#11 - On Reintegrative Therapy

In this episode, Mr. Michael Gasparro from Dr. Nicolosi's Breakthrough Clinic joins me to talk about reintegrative therapy. We discuss cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), body work, how to navigate the gray zone and the scenario preceding the homosexual enactment, as well as grief work and the reintegrative therapy protocol. Would therapy help me address my same-sex attractions? How different is reintegrative therapy from what is known nowadays as conversion therapy? What resources are available for me online to access therapy? We examine these and other questions in this episode.

Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
- Reintegrative Therapy Association
- The Reintegrative Protocol
- The Breakthrough Clinic
- The International Federation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice (IFTCC)
- Alliance for Therapeutic Choice
- "Free to Love" Documentary

Transcript

Waheed:   0:00
This is Waheed Jensen, and you are listening to "A Way Beyond the Rainbow". Assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi ta'ala wa barakatuh, and welcome to the 11th episode of "A Way Beyond the Rainbow", this podcast series dedicated to Muslims struggling with same-sex attractions who want to live a life true to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and Islam. I am your host Waheed Jensen. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. Today we have a very special guest joining us, Mr. Michael Gasparro. Michael is a registered associate marriage and family therapist and an associate professional clinical counselor in the state of California. He has a masters of arts degree in marriage and family therapy, and as such, he works at the Breakthrough Clinic with Dr Joseph Nicolosi Jr., practicing reintegrative therapy and helping men address unwanted same-sex attractions in psychotherapy. In today's episode, Michael and I will be talking about reintegrative therapy, discussing its aspects, the reintegrative therapy protocol, how is this kind of therapy different from what is widely known as conversion therapy or any attempts to change an individual's sexual orientation? We'll also be talking about cognitive behavioral therapy, affect-focused therapy or body work, as well as grief work. And we will also be touching upon how to handle the gray zone and the impulse to sexually act out. We will touch upon very relevant concepts based on what we have been addressing in the past couple of episodes, inshaAllah.  

Waheed:   2:19
Michael, thank you very much for joining me in today's episode.  

Michael:   2:24
Thank you, glad to be here with you.

Waheed:   2:24
It's an absolute pleasure to have you. We have so many things to talk about in today's episode, but how about we start with you telling us a little bit about yourself and how you have come to where you are right now?

Michael:   2:36
Yeah, so I first got into this work, because, when I was younger, I went to therapy myself for dealing with unwanted same-sex attractions, and I use the term "unwanted" rather loosely, it doesn't mean that I hated myself for having these attractions, it just meant they weren't in line with my conscience, they weren't in line with my religion, and they didn't ultimately have the type of influence over me that I wanted to take them on as an identity. So I knew I had to try to deal with him in another way, so that inspired me to seek counseling myself through, what at the time was called NARTH, the National Association for the Research and Treatment of Homosexuality. And through there, I found my therapist at the time who worked for Dr. Joseph Nicolosi Sr.'s clinic, which is called the St. Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic. And I went through my own reparative therapy, what we call sort of reintegrative therapy now, and in my life, we can talk about that more later, that inspired me, in time, to go back to school to become a counselor, to become a therapist and to help other men with the same issue.

Waheed:   3:33
Wonderful. God bless you for doing that. So the first point that we want to touch upon in this podcast or today's episode in particular, the concept of reparative/ reintegrative therapy, what that entails and how different that is from conversion therapy. A lot of people have a lot of misconceptions when it comes to that, especially in today's media and what's portrayed nowadays. People have a lot of misinformation circulating. They think that this is like electric shock therapy or like boot camps or whatever. So we wanted to kind of, you know, dismantle all of these misconceptions and to try to address this objectively and scientifically. So my first question would be: what exactly is reparative or reintegrative therapy as it's referred to nowadays, what does that entail, and how different is that from conversion therapy?

Michael:   4:18
Conversion therapy is basically language used now as dog whistle language to discriminate against people who have Abrahamic religions and like traditional sexual ethics and values, and to discriminate against them. Because conversion therapy is ill-defined. There's no licensing board. It's not practiced by licensed therapists. It's not even a real thing. It's just a word used to try to force people to do therapy according to secular agendas. Reintegrative therapy is official therapy practiced by a licensed therapist, utilizing standard evidence-based therapeutic techniques to address underlying traumas, neglect, behavioral addictions and relationship issues that might be contributing to why some clients have developed same-sex attractions. And it targets those issues, not sexual orientation. So we don't try to change anyone's sexual orientation when we do reintegrative therapy. All we try to do is address underlying root causes of sexual issues for people, and as we address those, often the sexuality shifts as a result. So that's the major difference between those two terminologies. Reintegrative therapy is really like reparative therapy 2.0. It's taking the original model and moving it forward into the 21st century, in a way that utilizes the latest understandings of the behavioral sciences and therapeutic techniques. But it's a continuation, not a restart.

Waheed:   5:44
Okay, so when people say that you're trying to change people's sexual orientation, that's not what is meant by reintegrative therapy.

Michael:   5:50
Absolutely not. Yeah. We're not trying to change anyone's sexual orientation. What we're trying to do is help resolve the underlying issues that developed into same-sex attraction for some people. And we don't even make the claim that this is the same thing everyone should do. We say, "If you are a person who has unwanted same-sex attraction, if you want therapy to help you on your path to deal with that, come to us and we can explore together, using ethical evidence-based standard psychotherapy practices, to help resolve what could have been the underlying contributors to your experiences of SSA.

Waheed:   6:26
Right, okay. That makes sense. I've heard from some people that they've been through reparative or reintegrative therapy for a while, and they told me that there is this kind of false promise that you have, you're promised that your SSA will eventually diminish and/or your opposite sex attractions will eventually increase. So is this also a kind of a misconception? It's not something that you would promise clients who come, or is it something that's guaranteed? How do you answer that?

Michael:   6:53
Well you've just mentioned that some clients were promised by some people, that's very vague. I have no idea who these people are or who promised them that. So I can't speak to what some clients have heard from some therapists. But what I can say is, anyone who's practicing reintegrative therapy is an ethical therapist, because we know the people doing this kind of work, and ethical therapists don't make promises about outcomes for therapy, period. That means they don't make promises for outcomes for depression or anxiety or an eating disorder or any other therapeutic issue. So I think that's most of the time a complaint that is filtered through disgruntled clients' eyes that they perhaps presumed things might be more effective than they were, and then blamed the therapist for it later, that could happen sometimes. Somebody might have made an unfair, unethical promise to some client. But what I'll tell you this: we never make promises to anybody that your sexual orientation will change. That's unethical. So what we want people to know is that, if you have curiosity, openness, acceptance and love towards yourself, while you seek therapy to help you address your sexual orientation questions, you can use therapy as a tool for that. But no one, for any therapy, for any issue, should ever be promised a certain outcome at all. So I don't think that that is a fair criticism of reintegrative therapy or something that that many people experience from reintegrative therapists or the like, because we know that that's an unethical thing to do. But I am very sad to hear that some people might have been falsely promised, "hey, if you come to therapy, were gonna change your orientation", because that's not a fair promise to make to anyone.  

