people, they understand the metaphor and they say, no, not really. But then can I make gains if I have a spotter that doesn't take the weight off of me and protect me from injuring myself when I need help? No, there's no trust there. But as a spotter, being able to recognize I'm not going to take the weight off of you, but I'll keep the weight from going back down. So as a person pushing, I get more gains. And so as a therapist, I will often take that role of, I'm not gonna take the weight off of you, I'm not gonna take the heat off of you. You gotta do your own work. But I'm also going to not let you injure yourself and will point out when things are self-defeating. So, there's where I look at being a crucible therapist, allowing people to make their own changes in growth without getting in the way and without rescuing them prematurely. And when I'm coaching other therapists, that's the aspect I take to them as well. I say, "Hey, don't give too much. Don't get too ahead of your clients." David used to always say, don't outpace your client. Just be kind of a step behind. Because sometimes when we outpace our clients and we give them the answers too soon, they didn't earn it. It's not very meaningful.
James: They're not ready for it. That's something I've struggled with is not giving people the answer too soon, before the soil is fertile, before the ground has been prepared. Sometimes people need to struggle a little bit to figure things out on their own.
Dave: Yeah, I agree. And that's learning to position people or move them and gain traction with them. I think that's the goal of a good crucible therapist is being able to maintain that traction and those moments of meeting, just having that, "ah, we are there." I used to use the saying, and maybe you can help me out with this. You can lead a horse to water. Do you know how the rest of that goes?
James: But you can't make him drink.
Dave: Beautiful. So part two of that saying is sometimes you have to learn how to make the horse thirsty.
James: Yeah, no, that is our job. How have you grown as a therapist over the years?
Dave: As a therapist, I've become much more patient. As a young therapist, army background, you know, problem solving, let's get to it. Move. And I would get impatient with my clients as I'm seeing it's right there. This is what you need to do. And so I would often outpace my clients, as I'm looking three or four moves ahead. But I've learned the older I get to slow down and to allow my clients to be uncomfortable. I don't have to have the answers for them. And sometimes even when I do have the answers, I don't have to give it to them. And so that's probably the hardest part is watching people suffer or defeat themselves.
James: Well, one of David's four points of balance was to tolerate discomfort for growth, which it is. It's so interesting that that also applies to what happens in the therapy session.
Dave: Absolutely. That was probably one of the most impactful things. David used to always say that we can only help our clients up to our highest level of differentiation. And so he said it was incumbent upon us as therapists to continue to grow and differentiate, otherwise we will stunt the people we work with. And I found that to be true over the years. As I've grown, I do things differently. And I'll tell you, when I first recognized that, looking back on some of my early, early clients, I was like, "Oh man, how could I have done that? I missed this." Yeah. I was at that point of, I need to call them back up and at least fix things. But I gave them what I had at that time, at that level of growth and maturity. And so even now, I realize I can only help my clients up to where I'm at now, and I hope in the next four or five years I can go even further than where I am now.
James: And one of my favorite things about Crucible training is the emphasis is about 90% on helping me become a better person and about 10% on learning techniques and procedures. But it's mostly about personal transformation, and I know every time I go to Crucible training, I can anticipate that I will come back a better man.
Dave: You speak a lot of truth there. Going to other trainings, you're absolutely right. The latest techniques, you know, how do you phrase things? And even now in my current position as a supervisor of many clinicians within a law enforcement environment, when I'm teaching and training, it's not about technique. It's about presence. It's about how do we show up? And for quite a few of my folks that have not been trained in crucible therapy, it's very frustrating. They don't always get it. And so I have given them a couple of David's books to read and say, "If you want to have an idea of the foundation, start here and then let's talk a little bit." But there are times where I do have to give some techniques. And so yes, we do give techniques based on our current policies, here's what we're working on. But when it comes to the nitty gritty, I often have a quote with them that I say, "Not all therapists are created equal." Because I can recognize when some of my clinicians actually show up and they're present and they're authentic and they're grounded. And you could tell they have the four points of balance. They're just working it. And then I could tell the ones that are just faking or going through the motions or trying to figure things out as they go. Yeah. And there is a definite difference.