Waheed:   8:35
Absolutely. Okay. And so if someone comes to therapy, what is something that they can hold on to? Because we all want something to look forward to, right? So if it's not, you know whether my SSA are going to diminish or not, whether my opposite-sex attractions are going to emerge or not, I can eventually guarantee that I'll feel better about myself, that I can feel more comfortable in my own skin. Is this something that I can look forward to, for example?

Michael:   9:00
Well, I think one thing to keep in mind is, each client is so different. So you're asking some general ideas about the client population as a whole, and so I'm going to actually give you a couple of different answers here. The first one would be, any time I have clients, and I work with Muslim clients, in particular, from all over the world. I work with clients from countries all over the world, every week, with very different religious perspectives and backgrounds, even within the Islamic religion. So with that in mind, I tell my clients, Christian, Muslim, atheists, or anything in between, "If your commitment to your values, to your conscience, about same-sex attraction is stronger than your need for a specific outcome from therapy, you will have more success on walking this path, and you will feel greater peace walking this path, than if your entire commitment to this process is hinging upon a specific outcome, like "my sexual orientation changed overnight" or something along those lines, whatever the timeline may be." So what the hope to hold on to is: what are your values? What does your conscience tell you? And what is your internal barometer being guided by? Is it just the amount of progress you make? Because some clients come to me, Waheed, and they say, "Well, my parents pressured me to come, and so I'm going to give it a try. But I'm really gay, and I don't really follow my religion that closely. And so I'll just see if this works." That's not really the best approach to therapy, because then your motivation is external, what we call this sort of like an external locus of control. But if you have an internal motivation, that's rooted in something very deeply held in your life, such as religious belief, if you're a Muslim man, then that will continue to give you strength and courage through the ups and downs of what - regardless the outcome, is a difficult journey. No one said this is an easy path to walk, so that hope in something bigger than yourself or your values is the thing I would encourage people to reflect upon and consider the most.

Waheed:   11:02
Right. Absolutely. So let's go on to the next question. How do you characterize a good therapist-client relationship? How would you describe this relationship in its most optimal sense, for example.

Michael:   11:12
For reintegrative therapy, it's really important for any of your listeners to know that the client is in the driver's seat, and that's the baseline for a good client-therapist relationship, i.e. client self-determination. So we do not set goals for the clients or pressure the clients towards a particular goal. For instance, in a client-therapist relationship, the client's goals might change. So for some of our clients, they might be coming to therapy to leave a life of homosexuality or leave a gay identity behind, and then, through the course of therapy, they change their mind and decide to pursue a gay lifestyle or to go pursue homosexual relationships. And in that case, a good client-therapist relationship means respecting their right to do that. It doesn't mean we provide what we would call in the psychology field, gay-affirming therapy, meaning we're not going to violate our own consciences, to reinforce gay behavior or homosexual behavior. But we respect a client's right to do what they want to do with their lives, and that really is the starting point for a good relationship with a client, that they can trust and know that their authentic choices and self is allowed, and it's okay in the therapeutic environment. So that's step one. And then one other thing, at reintegrative therapy, we make sure to solicit feedback from clients. So this is what therapists sometimes forget to do, they assume, and we know, assuming can often lead to misconceptions, they assume that the client is having a great time in therapy. But I, as a therapist, choose to regularly, if not every session, check in with both how the client perceives the session to be, and get solicit feedback about the therapeutic relationship itself. And as Dr. Nicolosi Jr., my current supervisor at the Breakthrough Clinic, says, we always tell clients in reintegrative therapy that our relationship is actually the most important thing we can cultivate in the therapeutic process, and if at any point we say something, because we're human and imperfect, that is hurtful or unhelpful or feels distancing, we recommend the client tell us immediately, we will put every other protocol or exercise we're doing on hold, and we will set that all aside to have direct relationship adjustments. So repairs with whatever happened because that's our commitments to our clients, is the relationship comes first.

Waheed:   13:42
So from my readings and my understanding is that you employ a lot of different techniques in the therapeutic setting, right? So for our audience members who don't know, let's start with the first one which is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Can you kind of touch upon this for some people who don't know what that entails and how that is applied in the therapeutic setting, particularly for individuals struggling with SSA who come to you for therapy?

Michael:   14:06
Cognitive behavioral therapy is very well supported, evidence-based treatment for predominantly anxiety and depression, but a whole variety of issues that therapists use around the world. And as you can hear from the title itself, there's kind of two major components: the cognitive therapy component and the behavioral therapy. So one involves the way you think, and one involves what you do. Cognitive therapy, focusing on how you think, the stories you tell yourself, the thoughts you have that you may not be aware of even, impacts your feelings and behaviors, and similarly, the things you do if you change behaviors and behavioral therapy, the thoughts and feelings follow. CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy, is not the primary modality for reintegrative therapy. However, there are through threads of CBT and aspects of trauma reprocessing models, which we utilize regularly in reintegrative therapy. So CBT is really helpful, especially at the beginning of therapy, with many clients who have irrational or unrealistic beliefs about themselves that are related to the fact that they have same-sex attraction. It can help us deal with initial depression and anxiety issues that many clients present with, related to their distress around their same-sex attraction. So that's one of the ways we utilize CBT, and also, we can talk about this more later too, Waheed, but many clients with same-sex attraction have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) as a co-morbidity. This is highly correlated with what they call in research the MSM population, men who have sex with men, so men who have a predominant a homosexual orientation are many times more likely to have OCD diagnosis. And CBT is commonly utilized in the treatment of OCD/ obsessive compulsive disorder as well. So that's another way where we use CBT in our work with people.

Waheed:   16:03
Okay, so can we talk about this, for example? Give us an example of how you employ CBT in your daily work with a client.

Michael:   16:07
Sure, so let's imagine a client came to therapy and said, "Well, I'm here because my parents made me." Well, that is a big red flag for therapists, even if they're an adult. So I have adult clients who tell me this. So you would think that someone who's affective, meaning, you know, emotionally mature adult would be doing something because they're intrinsically or internally motivated. But many clients are not. So if they come to therapy and say, "I'm here because my parents made me, and I really want to please them", which is literally word-for-word what some clients tell us, then a great thing to do first would be a CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy intervention called a thinking errors worksheet, also sometimes called an automatic thought record. What this does is help flush out the underlying unconscious thoughts beneath that statement that motivate that person externally and could be causing them distress. So, for instance, what thoughts lead you to feel the internal pressure to come beside just "I'm doing this to please my parents". And sometimes those thoughts include things like, "If I don't do this, I'll go to hell", or "if I am gay, I'm unlovable", or "if I'm found out by my family and friends as someone who lives a gay lifestyle, they'll reject to me". So these often are riddled with all-or-nothing distortions, and in cognitive behavioral therapy, we have a list of identified, distorted thoughts. The purpose of cognitive behavioral therapy is to use the thinking errors worksheets that we have to identify the distorted thoughts and challenge them with realistic thoughts, and then the feelings may change. So client A we've just described said, "my parents, you know, I'm really here to please them, and I don't really want to be here except for to please them". He might be feeling a little bit depressed, he might be feeling shame. He might be feeling sad and a little angry at his parents. As we identify those distorted thoughts underneath, like I just mentioned, we realize that there are a few distortions present, such as all-or-nothing thinking, which is where you make things black and white, two strong categories without any gray area, or labeling like "I'm unlovable". Instead of labeling yourself "unlovable", it's better to look at specific behaviors you're working on in your life. And so you might say "I made a mistake" or "I have a struggle" instead of "I'm unlovable", for instance. And the "everyone will reject me" statement, for instance, is an example of a distortion some people call mind-reading. You assume what other people are thinking about you? Well, I don't know about you, but I'm really bad at reading people's minds. So, many clients forget that they're not a psychic or they don't have ESP [extra-sensory perception]. So we challenge those irrational, unrealistic thoughts for the clients who feel externally motivated, and then we have a better sense of clarity with the client about why they're in therapy and what they want to gain from it.

Waheed:   19:14
Perfect. Okay. And when it comes to OCD, you mentioned that a lot of individuals who struggle with same-sex attractions and who act out upon their homosexual behaviors also have OCD as one of the co-morbidities. So how would you address that, for example, with CBT in your clinic.

Michael:   19:31
Well, that's actually a bit of a broad question. So before I answer that, let me also circle back to say that the CBT example I gave using a thinking errors worksheet, it's important to note that the goal isn't just to increase clarity, it's to decrease distressing emotions. So when the clients change their thinking about the extent of the ramifications of not being in therapy, they might have less distress, including less depression, less anxiety or less sadness or less anger towards their parents, and then can make a more clear-headed decision about whether or not they want to continue therapy for their own reasons. So I just want to close the loop on that first. And then regarding OCD and the use of cognitive behavioral therapy, there are many different methodologies to address OCD. CBT is used in conjunction with mindfulness techniques and exposure with response prevention. So for our clinic, we use exposure with response prevention, which is a well-known OCD treatment, combined with cognitive therapy and a mindfulness approach. And mindfulness therapy is a different category altogether, but it really undergirds a non-anxious curiosity about your current struggles, as opposed to reactive anxiety towards whatever obsessive compulsive disorder issues you may be dealing with.

Waheed:   21:03
Okay, so can you elaborate a little bit on the exposure with response prevention in this treatment in particular?

Michael:   21:08
So obsessive compulsive disorder - it's necessary to have two things happening: an obsession and a compulsion. And the obsession is often based in a fear, a fear about some kind of flaw or thing about you that could be unacceptable in some way. A compulsion as a response to that fear, to try to make it go away, but it creates a pattern of negative reinforcement. This means the compulsion takes away a bad feeling, so it reinforces that you need to do the compulsion to get rid of the bad feeling, which creates what we call the obsessive compulsive cycle. So to help clients break from the obsessive compulsive cycle, we use cognitive behavioral therapy, just like I said a moment ago, that includes a cognitive piece of therapy and a behavioral piece of therapy. So for the cognitive therapy side, we use thinking error worksheets or automatic thought records, just like I described in this episode, when dealing with clients who are externally motivated to come to therapy. For the behavioral side, that's the part where I mentioned that behavioral therapy states or makes the claim, that by changing your behaviors, thoughts and feelings will follow. And behavioral therapy for OCD/obsessive compulsive disorder includes, what is most commonly referred to in the psychological literature, as exposure with response prevention. The most basic way to think of this is through the hand washing issue for some clients who have OCD related to what we call contamination OCD. This is the most stereotypical form of OCD, so I'm using it as a broad example, but we'll get into the nitty gritty of why so many of our clients come from international places with what we call sexuality OCD or HOCD, standing for homosexual OCD. So for people with contamination of OCD, they may feel their hands are dirty, even if you, as an onlooker, couldn't see any dirt on their hands. So because the fear is, my hands are dirty, a client in this case compulsively washes their hands to get rid of the feeling that the hands are dirty, even if there's no visible dirt. Behavioral therapy says, expose yourself to your fear and prevent the normal response, and over time, your body will habituate to the fear and it will be less compelling to you. So one example of an exposure would be: touch a door knob that you are afraid to touch, and then do not wash your hands. Create a behavioral intervention to prevent your normal response of washing your hands. And if you can tolerate that for several weeks, many times a day, over time, your anxiety level after you touched the door knob will go down, down and down, until you no longer, in theory, feel compelled to wash your hands right after you touch door knobs.

Waheed:   24:08
Okay. And with regards to HOCD or the sexuality OCD, what example can you give us? I know that one of my friends told me that he has a severe case of that, and that he has these nagging thoughts that "you are going to come out, you are going to act upon your sexuality" even though he has done nothing. And this just, you know, very, very distressing to the person. So how would you employ CBT in this case, for example?