James: It has been beneficial. You know, like you, I was military first and therapist second, and it's been beneficial for me to go through therapy training, especially crucible training, just as a way for me to deal with stuff that I needed to deal with in my own life and my own marriage.
Dave: Oh, absolutely. I could definitely tell you this is not a journey I've gone on alone, also being married as well. And so I ambushed my wife. The first time I had one of David's recordings, it was on "The Secrets of a Passionate Marriage," and we were on a trip driving. I was like, I got someone I want you to listen to. And so lo and behold. It was like, oh, wow. And so that started our discussions early on. And so vicariously, she's learned about David through me. My wife is not a therapist. My wife is in the dental field and so what she knows about therapy is what I bring home and expose her to, or ambush her with, so to speak. But that was the early stages there. But from there, lots of growth, lots of discussions, conversations, tough conversations. And I wouldn't say just tough for her, but it's tough for me because now how do I hold myself accountable? How do I endure and have a tough conversation and not rescue? And how do I deal with this guy that wants to inflict the marital sadism or schadenfreude or be sarcastic? Yeah, absolutely.
James: Well, I'm grateful to my wife and for my marriage because this combination of crucible therapy for me, becoming a crucible therapist and staying married to my wife and now her becoming a crucible therapist has been so beneficial to me where I don't know how else I would've dealt with my own problems that I was facing. They were really quite daunting, and I'm really grateful. It's been a real blessing in my life.
Dave: It's great to have an ally, but also scary to have a real ally.
James: Yeah, a real ally. It's not kind or loving to leave your partner in the dark about something they really should address.
Dave: Well, yeah, now you're talking about the collaborative alliances that David used to talk about. Whereas many relationships start off as a collusive alliance, but really having that collaborative alliance, it's not about saying a nice, flowery thing, it's being authentic, being honest, which is hard, but it takes courage to do that as well.
James: Yeah. I had a chance to do that today. It's another thing I'm grateful for because there was something that I felt was really important to say and I said it, and it was difficult, but my wife handled it well. And just the fact that she and I can have that conversation that even last year we couldn't have had is a huge blessing.
Dave: Oh, absolutely. And having those conversations when we're not regressed is a good thing. But in the midst of a regression, oh man, it's tough.
James: It is tough. But there is this path. Finding the path has been so beneficial to me. I am content as long as I can see that there is more path ahead of me and that there's somewhere more for me to go, and there's a way to progress. For so many years I didn't see a clear path ahead of me, and that was really frustrating to me.
Dave: When you say path, let me clarify. Are you thinking of an end point, a destination?
James: No, I don't think that. I just want... the way I think about it is at the end of the day, I look in the mirror and I say, it's okay for me to be where I am. What kind of a man do I want to become tomorrow? I accept myself fully where I am today and I want to change, and I want to become a better man tomorrow. And that's the path. And I don't see any end point there. That's fine. If we were going through a beautiful mountain valley, I would want to have an idea where the path goes, or at least if there's no path, where am I headed? Am I just wandering around in circles or am I headed in a direction? There doesn't have to be a destination, but I do enjoy having a direction.
Dave: Yes. And that's why I like the metaphor David used to use of the Mariana Trench, just striving for the surface. You know, rather than just kind of drifting along. And so I agree with you, just having movement. I often get bored when I feel like I'm stagnant, but through the crucible approach, it is nice to be able to strive to move forward and then have mile markers that say, okay, I'm still moving as opposed to I'm drowning, I'm sinking, I'm going under. Yeah.
James: I do expect to be challenged for the rest of my life. I think that that's part and parcel of marriage and part of being a marriage therapist. I think I can expect to have continuous challenges on that front, but I embrace that. That's something I look forward to.
Dave: I totally agree.
James: Yeah. Dave, I think maybe we should leave it there. What do you say?
Dave: I appreciate you being able to reach out to me and having this conversation, so I agree this is a good place for us to land this ship.
James: It was a pleasure to talk to you, and I'll talk to you again soon.
Dave: Likewise.