Michael:   24:35
So, it may be helpful to first remind your audience that. with obsessions and compulsions, they might not always be clinically significant enough to merit a diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder. So anytime I'm speaking publicly about this particular disorder, I want to make sure people understand that, if you recognize certain symptoms in what I'm talking about, it doesn't mean you should diagnose yourself with OCD. So if you have any inkling that you may have obsessive compulsive disorder, speak with a professional licensed therapist of some kind to review your symptoms and see if that applies to you. So I want to offer that caveat. I think that's important. Another thing to remember is that obsessive compulsive disorder intrinsically means that your brain tends to latch on to ideas that are distressing to you, and then your brain tries to convince yourself that your attachment to those ideas means that you are somehow unsafe, you're bad, or at the root of what we call you're contaminated in some way. So, if you have OCD, it is likely that you have had fears in varieties of categories about unacceptable contaminations. It might be contamination through your fear of a disease, through your fear that you might harm someone, through your fear that you might act sexually in a way that's inappropriate, or so on and so forth. There are many categories and many known categories to the extent that they're even subtypes of this OCD diagnosis that I'm discussing. So when you mentioned your friend with HOCD, what's particularly complicated is that we have many clients at our clinic that come to have reintegrative therapy, who have legitimate homosexual interests and/or behaviors who also have OCD about their fear about their homosexual interests and behaviors. We also have clients, because we're known at our clinic for working with people with same-sex attraction that's unwanted, who have little to no homosexual interests and behaviors at all, but have obsessive fears that they are intrinsically gay and don't know it or can't resist it or might act on it. So there are two different, very similar but separate cases we see most commonly. So your friend sounds like he might be somebody, for instance, who has some actual same-sex attraction but also obsessive compulsive fears about that. And it's only up to a clinician when they interview a client, and they see the full extent of their symptoms, that they can make that distinction. In that case, our methodology tells us that we need to address the obsessive compulsive disorder first, even if the client has unwanted same-sex attraction, if they also have OCD, we have found in our clinic that it is absolutely essential to treat the obsessive compulsive disorder first, because otherwise it's an impediment to therapy of any reintegrative therapy we're trying to do with the client. But some clients have come to us, because we're known internationally for our work with unwanted same-sex attraction, have absolutely no same-sex attraction in a genuine sense, meaning that there is not a strong physical and emotional desire for sexual romantic intimacy with the same sex, there is simply an obsessive and compulsive fear about same-sex sexuality.

Waheed:   28:06
So one question is, how do you help clients kind of get in touch with their emotions and to navigate that particular aspect when it comes to their same sex desires and to get in touch with shame and fear and all of that?

Michael:   28:21
Many clients don't have an issue getting in touch with shame, in particular, they have many pathways into shame, but they often have an issue with anger, fear and sadness. So shame is what we would call a counter-emotion; shame, anxiety and depression all are forms of counter-emotions, they tend to block affect, they're inhibitory by nature. So what we have to do first often in therapy is help clients who have difficulty "feeling and dealing", as Dr. Nicolosi would often say. So, feeling our emotions and dealing with them appropriately. There are more traditional ways we utilize in therapy, such as body work, which meant basically identifying a conflict moment where we first felt from assertion into shame. So clients may be made an assertive gesture with somebody, a family member, and then, as a result of that, they either shamed themselves or were ashamed by somebody else and internalized those shaming messages, and went from assertive, expansive affect, feeling their emotions, their anger, may be setting a boundary - so we use an example of boundary setting, if a parent does something inappropriate with an adult client, maybe they violate a sense of independence that the client has, and the clients become angry, so they assertively set a boundary with their parents, but their mother or father sharply criticizes them and makes them feel shame, because of either the words they said or the client's belief about himself, what we would call a shame-based self statement, the client might say, "I'm bad" or the parents say, you know, "no son of mine will ever treat me like this, you're a piece of garbage", whatever they said or did, the client then shifts from assertive affect (anger, boundary setting) into shame. And that shame, that shut down, will present in therapy as a conflict. So what we first have to do is identify that conflict moment, and then help clients tease out what the shame-based self statement is, make the unconscious conscious, and then notice not only what they're feeling in word, but in their experience. So, often in traditional bodywork, we use phrases like "Where do you feel that anger in your body?" And when clients are in an expressive affect, such as anger in a boundary-setting scenario, they might feel expansion in their chest, they might feel strength in their fists, they might feel tension in their shoulders or some sort of a strong feeling through their shoulders. And as they feel and process that emotion, it moves through them. Now, just to be clear, as a quick caveat, we're not talking about uninhibited rage. We're talking about anger as a boundary-setting emotion or sadness as a response to a tragic event. And we really like to focus at the beginning of therapy for clients with low emotional IQ on how to identify their feelings, how to identify shame-based self statements, and work through feeling the emotions, processing them, paying attention to where they feel them in their body and moving forward.

Waheed:   31:26
Okay, perfect. Makes a lot of sense. All right, so one of the very common themes that almost all of us experience when we deal with shame is the idea or the concept of the gray zone, right? And this almost always precedes homosexual enactment, whether, you know, surfing pornographic websites, compulsive masturbation or hooking up with other men, etc. And we always got a lot of questions, "I'm feeling down, and now I'm going to act out." And I know that the late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi in his book Shame and Attachment Loss, as well as other books, he touched upon the gray zone and how to navigate that leading up to homosexual enactment and kind of cut this chain. So how about we address this, can we elaborate on the gray zone, what that means? We've touched upon this in previous episodes. But how would you navigate the gray zone with your clients, for example? And how would you help them recognize the triggers if they're not able to recognize them and to kind of navigate all of that leading up to the sexual enactment?

Michael:   32:29
The gray zone will look different for different clients. But there are some common themes. So things to look out for include a sense of boredom, a sense of listlessness, perhaps feeling a sense that "I'm not energized" or even almost a depressed lethargy. Some people, like Dr. Nicolosi, said that in religious or spiritual terms, the sin of sloth most similarly emulated what the gray zone feels like. I have a lot of clients, for instance, for whom the gray zone starts because of a shame moment, and it begins with enacting other types of imbalances. So streaming YouTube for hours on end, or binge eating. So the compensatory mechanism doesn't always jump to homosexual enactment first, but it can move towards that over time, because the "electric zap" that many clients describe that homosexuality provides or pornography provides is the sort of final step of coming out of the gray zone in that moment for those clients. So things to look for aren't just whether you're tempted to enact homosexually, but whether or not you're tempted to cope with your emotional state utilizing any imbalance of material goods. So that's one thing that isn't often talked about, but I notice is a theme in some of my clients lives. So, if, for instance, somebody has an assertion moment, they ask a girl out on a date, and the girl dismisses them in a very harsh way, they've shifted then in that moment, because they remember "My mom never thought I'd ever amount to anything with a woman". They remember some old statement that they don't even realize it's come to mind, but it's sort of an unconscious presence. They shift into shame. They feel the gray zone start to pop up. They feel that they have a lot of inability to move into an affective, expansive state. So they first start to go binge Netflix for three hours. They might not even think about homosexuality yet. And sometimes, before they know it, they're too far in to even find a way out. So the first thing to do is just notice where you tend to cope. "Where do I tend to cope maladaptively as a person? Do I go towards eating, towards electronics, towards reckless behavior, towards reckless spending?" And notice your own temptations first. Then you might find that there are a couple of steps before homosexual enactment that you didn't even realize were consistent and ritual in their occurrences. Does that make sense as a first step?

Waheed:   35:11
Yes, but what if the person is not able to retrace those steps? Like it could take some work to kind of have that "aha!" moment, right?

Michael:   35:19
So that's part of the work of self reflection, but I would say that in terms of the homosexual enactment, the proceeding scenario I described is one, as we mentioned, of shame, that precedes this feeling of dullness, of lacking of vitality. So if you notice your moment, that lag point, that you're feeling that way, that your personal expansiveness has been shut down, and you're feeling inhibited in your affect, and thus the homosexual enactment feels like a "zap of electric aliveness", for some people, they might say, that's your first warning sign. So even if you've missed all the other warning signs leading up to that, whether it was any of those other coping mechanisms I described that were maladaptive, once that first initial "electric shock zap", and I mean that metaphorically, of that thought about that guy or that thought about that hook up app for whatever it is that gets you that first intrigue into the homosexual enactment, that should be considered your warning sign. And that's where we kind of talk about the "free will zone". So use that moment to pause. Use that moment to reflect, "what do I feel and what do I need right now?" So I'm feeling [fill in the blank]: sad, angry, happy, peaceful, fearful. Shame is a counter-emotion. So if that's the first word that comes up, maybe ask yourself, "What am I feeling underneath this shame right now? If I were to look through the shame, if shame is on level 1 of this building, what's in the basement? If I could go through the shame, there is going to be an emotion underneath that". And that's step one for many of my clients. And sometimes for people of a variety of struggles that they deal with. Step 2 is, "What do I need?" And that's really important because, often, people forget that homosexual enactment is an attempt to meet a healthy need in an unhealthy way. So "I need to feel connected. I need to feel safe. I need to feel alive." What is that need? Once you articulate that need, you might then begin to move in a direction to meet it in a much healthier way. But this requires in that lag, after that warning shot comes across the bow, when you notice "Wow! That thought of that porn website really triggered electric zap through me!" Stop and focus on two thoughts: "What am I feeling? And what do I need?"

Waheed:   38:05
And after that. So let's say, the person is in that zone and he asks him/herself those two questions. How do we move forward then after that?

Michael:   38:16
Well this is going to be totally dependent on the person. So some of these concepts that were discussing are really difficult to navigate on your own. So my question to you and your listeners would be, "What support structures have you put in place in your life? What relationships have you cultivated?" I think we really want to put a challenge to listeners to not look to therapists to give them all of the answers about what to do in those specific moments, but to look within themselves and say, "Where have I built up a structure in place, so that when the time comes, I know where to turn?" So the main thing I would consider encourage your listeners to consider is, before that moment hits, you should have a contingency plan in place, in theory, that you know will help be your support. What have you found for many of your listeners they use for support for these types of things?

Waheed:   39:13
A lot of people basically have a support system, maybe it might be two friends or maybe a group of people, and they would just call them up in that time when they feel stressed or when they feel triggered. And that really helps to kind of just let it all out. And they feel after that, kind of, you know, all of that deflation starts to disintegrate, for example. A lot of people would turn to sports. They're like, "No, I want to kind of let go of all of that energy and just let it all out with sports or jogging", for example. Some people would meet up with friends and talk or just have a good time and just forget about that. So would you recommend something like this or other things that you have in mind that would help?

Michael:   39:54
Yeah, at that point, these are all in therapy terms we call "affect regulators". So I think those are great, because, the opposite of addiction, and don't get me wrong. I'm not going to blankly state that everyone is in the throes of addiction who deals with same-sex attraction, but it has a very addictive component to it, for many of our clients. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection, and that's kind of a therapeutic cliche, but I find there's a lot of truth in that. So if you are feeling an addictive tendency or pull in that moment where you've said, "How am I feeling, what do I need?" Even if you haven't ask yourself those two questions, if you notice that warning sign of "This is super attractive in this moment to me, this porn site, this enactment of homosexuality", even if you don't know how you're feeling and what you need, you should know that you need something. So we want to provide that as a moment of just "where do I go to to have this need met?" to regulate this affect that I'm dealing with this. Affect regulation tendencies are harder for people who have never had emotional stable places from the beginning of their lives to feel safe to express their feelings. But with that in mind, you used three great options: meet up with friends in person, go do some sort of exercise, which is going to release endorphins that helps to balance negative emotion, or do something electronically where you can connect with people that might be supporting you. Read a spiritually book, engage in some sort of religious activity. Now that's not to say that, whenever you have a homosexual thought, you should immediately obsessively and compulsively start to "thought neutralize", as we call it, with a prayer. But if you have a religious background, like if you're a Muslim man, ask yourself in that moment, "What would God want me to do?", perhaps, or "What is God leading me towards in a spiritual sense? Should I pray right now? Should I read the Qur'an? Should I go do some of my daily prayers in just a minute or two instead of going down this other path?"

Waheed:   41:53
Excellent. There is a very common theme also in that particular moment, like people wouldn't realize that it's a shame moment. But, for example, someone just walking down the street, he finds another man very attractive, and he has that "zap" all of a sudden, and it's usually characterized by fear and then envy, which we don't realize, and then it goes into shame. So how would we navigate that, for example, would it be the same exact steps?

Michael:   42:19
Well, at our clinic, we try to be really practical. So I'm gonna tell you a couple of things back to back, and you can let me know which one you think is the most helpful? So we utilize a mindful approach, and mindfulness is centered on the idea of non-judgmental acceptance. So there are three basic responses to have same-sex attraction as you're walking down the street and you see an attractive guy. One would be the "Oh yes!" approach. This is what we call the gay-affirming approach that we see from the secular world, which is, "Oh, yes! That's an attraction. Go do it! Go act on it!" Then there's the "Oh no!" approach, which is far too common in religious circles, and I see it a lot with my Muslim clients, that "Oh, no!" approach says, "Oh no! You had a same sex attraction! Shut it out of your mind and shut it down and panic!" It's reactive. It's anxious. It's an "Oh, no!" approach with a giant exclamation mark.  

Waheed:   43:15
And it adds more to shame. 

Michael:   0:00
It contributes to shame and contributes to repression. You're just hiding from your issues. Then there's what we call the "mindful approach", the "Oh." Just "Oh. I'm noticing I'm attracted to that guy. I wonder what that's about." If we can cultivate this mindful approach to reacting, it will shift our entire experience in that moment, and the brain responds differently with lower anxiety, with curiosity, and then we can move forward with the second part of what I was referring to. This is where we often ask guys to reflect, and I know that it's hard to reflect in times like this, but self reflection is essential in this journey. You have to be willing to ask yourself deep questions about what's motivating you, or else you might consider just going with whatever whim of a feeling comes up. So in that moment, with the starting with the "Oh!" response, you might say to yourself, "How do I compare right now myself in relation to that man?" And in that moment, we often find, for many of our clients, if the other man is up high on a pedestal and the client is low on the ground, in other words, a massive imbalance in terms of stature - "This person is idealized and I am not." Then the attraction will be much stronger. If in that moment we can reflect, a good question to ask would be: "How am I more alike than not with that man?" Shame and envy focus on our differences. But when we have these moments of attraction, we can, with curiosity reflect on what we have alike, it can shift in the moment how we feel towards another man. We don't require an eroticization of that man in order to equalize ourself with him because, as you mentioned, same-sex attraction can often be eroticized envy. And so if we address the envy through equalization of myself to that man, "We're both men, we're both masculine, we have testosterone, we both have facial hair. We're both different than women in this way or that way", that scale begins to balance more evenly, and the erotic envy begins to neutralize. Now I add one other quick thing: this is about state change, in the moment you feel a state shift, possibly, where your chest relaxes, the fear diminishes, the attraction shifts because you see yourself as an equal to the other man. But that's not the same as trait change. Trait change means something intrinsic true to your being, that, with time, changes. So, trait change is the focus of therapy, while state change is often the focus of "In the moment, how do I deal with this particular temptation?"

Waheed:   46:28
One of the very common themes in therapy is also grief work to deal with a lot of the distortions and illusions that we have, and in particular when it comes to shame and going back to the initial traumas. So what is grief work and how do you implement that in the clinic? Feel free to answer this in general, or if you want to include it as part of the reintegrative protocol, we can do that, whatever makes you more comfortable.

Michael:   46:50
Sure. So I think it's important when you talk about the term of grief work to identify what is meant by that. Everyone has wounds in their life, whether or not you deal with same-sex attraction or otherwise. And, so, part of the work of therapy is to deal with our our wounds that are contributing to our issues, and for men with same-sex attraction, many of them have wounds with their father and mother from early in their life, or older siblings or peers that have contributed to their same-sex attraction, or they have sadness and grief around a loss that they experienced due to their behaviors or their enactment of same-sex attraction, or a loss related to their inability to pursue a heterosexual relationship to that point in their life, or to a certain time in their life. So there's a variety of sources of grief for many clients that is directly related to their issues with same-sex attraction. And in therapy, we try to directly address that grief and allow space for the clients to grieve. The only way through grief is to deal with it. Pushing it down or avoiding it tends to just allow that to fester and over time come out in various maladaptive ways. So one way we focus on grief work in reintegrative therapy is through the reintegrative protocol, and I'm happy to discuss that with you if you think that would be helpful for your listeners to hear.  

Waheed:   48:18
Yes, of course, let's do that.

Michael:   48:18
OK. So, for the reintegrative protocol, the first step is to identify the peak trigger for a client, and this means often discussing either a pornographic image that's particularly haunting or challenging for a client, because, as you know, many people with same-sex attraction have some images or videos that have stronger pull than others. Most people do. Or memories that they consistently revisit, or even a peak fantasy that just comes from their own mind and imagination. We start by identifying the peak erotic moment. Then what we do is we help the clients to identify the emotional need that is being integrated with that peak fantasy. And often they don't even realize that this is happening. So for somebody who has a peak fantasy that is related to oral sex with another man, let's say, the peak emotional need might be a sense of safety or security. And for some people, that, in and of itself is an "Aha!" moment, kind of like you mentioned, that they never really knew that there was an emotional need that was connected with the physical need. But of course, there is. Sexual enactment always has emotional components, especially if it's addictive in nature. So once we identify this, we utilize this affect, this moment of getting in touch with this peak fantasy, as a window into the underlying issues that contributed to the attractiveness of this moment. So this involves guided visualizations, where we have clients remember memories or images and then utilize a third person observational stance to look out from themselves into their own eyes, because the eyes, often from a third person perspective, allow clients to identify with emotions that sometimes are too difficult to address or touch on from the first person right away. It gives them a little bit of safe distance and allows them to have an introspective process they may not have done before. So we use the outer layer first. Many times in these moments, clients see the first layer in their eyes as being one of excitement or relief or euphoria, something that makes them feel really good. But as they picture themselves in this memory or this fantasy, often there's a second layer underneath, what we call "craving". They're longing for connection. They were craving the sense of being wanted. And if we look even deeper, there's often for many clients a third layer, and this layer is where the grief is. This is where the original unmet need is. It's why they had the craving to begin with. So, for some people, it might be a feeling of terror or abandonment that came from when they were very young and their parents were not able to provide them a secure attachment. For others, that might be grief and sadness around an abuse experience that they had when they were younger, from somebody their age or an older person. And in that third layer is when we first identify what would traditionally be called grief work. What are the feelings that are underneath the bottom of all of these motivations towards the reparative drive of the homosexual enactment? Once we identify that, then we say to clients, we use this as a "float back", as we call it. "When did you feel this in the first place? What taught you to feel this way first? What happened in your life perhaps?" And this is where we find trauma memories, neglect memories and issues with family and friends and other challenges from the childhood of the client that can be addressed using a variety of trauma reprocessing methods, whether we use bodywork, or on the memories, we can use eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), which is another form of therapy, or even just what we call mindful self-compassion. So this involves visiting the self in this memory and treating the self at this, in this case, often the young self, maybe the childhood version of the client and interacting with them with kindness and compassion. And this is helping clients often to access their grief. So this is a time where many clients might picture themselves holding their childhood self in the midst of this difficult memory and just crying with their younger self, or maybe something like saving them and moving them out of this memory, out of the scenario into a safer place. And as clients resolve the trauma from these underlying memories, at the end of the session, we revisit the original peak fantasy, and this is where what we call "Meaning Transformation" happens. So when they see the original sexual fantasy, we often ask, "What's your emotional reaction to the image now?" And believe it or not, for many of them, it's lack of interest completely, even disgust. And as we ask them to connect the dots, many find that the underlying trauma that we worked on was directly related to the emotional need they were seeking in the sexual enactment. But now they see it with new eyes, and this is what we mean when we say, "Adding context to content". They now have a context for why the content of their homosexual fantasies was so appealing. And once you see it differently, you can't unsee it, as they say. And that meaning transformation often maintains a lower arousal response for the client in future weeks to come.

Waheed:   53:43
Makes sense. Thank you for clarifying that. I have some friends who are in a state of complete apathy. And they ask me sometimes, "Well, yes, we do identify with feelings of inferiority" or "Okay, now we identified the shame and feeling worthless or, you know, these distortions that keep playing in our heads. But we're just apathetic, like we can't really grieve. We don't know how to do that. We're just, you know, we feel like whatever, like we don't care anymore." And they don't sexually act out. It's just that this apathy is really taking over their lives, and they feel paralyzed and, you know, it takes time for them to realize that the shame is what's making them paralyzed. So, in these particular instances, how would you navigate that with the client, for example? To kind of get them to grieve, because that step is really difficult. You have someone who is completely apathetic, and he's like, "I can't move forward in life. I feel like I'm missing out. All of my colleagues are doing great in terms of their careers and families, and I'm barely moving." But they're not in touch with their emotions. They're not sexually acting out. But there's like shame that is overwhelming.

Michael:   54:48
Okay, well, I think what you described is something I hear from some clients, and it actually sounds more like depression than issues of same-sex attraction. So I would say that a lot of people mask their issues by blaming everything on their unwanted same-sex attraction. So, some clients come to me and they say, "Well, everything's horrible, and my friends are all married and everything is good for them", and I think that's a great example of somebody that needs some serious work on their depressive tendencies, more than they need to start with necessarily addressing same-sex attraction. Maybe it's both. Now I'm speaking in general terms, I'm not giving clinical advice, I'm not giving therapeutic advice. This is all simply conceptual. But with that in mind, for people who have a tendency to negatively compare their lives to others, cognitive behavioral therapy, like we discussed earlier, can be a great starting point. And there are great, even self help, I'm sure, self help workbooks for cognitive behavioral therapy treatment for depression, for instance. And so apathy is a symptom, in some ways as you're describing it, of either chronic depression or sort of low level gray zone, consistently. So maybe the first thing to consider is, if I'm the person that's dealing with that level of what you're describing as apathy, am I in need of mental health treatment for this, beyond just SSA issues. So apathy, like I mentioned, could be a symptom of depression. And so underlying treatment for depression is really important, especially when sometimes people from the Islamic community, Muslim men that live in a place where everyone seems to be married, and I've noticed with my Muslim clients in particular, and I mean this with great respect to the Muslim culture and the community of different countries that have Islam as the predominant religion. There is sometimes social stigma around not being married that exists at a greater degree than it does in the Western world, and I don't mean that in any disrespect, but I mean that in the sense of, this is why it's important, in my opinion, for Muslim men to have other men they know that know this struggle of theirs and can support them. Because my clients who feel the most apathetic in the way you're describing feel hopeless, because nobody knows they deal with this, and so everyone pressures them to be married. And so I think, for men in those cases that you described, it's possible that they lack the social support to feel encouraged amidst their current circumstances as a potential possible issue. Again, this is not therapeutic advice, this is just overarching, stereotypical generalizations I'm offering, but if they can be helpful for some people, it might be worth considering, that "What are my social supports with the men in my life? Do they know I have unwanted same-sex attraction? Can they help buffer me against the societal pressure and stigma that that exists in some countries around not being married, so that I feel supported in this journey?" And then the other thing is, you mentioned, "What is it like for clients who have a hard time accessing their grief?" That's a little bit of a different issue in my mind than apathy. But for some people, it's never been safe to feel their emotions. So the first thing is, if you're on your own, build trusting relationships with others, because grief is most easily accessed in the context of a relationship with another person. So it's easier to fill your grief in a meeting with a friend than it is by yourself in your room. That's human. We need connection. We need empathy. We need support. So, if you are struggling to identify and experience your underlying grief from your emotional wounds from childhood or otherwise, either seek help from a professional therapist - in the Reintegrative Therapy Association, we offer therapy to men all over the world, via electronic videoconferencing. So seek therapy with our organization, or seek therapy from a local organization, if there is one that offers therapy for men with unwanted same-sex attraction. And if that's not an option for you, begin to build those honest and emotionally trustworthy relationships that can allow for you to experience your grief in the safety of human connection with another person.

Waheed:   59:04
One of the main comments that I receive from people is that, "Well, you know, if we want to embark on this journey of therapy, it's very time consuming, it's very expensive, we might not find it in our home country. And even if we want to do it online, it's going to be, you know, I don't have the means to afford that, or it's going take me a long time, and I just want a shortcut answer". You know, you have all of these commonly and frequently asked questions or common concerns. How would you address those or how would you answer those?

Michael:   59:35
Well, this might be surprising to some of your listeners, but I would say those are very valid concerns. So I'm not going to act like those things don't exist or aren't real considerations for people. The other thing else say is, it might not be feasible. Most people that have this issue can't afford therapy, so it might not be feasible for everyone to have therapy. I think that's a very good point as well. And quite frankly, they might come to therapy and not help them as much as they hope it will. That happens. So as therapists, we would be remiss not to admit that plenty of people come to therapy and are satisfied and like the experience they had, and other people come and don't feel satisfied and don't like it. But with that in mind, a great definition for therapy is professionally-guided self change; meaning, in general, not just for same-sex attraction, a therapist is just another human being who's an expert in the behavioral sciences who can guide you as you embark upon change in your own life that you're making for yourself. The therapist is not going to change you. If, for any issue, you're there to make changes in your own life, and the therapist is there to be a guide, a professional guide. So if you can't afford therapy or you don't have access to therapy, it's important to look for peer support. That's one way to start. The other thing, I'll say, is sadly, and I wish this was a more hopeful answer, but I think if you give me a moment, you'll see why there's hope embedded in it, it's just at first sounds a bit harsh. There is no shortcut to dealing with same-sex attraction anyway. So whether or not you deal with it in therapy or you deal with it on your own, a human being, whether or not they deal with same-sex attraction, integrating their sense of self with their human sexuality is a long, life-long even, journey, even for people with opposite-sex attraction. So, many men in the Muslim community that deal with SSA assume that heterosexual men have no issues with their sexuality, and that's not fair either. That's assuming that everything is black and white in terms of sexuality. So my perspective would be that, yes, while men with same-sex attraction perhaps have a more complex road than some other men dealing with the integration of their sense of self with their sexuality, there's no shortcut for anyone, especially if you want to live a morally upright life regarding your sexuality, because that takes a journey of virtuous living that is introspective in nature and connected to God and family and friends, whether or not you have opposite-sex attraction or same-sex attraction, whether you're in therapy or not in therapy. So, in terms of how this applies to people who can't afford therapy, try not to make it a black and white issue, where you say, "Either I go to therapy and I fix this, or I don't go to therapy and I do this on my own". Think of it as: if therapy could be a helpful tool along the way for you, you can try it. If it's helpful, you stay in as long as it remains to be helpful. And if it's not, you leave. And then if you choose to never attend therapy, unfortunately, I don't know of a shortcut. Do you? I've never found one for anybody.

Waheed:   1:2:34
Me neither. I mean, I always tell people: please try therapy, if that's an option. If not, then it's very important to establish your support system and to keep that always as a lifeline for you, and to build yourself spiritually, mentally, physically and emotionally. I mean, it's a lifelong journey, as you said, there's no shortcuts.

Michael:   1:2:51
And I found therapy for many clients that I work with, directly, and I'm just speaking anecdotally, I'm not referring to data right now from a large study or anything, that many clients have found therapy to be an instigator into change in their life, that they had been trying on their own, but didn't have the resources or the approach that they needed to make that change, and therapy was that tool for them. So I do think it's worth considering for many people. And remember, if it's an ethical licensed therapist, they shouldn't promise you outcomes that are grandiose. They should be realistic and have honest conversations about the limitations of therapy and what can be very helpful and what isn't. But I've seen change in many clients in ways that other people say is not possible. So, before people write off this journey, whether they do it out of therapy or in therapy, we know that if you deal homosexuality, you don't have to deal with it according to the way the world says you should. You don't have to adopt a gay identity, and you can move in another direction. 

Waheed:   1:4:04
So if any of the listeners would like to get in touch with the Reintegrative Therapy Association, how can they reach you guys?

Michael:   1:4:13
Well, you can, of course, visit our website: reintegrativetherapy.com. Also, you can contact us via the late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi Sr.'s website, I believe that website is still up. I don't have the URL on the top of my head right now, but I think either of those websites can direct you to the Reintegrative Therapy Association. There's also internationally an organization called the IFTCC led by Dr. Michael Davidson, they do conferences around Europe, and even they're moving into parts of Asia, and they have interesting resources and insights. So I would recommend that visiting the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity based in the United States, if you're in the US, or the IFTCC if you're international, from the United States if you're in another country around the world. Those are good resources. If you're a person who has a particular religious background that is not Islam, there are other resources, as you mentioned, for Christians and for Jewish people. But over time, I really do hope, Waheed, that you and your community continue to foster some movements within the Muslim community in that way.  

Michael:   1:5:19
Hopefully yeah, we're hoping on doing that, inshaAllah. Yes. You have said that you also have a lot of Muslim clients that you engage in therapy with. So if any of the listeners would like to get personally in touch with you, how can they reach you?  

Michael:   1:5:37
They can reach me through the Reintegrative Therapy Association, or they can reach me through Dr. Nicolosi's clinic, the Breakthrough Clinic. So the Breakthrough Clinic is based out of California, but we can see clients in some international situations, depending on the country where they live. So if they reach out to thebreakthroughclinic.com or reintegrativetherapy.com, then they can get in touch with me for information on how to start therapy. And I think it's important to know that there's no pressure from our clinical organization. We don't try to force this work on any person, but people who want it are free to seek it, and we will respect their goals along the way.

Waheed:   1:6:11
And with this, we have come to the end of today's episode. Any last words that you would like to give the listeners today?

Michael:   1:6:27
Yeah, I would say that the last word I want to give is one of hope. I personally have dealt with unwanted same-sex attraction, and it began to surface in very sexualized ways through puberty. And I'm now 33 years old and I live as best as I can, according to my Catholic faith, I'm a Catholic. And that means right now that I live in a way that we would call celibately. And that means that I'm trying to order my sexuality towards my state in life as a single man. And as a Catholic, there are basically two options: you can be celibate or you can be married. But you know, being gay is not a part of that equation. So I chose to follow my faith, and therapy helped me a lot, it helped me to come to terms with some of my wounds and my struggles and helped me to find healing in a way that moved the needle to where my experience of same-sex attraction over time diminished significantly, and my opposite-sex interest increased significantly. We call this my "heterosexual potential" is the word we use in the clinical world. So, beyond just reducing same-sex attraction, my word of encouragement would be that, while we don't recommend that every client get married or push marriage on anyone, that the thing to remember is there are people -  for some individuals, who find, as they overcome some of the underlying issues for the same-sex attraction, including myself, that no longer becomes the thing holding them back from being able to consider the possibility of being married to a woman one day. And I want to encourage people to remember they're not alone. They might be in a country where they think that this is not talked about or there aren't others that are like them. But I have many clients from countries around the world that are from places that they wouldn't realize others nearby have the very same issues. So to continue to have hope and encouragement,  and know that God loves them and is with them in this process.

Waheed:   1:8:13
Thank you so much for your words and God bless you. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate all of your efforts. And with this, we have come to the end of today's episode. I hope that you guys have enjoyed it and have found it beneficial, inshaAllah. I will add a link to all of the resources that we have mentioned in this episode, so please make sure to check the episode description to find all  the relevant links that you can access. In the next episode, Mr. Richard Cohen, the author of "Coming Out Straight: Understanding Same-Sex Attractions" is going to be joining me in the twelfth and last episode of this season, inshaAllah. Richard and I will be talking about his comprehensive approach to healing as well as the four stages of healing that he has outlined in his book. It's going to be a very exciting and a very rewarding episode, so make sure you don't miss that, inshaAllah, and I look forward to talking to you next Friday. As always, you can listen to all our episodes on our website: awaybeyondtherainbow.buzzsprout.com, and you can catch all our episodes on your favorite podcast apps, like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio and TuneIn Radio. You can always email me at: awaybeyondtherainbow@gmail.com, and I promise to get back to you as soon as I can, inshaAllah. Until next Friday, stay safe, stay healthy and stay happy. Assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi ta'alawabarakatuh.